Volume 98 — TAKEN AS YOU LIKE IT.

My Dear Editor,

It was most kind of you to ask me to go to the St. James's Theatre, the other evening, to see Mrs. Langtry, after I had told you that since my recovery from the influenza, I had unfortunately lost my memory. "Don't you know anything about As You Like It?" you asked. I pondered deeply, and then replied, that I half fancied it was a German Reed's Entertainment, that would have gone better had it included a part for Mr. Corney Grain. You told me I was wrong, but intimated that my ignorance on the subject would make my notice the more impartial. So I went.

As to the play—was I pleased with As You Like It? Well, I have known worse, but I have seen better. It seemed a mixture of prose and verse, with several topical allusions that appeared, somehow or other, to have lost their point. For instance, a dull dog of a jester (played in a funereal fashion by Mr. Sugden) stopped the action of the piece, for what seemed to me (no doubt the time was actually less) some three-quarters of an hour, while he explained the difference between the "retort courteous" and "the reproof valiant." The plot was as thin as a wafer, but as it is, no doubt, generally known, I need not further refer to it. Mrs. Langtry was a most graceful and pleasing Rosalind. She acted with an earnestness worthy of a better cause, and afforded not a trace of the amateur. Of Miss Violet Armbruster as Hymen, I might say, with a friend who spent several hours in knocking off the impromptu—

TO A SEASONABLE VIOLET.

A New Piece.

Mr. Lawrence Cautley, as Orlando, had an uphill part. At times (thanks to the author) he appeared in situations that were absolutely ridiculous. For instance, he leaves an old retainer (capitally played by that soundest of sound actors, Mr. Everill) dying of starvation, and, sword in hand, appears at a pic-nic of the banished Duke, to demand refreshment. "I almost die for food, and let me have it," says Orlando, and is welcomed by the Duke to his table. And what does Orlando do? Does he seize the boar's head, or something equally attractive, and rush back to his fainting servitor with the prize? Not a bit of it! He leisurely delivers fourteen lines of blank verse about the "shade of melancholy boughs," "the creeping hours of time," and "blushing, hides his sword!" In my neighbourhood happened to be one of the greatest advocates of our generation, and I heard this legal luminary whisper, "while that fellow is talking, the old servant will die of starvation," and the legal luminary was entirely and absolutely right. Adam would have died of starvation while his garrulous master was posturing. A country wench called Audrey was admirably impersonated by Miss Marion Lea, and the remainder of the cast was, on the whole, satisfactory. Stay, it is only just that I should single out for special commendation Mr. Arthur Bourchier, who played a character, to whom reference was frequently made as "the melancholy Jaques," faultlessly. Here again the author committed an indiscretion. Jaques (by the way, why was not Mr. Sugden's rôle described as, "the more melancholy Touchstone?") is permitted to stop the action of the piece to deliver some thirty lines commencing with the trite truism, "all the world's a stage." Mr. Bourchier spoke his words with excellent discretion, but I cannot help thinking that, in the cause of Art, the speech should have been cut out, and I have no doubt, that Mr. Bourchier, as a true artist, will cordially agree with me.

And so, to quote Mrs. Langtry in the Epilogue, "farewell;" but in spite of what you have said to the contrary, I am still of opinion, my dear Editor, that As You Like It must have been originally intended for Mr. and Mrs. German Reed's Entertainment, minus Mr. Corney Grain.

Sincerely Yours,

A Correspondent Without a Memory.

Art-Auctioneer's Religion, "Christie-anity."