The Press.
London, England, 1855-06-16 00:00:00

576

deeply interesting to lovers of Ireland. Of course, if one
Irish member speaks, five others must attack him, and
five more must batter his sssailants, so that an Irish row
helped on the evening until half after :due. Then
the Speaker retired, with views which strangers interpret
according to their respective natures—it being a moot
question, and variously decided, whether the right buuour-
able gentleman goer to take a chop, a yawn, a cigar, a
shower-bath. or a sherry-cobbler. Be returned. A cry of
order—down go the galleries—members to their places—
reporters learn forward—the Speaker glances at the Go-
veil:anent—a ministerial hat is moved—a Minister rises
for a moment, murmurs a few words—and the Speaker's
voice proclaims that at last the work of the night is on.
Then, crowded, and not in the best of temper, the house
addresses itself to listen. We may laugh—but the sight
of a constitutional assembly of free men waiting an expo-
sition from the Minister of a Constitutional Sovereign, is
a fine one, and suggestive of many a bloody historical page,
turned before that leaf was reached.
The following hint upon the regulation of our
jokes and our lives at the same time ought not to be
lightly passed over :
Never joke with dull people ; a joke's lost if it's not
understood, and a friend if it's misunderstood. Wait for a
safe audience, and in the meantime, talk about the weather,
and the advantage of railways in prumutiug communication.
One of the most amusing episodes in the book
concerns Miss Angela Livingstone, a pretty actress
at a minor theatre, and her lover, Mr. Paul Chequer-
bent. We have not space to notice the ball in which
they figure, and the disturbance caused by Paul's
tipsy jocularity, and the subsequent police investiga-
tion ; but every one who has spent a morning in a
police-court will testify to the truth of this eloquent
and impressive passage :
The Beak (magistrate] seated himself, and for some
time there passed before him a portion of the grim phan-
tasmagoria of depravity, want, and brutality, which every
morning surges up to the judgment-seat from the turbid
sea of London existence. The wife, foully battered and
bruised by her husband, came as usual, and hardly raised
her swollen eyes to deny his counter-charge of drunken-
ness and aggravation. The mother was there to beg the
law to protect her from the child that robbed and kicked
her, and the sullen and vicious cub replied with a lie of
starvation and ill-usage. 'the baby was laid, all bones and
bruises, before the minister of justice, to testify that a
beast's dam is kinder than some baptised and married
mothers. Vile women, hoarse and pert, told their shame-
less quarrels, and bared their flesh to show the wounds of
nails and teeth. A brawny ruffian, his bead and face
seamed with crimson plasters, pleaded that drink bad
maddened him, and hoped that the blows he had received
before he could be secured, might atone for his having muti-
lated three or four officers. Children were placed behind
a barrier, over which nothing but their shock hair and
bright eyes could be seen, to be judged for pilfering, while
the Jew fence, or the marine-store-keeping Christian, lurked
near the door to hear whether his pupils were to rejoin
him at once, or after some whipping and imprisonment.
A lithe-limbed pick-pocket took his thirtieth sentence
with a pleasant bow to his judge; an Irish beggar-woman
sobbed and howled frightfully during the hearing, and then
'bog a stone at the chief clerk's bald head ; a maniac
preacher announced hie divine mission, with hideous cries
about eternal fire and the undying worm ; and a consump-
tive gay woman, in yellow satin and a lace bonnet, was
bound over not to assault a brown and corpulent hag, who
lent her the trappings for her dreadful trade, and exacted
in return nearly the last sixpence it produced. Such was
some of the " cases "of the day. Take a chair in a police-
court for one morning, and you will, perhaps, go away with
a resolve to do quietly, and to the best of your power, the
work which lies nearest your hand, but not to shout very
much fur the future when Mr. Sadducee, in the Commons,
boasts about this enlightened age ; and Earl Pharisee, in
the Lords, brags about this Christian nation.
When Carlyon presents his play to the manager,
Mr. Dilligroat, he receives some shrewd hints on the
theatrical tastes of the day :
I don't care what a piece is, provided it has situations.
Those are the things. It goes against the temper of you
literary gentlemen to know that the pieces which really
develop the powers of the actors, send the audience into
screams of laughter, and bring in the money—pieces, there-
fore, which a manager is always glad to accept and produce,
are not the work of your white handed, thoughtful men,
who think and construct, and study, and re-write, and all
that. No, sir, the pieces that do good to the house are
chiefly vamped up from old French farces, by the aid of a
dictionary, by people who take a business view of matters,
do as they are bid, and hack and slice their work to order,
until it suits me and my actors, and then take their money.
You gentlemen, until you are well broken, write plays to
bring out yourselves and your own ideas—not to help the
actors and please the audience. Do you know that, Mr.
Cal lyon ?
It is not possible by extracts to do justice to a
novel distinguished by so much variety of character,
rapidity of action, and humorous incident. " Aspen
C Jurt," notwithstanding its liveliness, is eminently a
thoughtful book, reflecting shades of" many-coloured
life" in their native brilliancy or depth with the power
of a skilful artist, and the feeling of a mind to which,
from its wide sympathies, the celebrated " Homo
stm" of Terence is peculiarly applicable. A gallery
of characters might be culled from the book, plainly
drawn f.om life, and, whatever their virtues and
vices, strongly human in all their lineaments. Mr.
Brooks, in I is first novel, has achieved such decided
success that we hope shortly to meet him again upon
this ground.