Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1921 edition. Excerpt: ... Circus in the 'forties, Punch forms a useful commentary on the delightful mock ballads of Bon Gaultier. Gomersal, the famous equestrian impersonator of Napoleon, was going strong in 1844. His retirement to a hostelry at Hull in 1849 is attributed by Punch to disgust at the failure of Imperialism. Widdecomb, the illustrious ring-master, and the subject of many of Punch's pleasantries, earned the distinction of a mention by Browning, who refers to him as resembling Tom Moore, with his "painted cheeks and sham moustache," and he finds a niche in the Pantheon of the D.N.B. Astley's is the mere shadow of a name to the present generation, and only elderly Londoners can recall the delights of the Polytechnic as a place more of entertainment than instruction, with the tank and diving bell and electrifying apparatus, dear to mid-Victorian schoolboys in their Christmas holidays. These are duly chronicled by Punch along with the attractions of Rosherville Gardens, then presided over by Baron Nathan, one of the irregular impresario peers who do not appear in "Debrett," of whom the last representative was Lord George Sanger. Baron Nathan catered for a mixed audience, but as a director of dances he appealed to a fashionable clientele. When Burnand wrote the libretto of Cox and Box in 1866, Rosherville was the paradise of the City clerk, witness Cox's song overleaf, My aged employer, his whole physiognomy Shining with soap like a star in astronomy, Said "Mr. Cox, you'll oblige me and honour me If you will take this as your holiday 1" Then visions of Brighton and back and of Rosherville--Feeling the rain put on my mackintosh I vill, etc. Brighton already justified its title of "London-on-Sea," and the volume of...