["The art of setting forth a scene, an incident, in the shape of conversation natural, fluent, easy, and witty, is not so common an accomplishment as the large supply produced on Mr. CRAUFURD'S demand may seem to suggest."--_The "Daily News" on "Dialogues of the Day" edited by Mr. Oswald Craufurd._]
SCENE--_The Elysian Fields, at nightfall._
PRESENT--_The shades of_ Lord _and_ Lady SPARKISH, Lord _and_ Lady SMART, Colonel ALWIT, Mr. NEVEROUT, Miss NOTABLE, _and some other characters in_ Dean SWIFT'S "_Polite Conversation_."
_Lady Smart_ (_laying down her book with a yawn_). Egad! Our posterity cannot _talk_, they can only prattle.
_Miss Notable._ Pray, my lord, what is "patter"?
_Lord Sparkish._ All sauciness and slang, like the soliloquy of a Cheap Jack.
_Mr. Neverout._ Modish conversation, to-day, seems to borrow its diction from the music-hall, and its repartee from the 'bus conductor.
_Miss Notable._ Oh fie! Now our "Polite and Ingenious Conversation," as the dear Dean of ST. PATRICK reported it, was vastly different. Did not Mr. SWIFT declare that he defied all the clubs and coffee-houses in the town to equal it in wit, humour, smartness or politeness?
_Lady Sparkish._ Yes; yes, indeed! And he had scruples about prostituting "this noble art to mean and vulgar people."
_Mr. Neverout._ Egad, the penny daily paper and the sixpenny illustrated weekly have altered all that. "Mean and vulgar people" now write books and journals, as well as read 'em.
_Miss Notable._ For my part I don't like dialogues, except upon the stage. They are so mortally dull.
_Lady Sparkish._ Nay, but my dear girl, the Dean says, you must remember, "Dialogue is held the best method of inculcating any part of knowledge; and I am confident that public schools will soon be founded for teaching wit and politeness, after my scheme, to young people of quality and fortune."
_Mr. Neverout._ Perhaps the present rage for dialogues is the first step in that direction.
_Lady Answerall._ Pah! there _are_ no "young persons of quality" now!
_Lord Sparkish._ Though plenty of young persons of fortune!
_Mr. Neverout._ Quite a different thing, my Lord! In _our_ days School Boards, Labour Members, and American Millionaires had not been invented. CREECH had indeed translated HORACE into the vernacular, but JOWETT had not Englished the Platonic Dialogues for the benefit of Extension Lectures and hack journalists.