Murphy launched an ode more vehement than decent in
its terms. Churchill good-humouredly acknowledged the justice of the
satire; he had said, perhaps, all he cared to say to the detriment of
Murphy, and was content with this proof that his shafts had reached
their mark. Murphy confirms Davies's account of Churchill's seat in
the theatre:
No more your bard shall sit
In foremost row before the astonished pit,
And grin dislike, and kiss the spike,
And twist his mouth and roll his head awry,
The arch-absurd quick glancing from his eye.
Charles Lamb was a faithful patron of the pit. In his early days there
had been such things as "pit orders." "Beshrew the uncomfortable
manager who abolished them!" he exclaims. Hazlitt greatly preferred
the pit to the boxes. Not simply because the fierceness of his
democratic sentiments induced in him a scorn of the visitors to the
boxes, as wrapped up in themselves, fortified against impressions,
weaned from all superstitious belief in dramatic illusions, taking so
little interest in all that was interesting, disinclined to discompose
their cravats or their muscles, "except when some gesticulation of Mr.
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