HORACE, OD. III. 21.

"O nata mecum consule Manlio."

My good contemporary cask, whatever thou dost keep

Stored up in thee-smiles, tears, wild loves, mad brawls or easy sleep-
Whate'er thy grape was charged withal, thy hour is come; descend;
Corvinus bids, my mellowest wine must greet my dearest friend.
Sage and Socratic though he be, the juice he will not spurn,
That many a time made glow, they say, old Cato's virtue stern.
There's not a heart so hard but thou beneath its guard canst steal,
There's not a soul so close but thou its secret canst reveal.
There's no despair but thou canst cheer, no wretch's lot so low
But thou canst raise, and bid him brave the tyrant and the foe.
Please Bacchus and the Queen of Love, and the linked Graces three,
Till lamps shall fail and stars grow pale, we'll make a night with thee.

IT

THEATRICAL GOSSIP OF AN OLD STAGER.

T is difficult to describe or explain the | from being made food for powder. The charm which things theatrical, the life cacoëthes scribendi set in with him early, behind the scenes, and those who live it, and in company with other boys of similar have for the general public, but certain it is tastes, one of whom is the present Chief that few subjects are more sure of finding Baron of the Exchequer in England, he readers than theatrical gossip. The wit of wrote and acted plays, and at ten years old the green-room is so witty, its absurdities are was already poet and dramatist; while at so absurd, and its objects so exceptional, that twenty-two, having strutted his hour on many the outside world is always ready to share an amateur stage meanwhile, a play of his, the secrets and fun of the foot-lights. Be- his first-born, was actually accepted for the sides there is the natural curiosity to know boards of old Drury. By its success 66 Amohow those Shadrachs, Meshachs and Abed- roso, King of Little Britain," decided the negos of ours, who pass nightly through the career of its author, and with its hundred burning fiery furnace of public opinion, live and seventy successors, placed him in intiin the daylight; whether they eat, drink, mate connection with the stars of the drasleep and talk like other folk; what manner matic and literary world of the past half of men and women they are in private life. century. There were giants in those days A contribution has just been made to- when young Planché first went to the wards satisfying this curiosity. J. R. Planché play-houses. Mrs. Jordan, the beautiful -a name familiar and dear to old country and witty, was before the public. George play-goers-has just published a couple of Frederick Cooke was playing Iago to Pope's volumes of * "Recollections and Reflec- Othello. John Kemble was electrifying the tions," full of the chit-chat supplied by his world with his wonderful impersonation of own long experience, which dates back as Macbeth, with Mrs. Siddons in the rôle of far as the peace of Amiens, celebrated in the Lady Macbeth. Of her Planché writes: "Her April of 1802, and recalls the brilliant Lon- whole performance impressed me with an don illuminations which honoured that holawe that, when I met her in society, several low farce. years afterwards, I could not entirely divest myself of." Mrs. Powell succeeded to the post held by Mrs. Siddons, a beautiful woman too, and with a wit as pungent as could be desired of a green-room toast. She was twice married, but for family reasons concealed her second marriage. An actress in the Covent Garden company, who bore the title of "Mrs." by courtesy rather than of right, one night said before a crowded company with considerable malice-" Mrs. Powell, every body says you're married.” "Indeed!" retorted Mrs. Powell coldly; "everybody says you are not." Those were the days of greenroom wit and humour. All the chief writers, wits, and men of fashion and position, had

Riding round the drawing-room in Sackville Street, London, on the gold-headed cane of its owner, Charles, 4th Duke of Rutland, whose duchess was extremely friendly with his mother, young Planché was in a fair way to have led his regiment at Waterloo, an ensign's commission being offered by His Grace for the boy, said boy then ætat. 4, remembering no more of the circumstance than that His Grace was a fine tall young man of three or four and twenty, wearing a blue-tailed coat with gilt buttons, buckskin breeches and top boots." The offer was not accepted, and a dramatist was thus preserved * London: Tinsley, Brothers.

debted for having been the first to notice
and remove the barbarisms of the stage in
the matters of costume and scenic detail.
Garrick had been content to play Brutus in
a bag wig, and Macbeth in a gold lace suit ;
while King Lear, in common with other
plays founded on English history, was per-
formed in the costume of the Elizabethan
period. The sympathy of Kemble having
been enlisted in the cause, King John was,
after infinite trouble and research, produced
with appropriate surroundings, armour and
costume. The audiences were delighted,
the house filled, the receipts increased im-
mensely, and the first blow was struck at
slovenly stage-mounting.

the entrée, and the green-rooms of the great
London theatres were the most delightful
resorts in town. The etiquette was severe.
No visitor was allowed to enter who was
not in full evening dress. The principal
actresses each had her page waiting in the
corridor to pick up her train as she issued
from the green-room to make her entrance
upon the stage, and everything was conducted
upon courtly and drawing-room principles;
only the result was vastly more amusing
than the principles. Stephen Kemble, bro-
ther to the great Kemble, was at Drury Lane
when Planché made his bow to the green-room
belles and beaux; a man whose obesity was
so great that he played Falstaff without stuf-
fing! Enormous prices were paid for the In 1826 one of the greatest of the world's
rental of the big theatres. In 1821, when lords of song, Carl Maria von Weber, wrote
Elliston, the best general actor of his own or his opera "Oberon " for Covent Garden. It
after days had Drury Lane, he was paying was his swan-song-his last.
Planché was
the sum of £10,200 per annum for rent, and engaged to write the libretto, Weber having
in his company were Charles Young, Mac- chosen the subject himself. As the great
ready, Liston, and Miss Stephens. It was composer was at Dresden, the necessary con-
necessary that some one should "draw" ferences took place by means of letters, in
under such circumstances. Admirers and an early one of which he writes, "I thank
detesters of the sensational school of play you obligingly for your goodness of having
writing may be interested to learn that translated the verses in French; but it was
Planché himself, now some fifty years ago, not so necessary, because I am, though yet a
brought out the first "sensation effect" weak, a diligent student of the English lan-
scene on the English stage. The play was guage." In another letter he says, “Russia,
"Kenilworth," and by means of a "dummy Sweden, Holland, France, Scotland, and
figure," Amy Robsart was made to follow England, have brought on the boards my
the text of the novel, and fall headlong down performances without their being entitled to
the trap set by Varney, in the face of the it; for my works have not been printed;
audience. The thrill of horror they felt was and though I do not value money to take
also a thrill of satisfaction, and the "sensa- notice of it, the world forces me at last."
tion" "took" immensely. In these days, Poor Weber! his was too great a soul to be
thanks to that first start, we shall soon have vexed with the copyright question. He
real murders, authenticated suicides, actual apologises for this plaint on the score that
poison, and genuine executions. Of course, "poets and composers live together in a sort
as the "sensation" is all that is required, of angels' marriage." Criticism in England
our actors will be taken from the condemned must have been in a poor way at this time.
cell straight; the only point is that we shall Weber's "Freischütz," which had come
have to widen the net of our criminal law, out just before, was only saved from con-
so as to keep up the supply of histrionic demnation by its "Huntsman's Chorus” and
talent.
its general diablerie, the exquisite melodies
To Mr. Planché the world is largely in- in it being compared by musical critics to

The inauguration of the "Garrick" Club in 1831 was the means of gathering to one centre an unrivalled coterie of wit and talent, and the club-room took, to a great extent, the position once held by the green

Of titles and London swelldom generally there was no lack, but the charm of the place lay, of course, in the presence, as members, of the bright particular stars of the literary, artistic, and theatrical firmaments, Amongst the early members were James Smith, Poole, the witty author of Paul Pry, and Charles Mathews, the elder;

"wind through a key hole!" "Oberon "nowned Clarkson Stanfield, R. A., perhaps came out with Madame Vestris, Miss Paton, the greatest of our scenic artists. Mrs. Keeley, Fawcett, and the greatest of English tenors, Braham, in the cast. The exquisite" Mermaid Song" was being sung at a full rehearsal, and the effect not being satisfactory, Fawcett cried, "That must come out!—it won't go !" Weber, who was stand-room. ing in the pit, leaning over the back of the orchestra, being very feeble, shouted, "Wherefore shall it not go?" and, leaping over the barrier, snatched the baton from the conductor, and led the song himself. It is needless to say that it went. Braham afterwards being asked by Cooke, leader of the orchestra at Drury Lane, how "Oberon" | while later on came the Rev. Richard Barwas going on: "Magnificently!" said he, "it will run to the day of judgment." "My dear fellow," rejoined Cook, "that's nothing! ours has run five nights after !" One more anecdote of Weber should have place. At the rehearsal of his last concert, the chorus began to sing a certain prayer at the top of their lungs. Weber hushed them in a moment, exclaiming, "If you were in the presence of God Almighty you would not speak loud."

Planché tells a capital and hitherto unrecorded witticism of Tom Hood's, with whom he was dining at a party where one of the guests told wonderful stories as to his shooting. At the close Hood quietly remarked: "What he hit is history,

What he missed is mystery." In his last illness, being reduced almost to a skeleton, he noticed a large mustard poultice which Mrs. Hood was making for him, and exclaimed, "O, Mary! Mary! That will be a great deal of mustard to a very little meat !"

Going behind the scenes of the Coburg theatre one night, after being much struck with the merits of one scene, Planché complimented the manager on his artist. The answer was that the scene was painted by two boys, one of the boys, whom they discovered playing at leapfrog, was the afterwards re

ham-"Ingoldsby Legends" Barham
Theodore Hook, Thackeray, Charles Dick-
ens, and a host of others, all men of mark.
Hook and Planché were intimates despite
the difference in their ages. Planché was
present at a dinner given by Horace Twiss,
where Hook, being pressed to sing one of
his extemporaneous songs, agreed, saying
that the subject should be John Murray
(the great publisher), who was present.
Murray objected, and a chase ensued round
the room, in the course of which Hook let
off his verses, commencing as follows:
"My friend John Murray, I see, has arrived at the
head of the table,

And the wonder is, at this time of night, that John
Murray is able.

He's an excellent hand at a dinner, and not a bad-
one at a lunch,

But the devil of John Murray is, that he never will
pass the punch.”

Thackeray at this time was a
'slim young
man, rather taciturn, and not displaying any
particular love or talent for literature," but
whose taste for sketching and caricaturing.
led him to cover the blotting pads of the
club, and every available scrap of paper,
with the most amusing specimens of his
ability.

The non-engagement of Madame Vestris at Covent Garden was the cause of her taking on herself the cares of lesseeship at the