Punch (66.1874)

March 7, 1874.]

PUNCH, OP THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

103

OUR REPRESENTATIVE MAN.

At the Princess's.

he Author (Mr. W. G. Wills) of
Mr. Irving as Charles the First and
Eugene Aram, has thrown away a
grand subject in his treatment of
Marie Stuart. It is neither a good
drama, nor a good poem.

Yet, had the leading parts been
in the hands of powerful artists,
the minor characters carefully cast
and carefully played, had the piece
been produced with such care as is
now the rule and not the exception
at most of our chief Theatres, and
had the Stage Management been
thoroughly efficient, Marie Stuart,
despite its faults as a drama, despite
its weakness as a poem, might have
achieved a temporary success, though
it could never have attained a last-
ing popularity. The Author began
by not doing justice to himself; and
the Actors, following suit, have not
done justice to the Author.

The bills announce “the whole
produced under the direction of Mr.
Alered Nelson and the personal
supervision of the Author, Mr. W.
G. Wills.” Well, I’m sorry for it:—therefore as to the stage
arrangements, one must not he too hard on Mr. Nelson, but
divide the blame between him and his talented supervisor.

Your Eepresentative would here observe that any English Author
who treats of Mart Stuart without the flight from Fotheringay,
without the imprisonment, without showing Elizabeth, and without
the scaffold and death of the Catholic Queen, knows very little of
the way to get at the popular mind.

Your Representative played the eaves-dropper on this occasion,
and was not surprised at what he heard—a conversational summary
whereof he now proceeds to give for the benefit of those concerned
in the Education of the People, and of Mr. Wills in particular, to
whom such hints may be useful in future.

Inquiring Person (in the Stalls, to Well-read Friend). I say
(:referring to programme). Who was Chastelard f _

Well-read Friend. Eh, Chastelard ? (Thinks his f riend has made
a mistake, hut, on looking at the Dramatis Personce, sees he hasn't.)
Ah, yes—Chastelard—(thinks)—well—(notices other people behind
him interested in his reply)—he was a poet, who—let me see—it’s
difficult at this moment to recal-

Inquiring Person (with vague memory). Wasn’t he choked by a
crumb after writing something? (Considers.) Yes—there was a
picture of him some years ago in the Academy.

Well-read Friend (puzzled). No—that was—at least—(doubtfully)
— was that the name—Chastelard ? (Wishes he ’d read up all about

Marie Stuart before coming to the Theatre.) At this point enter
Mr. Charles Harcourt as Chastelard.

Regular Playgoer (in Pit, to Companion). That’s ’Arcourt. Was
at Drury. Lor ! recollect him ever so long.

Companion. 0, he’s Chastelard. Who’she? Mary’s father ?

Regular Playgoer (who soon gets at the thread of the plot). No.
He’s in love with Mary. I suppose he’s the villain afterwards.

Companion (surprised). They call him “ loung Chastelard
Why ’s that ?

Regular Playgoer (puzzled). I don’t know. Perhaps he’s in
disguise. You ’ll see (positively), he’ll he the villain.

Companion (all attention). I can’t hear what they ’re saying.

The Act goes on, and nothing particular happens, except that
“ Young Chastelard " is sent up the stage in disgrace, brought
down the stage, and restored to favour, petted, snubbed, made to
hand things to Marie, has roses given him which he pinches with-
out making any wry faces over the thorns (on the principle of
“ grasp your nettle,” I suppose), is called “ Chastelard,” and “ poor
Chastelard!" is told that he might he fitted for some “light and
graceful post ’’—which seems to suggest a fancy lamp-post in the
Court garden—is suddenly, and much to his surprise banished, when
he says that he will “set” the Queen “ in the shrine of his memory ”
—the use of which simile, by the way, twice in the course of a
short conversation, rather detracts from one’s notion of him as a
f ertile poet. He has just before observed—

-“ a young child’s smile,

A prize, my liege,

Set like a jewel in my memory.”

Presently with much emotion, evinced by blinking, gasping, and
hanging his head, exit Young Chastelard. He’s back again, though
m less than live minutes, and accepts Mary's offer to take him with
her to Scotland. End of Act I.

Act II. A Front- Scene played in the broadest Scotch dialect.
Local colouring this, and, no doubt, the humour of this scene would
be highly appreciated, wherever the dialect should happen to be
intelligible. As it was—except when the Provost uttered the word

breeks, whereat there was a laugh or two—the scene was a some-
what dull.

Then came Scene 2, “ Edinburgh Gates.” Arrangements supposed
to have been made for the arrival of the Queen, but, apparently, for
some long-expected visit of Hengler’s Circus Troupe. In the book
the stage-direction says, “ Distant cheering heard, and gun fired."
Yes, there was the cheering, as heartily as it ever is done on the
Stage ; but as for the gun—all that we, in front, heard, was a series,
of what resembled the sound of blows from some heavy mallet on
some wooden block. Whether anybody’s head was being injured by
the operation Your Representative cannot say, hut should think noL

Quiet Person, in Stalls. I say, what’s that row ?

Mr. Wagg. Why, don’t you see ? Circus just arriving, Clown
behind wishes to give a hint that John Knox is coming on. So be-
gets a hammer, and-

Quiet Person. Ah, I see. Yes—knocks.

Then enter John Knox, with such a brogue ! !

Quiet Perso?i, in Stalls. I say, is he really speaking Scotch?

Mr. Wagg. Well, I think so ; because it’s very much as spoken
in some parts of Yorkshire.

It turns out that John Knox is not only a Low Churchman, but
a Low Comedian. I do not know what reading Mr. Rousby intended
of the character at first, and am inclined to think that he meant to-
be serious and impressive throughout, but, after a few minutes of it„
finding that the audience were inclined to laugh at the character, he
kindly surrendered his own private view of Knox as a tragedian, and
brought him out more like Box or Cox than Mr. Knox. This
gracious condescension on the part of the intelligent artist tended
to lighten the piece considerably.

The one event of importance in this Act is that “ Young Chaste-
lard" appears to have been brought over to Scotland merely to be
horridly snubbed in public on his first appearance in Edinburgh.

Here is a Gallery episode, to be taken for what it is worth:—

Bill (unread in Scottish history). I say, who’s John Knox?

Tom (superciliously). Knox? You just get brought up at the
P’lice Court, and you ’ll see.

I forgot to say that the Circus notion is kept up by the entrance
of a procession, and of Mary Queen of Scots on a white horse.
When she had dismounted, the horse didn’t do anything—no firing
a pistol, or breakfasting with the Clown (John Knox might have
gone in for this), and so the Circus part was a trifle flat.

The Third Act commences with “ Young Chastelard" playing a
game of “La Grace” with a Lady. Two sticks and a hoop. “As
the scene opens,” say the stage-directions, “ a few last bars on the
lute from Marie.”

What this means is not quite clear; perhaps it is poetry. Your
Representative did not notice the few last bars, or the lute.

“ Young Chastelard," who (wonderful for his time of life), finishes-
his game sweetly and gracefully,—he is “ La Grace” itself— and then
insults Lord James Murray, who is a very unsympathetic person in !
maroon-coloured boots.

Mr. Wills makes Lord James call the Queen, an instrument
of Ultramontane schemes,”—meaning, I suppose, Papistical plots.
An anachronism. The word “ Ultramontane” had no such signifi-
cance in the time of Elizabeth as it has recently acquired. Lord
James Murray, it is true, charges Knox with having used the phrase.
Knox might have been literally “ over the heads” of his congrega-
tion in the pulpit, and beyond them in his teaching, but he never got
as far as anticipating the political slang of the nineteenth century.

Then comes a Scene between the Great Calvinist—the Protestant
Performer—and the Catholic Queen, in which John Knox is funnier

than ever. , . . , ,, ,,

To pass over such an interesting event as the appearance ot j
“ Young Chastelard" with a lute, on which, thank goodness, he
only made one meaningless noise and finished, we come to the scene
in “ The Small Private Chapel of Marie,” as the book of the play
calls, it, meaning the Queen’s Private Chapel. '

The book goes on, and describes the Scene according to Mr. Wills
mind’s eye, or as he would probably have written in the stage-direc-
tion, to the “ small private eye of the mind of Wills,”—“ Beautiful
Norman stained-glass window ; altar, with large crucifix: candles at
eitJicv

Poor Mr. Wills ! The book was in print, I ’ll be sworn, ere ho
had cast his eagle glance—that is, his Wills’s birds’-eye— o er the
scene as “ his friends in front ” saw it.

The Beautiful Norman Window was so remarkably like the