Read Ebook: Punch or the London Charivari Vol. 93 December 10 1887 by Various

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SIR,--Perhaps, after all, the best solution of the SHAKSPEARE-BACON puzzle is one analogous to that suggested by a learned Don in the HOMER controversy--viz., that the person who wrote the plays was not SHAKSPEARE, but another man of the same name.

Yours, COMMONSENSICUS ACADEMICUS.

LORD SALISBURY'S SHAKSPEARE.

"'The policy of worry' shan't be strained; They'll drop it in my gentle reign next Session."

LITERARY.--A gentleman who erst wrote for recreation, is driven, through cruel misfortune, to resume his pen for a livelihood. Fugitive lines, reviews of English, French, and Italian literature, topics of the day.

What a condescension! How good of him! He "first wrote for recreation"--whose?--his own probably, and that of his friends who were as easily amused as were those of Mr. PETER MAGNUS,--who signed himself P.M., or afternoon, for the entertainment of his correspondents,--and now he is "driven through cruel misfortune to resume his pen." Very cruel! Perhaps already his friends are beginning to suffer from this spiteful freak of Fortune. But as he can knock off with ease a variety of literary work, he is rather to be envied than pitied; and already he may be on the high road to literary fame which he will despise, and solid wealth which he will appreciate.

M. PASTEUR is the man for the successful treatment of hydrophobia. Does the Australasian Government appeal to him for assistance because it finds itself in a rabbit state?

O'BRIEN'S BREECHES.

A Bard, dear Muse, who pluck would sing, Your friendly aid beseeches. Help me to touch the lyric string On--brave O'BRIEN'S breeches!

What though the splendour of my lines To SWINBURNE'S height ne'er reaches? The theme, if not the thrummer, shines; That theme's--O'BRIEN'S breeches!

They wouldn't let O'BRIEN talk, Or make "seditious" speeches. They quodded him, his plans to baulk, And--tried to bag his breeches!

Those gaolers deep about him hung, They stuck to him like leeches. But he, the eloquent of tongue, Stuck to--O'BRIEN'S breeches!

If "sermons be in stones," I'll bet A prison patience teaches. The prisoner to bed must get; They watched--and boned his breeches!

The captive of the cold complains, His breechless bones it reaches. But yield? No, rather he remains In bed--without his breeches!

In vain the prison-clothes they show; Badge of dishonour each is. Patriots prefer to lie below Bed-clothes--without their breeches!

Black BALFOUR'S myrmidons are fooled! A lesson high this teaches: A plucky people is not ruled By--stealing patriot's breeches!

BRIAN BORU they sang of yore, But when her goal she reaches, Erin will sing, from shore to shore, O'BRIEN--and his breeches!

Her bards will praise the patriot true, His long and fiery speeches, His bearding BALFOUR'S brutal crew; But, above all,--his breeches!

Oh, ne'er may the potheen pass round But--Erin so beseeches-- The Isle may with one theme resound,-- O'BRIEN--and his breeches!

Hold! Though I'd fain be jingling on, One rhyme, experience teaches, You can't ring on for aye! I've done. Farewell, O'BRIEN'S breeches!

The Shakspearian Question.

"SHAKSPEARE written by a chap called BACON, my boy? Very likely; I always found 'lots of fat' in it."

"BACON wrote SHAKSPEARE? Well, perhaps he did. He was a clever chap, was dear old ARTHUR BACON; but still, somehow, I don't think he wrote SHAKSPEARE. At least not all of it."

ON THEATRICAL PICTURE-POSTERS.

SIR,--I used to be a very regular attendant at the Theatres. I am not so now, and I find that by staying away, I have time at my disposal, which I never had before, for reading, study, and social intercourse. I save my money and preserve my health. And for this I have most sincerely to thank the Managers of our London Theatres, who, within the last few years, have adopted a style of pictorial advertisement, which, though possibly attractive to simple-minded folk, or restless youth, exercises a singularly deterrent effect on the middle-aged playgoer, and on all imaginative and timid persons, especially of the feminine gender.

For example, speaking as a mediaevalist, or one of the middle-ages, if I see a huge coloured picture on a hoarding representing several sensational situations which form a frame for the culminating horror of the play in the centre, as an old stager I know that play from beginning to end, and take in the whole plot at a glance. I can imagine the dialogue without doing much injury to the author, and, as I have seen the principal actors and actresses, I can, in my own mind, furnish the piece with a cast probably far superior to that at the particular theatre where the melodrama, thus pictorially advertised, is being performed. The scenery and costumes I have before me on the hoarding. This applies to several theatres. As to timid ladies they shrink from seeing the realisation of the terrible situations depicted on the picture-poster. They have seen quite enough: they will wait until something less startling shall be substituted for this display of crime, cruelty, and violence.

It is really very kind of the Managers to provide for outsiders in this way, but the outsiders remain outsiders, and have no desire to enter these chambers of Dramatic Horrors. As a supporter of shows and exhibitions, with considerable experience, I know well enough that the representation outside the booth is very much superior to the reality within; for example, the outside picture of a Fat Woman exaggerates the corpulence of the Lady on view inside the caravan; the Mermaid is most attractive in the picture, probably floating about playing a harp, while the reality is a dummy figure composed of a monkey's and cat's skin sewn together and stuffed. I hope the Managers will develop their pictorial advertisements still further; I speak selfishly, as if everyone takes my view, where will the audiences be?

Yours, PATER FAMILIAS.

P.S.--I shall take my boys in holiday time the round of the hoardings, and tell them all about the plays. Cheap entertainment, eh?

Mr. BLUNDELL MAPLE, M. P. elect for Dulwich--not by any means a dullidge sort of constituency in the opinion of the Conservative Candidate's Agent--is to be congratulated on attaining his majority. When he has prepared his maiden speech for the House, he may hum to himself:--

"Now I'm furnished, Now I'm furnished for my flight!"

THE FUTURE POSITION OF THE ARMY.

"Well, so far as I can make out, that in the time of war all the Militia will be drafted into the Army, and all the Coast Guards into the Navy, and both will disappear together with the Army and the Navy in the first battle."

"Anything else?"

"Well," continued GEORGE RANGER, re-opening the Magazine, "he seems to think that we have got enough men, if we can't get more, but that we must defend India with the aid of compulsory service, although, for various 'religious and commercial reasons, almost peculiar to England, the non-adoption of Conscription is certain."

"From this I take it the article is slightly mixed?"

"It is--and I am bothered entirely!" replied the poor Duke, who had a habit, when worried, of returning to the brogue he used as Prince GEORGE in Ireland, in his youth. "What will I do? Look there now, we have cut down everything to starvation proportions, to please Lord GRANDOLPH, to say nothing of upsetting the entire machinery of the War Office, to save the salary of the Surveyor-General of the Ordnance. Sure, what more will I do?"

"Well, GEORGE, how goes it?" asked the foremost soldier of the age. The Commander-in-Chief fell upon his knees and kissed the spurs of his master's boots.

"I cannot help it," returned GEORGE, with a burst of almost painful emotion. "You have done so much for us."

"Why, they saved the country! How should we have horsed the Cavalry and Artillery, if we had not entered on peace contracts with the Directors of Pickford's, the London General Omnibus Company, the Road Cars, the Tramways, and the Herne Bay Bathing Machine Owners. The last were not easily persuaded to act with us, as somehow the requisition of their quadrupeds seemed to interfere with the success of the Thanet Harriers."

"But they gave in at last?"

"And the Inns of Court, the Universities, and the Medical Colleges also insisted upon continued efficient service in the Volunteer ranks to secure the advantage of audience in the Courts and Registration as Doctors, didn't they?"

"Certainly! Oh, it was grand! Then we got as much Cavalry as we required from the farmers, and the Yeomanry, and purchased the entire stock of guns from the Continent.--Just as you told me to do."

"Assuredly, yes, and they have given an admirable account of themselves in Australia and Canada." Then GEORGE hesitated. "But you would not tell me how you supplied their places in India. You merely asked for transport for your Army of Reserves."

"From places where they were ruining our working-poor and doing themselves no permanent good. I shipped them from Hatton Garden and Whitechapel. My country saved, the welfare of the world in general demands my restored attention. It shall have it."

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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.

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