Punch, or The London Charivari | Page 6

florin._) Now he's done it, if ye like!
_O.B.F._ There, ye see, I'm as often wrong as not myself. (_To the
Sp.-F.M._) There's your four bob, Sir. Now, jest once more!
Joe (_to MELIA_). I'll git the price o' that theer cup an' sarcer out of 'un,
any'ow. (_To O.B.F._) I'll ha' a tanner wi' ye!
_O.B.F._ 'Alf a soverin, if you like--it's all the same to me!
Joe (_after pricking_). I thart I 'ad 'un that time, too, I did!
_The Sm. Y.M._ You shouldn't ha' changed your mind--you were right
enough afore!
Joe. Yes, I should ha' stuck to it. (_To O.B.F._) I'll bet ye two bob on
the next go--come!
_O.B.F._ Well, I don't like to say no, though I can see, plain enough,
you know too much. (_JOE pricks; O.B.F. pulls away the strip, and
leaves the skewer outside._) I could ha' sworn you done me that
time--but there ye are, ye see, there's never no tellin' at this game--and
that's the charm on it!
[_JOE walks on with MELIA in a more subdued frame of mind._

_The Sm. Y.M._ (_in the ear of the Spotty-faced One_). I say, I got a
job o' my own to attend to--jest pass the word to the Old Man, when
he's done with this pitch, to turn up beyind the swing-boats there, and
come along yourself, if yer can. It's the old lay I'm on--the
prize-packets fake.
_The Sp.-F.M._ Right--we'll give yer a look in presently--it'll be a little
change for the Ole Man--trades's somethin' cruel _'ere_!
* * * * *
HIS MAD-JESTY AT THE LYCEUM.
Except when HENRY IRVING impersonated the hapless victim of
false imprisonment in the Bastille, whence he issued forth after twenty
years of durance, never has he been so curiously and wonderfully
made-up as now, when he represents Lear, monarch of all he surveys.
Bless thee, HENRY, how art thou transformed!
[Illustration: Rather mixed. Mr. Irving as "Ophe-Lear."]
Sure such a King Lear was never seen on any stage, so perfect in
appearance, so entirely the ideal of SHAKSPEARE'S ancient King. It
must have been a vision of IRVING in this character that the
divinely-inspired poet and dramatist saw when he had a Lear in his eye.
For a moment, too, he reminded me of BOOTH--the "General," not the
"particular" American tragedian,--and when he appeared in thunder,
lightning, hail, and rain, he suggested an embodiment of the "_Moses_"
of MICHAEL ANGELO.
A strange weird play; much for an audience, and more for an actor, all
on his own shoulders, to bear. A one-part play it is too, for of the sweet
Cordelia,--and sweet did ELLEN TERRY look and so tenderly did she
play!--little is seen or heard. With Goneril and Regan, the two proud
and wicked sisters,--associated in the mind of the modernest British
Public with Messrs. HERBERT CAMPBELL and HARRY
NICHOLLS, as is also Cordelia associated either with Cinderella or
with Beauty in the story of _Beauty and the Beast_--we have two fine

commanding figures; and well are these parts played by Miss ADA
DYAS and Miss MAUD MILTON. The audience can have no
sympathy with the two wicked Princesses, and except in _Goneril's_
brief Lady-Macbethian scene with her husband, neither of the Misses
LEAR has much dramatic chance. Pity that Mrs. LEAR--his Queen and
their mother, wasn't alive! Let us hope she resembled her youngest
daughter Cordelia, otherwise poor Lear must have had a hard life of it
as a married man.
Why should not Mr. IRVING give the first part of this play
reconsideration? Why not just once a week try him as a different sort of
_Lear_? For instance, suppose, to begin with, that he had had a bad
time of it with his wife, that for many years as a widower he had been
seeking for the opportunity of disposing of his daughters, handing over
to them and to their husbands the lease and goodwill of "The Crown
and Sceptre," while he would be, as King, "retired from business," and
going out for a lark generally. Thus jovially would he commence the
play, a rollicking, gay, old dog, ready for anything, up to anything, and,
like old Anchises, when he jumped on to the back of Æneas, "a
wonderful man for his years." In fact, Lear might begin like an old
King Cole, "a merry old soul," a "jolly old cock!" And then--"Oh, what
a difference in the morning!"--when all his plans for a gay career had
been shipwrecked by _Cordelia's_ capricious and unnatural affectation.
[Illustration: Mr. Terriss as the Good Fairy.]
Then must commence his senility; then he would begin to break up. A
struggle, to show that there was life in the old dog yet, could be seen
when the old dog had been out hunting, in Act