Chapter XLVII: Book I: The Promptings of the Ideal

It was noon, Sir Edward had stepped from his brougham and was proceeding on foot down the Strand. He was dressed with his usual faultless taste, but in alighting from his vehicle his foot had slipped, and a small round disc of conglomerated soil, which instantly appeared on his high arched instep, marred the harmonious glitter of his boots. Sir Edward was fastidious. Casting his eyes around, at a little distance he perceived the stand of a youthful bootblack. Thither he sauntered, and carelessly placing his foot on the low stool, he waited the application of the polisher’s Art. “Tis true,” said Sir Edward to himself, yet half aloud, “the contact of the Foul and the Disgusting mars the general effect of the Shiny and the Beautiful――and yet, why am I here? I repeat it, calmly and deliberately――why am I here? Ha! Boy!”

The Boy looked up――his dark Italian eyes glanced intelligently at the Philosopher, and, as with one hand he tossed back his glossy curls from his marble brow, and with the other he spread the equally glossy Day and Martin over the Baronet’s boot, he answered in deep rich tones: “The Ideal is subjective to the Real. The exercise of apperception gives a distinctiveness to idiocracy, which is, however, subject to the limits of ME. You are an admirer of the Beautiful, sir. You wish your boots blacked. The Beautiful is attainable by means of the Coin.”

“Ah,” said Sir Edward thoughtfully, gazing upon the almost supernal beauty of the Child before him; “you speak well. You have read _Kant_.”

The Boy blushed deeply. He drew a copy of _Kant_ from his bosom, but in his confusion several other volumes dropped from his bosom on the ground. The Baronet picked them up.

“Ah!” said the Philosopher, “what’s this? _Cicero’s De Senectute_, and at your age, too? _Martial’s Epigrams_, _Cæsar’s Commentaries_. What! a classical scholar?”

“E pluribus Unum. Nux vomica. Nil desperandum. Nihil fit!” said the Boy, enthusiastically. The Philosopher gazed at the Child. A strange presence seemed to transfuse and possess him. Over the brow of the Boy glittered the pale nimbus of the Student.

“Ah, and Schiller’s _Robbers_ too?” queried the Philosopher.

“Das ist ausgespielt,” said the Boy modestly.

“Then you have read my translation of _Schiller’s Ballads_?” continued the Baronet, with some show of interest.

“I have, and infinitely prefer them to the original,” said the Boy with intellectual warmth. “You have shown how in Actual life we strive for a Goal we cannot reach; how in the Ideal the Goal is attainable, and there effort is victory. You have given us the Antithesis which is a key to the Remainder, and constantly balances before us the conditions of the Actual and the privileges of the Ideal.”

“My very words,” said the Baronet; “wonderful, wonderful!” and he gazed fondly at the Italian boy, who again resumed his menial employment. Alas! the wings of the Ideal were folded. The Student had been absorbed in the Boy.

But Sir Edward’s boots were blacked, and he turned to depart. Placing his hand upon the clustering tendrils that surrounded the classic nob of the infant Italian, he said softly, like a strain of distant music:

“Boy, you have done well. Love the Good. Protect the Innocent. Provide for The Indigent. Respect the Philosopher.”... “Stay! Can you tell me what _is_ The True, The Beautiful, The Innocent, The Virtuous?”

“They are things that commence with a capital letter,” said the Boy, promptly.

“Enough! Respect everything that commences with a capital letter! Respect ME!” and dropping a halfpenny in the hand of the Boy, he departed.

The Boy gazed fixedly at the coin. A frightful and instantaneous change overspread his features. His noble brow was corrugated with baser lines of calculation. His black eye, serpent-like, glittered with suppressed passion. Dropping upon his hands and feet, he crawled to the curbstone and hissed after the retreating form of the Baronet, the single word:

“Bilk!”

* * * * *

There are three more Chapters of this amusing parody to be found in Bret Harte’s _Sensation Novels Condensed_.

Another imitation of Lytton’s prose was published in _The Individual_ November 8, 1836 (Cambridge), but it is not of sufficient interest to reprint.

――――

ON A TOASTED MUFFIN.
_By Sir E. L. B. L. B. L. B. Little, Bart._

Object belov’d! when day to eve gives place,
And life’s best nectar thy fond vot’ry sips,
How sweet to gaze upon thy shining face,
And press thy tender form unto my lips!

Fair as the Naiad of the Grecian stream,
And beautiful as Oread of the lawn;
Bright-beaming as the iv’ry palac’d dream,
And melting as the Dewy Urns of dawn.

For thee I strike the sounding Lyre of song,
And hymn the Beautiful, the Good, the True;
The dying notes of thankfulness prolong,
And light the Beacon-fires of praise for you.

Butter’d Ideal of Life’s coarser food!
Thou calm Egeria in a world of strife!
Antigone of Crumpets! mild as good,
Decent in death, and beautiful in life!

Fairest where all is _fare_! shine on me still,
And gild the dark To-Morrow of my days;
In public Marts and crowded Senates thrill,
My soul, with Tea-time thoughts and Muffin lays.

CUTHBERT BEDE.

_The Shilling Book of Beauty._ London. J. Blackwood & Co.

――――

LORD CHESTERFIELD.

_Chesterfield Travestie_; or School for Modern Manners. Anonymous. Dedicated to George Colman, whose name is incorrectly spelt “Coleman,” on the title page. London, Thomas Tegg, 1808.

This has ten Caricatures drawn by Rowlandson. A later and enlarged edition was published entitled _Chesterfield Burlesqued_.

_Lady Chesterfield’s Letters to her Daughter_, by George Augustus Sala. London, Houlston and Wright, 1860.

The first edition of this humorous, but rather lengthy burlesque (it consists of fourteen chapters), contains many excellent woodcuts by _Phiz_, and is now very scarce.

GOOD MANNERS; OR, THE ART OF BEING AGREEABLE.

(_Being Maxims and Extracts from Lord Jesterfield’s Letters._)[55]

_On Conversation._――The basis of all conversation is Flat Contradiction. The flatter and the stronger the contradiction, the more certain and secure is the basis on which the structure of Conversation is to rise.

Where there is no contradiction, “nothing more need be said,” and consequently there and then is an end of all conversation.

The word conversation in itself expresses and implies an assertion of a fact and a denial. It is compounded of two Latin words, “_verso_” to turn, and “_con_” together, and means, therefore, two people turning together, or having “a turn at one another,” or a “set-to.” Were everybody to agree with everybody else, it is evident that there would be no matter for discussion, and, therefore, no real conversation.

Persons in love, who are, for the time being, in perfect agreement with each other, never converse. They can’t. It is from this universally-observed fact that in every language may be found the significant proverb, “Silence gives consent,” _i.e._, where all agree there is, as we have said, no conversation.

_A knowledge of Human Nature is absolutely necessary for the cultivation of good manners, and for getting oneself generally liked in all sorts and varieties of Society._――This is an extensive subject, but its study will well repay the most attentive perusal:――

_Rules and Advice._――In whatever society you may be, a moderate share of penetration will enable you to find out everybody’s weak points. You may not hit upon them all at once, but make your own private list, and then try them all round. Enter any room as though you were a general practitioner called in to pronounce on everybody’s ailments. You do not want to _see_ their tongues, but only hear how they use them. You can feel the pulse of each one discreetly.

_How to make yourself Agreeable with a Nouveau Riche._――Be playfully familiar. Lower yourself to _his_ level; so as not to appear proud of your superior birth and training. Ascertain how he made his money, what was his origin; and, if unable to discover what he sprang from, you can make a safe guess in supposing him to have been a scavenger, a dustman, or as boy engaged in sweeping out an office (many illustrious men who have discharged the highest offices, may have themselves been discharged from the lowest offices for not having kept them clean and tidy), and on this supposition you can at once address him, and proceed to compare his former state of abject poverty with his present apparently inexhaustible wealth, a subject that must afford him the greatest possible pleasure, especially in a mixed company.

* * * * *

_Punch._ April 26, 1884.

――――:o:――――

THOMAS DE QUINCEY.

His extraordinary work _The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_ published in 1822, (having originally appeared in the London Magazine), was the subject of an exceedingly clever parody in _Blackwood_ for December, 1856, attributed to the pen of Sir E. G. Hamley.

“A Recent Confession of an Opium-Eater” tells how the O.E., somewhere about the year 1828, found himself in the sixteenth storey of a house in the old town of Edinburgh in company with three most unprepossessing personages, one of the feminine gender. He is at first disposed to entertain a favourable opinion of the intellectual status of his entertainers by the sympathising reception accorded to some appreciative remarks offered by him on the greatness of Burke, but afterwards sees reason to question whether their Burke and his were the same person. By-and-by it becomes apparent that his companions are intent upon drugging him. The idea of anyone presuming to hocus the opium-eater tickles his fancy immensely; he enters into the joke, toasts his hosts in laudanum, and obliges them to respond, and in due time has them all under the table. As he goes down-stairs, a little misadventure occurs with a candle, and by next morning the sixteen storeys and the occupants have entirely disappeared. The style of the parody is excellent, a compound of the Opium-Eater and “Murder considered as one of the Fine Arts.”

――――:o:――――

LADY MORGAN.

As a specimen of her eccentric style take the following passage from “The Wild Irish Girl:” “I was _chez moi_, inhaling the _odeur musquée_ of my scented _boudoir_, when the Prince de Z―――― entered. He found me in my _demi-toilette blasée sur tout_, and pensively engaged in solitary conjugation of the verb _s’ennuyer_, and, though he had never been one of my _habitués_, or by any means _des nôtres_, I was not disinclined, at this moment of _délassement_, to glide with him into the _crocchio ristretto_ of familiar chat.” The above has been done into French by M. H. Cocheris in the following style: “J’etais _at home_, aspirant la _musky smell_ de mon _private room_ lorsque le Prince Z―――― entra. Il me trouva en _simple dress, fatigued with everything_, tristement occupée à conjuguer le verbe _to be weary_, et quoique je ne l’eusse jamais compté au nombre de mes _intimates_, et qu’il n’etait, en aucune façon, _of our set_, j’etais assez disposée à entrer avec lui dans le _crocchio ristretto_ d’une causerie familière.”

――――:o:――――

ARCHIBALD FORBES.

An American paper has the following amusing burlesque of Mr. Archibald Forbes’ style. Mr. Forbes is supposed to be replying to the toast of the English press. “Mr. Chairman――I am Mr. Archibald Forbes. I have been everywhere. I have done everything. I am a very smart fellow. I am not to be out-done. I know the Emperor of China. I know the King of the Cannibal Islands. I am intimately acquainted with the Grand Llama. I have lived with the Shah of Persia. I am the dearest friend of the Emperor of Russia.” The report comes abruptly to an end with the editorial remark. “Here our sorts of I’s gave out.”

――――:o:――――

COOKERY BOOKS.

During the Crimean War, when there was a great outcry about the starving condition of our troops, and the utter breakdown of the Commissariat, the following parody on Mr. A. Soyer’s cookery book appeared in “Our Miscellany,” by Yates and Brough:――

CAMP COOKERY.
_By Alicksus Sawder_

_To boil cabbage._――It is necessary to procure a cabbage. Wash in cold water; which, throw down a gutter, or outside a tent if no gutter be procurable. Be careful not to splash trousers, especially in frosty weather. Stick a two-pronged fork boldly into the cabbage (a bayonet will do equally well), and plunge it into a saucepan of water just at boiling point. When it has boiled for eight minutes, twenty-five seconds, throw eleven-fifteenths of a teaspoonful of salt into the water. _Let the cabbage boil till it is thoroughly done._ At that moment be on the watch to take it out of the saucepan (taking care to avert the face from the steam), and place in a vegetable dish. Put the cover on, and serve up with roast beef, ortolans, venison, pickled pork, or whatever may come handiest. An old helmet will supply the place of a saucepan. Cauliflowers may be cooked in the same manner; and, indeed, most things.

_To fry Bacon._――Cut your bacon into long strips, or rashers. Wipe your frying-pan out with a coarse towel, or lining of old dressing-gown. Then place it gently (so as not to knock the bottom out) over a brisk fire. Place the rashers in, one by one. When they are done on one side, turn them over to do on the other. When they have attained a rich brown, take them out and arrange them on a dish, or slice of bread, or anything. Watch your rashers, so that the sentinel outside doesn’t get at them; and eat when you feel inclined. The gravy may be sopped up from the frying-pan with crumbs of bread. If only biscuit is to be obtained, use the fingers, which lick carefully. The rind may be preserved in the waistcoat pocket, for sucking while on duty.

_Roast Potatoes._――Put your potatoes under the stove, and rake hot embers over them. While they are cooking get as much butter as the commissariat will allow you, and put it on a clean dish, or, a dirty one, with half a sheet of writing-paper on it (indeed, in an extreme case, the writing-paper will enable you to dispense with the dish altogether). Taste the butter, but don’t eat it all up till the potatoes are done. Great care will be required for the observance of the latter regulation. Cut the butter into dice of from six to seven-eighths of a cubic inch. When the potatoes are done, cut them open and insert a dice of butter in each, closing the potato rapidly to prevent evaporation. Eat with pepper and salt, or whatever you can get.

_Another Method._――If you can’t get any butter, do without it.

_Potatoes and Point._――This is a very popular dish in Ireland, and one which I have frequently partaken of in that country. The method of preparing it in the Crimea is as follows:――Boil a dish of potatoes, and serve up hot, with a watch-glass full of powdered salt. When they are ready for eating, point, with the fore-finger of the right hand, in a north-westerly direction, where the regions of beef are supposed to exist.

* * * * *

There was also an old parody, by Dr. King, on _The Art of Cookery_.

――――

THE MILITARY COOKERY-BOOK.

_How to make a Recruit._――Take a raw lad from the country (the younger the better) and fill his head with military froth. Add a shilling and as much beer as will be covered by the bounty-money. Let him simmer, and serve him up thick before a Magistrate the next morning. Let him be sworn in, and he then will be nicely done.

_How to make a Soldier._――Take your recruit, and thrust him roughly into a depôt. Mix him up well with recruits from other regiments until he has lost any _esprit de corps_ which may have been floating upon the surface when he enlisted. Now let him lie idle for a few years until his strength is exhausted, and then, at ten minutes’ notice, pack him off to India.

_Another Method._――Take your recruit, and place him at headquarters. Let him mix freely with all the bad characters that have been carefully kept in the regiment, until his nature has become assimilated to theirs. For three years pay him rather less than a ploughboy’s wages, and make him work rather harder than a costermonger’s donkey. Your soldier having now reached perfection, you will turn him out of the Service with Economical Dressing.

_How to make a Deserter._――A very simple and popular dish. Take a soldier, see that he is perfectly free from any mark by which he may be identified, and fill his head with grievances. Now add a little opportunity, and you have, or, rather, you have not, your deserter.

_Another and Simpler Method._――Take a recruit, without inquiring into his antecedents. Give him his kit and bounty-money and close your eyes. The same recruit may be used for this dish (which will be found to be a fine military hash) any number of times.

_How to make an Army._――Take a few scores of Infantry Regiments and carefully proceed to under-man them. Add some troopers without horses, and some batteries without guns. Throw in a number of unattached Generals, and serve up the whole with a plentiful supply of Control Mixture.

_Another and Easier Method._――Get a little ink, a pen, and a sheet of paper. Now dip your pen in the ink, and with it trace figures upon your sheet of paper. The accompaniment to this dish is usually hot water.

_How to make a Panic._――Take one or two influential newspapers in the dead season of the year, and fill them with smartly written letters. Add a few pointed leading articles, and pull your Army into pieces. Let the whole simmer until the opening of Parliament. This once popular mess is now found to be rather insipid, unless it is produced nicely garnished with plenty of Continental sauce, mixed with just an idea of Invasion relish. With these zests, however, it is always found to be toothsome, although extremely expensive.

_Punch._ November 21, 1874.

――――

HENRY LABOUCHERE AND EDMUND YATES.

It is customary for the Editors of _Truth_ and _The World_ to publish the latest _on dits_ of Society, and each delights in contradicting the other on little matters of detail. This sport does not much interest the general public, but it appears to afford great amusement to the two Editors. Some of their paragraphs are scarcely less absurd than the following:――

[“Henry” has promised that he will go and see “Edmund” in Holloway Prison.]

EXTRACT I. (_From “Truth.”_)

“I made a pilgrimage to Holloway Castle one day last week, and was pleased to find poor Edmund in excellent spirits. He was lounging in a handsomely upholstered chair from Gillow’s, while he smoked a capital Manilla. In the course of our conversation, I learnt that it is his intention to publish a volume of ‘Prison Recollections’ when he again emerges into the outer world. Edmund has lost flesh, but is otherwise in his usual health.”

EXTRACT II. (_From “The World.”_)

“Really, Henry, I am getting quite tired of correcting your blunders. The chair in which you found me seated was supplied to me by Maple, whom I much prefer to Gillow. You have also put your foot in it about the cigar, which was an Intimidad and not a Manilla. Thirdly, I _don’t_ intend to publish any ‘Prison Recollections;’ and as for my having lost flesh, that is pure rubbish. How _can_ one lose flesh when one continues to feed as well as usual, and is at the same time obliged to drop one’s horse exercise in the Row?”

EXTRACT III. (_From “Truth.”_)

“I have always maintained that you are far too impetuous, Edmund. Perhaps you are correct about your not having lost flesh, though I could have sworn that I counted one chin less than usual upon your face. I may also have been in error regarding the ‘Recollections’ and the chair, but I cannot for a moment admit that your Manilla was an Intimidad. You are no judge of tobacco. I am, and the illustrated advertisement of Somebody’s cigarettes is sufficient proof of the fact.”

EXTRACT IV. (_From “The World.”_)

“Upon certain subjects, Henry, pig-headed ass is not the name for you. Don’t visit me again, please.”

EXTRACT V. (_From “Truth.”_)

“Catch me at it, my dear Edmund.”

_Funny Folks_, January 31, 1885.

――――:o:――――

THE REAL LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY.

A short parody, having the above title appeared in _Punch_, May 19, 1888, with an illustration by Linley Sambourne, representing Lord Randolph Churchill, and the Duke of Cambridge. At the time it appeared Lord Randolph was posing as an advocate of Retrenchment and Reform. That a member of the Marlborough family of national bloodsuckers should appear as the advocate of economy was a joke that was far too good to last, and Lord Randolph having remained in the cabinet long enough to earn a pension, found it convenient to resign.

(_An imaginary conversation. With apologies to Mrs. F. H. Burnett._)

And then the Duke looked up.

What Little Grandolph saw was a portly old man, with scanty white hair and bushy whiskers, and a nose like a florid bulb between his prominent imperious eyes.

What the Duke saw was a smart, small figure in a jaunt, suit, with a large collar, and with trim, accurately-parted locks curved carefully about the curiously canine little face whose equally protuberant eyes met his with a look of――well, perhaps the Duke would have found it difficult exactly to define the character of that look, but it combined in an emphatic way the interrogative and the ironical.

It was thought that Little Lord Fauntleroy was himself rather like a small copy of a grander and older original, and he himself was supposed to be well aware of the fact. But there was a sudden glow of emotion in the irascible old Duke’s face as he saw what a sturdy, self-confident little fellow Lord Fauntleroy was, and how unhesitatingly he stood to his guns in all circumstances. It moved the grim old nobleman that the youngster should show no shyness or fear, either of the situation or of himself.

“Are you the Duke?” he said. “I’m a Duke’s son, you see, and know something about such things. I’m Lord Grandolph Fauntleroy.”

He nodded affably, because he knew it to be the polite and proper thing to do, even from young and clever Lords to old and (the adjective he mentally used may be suppressed) Dukes. “I hope you――and the Army――are all right,” he continued, with the utmost airiness. “I’m very glad to see you here.”

“Glad to see me, are you?” said the Duke.

“Yes,” answered Lord Fauntleroy, “very.”

There was a chair at the head of the table, and he sat down on it; it was a big chair, and, physically, he hardly filled it perhaps; but he seemed quite at his ease as he sat there, and regarded a Monarch’s august relative intently and confidently.

“I’ve often wondered what a Commander-in-Chief would look like when being cross-examined,” he remarked. “I’ve wondered whether he’d be anything like my great ancestor of the Queen Anne epoch.”

“Am I?” asked the Duke.

“Well,” Grandolph replied, “I’ve only seen pictures of him, of course, and I can’t exactly say how he would have looked in a similar case, but I don’t _think_ you are much like him.”

“You are disappointed, I suppose?” suggested his august interlocutor.

“Oh no!” replied Grandolph, politely. “Of course you would like any great military contemporary to look like your own illustrious ancestor; but of course you _might_ admire the way your great military contemporary looked, even if he wasn’t like your illustrious ancestor. You know how it is yourself, about admiring your contemporaries.”

The Duke stared. He could hardly be said to know how it was about admiring his contemporaries, many of whom he didn’t admire at all, and some of whom did not altogether admire him.

“Well, and how’s our bit of an Army getting on?” asked little Lord Fauntleroy, airily.

“Our――bit――of――an――Army?” repeated the Duke, in a scattered sort of way.

“Yes,” explained Grandolph, “the bit of an Army we pay such a pile of money for?”

“Ha!” ejaculated his Lordship. “That’s it, is it? The money isn’t spent as you like. You’d like to have the spending of it. What would _you_ buy with it? I should like to hear something about that.”

“Doubtless,” replied Lord Fauntleroy, coolly. “Some day you may. At present _I’m_ asking questions, and your business is to answer them.”

“The D――――!” began the Duke, hotly.

“Quite so――the D―――― etails,” interjected Little Lord Fauntleroy, blandly. “As you were doubtless about to say, the details are the things! All very well to say in a general sort of way that the Army is going to――its usual destination, Duke; that Party Spirit and Financial Cheese-paring are the cause of it, and that more men and money are urgently required. That won’t do for me. I want to know――so does the Country――much more than that. How? Why? What? When? How many? How much? These, my dear Duke, are the pertinent questions to which we――the Country and I――demand precise answers. When we get them, instead of vague denunciation and big D’s, we shall know what to do.”

The sensations of his Royal Highness the Duke, could scarcely be described. He was not an old nobleman who was very easily taken aback, because he had seen a great deal of the official world; but here was something he found so novel that it almost took his lordly breath away, and caused him some singular emotions. A civilian had always seemed to him a most objectionable creature――impertinent, parsimonious, and with inadequate conceptions of discipline. But this composed, precise, insolently interrogative little personage was a portent. The Duke’s martinet manner was quite shaken by this startling surprise.

* * * * *

_The Standard_ (London) in 1885 ventured to criticise the political character and conduct of Lord Randolph Churchill, but three years later it contained an article which read like a parody of its former utterances about this Boulanger of the Fourth Party:――

(From the _Standard_, July 31, 1885.)

It is time to speak plainly. Lord Randolph Churchill has been puffed by his friends in the daily and weekly press with admirable assiduity. He has dined with them and they have dined with him, and the well-organised _claque_ are ready to cry “Prodigious!” whenever he opens his mouth. But it is all in vain. We no longer live in days when the public can be gulled by such arts.… The truth is, that Lord Randolph Churchill is a much over-rated man. He is now verging upon middle-age and has reached a time of life when even flighty minds ought to sober down. But this is what he cannot do. His almost incredible ignorance of affairs, his boyish delight in offering the crudest insults to men who have been fifty years in the service of the State, his pranks, his blunders, are ceasing to amuse.… Instead of his being broken in by his colleagues, his colleagues have been broken in by him, and he has been able to make them adopt as the deliberate and well-digested convictions of sagacious and practical Englishmen, the crude conceits of a political neophyte, which his own little Senate labour hard to represent as the language of a new Tory gospel.… We will follow Lord Salisbury, but we will not be governed by a sort of overgrown schoolboy, who thinks he is witty when he is only impudent, and who really does not seem to possess sufficient knowledge even to fathom the depths of his own ignorance of everything worthy of the name of statesmanship.

(From the _Standard_, July 29, 1888.)

The interest excited by the other appointments sinks into nothing compared with that which must be felt in the promotion of Lord R. Churchill to the Chancellorship of the Exchequer and the leadership of the House of Commons. There is, doubtless, much that may be said against the appointment to so responsible a position of one who has had so brief an experience of official life, and who has hitherto been more remarkable for brilliancy than discretion. On the other hand, Lord Randolph Churchill possesses the debating power and the dauntless spirit which are indispensable to a successful leader. There are times and seasons when self-confidence, readiness, and a command of that pungent rhetoric which often tells better in the House of Commons than the closest and most judicial argument, are of more service to a party than any other qualities which a Parliamentary statesman can possess. Lord Randolph Churchill moreover, is eminently popular with “the masses,” and so far has a title to confront Mr. Gladstone which no other man on the Conservative side of the House can show. In short, he is an orator and a wit; and in a popular assembly these are titles to pre-eminence which it is not very easy to dispute. It remains for Lord Randolph Churchill to demonstrate that the great confidence that has been reposed in him has not been misplaced.

Taken in connection with the above extracts, it is amusing to read the leader which appeared in _The Standard_, July 31, 1889:――

Lord Randolph Churchill used his opportunities at Birmingham yesterday to illustrate, on a more ambitious scale than he has yet attempted, his constitutional incapacity for public life. A Statesman should be discreet; and even the hack politician is expected to be loyal to his associates. Lord Randolph has been at some pains to prove that no colleagues can trust him, and that no school of opinion can rely upon him for six weeks together. He made several speeches yesterday, and discussed at considerable length, and with an air of dogmatic assurance, a variety of topics. But the miscellaneous heads were all firmly held together by one pervading principle. Lord Randolph Churchill, his position and prospects, and the supreme importance of improving both at any cost, constituted the informing element of the whole medley. It does not, of course, follow that because Lord Randolph played a selfish game, he played a wise one. His addresses, we imagine, will strike him as poor reading by daylight. Even in the atmosphere of the City Hall, the reception was not altogether encouraging. It is not flattering to an orator to find that sayings which he meant to be oracular provoked merriment; that his serious things were taken as jokes and his jokes as serious things; and that solemn declarations of policy, which were designed to draw ringing cheers, were listened to in chilling silence, or, still worse, excited immediate and emphatic protest.

――――:o:――――

H. RIDER HAGGARD.

_He_, by the author of “It,” “King Solomon’s Wives,” “Bess,” and other Romances. London, Longmans, Green and Co., 1887. This, of course, is a parody of “_She_; a History of Adventure,” by H. Rider Haggard, author of “King Solomon’s mines,” etc. Also published by Longmans and Co. London.

_She_ was also dramatised, and produced at the Gaiety Theatre, London, in September, 1888.

_Punch_ had a humorous skit on this adaptation (September 15, 1888) entitled “_She-that-ought-not-to-be-played!_ A Story of Gloomy Gaiety.”

A burlesque of “She” had also previously appeared in _Punch_, February 26, 1887, entitled “_Hee! Hee!_” by Walker Weird, author of “Solomon’s Ewers.”

American publishers not only pirated the popular works of Mr. Rider Haggard, but one firm proceeded to father upon him a work of which he knew nothing. This was entitled “_Me_, a companion to _She_.” By H. Rider Haggard; published by Butler Brothers, of New York and Chicago. In justice to that firm, however, it must be said that they withdrew the work from circulation as soon as they discovered that Mr. Haggard objected to having his name coupled with it. Copies of this are consequently very difficult to procure.

_King Solomon’s Wives_; or, The Phantom Mines. By Hyder Ragged. With numerous illustrations by Linley Sambourne. London, Vizetelly and Co., 1887.

The jocular introduction to this is signed _A. Quaterman_.

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SAMUEL RICHARDSON.

It is well known that Fielding’s _Joseph Andrews_ was written with the intention of ridiculing Richardson’s tediously moral novel _Pamela_, of which to a certain extent it is a parody, Joseph, the virtuous footman, being the brother of Pamela, and subjected to similar temptations. Fielding had a contempt for the priggish tone of Richardson’s works, and his ridicule succeeded in almost killing _Pamela_.

There was another curious attack on Richardson entitled “_Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews_, in which the Falsehoods of Pamela are Exposed, together with a full Account of all that passed between her and Parson Williams,” by Mr. Conny Keyber. 1741.

_The History of Clorana_, the Beautiful Arcadian, or Virtue Triumphant, 1737. (_Pamela_, with slight variations.)

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MISS BRADDON.

DR. MARCHMONT’S MISERY.

This was a burlesque of “Lady Audley’s Secret” which appeared in _Judy_, 1868. It was written by Mr. Walter Parke. The following is an extract from this humorous work:――