II

DRAMATIC FUND SPEECH

MR. BRAM STOKER kindly obtained for me the report of a speech delivered on the thirteenth anniversary festival of the General Theatrical Fund, held at the Freemason's Tavern on the 29th of March 1858, W. M. Thackeray in the chair, and all the Vice-Presidents, with well-known names, such as Dickens, Landseer, Lytton, Milnes, Macready, &c., present on the occasion. The chairman's speech was as follows:

"You are not perhaps aware-I only became acquainted with the fact this very day--that the celebrated Solon was born 592 years before the present era. He was one of the Seven Sages of Greece. He invented a saying, as each of the wise men are said to have done. He was a warrior, a statesman, a philosopher, of considerable repute. I make these statements to you, being anxious to give you a favourable idea of my learning, and also pleased to think of the perplexity of some ingenuous persons here present who are asking themselves, What on earth does he mean by dragging in old Solon, neck and heels, to preface the toast of the evening.' Solon once attended one of Thespis's dramatic entertainments-a professional godfather to professional gentlemen here present, the inventor of the drama, who used to go about from place to place, as we read, and act his plays out of a waggon; I suppose a stage waggon. Well, the great Solon having attended one of poor Thespis's performances, sent for that wandering manager when the piece was over, and it is recorded flapped his cane down upon the ground and said to Thespis, 'How dare you utter such a number of lies as I have heard you tell from your waggon?'

"The first manager of the world humbly interceded with the great magistrate, beak, or Mayor before whom he stood, and represented that his little interludes were mere harmless fictions intended to amuse or create laughter or sympathy, that they were not to be taken as matter-of-fact at all. Solon again banged his stick upon the ground, ordered the poor vagrant about his business, saying that the man who will tell fibs in a

play will forge a contract. Plutarch relates the anecdote in his celebrated Life of Solon. . . . Thespis and Solon, who were alive twenty-four hundred years ago, have left their descendants: Thespis continues to this time, and there are Solons too. Solon has a little not illegitimate suspicion regarding Thespis, or Solon is a pompous old humbug, and calls out to his children to keep away from that wicked man, passes the door of his booth with borror, and thanks Heaven he is so much more virtuous than that vagrant. Or finally, and this is the more charitable and natural supposition, Solon is simply stupid, can't understand a joke when it is uttered; and when the artist sings before him, or plays his harmless interlude, slaps his great stupid stick on the ground and says, 'I never heard such lies and nonsense in my life.' Suppose Solon says that because he is virtuous there should be no more cakes and ale, all youth, all life, all pleasure, all honest humour laugh in the pompous old dotard's face, and continue their fun. The curtain shall rise, the dance shall go on; Harlequin shall take Columbine round the waist, clowns shall prig the sausages. Hamlet shall kill his wicked old Uncle; Pauline shall walk up and down the garden with Claude Melnotte; William shall rescue Susan from the hands of the amatory but kind-hearted Crosstree. We will have our provision of pleasure, wonder, laughter, tears, in spite of old Solon, though he flourish a stick as big as a beadle's.

"Now I take it be a most encouraging sign for Thespis that he is becoming orderly, frugal, prosperous, a good accountant, a good father to his children, a provider against a rainy day, a subscriber to such an admirable institution as this which we have all met to-night to support."

Mr. Dickens winds the proceedings up with a pretty compliment, saying "That none of the present company can have studied life from the stage waggons of Thespis downwards to greater advantage, to greater profit, and to greater contentment than in the airy books of Vanity Fair.'

"To this skilful showman, who has so much delighted us, and whose words have so charmed us to-night, . . . we will now, if you please, join in drinking a bumper toast. To the chairman's health."

III

NOTE-BOOKS

THERE is almost material for another lecture in the notebooks which remain for "The Four Georges," of which notes a certain number are here reproduced as they stand. Some of the quotations are so interesting that they are given verbatim, even though they may be familiar to many of our readers.

Most of the annotations to the "Lectures on the Humourists" were added by Mr. Hannay at my father's request, as the publication only took place after his start for America. Of the notebooks which served for these I have no trace.* The extracts here given all concern the Four Georges. These first pages were evidently intended to make part of the lecture on George the First.

**

The Königsmarks.-Count Philip of Königsmark descended from an ancient noble family of Brandenburg, where there is a place of that name. The Königsmarks had also passed over into Sweden, where they had acquired property, and this Swedish branch especially distinguished itself by producing several powerful men. Philip's grandfather, Hans Christoff, was first page at the court of Frederic Ulric of Brunswick, and in the storm of the Thirty Years War rose to be a famous general; was a partisan of Gustavus Adolphus of Torstensohn, stormed Prague, and contributed to the Peace of Westphalia. By this peace the principalities of Verden and Bremen were ceded to the Swedes, over which Hans Christoff became governor, building a castle near Stade, which he named after his wife, Agathenburg. In 1651 he received the title of Count, and died a fieldmarshal at Stockholm in 1663. He left his children an income

*Nor have I any of the notes for “Esmond,” except one very small memorandum-book. Mr. Andrew Lang, who has read my father to such good purpose, would have liked him to give another version of the character of the Old Pretender. Mr. Lang has his authorities for defending the morals of James Stuart, and for rehabilitating those of the lady mentioned as Queen Oglethorpe. He has written an interesting account of her as the member of a respectable family who lived and died in loyal devotion to the Stuarts in their misfortunes.

of 130,000 dollars, so that his sons were enabled to marry into the first Swedish houses, with the daughters of lords who had espoused German princesses. No one understood how to levy booty better than this bold partisan of the Thirty Years War. In Lower Saxony he cut down whole forests, and sold the wood to the merchants of Hamburg and Bremen. In Prague he took an immense plunder, having seized no less than twelve barrels of gold in the house of Count Collorado, the Commandant. He was a fierce, passionate man, of herculean build and giant strength. When he was angry his hair bristled on his head like that of a boar, so that his friends and foes were frightened at him. In his castle of Agathenburg he had his portrait painted after this fashion, jokingly bidding the painter so to depict him that the world might see the fierce countenance which had frightened the enemy in the Thirty Years War.

(Part of the next paragraph is given in the Lecture itself.) One of his sons was Otto Wilhelm, a notable lion in the great society of the seventeenth century, and a great traveller to foreign lands and courts. He had for tutor Esaias Puffendorff, brother of the famous philosopher who was afterwards Swedish Envoy to Vienna. With this leader the young bear frequented various German universities; learnt to ride at Blois and Angers; made the grand tour of France, Spain, Portugal, and England; and in 1667, being then twenty-six years old, appeared as ambassador at the Court of Louis XIV. He had to make a Swedish speech at his reception before the most Christian king, and forgetting his speech recited the Paternoster and several other prayers in Swedish to the edification of the Court at Versailles, not one of whom understood a word of his lingo with the exception of his own suite, who had to keep their gravity as best they might.

Subsequently he entered into the French service, raising for the king the regiment of Royal Allemand. He died, finally, in 1688, before Negropont, in Morea-generalissimo of the Venetian army against the Turks.

Count Philip Königsmark, Otto's nephew, the lover of the ancestress of the Brunswick kings of England, was born in 1662. He inherited from his mother the beauty of the noble Swedish house of Wrangel, and was as handsome a gallant, and as dis