Pooh for Wenman's[2] bass! Why should he make a boast of it?
If he has a voice, I have got the ghost of it!
When I pitch it low, you may say how weak it is,
When I pitch it high, heavens! what a squeak it is!
But I never mind; for what does it signify?
See my graceful hands, they're the things that dignify:
All the rest is froth, and egotism's dizziness—
Have I not played with Phelps?
(To Wenman) I'll teach you all the business!
T. Mead (of whom much has already been written in these pages):
What's this about a voice? Surely you forget it, or
Wilfully conceal that I have no competitor!
I do not know the play, or even what the title is,
But safe to make success a charnel house recital is!
So please to bear in mind, if I am not to fail in it
That Hamlet's father's ghost must rob the Lyons Mail in it!
No! that's not correct! But you may spare your charity—
A good sepulchral groan's the thing for popularity!
ELLEN TERRY
FROM A PAINTING, NEVER BEFORE REPRODUCED, BY GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS
H. Howe (the "agricultural" actor, as Henry called him):
Boys take my advice, the stage is not the question
But whether at three score you'll all have my digestion,
Why yearn for plays, to pose as Brutuses or Catos in,
When you may get a garden to grow the best potatoes in?
You see that at my age by Nature's shocks unharmed I am!
Tho' if I sneeze but thrice, good heavens, how alarmed I am!
But act your parts like men, and tho' you all great sinners are,
You're sure to act like men wherever Irving's dinners are!
J. H. Allen (our prompter):