"The Westminster Gazette," writes a correspondent from Venice, "has always been regarded by the Italian Press as the most insular of English newspapers." Still we think that La Difesa, of which he encloses an extract, goes too far in referring to our esteemed contemporary as La West-Monstergazette.
AT THE PLAY.
"The Basker."
Miss Hilda Moore as Mrs. Radford.
I imagine The Basker to be designed by "Clifford Mills" as a Tract against Dukes. And certainly her Duke of Cheviot is a miracle of obtuseness, who, if he had not been made a hero by his valet (an original and happy creation), would have grievously belied the proud old family motto, "Je me sauvegarde." George de Lacorfe, fashionable, fainéant and forty, reader of The Pink 'Un, ardent bachelor, Basker in short, suddenly finds the dukedom of Cheviot thrust upon him. Quite unlike his egregious ancestors, who went out and biffed their enemies in the gate, especially the Gorndykes, who were an unpleasant shifty kind of raiders, George proposes to resign all the Cheviot places, emoluments and responsibilities to his cousin and heir, Richard de Lacorfe, on the day the said Richard shall marry. Now Richard is a de Lacorfe with the hereditary Gorndyke blood and nose acquired on the distaff side. This conspicuous organ inflames the anger of George's grandmother, the dowager, steeped as she is in the history and prejudices of the family, while other members of the august circle harbour unkind thoughts about their kinsman.
And well they might. If anyone had "wrong 'un" written all over him it was Richard. Indeed his Roman nose was the straightest part of him. The guileless George who, though (or because) his grandmother presented him every birthday after his majority with a copy of The History of the de Lacorfes, knew and cared nothing about their glorious and stormy past, didn't suspect the Gorndyke rat in the de Lacorfe granary. Spendthrift Richard, who is always getting urgent blue envelopes from Samuel & Samuel, is bent on marrying for money the very Diana that George loves for her blue hyacinth eyes. There is a misunderstanding between George and Diana (of such a childlike ingenuousness as to suggest that really this too easy spot-stroke should be barred to playwrights), and the idiotic girl promptly engages herself to Richard, who is of course in love with a patently naughty married woman. The most reckless of lovers from the moment when in his ardour he (apparently) bites this lady's hand in the First Act, in full view of the family, till he plans a flirtation by the Cheviot postern gate on the very eve of his marriage to Diana, he is an obviously doomed villain. The lady is surprised by George in the act of knocking thrice on the said postern within. When three knocks are heard without together with the voice of Richard, the Duke really begins to suspect something. Virtuous imbecility prevails over villainous stupidity. The final blow is dealt upon the Gorndyke nose. Diana is retrieved by this last of the safe-guarders, and we are left to a melancholy calculation as to what the mental capacity of their issue is likely to be.
