REMINISCENCES OF SIR F. BURNAND.*
THE reader will not, we think, miss much if he passes quickly over the greater part of Sir Francis Burnand's first volume. The musical and dramatic recollections of his early days are not particularly vivid or distinctive. They do not remind us of Charles Lamb's "The curtain drew up—I was not past six years old, and the play was Artaxerxes !" There are some good descriptions, one of Edward Wright (p. 121); but we should like to know what he felt and thought, for it is clear that the stage was a passion with him from very early days indeed. We may venture here, in speaking of dramatic recollections, to question Sir Francis Bunaand's opinion that "the great actor's fame lives as long as a great statesman's." Very few actors' names are remembered beyond their own generation, or that which can recall the report of eye- witnesses. One name alone has come down from the Greek stage, Polus,—and it is not every one who has heard even that one ; one name alone from the Roman stage ; and how few of modern times, if we except those of whom the living tradition, so to speak, still remains ! In chap. 7 we reach Eton, which did not leave very favourable impressions on its alumnus, except, indeed, as regards the river. But then the young Burnand had to leave at an early age, just when the pleasantest time was about to begin. After life at Eton came, with a period of private tuition between, life at Trinity College, Cambridge, with very little of the academic, and much of the dramatic, about it. From Cambridge the scene changes, not a little to the reader's surprise, to a Theological College, and from the Theological College to the House of the Oblates at Bayswater, for the young student had been received into the Roman Catholic Church.
The change of faith seems to have made a breach between the proselyte and his family, though Sir Francis Burnand does not expressly say so. Anyhow, he was thrown on his own resources, and, as is usual in such cases, did not find them go very far. An early experience was a deal with Mr. Lacy, a name well known to all concerned in amateur theatricals. Mr. Lacy bought two farces and two burlesques for E3 apiece. As he had actually printed them two years before, and had been receiving fees for the permission to perform, Sir Francis deserves great credit for the moderation of his language in describing the incident. Mr. Lacy, how- ever, thought that he had squared the account by intro- ducing the dramatist, who had the burlesque of Dido ready, to the lessees of the St. James's Theatre. Here he was better treated. A pound per night was to be the consideration, with £25 in advance. Dido ran for eighty nights—the stupendous runs of later days had not yet begun—and was the beginning of a prosperous career. It was followed up by The Benicia Boy, a farce in which some peaceable citizen is taken for a pugilist. This was written in something less than twenty-four hours, in collaboration with Mr. Montagu Williams. It did not bring • Records and Reminiscences, Personal and General, of Sir Francis C. Burnand. role. London : Methuen and Co. L251. net.]
in much money—that went to the managers—but it was a sneezes, and considering that the Dido was still running, a very significant one. It is unnecessary, we are given to understand, to be anxious about the dramatic author of to-day; he knows what he ought to have, and gets it.
Before this Mr. Francis Burnand had been called to the Bar, and thinking it well to have a second string to his bow, he began to practise. His first essay was at the Clerkenwell Sessions, for which a year in a conveyancer's pupil-room was, as he remarks, no preparation ; after Clerkenwell came the Old Bailey, where he had one case, and narrowly escaped the shoe hurled at him by an angry client; finally he tried the Parliamentary Committees, "a first-rate business," he was assured, "when you once get your nose in " ; he got the
"straight tip," but "his nose wouldn't follow,"—all the better, doubtless, for the world.
As the law did not promise well, literature other than dramatic was tried. First there were contributions to Fun, an early rival of Punch. Then the idea occurred to Mr. Burnand of writink a parody of the popular romances, of which Reynolds's Miscellany was the type. The first attempt was a failure; at least, the ruling spirit of Fun did not like it; the author seems to have thought him not altogether wrong, for he burnt the copy, and wrote it again. Then came a welcome hint from a friend. "Mr. Lemon asked me all about you he thought it likely you might do some-
thing for Punch." "Mr. Lemon," better known to the world
as "Mark Lemon," took it at once, and no wonder, for it was Mokeanna, or " L'Ilomme au Chapeau Blanc." If any of our readers do not know Mokeanna, let them make haste to repair the neglect. If they do not happen to be familiar with the actual original that it parodies, Wilkie Collins and
Victor Hugo will serve well enough. The Punch reminis- cences, which occupy a considerable part of the second
volume, are very pleasant to read, and no wonder. Among those who met at the weekly dinner, itself a very "happy thought," were not a few remarkable men,—Shirley Brooks, John Leech, Charles Keene, Tom Taylor, and, chief of all, Thackeray. How characteristic is this. "He placed his right hand on my shoulder, and, as it were, introduced me to the assemblage, saying, Gentlemen, allow the old boy to introduce the new boy; and I wish him every success.'" While we are on the subject of Punch we must not forget to repeat what Sir Francis B urna,nd says with emphasis, that the idea of what is perhaps the finest of all cartoons, "Dropping the Pilot," was suggested by Gilbert h Beckett. That idea was magnificently rendered by the artist, but it was "entirely, solely, and only due" to ii. Beckett.
Sir Francis Burnand has, as might be expected, not a few good stories to tell. He sometimes, we think, is too long about the telling of them. A good raconteur may be as long as he pleases ; he has the charms of voice and manner, gesture and expression, to help him ; but a story in print ought to be brief. One of the best is about George Augustus Sala. Shortly after Mr. Burnand succeeded to the editorial chair of Punch Sala wrote a parody of the " Notes " which he was himself contributing to the Illustrated London News. It was attributed to the editor, and friends who knew Sala's short temper were anxious, not, as it soon seemed, without reason. At the Beefsteak Club Sala 'politely asked for the author's name. "I cannot give it," replied the editor, " with- out his permission." "It is a personal attack on me," said Sala, apparently waxing wroth. Peace-making friends suggested that any popular author's style was fair game. "I join issue," replied Sala. "Burnand ought to have rejected it." So the debate went on, growing hotter and hotter. When Sala declared that when he was younger he would have pulled the nose of any one who attacked him, and the editor replied that if Sala really wished to carry out his threat he had the matter in his own hands, it seemed that a crisis had arrived :—
" I can!' exclaimed George, rising up excitedly, and will.' Every one jumped to his feet. It seemed as though he were going to assault me there and then ! What was their surprise at seeing George, first with one hand, then with the other, wring his own nose, and, murmuring humbly I apologise,' drop down abashed into his seat."
Another good story is of how Mr. Alfred Watson played the part of H. M. Stanley in an entertainment given by the Burnands to Mr. and Mrs. Linley Sarabourne. But i,t occu- pies twenty-five pages, and would be over-long for the "short story" of a magazine.
Altogether, Sir Francis Burnand has given us two very read- able, and but for the exceptions made above, very pleasant volumes.
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