The Press.
London, England, 1856-03-15 00:00:00

THE PRESS. -

LAST SCENE OF " THE PREMIER."
(A play in course of production.)
SCENE THE LAST —The Council Chamber.
KIND PAN is discovered, seated. Various Nobles, Ministers, and Members of Par.
lianicnt grouped about the stage.
PAM.

War, war, no peace; peace is to me a war !
ARGYLL (aside).
Peace is from him awa, the body means.
PAM (overheating).
Detested prodigy, wilt hold thy tongue ?
Is this a time for thine impertinence,
When we await the message that shall make
Or else unmake us ? Hast no sense, no feeling ?
A word :s coming, ay, and on the wire
Perchance is quivering now, that sets us strong,
Or cooks our goose for ever and a day,
And thou ca.nst jest !

ARGYLL.
Indeed, then, Ijust can,
And in the fact learn thou a wholesome moral.

PAM.

Hang everything that's wholesome or that's moral!
I'm in no mood for sermons, Duke, mind that.

ARGYLL.
But, as your mood is not potential, now,
Excuse me if I care not for your scowl.
The case is this, I take it. In an hour
Lord Clarendon will telegraph a Peace.

PAM.
Be dumb, be dumb, thou golden-crested raven,
Or croak that, maybe, he will signal War.
ARGYLL.
May bees don't fly in March, and if they did
There's no such honey-making as you hope.
Already in the guns the powder lurks
That shall announce to London—" Peace is made";
Already the Archbishop shapes a collect
(Better, let's hope, than was his Grace's last) ;
Already lamps are trimmed, and gas-pipes laid,
And rum transparencies are painting green
For the illumination. In a month
Russia 's a noble country, all her sons
Are heroes, Alexander 's Solomon,
And war a thing to be abused ad lib.
By all philanthropists who lately roared
For blood, in thunder.

WOO D.
Duke, my gifted boy,
This is unkind to him, and to us all.
AnotFer bou- way doom our Cabinet
To ruin. Well you know we can't survive
Pacification.

ARGYLL.
You. But Stafford-house
Has now_ ht to fear irk m peao,:. Its members sit
In any Cabinet.

GRANVILLE.
0 yes, of course.
Derby is sure to offer you a place.
ARGYLL (haughtily).
Beware, or if the Queen should send for me
I may forget that I might send for you.
PAM.

Cease, case this bickering. Would the news were come !
Is there a fellow at the telegraph
Ready to read it off?

F. PEEL.
All will be done
With regularity. It were unusual
To keep a person waiting at the place,
As he would charge for over-time and cab-hire,
Besides the violation of routine.
PAM (in fury).
Go, hang thyself up in the reddest tape
That ever blushed around the meanest scroll
That the most peddling little lawyer's clerk
Ever engrossed ! Get out, Fred. Peel, I say !

That we hold office only till such time
As our suceessois?—ah! you know the form !
LEWIS.
I'll to my Books, and to my Blue and Yellow.
HALL.
I'll to my Works, abandoned for the nation's.

253

GRANVILLE.
And I'll to Healthful Play, as in the days
When Lord John Russell took me from the Buckhounds.
PAM (sings, wildly).
In Books, or Works, or Healthful Play,
Let all your time be past,
And think no more of Quarter-day,—
Your last accounts are cast.
PANMCRE.
'Tis like a hymn, and yet I do not like it.
Uprouse thee, Pam, the Cabinet's not dead.
Never say die, save when you talk of whiskers.
And please don't sing again—those saddening strains
May be permitted to the Cygnus moriens,
But we're not dying swans.
PAM.

Spake falsely, Pan.

Why then the Voice

PAN.

What Voice ?
PAM.

The one that cried
Great Pan w•as dead. I'm glad to see you well.
Ha! ha! Ho ! ho ! In fact you're sold again.
Let's buy a penny buster with the money.
PAN.

It seems to me you talk atrocious nonsense.
PAM.

Is it the first time you have heard me do it?
ALL.

There spoke our friend! Richard's himself again !
Enter VERNON SMITH, hastily.
PAM.
Now, speak, speak, speak—out with it—look alive !
V. SMITH.
First, let me give you all a solemn caution,
Never to deal with that unrighteous glover
With whom I left these sixteen pairs of gloves,
For he has cleaned them in the vilest way,
And made them smell of turpentine until
They're quite unbearable just smell them, do.
PAM (snatching the gloves, and pelting V. SMITH round and round the
room with them).
_

Perdition catch thy arm, and both thy hands,
And all the gloves thou putt'st upon the same !
Take that, and that, and that one in thy eye,
And that to cure it—there—and that, and that !
Now, what's the message? Answer in one word,
Or, by the great Lord Harry, I'll go off
And ask the Queen to take away the name
She did prefix to thy plebeian one,
And thou shalt be a Smith, nought else, till domesday !
The Isord ?

V. SMITH.
The word is PEACE ! The treaty's signed.
Paris is mad with bonfires.

[General
PAM (very slowly).

You say well.
Right well, Sir Vernon—that shall be hereafter.
The word is Peace. 'Tis well—'tis very well.
Peace is the thing I've always struggled after,
The proud conclusion of a righteous war,
And I'm delighted—and you're all delighted—
Highly delighted ; And we'll all sit down
Under our olive-branches and our figs
(Or what the text may be—l'm bad at texts)
And live in harmony and Christian love,
And—(shouting)—d— the Peace and deuce pick up the pieces.
[Rualies out frantically.

CURTAIN FALLS.

WEST-END GOSSIP.
(From a Correspondent of the "Morning Enlightener.")

IT was currently stated in high political circles last night that Lord
Palmerston, having nobly consummated his bottle-holding and
nationality-fawning career by inviting Prussia to take part in the
Conferences, will now retire from political life, and be raised to the
Upper House, receiving a Dukedom and the Garter. He has not yet,
we believe, nominated his successor in the Premiership. He is too
sensible to imitate the example of Caligula, though not less powerful
than that celebrated Grecian tyrant. We have some reason to think
that he intends to propose a favorite footman to the Reform Club.
Whether this report be correct o: not, there can be no doubt that the
Liberal party will joyfully receive whatever successor the Noble
Viscount may be pleased to appoint to succeed him in the post he has
deigned to fill.