Page:English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the nineteenth century.djvu/181

 Highness, who took but little notice of the intruder. The mysterious stranger had been brought in and was fetched by a plain green chariot; and the few that saw him said that he was a portly gentleman, wrapped in a long great coat and muffled up to the eyes. Keeping himself well behind his Royal Highness, the portly stranger took a deep but unostentatious interest in the performance. In his Harotin al-Raschid character he had been present, with his friend Lord Coleraine (then Major George Hanger), at some of the actual scenes represented; and in particular, by virtue of the fact of his wearing "a clean shirt," had been called upon by the ragged chairman at a convivial meeting of the "Cadgers" to favour them with a song, which had been sung for him by his friend and proxy the Major. The mysterious stranger in fact, as the reader has already guessed, was his gracious Majesty King George the Fourth, and his visit incognito having been made by previous notice and arrangement, the passages were kept as clear of the general public as possible.

The scenery of the Adelphi version was superintended by Robert Cruikshank himself. "Tom and Jerry" brought a strange mixture of visitors to attend the rehearsals. Corinthians (men of fashion)—members of the turf and the prize ring, who found a common medium of conversation in the sporting slang which Mr. Egan has made so familiar to us. Naturally there was a mixture. Tom Cribb, whom the Cruikshanks had temporarily elevated into the position of a hero, was indispensable; and the silver cup which figures in Robert's sketch was every night made use of in the scene depicting the champion's pot-house sanctum. Among the frequenters at these rehearsals was a quiet man of unusually unobtrusive deportment and conversation,—this man was Thurtell, the cold-blooded murderer of Mr. Weare.

Since the days of the "Beggars' Opera," a success equal to that which attended the "Life in London," and its several dramatized versions by Barrymore, Charles Dibdin, Moncrieff, and Pierce Egan, had been unknown. The exhausted exchequers of four or five theatres were replenished; and as in the days of the "Beggars' Opera" the favourite songs of that piece were transferred to the ladies'