(ANNALS OF A QUIET NEIGHBOURHOOD.)
Distinguished Amateur Vocalist (both Serious and Comic). "I can't say you have a very appreciative Public up here! I never sang 'Vilikins and his Dinah' better—but Nobody laughed a bit!"
Horrid Boy. "Oh, but they did when you sang 'The Death of Nelson.' I saw them!"
What will he play? Oh! young New Year,
Precocious power and baby skill
To Music's zealots are strangely dear;
The tiny fingers that thump and trill,
That sweep the keyboard with splendid speed,
Like rattling rain-drops, or fairy-feet,
Are sure of flattery's fullest meed,
And praise is sweet.
An early début, my little man!
The dimpled digits you swiftly spread
The sounding octaves can scarcely span,
The pedals hardly your toes can tread.
Yet here you are, and the public ear
Is all agog for the opening chords,
With breathless mingling of hope and fear,
Too deep for words.
The Future's Music before you stands,
Time at your elbow is prompt to turn.
'Twill tax the force of your infant hands,
Prodigies even have much to learn.
Mozart, or Hoffmann, or Liszt, of course,
You may turn out in your own new line;
May give us freshly the fire and force
Of Rubinstein.
The hour, young Hopeful, seems something scant
In present promise of Harmony;
Our leading music is militant.
Touch us a stave in a cheerful key!
We have abundance of crash and blare,
Drums and trumpets make angry noise;
Most of us long for a Lydian air,
O, best of boys!
Something Arcadian, manly-sweet,
Blending notes of the lyre and flute;
Pastoral Symphony gaily fleet,
Moaning chords in the minor mute.
Something stirring to lift the heart,
Something merry to move the toes;
Melody pure with a mirthful start
And a moving close.
Charges, marches, bugle-blasts,
Clarion-calls to the onset, tire;
Martial music a sadness casts,
Too long blown, e'en on hearts of fire.
Still the trumpet, and drop the drum!
Bid the fife for a moment cease!
Boy, we'll bless you if you'll but strum
The notes of Peace.
Wagner-worry of key and string
Has its power, and holds its place;
Touch to-day, boy, the chords that sing
Of love and gladness, of mirth and grace.
The future's Music you fain must play?
True! Yet turn ere a chord is struck.
A bumper, boy, to a brighter day!
Here's health and luck!
Mr. Punch lately learned to his extreme astonishment and delight that he is one of the independent Electors of the Ward of Farringdon Without. He gathered this important information from the receipt of a highly illustrated card from one of the numerous candidates to represent him in that illustrious body the Court of Common Council, during the coming year, soliciting the honour of his vote and interest.
The Candidate in question described at length his various qualifications for the office he sought. He kindly informed Mr. Punch that he was a Citizen, a Loriner—whatever that mysterious occupation may mean—and a People's Caterer, and any doubt that might have been entertained with regard to the especial business for, which he catered was at once removed by the perusal of the last line of his canvassing card, which, after kindly informing Mr. Punch that he had no less than sixteen votes at his disposal, finished with the remarkable request, "Kindly Plump for your Little Sausage Maker!"
Naturally wondering why a little Sausage Maker should be considered as so peculiarly eligible for the office of Common Councilman, that every elector should plump for him, Mr. Punch again examined the mysterious card, and found on its back a graphic representation of a race for the "Pork Sausage Derby," showing the Candidate, mounted on a decidedly thoroughbred Pig, coming in an easy winner with the rest nowhere, amid the chorus of the surrounding multitude.
Doubting whether a Large Tripe Dresser, or a Middle-sized Mutton-Pieman, would not have equal claims upon his Plumper to that of a Little Sausage Maker, Mr. Punch decided to take no part in the Election for Common Councilmen until the real meaning of the word "Common" is better understood than it evidently is at present by some aspirants to the Office in question.
Little 1888. "WHAT SHALL I PLAY?"
Father Time. "THE 'MUSIC OF THE FUTURE,' MY DEAR, OF COURSE"!!!
One of the prettiest and most seasonable sights we have seen for a long while was the display of toys collected by the proprietor of Truth from the readers of that entertaining periodical, exhibited in Willis's Rooms before distribution amongst the children of our hospitals and work-houses. The dolls (there were thousands and thousands of them) seemed to be bidding the fashionable world adieu before entering, like so many Sisters of Mercy, upon a mission of tender charity to the sick poor. There was a private view on Sunday, a week before Christmas Day, and those who examined the treasures revealing the glories of Regent Street and the Lowther Arcade, could not help thinking "Mr. Labouchere must have a heart as good as his head, and be a very kind man au fond." We wonder whether that confirmed cynic, the proprietor of Truth, would make the same admission?
The reasons given in the correspondence published in the Times of last Thursday for discharging Mr. Highton from his offices in connection with the Westminster Play seem to us inadequate. Instead of his work tending to lower the tone of the performance, surely its effect would obviously be to Highton it.
Of course Smith and Kilrain passed their Boxing-Day together.
Improvised Butler (to Distinguished Guest). "Will ye take anny more Drink, Sor?"
I begins to feel as how the older one gits the more a little bother seems to worry him. There was a time when I could look bothers in the face with the same carm look as I lissens to a gent when he tries to perswade me as how as that port isn't '47 Port, but them times is gorn I'm afeard, never to return.
My present bother came upon me amost like a moderate size thunderbolt, and was summut in this way. The Manager of one of my best Hotels took me into his privet room, one day larst week, and had sum werry sollem tork with me. He was werry kind, and werry considerate, but he was also werry furm, and what he said was summut like this:—
"You see, Robert," said he, "things is a changing in Hotels as is amost all other things, and all things as is jest a leetle old fashoned and a leetle rusty, as it were, must be jest pollished up a bit, and made a little fresher like. Now take our Hotel, for xample. See what lots of forren gents comes and stays here, and many on 'em so orful ignorant that they carnt not hardly speak a word of Inglish! Well, if they arsks one of our Hed Waiters a plain common question in French, which they all on 'em seems to know how to tork, they natrally expecs a anser. Now, what French do you know?"
I confess I was so taken aback at the suddenness of the question, that I was amost speechless. But I pulled myself together, like a man and a Hed Waiter, and said, "Not werry much, Sir, but when I was in Brussels two years ago, witch, I bleeves is sumwheres in France, I lernt jest a few words from the gassons at the Flarnders Hotel, witch I have treasured up in fond memory, and may find usefool sumtimes." "Oh," said he, "I didn't know you had travelled, so perhaps you will be able to manage."
I didn't think it worth while to tell him that I had only been in Brussells two days, and that it rained all the time, as I was told it amost always does there, hence so many Brussells Sprouts, but I at wunce made up my mind to strike up a closer acquaintence with one of our yung French Waiters to himprove myself in his tung, and himprove him in ours. And I'm getting on quite wunderfool. Why, ony yesterday a forren gent said to me, "Encore de Pulley, Gasson!" to which I at wunce replied, "Be hanged! Mossoo," and took him some. I was a good deal emused at his calling me a boy, but my young French friend told me as it was only their way, and didn't mean no offense, so I forguv him. But wot a langwidge! to encore a biled chicking as if it was a comick song! Of course I sumtimes makes mistakes, who woodn't? Last Munday, for instance, a forrener asked me for some raisins, and of course I took him some and some armonds with 'em, but he larfed quite artily, and kindly sed, "I sink as you calls 'em grapes," but wot ignorance, not to know one from the other!
I find too, werry much to my discumfort and worry, that I am xpected to bussel about jest as if I was the mere boy as the French gents calls me, witch is of coarse so werry different to what I have for so many years bin akustomed to in the dear, old, quiet, respecktable City, that I sumtimes wunders whether I shall be able to stand it for long. Another thing too as I misses terribly, is the hutter habsence of Toastes. No loyal Toastes, nor no Army and Navy and Wolluntears, and no blushing Churchman's helth, nor no Lord Mayor's helth, but dreckly as they've dun their dinner away they goes to the Play or some such frivolus emusement, insted of setting for ours and ours over their wine, and lissening with rapshure to the long speaches, as full of wit as they is of wisdom, which has made us what we are, the sollemest, and the most respectablest, and the most diningoutest peeple in Urope, and the best frends to the pore hardworking Waiters of any other nation.
What a glorious free-drinking race we must have bin in days gone by! How one's respect rises up when one hears of a digneterry of the Church who lived to the green old age of 80, becoz he always drunk a bottle of old port every day of his life from his youth upwards. How artily I wish I coud afford to foller his brillyant xampel! and so gain the profound admiration of my fellow men, as he did. Why, to such a man his dinner must have bin to him the one great object of his life, as it ort to be to every reel Gentleman. My son William, who is a good calculator, tells me that this trewly reverend Diwine must have drunk a hole Pipe of Port ewery two years of his life! What a time of it his rewerend Butler must have had!
From the Police Reports we have discovered that there is a Society called "The Social Trumps." What a Swivellerian title! The dispute which made these trumps Police Court Cards turned on a question of money, and the Magistrate, Mr. Lushington (could there have been a more significantly appropriate name for a justice having to decide a Swivellerian case?) recommended the Social Trumps to settle their little difficulty amicably among themselves. We hope the Trumps went and had a jolly blow out together, enlivened with songs about "The Rosy" and "Glorious Apollo," and sentiments to the effect that none of them "might ever want a friend or a bottle to give him." The "Social Trumps" must be enjoying their Christmas festivities. Their Christmas, of course, is The King of Trumps.
(Dedicated to the unfortunate Concocters of Sensational Leading Articles.)
"A merry Christmas! And why not a Merry Christmas, we should like to be informed? Is it not far better to be joyous and mirthful than to be——" (&c. Supply vigorous epithets here). "A black-souled tyrant like Cæsar Borgia could, no doubt, spend his Yule-tide in——" (&c., &c. Invent some revolting anecdote about Cæsar B.) "Yet even those insufficiently clad progenitors of ours, the ancient Druids, seem to have understood as though by instinct the solemn nature of the season which to-day ushers in, and in what Mr. Freeman——" (or was it Lord Tennyson? Never mind—chance it!)—"calls the 'dateless dawn of history,' they first employed the mistletoe bough for ritual, and perhaps even for osculatory, purposes, and habitually gave themselves an extra coat of paint on the 25th of each recurrent December. And who can blame them?" (Recollect that interrogatories, addressed to nobody in particular, add force to a style.) "What though our modern Yule-tide ceremonies are a mere survival of——" (Here bring in anything you know about the Roman Saturnalia, say something pretty about holly being Scandinavian, and that "Waits" were quite common in Athens in Sophocles' time, especially on the stage. Then go on triumphantly and truculently, as if you had proved your point down to the ground)—"What difference does it make? It is the great holiday of the Winter——" (This will be a novel idea to most of your readers.) "For the children, who gather round the cheerful fire, and listen to the ghost-story invented by some eloquently mendacious uncle, the season positively sparkles and scintillates with happiness."
"How exquisitely pleasant it is to hear the childish voices," &c., &c. (to any amount).
"Even for the elders, too, there is a mirth and joy about the Sacred Season, as they calmly retire to their beds just when the row down-stairs is becoming unbearable, and locking their doors, look carefully round the room to see that the jug is filled in readiness for the midnight serenaders of this blissful time.
"When Dickens drew his immortal picture of——" (&c., &c. Here gush at length about Gabriel Grubb, Tiny Tim, and anybody suitable, from The Christmas Chimes or Carols), "or when Washington Irving depicted the more than feudal merry-makings at"——(&c., &c. Try to cook up as much about Bracebridge Hall as you think the public will stand. Perhaps a few practical words at the end would be advisable, as follows):—
"And after our traditional Yule-tide offerings are over; after the preposterous claims of the postman and the lamp-lighter have been liquidated by liquor or satisfied by sixpences; then can we forget that besides this private bounty we also have a duty to our country? Lives there the man with soul so dead, Whose heart within him has not bled, And who, quite promptly has not fled, at mention of that grandest of Nineteenth Century inspirations, the Jubilee Imperial Institute? The Imperial Institute is——" (Here mention what it is. If you don't quite know, you can count upon none of your readers being any the wiser. Then add appeals for cash, a few more Yule-tide common-places, and a general and genial wind-up.)
When a judgment is re-versed, ought not the original to have been in rhyme?
NOTICE.—Rejected Communications or Contributions, whether MS., Printed Matter, Drawings, or Pictures of any description, will in no case be returned, not even when accompanied by a Stamped and Addressed Envelope, Cover, or Wrapper. To this rule there will be no exception.
LONDON: BRADBURY AGNEW & CO., PRINTERS WHITEFRIARS.
LONDON:
PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICE, 85, FLEET STREET,
AND SOLD BY ALL BOOKSELLERS.
1887.
LONDON:
BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
SCENE—A snug and sequestered if cloudy corner of the Elysian Fields. Present, the Shades of Shakspeare and Bacon, engaged in reading Mr. Donelly's egregious lucubrations, not without such mild and mitigated mirth as becomes the locality. To them enters a small and sprightly Personage, light-footed, but of seeming cis-Stygian solidity.
Bacon
Shakspeare
}
(together). Hillo!
Mr. Punch. That sounds human. Savours rather of my own Fleet Street than of the realms of the other Rhadamanthus. What cheer, sweet Will? How fare you, Brother Francis?
[Salutes courteously.
Bacon. 'Twere affectation to ask who you are, Sir. The question, "How gat you here?" may perchance be more pertinent—and pardonable.
Mr. P. (airily). Oh, I had been for—say, the xth time—to see "Our Mary" in The Winter's Tale, and being more inclined for profitable talk than for sleep, I just took you on my way home.
Bacon (smiling). Marry, Mr. Punch, were the statement of sequence equivalent to the explanation of causation, yours would be a most satisfactory answer.
Shaks. (mildly). Be not too scientifically scrutinising, Brother Bacon. Mr. Punch, Puck and Ariel in one, is free of all places, lord of all latitudes, penetrator of all spheres, permeator of all elements.
Mr. P. True, sweet Will! How much more catholic, in comprehension, as in charity, is the creative mind than the merely critical one!
Bacon. Humph! That sounds Sphinxian. Heraclitus the Obscure was pellucid in comparison.
Mr. P. And yet, I warrant you, Master Shakspeare here could play the "Diver of Delos" where your pundit's plummet should not find bottom. However, "broad-browed Verulam," let not that brow's breadth cloud or corrugate in vexation at my persiflage. What do you read, Sir?
Shaks. "Words, words, words!"
Mr. P. "I mean the matter that you read."
Shaks. "Slanders, Sir." For the coney-catching rogue—one Donelly—says here——but of course you know what he says.
[The trio laugh Homerically, until the asphodels wag their white heads and convulse their starry corollas in sheer sympathy.
Bacon. By Democritus, laughter in these latitudes is seldom enough of this sort and compass.
Mr. P. To succeed in shaking the sides—of Bacon, here, is somewhat indeed, the greatest triumph, be sure, that awaits the incongruous Cryptogrammatist.
Shaks. Would that Ben Jonson were with us to join in the glorious guffaw.
Mr. P. Conceive Rare Ben being jockeyed into accepting you, his contemporary and tavern-companion, as the author of such "unconsidered trifles" as Hamlet and Lear, Othello and Macbeth, The Tempest and The Midsummer Night's Dream! Wer't ever at the "Mermaid," Verulam?
Bacon. Verily, Mr. Punch, I should like mightily to have joined in that company, just for once, and to have discussed the Cryptogram with the "Spanish great galleon" and the "English man-of-war" (as Fuller puts it), whom Donelly now desires to knock, as it were, into one curiously composite craft. Did not this same maker of mare's-nests indite a fantastic tome, full of bottomless argument and visionary particularity, concerning that fabled island or continent of Atlantis, which the Egyptian priest told Solon had been swallowed up by an earthquake?
Mr. P. Like enough, my Lord, like enough. Once a mare's-nester, always a mare's-nester. Nephelo-Coccygia was terra firma compared with the elaborate but evanescent Cloud-Cuckoolands of riddle-reading theory-mongers.
Shaks. When Œdipus gets crotchet-ridden the sooner the Sphinx devours him the better.
Mr. P. True, O Swan! Let the Great Brethren of British Genius be brethren still—twins, if you please, but twain. Verily it might almost pass the might of Mother Nature to round two such splendid orbs into one. Rare Ben had his tribute for you also, my Verulam. "No man ever spake more neatly, more purely, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness in what he uttered." Might have been said of Me!
Bacon. Praise shared with you is praise indeed! But the language of the Realm of Phantasy—Will's own world—the speech of Arcady, of Arden, of shadowy Elsinore, of Prospero's enchanted Isle—Will's native tongue—passeth many a league-long step beyond the "neatness" of the judgment-seat, or the "fulness" of the Novum Organum Scientiarum.
Mr. P. Well said, Wisdom!
Shaks. (chortling softly). Why, who knows? One day, perchance,—æons hence, of course,—some puzzle-headed pragmatist may propound the preposterous question, "Who wrote Punch?" From out the fathomless deeps of its many thousand wit-stored tomes the Donelly of that dim and distant future may readily dip up, in his poor bucket, a Cryptogram, to show that they were produced by a scientific syndicate, including Faraday and Mill, Huxley and Herbert Spencer, Darwin and the Duke of Argyll.
[At the mention of the Olympian and autocratic Scottish Sciolist, Homeric laughter bursts forth anew in yet fuller force.
Bacon. Prithee, sweet Will, don't! Shadowy sides can ache, I find, and then, what will Rhadamanthus think?
Mr. P. As Jupiter did when the adventurous Ixion intruded into Olympus, perhaps. Well, well, put aside that preposterous book, which, as you, my Lord Bacon, said of the Aristotelian method, is "only strong for disputations and contentions, but barren of works for the benefit of the life of man," and, I may add, of immortals.
Shaks. (yawning). Not all reading, my Francis, makes a full man—save in the sense in which one may be filled with the East wind. My books were men. Not much that is novel in Nature, human or otherwise, to study in these shadowy realms. I miss the "Mermaid," and the mazy world which was my stage. Donelly's book is dull, however. Canst furnish us with a substitute, excellent Mr. Punch?
Mr. P. That can I, sweet Will. To that end indeed came I hither. As a popular stage-character—not one of your own—saith, "I hope I don't intrude." Ah, I thought not; but you needn't try (ineffectually) to wring my hands off, the pair of you. Behold!!!!!!
As Mr. Punch reluctantly turned his back upon Elysium, he left the two Illustrious Shades, prone side by side and cheek by jowl upon an asphodel bank, eagerly and diligently perusing his