LONDON TABLE TALK.

Auckland Star, Volume XXII, Issue 145, 20 June 1891, Page 3 (Supplement)

LONDON TABLE TALK.

(FROM OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT.)

London, April 3.

Death of Lord Granville,

has been a fine, dry, and fairly sunny holiday week, with but one single circumstance to mar tho popular plea" lure, an oast wind. This subtly Bwrderou3 blast seldom blows in March or April withoub putting an end to the finite existence of some ailing celebrity. Poor Lord Granvillo succumbed to it on the present occasion. He had been 111 for some time, bub had commenced to tally slightly when the east wind arrived, and peremptorily settled matters. Well, his lordship lived a long, useful, fend (so far as one can judge) truly delightful life. There are few men of our time tvho will have been more sensibly missed, or more sincerely mourned. To all who knew him, no matter their eect or politics, Lord Granville's name stood " as a synonym for all that was mosb accomplished, courtly, and charming." The "Times " hints tlaab us a serious statesman, more especially as Secretary for Foreign Affaire, the deceased | peer failed ; but this ia not true. During tho period of his term of office, which covered the Franco-Prussian' War, Lord Cranville certainly found more than his Biatch in Prince Bismarck. The same thing Jnight, however, with equal truth bo said Of Lord Salisbury, and would scarcely bonvict him as a failure. Lord Granville, though "born in the W purple," was a capital man of busi%noss, tactful to a degree, and rich |in the saving grace of sound common feanse. "As a public speaker," writes (H. W. Lucy to his country papers, "he I was distinguished by a peculiarly bright } and natural vein of humour : and he was, withoub doubt, the boat after-dinner speaker i In England. ' I have taken the chair so often "at public dinners,' he used to say, • that my friends have nicknamed me Ten: Iα Chaise. , In private life Lord Granville wae delightful company. He was absslutely free from stiffness and pomposity. As a story-teller he was unsurpassed. He bad known everyone. He had ' warmed fcoth hands before the fire of life, had been everywhere, and had a happy knack of imparting its genial warmth to those around pirn.' " ' Mr Bennett, the London correspondent t>l the "Liverpool Mercury" and other Liberal organs, knew Lord Granville perhaps as well as any "lobbyist." He writes:—"The deceased nobleman had Siot an enemy. He had not even a perEonal opponent. Not an ill-natured expression from his mouth or from his pen has dwelb in men's memories. He was heroic in his amiability. I remember when Lord Granvillc and Mr Disraeli both had the gout together. Lord Granviile had to Bpeak in" the House of Lords swinging his foot in a sling, and making oratorical pauses when the twinges took him. Mr Disraeli avoided public speech. It so happened that I spoke with those who were in personal relations with both statesmen. 4 Mr Disraeli is very cross,' said Mr Disraeli's friends. 'Lord Granvillo seems to be most amiable when he is suffering most.' Lord Granville pointed his sarcasms, but never poisoned the tips with any Euggestion of thought which could produce rancour." A Diplomatic Use of his Good Stories. "Lord Granville," proceeds the correspondent," was ono of the most delightful of men. He was fui! of anecdotes. He spoke French better than any English Foreign Secretary that we have known in the present century, and he told stories to Ambassadors in the French language as readily as lie told tnles to a public audience. He knew how on occasion to make diplomatic use of the charm of his conversation. Once, during the disputes which marked the last years of the Cabinet of 1880, ho had appointed to entertain at dinner some of the ambassadors, for the purpose of settling certain matters which, as he subsequently found, he was not in a position to arrange. That night he was exuberant. His guests forgot the passage of time. (I tell the tale &3 it was told to me.) When the hour of breaking up came they had all forgotten, as he intended them to do, the purpose for which they had assembled. In hie public Epeeeh Lord Granville made great use of this faculty. Will there ever again be such dinoers as he gave ? Himself no gourmand, he hated long dinners. His repasts were offered to his guests with wine of the best. He sab them not on the ordinary highbacked seats, but on low easy chairs, where they could almost recline ab their ease. He gathered around him all sorts and conditions of men, and anybody he thought likely to instruct him, and tried to win their personal confidence. His dislike of long dinners was displayed on one occasion with great effect. The Cobden Club was wont some years ago to celebrate the memory of the most simplehearted of men by the mosb extravagantly elaborate and rich feast that ever preceded political speechmaking. Lord Granville, on taking the chair, boasted that he had cut off I do not know how many courses, and advised a further excision when next the Club met at Greenwich to dine. Apropos, a good story is told of Lord Granville looking in at a famous Paris restaurant and finding Mr Matthew Arnold there. The poet had ordered bis dinner, and the Earl came and sab at his table. Lord Granville ordered one dish after soup, and one Bmall bottle of wine. Mr Arnold, though alone, had made arrangements for an elaborate banquet. The patient Earl sat on and talked, wondering while the poet proceeded with his voluptuous repast, and I believe he did remind Mr Arnold (this is the nearest approach to malice that ever Lord Granville displayed) that he had just been applying to the Treasury for an increase of his salary ac inspector of schools. Political. The stars in their courses are surely fighting for Mr Parnell. At the end of last week the McCarthyites had, as I explained to you, gob their late revered chief into a naaty corner. To carry out his selfInstituted challenge to Maurice Healy would be extremely dangerous; to funk and back out would be ignominious. The McCarthyites chuckled and rubbed their hands with delight. Alas ! whilst they were thus engaged Cork Town Hall and Cork Parliamentary Register wero burning. If Mr Parnell now resolved to accept Mr Maurice Healey's ofler and take the Chiltern Hundreds in order to obtain, as the St. James's rudely says, " an authoritative decision as to which is pot and which is kettle," there would be a great deal of trouble about the election. The Parliamentary Register having been burned, an Act of Parliament would be necessary before an election could take place. Months ab any rate must elapse before anything of the eort would be possible. It is now, thereforo, Mr Parnell'e turn to chuckle and rub his hands, and that of the Healyites to feel cornered. They can only revenge themselves by hinting darkly at incendiarism, etc., etc. Tim Healy is ab present in dry dock for repairs, or, to pub the matter more dearly, abhome with a dentist and oculist in attendance. It seems one of Mr Parnoll's faithful followers, learning the treacherous Tim was in Cork, tracked him to his hotel, and withoub _ much ado smashed his spectacles into his eyes, and knocked four front teebh don n his throat. Mr Healy has nob failed through the press to charge Mr Parnell with secretly inspiring this attack. " I know Mr Fox's methods," be rashly confesses, "I've seen this trick done before. Parnell gave ordere I was to be prevented from taking part in Sligo election. The orders havo been carried out. ®W\ * P«o*Bh the &URul , teo j

he xv&3 acting patriotically ? No, a thousand times no. It is the man who misleads the people and misuses his power I deeire to geb at." Meanwhile, Mr Parnell, who is at Sligo himself, has been jeering in hie mosb contemptuous and insulting manner at " foulmouthed " Tim Heaiy, " maudlin" Tom Sexton, and the "hysterical" Davitt. These men, he alleges, who now profess themselves so shocked at his "adulterous inbricrue," were for yeare well aware of his c:,::.uetion with Mrs O'Shea, and winked at ib. In order to stab his enemies in their tenderesb parts, Mr Parnell has no objection nowadays to (vulgarly speaking) give himself away. The above speech is an instance of this. What Mr Parnell supposes sane English people think of him I can's imagine. Some days he all but flatly denies the adultery, others ho frankly avows it, but treats the matter as an episode in his private career with which the public have nothing to do, and in others again ho darkly hints at treachery and the misery of beiug misunderstood. Mr Stead, I hear, is compiling a series of extracts from Mr Fox's recent speeches, with which he hopes to finally pulverise the discrowned king. Some think Parnoll will stand a lot of pulverising yet. Keally however, he must be in pretty bad case and know it. The Cork affair indicates this. If he fears to trust the ballot box in his own particular stronghold ho musfa bolieve his power has really gone and he is clinging to a shadow. Since writing; the foregoing I learn that some of the Parliamentary registers doposited in Cork Town Hall were saved. It is, however, very doubtful whether an election could at present take place. The Faversham Case. Tue acquittal of Charles Lyddon for the alleged poisoning of his brother, Dr. Lyddon, ab Favorsham, though fairly generally anticipated, was largely due to the brilliant defence of Mr Henry Fielding Dickens (a son of the novelist), who managed to tear the damnatory police evidence simply to tatters. Dr. Lyddon was a bachelor, a drunkard, and a morphio-maniac, and continually quarrelling with his younger brother. More than once, when the pair were both drunk, the pageboy has had to send for the police in order to prevent them killing each othor. Thue, when the doctor was found dead in bed one fine morning with an empty morphia bottle en the floor beside him, suspicion fell on Chas. Lyddon. The fact was the local constable promptly made up his mind the young man had "been and goneand doneitf'this time, and invented numerous circumstantial triiies to fit in with his theory. Fortunately, Mr Dickens was able to show: —(1) That the deceased took morphine habitually, and on the night of his death (being unusually drunk) bad imbibed an overdose. (2) That Cha3. Lyddon's every interest (financial and otherwise) centred on keeping deceased alive. " Diamond Deane." The danger of puffing a play overzealously beforehand is that the first-night audience expects great things, and should the performance not come up to their anticipations they are apb to be cross. This was what occurred at the Vaudeville last Thursday evening. We had all been told that the gentleman rejoicing in the peculiar patronymic of Dam (the "Telegraph" considering "Dam" too improper, re-christened him " Darn ") was a genius, and that "Diamond Deane" would wake up Pinero, Chambore, Jones and Co. When therefore this bolauded piece proved to be a very ordinary melodrama with a more than usually impossible plot, wo felt taken in, and roundly damned Dam: The piece is not, however, wholly without good points. The plot hanga arpund the machinations of an adventuress, one Diamond Deane, an Ibseny girl who believe 3 that her hereditary tendencies to crime are too great to enable her to restrain them, and therefore (vulgarly speaking) lets herself go. Discovering that a wealthy bub wicked nobleman loves her employer's wife, Miss Deane disguises herself up as that lady, and gives the enamoured nobleman seciet interviews, in the course of which she extracts from him jewels and coin. Madam's husband, of course, gets jealous and watches her. He sees Diamond, dressed up as his wife, meet the wicked nobleman by night, and jumps to most erroneous conclusions. The innocent) wife denies her guilt, and finally appeals to her supposed paramour. "I adjure you tell the truth to my husband," she cries ; " was I with you ?" "You were," he replies solemnly, and down comes tho curtain. In Act IV. Miss Deane incontinently repents and confesses all. The chief weakness of this plot of course lies in the supposition that the wicked nobleman could be taken in by Diamond Deane's disguise. Even in the dark a man can usually toll the woman he loves from another. Theatrical Notes. Theatrical folks are all and always the same. They talk and think of absolutely nothing bub " shop." This gets terribly wearisome to the outsider after a time, but onco in a way actors' gossip is by no means unentertaining. Last week, for inetance, I happened to be amongst a little clique of the profession who were discussing recent successes. One of the chief men present advanced the theory that, undoubted good plays though they were, it was tho touch of suggestiveness which drew euch crowds to "The Idler" and "The Dancing Girl." Of course this was pooh-poohed, upon which the speaker said, " How then do you account for the failure of ' Woodbarrow Farm' and ' Sunlight and Shadow V " I said I always understood the latter was a big bit. "That," replied my informant, "is what the public supposes, bub tho truth happens to be something very different. ' Sunlight and Shadow' was, you remember, wonderfully well acted and rapturously received by a critical audience. The entire pross praised the play, dwelling strongly on ite pleasant, wholesome story, and Geo. Alexander's sympathetic rendering of the chief part. Nevertheless, the piece didn't draw. Alexander papered the house and ran it on and on, confident that, like ' Dorothy,' ' Sunlight) and Shadow' would presently attract. Instead of tho move te the St. Jamee's interrupting a successful run, as mosb people supposed, the management hoped the change would give the comedy a much - needed fillip. Alexander losb several thousand pounds over this ostensible success. How do I account for the failure ? Simply by the fact> that the tea-cup-and-saucer comedy of the Kobertson period has had its day. To draw the great B.P. (as distinguished from the 'regular playgoer'), you must have a morbid or indecent motive, and if you can judiciously veil it as in 'The Dancing Girl,' so much the better. Look at the way these dull pieces of Ibsen are takftig. People go to see them out of curiosity, they're quite too awful, yer know-" The Queen has sent Mr Hare a beautiful scarf pin as a memento of the Garrick Company's visit to Windsor. The design is a crown over V.R. in diamonds. "a farcical comedy called " Our Doctors," by Sir Randall Roberts and the late Joe Mackay, was produced at Terry's Theatre the othor day. It depends for success on one solitary idea, which grows weaker and more attenuated as the play progresses. In order to prosecute a love affair, Jack Wentworfeh, artist, pretends to be a medical man. He is called into consultation with real doctors, and endlees complications ensue for an hour and a half, when the curtain finally descends. When will budding dramatists learo that one idea doesn't make a play any p,§ye tfeftß fiSJS SffftUgff

It cannot be urged that there is no money in "The Henrietta," for Mr Bronson Howard's play is all money from end to end. It was produced ab the Avenue Theatre on Saturday evening lasb, and despite much Wall-streeb jargon and many American jokes, which no one could see the point of, scored an indubitable success. Forry'e Theatre will re-open on Easter Monday with a revival of Pinero's " The Rocket," originally written for the lessee in his Gaiety days. A revival of Charles Reade's " Never Too Late to Mend " succeeds the pantomime at Drury Lane, Charles Warner playing Tom Robinson, which is generally conceded to be his beat pare. Tho "English Rose" ecarcely promised to bo a big hit when first produced, yet the 200 th performance has just been celebrated, and the piece otill runs merrily to capita business. Unquestionably the Adelphi is one of the safest theatres in London, from a lessee's point of viow. A good audience can always be relied on, providing the enlightenment) is a hob and strong melodrama. Mr Bronson Howard has been busy all week rehearsing the strong company which produces hie mining play " The Henrietta," ab the Avenue Theatre, to-morrow. Tlu3 piece had a big success in New York, bub it by no means follows a similar triumph is certain here. It ia very American in touo. Literary Notes. The editor of the " National Observer " is in town, and has been entertaining his staff at dinner. Whistler was present and in capital form, letting off his verbal firoworks with the ease and dexterity of frequent practice. It would nob be fair to repeat these witticisms, as withoub tho great impressionist's inimitable manner of delivering them they lose half their point. The lady who under the pseudonym of "Frank Danby" perpetrated "Dr. Phillips " and " A Babe in Bohemia," in writing a " daring " play for Mr Grein'a Freo and Independent [i.e., easy) Theatre. In "Her Evil Genius" Mr Frederick Boyle attempts to draw an artist of much the same elaborately complex character as Mrs Harrison's able creation in " Tho Wages of Sin." Tho plot of "Her Evil Genius" turns on the old expedient of " ringing in" an impostor on well-meaning folks who are seeking for a long-lost heir. The fourteenth edition of "Men of the Time." now called " Men and Women of the Time," is greatly enlarged and improved ; in fact, to all intents and purposos, a new book. A fresh editor has been turned on, and several hundred biographies added. Many colonial celebrities are, "however, still wanting. Mrs Arthur Stannard gave a mosb successful party on Saturday last, to inaugurate Jno. Strange Winter's new weekly " Golden Gates." Amongsb contributors present were Mr 3 Walford, Jean Middlemas, Adeline Sergeant, Mr Hornung (author of " A Bride from the Bush "), and a whole host of journalistic notabilities.