3-034-878 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Westminster Play, 1871. Stage production in Latin by public school boys. 'There are not a few to whom the pleasures of memory come at the bare mention of the play called "The Andrian." It may be many years since they saw it acted and heard its Latin pronounced in a way to make an old Roman turn in his grave; but all the circumstances are easily recalled to their minds. Yonder is a street of Athens, with the Acropolis in the background, standing not where the maps place it but at one end of the old dormitory of Westminster School...On the very day when the he-paragon is, by force of parental authority, to be married to the young lady of his aversion, the Andrian, regardless of her unmarried condition, becomes the mother of a very fine boy...The he-paragon's object is to have the hateful marriage rendered impossible. Let the child, then, according to a faithful rascal of a slave's device, be exposed (as in the Illustration) before the door of the he-paragon's father's house...So then we have the child exposed at the he-paragon's father's door by the slave (R. W. S. Vidal) and the Andrian's maid-servant (W. Heath), to whom enter the father (A. E. Northcote) of the proposed bride'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.