Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 3.djvu/87

Receive our welcome too—whose every tone
Springs from our hearts, and fain would win your own.
The curtain rises—may our stage unfold70
Scenes not unworthy Drury's days of old!
Britons our judges, Nature for our guide,
Still may we please—long, long may you preside.

[First published, Morning Chronicle, Oct. 12, 1812.]

PARENTHETICAL ADDRESS.^{[decimal 1]}

BY DR. PLAGIARY.

Half stolen, with acknowledgments, to be spoken in an inarticulate voice by Master —— at the opening of the next new theatre. [Stolen parts marked with the inverted commas of quotation—thus "——".]

"When energising objects men pursue,"

Then Lord knows what is writ by Lord knows who.

Notes

1. [The original of Dr. Busby's address, entitled "Monologue submitted to the Committee of Drury Lane Theatre," which was published in the Morning Chronicle, October 17, 1812, "will be found in the Genuine Rejected Addresses, as well as parodied in Rejected Addresses ('Architectural Atoms'). On October 14 young Busby forced his way on to the stage of Drury Lane, attempted to recite his father's address, and was taken into custody. On the next night, Dr. Busby, speaking from one of the boxes, obtained a hearing for his son, who could not, however, make his voice heard in the theatre.... To the failure of the younger Busby (himself a competitor and the author of an 'Unalogue' . . . ) to make himself heard, Byron alludes in the stage direction, 'to be spoken in an inarticulate voice.'" (See Letters, 1898, ii. 176; and for Dr. Busby, see Poetical Works, 1898, i. 481, 485.) Busby's "Address" ran as follows:—
   "When energising objects men pursue,
   What are the prodigies they cannot do?
   A magic edifice you here survey,
   Shot from the ruins of the other day!
   As Harlequin had smote the slumberous heap,
   And bade the rubbish to a fabric leap.