Punch at Lunch. ND now, Tobias, my dog, let us converse de omnibus rebus, et quibusdam aliis. The gushing shall be mine, yours the cynicism. You know that the word is derived from a certain Greek one. Not that you are a "surly dog." Answer me not but with your tail, Toby, to adapt the phrase of Morose in the Silent Woman. You know no silent women, Toby? The ancient gibe is unworthy of you, even though you are a beast. Have you been descending to the company of gents, or wags, or the Stock Exchange? Be a scholar and a gentleman, like SIR WALTER SCOTT's Maida. On whose tomb that true gentleman, the Master, wrote a false Latin quantity, and then behaved in the right chivalrous way, avowing his blunder, and refusing the escape that was gallantly offered him by LOCKHART. LADY BECHER, sometime MIss O'NEILL, is gone. Elderly gentlemen say that there was never such a Juliet, but elderly gentlemen have kindly memories for the things of their youth. She played the Grecian Daughter, for the first time, on Saturday, the 29th April, 1815. I have seen the playbill. DEBRETT says she married in 1819. Argal, an elderly gentleman of now, must have been very young-scarcely a critic-when ELIZA O'NEILL retired. Still, as BYRON, who understood acting, refused to see her lest he should disturb or divide his recollections of MRS. SIDDONS, I believe in MISS O'NEILL. I know not whether W. M. T. thought of aught he had heard about her when he described the Fotheringay. LORD PENZANCE retires. He ought to make me compensation. For his going off destroys, for the future, one of my good things. Hearing speech (which I regretted to hear) of a lady who was infatuated about somebody, not her Lord, and who had declared that she would go to the World's End for him, I, your Lord, said "She means the Land's End, taking Penzance en route." But let it pass. That's nothing to what I could say if I liked, as the Duchess of Wonderland remarked to Alice. You've done enough with those bones, Toby. I fear that you are, as Mrss GRACE GREENWOOD reports another American lady to have said of a certain hotel-keeper, "not high-toned on grub." of the Willy. The work is called Seven Common Faults and I doubt not that it is very improving. His list is grumbling, temper, thoughtlessness, selfishness, over anxiety, indolence, and self-will. I trust and believ that I have them all. I am going to hurt your feelings, Toby, but neve mind. I don't hold with Darwinism. We are not related to the animals. See here. Among birds the hen is always the dowdy, quietly feathered, humble looking creature, while the cock (peacock and pheasant, for instance) blazes out in splendour. While among ourselves-but you perceive the argument. Here is a story about a remarkable Lunch. The Tzeremisch Tartars have no particular religion, and have an odd way of excusing this. They say that they one had a religious book, for their guidance, but one day cow came and eat it. Here is a card which has been sent me from Colorado which is in the United States, Toby. 'Tis the adver tisement of a restaurant. And JOSEPH wept aloud and said unto his brethren: I am JOSEPH, doth my father yet live? And his brethren answered him, saying, You bet! the old man is doing bully! he eats at the Co mopolitan, 48, Blake Street, Denver, Col." Doing bully may require explanation-it means flourishing mightily But this, addressed to descendants of the Pilgri Fathers! His Holiness has made four new Saints. I am sure that the honour was merited, though I never heard of any of the gentlemen. But how does S. S. manage to give them Days? The calendar must be more than full I would respectfully suggest the elimination of four others, to whom the monk clamoured, in the risk Shepherd's wonderful imitation of Scott:"And loudly invoked, as he clasped the rood, Saint Withold, Saint Waldave, Saint Clare, and Saint Jada, He dreaded the devil (to give him his due) But held him as nothing to Wat o' the Cleuch." For the four whom he invoked did not mind their business, and Wat came raging into the Abbey, and t up everything. If he got his head well punched was by no saintly hand. The Scots do not make half enough of JAMES HOGG, by the way. Talking of Scots (and I beg they note the delicate st tention of my pronunciation-I don't say Seoteh us erect a Wallace Monument of our own. Let it set up in Manchester Square, opposite the house of the gentleman who exhibits at Bethnal Green that glori collection of pictures which he who does not see wilfully Blind Beggar. The Crystal Palace has never been so well kept as und the sway of my friend MR. GEORGE GROVE. Nemar pulcherrimus ordo-Grove's rule is most admirable. Yet I wish success to the Alexandra Palace, and am sure that my excellent new Sovereign, S WATERLOW, will work to that end. Let his Lords give what personal superintendence he can to the w It will be invaluable, and I desire to see "Sydney the scaffold," because he never loses his head. Height of philanthropy, Toby? Giving a garette What do you think of this motto for a Mammon-worshipper? "Take the ticket for the Cat Show. Eh, you dog? All Mohammedans leave their shoes at the door of their place of worship, and some Ritualists their understandings. I see a memorial is to be raised in Exeter Cathedral the famous DR. PHILLPOTTS, Bishop. Can there le more typical one than that which has been there some centuries, the wonderful clock which shows the Do you know that the Morning Post attained the age of one hundred going round the earth? years on Saturday last, November the second ? is consolation for everything. If MR. GLADSTONE were here (and I wish he Have you a grief, Toby, that you go on devouring? Eat, then. For eating were), he would remind you that Achilles comforts the bereaved and afflicted Priam by asking him to supper, which, says the Grecian Peelides, Niobe herself did not forget, though a dozen of her children had been shot. At Harrogate, the other day, I picked up a book by an excellent Clergyman, the Vicar of Warminster, which I take to be a place in Wiltshire, at the source An epidemic is raging, I am sorry to read, a to the horses in America. But it is not wonderful have been laughing too much over Geneva and Berli pooh!--to excite cachinnation in one of the equ the Presidential election to the care of the asses. Vi However, they have recovered sufficiently not to lear ULYSSES, Rex! Toby, my hookah !-and then hook it. OUR REPRESENTATIVE MAN. (After visiting the Opéra Comique, the Strand, and the Queen's, he Petit Faust, &c., are merely burlesques in three acts, with original addresses the Editor as usual.) T the Opéra Comique, the find an Englishman who shall be at once a good Low Comedian and a good Tenor? Such Opéras Bouffes as L' Eil Crêvé, Chilpéric, music. They require burlesque acting and burlesque singing; but the singing must be good, and the singers musicians. No, somehow this is our sticking point. Wanted, a Company of English Vocalists, who are all Low Comedians, and then wanted an English Composer for this particular class of entertainment. Given the first, and we shouldn't have much difficulty in finding the last, as there are so very few of them. But they won't condescend to become Offenbachs; that is, they won't stoop for popularity. Quite right too, perhaps; but in the meantime is there to be any really English Opéra Bouffe or not? I represented You, Sir, in a warm discussion on this very subject after the theatre; but at one minute after twelve the argument became a trifle dry. Then, Sir, as the last shutters of this inexorable proprietor went up, we bade farewell to the oysters sleeping in their shells, and picked our way out of Maiden Lane. learnt here. To accom- At the Queen's.-Your Representative was delighted with the modate late diners like entire performance of Amos Clarke at the Queen's Theatre. On the yourself, Sir, and, there- whole, a better piece has not been seen for some considerable time. fore, like Your Representa- But,-there always is a "but," and here it is at once,-the comic tive, the time here fixed characters, which the author has evidently intended to form a for the commencement of relief to his otherwise sombre picture, are, without exception, dull this Opéra Bouffe is nine in the extreme. It is merely a scale of dulness from the unfortuo'clock. From seven to nate hedge-priest down to the young gentleman who, on any occaeight-thirty have sion when there is really nothing for anybody to do or say, protests LOADED plenty of time for enjoy- that he is in various degrees depressed, or about to be depressed, by ing those luxuries which the vapours. This latter unhappy person, and a young acquaintance are the reward of a well- of his (a sort of CHARLES his friend, only quite a CHARLES minimus), spent day. And after the are ready to go into convulsions of laughter at any of the commonlittle cup of coffee, and places uttered by the expectant Clavering relatives represented by the mild Havannah, you MR. VOLLAIRE and others. you may safely trust yourself. Having said this, I have (for You, Sir, and myself, too) nothing to the influences of the Opéra Bouffe, which will tickle your ear but praise to bestow upon both piece and actors. Every scene with many pleasant melodies, and will not make any demand upon which MR. RYDER, as the old Clavering, a sort of Sir Giles Overyour overtaxed brain, and, up to a certain point, will sufficiently reach, has, either with Mabel Vaughan or with Amos Clarke, was a please you without disturbing your placid equilibrium by any work of art, most carefully studied, and most effectively rendered. incitement to strong emotional display. Nor can less be said either of MR. G. RIGNOLD, as Amos Clarke, seYour Representative made the acquaintance of this nonsensical cretary to Sir Robert Clavering, and the hero of the piece (a secreOpéra Bouffe some years ago in Paris, where it was a great success, tary and a Clarke too), or of MISS WALLIS, the heroine. Of both, and Your Representative, not on your account, Sir, but his own, throughout, the acting was excellent. It struck Your Representative saw the piece three times. MILHER, who played the Gendarme, that, could MR. RIGNOLD have had Oliver Cromwell given to him in was immensely funny in it (you ought to have seen him at the the play at the Lyceum, and could the character have been powerGlobe last summer, when French bouffes were played there), and so fully written in by MR. WATTS PHILLIPS (he allowing himself "a was the comic tenor, whose name has escaped my memory. At the competent time," as the Scotch Judge said) CHARLES THE FIRST Would end of the Second Act what extravagant fun (in Paris) was that have had to do all he knew to prevent the spread of so strong a Can-can! I admit that it depended upon the fact of having a real feeling of republicanism among the audience as might have sent genuine low comedian with a tenor voice for the tenor's part, him to the block before his time. Anyone wishing to see a really Alexandrivore, which is here intrusted to MLLE. CLARY, who is good piece (with the one fault above named) and admirable acting charming, pretty, everything that's nice, but not funny. all round, cannot do better than as did Your Representative the other evening, visit the Queen's Theatre to see Amos Clarke. do; MISS HARRIET COVENEY made the part of the Marquise, the thing of the piece; and, as she has scarcely anything to do, or say, after Act One, this solitary bit of humour is confined to the First Act. MISS JULIA MATHEWS, who can play bouffe parts, has simply nothing to and as to the other young ladies in the piece, they were so numerous that it was with the greatest difficulty I could discover who was who. I was neither wiser nor happier after carefully studying the bill, and I am still bothered as to the identity of Eclosine, Mariette, Mimi, Françoise, Bouton de Rose, Patte de Velours, Dindonette, &c., with MLLES. BLANCHE DE LANDRE, LIZZIE RUSSELL, G. CORINNE, and some sixteen other pretty proper names; the "pretty" not qualifying the "proper," but to be taken separately. No one struck me as so remarkably brilliant that I was absolutely wretched until I had been informed who she was; but, at the same time, they were all on a lively level, which amused without wearying. In the libretto little is said, and of it the less said the better. One of its greatest witticisms was, I found, an allusion to the Licensing Act, which began to pall upon one, just a trifle, after the sixth repetition. I have already mentioned the Strand, but I must not conclude my report without one word about MR. BYRON as Fitz Altamount, the blighted Tragedian. I have only time and space for one word, which, not to keep you in suspense, is-capital. Adoo! ART FOR CRIMINALS. THE principal journals read by the cultivated classes are sometimes rather hard upon some of our sensational contemporaries for the minutely realistic details of a flogging, and the behaviour of the floggee under punishment, which they usually report. Especially do the organs of select circulation object to the word-painting wherein the reporters are wont to describe the marks imprinted by the Cat. We fail to see the justice or expediency of such censures. Our only objection to such revelations we state later. As regards the Art in question it is a kind of word-painting which may be said to be very Dutch indeed in outline, and whereof the colours, liberally laid on, are chiefly dark neutral-tint indigo, and carmine, with perhaps a dash of gamboge. This is drawing it too close, and laying it on too thick, for any critic moderately impatient of condescensions to coarse and brutal and stupid minds, obtuse to the grotesque. But on such minds, among the dangerous classes, and not the merely gross and ignoble vulgar, the delineations and daubing which disgust human beings, distinctively human, are calculated to produce a good effect, if any; namely that of striking terror. Perhaps, after the School Board shall have been some little time in operation, papers of a moral, or at Your Representative is indeed most anxious to see the Opéra least anti-criminal stamp, will be started for circulation among the Bouffe properly done in this country, and welcomes MR. HINGSTON'S ruffianry, and, in them, graphic and gushing descriptions of a scourgendeavours in that line. But when is it to be done thoroughly? ing, may prove extremely beneficial. In the meantime, nothing of Why is it that we have no tenors with a sense of humour? Must the kind would be likely to have much effect on our existing savages, they all be SIMS REEVES'S? Must they all be singing sentimentally, unless accompanied by photographs of life-size, coloured as highly "I love her So!""For thee I die!" or Thy Angel Form!". as possible. There is one thing very needful which would even then the latter generally pronounced "Farm"? Is it simply impossible to be wanting. Photographs do not howl. Another first-rate jest was the mention of titles well known by this time in advertisements. Robur, the Tea Spirit, elicited a shout of delight, while some other names equally familiar called forth such applause as the most pointed epigram would not have obtained. These, I admit, are strong points in comic dialogue; and Your Representative regrets that there should be the same fault (only in a less degree) in the new Strand burlesque of The Lady of the Lane, which, in most other respects, is a good bit of fun. 66 I AM still the same JOHN BULL, who of glory once supped full, If my prestige cost me millions, those millions' worth was mine: And the end is peace and plenty-that is, of HUMBLE PIE! TOAST AND BUTTER. Ar a meeting one day last week of the Manchester Town Connel the MAYOR OF MANCHESTER was taken to task for having been sent at the Roman Catholic Bishops' Consecration Dinner in Salford when the health of the POPE was drunk before that of the QUERY In the course of the conversation which ensued, the Town Clerk: defending his Worship, intimated that he had himself gone to the dinner on principle, to show respect to the (titular) BISHOP OF SALFORD; and mentioned that, on that festive occasion: the health of THE POPE' was put before that of 'THE QUEEN, and "One of the Bishops said to him, in a jocular manner, as explaining rently to allay the loyal feeling which he might have, that they had adopt the old habit-Church and State."" The Church, Catholic or Protestant, used to be an abstraction, a when personified, was commonly denoted by the personal pronou Protestant Church that is still the rule: the Church of England third person, singular number, feminine gender. As regards the wont to be spoken of by her sons and daughters as a mother, and by the above episcopal showing, the Catholic Church is the Por never identified with the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. But was, until two years ago, merely Popish; now it has resolved it into Pope altogether. It is no longer an abstract entity, but a crete individual, to wit, His Holiness. An emblematic artist migh symbolise it as a cherub, all head and no body, but for the co deration that the POPE has a trunk, and is able to sit down; so papal decrees ex cathedra are at least possible. But Church and State in the abstract, and a concrete POPE QUEEN, are not correlative. HER MAJESTY is the Defender of a Fait which His Holiness calls heresy. The POPE is, indeed, a Churd himself; has been ever since he was voted infallible: but cannot be unless the repeal of the Royal Succession Act, after Irish demagog The smaller JOHN BULL sings, 'tis clear, the warmer he lines his nest. have won Home Rule, shall have been conceded, in the expectati inflexibly determined on maintaining the British Constitution that our present Rulers. 'HUMBLE PIE," MR. BULL."HUMBLE PIE AGAIN, WILLIAM!-YOU GAVE ME THAT YESTERDAY ?” YES, SIR-NO, SIR-THAT WERE GENEVA HUMBLE PIE, SIR. THIS IS BERLIN HUMBLE |