THE COMYNS AND THE GOIN'S OF ARTHUR. It was a pleasant sight, on the première of King Arthur, to see Mr. COMINS CARR, poet, littérateur, art-critic, theatrical manager, orator, journalist, dramatist, and not a few other things beside, gravely bowing his acknowledgments as "the Arthur of the piece" at the Lyceum. Beshrew me, and by my halidome, he hath done his work with so deft and cunning a hand as to puzzle not a little those who have their GOETHE, their TENNYSON, and some of the most favourite plays of WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE at their fingers' ends, and who are also more or less acquainted with Wagnerian trilogies. Weallknow" KETTLE began it." Well, WAGNER begins this, in the Prologue, with spirits and water, i.e., mere spirits getting along swimmingly in a kind of Niebelungen lakeand-cavern scene. Not until the curtain rose was any sort of attention paid to the music, which might have therefore been the composition of NOAKES or STOKES, instead of having been exquisitely written by King ARTHUR SULLIVAN. Enter King Arthur Irving and Merlin ("Charles his friend"), suggestive of Macbeth and Banquo, to see Wagnerian water - witches in The Colleen Bawn's cave, Wagnerian waterwitches, disturbed by the approach of gentlemen, swim away to regain, presumably, their bathing-machines. Then Charles-his-friend Merlin undertakes the part of a kind of halfconverted Mephistopheles, and shows the Faust-King-Arthur a "living picture " of Guinevere as Marguerite in a vision. After this up comes a hand out of the water, bearing a magnificently jewelled scabbard, in which, of course, is that blade of the very first water, "Excalibur." or by Macbeth-Mordred (Mr. FRANK COOPER) and his be-witching : In Act last Guinevere is imprisoned in a tower, and is made love to by that awfully Bad Knight, Sir Mordred, who seizes this chance of playing Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert to Guinny's Rebecca, only that there is no window from which she can threaten to throw herself and so the wicked wooing comes to a rather tame conclusion. In the last scene Macbeth- Mordred and Lady Morgan-Macbeth are now King and Queen, and poor Rebecca-Guinny is going to be burnt à la Juive, when the herald's challenge is answered by a very Black Knight, who keeps himself awfully dark, and who does not say, "I am RICHARD CŒUR DE LION," but lifting his steel nose protector (most useful except when the Knight has a bad cold), reveals "The King!" Then comes the fight-and ah, would that here one of the swords could have been poisoned, and that Mordred, after slaying Arthur, should himself have been stabbed to death KING ARTHUR A DRAMA IN VERSE CALIBRE Arthur accepts the sword with thanks, observing that "if necessary he will use it to make any cuts the piece may require." More chorus of water-sprites, and end of prologue. Merlin, a spirit, ought to have sung "Voici le sabre." This chance was lost. The next scene is at Camelot, when in come a lot of knights in armour, and the story begins in real earnest. Here is ELLEN TERRY, sweet and majestic as the Burne-Jonesian Queen Guinevere, and here, too, is FORBES-ROBERTSON as Lancelot, a part which he plays and looks to perfection. The order has been given "All wigs abandon ye who enter here," that is as far as the male principals are concerned; so they all "keep their hair on," and thus HENRY IRVING in armour looks more like the "Knight of the Woeful Countenance,' or a moustachioless Don Quixote, than the glorious Chairman of the Goodly Round Table Company. C-m-ns C-rr (rising to the occasion out of the mystic mere). “Up I come with my little plot!" Sir Lancelot is compelled by "circumstances over which he has no control" to remain behind at court, all through the selfishness of King Arthur (so unlike him, too, for once !), who fancies the Round Table will be a trifle dull when all his "blooming companions have faded and gone," and so the unfortunate young knight has to say to the Queen, as Mr. CHEVALIER's Coster sings to his "lidy-love," I'm bound to keep on lovin' yer! d'yer 'ear?" and he is watched I don't believe it. My private opinion is that the sly dog Lancy sneaked out quietly, waited for Guinerere, and then they both went off together, to Boulogne, or Monte Carlo maybe; that Morgan-leFay took to walking in her sleep and washing out little sanguinary spots on her hand; and that Mordred got an engagement in the provinces to play Tago; while all that the audience know of King arthur is that he went off with three Queens of the Night (perhaps signifying that he ventured on a water-party with only three sovereigns) in a barge,-perhaps "the craft of Merlin" mentioned by TENNYSON,-to some place down the river, where he was said to be interred, and at whose grave kept guard the well-known "Waterbury Watch." However all this is but surmise. One thing is certain that King Arthur is still alive, very much alive, and, like Lord ARTHUR of Pantomime Rehearsal fame, "going strong." at the Lyceum, for very many Arthurian nights to come. Le Roi Arthur est mort! Vive le Ron Arthur! Bravo, COMYNS! Well may he say to HENRY IRVING, "Eh, mon, whar's your WULLIE SHAKSPEARE noo?" Huntsman (on being introduced to future Wife of M. F. H.). "PROUD TO MAKE YOUR ACQUAINTANCE, MISS! KNOWN THE CAPTING, MISS, FOR NIGH ON TEN SEASONS, AND NEVER SAW 'IM TURN '18 'EAD FROM HANYTHING AS WAS JUMPABLE! KNOWS A 'OSS AND KNOWS A OUND ! CAN RIDE ONE AND 'UNT TOTHER; AND IF THAT AIN'T AS MUCH AS CAN BE LOOKED FOR IN A 'USBAND, MISS, WHY, I'LL BE JIGGERED!" THEN, ere that last weird battle 'gainst the Lords, There came on ARTHUR, sleeping, in his chair, At Malwood-musing, by his own fireside, After much totting up of Trade Returns, And Navy Estimates a whisper blown Along a wandering wind, and in his ear Went shrilling, Hollow! hollow! Forfar Brigg! Our small majority shall pass away Farewell! There is thine Hampshire rest for thee, But I am blown about a wandering wind, And Follow! follow! follow! day and night, The fighting factions of our army cry To me-their 'Leader!' And I cannot face Five ways at once, and it's a beastly bore! And if I could, how can I get a Bill Passed by the Lords ?" And ARTHUR woke, and called. "Who spake? A dream! O light upon the wind, cries' Thine, GAWAIN, was the voice-are these poor Thine? Ordoth that same army, growing wild, Mourn, wishing it had gone along with Me ?" Then to King ARTHUR spoke Sir BEDIVERE: "Far other is this battle, our great test, Whereto we move, than when great LANCE(Now far cavorting in the snow at Cannes) Thrust his great rival from St. Stephen's seats, And shook him thro' the North. Ill doom is ours To war against our rivals, and each other. The chief who fights old followers fights himself, And they, old friends who loved us once, the stroke Then spake King ARTHUR to Sir BEDIVERE:- What harm undone ? By George! Sir BEDI VERE, Twixt frivolling GAWAIN and too doleful you, say As he did for Sir LANCELOT's? Oh, get out! What should my dauntless Derby henchmen [white Should I, on Wednesday, show the feather And say I'd chucked the sword Excalibur Away, unchallenged, in a fit of funk? I lose the sword ? I've not yet lost the scabbard! Nay, I shall flash it flaming in their sight, And brandish it, and promise swashing blows Of the keen blade, as ofttimes heretofore. I'll outshine TENNYSON, out-hero IRVING! Trust me 'tis not yet time for that weird arm, 'Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,' To emerge from out the misty middle-mere And snatch from Me the Sword Excalibur!" [Freezes on to it. We strike at them is a back-stroke to us. word ?" Serious and much-Married Man. "MY DEAR FRIEND, I WAS ASTONISHED TO HEAR OF YOUR DINING AT MADAME TROISÉTOILES! -A WOMAN WITH A PAST,' YOU KNOW!" 66 The Friend (Bachelor "" unattached"). WELL, YOU SEE, OLD MAN, SHE'S GOT A FIRST-RATE CHEF, SO IT ISN'T HER PAST, BUT HER RE-PAST' THAT I CARE ABOUT." to what the Philistine (by the way, all things considered, a very reasonable fellow) would call business." I suggested that it was for sale. No, my dear Sir," corrected the critic; "not for sale. The VON BÖOTZ must be mine. You will not be so cruel as to deny me. I am the master of tens of thousands-nay, I might say without exaggeration-hundreds of thousands. If you will leave yourself in my hands, I think you will find that I am a man of honour." He sat down at a desk which I now noticed was made of ebony and decorated with old gold and diamonds, and other precious stones. He drew a cheque. Then he rose to give it to me. But as he passed the picture it once more attracted his attention. He resumed his medieval saint-like ecstasy for a second, and then returned to his desk. "I must be honest," he murmured as he filled in the figures of another cheque. Then he turned to me. "You must pardon me for giving you the purchase-money in two drafts; but my first cheque exhausted my account at one bank, and I had to draw upon my balance at another to supply the necessary residue." I nearly fainted when I read the amounts. "Not a word," said the art connoisseur as he shook me by the hand. "Although you have, I confess, half my fortune, I am richer than I was when I met you. The VON BÖOTZ-my VON BÖOTZ-is simply of priceless value." And so the picture that had been sent to the box-room and narrowly escaped the uncultured clutch of the Italian image-man, had raised me from comparative poverty to superlative affluence. I paid in the cheques at my bankers, and a murmur went up from the clerks, and the manager waylaid me at the door to press my hand. Then I drove to my favourite stores and purchased a trifle in diamonds to present to my wife. Fortunately, I had my chequebook with me, or otherwise my deposit account would have been overdrawn by a thousand. 66 To-morrow," I said to my better (from a spiritual, not a financial 66 point of view) seven-eights, we will acquire the nine-hundred-ton yacht, the best part of Norway, and the Palace at Venice. The latter will cost a few more thousands than I care to spend. But I suppose the foreign dukedom that comes with it in itself is almost worth the five figures. To-morrow I must see if I cannot secure that Colonelcy of Yeomanry. Then, if you like dear, we will take the six centre boxes in the grand tier at Covent Garden for the season, andOh, I am so happy!" almost wept the partner of my joys and sorrows; "and to think that we should have sent the mine of all this prosperity into the box-room!" 66 "Yes dear," I replied. "It was you, dear, who always wanted to be free of it." "I told you, sweet one," was the triumphant response, "to get rid of it, and are you not now pleased that you took my advice ?" And I admitted I was. |