London: Printed by JUDD & GLASS, Phoenix Works, St. Andrew's Hill, Doctors' Commons, and Published (for the Proprietors) by THOMAS BAKER, at 80, Fleet-street, E.C.-October 14, 1865.

OUR

IE upon your EDWARD GIBBONS, tearing coolly into ribbons
Just the very reputation we of Christendom uphold!
What! Was Britain's benefactor but an army sub-contractor?
This decline and fall were greater than the Roman twentyfold.

Can we see the saintly martyr, who is patron of the Garter,
Selling pork in Cappadocia near two thousand years ago?
No, this gammon of the bacon is a thing there's some mistake on
(We have read the Seven Champions, and we surely ought to know).

I have stood like MR. TENNYSON-at Coventry, not Venice-on
A bridge that was a railway bridge and not a bridge of sighs;
And a legend of that city I have shaped into a ditty

Smacking forcibly of Patmore (as the "Coventry" implies).

For our champion was a native of that city, and was dative
Of a large amount of trouble to his excellent mamma;
But I cannot tell you her name, nor the Christian, nor the surname
Of the nobleman saluted by our hero as "papa!"

Then I hear he was confided to one Kalyb, who resided

In a cavern-an enchantress with an unenchanting face;
And six noble knights-how tragic!-having yielded to her magic,
Had been "taken in and done for" at that melancholy place.

Good Saint George released the others, and they formed a band of brothers
And set out upon their travels, which were slightly undefined;
And they reached the Seven Dials, where they all began their trials,
Seeking separate adventures of the military kind.

But our hero's share of glory-if we listen to the story-
Was immeasurably greater than the shares of all the rest;
And his havoc on the gizzards of a heap of wicked wizards
Can be very much more easily imagined than expressed.

And the rescuing from slaughter of King Ptolemy's fair daughter
Was a thing to be remembered by the young and by the old;
And I wish I had some guineas (what a curse this want of tin is !),
For they represent the dragon and his vanquisher in gold.

Then that beautiful young lady, whose complexion might be shady,
But whose conduct was as laudable as anything could be,
Ran away and left her father-who was vext about it rather-
And rewarded her preserver by becoming Lady G.

Off to Coventry he took her, but he very soon forsook her,
For the spirit of adventure came upon him once again.

But he left a wicked friend there (just the person I should send there),
Who made love with all his might to her, while George was on the main.

Lady G. soon put a stopper on such goings-on improper,

For she killed the wicked Baron, which was plucky, you'll agree;
And Saint George, who hurried over from his travels via Dover,
Was delighted with her conduct-and went off again to sea!

But no Englishmen are strangers to his doings and his dangers,
To the giants that he conquered and the hardships that he bore;
And those fights that were incessant of the Cross against the Crescent
Are as true to any schoolboy as that two and two are four.

Shall we let our hero dwindle through this Cappadocian swindle,
And regard our Seven Champions as a story one could forge?
No; if people in their folly swear by Jingo and by Golly,
There is quite enough to swear by in our great and good Saint George.

COLONEL FANE, M.P., has been distinguishing himself. In a speech which he made at the anniversary of the Beneficent Society, at Portsmouth, the following delightful sentences occur, with reference to a recent military murder :

"They had all heard of the plea of insanity. Now, he thought if a man were insane the sooner he was hung the better."

He subsequently modified the statement by saying,

"He hoped they did not think he meant that all insane people should be hung, as there were few persons who 'aint' insane upon some point or the other. Perhaps he was insane upon some point."

In the report before us a "Hear!" follows this last remark. But

those who thus assured the worthy Colonel that he was right were hard to suppose that any one who could talk in this way on a subject wrong. To be insane, a man must have had sense to lose, and it is so painful as insanity had ever possessed much of that.

"Yours as you Hughes Me!"

MR. THOMAS HUGHES has been doing good service down at Sheffield by his plucky denunciation of Trade-outrages. Should he continue in the House of Commons and elsewhere as MR. THOMAS HUGHESFUL! this path, the honourable Member for Lambeth will soon be known in

THE CHILD OF THE SUN.-Why a grandson, of course!

FROM OUR STALL.

THE Haymarket opened on the 9th, with the School for Scandal, as a comedy theatre should; and Astley's opened on the 9th with a very bad drama, as a Hippodramatic Spectacular Theatre should not. It is possible that the manager of the Haymarket may experience some difficulty in finding good new comedies, but surely even in these degenerate days (for it seems to be an understood thing that whatever is is degenerate), a better drama could be found than The Child of the Sun. With scenery, costumes, ballet, gunpowder, lime-light, actors, actresses, and auxiliaries, all good enough, the piece was as bad as a bad piece could be. This is inexcusable laches on the part of Mr. JOHN BROUGHAM, who is a very clever author and adapter. It is impossible to say anything of the new drama, except that MISS ADAH ISAACS MENKEN appears in it, that she wears several very becoming costumes -pardon our saying that the Child of the Sun is arrayed after a fashion worthy of her luminous paternity, and displays considerable statuesque grace. It should be understood that "the MENKEN" is clothed, and clothed considerably, and looks very handsome and gallant. She fires a real gun, and rides a real horse, and that is all that we can remember of the drama. Is there no playwright to be found to measure and fit the MENKEN with a character? There were clever schoolboys forty years ago, who would have taken a pleasure in the task. Where is MR. EDWARD FITZBALL? Why reposes he beneath the shade of his past glories-(a lovely image that)? Shall not he who erst provoked thunders of applause by his "Jonathan Bradford," his "Floating Beacon,' and his "Inchcape Bell," again try the mettle of his pen against these modern recreants. "By'r Lady of Saint Anywhere!" "By the mass!" By the mouldering bones of my unburied father!" "Heartless miscreant!" "Villanous "False caitiff!" der-r-rer!" &c., &c., &c., but he shall, and when he doth may-marry "ifaith; ifackins! and ifegs!-we be there to see!

mur

Some nights ago there was a sort of "scene" or "discussion" at the Princess's Theatre, and as we hear, for we were not present, an argument between the manager on the stage and a theatrical critic in the stalls. As to how far realism, that is, the reproduction of actual things upon the stage, may be permissible, it may be as well that FUN should speak and set the question at rest.

We will premise, as the following is to be considered a decision, and not the opening of a controversy, that we shall say nothing of It is Never too Late to Mend, but we will take as a parallel case the drama of Uncle Tom's Cabin, founded on MRS. BEECHER STOWE's novel of Uncle Tom's Cabin, the incidents of which were sensational, realistic, and terrible. Well, then, the flight of Eliza Harris, with her child, across the ice, pursued by slaveowners and their dogs, was a perfectly legitimate melodramatic combination of moral and physical terror. But had the ingenious dramatist or the spirited manager exhibited Eliza or her child, or both, torn down by the dogs, in view of the spectators, they would have exceeded the limits of good taste. Again, that Legree should order Uncle Tom or Cassy to receive a hundred thousand lashes, and that they should be dragged off to punishment by twenty brutal overseers, would be right enough, but if either of the dusky victims were dragged up and flogged in sight of the audience, or if Cassy died from the punishment, or Uncle Tom exhibited his lacerated back, the ladies in the audience could not be accused of affectation if they fainted, nor the men if they turned sick, nor the whole body of spectators if they hissed with forty thousand Michaelmas goose-power. While upon the bench, FUN will also decide as to the deportment of a newspaper critic when on duty in his stall or box. He, the critic, may applaud, but only when some rare or subtle stroke of the actor's genius, some delicate shade likely to pass unheeded by the general spectators, is shown. But he may not hiss, for he should act up to his judicial character, and be reticent of his opinion. But there are limits to human endurance-even the critic of a newspaper is a man-and if any person should dare to place upon the stage, for the mere greed of gain, a "sensation" scene in the likeness of the ward of a hospital, and simulate the operation of amputating the leg of the hero, or the arm of the heroine with real bandages, real tourniquets, real unguents, real saws, real needles, real arteries, and real blood, and the rest of the sickening apparatus, then the newspaper critic would be dans son droit to rise and hiss loudly, and it is to be hoped that he would be aided by audiences whose length of suffering is as extraordinary as is their patience.

It seems as strange to have to mention these remarkable facts as to inform our readers that the sum of two and two are four, but we live in strange times. Theatres now-a-days are temples of bad taste. The question often occurs to us, "What is the use of a licenser of plays?" Is he a man who never censures, or a myth altogether, the Mrs. Harris of the Lord Chamberlain's office? As it is he seems to be a warning voice that never warns, a bailiff who never makes a capture, a beadle who is fast asleep while impudent boys play pitch and toss upon the tombstones beneath his very nose?

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.

NICHOLAS, AFTER A BRIEF EXPLANATION, PROCEEDS TO CELEBRATE HIS
SUCCESSFUL PROPHECIES FOR THE CESAREWITCH.
BELGRAVIA.

"UP rose the sun, and up rose EMILIE!" if you will excuse my quoting CHAUCER, an obsolete poet of his period, but a great favourite with the old man, on Monday, the Ninth of October, "EMILIE" being really MARY JANE, who is within my gates, and came to give your Prophet a call. The Prophet hastily attired himself, and thought of the Cæsarewitch on the morrow. He heard the song of Chanticleer, such being more of a Cochin tendency than pastoral, and he said, if MR. BYRON will excuse the liberty, "Oh, Shant-I-clear a lot of money!"

But what I was most anxious to see, Mr. Editor, was the Extra Number of your New Serious containing my prediction; for although used to seeing himself in print, your Sportive Editor still feels a little nervous on the eve of a great race.

Sir, that number was nowhere to be found! Many is the place your old man entered, and many is the glass of sherry-wine that he partook; but the Extra Number was all his eye, and well you know it never saw the light of day.

Did not prudential considerations prevent, I should say that this was something very like a gross breach of faith with "an old and deservedly-esteemed contributor," which you once called him in your own handwriting, deny it if you can; but in justice to my own reputation as a Vaticinator, I feel bound to copy out, from the slate where I always do them first, not wiping out until Wednesdays, what I had sent you as my tip. Print it, Sir, as it was wrote, every line and every letter, or you will be doing the old man a wrong:"The obsolete winner of the Seizerwitch, it will be Salpinctes, with Alleybamma for the second, and John Davis for the third, whilst if I apprehend unexpected danger from any other quarter such will be found in Gratitude."

There, Sir! Now your sportive readers can judge for themselves whether NICHOLAS is worth his prophetic salt. I say, print it as it was sent -I know as well as you do, or any of the other contributors, than whom I am sure none of them have been treated worse, though perhaps a little gay-that the actual result was

Salpinctes
Gratitude

John Davis

1

3

and that Alabama selected by him for second was nowhere; but I scorn to appear wise after the event, and I am quite content to rest upon my own laurel-bush, figuratively speaking.

Still, despite of your leaving me in the lurch, what is the old man's actual position? Why it is, oh ye Sportive men of England, that he named the winner, and stuck to him all along, as was the case with Gladiateur before him.

Turn, Mr. Editor, to the file of your New Serious in the backoffice, than which I am sure a more palatial department, though a little secluded.

The first time that NICHOLAS made any allusion whatever to the Cæsare witch was in Number Twenty-one, and there, Sir, on page 38, Second Volume, New Serious, on the Eighth line of his contribution from the top, you will find it put down:

"Make all square with Salpinctes!"

Next turn to Number Twenty-two, page 43, not very far down in
the column neither. After playfully remarking, with that dry humour
which has deservedly gained him the admiration of every true Sportive
man throughout an Empire on which the sun never sits, "And so, my
merry men all, under which thimble is the little pea?" the Prophet
proceeds to name the horses accordingly. And which is the first horse
that he does name?
SALPINCTES! SALPINCTES!! SALPINCTES!!!

Such facts as these, Sir, speak trumpet-tongued, as mentioned already
in one of the Numbers, nor can his pinnacle be shaken by all the shafts
of the individuous, bar none.
In my next I will discuss the Cambridgeshire, which is to come off
on the Twenty-four Instant. Remember the old man's success.
NICHOLAS.

P.S.-I have a good thing for next year's Derby.
(Our Prophet's quotations are quite correct; but the prophecy to
which he refers never reached us.-ED.)

The Last Thing in Lucifer Matches. THERE is an ingenious safety match, now in general use, which will light only on the box, and not always on that. We hear that it is to be superseded by a new invention which will not light at all. The latter is especially intended for the use of nurseries, powder magazines and asylums.

DREADFUL MISBEHAVIOUR.

Lady:-"I WISH, PAULINA, YOU'D TEACH YOUR SISTER HOW TO ADDRESS HER MISTRESS." Paulina ::-"LOR, MEM, SHE'LL NEVER 'AVE NO MANNERS; WHY, SHE DON'T EVEN CALL me MISS!"