The Olympic was contiguous to the
Insolvent Debtors' Court, in Portugal Street, and from the paint-pots of
the Olympic scene-room to the whitewash of the commercial tribunal there
was but one step.
It must have been in 1848 that the famous comedian, William Farren,
having realized a handsome fortune as an actor, essayed to lose a
considerable portion of his wealth by becoming a manager. He succeeded
in the last-named enterprise quite as completely as he had done in the
other: I mean, that he lost a large sum of money in the Olympic Theatre.
He played all kinds of pieces: among others, he gave the public two very
humorous burlesques, founded on Shakspeare's plays of "Macbeth" and "The
Merchant of Venice." The authors were two clever young Oxford men: Frank
Talfourd, the son of the poet-Judge,--father and son are, alas! both
dead,--and William Hale, the son of the well-known Archdeacon and Master
of the Charter-House. Shakspearian burlesques were no novelty to the
town. We had had enough and to spare of them. W. J. Hammond, the
original _Sam Weller_ in the dramatized version of "Pickwick," had made
people laugh in "Macbeth Travestie" and "Othello according to Act of
Parliament." The Olympic burlesques were slightly funnier, and not
nearly so coarse as their forerunners; but they were still of no
striking salience.
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