Punch (98.1890)

March 8, 1890.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

113

Business done.—Lots. Ministers bring in Bills by the half-dozen.
Friday.—Such alouettes! Sage of Queen Anne's Gate, -who
,- " can't abear scandals,

^jJjaJl/^hUyy^—brought on alleged ini-
quity of Government in
connection with Cleve-
land Street affair. Got
off his speech; Attorney-
General replied ; then
Sage proposed to offer few
supplementary remarks.
In course of these ap-
peared frank declaration
of his private opinion that
everything the Markiss
says must be taken cum
grano Salis-umY ; only
the way he put it was
much worse than that.
Courtney asked him to
withdraw. "Shan't!"
said the Sage. Then
Courtney named him
(calling him, by the way,
"Mr. Henry Labou-
chere.") Old Morality,
rising to height of duty
and occasion, moved that
Sage be suspended.

" Oh, hang it! " cried
, _. , . '''"'I, Opposition—" can't agree
brand Histori cal Picture. Mr. Labouchere £0 £hat "

struggling with his Conscience. Divided on proposal;

beaten, and Sage hung up for a week. " He'll be pretty well dried
by that time," grimly muttered the Attorney-General, whom the
Sage had stroked the wrong way.
Business done.—Vote on Account agreed to.

"A DOSE OF ' GREGORY.' "

It is some time since I have tasted a dramatic mixture so much to
my liking as Mr. Grundy's Gregory's Mixture, known to the public,
and likely to be highly popular with the public too, as A Pair of

Spectacles. Art more
refined than Mr.
Hare's, as Benjamin
Goldfinch in this
piece, has not been
seen on the stage for
many a long day;
nor, except in A
Quiet Rubber, do I
remember Mr. Hare
having had anything
like this particular
chance of displaying
his rare skill _ as a
genuine comedian of
the very first rank.

Everyone remem-
bers, or ought to
remember, Dickens's
" Brothers Cheery-
5Ze." "Well, Benjamin
Goldfinch has all the
1 'lyr milk of human kind-
d ta i tt um.. . ness which charac-

Ihe Ruffled Hare. This is your umbrella ! » terised these philan-

moral characteristics, he is these two single gentlemen roiled into
one, while physically, his exterior rather oonjures up the picture of
rttZ i ^W^-v^ough his eyes beam with the youthful im-
tfttvu,,4 May%? Chwzt\ewJt when he caned Pecksniff. To
this delightfully guileless good Samaritan, the rough, nay brutal,
Uncle Gregory from Sheffield, with a heart apparently as hard as
nl.T™ ^,are' 13 a eratrastmost gkilfull brought out by Mr.
Charles Grove. Though the part of Uncle Gregory does not

I

its success

tation of the effects of too much lunch on Uncle Gregory is masterly.
So realistic, in the best sense of the word, is the impersonation of these
two characters, that one is inclined to resent the brutality of Uncle
Gregory, when one sees the
change suddenly effected in the
sweet and sympathetic nature of
Benjamin Goldfinch, and when
we see him suspicious of every-
body, and even of his young
wife, whom he loves so dearly,
we murmur, " Oh, what a noble
mind is here o'erthrown ! " And,
indeed, but that it is impossible
to help laughing from first to
last, the final scenes of this
charming piece, replete with
touches of real human nature,
would send an audience away
crying with joy, to think of the
possible goodness existent in the
world, of whioh one occasionally
hears, but so seldom sees, except
on the stage. %

inSff^tly '^lt%& Xo m- g™ - **t the grate-
young men, Mr. Budge Harding, and Mr. Sydney Bbough, both
very good, the latter having better dramatic opportunities, and making
the most of them. Mr. Dodsworth just the very man for Friend
Lorimer; Mr. Cathcabt is Joyce, the Butlerand of the two
Shoemakers, respectively played by Mr. Knight and Mr. Byron,
I can only say, " I know those shoemakers."

As for the Ladies, Miss Kate Eobke looks very pretty, and aots
charmingly as young Mrs. Goldfinch ; Miss Horlock is very nice
as Lucy Lorimer, delivering herself of a little bit of picturesque
sentiment about feeding the birds [Les Petits Oiseaux is the title of
the old French piece, if I remember rightly) in a rather too foroedly
ingenuous manner, but behaving most naturally in the interrupted
courtship scene, and being generally very sympathetic. I mustn't
omit Miss Hunteb, pink of parlour-maids, not the conventional
flirty soubrette nor the low-comedy waiting-woman, but a self-
respecting, responsible young person, conscious of her own and her
young man's moral rectitude, and satisfied with quarter-day and the
Post-Office Savings Bank.

Only one single fault have I to find with the piece, and as it
cannot be entirely remedied, though it might be modified, I will
mention it. The title is a mistake; that can't be altered now: but
the attempt at illustrating the double-meaning conveyed in the title
by the practical "business" of changing the material glasses and
thus hampering the actor by the necessity of altering his expression
and his manner in accordance with his deposition or his resump-
tion of these spectacles, seems to me to be childish to a degree,
and tends towards turning this simple tale into a kind of fairy story,
in which the spectacles play the part of a magic potion or charm,
such as Mr. W. S. Gilbert would use in his Creatures of Impulse,
his Fogarly's Fairy, and his Sorcerer, whenever he wishes to bring
about a sudden and otherwise inexplicable transition from one
mental attitude to another, and entirely opposite. But for the
earnestness of the actors, this reductio ad Fairydum would have
imparted an air of unreality to the characters and incidents which
does not belong to them. The plot is a model of neat construction;
and. to everyone at all in doubt as to where to pass an agreeable
evening, I say, " Go to the Garrick Theatre." By the way, a Corre-
spondent suggests that A Pair of Spectacles is an illustration of
"The Hares Preservation Bill," Jack in a Box.

require the delicate treatment demanded tTf/T ,

it might verv easilv be nverdnnn. w d by that of Goldfinch, yet

^r^^^^^&x?nce Gbove

by too foequent repetition of ^SV™?"
.'I know that father," "I know that fS'" I "vS,

A Disclaimer. —The Right Hon. Mr. Henby Chaplin, M.P.,
Anti-muzzle-man and Minister of Agriculture, wishes to deny
explicitly that, when, by a lapsus calami, he was made to describe
Mr. Tay Pay O'Connor as " peeping from behind the Speaker's
chair," he ever intended to fix upon that honourable gentleman the
sobriquet of " Peeping Tom " ; nor had he any idea of sending him to

Coventry. "What he did say was--but it doesn't much matter what

" he did say," what he didn't say is so much more to the point.

The Stanley and Aeeican Exhibition.—One of the largest
contributors will be Mr. Bonny. This sounds well; at all events,
it's Bonny. The French, who are now welcoming their own private
African hero, le Capitaine Tbtviee, back to his native land, may be
induced to place their trophies under Mr. Bonny's care, as, if Impe-
rialists, they can then say they have a BoNNY-part in this Exhibition.

Feom an Indignant Correspondent.—" Sir,—I sent you a joke
three months ago, which you have not used. Sinoe then I have
• • i i —* wzll u. UAweii ui meat: made arrangements for the joke to appear elsewhere.' LWnat a

riginal phrase. His short but sufficient represen- | chance we have lost!—Ed.]