TAKEN AS YOU LIKE IT.
My Dear Editor,
It was most kind of you to ask me to go to the St. James's Theatre, the other evening, to see Mrs. Langtry, after I had told you that since my recovery from the influenza, I had unfortunately lost my memory. "Don't you know anything about As You Like It?" you asked. I pondered deeply, and then replied, that I half fancied it was a German Reed's Entertainment, that would have gone better had it included a part for Mr. Corney Grain. You told me I was wrong, but intimated that my ignorance on the subject would make my notice the more impartial. So I went.
As to the play—was I pleased with As You Like It? Well, I have known worse, but I have seen better. It seemed a mixture of prose and verse, with several topical allusions that appeared, somehow or other, to have lost their point. For instance, a dull dog of a jester (played in a funereal fashion by Mr. Sugden) stopped the action of the piece, for what seemed to me (no doubt the time was actually less) some three-quarters of an hour, while he explained the difference between the "retort courteous" and "the reproof valiant." The plot was as thin as a wafer, but as it is, no doubt, generally known, I need not further refer to it. Mrs. Langtry was a most graceful and pleasing Rosalind. She acted with an earnestness worthy of a better cause, and afforded not a trace of the amateur. Of Miss Violet Armbruster as Hymen, I might say, with a friend who spent several hours in knocking off the impromptu—
TO A SEASONABLE VIOLET.
Had always Hymen
Such mien, such carriage,
You ne'er would fly, men,
The state of marriage!
