The dulness would kill me, and slumber would come,
In the small dingy rooms of the old house at home.
From A Bowl of Punch, by Albert Smith, London: D. Bogue, 1848.
PARODIES OF LEWIS CARROLL.
“Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” and “Through the Looking-Glass, and what Alice found there” have so long been familiar, and are so universally popular, that their recent production on the Stage at the Prince of Wales’s Theatre only causes a feeling of surprise that they have not been dramatised hitherto.
It is true, that Colonel Lynes, of the Royal Artillery, selected the subject of “Alice in Wonderland” for the Soldiers’ pantomime at Woolwich, more than six months ago, and at his suggestion Mr. J. Addison wrote a very ingenious play, which was produced in the Theatre of the Royal Artillery Barracks at Christmas 1886.
But this was far less complete as a representation of Alice’s adventures, than the Musical Dream Play, in two acts by H. Savile Clarke, produced at the Prince of Wales’s Theatre in December, 1886.
All who have read Alice’s Adventures (and who has not read them?) should see how admirably they have been realised on the boards, and recognise in Miss Phœbe Carlo the charming little heroine of Mr. Carroll’s invention. Mr. H. Savile Clarke thus introduces the subject of his play:—
A Nursery Magician took