"Oh, hang it!" cried Opposition—"can't agree to that."
Divided on proposal; beaten, and Sage hung up for a week. "He'll be pretty well dried by that time," grimly muttered the Attorney-General, whom the Sage had stroked the wrong way.
Business done.—Vote on Account agreed to.
"A DOSE OF GREGORY."
The Ruffled Hare. "This is your umbrella!"
It is some time since I have tasted a dramatic mixture so much to my liking as Mr. Grundy's Gregory's Mixture, known to the public, and likely to be highly popular with the public too, as A Pair of Spectacles. Art more refined than Mr. Hare's, as Benjamin Goldfinch in this piece, has not been seen on the stage for many a long day; nor, except in A Quiet Rubber, do I remember Mr. Hare having had anything like this particular chance of displaying his rare skill as a genuine comedian of the very first rank.
Everyone remembers, or ought to remember, Dickens's "Brothers Cheeryble." Well, Benjamin Goldfinch has all the milk of human kindness which characterised these philanthropic Gemini. As to moral characteristics, he is these two single gentlemen rolled into one, while physically, his exterior rather conjures up the picture of Harold Skimpole, though his eyes beam with the youthful impetuosity of old Martin Chuzzlewit when he caned Pecksniff. To this delightfully guileless good Samaritan, the rough, nay brutal, Uncle Gregory from Sheffield, with a heart apparently as hard as his own ware, is a contrast most skilfully brought out by Mr. Charles Grove. Though the part of Uncle Gregory does not require the delicate treatment demanded by that of Goldfinch, yet it might very easily be overdone; but never once does Mr. Grove overshoot the mark, although the author has imperilled its success by too frequent repetition of a catch-phrase, "I know that man," "I know that father," "I know that friend," and so forth, which is sometimes on the verge of becoming wearisome. Indeed, even now, I should be inclined to cut out at least half a dozen of these variations of the original phrase. His short but sufficient representation of the effects of too much lunch on Uncle Gregory is masterly. So realistic, in the best sense of the word, is the impersonation of these two characters, that one is inclined to resent the brutality of Uncle Gregory, when one sees the change suddenly effected in the sweet and sympathetic nature of Benjamin Goldfinch, and when we see him suspicious of everybody, and even of his young wife, whom he loves so dearly, we murmur, "Oh, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!" And, indeed, but that it is impossible to help laughing from first to last, the final scenes of this charming piece, replete with touches of real human nature, would send an audience away crying with joy, to think of the possible goodness existent in the world, of which one occasionally hears, but so seldom sees, except on the stage.
