A JUBALEE PERFORMANCE.
Dear Mr. Punch,—After The Cotter's Saturday Night, which is a fine broad Scotch setting of Rantin' Roarin' Robbie's poem, came The Dream of Jubal. This, as I take it, was a work produced in the Jubalee Year. I don't know who Jubal was, at least I've only a vague idea. Rather think he was a partner of Tubal, Tubal, Jubal & Co., Instrument Makers. From this Oratorio I gather that Jubal was an enthusiastic amateur, but that the only musical instrument he possessed was a tortoise-shell,—whether comb or simple shell I couldn't quite make out. However, comb or shell, he worked hard at it, until one morning, when he was practising outside the house (I expect Tubal & Co. wouldn't stand much of it indoors), the birds started a concert in opposition to his solo. This quite drowned his feeble notes, and drove him half frantic. In despair he lay down under the shade of a tree and fell asleep, and in his dreams he saw the instrument which he had invented gradually developed into a "Strad", and from that into the most glorious instrument of our time; namely, the banjo. This so soothed and pleased him, that, waking up, he adorned his tortoise-shell with flowers, and sang aloud to all his descendants in all time and tune, and out of all time and tune, if necessary, to join him in praising the invention of Music generally, and of this Jubalee instrument in particular.
Mr. Joseph Bennett has given a most effective description of the dream; the accompanied recitation being very fine indeed, and splendidly performed by Miss Julia Neilson, who, like Jubal, has been in the Tree's Shadow at the Haymarket. Fine triumphal march and chorus. Your own Maggie McIntyre, and your Mr. Barton McGuckin, were in excellent form, and everybody was delighted, with the exception of one person,—who is always à peu près, never quite satisfied, and therefore rightly named,
"All-but Hall, S.W."
"Harlowe there!"—This now familiar exclamation might be appropriately adopted as the motto of the Vaudeville Theatre during the run of Clarissa. She does run, too, poor dear—first from home, then from Lovelace's, and then "anywhere, anywhere, out of the world!" By the way, is it quite fair of Mr. Thomas Thorne, in the absence of a friend and brother comedian, to speak of himself, as he does in this piece, as "a mere Toole"? How can such a metamorphosis have taken place? We trust that Mr. Thomas Thorne, Temporary Tragedian, will amend his sentiments.
Sir W. V. Harcourt, on the night when he was so huffy, "left the House." True: he certainly did not "carry the House with him."