One way and another,
first as a curate (rightly termed by the publishers "rather
unconventional"), later as journalist, Mr. BLATHWAYT has contrived to
use a pair of remarkably open eyes with excellent effect. The result
is this fat volume, whose contents, if honesty constrains me to call
the most of them gossip, are at least generally entertaining and never
ill-natured. Needless to say, Mr. BLATHWAYT, like the elder _Capulet_,
can "tell a tale such as will please." For myself, out of a goodly
store, I should select for first honours a repartee, new to me, of
Sir HERBERT TREE (forgive this dropping into rhyme!). It tells of a
boastful old-time actor, vaunting his triumphs as _Hamlet_, when "the
audience took fifteen minutes leaving the theatre." "_Was ha lame?_"
If our only HERBERT did not in fact make this reply, I can only hope
that he will at once hasten home and do so. But while we are upon Mr.
BLATHWAYT'S dramatic recollections, I must respectfully traverse his
dictum that some of the acting at the local pageants of a few years
back "surpassed the very best I have seen upon the stage.
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