Punch (77.1879)

December 6, 1879.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

257

rules of self-measurement have been carefully observed. Altogether,
including the illustrated advertisements (see the portrait of "The
Blood Purifier" and others—real gems!), the Stage Door is a first-
rate Shilling's-worth.

In Little Wideawake, from the same publishers, Mr. Ernst Griset
is at his best in his Illustrations to " The';Black Rolf of Bookstone,"
and Miss Greenaway's "Miss Patty" is a charming frontispiece.
Mrs. Sale Barker's stories are excellent for young folks; and if
the latter are pleased with their Mrs. Barker, the publishers ought
to be delighted with their " Sale."

Mr. Caldecott's Babes in the Wood is almost perfect from cover
to cover, including the wrapper, or, one might say, considering the
subject, perfect from covert to covert, including the wooc?-engravings.
The _ picture of the wicked Uncle making much of the children, of
his interview with the villains, and of tbe finish of the fight, are
deliciously humorous, while the wandering of the babes is touching.

The same artist has also illustrated Goldsmith's poem of " The
Mad Dog," in which, for the comfort of all burlesque rhymesters,
the poet has made "foes" rhyme with "clothes." The picture
representing tbe dog's jealousy of the cat as the foundation of the
idea that

" The dog, to gain some private ends,
"Went mad and bit the man,"

is intensely funny, and old and young will heartily welcome this
new contribution to Father Christmas' s library.

From the lugubrious locality of St. Paul's Churchyard, those old
juvenile entertainers, Griffith and Farran, successors to New-
berry and Harris, time out of mind the children's book-makers,
pour on us a shower of boys' and girls' books, about all sorts of sport
and earnest, from all quarters of the globe and all races, Kaffir and
Bed-Indian included, among which the young folks who can't find
favourites, must be hard to please indeed. Of Christmas Cards,
what is to be said ? Ask Messrs. De La Rue and Marcus "Ward,
those veterans of the game, and those who have "followed suit"—
Hildesheimer, and Rothe, |and Btjtler, and who knows how
many besides?—whose "packs" now fill the stationers' windows.
If they find that Lejeu vaut la chandelle—that they are winners by
their Christmas Card playing—so be it. Punch hopes they may.

A fortnight ago I paid a visit to Alma Mater, and witnessed a
very good performance of The Game of Speculation and The First
Night by the A. D. C. of Cambridge. The house was crammed every
night. One matinee was given for the benefit of the funds of the
Adenbrook Hospital, when, as the prices were doubled, a consider-
able sum must have been realised.

Why does that absurd theatrical stucco-Shakspeare play, The
Hunchback, keep the Stage so pertinaciously ? I believe that most
people think it is by some " old dramatist," with whose name they
ought to be familiar, but aren't. They are not absolutely certain
it isn't one of Shakspeare's, or, at least, written by a cousin of
Shakspeare's ; and I have actually heard it ascribed to Sheridan
—without the Knowles. The true answer probably is, that, despite
its tawdriness and its tinsel, and its absurd Elizabethan affecta-
tions, there are in it some touches of nature, which are genuine
inspirations. _ These—and only these—prevent this silly, uninterest-
ing and wearisome Five-Act Play from sinking into oblivion. When
it was revived at the Adelphi, with Mr. Henry Neville, Mr. Her-
mann Vezin, and Miss Neilson, it was a big success, and drew
crowded houses for a long time.

At Sadler's Wells it has been reproduced for the sake of Miss
Isabel Bateman's Julia, a performance of considerable merit.
Mr. Kelly's Master Walter is disappointing. Mr. Walter
Bentley was better as Rob Roy than as Sir Thomas Clifford—
it is puzzling to have Mister Walter and Master Walter in the
same piece, and both disguised as somebody else—while Mr. F. W.
Wyndham is quiet in Modus, which is a fault on the right side.
Leah is already underlined for reproduction, with Mrs. Crowe in
her original part. So that when Miss Isabel has finished playing
her Julia, her elder sister will come out in her Jew Leah.

Mr. Wilson Barrett has got a good crew together to man his
Court Ship. _ Mr. Byron's Comedy crackles with witty things,
which go off like Prince Rupert's drops, but Mr. Anson makes his
part, which is a sort of first cousin to Perkyn Middlewick, rather
too burlesque. The Story seems to come to a natural finish at the
end of the Second Act, and there is a mysterious Uncle played by
Mr. Price,—disguised apparently as Sir George Bowyer, M.P.,—
who has evidently founded himself on a mixture of Sir Oliver in
the School for Scandal, and Burchell in the Vicar of Wakefield. A
good Paper might be written on stage Uncles,—and, by the way, on
stage relations generally, a subject I will reserve, in petto, for a
future treatise from the pen of yotjr Representative.

P.S.—Ours has been revived at the Prince of Wales's, but I have
not yet seen it. I cannot add Ours to my present minutes.—Y. R.

Gladstone's Gifts {Te and Fro).—Dresses and Addresses.

HIGH POWERS IN CONJUNCTION-(OR
COLLISION)."

"Professor Elinkerfus, of Gottingen, ridicules the notion, to which he
assigns an English origin, of the danger to the Earth of the present position
of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune."—Times Foreign Correspondence.

ut what says
Prof. Klin-

kerfus to

the Pall Mall's
daily apprhen-
sions of the danger
to the Earth from
the present posi-
tion, not of the four remotest planets, but of the four nearest
potentates ?

If we have nothing to fear from conjunction or collision of
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, dare we feel as safe d propos
of their earthly parallels ? These, we should say, are—for Jupiter,
Germany, with Bismarck, forger and flasher of bolts, most danger-
ous when out of clearest sky; for Saturn, Russia, devourer of her
own children in Nihilist executions, and Turkish and Central-Asian
slaughters; for Uranus (Greek, for "Heaven"), Austria, on the
principle of association by contraries; and for the Sea-God Nep-
tunus, Britannia of course, with Lord Beaconsfield ready and
willing to sweep anybody into nothingness with his " Quos ego ! "

En attendant—till better advised—if Professor Klinkerfus says
" Pooh! " to the planets, Mr. Punch, no doubt like the idiot and
buffoon, the irreverent ribald and ruffianly street-rough he is, is just
as ready as Mr. Gladstone to say " Pooh ! " to the Pall Mall!

A Double Canvass.

" Mr. Millais' admirable portrait of Mr. Gladstone is now on view in
Princes Street, Edinburgh."—Scotsman.

If Gladstone's canvass prove as good

As Millais' canvass of the man,
Mid-Lothian stands not where she stood—

The pocket-borough of a Clan :
And, faggots of the bold Buccleuch,
The world has seen the last of you !

not the right man in the right place.

It is announced in the Irish papers that a Mr. Bolster is to be the
new Member for Limerick. Surely Home-Ride wants Pillars to prop
it more than Pillows to go to sleep on!

who would have thought it ?

The latest bulletins of Bismarck's health describe him as "suffer-
ing from fatty degeneration of the heart." Strange that the man of
blood and iron should turn out soft-hearted, after all.

Imitation Mosaics.—Disraeli's designs v. Chatham's.