Esther Waters, compared and contrasted with Hardy's Tess, is pronounced in 1894 to be not "virginibus puerisque," and a once famous "emancipation novel," The Yellow Aster, by "Iota," long since hopelessly out-distanced in the reaction against reticence, becomes The Yellow Plaster, by "Iõpna," whose "She-notes" wild are amusingly travestied in the same year. The Yellow Aster and Key-Notes were pioneer efforts in the domain of the psychological novel, and the new jargon is ridiculed in such burlesque phrases as "the woman's voice came through the envelope of Margerine's subconsciousness, steely clear as a cheese-cutter." The vogue of The Green Carnation, a roman à clef which created some stir at the same time, is attested in Du Maurier's picture "How Opinion is Formed": —

He: "Have you read that beastly book The Mauve Peony by Lady Middlesex?"

She: "Yes, I rather liked it."

He: "So did I."

Unchristian Criticism of Hall Caine

Du Maurier's Trilby was naturally treated with benevolence, though Punch regretted the theological interludes, but The Sorrows of Satan is rudely dismissed as "a farrago of balderdash and vanity"; the egotism of the author and of Mr. Robert Buchanan in belabouring their detractors is severely rebuked; and Mr. Hall Caine's The Christian is recommended only as an absolute pis aller if you hadn't even a Bradshaw to read. This great work is also parodied as "The Heathen," with Alleluia Grouse and Luke Blizzard in the rôles of Glory Quayle and John Storm. There was still a spice of Bludyer in Punch, and on occasion he could act on the advice of a famous editor, "Be kind, be merciful, be gentle, but when you come across a silly fool, string him up." In later years, as the literary quality of his reviews improved, his clemency to the new-comers approached an uncritical tolerance.

The passing of the three-volume novel in 1894 is noted in a Ballade not untinged with regret, to judge from the "Envoi": —

Prince, writers' rights – forgive the pun —
And readers' too forbid the blow;
Of triple pleasure there'll be none,
Three-volume novels are to go!

"The Trilby mania grows apace. It has reached Peckham. Aunt Maria went to the Fancy Dress Ball of the Peckham season as Trilby in her first costume." —Extract from letter of Miss M. Br-wn to Miss N. Sm-th.

The later manner of Henry James is rather infelicitously described in 1896 as "indifferent Trollopian and second-class Meredithian"; but Punch made no mistake in the following year over Mr. W. W. Jacobs, in whose Many Cargoes– studies of those "who go down to the sea in ships of moderate tonnage" – he found a new fount of joy.

Punch's "literary recipes" place Romance first, then follow the Society Novel (with thinly veiled portraits from life); the Detective Story (Gaboriau and water); and the Religious Novel. The plague of Reminiscences had moved Punch to protest as early as 1893, when he wrote: —

That Memory's the Mother of the Muses,
We're told. Alas! it must have been the Furies!
Mnemosyne her privilege abuses —
Nothing from her distorting glass secure is.
Life is a Sphinx; folk cannot solve her riddles,
So they've recourse to spiteful taradiddles,
Which they dub "Reminiscences." Kind fate,
From the Fool's Memory preserve the Great!

Another and a newer aversion was the parasitic patronage of FitzGerald by inferior novelists and writers, which moved Punch to include among "the things that we are still waiting, and it seems, likely to wait for – A Temporary Surcease from Omar Khayyám." This last-named nuisance has ceased to be so vocal of late years, but the plague of "Diaritis" is worse than ever. Mr. H. G. Wells appears on Punch's horizon in 1898, but only as the weaver of circumstantial scientific romances, not as the regulator of the Universe, and discoverer of new Heavens and Hells. The War of the Worlds is parodied in The Martian, but the wonderland of science appealed less to Punch than the dream-world of "Lewis Carroll," whose death inspired a graceful tribute to author and illustrator: —

Lover of children! Fellow-heir with those
Of whom the imperishable kingdom is!
Beyond all dreaming now your spirit knows
The unimagined mysteries.

Darkly as in a glass our faces look
To read ourselves, if so we may, aright;
You, like the maiden in your faërie book —
You step beyond and see the light!

The heart you wore beneath your pedant's cloak
Only to children's hearts you gave away;
Yet unaware in half the world you woke
The slumbering charm of childhood's day.

We older children, too, our loss lament,
We of the "Table Round," remembering well
How he, our comrade, with his pencil lent
Your fancy's speech a firmer spell.

Master of rare woodcraft, by sympathy's
Sure touch he caught your visionary gleams,
And made your fame, the dreamer's, one with his,
The wise interpreter of dreams.

Farewell! But near our hearts we have you yet,
Holding our heritage with loving hand,
Who may not follow where your feet are set
Upon the ways of Wonderland.

Magic, Megalomania, and Sham Culture

From this wonder world Punch turned to "le monde où l'on s'affiche" to castigate the methods of Mr. Hall Caine and Mr. Le Gallienne – the Manx megalomaniac and the Author-Lecturer – and to the realm of blameless banality ruled over by Sir John Lubbock. Sir John's genius for truisms had been guyed in 1894; in 1900 he appears in a special section of "The Book of Beauty" as the author of some enchanting platitudes, e.g. "A man's work will often survive him. Thus, Shakespeare and Watt are dead; but Hamlet and the steam engine survive."

This was the year of the appearance of Lady Randolph Churchill's Anglo-Saxon Review, a sumptuous publication which for a brief period revived the glories of the Books of Beauty and Keepsakes, edited in the 'thirties and 'forties of the last century by that "most gorgeous" lady, the Countess of Blessington.

Pseudo-intellectuality was one of the social shams which Punch loved to pillory, and there is a good example in 1901 in the "Cultured Conversation" of a lady who observes, "I'm devoted to Rossetti – I delight in Shelley – and I simply love Ella Wheeler Wilcox." Punch himself in the same year "delighted" quite sincerely in Some Experiences of an Irish R.M., and "wept tears of laughter" over the episode of "Lisheen Races." This was apparently his first introduction to the work of those two wonderfully gifted Irish cousins, Violet Martin and Edith Somerville, but only towards the end of their long and fruitful collaboration did he recognize in them far higher qualities than those of the mere mirth-provoker.

In 1903 he was destined to make acquaintance with one of the most conspicuous representatives of the opposite tendency, Gorki, the Russian novelist and playwright. In "The Lowest Depths" Punch parodied the dreary, violent and brutal squalors of The Lower Depths, and incidentally had a dig at the Stage Society for producing it. It was in the same year that Punch described the "new curse of Caine" – "to be everlastingly coupled with the name of Miss Marie Corelli" – and paid them both grateful homage as purveyors of "copy": —

From cutting continual capers
Ev'n Kaisers must sometimes refrain;
But you're never out of the papers —
Corelli and Caine.

At the time of the Boer war poets had been vociferously active. By 1904 a "slump" had set in; and in an interview Mr. John Lane, of the Bodley Head, had declared that verse had ceased to be remunerative. Embroidering this text Punch traced the cause to the material self-indulgence of the public. People dined too well to want to read rhymes, and poets wanted better pay: —

And this is why no bards occur.
None ever knows that aching void,
That hunger, prompting like a spur,
Which former genii enjoyed;
For all the poets dead and gone,
Whose Muse contrived to melt the nation,
Habitually did it on
A regimen of strict starvation.

Notable Newcomers

But if verse was at a discount, new forms of prose were emerging, and the spasmodic discourses of Mr. Bart Kennedy in the Daily Mail moved Punch to parody what he considered to be a variant on Walt Whitman, in which sentences were reduced to a minimum and verbs were dispensed with altogether. Another new writer to whom Punch now paid the homage of parody was Mr. Chesterton, whose glittering paradoxes are travestied in a mock eulogy of Bradshaw, in the manner of "G. K. C.'s" book on Dickens. Bradshaw is praised for his splendid consistency, his adherence to fact, his uniform excellence of style and freedom from extraneous matter. Moreover, he is a great teacher: —

The last and deepest lesson of Bradshaw is that we must be in time. No man can miss a train and miss a train only. He misses more than that. A man who misses a train misses an opportunity. It is probably the reason of the terrific worldly success of Cæsar and Charlemagne that neither of them ever missed a train.

Reviews of books, chiefly novels, became a regular feature of each week's issue in the latter half of this period, and it would be impossible to deal fully with Punch's critical activities. As an example of the frank handling of a bad book it would be hard to improve on the notice of a novel which appeared in 1906: "Anyone who wants to read a vulgar book in praise of vicious vulgarians should read – , by – . All others are counselled to avoid it."

Punch's later and more tolerant mood may be illustrated by his notices of three typical novels by three representative novelists of post-Victorian days. Mr. Wells's Ann Veronica in 1908 is received with guarded praise as that author's first real novel and "a remarkably clever book about rather unpleasant people." In 1910 Punch shies at the excessive length and accumulated detail of Mr. Arnold Bennett's Clayhanger, but admits that the author makes wonderful use of unpromising material in his remarkable work. Thirdly, in 1913, Punch's reviewer proclaims himself a whole-hearted admirer of Mr. Compton Mackenzie's Sinister Street, finding the hero "a figure to love," and the whole book marked by passionate honesty, marvellously minute observation, humour, and a haunting beauty of ideas and words. In conclusion, he is "prepared to wager that Mr. Mackenzie's future is bound up with what is most considerable in English fiction," adding, "We shall see."

"We think Lips that have Gone Astray the foulest novel that ever yet defiled the English tongue; and that in absolute filth its Author can give any modern French writer six and beat him hollow!" —The Parthenon.

Fair Author (to her Publisher, pointing to above opinion of the Press quoted in his advertisement of her novel): "And pray, Mr. Shardson, what do you mean by inserting this hideous notice?"

Publisher: "My dear Miss Fitzmorse, you must remember that we've paid you a large price for your book, and brought it out at great expense – and we naturally wish to sell it!"

These views are somewhat difficult to reconcile with those expressed in other parts of the paper about the same time. An eminent conductor and composer has recently stated that no noise which is deliberately made can be said to be ugly – e.g. a railway whistle or a boy whistling in the street. So in letters a similar creed had already come into fashion – any subject was fit for treatment if it was "arresting" or "elemental," a doctrine that Punch outside his "Booking Office" found it hard to swallow. In "The Qualities that Count" one of his writers applied this principle to the poetry and letters of the hour: —

If you're anxious to acquire a reputation
For enlightened and emancipated views,
You must hold it as a duty to discard the cult of Beauty,
And discourage all endeavours to amuse.
You must back the man who, obloquy enduring,
Subconsciousness determines to express,
Who in short is "elemental," "unalluring,"
But "arresting" in his Art – or in his dress.

Or is your cup habitually brimming
With water from the Heliconian fount?
Then remember the hubristic, the profane, the pugilistic,
Are the only things in poetry that count.
So select a tragic argument, ensuring
The maximum expenditure of gore,
And the epithets "arresting," "unalluring,"
"Elemental" will re-echo as before.

But if your bent propels you into fiction,
You should clearly and completely understand
That your duty in a novel is not to soar, but grovel,
If you want it to be profitably banned.
So be lavish and effusive in suggesting
A malignant and mephitic atmosphere,
And you're sure to be applauded as "arresting,"
"Elemental," "unalluring," and "sincere."

Mr. Gosse and the Georgian Poets

In the same year Mr. Edmund Gosse had indulged in some caustic criticism of the Poetry of the Future. Mr. Gosse had said that "the natural uses of English and the obvious forms of our speech will be driven from our poetry." Also that "verses of excellent quality in this primitive manner can now be written by any smart little boy in a grammar school." Hence a squib in which Punch makes disrespectful fun of "the Sainte-Beuve of the House of Lords," who, it may be added, has since made his peace with the young lions whom he had treated so disrespectfully. In 1913 the cult of Rabindranath Tagore had become fashionable. Here was an Oriental poet who sedulously eschewed the flamboyant exuberance of the westernized Indian, but Punch, while finding him a less fruitful theme for burlesque than the Babu immortalized by Mr. Anstey, regarded his mystical simplicity as fair game for parody, and declined to worship at his shrine. Another foreign importation, Mr. Conrad – whom in virtue of long residence in England, marvellous command of our language and unequalled insight into the magic of the sea and the simple heroism of the British sailorman, we are proud to call one of ourselves and one of the glories of English fiction – fascinated Punch in 1900, the year in which Lord Jim appeared. Punch was a little disconcerted at first by Mr. Conrad's oblique method of narration, but the fascination grew with advancing years.

Farewell to Mark Twain

I find few references to Continental authors, but may single out the "little English wreath" which Punch added to the memorial tributes to Alphonse Daudet on his death in 1897. Daudet's affinities with Dickens, always one of Punch's heroes, naturally appealed to him apart from the humour of Tartarin and the masterly studies of the Second Empire which Daudet had seen from the inside as one of the Duc de Morny's private secretaries. Towards American writers Punch was almost uniformly sympathetic. It is true that he appreciated the earlier and American manner of Henry James more than the later cosmopolitan phase which began with The Portrait of a Lady. But during the short period in which Punch, in his "additional pages," published a number of short stories by various authors, Henry James was a contributor, and Mrs. Medwin appeared in serial form in four successive numbers in August and September, 1901. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who died in 1894, is compared to Elia in the graceful memorial stanzas modelled on "The Last Leaf." Mr. W. D. Howells's papers on London and England in Harper's Magazine in 1904 prompt a generous acknowledgment of their reasonableness, sanity and humour, together with an expression of amazement at the productivity of American short-story writers, mostly in the manner of Mr. Henry James. Punch, both then and afterwards, refused to take Mrs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox seriously, and described her essays, The Woman of the World, as "high-toned but serenely platitudinous; 'bland, passionate, but deeply religious.'" Mark Twain, on his visit to London in 1907, was welcomed with pen and pencil – in the cartoon "To a Master of his Art," where Punch salutes him over the punch-bowl and in some verses, à propos of the dinner at the Pilgrims' Club: —

Pilot of many Pilgrims since the shout
"Mark twain!" – that serves you for a deathless sign —
On Mississippi's waterway rang out
Over the plummet's line —

Still where the countless ripples laugh above
The blue of halcyon seas long may you keep
Your course unbroken, buoyed upon a love
Ten thousand fathoms deep!

Some three years later came Punch's "Ave, atque Vale," when Mark Twain died in April, 1910: —

Farewell the gentle spirit, strong to hold
Two sister lands beneath its laughter's spell!
Farewell the courage and the heart of gold!
Hail and Farewell!

To complete these American references I may add that Punch in 1907 made great play out of the letter addressed by an American "Clippings Agency" to Petrarch, offering to send him press-cuttings of his works. But America has no monopoly of these solecisms. Fourteen years later, when the Phoenix Society revived The Maid's Tragedy, a similar offer was made by a London press-cutting agency to "John Fletcher, Esq." and " – Beaumont, Esq."

JOURNALISM

Already in the early 'nineties the altered status of journalism and the journalist had leapt to the eyes of Punch, who himself was in a sense born and bred in the "Street of Ink." I pass over his ironical disapproval of the St. James's Gazette when that journal, in October, 1892, "sincerely hoped that there was no truth in the rumour that a paper for children will shortly make its appearance, entirely written and illustrated by children under fifteen years of age." The project never materialized, but its spirit has been translated into action by the literary enterprise of our modern enfants terribles. The adult journalist in the 'nineties was not to suffer from this unfair competition for a good many years to come. Meanwhile he could at least congratulate himself that he was better housed and paid: it was not until 1904 that the "wisdom of the East" began to interfere with his freedom as a war correspondent.

Japanese Officer (to Press Correspondent): "Abjectly we desire to distinguish honourable newspaper man by honourable badge."

The Daily Mail Arrives

In 1897 Punch illustrated the change by parallel pictures of the journalist in 1837, writing in a squalid room in the Fleet Prison, and in the year of the Diamond Jubilee, seated in a sumptuously equipped office, fat and prosperous, and smoking a large cigar. In the previous year Punch had saluted the Daily News on the attainment of its jubilee. The connexion was an old and intimate one, for the publishers of Punch had been the first publishers of the Daily News, and it had been renewed in the 'nineties when Sir Henry Lucy ("Toby," of Punch) for a while occupied the chair in which Dickens had sat. A far more momentous event, however, was associated with the year 1896 – the founding of the Daily Mail by Mr. Alfred Harmsworth, subsequently described by one of Punch's writers as "the arch-tarantulator of our times." He was certainly, if unintentionally, invaluable to Punch, and even more stimulating than Mr. Caine and Miss Corelli. By 1900 his genius for discovering a constant succession of scapegoats, and converting the idol of yesterday into the Aunt Sally of to-day, is handsomely acknowledged in the lines "Ad Aluredum Damnodignum." Then it was Sir Michael Hicks-Beach and Mr. Balfour, but Punch foresaw that the habit was inveterate: —

For still, oh hawk-eyed Harmsworth, you pursue
With more than all the ardour of a lover,
From find to check and so from check to view
Your scapegoat-hunt from covert into covert.

As for the test of circulation, Punch betrays a certain scepticism in his remarks on "The People's Pulse" in 1903: —

The account given by the Daily Mail, in Saturday's issue, of its daily circulation for the last eight months, together with the leading event of each day, ought to be kept up from time to time as a Permanent People's Pulse Report. Nothing could be more instructive than to note, for instance, that while the Delhi Durbar only attracted 844,799 readers, the "Oyster Scare" allured as many as 846,501; while "Lord Dalmeny's Coming of Age" brought the figures up to 847,080, and the "Sardine Famine" accounted for a further increase of 14,586. Or, again, there is a world of significance in the fact that the relative attractions of the "Poet Laureate's Play" and "Mr. Seddon's Meat Shops" are represented by a balance of 5,291 in favour of the Napoleon of New Zealand.

Life was certainly made livelier by the new methods introduced, with variations, from America, and Punch feelingly contrasts the drab existence of those who lived before with that of those who lived under the Harmsworth régime: —

Drear was the lot, minus the Mail,
Of soldier, sailor, ploughboy, tinker;
And worse, whenever they grew pale,
They had no pills to make them pinker.

It is a nice question whether we owe more to the pink pill or to the Yellow Press. But there can be no doubt as to the influence of the new journalism on sport and pastime. Until then, in Punch's phrase, "cricket was still a childish game and not a penman's serious study." Henceforth the cricketer fulfilled a double function. He not only played cricket but he wrote about it – and himself. Under the heading "The Cricketer on the Hearth," in 1899, Punch publishes an imaginary interview à la mode with Mr. Slogger. We omit the complacent autobiographical passages and content ourselves with the sequel: —

"Well, that's pretty well all, I think, except you'll probably want to print at length my opinions on the Transvaal Question, Wagner's Music, and the Future of Agriculture. These will have an overpowering interest for your readers."

"Here are a few photographs of myself – but it's rather too heavy a parcel to carry. I'll send it round in a van. Of course you'll print them all. And now I must ask you to excuse me, as it's time to get into flannels."

I thanked him for his courtesy, and hoped that he'd make a fine score in the county match. He stared at me in surprise. "County Match? You don't imagine I've time to play cricket nowadays, do you? No; I'm going to change because half-a-dozen photographers will be here directly, and they like to take me in costume. And after that I shall have to see seven or eight more interviewers. Good morning!"

The Cricket Journalist

The intrusion of the emotional literary "note" in articles on pastime came later, and is parodied in the article (in 1904) "Do we take our amusements seriously enough?" by Mr. C. B. F: —

The frivolity of the Press is only paralleled by the frivolity of the public. Take the light and airy way in which the spectators at our great cricket grounds treat the imposing functions provided for them. Suppose little (but heroic) Johnny Tyldesley runs out to that wily, curling ball which sunny-faced Wilfred Rhodes pitches thirty-three and three-quarter inches from the block. Up glides his trusty willow, and a fortieth of a second after the ball has pitched descends on the leather. With a wonderful flick of the elbow he chops the ball exactly between square leg and point. Is the raucous "Well hit, Johnny," of the crowd a fitting, a reverent salutation? Our Elizabethan dramatists knew better. Have you not noticed in their stage directions, "A solemn music"? Two or three phrases of Chopin played, let us say, on the French horn by the doyen of the Press-box would be a better tribute to such a miracle of skill. There are, however, elements of better things in our crowds. Before now I have seen the potent Jessop smite a rising ball to the boundary with all the concentrated energy of his Atlantean shoulders, and as the ball reached the ring the spectators with involuntary reverence prostrated themselves before it.

Nor do our greatest men gain the public honours which are their due. In ancient Greece a great athlete was a national hero. The name of Ladas has come down to us through the ages with those of Socrates and Xenophon. Think of the sad contrast in modern England. Why is not Plum Warner (I knew him in long clothes) a Knight of the Garter? Why is not Ranji (exquisitely delicate Ranji – the Walter Pater of the cricket field) Viceroy of India? There are living cricketers, with an average of over eighty, and a dozen centuries in one season to their credit, who have never even been sworn of the Privy Council.

On every side I trace the growth of the same spirit. England is devoting itself to art, politics, literature and theology, and in the rush and hurry of our modern life there is a sad danger that sport will be underrated or overlooked. My countrymen must learn to concentrate their minds on the things which really matter. In your nobler moments would you not rather stand at the wicket than at the table of the House of Commons, or on the political platform of the City Temple, or on the stage of the Alhambra? Save her sport and you save England.

Modern journalistic methods are reduced to absurdity in the account of the staff of a daily paper, who are all football players, cricketers, clairvoyants, crystal-gazers, music-hall artists, or burglars. In the verses on "Journalistic Evolution," in 1907, the tendency to condense everything is specially noted. Leaders have become "leaderettes," and will in turn yield to "leaderettelets"; the writer prophesies a day when The Times will only consist of headlines.

Dasent's Life of Delane appeared in 1908, and Punch's reviewer reminds us of the commanding position occupied by that great editor, who was consulted by all Premiers, except Gladstone, and to whom Palmerston actually offered office. The gist and sting of the review, however, is to be found in a sentence not merely true but almost tragic in its bearings on the history of English journalism: —

Delane accepted the favour of contributions by Cabinet Ministers to his news-chest, but he recognized that the power and influence of The Times were based upon the foundations of public spirit, concern for national interest, and absolute impartiality in dealing with statesmen.

("In view of the grave importance of the present political situation, The Times will be reduced in price to a penny." – Press Association.)

The Times passed under the financial control of Lord Northcliffe at the beginning of 1908, and in the spring of 1914, "in view of the grave importance of the political situation," its price was reduced to one penny. Punch's comment took the form of a cartoon in which the new Dictator of Printing House Square is shown as a salesman at the door of the "Northcliffe Stores" with the legend on a slate, "Thunder is cheap to-day."

Homage to Andrew Lang

By way of contrast with hustling methods Punch had noted with regret the passing in 1905 of Longman's Magazine, in whose pages Mr. Andrew Lang had for many years presided so gracefully "At the Sign of the Ship": —

Formerly, when, sated by sensation,
Gentle readers sought an air serene,
Refuge from the snapshot's domination
Might be found in Longman's Magazine.

There at least the roaring cult of dollars
Never took its devastating way;
There the pens of gentlemen and scholars
Held their uncontaminating sway.

There no parasitic bookman prated,
No malarious poetasters sang,
There all themes were touched and decorated
By your nimble fancy, Andrew Lang.

True, some hobbies you were always riding,
– Spooks and spies and totemistic lore;
But so deft, so dext'rous was your guiding,
No one ever labelled you a bore.

But alas! the landmarks that we cherish,
Standing for the earlier, better way,
Vanquished by vulgarity must perish,
Overthrown by "enterprise" decay.

Still with fairy books will you regale us,
Still pay homage to the sacred Nine,
But no more hereafter will you hail us
Monthly at the Ship's familiar Sign.

There no longer faithfully and gaily
Will you deal alike with foes and friends,
Wherefore, crying "Ave, atque vale!"
Punch his parting salutation sends.

Punch had his own losses to deplore, for in August, 1897, the death of Mr. E. J. Milliken removed a most valuable and fertile member of his staff. Mr. Milliken was not only the creator of "'Arry," and a fluent and dexterous versifier, but he combined with a retentive and accurate memory "the rare talent of most happily applying past literature, whether in history or fiction, to the illustration of contemporary instances," and for a long time had been the chief cartoon-suggester. A longer and more distinguished connexion with Punch was severed in 1906 by the retirement of Sir Frank Burnand after forty-three years' service. He joined in 1863, as the youngest of the staff, and held the editorship for over twenty-five years. In "Just a Few Words at Parting" he defines the aim of the editor in words worthy of remembrance. If Punch was to hold securely the position he had achieved, it should and must be "to provide relaxation for all, fun for all, without a spice of malice or a suspicion of vulgarity, humour without a flavour of bitterness, satire without reckless severity, and nonsense so laughter-compelling as to be absolutely irresistible from its very absurdity." The precept hardly covers the higher function assumed by Punch in "The Song of the Shirt," but, as it stands, had assuredly been faithfully carried into practice by the master of exhilarating burlesque, the intrepid parodist, the author of the immortal Happy Thoughts. As for the personal affection that he inspired in his staff, it is truly expressed in the farewell lines addressed to him by "R. C. L.": —

Dear Frank, our fellow-fighter, how noble was your praise,
How kindly rang your welcome on those delightful days
When, gathered in your presence, we cheered each piercing hit,
And crowned with joy and laughter the rapier of your wit.

And if our words grew bitter, and wigs, that should have been
Our heads' serene adornment, were all but on the green,
How oft your sunny humour has shone upon the fray,
And fused our fiery tempers, and laughed our strife away!