Oh! young J. H. Taylor is a fine young fellow,
At whom the Scotsmen may hardly scoff;
For though he's Saxon by birth and breeding,
He is champion now at the Game of Golf!
On St. Andrews' Links when the rain was pouring,
He smote the ball with a manly blow;
And he distanced St. Andrews' Andrew—Kirkaldy—
Though Taylor was trained in far Westward Ho!
And he went the four rounds fair and featly,
In strokes three hundred, and twenty, and two,
Which Sandy Herd, and Andy Kirkaldy,
And Davie Anderson, they could not do.
It may seem sheer cheek for "a gowk of a Saxon"
To take the cake at the Gaelic Game;
But as imitation's the sincerest flattery,
Let 'em take a licking in the light o' the same.
So here's a health to bold J. H. Taylor,
Lord of the Links, at the tee a toff;
Who takes first place for the slighted Southron
At the Ancient and Royal Game of Golf!
'Arry (on a Northern Tour, with Cockney pronunciation). "Then I'll 'ave a Bottle of Aile."
Hostess of the Village Inn. "Ile, Sir? We've nane in the hoose, but Castor Ile or Paraffine. Wad ony o' them dae, Sir?"
Beneath the spreading Beerbohm Tree
The Resting Actor stands,
And grateful takes the £ s. d.
From Active Actors' hands.
No more he'll strut upon the stage
Where he has done his best,
Nothing he'll need, while active men
Are doing all the rest.
Hal. It was a Greek play at Bradford College.
'Arry (to Tom). I told you it was a Greek fake.
Tom (to 'Arry). How do you know?
'Arry (giving Hal as his authority). 'Cos it's' Al-sez-'tis.
| They dress.... | like men. |
| They talk...... | like men. |
| They live....... | like men. |
| They don't.... | like men. |
Intelligence from (and at) Hamburg.—"Mr. G." was unable to go to the Zoo at feeding-time. He was conspicuous by his absence, as all the other lions were there.
New and Appropriate Name for the After-dinner Crumb-and-fragment Basket.—"The Morsel-eum."
Dear Charlie,—The pypers all tell us the Season is now at its 'ight;
Don't mean one o' Thomson's, my pippin. That josser is now out of dyte.
When I was a bit of a kiddie, dad 'ad a old brown-covered book
Into wich now and then, on a Sunday, 'e thought it the right thing to look.
Such sloppy saloop, my dear Charlie, "embellished" with rummy old cuts,
Drawn stiff and old-fashioned, by Stothard. On one on 'em though, I was nuts,
Musi—— somethink or other I fancy. But as to the cackle, Great Scott!—
"The sun rolling bounteous from Aries," and reams o' such molly slop rot.
Now if Jemmy 'ad sung of our Season, not Nature's old merry-go-round,
But London's pertikler, for swells, it 'ud suit me right down to the ground.
But as Jemmy has shirked it for tosh on "ethereal mildness," and such,
Wy 'Arry must 'ave a cut in, and all London is fly to his touch.
Wot a Summer we're 'aving this Season! All Nature seems trim and in tune;
Ripe strorberries picked out o' doors, though we've 'ardly yet dropped into June;
The parks jest like bloomin' peraries, the water supply going queer,
And a general 'urrying up for stror 'ats, lemon squoshes, and beer.
It seems only yesterday, Charlie, the standpipes wos up in our street,
And "Are you froze off?" wos the question of every poor pal you might meet.
And now there's a new "water famine" along o' the 'eat, not the cold,
And ginger-pop's sellin' as fast as it can be unbottled and sold.
Queen's droring-rooms, troopin' the colours, and trotting young Nasrulla round,
Is sights your true patriot's nuts on, and I've done my bit, you be bound.
I chi-iked to young Ingy-rubber, and give him the haffable nod;
And if H. R. H. didn't twig me, and drop me a smile, well, it's odd.
Hart's 'aving its innings, as usual, and so is old W. G.,
Only more so. My eye and a band-box, a rare bit o' stuff he must be!
As nigh forty-seven as don't matter, as big as a barrel, and yet
A-piling 'is centries like pea-shellin'! Sound Double Gloster, you bet!
I sor him at Lord's, mate, last Thursday, five 'ours and a arf in the sun,
A smiting and running as if, at 'is age, with 'is weight, it was fun!
'Ot, Charlie? My collar flopped limp, and I lapped lemon-squoshes—a number;
And there wos 'e tottling 'is Thousand, as cool as a bloomin' cowcumber.
I wouldn't ha' done it for tuppence; no, not with the cheerings chucked in,
Although the Pervilion fair rose at 'im. 'Ow gents of clarss, and with tin,
And no need to it, Charlie, choose Cricket, at ninety degrees in the shyde,
When they could lay hidle, fair licks me. But, there, hevery one to 'is tryde!
A dust-coat, a white 'at, a field-glass, a landau and lashings o' fizz,
At Hascot would suit me fur better. The old sport o' kings is good biz,
With shekels, and luck, like Lord Rosebery! Scissors! I do 'ate a Rad.
But a sportsman, as pulls off two Derbies, wy 'ang it, 'e carn't be no Cad.
If Primrose would only turn Primroser, wot a fair topper he'd be!
Wot can be 'is little gyme, Charlie, to foller old W. G.?
(I don't mean the cricketer this time.) That Liberal lot ain't no clarss,
With a lot o' tag-rag they carn't hold, and a lot o' bad Bills they carn't parss.
The blot on this Season is Parlyment. Wy don't they 'urry it up,
And scoot to country, the cripples? St. Paul's to my tarrier pup,
They'd git a 'ot 'iding this journey. Let Rosebery cut the thing short,
Chuck 'Arcourt and pal on with Gentleman Joe, like a gent, and a Sport!
Then 'Arry will talk to 'im, Charlie! Ah, well, I ain't got no more room,
Though I ain't done the Season arf justice. The last pale laburnum's in bloom,
But it ain't bin washed brimstone with rain-bursts. Our Sarah is hover from Parry,
Sir Orgustus is fair on the toot, so 'Ooray for the Season! Yours, 'Arry.
New Book and Query.—"Women's Tragedies. By H. D. Lowry." Is the tragic history of That Lass of Lowrie's included? "But that is another story."
This is how the Guardians of the Midleton Union (County Cork) transact business:—
"Mr. Morrison (to the Chairman). You promised to write to the Local Government Board, and do it now. (Noise and interruptions.)
"Mr. Murphy (warmly). I say the whole thing is all humbug, and based upon humbug.
"(At this stage there was great noise and confusion, several gentlemen speaking at the same time.)
"Chairman (very warmly, and hitting the table). I say I am not a humbug, and I was never a humbug, and I hope I'll never have to be displaced from any public position because I was a humbug or a proved humbug."
Why did not the table turn upon the chair, and hit it back? This would have been a real case of table-turning. To parody Edward Lear's delightful Nonsense Songs,
Said the Table to the Chair,
"You can hardly be aware
How it feels when you come down
With your fist upon my crown."
"Menus Plaisirs."—One of the best menus of the season provided by the Lyceum House of Entertainment included, or rather did include, during last week past, such choice dishes, so much to the taste of everyone, as The Ris d'Ellen Terry à la Nance Oldfield and Tête de Mathias à la Henri premier. Appropriately, of course, did the orchestra, which plays before each performance, give the old familiar airs of "I would I were with Nancy!" and "The Bells are ringing for"—Mathias—not for "Sara."
Daughter of a Hundred Earls (who is about to marry for love). "Now I am going to have a House of my own, Mrs. Rustle, I shall get you to give me a Hint or two."
The Maternal Housekeeper. "Well, Lady Clara, I'm afraid I can't help you much. I know very little about the Contrivances of People with Small Means."
[Mr. Anthony Hope's "reply on behalf of the ladies was witty and felicitous, and only disappointed" those who had hoped that at least one "new woman" would have justified the claim of her sex to equality with the male by replying. "The only sign of novelty we detected about the ladies present was that a few condescended to puff cigarettes, to the evident scandal of some less advanced ladies."—The "Literary World" upon the late meeting of the "New Vagabond Club."]
Of novelties—and novel ties—in chase,
Advances the New Woman, destined winner
Of true first-fiddledom and pride of place!
Already she's "advanced" to a club dinner
At the New Vagabonds! How Eleusinian
It sounds, how almost desperately daring!
Clubdom was once Man's absolute dominion,
Which now New Womanhood with him seems sharing.
"She made no speeches," though;— though Frankfort Moore
Cracked jokes, and Hope told tales! With mild regret
One hears that, 'midst the after-dinner "roar"
Her share was—proxies and a cigarette!
Can it be her revolt against Man's yoke
Shall end, as here, in silence and in smoke!
Damp Italian Drama.—The Evening Dews, eh?
[A paper on "The Amplitude of Rolling on a Non-synchronous Wave" was read before the Congress of Naval Architects in Paris.]
Last week, the papers tell us, the talented and zealous
Designers who construct our ships their best attention gave
To M. Bertin's writing on what sounds to us exciting—
The amplitude of rolling when non-synchronous the wave.
How often, crossing over those distressing Straits of Dover,
Where flighty folks grow flabby and where giddy ones grow grave,
We have meditated sadly that we don't encounter gladly
The amplitude of rolling when non-synchronous the wave.
The amplitude—we'd bear it, and would probably not care, it
Seems but to be an adjunct which perhaps we might not crave.
For that execrable rolling we require much more consoling,
That amplitude of rolling when non-synchronous the wave.
Yet the rolling might be ended if the waves could be amended
To synchronously swell, all want of symmetry to save,
But we can't be Canutes, can we? He could no more stop it than we—
That amplitude of rolling when non-synchronous the wave.
So Lord Dufferin entreated all the experts, round him seated,
To build a ship where passengers could comfortably shave,
Even where a billiard-table would be absolutely stable,
No amplitude of rolling, though non-synchronous the wave.
Naval Architects, then, hasten to diminish woes which chasten
The happiness of hundreds, be they timorous or brave;
Make a ship, like dry land seeming, where we should not think of dreaming
Of amplitude of rolling, though non-synchronous the wave.
"Cromwell," wrote the Daily News on Arthur Balfour's speech, "was the only man of his time who understood the principles of religious freedom." Ahem!
"Papa," said Polly Eccles, referring to certain charges brought against her revered father, "Papa may have his faults, but he's a very clever man." So the D. N. as to the Protector Cromwell. "Oliver," says the D. N. in effect, "being human, may have had his faults, as had other men of his time, but he thoroughly understood religious freedom." Did he? In Ireland for example? With him "religious freedom" was like the verb in grammar, either "expressed" or "understood." It might have been "understood," but it certainly was not "expressed" in action. If Cromwell was such a model of "religious freedom," then it will be as well to reconsider history under Nero, Diocletian, & Co., not to mention the amiable Ninth Charles of France, the genial Harry the Eighth of England, the gentle Peter, Czar of all the Russia, and a few other kindly-disposed rulers, who were, probably, the only men of their time thoroughly understanding the principles of religious freedom. As the song says, "They wouldn't ha' 'urt a biby, They were men as you could trust!" And for Oliver himself, "He was all right when you knew him, But—you had to know him fust!" Rather; and then you had to accommodate yourself to his little ways, or else so much the worse for one of the two, and that one wouldn't have been Oliver Cromwell. But, of course, between principles and practise there is a "Great Divide."
The Shahzada, weary of London life and English enjoyment, will at last exclaim with the canny Scot, "For pleasure gie me Peebles!" (The original remark was made by the author of Peebles whom I have met.)
Note, Saturday, June 15.—Piece running last the week in Theatre Royal Law Courts—"Bébé." For Monday's lunch Sir Henry Hawkins ordered a Capon.
EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.
House of Commons, Monday, June 10.—School reopened after Whitsun Holidays. Occasion marked by lamentable episode. Attendance, as usual on Black Monday, very small. Speaker took Chair at three o'clock. No private business on hand; nothing to be done till half-past three. Meanwhile, Speaker and Members sit with hands folded.
Everyone knows the temptation of such opportunity for a nameless Personage. Tommy's idle hands instinctively clutched after mischief. Suppose he were to move to have House counted? Evidently not forty present; nothing very serious would follow. Speaker would count. If not forty on hand, would leave Chair, sit at table, and wait till they came. Or he would go off, come back any time before four when message brought in that a quorum was in sight. Still, it would be a lark; would startle the House, frighten Ministers, possibly postpone commencement of business by half an hour.
Cap'en just rising with intent to observe that there are not forty Members present, when happier thought struck him. Why not get some landsman to do the trick? The more venerable and venerated the agent the better. Tommy knows himself to be a wicked old salt. House not shocked now at anything he does. Half the fun gone if he played this prank himself. Shifting his quid and scanning horizon, noted in his place Sir Richard Temple, Bart., G.C.S.I., late Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, once Governor of Bombay, sometime Chief Commissioner of Central Provinces of India.
The very man for the job. Buttonholing him with his hook, Cap'en Tommy opened his little plot. Temple aghast at first. Never known such a thing done, and the like. Tommy jawed away, twisting Temple round the tip of his hook like a marlingspike on a flying jibboom. Convinced him that public duty called for sacrifice of private prejudices. Having squared Temple, Tommy got men near him to walk out before House was counted, so as to reduce chances of quorum.
Bell rang; Members rushed in; Ministers huddled on Treasury Bench like flock of frightened sheep. Tommy, looking down from shrouds in Strangers' Gallery, carefully counted.
"Only thirty two," he said. "Done it!"
But Speaker can count as well. "One-two—four—fourteen—twenty-seven—thirty-nine, forty," said he, with tone of conviction that precluded contradiction.
"Blow me tight!" said Tommy, coming out of the shrouds, a deathly pallor shining through his tan. That was not his exact expression; but it was equivalent to his remark.
Business done.—Quite a lot.
Vantage in (Sir E. Gr-y and Sir E. Ashm-d-B-rtl-tt.)
Tuesday.—Edward Grey is a hard nut for Irresponsible Verbosity to crack. Silomio, his jaws aching with attempts at crunching Sydney Buxton, sometimes turns to him, and goes away sorrowing. Tommy has a tuck in at him occasionally, but makes nothing of the job. To night Ambrose, Q.C., took him in hand. Drew up stupendous question on subject of Great Britain's relations with the Porte in respect of Armenia.
"That'll fetch him," he said, as he ogled the paper on which the question was set forth in bold type. Is there a treaty obligation, he wanted to know, as distinguished from mere discretionary right, authorising Great Britain to interfere in the affairs of Armenia, or make war upon the Porte? If so, specify the treaty and the particular article or articles creating such obligation.
This a bare summary of question, the drafting of which had cost Ambrose, Q.C., some sleepless nights. Silomio had looked over it; Tommy had touched it up; Bartley had beamed over it; Hanbury had hugged it. Grey's last hour (of course in Parliamentary sense) had evidently come. He had wriggled out of some earlier man traps set for him. This would settle him.
And this is what Grey said in reply:—"The article of the Treaty of Berlin relative to the point raised by the hon. member is the sixty-first."
Only that, and nothing more. The raven on the pallid bust of Pallas was scarcely more disappointingly laconic. There was a shocked pause; then allied forces swooped down on Under Secretary, crying, in chorus. Did the clause mean this? Did it mean that?
"The hon. member," said Grey, not even smiling, "must place his own interpretation on the clause."
Evidently nothing to be done with a person of this temperament. Silomio, with a wild shriek, learned in Swaziland, dashed in with fresh questions; was neatly tripped up by Speaker; lay sprawling on ground with dishevelled hair. Before he could get up, Snape was asking Home Secretary if the police might not be supplied with lighter clothing in summer months.
Don Currie, Lord High Admiral.
Business done.—Crofters Bill read second time.
Wednesday. Off Tilbury.—Yes, I'm off Tilbury, and shall be off to the Baltic at four bells, whatever time that may be. Mr. G. is responsible for it. Tired of doing nothing; pondering perilously over growing temptation to run up to town, plunge into Parliamentary work; address meeting at Blackheath on Armenian question. In nick of time comes letter from Don Currie, proposing a trip to Kiel for opening of Baltic Canal.
"The very thing!" said Mr. G., vaulting over the library table at Hawarden, where he was sitting when letter arrived. "But Toby, M.P., must come with us."
Objections urged in vain. What would Constituents in Berks say, me running away from work? Who was to write the only authentic matter-of-fact record of Parliamentary doings for future historians? Mr. G., with all the impetuosity of youth, would listen to nothing. So here I am, onboard the R.M.S. Tantallon Castle. Here, also, is quite a quorum of members. Curious to see how they all trooped in just now when luncheon-bell rang. Said they thought it was a division; being in saloon, might as well stay.
That's all very well. By-and-by we'll be on the North Sea, where the stormy winds do blow, do blow. Shall see then whether we can keep a House through the dinner hour.
Business done.—Anchor weighed. Mr. G. taking the helm till we're out in the open, when anyone can steer. Looks more than usually knowing in a sou'wester. Wind N.S.E. Barometer falling.
Startling News! All's Well that Ends Well.—Grace caught!! Wright at last.