[Sidenote: _Punch the Anti-Wagnerite_] All these events and many others came under _Punch's_ notice, but it must be confessed that his shortcomings as a critic are nowhere so conspicuous as in the domain of music. It is true that in 1875 he expressed a guarded admiration for _Lohengrin_: he found it good in parts, like the curate's egg. "Though not melodious, it is certainly most musically interesting and abundantly poetical." But the report of his Bayreuth correspondent in 1876 is admittedly a bogus document, compiled from German phrase-books in London, and tells us nothing about the music, for the writer never went to Bayreuth. The Albert Hall Festival is treated much in the same spirit of entirely irresponsible burlesque. _Punch_ is determined at all costs to represent the Festival as a carnival of "Wagnerian waggeries." When it was over he admitted that many who went to scoff remained to praise. "The _Rhinegold_ is a masterpiece," but he, is careful to add "this is not a discovery of mine," and goes on to express his deliberate opinion that the Tetralogy must inevitably be vulgarized by representation on the stage. "Such a _mise-en-scène_ as the _Ring_ demands is impossible," and he turns with obvious relief to discuss Patti in _Dinorah_ and the performance of _Orphée aux Enfers_ at the Alhambra. In 1882 _Punch_ attended the performances of the _Ring_, and after four nights "deliberately" said, "Never again with you, _Wotan, Siegfried & Co._" He found nothing new in the idea of leading motives: it was as old as the oldest pantomime. A few weeks later _Punch_ heard _Tristan_ done at Drury Lane and was bored to extinction:-- Had it been by a young English composer, or an elderly English composer of the Hanwellian School, it would not have been tolerated for half an hour after its commencement. For ourselves, if of two penances we had to choose one, either to sit out a long, dull sermon in a stuffy church on an August afternoon, or to hear one Act of _Tristan and Isolda_, we should unhesitatingly select the former, where, at all events, there would be the certainty of a tranquil repose, from which no cruel drum, bassoon, or violoncello, but only the snoring of our own nose, could rouse us. That there are occasional snatches of melody is undeniable, but a snatch here and there is not the grasp of a master hand to hold an audience. Judicious selections will always be welcome; but that, taken as a whole, it is the embodiment of stupendous boredom, might be the verdict of all English opera-goers who delight in the Operas of Rossini, Mozart, Meyerbeer, Gounod, Verdi, Balfe, Wallace, Bizet, and we are not afraid to add, even in these days of æsthetic mysticism, art-vagueness, and higher cultchaw--Bellini. _Punch_ then proceeds to "guy" the libretto and stage directions and continues:--