AN HONEST BLACKLEG
Lane, to see Kemble in the last act, taking Covent Garden in time for the after-piece, and in my way home making the Opera House my finale for the grand ballet. “He’las, tempora. mutanfmz” And What I may judge of the many (some like myself) of the present day, indulging their amusements sans payer; others, who were renters, sure nightly visitors opinidtrés, are attached only to the actors of last century, and fastidious of what they have seen. However those who excel now, and whose transcendent abilities are sure of filling the house, and though curiosity could not excite them to judge, they will even persist that the performers now are far inferior ; and, unless Garrick and his contemporaries could tread the boards again, no inducement could possibly tempt them to visit the theatres. “Dire at fili're, somf. dame chases bien rlifférentes.”
AN HONEST BLACKLEG.
Soubise, whom I have already mentioned in my first volume of “ Reminiscences," a blackamoor, except Mr. Holwell (son of Governor Holwell of Black Hole memory) who had been in India, and boarded at my father’s house in Carlisle Street, was the only one who refused to sit down at the same table with him. However, my mother soon persuaded him to the con- trary. Although Soubise’s sooty complexion was objection- able, yet his insinuating 1nanners, his accomplishments, his drollery, were such, and that amusement from his endeavours to do the agréable. he became the general favourite. Of his eccentricities, if I may so call them (this must have been above fifty years ago), I remember seeing him, when presenting a
35
