OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
In the Baron's Good Books.
Delightful reminiscences are these of George Augustus Sala's, told in his own peculiar rattling-off, running-on, one-anecdote-down-t'other-come-on style. Of all "people he has met" he has plenty to say, but nil nisi bonum; all writ with a magnum-bonum pen. Once he was a "Gipsy King, ha! ha!" but, long ago, as he tells us, he renounced all claims to the throne of Bohemia, abdicated, retired, and, no more a Rad, has led a Reformed Club life. Who wrote the burlesque Eugene Aram verses, ending with,—
"And George Augustus walked before,
With gyves upon his wrist"?
All the notabilities of his earlier days were mentioned in that poem, at least so I believe, for does it not belong to a date when the Baron had not come within measurable distance of his title when he watched the great guns from afar with awe; when he saw them in the Cyder Cellars and at Evans's, both of which night resorts he, having been first taken there by a kindly but injudicious man-about-town, subsequently patronised on such holidays as were offered to him by the jovial nights after the Eton and Harrow matches at Lord's, and on the eve of such a festival as the University Boat Race. The Baron in those happy days and nights was attired in the costume in which Richard Doyle has dressed young Clive Newcome when he accompanied his father, the Colonel, on that ever memorable evening to The Cave of Harmony, and heard the song that made him so wrathful. There are no Cyder Cellars, Coal Holes, and Evans's nowadays, which owlish resorts were strictly restricted to the use of the male sex, young and old. But even if a kind, considerate legislature does insist on extinguishing the lights, and turning us out in the streets at 12.30 precisely, are morality and health so very much benefited by the process? Isn't it cheerful to read of the pleasantly convivial late hours in the Georgian Augustan Era? The celebrities at home and abroad that he knew were legion, and I'll be bound (as the Book said) that he hasn't emptied his memory stores by many a cupboard full. There is one sentiment which appeals to the Baron's head, heart, and pocket, and delighteth him hugely—it is George Augustus's righteous denunciation of "the unjust and iniquitous income-tax." The Baron says ditto to Mr G. A. S. at p. 310, vol. ii. Inter alia, the autobiographist is correct in saying that Madison Morton's Box and Cox was concocted from Une Chambre à Deux Lits "and another French farce," of which, as he doesn't give the name, the Baron will here take the liberty of mentioning it. It was a farce with music, that is to say a comédie-vaudeville en un acte, written by Messrs. Labiche and Lefranc, and produced at the Palais-Royal in 1846. Its name was Frisette. Box and Cox was produced in 1847 at the Lyceum. Very little furniture for the English farce was taken from Une Chambre à Deux Lits, but packages of dialogue were handed in to Box and Cox from Frisette.
The Baron de B.-W.
A GOD IN THE OS-CAR.
["Amongst the candidates for the Regius Professorship of History at Cambridge is Mr. Oscar Browning."—Daily Paper.]