Sir Henry Irving's Saturday night at home previous to his departure for America was brilliant. House so crowded in every part, that the like of it has rarely been seen even at the Lyceum. Our Ellen, as charming Nance Oldfield, was cheered to the Echo, or would have been had there been any place left for an Echo in the house. Sir Henry admirable as the old soldier in A Story of Waterloo, and both he and Miss Terry at their best in the one scene from grand old Willy Shakspeare's Much Ado about Nothing. The "Much Adoo," as Mr. Weller senior would have pronounced and spelt it, came after the curtain had fallen, and on both sides the "Adoo" was changed into a hearty "Au revoir!"
To mention "Henry" is to remember "Johnnie," the Johnnie yclept J. L. Toole, who, Mr. Punch was delighted to see, looking "fit as a fiddle," having Toole'd up to town from Margate evidently on the high road to perfect recovery.
CONCERNING A PUBLIC NUISANCE.
By One who lives Next Door.
[The Salvationists of Warwickshire have lately been restrained by the new county by-law, which provides that no person shall play any musical instrument within fifty yards of a dwelling-house.]
Bravo, good men of Warwick! you'd rejoice
John Leech's soul and all whose nerves are shattered
By blatant street musician's raucous voice
Or braying trombone—these at last you've scattered!
Ah! would that London followed now your lead,
And kept a tight hand o'er the rude fanatics
Who blare away her Sunday peace, whose creed
Is uproar, "fire and blood," and acrobatics!
If they'd a grain of humour's saving grace,
Enough to hear themselves as others hear them,
They'd straight retire to some far desert place
And bang and clang and howl where none come near them!
Ev'n as I write, some strain like "Daisy Bell"
With would-be sacred words and tuneless jar racks
My tortured ear—hard fate has made me dwell
Next door, alas! to what they call their "barracks."