IN THE WRONG BOX AT THE OPERA. THE MALEDICTINE BRETHREN. A FARCE. SERVE my QUEEN from SCENE FIRST.-A street in Bristol. Time-a very pretty time of night. ten to four, Where down Pall Mall Dundrearies saunter; My salary's small-but, ah! for more Some years I must be still a panter! What chance of marriage Her father, failing in the city, Died, paying tenpence in the pound, And left her penniless and pretty. Her uncle JOHN supports her now Extremely generous is his conduct! Yet she's with everything supplied, With all the fashion that is France'sWith flowers, and songs, and hacks to ride, And goes to concerts, drums, and dances. She's dressed in all that's rich and smartMoves in society the foremost In fact she's in the Marriage Mart; 'Tis that which makes my heart feel sore most. I think she loves me! In the Box When music's charm is overpowering, And that young puppy, ALBERT KNOX, Stands close behind us glum and glowering; When fond AMINA's taper burns, Or sad MEDEA's love's revilèd, To me for sympathy she turns, While gentle tears bedew each eyelid. We mingle sighs for lovers' woes We smile to see their bliss made certain; And so the happy evening goes Till envious Fate lets fall the curtain. She'll let me press her hand a bit; And with me-though her aunt glares finelyAt parties on the stairs she'll sit. She's told me that I waltz divinely! But what's the use? Heaven save the mark! In lieu of those rare perfumes olden So, she goes her way-I go mine! Our love is vain, though for the best meant, And we see clearly, I opine, That marriage is a mere investment; And we must let this mad world wag, And bow to Fate's decision ruthless. Well! I shall wed some wealthy hagAnd she a dotard, rich as toothless! A Better-class Riddle. IF "ponies" could speak at this time of the year, what Greek prince would they name ?-MENELAUS, of course. Enter two of the Maledictine brethren. Opening Duet. Oh, we won't go home till matins, We won't go home till matins, We won't go home till ma-a-tins, Let's do another beer! [Exeunt reeling. A policeman is seen watching them in the distance. SCENE SECOND.-The grand oratory of the Maledictine brethren fitted up as a peep-show with glasses for spectators. FATHER DIGNATIUS discovered 'monishing the brethren. Choristers in bed-gowns ringing large hand-bells. INDIG.-For this offence, O my beloved, hear ye the meet and fitting penance. For three weeks ye must neither eat, drink, sneeze, nor wink, but solemnly repeat, from day to day, the title page of the Life of the Saintly Bopsius. Ye shall wear thistles beneath your shallrobes, and thrice each night flagellate yourselves with the nettle. You ORRIDGENT.-Oh, I say-nonsense. You don't mean to say that you're in earnest? This is carrying fun a little too far. BOGUS.-Suppose we won't? INDIG. Then it will be my sad task to pronounce the sentence of ex-com-monkeyation. Moreover, if ye fail to perform the penance enjoined ye shall be cursed. BOTH BRETHREN.-We'll be cursed if we do, so it comes to the same thing. INDIG.-In that case wait till I put on my swearing tackle. [Exit, with choristers. BOGUS.-Oh, let's be off. I can't stand him any longer. ORRID.-No, no; wait a bit, and let's see what he's after. Re-enter INDIGNATIUS, with his face and hands black-leaded. Also choristers, burnt-corked, holding each a rushlight covered by an extinguisher, and singing in solemn chorus, Fiat cum curâ, Ter in die capienda Et noctaliter sumenda. INDIG.-Forasmuch as it hath pleased our beloved brethren-whom blank, and dash, and asterisk for all time-to offend us greatly, not by the offence of drunkenness, which we regard not, but by the heinous crime of disobedience to ourselves, let them now hear their doom. May they have warts on their nails, boils on their bones, chilblains on their eyelids, and bunions at the roots of their hair. May turnips infest their joints, and parsley sprout from their knuckles. May their feet become like even unto those of pickled eels. While he pauses for breath the choristers chant: INDIG.-May they be dratted, bothered, confounded, flummoxed, flabergasted, shampooed, and be-devilled. CHORISTERS.-Mihi est propositum, in tabernâ mori. INDIG.-May they fall on their noses when they wish to walk, and tumble out of the bed on the wrong side when they sleep. May their teeth drop from their feet, and their toes come loose in their heads. May their shirt-buttons fail them, and their sandals turn into mustard poultices. CHORISTERS.-Frigidum sine, aut calidum cum. INDIG.-May their food be jerked beef, and their drink warm penny sherbet. CHORISTERS.-Horum horum, sunt Divorum. INDIG.-May they be smuggled for guys, hissed at for geese, chivied for pickpockets, and poor-law-boarded for casuals. CHORISTERS.-Et est pauper. INDIG.-Whack them, smash them, kick them, and smite them, O ye faithful among the people. May their razors be blunt for ever, and their whiskers be carrotty. CHORISTERS.-Omne adjectivum cum substantivo concordat. INDIG.-May all their money be bad, and may they catch the measles once a week. May they see nothing by day and bogueys by night. CHORISTERS.-Ipse dixit-ipse tipse. INDIG.-Let the congregation depart, greatly edified, but horribly frightened. [Exeunt the two Maledictine brethren, grinning. CURTAIN. FROM OUR STALL. HE Honourable Samuel Slingsby, brother to the famous Lord Dundreary, is the sort of young man very often met with in society, at clubs, and on race-courses, and seldom anywhere else. He is patrician, or he is nothing. Take from him his advantage of birth, and he is a waiter on fortune of not the most respectable sort. Sam lives upon his uncle, a plebeian, named Rumbelow, and his latest artifice to extract money has been to write to his uncle to say that he is married. Rumby, as his nephew calls him, comes down with remittances, but, to Sam's horror, sends word that he shall come down himself to kiss his nephew's wife and baby. Sam, like Othello after the death of Desdemona, has "no wife," and, of course, no baby. What is he to do? He is impudence itself, and what does it matter what a man of family does to low people? If a man of family wants money, you know, and that sort of thing, the low people must be in fault; the thing's as clear as gaslight, daylight, moonlight-what is it? Sam coolly proposes to his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Trimbush, who have a villa at Scarborough, to let him invite Rumby there, as if the place were his own, and also that Mrs. T., during his uncle's stay, should pass for Mrs. Sam, and-snowy crest of Arctic impudence!-that the baby, only son of Mrs. Trimbush, and Adolphus, &c., be handed to Rumby as the only son of the Hon. S. S., &c. The Trimbushes yield the point about the house, but in re Mrs. T. and the sacred infant, they say, "Never!" Mrs. Trimbush's unmarried sister Alice (all agreeable married women have a single sister to deal death among their husband's bachelor acquaintances), who has cast an eye of affection upon Samis not Sam the brother of a lord, and a very worthless fellow, and is he not therefore a man invented to be loved?-volunteers for the position of honorary wife, and the good-natured Rumby is deceived. For the complications arising from this deception until five minutes before the fall of the curtain, we must refer our readers to the Haymarket Theatre. Seats can be secured two months in advance. We may say, however, that eventually Sam espouses Alice-the lucky villain (Alice is played by MISS NELLY MOORE)-and Rumby forgives everything and everybody. What were stage-uncles made for? MR. SOTHERN'S Brother Sam is quite a creation. He is a lighthaired, easy-going sort of "plunger" who has gone through drill and a great deal of billiards. He would look well in pink, or at a steeplechase for gentlemen riders only. It is an extraordinary performance, and suggests how admirably MR. SOTHERN Would play Jim Harthouse in DICKENS'S Hard Times. For the piece of Brother Sam-it is a thoroughly theatrical piece, and has been very well done by MR. JOHN OXENFORD. It is almost a pity that so real a personage as Brother Sam should have made his appear ance in a comedy so dramatically artificial. There is an odd sort of no-man's-land familiar to the stage-side of the footlights, and the constant dwelling therein makes actors dubious as to the existence of an actual world. Brother Sam is capitally acted. MR. BUCKSTONE exhibits all his good-natured English geniality in Uncle Rumby, and looks in his white wig and grey whiskers very like LORD PALMERSTON. MR. COMPTON acts the easy-going conventional country gentleman Trimbush to the life. MISS SNOWDON, or I should say MRS. TRIMBUSH, is an elegant, stately matron, who treads her Turkey carpet and wellrolled lawn with the proud consciousness of power, and a baby in the nursery. She is as a graceful arch-necked swan, wearing green silk in the last act. Excuse this confusion of imagery, but there are certain subjects upon which word-painting is absolutely essential. It is now about eighteen months ago-don't be alarmed, we are not about to bring out chairs to the centre of the stage, and inform you in polysyllables how under exceptional and extenuating circumstances we murdered our twin-brother and dearest friend-it is now about eighteen months ago since we fell in love with MISS NELLY MOORE. It is a charming name, NELLY, so soft and liquid-charming to write, to speak, or to hear. Well, Miss NELLY MOORE, as Alice, is all that a man's sweetheart should be-fresh, artless, innocent, confiding, and caressing, and with just that soupçon of a will of her own, which makes fair girls still more adorable, because you had not supposed temper compatible with flaxen hair. And àpropos of hair, let us say that in Brother Sam MISS NELLY MOORE's hair is-well, yes-magna est veritas, &c.-auburn. It is one of the penalties of success in novel-writing that the successful novelist shall undergo the pain of seeing his work in a dramatic form. To the sensitive author who has taken pains with his plot, and brain enjoy an independent existence, this must be a fearful shock. who has almost taught himself to believe that the creations of his To say nothing of the mutilation of his plot, it must be a terrible thing to find his characters bereft of their special individuality in order to meet the resources of the theatre at which the dramatised version is to be produced. MISS BRADDON's novel, Eleanor's Victory, has been roughly handled by MR. OXENFORD. The novel is not by any means well fitted for stage purposes, and MR. OXENFORD has probably adapted it as well as it could be done. But still there is a disjointedness (if we may be allowed the expression) about the play which it is impossible to overlook. Miss HERBERT, as Eleanor Vane, played very charmingly, and, of course, looked extremely ladylike. She appears to have lost much of that "wavy" action which, a year ago, constituted her principal defect, and her performance in Eleanor's Victory really left nothing to be desired. MR. H. J. MONTAGUE played the disagreeable part of Lancelot Darrell in a quiet, gentlemanly manner, and gave evidence of an appreciation of character which will do much to raise him in his profession. MR. ROBINSON's Bourdon was simply a conventional heavy villain, and calls for no notice. MR. and MRS. FRANK MATTHEWS, as Major and Mrs. Lennard, wandered aimlessly through the earlier acts, interchanging remarks utterly pointless in themselves, but given so artistically that one overlooked the nonsense they talked in admiration of the manner in which they talked it. The piece is capitally placed upon the stage, and was extremely well received. GOOD NEWS FOR PAGANS. THERE is a peculiarly offensive class of advertisers who derive considerable incomes from a judicious investment of a floating capital of conventional Christianity. If they want an engagement they invariably insist that it shall be in a Christian family, as if Pagan families were the rule in England. They can do nothing in advertisements without lugging in Christendom neck and heels, and a large proportion of them consider that no announcement is complete unless studded with "D.V.'s." They pass their lives in saying one perpetual grace-not in the spirit, which is right and proper, but orally and with a great deal of sounding brass, which is hypocritical and contemptible. But the following advertisement would seem to suggest that the advertiser has tried Christianity and found it a failure: To the NOBILITY.-A highly educated gentlewoman, who has had (for the last eight years) a few young ladies to educate on the plan of a private Christian family, finds it does not answer, and wishes a RE-ENGAGEMENT in a nobleman's family as GOVERNESS or CHAPERONE. There is a candour about this which we should hardly have looked for in an advertising Christian, especially a Christian whose sense of gentility will not permit her to discharge her Christian functions in any but a nobleman's family. An advertising Christian is the very one of all others who would be likely to despise the baronetage as long as she was in a position to identify herself, if only as a chaperone, with dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts, and barons. We are not Sorry to hear of the failure of a Christianity which is recorded by its votary simply as a speculation which "does not answer." By the bye, we understand that Mahomet, Confucius, Buddha, Vishnu, Siva, Brahma, Mars, Bacchus, Apollo, and Virorum have interchanged cards of congratulation. Kilt Entirely! Of course it would be too Hibernian to say that a Scotchman has made an Irish bull, but we must be permitted to express an opinion that the following paragraph is a Kyloe variety of that well-known animal: "Before the PRINCE OF WALES visits Dunrobin Castle in the autumn, the whole of the Sutherland Volunteers are to be divested of their trousers." Instead of calling the castle Dunrobin, we should think, under the circumstances, it ought to be designated Begun-unrobin'. A PRIVATE INQUIRY.-Why is a soldier who attends to the command, "Prepare to receive cavalry," like his own weapon ?-Because he's abeyin'-it. JUNE 17, 1865.] FUN. 43 SPORTING INTELLIGENCE. BELGRAVIA. HAVING now, by the brilliant success of all his prophecies, raised your organ to what I may call a Sportive Pinnacle, NICHOLAS will seriously enter upon his editorial duties, which is to impart information regardless of age or sex. There is no racing fixture which he considers worthy of particular mention just at present; added to which, ever since that horrible rain on the Oaks day am racked with rheumatism that would move a flint, and as hoarse as the Scotch raven mentioned by SHAKESPEARE in Macbeth, and having been myself in Scotland, where it rained perpetual, should imagine that a Scotch raven was very hoarse indeed, SHAKESPEARE saying as much, and the swan of Avon being amongst the most intelligent men of his time, and therefore not likely to be wrong. As for anticipations of Ascot or the Ledger, you shall have them all in good time, and is much mistaken if I do not pull off both events as successfully as Epsom. It is well said by the poet KEMBLE "Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, Yes, Mr. Editor, the old man is, as he may say, declining into the Vale of Years. He have had his ups and downs, which if all his experience were to be wrote down in a book the reader might exclaim, with TITUS ANDRONICUS, "O Truth, thou art stranger than Fiction!" and will readily back it for interest and variety against the field, bar none. And some day perchance will communicate to you a few chapters from my authorbiography. Fond as NICHOLAS may be of equestrian competitions-or, as a man might say, horse-racing-he knows that there are other pursuits to which the youth of his native land (Britannia the pride of the ocean, the home of the brave and the free, the shrine of the patriot's devotion, as it says in the well-known song) are addicted. In many of those games, it would not be consistent with the figure of your prophet, nor with his time of life, to take an active part, having always had a slight tendency to corpulence, and which the sight of a white-haired elder a-taking of a header at a swimming baths for a silver cup would make younger people only look contemptuous; but can play at croquet, and it is pleasant in the evening of one's life, after vicissitudes, to moon about a lawn in a fatherly manner, like what NICHOLAS would expect in a Rural Dean with a balance at the bank; and, in fact, shall go into society a good deal this year. Why not? I shall always give special prominence to every subject connected with THE TURF. My own career is a sufficient refutation of the absurd prejudices against betting and betting-men. I have shown, I trust, that honesty, mingled with good private information, may lead to fortune through the paths of speculation; and as to gentlemanly manners am second to none, never having eaten fish with a knife since I came into my present house, no more I ever will. THE RING. The manly art of self-defence will occasionally form the subject of a bright and graphic article, modelled upon them which have appeared in the columns of the daily press. And though now too fat for sparring, not to speak of his years, NICHOLAS fancies he could still put one or two of the young ones up to a trick or two; and would lift up his hands even now if he saw any one ill-treat a woman. CRICKET. Of this noble sport your Prophet is particular fond; and when there is no great racing meeting on, you may see the old man a-sitting quietly on a bench at Kennington Oval or LORD's, though not so often the latter, owing to his having been meanly blackballed when he put up as a member for the Marylebone, with his honest pot of porter on the ground beside him, though well able to afford sherry wine if it wouldn't look so ostentatious. NICHOLAS will soon have something to say to the professional players. HUNTING AND COURSING Will be attended to, as the season may require, though you don't catch a man at my time of life a-riding recklessly at five-barred gates like MR. ANTHONY TROLLOPE in the Pall Mall Gazette. that a racing man may have an eye for nature as proud as that which beats beneath a monarch's purple robe. YACHTING. A life on the ocean wave has many charms for those who really like it, nor will NICHOLAS forget the existence of that numerous class, notwithstanding himself averse to rough weather at sea. Rather! BOATING. And, in conclusion, your Prophet hopes to do what has never yet been done in any other sportive organ-namely, to present your readers with a clear and concise account of KNURK AND Spell. Travelling Extraordinary. NICHOLAS. THE variety of ways in which a journey can be accomplished in these days is almost endless; but we must confess to a little surprise at discovering one mode of travelling, hitherto unheard of, mentioned in an off-hand manner in the following advertisement: Good Small Investments. A neat Five-roomed Detached Cottage, with good Desirable Six-roomed House, 18, The philosopher said that no one ever yet saw the inside of an adverb. How much more truly might he have remarked that no one ever yet beheld the outside of a preposition! BEAUTY. Beauty is, after all, but a manly interior covered by the gambroon cloak of contemptuous individuality. The Chancellor's Hinton-ation. We thought as much! It was evident from the way in which he treated the report of the EDMUNDS Committee, that his lordship was not the sort of man to take a Hint-on any subject. IN-CHOIR WITHIN. WE are assured by the editor of the Papermaker's Journal that the reason why no cathederal is considered complete without a couple of dozen choristers in white surplices is that there must always be twentyfour sheets in a quire, or place where they sing. EMIGRATION EXTRAORDINARY.-In consequence of the extreme heat of the weather, all the Coolies have gone to Chili. A LITTLE GAME OF THEIR OWN. Captain :- -"DON'T YOU THINK I AM LEFT IN A DANGEROUS POSITION?" Angel in the hat :-"YES; BUT YOU FORGET I'M A ROVER!" (On this the Angel in the hat exercises her privileges, and Captain C. is compelled to be "taken with" his temptress. A MATINEE MUSICALE. WHAT time the streets in leafy June Resound with many a rolling carriage; The world of music wakes to life, And scented programmes give you warnings; You must buy tickets for your wife, For concerts held on coming mornings. A morning concert! do not deem "Tis when the streets are calm and stillyWhen shines the sunlight's early gleam, And milkmen shout in Piccadilly; But in the afternoon at three, When westward is the sun declining, And quiet folks like you and me Are nursing vague ideas of dining. At three p.m., the proper time, You go where gleams the panorama Of (oh, forgive the cockney rhyme) Pianos with the name of CRAMER; And there in clouds of silk appear Long rows of fashionable ladiesA man, it may be mentioned here, Of morning concerts much afraid is. Four foreigners, four violins, Play a quartette in F by HAYDN; Thus usually the thing begins, Then the conductor leads a maiden |