In 1851, Mr.Bennett resigned as lessee of the Theatre Royal and became a member of the City Council. For thirty years he had kept the theatre to a high peak of respectability. At a dinner given at his retirement, a Dr. Mladen in proposing his health stated: 'In catering for the public amusement, he (Mr. Bennett) had always made choice of the best selections from the drama so that while forming and improving the public taste, he had taken special care that nothing should be introduced to offend the most fastidious mind. He had refrained from performing on Saturday night from a very good and excellent notice. (Hear! Hear!) The worthy doctor ended his speech with a typical Victorian eulogy: 'May Mr. Bennett, although he has retired from his own Theatre, long continue to act the part of a good and kind man on the stage of the world, and when his last Drop scene shall fall, as fall it must, and the green curtain on his green grown couch shall wave between two worlds, the acting and the acted may be prompted
