Chapter 2

In the First Act of the same piece, it will be remembered that the bridal party is captured whole by _Hubando_, disguised as a mendicant, in the recesses of one of the forests of the Abruzzi. The real pine-trees, which are to figure in the foreground of this striking scene, have been grown, with immense labour and expense, in the well-known nurseries of Messrs. WEEDEM AND POTTER, at Ditchington. The mendicant's rags, it should be added, are from one of our most celebrated slop-shops in the Ratcliff Highway.

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"THERE'S THE RUB!"

(_AN OLD STORY WITH A NEW APPLICATION._)

_Champion Bill-Poster, loquitur_:--

"Bill-stickers beware!" Ah! that's all very well, A wondrously wise, if conventional, warning. But _I_'m the legitimate "Poster"--a swell In the paste-pot profession, all "notices" scorning. A brush surreptitious, and Bills unofficial, No doubt, are a nuisance to people of taste, To Order offensive, to Law prejudicial, But who can object to _my_ pot and _my_ paste?

'Tis time that this Poster were up! _Slap-dap-slosh_! I think it a telling one. Brave, Big, Blue letters! Some rivals about, but _their_ programmes won't wash; Those Newcastle noodles must own us their betters. I'm Champion Bill-Poster! Even Brum JOEY, Who flouted me once will acknowledge that fact. My Bills are so goey, and fetching, and showy, My paste so adhesive, my brush so exact!

_Slap-slop-slidder-slosh_! There's "stick-phast," if you like. Bill-sticking like this is an Art, and no error. Bold letters, brave colour! A poster to strike,-- Admiration with some, and with some, perhaps, terror. I wish I quite knew that the former preponderate,-- That is, _sufficiently_. Mutterings I hear,-- But there, 'tis a Bill to admire, and to wonder at. Why, after five seasons' success, should I fear?

Hist! What is that? Thought I heard a low grunt. Hope not, I'm sure, for I'm sick of stye-voices ARTHUR of those, has no doubt, borne the brunt; Now in a semi-relief he rejoices Pigs are fit only for styes and nose-ringing. Never let Irish ones run loose and root, Rather wish ARTHUR were less sweet on flinging Pearls before pigs; as well feed 'em on fruit.

_Hrumph_! There. I thought so! _Hrumph_! _hrumph_! What a pest! Sure that big brute has his eye on my ladder. Has ARTHUR loosed him? He thinks he knows best, But a nasty spill _now_!--nothing well could be sadder Brutes always rub their broad backs and stiff bristles Against--anything that comes handy. Oh lor! How the brute shoulders, and snorts, grunts and whistles! Off to the gutter, you big Irish boar!

Not he! He nears me! It _is_ ARTHUR's pet. Light ladder this; would capsize in a jiffy. His bristles he'd scrape and his tusks he would whet Against it, I wish he were drowned in the Liffey! _Whisht_! Get away! He's so heavy and big. There! round the ladder he's playing the fooler. Ah! there's the rub. PATRICK scumfish that Pig! If he doesn't mean deviltry I'm a--Home Ruler! [_Left fidgetting._

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UNASKED.

Unasked, the Tax-Collector wild Presents to smirking MARY his Demand--on what the Roman styled "_Kalendis Januariis_."

Unasked, a Christmas-box to gain, Sweeps, lamplighters, and postmen come; Unasked--too often to remain-- The wife's mammas of most men come.

Unasked, it looms--that ophicleide From Germany, with melodies Whereat the cow of story died; Whereat a modern fellow dies.

Unasked, partakes my Christmas cheer, (Whom oft, my front-door bell at, I've Surprised, the better much for beer)-- My Cook's fraternal relative.

Unasked, my bills appear in shoals, "_With compliments_" from creditors; Unasked, in verse I send my soul's Throbs--with a stamp--to Editors.

Unasked, that editorial pack Return my "throbs" in heavy, new, Crisp envelopes, unstamped, alack! While I defray the Revenue.

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MRS. RAM's nephew was reading aloud the prospectus of the Clerical, Medical, and General Life Assurance Society. She was much impressed by the idea of Clerical Assurance, and expressed herself greatly pleased at the Ven. Archdeacon FARRAR being one of the Directors. "But what puzzles me," observed the excellent lady, "is a paragraph headed 'Disposal of the Surplice.' I know that, years ago, there was a 'surplice difficulty.' But I thought that had been disposed of. Or," she added, brightening up, as if struck by a happy solution of the difficulty, "does it mean that the Clerical Assurance Society means to take in washing? Most useful if they do, and so paying."

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DEFINITION OF "CHAFF."--The husk of Wit.

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PLAYING OLD HARRY AT THE LYCEUM.

"I once did manage to make a cast correctly," writes ANDREW LANG, in his charming book anent the sport and pastime of fishing, and if ever HENRY IRVING made a cast to catch the public, it is now, when he uses as his bait SHAKSPEARE's _Henry the Eighth_, got up in a style which emphatically "beats the record," so utterly "regardless of expense" is it, with well-tried, responsible actors, in what may be called minor parts, though the majority of the _dramatis personæ_ are on a fair dramatic equality, and with Our ELLEN TERRY, as _Queen Katharine_, and himself as the great Lord Cardinal.

The first difficulty that HENRY IRVING had to face--literally to face--was that by no sort of art could he make up his features to be an exact portrait of CARDINAL WOLSEY. Personally, I prefer Mr. IRVING's picture of WOLSEY to the extant portraits, which concur in representing him as a heavy, jowly-faced man, who might be taken as a model for one of GUSTAVE DORÉ'S eccentric-looking ecclesiastics in the _Contes Drolatiques_, rather than as the living presentment of the great Chancellor, Statesman, and Churchman who ruled a cruel, crafty, sensual tyrant, and successfully guided the policy of England at home and abroad. HENRY IRVING's _Cardinal_ is a grand figure, courtly, though somewhat too cringing withal, evidently despising the various means he uses to further the end he has in view, and looking upon the Lords, Courtiers and all around him as merely puppets, whose strings he holds to work them as he will.

Then, after seeing him as Sole Adviser of the Crown, after seeing him as Highest Judge in the Ecclesiastical Divorce Court in such splendid state as our Judge JEUNE may eye with envy, after seeing him in his own Palace, most courteous as Grand Master and liberal Provider of Right Royal Revels, he is exhibited to us in the deserted Hall, a spectacle for gods and men (that is, shown to the Gallery and the rest of the audience), the single figure of the Great Cardinal, fallen from his high estate; and to him, in place of all his princely retinue, comes his one faithful servant, CROMWELL, supporting his dying master, for dying he is, as he staggers feebly from the Palace at Bridewell. It is difficult to call to mind any situation in any play more genuinely affecting in its simplicity than this. The audience is held spell-bound,--yet, for my part, I should have welcomed a greater variety in tone and action.

Miss ELLEN TERRY's _Queen Katharine_ is a "very woman." You can see how she has caught the King, and how she still holds him. She loves him, actually loves him, to the last to respect him is impossible, but she respects herself; and it is just this love for him, for what he was, not what he is, and her respect for herself, which Miss ELLEN TERRY marks so forcibly. _Katharine_ is a foreigner, therefore is her bearing, though stately, less stolid than that of the typical English Tragedy Queen. The note of her dying scene, so striking by its simplicity, is its perfect tranquillity. Who's _Griffith_? Why the veteran HOWE (ah, Howe, When and Where did I first see you, Sir? Wasn't it in the days when good old Mortonian farces were the attraction at the Haymarket?) is "_the_ safe man," and excellently well did he deliver his epitaph on _Wolsey_. But all are good, not forgetting our old friend the sterling, that is the ARTHUR STIRLING actor as _Cranmer_, and the youthful GILLIE FARQUHAR, unrecognisable as _Lord Sands_, looking as ancient as if he were The Sands of Time.

This revival is bound to have a long--it may be an unprecedentedly long--run. All of us dearly love a show. Moreover, 'tis educational; and the School Board should issue an Examination-paper on the history of HENRY THE EIGHTH and his times as exemplified by Mr. IRVING & CO. at the Lyceum.

JACK-IN-THE-BOX.

P.S.--The cost of production of _Henry the Eighth_ at the Lyceum was £250,000 3s. 6¾d. Mr. IRVING's nightly expenses are £10,999 2s. 5½d. I thought it had been more, but the above information comes to me from a person whose veracity I should not like to question, except with the boundless sea between us.

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CON. FOR THE C.O.S.--When SHAKSPEARE said, "The quality of mercy is not strained," did he mean that it was not strained through a Charity Organisation Society?

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"READING between the Lines" is a dangerous occupation--when there's a Train coming.

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CONFESSIONS OF A DUFFER.

I.--GOLF.

The Fairies who came to my Christening provided me with a large collection of toys, implements, and other articles. There was a heart, a tender one, a pen of gold, a set of Golf-clubs, a bat, wickets, and a ball, oars and a boat, boxing gloves, foils, guns, rifles, books, everything, except ready money, that heart could desire. Unluckily one Fairy, who was old, deaf, plain, and who had not been invited, observed, "It is all very well, my child, but not one of these articles shall you be able to use satisfactorily." This awful curse has hung heavy on my doom. With a restless desire to shine and excel, at Lord's, on the river, on the Moors, in the forests, in Society, on the Links, bitter personal experience and the remarks of candid friends, tell me that the doom has come upon me. I am "an all-round Duffer," as my youngest nephew, _ætat._ XI., freely informed me, when I served twice out of court (once into the conservatory, the other time through the study window). I was a Duffer at marbles, also at tops, and my personal efforts in these kinds were constantly in liquidation. But what are marbles and tops! The first regular game I was entered at was Golf. Five is not too early to begin, and I began at five by being knocked down with a club which another small boy was brandishing. This naturally gave me an extreme zeal for the sport of MARY STUART, the Great Marquis of MONTROSE, CHARLES EDWARD (who introduced Golf into Italy), DUNCAN FORBES of Culloden, Mr. HORACE HUTCHINSON, and other eminent historical characters.

Almost everybody now knows that Golf is not Hockey. Nobody _runs_ after the ball except young ladies at W--m--n! The object is to put a very small ball into a very tiny and remotely distant hole, with engines singularly ill adapted for the purpose. There are many engines. First there is the Driver, a long club, wherewith the ball is supposed to be propelled from the tee, a little patch of sand. The Tee and the Caddie have nothing to do with each other; nobody but a flippant Cockney sees any fun in plays upon words which, in themselves, are only too serious. Then there is a weapon called a Brassey. It is like unto a club, but is shod with brass, and is used for hitting a ball in "a bad lie" among long grass or heather. A small tomahawk, styled a Cleek, is employed when you don't know what else to play with. The same remark applies to an Iron, which is very good for missing the ball with, also for hitting to square leg when you meant to go straight. A "Mashy" is a smaller "iron." The skilful use these when the ball lies in sand, in gorse, or when they wish to make the ball soar for a short distance and then fall dead. A Putter is a short thickish club used for jogging the ball into the hole with. There are plenty of other kinds of clubs, also spoons, but _these_ are enough to break the heart of any Duffer.

I am an old player, of forty years' standing, but, like _Parolles_ I was "made for every man to breathe himself on." When my form is espied near the links, the players shirk off as if I were a leper. They are afraid I may want to make a match with them, and there is no falsehood from which they will shrink, in their desire to escape me. Even Ladies,--but this is a delicate theme. Beginners breathe themselves on me, and give me odds after two or three engagements.

Yet I don't know why I am so bad. True, I am short-sighted, never see the flag at the hole, play in the wrong direction, and talk a good deal on topics of academic interest during the round. The Golfer's mind should be a blank, and generally is "blank enough," like _Sir Tor's_ shield. My mind is, perhaps, too active--that may be what is the matter with me. It is the same thing at whist--but of this hereafter. My Caddie, or arm-bearer, has his own views about the causes of my incompetence.

"Ye're no standing richt. Ye haud yer hands wrang. Ye tak' yer ee off the ba'. Ye're ower quick up. Ye're ower slow doun. Ye dinna swing. Ye fa' back. Ye haud ower ticht wi' yer richt hand. Ye dinna let your arms gang easy. Ye whiles tap, and whiles slice, and whiles heel, or ye hit her aff the tae. Ye're hooking her. Ye're no thinking o' what ye're doing. Ye'll never be a Gowfer. Lord! ony man can lairn Greek, but Gowf needs a heid."

Here are fifteen ways of going wrong, and there is only one way of going right! Fifteen things to think of, every time you take a driver in hand. And, remember, that is not nearly all. These fifteen fatal errors apply to long driving. You may (or at least _I_ may, and do) make plenty of other blunders with the other weapons. Say the ball lies in sand--"a bunker," technically. If you hit it whack on the top, it disappears in a foot-mark. If you "tak' plenty o' sand," why, you _get_ plenty of sand in your mouth, your eyes, down the back of your neck, and the ball is no forwarder. If you strike her quite clean, she goes like a bullet against the face of the bunker, soars in the air, falls on your head, and you lose the hole! Oh, Golf is full of bitterness!

Suppose we play a round. The ball is neatly "tee'd" on a patch of sand. I approach, I shuffle with my feet for a secure footing, I waggle my club in an airy manner. Then I take it up and whack it down. A variety of things _may_ occur. I may smite the top of the hall, when it runs on for twenty yards and lies in a rut on the road. I may hit her on the heel of the club, when she spins, with much "cut" on, into the sea. I may hit her with the toe of the club, when she soars to square leg, and perhaps breaks a window. I used to try running in at the ball, as if it were a half-volley at Cricket, but that way lies madness. However, suppose that, in a lucid interval (as will happen), I hit her clean. She soars away, and falls within forty yards of a meandering burn. The hole, the haven where one would be, is beyond the burn.

I seize a cleek or an iron, it turns in my hand, cuts up the turf, and the ball rolls half a dozen feet. My opponent has crossed the burn. I try again; a fearful misdirected shot; the ball soars over the burn and lands in a road behind the hole. There is no hitting out of this road, or, if one does hit a desperate blow, the ball lands in an eccentric sand-hole, called the Scholar's Bunker. We start for the next hole. _Même jeu!_ Now we are in the gorse, now among the Station Master's potatoes, now in the railway, where all hope may be abandoned, now in bunkers many, now missing the ball altogether, when you feel as if your arms had flown off. As for "putting" the short strokes on the green, near the hole, if I hit sharp, the ball runs over the hole yards and yards beyond, or if I hit mild, it stops with an air of plaintive resignation, after dribbling for a foot or two. And the worst of it is that, sometimes, you will play as well as another for half-a-dozen holes. Then one thinks one has The Secret! But it falls from us, vanishes, we are topping and slicing, and heeling, and missing again as sorrily as ever.

The beauty of Golf is that there are so many ways of going wrong, and so many things to think of. A person of very moderately active mind has his ideas diverted by the landscape, the sea, the blossom on the gorse, the larks singing overhead, not to mention the whole system of the universe. He forgets to keep his eye on the ball, in devoting his energy to holding tight with his left, and being slow up. Or he remembers to keep his eye on the ball, and forgets the other essentials. Then an awful moment comes when he loses his temper. Thereby all is lost, honour (not to mention "the honour,") and everything. People in front, old people, are so provoking. They potter tardily along, pass ten minutes in considering a putt, shout and swear if you hit into them, and are not pleased if you sit down and smoke while you wait. The only entity that I don't lose my temper with is my partner. The worse he plays, the better am I pleased to have a brother in adversity. The subjective Golfer, however, is certainly a bore. He is "put off" by every simple circumstance, by his opponent wearing an unbecoming cap and the like. Afterwards, he will hold forth for hours on all his sorrows and all the sins of others. The Duffer is more modest and less apologetic. He is kept always playing (as I said) by the diabolical circumstance that he has lucid intervals, though rarely, when he plays like other people for three or four holes. I once, myself did the long hole in--but never mind. Nobody would believe me. The most amiable of Duffers was he who, after ten strokes in a bunker, cut his ball into three parts. "I am bringing it out," he said, "in penny numbers."

The born Duffer, I speak feelingly, is incurable. No amount of odds will put him on the level even of Scotch Professors. For the learned have divided Golf into several categories. There is Professional Golf, the best Amateur Golf, Enthusiasts' Golf, Golf, Beginners' Golf, Ladies' Golf, Infant Golf, Parlour Golf, the Golf of Scotch Professors. But the true Duffer's Golf is far, far below that. A Duffer like me is too bad for hanging. He should be condemned to play for life at Chorley Wood, or to bush-whack at Bungay.

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FREE AND EASY THEATRES.--We have no sympathy whatever with the idea of a Théâtre Libre or with a Free-and-Easy Theatre, but we shall be very glad when all Theatres are made Easy, Easy, that is, as to sitting accommodation, and Easy of egress and ingress. But if the space is to be enlarged, will not the prices have to be enlarged too? 'Tis a problem in the discussion of which _The Players_, which is a new journal, solely devoted to things Dramatic and Theatrical, would find congenial employment.

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VENICE AT OLYMPIA.

["The water in the canals is two feet in depth, and is kept at a temperature of sixty degrees."

_Vidé the Press on "Venice at Olympia."_]

O Jane, thou jewel of my heart-- Thou object of my hopeless passion, Though Fate decrees that we must part, I'll leave thee in some novel fashion! I will not do as others do When cheated of prospective bridal, And quit the Bridge of Waterloo With header swift and suicidal.

I will not seek--as others seek-- Some public-house in mean and _low_ street, And drink--till haled before the Beak Who patiently presides at Bow Street. I will not throw--as others throw-- My manly form, without compunction, Before the frequent trains that go At lightning speed through Clapham Junction.

For though my spirit seeks escape From all the carking cares that vex it, I will not plunge thee into crape By any ordinary exit: So when--in slang--I "take my hook," Detesting all that's mean and skimpy, a Reserved and numbered seat I'll book, And hie to Venice at Olympia.

I'll see the Show that draws the town-- Its pageantry delight affording-- As per the details noted down Where posters flame on every hoarding; And then the sixpence I will pay, Which in my pocket now I'm fondling, And try upon the water-way The new experience of gondling.

I know that death will seem delight When in the gondola I'm seated, For up to sixty Fahrenheit The Grand Canal is nicely heated; So--sick of life's incessant storm, Impatient of its kicks and pinches-- I'll plunge within the water warm, And drown--in four-and-twenty inches!

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OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

After copious draughts of novels and romances which, the morning after, leave the literary palate as dry as a lime-kiln, or as Mrs. RAM would say, "as a lamb-kin," the Baron, thirsting for a more satisfying beverage, took up a volume, which he may fairly describe as a youthful quarto, or an imperial pinto, coming from the CHAPMAN AND HALL cellars, that is, book-sellers, entitled _On Shibboleths_, and written by W.S. LILLY. In a recent trial it came out that Mr. GEORGE MEREDITH is the accredited and professional reader for Messrs. CHAPMAN AND HALL. Is it possible that this eminent philosophical Novelist is indebted to a quiet perusal of _Shibboleths_ for some of the quaint philosophical touches not to be read off schoolboywise, with hurried ellipses, blurting lips, and unintelligent brain, if any, which make _One of Our Conquerors_ and others, worth perusal? Be this as it may, which is a convenient shibbolethian formula, the Baron read this book, and enjoyed it muchly. There is an occasional dig into the Huxleian anatomy, given with all the politeness of a Louis-the-Fifteenthian "M.A.," otherwise _Maître d'Armes_, and a passing reference to "The People's WILLIAM" and the carrying out of the People's will--which is quite another affair,--all, to quote Sir PETER, "vastly entertaining." The chapter on the Shibboleth "Education" is, thinks the Baron, about the best. Mr. LILLY is a Satirist who, as GEORGIUS MEREDITHIUS MAGNUS might express it, is, in his fervour, near a truth, grasps it, and is moved to moral distinctness, mental intention, with a preference of strong, plain speech, and a chuck of interjectory quotation over the crack of his whip, with which tramping active he flicks his fellows sharply. With which Meredithism concludes

THE BARON DE BOOK-WORMS.

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PREUX CHEVALIER.