DOI Heft:
April 12, 1884
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17756#0178
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [April 12, 1884.
NOTES BY “NIBBS.”
(.Literary and Dramatic).
Towards the finish of a carefully con-
sidered and well-written article entitled
“ Realism Behind the Footlights,” in the
Fortnightly for this month (on the whole
a capital specimen number), Mr. Lewis
Wingfield bestows on Mrs. Kendal un-
qualified and, as agreeing with him I may
add, well-merited praise. “ Nothing,” he
says, “comes amiss to Mrs. Kendal.”
True. She can do everything she under-
takes “in an equally admirable manner.”
True again, though “equally” may be
taken as a subtle qualification of the
“admirable.” But Mr. Wingfield goes
on to apologise for her thus: “She has
been unfortunate, however, of late in the
series of parts she has been called upon to
interpret.”
Now, Mrs. Kendal is to all intents and
purposes a Manageress. “Hare and
Kendal” means “Hare, Kendal, &
Co.,” though not so nominated in the
playbill, and is it likely that this lady
would ever be “ called upon to interpret a
part ” which she had not herself chosen ? Wouldn’t she have a voice
in it, and a pretty powerful one too ? Don’t Managers choose
their own pieces and their own parts ? And as from unfortunate
experience they come to mistrust their own judgment on merely
hearing a play read to them, or on reading it themselves, is not
this the reason why they rush over to Paris to see a new play
performed, when they Hatter themselves that they can at once tell
you if, in an English dress, it will suit a London public ?
But this by the way. If Mrs. Kendal has been “ unfortunate of late
in a series of parts,” surely she has only herself and partners to thank.
Mr. Wingfield by implication throws the blame on the Authors, as
is the fashion with some Critics who, not liking to blame the Actor,
“‘give it’ to the Bard,” i.e., make a scape-goat of the much-
enduring, long-suffering Dramatic Author, and force him to stand as
whipping - boy for some popular stage favourite. Mr. Lewis
Wingfield knows better than this—and this is the only unreality
in his “ Realism behind the Footlights.”
The compilation of the new volume entitled The Humour and
Pathos of Charles Dickens must have been a labour of love to Mr.
Charles Kent. It might rank among a list of Dickens’s “ Guide-
Books,” only this is a Guide-Book to Dickens’s Works, which is of
course a very diiferent affair. There is a fitness, too, in the name of
the compiler of this work, as it is right that Kent should cherish the
memory of Dickens, Dickens having been very much attached to
Kent,—specially that part of it about Rochester. Charles Dickens's
Kent can say with Shakspeare’s faithful and modest Kent to
King Lear,—
“ I can keep honest counsel . . . . : that which ordinary men are fit for,
I am qualify’d in ; and the best of me is diligence.”
I have seen a little book called Chips from Thackeray, selected by
Thomas Mason. It can be carried in an ordinary waistcoat-pocket,
and is a delightful companion which no gentleman’s pocket should be
without. “Chips” is a dry-sounding title, and suggestive of “the
morning after,” but, apart from this, I strongly recommend it, for
size and substance, and as for its cost, why, it is of course—“ chip
at the price.”
All sorts and conditions of pieces are coming out, and one of them
will have seen the footlights before this notice appears. I mean
Mr. Reece’s Our Helen at the Gaiety. By the way, putting this
and that tradition together, the beautiful Helen seems to have
become quite a respectable person, and a thoroughly decent member
of Greek Society. She proved to be a devoted mother, and paid the
strictest attention to the education of her son and daughter, Eupho-
rion and Hermione, who were the classic originals of Helen's Babies.
Mr. Wyndham and talented Company appear at the Criterion,
returning from their American tour before the Irvingites. This is
considerate, as two Stars returning at the same time might have
set us ablaze. As a herald of Our Only Tragedian’s return, a book
of '''’Henry Irving's Impressions of America, by Joseph Hatton” ;
I or “ Joseph Hatton's Impressions of America, by Henry Irving ” ;
or “ Hatton's Impressions of Irving in America ” ; or “ Irving's
Impressions of Hatton" ; or “ Hatton's and Irving's Impressions of
each other in America,”—I don’t quite remember what the title is,
I but it’s something of this sort,—is already advertised. I have heard
I at least two persons express considerable curiosity on the subject.
{ Also I have received an interesting pamphlet containing American
criticisms on Our Only Tragedian. Unfortunately it came in such
a questionable shape, done up just like any one of those nuisances
called “ circulars,” that it was at once chucked into the waste-paper
basket. I caught sight of the cover just in time to know what a
treasure I had lost.
Mr. John Clayton’s St. Bernard mastiff having distinguished him-
self last week and displayed a taste for a tit-bit out of a waiter's leg,
—for which luxury Mr. Clayton had to make a hole in a fiver by the
advice of Mr. Partridge, the worthy beak, who was naturally
“down on him like a bird,”—the Court Management, ever awake to
the advisability of engaging a celebrity, are said to be contemplating
the revival of the old drama entitled The Dog of Montargis, with
the Manager’s dog in the title role. Mr. Arthur Cecil thinks the
dog would draw. The waiter swears that he did draw when he went
for his leg,—only that he drew blood, which was not quite what
Mr. Cecil meant. The partners at the Court will probably come to
the conclusion that the noble beast has not rendered himself suffi-
ciently popular to warrant them in running him as a Dog-Star.
Besides the dog displayed a lack of intelligence in not having selected a
distinguished character for his attack ; it might have been the right
leg, but it wasn’t the right person. If the playful beast had singled
out a Duke, or a Lord, or some notability, and if the sly Dog’s
photograph had been previously exhibited in shop-windows, the pro-
duction of The Dog of Montargis would have been the hit of the
season,—or rather it would have been a bite and a big catch at the
Court. Mr. Clayton now describes the St. Bernard as a “good
waiter dog.”
But I must pause for more than a minute. In the midst of my
Notes, the April number of Mr. Clement Scott’s Magazine, The
Theatre, has been brought in to me. I open it, haphazard, at page
184. 0 my heart! 0 my head! 0 my lungs ! 0 my lyre ! 0
goroo ! goroo ! What have I seen ? Can it be ? Why do I suddenly
recall the trim, the sprightly, the comic Polly Eccles f And what
suddenly inspires me to exclaim,—
Let Tennyson tremble ! let Browning beware !
Or gone are the laurels they both of ’em wear !
See Polly on Pegasus soaring aloft,—
A serious poem signed “ Marie Bancroft ! ”
I read it once, I read it twice, not having understood it the first
time, and then, like the soldier who lent a certain amount on his
sword, I wipe away a tear, as, once more inspired, I strike my lute,
and sing softly—very softly, and very Bancroftly—
How doth the busy Mrs. B.
Improve the shining hour ?
By dropping into poetry
With Silas Wegg-like power.
The Poetess sings of something that passed “ over her boyhood ”
—(Mrs. Bancroft’s boyhood ! 0, Pippo ! bless her!)—“ like a beam
of holy light.” What sort of light is this ? Lime, electric, or ordinary
gas ? Ah me ! hut it’s too beautiful! And then, struggling with a
choking sensation in my throat, I read on about “ a darkness which
can never feel Returning day.” What day’s this ? Quarter Day ?
Income Tax Collector’s Day,—which is a good specimen of a “Return-
ing day ? ” But how can I plumb the depths of the Poetess’s soul, or
scale her flights of stairs up to the Attic regions with my two-foot-
high air of library steps! No; I cannot understand why, when
someone “ bids her live,” she should obstinately wish to do exactly
the reverse, and “ would fain forgotten lie’neath the cold still earth.”
Mrs. Bancroft is evidently not an advocate for cremation. There’s
a touch of the old Byronic sparkle (the II. J. Byronic Burlesque
sparkle, I mean) about the finish, where I fancy I detect a pun of
her “ boyhood,” in the last line, “ Death shall ring out the nuptial
bell, And be my bride.” “Ring” “belle” and “bride”—it’s all
there, a triffe veiled, or rather Hood-ed. But Marie come up! it is
so beautiful and so comforting, like the word Mesopotamia to the old
woman.
Called Back is being dramatised by Mr. Comyns Carr. He has
set himself a most difficult task. It is to be produced at the
Prince’s Theatre. If he succeeds, he will deserve to be called
before the Curtain, and when he disappears, to be “called back”
again by a demonstrative and gratified Public. I shall be jubilant
at its triumph, and shall sing (making free with Mr. Carr’s name,
not, I fancy, for the first time, in an adaptation of the first line of the
refrain of “ The Low-Backed Car")—
“ I shan’t ‘ sit on ’ your ‘ Called Back,’ Carr ! ”
And so wish the Adapter and Author every success.
Yours truly, Nibrs.
“Mrs. Floppington Gfsh At Home, Four to Seven.” Crowded
room, stuffy atmosphere, indifferent music, worse recitations,
affected women, weak tea, weaker young men, and general dis-
comfort. Why go ?
Mural Decoration. — The
Wilson - Barrett-as-Clau-
dian Picture Poster seen
from a distance.
NOTES BY “NIBBS.”
(.Literary and Dramatic).
Towards the finish of a carefully con-
sidered and well-written article entitled
“ Realism Behind the Footlights,” in the
Fortnightly for this month (on the whole
a capital specimen number), Mr. Lewis
Wingfield bestows on Mrs. Kendal un-
qualified and, as agreeing with him I may
add, well-merited praise. “ Nothing,” he
says, “comes amiss to Mrs. Kendal.”
True. She can do everything she under-
takes “in an equally admirable manner.”
True again, though “equally” may be
taken as a subtle qualification of the
“admirable.” But Mr. Wingfield goes
on to apologise for her thus: “She has
been unfortunate, however, of late in the
series of parts she has been called upon to
interpret.”
Now, Mrs. Kendal is to all intents and
purposes a Manageress. “Hare and
Kendal” means “Hare, Kendal, &
Co.,” though not so nominated in the
playbill, and is it likely that this lady
would ever be “ called upon to interpret a
part ” which she had not herself chosen ? Wouldn’t she have a voice
in it, and a pretty powerful one too ? Don’t Managers choose
their own pieces and their own parts ? And as from unfortunate
experience they come to mistrust their own judgment on merely
hearing a play read to them, or on reading it themselves, is not
this the reason why they rush over to Paris to see a new play
performed, when they Hatter themselves that they can at once tell
you if, in an English dress, it will suit a London public ?
But this by the way. If Mrs. Kendal has been “ unfortunate of late
in a series of parts,” surely she has only herself and partners to thank.
Mr. Wingfield by implication throws the blame on the Authors, as
is the fashion with some Critics who, not liking to blame the Actor,
“‘give it’ to the Bard,” i.e., make a scape-goat of the much-
enduring, long-suffering Dramatic Author, and force him to stand as
whipping - boy for some popular stage favourite. Mr. Lewis
Wingfield knows better than this—and this is the only unreality
in his “ Realism behind the Footlights.”
The compilation of the new volume entitled The Humour and
Pathos of Charles Dickens must have been a labour of love to Mr.
Charles Kent. It might rank among a list of Dickens’s “ Guide-
Books,” only this is a Guide-Book to Dickens’s Works, which is of
course a very diiferent affair. There is a fitness, too, in the name of
the compiler of this work, as it is right that Kent should cherish the
memory of Dickens, Dickens having been very much attached to
Kent,—specially that part of it about Rochester. Charles Dickens's
Kent can say with Shakspeare’s faithful and modest Kent to
King Lear,—
“ I can keep honest counsel . . . . : that which ordinary men are fit for,
I am qualify’d in ; and the best of me is diligence.”
I have seen a little book called Chips from Thackeray, selected by
Thomas Mason. It can be carried in an ordinary waistcoat-pocket,
and is a delightful companion which no gentleman’s pocket should be
without. “Chips” is a dry-sounding title, and suggestive of “the
morning after,” but, apart from this, I strongly recommend it, for
size and substance, and as for its cost, why, it is of course—“ chip
at the price.”
All sorts and conditions of pieces are coming out, and one of them
will have seen the footlights before this notice appears. I mean
Mr. Reece’s Our Helen at the Gaiety. By the way, putting this
and that tradition together, the beautiful Helen seems to have
become quite a respectable person, and a thoroughly decent member
of Greek Society. She proved to be a devoted mother, and paid the
strictest attention to the education of her son and daughter, Eupho-
rion and Hermione, who were the classic originals of Helen's Babies.
Mr. Wyndham and talented Company appear at the Criterion,
returning from their American tour before the Irvingites. This is
considerate, as two Stars returning at the same time might have
set us ablaze. As a herald of Our Only Tragedian’s return, a book
of '''’Henry Irving's Impressions of America, by Joseph Hatton” ;
I or “ Joseph Hatton's Impressions of America, by Henry Irving ” ;
or “ Hatton's Impressions of Irving in America ” ; or “ Irving's
Impressions of Hatton" ; or “ Hatton's and Irving's Impressions of
each other in America,”—I don’t quite remember what the title is,
I but it’s something of this sort,—is already advertised. I have heard
I at least two persons express considerable curiosity on the subject.
{ Also I have received an interesting pamphlet containing American
criticisms on Our Only Tragedian. Unfortunately it came in such
a questionable shape, done up just like any one of those nuisances
called “ circulars,” that it was at once chucked into the waste-paper
basket. I caught sight of the cover just in time to know what a
treasure I had lost.
Mr. John Clayton’s St. Bernard mastiff having distinguished him-
self last week and displayed a taste for a tit-bit out of a waiter's leg,
—for which luxury Mr. Clayton had to make a hole in a fiver by the
advice of Mr. Partridge, the worthy beak, who was naturally
“down on him like a bird,”—the Court Management, ever awake to
the advisability of engaging a celebrity, are said to be contemplating
the revival of the old drama entitled The Dog of Montargis, with
the Manager’s dog in the title role. Mr. Arthur Cecil thinks the
dog would draw. The waiter swears that he did draw when he went
for his leg,—only that he drew blood, which was not quite what
Mr. Cecil meant. The partners at the Court will probably come to
the conclusion that the noble beast has not rendered himself suffi-
ciently popular to warrant them in running him as a Dog-Star.
Besides the dog displayed a lack of intelligence in not having selected a
distinguished character for his attack ; it might have been the right
leg, but it wasn’t the right person. If the playful beast had singled
out a Duke, or a Lord, or some notability, and if the sly Dog’s
photograph had been previously exhibited in shop-windows, the pro-
duction of The Dog of Montargis would have been the hit of the
season,—or rather it would have been a bite and a big catch at the
Court. Mr. Clayton now describes the St. Bernard as a “good
waiter dog.”
But I must pause for more than a minute. In the midst of my
Notes, the April number of Mr. Clement Scott’s Magazine, The
Theatre, has been brought in to me. I open it, haphazard, at page
184. 0 my heart! 0 my head! 0 my lungs ! 0 my lyre ! 0
goroo ! goroo ! What have I seen ? Can it be ? Why do I suddenly
recall the trim, the sprightly, the comic Polly Eccles f And what
suddenly inspires me to exclaim,—
Let Tennyson tremble ! let Browning beware !
Or gone are the laurels they both of ’em wear !
See Polly on Pegasus soaring aloft,—
A serious poem signed “ Marie Bancroft ! ”
I read it once, I read it twice, not having understood it the first
time, and then, like the soldier who lent a certain amount on his
sword, I wipe away a tear, as, once more inspired, I strike my lute,
and sing softly—very softly, and very Bancroftly—
How doth the busy Mrs. B.
Improve the shining hour ?
By dropping into poetry
With Silas Wegg-like power.
The Poetess sings of something that passed “ over her boyhood ”
—(Mrs. Bancroft’s boyhood ! 0, Pippo ! bless her!)—“ like a beam
of holy light.” What sort of light is this ? Lime, electric, or ordinary
gas ? Ah me ! hut it’s too beautiful! And then, struggling with a
choking sensation in my throat, I read on about “ a darkness which
can never feel Returning day.” What day’s this ? Quarter Day ?
Income Tax Collector’s Day,—which is a good specimen of a “Return-
ing day ? ” But how can I plumb the depths of the Poetess’s soul, or
scale her flights of stairs up to the Attic regions with my two-foot-
high air of library steps! No; I cannot understand why, when
someone “ bids her live,” she should obstinately wish to do exactly
the reverse, and “ would fain forgotten lie’neath the cold still earth.”
Mrs. Bancroft is evidently not an advocate for cremation. There’s
a touch of the old Byronic sparkle (the II. J. Byronic Burlesque
sparkle, I mean) about the finish, where I fancy I detect a pun of
her “ boyhood,” in the last line, “ Death shall ring out the nuptial
bell, And be my bride.” “Ring” “belle” and “bride”—it’s all
there, a triffe veiled, or rather Hood-ed. But Marie come up! it is
so beautiful and so comforting, like the word Mesopotamia to the old
woman.
Called Back is being dramatised by Mr. Comyns Carr. He has
set himself a most difficult task. It is to be produced at the
Prince’s Theatre. If he succeeds, he will deserve to be called
before the Curtain, and when he disappears, to be “called back”
again by a demonstrative and gratified Public. I shall be jubilant
at its triumph, and shall sing (making free with Mr. Carr’s name,
not, I fancy, for the first time, in an adaptation of the first line of the
refrain of “ The Low-Backed Car")—
“ I shan’t ‘ sit on ’ your ‘ Called Back,’ Carr ! ”
And so wish the Adapter and Author every success.
Yours truly, Nibrs.
“Mrs. Floppington Gfsh At Home, Four to Seven.” Crowded
room, stuffy atmosphere, indifferent music, worse recitations,
affected women, weak tea, weaker young men, and general dis-
comfort. Why go ?
Mural Decoration. — The
Wilson - Barrett-as-Clau-
dian Picture Poster seen
from a distance.