ABSTRACT

First published in The News, III, 13 December 1807, p. 399. Hunt opens this Theatricals section with a brief announcement of his forthcoming collection of essays on London actors, Critical Essays, which includes numerous excerpts from his dramatic criticism for The News. The entirety of the Theatricals section then consists of this ‘Farewell’. It concludes with one of the first recorded appearances of what would soon become Hunt’s defining signature, the indicator finger, and thus points directly to The Examiner essays that begin appearing in several weeks. The personal style of address and retrospective tone also anticipate the mode of prospectuses, prefaces, restrospects and postscripts that Hunt would regularly write for The Examiner (see below, pp. 25–34, 79–82, 203–5, 307, 337–41). There is a Theatricals section in the following week’s issue of The News (20 December 1807, p. 406), including a review of William Godwin’s new play Faulkner, but there is no certain indication of Hunt’s authorship after this official farewell.