DOI Heft:
June 15, 1867
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16879#0257
252
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[June 15, 1867.
“THEY MANAGE THESE THINGS BETTER IN
FRANCE.”
hey do, do they ?
What things ? The
rewards of Art, of
course. Witness the
award of Medals of
Honour at the Paris
Exhibition: of which
four fell to French-
men, two to Ger-
mans, one to a Bel-
gian, one to an
Italian, and — not
one to an English-
man ! But in what
sense do they man-
age these things
better in France ?
It depends upon
what one under-
stands by “ better.”
Our readers shall
decide whether they
consider French
management better
or worse than En-
glish, after hearing
what the French
management was in
this case.
The awarding jury consisted of twelve Frenchmen and fourteen
foreigners. The four French painters who obtained Medals of Honour
were all members of the jury who awarded them. The twelve French
lurors voted, always, as one man. The fourteen foreign jurors had no
effective power to combine, being isolated, strangers to each other,
hopeless individually, and in a minority collectively, as soon as the
phalanx of the twelve Frenchmen had secured two votes out of their
fourteen. This was not difficult. When the Frenchmen whispered to
the despairing and solitary foreigner, “ Your man has no chance except
by our help. Vote for our man this time, we will vote for yours at
the critical moment.”
It is not to be wondered at if two out of the fourteen succumbed,
and threw in their votes with France. Still the result remains. The
award is before the world. According to it Theodore Rousseau is the
first of living landscape-painters. Every great school of Europe re-
ceives the recognition of a Medal of Honour, France’s recognition
being four times as ample as that of any of the others, and the English
school is left out in the cold, nndecorated.
The best consolation, under the circumstances, and considering all
that went on round the jurors’ table, is to remember Lord Castlereagh
at the Congress of A ienna. While all the foreign plenipotentiaries
blazed with stars, ribands, and orders, his coat alone showed no deco- j
ration. When Talleyrand’s attention was drawn to the contrast,
“ Ma foi! ” he said, “ c’est bien distingue.” Considering that the award
of the Paris medals was regulated by intrigue, dexterous combination,
and diplomatic management, and that the English juror, whatever else
he might have showed himself, showed himself above this sort of dirty
work, we say that the English school at Paris, standing undecorated
amidst the medalled schools of France, Germany, Belgium and Italy,
is—like Lord Castlereagh at Vienna—“ bien distingue.” Only we
question the propriety of the name of “ Medailles d'Honneur,” as applied j
to decorations so awarded.
“DORA” AT THE ADELPHI.
To transfer a sweet and simple poem from the printer’s boards to
the manager’s, from the study to the stage, without vulgarising it, is
no small feat. Such a feat Mr. Reade has performed in his play of
Bora at the Adelphi. And for actors to embody a poet’s creations,
while filling up a playwright’s outlines, is an achievement for them
only second, if second, to the dramatist’s. That feat the actors in Dora
have, on the whole, accomplished. The Poet Laureate himself might
sit in judgment on Miss Kate Terry’s embodiment of his heroine—
face, figure, dress, voice, action, and expression—and bring in a verdict
of “ justifiable impersonation.” The actress assumes for this part a
rustic bearing and manner quite unlike her usual stage self, and never
loses the pretty feminine timidity of a soft nature, hardly able to
uphold, yet upholding, the weight of a noble purpose, till it lifts itself
at last, in the strength of that purpose, to heroic self-sacrifice. No
prettier picture of country maidenhood can be conceived than Bora, in
ihe First Act, sticking the Christmas holly about the farm-house kitchen,
now exultingly, in the delight of happy hopeful love, now heavily, with
mournful look and steps weighed down ny the sad sense of affection
not returned. And when her womanly tenderness conquers her
womanly fear, and she adjures the hard Farmer to forgive his son. Miss
Terry rises so naturally to the height of the adjuration, that we feel it
to be possible even for that, fearful, shrinking Dora to speak so solemnly
and so bravely. We cannot recall on the stage a more quietly pathetic
scene than that of the Second Act, where Bora sings the song of “ The
Brook” set to music worthy of the words, in the dying ears of William
Allan, as he suns himself at his cottage-door.
The struggle of a heroic purpose and a fearful spirit was never more
touchingly or tenderly portrayed than when, in the last Act, Bora tells
the Farmer it is William’s child she has set within his arms ; and then
turns, humbly, to ask Mary for a home.
It is rare to see a play in which one can conscientiously praise all
the actors. They all deserve praise in Bora. Mr. Neville had so
well comprehended the character of Farmer Allan, that one is able to
understand the love of Bora for the tremendous old man, hard as the
nether millstone, and hot as fire. Among the many parts Mr. Neville
has played well, he has never played a more difficult one better or
more artistically than this of the fierce old Farmer.
If Mr. Billington had been as good in the last Act, when he
(Luke Bloomfield) bursts angrily away from Bora, as he was when
pressing his hopeless suit on her in the first, we should have had
nothing but praise for him. But he marred a performance otherwise
excellent by a mis-timed melodramatic exit, which it is to be hoped he
has corrected before this.
Mr. Ashley, always an intelligent actor, in the very difficult and un-
thankful part of William Allan, showed himself a real artist. It was no
easy matter to make that death-scene impressive to an Adelphi audience.
But, Mr. Ashley did it, and was pathetic, where the slightest drop into
whine,or the least transgression into rant, would have madehimridiculous.
Credit for the touching and solemn effect of that dying scene may be
divided between the acting of Mr. Ashley and Miss Hughes, and
Miss Terry’s singing of that exquisite Brook-song, in which she
showed how a mere thread of singing voice, by the aid of clear enun-
ciation and right expression, could move a whole audience to tears.
And Miss Hughes made of Mary Morrison a picture worthy to hang
by the side of Miss Terry’s Bora, and, above all, spoke the lines
introduced in the Third Act from Tennyson’s poem, to the music of
the Brook-song, with a calm musical sweetness that kept play and
poem in harmony to the last. Miss Hughes’s “ Harvest-Song ”—in
the music of which the joy of harvest-tide blends with the memory of
the loved and lost, till the mingled currents of emotion are swallowed
up in the full tide of a mother’s love and hope, over her child—should
be noted as a right use of excellent music in an appropriate situation,
of which our dramatists cannot often, but might oftener, avail them-
selves.
But we notice Bora less for the sake of giving deserved praise to the
actors, or the composer of the music, or the author, than that we may
express our thankfulness to Mr. Reade for writing, and to Mr.
Webster for producing, a real English Idyll, sweet, simple, natural,
and breathing of the country. The dialogue throughout is a model of
stage-English, close, vigorous, and rhythmical, without a wasted word,
or a blemish of rant or slip-slop. There are a few passages of sacred
allusion, which may offend some rigid tastes. But they are introduced
so earnestly, and in such good faith, that they can hardly, we should
suppose, sound irreverent to any, and certainly sounded reverential and
impressive to us.
It is the best proof how the rare and peculiar qualities of the play
took hold of the audience, that on the first night it triumphed oyer
scenic hitches and a refractory setting sun, which, had the impression
of the piece on the house been weak or doubtful, would have been fatal
to it, for they occurred at the very climax of the action. They caused
a laugh, but they never endangered the piece. Believing that the in-
fluence of such plays as Dora, so interpreted, is about the whole-
somest that the theatre can exercise, we earnestly recommend the
performance to our readers, and say to our dramatists, managers, and
actors, en masse, “ Grow great by this example ” (bating, of course, the
hitches).
A Day in a Cave.
Mr. Punch never touches on private affairs. But when a political
Party, strong enough to stop a Reform Bdl, sets up a newspaper to
support its own principles, and then lets the newspaper collapse, and
does not pay the workers, the “situation” becomes one for public
comment. The only good plea that we have yet heard is that the
original Cave of Adullam was composed of “ every one that was in
debt,” and that it would therefore be out of keeping to pay. But a
rule of taste should not dominate the golden rule.
Shakspearian Thought.—“ When the brains are out, the Woman
will dye.”
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[June 15, 1867.
“THEY MANAGE THESE THINGS BETTER IN
FRANCE.”
hey do, do they ?
What things ? The
rewards of Art, of
course. Witness the
award of Medals of
Honour at the Paris
Exhibition: of which
four fell to French-
men, two to Ger-
mans, one to a Bel-
gian, one to an
Italian, and — not
one to an English-
man ! But in what
sense do they man-
age these things
better in France ?
It depends upon
what one under-
stands by “ better.”
Our readers shall
decide whether they
consider French
management better
or worse than En-
glish, after hearing
what the French
management was in
this case.
The awarding jury consisted of twelve Frenchmen and fourteen
foreigners. The four French painters who obtained Medals of Honour
were all members of the jury who awarded them. The twelve French
lurors voted, always, as one man. The fourteen foreign jurors had no
effective power to combine, being isolated, strangers to each other,
hopeless individually, and in a minority collectively, as soon as the
phalanx of the twelve Frenchmen had secured two votes out of their
fourteen. This was not difficult. When the Frenchmen whispered to
the despairing and solitary foreigner, “ Your man has no chance except
by our help. Vote for our man this time, we will vote for yours at
the critical moment.”
It is not to be wondered at if two out of the fourteen succumbed,
and threw in their votes with France. Still the result remains. The
award is before the world. According to it Theodore Rousseau is the
first of living landscape-painters. Every great school of Europe re-
ceives the recognition of a Medal of Honour, France’s recognition
being four times as ample as that of any of the others, and the English
school is left out in the cold, nndecorated.
The best consolation, under the circumstances, and considering all
that went on round the jurors’ table, is to remember Lord Castlereagh
at the Congress of A ienna. While all the foreign plenipotentiaries
blazed with stars, ribands, and orders, his coat alone showed no deco- j
ration. When Talleyrand’s attention was drawn to the contrast,
“ Ma foi! ” he said, “ c’est bien distingue.” Considering that the award
of the Paris medals was regulated by intrigue, dexterous combination,
and diplomatic management, and that the English juror, whatever else
he might have showed himself, showed himself above this sort of dirty
work, we say that the English school at Paris, standing undecorated
amidst the medalled schools of France, Germany, Belgium and Italy,
is—like Lord Castlereagh at Vienna—“ bien distingue.” Only we
question the propriety of the name of “ Medailles d'Honneur,” as applied j
to decorations so awarded.
“DORA” AT THE ADELPHI.
To transfer a sweet and simple poem from the printer’s boards to
the manager’s, from the study to the stage, without vulgarising it, is
no small feat. Such a feat Mr. Reade has performed in his play of
Bora at the Adelphi. And for actors to embody a poet’s creations,
while filling up a playwright’s outlines, is an achievement for them
only second, if second, to the dramatist’s. That feat the actors in Dora
have, on the whole, accomplished. The Poet Laureate himself might
sit in judgment on Miss Kate Terry’s embodiment of his heroine—
face, figure, dress, voice, action, and expression—and bring in a verdict
of “ justifiable impersonation.” The actress assumes for this part a
rustic bearing and manner quite unlike her usual stage self, and never
loses the pretty feminine timidity of a soft nature, hardly able to
uphold, yet upholding, the weight of a noble purpose, till it lifts itself
at last, in the strength of that purpose, to heroic self-sacrifice. No
prettier picture of country maidenhood can be conceived than Bora, in
ihe First Act, sticking the Christmas holly about the farm-house kitchen,
now exultingly, in the delight of happy hopeful love, now heavily, with
mournful look and steps weighed down ny the sad sense of affection
not returned. And when her womanly tenderness conquers her
womanly fear, and she adjures the hard Farmer to forgive his son. Miss
Terry rises so naturally to the height of the adjuration, that we feel it
to be possible even for that, fearful, shrinking Dora to speak so solemnly
and so bravely. We cannot recall on the stage a more quietly pathetic
scene than that of the Second Act, where Bora sings the song of “ The
Brook” set to music worthy of the words, in the dying ears of William
Allan, as he suns himself at his cottage-door.
The struggle of a heroic purpose and a fearful spirit was never more
touchingly or tenderly portrayed than when, in the last Act, Bora tells
the Farmer it is William’s child she has set within his arms ; and then
turns, humbly, to ask Mary for a home.
It is rare to see a play in which one can conscientiously praise all
the actors. They all deserve praise in Bora. Mr. Neville had so
well comprehended the character of Farmer Allan, that one is able to
understand the love of Bora for the tremendous old man, hard as the
nether millstone, and hot as fire. Among the many parts Mr. Neville
has played well, he has never played a more difficult one better or
more artistically than this of the fierce old Farmer.
If Mr. Billington had been as good in the last Act, when he
(Luke Bloomfield) bursts angrily away from Bora, as he was when
pressing his hopeless suit on her in the first, we should have had
nothing but praise for him. But he marred a performance otherwise
excellent by a mis-timed melodramatic exit, which it is to be hoped he
has corrected before this.
Mr. Ashley, always an intelligent actor, in the very difficult and un-
thankful part of William Allan, showed himself a real artist. It was no
easy matter to make that death-scene impressive to an Adelphi audience.
But, Mr. Ashley did it, and was pathetic, where the slightest drop into
whine,or the least transgression into rant, would have madehimridiculous.
Credit for the touching and solemn effect of that dying scene may be
divided between the acting of Mr. Ashley and Miss Hughes, and
Miss Terry’s singing of that exquisite Brook-song, in which she
showed how a mere thread of singing voice, by the aid of clear enun-
ciation and right expression, could move a whole audience to tears.
And Miss Hughes made of Mary Morrison a picture worthy to hang
by the side of Miss Terry’s Bora, and, above all, spoke the lines
introduced in the Third Act from Tennyson’s poem, to the music of
the Brook-song, with a calm musical sweetness that kept play and
poem in harmony to the last. Miss Hughes’s “ Harvest-Song ”—in
the music of which the joy of harvest-tide blends with the memory of
the loved and lost, till the mingled currents of emotion are swallowed
up in the full tide of a mother’s love and hope, over her child—should
be noted as a right use of excellent music in an appropriate situation,
of which our dramatists cannot often, but might oftener, avail them-
selves.
But we notice Bora less for the sake of giving deserved praise to the
actors, or the composer of the music, or the author, than that we may
express our thankfulness to Mr. Reade for writing, and to Mr.
Webster for producing, a real English Idyll, sweet, simple, natural,
and breathing of the country. The dialogue throughout is a model of
stage-English, close, vigorous, and rhythmical, without a wasted word,
or a blemish of rant or slip-slop. There are a few passages of sacred
allusion, which may offend some rigid tastes. But they are introduced
so earnestly, and in such good faith, that they can hardly, we should
suppose, sound irreverent to any, and certainly sounded reverential and
impressive to us.
It is the best proof how the rare and peculiar qualities of the play
took hold of the audience, that on the first night it triumphed oyer
scenic hitches and a refractory setting sun, which, had the impression
of the piece on the house been weak or doubtful, would have been fatal
to it, for they occurred at the very climax of the action. They caused
a laugh, but they never endangered the piece. Believing that the in-
fluence of such plays as Dora, so interpreted, is about the whole-
somest that the theatre can exercise, we earnestly recommend the
performance to our readers, and say to our dramatists, managers, and
actors, en masse, “ Grow great by this example ” (bating, of course, the
hitches).
A Day in a Cave.
Mr. Punch never touches on private affairs. But when a political
Party, strong enough to stop a Reform Bdl, sets up a newspaper to
support its own principles, and then lets the newspaper collapse, and
does not pay the workers, the “situation” becomes one for public
comment. The only good plea that we have yet heard is that the
original Cave of Adullam was composed of “ every one that was in
debt,” and that it would therefore be out of keeping to pay. But a
rule of taste should not dominate the golden rule.
Shakspearian Thought.—“ When the brains are out, the Woman
will dye.”