A MANTLE-PIECE. I wonder how it would neither. There's some other "young person" at the next establishment I WONDER whether those fine ladies have any idea that I'm made of that'll have to stand dummy and listen to their impudence; but she's flesh and blood like themselves, and that I haven't had any dinner, and better off than me, because she'll have had her dinner unless she's only that I've been standing here ever since I walked through the rain just getting rid of a couple more minxes at this very moment. How from Walworth this morning at half-past seven, and that we're the boiled legs of mutton do smell all over this house! I wonder the only allowed twenty minutes for dinner, and that the cook isn't excustomers don't complain of it. Everybody seems to be reekingpected to keep anything hot for us, and that I'd rather go without positively reeking-with turnips and fat and gravy and suet pudding. than eat raw mutton near the bone and half-chilled fat, and that II wonder how human beings can be so coarse in their eating. I'm could almost drop down where I stand for faintness? past anything but a bit of bread-and-butter now. I wonder whether these are going home to chicken and dry sherry and jelly and ratafias and champagne and tongue and sardines? feel to change places with 'em for a day or two, and let them come here and me come and look at 'em and turn 'em round and talk as though they were really what they are-dummies made of wadding and busks and wire and horsehair and parchment and quilted jean? That would be great fun. Who knows, though, whether even "young persons" mayn't have a turn some day? I read in the penny paper only the other day that MR. MILLS had actually been trying to give votes to ladies in the Houses of Parliament. I don't think it was like his usual style, though, to call ladies "female persons." I wonder if it's what they call Parliamentary language? I've read MR. MILLS's books-at least, one of 'em. He's a great philosopher. The one I read was called "Proverbial Philosophy." It's upstairs somewhere now. EMMA SNIPPET bought it second-hand from a circulating library, and to read the remarks made on the edges of the leaves in pencil is like-well, I wonder what it is like? Heavenly! Oh! Ah! I thought so; it's nearly luncheon time, Ma'am, is it? And you'll look in again when you have decided, will you? You nasty, disagreeable cat! Oh, pray don't mention that, Madam; I assure you I consider it no trouble. Well, I'm sorry I've thought so badly of you, after all, for it's precious seldom we get even any thanks, let alone an apology. I wonder what they'd think if I did drop down with a flop while MISS FORTYSKEWER was chattering on about the mantle that I'm to play dummy to for the purpose of showing off? Just as if either of those minxes could ever look well in it, or had any figure that wasn't principally wadding and horsehair. I wonder whether there's any of the suet-pudding left? I wonder whether they'll buy this velvet thing or a silk thing, or a shawl after all? I should like to see the ugly one in a shawl, so I should MISS FORTYSKEWER. I wonder what EMMA SNIPPET has quarrelled with me for ever since I showed her the letter signed "EUGENIO" that came in with the twopenn'orth of seedcake that I sent the errand-boy for to the pastry cook's round the corner? I wonder whether he wrote it, and who he is, and whether it really was meant for EMMA SNIPPET, and what's the use if it is, or what it matters if it isn't? I wonder whether that woman's husband is a Member of Parliament ? If he is, how she must nag at him when he comes home as I'm told they do, ever so late? I wonder whether it's true that we shall come under a new Act of Parliament or something to stop people making women and children work overtime? I wonder whether they'd call us women or young ladies? I wonder whether we're young persons in Acts of Parliament, because if we are, they may keep their laws to themselves. It's bad enough to be always spoken of as "young persons" by the minxes that come here to see how a new mantle will become them, by fancying it will be all the same if it becomes me! Young persons! Why, even the poor girls that go out to work at dressmaking at a shilling a day and their meals can be called "young persons": there's nothing worse to throw at them. Not that they're so badly off, after all; for they do get their meals, I suppose. What are they about, I wonder? Do they think I don't know them? They're undecided which to have. Then I've wasted my time for nothing, for they'll go away to make up their minds and will have I wonder whether there's a fresh cheese in cut? I think I could eat a bit of that, especially if I could get Cook to give me a little drop of beer. NOTICE.-FUN may be obtained in Paris every Wednesday of MESSRS. Printed by JUDD & GLASS, Phoenix Works, St. Andrew's Hill, Doctors' Commons, and Fublished (for the Proprietor) by THOMAS BAKER, at 80, Fleet-street, E.C.London: February 29, 1868. MARQUISE.-The Pompadour fainted yesterday at the sight of a ragged man, and exclaimed “Narcisse!" (Irritated.) That woman is the curse of France! Enter BARON D'HOLBACH, DORIS QUINAULT (an actress), and GUESTS. CHORUS OF GUESTS.-"Oh, isn't he a Holbach!" BARON.-I am an Encyclopædist, with a theoretical taste for repartee. (Aside.) By the bye, would it be a good thing to say that this is a "small tea (re)partee," or a "small repartee-party"? No, perhaps not. (Struck by a bright idea.) Doris, act to us! DORIS.-Nay; but I will tell you an anecdote. man told me last night I did not play well. ALL.-Your story thrills us. Enter DIDEROT. Listen. A seedy D'HOLBACH (aside, wincing).—His satire cuts me like a razor. NARCISSE. All men are fools-you're a man, so you're a fool. Logic-major, minor, and conclusion-Ha! ha! ha! DIDEROT.-The knave hath learning! D'HOLBACH.-Truly, a rare scholar! NARCISSE.-A rare scholar! Ha! ha! That's more than any of you are! (All wince audibly.) Hullo! old cockywax! [To D'HOLBACH. D'HOLBACH.-Oh, for the ability to meet this satirical scoundrel with his own weapons! I will away, and study the art of repartee. DORIS (aside).-If I could only get him to play in the piece we are going to represent before the Pompadour, the sight of him might kill her. It is a bright idea. I will secure him. [Collars NARCISSE, and walks off with him. SCENE 2.-Cabinet of the Duc de Choiseul. DU BARRI.-Duke, I have a revelenta-I mean a revelation-to make to you. Narcisse has some mysterious effect on the Pompadour. We will bring him once more before her, and the consequences may be fatal to her. DUKE.-Sir, you're a wily scoundrel. [Twenty minutes' more repartee—then exeunt NARCISSE.-The young woman who walked off with me last night has kept me a close prisoner-Ha! She comes! Enter DORIS. DORIS.-Narcisse, I want your life! NARCISSE.-Would you murder me? DORIS.-No, no-you don't understand me-I want your biography. NARCISSE.-You shall have it. My wife bolted from me some years since. I have not seen her since, although I have wandered about ever since in search of her. By the way, I loathe the Pompadour. She is the curse of France. DORIS.-It is to pay her out that I have secured you at the Queen's request! ACT II.-Gallery of Mirrors at Versailles. DORIS.-Narcisse, you shouldn't smash my crockery. NARCISSE.-Jeanne Poisson, the butcher's daughter, where art thou! DORIS.-This young man is clearly off his head. [Faints. ACT III.-The Lace Gallery at Versailles. Arrangements for an amateur performance. Everybody sitting at the sides where they can't possibly see anything. The PUMPEYDOOR also in a bed seat, considering her haughty disposition, and the fact that she has to pay for it all. LA POMPADOUR.-Begin! Curtain rises and discovers an Eastern Palace. Enter DORIS QUINAULT on stage, meeting NARCISSE. LA POMPADOUR.-Narcisse! Narcisse! [NARCISSE leaps from stage and catches her in his arms. NARCISSE.-My wife! ALL.-This is the Pumpeydoor! NARCISSE.-The Pompadour ! LA POMPADOUR.-Yes! I love you still! I have only married about fifteen people since I had the pleasure of marrying you, and I don't care for them now; I don't indeed. I love you only; and now that we are re-united, we will live together as happily as two dear little dicky-birds! Won't we dear? NARCISSE (furiously).-Back! Bad woman! Go! Curses on you! Ha ha ha! Hitting the Right Nail on the Head. It is easy to find the cause of the sore discouragement the Turf has sustained in the retirement of the DUKE OF BEAUFORT. Some of his Grace's horses-notably Vauban, the Two Thousand Guineas hero, and Ceylon, winner of the Grand Prize of Paris-have proved themsolves such veritable "nailers," that it is only natural they should come to the "hammer." Answers to Correspondents. [We can take no notice of communications with illegible signatures or monograms. Correspondents will do well to send their real names and addresses as guarantees. We cannot undertake to return unaccepted MSS. or Sketches, unless they are accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope; but we cannot enter into correspondence regarding them, nor do we hold ourselves responsible for loss.] SNIP AND DODGER.-We do not want acrostics. PLYMOUTH.-We have to thank a correspondent for pointing out that the "coat and breeches" paragraph we quoted last week was from the Western Daily Mercury, not the Morning News. G. S. (Norfolk-road.)-Your contribution is not accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope-and our rules make no exception. S. OLDAGIN.-Try Act V. Scene 1. TRADESMAN.-Thank you; the error to which you draw attention was rather a blunder than what you call a "premature oversight "—whatever that may be. CHELSEA talks such notice that we fel sure he writes from cracked Cheyne-row. LA POMPADOUR.-I am evidently not popular with the people. They hiss and hoot at me, because-ha! hal-I am the King's mistress! Even the Queen is jealous of me! But I could forgive them all this if people wouldn't persist in calling me the “ "Pumpeydoor." They have been put up to it, I suppose, by Chevalier Grimm, in revenge for my inciting people to call him the Chevall-ier. But it is hard-very hard!nops; A. E. B.; C. H., Manchester; J. B. T., Brixton; W. A.; T. S., F. F. P. (Clapham-road.)-Thanks. Under consideration. Declined with thanks:-F. G. O.; W. A., Bow-road; J. B.; TomogoNotting-hill; K.; A Constant Reader, Doctors' Commons; J. L., Ayr; Liverpool; T. W. J., South Belgravia; Kingston Trio; C. S. G., Finchley; G. B., Cheapside; S. X.; E. D. S., Lymington; O. W., Ramsgate; J. C., A Flly froe Wiggin; J.B. Riamon; W. B.; D. A. P., Taunton; J. S., Newcastle; G. P., Marylebone-road; P. T., Dublin; A. W. G.; D. Lunatico; Morality; P. D., Stoke Newington; G. P., Brighton; E. F., Surbiton; Skyblue; A. J. P., Bradford ; F. R. S. C.; A. P., Glasgow; R.B.; Tit. FROM OUR STALL. HE task of playing Richard the Third at Drury Lane must be anything but an easy one; MR. BARRY SULLIVAN may be congratulated on the succesful way in which he has fulfilled it. The Duke of Glo'ster, as drawn by SHAKESPEARE-brave as a lion, and subtle as a serpent-flinging his challenge at Conscience, as at an equal foe, and only wavering in his defiance when shaken by such ghastly and portentous visitationsrequires a representative combining great mental with enormous physical capacities. The version of COLLEY CIBBER makes little extra demand on the actor's brain, but much upon his lungs; and the part of Richard, as now performed, is probably the most arduous on the English stage. MR. SULLIVAN fully indicates, in the later scenes of the play, the chivalrous side of the character; in the earlier ones he scarcely throws malignity enough into the horrifying sarcasms of Glo'ster. The Duke values his tongue almost as highly as his sword; he should revel in every stroke it makes with a fiendish exultation. In his courting of Lady Anne MR. SULLIVAN is very satisfactory-smooth, plausible, and sufficiently impassioned, without being extravagantly so. Altogether, we are much pleased with his performance of Richard. MR. SINCLAIR makes an efficient, but by no means extraordinary, Richmond; and MR. MCINTYRE plays Buckingham respectably, but with obvious timidity. MRS. HERMANN VEZIN is tender and impressive, but she makes Elizabeth just a leetle too fond of crying. The revived tragedy is tastefully mounted, and the audience is not kept waiting long between the acts. At the Strand, MR. BURNAND's Paris has been brought forward again. MISS ADA HARLAND and MISS FANNY GWYNNE have now taken their places in this burlesque, which goes briskly. Toton Talk. BY THE SAUNTERER IN SOCIETY. SUGGESTIONS FOR PRETTY THINGS IN SPRING HEAD-DRESSES. LITTLE knowledge is a dangerous thing -especially when it is a little knowledge of Latin and Greek, and is accompanied by a desire to seem to know a good deal about those tongues. MR. GLADSTONE, a little while since, at a Penny Reading, spoke warmly in praise of SCOTT's "Hymn for the Dead" in the Lay of the Last Minstrel. Thereupon a critic in the Pall Mall, the Gazette of Culture, sneered at MR. GLADSTONE for praising what was a mere translation of the old Latin Dies Ira. I suppose this acute commentator read in the Lay that the burthen of the song was "Dies ire, dies illa, Solvet sieclum in favilla." And he knew enough Latin to know that "That day of wrath, that dreadful day is a tolerably close version of the first line. He then concluded at once that Scorr's was a mere translation; but if he had known enough to construe the old rhymes, he would have been less ready to call SCOTT's lines what they are not a translation. Tinsley's this month puts in a very strong claim to be considered the best of the shilling magazines, and few will dispute the claim. It is light and varied, and it is strong in its novels; I predicted at its first start, which was not strong, that MR. YATES was the right man in the right place, and backed by a liberal and judicious proprietary would make the Mag. a success, and a success it is. "Guernsey in midwinter" is pleasant. "For the King" has the proper swing, and is admirably illustrated by MR. HOUGHTON. The only thing I don't care about is the review of the Queen's book, which is too like all the other reviews of that work. In Broadway there is an essay on "Woman's Novels," which is a trifle too sweeping in the general, and not severe enough in particulars. Its author lets down Ouida and some other lady-I mean female novelists far too easily, while he slurs over the fact that the greatest novelist of the present day is a ladyGEORGE ELIOT-and that MISS THACKERAY deserves something more than two lines of dismissal. "Wall Street" is an amusing article, and "Second Thoughts" is not bad. There is a picture by PAUL GRAY, which displays all his grace and facility of execution. As regards "Brakespeare" I can't say I like it this month ;--the author of Guy Livingstone never seems so happy as when he is writing of impurity, but I doubt whether his readers care about it. Cassell's Magazine is very good this month. MR. DUTTON COOK's "Below Freezing Point" is an admirable short story-a model of that style of composition in fact; MR. JAMES GREENWOOD's papers are interesting, and the brief articles they are too good to be called padding-afford capital reading. Of the illustrations it is scarcely fair to the artists to express any opinion, for the engraving of most of them must have taken all the artists' work out of them. The first illustration this month is curiously bad in this respect. The girl's hand is a claw, and in her dress, the grass behind her, and at the root of the sapling she clutches, the cutting is about as bad as it can be. I fancy MR. W. THOMAS must be of the same opinion as I, for I see he does not put his name in the corner, though it is tolerably conspicuous in the other blocks. The Quiver has one very fair engraving-the frontispiece, in which MR. THOMAS has done more justice to his own drawing than he has displayed towards MR. BRADLEY'S. I am curious to know how such an inferior drawing as the illustration of "Shadows" got into the magazine at all. There is some curious work too in the picture on page 409, where the rain descending from the far edge of a cloud, which is almost on the horizon, falls nearly into the foreground-at any rate into the middle distance. The literature is up to the usual standard of the magazine. The Popular Educator continues to supply its condensed information-a sort of beef-tea of knowledge-in a cheap form. Young Mother:· -"HUSH, JOHN! DARLING TOOSEY IS COOING SO PRETTILY!" Matter-of-Fact Creature :-"No, MY LOVE! THAT'S THE CREAKING OF THE PUBLIC-HOUSE SIGN NEXT DOOR!". A LEAP-YEAR LAY. BY A PROPHETIC SOUL. Он, ladies! who the privilege And "look, before you Leap"-Year! Of course, I know, a single lot Is singularly dreary But very many wives, I wot, Are only doubly weary. Their lives are simply sums of grief, On wretched year they heap year To make a burden past relief; So "look before you Leap "-Year! That "looking after Number One" I know that life soon runs to waste, So "look before you Leap"-Year; Their years were but a gentle slope This year may prove a steep year Should you try marriage; so I hope You'll look before you Leap"-Year! You dream of wedded happiness A junction sans collisions! Your matrimonial views, I guess, Are very baseless visions. Be warned! and do not this year make Be man and wife! Oh, don't you be A lottery all marriage is, But this is the worst Sweep-year! So take the tip I offer :-'tis "Pray, look before you Leap "-Year! "What d'ye think of that, my Cat P What d'ye think of that, my Dog ?" THE introduction of horse-flesh as an article of human food has been heralded by such a prodigious flourish of trumpets at the one-and-ahalf guinea Langham Hotel banquet, that we begin to entertain serious misgivings how we shall by-and-by be able to feed our feline and canine companions-not to put too fine a point on it. At the same time we express our decided opinion that anyone who prefers a fillet of horse to a prime mutton chop is to all intents and purposes of his Chump." |