Punch: Punch (83.1882)

September 16, 1882.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

121

LAYS OF A LAZY MINSTREL.

A GIRL AND A BUOY.

Buoys and Girls all out at play,

On a Summer’s holiday .

Just a moment, list I pray,

To the Lazy Minstrel’s Lay!

look at the Lassie of supple
sixteen,

Who stands on the steps of
her bathing-machine,

So dimpled, bewitching,
and coy !

So graceful and gleesome—
a princess of pets,

In turquoise blue tunic and
trim trouserettes,

Who puts all her trust
in a Buoy!

She dives with a splash in
the malachite sea,

And makes the shore glad
with her laughter and
glee—

The cliffs all re-echo her
joy!

Her heart it is light and her
spirits are gay,

She floats and she paddles
and swims round the bay,
And comes back to rest
at her Buoy !

Ah! “coming events cast
their shadows before! ”
(No doubt, pretty Maiden, you think me a bore,

A moral to tag on your toy.)

Perchance, when you’re sick of Society’s strife,

Some day we may find, in the Ocean of Life,

You ’ll cling heart and soul to a Boy !

Roses) has, with Mr. Wyndham’s assistance as reviser and Stage
Manager, brought out at the Criterion. Mr. Wyndham made a
mistake over Foggarty's Fairy, which ought to
have been the libretto for our true humorist in
music, Arthur Sullivan,
and he has made another with
this. In the Fairy he played
himself, but the part didn’t
suit him, the piece didn’t suit
the audience, and nothing
could save it; but in Miss
Muffet, if he had played the
part which Mr. Beerbohme
Tree works so hard to make
effective, and with which he
eally does his utmost, though
it is not in the least in his
line—except just at the com-
nencement—Mr. Wyndham
might have achieved a Piece
with Honour, even though he had not obtained a triumph.

Nobody, except in a limited theatrical circle, as a rule, cares one
button who may be the Author of a piece at the Criterion or the
Gaiety, any more than, in old days, they cared who wrote for Buck-
stone at the Haymarket, or Wright at the Adelphi, so long as those

End of Heat II.
13 st.

Finish. Reduction
on taking quantity.
10 st.!!

irresistibly droll
their own peculiar,
you ‘ ‘ quite sore
long as Nellie
Royce, & Co. are in
that’s good enough
they ’ll put up with
Nellie Farren &
lines to say, telling
ing tunes, and some
habitues won’t stand
begin to consult
find out who is to
their favourites such
try and amuse them,
they dock in to see
cause you can al-

“THE ‘CRD IS STILL

stagger.

&8JS


Getting it hot at the
“Cri.” "

The Buie for a Criterion Success, proved to demonstration by one
or, at most, two rare exceptions, is that Mr. Charles Wyndham
must be “in it.” Without him, Miss Muffet, we are afraid, will only
She may, for wonderful things in this way have been done
before now—though not, if we _ rightly^ re-
member, at this theatre. Miss Muffet—
such a bad title,
too, nearly as bad as ir,

I i 1 ' The Mulberry Bush,

v , which it originally
bore—is a most irri-
tating piece, because
you go so deter-
mined to laugh at
anything said or
done at the Criterion,
and so glad to get
the opportunity for
a laugh in the ‘ ‘ dull
season,” that, as
17 st. to Stalls, scene follows scene,
and actors, who
have been so amusing in other parts and other pieces, are visibly
playing their very best, and scarcely making any score to speak
of, even a favourably prejudiced audience is unable to repress
its disappointment. In Paris, the whole point of the piece, as we
remember being informed at the time, when advised, if we had any-
thing better to do, not to waste an evening on La Femme a Papa,
was Judic’s impersonation of the ingenue who gets tipsy. This, of
course, sounds charmingly inviting, but having witnessed the exhibi-
tion that Mme. Schneider chose to make of herself in La Perichole,
and having once again sat out a weak imitation of that performance,
we very easily found something better to do than assist at La
| Femme a Rapa.

The idea of the old roue father, who is a disgrace to his strictly
moral and deeply studious son, is still fresh in the memory of all
who saw Charles Mathews, inimitable to the last, in My Awful
Fad; and on the working out of this idea, muddled up with the
other less funny and some not-funny-at-all ideas, depends the suc-
cess of the piece which the adapter of Pink Dominos (Les Dominos

End of Heat the First.
15 st.

Mr. \Vyndhnm off to Ame-
rica. Flying Visit.

Comedians were in
farces, and made
with laughing.” As
Farren, Terry,
a Gaiety piece,
for the Stalls, and
a good deal; but if
Co. don’t have sharp
words set to catch-
good dances, the
it, and they then
their playbills to
blame for giving
trash with which to
So at the Criterion
Wyndham — “ be-
ways laugh at

While his Company strain might and main to pull a heavy load up-hill.

Wyndham, you know—doosid funny”—and at the Cri Company
—“ capital lot, you know—go so well t’gether ’’—and so the Cri is
generally “the Full Cri.” But when the habitues, expecting to
laugh, go, and can’t see anything to laugh at, then, for the first time,
they find out the name of the Author, and are immediately inspired
with a personal grudge against him, and are with difficulty mollified
by being informed, on competent authority, that it is the same
writer who amused a considerable number with The Two Roses
(which probably they never saw) and the Pmk Dominos, which they
witnessed about a dozen times. “ Why doesn’t he do another like
that, eh F ” is then their question, “ And why didn’t Wyndham play
in this thing ? ” Miss Rorke is very nice, but she is not Judic ; and,
for ourselves, we are not sorry she isn’t. _ Miss Muffet may draw,
after all— soitl—but if so, it will be a triumph for the Company.
But it is to be feared that, in spite of all their exertions, they will
only do what their Author has done ; i.e., Muff it.

Race-y Sayings at Doncaster.

To an Owner's Friend.—“Of course, you two being such pals,
why, you ought to know, and your standing to lose £4000 on the
horse, speaks wonders for him. But it is curious that all the other
patrons of the stable are now in the Ring laying against him as
hard as they can.”

To Nine-tenths of the Crowd to-day.—“ What, you didn’t back
the winner, well you must be an ass. I thought it the best thing
ever known.”

“When my Cousin was married,” said Mrs. Ramsbotham, “I
gave her a handsome Water Giraffe and two Goblins.”