HENRY J. BYRON.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1987, 2 April 1885, Page 4

HENRY J. BYRON.

When Douglas Jenold died, The Times t'u> ne\t morning (the Tlmndeiei was a power in those days), rcmaiked, "The wits of London have lost their chief;" an I when pool Henry James Byron succumbed to the King of Teiror«, a similar lemark would have easily applied. Bjion was undoubtedly the wittiest and occa sionally the most humourous man I pv er came in contact with, and it was a thousand pities he did not cultivate his undoubted talents by travel and a moie ex tended .social intci change, instead of living the uanow, restrained life he did, dividing his time between Ins hoinj and the theatie. This seclusion cramped his intellect, and his plaj s seemed to invariably mo\e in one groove. I doubt if he ever went beyond Ruis, ami lam perfectly sure lie i.c\cr set toot in Italy or crossed the Mediter lave.in. I leuiemberonone occasion point ing out to him that Horn berg, I'ndeuB.ulen. Biairit/, Schwalbach, Algol la, .md other place? I indicated, would alloid delighttul fields of observation, vvheie he would glean new types of ch.iiactu for his plays, and his simple leply was, he hated travelling. On this point he was liicoriigible. I was \eiy neaily inducing him to go to Ameuca with John S. Clarke, the well known comedian, to act ni one of his own comedies, and he went so far as to draw up some memoranda of his want 3 and requirements ; but at the last moment he " weakened," as the Americans say, and went to Hei ne Bay instead I positively spent hours prevailing on him to take the trip, and pointed out the benefit to his health (he was never very strong), ofFered to supei intend the preliminary ariangements, so as to take all trouble off his hands : got the promise of the best berth on a White Star ship (the best line that floats between heio and New York, let me say, par put Inthese), and in all of thi~> I was eloquently seconded by Mi J. S. Claike ; hut, as i intimated, oar eflbits weie all thrown away. Kveiy day he had a new objection, and m a icply to an obsei v ation that most clever men, especially successful dramatists, now visit the New World, he said : ".Shakespeare did not go to Ameiica, and he got on very nicely." I pointed out that there was no market in New Yoik for plays in the times of Queen Elizabeth, w hen he protested he could do all his business by correspondence—postage, happily, was cheap— and he had quite as many commissions for plays as he could get through in a year, and so we gave up all further argument. Had Byron gone to Ameuca, he would have turned all he saw to admirable and profitable account, for he was immensely partial to the quaint forms of Transatlantic humour, lv a genet al way, he did not laugh very heartily at other people's jokes ; but Artenius Ward, Mark Twaiu, Bret Harte, \V. J. Florence, and the Yankee comedians he met from time to time, always chat mcd him with their stories and anecdotes. Byron's method of play-writing was quite stti ffenuis. He would not finish one work out of hand and then attack the next, but would work at two or three plays simultaneously. I remember calling on him one morning when the cacoethes soibendi was well upon him, and he could only give me five minutes as a " very special favour." He had a desk at each end of the room with piles of paper on each one. On one lay the MS. of a diama he was writing for the I': inccss 1 Theatie — " Guinea Gold," I think it was called —and on the other a burlesque he was "knocking off" (I use his own phrase) for the Strand. Pinned up against the desks were slips of paper with the names of the dramatis penona written plainly out, which he consulted from time to time. He would walk up and clown absorbed in thought, plucking at the ends of his moustache, light a cigarette, and then suddenly dash into his drama, and write for halt an hour, coveriug page after pige with wonderful rapidity. Then he would leave the diama, perform another stroll, divert his thoughts into a different channel, and "wnein" at his burlesque, smiling and sometimes laughing outright at the gay fancies that flew through his brain. Having finished a scene, he would return to his dtama-desk, read over what he had written, and run his blue pencil through half a page at a time ; but I observed he made very few excisions m the lighter work. Writing a drama he protested was haul woik, but a burlesque, a farce, or even a comedy flowed from his pen without the slightest apparent effort. The more sciious woik, especially the sentimental or stormy scenes of hia dramas (he only wrote three or four) had a prepaied and laboured air, while the light and airy banter of his comedy, the swift chad of his farces, and the rhythmical audacity of his burlesques suggests the flow of bright water dancing and gleaming in the sunlight. Apait from his literary merit and his ability as a diamattet, Byron enjoyed a unique leputation as a punster, and his pyiotechnic brain, incessantly whizzing and whaling, shot out showeis of spaiks in the way of quips, mots, puus, and repartee. It was not possible to be with him five miuutes without him firing off a joke at something or somebody. One day, walking along the Strand, we passed Beerbohm Tiee, the comedian, who has reddish hair. "There's Tiec,' I said. "Yes, I see him, Ginger Beeibolim Tree," he replied instantly. The Brothers Brough, the dramatists, were quite dissimilar in appearance. William was natty, and Robeit, who was very gifted, had rather a grubby air, and was careless of his clicss. Byron christened them "Clean Brough and Clever Brough," implying that the clean one was not clever, and the clever one was not clean. One day, in conveisation with Sullivan, the tragedian, Byron remaiked, "Barry, I wonder you don't play Othello oftcner. It suits your robust, pictuicsque temperament." " Well, to tell you the truth, replied Sullivan, who is slightly marked with small-pox, " I like the character well enough, but it's such a nuisance to get the bai barous brown 'make up* out of these pits It takes ten minutes to restore my countenance to its normal condition." Byron smiled, gave his moustache a vigorous pull, and said, '• Well you are the first actor I ever knew who objected to full pits." We were discussing on one occasion the tendency of managers to imitate each other, and their reluctance to strike out new forms of amusement. As we finished the subject we passed the Lyceum where " Tho Bells" was being performed. Byron glanced at the »J/irhc, and said, " Irving is doing " The Bells." It is ten to one some other manager does not bring out " The Smells," and then some other will do " The Swells," and by that time possibly a new subject will crop up."— Howard Paul.

"No, said a far sighted father, "I don't want a dog to keep the young men away, but I shall get one by and bye." " When ?" asked the dog keeper. "After my girls get married." "But what will you want of a dog then?" "To keep them and their husbands from coming back here to live." Accordixo to Mr Flowers the magistrate, drunkenness is not an offence so long as the person intoxicated gets into that condition through toasting a member of the Royal Family. Mary Ann Holmes is a lady who gave way to her feelings oh the occasion of Prince Albert Victoi 's coming-of-age. It appear? that "a gentleman," in Wych-strect, Strand, asked her — whilst she was in the state kuown as "disorderly" — what she would like to drink. To this she replied, "The Prince's health, of course," and therefore the loyal Mowers exercised the prerogative of mercy, and snid: "Very well, under thi i iicitmstancei I will discharge you." — Truth.