--
So long as the beams of this house shall support
The roof which o'ershades this respectable Court,
Where Hastings was tried for oppressing the Hindoos;
So long as that sun shall shine in at those windows,
My name shall shine bright as my ancestor's shines,
'Mine' recorded in journals, 'his' blazoned on signs!"
An active member of Parliament, a large landed proprietor, the manager
of his immense brewery in Chiswell Street, Whitbread also found time to
reduce to order the chaotic concerns of Drury Lane Theatre. He was, with
Lord Holland and Harvey Combe, responsible for the request to Byron to
write an address, having first rejected his own address with its
"poulterer's description of the Phoenix." He was fond of private
theatricals, and Dibdin ('Reminiscences', vol. ii. pp. 383, 384) gives
the play-bill of an entertainment given by him at Southill. In the first
play, 'The Happy Return', he took the part of "Margery;" and in the
second, 'Fatal Duplicity', that of "Eglantine," a very young lady, loved
by "Sir Buntybart" and "Sir Brandywine." In his capacity as manager of
Drury Lane, Whitbread is represented by the author of 'Accepted
Addresses' (1813) as addressing "the M--s of H--d"--
"My LORD,--
"As I now have the honour to be
By 'Man'ging' a 'Playhouse' a double M.P.,
In this my address I think fit to complain
Of certain encroachments on great Drury Lane," etc., etc.
Whitbread strongly supported the cause of the Princess of Wales.
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