THE PENALTY OF GREATNESS. Olivia. "OF COURSE YOU WENT TO THE JUBILEE, MR. DUDELEY?" Mr. Dudeley. "BLIGED TO, DON'TCHERKNOW. KNEW ALL THE PEOPLE IN THE PROCESSION!" SOMETHING LIKE A FESTIVAL! THE Crystal Palace, with a HANDEL to its name-an anticipated honour at Jubilee time-achieved a great success last week. What selection on Selection Day could have been more select than Mesdames ALBANI, ELLA RUSSELL, and NORDICA, with a couple of tenors, LLOYD and McGUCKIN, our "Charley-is-mydarling SANTLEY," and the BLACK, not a bit off colour? Then last, but not by any means least, Miss CLARA BUTT, whose very name is so suggestive of a voice clear and full. "Butt me no Butts," except this one, and she is magnificent. The Crystal Palace ought to do a good business with all our Colonials and visitors from many lands during this Jubilee fortnight. Lots of "Brocken" Nights, and splendid fireworks. Cursory Rhyme. (By an Expectant Lover of Cricket.) BATTER wake, batter wake! Cricketer man, On the Cards. [It has been complained, that in the preparation for the great Jubilee Pageant, Labour, save in the crush of the streets, had hardly a "look in."] THE QUEEN of Hearts, on her Diamond Day, Will smile on her subjects, and make them feel gay. Clubs, too, will flourish, but Toil, I'm afraid, Will find small provision is made for the Spade! VOL. CXII. EE SIXTY YEARS AGO. "A GRANDMOTHER ON TWO GREAT DAYS. SIXTY years ago, my darling, sixty years ago! My hair was as dark as your own, little ANNIE, though now it is white as snow. King WILLY the Sailor-King, had died on the twentieth day of June. Methinks I can hear the bells a-tolling their solemn and sorrowful tune! And I was a girl, like the sweet young QUEEN, who on that day came to the Crown. "Sweet seventeen!" said your grandfather then, and my hair was shiny and brown, Banded in formal bands, little ANNIE, drawn over each ringpierced ear. Ah! the fashions then we thought fine, though now you might fancy them quaint and queer. Early Victorian style, little ANNIE, the modern critics may mock, But I was as proud of my big poke-bonnet and prim short-waisted frock As a modern girl of her tailor-made dress and her hat like a garden-bed. The boys who besieged my heart, little ANNIE, cared not what I wore on my head. Early Victorian style! Ah, well, it was stodgy, and stiff, and strange, And sixty years in our fashions and tastes have witnessed a wondrous change. The horse-hair sofa on which I sat when your grandfather came to woo, I remember well; and the wall-paper, too, with its pattern of crimson and blue. But manhood was manhood, and love was love, e'en in Eighteenthirty-seven, And that stiff, quaint room in the twilight gloom was an Early Victorian heaven To two young hearts, on that summer eve as the summer sun sank low, Sixty years ago, my darling, sixty years ago! How well I remember my first glad glance at our gentle, girlish QUEEN At her palace-window. She seemed half shy, half shamed that her tears were seen, Yet stately, too, in her girlish style, for then, as at this late day, Queendom and womanhood mingled in her; at least, so the wise ones say. And so I think; though she well might shrink. Such a burden But the weight of a crown hath not bowed her down. for one so young! She'd a spirit that ever sprung Like young wheat after the beating shower, so slight, but erect and proud. And now, on her Diamond Jubilee Day, I would fain make one of the crowd. That may not be, little ANNIE; but still, in my lonely waiting here To rejoin the friends of that early time, who have left me many I a year, can raise my prayer. And there's many an old heart, lone, unknown, unseen, Will join to-day in its quiet way in the cry, "God save the QUEEN!" Early Victorian! Ah, my child, art-critics may sneer and slate, But the heart hath its fashions that do not change, be it early, or be it late; And a bosom wearing a dowdy dress with as loyal love could glow, Sixty years ago, ANNIE, sixty years ago! Yes, mine is a time of peace, my child; I have little left to grieve; And so may it be with our Gracious QUEEN! May she, too, have Light at Eve! And when all the jubilant shoutings of this Jubilee Day shall cease, May the crown of all this glorious time be the boon of blessed Peace! THE PLACE FOR DYNAMITING ANARCHISTS TO BE IMPRISONED FOR LIFE.-Bomb-ay. Miss Jubilee. "WE HAD A RARE GOOD TIME IN LONDON, AND NOW I'M OFF FOR A WHIFF OF THE BRINY' AT THE NAVAL REVIEW!" OUR CONVERSATION-BOOK. Some Idiomatic Questions and Probable Answers. For the Use of Intelligent and Polite Foreigners during the Celebrations. To a Railway Porter, on arriving at Charing Cross.-Pardon me, Sir, but would you be good enough to indicate to me where I may possibly find my luggage? I have two travelling trunks, five portmanteaux, one hold-all, one bicycle, one hat-box, one bassinette, one perambulator (as the case may be). You will do me a thousand favours if you will kindly spare me a moment. Very sorry, but I can't stop. We're short-'anded this morning. Wait a moment, I beg of you. Would you oblige me by accepting this trifling present of five (ten, fifteen) shillings? Thanky, Sir. P'raps I can 'elp you for 'arf a minit. You come along with me. Dear me, what a crowd! Excuse me, Sir, but you are treading on my toes! No, I do not see my baggage anywhere. How annoying! Dessay it will turn up somewheres next week. Must be orf, now! To a Policeman, outside.-Good morning, Sir. I am anxious to pay a visit at my friend's town-house in Soho (Leicester Square Tottenham Court Road). Can you direct me thither? Yes, Mounseer. Take the train back to Dover, go over to Ostend, then you cross to Harwich, and arsk for an excursion ticket to Birmingham, Oxford, and Paddington. That's the only way you can git through this crowd. At a Cabman's Shelter.-Good afternoon. I hope I do not disturb you. Sir, but I have been waiting here two (three or four) hours. Could you tell me if there is a likelihood of your being disengaged to-day? I trust you will not charge by the hour for the time I have been standing here? Look 'ere, JIM, 'ere's a blooming furriner expecs me to put 'im dahn on my waitin' list for nothing! Go 'ome and eat coke! At a wayside Coffee-stall.-Madame, I have the distinguished honour to present you my compliments. It is now half-past six, and I have been unable to obtain any refreshment since I arrived in England this morning. Could you favour me with a slight repast? Certingly. Will you 'ave whilks-there's three left-'arfcrown apiece, or would you like cawfy rinsins, three-and-sixpence a cup? Somewhere in the Remote Suburbs, 10 P.M.-I beg your pardon, Ma'am. Pray do not shut the door in my face! I have been on foot for thirteen hours, and have not yet arrived anywhere at all. No, I am not a burglar in disguise, nor a tramp, though my hat has been smashed, my coat is torn, and I have only one boot left. Here is my card (my passport, my acte de naissance). I cannot find Soho nor Leicestersquare, and am unable to walk a step further. Can you afford me shelter for the night? I shall be eternally grateful to you. There are no lodgings to be 'ad nearer than Barnet or Biggleswade. Lawkamussy, whatever made you come over to London on a day like this? Good night! seem the song of the Opera-is not this most undramatic, for drama means action, and it is only with the return of the King Husband and his friends that there is any action at all. Then there is a very mild row, and a short, sharp encounter between husband's friend and wife's lover, in which the latter comes off second best, apparently to the annoyance of le mari un peu complaisant. JEAN DE RESZKE magnificent in voice and appearance as the sad and spoony Tristan-plus triste 'un que jamais and Frère EDOUARD excellent as the Heavy King MARK-"quite up to the Mark" observes the man who will have his joke and somebody else's too. Mlle. SEDLMAIR as Isolde (" as Is-young" would be more complimentary than "as Is-olde"), thoroughly good, as was Miss MARIE BREMA, representing the confidential lady's maid condemned to such pantomimic action as was the "Confidant" in SHERIDAN'S Critic. Mr. Classical-Dictionary-PRINGLE and Mr. DAVID BISPHAM, both equally good as the malicious Melot and the kind Kurwenal respectively. Hair SEIDL energetic as conductor, and honoured with a call on to the stage. He came up from the vasty deep orchestra when called, and modestly, in Wagnerian pantomime, disclaimed all share in the honour done to him. Summary.-House crammed and brilliant. Royalties and Diamond Jubilants about everywhere. Up goes the price of Monday, June 14.-Show me where, within measurable distance of 85, Fleet Street, which is the hub of the universe, there is to be found a finer performance of WAGNER'S Tristan und Isolde than was given at Covent Garden on Monday night last, and, by my halidome, gadso, and so forth, I will hie me thither and hear it. Such a performance as was this on Monday would almost persuade me to be a Wagnerite. But "almost " is a very long way off, and for my part I cannot believe that with our tune-loving, barrel-organised public, Tristan und Isolde, Gotterdämmerung, and "all the Wagnerian lot of 'em," will ever be genuinely popular, as, for example, have been the works of MOZART, AUBER, DONIZETTI, GOUNOD, BALFE, cum aliis compositoribus. And what a trial for the mimetic powers of the actorsingers, when they have to express their feelings in action for the space of some fifty bars of music! Their feelings would probably be very simply expressed in rather forcible language to the librettist or to the stage manager. Had it not been at the Opera, where everyone, from topmost gallery to foremost orchestral stall, is on his or her very best superfine behaviour, would not a few of the immortals up above have "guy'd" the good old familiar situation, repeated ad nauseam, of two lovers placing their wobbly hands over their beating hearts to express their overpowering passion, sighing, advancing a few paces, pausing, sighing again, giving die-away glances at each other, meant to be expression of undying yearning for each other's love, but conveying the idea that both of them are awfully bored by having to "fill up the time with business." And then that other part of a long "love" scene (so totally different in every sense from FROM THE IRREPRESSIBLE (evidently dodging the Authorities).the innocent boy and girlishness of Romeo and Juliet), where the Q. What parish in England is most abundantly provided with two guilty lovers remain on one of "the benches in the park," clergy? A. Kew. Since every dwelling is provided with a locked more or less in each other's arms, not singing a note for Kew-rate. the space of what may be ten minutes, but which to an Unwagnerian seems quite an hour while the lady's maid "without sings, to a harp accompaniment, what to an Unwagnerian must always well hammered in. |