There were still improvisatori who
would turn you topical verses on any subject, and who, on the very
evening of Derby-day, could rhyme the winner when unexpectedly asked by
the audience to do so. A verse of Fred Coyne's--let me recall the name
from the early oblivion which gathers over the graves of those who live
amid the shouts of worshippers--still lingers in my memory, bearing in
itself its own chronology:
And though we could wish, some beneficent fairy
Had preserved the life of the Prince so dear,
Yet we WON'T lay the blame on Lieutenant Carey;
And these are the latest events of the year.
With what an answering pandemonium we refused to hold the lieutenant
accountable for the death of the victim of the African assegais! And the
ladies! How ravishingly they flashed upon the boards, in frocks that,
like Charles Lamb at the India Office, made up for beginning late by
finishing early! How I used to agree with the bewitching creature who
sang that lovely lyric strangely omitted from the Anthologies:
What a nice place to be in!
What a nice place, I 'm sure!
Such a very jolly place,
I've never seen before.
It gives me, oh! such pleasure,
And it fills my heart with bliss,
I could stay here for ever:
What a nice place is this!
Such eyes she made at me--at whom else?--aloft in the balcony; and oh,
what arch smiles, what a play of white teeth! If we could only have met!
Yester-year at a provincial town some one offered to introduce her to me.
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