General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival 1852

He could assure them, he said, that he really was not using a common form of words, but was honestly expressing the feeling at the moment when he avowed himself at some loss, both to think the company for their hearty greeting, and to thank his generous friend in the Chair for the terms in which he had referred to him. Sir Anthony Absolute was of the opinion that in love of affairs it was best to begin with a little aversion; and if he (Mr. Dickens) could only have started with a little coldness on the part of his friend in the Chair, or even a moderate warmth on the part of the audience, it was quite unknown into what an admirable speech he should have presently soared. But a tribute so noble, and a welcome so cordial, he found to be very bad preparations indeed for such an achievement.

Before referring to the Fund, which is the main object of interest with all of them my evening, he would take leave to say that he was exceedingly glad that his friend, the chairman, it happened to allude to him, and that company, in his Stage-Managerial capacity; because he did particularly desire to express his conviction in such a company, of all others, that the dramatic profession was very ill served by some misjudging friends, when they supposed that it could possibly be injured by, or could possibly regard with anything like resentment or jealousy, Amateur Theatricals. He had, for a brief space, assumed the functions of an amateur manager and actor, in furtherance of a cause in which his warmest sympathies and aspirations were (like those of his friend in the Chair) enlisted; and to represent that the stage could possibly be injured, or could fairly claim any right to consider itself injured by such performances was to exclude it from the liberal position assumed in such wise by every other liberal art. And literature there were received, freely, and, without cavil, amateurs of all kinds: physicians, lawyers, officers of the army and navy, merchants’ clerks who travelled and saw strange countries, lords and ladies of various degrees, – anybody who had anything to say, and possibly, now, and then, somebody had nothing to say. Through the whole of the last season, a gallery was opened in Pall Mall for the exhibition of pictures of amateur artists; he never heard that the members of the Royal Academy were much aggrieved by the circumstance, or very desperately alarmed by its public patronage, and success. So, in music: he believed it was generally acknowledged that some excellent lessons have been given to the public and the profession by the knowledge and patience of amateurs in chorus singing, and that the production of some of the most admired works of the old masters were due to the exertions of amateurs, without the least injury to the regular professors of the art. The liberal and generous feeling which thus distinguished other kindred arts, surely was to be claimed for the stage, as its just characteristic too; and could not be better claimed for it than at the anniversary celebration of its most comprehensive and its least restricted institution.

With reference to the General Theatrical Fund, he had been so often before them as one of the Trustees, that he found it very difficult to say anything relative to it which he had not said before, or which they did not know as well as himself. Independently of the fact that their Fund had been established seven years, and that their position was improving every time they met, the eloquence of their chairman in proposing the toast of the evening, and their Treasurer’s admirable acknowledgement of it, had completely exhausted the subject, and he now stood before them a bankrupt Trustee without a leg to stand upon. If he could only have found one good vice in the management, he would have been well set up in business for the evening, and might have remained in a perfectly self-satisfied condition until next year. If, for instance, he could only have complained that the institution was expensively managed, that there was nobody connected with the management, who had any sympathy with the unfortunate members of the Dramatic profession: that none of them had had any experience of the habits or struggles of poor actors; if hr could only have said that the Treasurer was a stern, austere man, altogether a hard-favoured person, severe of countenance and very difficult to approach; or if he could have said that the institution was exclusive in its nature, one that required candidates for admission to its benefits to have complied with some trifling condition – reasonable, but not easy, such as having held an engagement for two or three consecutive years in the moon, or having appeared in Sir Edward Lytton’s Money two or three hundred nights before the Esquimaux – if he could have found any such trifling ground of complaint, he would have been at no loss for a topic. But, whereas in the General Theatrical Fund, the local comedian was not expected to have fulfilled those consecutive engagements in the moon; the tragedian was not expected to have played Evelyn two or three hundred consecutive nights in the icy regions of the North; Fenella, the sister of Masaniello, was not refused relief because she was only a dancer, nor Masaniello himself because he was only a singer.

He had nothing left to say in lieu of that great speech he might, and indisputably would, under these happiest circumstances have made, but that he wanted a grievance. Indeed, he was so utterly utter loss for a grievance that he had had serious thoughts of abandoning these festivals altogether, and taking to attending those banquets which he sometimes saw advertised to take place in the neighbourhood of Freemasons’ Hall, where he was informed that he could find all these causes of complaint ready made to his hand. Like his friend, Mr. Buckstone, however, he did not wish to indulge in any unkind expressions towards the other theatrical funds, some old and esteemed friends of his were connected with them, and as he would wish to make them also the friends of this institution. What he would suggest, afar off, was that these Funds should make some change in their constitutions adopted to the altered times, and he thought there was nothing so likely to reconcile all differences, and to do so much good to all parties, as a happy marriage.

All he would say in his official position was that the General Theatrical Fund was progressing steadily, that they had not the slightest difficulty to state to that company, and that the institution was steadily and gallantly supported by the members of the profession. All who had the least theatrical experience must know how necessary it was to any play, in order to ensure success, that it should possess some female interest. No institution could succeed that was not backed by that influence; and, therefore, it was with great pleasure that he learned from their worthy Secretary that a large portion of the subscribers consisted of the gentler sex. Nor were they wanting there, to shed on the assembly a grace which nothing else could give to it; for whether he looked before or behind him (and here he might be allowed to say that he almost regretted, to occupy one of the posts of honour, and wished he was situated among some of his friends in a more private situation at the side of the room) –, he met with nothing but beaming faces, encouraging and gentle looks. On the part of his brother Trustees, and on his own behalf, he begged to acknowledge the toast with many thanks; and he begged to assure those present that they need not be in the least afraid, that evening, of troubling the Treasurer or the Trustees by swelling their contributions and support of the fund to any inconvenient amount; for they were perfectly ready to bear, with the utmost cheerfulness, the heaviest total with which they might think fit to burden them.