134

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[April 2, 1864.

OUR DRAMATIC CORRESPONDENT.

ear Punch, — A young
friend of mine, an Oxford.
“ man ” he calls himself (for
as babies are born nowadays
some five or six years old,
a boy of course becomes a
man before he is twenty),
has recently been staying a
few days with me in town,
on the plea that his presence
was required at the boat-
race. To carry out this
notion, every day for up-
wards of a week before the
match, he used to stalk
into my study directly after
breakfast, and say, “Well,
old boy, excuse me, please,
I must be off to Putney.
You see, our men are going
to practise a new spurt,”
this with a knowing glance
at me as though to hint they
could not possibly get

through theh wmrk without
him. “We dine at six, mind,
sharp,” I used to bellow
after him as he banged the
door, and then he dis-
appeared behind a big cigar,
and I saw nothing more of
him until half-past seven.

Of course I knew my

stomach better than to wait for him, but I think he must have

bribed the cook to keep him in her mind, for she always seemed

to me to reserve the nicest dishes for him. A pipe of cavendish
was lit directly after the last mouthful, and then he used to entertain
me with tales about “ our men,” and how splendidly they kept their
stroke, and what fine form they rowed in. After an hour or so of
boating slang, which I understand as much as I do Gaelic or Eeejee, he
then, just about my bed-time, used to vote that we should go and have
a game of pool, and a pipe at Paddy Green’s, where we should be
pretty safe to drop upon some fellows. Now, when I play billiards I
invariably lose, and, as the game thus grows monotonous, I proposed
to him one night, just by way of novelty, to look into some theatre.
To my astonishment, however, there seemed nothing on the stage that
he had not been to see, although he vowed to me he had not been in
Town since Christmas. I recommended, first, Miss Bateman. “ Queen
Leah? O yes, she’s capital. I saw her in October, and didn’t she
make me cry, just! ” Then there’s the Ticket-of-Leave Man : you like
a thrilling drama. “ Thank you, my dear fellow, but I saw that twice
last summer.” Well, then, there’s the Haymarket. “What! and see
old Lord Dundreary, who’s been playing for a century ?—puff—why,
my dear fellow, I saw him—puff—a dozen times at least a couple of
vears ago—puffpuff—before even I left schoo—puffpuff—hem—puff—
before even I knew you—puffpuffpuffpuffpuff.”

“Well, it really is a nuisance,” said I, after a short pause, in which my
young friend nearly choked me by the quickness of his smoking; “ but
if authors will write pieces so abominably attractive that they somehow
draw good houses for a couple of hundred nights, of course men like
you and me, who are getting rather biases, and don’t much care to see
plays twice, really can’t go to a theatre above once in a twelvemonth,
and the managers can hardly wonder at our absence. But, come now,”
added I, just glancing at the Times, “swells like you and me don’t often
cross the Thames in our dramatic expeditions, so what d’ ye say to
spending half-an-hour with Messieurs Shepherd and Anderson over
at the SurreyP I hear that there’s an out-and-out good blood-and-
thunder nautical sensation drama playing there, with a nice cold-blooded
murder and the storming of Algiers in it, and a cataract of Real Water
—from some Real Water Works ! ”

So in desperation and a hansom off we went, and found an audience
composed of some three thousand people, packed well nigh as tightly
as Sardines in a box, but all sitting in most evident enjoyment of the
play, for which I learned that they had paid their sixpence to the
gallery and^ their shilling to.the pit. (N.B. No half-price, except to
Crcesuses of wealth enough to pay two shillings to the boxes, no daring
innovator having yet been bold enough to tempt a bloated aristocracy
to patronise the theatre, by stealing from the pittites a row or two of
stalls.)

Without quite echoing the playbill, that Ashore and Afloat “eclipses
Black-Dyed Susan” and presents “One Blaze of Triumph” from the
first to the last scene, I must admit that, when I saw it, the drama was
received with “tumultuous applause; ” aud there were starings, shout-

ings, stampings, and hand-clappings enough to be described as “ acclam-
ations of wonder and delight.” The plot was more intelligible than I
quite expected; and all throughout the piece the author clearly did his
best to prevent a British audience from making a mistake between
villainy and virtue, and so took care that the murder which was doue
in the first act should be committed coram populo, and not behind the
scenes. The humour was peculiar, as in these over-water dramas it
usually is; but in neither word nor gesture was aught to be detected
at all savouring of coarseness; and this is more than may be said, at
some genteeler theatres which I forbear to name. To tell your friend
in confidence, “ Well, if ’tis so, it ’tis, and it can’t be no ’tis-er,” may
not appear, perhaps, a very brilliant epigram, but the audience seemed
perfectly delighted with its pungency and pomt; and when Hal Oak-
ford, being tempted to turn traitor at Algiers, turns his quid instead,
and, hitching up his trousers, says, “ What! sail under false colours ?
damme, no! sheer off, you monkey-eating swab! I mean to die True
Blue, and not Turkey Rhubarb,” there is a roar of approbation at the
gallant fellow’s courage, and the house is quite enraptured at the
sparkle of his writ.

Perhaps it is because he has the real cataract hi Ms eye, that the
author seems throughout the play to strive after reality, and to make
his characters do just what they naturally would do in real life. Thus,
in the murder scene, a person who, according to the playbill, is a
“wealthy but miserly landlord,” while out walking with a friend, on a
sudden recollects he has £2000 about Mm, and so hands him this small
trifle to keep for a few days, which is precisely what a miser would
most naturally do. Meek villain, miser’s bailiff, stabs friend with Ms
pocket-knife (which bears, of course, his name on it, and wMch he
takes good care to drop); and, as the notes for the £2000 are on a
bank which breaks unluckily before he gets them cashed, he walks
about for four years with them in his pocket, that at the right moment
they may prove his guilt. Then, when Algiers is bombarded, on comes
Mr. Shepherd as a gallant British sailor, with a broadsword M one
hand and a big Union Jack (a famous tMng to fight with) in the other,
and a terrific “ one, two, over, one, two, under ” fight ensues between
Mm aud the Dey, who also wears a broadsword, as Turks usually do.
All this, you see, is strictly true to nature and reality; and people who
read history, and are rnduced thereby to fancy that Algiers was taken
by Lord Exmouth, may discover at the Surrey that history is quite
wrong, and that the capture in reality was made by one Hal Oakford,
who, with his soft and cheery voice and fight and sprmgy bearing,
reminded me a little of dear old T. P. Cooke.

As to the sensation scene, which takes place in a coal-mine, its cMef
novelty consists in the fact that all the characters are left hanging m
mid-air at the falling of the curtain, and when the curtain again rises at
the bidding of the audience, the rescued heroine and her friends are still
in bodily suspense. Perhaps the next sensation climax will take place
in a balloon, and a terrific broadsword combat will come off M the car
between the hero and the villam, when the villarn, being worsted, will
proceed to draw a blunderbuss out of his left boot, and, filing bang
at the balloon, will laugh ha! ha! as it collapses, and the act-drop
will descend while they both varnsh down a trap. Of course, in the
next scene the audience will learn that the villam has been smashed ;
and the hero will be seen with one arm in a sling and the other round
the heroine, who, berng startled at her needle by the banging of the
blunderbuss, looked out and caught a glimpse of the balloon as it col-
lapsed, and so, with woman’s wit and qMckness, scampered from her
cottage, carrying a feather-bed, which she laid upon the grass-plat just
in tune to break her long-loved Harry’s fall.

Trustmg that Hal Oakford and the girl he nightly rescues will neither
of them break then' legs, or even sprain their ancles, before their run is
over, I beg leave to subscribe myself as usual.

One who Pays.

SHAKESPEARIAN SCULPTURE.

An Advertisement of the Shakspeare Monument informs the Public
that: —

“ It is proposed to commemorate the 300th birthday of Shakspeare by erecting
m London a monument embracing a bronze statue placed under a decorative canopy
in the style of the Poet’s period.”

It is difficult to conceive a monument embracing a statue, if the monu-
ment is not a statue itself, or does not resemble either some animal, as
a monkey or a bear, capable of clasping or hugging, or some plant, like
a vine or a honeysuckle, accustomed to cfing to and twine round objects.
Otherwise, a monument could hardly embrace a statue; if one is to
embrace the other, the statue should embrace the monument. If the
monument embracing the bronze statue to be erected in commemoration
of Shakspeare’s birthday is to be itself a statue, well and good. The
bronze statue might be that of Juliet, and the other Borneo’s, and Romeo
might be thus represented embracing Juliet. Or the two statues might
be a statue of Titania embracing a statue of Bottom.

To the Dirty.—Try the Soap-and-Water Cure, at the excellent
Hydropathic Establishment, Sud-brook. Park.