LONDON GOSSIP.

Evening Star, Issue 9833, 23 October 1895, Page 4

LONDON GOSSIP.

[From OtJB SmterAfc Cob&k&ttßbt&T.] London, September 7. NEW I’LAY AT TfiE ADELPHI. It is, I should thihk, Very doubtful whether * Tim swordsman’s Daughter,’ Adapted from an old-fashioned, French melodrama by Clementj Scott’, and peppered with up-to-date sensation soeVieß cy Brandon Thomas, will tike any permanent hold on the Adelphi audience. Its tone is top Parisian for the robust tastes of this particular pit and gallery. For (example, we ai'e accustomed ip act 1. ot Adelphi plays to Mils Miilwarcl as full aS an egg of fcecret sighs. Either she “ loves another,” or has married secretly, or done something silly of that Sorb. But she has always hitherto been strictly virtuous. It was, therefore, a sharp Shock to the audience last Saturday evening to find that the reason the dear girl could not marry a gallant Dieppe pilot was that she had tripped rather badly. Moreover, through fear of “Bill” Terriss in a white wig, she added shockingly to her sins by palming off the healthy inittnt resultant on her./biff*! pets Upon a blameless young orphan to Whom she had in “ the happy old days ” been kind. Fortunately for the play this “ woman with a past” does bob Venture far out of the Adel phi’s beaten, track. ..The pilot naturally presses his, suit, and Madeleine twhWh is Miss M.’a name) confesses she loves hiin. But she can never ftWry him—oh !no!no !no ! The story of the baby must be told, and is told at great length. Moreover, it is overheard by “Bill” Terriss, a picturesque but violent old fellow, and the deadliest fencing master in Paris. He is Madeleine’s father, and his fury is fearful to witness. The base seducer, who is ho? Vibrac insists on knowing. In a really powerful scene, magnificently acted, the miserable girl finds herself forced to confess. “ His name !” cries Vibrac, “ his name!” “ The Count de Rochfiere.”

This is Vibrac’s favorite pupil, and the unexpected news of his perfidy fells him to the ground. He is stricken with paralysis, and seems unlikely to move again. But a terrible longing for revenge enables the swordsman ultimately to recover and, by stratagem, to kill Rochfiere. A maitre d’nrmes, we learn, may not fight a duel. But Vibrac decoys his unconscious enemy into a trap. Rosefiere has killed a young fellow in a duel, and is accused of foul play. Vibrac tenders himself as a witness, and offers to show, by a few thrusts with Rosefiere, that theallegedfoulcutwas an accident. As soon, however, as the pair stand opposite one another Vibrac whispers in terrible tones : “ I know all, and mean to kill you,” which he does, judge and jury intelligently supposing the catastrophe accidental. The audience on Saturday did not take kindly to this extraordinary denouement, which is certainly very French. This is the plot of the ‘Swordsman’s Daughter,’ but the strength of the play really lies first in Terriss’s fine representation of the grim Vibrac, and secondly in the sensation scenes. These include a grand assault-at arms in Vibrac’s fencing school, a series of lifeboat episodes, and the French court of Justice in which the trial takes place. The acting, apart from Terriss’s Vibrac, is not remarkable. Miss Millward we know off by heart, and Mr Abingdon’s villains and Harry Nicholls’s good-natured idiots are painfully familiar. LITEKAIIY NOTES. Everybody is chuckling over the tremendous snubbing administered to that colossally vain and conceted bardlet Eric Mackay by Algernon Charles Swinburne. It seems that Mr Mackay was a great admirer of “our greatest living poet’s” work, and dearly desired to make his acquaintance—or, perhaps it would be truer to say, to be able to pose as his friend. Several overtures were made through mutual admirers and repulsed. Even to genius Swinburne is not too respectful. For the minor-poet-poseur or the Bodley-Head-bardlet his scorn passes words. But Mr Mackay is hard to snub. Finding the great man unpropitious, he resolved to grovel in verse at his hero’s feet. Judging the bard by the bardlet, he slabbed on to his idol all the batter he could get into a dozen or two lines, and then sent the precious composition to the ‘ Athenicum.’ Bub the literary organ feared it was too laudatory, and naturally neither the ‘ Nineteenth Century ’ nor any other first-class review cared for such stuff. Ultimately Mr Mackay ’s effusion found a home in an odd corner of the < World,’ copies of which, duly marked, being sent to Swinburne and his mentor Watts. Well, time passed, but no notice whatever was taken by the poet of the rhmyater’s fulsome flattery. Finally he wrote to Watts (I think it was) to know if the papers containing the ode had been received. Several weeks elapsed, and then—according to Mr Douglas Sladen’s version of the occurrence, to which I am mainly indebted—Mr Swinburne’s friend wrote stating that if Mr Swinburne had not acknowledged the receipt of the poem “he knew best, and his silence was adequate.” On receipt of this letter Mr Eric Mackay withdrew the name of Mr Swinburne from the title and dedication of his poem. Before, however, finally deciding not to republish the poem with Mr Swinburne’s name, Mr Erie Mackay wrote once again, and Mr Swinburne replied ; whereupon Mr Mackay sent a copy of the correspondence to the editor of the ‘ Athenicum,’ who endeavored to pour oil on the troubled waters in the following letter : —“Dear Mr Mackay,—l had no idea you were in correspondence with Mr Swinburne, and I am very sorry that the letters have assumed such a bitter tone. I think there ought to be peace on Parnassus.” In reply to Mr Swinburne’s letter, Mr Mackay wrote a very energetic epistle, in answer to which came a communication from Messrs Lewis and Lewis, asking Mr Mackay to write no more letters to Mr Swinburne, or he (Mr Swinburne) would appeal to the protection of the police ! Here are extracts, in “ the deadly parallel column,” from Mr Mackay’s poem to Mr Swinburne and his new book of verse

To Ar.iiF.rtnon Chaiu.es Lines to a Dead Bard. Swinburne. 1894. 1895. Singer of songs, immor- Living, but' dead—as tal, unsurpassed, spine neglected weed Who, in the fulness of That’s flung aside, forthe flowering time gotten hy the spring— Of rapt, unerring rhyme, Who cares of thee to Hast made thyself a sing master among men, That, with the fcctor of And, with the witchery polluted breath. of a wayward pen, And outcome of foul Has shown, from first to seed, last, ' Hast shamed the sweetThe power thou hast to ness of our English thrill us, as with fire— bowers ? Poet and seer and Poets who love the sounder of the lyre flowers Thou hast no rival un- Love not thy presence derneath the sun. there, in life or death; Since glorious Shelly And birds in haste decomes not hack again— part, Take thou the homage And all good things due to thy renown avoid thee like a As one for whom the curse! season’s cannot frown. ForNatureloathesthee ; and ’tis past the skill ’ Of drugs to cure thee of thy venom’d ill, And past the power of prosody or verse To say how vile thou art!

‘ The Twinkling of an Eye,’ the detective story which won the second prize of the £4OO competition offered by an American syndicate recently, appears in ‘ Chapman’s ’ for September. It is by Professor Brander Matthews, and not wanting in ingenuity, though not to be mentioned in the same breath as any one of the ‘ Sherlock Holmes ’ series, or even as several by Rodriques Ottolengui. Apropos of this detective story competition 1 am told that Miss A. K. Green went in for it, and that her short tale just issued, ‘The Doctor, His Wife, and the Clock,’ was amongst the unsuccessful efforts. If so, one can only marvel at the disorimination of the judges, as it is far cleverer than either of the two amateurish fictions awarded prizes. In the current issue of ‘To-Day’ Mr Jerome K. Jerome, who is nothing if not frankly philistine, offers some remarks on the boys’ “ penny awful ” question, which you may perhaps like to quote. It is a side of the discussion hitherto ignored. Mr Jerome says :

A great deal of fuss has been made lately on

I V. 1 ; —J .; -i /. ; , —s—;5 —; j > * ’de sttiJek tit Uteiitoe for tke'yollag. It It the old, old attack upon the form of novel" which is ktioWn ill the trade as the 11 penny blood.” Whenever a juvenile Criminal le convicted it baa bbcottlo the fule to eonnCpt his Brittle with nis habit of’ reading bad Uteitktute. JuSt as by sottie people all adult critoelßtfaCed to drink, So bV other people all juVenile crime Is traded to the ‘‘penny blpodi” I dp hoi Btatbndi.df ottrita&j that there la nothing tn the Accusation. Suggestion atits With special fdrfce Open the minds of the yolitig. But the Subject is one on whioli ad muon nbrisensC has beeh talked, add the bldjiiohas been apportioned sol Unfairly that It may be worth while to poiiit out one or two facts which wotlld certainly hard seetped to pie obviotls if they had iidt bfedfa sd generally igtiorefl, . ~ ~ , , The point which is most generally overlooked is that a boy, is a boy and not a appellor critic of twenty-tjiree who knowa everything. The “ penny., blood ” is hackneyed anp commonplace ; but to tho, boy—happy boy I—iiothing is commßnplaoe, and al\tho plagiarisms are originality in his inexperienced eyes. The penny blood ” is unlike life, it is deplorable in style, its grammar is hopeless, its morality is bad. But at ten years old one does not think of style, and would prefer not to think of grammar. Life being at that period practically unexplored, the boy can believe that almost anything is like life, and, as for the morality, he could never believe that any book could influence his conduct one way or another. But he likes his stories with a story in them. He likes interest, adventures, excitement. He

does not read the ‘‘penny blood” because his tastes ate vicious) but because he is a boy. The authors and publishers of sUeh stories are also often blamed, and perhaps rightly. If so, the authors and publishers of those stories with the moral influence and the useful lesson in them—those stories that the boy danhot be persuaded to read-rare to blamei too. Grant all the faults of the “penny blood,” alid thsre still remains this to be said for it: it is to some extent in sympathy with the boy, it is written from his point of view, it has found out what will really appeal to him. The answer will, of course, be that it appeals to nothing whatever but his original sinfulness. It is an easy answer, and difficult, perhaps, actually to disprove ; but I have no faith in it. Books for boys should, from the literary point of view, be written badly. That is to say, the characterdrawing must be broad and exaggerated, the adventures must come thick and last, and the language must be hackneyed—it must introduce the phrases he is most likely to have heard and understood. Write like that, and add the moral lesson, and the boy in the street will still read your book with delight. But, after all, the “ penny blood ” did not invent crime; it found it here and used it. Crime is older than literature; we have always had it, and I am not sanguine enough to suppose that we shall ever be entirely free from it, though the “ penny blood ” were to be entirely suppressed and the school stories of Archdeacon Farrar distributed gratis by the million. It is easy enough to throw the blame on the “ penny blood,” but it is not fair to throw the entire blame there. Heredity and environment have more to do with juvenile crime than all the pennyworths of mixed literary horrors that ever nave been, or ever will be, sold to the young. I have no belief that bad literature is solely responsible for the boy thief, or that good literature will entirely reform him.

The title of ‘Hearts Insurgent,’ which was originally called ‘ The Simpleton,’ will, on presentation in three volumes next November, be ‘Jude, the Obscure.’ The numerous passages suppressed during its appearance in the select family pages of ‘Harper’s Magazine’ are then to be restored. Andrew Lang thinks this tale contains some of Mr Hardy’s finest writing. Another novel likely to attract considerable attention when it comes out next month in three volumes is Henry Seton Merriman’s ‘The Sowers,’ at present running through ‘Cornhill.’ Though not up to the level of ‘ With Edged Tools,’ this story has a capital plot, and can boast a thoroughly interesting and in many ways original group of characters. Besides, there is always a fascination about everything Russian for the English reader. Two of the best stories which are to figure in lan Maclaren’s ‘ The Days of Auld Lang Sync’ will be found in the September numbers of ‘ Harper ’ and ‘ Blackwood.’ The Drumtochty cynic, Jamie Soutar, appears in both. Mr Watson’s (lan Maclaren’s) contribution to the select pages of “Maga” marks his acceptance by the severest school of Scotch critics. Curiously enough, Mr Barrie has never had a story in ‘ Blackwood.’ But this may be because his agent demands “muckle bawbees’’for one. On (lit, the ‘ Success ’ paid £SO for Barrie’s ‘School Reminiscences.’