Punch (95.1888)

U2 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [September 22, 1888.

'PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE."

Son and Heir (whose Inquiring Turn of Mind is occasionally a nuisance). '' I say 'Pa, what's a V'cab'lary ? "
Father. "A Vocabulary, My Boy—What d'you want to know that for?"

Son. '"Cause I heard 'Ma say She'd no idea what a Treiienjious V'cab'lary You'd got, till you missed the Train on
Saturday !"

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

Good novel Hartas Maturin, by H". F. Lester. So excitingly
interesting-. The character of Hartas himself is finely drawn, and that
of the visionary Bastion might have been imagined and described by
Lord Lytton in such a work as Zanoni, or A Strange Story. I hope
there are not many Bastians about, as his theories would do away with
all moral responsibility, and necessitate the building1 of Public Lunatic
Asylums on an extensive scale, and a consequent increase of burden
on the unhapjjy ratepayer. But Mr. Lester is " only purtendin',"
and "there ain't no such person." i am sorry that Mr. Lester's
heroine should be troubled with a profusion of golden hair; I should
have cut that hair, or dye'd it; and I do not think that the lighted
end of a cigar put into the pocket of a damp coat would set a house
on fire, particularly such a liouse as the author has previously been
at no little pains to describe. But these are mere details. The idea
of the story is decidedly original, and to lighten the tragedy of the
tale there are many touches of genuine humour.

I have just seen Messrs. Barraud's eighth number of Men and
Women of the Day, wherein a portrait of Helen Mathers, Mrs.
Reeves, looking as if she were trying to imitate the American
Siffleuse, is between those of Dr. W. G. Grace, the Cricketer, and
Lord J ustice Cotton, with a wig which, were he Lord Chancellor,
would be suggestive of the Cotton-Woolsack, but, as he isn't, it is
evidently only an old wig that doesn't fit him. Helen Mathers,
the charming Novelist, couldn't be in better company than appear-
ing thus with Grace and Cotton, typical at once of her literary and
personal charms on the one hand, "and of her devoted domesticity
on the other. Well selected.

Also the September Number of Our Celebrities. There is about
Walery s Photographs a soft tone that I've rarely, if ever, seen
equalled. The portrait of Sir Morell Mackenzie this month is
perfect as a print, and lifelike as a portrait. The great merit of
this positive likeness is a "negative "one; I mean the absence of
the stereotyped background, m which, as in a cold ancestral hall,
with only one chair in it, to which he fondly clings, stands Lord
Stanley of Preston. The fault of background, in my humble judg-

ment, produces a theatrical effect in the otherwise striking repro-
duction of Lady Lindsay's living presentment. Here we have the
same baronial hall, the same urn of ancestor's ashes, perhaps, in the
distance, only the chair is different, and there is some drapery intro-
duced with a property cushion for the lady's footj a Wardour Street
table, and a property vase and book. The entertaining and interest-
ing monographs, by L. Engel are drawn from his usual well of pure
and undefiled engel-ish.

Tracked Out, by Mr. Arthur a Beckett, is, I am informed,
having a perfectly unprecedented sale. It is indeed a weird story.
Yet there is nothing quite new under the sun, as, I think, the weird
author will himself be the first to acknowledge when he reads A Tale
of Wonder, by William Makepeace Thackeray, now republished
by Elliot Stock, in a collection of the Novelist's early writings,
compiled by C. Plumptre Johnson, in which the decapitated Head
tells its own decapitated tale, and the criminal is discovered ! ! How's
this for High, inquires The Sagacious Baron de Book-Worms.

PASTORAL TO THE " BOY BISHOP."
[The World says of Dr. Jayne, the new Bishop of Chester:—" He cannot
he said to have made any mark there {i.e., at Leeds)." .... "In person,
he hardly realises one's idea of a Bishop: he enjoys a fair, fresh, ingenuous
boy-like aspect, and owns an engaging frank demeanour." .',..«■ and he
will he, hy far, the youngest Bishop on the Bench."]

Air—Refrain of " My Pretty Jane:1
My fairish Jayne, my boylike Jayne,

Oh, never look so shy ;
But come, oh come, and go a Bishoping,
While the bloom is 'neath your eye.

Chorus (everybody at Keble College):—
My fairish Jayne, my boylike Jayne,

Oh, never look so shy ; &c, da capo.

Candid Opinion.—Coal Tar Sugar can't be Beet.