* * * * *

WHY DRAG IN MRS. SIDDONS?

DEAR MR. PUNCH,--Nothing annoys me more than the assumption that
wit, learning, fancy, etc., were the monopoly of the past. For
example, a correspondent of one of our leading dailies has
been trotting out Mrs. SIDDONS' use of blank verse in familiar
conversation, and quoting from LOCKHART:--

"John Kemble's most familiar table-talk often flowed into blank
verse; and so indeed did his sister's [Mrs. Siddons']. Scott (who
was a capital mimic) often repeated her tragic exclamation to a
foot-boy during a dinner at Ashestiel--

'You 've brought me water, boy,--I asked for beer!'

Another time, dining with a Provost of Edinburgh, she ejaculated, in
answer to her host's apology for his _pièce de résistance_--

'Beef cannot be too salt for me, my lord.'"

This is all very well, but just as good blank verse is commonly used by
eminent men and women to-day; indeed some of them excel in impromptu
rhymes. Thus in Mr. HAROLD WESTMORELAND'S interesting volume,
_Eavesdroppings_, there is this charming story of the first meeting
of Madame CLARA BUTT and Miss CARRIE TUBB. They were introduced at a
garden-party at Fulham, and Mr. WESTMORELAND overheard the memorable
quatrain in which Madame CLARA BUTT greeted her sister-artist:--