"Our cause is good, and it may claim some praise

To have restored the forms of Shakespeare's days;

[Pointing to the Ladies. When the men-ladies, as their parts might fall, Were taught to trip and simper, and speak small

And, when delayed, th' impatient Monarch raved,

The excuse was, 'Sire, the Queen is not yet shaved.""

The first performance was a success, and such as to invite a repetition of the entertainment on a more ambitious scale. It was contemplated to hire a big room, get appointments down from London, and charge for admission. But here supervened a dreadful thought, leading to doubts and remonstrance on the part of the elder youngsters -how about the permission of the Vice-Chancellor.

Sairey

This," says Burnand, "audacious juvenile that I was-had no terrors for me. I had not an idea what a Vice-Chancellor was like. I didn't believe in him, any more than did Mrs. Prig in Sairey Gamp's Mrs. Harris. I thought he was a sort of Guy Faux figure on a woolsack. I had no reverence. I was for blindly rushing in where my betters refused to tread. I had said in my heart, There is no ViceChancellor; and, in fact, I did not, at that time, realise the full extent of University authority. I was going to teach my alma mater, and not my alma mater me." The ViceChancellor was, after all, presumed to be but a man. Burnand undertook to call upon him.

"I had some vague idea that in calling on a Vice-Chancellor some official dress was de rigueur. I did not know what, and no one could tell me. I decided, ultimately, for cap and gown. Cap and bells would have been more appropriate. As the hour approached for my

If I

visit, I began to be nervous. had previously treated the idea of a Vice-Chancellor with more than indifference, I now, for the first time, commenced to think of him with something akin to awe. I had not believed in him, and I was going to see him. He had been in perspective, at the vanishing point, and now I was going to walk up to him and see him in propria persona. If I could have visited him by deputy, I would have done so, but I couldn't.

"The time came, and hot and uncomfortable, I entered the gate of Caius, and walked to the ViceChancellor's house. Of course the entrance to it was ancient and dingy, all such entrances are. I was left in the sombre passage by a clerical-looking butler, who took my card in to his master.

Beyond the present interview which I am about to recount, I know nothing of this excellent man. (Not the butler, the ViceChancellor, though the remark applies to both equally.) I never, to my knowledge, saw or spoke to him again. This was our first and last meeting. Presently I was ushered into a dull, dimly-lighted room, and into the presence of the Vice-Chancellor, a short, wizened, dried-up elderly gentleman, with little legs and a big head, like a serious Punch doll, wearing his academical cap, and with his gown hitched up under his elbows, which gave him the appearance of having recently finished a hornpipe before I came in. He had the fidgety air of a short-sighted person who has just lost his glasses. This, I believe, was the truth: he had mislaid his glasses. After saluting me, as I stood, timidly respectful, cap in hand, in the middle of the room, he commenced the conversation.

"You want to see me, I believe, Mr. Mr., here he referred

6

"A meeting of the Heads' had a pantomimic sound about it, which was, in view of my errand, re-assuring. I hoped that the 'Heads in Meeting' would not hurt themselves. In my mind's eye I pictured those Heads, and I remember now how the unfamiliar use of the word 'Heads' struck me, and how I formulated a sort of riddle to myself 'how many Heads together make one body.' Had I been allowed to chat with the Vice-Chancellor about these Heads,' and could I thus have gradually proceeded to the object of my visit, I am sure we should have got on quite pleasantly. If I could only have said, Never mind the Heads, listen to my tale,' the ice would have been broken. But I was too nervous for this ill-timed levity.

"I felt I must begin. I began accordingly, very hot, and uncomfortably parched, and in a husky voice, as if I had been breakfasting on nuts.

"I've come, sir, to ask you, sir,' I said, 'for your permission'-my sentence was not as clear as this,

but confused and jumbled-' for your permission, to-to-' and then I thought I could put it better, and so tried back. 'I mean, sir, we had some idea of getting up a-a-a- like Macbeth's amen, the words theatrical performance stuck in my throat. If there had been a trap door at my feet, and I could have been let down easily into the cellar beneath, startled the clerical-looking butler, and then escape, I would have given a trifle to have done so at that moment. Never shall I forget this interview.

"Yes,' he said, taking up the sentence at the point where I had dropped it. You are getting up -a subscription, eh? For what object?'

"I had a great mind to adopt his suggestion, and make it a subscription, instead of theatricals. The idea struck me, 'How about saying, we propose to play for a charity. The Something Hospital. I know there is one'; but on second thoughts I discarded this notion, as a detail to be subsequently considered, and made for my point, by the shortest and most direct route in my power.

"No, sir,' I replied; 'not exactly a subscription, though the object,' and here the charity idea again recurred, as softening it all down, would be the benefit of some hospital the Adenbrook Hospital, for instance,' I added, so as to interest him, as it were, with a certain local colouring. He merely nodded, and peered at me; he was peering at me during nearly the whole interview; and at first I could not make out why-absence of glasses and nearness of sight would not sufficiently account for his searching regards. It was not long before I discovered the reason of this scrutiny.

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And, sir,' I went on, rather vaguely, 'I thought—at least we

as

thought-that a theatrical performance he started, as my cat jumped thus suddenly out of the bag, and his start frightened me, but I managed to resume steadily as I could, a theatrical performance-of-in fact-ahem! some one or two plays-or oneperhaps,' thinking not to overpower him with too large a programme all at once-and-andand-' here I came to a standstill. But I breathed more freely now. The first step had been taken, and the words 'theatrical performance' had been pronounced.

"The Vice-Chancellor peered at me, as though I were gradually melting before him in a mist.

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"Um!' he said, so portentously, that it sounded to me like an awful rebuke of my rashness, in daring to thrust myself forward, and disturbing the peace of the University. If I could, even then, have begged his pardon, and have said, like Mr. Toots, 'It's of no consequence,' I would have withdrawn. But I was not acting for myself; I was a Deputy with a

mission.

"Um!' said the Vice-Chancellor; and, giving his gown a good hitch up over his elbows, he put his head on one side, as though he were meditating the commencement of another hornpipe on the spot. Had he done so, I could have joined him in a breakdown. Of course, his dance would have been 'the College Hornpipe.' On second thoughts, however, he gave up the idea of dancing, and after some consideration, during which he seemed to be trying to realise, in his academical mind, the full scope and bearing of my request for a 'theatrical performance,' he said,

"And where do you propose giving this dramatic representation ?'

The question was more than my

wildest hopes could have expected. In effect, he had granted the application, so it seemed to me, and was now going into details. At once I was more at my ease, and answered, with an inquiring, perhaps almost a patronising, smile, as if rather inviting a suggestion from him, than making one myself,

"Well, sir, we had thought of the-the-' I hesitated a little, but out it must come, and it came -the Barnwell Theatre;' and seeing his severe expression, I hastened to add, as if I in no way insisted on the Barnwell Theatre as the only place- or the large room at the Bull.'

"Somehow I felt that I had put my foot in it--that Barnwell and the Bull had done it between them.

"His manner was courteous, but very grave, when, peering at me more intently than ever, he said,

"I have not the pleasure of being personally acquainted with you, I believe, Mr. Mr.-Mr.'and he referred to my card, which he could not see to read.

"I was bound to help him. My name, I informed him, was Burnand; somehow it didn't sound to my own ears as if I said it well; in fact, I pronounced it so badly, that I should have been prepossessed against myself, on the spot, had I been somebody else hearing it for the first time. He went on with his examination, as though I were trying to keep something back from him.

"Of Trinity?' he asked, persuasively.

"Of Trinity' I answered. "A-um- -a Fellow of Trinity?' he inquired, with a courtesy of manner, and an emphasis on the word Fellow' that implied a doubt.

"No, sir,' I answered, respectfully, but with as much carelessness as I could muster at the moment,—' no, sir, I am not a Fel

low.' I tried to give myself the air of saying this, as though I

could have been a Fellow if I had liked, only that, somehow, it had not suited my purpose.

"His manner towards me changed visibly. He became stiffer, and more decidedly the academical Don.

"Um!' he said, with decreasing courtesy, and increasing emphasis on the test word, 'A scholar of Trinity?'

"No,' I replied, getting rather tired of this, I am not a scholar.'

"I did not like to tell him I was an undergraduate, and that this was only my second term.

"Oh,' he said, with some asperity, as though he resented my having obtained an interview with him under false pretences, 'I did not see your gown.'

"That was what he had been peering at. At first he had thought that I was wearing the gown of a Master of Arts; now, he was not quite clear whether it was a Bachelor's or not.

"You have taken your degree and are staying up?' he suggested, inquiringly.

"It was like a doctor's guesses at a patient's health, and being wrong every time.

"No, sir,' I was obliged to admit; 'I have not yet taken my degree.'

"Oh!' he said with a sort of pitying air, still an undergraduate?'

"He had guessed right at last. The opportunity for presenting him with a pun on his own name— which was Guest-was almost too good to be lost. But the interests of our dramatic scheme were at stake, and I felt that, at this critical moment, a false step on my part would ruin our not very bright prospects. Somehow we seemed to have wandered away from the subject, to which I saw no road back.

This time he took the initiative. Now he was quite the Don. His uncertainty had vanished. It was no longer an interview between a colonel and a captain, or a lieutenant, but between a colonel and a private. Once more he hitched up his gown, but this time it was not with the air of a man who might be going to dance, but with the determined action of a truculent counsel, who is not going to be browbeaten by a witness.

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So you want my permission for a dramatic performance?

"Yes,' I said, humbly, that was what his petitioner, &c., and if he granted it, then, in effect, his petitioners would ever pray, &c., &c.

"Um!' he said, giving another violent hitch up to his gown. 'And-ahem! what play do you propose ?

"What play?' This was an unexpected question. We had, as I have said, fixed on Box and Cox, Villikins and his Dinah, if done in time, or Bombastes, and perhaps Talfourd's Macbeth Travestie.

666

Ah!' he said, with a more satisfied air, which argued well for my success,-'ah! Of course,' he went on, most seriously, there's a large field for selection.'

"I was delighted to agree with him.

"There is,' I observed, with the authority of a student of dramatic literature, a very large collection of plays.'

"My thoughts reverted to 'Lacy's Acting Edition,' in many volumes, and I thought what a choice we should have, if we once got permission, and how we might play, Did you ever send Your Wife to

1

"No,' I replied, as if I were most reluctantly divulging a deep secret; it is not a Greek play.' And I wondered to myself what he would think of Villikins and his Dinah, if I had mentioned the subject to him.

66.6

Well,' he continued, as if inclined to yield a point in my favour, 'perhaps you are right. Terence is a favourite. You have, you say,

selected a Latin play?' "No, sir, I,'-I hesitated,-'it is-it is not a Latin play.'

"I devoutly wished I could have said Box and Cox was a Latin play. It flashed through my mind,

If I could only call it Balbus et Caius, or Castor and Pollux. But it won't do: he would find it out afterwards.'

"Not Greek or Latin!' he exclaimed, as if these were the only two languages he had ever heard of anywhere. Then what is the play you propose

666

Well, sir, it's-it's English,' I answered; and I began to have my doubts as to the truth of that statement now.

"I admitted most readily, for it was the first loophole he had given me, that Shakspeare would indeed have been far too much of an enterprise for us, and that, in fact, we did not aim quite so high.

"Then what do you propose to play?' he asked severely.

I looked at him to see if I could detect the slightest tremble of humour in his eye, or the pucker of a smile on his lips. No. He was as hard as granite. He had suggested Greek plays, Latin plays, and had conceded Shakspeare. Evidently, as Vice-Chancellor of the University, he could not be expected to take cognizance of any compositions outside these three, or rather these two, for Shakspeare was a concession. From Sophocles to Terence, from Terence to Shakspeare, was all very well, very proper, and both classical and correct; but, from the Antigone to the Adelphi (Terence's, not Webster's), from the Adelphi of Terence (who, when I first went to Eton, was, I thought, an Irish dramatist) to the Comedy of Errors, and from that to Box and Cox, and thence to Villikins and his Dinah, the fall was too great for serious consideration. Still the truth had to be told.

"Well, sir,' I began humbly, 'we were not thinking of attempting anything great. It is merely among ourselves.

"Members of the University only, of course,' interrupted the Vice-Chancellor.

"Oh, of course!' I returned, quite cheerfully, being delighted to find myself at one with him on any point. And, sir, we were thinking of merely playing a little -a little piece.'

6

"A grand idea struck me. I would not mention the name, Box and Cox, which might only make the Vice-Chancellor think I was laughing at him, but I would