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    26 Vicissitudesof a Lecture ;

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    Vicissitudesof A Lecture;

    v _« ry midst of a certain elevation of neckcloth and powdered head , that it was impossible not to sympathise with his satisfaction , and be prepared to relish whatever taste he should be pleased

    to give us of his critical nicety . He had no rostrum , or desk , before him . All in that respect was open and above board ; undisguised as his good faith ; and as he walked to and fro , his shoes creaked a little .

    Suddenly , after a brief but serious conference with some head that emerged from behind the screen , and returning

    towards us with a hum and haw , intermingled with applications of white handkerchief , he opened ¦ upon his audience with a brief introduction to the first scene

    of the Tempest , His tones were of an importance commensurate with the fame of his author ; and none of the homely

    seamanship in the text beguiled him , for an instant , out of a due respect for it . Not that he omitted to expatiate on the extreme naturalness of the scene .

    That was a point , which Ned _Evidently regarded it as one of the most serious objects of his duty to impress upon us . He could not have been more emphatic , or given us greater time to deliberate on what we heard _.

    had he recited the soliloquy in Hamlet . Thus , instead of those excellent but too uncritical imitators of seamen , Mr T . P . Cooke , Mr Smith , and others , conceive the following exordium of the play set forth in its utmost solemnity of articulation

    Vicissitudesof A Lecture;

    by the mouth of Mr Ward of Mr Cooper , —accompanied fur _^ _- thermore by a mention , at once particular and careless , and singularly incorporating itself with the text , of the name of the

    party speaking;—which , if you reflect upon it , was a very great nicety , andshewedthe lecturer ' s just sense of all which he could be expected to combine in his delivery , as holding the double

    office of reader and performer . Repeat , for instance , out loud , and very slowly , the following words ; and the sound of your voice will enable you the better to appreciate our critic ' s

    delicacy : — Enter a Shipmaster and a _Boatswain . Master Boatswain— . ' ( which you are to read as if he was speaking of a young gentleman of the name of Boatswain , son of John Boatswain , Esq . — - _** Master Boatswain . " )

    Boatswain Here , master ; _What— . cheer— : ( What—cheer , " very slow and pompous . ) Master Good ( here another young gentleman , son of Thomas Good > Esquire —young " Master Good * " )

    ---speak—to—the mariner *—fall—to it —yarely , or we run oimelves-rragr _. _ou'nd . —Bestir—bestir . , ( Bestir , bestir , very wide apart , and ail _pompous ) Exit—Master . Enter—Mariner * . Boatswain

    Heigh—( Here it _$ eems to transpire th _^ t the boatswain ' s name is Heigh or Hay _—Boatswain Hay . ) Boatswain Heigh—my heart— _. cheerly —cheerly—nay heart _;—yare—yare—» Take in—the topsail ¦

    26 Vicissitudesof A Lecture ;

    26 Vicissitudesof a Lecture ;

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 1, 1837, page 26, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/mrp_01071837/page/24/