Punch (31.1856)

October 25, 1856.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 169

I " Ds. Vbeon was saying he had heard in Bohemia, ' a singing horse—a magnificent
HQpt c FOR THE DRAMA Baritone.' 'Nonsense! a wheelbarrow-tone, you mean, Doctor! I suppose VflRON

- ' J r:— t:',i"J"'-rtJ ! (good-naturedly continued our humourist), your musical horse had been taught to sing

by swallowing an oat that was musical ?' It was the subject of general congratulation
that the mighty giant of the Constitutionnel had been put down for the first time in his
life!"

HE Critic of a daily paper gives
great hopes to the British
dramatist; hopes, enshrined
in such eloquence, that we
must borrow the treasure.
Reverent reader, listen :—

" Novelty is, after all, the true
secret of public attraction. An
author may bestow months and years
of labour in writing a high-class
drama, which he hope" may live ;
and a theatrical manager may ex-
pend hundreds of pounds in placing
it upon the stage, but the chances are
that however meritorious and costly
their exertions, and however much
they may be seconded by the actors,
empty fame, at the utmost, will be
the reward of the one, and after the
□rst night or two, empty benches
and a deficient treasury the recom-
pense of the other.''

The calamities supposed
by our daily critic happily
Lever occur. A dramatic
author may, or rather might,
bestow months and years on
first-rate work, but we know
of no such existing fool; the
booby, like the dodo, is ex-
tinct. Again, where is the
idiotic manager who expends hundreds oa what is never written?
Surely, our tender contemporary wastes a deal of sympathy tor distress
in nubibus. But there is a manager "altogether tree from poetic idea--
or poetic pretensions," and he, says our flattering contempo ary,
flourishes in Drury Lane !

" Scarcely a week passes but he produces something new; now a play, then a spec-
tacle, next a burlesque, again a melodrama; and anon we have opera-none of them
aspiring to the very highest rank, but all of them sufficiently good to satisfy until the
popular appetite calls for a new dish, and not too expensive to render the withdrawal,
after a run of a week or two, incompatible with profit to the exchequer."

Thus, the secret of dramatic success is to aspiie to nothing of the
highest rank; is to eschew "poetic ideas and poetic pretensions : " in
fact, to creep and not to fly. And if the " popular appetite " be satis-
fled, what does it matter; whether fed upon French eg&3, musty or
otherwise, or the milk and honey-dew of Parnassus ? We have thought
this criticism worthy of attention, it is so sustaining, so elevating.
Who can wonder that we have such marvellously successful novelties,
when we have such ingenuous pens to anatomise and eulogise them r
And "novelty,is, after all, trie true secret of public attraction," as the
guinea-pig at the Zoological Gardens with a new farrow every moon,
squeaks contemptuously of the lioness with a single cub in "months
and years."

TOUJOURS KOSSINI.

The Continental Musical Journals ate teeming again with the ban-
mots of Rossini. Many of our own Journals have tecome touched with
the same malady. If Rossini only delivers one-half of the clever and
stupid things attributed to him, he can have very little >ime left for eat-
ing, drinking, drt ssing, undressing, sleeping, or anything else. His whole
life must be pas: ed in cracking jokes. However, we must take the liberty
of doubting the paternity of several of these jokes. For instai ce, we
cannot believe that a foreigner ever delivered himself of the following
absurdities, which are but a small sample, selected at random, out of
the multitude that are daily fathered upon the poor Maestro:—

" They were talking in the foyer of the Grand Opera one evening, about Lavater,
when Rossini said ' There are two features in men I never could countenance, and it
would be difficult to say which of the two to the moral physiognomist is the most
unsightly!—the one being as vulgarly prominent as the other is offensively flat!'
Being questioned as to what they were, he answered, in a tone of excusaole triumph,
' The I's of the vain man, and the Noes of the selfish man !' "

" At a dinner at Greenwich, the conversation ran upon the London Mayoralty, and
some one said, that it was an institution exceedingly short-lived, when the Swan of
Pesd.ro exclaimed, with his usual readiness, ' Then I suppose the last of the Lord
Mayors will be Fin(n)is? ' "

" He related that he had dined once in the Desert off an ostrich's egg, which was so
large and bo bad that he could safely agree with the old proverb, that ' Ce qui est un ceuf
pour un, was decidedly enough for two.' "

"Upon some one telling him that Ella was getting up a Musical Union, at which
music of all different degrees of goodness and badness was to be played, he exclaimed,
' Ha 1 ha! I see—a kind of musical Ella Podrida i and he laughed for more than a
quarter of an hour."

" Talking about Prefaces, he said,' A preface should be, as it were, the printed overture
to the book—but an overture in music is listened to, a preface in print almost never.
The generality of persons skip a preface. It is the flight of wooden steps, which we
run up as quickly as possible before getting into the real booth of the fair.' Everyone
applauded."

" One night at the Acadeuiie, some venturous spirit cried out ' Bis ' to the very first
bar of the prima donna. 'Bravo!' exclaimed our incorrigible joker. ' Bis dat qui citd
dat.' The joke ran like wildfire through all the corridors, and determined the success
of the Optra."

It will easily be believed, from lhe above brilliant specimens, tDat
Rossini is a perfect Joe Miller in e'ght or ten latguages. He has been
known to beat Saphir in German, Vivikr in French, Gavazzi in
Italian, and Colonei Phipps in Eoglhh. We ae told, also, thar he
makes a very tolerable joke in Sanscrit. We would offer the grand
Mattre de calembourgs an engHgement on Punch, only we are afraid that
we should soon be eclipsed by such a monster jocular plane'. In ih*j.
meantime it would be a great benefit to poor Rossini, if the French
and German papers wrmld only for a short time leave him alone. The
one facetious tune of Toujours Rossini has become a little tiresome.

TRUTH FOR STORIED WINDOWS.

According to The Builder, it is proposed to fill the clerestory
windows of Westminster Abbry with stained glass in the shape of
certain figures, amongst which are to be illustrations of " All Angels,"
and "Che<ubim and Seraphim"—alluded to in the " Te Demi." If
this intention is carried out, we do hope that the artists employed will
exercise some little discretion in depicting those celestial beings. It is
impossible to procure a photograph of the spirits inhabiting the realms
of lighr, but an enlightentd imagination may at least prevent them
from being delineated as inconsistent monstrosities. It is earnestly to
be desired that the windows of Westminster Abbey may not be ren-
dered ridiculous by being filled with representations of winged ladies,
and winged heads of infants apparently distended by water on the brain.
Such are the conventional Angels; such the regulation Cherubim and
Seraphim. Such chimeras as these are sufficiently disgusting even iu
the print-shop windows, which are everywhere filled, at present, with
female figures, poised, or dancing in the atmosphere, over graves and
fuck-beds whereby women and children are crying; the aerial damsels
having attached to their shoulders great wings resembling those of
geese. As if a spiritual being could want material wings for the pur-
pose of locomotion, and as if a material being in the human form could
have four upper extremities—wings and arms as well! Along with the
portraits of popular preachers and popular pianists, such fiddle-faddle
conceptions may, however, seem in place; but let them be kept out of
the pictorial fellowship of apostles, company of prophets, and army pf
martyrs.

If fudge and fallacy are displayed in the windows of print-shops, let
noo the windows of churches be stained with mendacities and delusions.
The primary function of a church-window is to admit the Light;
symbol of Truth. That light ought not to be coloured with the absurd
and the false. Otherwise " storied windows " will cast a "dim" but
not exactly a religious light—they will simply tell stories.

WANTED, A BANNER AND A CRY.

" An army," writes the Herald, "cant.ot march, or rally, and con-
tend without a banner." That is a fact, coming upon a man like a tile
from a house-ioof: a fact so weighty and so cleaving, a man must have
the hardest of heads if he be not, at the saine time, convinced and
crushed by it.

" The people are not changed." No! In 1835 and 1836, the people
did their dur.j. But what remains for them now ? " The dilapidation,
the cruuibling away of the Conservative party has been the work of the
Conservative leaders, and of them alone." This is so dreadful that,
unassisted, we could uever have imagined it. Dilapidated! Crumbled !
Only think of the flinty Lord Derby dilapidating himself ! Imagine
the Marquis oe Granby, like a Bath brick upon a knife-board,
crumbling away!

Nevertheless, " the people have not changed!" Hurrah! All that
is wanted is a banner and a cry! Well, Mr. Punch comes to ';he
rescue; and promptly and, as he thinks, seasonably, suggests both,
Here they are :

Banner—Mrs. Gamp's Umbrella !
Cry—•'-« Muffins ! "

Well-Yes.

For the Cesarewitch, the other day, ahorse of the late Mr. Palmer's
ran first, and a horse of the late Mr. Cook's second. Surely the
" Cup" they went for must have been that patronised by the late
Mr. nilikim.

Vol. 31.