A Little Fleet Part 2

A BROADSHEET:

For the Years 1902-3. With Pictures by P. Colman Smith and Jack B.

Yeats.

Hand-coloured, Twenty-four Numbers, with portfolio, 1 7s. 6d. free.

The Contributors include W. B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, Professor F. York Powell, "A.E.," Wilfred Gibson, John Masefield, Dr. Douglas Hyde, and others.

* Specimen copies may be had, post free, 1s. 2d. net.

"Mr. Yeats has not yet come by his own; when he does the world will recognise more exactly than it has done hitherto what a facile and original artist he is."--_Speaker._

"Miss P. Colman Smith undoubtedly has a great eye for colour, and a most curious conception of its application; indeed the colouring of 'A Broadsheet' is its most striking feature."--_The Reader._

"These twenty-four Broadsheets may be wisely collected by the curious."--_The Sphere._

[Ill.u.s.tration]

_One of Jack B. Yeats's Books for Children._

THE BOSUN AND THE BOB-TAILED COMET.

Foolscap 8vo, 1s. net; or Coloured by the Author, 5s. net.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"'You'll see how the little dears will sing out when they ketches hold of me and my bob-tail'--here the Bosun paused to turn his quid and hitch his trousers up. Then he dexterously tied another knot on his Comet's tail lest it should sweep the pens off the table, or upset the ink-pot."--_The Daily News._

"The t.i.tle is sufficient to indicate the nature of the little book in which Mr. Yeats displays all the humour which has so characterised the series of picture books, and his facile pen has lost none of its old-time cunning."--_Dublin Express._

_One of Jack B. Yeats's Plays for the Miniature Stage_

JAMES FLAUNTY:

OR, THE TERROR OF THE WESTERN SEAS.

1s. net; or, Coloured by the Author, 5s. net.

"A 'memory' of R. L. Stevenson comes seldom amiss, and now especially, when the romancer's name and fame are as a shuttlec.o.c.k between wholly adoring and still discriminating friends, may be considered apt and seasonable. So it won't hurt to read this:

"There stands, I fancy, to this day (but now how fallen!) a certain stationer's shop at a corner of the wide thoroughfare that joins the city of my childhood with the sea. When upon any Sat.u.r.day we made a party to behold the s.h.i.+ps, we pa.s.sed that corner; and since in those days I loved a s.h.i.+p as a man loves Burgundy or daybreak, this of itself had been enough to hallow it. But there was more than that. In that window, all the year round, there stood displayed a theatre in working order, with a 'forest set,' 'a combat,' and a few 'robbers carousing' in the slides; and below and about--dearer tenfold to me!--the plays themselves, those budgets of romance, lay tumbled, one upon another."--_A Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured._

"Here, palpably, was a hint for somebody, who has turned out to be Mr. Jack B. Yeats. The first of his 'plays in the old manner'--'_James Flaunty; or, The Terror of the Western Seas_'--lies before me, and it is a study in grotesque. The most notable point in this production is the fact that the interest thereof attaches not only to the dialogue--you will, however, relish that--but to the setting, the close reproduction of old-world lettering and art, which is a vast deal more than an ordinary publisher's advertis.e.m.e.nt, and cunning enough to deceive the very elect. The ferocious woodcuts, the jaunty humour of the speeches, the fore-and-aft and down-the-hatchway plot, the bizarre characters, harmonize perfectly, and well they may; for Mr. Yeats, all by himself, has invented those same characters, contrived the plot, fas.h.i.+oned the speeches, and designed the ill.u.s.trations.

"Debauched by sixpenny and even threepenny editions, some may rail at this as a dear s.h.i.+lling's worth. (For superior copies the charge is a crown.) For all such n.i.g.g.ards this lean but precious pamphlet--it is no more--will be caviare. But drat economy, say I, when a paltry subscription will land you straight into the arms of a real toy pirate. Never again will you have so good a chance of seeing one, of hanging on his talk, of sympathising with his peril.

Never, I mean, apart from the present showmen, who, however, promise yet better things. Stevenson, you mark, had two sources of enjoyment--play and puppet-show--and Mr. Mathews announces his intention of producing the plays, with scenes and characters, on sheets, to be cut out and played on miniature stages. What _will_ the next generation be like? Certes, 'tis a bold experiment, and, to say the worst, a queer revival."--_Speaker, 1/2/02._ F. J. S.

"At a time when the palmy days of the drama are a melancholy remembrance, we welcome the publication of _James Flaunty; or, The Terror of the Western Seas_, by Jack B. Yeats (Elkin Mathews), which, in its awakening of romance, may be dimly a.s.sociated with the Celtic revival. The spirit of the publication may be indicated by a quotation on the cover from Stevenson's 'A Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured.' It is announced that copies of the play coloured by the author may be had for five s.h.i.+llings, but it is difficult to believe that colour can add materially to the excellence of these designs. Still, a judicious use of crimson lake ('Hark to the sound of it, reader,' as Stevenson says) might add something to the glories of Captain Gig and the rest. We may particularly commend the reticence of effect in the pictures, which aim at no vulgarity of facetiousness, and there is an exquisite moderation in the dialogue. 'It is intended later to produce the plays with scenes and characters on sheets, to be cut out and placed on miniature stages.' We should like to be there to see."--_Manchester Guardian, 10/12/01._

_One of Jack B. Yeats's Plays for the Miniature Stage_

1s. net; or, Coloured by the Author, 5s. net.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SCOURGE OF THE GULPH]

"Mr. Jack B. Yeats's latest play for the miniature stage, _The Scourge of the Gulph_ (Elkin Mathews, pp. 18, 1s. net), has the same exalted qualities that endeared 'James Flaunty' and 'The Treasure of the Garden' to the judicious. Blood runs gaily through the lee scuppers, in accordance with the best precedents; but plenty more of it is left to keep up the native hue of resolution in the cheeks of the survivors. If Mr. Andrew Lang ever finds the 'Odyssey' losing its power to affect the mind like ocean thundering on a Western beach, he should try 'The Scourge of the Gulph.' There is a delicious drawing by Mr. Jack Yeats on the back of the cover."--_Manchester Guardian, 12/1/04._

_One of Jack B. Yeats's Plays for the Miniature Stage_

THE TREASURE OF THE GARDEN:

A PLAY IN THE OLD MANNER.

With Ill.u.s.trations, Hand Coloured by the Author, 4to, 5s. net; Uncoloured copies, 2s. 6d. net.

* Stages, with Prosceniums designed by the Author, Footlights, Slides, and Scenes can be had, price 5s. net, each. The Play set up ready for Acting by the Author, with Stage and all necessaries, price three guineas.

"The sensations of wonder and respect produced by Mr. Jack B.

Yeats's play (for a miniature theatre), 'James Flaunty; or, The Terror of the Western Seas,' are deepened by the appearance of _The Treasure of the Garden_ (Elkin Mathews, 5s. net). Here we have no mere jejune text, but also the characters and the scenery painted unstintingly by the author, and all ready to be gummed on cardboard and strut and fret their five minutes on the toy stage. As Stevenson, were he now living, would probably cut his work in order to produce this drama if it reached him in working hours, the rest of us need take no shame to ourselves for the same inclination. For about ten s.h.i.+llings--a stage costs five s.h.i.+llings--the least among us may now explore the sensations of theatrical management--a happiness for which far higher prices have been paid by many famous lessees of Covent Garden and Drury Lane."--_Manchester Guardian, 2/3/03._

"So many in these days are for reviving the romantic drama, for bringing to life--

The mellow glory of the Attic stage,

and for restoring the arts of acting and of speaking verse, that we have come to regard the exposition of a new theory without emotion; the advent of a new play without excitement. Our romantic dramatists take themselves too seriously, and aim at expressing rather the sorrows than the joys of life. Since the world has heard the beauty of the muted string it has forgotten that life ever went merrily to a pipe, or to the Arcadian, but penny, whistle. It has forgotten the song, and the old tune, and the old story. It has forgotten that the drama ever shook men's hearts, and has come to prefer that it should help to digest men's dinners. We want--

The old laughter that had April in it.

Now perhaps the chief reason for the dulness of modern plays is the somewhat exclusive att.i.tude of the playwright. His appeal is no longer to the world. His appeal is to an audience. No breadth of range, no scope, is allowed to him. He has lost touch with the external forces of daily life. An introspective study, an allegory of the state of his own mind, is the most we can look for from him.

But in Mr. Jack B. Yeats we recognise the makings of a dramatist of an older order; a writer of plays that are written in the intimate speech of the folk-ballad. While his contemporaries argue, wrangle and disagree as to what is music, and what is the best music, and what music saves a man's soul, he, like the hero Finn, is content with the best of all music--