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TOL. I.

MAYBURY COLLEGE.

WHEN TRAGEDY lays down dagger and cupWhen COMEDY, now so sprightly,

Grows downright weary of holding up

The mirror to nature nightly;

One happy scene at the Drama's end-
For bringing the curtain down on-

Is surely a thing that a man can spend

His shilling or half-a-crown on.

At the close of day, when the Hamlet's still,

And Othello's occupation

Seems rather to lie in a crawl down-hill
Than an up-hill situation;

Can we not pay for the smiles and tears
That never were wholly paid for,
By shewing the poor and stricken in years
What Pity and Help were made for ?
For this the Sydenham troupe will bring
Together, with pipe and tabor,
A sample of almost everything

In the range of Thespian labour.
Bright eyes from twenty or thirty stalls
Will scatter their beams like blazes,
And the couple of buzzy bee-hive Pauls
Distribute their honeyed phrases.

For this the haughty SIR J. L. TOOLE (Long life to His Royal Highness!)

Will urge PAUL B.-who is home from school-
To get the better of shyness.

By way of amusing the darling child,
He will, at a certain time, light

The dear boy's countenance with a mild
But highly effective lime-light.

There we shall meet the kind of swell
Who always appears to hanker
After buying a bouquet of Ariel,
Or a fan of my Lady Spanker;
The sort of party who sees Macbeth,
And cannot, in point of fact, drop
The notion that HELEN FAUCIT's death
Occurs at the fall of the act-drop.
The sort of party who thinks Miss B.
Must be always uttering curses-
And opens his eyes and mouth to see
How affably she converses;

Who tries Aunt Sally, and makes a bow
To the person who takes his money;

Then mutters, "I've always thought till now
That BUCKSTONE was rather funny!"

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DEAR FUN,-You know everything! What does the following advertisement in last Sunday week's Era mean?

WANTED, A PIANIST for a Free and Easy (a Blind Man preferred). If this meet the eye of Mrs. M-, she may write, when she will hear of something to her advantage. Adress (sic.), Mr. W, No. 29, street, Blackburn.

Why should a blind man be preferred? Is it to save the cost of music? Do the "free" of Blackburn play practical jokes on their faithful pianists, or do the "easy" pelt them with cigar ends?

Then again how can Mrs. M. be a blind man? and if she were, how

I could the advertisement meet her eye, except, indeed, it were cut out, made into a pellet, and thrown at her ?

I

Lastly, why does Mr. W- spell address" adress?" and why[This was all the poor fellow wrote! He was found by his laundress next morning sitting on the floor in a state of hopeless imbecility, playing with two or three straws, and muttering some unintelligible nonsense about blind pianists. As the last effort of one of our most valued contributors, we commend it to the indulgence of our readers. Our esteemed contemporary should really be more careful in future as to the admission of advertisements, and not endanger the healthy condition of the minds of its readers in so reckless a manner.]

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TOWN

TALK.

BY THE SAUNTERER IN SOCIETY.

AUNTERING this week will be like becoming a guest at a fairy banquet. For that "Once a year," the Dramatic College Fete, we are allowed to pass the magic boundary which separates audiences and actors, and permitted for a short time to mingle with the clever men and lovely women who adorn the English stage. I always spend about twice my annual income at the bazaar, but I do not grudge it, for I feel I am indebted to far more than that amount to those delightful people who on this occasion consent to play the fool gracefully on behalf of the poor and aged and sick of their profession. I hope, therefore, next Saturday to meet the British public at Sydenham, and trust they will 66 come down" handsomely in every sense.

THE Chancellor has retired, and however much one may regret the loss of his great intellect to the Government of the country, and however much one may attribute the virtuous indignation on the part of the Opposition to mere party feeling, it is impossible not to admit that the disgrace is somewhat merited, if only on the ground of laxity and inattention. The keeper of the QUEEN'S Conscience should be like CESAR'S wife, above the breath of suspicion. The conduct of the HONOURABLE () RICHARD BETHELL may have contributed largely to his father's downfall, but to what extent, one asks, is that conduct chargeable to faults of training? A father has more serious duties toward a son than the appointing him to lucrative offices.

I MUST point out in connection with the scandal a circumstance which seems to me very suspicious indeed. LORD CHELMSFORD, in his haste to pelt mud at the fallen Chancellor, has a little bespattered his own official robes. A question about the granting of a pension to MR. WINSLOW by LORD WESTBURY was asked and answered-on the whole pretty correctly-in the House of Commons. The next night LORD CHELMSFORD rises in the House of Lords to explain away the explanation. It had been stated that he had not refused to recommend MR. WINSLOW for a pension, but his lordship was anxious to declare that he had done so, and not once only. So far so good! But this sternly inflexible Chancellor, retiring from the woolsack, does not scruple to write to his successor, urging MR. WINSLOW's claims for the very pension he himself had refused him. This looks like a premeditated attempt to get LORD WESTBURY into a scrape. If not that, at all events it proves that incorruptible Chancellors are not rarer on the Whig side than the Tory, though they may not always be found out until they forget to shield their reputations in their anxiety to stab that of an opponent.

A VERY excellent process is this new "Wothlytype" photographic invention. It avoids the harsh hard lines and black shadows which spoil so many otherwise excellent likenesses taken by the old plan. A photograph of MR. SOTHERN as Brother Sam is lying before me at this moment, and speaks volumes in favour of Wothly type. But we must have another name for the process if it is to be popular, as it is likely to be, I fancy, on account of its being specially adapted for reproducing the female face divine. The ladies have never been taken successfully yet, but they will be able to have their varying expressions caught now, without any of the exaggerations which too often libel them in the common carte de visite.

THE magazines this month are suffering from the heat of the weather, I believe. Very few of them exhibit any sparkle, and some of them are very vapid indeed. But en revanche the last number of All the Year Round contains an article on "Duffers," which is irresistibly comic and clever. The "duffing author"-a photograph for accuracy of portraiture-is excellent. Who of us does not know the writer-inmosaic, who is perpetually talking of "the burly Doctor," "the witty Dean of St. Paul's," and "Gentle Oliver," thus making a gentle livelihood out of quotations from well-known authors? This is the sort of gentleman who would pass for a genius if there were no such things as those plaguy inverted commas, and who, even in spite of them, passes for a decent cook, because he serves up his own morsel of tasteless beefsteak with so many sauces manufactured by other people, that one appreciates the flavour of the dish without attributing it to its proper sources.

TEMPORA MUTANTUR.

LETTERS, letters, letters, letters,

Some that please and some that bore, Some that threaten prison fetters (Metaphorically, fetters,

Such as bind insolvent debtors)-
Invitations by the score.

One from CoGSON, WILES, and RAILER,
My attorneys, off the Strand,
One from COPPERBLOCK, my tailor-
My unreasonable tailor-

One in FLAGG's disgusting hand.

One from EPHRAIM and MOSES,

Wanting tin without a doubt, I should like to pull their nosesTheir uncompromising noses; One from ALICE with the roses,

Ah, I know what that's about!
Time was when I waited, waited,

For the missives that she wrote.
Humble postmen execrated-
Loudly, deeply execrated-
When I found I wasn't fated

To be gladdened with a note.
Time was when I'd not have bartered
Of her little pen a dip

For a peerage duly gartered-
For a peerage starred and gartered-
With a palace-office chartered-
Or a secretaryship!

But the time for that is over,

And I wish we'd never met.
I'm afraid I've proved a rover-
I'm afraid a heartless rover-
Quarters in a place like Dover
Tend to make a man forget.

Now I can accord precedence
To my tailor, for I do

Want to know if he gives credence-
An unwarrantable credence-
To my proffered I.O.U.!
Bills for carriages and horses,

Bills for wine and light cigar,
Matters that concern the Forces-
News that may affect the Forces-
News affecting my resources,

Now unquestioned take the pas.
And the tiny little paper,

With the words that seem to run
From her little fingers taper
(They are very small and taper),
By the tailor and the draper
Are in interest outdone!

And unopened it's remaining!
I can read her gentle hope-
Her entreaties, uncomplaining
(She was always uncomplaining)-
Her devotion never waning

Through the little envelope.

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"Double, Double, Toil and Trouble!"

AN artist of some eminence has recently given his notions of the characteristics of colour. He says white signifies purity, blue fidelity, etc., etc., but appears to be in serious error in one point. He speaks of yellow as indicative of domestic trouble. We always thought black and blue stood for the domestic brews of trouble.

Police Intelligence.

WE understand that the active and intelligent myrmidons of SIR RICHARD MAYNE are about to apply for summonses against the managers of theatres for supplying the public with a drop between the acts without having a license.

FROM OUR STALL.

THROUGH fire and water, over hill over dale, through bush through briar, over park over pale, by cab and by rail, by patrician carriage and by reasonable omnibus, flocked MR. TOOLE's friends and admirers on the occasion of MR. TOOLE's benefit. After an Adelphi farce, which on account of its long services will perhaps always be retained upon the establishment-a new and original drama, not an original drama not adapted from the French, but an original original drama, was produced, in which MR. TOOLE played an honest fireman, named Joe Bright. The name of Bright was doubtless given to the hero on account of the helmet which adorns his brow; it by no means indicates the limpidity or lustre of his intellect, for a stupider fellow than Joe Bright never handled hose or rescued lovely woman in her night dress. Joe loves and is beloved by a charming girl, played and looked by MISS HENRIETTA SIMS, and though this charming girl (played by MISS HENRIETTA SIMS, reader, remember that), gives him every artless and innocent proof of her affection that she can, short of saying, "Joe, I love you! Accompany me to the sacred altar, where the clergyman shall make you mine, shall make me yours, and us ours, and both each other's;" Joe, the idiot, will not see it, but insists on snivelling and getting drunk, and dividing his day in alternate allotments of maudlin love and attempted assaults upon his sister. He underBut fortune favours Joe, stands fire-engines, but not the fair sex. because he is rough and has an honest heart. The girl he loves, whom he brought out of a burning house when a baby, and brought up in his own cottage to be a beautiful woman, turns out to be an heiress with large estates somewhere; and Joe is betrothed to her, and after the fall of the curtain may be supposed to marry her, and go and live in the country in a villa on his wife's property; and, now and then, to set fire to a cottage for the sake of playing on the flames with a portable engine, and so remind himself of old times.

MR. TOOLE was stupid, honest, tipsified, blind, sentimental. He acted with a truth and effect that roused his audience to an enthusiasm incompatible, to our mind, with the present state of the thermometer. MR. BILLINGTON looked handsome, and played well as a musician in high spirits and pecuniary difficulties; and Miss HENRIETTA SIMs, as before mentioned, was a charming ingenue.

As for Miss WOOLGAR-but it is impossible to describe MISS WOOLGAR except in Ruskinese, and Ruskinese can only be written by its inventor. Let us say, then, that her portrayal of Joe's cheery, positive, energetic, clear-headed sister, was perfect. The force of WOOLGAR Could no farther go. It has often occurred to us that Miss

WOOLGAR would be good to eat; if not, why should she have changed

her name to MELLON?

There is a considerable amount of simplicity and reality in the plot and incidents of Through Fire and Water, and also a considerable amount of what is conventional and unnatural. MR. WALTER GORDON was quite right to make Ruth cling to Joe even when he is unworthy of her, for love, we know, is blind, and young ladies are apt to chose ineligible partners; neither can exception be taken to Joe's sister, who does not seem to doat on Mr. Kit Coventry, for Kit does not get drunk and snivel, but makes love like a man; all of which facts may be objectionable to Joe's sister, who is the sort of girl who loves hard and loves to find fault. When, however, the author has dowered Ruth with unexpected fortune, his bounty even to his own dramatis persone should stop. It was too much to make Kit and Ruth brother and sister. Sufficient for a play is the genealogy thereof; there was no necessity for uniting all the characters in the bonds of consanguinity. Ever since Mr. Box inquired of Mr. Cox whether he (Mr. Cox) had a strawberry mark upon his left arm, and Mr. Cox said that he had not, and Mr. Box said that that fact convinced him (Box) that he (Cox) was his (Box's) long-lost brother, it has been dangerous to find out too many relations on the stage. Besides, there, as elsewhere, relations are a bore.

When the play was over the audience began to call, and the characters passed across the stage linked hand-in-hand, sausagefashion, if we may be allowed that uncomplimentary though savoury comparison; and then the author was called for, and he came and bowed. By the way, why should the author be called on last? The play is his, and not the actors. He invented it, or if he didn't, as DunIf in the ELIZABETHIAN dreary would say, "Some other fella did." age, "calling" had been in fashion, can we imagine SHAKESPEARE trotting on after the representatives of his own creations, and bowing, delighted at being taken notice of among the actors?

By the action of that law of compensation which governs all things, the termination of the civil war in America which takes from these isles and Astley's the famous MENKEN (if a tear should blot this page, please consider it a printer's error, and discharge the man), which takes from these isles and Astley's the famous MENKEN, gives to England and the Adelphi an American actor. MR. JOHN E. OWENS opened-green-roomatically speaking-in a something called a comic drama, entitled Solon Shingle. The piece is beneath notice, and it is

to be regretted that MR. OWENS' talents should have been "damaged,"
by such a trumpery, ricketty vehicle as he elected to display them in.
Solon Shingle, the character personated by MR. OWENS, is an old
Yankee farmer, who pays a visit to an American village for the
purpose of looking after a lawsuit, and while waiting with his team
at the door of the house of a friend, has a barrel of "apple-sarce"
stolen from his waggon. This is the foundation on which MR. OWENS
has built up a character, or rather an idiosyncrasy, for we presume
Solon Shingle is not to be looked on as a type of the American farmer,
Solon is a very old
but is to be taken for an exceptional person.
man, seventy and upwards; he talks continually, which we under-
stand to be an American habit; he "chews" continually, and he ex-
pectorates continually two habits which, even when Cousin Jonathan
shall have pocketed this country and annexed Ireland, will hardly
become naturalised in polite society.

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Solon is a real free and enlightened citizen, active, restless, and inquiring. He wants to know, he does! In court he is not afraid, but reminds the judge of the time when his mother kept a tavern. Despite his senility he is shrewd and canny, despite his age he gesticulates with that galvanie sort of inappropriate action peculiar to the cream of the airth." He is not easily put down, and has a high opinion of himself. He might be safely trusted in a drawing room full of ladies, for he would say nothing coarse or offensive. Profoundly practical in action, a more illogical talker could not be found, even He is "Uncle Sam" with on a philanthropic or political platform. all his good heartedness and bad taste, his high national honour and low commercial morality. The highest compliment is paid to MR. OWENS by acknowledging his complete personal submersion in Mr. Solon Shingle, and by speaking of Mr. Solon Shingle as if he were a real existent person. It is a remarkable performance, humourous and broad, and, at the same time, as highly finished in every point of detail as a miniature.

SELECTED ADDRESSES.

FROM EXCLUSIVE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.

No. 3.-TO THE ELECTORS OF FINSBURY. GENTLEMEN,-My views are so familiar to you that in again soliciting your suffrages I have little to explain and nothing to withdraw. The House of Commons has only had 137 sittings during the session; out of these I have attended 294, and on the other occasion I was ill in bed with diphtheria, cholera morbus, angina pectoris, and bile. I am steadfastly opposed to any attempts at assassination; and I will not allow anybody to play BRUTUS with my constituents.

I consider that too much public money has been spent upon the National Portrait Gallery, a building which is of no value except historically; and surely every elector can form his own ideas of political persons, such as CHARLES JAMES PITT, PERKIN CADE, or TITUS GARRICK without going by omnibus all the way from Finsbury to Great George-street, Westminster.

I am prepared, if re-elected, to vote for the abolition of most things. I am not at all certain that it would not be a good plan to give every operative two votes, so as to resist the encroachments of aristocracy. With regard to female suffrage, I am prepared to extend it to the honest-hearted daughter of toil, who goes out charing, or takes in washing; but I would sternly refuse it to the pampered duchess. Your humble servant and delegate to command,

W. Cox.

No. 4.-To THE ELECTORS OF DEVIZES. GENTLEMEN,-Strictly following out my well-known system of interrogatory politics, I write this address for the purpose of asking you a question.

Are you disposed to return me once again as your representative in the Commons House of Parliament ?

Should your answer be in the affirmative, I pledge myself to let not a single evening elapse without asking at least three questions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, two of the First Lord of the Treasury, and another of the Secretary of State for the Home Department.

A somewhat similar course of action was pursued by me during the greater part of the session which has now elapsed. If it has met with your approval, why should I fear the slanders of a venal and scurrilous press?

Why should I not persevere in a path simply because I tread it alone?

Why should I submit to be browbeaten by those whose only desire is to stifle the free expression of opinion in the bud, and to muzzle the independent tribunes of the people? Why need I say more? Does not this brief address convince you Your grateful servant, of the propriety of voting for DARBY GRIFFITH?

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A PROFOUND KNOWLEDGE OF ARISTOCRATIC HABITS. Irascible Lady:-"Now THEN, WHO ARE you A SHOVIN' AND A PUSHIN' OF, as if you was a Lord!!!"

MRS. BROWN AT THE DRAMATIC FETE.

I DON'T think as ever I was so flustered in my life, and all nothing after all. For I was a-thinkin' as I was goin' to have a quiet day, and set my heart on unpicking my coburg, as I'm going to have dyed, when in comes our JANE'S JOE.

I says, "Joe, whatever is it ?"

He says, "Mother has sent me over for to ask you to come and spend the day to have broad beans and bacon," as I'm partial to, and he says, "As JANE and me is a-goin', and I'm that late as I can't stay a moment," and off he goes.

Well, I says, I didn't want to go nowheres, but his mother is that peppery if you seems at all cool, and BROWN does make such a row about me a-keeping of her at her distance, as is a low-lived woman, and given to abuse, so I thort as it was best to go.

The way as I busted thro' dressing nobody wouldn't credit, and the heat as I was in was downright wapour baths.

Off I sets, and nearly dropped a-gettin' to the end of the street, where I was just in time to miss a 'bus, and had to wait a quarter of a hour, which was as well perhaps, for if I hadn't took a something at the Catherine Wheel, I don't think as I could have gone on. When the 'bus did come it was that full, and the way as a party give me a shove, and used low abuse, thro' me a-treading quite light on his foot, you'd a thought as I'd been a elephant.

I got out of the 'bus close to London-bridge, as I hurries over, thro' a-seein' as it was late, thro' JOE's mother a-dinin' full early, as I considers twelve to be. I was looking out for the Bermondsey 'bus all over the bridge, as would set me down at the door, and gets quite on to the top of Tooley-street when I hears, "MRS. BROWN, MRS. BROWN!" So I thinks it's only jeers, and keeps on, when a blow in the back nearly sends me for'ards, and round I turns for to resent such freedoms, and there was that boy SAM, as is Joe's youngest brother, a-grinning like wild.

So I says, "Whatever do you mean by taking away any one's breath like that."

"Why," he says, "mother says you're as deaf as a beadle, and we've been a-hollarin' like mad at you ever so long."

I says, "Wherever is your mother?"

"Over there," says he; and there, sure enough, all along the kerb, was MRS. SIMMONS, as is JOE's mother, tho' married again, standin', a-laughing like mad.

"Wherever are you a-goin'?" says she. "Why, to see you, to be sure," says I.

"To see me, then you're in the wrong box, for I'm goin' out for the day."

"Why, didn't you send Joe to ask me to come and spend the day?" "Next Monday," says she.

Well, you might have knocked me down with a feather, I was that took aback.

"Where are you off to ?" says I.

"To the Dramatic Fair," says she, "at the Crystian Pallis." "Whatever's that?" says I.

"Oh," says she, "for to give a home to them actors as is past work.'

"

I says, Oh, indeed, like Chelsea 'Ospital where the Greenwich pensioners is.' Says she, "No doubt." "Well," I says, "I'll take myself home again." "No," says she, 66 come along with us, and a pleasant day we shall have."

So I don't like to throw cold water over nobody, and give way, and off we went just in time for to have a good fight for the train, as I got into with difficulties, thro' the man a-shetting in my gownd, as prevented me a-setting down comfortable, as was that scrouged, as it's well as the journey wasn't long.

Dear heart! when we got there, what with the stairs and passages I was dead-beat afore we got into the Pallis, as was that full as one couldn't think where they all come from.

The noise and the din was that confusion as I couldn't make out whatever was a-goin' on. There certainly was a deal of lovely ladies,

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THE BOS'N OF H.M.S "GOVERNMENT"

FUN.-JULY 15, 1865.

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LORD P

THE BATTLE OF HUSTINGS,

As now Performing at the (Polling) Booth.

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