Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 11, 1893

Excerpt

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

Time and the Woman. By Richard Pryce. Not by any means a pearl of Pryce, and certainly not likely to make so great noise in the novel-reading world as did The Quiet Mrs. Fleming, by the same author. Methuen & Co. publish it.

The Baron heartily recommends Frank Barrett's novel, in three vols., entitled, Kitty's Father. A thoroughly absorbing plot, well worked out, and interesting right up to the last page. Kitty's father is a mysterious person, and she, not being a wise child, for she doesn't know him, does several foolish things, and says several wise ones. Kitty's uncle is a necessary nuisance, but a cleverly and consistently drawn character, while Kitty herself is delightfully made out of good home-spun material. But the villanous Curate is just a bit too grotesque, too Uriah-Heepish for the awfully tragic situation in which he is placed. When the imaginative author shifts the scene to Dublin, why did he not represent an Irish Cardinal-Archbishop as waiting at the stage-door to escort home the light-and-leading lady? But "for a' that and a' that," most decidedly "read it," quoth the Baron, and on he goes again.

Marion Crauford's Children of the King, published by Macmillan, is a tragic story, told in most simple and most fascinating style. It is all colour and character: the colours and the characters being those of Southern Italy.

Out of regard to the importunities of numerous correspondents, the Baron has read Ibsen's Master Builder, translated by two of the Ibsenitish cult. "Only fancy!" Of all the weak-knee'd, wandering, effeminate, unwholesome, immoral, dashed "rot," to quote Lord Arthur in the Pantomime Rehearsal, this is the weak-knee'dest, effeminatest, and all the epithets as above superlatived. Read it by all means, and see it, too, if you will, but if the honest English play-goer's verdict is worth a "big, big, D" (I thank thee, W. S. G., for teaching me that abbreviated form of dashed expressiveness!) he will give Ibsen's Master Builder the benefit of the "D," and "D" it once and for ever. And that, at your service, my masters, is the rough-and-ready opinion expressed by,

Yours truly, The Baron de B.-W.

(Suggested by Burns.)

"My foot is on Newmarket Heath!

My name, Jem Lowther!"

The benefits that Sir John Lawes has been able and will yet be able to confer on agriculturists everywhere, including those in his immediate neighbourhood, cause him to be regarded as a living exception to the rule about a prophet in his own country. So, in that part of England, "Profit and Lawes" are synonymous terms, meaning the same person.

"HAPPINESS IN——FOLKESTONE."

["He said, 'Go and be——' I accordingly went and stayed at Folkestone."

See last Thursday's "Daily News;" Evidence in the De Walden Case.]

Thrice happy Town Council! when pestered to pave,

Remember this fact that her Ladyship mentions.

Intend, but do nothing; your rates you can save

By paving your streets with the best of intentions.