THE "DISAPPOINTMENT OF DECEMBER."
["It is too early yet (says the Telegraph) to announce the title of the latest of the Laureate's plays, but this much may be said, that it is written partly in blank verse and partly in prose, that it is what is known in theatrical circles as a 'a costume play,' and that the scene is laid in England. It may, however, interest sensitive dramatists to know that Lord TENNYSON is liberal enough to place the stage detail wholly in the competent hands of Mr. DALY. He does not wince if a line is cut here and there, or protest if a scene or a speech has to be supplied.">[
Behold, I know not anything,—
Except that if I write two Acts in verse,
And two in prose, I might do worse
Than having a Four Act song to sing.
I leave the dress we know to-day;
On English ground my scene I set,
And wonder if I touch as yet,
What we have termed a "Costume Play!"
If I have over-writ, and laid,
It may be here, it may be there,
The fat too thickly on,—with care
To cut it down be not afraid.
But oh, if here and there I seem
To have half-said what I should say,
Give me the start—I'll fire away,
And keep up the poetic steam—
Ay! keep it up in lines that run
As glibly from the Laureate's pen,
That I shall by my fellow men
Be greeted with "That's TENNYSON!"
In short, it will not be easy, from such scanty information as the Noble Rhymester has as yet given to the public, to say precisely what sort of a play this promised comedy, "half in prose, half in blank verse," will prove itself to be; but it is to be hoped with The Promise of May still fresh in the memory of many a playgoer, that the forthcoming effort may not, after all, turn out to merit the unpromising title of The Disappointment of December.
A MYSTERIOUSLY MASONIC LINE.—"Oh, for a Lodge in some vast wilderness!"
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