Punch (96.1889)

April 13, 1889.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

m

THE BEASTS, THE BIRDS, AND THE BAT.

A Modern Confabulation Concerning an Ancient Fable.

Senex. This picture, my son, illustrates anancientFable-

Juvenis. And how does dear old Also? make the story
go, Sir ?

Senex [reading). “ Once upon a time there was a fierce
war waged between the Birds and the Beasts. For a
long while the issue of the battle teas uncertain, and the
Bat, talcing advantage of his ambiguous nature, kept
aloof, and remained neutral.”

Juvenis. Ambiguous nature. Ah! Neither Beast nor
Bird, but a little bit of both.

Senex [resuming). “ At length when the Beasts seemed
to prevail, the Bat joined their forces, and appeared active
in the fight; but a rally being made by the Birds, which
proved successful, he was found at the end of the day
among the ranks of the winning party. A peace being
speedily concluded, the Bat's conduct was condemned alike
by both parties, and being acknowledged by neither, and so
excluded from the terms of the truce, he was obliged to
skulk off as best he could, and has ever since lived in holes
and corners, never daring to show his face except in
the duskiness of twilight.”

Juvenis. Oh, that was the Bat’s fate, was it?—accord-
ing to the Fable! Well, no doubt it’s a hit dangerous
to keep “on the hover ” too long. And yet somehow the
particular Bat in the picture doesn’t quite look like a con-
firmed Troglodyte, or destined dweller in a perpetual
Cave of Adullam. Looks sharp enough, anyhow, and
does not look as if “the duskiness of twilight” would
suit it long. He’s playing a risky game, no doubt; but
whether he’s as blind as his proverbial type, is just the
question, my dear Senex.

Senex [severely). If he is not blind he is base, and if
he is not base he is blind.

Juvenis. Ah! that ’ sneatly, not to say “nastily ” put,
and a deuced awkward dilemma—in theory—for the Bat.
He’s making a lot of enemies, no doubt, on both sides,
especially among the ambitious non-effectives, and the
disappointed would-be cocks o’ the walk. But perhaps if
the Bat could unbosom himself frankly (which I fancy
he’s not likely to do) as the Lion did to the Man in
another Fable, he might say a thing or two which would
throwa fresh lighton the subject. “ The bearings of it,”
as Jack Bunsby says, “lie in the application; ” and maybe
the modern form of the ancient Fable may carry an “ap-
plication ” of which the original Aisop did not dream.

THE HEIGHT OF EXCLUSIVENESS.

She. “I BELIEVE YOU KNOW MY NEIGHBOURS, THE CHESTERFIELD BROWNS?”

He. “Haw—well—a—I go to the House, don’tcherknow, and Dine

WITH ’EM OCCASIONALLY, AND ALL THAT—BUT I ’M NOT ON SPEAKING TERMS
WITH ’EM 1”

PLAY-TIME.

Ts That Doctor Cupid still possible ? Wonderful to relate he is so,
and nearing his hundredth night! “Buchanan and a hundred
knights ” sounds chivalric—Fabula narratur D. T.—but though
“ chivalry ” may, or may not, “ still be possible,” yet
most decidedly no further doctoring of Cupid is pos-
sible after this curious comedy at the Yonderful
Vaudeville. Mr. Thomas Thorne is the Cupid redivi-
vus, and when I looked at him,—he being about as
unlike the little god of love as, for example, the Home
Secretary or the Chancellor of the Exchequer
would be,—I could not help saying to myself, “ Tell
me, my heart, can this be love ? ” and replying to my
own question, “ No, it is only a Thorne in the flesh.”
“0 ye gods and little fishes!’’—well, everyone
knows ,the next line,—but what is Cupid without his
wings ? Truth to tell, though the public have,
I suppose, taken kindly to the piece,—other-
wise this unromantic, rheumatic Dr. Cupid
could not have run till now and be still running,
— Chevalier Buchanan’s play is a nondescript
affair, neither comedy, nor tragedy, nor farce,
nor melodrama, nor good extravaganza, but a
hotch-potch of all these ingredients served up
in the first dish that could hold the mess to-
gether. Dr. Cupid himself is a supernatural
Bottled by Dr. Dee early being, compounded out of a Bottle Imp,
in 17th Century. Un- Mephistopheles, an Arabian Nights' Genie,
corked at the Yaude- Puck, Le Diable Boiteux, and Parson Adams.
ville, 1889. The piece begins with real good comedy, then

suddenly we are taken into the domain of melodrama, where there
is thunder and lightning, a darkened stage, breaking a magician’s
phial, lurid light, and. all the old mysterious noises that used to herald
the advent of the marvellous Mr. George Conquest in a Pantomime

at the Grecian. There is something more Grecian than Latin about
this appearance of Eros at the Vaudeville, only that had Mr. George
Conquest been the Cupid, we should not bave seen him complaining
of age, rheumatism, and cramp, but should have watched him bounding
upwards and flying off in chase of some butterfly that reminded him
of his long-lost Psyche. Who can believe in a Cupid with a cramp,
except in an extravaganza ? And, by the way, Mr. Tom Thorne may
remember a certain overgrown Cupid, in the burlesque of Paris,
so funnily played by Mr. Turner, who issued from a damp rose,
limped with rbeumatic pains, and noticed with sorrow that his wings
were moulting.

When Mr. Buchanan hit on this idea, he threw away the material
for a capital opera-bouffe, and spoilt a good comedy. Just at the
end, after the serio-comic Demon Cupid had uttered sentiments
worthy of a Christian divine, and made his last appearance as a Con-
verted Cupid, the melodramatic effects of Act the First were repeated,
and I fully expected that advantage would be taken of this in order
to bring us all back again safe and sound to young Racket's rooms
at Cambridge, where with lights full on, we should find that all his
experience with Dr. Cupid had been a dream. I do not say that,
had this been so, I should have been one whit better pleased: but
such an explanation, old-fashioned though it be, would have been
dramatically satisfactory.

The piece is capitally played by all, though I should not think
Dr. Cupid would remain in Mr. Tom Thorne’s repertoire as one of
his best parts. Miss Annie Irish is delightful as the honest,
frolicsome Kate; Mr. Fred Thorne first-rate in the very conven-
tional part of an irascible gouty old uncle ; Mr. Glllmore gallant
and gay as Harry Racket; and Mr. Cyril Maude uncommonly good
in the difficult part of “ Charles his friend,—with a stutter; ” and
Miss Marion Lea, as the giddy widow, irresistible. _ Miss Dolores
Drummond as the vinegar-faced but subsequently vivacious house-
keeper, and Miss F. Robertson as the amorous spinster, both excellent.

Expected Arrivals.—The Cuckoo and the Swallow.