PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
VOL. 107.
JULY 7, 1894.
MR. PUNCH AT WHITE LODGE, RICHMOND.
"Don't make a Noise, or else you'll wake the Baby"
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
About the reminiscences of George Augustus Sala there lingers a before-the-Flood flavour which abashes my Baronite. In Things I have Seen, and People I have Known, two volumes, published by Cassell, there is nothing merely modern. The only thing G. A. S. doesn't appear to have seen was the world in the state of chaos, and almost solitary among the people he has not known was Methuselah. That is an imagesion due to the art of the writer, for, as a matter of fact, his recollections commence in the year 1839, when he was a boy at school in Paris, snubbed, fillipped, tweaked, punched, and otherwise maltreated, by way of avenging Waterloo in his person, and redressing the petty injuries inflicted upon Napoleon at St. Helena by Sir Hudson Lowe. Mr. Sala has not only lived long, but, like Ulysses, has travelled much, and has had singular good fortune in being around when things were stirring. Thus, for example, in the year 1840, as he happened to be strolling down the Rue de la Paix, he saw a carriage draw up at a jeweller's shop, escorted by a troop of shining cuirassiers. In it were two handsomely-dressed ladies, "in cottage bonnets, with side-ringlets." There was also a Norman peasant-woman, and in her lap reposed a greatly glorified baby. One of the ladies was the Duchesse D'Orleans, Consort of the Heir Apparent, and the bundle of pink flesh was the Comte de Paris, who seemed at the time to have nothing to do but to grow up to man's estate, and take his place among the kings of France. Sixteen years later, in the Rue de Rivoli, Mr. Sala saw another carriage; more glittering cuirassiers; another little pink face; again two little pudgy hands, and a surrounding wave of lace. Baby number two was the Prince Imperial, and the scenes culled from the flowery field of the great journalist's memory mark two memorable epochs in French history. A mere list of the people Mr. Sala has known, and the things he has seen, form of themselves an enticing, even an exhilarating chapter. Thackeray and Dickens he knew, and worked with, and he throws some fresh light on their characters. Soldiers, actors, statesmen, kings, murderers, and habitats of debtors' prisons, have all come under his observation, and live again in his pages. He is careful to make it clear that this is not his autobiography. On that he is still engaged. This work, presented as a sort of hors d'œuvre, effectually serves to whet the appetite, and makes the world hope he will hurry up with the remaining dishes in the rare feast. "So says my Baronite, and the Court is with him."