Punch, Or The London Charivari | Page 7

to accomplish the somewhat paradoxical-sounding feat of shining in the same parts, yet in different places and at different times, appearing everywhere with undiminished brilliancy. The Student of the Music-Hall Planetary system, has only by observation to ascertain the exact time and place of the appearance of his favourite bright particular Star, and then to pay his money, take his choice between sitting and standing, and like a true astronomer, he will--glass in hand, a strong glass too,--await the great event of the evening, calmly and contentedly.
If the Wirtuous Westender wandering down the Strand, after having on some previous nights exhausted the Pavilion and the elaborately gorgeous Variety Shows given at the Empire and Alhambra, seeks for awhile a resting-place wherein to enjoy his postprandial cigar, and be amused, if such an one will drop into the classic Tivoli, he will find excellent entertainment, that is as long as their present programme holds the field. The Holborn and the Oxford may delight him on other nights, for it seems that much the same Stars shine all around; but for the present, taking Tivoli as synonymous with Tibur, he may, with Horation humour, say to himself ("himself" being not a bad audience as a rule):--
"Holborn Tibur amem ventosus, Tivoli Holborn,"
and he can then enter the Tivoli, now under the benign rule of that old Music Hall Hand, CAROLUS MORTONIUS, M.A., Magister Agens, while the experienced Mr. VERNON DOWSETT--"_Experientia Dowsett_"--manages the stage. Good as is the entire show, and especially good as is the performance of Mr. CHARLES GODFREY as an old Chelsea Pensioner recounting to several little Peterkins a touching and heart-stirring tale of the Crimean War, yet for me, the Costermonger Songs of Mr. ALBERT CHEVALIER are the great attraction. His now well-known "_Coster's Serenade_," and his "_Knocked 'em in the Old Kent Road_," are supplemented by a song and dialogue about a Coster's son, a precocious little chap, about three years old, and "only that 'igh, you know," in whom his father takes so great a pride that it works his own temporary reformation. It is so natural as to be just on the borderland between farce and pathos, and recalls time past, when ROBSON played _The Porter's Knot_, and such-like pieces. Now what more do Music Halls want than what Mr. CHEVALIER gives them? This is the very essence of a dramatic sketch of character, given in just the time it takes to sing the song,--that is, about ten minutes, if as much. The compact orchestra, under the directorship of Mr. ASHER, discourses excellent accompaniments, and the music of the CHEVALIER's songs--composed, I believe, by himself--is not the least among the attractions. The CHEVALIER, who, as he takes more than one turn every evening, may be termed a Knight Errant, is certainly the Coster's Laureate and accepted Representative in the West; the mine, which is his own, is inexhaustible. He is a magician in his own peculiar line, and may write himself ALBERTUS MAGNUS.
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"AL FRESCO," the Lightning Artist, whose full name is "ALFRED FRESCO," writes to suggest that the Alhambra under Mr. JOHN HOLLINGSHEAD's management should start a Rotten Row Galop and Kensington Gardens Quadrille to follow as in a series the highly successful Serpentine Dance.
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NOVEL QUARTETTE.--At the next Hereford Festival there will be performed a concerted piece by four Short Horns.
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[Illustration: STARTLING DISCOVERY ON THE YORKSHIRE COAST.
Young Tripper (_on his first visit to the Sea, becoming suddenly conscious of the ebbing Tide_). "HI! BILL! JACK! T'WATTER BE A RUNNIN' OFF! BY GUM, LADS, BUT AI BET SHE'S BRUSSEN SOMEWHERES!"]
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THE POOR VIOLINIST.--AN EPISODE, IN THE STYLE OF STERNE.
"_Le Luthier de Cr��mone_," observed EUGENIUS, "is a pathetic story."
"Indeed, EUGENIUS," replied YORICK, "it is extremely touching. I protest I never read, or hear it, without emotion."
"The violin," pursued EUGENIUS, "most sensitive, and, as it were, soulful of human instruments, lends itself, with particular aptness, to the purposes of literary pathos."
"Dear Sensibility!" said I, "source inexhausted of all that is precious in our (poetical) joys, or costly in our (dramatic) sorrows!"
"It were well," continued YORICK, drily, "if it were also the source inexhausted of more that is quick in our sympathy, and practical in our beneficence. It is scarcely in the columns of the daily news-sheet that Sensibility usually seeks its much-sought stimulus. And yet but lately, in the corner of my paper, I encountered a piteous story that 'dear Sensibility' (had it been more romantically environed) might deliciously have luxuriated in. I protest 'twas as pathetic as those of MARIA LE FEVRE, or LA FLEUR. It was headed, "Sad Death of a Well-known Violinist."
"Prithee, dear YORICK, let me hear it," cried EUGENIUS.
"'Twas but the prosaic report of a Coroner's Inquest," pursued YORICK. "Sensibility would