Note 11 — HORACE AND JAMES SMITH
Reading edition
'Holland's edifice.' The late theatre was built by Holland the architect. The writer visited it on the night of its opening. The performances were Macbeth and the Virgin Unmasked. Between the play and the farce, an excellent epilogue, written by George Colman, was excellently spoken by Miss Farren. It referred to the iron curtain which was, in the event of fire, to be let down between the stage and the audience, and which accordingly descended, by way of experiment, leaving Miss Farren between the lamps and the curtain. The fair speaker informed the audience, that should the fire break out on the stage (where it usually originates), it would thus be kept from the spectators; adding, with great solemnity—
'No! we assure our generous benefactors 'Twill only burn the scenery and the actors!'
A tank of water was afterwards exhibited, in the course of the epilogue, in which a wherry was rowed by a real live man, the band playing—
'And did you not hear of a jolly young waterman?'
Miss Farren reciting—
'Sit still, there's nothing in it, We'll undertake to drown you in a single minute.'
'O vain thought!' as Othello says. Notwithstanding the boast in the epilogue—
'Blow, wind—come, wrack, in ages yet unborn, Our castle's strength shall laugh a siege to scorn'—
the theatre fell a victim to the flames within fifteen years from the prognostic! These preparations against fire always presuppose presence of mind and promptness in those who are to put them into action. They remind one of the dialogue, in Morton's Speed the Plough, between Sir Abel Handy and his son Bob:
'Bob. Zounds, the castle's on fire!
Sir A. Yes.
Bob. Where's your patent liquid for extinguishing fire?
Sir A. It is not mixed.
Bob. Then where's your patent fire-escape?
Sir A. It is not fixed.
Bob. You are never at a loss?
Sir A. Never.
Bob. Then what do you mean to do?
Sir A. I don't know.'