CHAPTER XXXV.

They coovered poor Stephen Blackpool’s face!

The crowd from the Old Hell Shaft pressed around him. Mr. Gradgrind

ran to look at the sufferer’s face, but in doing so, he trod on a

daisy. He wept: and a hundred and sixty more of his hairs turned gray.

He would tread on no more daisies!

He was not, however, to be baulked in his humble, honest purpose of

self-reform. As he passed over the common, a donkey kicked him. It

reminded him that facts were stubborn things: and he had done with

facts and stubbornness. He wept again.

“Rachel, beloved lass, art thou by me?”

“Ay, Stephen; how dost thou feel?”

“Hoomble and happy, lass. I be grateful and thankful. I be obliged to

them as have brought charges o’ robbery agin me; an’ I hope as them as

did it will be happy an’ enjoy the fruits. I do only look on my being

pitched down that theer shaft, and having all my bones broke, as a

mercy and a providence, and God bless ev’rybody!”

“Stephen, your head be a wandering.”

“Ay, lass; awlus a muddle.”

“Will you take anything, Stephen?”

“I do hoombly thank thee for a good and trew lass thou hast awlus been

to me; and I dunnot care if I do take a little soomut warm――wi’ a

little sugar.”

The sobered man had still credit at the neighbouring tavern. In two

seconds he appeared with a steaming glass of rum-and-water, scarcely

stopping to sip it by the way.

“Can thou drink rum, Stephen?” asked Rachel, taking the tumbler from

the hands of the sobered man for fear of accidents.

“I do hoombly and kindly thank thee, lass,” said poor Stephen; “I can

drink anything.”

Rachel placed the goblet to his parched and quivering lips.

There was a moment of breathless silence. Mr. Bounderby rattled

three-and-sixpence in his breeches pocket, and finding that his

ostentation was unnoticed, kicked a little boy down the Old Hell

Shaft. Mr. Gradgrind purchased a pennyworth of violets from a

blue-eyed flower-girl, and true to his new and trusting creed,

accepted two counterfeit farthings as change for a sovereign without

looking at them. The Whelp glared fiercely at the rum-and-water, and

barked.

Stephen drank it, every drop. Finished. Down to the dregs. No

heel-taps.

“I do hoombly thank thee, Rachel, good and trew lass as thou hast been

to me; but I do feel much better.”

“Oh, here!” Mr. Bounderby blustered forward: “I’m not going to stand

this. If a man suspected of robbing Josiah Bounderby, of Coketown’s

Bank, is to feel ‘much better,’ I should like to know what’s the use

of Old Hell Shafts. There’s a touch of the gold-spoon game in that;

and I’m up to the gold-spoon game――rather! And it wont go down with

Josiah Bounderby. Of Coketown. Not exactly. Here! Where’s a

constable?”

There was none. Of course not. There never is, when wanted.

Mrs. Sparsit and Bitzer pressed officiously forward, and volunteered

to take Stephen into custody.

“Shame!” cried the populace.

“Oh, I daresay,” said Mr. Bounderby; “I’m a self-made man, and, having

made myself, am not likely to be ashamed of anything. There, take him

along.”

There was a movement, as if for a rescue. The sobered man had been

sober quite long enough without a fight, and tucked up his sleeves.

Stephen prevented this explosion.

“Noa, lads,” he said, in his meek broken voice; “dunnot try to resky

me. I be fond o’ constables. I like going to prison. As for hard

labour, I ha’ been used to that long enough. Wi’ regard to law――it’s

awlus a muddle.”

“Off with him!” said Mr. Bounderby. “When I used to commit robberies,

I never had any rum-and-water given to me. No, nor didn’t talk about

muddles. And I’m worth sixty thousand pounds, and have got ladies of

family――ladies of family;”――he raised his voice to call attention to

Mrs. Sparsit, who was ambling gently along with the submissive Stephen

on her august shoulders――“acting as beasts of burden for me. Come up,

madam!” and he gave Mrs. Sparsit a gentle touch of his whip, causing

that high-nosed lady to prance a little.

They moved on, towards Coketown. The lights were beginning to blink

through the fog. Like winking. The seven o’clock bells were ringing.

Like one o’clock. Suddenly the tramp of horses and the fierce barking

of a dog were heard.

With a wild cry, Sissy recognised Sleary’s company galloping towards

them――all mounted; Mr. Sleary himself, grown much stouter, on his

wonderful trained Arab steed, Bolivar; J. W. B. Childers, who had

apparently not had time to change his dress, as the Indian warrior on

the celebrated spotted Pegasus of the Caucasus; Kidderminster

following, on the comic performing donkey, Jerusalem.

A dog, far in advance of the horse-riders, dashed amongst the

astonished crowd, and singling out Mr. Bounderby, seized him by the

scruff of the neck.

“Thath wight, Mewwylegth,” cried Mr. S., coming up panting (in

addition to his former lisp, advancing age had afflicted him with a

difficulty in pronouncing his _r’s_). “Thath the vewy identical cove:

pin him! Good dog!”

“Help! murder!” cried the bully of humility, struggling with the

animal. “Will you see a man worth sixty thousand pounds devoured by a

dog?”

The prospect seemed to afford the bystanders considerable

satisfaction.

“Ith no uthe, Thquire,” said Sleary, calmly; “the dog wont let go hith

hold of you;” and he added, in a hissing voice, “_ith Jupeth dog_!”

“It’s a lie,” Bounderby faltered; “I didn’t murder him――he did it

himself. I never saw the man. He hit me first. I never spoke to a

clown in my life. Tear this hound off.”

“Quite enough, Thquire,” said Sleary. “I call on everybody in the

Queenth name to athitht me in arethting thith man, Jothiah Bounderby,

for the murder of my clown, Jupe, thickthteen yearth ago.”

Sissy fainted into the Whelp’s arms. From that moment the latter

quadruped resolved to lead a virtuous life.

Mrs. Sparsit and Bitzer, with the alacrity of timeservers, released

Stephen, and seized on their former patron. Stephen slipped quietly

away in the confusion of the moment, remarking, with a wink of

satisfaction to Rachel, “Awlus a muddle!”

Merrylegs retained his hold on his victim’s throat. Like a vice.

“Murder!” cried Bounderby! “release me from this dog, or demon, and I

will confess all.”

“Mewwylegth, come here, thir!”

Merrylegs released his victim.

“Well, then,” said the detected miscreant, desperately――“sixteen years

ago I murdered the man, Jupe, to obtain possession of eighteen-pence,

with which I entered Coketown, and set up in business. And now, do

your worst.”

The crowd recoiled in horror. The sobered man picked up Mr.

Bounderby’s hat, that had dropped off in the scuffle, and immediately

pawned it.

“Off with him!” cried Sleary, in a tone of theatrical authority,――“to

jail!”

To jail! to jail! to jail!

* * * * *

――――:o:――――

THE POLITICAL “MRS. GUMMIDGE.”

_A “Dickens” of a Situation._

Mrs. Gummidge-Gladstone had been in a low state for some time, and had

almost burst into tears when a chill gust from the North, coming

suddenly, and――to her――unexpectedly down the chimney, had blown the

lid off the bubbling saucepan, and the soot into the stew therein.

“I am a much-crossed cretur’,” were Mrs. Gummidge’s words, when that

unpleasant occurrence took place, “and everythink goes contrairy with

me.”

“Oh, it’ll soon leave off,” said Mr. Peggotty-Bull――meaning the North

wind,――“and besides, you know, it’s not more disagreeable to you than

it is to us.”

“I feel it more,” said Mrs. Gummidge-Gladstone.

It was indeed a very cold, cheerless day, with cutting blasts of wind,

which seemed to blow from every quarter at once, but from the North

and East for choice, Mrs. Gummidge’s peculiar corner of the fireside

seemed――to her at least――to be the chilliest and most uncomfortable,

as her seat was certainly the hardest. She complained of the

North-Easter, and of its visitation just at this time and _at her

back_, which she said gave her the “creeps.”

“It is certainly very uncomfortable,” said Mr. Peggotty-Bull.

“Everybody must feel it so.”

“I feel it more than other people,” said Mrs. Gummidge.

So at dinner. The fish――from which she had expected great things――were

small and bony, and the stew was smoky and burnt. All acknowledged

that they felt this something of a disappointment, but Mrs. Gummidge

said she felt it more than they did, and again made that former

declaration with great bitterness――“I’m a much-crossed cretur’, and

every think goes contrairy with me.”

Later, when Mr. Peggotty-Bull came home to tea, this unfortunate Mrs.

Gummidge-Gladstone was knitting in her corner, in a very wretched and

miserable condition. Her knitting――a nondescript piece of work――seemed

to be a regular Egyptian labyrinth for complicated tangle, and a very

Penelope’s web for inconclusiveness and power of alternate weaving and

unweaving. “Cheer up, Grand Mawther!” cried Mr. Peggotty-Bull. (Mr.

Peggotty meant Grand Old Girl.)

Mrs. Gummidge did not appear to be able to cheer up. She dropped her

knitting with a gesture of despair.

“What’s amiss, Dame?” said Mr. Peggotty-Bull.

“Everythink!” returned Mrs. Gummidge. “Including _you_,” she

continued, dolefully. “You’ve a willing mind to face the troubles

before you, but you ain’t ready. I’m sorry it should be along o’ me

that you’re so unready.”

“Along o’ you? It ain’t along o’ you!” said Mr. Peggotty, good

naturedly, and perhaps without _quite_ meaning it. “Don’t ye believe a

bit on it,”

“Yes, yes, it is!” cried Mrs. Gummidge-Gladstone. “I know what I am. I

know that I am a much-crossed cretur’, and not only that everythink

goes contrairy with me, but that I go contrairy with everybody. Yes,

yes. I feel more than other people do, and I show it more. It’s my

misfortun.”

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

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.

_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 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.)

_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.

――――

SAM WELLER’S ADVENTURES.

_A Song of the Pickwickians._

Who caused the smiles of rich and poor?

Who made a hit so slow, but sure?

And rose the worth of literature?

_Sam Weller._

I’m pretty well known about town,

For to gain a repute is my pride,

Though no vun can doubt my renown,

I’m a _covey of polish_ beside!

I renovates _cases_ for feet,

Whether high-lows or tops is the same,

I turns ’em off hand werry neat,

And Samivel Veller’s my name!

In the Borough my trade I dragged on,

Vith no vun to envy my sphere;

I polish’d the _soles_ of each don,

From the cadger bang up to the peer.

Their _understandings_ I greatly improved,

Vot happen’d to fall in the vay;

And many a gen’leman mov’d

To me in the course of the day.

Vun gen’leman――Pickwick, Esquire,

The head of the noted P. C.

Vun day tumbled in to enquire,

If I’d had the _fortin_ to see

A cove vearing Vellington _kicks_,

And a Miss Rachel Vardle beside,

Vot the gent had lugged off by the _nicks_,

And promis’d to make her his bride.

I knowed by the cut of his boot,

As the cove had put up at our inn,

So Pickwick, without a dispute,

Comes tumbling down with the _tin_!

And me arter that he engages,

To follow him in his career――

Good _togs_ and twelve _shiners_ for vages,

Paid every _annual_ year.

Some coves when they rises you know,

They stick to vulgarity will;

But that vos my notice below,

’Cos as how I’m a gen’leman still,

“For riches is nothing to me,

If ever them I vos among――”

As the gen’leman said, d’ye see,

At the time he vos goin’ to be hung!

(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.”)

[Illustration]

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:

‘While thus I grieved and kissed her glove,

My man brought in her note to say

Papa had bid her send his love,

And hoped I dine with them next day;

They had learned and practised Purcell’s glee,

To sing it by to-morrow night:

The postscript was――her sisters and she

Inclosed some violets blue and white.

* * * * *

‘Restless and sick of long exile,

From those sweet friends I rode, to see

The church repairs, and after a while

Waylaying the Dean, was asked to tea.

They introduced the Cousin Fred

I’d heard of, Honor’s favourite; grave,

Dark, handsome, bluff, but gently bred,

And with an air of the salt wave.’

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 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 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.

[Illustration]

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._)

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 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 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._)

[Illustration]

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:――――

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.

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.