DOI Heft:
November 2, 1861
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16868#0187
November 2, 1861.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
A SWEET THING IN BONNETS.
he new fashion-
able spoon-shape
of bonnets leaves
a considerable
space between
the tip of the
spoon and the
organ of bene-
volence. This is
at present filled
by a dahlia, or
some other or-
nament, which,
at a little dis-
tance, looks like
a soldier’s pom-
pon in the wrong
place. The last
new bonnet, like
all other beauti-
ful inventions of
the kind, comes,
THERE ARE SOME PEOPLE WHO WOULD THINK THIS MODE OF of C0UTS6 frOIIL
WEARING THE HAIR RATHER TOUSLED AND INTOXICATED, "France Would
BUT IT IS REALLY FRENCHY AND COQUETTISH. .
it not be advis-
able to fill the roqm which it leaves for decoration with the Imperial
Eagle, unless patriotic loyalty should prefer the Royal Arms, elegantly
emblazoned. Dahlias, to be sure, are seasonable just now; but if
this present fashion of bonnets should last till next spring, the vacancy
now filled by the dahlia might be occupied by a bird’s nest, with eggs
in it, open to the spectator, which would attract great admiration.
OUR DRAMATIC CORRESPONDENT,
j “ Dear Punch,
“ I Believe there are existing a clairvoyant class of critics
who can describe a performance without having attended it. Were I
gifted with this faculty I should fill my present letter with an account
of Mr. Eechter’s acting as Othello, detailing most minutely the chief
points in his conception, and carefully narrating bow he worked it out.
But as I have not yet seen him in the part, and have not the gift of
critical clairvoyance, I must postpone for the present an account of his
performance, and content myself with thinking that, from all that I can
hear, there is very little need of my hurrying to witness it. Whether
it will have as long a run as Hamlet, while the public are so fickle, it is
not easy to predict ; but so great was Mr. Eechter’s success m his
first effort, tha,t curiosity alone will cram the theatre till Christmas, and
doubtless admiration will long after fill the house.
“ Eolks who say the taste for Shakspeare has died out have abun-
dant proof just now of the truth of that assertion. Before these words
are public tour theatres in town will be devoted to his works. Mr. G.
V. Brooke has journeyed all the way from the Antipodes expressly to
| play Shaksreare for a while at Drury Lane; Mr. Booth is acting
ShylocJc and King Richard at the Haymarket; Mr. Fechter with
Othello is cramming the Princess’s; and last, and not the least in my
poor estimation, Mr. Phelps at Sadler’s Wells has appeared again as
j Bottom, and they who have not seen him are advised hereby to go. On
the whole I like it best of his Shakspearian conceptions, and rank it far
above all other actings of the character that I have ever seen. The
mingled ’cuteness and obtuseness of this very prince of clowns, his dense
dull-brained stupidity and important self-conceit, are admirably shown
by Mr. Phelps’s rendering: while the languor that pervades him in
[ his love-scenes with Titania fitly carry out the notion of his being in a
dream. I think his exit on awaking, when his ass’s head has been
removed, is one of the best bits of comic by-play ever acted. He goes
j °ff thoughtfully and slowly, feeling in the air for his long ears and nose,
which he cannot comprehend quite how he can have lost. With his
dull dazed sense of something unusual having happened, he needs some
| evidence to help him to reflect upon the matter,.; and having in his
memory a dim glimmer of the past, he is puzzled that no tangible
remains of it are left to him.
"I looked in at the Princess’s a night or two, and found a fullish
j audience enjoying the new comedy, and laughing in a way that must
j have satisfied the author, whose innocent pursuit of flirting under dif-
j Acuities was the chief cause of the merriment which I was forced to
share. Laughing is infectious, as everybody knows; and one can’t sit
grnn and gloomy in critical solemnity when every face about one is
grinning like a gargoyle. Playing with Fire is full of obvious absurdi-
ties, and a good deal of the fun in it is overdone and forced; and
growlers might object that five-act farces are not comedies, although it
seems the fashion now to give them that fine name. But critics may
175
be lenient when an audience is pleased, provided always that no coarse-
ness is used to win a laugh, and of this at the Princess’s there is not
the slightest trace. Of the acting Mr. Brougham has by far the
greatest share; the other parts are fairly filled and demand no special
comment, except that Mr. Jordan (from the New York Stage) is too
ponderous and tragic, to my thinking, for the piece. One don’t care to
hear in comedy a man’s voice in his boots; and they who undertake
what’s called the ‘heavy business’ should keep then- ponderosity from
being a dead weight.
“ Since I last wrote, Mr. Wigan has reopened the St. James’s, and
with his wife is nightly pleasing people in the Scrap of Paper. How
skilfully a French dramatist can make much of a little, and how care-
fully and neatly he will work up a slight story, and supply a fitting
sequence of natural events,. /As Pattes de Mouche—here, Scrap of Paper
—gives abundant proof. Flimsy as they are, such pieces need good
acting; which is relished the more highly as one sees by what sEght
incidents the interest is sustained, and what care is therefore needful
to bring out every point. No one on our stage is so well skilled as
Mr. Wigan in the smooth and poEshed style such plays as. these
require; and Londoners who can’t spare time to run over to Paris, and
couldn’t comprehend the French plays if they did, may see at the St.
James’s somewhat of their beauties, and somewhat of the French care
to the details of the scene.
“ I was glad to find Frank Matthews and his wife before these
footEghts; but I was sorry that so small a scope was given for their
acting as that trashiest of farces (to my thinking) Bone on Both Sides.
I don’t ask for probability, so long as there be fun; but in this piece, as
1 fancy, there is neither one nor other, and it surprises me how people
are persuaded into laughing at it, seeing that they mostly have some
brains in their heads.
“ One Who Pays.”
PLAYING AT CARDS.
We are told by Le Sport, which is a kind of French Bell’s Life,
minus, of course, the prize-fights, that a new sort of visiting-card has
just been introduced by a sporting celebrity. Its distinguishing
feature is the total absence of name and address—such information
being considered vulgar, or out of place, on a visiting-card. However,
these unnecessary details are replaced by a photograph of the owner’s
rural residence. Thus, a gentleman in France is known not by his
standing in society, but by the seat he possesses in the country. This
affectation may be very convenient for gentlemen who possess country
seats, but we know several poor French noblemen, who are compelled
by tneir impoverished incomes to Eve au troisieme, and even au
quatrieme. What plan are these lofty Elustrations of la haute noblesse
to adopt ? Are they to give a photograph of the storey of the house in
which they lodge ? Or would a portrait of some ancestral old arm-
chair, in which the nobleman’s father and forefathers sat, be accepted
as a competent substitute for a seat P It is difficult to say what in
these cases—card-cases—would be looked upon as “ the correct card.”
Moreover, we strongly question the good taste of this new form ol
pasteboard politeness. We must say we should not care much about
being upon visiting terms with a nobleman, who, . at every visit,
studiously made it a point of showing us the outside of his door.
Then again, the fashion is not so very new; for we have known
sporting celebrities in this country even, who have found it extremely
convenient at times to conceal both their name and address. In such
instances, however, the view of the rural abode has generaUy been
withheld from prudence, or, it may be, an excusable pride,—otherwise
it might not improbably have revealed a striking resemblance to a large
establishment known on the other side of the water as the Queen’s
Bench, the hospitality of which is such that visitors, who. have gone
there merely for a visit of a few days, have often been found, even
against their own will, to stop much longer than ever they intended.
THE REVERSE OF RIGHT.
At the Royal Banquet given by the King and Queen oe Prussia
on the strength of their coronation, certain pages bedizened with scarlet
and silver, waited behind the chans of the principal guests handing
them the dishes ; and, towards the close of the entertainment, we are
further informed:—
“ They also placed on their hats, and handed over to those on whom they were in
attendance gold medals of the most exquisite workmanship, having on the one side
the heads of the King and Queen, and on the reverse the royal arms of Prussia, with
the motto Suurn Cuique. ”
The reverse of these medals was just the fit place for a maxim of
which the principle, whereon the kingdom of Prussia has been consti-
tuted, is quite the contrary. Alienum Cuique, Hohenzollern under-
stood, is the Prussian legend rightly construed. That is what Suurn
Cuique means in a general sense, with particular reference to the
annexation of Schleswig and Holstein.
A SWEET THING IN BONNETS.
he new fashion-
able spoon-shape
of bonnets leaves
a considerable
space between
the tip of the
spoon and the
organ of bene-
volence. This is
at present filled
by a dahlia, or
some other or-
nament, which,
at a little dis-
tance, looks like
a soldier’s pom-
pon in the wrong
place. The last
new bonnet, like
all other beauti-
ful inventions of
the kind, comes,
THERE ARE SOME PEOPLE WHO WOULD THINK THIS MODE OF of C0UTS6 frOIIL
WEARING THE HAIR RATHER TOUSLED AND INTOXICATED, "France Would
BUT IT IS REALLY FRENCHY AND COQUETTISH. .
it not be advis-
able to fill the roqm which it leaves for decoration with the Imperial
Eagle, unless patriotic loyalty should prefer the Royal Arms, elegantly
emblazoned. Dahlias, to be sure, are seasonable just now; but if
this present fashion of bonnets should last till next spring, the vacancy
now filled by the dahlia might be occupied by a bird’s nest, with eggs
in it, open to the spectator, which would attract great admiration.
OUR DRAMATIC CORRESPONDENT,
j “ Dear Punch,
“ I Believe there are existing a clairvoyant class of critics
who can describe a performance without having attended it. Were I
gifted with this faculty I should fill my present letter with an account
of Mr. Eechter’s acting as Othello, detailing most minutely the chief
points in his conception, and carefully narrating bow he worked it out.
But as I have not yet seen him in the part, and have not the gift of
critical clairvoyance, I must postpone for the present an account of his
performance, and content myself with thinking that, from all that I can
hear, there is very little need of my hurrying to witness it. Whether
it will have as long a run as Hamlet, while the public are so fickle, it is
not easy to predict ; but so great was Mr. Eechter’s success m his
first effort, tha,t curiosity alone will cram the theatre till Christmas, and
doubtless admiration will long after fill the house.
“ Eolks who say the taste for Shakspeare has died out have abun-
dant proof just now of the truth of that assertion. Before these words
are public tour theatres in town will be devoted to his works. Mr. G.
V. Brooke has journeyed all the way from the Antipodes expressly to
| play Shaksreare for a while at Drury Lane; Mr. Booth is acting
ShylocJc and King Richard at the Haymarket; Mr. Fechter with
Othello is cramming the Princess’s; and last, and not the least in my
poor estimation, Mr. Phelps at Sadler’s Wells has appeared again as
j Bottom, and they who have not seen him are advised hereby to go. On
the whole I like it best of his Shakspearian conceptions, and rank it far
above all other actings of the character that I have ever seen. The
mingled ’cuteness and obtuseness of this very prince of clowns, his dense
dull-brained stupidity and important self-conceit, are admirably shown
by Mr. Phelps’s rendering: while the languor that pervades him in
[ his love-scenes with Titania fitly carry out the notion of his being in a
dream. I think his exit on awaking, when his ass’s head has been
removed, is one of the best bits of comic by-play ever acted. He goes
j °ff thoughtfully and slowly, feeling in the air for his long ears and nose,
which he cannot comprehend quite how he can have lost. With his
dull dazed sense of something unusual having happened, he needs some
| evidence to help him to reflect upon the matter,.; and having in his
memory a dim glimmer of the past, he is puzzled that no tangible
remains of it are left to him.
"I looked in at the Princess’s a night or two, and found a fullish
j audience enjoying the new comedy, and laughing in a way that must
j have satisfied the author, whose innocent pursuit of flirting under dif-
j Acuities was the chief cause of the merriment which I was forced to
share. Laughing is infectious, as everybody knows; and one can’t sit
grnn and gloomy in critical solemnity when every face about one is
grinning like a gargoyle. Playing with Fire is full of obvious absurdi-
ties, and a good deal of the fun in it is overdone and forced; and
growlers might object that five-act farces are not comedies, although it
seems the fashion now to give them that fine name. But critics may
175
be lenient when an audience is pleased, provided always that no coarse-
ness is used to win a laugh, and of this at the Princess’s there is not
the slightest trace. Of the acting Mr. Brougham has by far the
greatest share; the other parts are fairly filled and demand no special
comment, except that Mr. Jordan (from the New York Stage) is too
ponderous and tragic, to my thinking, for the piece. One don’t care to
hear in comedy a man’s voice in his boots; and they who undertake
what’s called the ‘heavy business’ should keep then- ponderosity from
being a dead weight.
“ Since I last wrote, Mr. Wigan has reopened the St. James’s, and
with his wife is nightly pleasing people in the Scrap of Paper. How
skilfully a French dramatist can make much of a little, and how care-
fully and neatly he will work up a slight story, and supply a fitting
sequence of natural events,. /As Pattes de Mouche—here, Scrap of Paper
—gives abundant proof. Flimsy as they are, such pieces need good
acting; which is relished the more highly as one sees by what sEght
incidents the interest is sustained, and what care is therefore needful
to bring out every point. No one on our stage is so well skilled as
Mr. Wigan in the smooth and poEshed style such plays as. these
require; and Londoners who can’t spare time to run over to Paris, and
couldn’t comprehend the French plays if they did, may see at the St.
James’s somewhat of their beauties, and somewhat of the French care
to the details of the scene.
“ I was glad to find Frank Matthews and his wife before these
footEghts; but I was sorry that so small a scope was given for their
acting as that trashiest of farces (to my thinking) Bone on Both Sides.
I don’t ask for probability, so long as there be fun; but in this piece, as
1 fancy, there is neither one nor other, and it surprises me how people
are persuaded into laughing at it, seeing that they mostly have some
brains in their heads.
“ One Who Pays.”
PLAYING AT CARDS.
We are told by Le Sport, which is a kind of French Bell’s Life,
minus, of course, the prize-fights, that a new sort of visiting-card has
just been introduced by a sporting celebrity. Its distinguishing
feature is the total absence of name and address—such information
being considered vulgar, or out of place, on a visiting-card. However,
these unnecessary details are replaced by a photograph of the owner’s
rural residence. Thus, a gentleman in France is known not by his
standing in society, but by the seat he possesses in the country. This
affectation may be very convenient for gentlemen who possess country
seats, but we know several poor French noblemen, who are compelled
by tneir impoverished incomes to Eve au troisieme, and even au
quatrieme. What plan are these lofty Elustrations of la haute noblesse
to adopt ? Are they to give a photograph of the storey of the house in
which they lodge ? Or would a portrait of some ancestral old arm-
chair, in which the nobleman’s father and forefathers sat, be accepted
as a competent substitute for a seat P It is difficult to say what in
these cases—card-cases—would be looked upon as “ the correct card.”
Moreover, we strongly question the good taste of this new form ol
pasteboard politeness. We must say we should not care much about
being upon visiting terms with a nobleman, who, . at every visit,
studiously made it a point of showing us the outside of his door.
Then again, the fashion is not so very new; for we have known
sporting celebrities in this country even, who have found it extremely
convenient at times to conceal both their name and address. In such
instances, however, the view of the rural abode has generaUy been
withheld from prudence, or, it may be, an excusable pride,—otherwise
it might not improbably have revealed a striking resemblance to a large
establishment known on the other side of the water as the Queen’s
Bench, the hospitality of which is such that visitors, who. have gone
there merely for a visit of a few days, have often been found, even
against their own will, to stop much longer than ever they intended.
THE REVERSE OF RIGHT.
At the Royal Banquet given by the King and Queen oe Prussia
on the strength of their coronation, certain pages bedizened with scarlet
and silver, waited behind the chans of the principal guests handing
them the dishes ; and, towards the close of the entertainment, we are
further informed:—
“ They also placed on their hats, and handed over to those on whom they were in
attendance gold medals of the most exquisite workmanship, having on the one side
the heads of the King and Queen, and on the reverse the royal arms of Prussia, with
the motto Suurn Cuique. ”
The reverse of these medals was just the fit place for a maxim of
which the principle, whereon the kingdom of Prussia has been consti-
tuted, is quite the contrary. Alienum Cuique, Hohenzollern under-
stood, is the Prussian legend rightly construed. That is what Suurn
Cuique means in a general sense, with particular reference to the
annexation of Schleswig and Holstein.