第81章

I will again repeat that I attach no reproach to those other Funds, with which I have had the honour of being connected at different periods of my life.At the time those Associations were established, an engagement at one of those theatres was almost a matter of course, and a successful engagement would last a whole life; but an engagement of two months' duration at Covent Garden would be a perfect Old Parr of an engagement just now.It should never be forgotten that when those two funds were established, the two great theatres were protected by patent, and that at that time the minor theatres were condemned by law to the representation of the most preposterous nonsense, and some gentlemen whom I see around me could no more belong to the minor theatres of that day than they could now belong to St.Bartholomew fair.

As I honour the two old funds for the great good which they have done, so I honour this for the much greater good it is resolved to do.It is not because I love them less, but because I love this more - because it includes more in its operation.

Let us ever remember that there is no class of actors who stand so much in need of a retiring fund as those who do not win the great prizes, but who are nevertheless an essential part of the theatrical system, and by consequence bear a part in contributing to our pleasures.We owe them a debt which we ought to pay.The beds of such men are not of roses, but of very artificial flowers indeed.Their lives are lives of care and privation, and hard struggles with very stern realities.It is from among the poor actors who drink wine from goblets, in colour marvellously like toast and water, and who preside at Barmecide beasts with wonderful appetites for steaks, - it is from their ranks that the most triumphant favourites have sprung.And surely, besides this, the greater the instruction and delight we derive from the rich English drama, the more we are bound to succour and protect the humblest of those votaries of the art who add to our instruction and amusement.

Hazlitt has well said that "There is no class of society whom so many persons regard with affection as actors.We greet them on the stage, we like to meet them in the streets; they almost always recal to us pleasant associations." When they have strutted and fretted their hour upon the stage, let them not be heard no more -but let them be heard sometimes to say that they are happy in their old age.When they have passed for the last time from behind that glittering row of lights with which we are all familiar, let them not pass away into gloom and darkness, - but let them pass into cheerfulness and light - into a contented and happy home.

This is the object for which we have met; and I am too familiar with the English character not to know that it will be effected.

When we come suddenly in a crowded street upon the careworn features of a familiar face - crossing us like the ghost of pleasant hours long forgotten - let us not recal those features with pain, in sad remembrance of what they once were, but let us in joy recognise it, and go back a pace or two to meet it once again, as that of a friend who has beguiled us of a moment of care, who has taught us to sympathize with virtuous grief, cheating us to tears for sorrows not our own - and we all know how pleasant are such tears.Let such a face be ever remembered as that of our benefactor and our friend.

I tried to recollect, in coming here, whether I had ever been in any theatre in my life from which I had not brought away some pleasant association, however poor the theatre, and I protest, out of my varied experience, I could not remember even one from which Ihad not brought some favourable impression, and that, commencing with the period when I believed the clown was a being born into the world with infinite pockets, and ending with that in which I saw the other night, outside one of the "Royal Saloons," a playbill which showed me ships completely rigged, carrying men, and careering over boundless and tempestuous oceans.And now, bespeaking your kindest remembrance of our theatres and actors, Ibeg to propose that you drink as heartily and freely as ever a toast was drunk in this toast-drinking city "Prosperity to the General Theatrical Fund."