WALTER HAMILTON, (continued 12)

One really couldn’t help thinking that the misfortune extended to some other Members of that House, besides Mrs. Gummidge.

“I ain’t what I could wish myself to be,” said Mrs. Gummidge. “I am far from it. I know what I am. My troubles has made me contrairy. I feel my troubles, and they makes me contrairy. I wish I didn’t feel them, but I do. I wish I could be harden’d to ’em, but I ain’t. If I felt less, I could do more. I make the House uncomfortable. I don’t wonder at it. It’s far from right that I should do it. I’d better leave the House. I’m a much-crossed cretur’, and had better not make myself contrairy here. If thinks must go contrairy with me, and I must go contrairy myself, let me go contrairy alone at my own place. I’d better leave the House, and retire and be a riddance.”

Mr. Peggotty-Bull, whose countenance had exhibited the mixed traces of many feelings, including puzzlement, impatience, and profound sympathy, looked upward at a portrait of an ancient, but buck-like and somewhat Hebraic personage upon the wall, and, shaking his head, with a lively expression of those mixed sentiments still animating his face, said, in a solemn whisper,

“She’s been thinking of the Old ’Un!”

This parody of “David Copperfield” appeared in Punch May 2, 1885, it was illustrated by an excellent cartoon of Mr. Gladstone as “Mrs. Gummidge.”

——:o:——

Space will not permit of the insertion of further extracts from the parodies on Dickens, it remains, therefore, to enumerate his principal works in chronological order, followed by a list of the parodies, imitations, and plays founded upon them:—

A Chronological List of the Works of Charles Dickens.

Sketches by Boz 1836-37

Sunday under Three Heads 1836

Pickwick Papers 1837

Oliver Twist 1838

Sketches of Young Gentlemen 1838

Nicholas Nickleby 1839

Sketches of Young Couples 1840

Master Humphrey’s Clock (The Old Curiosity Shop & Barnaby Rudge) 1840-1

American Notes 1842

Christmas Carol 1843

Martin Chuzzlewit 1844

The Chimes 1845

Cricket on the Hearth 1846

Pictures from Italy 1846 225

Battle of Life 1846

Dombey and Son 1848

Haunted Man 1848

David Copperfield 1850

Mr. Nightingale’s Diary 1851

Child’s History of England 1852-4

Bleak House 1853

Hard Times 1854

Little Dorrit 1857

Hunted Down 1859

Tale of Two Cities 1859

Great Expectations 1861

Uncommercial Traveller 1861

Our Mutual Friend 1865

Mystery of Edwin Drood 1870

Sam Weller, a Journal of Wit and Humour. Edited by Sam Slick, with illustrations. 1837.

Posthumous Papers of the Cadgers’ Club. With sixteen engravings. London. E. Lloyd, about 1837.

Posthumous Papers of the Wonderful Discovery Club, formerly of Camden Town. Established by Sir Peter Patron. Edited by “Poz.” With eleven illustrations, designed by Squib, and engraved by Point. London. 1838.

The Post-humourous Notes of the Pickwickian Club. Edited by “Bos.” 2 vols, with numerous illustrations. London.

Pickwick in America, detailing all the adventures of that individual in the United States. Edited by “Bos.” Illustrated with forty-six engravings by “Phis.” London. E. Lloyd, about 1837.

Pickwick Abroad, or a Tour in France, by G. W. M. Reynolds. This is a thick octavo volume, published in 1839, with numerous illustrations. The first edition is rather scarce, but reprints (published by Willoughby & Co., London) are not difficult to procure. The woodcuts, in the body of the book, are curious, as showing the architecture and appearance of the principal streets of Paris fifty years ago.

The Adventures of Marmaduke Midge, the Pickwickian Legatee. (Particulars of this work are wanting.)

Amongst the many piracies and imitations of The Pickwick Papers, was “The Penny Pickwick,” edited by “Bos,” with illustrations. The preface is signed “Bos,” Rose Cottage, St. John’s Wood. Printed and published by E. Lloyd, Bloomsbury. 1838.

There were also numerous song and jest books named after either Mr. Pickwick or Sam Weller, but these scarcely come within the scope of this list.

The Life and Adventures of Oliver Twiss, the Workhouse Boy. Edited by “Bos.” London. No date, about 1840.

Scenes from the Life of Nickleby Married, containing certain Remarkable Passages, Strange Adventures, and Extraordinary Occurrences that befel the Nickleby Family in their further Career, being a Sequel to “Nicholas Nickleby.” Edited by “Guess.” With twenty-one illustrations by “Quiz.” London. John Williams, Paternoster Row. 1840.

Nickelas Nickelbery. Containing the Adventures, Misadventures, Chances, Mis-Chances, Fortunes, Mis-fortunes, Mysteries, Mis-eries, and Miscellaneous manœuvres of the Family of Nickelbery. By “Bos.” With forty-three woodcut illustrations. London. E. Lloyd, about 1838. An impudent piracy upon Nicholas Nickleby, published in penny weekly numbers, and parodying the whole of the story and characters, under very slightly altered names. This has been ascribed to Mr. J. P. Prest.

The Nickleby Papers, by “Poz.” In penny numbers.

Mister Humfries’ Clock. “Bos,” maker. A Miscellany of striking interest. Illustrated. London, 1840.

Master Timothy’s Bookcase; or, the Magic Lanthorn of the World. By G. W. M. Reynolds. London, 1842.

A Girl at a Railway Junction’s Reply [to an article in the Christmas number for 1866 of “All the Year Round,” entitled “Mugby Junction.”] London.

Parley’s Penny Library. Containing piratical versions of Barnaby Rudge, the Old Curiosity Shop, and the Picnic Papers. About 1841.

Change for the American Notes; or, Letters from London to New York. By an American Lady. London. Wiley and Putnam. 1843. (This was written by a Yorkshireman, Mr. Henry Wood.)

Current American Notes. By “Buz.” London. No date.

Christmas Eve with the Spirits, with some further tidings of the Lives of Scrooge and Tiny Tim. London, 1870.

A Christmas Carol. Being a few scattered staves from a familiar composition, re-arranged for performance by a Distinguished Musical Amateur, during the Holiday season, at Hawarden.—Punch. December 26, 1885. This is a political skit, the only present interest of which consists in the four very humourous illustrations by Harry Furniss, which are exquisite parodies of those by John Leech, in the original book.

The Faces in the Fire; a Story for the Season. By Redgap. With illustrations by T. H. Nicholson: London. Willoughby & Co., Warwick Lane. No date. Dedicated to the Earl of Carlisle. Pp. 165. (Written in imitation of Dickens’s Christmas Books, and published about 1845.) In a second edition, published by James Blackwood, in 1856, the name of George Frederick Pardon is given on the title page as the author.

January Eve. A Tale of the Times. By George Soane, B.A. London: E. Churton, 1847: pp. 180. Dedicated to Lord John Russell. In his preface the author not only admits that a similarity exists between his writings and those of Dickens, but is bold enough to assert that he, and not Dickens, is the original “Simon Pure.” “A little tale of mine, the Three Spirits, was thought by many to be exceedingly like Boz’s ‘Christmas Carol,’ yet the Carol was not published till some years after it. If then, there be any imitation in the case at all, it is Boz—glorious Boz—who has taken a hint from my writings.”

The Battle of London Life; or, “Boz” and his Secretary. By Morna. With a portrait and illustrations by G. A. Sala. This is a scarce little volume of 106 pages, which was published by George Peirce, of 310, Strand, London, in 1849. It was written by Thomas M. O’Keefe, although it is generally attributed to Mr. George Augustus Sala; he certainly furnished several illustrations, which are signed G. Sala, and on the cover there is an advertisement of “The April Fool Book,” written by the author of “The Battle of London Life,” also illustrated by George Sala.

Old Jolliffe: Not a Goblin Story. By the Spirit of a little Bell, awakened by “The Chimes.” London: W. N. Wright, 1845. Dedicated to Queen Adelaide. Pp. 56.

The Wedding Bells, an Echo of “The Chimes,” with coloured illustrations by the Author, who states that the work was suggested by “The Chimes” of Charles Dickens.

Facts and Figures from Italy. Addressed during the last two winters to C. Dickens, being an appendix to his “Pictures.” By Don Jeremy Savonarola. London, R. Bentley, 1847. This was written by Francis Mahony. (“Father Prout.”)

The Sketch Book. By “Bos.” Containing tales, sketches, etc. With seventeen woodcut illustrations. London.

226 Dombey and Daughter: A Moral Fiction. By Renton Nicholson, Lord Chief Baron of the celebrated Judge and Jury Society, held at the Garrick’s Head Hotel, Bow Street. London. Thomas Farris. No date, about 1847. With illustrations. Pp. 94. At the end of the story Baron Nicholson bids his readers Farewell, and remarks, “I think I may, without arrogance, predict that these pages will be read with pleasure by those whose tastes are not vitiated, and who prefer a simple story, representing scenes of real life, to the monstrous productions of a feverish imagination, which of late have been received with unmerited though almost universal applause.” This was published in monthly parts.

Renton Nicholson also wrote Cockney Adventures, and Tales of London Life, in imitation of the Pickwick Papers.

Dombey and Father, by Buz. A Satire on Charles Dickens. New York, 1868.

Micawber Redivivus; or, How to make a fortune as a Middleman, etc. By Jonathan Coalfield [i.e. W. Graham Simpson?].

Bleak House; a Narrative of Real Life. Being a faithful detail of facts connected with a suit in the Irish Court of Chancery, from the year 1826 to 1851. London, H. Elliott. 1856.

Characteristic Sketches of Young Gentlemen. By Quiz Junior. With Illustrations. London. W. Kidd.

A Child’s History of Germany. By H. W. Friedlaender. A pendant to a “Child’s History of England,” by Charles Dickens. Celle, 1861.

No Thoroughfare; the Book in Eight Acts. This parody appeared in “The Mask,” No. 1, February, 1868.

No Thoroughfare. A parody upon Dickens’s N.T. By C—s D—s, B. Brownjohn and Domby. Boston U.S.

The Mystery of Mr. E. Drood. Specimen of an Adaptation. By Orpheus C. Kerr. (Three and a half pages.) Published in The Piccadilly Annual. London. John Camden Hotten. December, 1870. This very scarce little work contains Hunted Down, by Charles Dickens, which is not generally included amongst his collected writings. It was originally written for an American publisher.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Complete. Part the Second by the Spirit Pen of Charles Dickens, through a medium; embodying also that Part of the Work which was published prior to the Termination of the Author’s Earth-Life. 1873. The medium was Mr. J. P. James, of Brattleborough, Vermont, U. S.

John Jasper’s Secret, being a Narrative of Certain Events following and Explaining “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” with illustrations. Philadelphia, about 1871. Also published in London in 1872.

The Cloven Foot; being an adaptation of the English novel, “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” to American scenes, characters, customs, and nomenclature. By Orpheus C. Kerr. New York, 1870.

A Great Mystery Solved: Being a Sequel to “The Mystery of Edwin Drood.” By Gillan Vase. In three vols. London, Remington and Co, 1878. Preface dated Hanover, July 12, 1878.

Rifts in the Veil, a Collection of Inspirational Poems and Essays, given through Various Forms of Mediumship. London, W. H. Harrison. 1878. This work on Spiritualism contains particulars of a continuation of “Edwin Drood,” which is said to have been dictated through a medium. The article occupies 30 closely printed pages, and is entitled “An alleged Postmortem work by Charles Dickens.”

Plays founded upon the Novels of Charles Dickens.

As is well known Charles Dickens strongly objected to his Novels being adapted for the Stage, yet scarcely one of his better known works escaped that penalty of popularity. As most of these stage adaptations are little better than parodies, or imitations, a catalogue of them may be fitly inserted here.

In this compilation some assistance has been derived from the life of Dickens, by Mr. F. T. Marzials, (London, Walter Scott, 1887), but the following list contains more entries, and fuller details than he gave. It is, in fact, the only approximately complete list of plays founded on Dickens’s Works, giving the date and place where first performed, and the names of the publishers, where they could be ascertained.

Sam Weller, or the Pickwickians, a Drama in three acts, first performed at the Strand New Theatre, London, July 17, 1837. By W. T. Moncrieff. (Dicks 541.) This has a long preface, in which the author defends himself against the charge of having merely transferred Dickens’s characters and incidents from the story to a play. He says, indeed, that he thinks Dickens ought to be grateful to him, for the popularity of the play had greatly extended the fame of the story.

The Pickwickians; or, the Peregrinations of Sam Weller. Arranged from Mr. W. T. Moncrieff’s adaptation by T. H. Lacy. London. 1837. (Lacy 315.)

The Pickwick Club. A Burletta in three acts, by E. Stirling. City of London Theatre, April 27, 1837. (Duncombe.)

The Peregrinations of Pickwick, an acting Drama. By William Leman Rede. London, W. Strange. 1837.

Bardell v. Pickwick: versified and diversified. Songs and choruses. Words by T. H. Gem. Leamington, 1881.

The Great Pickwick Case, arranged as a Comic Operetta. The words of the songs by Robert Pollitt. Manchester, Abel Heywood & Son, 1884.

Bardell v. Pickwick. (Dicks 636.)

Last of the Pickwickiana comes Mr. F. C. Burnand’s dramatic Cantata, Pickwick, with music by Mr. Edward Solomon, which was produced at the Comedy Theatre, London, early in 1889. The parts were thus distributed, Pickwick by Mr. Arthur Cecil, Mrs. Bardell by Miss Lottie Venne, and “The Baker” by Mr. Rutland Barrington.

This Cantata has not yet been published.

There can be no doubt but that the character of Sam Weller made the fortune of The Pickwick Papers when they first appeared in monthly parts, and sent the circulation up from a poor 400 to 40,000. The germ of this character has been traced back to a play, written by Mr. Samuel Beazley, entitled “The Boarding House,” and produced at what is now called the Lyceum Theatre, in 1811. That there is a slight resemblance in Simon Spatterdash in this play to Sam Weller cannot be denied, and Dickens may have seen or read the play, and have been struck with the possibility of converting the character of Spatterdash into that of his own immortal Sam.

Oliver Twist; or the Parish Boy’s Progress. A Drama in three acts. By C. Z. Barnett. First performed at the Pavilion Theatre, May 21, 1838. (S. French.)

Oliver Twist. A serio-comic Burletta, in three acts, by 227 George Almar. Performed at the Royal Surrey Theatre, London, November 19, 1838. (Dicks 293.)

A similar adaptation, but in four acts, was published in New York.

Bumble’s Courtship. From Dickens’s “Oliver Twist.” A Comic Interlude, in one act. By Frank E. Emson. London. (Lacy.)

Nicholas Nickleby, a Farce in Two Acts. By Edward Stirling. Produced at the Adelphi Theatre, London 1838. (S. French 264.)

Nicholas Nickleby, a Drama in Four Acts. Adapted by H. Simms. First performed at the Theatre Royal, Brighton, 1875. (Dicks 469.)

The Infant Phenomenon; or, a Rehearsal Rehearsed. A Dramatic Piece in one Act. Being an episode in the adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. Adapted by H. Horncastle, and originally produced at the Strand Theatre, London, July 8, 1842. (Dicks 572.)

The Fortunes of Smike, or, a Sequel to Nicholas Nickleby; a Drama in Two Acts. By Edward Stirling, London. Adelphi Theatre. London, March 2, 1840. (Webster’s Acting Drama 94.)

Nicholas Nickleby; an Episodic Sketch; in three tableaux, based upon an incident in “Nicholas Nickleby.” Not published. Strand Theatre, Sept. 10, 1885.

Barnaby Rudge. A Domestic Drama, in Three Acts. By Charles Selby and Charles Melville. First performed at the English Opera House, June 28, 1841. (Dicks 393.)

Barnaby Rudge; or, the Murder at the Warren, a Drama in Three Acts, by Thomas Higgie. No date. (Lacy.)

Barnaby Rudge. A Burlesque upon the Version now being played at the Princess’s Theatre, London. Fun. November 24, 1866.

Master Humphrey’s Clock; a Domestic Drama, in Two Acts. By Frederick Fox Cooper. Victoria Theatre, London, May 26, 1840. (Lacy.)

The Old Curiosity Shop. A Drama in Four Acts. Adapted by George Lander. First produced at the Theatre Royal, York, May 14, 1877. (Dicks 398.)

The Old Curiosity Shop; a Drama in Two Acts. By Edward Stirling. Adelphi Theatre, November 9, 1840. (French 1147.)

The Old Curiosity Shop; a Drama, in Four Acts. Adapted by Mr. Charles Dickens, Junr., from his Father’s Novel. Not published. Opera Comique Theatre. 1884.

Mrs. Jarley’s Far-Famed Collection of Wax-Works, as arranged by G. B. Bartlett. In Two Parts. London.

Yankee Notes for English Circulation. A Farce in One Act, by Edward Stirling. Adelphi Theatre. London. 1843. (Duncombe’s Theatre.)

Martin Chuzzlewit, a Drama in Three Acts by Charles Webb. London. (Barth.)

Martin Chuzzlewit; or, his wills and his ways, what he did, and what he didn’t. A Domestic Drama, in Three Acts, by Thomas Higgie and T. H. Lacy. Lyceum Theatre, London, July 8, 1844. (S. French 330.)

So says the acting copy, but see next entry:

Martin Chuzzlewit; a Drama in Three Acts. By Edward Stirling. This, it is stated on the acting copy, was produced at the Lyceum Theatre July 8, 1844. The two versions are unlike, and it is clearly impossible that both could have been produced on the same night at the same theatre. It is probable that Higgie and Lacy’s version was that which was produced at the Strand Theatre July 15, 1844. (Duncombe’s plays.)

Tom Pinch. Domestic Comedy in Three Acts By Joseph J. Dilley and Lewis Clifton. Vaudeville Theatre, London, March 10, 1881. (S. French 1803.)

Mrs. Sarah Gamp’s Tea and Turn Out; a Bozzian Sketch, in One Act, by B. Webster. Adelphi Theatre, London, October 26, 1846. (Webster’s Drama 136.)

Tartuffe Junior, Von H. C. L. Klein. Neuwied, 1864. (A Play in Five Acts after “Martin Chuzzlewit.”)

Mrs. Gamp’s Party. An adaptation in One Act. Manchester. Abel Heywood & Son.

Mrs. Harris. A Farce in One Act, by Edward Stirling. Lyceum Theatre, October, 1846. (Duncombe.)

The Cricket on the Hearth, a Fairy Tale of Home, in two acts. By Edward Stirling. Adelphi Theatre, London, December 31, 1845. (Webster’s Drama 124.)

The Cricket on the Hearth; or, a Fairy Tale of Home. A Drama, in three acts. Dramatised by Albert Smith, by the express permission of the Author. First produced at the Lyceum Theatre, 1845, and at the Winter Garden, New York, September 14, 1859. (Dicks 394.)

The Cricket on the Hearth, a Fairy Tale of Home in Three Chirps. By W. T. Townsend. London. (Lacy 649.)

This was another version which was produced at the City of London Theatre, January 7, 1846.

A Christmas Carol; or, the Miser’s Warning, by C. Z. Barnett. Produced at the Surrey Theatre, February 5, 1844. This adaptation was published with a note stating that “the extreme necessity (the consequence of its high and deserved popularity) that so imperatively called for its representation on the stage, has also demanded its publication as a Drama, which it is the Adapter’s sincere wish, as it is his conviction, will considerably augment the sale of the original lovely and humanizing creation upon which it is founded.” (Lacy 1410. Dicks 722.)

Dot, a Fairy Tale of Home. A Drama in Three Acts, from “The Cricket on the Hearth.” Dramatised by Dion Boucicault. Not published.

The Haunted Man, a Drama. Adapted from Charles Dickens’s Christmas Story. Not published.

The Chimes, a Goblin Story, of some Bells that rang an Old Year out, and a New Year in; a Drama, in Four Quarters, by Mark Lemon and Gilbert Abbott à Beckett. Adelphi Theatre, London, December 19, 1844. (Webster’s Drama 115.)

La Bataille de la Vie. Pièce en Trois Actes, par M. M. Mèlesville et André de Goy. Vaudeville Theatre, Paris, 1853.

The Battle of Life, founded on the Christmas Annual of Charles Dickens, dramatised by Albert Smith. In Three Acts and in Verse. Lyceum Theatre, London, December 21, 1846. (W. S. Johnson.)

The Battle of Life, a Drama in Three Acts, by Edward Stirling. Surrey Theatre, London. January, 1847. (Duncombe’s Theatre 456.)

Dombey and Son. In three acts. Dramatized by John Brougham, and produced at Burton’s Theatre, New York, 1850. (Dicks 375. French 126.)

Dombey and Son; or, Good Mrs. Brown, the Child Stealer. A Drama, in two acts. “From the pen of the inimitable Charles Dickens, Esq. As performed at the Royal Strand Theatre.” No date.

An impudent theft, in which many liberties are taken with Dickens’s plot. This was published whilst the novel was in progress, and is now very scarce.

Captain Cuttle; a Comic Drama, in one act. By John Brougham. Burton’s Theatre, New York, January 14, 1850. (Dicks 572.)

228 David Copperfield, a Drama in two acts. Adapted by John Brougham, and first performed at Brougham’s Lyceum, January 6, 1851. New York. (French 133. Dicks 374.)

David Copperfield, a Drama in three acts, by John Brougham. Brougham’s Lyceum Theatre, January 6, 1851. (French.)

Little Emily, a Drama in four acts. Adapted from Dickens’s “David Copperfield,” by Andrew Halliday.

Lady Dedlock’s Secret, a Drama in Four Acts. Founded on an episode in “Bleak House,” by J. Palgrave Simpson. Opera Comique Theatre, London, March 26, 1884. (French.)

“Move on,” or Jo, the Outcast, a Drama in Three Acts. Adapted by James Mortimer. Not published.

Poor Jo, a Drama in Three Acts. Adapted by Terry Hurst. Not published.

Jo, a Drama in Three Acts, by J. P. Burnett. Not published.

Bleak House; or Poor “Jo.” A Drama, in Four Acts. Adapted by George Lander. Pavilion Theatre, London, March 27, 1876. (Dicks 388.)

Hard Times. A Domestic Drama, in Three Acts, by T. Fox Cooper. Strand Theatre, London, August 14, 1854. (Dicks.)

No Thorough Fare; a Drama in Five Acts, and a Prologue. By Charles Dickens and W. Wilkie Collins. Adelphi Theatre, London, December 26, 1867, and afterwards in Paris. Printed in New York.

Identity; or, No Thoroughfare. A Drama in Four Acts. By Louis Lequel. New York. (French.)

L’Abime, drame en cinq actes. (Founded on “No Thoroughfare.”) Paris, 1868.

The Tale of Two Cities; or, the Incarcerated Victim of the Bastille. An Historical Drama, in a Prologue and four acts. Adapted by T. Fox Cooper. First performed at the Victoria Theatre, London, July 7, 1860. (Dicks.)

A Tale of Two Cities; a Drama in two acts and a Prologue. By Tom Taylor. Lyceum Theatre, London, January 30, 1860. (Lacy 661.)

The Tale of Two Cities; a Drama in three acts and a Prologue. Adapted by H. J. Rivers. London.

A Message from the Sea, a Drama in Four Acts. Founded on Charles Dickens’s tale of that name, by John Brougham. Britannia Theatre, London, 1861. (Dicks 459.)

A Message from the Sea; a Drama in Three Acts. By Charles Dickens and W. Wilkie Collins. London, 1861.

The Dead Witness; or Sin and its Shadow. A Drama in Three Acts, by Wybert Reeve, founded on “The Widow’s Story” of The Seven Poor Travellers, by C. Dickens. First produced at the Sheffield Theatre. (S. French 1472.)

Great Expectations, a Drama in Three Acts, and a Prologue. By W. S. Gilbert. Not published.

Dickens himself did not often attempt parody, but his Reports of the Meetings of the “Mudfog Association” are admirable prose burlesques of the early proceedings of the British Association. These originally appeared in “Bentley’s Miscellany,” but have recently been republished.

(For remainder of this old street ballad see p. 276 of The Life and Times of James Catnach, by Charles Hindley. London. Reeves & Turner, 1878.)

It should have been stated that the Parodies on Dickens, quoted from The World on p. 215, were written by the Rev. W. H. A. Emra, of Salisbury (“New Sarum”) and by Mr. Walter Fletcher, of Hornsey. (“Robert le Diable.”)

229 COVENTRY PATMORE.

Amongst the parodies of Coventry Patmore which appeared on p. 194, mention should have been made of one which will be found in Mr. A. C. Swinburne’s Heptalogia, published by Chatto & Windus. It is called The Person of the House, and is in four Idyls, “The Monthly Nurse,” “The Caudle,” “The Sentences,” and “The Kid.”

When Mr. Coventry Patmore’s “Angel in the House” was first published, the Athenæum furnished the following unique criticism:—

“The gentle reader we apprise, that this new Angel in the House Contains a tale not very wise, About a person and a spouse. The author, gentle as a lamb, Has managèd his rhymes to fit, And haply fancies he has writ Another ‘In Memoriam.’ How his intended gathered flowers, And took her tea and after sung, Is told in style somewhat like ours, For delectation of the young. But, reader, lest you say we quiz The poet’s record of his she, Some little pictures you shall see, Not in our language but in his:

Fear not this saline Cousin Fred; He gives no tragic mischief birth; There are no tears for you to shed, Unless they may be tears of mirth. From ball to bed, from field to farm, The tale flows nicely purling on; With much conceit there is no harm, In the love-legend here begun. The rest will come another day, If public sympathy allows; And this is all we have to say About the ‘Angel in the House.’”

——:o:——

OXFORD COMMEMORATION.

“The Encænia,” or Commemoration of Founders and Benefactors which took place in June last, was marked by all the customary boisterous merriment on the part of the undergraduates. The ladies were cheered as usual, whilst marks of disapprobation were addressed at all persons whose attire presented any features of singularity. The Vice-Chancellor’s Latin address was inaudible on account of the interruptions, many of which were in excessively bad taste. The Proctors were loudly hissed, and called upon to retire, and as they did not attempt to do so, they were requested to sing a duet.

It is only perhaps in Oxford that such conduct on the part of educated men, presumably gentlemen, would be tolerated; as it was described (in imitation of Carlyle) fifteen years ago, so it remains:—

“What is Commemoration? Wherefore? Whereunto? Why? Is it a mere vacuous Inanition, or speck cut out of this little world, or has it not rather contrariwise some Meaning, apart from that which is wrapt up in meness and youness and every-one-else-ness, and two or three more beside?

Nay, is it not Portentous, Big with Signs, with its show Sunday, its Dances, its Encænia and what not?

Is it not a time when it is permitted to Man to wriggle out of the inextricable snares of the Fowler with his Attorney-logic, and the frothy effervescences of defunct and buried-in-dusty tomes Antiquity which are nomen-clated Lectures? And to be Oblivious of these Gehenna-Bailiffs emissaried by professors in Tailor-craft, Wine-craft, and the innumerable other crafts and mysteries ranking under the genus Productive Industry. Aye, and those gaily apparelled young ladies (Madchen) who confluctuate hither as to a Focus, or centre of Attraction, though they themselves are also an Attraction, which is an inextricable mystery of Involvedness; do not these too teach a lesson to the gawks, in whose heads is nothing but the Roots of their World restored Hair, and who imagine that the whole Furniture of that digesting mechanism, Man, is but a Lay-figure, gifted indeed, with struttableness and swagger, on which to hang their Peacock-plumes, fringes, cobwebs, and such.

And there is the Encænia too, with its Chaotic Hubbub of Tympanum-splitting Noise, Undergraduates Noise, Ticket admitted Noise, as it were a sort of Tenfold Bedlam smitten with Interjectional Rabies, of groanings and yelpings, Approbation, Depreciation, and the like.”

* * * * *

From The Shotover Papers. Oxford. 1874.

“The Irish Revolution, a history in three books.” By Thomas Snarlyle. Such is the title of a parody, to be found in The Puppet-Showman’s Album, published about 1848, which concludes with a sentence curiously appropriate to these times:—

“Ireland, Ireland, thy leaders are in jail. But be not a Rachel weeping for these children, be comforted!”

——:o:——

JOHN RUSKIN.

Let us take a small extract from his notes on Samuel Prout and William Hunt’s loan collection of pictures:—

“That little brown-red butterfly [142] … is a piece of real painting; and it is as good as Titian or anybody else ever did, and if you can enjoy it you can enjoy Titian and all other good painters; and if you can’t see anything in it you can’t see anything in them, and its all affectation and pretence to say that you care about them. And with this butterfly in the drawing I put first, please look at the mug and loaf in the one I have put last of the Hunt series, No. 171. The whole art of painting is in that mug—as the fisherman’s 230 genius was in the bottle. If you can feel how beautiful it is, how ethereal, how heathery, and heavenly, as well as to the uttermost muggy, you have an eye for colour and can enjoy heather, heaven, and everything else below and above. If not, you must enjoy what you can contentedly, but it won’t be painting; and in mugs it will be more the beer than the crockery, and on the moors rather grouse than heather.”

For those who have neglected the opportunity of testing their taste for art on this butterfly, and on this mug, I would advise a visit to Venice, to learn whether they can appreciate Bassano’s hair trunk, as shown in his grand picture of the Pope Alexander and the Doge of Venice. It is not Ruskin, but Mark Twain who thus describes it:

“The hair of this trunk is real hair, so to speak, white in patches, brown in patches. The details are finely worked out; the repose proper to hair in a recumbent and inactive condition, is charmingly expressed. There is a feeling about this part of the work, which lifts it to the highest altitudes of art; the sense of sordid realism vanishes away—one recognizes that there is soul here. View this trunk as you will, it is a gem, it is a marvel, it is a miracle. Some of the effects are very daring, approaching even to the boldest flights of the rococo, the sirocco, and the Byzantine schools. Yet the master’s hand never falters—it moves on, calm, majestic, confident; and, with that art which conceals art, it finally casts over the tout ensemble, by mysterious methods of its own, a subtle something which refines, subdues, etherealizes the arid components, and endues them with the deep charm and gracious witchery of poesy. Among the art-treasures of Europe there are pictures which approach the hair trunk—there are two which may be said to equal it, possibly—but there is none that surpasses it.”

On All Fours Clavigera;

OR, Right at Last.

It may be remembered that Professor Buskin during the Spring addressed a letter to a provincial paper, respecting the projected new railway for Derbyshire. As he therein expressed some very strong opinions against the scheme, as one likely to give the miserable, melancholy, and toiling millions who dwell in smoke-stifling and unwholesome towns, an occasional chance of letting a little bright fresh air and sunlight in upon the gloom of their darkened lives, it is satisfactory to know that the letter in question is now believed to have been a clever hoax. At any rate, the zenith of that boon to millions, the summer excursion season has produced a second communication to the same journal: and, as it not only bears the Professor’s signature, but breathes with the spirit of his larger philanthropy, there can be little doubt as to its authenticity.

In the course of this second letter, Professor Buskin says:—

“I do not know how this mental revolution has come about within me, nor, were you to ask me, could I tell you. I only recognise the stupendous fact that I feel, and am not ashamed to avow, that I no longer regard the wild witchery of the Derbyshire glens as a precious and special property held by Providence in trust for me and a few exclusive well-to-do Sybarites for our sole select and selfish delectation.

* * * * *

Here it is, this Derbyshire Garden of Eden, with its magic-lantern-slide effects, lost for ever and for ever to everyone save to you and to me and the lucky Stall-sitters who hold, out of the overflowing fulness of their purses, the front places in the world’s glittering show, to the shifting and shutting out of the humbler and poorer from the sight and sense of it.”

“Follow, if you can, without wetted feet, the floretted banks and foam-crisped wavelets of the slyly wilful stream. Into the very heart and depth of this, and politely bending with the bends of it, your railway introduces its close-clinging attention. The rocks are not big enough to be tunnelled, they are cheerily blasted away; the brook is not wide enough to be bridged, it is comfortably covered in, and is thence-forward no physical obstacle to an enterprising Railway Company. I have not said, I leave the clergyman and physician to say, what moral and sanitary changes follow a free access to the gifts of Nature. But I may, at least, advise your correspondent that envenomed air is deadlier to the young than the old, and that the sooner a completed line of railway enables the pent-up thousands of pestiferous cities to figure as three-and-sixpenny excursionists, if only for a few hours, amidst these hitherto inaccessible fairy haunts, the sooner will English children who have been reared in mephitic fume instead of mountain breeze, who have had for playground heaps of ashes instead of banks of flowers, whose Christmas holidays brought them no memory, whose Easter sun no hope, enjoy some of the blessed delight of breezy hillside and sunlit glen hitherto claimed as the special and peculiar heirloom of that unreasoning and wrong-headed class who, singing the sweet song of Nature’s praise, defame that priceless metal line which, like some mighty wizard, alone has borne their welcome echo to a myriad aching city hearts.”

Punch. August 23, 1884.

On Toothpicks.

By Professor Buskin.

I came the other day quite by chance on this piece of news in my Daily Telegraph:—“It is said that no less than 25 millions of Toothpicks are annually made in England. This is just one to each person.” “Just one?” No, there is no justice here, it is all injustice. Think of this—25 millions, and think further of the 25 millions of Englishmen who can use them. Yes, this is what England has come to be—a nation of Toothpickers; for mark this, each man can use a toothpick if he will; if he can by fair means or foul (too often, alas, by foul!) obtain the paltry coin to purchase the Tooth-pick with.

But then these dilettanti-scribblers, these writers in the newspapers who are paid for their scribbling, these folk (forsooth!) say, “what have you to do with this—this Toothpicking?” I answer we have all to do with it. For hear, yea, and forbear with me a minute while I speak to you of this same Toothpicking.

Friends, it comes to this. Picking is a natural attribute of man. He must throughout life be a picker. But now comes the momentous question, a picker of what? A picker of knowledge, a dabbler in all the ’ologies, an admirable Crichton, veriest of prigs, or a picker of locks, a red-handed burglar, a hero of penny novels, or will he be a picker of teeth, a drawling vacuity weary of himself, weary of every thing, an inane hanger on to the skirts of the Universe? Will not the brave man, the wise man, the man of resolve, of energy, of endurance, a picker of roads, will he not go forth to beautify Hincksey, to plant the new 231 Utopia, to commence the Era of Æstheticism, and of the Fors?

Now, turning his picking propensities to some real use, he will learn to do hard work, to blister his hands, to wheel barrows, to preach Buskinism.

From The Shotover Papers. Oxford, 1874.

Mr. Ruskin is a depressing pessimist, according to whom nearly everything that was done in England three centuries or so ago was lovely and true, whilst all nineteenth century progress is in the wrong direction. “I know of nothing” he writes “that has been taught the youth of our time except that their fathers were apes, and their mothers winkles; that the world began in accident, and will end in darkness; that honour is a folly, ambition a virtue, charity a vice, poverty a crime, and rascality the means of all wealth and the sum of all wisdom.” Now these sweeping assertions are false, and Mr. Ruskin knows they are false, he could not advance a tittle of proof that any professor in modern times had inculcated any such doctrines. Those who want an antidote to Mr. Ruskin’s views should read “Pre-Raffaelitism; or a Popular enquiry into some newly-asserted Principles connected with the Philosophy, Poetry, Religion and Revolution of Art” by the Rev. Edward Young, M.A. London: Longmans & Co., 1857.

OUIDA.

Moll Marine:

(By “Weeder.”)

Moll Marine! A simple, touching name! It had been bestowed upon her by the rude country hinds among whom she dwelt. It was all she received at their hands besides blows and curses. Moll was a common name in those parts, but none knew what it meant, none discerned the hidden poetry in that brief monosyllable. Moll Marine they called her, because she came among them as a waif from the wild waves, as a white foam fleck that the winds toss on to the cold rocks to gleam a moment in the setting sun, and then dissolve for ever into the dews of night.

She was only fifteen, tall and graceful as a young poplar, with a warm brown skin and a scented wealth of amber hair. Everybody hated her. “It was natural,” she thought. They beat her, but she cared not. She was like a lucifer; they struck her, and she blazed forth resplendent; beautiful as the spotted panther of the forest, as the shapely thistle that the ass crops unheeding, as the beaming comet that shakes out her golden tresses in the soft hush of summer nights.

And she loved. Loved madly, passionately, hopelessly.

He knew it. He knew that he had but to say, “Come!” and she would follow him to disgrace or death, to polar snows or deserts arid as Gehenna. To him she was nothing. No more than the painted fly he pinned in sport, than the yellow meadow flowers that he crushed beneath his heel, than the soft tender doves whose downy necks he wrung and whose bodies he eat with cruel relish.

[We regret to say that the rest of this contribution is improper, and unfit for publication.—Ed.]

From The Light Green. Cambridge, 1872.

The World prize competition, for parodies on Ouida’s Under Two Flags, subject “The Cambridgshire Stakes.”

First Prize.

‘Seven to 5 on Leoville; 9 to 3 on Lartington; 10 to 2 on Falmouth; 13 to 4 Flotsam; 17 to 9 Exeter; the Field bar one; 22 to 8 Lord Clive; 33 to 12 Discord! Take the Field bar one; take the Field!’ yelled a burly bookmaker, as an elegant young patrician redolent of Jockey Club sauntered past him.

‘I do take it in; also the Life,’ said the noble, as he flicked some dust from his spotless boots, and then he blew his nose gracefully.

‘O, stow yer larks!’ said the other; but the next moment he repented using such language; for the apparently delicate nobleman had carelessly taken him by the seat of his trousers and thrown him over the rails, as though he had been a feather, instead of weighing at least 15 stone.

‘Curse him!’ he muttered, as he came back trying to look pleased. ‘What d’yer want to do, my lord?’ he said, with a ghastly smile.

Mentioning a horse, the haughty young aristocrat asked what he would lay against it.

‘Against it?’ said the welcher. ‘Well, it ain’t usual for us to lay against ’em; but I’ll give yer 4 to 2.’

‘Very well,’ wearily replied the marquis; ‘in half millions. I also want to back it for a lady, in gloves.’

‘Wery good, my lord; dogskin or kid?’

This of course could only be meant for insult. The peer looked at him half amused, half disgusted, and walked listlessly away.

The welcher scowled after him with bitter hatred; but just then the bell rang, and he hurried off to see the horses and jockeys weighed. When he arrived at the shed he found all ready but one, the jockey who was to ride the horse he had laid against. He was just sitting down to dinner.

‘They’re waiting for you,’ said a steward, rushing into the room.

‘Ask them to wait a little longer; I shall be ready in forty minutes,’ said the jockey, taking a spoonful of potage à la Tortue.

The steward rushed out somewhat excitedly.

‘Now’s my time,’ said the welcher, and creeping behind the light weight he gently unfastened one of his spurs, and put another in its place. He had scarcely finished when the referee came in to say that the starter would wait no longer. Quaffing a large goblet of champagne, the jockey murmured, ‘Che, sara, sara,’ and staggered out. Why did the welcher look so fiendish. He had fastened on the jockey’s boot a spur with painted rowels.

Following him out, he could just see him galloping down the course, and hear the people cheer as their favourite went by in his crimson jacket, with scarlet sash, green hoops, pink sleeves, and yellow cap. Before he could get to the starting-box the horses were off; but disdaining to join them in the middle of the race, and wishing also to exchange a few compliments with the starter, he rode up to him, and after relieving his mind, dashed after the others. By the time he got to the ‘Corner’ he was only two furlongs behind; at the distance a hundred yards; at the Red House fifty; and as they passed the Stand he was but a length from the leaders. He touched his gallant steed with the spur for a final effort; but instead of leaving the others behind as usual, it staggered, stopped, and went to sleep. The laudanum had done its work. Just then his rider heard a great shout, and looking up saw thousands of arms carrying the victorious jockey back to the scales. La Merveille had won the Cambridgeshire.

Oracle. (E. E. D. Davis.)

232

Second Prize.

‘Four to none against Hartington!’ ‘8 to none against Sarserperiller!’ ‘25 to none against Stylites!’ (pronounced by the ‘welchers’ as a dissyllable, like Skylights). ‘20 to none against Lar Mervilly!’ (La Merveille). ‘2 to none bar none!’ These and a hundred other cries rose high above the roar of the Ring on the bright October afternoon that shone for the nonce over the wide windy fens and sandy loams of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk on the day of the last great scrambling handicap of the year.

Maunderers muttering to their moustaches, layers, takers, ‘ossy’ cards, tiptop swells, who had ‘put the pot on’ to any extent, ladies of rank and ladies of pleasure (the latter in sealskin and velvet, and gracefully puffing the daintiest of papilitos)—all, with an instinct of stupidity, came down eager for a ‘go in’ on the scratching Cambridgeshire.

The bell was throbbing and sobbing spasmodically; and, as that cynosure of all eyes, Hartington, whose magnificently-desiccated veins bulged out black as the bloody cords of an injected ‘subject,’ strode grandly forth, a roar, deep as the voice of forests or the moan of the sea, went suddenly up—‘the crack!’

La Merveille, the blue filly, whose neck had the Arch of Marble, was a thick, short, long-barrelled horse, with superb Watteau eyes, and an I’ll-take-the-conceit-out-of-a good-many-of-you-if-I-choose-looking head. She belonged to the Lord of the Durdans, Earl Elderberry, whose colours were Hebrew lily inclining to Primrose.

See! Twice ten thousand starters are hoisted in admirable time; the competitors muster at the post, and the coup d’œil, as they glimmer and shimmer there in the sunlight, is as that of an early Turner sunset gone ineffably mad.

Three breaks; the flag falls; a glorious start, and away they go like no end of a line of eager harlequins before their creditors. ‘Off!’ and Out of Pounds, after taking up the running, ‘compounded;’ Adamite fell; Sunburn cooled down; Caxtonian ‘pressed’ onward; Fitz-Pluto ‘warmed’ to his work. ‘Now!’ Blood lashes to fury. The Ring roars—‘It’s a skinner!’ And Breadloser, Lord Strive, Hartington, and Lar Mervilly dash like fiends through the cold, fresh, wild winter wind, blowing as it might have done in Stuart times, when Mistress Nell Gwynn, the fat King’s ‘fancy,’ was here to inhale it.

Hark! ‘The foremost wins!’ ‘Rob Boy’s a “teaser”!’ ‘Mervilly’s lost!’ ‘Flash Man’s a brilliant failure!’

Lost? A palpitating lie!

’Send me a cropper!’ exclaimed Constable, a ‘clipping’ jock who had landed many a mount. ‘Send me a cropper, if you like, but “plant” me a winner!’

The blue filly answered with lightning spontaneity. Game to the last, Constable, a great Pickwick in his mouth, coaxed a final effort out of her. The delirium of pace was upon him. ‘Go in a perisher!’

On came the trio—on, until one last convulsive impulse of the outstretched limbs, and—hark! The cry has changed. ‘Mervilly wins!’

A thousand jewelled hands hold forth bouquets of hissing eau de Cologne. And Constable, true to the canons of his Order, ‘runs her in.’

A cry as of the disappointed, the desperate, or the d—d, went out over the ghastly fens; seemed to reel from many a gallant ‘plunger’ in anticipation of an approaching ‘weigh-in.’ Next to first was Second; Better Last than Never, whose dominant instinct it was to lose, third.

There was much wisdom after the event. Two minutes eight seconds! A man on a bicycle might have done it in less time!

Cyril. (James Silvester.)

The World November 12, 1879.

A parody of Ouida’s Ariadne was published in The Weekly Dispatch parody competition, September 13, 1885, but owing to the enforced brevity of the compositions, this one consisted of little more than a catalogue of names and facts, without any fun, or humour.

Of course Mr. F. C. Burnand wrote a parody on “Ouida,” it appeared in Punch in 1878, and was entitled “Strapmore! A Romance by Weeder, author of Folly and Farini, Under Two Rags, Arryadn’ty, Chuck, Two Little Wooden Jews, Nicotine, A Horse with Glanders, In Somers Town, Shamdross, &c., &c.” This wild weird story of blood and crime was republished in book form by Bradbury, Agnew & Co.

Judy also published a parody, entitled “Bluebottles. A Novel of Queer Society” Idylised à la Ouida. This was commenced July 7, 1880.

——:o:——

The following very happy burlesque of the nautical tales in the style of Captain Marryat and Captain Chamier, was written in 1842 by the late Professor W. E. Aytoun, who, in conjunction with Sir Theodore Martin, wrote the Bon Gaultier Ballads.

The Flying Dutchman.

A Tale of the Sea.

We were in the midst of the storm-tossed Atlantic. A heavy simoom, blowing N.E. by S., brought in the huge tropical billows mast-high from the Gulf of Labrador, and awoke old ocean, roaring in its fury, from its unfathomable depths. No moon was visible among the hurricane rack of the sky—even the pole-star, sole magnet of the mariner’s path, was buried in the murky obscurity of the tempest; nor was it possible to see which way the ship was steering, except by the long track of livid flames which followed in the wake of the bow, or when, at times, some huge leviathan leapt up from the water beside us, and descending with the vehemence of a rock hurled from heaven, drove up a shower of aquatic splinters, like a burst of liquid lava from the sea. All the sails which usually decorated the majestic masts of H.M.S. Syncope (a real seventy-nine of the old Trafalgar build, teak-built and copper fastened) were reefed tightly up, with the exception of the mainsail, the spritsail, the mizzen-boom sail, and a few others of minor consequence. Everything was cleared away—halyards, hencoop, and binnacle had been taken down below, to prevent accidents; and the whole of the crew, along with the marines and boarders, piped to their hammocks. No one remained upon deck except the steersman, as usual lashed to the helm; Josh Junk, the first bos’un; and the author of this narrative, who was then a midshipman on board the vessel, commanded by his uncle, Commodore Sir Peregrine Pendant.

“Skewer my timbers!” exclaimed Mr. Junk, staggering from one side of the deck to the other as an enormous wave struck us on the leeside, and very nearly unshipped the capstan—“Skewer my timbers, if this a’n’t enough to put an admiral’s pipe out! Why, Master Tom, d’ye see, it’s growing altogether more and more darkerer; and if it a’n’t clearer by twelve bells, we’ll be obligated to drop anchor, which a’n’t by no means so pleasant, with a heavy swell like this, running at nineteen knots an hour in the middle of the wide Atlantic. How’s her head, boy?”

“North by south it is, sir,” replied the steersman.

“Keep her seven points more to the west, you lubber! Always get an offing when there’s a wet sheet and a flowing sea. That’s right, Jem! Hold her hard abaft, and she’ll go slick before the wind, like a hot knife through a pound of 233 butter. Halloo, Master Tom, are you holding on by the seat-railings already—you a’n’t sick, are you? Shall I tell the steward to fetch a basin?”

“No, no, Josh,” I replied, “’tis nothing—merely a temporary qualm. But tell me—do you really apprehend any danger? If so, would it not be prudent to call up the commodore, and hang out the dead-lights?”

“Why, Master Tom,” replied the bos’un, turning his quid, “them ere’s kevestions as I can’t answer. ’Cos, first—there’s no knowing what danger is till it comes; secondly, it’s as much as my place is worth to disturb old Fire-and-Faggots—axing your pardon for the liberty—afore he’s finished his grog with the mates below; and, thirdly, it’s no use hanging out the dead-lights, ’cos we’re entirely out of oil.”

“Gracious heavens!” cried I, “and suppose any other ship should be in the same latitude?”

“Then,” said the bos’un with all imaginable coolness, “I reckon it would be a case of bump. Oak varsus teak, as the law-wers say, and Davy Jones take the weakest.—But hitch my trousers! what’s that?”

As the non-commissioned officer spoke, a bright flash was seen to the seaward immediately ahead of our vessel. It was too bright, too intense to proceed from any meteoric phenomena, such as sometimes are witnessed in those tropical climate, and the sullen report which immediately followed, indicated too clearly that it proceeded from some vessel in the vicinity.

“A first-rater, by jingo!” said Mr. Junk, “and in distress. Hold my telescope, Master Tom, till I go below and turn out the watch,”——but that instant his course was arrested.

Scarce a second had elapsed after the sound of the discharge reverberated through our rigging, when, only a hawser’s distance from our bowsprit, a phosphoric light seemed to rise from the bosom of the shadowy deep. It hung upon the hull, the binnacle, the masts, the yards of a prodigious ship, pierced apparently for three tier of guns, which, with every sail set, bore down direct upon us. One moment more and collision was inevitable; but Junk, with prodigious presence of mind, sprang to the helm, snatched the wheel from the hands of the petrified steersman, and luffed with almost supernatural force. Like a well-trained courser who obeys the rein, our noble ship instantly yielded to the impulse, and bore up a-lee, whilst the stranger came hissing up, and shot past us so close that I could distinctly mark each lineament of the pale countenances of the crew as they stood clustered upon the rigging, and even read—so powerful was that strange, mysterious light—the words painted within her sides,—“Those who go abaft the binnacle pay Cabin fare!” On, on she drove—a lambent coruscation, cleaving the black billows of the Atlantic main, about to vanish amidst the deep darkness of the night.

“That was a near shave, anyhow,” said Mr. Junk, relinquishing the wheel, “but we must know something more of that saucy clipper,” and catching up a speaking trumpet, he hailed,—

“Ship ahoy!”

“Ship yourself!” was the response.

“What’s your name?”

“What’s yours!”

“Syncope—Britannic Majesty’s seventy-nine—for Trinidad.”

“Yung Fraw—merchant ship, for Rotterdam.”

“What cargo?”

“Soap!” was the reply. “How are YOU off for it? Ha! ha! ha!”

A peal of diabolic laughter rolled across the deep, mingled with the rushing of the waves and the whistling of the winds. Another flash—another report—and the meteor light sunk as noiselessly as it had arisen into the bosom of the watery surge. At that moment the moon burst out from behind a cloud, clear and queenlike, illuminating the ocean for miles. We rushed to the stern and looked back. In vain! no vestige of a ship was there—we were alone upon the warring waters!

“By the Lord Harry!” said the bos’un, dropping the trumpet—“as sure as my name’s Josh Junk, that ’ere was the Flying Dutchman!” - - - - -

That night we were SWAMPED AT SEA!

——:o:——

OUR NEW ACTORS.

Three imitations of Charles Lamb’s essay on “Some of our Old Actors” were published in a Parody Competition in The World, October, 15, 1879. The first prize was awarded to the following:—

Taking up a to-days Standard—I know not by what freak of fancy I came to purchase one—I glanced at a few of the theatrical advertisements, which occupy no inconsiderable space in its columns. One of these presented the cast of parts in the Iron Chest at the Lyceum Theatre—Sir Edward Mortimer, by Henry Irving. What an ambitious sound it has! How clearly it brings before me the comely sad face—thoughtful and therefore sad—and the almost painfully-intense manner of the modern actor!

Of all the ‘Sir Edwards’ who have flourished in my time—a dismal phrase if taken aright, reader—that mad genius, the great little man with the fine Italian face and flashing eyes, Edmund Kean, is the most unforgetable. That of Irving comes next. He, since Kean, most fully realises the author’s idea of the style of man best suited to fill the part—‘a man of sable hue, and one in whose soul there’s something o’er which his melancholy sits and broods.’ But the secret of Irving’s success lies in his fine annihilation of self—a rare quality among players—combined with an originality which triumphs over tradition. There is a marked naturalness about his acting of this character, bottomed on enthusiasm. Like genius, he seems at times to have the power of kindling his own fire into any degree of intensity.

Kean, of whom Mrs. Siddons said, ‘There is too little of him to do anything;’ but of whom his landlady said, ‘There is something about Mr. Kean, ma’am, that tells me he will be a great man;’ Kean, whose exclamation, ‘My God, if I should succeed now, I think it will drive me mad!’ was prophetic, and who, when successful, cried, ‘D— Lord Essex, Mary; the pit rose at me!’—Kean tore the passion of the play to tatters.

Irving’s recenter style does not go to work so grossly. Seemingly convinced of the facts that whatever is done for effect will be seen to be done for effect, and that Nature for ever puts a premium on reality, he interests, as all may, by being persistently and intensely human. There is a consonancy, so to speak, which the green probationer in tragedy spoils by failing to exercise that repression which is an index of power.

In Hamlet, Mathias, in the remorseful rant of Eugene Aram, and the rest, Irving has proved himself histrionic to a degree that will always command intelligent recognition.

All have seen Sothern! What a Dundreary the world has in him! What witty conceits that pleasant creature has to trifle an hour or two away!—he whose ineffable fooling, if done by another, would partake of the essentially ludicrous. Then there is my beloved Toole, whose quirks never left a sting, who drolls inimitably, and whose quality is so irresistible 234 that like a sunbeam, he exists but to cheer—a touching function, reader. My beloved Toole is, in his walk, in no way inferior.

Shakespeare foresaw the existence of Miss Ellen Terry when he created Portia, as Sir Walter might that of Miss Neilson when he spake in Kenilworth.

There are who say that Barry Sullivan is the leading legitimate actor of the British stage—a big distinction, which few will, perhaps, be disposed to deny him. But the difference between Sullivan and Irving is, I take it, this: Sullivan has the toga virilis, and the old and obvious canons of his art; Irving is an actor less by tradition than instinct. Sullivan’s rich baritone, with its harmonious and not-without-skill-delivered periods, stirs the whole house like the sound of a trumpet: Irving’s shriller pipe is fuller of Nature’s own rhetoric for a finer few. Sullivan may fill the theatre; Irving may find an empty seat or two in the gallery.

Cyril. (James Silvester.)

LORD MACAULAY.

The Quarterly Review, for April 1868, contained a review of Lady Trevelyan’s edition of the works of Lord Macaulay, in which the following passage was quoted as a specimen of his style:—

“The misgovernment of Charles and James, gross as it had been, had not prevented the common business of life from going steadily and prosperously on. While the honour and independence of the State were sold to a foreign Power, while chartered rights were invaded, while fundamental laws were violated, hundreds of thousands of quiet, honest, and industrious families laboured and traded, ate their meals and lay down to rest, in comfort and security. Whether Whig or Tories, Protestants or Jesuits were uppermost, the grazier drove his beasts to market; the grocer weighed out his currants; the draper measured out his broadcloth; the hum of buyers and sellers was as loud as ever in the towns; the harvest-home was celebrated as joyously as ever in the hamlets; the cream overflowed the pails of Cheshire; the apple juice foamed in the presses of Herefordshire; the piles of crockery glowed in the furnaces of the Trent; and the barrows of coal rolled fast along the timber railways of the Tyne.”—(Vol. iv. p. 189.)

There is no reason why this rhetorical diarrhœa should ever stop so long as there was a trade, calling, or occupation to be particularised: the pith of the proposition (which required no proof) being contained in the first sentence. Why not continue thus:—

“The apothecary vended his drugs as usual; the poulterer crammed his turkeys; the fishmonger skinned his eels: the wine-merchant adulterated his port; as many hot-cross buns as ever were eaten on Good Friday, as many pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, as many Christmas-pies on Christmas-day; on area steps the domestic drudge took in her daily pennyworth of the chalky mixture which Londoners call milk; through area bars the feline tribe, vigilant as ever, watched the arrival of the cats’-meat man; the painted courtesan flaunted in the Haymarket; the cabs rattled through the Strand; and from the suburban regions of Fulham and Putney the cart of the market-gardener wended its slow and midnight way along Piccadilly to deposit its load of cabbages and turnips in Covent Garden.”

——:o:——

A Page by Macaulay.

(From the History of the Beadleship of Brown.)

When Brown grasped the staff of office, he was in need of the staff of life. Raised at once from want to wealth, from obscurity to renown, from the practice of submission to the habit of command, he did his work sternly; but not too sternly to do it well. The unexpectedly chosen Beadle became a correspondingly energetic Beadle. The new broom swept clean. A week had not passed ere abuses were remedied—the indolence of one portion of the parish officers pricked into action—the disaffection of another crushed into obedience. A benevolent despotism is the best form of government—Brown was despotic, benevolent, and a Beadle.

Let us review the state of affairs as they existed when he first assumed the cocked hat of office as Beadle of St. Tomkins. Apple-women usurped the pavement. Piemen obstructed the roadway. Professed beggars demanded alms at every door—impostors exhibited artificial sores at every corner. What the parish of St. Giles is to the parish of St. James, the parish of St. Tomkins was to the parish of St. Giles. Nuisances of another nature throve also and waxed great from day to day. The pew opener grumbled; the turncock muttered to himself; the churchwardens squabbled, and the rate-payers complained. There was murmured disaffection in the vestry—open revolt amongst the charity boys. It was a time of mutual recrimination—of mutual dissatisfaction. Jones abused Smith, Smith retorted upon Jones. Robinson hated Thomson, Thomson repaid the compliment with interest to Robinson. There was an unruly license of tongue, a general saturnalia of speech. Whispered scandals grew into outspoken charges, and the malicious reports hatched from the tea and muffins of old maidish parties were repeated with envenomed aggravations over the port and sherry of parish dinners. Then it was that short weights were publicly attributed to Smith, and a false steelyard confidently asserted to belong to Jones. Johnson, heated with gin, said that Jackson beat his wife—Jackson, inflamed with rum, said that Mrs. Johnson beat her husband. Charges, counter-charges, insinuations, inuendos, ran riot. No man looked with complacency on his neighbour; no husband looked with confidence upon his wife; no wife looked with respect upon her husband. As yet the band of Reformers who were shortly to arise was unheard of. Thomas Styles was but sixteen; John Nookes but thirteen-and-a-half. The pen of the great Smythe Smithers was yet employed upon half text. No word indicating his future destiny had fallen from Tomkin’s lips—Gubbins had not yet been born—Snooks was in long clothes—and Trother yet unemancipated from parish leathers.

On Brown then it alone devolved to grapple with the task. He was the dauntless pioneer of a dauntless army, a champion destined to show the world that the glitter of a Beadle’s staff may outshine the splendours of a Marichall’s baton, if it did not dim the magnificence of a Monarch’s sceptre.

From The Man in the Moon, edited by Angus B. Reach. February, 1849.

——:o:——

235 A Bit of WHIG His-TORY.

(From what we “Macaulay” History of our own.)

The King had been thrown from his horse at Hampton Court, and was dead. Great were the rejoicings in Paris and Rome on receipt of the tidings, and the hopes of the Jacobite party rose; however, the accession of the second daughter of the last Stuart monarch to the throne as Anna Regina once more clouded their prospects. Her Court, adorned by Marlborough (who did not sell his pictures), Bolingbroke and Swift, would have been as nothing without the genius of one whose name does not figure in the accepted histories of that reign, but whose influence at Court not even the imperious Sarah Jennings, nor her rival, Lady Masham, nor any of the Whigs or Tories of that distracted period, could afford to ignore. A peaceful citizen, whose Hair Preparations gave that graceful brilliancy and tone to the brown hair of the Sovereign, and whose marvellously manufactured Wigs adorned the heads of the noblest in the land, was not one to be lightly passed by, and thus it was Professor Browne was the ruling spirit at the Court of Queen Anne. No Wigs could equal his in form, graceful folds, and luxuriant masses of hair; they covered the heads of the wisest and best in the land, so that it was no wonder the Professor, who had long studied the heads of the people, was universally consulted on all matters of such vital importance. Unfortunately, however, Prince Eugene of Savoy, who at this time came over on a secret mission from the Emperor to the Queen, foolishly declined to pay a visit to Fenchurch Street, and procured from some opposition hairdresser a short campaigning Wig in which to appear at Court. The same evening, the Prince, smoking his cigar at his hotel, happened to be trying on this new head gear when the Hanoverian Minister, Baron Hoffman, called, and seeing that neither in style, make, nor effect was it equal to Browne’s, endeavoured to induce the Prince, but in vain, to discard it and patronize F. B. Bye and bye Bolingbroke, who had a secret partiality for the Jacobites, and mistrusted the Prince’s mission, arrived, and affected such admiration for the periwig that the Prince actually did wear it the next day in the throne-room, to the horror of the Lord Chamberlain and Gentlemen Ushers, while the crafty Bolingbroke took care himself to appear in one of Browne’s most artistic and luxuriant head-coverings that could possibly be procured; the result being a perfect triumph for the Professor. The Queen expressed high disapproval of the Prince’s Wig, whose mission thereby failed, and once again the hopes of the Jacobites fluttered. At length the wily Bolingbroke was dismissed from Office, and Her Majesty, who had secured the succession to the Crown of the son of her cousin Sophia, ordered that Professor Browne, should henceforth be appointed Wig Maker in ordinary to the British Public.

From Professor Browne’s Almanack, 1885.

——:o:——

The Next Armada.

A Brief Chapter from the History of Macaulay Junior.

* * * * *

In the City the agitation was fearful. None could doubt that the decisive crisis was approaching. It was known, from the second edition of the Times, that the joint Armada, carrying everything before it, was continuing its victorious progress up the Channel. Plymouth had fallen without firing a shot. Portsmouth had speedily followed suit. The former had found itself, at the eleventh hour, unprovided with a single gun. The latter, at the crucial moment, discovered that it was still waiting the arrival of its ammunition. When these facts, mysteriously whispered at first with bated breath, became, later in the day, authenticated by the appearance of succeeding editions of the morning papers, the public excitement knew no bounds. A hideous panic seized the Stock Exchange. “Goschens” went down to sixty at a single leap. Five well-known Stockbrokers went off their heads, and were removed in cabs by the police in violent hysterics. The Lord Mayor appeared on the steps of the Mansion House, and endeavoured to quell the riot. He was at once recognised by the mob, and pelted with Pass-Books.

But things assumed a most threatening aspect at the Admiralty. A vast multitude had assembled at Whitehall, and rendered Parliament Street impassable. There was an angry howl at the “Board.” The Police took the precautionary measure of closing the gates. The First Lord appeared inside the enclosure, and his presence was the signal for an ominous roar. He was deathly pale and trembling, but he managed to scramble up the balustrade, and gazed feebly down on the raving thousands below. He was understood to say that when next Parliament met it would be asked to appoint another Committee to inquire into the naval administration of the country. His speech was cut short by execrations, and he hastily withdrew. Ten minutes later it was understood that he had escaped by the back way over the palings into the Park, and was hiding himself from the fury of the mob in an unfrequented slum in Pimlico.

But while these events were transpiring in the Metropolis of the Empire, still graver issues were being arrived at on that “silver streak,” which, up to now, had popularly, but erroneously, been regarded as its sure defence. What had been left of the British Channel Fleet after its first disastrous encounter with the joint Armada off the Lizard had rallied, and was now awaiting the attack of the again on-pressing and advancing enemy, in what promised to be a decisive encounter for the possession of the Mouth of the Thames, in the immediate neighbourhood of Herne Bay. The Admiral, in his hasty retreat, had collected about the shattered remnant of his forces some auxiliary adjuncts. He had been joined by Her Majesty’s ironclads, Styx and Megatherium, and by the belted cruiser, Daffodil; but owing to the fact that these vessels, not possessing any guns, had had to put to sea without their armaments, the recent arrivals could scarcely be counted on by him as an addition to his fighting power in any pending action. Nor was he sure of his own ship. Her Majesty’s ironclad Blunderer, which carried his flag, was armed with four of the famous 43-ton Collingwood exploding guns, and though hard pressed in the recent engagement, he had not thought it wise to give the order to “fire.”

Such was the position of the British Admiral at the commencement of that fatal afternoon which saw the last blow struck for the preservation of the Empire. The fight commenced by a general attack of the enemy. But it did not last long. In a very few minutes seven of the British ironclads, including that of the Admiral, were blown up by the explosion of their own guns. The rest found that they were supplied with the wrong-sized ammunition, and were rapidly put hors de combat. Within a quarter of an hour of the firing of the first shot the action was over, and the last remnant of the British Fleet had practically disappeared. That evening the advance despatch boats of the joint Armada anchored off Gravesend, and 120,000 men were landed on the Kentish coast between Margate and Whitstable.

236 When the news of the disaster appeared in the evening papers, the panic, which had been gathering strength as the day progressed, culminated in fever-heat. Everybody was in the streets asking, with staring eyeballs, for the latest news.

Gradually it became known that 75,000 of the enemy were advancing on the capital by way of Aldershot, and that the General in command at the camp, who had 1,371 men of all arms under him, all told, had received orders to oppose them, and this announcement seemed to restore in some measure the public confidence.

Meanwhile a quite phenomenal activity prevailed at the War Office, and the horses of the General Omnibus Company were at once requisitioned for the service of the Royal Artillery. The Duke of Cambridge, on hearing of the catastrophe, had applied to the Authorities instantly for the 11,000 men he had recently insisted on. With that force, he said, even at the eleventh hour, he would guarantee the safety of the country. Mr. Whitely forthwith undertook to furnish them within twenty-four hours. His offer was accepted with enthusiasm. It was known too that Lord Wolseley had already started with a miscellaneous force of Volunteers, Guards, and Policemen, hurriedly collected, for Sydenham, with the intention of taking up a defensive position among the antideluvian animals, and there waiting the course of events.

The Authorities were fairly on their mettle. They instantly supplied three Volunteer regiments with rifles of an obsolete and antiquated pattern. Nor was this all. They telegraphed to Woolwich to expedite the selection of a model for the new magazine rifle, and marked their communication “urgent.” Matters, meanwhile, at headquarters were not less vigorously pushed forward. Inquiries were made for Mr. Stanhope’s plan of “defending the Thames.” Every pigeon-hole was examined, but it could not be found. Still, the Department did not despair. They despatched a third-class War Office clerk to Greenwich to report on the situation and say what he thought of it.

When, however, it transpired the next morning that, spite all the efforts to stay their advance, 50,000 of the enemy had taken possession of the Bank of England, seized the Lord Mayor and Aldermen as hostages, and were prepared to treat with the Government, with a view to evacuation, on the cession of Margate, Canada, India, Gibraltar, Malta, Australia, and Madame Tussaud’s Wax-work Collection, together with a preliminary payment of fifteen milliards. Englishmen began soberly to recognise that what they had so long regarded as an impossible vision had really come about, and that the “Next Armada” was an unhappily accomplished fact.

Punch. May 19, 1888.

——:o:——

The Age of Lawn-Tennis.

(After Macaulay’s “History of England”) 1880-81.

CHAPTER LV.

“But while these stirring events were passing in the East, the mind of England was turned into a very different channel. No faithful historian could pass over this period without touching upon a pastime which was now taking a remarkable hold upon the nation, and pervading with its influence the upper and middle classes of British society.

“Rackets, and the old French game of Tennis, had long been popular with the English youth; but by those who had left the public schools and universities they were generally unattainable. It was left for Major Wingfield, the scion of a Shropshire family, to bring home, I may almost say to every door, a game which, little inferior to the classic games which I have just mentioned, was open, without the paraphernalia of a costly court, to every one at least who possessed a moderate-sized and level lawn. Lawn-Tennis was now rapidly elbowing out Archery, a thoroughly English and deep-rooted institution, and Croquet, its younger sister. Cricket was losing many of its most earnest devotees. In some parts of England there was an almost daily rendezvous at one or other of the great houses of the neighbourhood for the new and popular pastime. In country circles, tournaments were rousing the keenest excitement. Society was being differentiated into the good players and the bad. Crowds flocked annually to Wimbledon to watch the great match for the Championship of the world, to which a silver goblet had been added by The Country Gentleman’s Newspaper. Masters of hounds deferred cub-hunting that the Lawn Tennis season might be still further prolonged. A game of Lawn-Tennis was not unfrequently the innocent finish of the Ruridecanal meetings of the clergy. “Will he make a fourth?” was the first question to be asked about the new curate in many a country parish. All-popular among the public schools was Harrow-on-the-Hill, which had now furnished the Lawn-Tennis Champion for four consecutive years. Politics were laid aside in the public press while the rules of the game were discussed. On one side were ranged the net-volleyers: on the other those who thought that net-volleying spoilt all the beauty and elegance of the game. Never, by this latter party, since the time of Guy Fawkes, had man been so intensely hated as he who, standing close to the net with uplifted racket, stifled stroke after stroke as they came to meet him. We shall not enter very fully into the merits of this controversy; to do so would be dull, and possibly, to future generations, unintelligible. It is sufficient to say that while the skilled players defied “the man at the net” to do his worst, another and a larger party, looking, be it supposed, to the greatest happiness of the greatest number, was clamouring for such Lawn-Tennis legislation as would degrade the game to the capabilities of mediocrity, and drive the odious net-player from the courts. So numerous were the grades of dexterity that a leader in the Tennis world, and an author of some repute, had formulated a handicap table by which players of as many degrees as the letters of the alphabet might be brought together on even terms; while Henry Jones, the “Cavendish” of the whist-table, and other mathematicians, had worked out to several places of decimals the advantages of service. * * * * Such was the state of things which was distracting the mind of England while the fleets of Europe patrolled the Mediterranean, and peace and war were trembling in the balance.”

From Tennis Cuts and Quips. Edited by Julian Marshall. London, Field and Tuer.

There are numerous other imitations of Lord Macaulay’s prose writings. One, written by the late Dean Hook, is to be found in his “Life and Letters” by W. R. W. Stephens (vol ii., p. 476), it relates only to ecclesiastical affairs.

Another, entitled The Story of Johnnie Armstrong, the Scotch outlaw, appeared in the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle, September 22, 1888. It was a prize composition of considerable merit, written by Mr. J. T. Milne, but it is unfortunately too long to be here inserted.

237

Mrs. Brown at Cambridge.

By Arthur Sketchey.

Of all the railroads as I ever came across that Great’rn is out and out the worst, thro’ bein’ that tejus slow and the carridges a mask of dirt as you might grow cabbidges on, as the sayin’ is, and took all the freshness out of my light blue pollynaise, as I’d thought the kerrect thing at Cambridge, thro’ Mrs. Burgess a-wearin’ the same at the Boat-race, and some young Cambridge gents a-sayin’ “Mum, you’ve ’it the right colour this time and no mistake,” as pleased ’er no end, tho’ all the time larfin’ at ’er, I’ve no doubt, thro’ bein’ a orkard figger from a child and not one to look well in a Joseph’s coat of many colours, as the sayin’ is.

’Ow ever I met Mrs. Vagg on that everlastin’ endless platform I don’t know, but I says to ’er, “a pint of four ale I must ’ave,” as I saw a refreshmint bar ’andy, but of all the stuck-up trollopin’ things that barmaid was the most orful, as ’ad dressed ’er ’air within a hinch of ’er life, as the sayin’ is, in four false plaits, and three young men a-hoglin’ of ’er across the slab, as might ’ave known better, and took cheek from that gal, as I’d ’ave paid ’er back, and let ’er know ’er place.

I never wish to swaller a better cup of tea than Mrs. Vagg gave me that evenin’ thro’ ’er bein’ a Bed-maker and in course tea a perkisite, and is only fair with ’er maid-of-all-work to seven gentlemen and board and lodge ’erself, not but what ’er house wasn’t very nice, as bein’ in Regint Street with Wictor Emmanivel’s Collidge opposight, for all the world like Clerkenwell jail, with bars to the winders and all, mayhap thro’ fear of burglars a-breakin’ in, and a-carryin’ off the Uniwersity chest, as I’m told would only be poor pickins, and not worth the trouble.

Whether it was that cup of tea, or whether it was talkin’ over old times with Mrs. Vagg, as ’ad been in service with me as a gal, but nine o’clock struck and took me all of a ’eap, thro’ ’avin’ promised Brown as I’d send ’im a ’a-penny card just to say I was all right. So I says “What time do the Post go out?”

“Ten o’clock,” says she, “but you’re never goin’ out there to-night, and a Town and Gown row on too, as is what no decent woman would face.”

“Beggin’ your parding, mum,” says I, “their aint no Town nor Gown neither as shall stand in the way of my duty to my lawful ’usband.”

So seen’ I was in earnest, she ’eld ’er tongue, and ’elped me on with my shawl, and says “Turn to the left and foller your nose, and that’ll bring you straight to the Post Office.”

Well up the hairy steps I went, thro’ ’er a-occypying the ground floor, and a-lettin’ the first, and the very first thing as I sees were a roamin’ candle goin’ off on Parky Peace as they call it, tho’ a poorish Park to me as knows Grinnidge, and as for Peace, it’s a-callin’ peace where there’s no peace, thro’ bein’ a mask of folk all a-’ustling and a-jeerin’, and a-lettin’ off fireworks, as is things I don’t ’old with, thro’ John Biggen as was my first cousin on the mother’s side bein’ blinded with a rocket at Vaux ’all, as were a piece of luck for Mrs. Biggin, as no one would ’ave married with ’is eyes open thro’ ’er face bein’ a puffect cullender from the smallpox.

What the rumpus was all about I don’t know, but the streets was full of young men as would ’ave been better in their beds, some on ’em a-walkin’ two and two and a-smokin’ pipes, and some jinin’ arms, and marchin’ up the streets singin’ for all the world like as if they was tipsy, and the pavemint that narrer as I was shoved off the kerb, and into a gutter, as was a foot deep and wetted me up to my knees, and clean spilte a new petticut, as such things should’nt be allowed in the public streets,—and where’s their Board of ’Ealth?

There was two young fellers a-walkin’ be’ind me, and says one, a-larfin’, and a-pintin’, “That’s a good make up,” meanin’ me, as turned round sharp on ’im, and told ’im to mind ’is own business and not talk about makin’ up to me as were old enough to be ’is mother, let alone ’avin’ twice ’is wits, as were not much better than a fool, and looked only three days in the week, as the sayin’ is. But law bless you, my lord only larfed, and just then I saw a great rampagious mob a-tearin’ up the street as looked the scum of the earth, and gave me that turn as I thought swound away I must, and ketched ’old of ’is arm, and says, “’Elp a lady in distress, and conduc me past them willains.”

Says he, a-takin’ off ’is ’at quite perlite, “With pleasure, mum,” and off he walked with me a-’angin’ on to ’is arm, and my ’eart a-thumpin’ with pannikin’ fear as might ’ave been ’eard ’arf a mile away.

Well I was just a-slippin’ my ’a-penny card into the Post, when up comes an elderly gent a-stridin’ along and a-lookin’ very big, with a gownd a-trailin’ in the mud, and the banns of marridge round ’is neck for all the world like a parson, as no doubt was, and says to the young gent, “Which I must trouble you for six and eightpence for not a-wearin’ of your hacademic dress,” and pulls out a sort of bettin’-book for to enter ’is name and Collidge.

Says the young gent, quite cool and brazen-like, “Excuse me, sir, but I was a-escortin’ of my mother ’ome, and didn’t put on my gownd for fear of the cads.”

This put my blood up, as never could abear anything deceitful or under’and, and I lets go of ’im, and says, “You hartful young ’ypocrate, and me never ’avin’ set my eyes on you before this evenin’, as must ’ave took ’im aback like and serve ’im right, but he didn’t wait for no more, but ran off like a harrer from a bow, as the sayin’ is, and the old chap sets a long legged feller to run after ’im, as I ’ope didn’t ketch ’im, thro’ bein’ a kind-’earted young man spite of ’is owdacious fibbin’.”

By this time there was a reglar Punch and Judy crowd round us, but I grabbed tight on to my umbreller, and thinks I “’it me any of you who dare,” when the elderly gent says, “If so be as you’re a decent woman, you’ll go ’ome.”

Says I, “who says as Martha Brown aint a decent woman, you old waggerbone! I aint a goin’ to stand ’ere to be hinsulted,” and was bouncin’ off feelin’ quite ’urt like, and the crowd a cheerin’ and a sayin’, “Go it, old Fatchops,” when if that old fool didn’t take and say as it were ’is duty to see me ’ome.

Says I, “Thank you for nothin’, as would prefer you did no such thing, thro’ me not bein known ’ere and people might make remarks,” but, law bless you, words wasn’t no good with ’im, as walked along side of me all the way with the crowd a-follerin’ and a-hollerin’ and a-pokin’ their fun at ’im and me.

Right glad I was to stand on Mrs. Vagg’s door-step, and fainted clean away as soon as hever I got down to the kitchen, and you don’t ketch me a-goin’ down that street after dark again, and, tho’ boys will be boys, yet I don’t ’old with all their squibbin’ and fibbin’, nor yet with helderly gents as is paid to hinsult respectable fieldmales, as I wish my ’usband ’ad been there, as would ’ave broke hevery bone in ’is skin and serve ’im right.

From The Light Green. Cambridge, W. Metcalfe and Sons, 1873.

238

BENJAMIN DISRAELI,

Lord Beaconsfield.

It must be confessed that the burlesques of the novels of Disraeli are not, as a rule, very amusing, but there is one brilliant exception, namely, that written by Bret Harte.

It is entitled “Lothaw, or the Adventures of a Young Gentleman in Search of a Religion,” by Mr. Benjamins. This was first printed in England by the late Mr. J. C. Hotten in 1871. It consists of nine short chapters.

Lothaw.

Chapter I.

“I remember him a little boy,” said the Duchess. “His mother was a dear friend of mine: you know, she was one of my bridesmaids.”

“And you have never seen him since, mamma?” asked the oldest married daughter, who did not look a day older than her mother.

“Never; he was an orphan shortly after. I have often reproached myself, but it is so difficult to see boys.”

This simple yet first-class conversation existed in the morning-room of Plusham, where the mistress of the palatial mansion sat involved in the sacred privacy of a circle of her married daughters.

One dexterously applied golden knitting-needles to the fabrication of a purse of floss silk of the rarest texture, which none who knew the almost fabulous wealth of the Duke would believe was ever destined to hold in its silken meshes a less sum than £1,000,000 sterling; another adorned a slipper exclusively with seed pearls; a third emblazoned a page with rare pigments and the finest quality of gold-leaf.

Beautiful forms leaned over frames glowing with embroidery, and beautiful frames leaned over forms inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

Others, more remote, occasionally burst into melody as they tried the passages of a new and exclusive air given to them in MS. by some titled and devoted friend, for the private use of the aristocracy alone, and absolutely prohibited for publication.

The Duchess, herself the superlative of beauty, wealth, and position, was married to the highest noble in the Three Kingdoms.

Those who talked about such matters said that their progeny were exactly like their parents—a peculiarity of the aristocratic and wealthy.

They all looked like brothers and sisters, except their parents, who, such was their purity of blood, the perfection of their manners, and the opulence of their condition, might have been taken for their own children’s elder son and daughter.

The daughters, with one exception, were all married to the highest nobles in the land.

That exception was the Lady Coriander, who—there being no vacancy above a marquis and a rental of £1,000,000—waited.

Gathered around the refined and sacred circle of their breakfast-table, with their glittering coronets, which, in filial respect to their father’s Tory instinct and their mother’s Ritualistic tastes, they always wore on their regal brows, the effect was dazzling as it was refined.

It was this peculiarity and their strong family resemblance which led their brother-in-law, the good-humoured St. Addlegourd, to say that, “’Pon my soul, you know, the whole precious mob looked like a ghastly pack of court cards—don’t you know?”

St. Addlegourd was a radical.

Having a rent-roll of £15,000,000, and belonging to one of the oldest families in Britain, he could afford to be.

“Mamma, I’ve just dropped a pearl,” said the Lady Coriander, bending over the Persian hearth-rug.

“From your lips, sweet friend,” said Lothaw, who came of age and entered the room at the same moment.

“No, from my work. It was a very valuable pearl, mamma; papa gave Isaacs and Sons £50,000 for the two.”

“Ah, indeed,” said the Duchess, languidly rising; “let us go to luncheon.”

“But your Grace,” interposed Lothaw, who was still quite young, and had dropped on all-fours on the carpet in search of the missing gem, “consider the value——”

“Dear friend,” interposed the Duchess, with infinite tact, gently lifting him by the tails of his dress-coat, “I am waiting for your arm.”

Chapter II.

Lothaw was immensely rich.

The possessor of seventeen castles, fifteen villas, nine shooting-boxes, and seven town houses, he had other estates of which he had not even heard.

Everybody at Plusham played croquet, and none badly.

Next to their purity of blood and great wealth, the family were famous for this accomplishment.

Yet Lothaw soon tired of the game, and after seriously damaging his aristocratically large foot in an attempt to “tight croquet” the Lady Aniseed’s ball, he limped away to join the Duchess.

“I’m going to the hennery,” she said.

“Let me go with you. I dearly love fowls——

* * * * *

broiled,” he added, thoughtfully.

“The Duke gave Lady Montairy some large Cochins the other day,” continued the Duchess, changing the subject with delicate tact.

sang Lothaw gaily.

The Duchess looked shocked. After a prolonged silence, Lothaw abruptly and gravely said—

“If you please, ma’am, when I come into my property I should like to build some improved dwellings for the poor, and marry Lady Coriander.”

“You amaze me, dear friend, and yet both your aspirations are noble and eminently proper,” said the Duchess; “Coriander is but a child—and yet,” she added, looking graciously upon her companion, “for the matter of that, so are you.”

Chapter III.

Mr. Putney Padwick’s was Lothaw’s first grand dinner-party.

Yet, by carefully watching the others, he managed to acquit himself creditably, and avoided drinking out of the finger-bowl by first secretly testing its contents with a spoon.

The conversation was peculiar, and singularly interesting.

“Then you think that monogamy is simply a question of the thermometer?” said Mrs. Putney Padwick to her companion.

“I certainly think that polygamy should be limited by isothermal lines,” replied Lothaw.

239 “I should say it was a matter of latitude,” observed a loud, talkative man opposite.

He was an Oxford Professor, with a taste for satire, and had made himself very obnoxious to the company, during dinner, by speaking disparagingly of a former well-known Chancellor of the Exchequer—a great statesman, and brilliant novelist,—whom he feared and hated.

Suddenly there was a sensation in the room; among the females it absolutely amounted to a nervous thrill.

His Eminence, the Cardinal, was announced.

He entered with great suavity of manner, and after shaking hands with everybody, asking after their relatives, and chucking the more delicate females under the chin with a high-bred grace peculiar to his profession, he sat down, saying—

“And how do we all find ourselves this evening, my dears?” in several different languages, which he spoke fluently.

Lothaw’s heart was touched.

His deeply religious convictions were impressed.

He instantly went up to this gifted being, confessed, and received absolution.

“To-morrow,” he said to himself, “I will partake of the Communion, and endow the Church with my vast estates. For the present I’ll let the improved cottages go.”

* * * * *

Novels by Eminent Hands, a series of burlesques upon the works of Bulwer Lytton, Harry Lorrequer, G. P. R. James, and B. Disraeli, which first appeared in Punch were written by W. M. Thackeray. That upon Disraeli came out in 1847, it commenced thus:—

Codlingsby.

By B. De Shrewsbury.

The noise in the old town was terrific; Great Tom was booming sullenly over the uproar; the bell of Saint Mary’s was clanging with alarm; St. Giles’s tocsin chimed furiously; howls, curses, flights of brickbats, stones shivering windows, groans of wounded men, cries of frightened females, cheers of either contending party as it charged the enemy from Carfax to Trumpington Street, proclaimed that the battle was at its height.

In Berlin they would have said it was a revolution, and the cuirassiers would have been charging, sabre in hand, amidst that infuriate mob. In France they would have brought down artillery, and played on it with twenty-four-pounders. In Cambridge nobody heeded the disturbance—it was a Town and Gown row.

The row arose at a boat-race. The Town boat (manned by eight stout bargees, with the redoubted Rullock for stroke) had bumped the Brazennose light oar, usually at the head of the river. High words arose regarding the dispute. After returning from Granchester, when the boats pulled back to Christchurch meadows, the disturbance between the Townsmen and the University youths—their invariable opponents—grew louder and more violent, until it broke out in open battle. Sparring and skirmishing took place along the pleasant fields that lead from the University gate down to the broad and shining waters of the Cam, and under the walls of Baliol and Sidney Sussex. The Duke of Bellamont (then a dashing young sizar at Exeter) had a couple of rounds with Billy Butt, the bow oar of the Bargee boat. Vavasour of Brazennose was engaged with a powerful butcher, a well-known champion of the Town party, when, the great University bells ringing to dinner, truce was called between the combatants, and they retired to their several colleges for refection.