Oh! cruel Fate that bade me look, On one ill-omened day, Upon the pictures in the book Of Vardon's hints on play! For, though I quickly laid it by, That one unlucky dip Into its pages made me try The overlapping grip. Now all my fingers are like thumbs, My club turns round and round; And divots, as it downward comes, Fly upward from the ground. My golf-ball skips to right or left A few short yards and stops; Or, with its surface deeply cleft, Into a bunker drops. And though I swear and fume and fret, My efforts are in vain; And, what is worse, I cannot get The old style back again. So now with sighs and tears and frowns I curse the diagrams That cost me numberless half-crowns, And ah! so many--regrettable comments. _Punch._ THE WORLD'S GREAT OPERAS. Wagner's Rienzi--No. 1. This is the first of a series of articles upon the great operas of the world offered to the readers of THE SCRAP BOOK. To the out-of-town devotees the echoes from stageland sound only remotely as they are given forth by the press. Moreover, the critics deal with the specific production, not with the opera itself in relation to the history of music, or the conceptions of the composers. It is our purpose in these articles to look at the opera from a different point of view, and to glimpse the minds of the great men who have developed the art of the music drama. Even those familiar with the subject may find new light here. Rienzi. The fourth opera written by Wagner. The first three, "The Wedding," "The Fairies," and "The Novice of Palermo" are scarcely known to-day. The music of "The Wedding" was never completed; "The Fairies," although finished in 1833, was first produced in 1888, five years after Wagner's death, when the theater at Munich obtained sole rights for its production. During the tour season it is still frequently placed on the boards of that theater, with all the scenic appurtenances of an operetta. Neither Wagner himself nor the admirers of his later work could claim for it any strong originality or power. "The Novice of Palermo" had only one performance. That was conducted under Wagner's own direction, in 1836, in Magdeburg. The best comment upon this occasion was made by the succeeding performance, when the audience consisted of three persons--Wagner's housekeeper, her husband, and one Polish Jew! After this discouraging event, Wagner abandoned Germany for Paris, and there wrote his five-act opera, "Rienzi," which was shortly afterward accepted by the Dresden Theater. Its success was immediate and brilliant, and this notwithstanding the fact that its performance lasted six hours. The opera is still occasionally produced in Germany, but it is practically unknown to the lyric stage in the English-speaking countries. Wagner.