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If you've a piece, why, just in pieces give it. It is therefore to be hoped that the many thousand copies of "Faust" lately sold contain the second part of the poem, and that they have been read by the many thousand purchasers. Among these are to be counted few of the regular pit and gallery frequenters, and yet it is really through the latter that Mr. Irving has given Faust back to the people. How it has fared with him in their hands is now to be shown. Completely missing even the very simple meaning of Mr. Irving's version of the legend, so much so that some have left his theatre rejoicing that Faust and Margaret were happily married in the end, it is not surprising that their interpretation has dragged Faust to the lowest depths of degradation.

That the people have attempted to interpret the story for themselves I discovered by chance. I had always wanted to see a penny gaff* since I first read my Dickens and looked at Doré's drawing in Jerrold's "London,” of a dark, cavern-like place, where a man, with a bag over his head, walked the tight-rope in the gloom. But penny gaffs are not to be found for the asking. They are not mentioned by Bædeker, neither are they advertised in the daily papers, nor does Partington dare you to pull down their posters. It was not until last winter that I found a guide to those on the Surrey side of the river, where, in his time, Shakespeare played. I consider my visit to them worth record ing, since without it I could not have realized the full extent of the modern popularization of "Faust." If it be said, as most probably it will, that a penny gaff performance is great nonsense, unworthy the serious attention of men of education, it must be remembered that even nonsense has its relative value. According to our ideals there is little but nonsense in the "History of the Damnable Life and Distressed Death of Dr. Faustus," with its monstrous and grotesque descriptions of demons, and its record of Mephistopheles' practical jokes. And yet to the study of the sixteenth century familiarity with it is as necessary as knowledge of the archives of State. The men and women who now

go to penny gaffs are not any lower in the social scale than those who once weut to the mysteries, moralities, and puppetplays, in which our interest is so great that scholars have devoted years to studying and eating them. Unfortunately, when we concern ourselves with the affairs of the people of to-day, as is just now the fashion, we are too much taken up with what they and their pleasures ought to be, to try to find out what they really are. We may not, but the men who come after us will regret that the present age could boast of but one Dickens, one Anstey. Posterity may feel about penny gaffs and similar places of amusement much as we do now about the mysteries and moralities, when we wish there had been shorthand reporters in every audience.

At the first penny gaff to which I came in the London Road, there was the usual crowd of working people and unemployed who are soon to be civilized and elevated to a private-theatricals standard by Beaumont trustees, and according to Mr. Besant, but who as yet have not risen above the penny-gaff level. Talking to them from steps that served as a platform was a Mephistopheles, who, like Mr. Irving, had borrowed the red dress, cock's feather, and sword from the puppet costumer, and, unlike him, but perhaps more sensibly, had retained the moustache and forked beard of the operatic Mephisto. As in the old drama, Mephistopheles laid a wager in the court of Heaven before the real play began, so his penny-gaff successor bargained with the people before the curtain was drawn. "What'll you see insoide, gen'lemen?" he cried; "people suspended in midair! Yes, gen'lemen. At other places a guinea's charged, and people's wisibly supported by one stick. But 'ere all sticks is taken away and I'm only chargin' you a pinny. We don't ask a shillin', gen'lemen, but only a pinny. What I promises outsoide, I performs in. My show is sciointifik and respectable, and a ten minutes' respectable and sciointifik show's better'n a hour's rot, which is all you gets in some of your guinea theatres. Your own consciences'll prompt you to recommen' my show!"

I give his patter, since it points out what he considered to be the principal feature of his performance. It misled me; I thought the Mephistopheles cosThere are penny gaffs and penny gaffs. When I speak of them I mean the Penny Theatre, and nothing tume a mere accident. But that it was I know from my own experience how difficult they not was demonstrated by the play. This, are to find. In an article on "Penny Gaffs" in Cham- to students of the history of the Faust bers Magazine for February, the writer merely describes what I should call penny peep, or rather freak, legend, is not without its significance. A shows, never once mentioning the Penny Theatre. short account of it, therefore, will not be

else.

out of place. The first scene represented | There followed several scenes in which a room that might have been a study, and Faust declared his passion, and begged in which Faust in dirty blue and white for the ring, Belvederer continuing as insatin stood alone. different to his prayers as an implacable Aphrodite. At last Faust gave up all hope.

"I loves a statute," he began, going on with a disregard to periods, commas, and semicolons, peculiar to penny-gaff deliv- "I'm lost!" he announced; "I can't ery; "this love 'ants me day'n night wats get back the ring the Demon of Darkness to be dun I knows I onst made a compac''ll soon be 'ere the Demon of Darkness is with the Demon of Darkness by my Ger- 'ere Demon of Darkness gimme back my man studies I 'ave learned to summon 'im freedom." lords of bugs and flies I summons you." Mephistophles but such an abject Mephistopheles! - with arms folded, and stooping because he was too tall to fit into the stage, appeared in the doorway. "Wouldst 'elp me give life to the statute?" cried the modern Faust.

"I wouldst," was the answer. "Take this ring put it on 'er finger it'll give life to the statute but until I gets it back you're mine!" and he vanished, and in less time than I can write it the statute stood in his place.

This change, together with the series of transformations that followed, was managed by the well-known arrangement of mirrors, popular a few years ago among the Houdins of the time. I mention the fact, trivial as it may seem, because to these transformations and the apparition of a boy, suspended in mid-air without wisible support, that served as after-piece, the actors looked for the success of their performance, of which the words of the play were the least important part. But the Devil, and consequently Faust, were an excellent excuse for magical interfer

ence.

When the statute· - a large woman enveloped in many sheets - first appeared, her right hand was extended, the first finger, thanks to the sculptor's forethought, pointing upward. On it the ring was put without difficulty. Belvederer-for so Faust in an aside told us he had named her-opened her eyes, winked several times, looked about her, discovered the ring, admired it, played with it, held it up to the light.

"Be mine, Belvederer!" said Faust. Belvederer shook her head. The magic ring had given her life, but not the power of speech. The plot now thickened. This obstinate, passionless statute refused to give him, not only her love, but the demon's ring. The latter she quietly pocketed, and at once disappeared.

The Demon of Darkness returned immediately to claim his property. He had only lent it, it seemed, that he might have the speedy pleasure of asking for it again.

"No!" shrieked the demon, red calcium lights suddenly enveloping them both in a hellish glare, "the hour 'as come'n thou hart mine!"

Perhaps, for the same reason that only an Englishman knows America as it is, so only an American hears the English_as she is spoke. To believe modern Englishmen and Daily News leader-writers, irritated by Atlantic Monthly articles, stories of the misplaced letter h are as purely mythical as the tales of gods and goddesses, equally misunderstood by comparative mythologists. Still, I cannot think my American ear was wholly responsible for the recklessness of the Demon of Darkness where that letter was concerned, nor for the fact that he was the only man I have ever heard misplace his v's and w's in true Cockney fashion.

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Everything in this world," says Mr. Shandy, "is big with jest, and has wit in it and instruction too—if we can but find it out." I had found the jest for myself better than Faust could have discovered it for me. But he now pointed out the instruction where I should least have expected it. "Ladies and gen'lemen," he said, walking up to the footlights, "let me be a varnin' and let all 'ere see as they as nothin' to do with lood vomen vhich they've brought me to the Demon of Darkness and destruction!" He was translat ing Mr. Irving's moral as he understood it, though, his troubles being the result of having to do with a statute, it did not seem appropriate.

The final scene was bewildering. It showed a woman in white drapery reaching to her ankles, and displaying a broad expanse of heavy-laced black boots, and two children seemingly hung on the wall. They waved their arms as if trying to swim through the air, and it may be they were modelled on the flight of angels at the Lyceum, and had come for the statute. Or, perhaps, like many another thing of beauty, the scene had no particular meaning, and was merely a concession to the aesthetic tastes of the audience. However that may be, it was a great success, and

I should be the first to think a mountain had been made of a molehill, were my assertion that the Faust legend has been taken back by the people based upon one visit to a penny gaff. The performance I have just described was but one of many I have already seen. In its utter but unconscious senselessness it is a fair type of the class to which it belongs. There is not space, even did I think it desirable, to analyze the others in detail, but a few words will be sufficient to show how truly it may be said that Faust has again become a popular character. The very evening I saw the scientific and respectable show, I went to a second penny gaff in the New Cut. Here was another red Mephistopheles, this time figuring as a Storm Fiend, and another Margaret, who masqueraded as the fair Hevaleen, a fine figure of a woman, as Joe Gargery would say, in shabby satin and paste jewels. The play, if play it can be called, was another distorted reflection of the Lyceum "Faust." Again there was the compact between the demon and the man who had learned to summon him, of which the immediate object was that the latter might gain Hevaleen's love, and the end, the triumph of the demon over his victim, both disappearing to a hell of red calcium lights. And again the magic mirror was looked to for the strongest effects of the tragedy.

the curtain went down in the midst of uni- | a young man; Margaret- but a Margaret versal applause. whose hair was short and crimped and parted on one side, and who wore flat silver earrings. had her spinning-wheel; Martha appeared in the garden scene. But the meaning was still as vague as in the London Road and New Cut versions. There was a suggestion of rivalry between Faust and Siebel, who on this stage became as prominent as in the opera. When the latter placed his flowers on the spinning-wheel, Mephistopheles brought the jewels, remarking, "Vegetable against mineral; I backs the minerals every time." But immediately the scene changed, Faust declared his hour had come, and Mephistopheles carried him off in the inevitable red light. To me, knowing as I did upon what the play was based, it was quite unintelligible. That it was equally so to many of the lookers-on, who had never heard of Goethe, Gounod, or Mr. Irving, I was fortunate enough to learn. A woman, sitting next to me, who had already seen the performance, and whose interest inspired her to friendliness, explained the plot, or rather her interpretation of it. The aged Faust, to whom Margaret in the vision kissed her hand, was Margaret's father; the young Faust was her husband; Siebel was her "young man; Mephistopheles "him they reckons to be the red devil"- was trying to get her for himself with the jewels! The faith of the masses has indeed changed since the days when this same demon robbed the Bishop of Salzburg's cellars, fooled the pope, and gave substance to the spirits of the dead.

But it was in York that I felt most keenly the degradation of a story made great by the terrible reality of the belief that gave birth to it, by the poetry of Marlowe and Goethe; made beautiful by Gounod's music and Mr. Irving's stage pictures. The principal attraction of York Martinmas Fair this year was, to judge by the number of its patrons, Wall's Phantasmagoria. Without, on the great gilded walls, was an announcement of ghosts, visions, and vampires;" within was a performance of "Faust," pathetic in its absurdity to all who have read the poem and heard the opera. The performers were more faithful to their Lyceum model than penny-gaff actors, though they, too, sought to impress their audience by the spectres of the mirror, and though they had borrowed from the libret

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to.

It was not only that the Mephistopheles was, in his own way, as conscientious as Mr. Dixey in his imitation of Mr. Irving. There was an unmistakable effort to reproduce Lyceum scenes. Faust was in the first act transformed from an old to

The men of the sixteenth century would have scorned such a devil. As Helena left but her robe and veil with Faust, so of the old Mephistopheles only his costume and name remain with the people.

This arrangement of "Faust" is not peculiar to Wall's Phantasmagoria. In Durham, at a country theatre, where the seats, as in York, were threepence, I saw it performed by an entirely different company of actors. But on this occasion the magic mirror was dispensed with. It was as a slight compensation, I suppose, that the plot was more elaborated, and Mephis topheles, as in the old puppet-shows, relieved the serious action by throwing squibs and playing jokes. The rivalry between Faust and Siebel was more fully emphasized. To get the latter out of the way, Mephistopheles now turned him into a tree, now dropped him in a well. The result was also less vaguely set forth. Siebel wished to run away with Margaret;

do not understand, from the educated classes, are almost sure to lower them both in spirit and form. The fall of Dr. Faustus is a curious instance of this, since he originally rose from the people. But they have long since forgotten him as he was represented on their stage and in their literature, and the modern conception of his character is beyond their mental grasp. When they first told the story it was real to them, and the very sincerity of the faith upon which it was founded gave it dignity and vitality, so that, despite its childish

Mephistopheles interfered to such good people, in borrowing themes, which they purpose that Faust captured Margaret while Siebel took Martha by mistake. However, to the audience it may have seemed that he had the best of it, for another friendly neighbor explained to me that Margaret was Martha's mother, as indeed, reasoning from appearances, she might well have been. The performers belonged to a cheap burlesque company. But they were thoroughly in earnest in the love scenes and the tragic parts. Here they had no thought of burlesquing, and for this very reason the parody was more complete than at Mr. Toole's thea-ness of form and expression, it could intre. Old habits are strong, and even in the garden Miss Rose Edwin and her fellow actors burst into comic song. To them it was as little out of place in tragedy as to the men of the Middle Ages was jocular blasphemy in the miracle plays. The old Faust" drama of the puppet stage had its share of comedy. Though people no longer laughed at the devil in real life, they could treat him as a clown in the theatre. The comedy with them only intensified the tragedy. But in the Durham "Faust" the concert-hall fun could but lower the already sadly degraded legend.

That the mutilated story of Faust is as widespread as was its great original is more than probable. Penny gaffs have a dozen audiences every night; Wall's Phantasmagoria travels from one end of England to the other. When it went from York it was on its way to the great fair in Hull, and so, through north and south country and midlands, it carries its ghosts, visions, and vampires.* The deductions to be made from the study of this modern popular dramatization of "Faust" are negative and not positive, but they are on that account none the less important. The old legend is logical in its folly; given its premises, its conclusions are inevitable. Its latest interpretation is not even illogical; it is as utterly senseless in the beginning as in the end. If the former be a proof of the belief of the sixteenth century in a personal devil and his power to work miracles, the latter shows that this belief exists no longer. It shows, moreover, that though the legends that spring from the people are honest reflections of their thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, and therefore often of more relative importance than the artificial productions of educated men, on the other hand the Since writing this I have seen the same version given in the World's Fair, held in the Agricultural Hall, Islington.

spire a Goethe; now, when they attempt to tell it again, they cannot impart to it the least semblance of reality, and the Demon of Darkness and the Storm Fiend are the result.

The devil of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries survives but as a spiritual agent, and among those who believe in him in this capacity there is a tendency to think "the devil not so black as they used to paint him, nor hell so hot as the people say." When supernatural beings were constantly appearing in visible form it was not difficult to accept the personality of purely symbolical characters. Vices and virtues could talk and laugh in the moralities, and the lesson they were intended to teach was understood without difficulty. But we have changed all that. Nowadays allegory has lost something of its old realistic force, and, if human shape be given to angels and devils in tale or drama, the improbability is so great that even the moral their actions are intended to convey is missed by the uninitiated. The penny gaff and the Phantasmagoria actors had without doubt been to the Lyceum. There they grasped the fact of the compact between Faust and Mephistopheles. They saw that upon it, though how they could not understand, depended the scenes between Faust and Margaret. But the principal lesson they learned was that strange spectres and red lights are indispensable when the devil walks upon earth. Many intelligent critics in the stalls have thought Mr. Irving's "Faust but a higher development of Drury Lane spectacle. It is not therefore strange that, looked at from the gallery, flames and apparitions seemed the chief end of the play. On the penny-gaff stage they have become so without disguise. Mr. Irving advertises the "Witches' Kitchen," his present chief spectacular attraction, in the papers. His humble imitators should not be taken to task for themselves announc

should perhaps like to see it. He would have preferred, however, on the whole to have done so without having to become a soldier for the purpose. The more ornamental side of soldiering, — scarlet clothes, gold lace, admiring glances, the consciousness of entering life under the guise of a conquering hero, the sudden sense of emancipation; all that ordinarily suffuses life in general with a roseate mist to the young recruit, did not particularly commend itself to his imagination, cer

ing their marvels from doorsteps, this be- | He did not himself rebel against his ing their only method of advertisement. destiny. He had not formed any very disIt is natural that to the audience, in turn, tinct ideas of India, but thought that he these marvels seem the only reason for the performance, which is consequently measured by their merits. It is true that the managers of mysteries, moralities, and marionettes appealed to their patrons by elaborate scenery and many squibs. On the puppet stage and in the chap-books, every few minutes and pages it "thundered and lightened as if the world had been at an end." But scenery and squibs were in keeping with the play. Now the play is in keeping with squibs and spectres. Characters and dialogue are re-tainly not nearly as much as to that of most ceived as wonders bearing no more meaning or applicability to every-day life than the glare of the calcium lights or the reflections from the mirrors. Not Faust, but his distorted shadow, has been restored to the people.

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He had only a year's leave, but, as barely two months of it were as yet expended, it seemed a reasonably long time to look forward to.

John Lawrence was thirty-two years and a month old, and already fourteen years of his life had been spent in India. He was not quite eighteen when his father received the offer of a commission in an Indian regiment for one of his sons, and there seemed to be a good many excellent reasons why John - Johnnie he was then called should be the one selected. There were no very soul-terrifying examinations to be passed in those days, and there were five young Lawrences, all boys, and as Johnnie was neither the eldest nor the youngest; neither the cleverest, nor perceptibly the stupidest; neither his father's favorite, nor his mother's favorite, nor the favorite of any one in particular except of a crabbed old uncle, whose predilections did not count for very much one way or other; as moreover he had attained the right age, it seemed in every way fitting that he should be the one selected.

young gentlemen of eighteen. He was a shy boy, to begin with; not awkward, but often appearing so at the first glance; much given to mooning about with his hands in his pockets, though with his eyes, it must be added, commendably wide

open.

When he was about twelve years old he had had an accident, from which at the time it had seemed unlikely that he would ever entirely recover. He had fallen some thirty feet from the top of the wall of a dismantled church, where he had stationed himself to watch the return of a pair of jackdaws which were bringing up a callow family amongst the ivy, and where the treacherous masonry had suddenly given way under his feet, precipitating him downward, and half-burying him under stones and rubbish into the bargain.

The house to which he was carried on this occasion was not his own home, merely a farmhouse which his father Mr. Lawrence, a barrister with an increasing Chancery practice, was in the habit of hiring annually, as a convenient spot for his turbulent brood to disport themselves in during the holidays. Mrs. Lawrence was not there at the time, but at once hurried back upon hearing of the accident, and devoted herself to the care of her injured son.

For a long time the boy lay between life and death. At last he worked his way back to life, got out of bed, and on to a pair of crutches, upon which he hobbled about with much awkwardness and considerable dissatisfaction to himself. Besides the lameness, he had a good deal of stiffness in one wrist, and a long scar upon the left side of the face, beginning at the chin and running right up the cheek, until it lost itself amongst the hair. It was not deep enough actually to disfigure him, but it gave his face a curious expression, half-humorous, half-deprecat

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