48
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
August 2, 1862.
AN OVATION TO AN AMBASSADOR.
According to a newsletter from Rome :—
“ At Frascati the national party offered an ovation to Count Ki3-
selkff, Russian Minister, on the occasion of the recognition of the
kingdom of Italy by the Cabinet of St. Petersburg.”
The statement that certain persons offered a man an ova-
tion is something new in the phraseology of penny-a-lining.
It is generally said that So-and-so received, or that his
admirers gave him, an ovation. That may mean that the
people gave him a pelting with stale eggs, as we have-
before suggested. Even at Rome the Romans themselves
would now no longer decree an ovation or minor triumph to
a general for having gained a small victory, that is to say,
if they had any generals of their own to honour; though
they would doubtless be ready enough to give any one of
the generals who dragoon them under the Pope an ovation
of the other kind. Such an unsavoury ovation as that,
however, is not the sort of ovation which the liberal Frasca-
tians could possibly have offered to Count Kisselefe on
the strength of the recognition by Russia of the Italian
Kingdom, or indeed to anybody on any account whatever,
because it is an ovation which everybody would decline.
The ovation offered by them to the Russian Minister must
have been one which they expected that his Excellency
would accept; a savoury not an unsavoury ovation: per-
haps it was a savoury omelet.
A Poem to Patti.
0 Charming Adelina !
How sweet is thy Amina !
How bewitching thy Zerlina !
How seldom has there been a
More tunable Norina !
And have 1 ever seen a
More enjoyable Rosina?
But to tell the praise I mean a-
-Las ! there should have been a
Score more rhymes to Adelina.
Facetious Sergeant.
DIVERSIONS OF DRILL.
and at the word ‘ dismiss ’ you all immediately
‘slope' without further word o’command.”
THE WEATHER AGAIN.
Heine said, (exulting in the cool gloom of a cathedral in
a real July) that Roman Catholicism was a very good
religion for the Summer. If so, no wonder the Pope feels
discouraged this year.
PURITANS AND PLAYERS.
(From the “ Quarterly Review ” for August, 1885.)
The Bicentenary Celebration of 1862 by which (as we showed at the
time) the Dissenters of all classes, in imitation of the Pope of Rome.
sought to consolidate their forces, was productive of the most brilliant
results, and did great honour to the prescience of tbe farsighted Miall,
Vaughan, and Bright. In a few years their triumph was complete,
and the Church of England was reformed, church organs were destroyed,
the beadle was dressed in decent black, and prayer-books ceased to be
adorned with velvet and gold. Perhaps, had the new Puritan Fathers
stopped here, there would not have been much to complain of, but the
intolerant spirit broke out into violence, and, as in old days,_ ruthless
war was waged against all who differed from the fierce bigots in power.
As heretofore, tbe poor Player was the victim of the persecuting
Puritan. In spite of the intercession of the benevolent but feeble
Lord Ebury, his now tyrannical allies proclaimed war against the
Theatres. Shakspeare, Sheridan, Knowles, and Talfourd were
for a time allowed to be performed, but all lighter representations were
suppressed. Miaul himself, hymn-book in hand, rushed upon the stage
of the Lyceum at the thousand and second representation of Peep o’ Day,
and with a savage joke made, as he said, “ shipwreck of Falconer.”
Dr. Vaughan, attended by a violent mob of fanatical young students
from Homerton, broke into the Princess’s Theatre during a performance,
and though for a moment delayed by the belief that Mr. Kean was
preaching, they no sooner discovered that the Corsican Brothers was
being played, than they rushed upon the stage, scattered the affrighted
actresses, and even the tears of Carlotta Leclercq only so far
softened the rugged schismatics as to permit her and her sister-per-
formers to depart unharmed on condition of their immediately joining
the Abimelech Congregational Union. At the Haymarket, Bubbles of'
the Day was attempted, but Bright suddenly entered, and with the
voice of Cromwell (at whom he now dressed) he cried, “ Take away
those Bubbles.” The gallant Lord Dundreary, as became a Cavalier
of long descent, drew a pistol, and but that his habitual unacquaintance
with technicalities made him fire it into the ceiling instead of at the
tyrant, the triumph of the latter might have been brief, had not the
Earl also forgotten to put in any bullet. The hardships sustained by
some of the actors were very sad. The x4delphi theatre was seized by
Spurgeon, who contumeliously offered Mr. Paul Bedford (with a
flippant jest at his Christian name, after the manner of Elephant Chapel)
the place of clerk, but the brave actor punched his head, likened him
to Punshon, and escaped. Less fortunate was Mr. Toole, who was
consigned to the Tabernacle Museum, and compelled to explain
Otaheitan idols and other heathen curiosities, to the penny visitors,
for nearly eight years, when he sprang out of window into a hay-
cart, and was carried iuto South Wales. Mr. Robson was brought
before the Court of Star Chamber, (an odious memory revived in
honour of Mr. Bright’s paper,) and commanded to assume a real
Dorter's Knot, and carry tracts from Clapham to Islington. The line
elocutionary powers of Mrs. Stirling were made a pretext for setting
her to teach reading to a wretched school class, where Miss Louisa
I’yne was also sent to instruct the jeering urchins in Dr. Watts’s
Songs. Mr. Buckstone vowed a revenge, aud, affecting to be con-
vinced of the error of his ways by the arguments of Dr. Vaughan,
succeeded in so far blinding his persecutors that they actually allowed
him to address a crowded attendance of the Band of Hope and Juvenile
Abstainers, when he suddenly sang the “ Country Fair,” threw his
audience into convulsions, aud sent home a thousand youthful mission-
aries to clamour in their households for reasonable recreation. For
this offence Bucrstone was set in the pillory, but the people pelted
him with roses, and cast bonbons into his mouth with affectionate
precision of aim. Mr. Boucicault, having joined the Baptists, was
permitted for some time to give the “ TFater Cave Scene” under a
pretext that he was teaching the doctrine of his new sect, but his
underhand device did not prosper, aud the theatre was taken by the
Board as a place for practising the lungs and oratory of youthful
preachers. The Dramatic Authors would no doubt have equally suf-
fered, only there were none, a machine having been invented and
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
August 2, 1862.
AN OVATION TO AN AMBASSADOR.
According to a newsletter from Rome :—
“ At Frascati the national party offered an ovation to Count Ki3-
selkff, Russian Minister, on the occasion of the recognition of the
kingdom of Italy by the Cabinet of St. Petersburg.”
The statement that certain persons offered a man an ova-
tion is something new in the phraseology of penny-a-lining.
It is generally said that So-and-so received, or that his
admirers gave him, an ovation. That may mean that the
people gave him a pelting with stale eggs, as we have-
before suggested. Even at Rome the Romans themselves
would now no longer decree an ovation or minor triumph to
a general for having gained a small victory, that is to say,
if they had any generals of their own to honour; though
they would doubtless be ready enough to give any one of
the generals who dragoon them under the Pope an ovation
of the other kind. Such an unsavoury ovation as that,
however, is not the sort of ovation which the liberal Frasca-
tians could possibly have offered to Count Kisselefe on
the strength of the recognition by Russia of the Italian
Kingdom, or indeed to anybody on any account whatever,
because it is an ovation which everybody would decline.
The ovation offered by them to the Russian Minister must
have been one which they expected that his Excellency
would accept; a savoury not an unsavoury ovation: per-
haps it was a savoury omelet.
A Poem to Patti.
0 Charming Adelina !
How sweet is thy Amina !
How bewitching thy Zerlina !
How seldom has there been a
More tunable Norina !
And have 1 ever seen a
More enjoyable Rosina?
But to tell the praise I mean a-
-Las ! there should have been a
Score more rhymes to Adelina.
Facetious Sergeant.
DIVERSIONS OF DRILL.
and at the word ‘ dismiss ’ you all immediately
‘slope' without further word o’command.”
THE WEATHER AGAIN.
Heine said, (exulting in the cool gloom of a cathedral in
a real July) that Roman Catholicism was a very good
religion for the Summer. If so, no wonder the Pope feels
discouraged this year.
PURITANS AND PLAYERS.
(From the “ Quarterly Review ” for August, 1885.)
The Bicentenary Celebration of 1862 by which (as we showed at the
time) the Dissenters of all classes, in imitation of the Pope of Rome.
sought to consolidate their forces, was productive of the most brilliant
results, and did great honour to the prescience of tbe farsighted Miall,
Vaughan, and Bright. In a few years their triumph was complete,
and the Church of England was reformed, church organs were destroyed,
the beadle was dressed in decent black, and prayer-books ceased to be
adorned with velvet and gold. Perhaps, had the new Puritan Fathers
stopped here, there would not have been much to complain of, but the
intolerant spirit broke out into violence, and, as in old days,_ ruthless
war was waged against all who differed from the fierce bigots in power.
As heretofore, tbe poor Player was the victim of the persecuting
Puritan. In spite of the intercession of the benevolent but feeble
Lord Ebury, his now tyrannical allies proclaimed war against the
Theatres. Shakspeare, Sheridan, Knowles, and Talfourd were
for a time allowed to be performed, but all lighter representations were
suppressed. Miaul himself, hymn-book in hand, rushed upon the stage
of the Lyceum at the thousand and second representation of Peep o’ Day,
and with a savage joke made, as he said, “ shipwreck of Falconer.”
Dr. Vaughan, attended by a violent mob of fanatical young students
from Homerton, broke into the Princess’s Theatre during a performance,
and though for a moment delayed by the belief that Mr. Kean was
preaching, they no sooner discovered that the Corsican Brothers was
being played, than they rushed upon the stage, scattered the affrighted
actresses, and even the tears of Carlotta Leclercq only so far
softened the rugged schismatics as to permit her and her sister-per-
formers to depart unharmed on condition of their immediately joining
the Abimelech Congregational Union. At the Haymarket, Bubbles of'
the Day was attempted, but Bright suddenly entered, and with the
voice of Cromwell (at whom he now dressed) he cried, “ Take away
those Bubbles.” The gallant Lord Dundreary, as became a Cavalier
of long descent, drew a pistol, and but that his habitual unacquaintance
with technicalities made him fire it into the ceiling instead of at the
tyrant, the triumph of the latter might have been brief, had not the
Earl also forgotten to put in any bullet. The hardships sustained by
some of the actors were very sad. The x4delphi theatre was seized by
Spurgeon, who contumeliously offered Mr. Paul Bedford (with a
flippant jest at his Christian name, after the manner of Elephant Chapel)
the place of clerk, but the brave actor punched his head, likened him
to Punshon, and escaped. Less fortunate was Mr. Toole, who was
consigned to the Tabernacle Museum, and compelled to explain
Otaheitan idols and other heathen curiosities, to the penny visitors,
for nearly eight years, when he sprang out of window into a hay-
cart, and was carried iuto South Wales. Mr. Robson was brought
before the Court of Star Chamber, (an odious memory revived in
honour of Mr. Bright’s paper,) and commanded to assume a real
Dorter's Knot, and carry tracts from Clapham to Islington. The line
elocutionary powers of Mrs. Stirling were made a pretext for setting
her to teach reading to a wretched school class, where Miss Louisa
I’yne was also sent to instruct the jeering urchins in Dr. Watts’s
Songs. Mr. Buckstone vowed a revenge, aud, affecting to be con-
vinced of the error of his ways by the arguments of Dr. Vaughan,
succeeded in so far blinding his persecutors that they actually allowed
him to address a crowded attendance of the Band of Hope and Juvenile
Abstainers, when he suddenly sang the “ Country Fair,” threw his
audience into convulsions, aud sent home a thousand youthful mission-
aries to clamour in their households for reasonable recreation. For
this offence Bucrstone was set in the pillory, but the people pelted
him with roses, and cast bonbons into his mouth with affectionate
precision of aim. Mr. Boucicault, having joined the Baptists, was
permitted for some time to give the “ TFater Cave Scene” under a
pretext that he was teaching the doctrine of his new sect, but his
underhand device did not prosper, aud the theatre was taken by the
Board as a place for practising the lungs and oratory of youthful
preachers. The Dramatic Authors would no doubt have equally suf-
fered, only there were none, a machine having been invented and