THE WESTMINSTER REPRESENTATION.
When Mr. Punch informs his readers that Westminster must be condoled with for-having been deprived of her Representation, his readers naturally will ask, what can Westminster have done that she should be disfranchised? and imaginary cases of bribe-giving and corrupting will perhaps be conjured up by their imaginative minds. There is, however, in reality no cause for such imaginings. Westminster, until lately, has had two representations: the one wherein Sir John Shelley and Sir de Lacy Evans have been popularly chosen to appear in the first parts, and the other wherein Dauns, Phormio, and Geta have been among the principal characters assigned, and have from time to time elicited cheers quite as loud as those which ever have awakened the echoes of St. Stepens. It is this latter Representation which Westminster has lost, and which Mr. Punch and all “old Westminsters” lament. Amplius haud!- were Mr. Punch in an elegiac mood, he could indite some touching lines on this suggestive subject. Amplius haud!- let the student put in classic phraseology even so prosaic a statement as the following, and provided that his lines will scan, and there to be no false quantities, he may depend on getting praise in abundance on next “Verse day:”-
“Farewell to Westminster Play.- The time-honoured Westminster Play is no more! Dean Trench, impressed by arguments which are no doubt of great weight, has determined that it shall be abolished: and we have therefore seen the last of the perplexities of Chremes, the knaveries of Davus, and the gasconades of Thraso. We cannot help looking back with some regret upon those meetings, when the flower of our youth, our future Statemen, Chancellors, and Bishops, essayed before an indulgent audience the difficult art of giving effects in speech and action to the deepest emotions of the human heart. There was something very inspiriting in the burst of applause with which some ‘old Westminster,’ who had climbed to the top of the tree, and now seated himself in the Pit, to fight over again the battles of his youth in the person of his grandson, was received as he entered. Pleasant, too, was it to observe the tact with which some of the youthful actors took up the points, and gave effect in a dead language to the wit of a dramatist who lived two thousand years ago.”
Reading this, the reader, if he be but as “intelligent” as writers love to call him, will naturally ask, what the “arguments” could be why the Play should be abolished, seeing there was so much that was pleasant and heart-moving in it. On this point in the following there is somewhat of enlightenment:-
“The morality of Terence, though good as far as it goes, is imperfect when compared with that by which Society is now governed. Though the boys may daily read in the Times which lies on their mother’s drawingroom tables, of scenes as bad as any that Terence depicts, still it is better not to put into the mouths of boys sentiments which would shock the susceptibilities of their mothers and sisters, if they understood them. The preparations of the play, too, no doubt interfered with the graver avocations of the school. It was a thing of the past. Public opinion was against it, and Dean Trench will not be blamed for giving it the coup de grace.”
So at least thinks the Guardian. But whether or no the Guardian is gifted with the power of gauging public opinion was against the playing of the Play, Mr. Punch will leave his readers to determine for themselves, if it happen that they think it worth their while to do so. With regard, too, to the prophecy which the Guardian has put forth, that Dean Trench “will not be blamed” for abolishing the Play, Mr. Punch is not disposed to accept this as fulfilled yet, inasmuch as he himself sees certain grounds for censure, and is by no means yet convinced but that he will have to give it. The plea that Terence although “good” is not “perfect” in morality, cannot properly considered, be held to justify his banishment. Shakespeare might be proscribed on a similar account, and there would be not more advantage in so doing. There is such a fault as being overnice, and grossness very often as produced by too much delicacy. We must say good-bye to a good part of the classics, if we exorcise all the writers who have written aught unsavoury. We cannot wish our sons to have their mouths so full of foulness that they needs must blurt it out before their mothers and their sisters. On the other hand, however, we have no wish they should cultivate such mealy-mouthed mock-modesty as should make them wear an eyeglass so as not to use the naked eye, or blush when asking to be helped to the bosom of a chicken.
His Very Reverence Dean Trench is a bit of a philosopher; but such acts as these but smack of the philosophy of Cant, and Mr. Punch in no way can extend to them his reverence. The Westminster Play was a pleasant institution. It afforded a meet meeting-place for old schoolfellows and playmates. It may have had some evil, but it had far more good; and Mr. Punch unfeignedly regrets its abolition. Quieta non movere is a good old Tory maxim, and there was in this case no fit reason to depart from it. One often sees a theatre turned into a dormitory, but the Westminster Players did precisely the reverse, and so praiseworthy an example should not have been abolished. Dean Trench is learned in proverbs- hath he not filled a volume with them? but there is one which surely has escaped his memory. When his Deanship gave his dictum that Terence should be banished, he must clearly have forgotten that-
“All work and no Play,
Makes Jack a dull boy.”
This is a wise saw, and Dean Trench, if he be wise, will not fly in its teeth. Work is very well, but play, at times, is better. Neque semper arcum. Minds, like bodies, grow up stunted, if they always have their backs bent. What though it “interfered with graver avocations,” Westminster Play was a part of education. Besides teaching elocution- which is never learned at College – it fostered kindly feelings, and evoked most pleasant sympathies. Let Dean Trench rescind his recent resolution, and when next the curtain falls upon the Westminster Representation, Mr. Punch will be among the very first to cry out Plaudite!
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