"
The last couplet but one was altered in a subsequent copy, thus:
"'The past reproach let present scenes refute,
Nor shift from man to babe, from babe to brute'."
On February 18, 1811, at Covent Garden, a troop of horses were
introduced in 'Bluebeard'. For the manager, Juvenal's words, "_Lucri
bonus est odor ex re Qualibet_" ('Sat'. xiv. 204) may have been true;
but, as the dressing-room of the equine comedians was under the
orchestra, the stench on the first night was to the audience
intolerable. At the same theatre, April 29, 1811, the horses were again
brought on the stage in Lewis's 'Timour the Tartar'. At the same
theatre, on the following December 26, a live elephant appeared. The
novelty had, however, been anticipated in the Dublin Theatre during the
season of 1771-72 (Genest's 'English Stage', vol. viii. p. 287). At the
Haymarket, and Drury Lane, the introduction of live animals was
ridiculed. 'The Quadrupeds of Quedlinburgh' was given at the Haymarket,
July 26, 1811, as a burlesque on 'Timour the Tartar' and the horses. The
Prologue, by Colman the Younger, attacks the passion for German plays
and animal actors:
"Your taste, recover'd half from foreign quacks,
Takes airings, now, on English horses' backs;
While every modern bard may raise his name,
If not on _lasting praise_, on _stable fame_."
At the Lyceum, during the season 1811-12, 'Quadrupeds, or the
Manager's Last Kick', in which the tailors were mounted on asses and
mules, was given by the Drury Lane Company with success.
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