I always thought it a singularly
clever performance, for Mrs. Crawshay can only have been nineteen
then, and her sister eighteen. Mrs. Crawshay invariably played the
heroine, Lady Hope the confidante, and Sir John Leslie any male
part requisite. No matter what the subject given them might be,
they would start in blank verse at once. Let us suppose so
unpromising a subject as the collection of railway tickets outside
a London terminus had been selected. Lady Hope, with pleading
eyes, and all the conventional gestures of sympathy of a stage
confidante, would at once start apostrophising her sister in some
such fashion as this:--
"Fair Semolina, dry those radiant orbs; Thy swain doth beg thee
but a token small Of that great love which thou dost bear to him.
Prithee, sweet mistress, take now heart of grace, At times we all
credentials have to show, Eftsoons at Willesden halts the panting
train, Each traveller knows inexorable fate Hath trapped him in
her toils; loud rings the tread Of brass-bound despot as he wends
his way From door to door, claiming with gesture rude His pound of
flesh, or eke the pasteboard slip, Punched with much care, all
travel-worn and stained, For which perchance ten ducats have been
paid, Granting full access from some distant spot.
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