"Have you seen Patrick Boyle's poem in the Playgoers' Review?" asked Lillie, when the club was clear.
"You mean the great dramatic critic's? No, I haven't seen it, but I have seen extracts and eulogies in every paper."
"I have it here complete," said Lillie. "It is quite interesting to find there is a heart beneath the critic's waistcoat. Read it aloud. No, you don't want the banjo!"
Lord Silverdale obeyed. The poem was entitled.
CRITICUS IN STABULIS (?).
Rallying-point of all playgoers earnest,
Packed with incongruous types of humanity,
Easily pleased, yet of critics the sternest,
Crudely ignoring that all things are vanity.
Pit, in thee laughter and tears blend in medley—
Would I could sit in thy cozy concavity!
No! to the stalls I am drawn, to the deadly
Centre of gravity.
Florin, or shilling, or sixpence admission,
Often I've paid in my raw juvenility,
Purchasing Banbury cakes in addition,
Ginger-beer, too, to my highest ability.
Villains I hissed like a venomous gander,
Virtue I loved next to cheesecakes or chocolate;
Now no atrocity raises my dander,
No crime can shock o' late.
Then I could dote on a red melodrama,
Now I demand but limelight on Philosophy,
Learned allusions to Buddha and Brahma,
Science and Faith and a touch of Theosophy.
Farces I slate, on Burlesque I am scathing,
Pantomime shakes for a week my serenity;
Nothing restores my composure but bathing
Deep in Ibsenity.
Actors were Gods to my boyish devotion,
Actresses angels—in tights and low bodices;
Drowned is that pretty and puerile notion,
Thrown overboard in the first of my Odysseys.
Syrens may sing submarine fascinations,
Adult Ulysses remain analytical,
Flat notes recording, or reedy vibrations,
Tranquilly critical.