DOI issue:
March 1, 1862
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16869#0095
March 1. 1862.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
87
I know not yet when or how they ’ll bring
Their “odium causidicum’s ” vitriol sting,
From their vials of wrath on your wig to fling—
But I know that the vials are there !
In my mind’s eye prophetic I see a sight,
That doth more my soul appal
That e’en Bishop Hatto’s terrible plight,
When the rats assailed him from left and from right,
By tens, scores, hundreds and thousands—till flight
Was out of the question, they plugged him so tight,
And eat him, robes, mitre and all!
To the woolsack I see my Lord Westbury stuck,
Like a drowning man clasped to a board,
Vain all Ms attempts to dodge or to duck
From the Legal Rats that leap round, in a ruck,
At his robes and the body beneath them to pluck,
Till they ’ye served him exactly as schoolboys serve “ tuck,:
And no vestige is left of my Lord !
OUR DRAMATIC CORRESPONDENT.
idromeda, my dear Punch,
as every schoolboy knows.
Ins in that well-thumbed
little volume, the Gradus
ad Parnassum, the epithets
applied to her of ‘ pulchra ’
and ‘ formosa ; ’ and I think
these adjectives may fit-
tingly be given to the
Andromeda now acting at
the St. James’s theatre.
Besides her personal attrac-
tions, Miss Herbert has,
moreover, the somewhat
rarer gift of knowing how
to walk and talk somewhat
like a lady, even when
assuming a part in a bur-
lesque • and does not think
it needful to lay aside all
grace, in order to bring out
the humour of her part.
Whether her example be
infectious, I know not; but
it is certain that the piece
in which she is now acting
is played without a trace of
coarseness or vulgarity, and
freedom from these blots is
not so common as it should
be in the acting of bur-
lesques. Ears and eyes
the most fastidious and
delicately sensitive may find
an hour or so’s amusemeut in Perseus and Andromeda without the
slightest risk of their annoyance by the faintest shadow of offence.
“ For this commendable result not the actors merely, but the author
must be thanked; and I here record my gratitude to Mr. William
Brough for the neat and pretty piece his fancy has suggested, and the
tasteful way in which'he has worked his subject out. Steering clear of
stale and stupid nigger songs, which surely have by tMs time been
parodied to death, he has introduced some pleasant operatic music;
and though somewhat more prolific in puns than I could wish, he has
not sacrificed, as some do, the clearness of his story by too exclusive
care to the smartness of his small talk. Then, again, great pains have
been given by the management to getting up the piece; ana although
no puffs are published in the playbill as to who devised the dresses,
what great genius made the properties, and who fitted up the gas, the
mounting is throughout both pretty and appropriate, and nothing is
left wanting to win deserved success. Though not, perhaps, so striking
as the last scene in Bndymion, the final group is very charmingly
arranged; while, for suddenness of change and picturesqueness of
effect, the petrifaction of Greek soldiers by the showing of Medusa’s
head, has rarely in my memory been equalled in burlesque.
“ King Frank Matthews Polydectes is a most amusing monarch,
and the solemnity wdth which he sings his ‘ Great Sensation ’ bass to
Mr. Charles Phineus’s ‘ I’d Choose to be a Daisy’ tenor, is a thing
to make one split. Scarce less entertaining is his tender and then
terrible demeanour to poor Danae, whose sharp words Mrs. Matthews
delivers with great point. Somehow these old stagers make a joke go
farther than most young ones now know how to do. And somehow,
some old farces are more sure to make one laugh than in general the
new ones are. I saw that capital one, the Boarding School, a few days
before Christmas, and again the other night, and I was as much
amused the last time as I was the first. Trashy as in some respects
assuredly it is, it always seems to me a piece that actors must enjoy
and act with real relish, because they feel assured it will be relished by
the house. What goes on at a girl’s school any man must like to
know; and to see a lot of school-girls at their lessons or their romps
must surely be amusing to eyes of either sex. And when Mrs. Frank
Matthews assumes the post of teacher, and has such pretty pupils
as Miss Herbert and Kate Terry, a peep into her school-room is
surely worth one’s while.
“ The new drama here, Self-Made, I have not yet found time to see.
That at the Princess’s is also ‘ taken from the French,’ and it were no
great loss to us if they had kept it to themselves. To personify the
Angel of Death upon the stage may be pleasing to a French taste, but
is revolting to an English one; and a play where this is done, no
matter how well mounted, I hope will never become popular upon our
purer stage. I am not thin-skinned, and not affected easily by seeing
sudden deaths in melodrame, or gruesome ghastly ghosts. But to
personate an angel is to my mind most objectionable, and becomes
almost profamty when the object is to serve a low dramatic purpose,
and excite a grim sensation by some highly spiced effects. There are
angels in a play by Shakspeare, it is true; but they are presented
merely in a vision, and are not brought forward to chatter and make
jokes. Death is a tMng too sacred to be dealt with on the stage in
gross material shape. It outrages the hobest feelings in our nature to
see such subjects coarsely handled, and merely introduced to give a
spurious effect. Such things are not fit to be presented coram populo,
even though it may be done with the profoundest reverence, and not,
as in this French play in a manner low and coarse. To see the
Destroying Angel decked in protean disguises: coming on in one scene
as a pertisn lawyer’s-clerk, and in the next as a smart quick-tongued
beauty in a ball-room, anon dressed in squalid rags as au old hag in a
duel-scene, and next assuming wedding raiment and a bridesmaid’s
wreath; to witness this excites no reverence, and savours of profanity,
and can but tend to make people disgusted with the stage.
_ “ The management of the Princess’s is in general so careful in selec-
tion of its pieces, and so sedulously anxious to avoid giving offence,
that I cannot but regard the production of this French play as au
accidental slip. For the credit of the theatre, I most sincerely hope to
see no more such accidents; while for the credit of the audience I trust
that the applause which I heard the other evening may be accorded
simply to the really good up-getting, and not to the bad piece. It is a
pity, to my thinking, to see so much good scenery wasted on a drama
of such extreme bad taste; and it is only kindness to speak harshly of
such errors as the Angel of Midnight, so as, if it may be, to prevent
the repetition of what must serve to bring discredit on a theatre, and
lower the high standing of the English stage.
“ One who Pays.”
HOAX ON THE SERIOUS PAPERS.
The Bishop op Exeter has not hitherto been very popular in the
Hall wMch is synonymous with Ms diocese, but if a newspaper para-
graph may be trusted, the name of Henry Philpotts will be received
there at some of the approaching May meetings with immense applause.
For the Reverend Julian Young, of Torquay, a short time srnce, got
^15 155. for the Torbay Infirmary, by reading at the request of the
Managers of that Charity, the play of Hamlet at the Mechanics’
Institute. It is stated that the Bishop of Exeter has therefore pro-
hibited Mr. Young from preaching in his diocese. This is too good news
for Mawworm, Stiggins, Chadband and Co., to be true. The
Bishop op Exeter has himself read. Hamlet, so as to know hi what
respect it differs from Tom and Jerry, and is aware that Shakspeare
was a respectable writer. The truth is probably just the reverse of
what is stated. The Bishop, most likely, went to hear Mr. Young
read Shakspeare, and was so pleased with his delivery of the text that
he has preferred him to a good living, so as to enable him to exemplify
Hamlet's advice on the subject of elocution in the pulpit.
Good at Fielding—and at Hitting.
In the immortal conversation, in Joseph Andrews, between Parson
Adams and the grumbling and vengeful Peter Pounce, everybody must
remember this bit
“ You will pardon me, Sir," returned the Parson, “ I have read of the Gymno-
sophists."
“ A plague of your Jehosaphats,” cried Peter. “ The greatest fault in our Con-
stitution is the provision made for the poor—except that made for some others.
Sir, I have not an estate,” &c.
The Bishop op Salisbury is a well-read man. Did the above scrap
come into his head when he was meekly listening to Mr. Roebuck ?
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
87
I know not yet when or how they ’ll bring
Their “odium causidicum’s ” vitriol sting,
From their vials of wrath on your wig to fling—
But I know that the vials are there !
In my mind’s eye prophetic I see a sight,
That doth more my soul appal
That e’en Bishop Hatto’s terrible plight,
When the rats assailed him from left and from right,
By tens, scores, hundreds and thousands—till flight
Was out of the question, they plugged him so tight,
And eat him, robes, mitre and all!
To the woolsack I see my Lord Westbury stuck,
Like a drowning man clasped to a board,
Vain all Ms attempts to dodge or to duck
From the Legal Rats that leap round, in a ruck,
At his robes and the body beneath them to pluck,
Till they ’ye served him exactly as schoolboys serve “ tuck,:
And no vestige is left of my Lord !
OUR DRAMATIC CORRESPONDENT.
idromeda, my dear Punch,
as every schoolboy knows.
Ins in that well-thumbed
little volume, the Gradus
ad Parnassum, the epithets
applied to her of ‘ pulchra ’
and ‘ formosa ; ’ and I think
these adjectives may fit-
tingly be given to the
Andromeda now acting at
the St. James’s theatre.
Besides her personal attrac-
tions, Miss Herbert has,
moreover, the somewhat
rarer gift of knowing how
to walk and talk somewhat
like a lady, even when
assuming a part in a bur-
lesque • and does not think
it needful to lay aside all
grace, in order to bring out
the humour of her part.
Whether her example be
infectious, I know not; but
it is certain that the piece
in which she is now acting
is played without a trace of
coarseness or vulgarity, and
freedom from these blots is
not so common as it should
be in the acting of bur-
lesques. Ears and eyes
the most fastidious and
delicately sensitive may find
an hour or so’s amusemeut in Perseus and Andromeda without the
slightest risk of their annoyance by the faintest shadow of offence.
“ For this commendable result not the actors merely, but the author
must be thanked; and I here record my gratitude to Mr. William
Brough for the neat and pretty piece his fancy has suggested, and the
tasteful way in which'he has worked his subject out. Steering clear of
stale and stupid nigger songs, which surely have by tMs time been
parodied to death, he has introduced some pleasant operatic music;
and though somewhat more prolific in puns than I could wish, he has
not sacrificed, as some do, the clearness of his story by too exclusive
care to the smartness of his small talk. Then, again, great pains have
been given by the management to getting up the piece; ana although
no puffs are published in the playbill as to who devised the dresses,
what great genius made the properties, and who fitted up the gas, the
mounting is throughout both pretty and appropriate, and nothing is
left wanting to win deserved success. Though not, perhaps, so striking
as the last scene in Bndymion, the final group is very charmingly
arranged; while, for suddenness of change and picturesqueness of
effect, the petrifaction of Greek soldiers by the showing of Medusa’s
head, has rarely in my memory been equalled in burlesque.
“ King Frank Matthews Polydectes is a most amusing monarch,
and the solemnity wdth which he sings his ‘ Great Sensation ’ bass to
Mr. Charles Phineus’s ‘ I’d Choose to be a Daisy’ tenor, is a thing
to make one split. Scarce less entertaining is his tender and then
terrible demeanour to poor Danae, whose sharp words Mrs. Matthews
delivers with great point. Somehow these old stagers make a joke go
farther than most young ones now know how to do. And somehow,
some old farces are more sure to make one laugh than in general the
new ones are. I saw that capital one, the Boarding School, a few days
before Christmas, and again the other night, and I was as much
amused the last time as I was the first. Trashy as in some respects
assuredly it is, it always seems to me a piece that actors must enjoy
and act with real relish, because they feel assured it will be relished by
the house. What goes on at a girl’s school any man must like to
know; and to see a lot of school-girls at their lessons or their romps
must surely be amusing to eyes of either sex. And when Mrs. Frank
Matthews assumes the post of teacher, and has such pretty pupils
as Miss Herbert and Kate Terry, a peep into her school-room is
surely worth one’s while.
“ The new drama here, Self-Made, I have not yet found time to see.
That at the Princess’s is also ‘ taken from the French,’ and it were no
great loss to us if they had kept it to themselves. To personify the
Angel of Death upon the stage may be pleasing to a French taste, but
is revolting to an English one; and a play where this is done, no
matter how well mounted, I hope will never become popular upon our
purer stage. I am not thin-skinned, and not affected easily by seeing
sudden deaths in melodrame, or gruesome ghastly ghosts. But to
personate an angel is to my mind most objectionable, and becomes
almost profamty when the object is to serve a low dramatic purpose,
and excite a grim sensation by some highly spiced effects. There are
angels in a play by Shakspeare, it is true; but they are presented
merely in a vision, and are not brought forward to chatter and make
jokes. Death is a tMng too sacred to be dealt with on the stage in
gross material shape. It outrages the hobest feelings in our nature to
see such subjects coarsely handled, and merely introduced to give a
spurious effect. Such things are not fit to be presented coram populo,
even though it may be done with the profoundest reverence, and not,
as in this French play in a manner low and coarse. To see the
Destroying Angel decked in protean disguises: coming on in one scene
as a pertisn lawyer’s-clerk, and in the next as a smart quick-tongued
beauty in a ball-room, anon dressed in squalid rags as au old hag in a
duel-scene, and next assuming wedding raiment and a bridesmaid’s
wreath; to witness this excites no reverence, and savours of profanity,
and can but tend to make people disgusted with the stage.
_ “ The management of the Princess’s is in general so careful in selec-
tion of its pieces, and so sedulously anxious to avoid giving offence,
that I cannot but regard the production of this French play as au
accidental slip. For the credit of the theatre, I most sincerely hope to
see no more such accidents; while for the credit of the audience I trust
that the applause which I heard the other evening may be accorded
simply to the really good up-getting, and not to the bad piece. It is a
pity, to my thinking, to see so much good scenery wasted on a drama
of such extreme bad taste; and it is only kindness to speak harshly of
such errors as the Angel of Midnight, so as, if it may be, to prevent
the repetition of what must serve to bring discredit on a theatre, and
lower the high standing of the English stage.
“ One who Pays.”
HOAX ON THE SERIOUS PAPERS.
The Bishop op Exeter has not hitherto been very popular in the
Hall wMch is synonymous with Ms diocese, but if a newspaper para-
graph may be trusted, the name of Henry Philpotts will be received
there at some of the approaching May meetings with immense applause.
For the Reverend Julian Young, of Torquay, a short time srnce, got
^15 155. for the Torbay Infirmary, by reading at the request of the
Managers of that Charity, the play of Hamlet at the Mechanics’
Institute. It is stated that the Bishop of Exeter has therefore pro-
hibited Mr. Young from preaching in his diocese. This is too good news
for Mawworm, Stiggins, Chadband and Co., to be true. The
Bishop op Exeter has himself read. Hamlet, so as to know hi what
respect it differs from Tom and Jerry, and is aware that Shakspeare
was a respectable writer. The truth is probably just the reverse of
what is stated. The Bishop, most likely, went to hear Mr. Young
read Shakspeare, and was so pleased with his delivery of the text that
he has preferred him to a good living, so as to enable him to exemplify
Hamlet's advice on the subject of elocution in the pulpit.
Good at Fielding—and at Hitting.
In the immortal conversation, in Joseph Andrews, between Parson
Adams and the grumbling and vengeful Peter Pounce, everybody must
remember this bit
“ You will pardon me, Sir," returned the Parson, “ I have read of the Gymno-
sophists."
“ A plague of your Jehosaphats,” cried Peter. “ The greatest fault in our Con-
stitution is the provision made for the poor—except that made for some others.
Sir, I have not an estate,” &c.
The Bishop op Salisbury is a well-read man. Did the above scrap
come into his head when he was meekly listening to Mr. Roebuck ?