'Whinfell, Upper Redlands Rd., 30. i. 32.
Alfred Rawlings in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read and approved.
[...]
3. Howard Smith spoke to us of the social and literary sides of Sheridan's life.[...]
4. Reginald H. Robson followed with an account of Sheridan as Parliamentarian, telling us of
his thirty-two years in opposition to reactionary government, his aversion from bribery in a
corrupt age, and his conduct of the Hastings Impeachment. This last brought into remarkable
combination Sheridan's dramatic and rhetorical gifts; so that we quite fell beneath the spell,
accepting him as a heroic character, and were ready to condone, if not indeed even to
acclaim, his less creditable convivialities with the Prince Regent and Mrs.[or Mr.] Robson's
ancestors!
5. Francis E. Pollard then read a passage from Sheridan's speech on the devastation of
Oudh.[...]
6. We then listend to extracts from "The School for Scandal" starring Mrs. Robson as Lady
Teazle and C. E. Stansfield as Sir Peter. As is not unusual on such occasions the humours of
the play as devised by the author had to compete with other unrehearsed attractions — actors
borrowing books, adjusting their spectacles, turning two pages instead of one, and, perhaps
best of all, the pure milk of the expurgated editions looking a little sour at the strong wine of
the original text.
Be that as it may, ancestral portraits from the brush of Vandyke or Lely, Kneller or Rawlings
changed owners with the accustomed success: Mr. Robson* as Joseph Surface mad love to his
own wife as Lady Teazle[...].
* R.H.R. states that Gio. B. was Jos. Surface [Footnote is in MS]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Unidentified members of the XII Book Club Print: Book
'Meeting held at Frensham:- 27.1.37
Howard R. Smith in the chair
1. Minutes of last read and approved.
[...]
6. Members then read the play Green Pastures, with exception only of one big scene. Edgar
Castle took the part of “De Lord Jehovah” (unavoidably absent) and Frank Pollard (perhaps
with boyhood memories of the days when he was B. B. le Tall’s licensed jester) played the
Archangel Gabriel. Of the others it might be said that each man in his turn played many parts,
and Reginald Robson was a veritable Henry V at Agincourt, Pyrrhus at Troy, + Condé at Rocroi
rolled into one with here and there a touch of the angels at Mons.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Unidentified members of the XII Book Club Print: Book
