by Matthew Browne [William Brighty Rands].
Originally published in The Argosy (Strahan & Co.) vol.2 #8 (Jul 1866).
Those readers of the Argosy who have happened to cast their eyes upon previous papers of mine will not suppose that I am at all dependent upon "Harry Clifton," or the "Great Vance," or the "Inimitable Mackney," for the amusement of my leisure, or that I can be interested, except as a student of human nature, in songs like "Pretty Little Sarah," "Paddle your Own Canoe," or in any of the songs sung at third-rate music-halls, with titles very much like the titles I meet with in turning over music-books of the time of the Regency—such as "Go it, if it kills you," "Widow Waddle's Jig," "Betsy's Delight;" or "Carlton House in a Bustle,"—from which I infer that the tastes of the lower music-hall public are not very unlike the tastes of the "fashionable" public before I was born. But, precisely because I cannot be supposed to have any personal interest in the subject, I may the more safely take up, in a passing way, a question which will some day have historic interest, and emphasize, by anecdote and comment, words of toleration and faith in human nature which, during the ten years for which I have been writing, I have never lost an opportunity of speaking, with various applications.
Necessities of space compel the omission here of a discussion of the place and function of Art in great cities. In that discussion, however, I have taken, for purposes of illustration, the ballet (it is always best to take the bull by the horns), which is the most soundly abused of all entertainments, and, after allowing for the very worst thing that the least amenable of critics can have to say, I find myself compelled in fairness, to judge of public entertainments in which there is one grain of Art, on principles which are chiefly these:—
I. The function of Art is to chasten, while delighting, by a symmetrical reflection of the play of human passion, ever ascending into the sphere of emotion.
II. By presenting Beauty and Order as ends to be sought for their own sake, Art, though not moral, allies itself with Duty.
III. Therefore, so long as Art continues faithful to Beauty, it cannot, of itself, be inimical to Morality.
IV. The moment Art ceases to be beautiful, it becomes powerless to give delight; it can then only confer pleasure, which can be had better and cheaper without Art.
V. Under those circumstances, any exhibition claiming to be artistic will chiefly attract pleasure-seekers.
VI. These pleasure-seekers would, under any circumstances, find their pleasure; so that the grain of Art which the exhibition may hold in suspension is so much to the good.
I cannot help it (for the present) if there appears an almost ludicrous remoteness in the application of these hints to an imminent public question, the decision of which cannot fail to be a landmark in the history of civilized freedom. The question is just now fought as a free-trade question, but no such phraseology can really cover the ground of the battle, though, for the present (1866) the commercial aspect of the matter comes to the front. Freedom of trade is the only kind of freedom which the multitude of men can be got to understand at present; and much suffering and degradation grow out of that limited intelligence of theirs. We must continue to do the best we can and lift up the first flag that comes handy (and this flag has a prestige about it, besides being handy)—for the battle will not wait; but in the meanwhile we need not be unheedful of larger, remoter issues than any which the flag of free-trade covers. Free trade, free religion, free art, and free self-culture are all bound up in the same bundle, and stand or fall together. Our present concern is with a question of free art and free trade combined.
In the capital of England, where the Court is situated, Theatres and Plays, considered as actable, exist, in the last resort, by sufferance of a quasi-public functionary, the Lord Chamberlain; who has been gaily, and not without cause (as we shall see) called the Lord Chambermaid. He may refuse his license to any play, or any theatre—therefore, to every play, and every theatre: an absurd, but not abstractly inconceivable result. The Lord Chamberlain and his assistants may be, and sometimes are, sensible and cultivated persons,[1] but the function personified is what I speak of, and it is one of the least credible anomalies of modern times. The Lord Chamberlain, then, is a lineal descendant of the Master of the Revels: is a relic of the days when masques and plays were in the first instance a kind of privilege of the Court, and a functionary was supposed to be necessary, to see that nothing "unhandsome" came "betwixt the wind" and the "nobility." The vulgar might have may-poles and dancing bears, and conjuring and tumbling, but the drama was not for them—except as Lazarus might gather scraps at the door of Dives. In the play-bills of the old patent theatres (Drury Lane and Covent Garden) the actors still describe themselves as (his or) her Majesty's servants, and seriously-disposed justices of the peace in the provinces still look upon actors as vagabonds and sturdy beggars. Great changes have arisen in dramatic matters since the two largest theatres lost their patents, but the Lord Chamberlain still remains, retaining and exercising his authority, though at the moment at which I write, another change is evidently breaking upon the horizon of dramatic and quasi-dramatic entertainment.
Meanwhile, there is something almost too absurd for contemplation in the exercise of certain functions by the Lord Chamberlain. Somebody writes, for example, to inform him that, in the somebody's opinion, the skirts of the ballet-girls at some particular theatre are too short. His Lordship (I suppose) goes, or sends, to see, and then forwards an intimation to the director of the theatre that his young ladies must wear longer dresses. They manage these things worse in France,[2] (I have in my mind, while writing, a certain police regulation about the Cancan); but I should think Englishmen can scarcely endure the image of an elderly gentleman whose duty it is to see that the tunics of English girls are long enough; or that they have the regulation "skirt-tacks." Pray let us have a public Chambermaid for these purposes—if they can be supposed matters for any public functionary whatever. For my part, I hold them to be matters of public sentiment. "With no one to embody it?" With no one legally constituted to embody it. I believe public sentiment, left to itself, will always, in such matters, create a police of good understanding which cannot be evaded; while the police of a function can be and is evaded; the growth of sound sentiment being moreover retarded by the mere fact of the function's existence. There is ample proof that the mischiefs aimed at, for example, by Lord Campbell's Act, are much increased by the existence of the Act.
However, to return. Between the Act of Parliament which undertakes (we all know what queer things Acts of Parliament do undertake, and they will undertake queerer things still as more mediocrities find their way into the House of Commons) to define a stage play, and the Lord Chamberlain's exercise of his functions, a difficulty has arisen which, from its relations, historic and philosophical, is worthy of deliberate notice.
In the time of Shakspeare, I have read that gallants smoked and refreshed themselves at the theatres just as they pleased. The habits of the Germans we all know, though I am not aware that, except at the "summer" theatres, there is smoking in theatres even in Germany. As it so happens that I am constitutionally intolerant of tobacco in any shape, I have personally no desire (but very much the reverse) that people should ever smoke in the theatres of my own country. But I stand for justice—to everybody. The habits of the English people, the masses, are no secret. They like smoking; they like eating and drinking; they have no notion of amusement without them. A small tradesman and his wife going from Chelsea to Gravesend on board a Thames steamer, begin to smoke, sip, and skin shrimps almost as soon as the paddle-wheels are in motion. We also know (though one is surprised to see how many well-informed people underrate it) the fondness of "the common people" for singing and music—especially in company. Now, in our own day, every kind of amusement is provided on competitive and commercial principles, and paid for, to be enjoyed in masses,[3] and my reader does not want another word to lead him up to those strange places, called Music-halls. Where or how the discrepancy first arose, or how it grew to its present size, is another question; but the fact is, that the half-cultivated population of our great cities who want amusement has enormously increased, while the drama has not overtaken their tastes, though, for the drama itself, there is still a sufficient and a largely increased public. However, the "Music-halls" all over the kingdom are filled nightly with multitudes of men and women, who, while the singing or dancing proceeds upon the stage, sit at tables or lounge about, munching, drinking, smoking, chattering, laughing,—monster convivial parties, in fact, held in public, the guests being about as much known to each other as the guests at hundreds of "distinguished" balls or "receptions" in a London season. The audiences, of course, are as miscellaneous as possible, and widely different in different parts of London and the provinces. In one quarter you have a preponderance of the small tradesman and artisan element; but there is always, of course, a large infusion of the pleasure-seeking population of great cities. You cannot expect to go to any such place without being brought face to face with the abandonment of youth, eager for "pleasure;" nor can the least felicitous concomitant of the scene blot out the grace of youth. Being blind to nothing, I must still say that merely as a show of animal spirits and young blood, I think a place like the Alhambra a splendid spectacle. I happened to be there on the night of the Oxford and Cambridge boat-race, when there was, I suppose, a much larger sprinkling than usual of the best youth of England: and I was powerfully moved by the beauty of the young men's faces. I was there for some hours, moving about, watching, and listening, and whatever I saw that I wished away, I left the place proud of my country. And let me entreat the reader to remember that good people have too often an exaggerating pruriency of their own, which makes them quite unjust to mixed assemblies of human beings whose object is distinctly "pleasure." Their budgets of "depravity" will not really bear handling. Things are quite bad enough, but their pathetic nonsense will seldom stand cross-examination. In a parliamentary committee which sat some years ago upon public-houses, a witness, speaking of a certain Saloon, said he could not describe to the committee the scenes which he had witnessed there. This answer I once found quoted in a magazine article by an accomplished lady who was criticising in a very noble and beautiful spirit the impurities of certain by-paths of modern life. This "sensation" answer had evidently struck her mind with horror; but what are the facts? The witness in question was asked at a later period of his examination to explain what he meant by not being able to describe the "scenes" he had witnessed. His reply was, that the character and variety of the entertainments were such as he could not describe! And how many old-bogie stories, of the sort break down in a similar way when rigorously handled. Can anything be more absurd than what the terrified pruriency of very well-meaning people figures to itself about what "goes on" (that is a favourite phrase, goes on—it is so deliciously mysterious!) "behind the scenes," or the "depravity" of the ballet-girls? It is useless to disguise the fact that the scene behind the scene to an unaccustomed eye is full of piquancy. It cannot be unamusing, for example, to come close to half a dozen women in short muslin clouds, laughing and chattering—the usual innocent chatter of women; or to exchange civilities with a lithe young creature of nineteen, whom you never saw before and will never see again, with her bright curls gathered up close round her little neck, in the dress of a (stage) fairy prince, or a (stage) Watteau shepherd. There is piquancy in this, as there is in smelling a rose or drinking a glass of wine, or walking up Regent-street in the season on a fine afternoon. But the piquancy does not, with ordinary human beings, survive use; and the closer one gets to any class of one's fellow-creatures the more one is struck by their resemblance to each other, and the great excess of what is good and loveable over what is not. The prurient good people think with horror of the "orgies" or "saturnalia" that "go on" behind the unconscious curtain. Drop them down suddenly in the midst-of stage "business," and they would be astonished to find that actresses are very much like their own sisters, and that visitors must—get out of the way. Again let me say there is no disguising the piquancy of the scene to certain people—but they are not the people who would go behind the scenes, expecting to find orgies or saturnalia there, any more than they are people who think a thunderbolt ought to fall because a young girl in a short tunic stands "chaffing" a stage-carpenter for a moment.
In dealing with any class of human beings of whom we know but little, we must begin by dropping the old-bogie way of thinking of them, if we want to get at the truth. For my part, I repeat, I am not blind to the worst that can be said upon such matters, and when that worst is allowed for, I maintain that the good of the whole case is greater than the evil, and that these are matters in which we have, above all things, to begin by being just. We shall never better our fellow-creatures if we commence by looking at them through the cloud of an old-bogie sensibility.
It so happens that another illustration of this subject is ready to my hand. I had once myself, along with most people, a very exaggerated idea of the amount of drinking that goes on at these "music-halls." But after taking pains to observe and to inquire, I am satisfied that the total amount of what is spent in eating, drinking, and cigars is quite inconsiderable. Great stress is laid, by those who know the habits of the working and small trading classes, upon the fact that the wife is very often the companion of the husband at these places—keeping him, it is suggested, out of mischief. On the other hand, no doubt, some wives may learn to drink themselves at such places, But, on the whole, these monstrous symposia of the "people" point to changes in our manners which, after a time, will prove to be for the better.
The chief difficulty lying in the way of any such change is the indifferent, or positively bad quality, of the entertainment given at the Music-halls. And so long as the Theatre proper is "protected," how can we throw stones at the Music-halls? They cannot give a dialogue, or a ballet with a story in it, without serious risk, as the law stands. The utter absurdity of restricting an entertainment to dumb show, or singing in evening-dress, and then wondering that the audience contains elements which are not of the choicest, is surely patent. For the discussion of the question of "privilege" I have no patience. To permit any people, any where, performing a play at their own risk, and in their own way, is part of a policy for which there are no words of scorn strong enough. Let us not lose our temper over the subject, or over that of the function of the Lord Chamberlain. A play is, of all things, that which is most openly submitted to public opinion, and most rapidly and decisively judged by it. A book, if it is bad, may have dropped poison into a thousand hearts before anybody points it out, and even then it cannot be recalled from the hands of those who have bought it. But a play is submitted at once to the criticism of two thousand people of average character and intelligence, and is liable to be "damned" in an hour. If the Lord Chamberlain is less critical than the average audience, he is worse than useless; if he is only as critical, he is a cipher; if he were more critical, his judgments could not be enforced. He is a simple absurdity. Those who think he is useful in the interests of public virtue must deal with the three alternatives just put, or, if they prefer it, they may deal with Milton's scornful retort upon a similar point—"Public virtue! public folly, rather—for who shall judge of public virtue?"
I should be very glad if words of mine could help to induce others to look without prejudice upon the coarseness of the audiences, and the entertainments, at some of the fifth-rate places of amusement in great cities. My own habits are those of a very quiet, studious person; I have delicate health, and fastidious senses—and yet I can tolerate, and with amused interest, a great deal from which some very good people turn harshly away. At the "Bower Saloon," Stangate, Westminster, I have witnessed a drama called, in the bill of the play,
"THE HUNGRY SON,
"OR,
"THE DREADFUL EFFECTS OF FAMILY HATRED CARRIED ON TOO LONG;"
but I also saw once, and with pleasure, a girl act Hamlet there. And very creditably she did it too, although she was so ignorant that in the great soliloquy she said "sickled" for "sicklied." On this occasion, the house was so crowded that the gallery audience overflowed on to the sloping roofs of the boxes, and there was a ring of naked, shoeless legs dangling in pairs over the heads of the indignant dress-circle. Indeed, the excitement of the people was so great (excusably, for Miss G— was the only lady Hamlet I had then ever heard of, though Miss Marriott has acted Hamlet since) that a disturbance appeared imminent at one time of the evening. However, the Polonius of the tragedy, Mr. B—, came before the drop-scene between the acts, and made an angry speech, of which I caught a few words,—". . . . . . policeman at the door . . . . . . one of you got a week the other day . . . . . . . disgrace the savages in the backwoods . . . . . ." The remainder was lost in a storm of applause, and order was restored for the rest of the evening. Generally speaking the behaviour of the people at third-rate and fifth-rate places of amusement has almost incredibly improved within the last six or eight years. I have been present at performances at the east-end theatres,[4] and at the Victoria Theatre in the south, without being able to hear one word of what the actors said. But all this is now changed. It is true you may still see in the pit of a second-rate theatre (at the Surrey you may see it) such a thing as a placard in which "Persons are requested not to crack nuts during the performance;" and there may be an occasional squabble, and a cry for "the Bobbies" (vulgar for policemen); but that is the worst that happens. Monday night and Saturday night are, of course, always noisy nights; on Friday (the "order" night) the audience is not so "genteel;" and, of course, at holiday-times the sovereign "people" have it a good deal their own way. I was in the pit of a third-rate theatre on Boxing-night, 1865. It was an hour's work to get in, and I had to stand all the time, wedged in between two women and two or three men, who talked incessantly, and in the coarsest conceivable vein. The roughs in the place, men and women, joined in the chorus of one of the songs imported from the Music-halls into the pantomime ("Free-and-Easy" is the name of the song), and the "swells" in the stalls stood up and turned their backs on the stage to applaud the chanting roughs. I do not think the conversational license taken by men and women of "the common people" at inferior theatres at all exceeds that taken in private boxes at first-class theatres; though, of course, talking in the body of the place is more objectionable to listeners, and the tournure of the phrases is not so elegant. Let me take the liberty of supposing that you are in the pit of a fifth-rate theatre, and listening to what goes on behind you or at your side, where there is a household party—a tradesman, his wife, a friend of the family, and his sweetheart. This is the kind of thing you might hear, as a "comic" actor came forward with an absurd make-up:—
First Gentleman.—Oh! golley; aint he a reg'lar Cure!
His wife.—Now, then, Joe-in-the-copper, speak up; will you?
Second Gentleman.—Gawdstruth,[5] aint he a bubblyjock!
Sweetheart.—Oh my, jiminy! he is a head o' cauliflower!
This is not edifying; but you can well believe in the solid virtues of people who are capable of such felicities. By-and-by the conversation is resumed:—
Second Gentleman.—Have you seen Ovinia[6] Jones—Last Lynne?
Sweetheart.—No; not yet.
Second Gentleman.—Ah, you've got to, I can tell you! I cried like a watercart when the kid dies—it is cutting, I can tell you!
Mamma.—Ropes of inions?
Gentleman.—Ah, it is inions, that is!
Sweetheart.—I s'pose it's a very deep tradegy? [Spoken with critical gravity, the present writer having somehow betrayed that he is listening].
Gentleman.—(Evading the high-art question). I ain't cried so much—not since I see Belphegor. I'll take you to see her.
This is delivered with an air of patronage which would not disgrace a Sultan; and then the happy pair fall to upon their provisions, and flakes of piecrust fall, like rose-leaves, at the feet of the lovers as they munch. Some commonplace question is asked of me, which I answer with civility, and then, rising to depart, I have the satisfaction of hearing myself called, in a whisper, "a affable gent."
Some years ago I went one night to a place of cheap entertainment called the Rotunda, in the Blackfriars-road, near the bridge. It is now, I believe, a fire-stove shop, the little circus having been put down as a nuisance; but I lay no stress upon that fact, for the ordinary, respectable Englishman, especially the English shopkeeper, calls nearly everything unusual a nuisance, and particularly anything that gathers a mob of roughs together. That roughs frequented this Rotunda I know, for I saw and heard them "roughing" on the night of my visit, and I do not doubt that thieves and ill-conditioned people of all sorts were there; but the audience behaved as well as any audience could possibly behave, and one could hardly help being glad at heart to see them sitting there so quietly, out of mischief for the time, and getting the benefit of even so low a form of art. There was solo singing in "character " (a cobbler, a Scotchman, an Irishman, very coarse, but with no real harm about either the song or the characterization), solo dancing, a rope performance, and a ballet d'action. A ballet d'action—that is to say, a ballet in which there is a story, as distinguished from a ballet divertissement, in which there is (supposed to be) none—is illegal; but my friends of the Rotunda evidently thought they were keeping sufficiently to windward of the law by avoiding dialogue, for the story of this ballet was told in the most undisguised manner by the mere action; though, for the assistance of slack wits, it was told in black and white also, The stage-manager, at every turn of the plot, held up in front of the stage a placard to say what was happening, as—
SHE IS JEALOUS,
or—
HE ENLISTS FOR A SOLDIER,
or—
THEY ARE TO BE MARRIED TO-MORROW.
This last notification was received with tremendous applause. As is universally the case at the low-class theatres even more than at the better sort, I found the audience had their old favourites. A half-withered, moiled-looking woman of fifty odd, who danced in the ballet, was received and pursued with storms of clapping and compliment—"Condemn my sanguinary organs of vision! the old girl stuck to it, didn't she, Bill?" The performance closed with a little exhibition on the tight-rope, in which the clown, a quiet, decent, worn-looking man of about thirty, and his very lovely young wife took part. I shall never forget the exquisitely-turned limbs of this little woman. The rope on which she had to walk went straight across the pit until it attached itself to a fastening in the boxes, or gallery, so that this pretty creature had to walk clean over the heads of the people in the pit—over mine among the rest. Her husband, proud, I am sure, of her beauty, followed her transit with jealous eyes; but it was unnecessary. Honi soit qui mal y pense—it was a chivalric pit. As for me, I believe I was suspected of being a spy—though I hummed [racial slur] tunes, jested with my neighbours, and looked as much like a blackguard as I possibly could, in order to disarm suspicion.
My success, however, was not satisfactory to my own mind; and the next time I visited a "gaff"—this was in Shoreditch—I sought, and obtained for the sum of fourpence, a private box all to myself. The premises were so confined that, in coming out, I lost my way, after having taken only a step or two, into somebody's back parlour, where there were plates and dishes set on a clean tablecloth, all ready for supper. There was no smell of cooking about, but that is nothing; the neighbourhood is a paradise of fried fish, baked potatoes, whelks, eels, cockles, mutton-pies, cranberry tarts, pig's trotters, and "faggots."[7] At this place there was no ballet. The audience was what you might expect. There were fiddlers, with a clarionet, a flute, and a piano in the very last stage of knockiness—every bit of baize having evidently been worn off the furrowed keys. This delicious instrument, retained perhaps for the purpose of giving a refined air to the entertainment, was feverishly played by a bald-headed, little old man, who had so respectable an appearance that I wondered how he had drifted into such a place. There were women there of all ages; and one pleasant-looking young creature in the very centre of the pit, with a babe held fast to her uncovered bosom. The mother had no ring on, but she had an innocent face,[8] and her presence did me good. The first thing I heard from my private box was the then new song, "God bless the Prince of Wales!" The Prince had just been married, and the more distinctly loyal and affectionate parts of the song were soundly and, I undertake to say, sincerely applauded. Let me be excused for being sentimental enough to add that I was moved by the evident heartiness with which I saw these poor roughs—some of them pickpockets and drifted women—wished well to the marriage. The singers of the song were two—a young man, and a tall, stout woman, with highly-pomatumed hair, a wedding-ring and keeper, a silk gown fixed high in the neck with a large brooch, and a bunch of flowers in her hand—which was red and large with labour. This song was followed by others—the usual Irishman, Scotchman, and what not. Then came what the Music-hall people will persist in calling a duologue.[9] Two men, one representing Gutta Percha, and the other Leather, had a sort of sham fight, mixed up with tumbling, singing, and banter, the victory always leaning to the side of Leather, which greatly delighted the audience. I need not say that all this was to me very tedious buffoonery; but though some of the jokes were unquestionable doubles entendres, as gross as any in Shakspeare, I really lay no particular stress upon the fact as an index of character. Humour must always turn on things in which there is a quick and easy common understanding, and what those things are which most readily present themselves to the mind of the humorist depends on culture. Even this low humour had an infinitesimal grain of art in it, and, honestly, I don't believe the people were measurably better or measurably worse for listening to it; and I am satisfied that the majority of the women, in this audience as in others, did not "take" the jokes. It is the silly conceit of men, rather than any real depravity of instinct, which makes them find anything to enjoy in this garbage. However, after this "comic" singing had been continued till I was very sick indeed, the audience began impatiently to stamp, clap, whistle, and shriek out some word which I could not catch. Who was the traveller that has recorded his bewilderment at some Paris theatre when he heard everybody calling out, Ree-cat! Ree-cat! This (as some readers may guess) turned out to be clipped French for Henri Quatre; but no bewilderment could exceed that of the gentleman in the private box, when every voice in this "gaff" seemed to him to be shouting "Crœsus!" What on earth could the people mean by this classical reference? My wonder soon ceased, when a gentleman, who was hailed with the greatest enthusiasm, came on to the stage and began to sing a song called "Water-Cresses." This gave unspeakable delight, the audience making up a chorus at the end of each verse, thus—
"She promised for to marry me, upon the first of May,
With a gold ring and a bunch of watercreases!"
At the close of this entertainment the place was cleared, and after a short time, a second audience admitted to a repetition of the programme, or something fresh. In this manner such places are made to pay.
The audiences at the better-class Theatres and Music-halls stand related to audiences such as I have been speaking of, as the people at a west-end club to the people in a beer-house parlour. Upon all this I would merely found an à fortiori argument in favour of the removal of all restraint but police restraint, such as is exercised in the next street, from places of public entertainment in which the common standards of decency are maintained. In these matters, as in all others, the nursing or protective policy applied in one direction, and the exclusive policy applied in another, are found to have the usual results. The "protected" entertainment degrades in quality, and actually fetches "attractions" from the "unprotected." The staple of the thing now called a burlesque or extravaganza, consists, positively, of grotesque singing and dances imported from the Music-halls into the Theatres. The Theatre prevents the Music-hall from attempting to give anything like a dramatic entertainment. The Music-hall gets up these singing grotesqueries because it must do something lively, and then it is avenged upon its "protected" enemy by the policy of imitation which the latter is forced to adopt. Really it is a ridiculous piece of business.
Probably I shall not be expected to go out of my way to observe that neither at Theatres nor at Music-halls do I find what appears to me most desirable in the way of popular entertainment. But everywhere I find more to hope than to fear. I wish, indeed, I could expect, in small compass, to express my deep sense of the social importance of mixed assemblies, in which people of all classes, out of jails and bedlams, are permitted to meet together for some common purpose, under no restraints but those of police. The tone of mixed assemblies, taken as wholes, is always so much higher than the tone of their lower elements, that they are among the most efficacious instruments of education in manners. The very coarsest put on their "best behaviour" before strangers; and so the habit of self-restraint is begun. When the very worst has been said for the very worst assembly of people that could be got together, it still remains true that all classes of people have a right to meet and amuse themselves in their own way. The better the amusements they choose, the more they will be benefited—we need not waste words over truisms; but our first duty is to leave them their choice. This, at all events, is a lesson in fair dealing—if we accompany our non-interference by an expression of opinion that their choice might be better. The prime duty, here as elsewhere, is to be simply just. If we strive to be just, we shall not miss our reward. I never came away from any assembly of my fellow-creatures, gathered together to partake of an entertainment in common, without feeling my faith in human nature raised, without a deep triumphing sense how much the good exceeds the bad, wherever men and women meet in large numbers together. Do you remember Sir Roger de Coverley at the play? "As soon as the house was full and the candles lighted, my old friend stood up and looked about him with that pleasure which a mind seasoned with humanity naturally feels in itself at the sight of a multitude of people who seem pleased with one another, and partake of the same common entertainment." I never go to a place of amusement without seeing the ghost of the good old man standing up in the middle of the area.
For the sake of an argument à fortiori (which the reader will construe as kindly as he can), let me again speak for a moment of myself. No man can be more reticent in his personal habits, no man can have stronger convictions as to what is wrong or in bad taste at any place of public amusement, no man can be more deeply pledged by his antecedents and avowed principles to the "faith which Milton held," no man can possibly feel more acutely the incongruity between a speech of Imogen or Rosalind and the clinking of glasses in a half regardless crowd. But my likes and dislikes, my approvals and disapprovals, are no guides for others, and I commit the greatest possible wrong if I attempt to enforce them. You do not like the idea of Hamlet's soliloquy delivered in the midst of tobacco-smoke? No more do I. But who are you, pray? Somebody else does like it, and you have no more right to prevent his having it than you have to prevent his wearing a rose in his button-hole, or employing a doctor whom you think a quack. Nor is this all. There is no fact of the same mixed order for which such an overwhelming mass of evidence can be collected as the fact that all attempts to make laws for purposes of protection, nursing, or guidance, are worse than stultified; they are always punished by the event; and the people who are intended to be benefited are generally the greatest sufferers. So it was in the beginning, and so it will be for ever. The watchword of true progress is, Hands off! It proceeds by inducements, not by penalties; and only when unjust compulsion is removed does any work of real improvement begin. For my part, wherever the battle of freedom is fought, I fling myself into it; it does not matter how much there is of what is ugly on the side of those who are struggling; for the first condition of goodness is liberty. When we, who stand for justice, hear people say that the drama must be "protected," we reply, Nothing but rights shall be protected if we can help it—if people like to meet together and hear Mr. Tennyson's In Memoriam, Blair's Sermons, or Herbert's Porch to the Temple, read while they are eating and drinking, it is no business of anybody. For my part, to use the words of Macaulay in his speech on the Chapels Bill in the. year 1844, I contend against the intolerance of these people now, in precisely the same spirit as that in which I should be ready, in case of need, to contend for their rights against intolerance from any other side; and I only wish we had a few more of the old-fashioned Liberals, like Mr. Locke and Mr. Clay, to fight in the same spirit.
1. Lord Sydney and Mr, Donne (the Examiners of Plays) are gentlemen of liberal feeling and high culture.
2. Let me say here, that I blush to the quick for some of my confrères—who go to Paris and come back imperialised. We are perpetually pestered with what they do "in Paris." But who cares what they do "in Paris?"
3. I have elsewhere expressed my regret that this should be so; but it is not to be helped. Above all it is not to be hindered by any act of injustice.
4. It has little to do with the subject, but I may perhaps be allowed to express my surprise that people are still found who risk opera at theatres in the south of London, where it is always a dead failure. In the east, it is a success; because there are so many Jews living there. I have heard La Traviata and Il Trovatore at the Standard Theatre, and have been surprised, as well as amused, at the keen criticism of the pit upon the performance.
5. This adjuration is, in nine cases out of ten, employed by the poor with no more idea of the meaning than they would have of the meaning of 'zounds.
6. This is vulgar for Miss Avonia Jones. I need not say that it is impossible for "the common people" not to alter a name. They turn Reynolds into Randles, Albert into Alibert, Nine Elms into Nine Ellums, Alexandra into Alexandria, omnibus into omminibus, and Westminster into Westminister. Who would grudge them a pleasure so innocent?
7. I will not assume the responsibility of recommending any one to eat a faggot, but the smell is delicious. It is the night-policeman's joy! "Does your husband sleep, when he comes home at six in broad daylight?" said I to a policeman's wife, once. "Law, yes, sir," said she, "I stuffs a 'ankercher into the mug, to keep it hot, along with the gravy, and he has his faggit, and goes sound asleep as a church."
8. She might have pawned her ring; but even if she had none to pawn, those of my readers who the most rigidly hold to the association of virtue and order, need not doubt that the woman's face was innocent. There are, or were, until quite recently, corners of London, where, as in some forest district in England, the essence of conjugal virtue exists, though the form and name are alien to the people's ideas. Now and then I am told a clergyman undertakes a civilizade into these retreats, and marries the willing couples; and I once heard an amusingly painful anecdote of a just-married mother of four children going and flaunting her newly-acquired "virtue" in the face of another mother of a family—not yet married—who had nursed the other lady through a long illness, and pawned her flat-irons to help her. The ungrateful lady was hustled for her pains by some of the other ladies, and in the evening there were a few fights got up among the gentlemen—chiefly bricklayers' labourers—on this great public question.
9. There is no such word as this, which is a jumble of Greek and Latin.