Punch (71.1876)

268 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [December 16, 1876.

"HAPPY THOUGHT."

Little Funnyman. "Going to the Blokers's Fancy Ball, Fred ?"

Fred. " Yas. But I don't know what Character to-"

Little Funnyman. " Chalk tour Head, and go as a Cue !"

ON A LATE "EARLY BIRD."

There lived a man of such, an active mind
That, ere the lark had mounted on the wind,

Or night had fled,
He made a point—when not hy pain deterred-
Of being up before most folks had stirred,

And out of bed.

And, ere the "Winter's or the Summer's sun
Had o'er the wakening hemisphere begun

Its labour splendid,
The twilight, as it slowly stole away,
Saw this man's labour, every working day,

Begun—and ended.

And so intent to catch the " early worm,"—
'Twas not according to proverbial term,—

He ever sought it:—
But leaving others to the morning light,
He stayed out all the weary hours of night,

And always " caught it."

And yet when Time relentlessly had shown
(What so much earlier he might have known)

The pace was killing,
This active man achieved a thankless end,
And, dying, died without a.single friend—■

"Without a shilling!

Suggestion for an Annual Boat-Race.

"The Episcopal Fours."—Course—from Fulham to
Lambeth. Umpires—the Archbishops. Starter—the
Bishop of London. The last crew in the race to sit as
Episcopal Assessors for the year in the Final Court of
Appeal for Ecclesiastical Causes. (N.B.—It is hoped
that they may thus learn the art of " pulling together.")

natural nomenclature.

It is said that, owing to the expense of keeping their
large crocodile, the Aquarium Directors propose (with
the Prince op Wales's permission) to change its name to
La-bouche-chere.

How many Feet are there in a Dock-yard ?
Twice as many as there are Hands.

OUR RE PEE SENT ATI VE MAN.

(He addresses the Editor, and has something to say about a revival
at the Court Theatre.)

Sir,

I will make no comment on the statement about myself in
in the letter from your " Well-informed Man " (!) which appeared in
your pages last week. There will be a settlement in futuro for that
ass in prcesenti. I will come to Hecuba at once. What I have to
say, if you will allow me to say it, is of more general importance, at
least to that section of the " Theatre-going public," which delights
in showing its appreciation of a good English Comedy, correctly
"mounted," and intelligently played throughout. Such an oppor-
tunity has been recently afforded to all interested in the well-being
of true Dramatic Art by the revival—in these days of Revivalism—
of New Men and Old Acres at the Court Theatre. Let me paren-
thetically remark that I fail to see why the fact of Mr. Dubobrg's
collaborateur in this play being "one of Oars'" should preclude
Your Regular Representative from bestowing on this play, in this
journal, that attention which it certainly would have otherwise re-
ceived, had its authors' names been the Brothers Rowe, or Messes.
Hook and Crook, or anything else instead of Messrs. Taylor and
Dubourg. I think the occasion demands it, for the play itself is a
lesson in the art of comedy-writing to those who err, either through
an unreasoning admiration of the school of French Modern Comedy,
or through an over-estimation of what may be termed the " Rohert-
sonian Style," as once seen, in its perfection, at the Prince of Wales's.
Not having seen'Aeto Men and Old Acres when first produced at the
Haymarket, the play is, to me, a novelty. This, however, affects
the actors, not the play. First, it has a very simple but thoroughly
interesting plot, clearly and intelligently told through the media
of good dramatic situations, always natural, never forced, and of
solid, nervous English dialogue, which, if it seldom flashes with
epigrammatic brilliancy, possesses at least the rare merit of being
invariably in keeping with the individuality of the person who utters

it, while never once sinking to the level of commonplace, it is not
at any time either tedious or uninteresting.

The right people say the right things at the right moment, and,
though there is scarcely what is too often now-a-days considered as
a "pointed line"—meaning a line that pricks and pains—in the
Play, yet every line is to the point. To any one who has seen
Our Boys, it will be evident how easily the part of the parvenu,
Bunter, unable to manage his aspirates (like Mr. Byron's Butter-
man—and full of pious sentiments—like Aminadcib Sleek, in
The Serious Family), might have been exalted into undue promi-
nence for the sake of "getting laughs" in the cheapest manner
possible at the expense of the more serious interest of the Play, that
is, to the ruin of the Comedy. The Banter family might have been
made to draw the Town, but New Men and Old Acres would then
have been a Three-Act Farce. It seems to me that the_ collabora-
teurs are entitled to great praise for their firmness in resisting what
must, at some time or other, have presented itself as a most alluring
temptation ; secondly, the two contrasted love-scenes in_ the Second
Act are admirable. Here is no straining after the "idyllic," no
hard-working efforts at pumping up buckets full of sentiment, no
despairing struggle, as we meet with in Robertson's imitators, to
win the languidly gushing " Qxute-too-charming-and-oh-so-nice-
don't-you-know " sort of praise from the affected babblers of the
Effeminate Admiration Society. From beginning to end the Comedy
is an honest Comedy, purely English, and Englishly pure, free from
all suspicion of offence.

It may be hypercritical to point out a speck, but that the livery-
servant at the Bunter's should be called " Montmorency " does seem
to Your Representative a slip of the collaborateurpen, like
Dickens's page-boy, Augustus, who " had plain Bill stamped on
every line of his countenance," The livery-servant, Montmorency,
would have been perfectly in keeping with one of Mr. Toole s
Farces, and, therefore, is quite out of place in New Men and Old

u4. CV6S*

With Miss Ellen Terry not a fault is to be found. Lilian is
the best thing, far and away, that she has yet done. She has an