Punch (58.1870)

178

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[April 30, 1870.

£C WIND S "

Brown having unguardedly Confessed to eeing Musical, kis Friend "Wifflks offers to come ant bring Three other
Fellows, and Flay some beautiful Flute Quartets in his Rooms. Poor Brown says he never Sat for Hours in sucn a
thorough Draught in his Life ! "

FROU-FROU.

Air—" Du, du liebst mir in Rerzen."

Frou-frou greets me in Wych Street,
Frou-frou greets me in King's !
Frou-frou should be a rich treat,
To judge by the buzz of her butterfly wings.
Ladies like Mademoiselle Frou-frou, 1 fear,
Whether in fiction or fact they appear.
Get men who come within whiff of their skirt
Into what's best and most, briefly called " dirt! "
And leave them bedraggled, and drenched t hrough and through
To curse their own folly, that followed Frou-frou.'

Frou-frou frets a Vice-Chancellor,
For her called to quicken a dead-letter law,
In her ^authorised form prayed to cancel her,
Spite of Bar quibble, or Parliament flaw.
Asked—poor V.C.!—to distinguish ''translation,"
From what in the statute's called "fair adaptation ! "
To pronounce, to the hair's-breadth, what scruple of suum
Will sanctify swag, and make meum of tuum.
And decide by his verdict, with consequence big,
If a brave British dramatist can be a prig!

Frou-frou greets me in posters,
Hails me from off a man's back and a board :
Frou-frou, on a sheet, like a coaster's
Mainsail full spread, grins from hoard afi.er hoard.
Frou-frou in English, or French—you have either—
And eke in French-English that's both and that's neither,
From Miss Plessy JMordaunt, by no means the Plessy,
To Madkmoisellk Beatrice, doleful and dressy,
And—the true Simon /rapure, the Frou-frou pur sang,
Painted a la Franchise, in le rouge et Le Blanc.

Frou-frou, with jupons a rustling,

Authors, adapters, translators agog, '

After poor James, down to Dorking abustling,

To hang round his holidays' neck like a clog,

In the might of thy mischief, thy whirlwind of charms,

Alike courts and stages thou callest to arms :

But one good may spring from this butterfly bobbery,

If it teach our stage-prigs there's a law for their robbery ;

That the highwayman's craft's out of tune with the age,

And that rogues will be grabbed who rob e'en the French stage.

THE ROYAL ACADEMY MADE EASY.

"Myort:" (Myops?) in the Times, appeals to the Royal Academy
for the publication of a pocket-edition of their Catalogue for the accom-
modation of near-sighted persons and others who would like to visit
the Exhibition casually, but cannot lug a big catalogue about. No
doubt a small catalogue would sell without interfering much with the
sale of the large one, of which most people would prefer the print.
Neither is it likely that many catalogues the fewer would be sold if the
Academy would have the pictures lettered each with its subject and
artist's name, as in the National Gallery. Turning out the number of
picture after picture distracts the attention grievously, and in many
cases turns the head giddy. I can answer for one, and hope the Royal
Academy will consider not only " Myops's " case, but likewise that of

Vertigo.

Medical.

We are delighted to read that King's College Hospital is out of
debt, and the authorities are at once going to build another " wing."
Whether this is advisable at the moment is a matter of a-pinion.

Opportune Song tor the Jockey Club. — " Hawley's lost
now!"