"Over!"—At last "Grace before wicket" has received his five thousand pounds' worth of shilling testimonials, and has returned thanks to the indefatigable Sir Edward Lawson, who initiated and carried out the idea in the Daily Telegraph. Your health, Dr. Grace, and song, which of course would be "Sing O the Green Willow!" And his motto, "There's nothing like leather!" Will the celebrated batsman give a ball to celebrate the occasion?
ROUNDABOUT READINGS.
A strange report reaches me, a rumour which (if such a course may be predicated of a mere report) opens up illimitable vistas. The dramatic critics, it would appear, have been for some time past in a state of dissatisfaction. A newspaper proprietor has been turned into a peer; editors in profusion have journeyed down to Windsor as very plain misters, and, having been tapped upon the shoulder with cold steel, have returned to the bosoms of their families as knights; a novelist, a mere teller of stories, has undergone the same process, not, it is well understood, for his own glory, but for the greater honour of Literature (capital L please); and, worst of all, an actor has survived the blood-curdling ceremony of the accolade, and has received the congratulations and gifts of other members of his profession.
Quæ cum ita sint, the dramatic critics have been very naturally asking one another why they alone should toil and moil (the "midnight oil" irresistibly suggests itself as a pleasing and perfectly appropriate rhyme) without any recognition beyond the vulgar one of a money-payment, sufficient, no doubt, to keep them in bread and beer, ties, clothes, collars, and cuffs, but utterly inadequate when considered as a reward for the services they perform on behalf of Art and the Drama. One thing led to another (it generally does); there were conversations, interchanges of ideas, meetings, and so forth; and eventually matters came to a head in the formation of a society, the members of which pledged themselves to promote by all legitimate means the claims of dramatic critics to knighthoods, baronetcies, privy-councillorships, peerages, and other rewards.
The final meeting, at which the rules were discussed and passed, and the officials appointed, began harmoniously enough. Mr. Clement Scott, proposed by Mr. Archer, and seconded by Mr. A. B. Walkley, was unanimously voted to the Chair. His opening speech was marked by great fervour. For years, he said, dramatic critics had been engaged in the thankless task of educating the public taste, and of instructing dramatic authors in the true principles of the construction of stage-plays. At last, thank heaven, they were beginning to be appreciated at their proper value. Their names were becoming household words. The average reader, when he opened his World, turned first to the article signed "W. A." The same, or a similar person, rushed breathlessly through The Speaker until he was arrested by the magic initials "A. B. W." At this point Mr. Archer intervened with the remark that for himself, he might say there was only one article, the dramatic, in the Daily Telegraph that absolutely fascinated him; and Mr. Walkley, rising immediately afterwards, observed that, having studied the essays of M. Lemaître, he had no hesitation in saying that the pungent critiques of the Telegraph were equalled, he would not say surpassed, by the masterly aperçus of stage-craft to be found in Truth and the Illustrated London News. Mr. Clement Scott was visibly affected, and having with difficulty mastered his emotion, proceeded to shake both his colleagues by the hand, and in a voice broken with sobs thanked them for their tributes. He himself, he added, had endeavoured to make the stalls and the dress circle fit places for the flower of English maidenhood, for those beautiful, blushing British girls who were at once the joy of their families and the pride of our race. He then called upon all the members present to state what titles they preferred, intimating that, by the express desire of the committee, he himself was willing to become a Duke.