DOI issue:
July 5, 1884
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17757#0017
July 5, 1884.] PUNCH, OP THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 9
THE TOWN.
Y.—The Strain'd. Amusement.
PART I.
Who ’ll limn the Strand ? The Arts now interblend,
The pen will paint, the brush tint-music wake,
And every scribbler who a quill can mend
Must ape Apelles, and his foolscap take
As canvas for the graphic. Words can lend
No picture-spell huge Babylon will not break,
Though ’twere the sweet word-wizardry that holds
Readers of Ruskin tranced—e’en when he scolds !
No canvas but a gallery were required
To hold the changeful pageant. Picture well
Our Town’s large life ? The task o’er taxed and tired
The bustling brush of Dope. None may tell
Its tale, the myriad-roofed, the multi-spired,
Or word its wide extremes, its heaven and hell,
Par sundered as the Florentine’s, yet near
As the Clown’s laugh to the Tragedian’s tear.
Here histrions congregate ; here mouthing mimes
And ballet-beauties thick the footway throng ,*
The Star who wins his column in the Times,
The fameless hanger-on of farce and song ;
The grim interpreter of classic crime.
The fair-faced Tenderer of romantic wrong.
What know they of still peace or placid pleasure ?
Thralls of that cruel craft the trade of pleasure.
And London’s pleasure-seekers are a horde
As motley as the host whom Xerxes led
To slaughter by the Greeks’ victorious sword;
But if a cap-and-bell crowned every head
That in the quest is pitilessly bored.
Patch would be king. There’s no delusion bred
By crowds of which our minds need disabusing
More than the mob’s conception of the Amusing.
In that above most else we ’re Custom’s fools.
But here that truth might raise a general frown.
This is Amusement’s realm ; ’tis here she rules
The idlers and the toilers of the Town ;
The Shakspeare-worshipper of Culture’s schools,
The incult adorer of the painted clown,
And those who find the tragical and witty
In mouthing melodrame and comic ditty.
“ The Play’s the thing ” to move-what does it move ?
The conscience, passions, fancy, mind, or taste ?
'Twere to inquire too nicely. Saints reprove
The Stage, some brand it sin, some simply waste ;
But so they ban the world. The censor’s groove
Is, like the cynic’s, narrow. David’s haste
In condemnation is the common failing
Of those who think religion must mean railing.
If “ all the world’s a stage,” the Stage to-day
Itself’s a little world, and here ’s its centre.
A world the greater World will praise, and pay,
Fondle, and pet, nay, even pine to enter.
Mimes are the mode. Mercurial Lady May,
Of big “ first nights” assiduous frequenter,
“ Would give her little finger, don’t you know,
Just to play Juliet coram populoJ
So swears De Flitters, tattler to the town,—
And who in such nice matters doubts De Flitters ?
His own Malvolio the house brought down,—
Lady May’s “house” ! Uncomplimentary titters
Greeted him, truly, in ’ Twixt Axe and Crown,
Played “ for a Charity.” Arc has its bitters,
And destiny will sometimes prove ironic
With amateurs e’en of the histrionic.
By, from my Lady May’s own private stage
To stuffy schoolrooms of dissenting chapels,
This mimicry of mimes is all the rage.
The Player now with fame and fortune grapples
On equal terms with Poet, Painter, Sage,
At public dinners o’er the piled pine-apples
Each small “ creator ” of a minor part
May gush grandiloquently of his “ Art” !
The word is Cant’s last shibboleth. ’Tis pity
When lips most eloquent are slaves to Cant;
When Statesman proud, and Scholar wise and witty
Subdue their souls to fustian froth and rant.
Hear Premiers perorating in the City !
Hear footlight vanity, self-ministrant,
Twaddling of love and lucre, art and charity,
And you may weigh the curse of popularity !
Yes ; praise is sweet, but public adulation,
The epidemic slaver of the crowd,
Debilitates ; ’twere sheer humiliation
To spirits truly strong and nobly proud
To snuff the incense of mob-obfuscation;
Yet Players in the intoxicating cloud
Breathe on as though asphyxia were a joke.
’Tis really marvellous they do not choke !
Stars of the Strand who once had been tabooed,
Despite of brain or beauty, farther West,
That West now worships you ! Capricious, crude
Is Fashion’s fulsome patronage, at best.
Hysteria rules the hour, and Art, subdued
To gush and pose, perpetuates the pest.
Sad -when the best of these who “live to please ”
Talk Pecksniffism blent with Barnumese !
Stars still, of steady light, save when obscured
By maudlin mists that manly sense should scatter.
Stage-haunted Strand, the motley myriads lured
To nightly pleasure ’midst thy crush and clatter,
Not all are lads to cynic lust inured,
Or fribbles caught by puns and vulgar patter.
Glory and gain yet greet the bold experiment
Of moving interest and manly merriment.
The Play’s the thing—as Belfort treats the play—
To draw the eager Town, yet not degrade it.
The histrionic idol of the day
Not only prosed of “ Shakspeare’s Art,” he played it.
But Rahab, semi-veiled, seductive, gay,
Who sets off sin by knowing how to shade it,—
She and her panders, in fierce greed of profit,
Still makes the Stage a vestibule of Tophet.
Her spell is o’er the Strand, within, without,
Footlights and footway feel her subtle taint.
No need to view the pleasure-chasing rout
With the sour visage of a self-dubbed Saint;
But tolerant sense, not prone to whine or flout,
May question whether patchouli and paint,
Or brainless beauty basest lures abusing,
Are needful elements of the Amusing.
May doubt if coarse sensation, fun as coarse,
Though fatuously flaunted, fit the Stage
To rest, and recreate, and reinforce
The fretted toilers of a feverish age.
And pleasure’s spring, so poisoned at its source,
Spreads deep corruption difficult to gauge,
Which yet the observant eye may understand,
Watching the hurrying life-stream of the Strand.
Here high-born folly courts its dismal doom.
Noblesse oblige f Young slips of rank who ape
A Jehu’s fame, the fashions of a groom.
Meet Nemesis in rouged and padded shape.
A tale whose course is farce, its finis gloom,
When tragic weeds the tawdry spangles drape
Is that of many a thrice-gulled golden youth.
A Tale of Town ! Hear, and attest its truth.
Vol. 87.
1—2
THE TOWN.
Y.—The Strain'd. Amusement.
PART I.
Who ’ll limn the Strand ? The Arts now interblend,
The pen will paint, the brush tint-music wake,
And every scribbler who a quill can mend
Must ape Apelles, and his foolscap take
As canvas for the graphic. Words can lend
No picture-spell huge Babylon will not break,
Though ’twere the sweet word-wizardry that holds
Readers of Ruskin tranced—e’en when he scolds !
No canvas but a gallery were required
To hold the changeful pageant. Picture well
Our Town’s large life ? The task o’er taxed and tired
The bustling brush of Dope. None may tell
Its tale, the myriad-roofed, the multi-spired,
Or word its wide extremes, its heaven and hell,
Par sundered as the Florentine’s, yet near
As the Clown’s laugh to the Tragedian’s tear.
Here histrions congregate ; here mouthing mimes
And ballet-beauties thick the footway throng ,*
The Star who wins his column in the Times,
The fameless hanger-on of farce and song ;
The grim interpreter of classic crime.
The fair-faced Tenderer of romantic wrong.
What know they of still peace or placid pleasure ?
Thralls of that cruel craft the trade of pleasure.
And London’s pleasure-seekers are a horde
As motley as the host whom Xerxes led
To slaughter by the Greeks’ victorious sword;
But if a cap-and-bell crowned every head
That in the quest is pitilessly bored.
Patch would be king. There’s no delusion bred
By crowds of which our minds need disabusing
More than the mob’s conception of the Amusing.
In that above most else we ’re Custom’s fools.
But here that truth might raise a general frown.
This is Amusement’s realm ; ’tis here she rules
The idlers and the toilers of the Town ;
The Shakspeare-worshipper of Culture’s schools,
The incult adorer of the painted clown,
And those who find the tragical and witty
In mouthing melodrame and comic ditty.
“ The Play’s the thing ” to move-what does it move ?
The conscience, passions, fancy, mind, or taste ?
'Twere to inquire too nicely. Saints reprove
The Stage, some brand it sin, some simply waste ;
But so they ban the world. The censor’s groove
Is, like the cynic’s, narrow. David’s haste
In condemnation is the common failing
Of those who think religion must mean railing.
If “ all the world’s a stage,” the Stage to-day
Itself’s a little world, and here ’s its centre.
A world the greater World will praise, and pay,
Fondle, and pet, nay, even pine to enter.
Mimes are the mode. Mercurial Lady May,
Of big “ first nights” assiduous frequenter,
“ Would give her little finger, don’t you know,
Just to play Juliet coram populoJ
So swears De Flitters, tattler to the town,—
And who in such nice matters doubts De Flitters ?
His own Malvolio the house brought down,—
Lady May’s “house” ! Uncomplimentary titters
Greeted him, truly, in ’ Twixt Axe and Crown,
Played “ for a Charity.” Arc has its bitters,
And destiny will sometimes prove ironic
With amateurs e’en of the histrionic.
By, from my Lady May’s own private stage
To stuffy schoolrooms of dissenting chapels,
This mimicry of mimes is all the rage.
The Player now with fame and fortune grapples
On equal terms with Poet, Painter, Sage,
At public dinners o’er the piled pine-apples
Each small “ creator ” of a minor part
May gush grandiloquently of his “ Art” !
The word is Cant’s last shibboleth. ’Tis pity
When lips most eloquent are slaves to Cant;
When Statesman proud, and Scholar wise and witty
Subdue their souls to fustian froth and rant.
Hear Premiers perorating in the City !
Hear footlight vanity, self-ministrant,
Twaddling of love and lucre, art and charity,
And you may weigh the curse of popularity !
Yes ; praise is sweet, but public adulation,
The epidemic slaver of the crowd,
Debilitates ; ’twere sheer humiliation
To spirits truly strong and nobly proud
To snuff the incense of mob-obfuscation;
Yet Players in the intoxicating cloud
Breathe on as though asphyxia were a joke.
’Tis really marvellous they do not choke !
Stars of the Strand who once had been tabooed,
Despite of brain or beauty, farther West,
That West now worships you ! Capricious, crude
Is Fashion’s fulsome patronage, at best.
Hysteria rules the hour, and Art, subdued
To gush and pose, perpetuates the pest.
Sad -when the best of these who “live to please ”
Talk Pecksniffism blent with Barnumese !
Stars still, of steady light, save when obscured
By maudlin mists that manly sense should scatter.
Stage-haunted Strand, the motley myriads lured
To nightly pleasure ’midst thy crush and clatter,
Not all are lads to cynic lust inured,
Or fribbles caught by puns and vulgar patter.
Glory and gain yet greet the bold experiment
Of moving interest and manly merriment.
The Play’s the thing—as Belfort treats the play—
To draw the eager Town, yet not degrade it.
The histrionic idol of the day
Not only prosed of “ Shakspeare’s Art,” he played it.
But Rahab, semi-veiled, seductive, gay,
Who sets off sin by knowing how to shade it,—
She and her panders, in fierce greed of profit,
Still makes the Stage a vestibule of Tophet.
Her spell is o’er the Strand, within, without,
Footlights and footway feel her subtle taint.
No need to view the pleasure-chasing rout
With the sour visage of a self-dubbed Saint;
But tolerant sense, not prone to whine or flout,
May question whether patchouli and paint,
Or brainless beauty basest lures abusing,
Are needful elements of the Amusing.
May doubt if coarse sensation, fun as coarse,
Though fatuously flaunted, fit the Stage
To rest, and recreate, and reinforce
The fretted toilers of a feverish age.
And pleasure’s spring, so poisoned at its source,
Spreads deep corruption difficult to gauge,
Which yet the observant eye may understand,
Watching the hurrying life-stream of the Strand.
Here high-born folly courts its dismal doom.
Noblesse oblige f Young slips of rank who ape
A Jehu’s fame, the fashions of a groom.
Meet Nemesis in rouged and padded shape.
A tale whose course is farce, its finis gloom,
When tragic weeds the tawdry spangles drape
Is that of many a thrice-gulled golden youth.
A Tale of Town ! Hear, and attest its truth.
Vol. 87.
1—2