"PIECE AND WAR!" AT DRURY LANE.
"Victory sits on our helms!" cries Sir Druriolanus Auctor to Henricus Parvus etiam Auctor, as they drive back to "The Helms, Regent's Park," after the curtain has descended on the last scene of the last act of A Life of Pleasure at Drury Lane. Twice has Sir Druriolanus appeared before the footlights at the end of the Fourth Act, when some battle in Burmah is gallantly won by the united dramatic forces under the heroic but comic Captain Harry Nicholls, Colonel Lord Frank Fenton Avondale, Sergeant Clarence Holt, and a handful of the bravest soldiers that ever marched to glory over the boards of old Drury Lane. What the story is, and how these heroes got into the jungle and out again, and how the right man married the right woman, and how the wronged woman would have saved the villain from the vengeance of Henry Desmond O'Neville,—who, alas, had to stay in the green-room while the others were distinguishing themselves in Burmah,—is known to the clever collaborators and a few of their trusted confidants. Of that strange history I, a mere civilian, had every detail blown clean out of my head by the din of the great battle. In fact, never have I heard of any "theatrical engagement" equal to this.
"The Action of the Piece."
That Miss Lily Hanbury looked lovely, and touched my heart; that Mrs. Bernard-Beere suddenly developed a brogue that, on occasion, betrayed her nationality; that Miss Le Thière was a villainous matron; that Miss Laura Linden was sprightly and pretty; that Mr. Arthur Dacre was the best representative of lop-sided villainy ever seen on the stage; and that Mr. Robert Soutar reappeared as an elderly masher about town; all this, I am ready to admit, would have been good enough for me, without any attempt on my part at stringing them together in a consecutive story. Didn't I know from the very moment she appeared in deep black, and with a very pale face, that Miss Le Thière was a villain of the deepest dye in petticoats? Could I have trusted Mr. Arthur Dacre, in his neat grey suit, with a sixpence, much less with my life? As for Mr. Elton, representing the Hebraic money-lender—indispensable of late years to all Drury Lane dramas—wasn't I well aware that he was to be the comic villain, only set up to be knocked down again, and to be finally bowled out by the apparently simple Harry Nicholls? Then there is the scene at the Empire, admirably stage-managed, but the ladies should try to take just a trifle more interest in the strange proceedings of that eventful night, as they should also do when re-appearing as wedding guests in the last act. But these fair ladies are heartless; all's one to them, happen what may. Then there was the House-boat, equally well-arranged; but everything is entirely eclipsed by the Military Act, in three scenes, which contains "the action of the piece," and leaves the audience half-deafened by mitrailleuses, and half-choked by the gunpowder. But as the smoke gradually cleared away, the stalwart figure of the Commander-in-Chief, yclept Druriolanus himself, was seen bowing his acknowledgments.
But what was it all about? "'Why, that I cannot tell,' quoth Old Caspar, 'but 'twas a famous victory!'" And if you, my non-combatant readers, wish to know how the Burmese War was undertaken for the special benefit of Harry Nicholls, you just go and see for yourself the new drama, mysteriously entitled A Life of Pleasure, at T. R. Drury Lane, and for this advice you will thank
"Old Caspar."
A Moot Point.—The G. O. M. is reported to have been engaged in translating Horace. Is this a picturesque way of referring to the recent elevation of Sir Horace Davey?
