On Lord Salisbury's memorable Speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet, November 9.—"Hope told a flattering tale."—Old Song.
Shakspeare in the City (adapted by Ex-Lord Mayor Renals).—"Let us hear Barnato speak of this."—Hamlet, Act I., Sc. 1.
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
Mr. Punch is obviously not the most fitting person to review his own history. It has been enough for him during the last fifty-four years to make it. But a word must be said in these columns of The History of Punch, just issued in a handsome volume by Messrs. Cassell & Co. Through four years Mr. Spielmann has been engaged upon what he indicates on every page has proved a labour of love. There was danger that enthusiastic admiration for the subject might induce in the author a fulsome tone that would have been fatal to the historical and literary value of the book. Mr. Spielmann happily avoids that pitfall. He is, upon occasion, sternly and, my Baronite adds, justly critical. But it is the personal traits in his story that will most attract. In his pages there live once more for the world, seen in the borrowed but skilfully managed light of intimate personal acquaintance, figures whose memories are ever enshrined in the hearts of those who still from week to week gather round the old "Mahogany Tree." Mark Lemon, Shirley Brooks, Tom Taylor, Leech, Keene, Douglas Jerrold, The Professor, Tom Hood, Thackeray, Dicky Doyle, William Bradbury, G. A. à Beckett and, a generation later, his gifted son Gil—all, all are gone, the once familiar faces. They are met with again in Mr. Spielmann's book, the pen and pencil sketches illustrated by admirably reproduced contemporary portraits. The inner history of Punch is a subject that has ever had a fascination for the British public. Attempts, more or less futile, to gratify the desired acquaintance have been made at various times through the last thirty years. Mr. Spielmann has not only brought singular aptitude to the task assigned to himself, but has had the advantage of the cordial assistance of divers men having personal knowledge of events they record and personages of whom they speak. Mr. Punch desires to add his testimony to the general approval the History has received by the voice of the Press. The work, full of difficulty and not without delicacy, is thoroughly well done. Looking at himself in the mirror held up by Mr. Spielmann, Mr. Punch finds no flaw in the glass.
My Baronite would not advise those about to travel to take passage by any ship, whithersoever bound, of the start whereof Clark Russell knows anything. His cruisers mostly set out in fine weather, with swelling breeze, in the full sunshine of circumstance. Then comes a hitch, and there follow the most blood-curdling adventures that ever happened since men first began to go down to do business in the great waters. The marvel of it is that Mr. Russell's imagination never flags, nor is he ever at loss for those minute details which, skilfully and artistically piled up, go to make a living picture. Heart of Oak, his last work, just published by Chatto and Windus, is worthy to take its place in the matchless roll of his sea stories. Of living writers Mr. Russell, alike in style and method, most nearly approaches the classic standard of Defoe. In his last work he has captured the stormy seas south of Cape Horn, brings home their turmoil, their snow squalls, their icebergs, and a general sense of their desolation to the gentleman of England who sits at home at ease. That historic person's opportunity of making acquaintance with those interesting parts is decidedly more agreeable and, under Mr. Clark Russell's guidance, is scarcely less informing than a voyage in the Lady Emma, a vessel of six hundred tons, which was the sad fate of the principal characters in this thrilling story.
The Baron feels it incumbent upon him to correct a statement in Mr. T. H. S. Escott's most readable and interesting work, entitled Platform, Press, Politics, and Play, which, if allowed to go uncontradicted, would thereby allow a great error to creep into University and Dramatic History. Mr. Escott says that the late Mr. Alfred Thompson "had, together with several others, been one of the A. D. C.'s founders at Cambridge." This is not so; Mr. Alfred Thompson had taken his degree, and "gone down," some four years before the A. D. C. was founded; vide preface to Personal Reminiscences of the A. D. C., first paragraph, and also p. xi. of the same. Mr. Escott is a most entertaining companion, as is also Mr. Henry Russell, whose profession was for years "entertaining," and who wrote such songs as the world will not willingly let die. "Woodman Spare that Tree" is one of them. The Russell Reminiscences (published by Macqueen, in one volume, entitled "Cheer, Boys, Cheer!") the Baron must take leave to correct on one point. Henry Russell alludes to "that distinguished Punch trio, Douglas Jerrold, Mark Lemon, and George Cruikshank." The last mentioned was never "on Punch." He was a great friend of Mark Lemon's, but never drew for Mr. Punch.