SEARCHLIGHTS.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9289, 14 December 1895, Page 8

SEARCHLIGHTS.

The latest contribution to Shakespearian scholarship comes from a prohibitionist orator down Timaru way. Needless to say it is another theory—still another—about the character of Hamlet. This gentleman (the orator, I mean, not Hamlet), in a recent temperance harangue, boldly claimed Hamlet as a prohibitionist, and in support recited his speech against the "heavy-beaded revel" of King Claudius, which "makes us traduced of other nations who clepe us drunkards and with swinish phraae soil our addition." He not merely claimed Hamlet as a prototype of the temperance reformers, but boldly declared that had the great dramatiat lived in the 19th century " Shakespeare, immortal Shakespeare, my brethren, would have been found fighting on oca side." Needless to say the statement waa received witb vociferous cheers. I am sorry to upset the little theory. It is trne Hamlet may be proved to be pretty well anything. It has been asserted, for example, he is an Irishmau because he swears by St. Patrick. But a prohibitionist I fear he can'c be ; for does he not declare " I could—a drink—a hot berlud I"—which is surely not a temperance beverage ? And does he not in the same scene on the battlements hint to Marcellus that " it is a nipping and an eager air ?"

Noticing a paragraph in the paper recently about tbe new ventilator in Sr. Michael's, which waa declared to be " a handaome addition to the old church —in the form of a minaret," I strolled round that way. Whenever I hear of additions to churches in the place 1 always shudder with apprehenaion. There is a mania here for distiguriDg chuich architecture—as witness that icedwedding cake addition to the Cathedral. And tne "minaret" on St. Michael's— shades of Wren and Inigo Jonss—useful it may be —ventilation I suppose ia one of the utilities —but " a handaome addition to tbe church ! " Why in the world didn't they stow a drain-pipe atop of the church, aud be done with it 1 St. Michael's I always think is one of the prettiest churches here. Why must they go ami let a drainage engineer stick a thing like that ou top of it ?

And that reminds mc. I happened to observe for the first time the other day the vane on the church at Woolston. The church is called St. Peter's —in honour, no doubt, of the keeper of the keys of Heaven. But the spire terminates in a cock—a gilded cock, —and, unless I miatbke its jaunty attitude and its open beak —a cock in the very act of crowing ! Do tbe parishioners really believe St. Peter will take them under hia special patronage after a little thing like that ? Let ua charitably assume it was a case of absent mindedness, and no offence was intended.

However the public may have regarded the collapse of the Worthington case, to the jurors at least it was a source of chagrin, they hung about that court for two hours or more, while the legal fraternity argufied, and then were sent away empty handed. In vain they pleaded with the Registrar to pay them. They had stood and waited for hours, they declared. But, said he, they had not been,sworn in, and so, though summoned as jurors, they hadn'o served. The worthy Registrar evidently forgot that "Tbey also serve who only stand and wait."

The Auckland people after much tribulation, much paying of calls, bave arrived at a new and perfectly scientific classification of the genus liar. There are thre9 degrees of mendacity they say : a liar, a carnation liar, and a mining expert. The Premier cannot have been aware of this classification when he began his evidence before the Midland Railway Arbitration Court, with naive admission :—" I am Premier of the colony and— a mimng expert." Hutchison abandoned the case at that stage.

If Ibsen reads the English magazines and follows tbe course of English play-writing, how be must chortle and chuckle to himself in his retreat at Munich, or wherever he, for the time being, chooses .to hide from the interviewer and the autograph hunter. Five short years ago, the British Philistine rose in his wrath and turned upon him. Tbe moral sense of tbe British nation revolted from the " dirty Scandinavian," as Robert Buchanan politely called him. He was practically hooted off tbe English stage. Even so capable an actress as Miss Achurch could not reconcile a London public to the " Dolls' House "—and " Ghosts " was simply howled off the boards. But tbe British Philistine has come round ! The public, who were shocked by Ibsen's Nora, has welcomed with open arms the "Second MrsTanqueray," and the notorious "Mrs Ebbsmith." Ibsen's statement of thb marriage problem was morbid, immoral, revolting, and yet the English drama has been nothiug since but a series of permutations and combinations of the same matrimonial problem. His dramatic methods were all wrong; be committed the heinous offence, in tbe eyes of the British critic, of writing plays that were not " well made," and to-day these very methods have driven the conventional " well-made " play out of existence. He offended against all the good old canons of dramatic construction which demand that every curtain must drop on a " picture" and the last on a tag. His own device of ending every play in a note of interrogation was irritable and intolerable to the critics. And now even tbe author of "Lady Windermere's Fan," original in everything else, constructs his plays on the Ibsen model. His ideals, his art, bis methods, are slavishly imitated by every playwright of note in England at the present day. It was his "Doll's House" that alone has made such plays as " Mrs Tanqueray" possible. They hooted Ibsen and applaud his imitators. And so the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.

I happened on Wednesday nigbt, in the Theatre Royal, to sit next to a gentleman who is a great local authority on the dramatic art—no less a person than a distinguished member of the Ricbmond-cum-Linwood Amateur Dramatic Club. He kindly gave mc his impressions of the play as it proceeded. " They ain't actors ; they are just a lot of toffs who walk on and do the la-di-da. I'm a bit of an actor myself, you know." Curious to learn how the performers fell short of bis ideal, I asked him what they did wrong. "It isn't what they do," he explained, " it's what they don't do — not enough business." And presently Mr Brough gave him an opportunity of illustrating his criticism. It was the ludicrous mourning scene. Mr Brough pulled out his blackedged handkerchief, and applies it to his eyes. "Ah," he sighs, "it was a great blow." " There !" said my critical friend, " Just look st that! Fancy missing such a splendid bit of business and a round of applause to a dead certainty." I innocently inquired what "butiness" my friend would have iutroduced had he been playing the part. " Why, when I came to *It was a great blow,' I should blow my nose. That would fetch 'em." And so Mr Brough needn't think be knows everything after all.

TO MRS BROUGH. To an artist so charming, a woman so sweet, What tribute, alas ! can I bring ? For the heart of the rhymer is laid at thy teet, And 'twere folly thy praises to sing.

To meet thee aud greet thee in parts new or old, Is still but to gaze and admire : And tbe lily to paint or to gild refined gold, As well might the critic aspire.

All graces adorn thee of beauty and mind. The divine spark of genius is thine ; May tbe day be far distant ere Fate prove unkind, And so brilliant a star cease to shine.

QUIDNUNCS and newspaper men have been busy for the past month speculating as to why Sir Patrick Buckley was made Judge. I venture to think none of them have solved the problem, and it ia reserved for mc to make the desired explanation of tbe mystery. Sir Patrick was made Judge of necessity— because, like necesaity, he knows no law.

The Bohemian.