Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns)

Julius Cæsar in Town

The play of "Julius Cæsar," which has been at the Academy of Music this week, has made a great hit. Messrs. Booth and Barrett very wisely decided that if it succeeded here it would do well anywhere. If the people of New York like a play and say so, it is almost sure to go elsewhere. Judging by this test the play of "Julius Cæsar" has a glowing future ahead of it. It was written by Gentlemen Shakespeare, Bacon and Donnelly, who collaborated together on it. Shakespeare did the lines and plot, Bacon furnished the cipher and Donnelly called attention to it through the papers.

The scene of "Julius Cæsar" is laid in Rome just before the railroad was completed to that place. In order to understand the play itself we must glance briefly at the leading characters which are introduced and upon whom its success largely depends.

Julius Cæsar first attracted attention through the Roman papers by calling the attention of the medical faculty to the now justly celebrated Cæsarian operation. Taking advantage of the advertisement thus attained, he soon rose to prominence and flourished considerably from 100 to 44 B. C., when a committee of representative citizens and property-owners of Rome called upon him and on behalf of the people begged leave to assassinate him as a mark of esteem. He was stabbed twenty-three times between Pompey's Pillar and eleven o'clock, many of which were mortal. This account of the assassination is taken from a local paper and is graphic, succinct and lacks the sensational elements so common and so lamentable in our own time. Cæsar was the implacable foe of the aristocracy and refused to wear a plug hat up to the day of his death. Sulla once said, before Cæsar had made much of a showing, that some day this young man would be the ruin of the aristocracy, and twenty years afterwards when Cæsar sacked, assassinated and holocausted a whole theological seminary for saying "eyether" and "nyether," the old settlers recalled what Sulla had said.

Cæsar continued to eat pie with a knife and in many other ways to endear himself to the masses until 68 B. C., when he ran for Quæstor. Afterward he was Ædile, during the term of which office he sought to introduce a number of new games and to extend the limit on some of the older ones. From this to the Senate was but a step. In the Senate he was known as a good Speaker, but ambitious, and liable to turn up during a close vote when his enemies thought he was at home doing his chores. This made him at times odious to those who opposed him, and when he defended Cataline and offered to go on his bond, Cæsar came near being condemned to death himself.

In 62 B. C. he went to Spain as Proprætor, intending to write a book about the Spanish people and their customs as soon as he got back, but he was so busy on his return that he did not have time to do so.

Cæsar was a powerful man with the people, and while in the Senate worked hard for his constituents, while other Senators were having their photographs taken. He went into the army when the war broke out, and after killing a great many people against whom he certainly could not have had anything personal, he returned, headed by the Rome Silver Cornet Band and leading a procession over two miles in length. It was at this time that he was tendered a crown just as he was passing the City Hall, but thrice he refused it. After each refusal the people applauded and encored him till he had to refuse it again. It is at about this time the play opens. Cæsar has just arrived on a speckled courser and dismounted outside the town. He comes in at the head of a procession with the understanding that the crown is to be offered him just as he crosses over to the Court-House.

Here Cassius and Brutus meet, and Cassius tries to make a Mugwump of Brutus, so that they can organize a new movement. Mr. Edwin Booth takes the character of Brutus and Mr. Lawrence Barrett takes that of Cassius. I would not want to take the character of Cassius myself, even if I had run short of character and needed some very much indeed, but Mr. Barrett takes it and does first-rate. Mr. Booth also plays Brutus so that old settlers here say it seems almost like having Brutus here among us again.

Brutus was a Roman republican with strong tariff tendencies. He was a good extemporaneous after-dinner speaker and a warm personal friend of Cæsar, though differing from him politically. In assassinating Cæsar, Brutus used to say afterwards he did not feel the slightest personal animosity, but did it entirely for the good of the party. That is one thing I like about politics – you can cut out a man's vitals and hang them on the Christmas tree and drag the fair name of his wife or mother around through the sewers for six weeks before election, and so long as it is done for the good of the party it is all right.

So when Brutus is authorized by the caucus to assassinate Cæsar he feels that, like being President of the United States, it is a disagreeable job; but if the good of the party seems really to demand it he will do it, though he wishes it distinctly understood that personally he hasn't got a thing against Cæsar.

In act 4 Brutus sits up late reading a story by E. P. Roe, and just as he is in the most exciting part of it the ghost of the assassinated Cæsar appears and states that it will meet him with hard gloves at Philippi. Brutus looks bored and says that he is not in condition, but the ghost leaves it that way and Brutus looks still more bored till the ghost goes out through a white oak door without opening it.

At Philippi, Brutus sees that there is no hope of police interference, and so before time is called he inserts his sword into his being and dies while the polite American audience puts on its overcoat and goes out, looking over its shoulder to see that Brutus does not take advantage of this moment, while the people are going away, to resuscitate himself.

The play is thoroughly enjoyable all the way through, especially Cæsar's funeral. The idea of introducing a funeral and engaging Mark Antony to deliver the eulogy, with the understanding that he was to have his traveling expenses paid and the privilege of selling the sermon to a syndicate, shows genius on the part of the joint authors. All the way through the play is good, but sad. There is no divertisement or tank in it, but the funeral more than makes up for all that.

Where Portia begs Brutus, before the assassination, to tell her all and let her in on the ground floor, and asks what the matter is, and he claims that it is malaria, and she still insists and asks, "Dwell I but in the suburbs of your good pleasure?" and he states, "You are my true and honorable wife, as dear to me as are the ruddy drops that visit my sad heart," I forgot myself and wept my new plug hat two-thirds full. It is as good as anything there is in Josh Whitcomb's play.

Booth and Barrett have the making of good actors in them. I met both of these gentlemen in Wyoming some years ago. We met by accident. They were going to California and I was coming back. By some oversight we had both selected the same track, and we were thrown together. I do not know whether they will recall my face or not. I was riding on the sleeper truck at the time of the accident. I always take a sleeper and always did. I rode on the truck because I didn't want to ride inside the car and have to associate with a wealthy porter who looked down upon me. I am the man who was found down the creek the next day gathering wild ferns and murmuring, "Where am I?"

The play of "Julius Cæsar" is one which brings out the meanness and magnetism of Cassius, and emphasizes the mistaken patriotism of Brutus. It is full of pathos, duplicity, assassination, treachery, erroneous loyalty, suicide, hypocrisy, and all the intrigue, jealousy, cowardice and deviltry which characterized the politics of fifty years B. C., but which now, thanks to the enlightenment and refinement which twenty centuries have brought, are known no more forever. Let us not forget, as we enter upon the year 1888, that it is a Presidential year, and that all acrimony will be buried under the dew and the daisies, and that no matter how high party spirit may run, there will be no personal enmity.

His First Womern

I buried my first womernIn the spring; and in the fallI was married to my second,And haint settled yit at all? —Fer I'm allus thinkin' – thinkin'Of the first one's peaceful ways,A-bilin' soap and singin'Of the Lord's amazin' grace.And I'm thinkin' of her, constant,Dyin' carpet-chain and stuff,And a-makin' up rag-carpets,When the floor was good enough!And I mind her he'p a-feedin'And I recollect her nowA-drappin' corn, and keepin'Clos't behind me and the plow!And I'm allus thinkin' of herReddin' up around the house;Er cookin' fer the farm-hands;Er a-drivin' up the cows. —And there she lays out yenderBy the lower medder-fence,Where the cows was barely grazin',And they're usin' ever sence.And when I look acrost there —Say its when the clover's ripe,And I'm settin', in the evenin',On the porch here, with my pipe,And the other'n hollers "Henry!" —W'y, they ain't no sadder thingThan to think of my first womernAnd her funeral last springWas a year ago.

This Man Jones

This man Jones was what you'd callA feller 'at had no sand at all:Kindo consumpted, and undersize,And saller-complected, with big sad eyes,And a kind-of-a-sort-of-a-hang-dog style,And a sneakin' kind-of-a-half-way smileThat kindo give him away to usAs a preacher, maybe, or sumpin' wuss.Didn't take with the gang – well, no —But still we managed to use him, though, —Coddin' the gilley along the rout'And drivin' the stakes that he pulled out; —For I was one of the bosses thenAnd of course stood in with the canvas-men —And the way we put up jobs, you know,On this man Jones jes' beat the show!Used to rattle him scandalous,And keep the feller a-dodgin' us,And a-shyin' round jes' skeered to death,And a-feered to whimper above his breath;Give him a cussin', and then a kick,And then a kind-of-a back-hand lick —Jes' for the fun of seein' him climbAround with a head on half the time.But what was the curioust thing to me,Was along o' the party – let me see, —Who was our "Lion Queen" last year? —Mamzelle Zanty, er De La Pierre? —Well, no matter! – a stunnin' in mash,With a red-ripe lip, and a long eye-lash,And a figger sich as the angels owns —And one too many for this man Jones:He'd always wake in the afternoonAs the band waltzed in on "the lion tune,"And there, from the time that she'd go in,Till she'd back out of the cage agin,He'd stand, shaky and limber-kneed —'Specially when she come to "feedThe beast raw meat with her naked hand" —And all that business, you understand.And it was resky in that den —For I think she juggled three cubs then,And a big "green" lion 'at used to smashCollar-bones for old Frank Nash;And I reckon now she haint forgotThe afternoon old "Nero" sotHis paws on her: – but as for me,It's a sort-of-a-mixed-up mystery.Kindo' remember an awful roar,And see her back for the bolted door —See the cage rock – heerd her call"God have mercy!" and that was all —For ther haint no livin' man can tellWhat it's like when a thousand yellIn female tones, and a thousand moreHowl in bass till their throats is sore!But the keeper said as they dragged her out,They heerd some feller laugh and shout:"Save her! Quick! I've got the cuss!"… And yit she waked and smiled on us!And we daren't flinch– for the doctor said,Seein' as this man Jones was dead,Better to jes' not let her knowNothin' o' that for a week or so.

How to Hunt the Fox

The joyous season for hunting is again upon us, and with the gentle fall of the autumn leaf and the sough of the scented breezes about the gnarled and naked limbs of the wailing trees – the huntsman comes with his hark and his halloo and hurrah, boys, the swift rush of the chase, the thrilling scamper 'cross country, the mad dash through the Long Islander's pumpkin patch – also the mad dash, dash, dash of the farmer, the low moan of the disabled and frozen-toed hen as the whooping horsemen run her down; the wild shriek of the children, the low melancholy wail of the frightened shoat as he flees away to the straw pile, the quick yet muffled plunk of the frozen tomato and the dull scrunch of the seed cucumber.

The huntsman now takes the flannels off his fox, rubs his stiffened limbs with gargling oil, ties a bunch of firecrackers to his tail and runs him around the barn a few times to see if he is in good order.

The foxhound is a cross of the bloodhound, the grayhound, the bulldog and the chump. When you step on his tail he is said to be in full cry. The foxhound obtains from his ancestors on the bloodhound side of the house his keen scent, which enables him while in full cry 'cross country to pause and hunt for chipmunks. He also obtains from the bloodhound branch of his family a wild yearning to star in an "Uncle Tom" company, and watch little Eva meander up the flume at two dollars per week. From the grayhound he gets his most miraculous speed, which enables him to attain a rate of velocity so great that he is unable to halt during the excitement of the chase, frequently running so far during the day that it takes him a week to get back, when, of course, all interest has died out. From the bulldog the foxhound obtains his great tenacity of purpose, his deep-seated convictions, his quick perceptions, his love of home and his clinging nature. From the chump the foxhound gets his high intellectuality and that mental power which enables him to distinguish almost at a glance the salient points of difference between a two-year-old steer and a two-dollar bill.

The foxhound is about two feet in height, and 120 of them would be considered an ample number for a quiet little fox hunt. Some hunters think this number inadequate, but unless the fox be unusually skittish and crawl under the barn, 120 foxhounds ought to be enough. The trouble generally is that hunters make too much noise, thus scaring the fox so that he tries to get away from them. This necessitates hard riding and great activity on the part of the whippers-in. Frightening a fox almost always results in sending him out of the road and compelling horsemen to stop in order to take down a panel of fence every little while that they may follow the animal, and before you can get the fence put up again the owner is on the ground, and after you have made change with him and mounted again the fox may be nine miles away. Try by all means to keep your fox in the road!

It makes a great difference what kind of fox you use, however. I once had a fox on my Pumpkin Butte estates that lasted me three years, and I never knew him to shy or turn out of the road for anything but a loaded team. He was the best fox for hunting purposes that I ever had. Every spring I would sprinkle him with Scotch snuff and put him away in the bureau till fall. He would then come out bright and chipper. He was always ready to enter into the chase with all the chic and embonpoint of a regular Kenosha, and nothing pleased him better than to be about eight miles in advance of my thoroughbred pack in full cry, scampering 'cross country, while stretching back a few miles behind the dogs followed a pale young man and his financier, each riding a horse that had sat down too hard on its tail some time and driven it into his system about six joints.

Some hunters, who are madly and passionately devoted to the sport, leap their horses over fences, moats, donjon keeps, hedges and currant bushes with utter sang froid and the wild, unfettered toot ongsomble of a brass band. It is one of the most spirited and touchful of sights to see a young fox-hunter going home through the gloaming with a full cry in one hand and his pancreas in the other.

Some like to be in at the death, as it is called, and it is certainly a laudable ambition. To see 120 dogs hold out against a ferocious fox weighing nine pounds; to watch the brave little band of dogs and whippers-in and horses with sawed-off tails, making up in heroism what they lack in numbers, succeeding at last in ridding the country of the ferocious brute which has long been the acknowledged foe of the human race, is indeed a fine sight.

We are too apt to regard fox-hunting merely as a relaxation, a source of pleasure, and the result of a desire to do the way people do in the novels which we steal from English authors: but this is not all. To successfully hunt a fox, to jump fences 'cross country like an unruly steer, is no child's play. To ride all day on a very hot and restless saddle, trying to lope while your horse is trotting, giving your friends a good view of the country between yourself and your horse, then leaping stone walls, breaking your collar-bone in four places, pulling out one eye and leaving it hanging on a plum tree, or going home at night with your transverse colon wrapped around the pommel of your saddle and your liver in an old newspaper, requires the greatest courage.

Too much stress cannot be placed upon the costume worn while fox-hunting, and in fact, that is, after all, the life and soul of the chase. For ladies, nothing looks better than a close-fitting jacket, sewed together with thread of the same shade and a skirt. Neat-fitting cavalry boots and a plug hat complete the costume. Then, with a hue in one hand and a cry in the other, she is prepared to mount. Lead the horse up to a stone wall or a freight car and spring lightly into the saddle with a glad cry. A freight car is the best thing from which to mount a horse, but it is too unwieldy and frequently delays the chase. For this reason, too, much luggage should not be carried on a fox-hunt. Some gentlemen carry a change of canes, neatly concealed in a shawl strap, but even this may be dispensed with.

For gentlemen, a dark, four-button cutaway coat, with neat, loose-fitting, white panties, will generally scare a fox into convulsions, so that he may be easily killed with a club. A short-waisted plug hat may be worn also, in order to distinguish the hunter from the whipper-in, who wears a baseball cap. The only fox-hunting I have ever done was on board an impetuous, tough-bitted, fore-and-aft horse that had emotional insanity. I was dressed in a swallow-tail coat, waistcoat of Scotch plaid Turkish toweling, and a pair of close-fitting breeches of etiquette tucked into my boot-tops. As I was away from home at the time and could not reach my own steed I was obliged to mount a spirited steed with high, intellectual hips, one white eye and a big red nostril that you could set a Shanghai hen in. This horse, as soon as the pack broke into full cry, climbed over a fence that had wrought-iron briers on it, lit in a corn field, stabbed his hind leg through a sere and yellow pumpkin, which he wore the rest of the day, with seven yards of pumpkin vine streaming out behind, and away we dashed 'cross country. I remained mounted not because I enjoyed it, for I did not, but because I dreaded to dismount. I hated to get off in pieces. If I can't get off a horse's back as a whole, I would rather adhere to the horse. I will adhere that I did so.

We did not see the fox, but we saw almost everything else. I remember, among other things, of riding through a hothouse, and how I enjoyed it. A morning scamper through a conservatory when the syringas and Jonquils and Jack roses lie cuddled up together in their little beds, is a thing to remember and look back to and pay for. To stand knee-deep in glass and gladiolas, to smell the mashed and mussed up mignonette and the last fragrant sigh of the scrunched heliotrope beneath the hoof of your horse, while far away the deep-mouthed baying of the hoarse hounds, hotly hugging the reeking trail of the aniseseed bag, calls on the gorgeously caparisoned hills to give back their merry music or fork it over to other answering hills, is joy to the huntsman's heart.

On, on I rode with my unconfined locks streaming behind me in the autumn wind. On and still on I sped, the big, bright pumpkin slipping up and down the gambrel of my spirited horse at every jump. On and ever on we went, shedding terror and pumpkin seeds along our glittering track till my proud steed ran his leg in a gopher hole and fell over one of those machines that they put on a high-headed steer to keep him from jumping fences. As the horse fell, the necklace of this hickory poke flew up and adjusted itself around my throat. In an instant my steed was on his feet again, and gayly we went forward while the prong of this barbarous appliance, ever and anon plowed into a brand new culvert or rooted up a clover field. Every time it ran into an orchard or a cemetery it would jar my neck and knock me silly. But I could see with joy that it reduced the speed of my horse. At last as the sun went down, reluctantly, it seemed to me, for he knew that he would never see such riding again, my ill-spent horse fell with a hollow moan, curled up, gave a spasmodic quiver with his little, nerveless, sawed-off tail and died.

The other huntsmen succeeded in treeing the anise-seed bag at sundown, in time to catch the 6 o'clock train home.

Fox-hunting is one of the most thrilling pastimes of which I know, and for young men whose parents have amassed large sums of money in the intellectual pursuit of hides and tallow, the meet, the chase, the scamper, the full cry, the cover, the stellated fracture, the yelp of the pack, the yip, the yell of triumph, the confusion, the whoop, the holla, the hallos, the hurrah, the abrasion, the snort of the hunter, the concussion, the sward, the open, the earth stopper, the strangulated hernia, the glad cry of the hound as he brings home the quivering seat of the peasant's pantaloons, the yelp of joy as he lays at his master's feet, the strawberry mark of the rustic, all, all are exhilarating to the sons of our American nobility.

Fox-hunting combines the danger and the wild, tumultuous joy of the skating-rink, the toboggan slide, the mush-and-milk sociable and the straw ride.

With a good horse, an air cushion, a reliable earth-stopper and an anise-seed bag, a man must indeed be thoroughly blase who cannot enjoy a scamper across country, over the Pennsylvania wold, the New Jersey mere, the Connecticut moor, the Indiana glade, the Missouri brake, the Michigan mead, the American tarn, the fen, the gulch, the buffalo wallow, the cranberry marsh, the glen, the draw, the canyon, the ravine, the forks, the bottom or the settlement.

For the young American nobleman whose ducal father made his money by inventing a fluent pill, or who gained his great wealth through relieving humanity by means of a lung pad, a liver pad, a kidney pad or a foot pad, fox-hunting is first rate.

The Boy Friend

Larence, my boy-friend, hale and strong,O, he is as jolly as he is young;And all of the laughs of the lyre belongTo the boy all unsung:So I want to sing something in his behalf —To clang some chords, of the good it isTo know he is near, and to have the laughOf that wholesome voice of his.I want to tell him in gentler waysThan prose may do, that the arms of rhyme,Warm and tender with tuneful praise,Are about him all the time.I want him to know that the quietest nightsWe have passed together are yet with meRoistering over the old delightsThat were born of his company.I want him to know how my soul esteemsThe fairy stories of Andersen,And the glad translations of all the themesOf the hearts of boyish men.Want him to know that my fancy flows,With the lilt of a dear old-fashioned tune,Through "Lewis Carroll's" poemly prose,And the tale of "The Bold Dragoon."O, this is the Prince that I would sing —Would drape and garnish in velvet lineSince courtlier far than any kingIs this brave boy-friend of mine!

A Letter of Acceptance

The secretary of the Ashfield Farmer's Club, of Ashfield, Mass., Mr. E. D. Church, informs me by United States mail that upon receipt of my favorable reply I will become an honorary member of that Club, along with George William Curtis, Prof. Norton, Prof. Stanley Hall, of Harvard, and other wet-browed toilers in the catnip-infested domain of Agriculture.

I take this method of thanking the Ashfield Farmers' Club, through its secretary, for the honor thus all so unworthily bestowed, and joyfully accept the honorary membership, with the understanding, however, that during the County Fair the solemn duty of delivering the annual address from the judges' stand, in tones that will not only ring along down the corridors of time, but go thundering three times around a half-mile track and be heard above the rhythmic plunk of the hired man who is trying to ascertain, by means of a large mawl and a thumping machine, how hard he can strike, shall fall upon Mr. Curtis or other honorary members of the club. I have a voice that does very well to express endearment, or other subdued emotions, but it is not effective at a County Fair. Spectators see the wonderful play of my features, but they only hear the low refrain of the haughty Clydesdale steed, who has a neighsal voice and wears his tail in a Grecian coil. I received $150 once for addressing a race-track one mile in length on "The Use and Abuse of Ensilage as a Narcotic." I made the gestures, but the sentiments were those of the four-ton Percheron charger, Little Medicine, dam Eloquent.