The Press. — London, England, 1854-11-18 00:00:00

1100 DEATH OF CHARLES KEMBLE.—We announce with ranch regret the death of Mr. Charles Kern ble, which event took place on Sunday la st, at the age of seventy-nine. The deceased was born at Brecknock, in South Wales, in 1775. Few actors of the old school are so well remembered by the present race of playgoers as Charles Kemble, whose personations of the higher class of comedy were brought down to a comparatively late date, and are still spoken of with admiration as histrionic portraitures of unique merit. The youngest of the great branch of the Kemble family, he shared with his illustrious brother John and his stately sister the honours which attach so pre eminently to the name. Many of the parts which he filled may be said to have virtually left the stage when age and infirmity occasioned his re tirement into private life ; and we shall probably never see the Mirabels, Doricourts, Absolutes, and Charles Surfaces of the drama again realised with such exquisite tact and refinement. Mr. Charles Kemble's professional history was marked by the usual vicissitudes which belong to the actor's career. He is said to have originally began the world as a clerk in the Post-office, after having completed his education at Donay in 1762; but that a taste for theatricals influencing him, as it did other members of the family, he made his debut at Sheffield as Orlando in As You Like It. His early efforts, how ever, were anything but successes, and he was de scribed by a critic of the day as " a tall, awkward youth, with a hatchet face, a figure badly propor• tioned, and of weak limbs, his acting being evidently worse than his appearance." About the year 1800, however, he began to challenge a different sort of estimate ; and joining, in 1803, his brother John in the proprietary and management of Covent-garden Theatre, he gradually rose to that eminence as a de lineator of polite comedy which no other actor ever rivalled. Certain of his tragic personations were also of unquestionable excellence ; and his Falcoln bridge, Pierre, Romeo, and others, are yet fondly and honourably mentioned. He was induced to reappear on the stage in the year 1840, and play a brief round of characters ; but the venerable actor was all but unequal to the task, and, though some of the old genius was still visible, the trembling voice and stooping figure betokened the extent of the physical decay, and the exhibition did not long continue. For some years past Mr. Charles Kemble had been the %ictini of an incurable deafness ; this, however, did not prevent his taking an interest in the dramatic art. He married, in 1806, Miss Teresa Decamp. His children, Mrs. Butler, Mrs. Sartoris, and the Rev, John Kemble, the eminent Saxon scholar, have nobly maintained the intellectual glory of the house. Among the many valuable lives which the opera rations in the Crimea have cost us, not the least to be lamented is that of LIEUTENANT-COLONEL C. C. ALEXANDER, who succeeded Brigadier-General Tylden as Commanding Royal Engineer of the army in the East. Colonel Alexander owed his first sword to the Duke of Kent, and his commission as second-lieute nant was dated July 20, 1818. From that time his life was one of active service, in Canada, at the Cape, St. Helena (where he was charged with the duty of superintending the exhuming of the body of Napo leon), in the West Indies, and the Channel Islands, where he was on duty when selected for service in the East. He died of appoplexy in his tent, where be had flung himself on his bed, without undressing, for a short sleep after his return from the trenches. His death was, no doubt, due to over-exertion—to mental and bodily wear and tear in the construction of those English fleldworks before Sebastopol of which Sir J. Burgoyne reported to Lord Raglan that he had never known works better executed. To Colonel Alexander we owe those trenches and bat teries, constructed under singular difficulties of ground, but which, tested by the Russian artillery as fleldworks never were before, have so stoutly and successfully stood the trial. Among the friends of Colonel Alexander there is but one regret beyond those inseparable from such bereavement—that he did not live to see the achievement to the consumma tion of which he had so much contributed; but if his death lacked the glory of the battle-field, it was not the less a soldier's death, encountered at his post, in harness, front to the foe. THE REV. DR. JOHN Ilt'HE SPRY, Rector of the extensive parish of St. Marylebone, died on Saturday afternoon, at his residence in Devonshire-Place. The deceased was in early life a student of Oriel College, Oxford, in which university lie achieved some distinc tion, in 1825. On the death of Archdeacon Heslop, he was presented by Lord Liverpool, then Prime Minister, to the rectory of Marylebone, worth at that time upwards of 2,0001. a year. Three years after wards, namely, in 1828, he was presented by the Duke of Wellington, then at the head of the Govern ment, to a canonry residentiary in Canterbury Cathe dral, worth upwards of 1,0001. a year. Both of those valuable appointments he held up to the time of his death, and they are now in the gift of Lord Aberdeen. THE PRESS. Obituarl. .TAA The reverend gentleman had been for many years the representative in the Lower House of Convoca tion of the clergy of the arcbdeaconry of Middlesex, and was always an earnest advocate of the revival of the active powers of that assembly. lortign glrt, Siteratutt, THE FRENCH ACADEMY.—The public reception of Monseigneur Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, the newly-elected member of the French Academy, took place on Thursday week. A number of circum stances concurred to impart an unusual degree of in terest to the ceremony. He is the first ecclesiastic admitted to the classic precincts of the Academy since 18-10, and the clerical party was pleased to see in his election a symptom of revived respect for the authority of the Church. The new academician being one of those bishops who have determined to go to Rome to take part in the deliberations of the great council which is to decide dogmatically what shall be the belief of the Church with regard to the hitherto vexed question of the Immaculate Concep tion, the Academy had waived one of its rules by hastening the clay of the inauguration ; and this con cession to his personal convenience was interpreted by some ultramontanists as a homage to the episcopal gathering round the chair of St. Peter. But the event of the day derived a real importance from the fact that M. Dupanloup, than whom a more virtuous, accomplished, and withal orthodox, prelate is not to be found upon the episcopal bench, is the champion of classic literature against a considerable section of the French clergy, who have recently made extra ordinary efforts to divorce religion from letters. Under the pretext put forward by the Abbe Gaume in his celebrated work, the " Ver Rougeur," that the study of Pagan writings must necessarily tend to in duce infidelity and immorality in the student, many modern priests and some bishops would burn Homer and Virgil, Plato and Cicero, Sophocles and Horace. Th s school, by way of consolation for such of their converts as resign with reluctance the contemplation of those few transcendent monuments of genius which have in all ages commanded the universal ad miration of mankind, pretend to have discovered that the latinity of the Fathers is in reality as pure as the language of the writers of the Augustan age. A better occasion for a public refutation of such doc trines could scarcely have presented itself than the reception of M. Dupanloup. The orator, a great scholar, but a pious bishop, spoke as one having authority in the Church. The audience comprised the very flower of all that is most distinguished in French literary society. It is very long since the cushioned chairs of the academical benches were so well filled. The limited space allotted to a privi leged public was densely crowded ; extraordinary seats were placed for the occasion in unaccustomed nooks and corners, and many thought themselves but too happy to find a few inches of standing room in the highest gallery against the curving wall of the dome. Many hours before the doors opened ladies in rich toilettes were seen shivering in the bitter north wind that blew on the quay, taking up a posi tion to ensure a front place. The Pope's Nuncio, Father Ravignan, MM. Mole, Thiers, De Montalem bert, Villeinain, St. Marc, Girardin, Cousin, Berryer, De Nouailles, Briffault, and De Broglie, were observed among the distinguished company. BOSSUET'S COFFIN AND TOMB, which had long been lost, have just been discovered in the Cathedral of Meaux. The tomb was to be reinstated on Thurs day last with a grand funeral service. IT is understood that M. Nestor Roqueplan's suc cessor in the direction of the Opera will be M. Cros nier, a gentleman of considerable experience as a manager. He made a fortune by Napoleon; or, Sclurnbrunn and Saint Helena, which he brought out at the Porte St. Martin in 1830, and afterwards successfully conducted the Opera Comique for several years. M. Crosnier is now president of the Council-General of the Cher, and a representative of that department in the Corps Legislatif, and he does not intend to renounce either of those honour.'" positions. his I im talesiastital. •; ; 4; ; .0.1 • • PREFERMENTS AM) APPOINTMENTS. The Rev. J. D. Dirt, 8.A., to the Curacy of St.. Marti n's-in•tlic. Fields. The Rer. Walter Blount, M.A., to the Curacy of St. Botolph Church. A 'dote. The Rev. William Evan James, 8.A., to the Curacy of St. Peter' Church, Carmarthen. The Rev. Edward Harston, M.A., to be Chaplain to the Sher• borne Alna4houael. The Itt , v. Andrew lioge, M.A., to the Vicarage of Briley and Annegbeliffe. The Rev. Francis lingual, to the Vicarage of Fuerty In the diocese of Elphin. The Rev. Edward Thomas Austen, 11. A., to the Rectory of Barfreystone, near Wingliam, Kent. The Rev. George Anatice Hayward, M.A., to the Curacy of Goudhurst, near Cranbrook. The Rev. W. Hayward Ibotson, M.A., to the Vicarage of Ed. winstowc, Nottinghamshire. SATURDAY, The Rev. W. Phelps, M.A., to the Rectory of Oxcombe, near Horncastle, Lincolnshire. The Rev. H. Boyd, 13. A., to the Curacy of Belleau, near Alford, Lincolnshire. The Rev. Albert Bibby, 8.A., to the Incumbency of Christ Church, Rotherhithe. The Rev. E. C. Alston, M.A., to the Rectory of Bennington, near Framlinghatn, Suffolk. The Rev. H. Newland, M.A., to the Incumbency of Scissett, High Hoyland, Yorkshire. The Rev. James Hunter to be Archdeacon of Cumberland, in the diocese of Rupert's Land. The Rev. D. W. Pickett, M.A., to be Principal of King's College Windsor. The Rev. J. Goode Slight, M.A., to the Rectory of Taxall, near Stockport. The Rev. G. J. Wild, M.A., to the Vicarage of Dodderhill, with Elmbridge annexed, near Droitwich. The Rev. Henry Shepherd, M.A., to the Stipendiary Curacy of the Parish Church of Whittington. The Rev. James Gill Malboson to the Stipendiary Curacy of the District Church of St. Jude's, Manchester. VACANCIES. The Chaplaincy to the Sheffield Infirmary; worth Md. a year. The Head Mastership of Chevely School, Cambridgeshire; worth GOd a year, with a house, in the gift of trustees. The Curacy of Redruth, Cornwall, conferring a title at the Bishop of Exeter's next general ordination; worth 801. a year, In the gift of the Rev. J. W. liawksley, M.A. AN AMERICAN Psritas gives the following as the copy of a will left by a man who chose to be his own lawyer : " This is the last will and testament of me, John Thomas. I give all my things to my relations, to be divided amongst them the best way they can. N.ll. If anybody kicks up a row, makes any fuss about it, he is'ut to have anything. — Signed by me, John Thomas." Voneg jar h tt nub eitg tttc~tz~cn e. FRMAT ETENTNG. THE Money-market, which for so many months re mained steady, notwithstanding the state of war which existed, has at last yielded to its dread realities, as day by day they become more vividly apparent. The history of all stock during the week is one of decline, and in most cases of considerable, and sudden decline. The general causes of this are obvious and need scarcely be repeated, but it may be specially noticed that on the receipt of each des. patch from the East the belief gains ground that the war has been mismanaged at home. A notice in the Gazette on Tuesday authorised the " preparation" of Exchequer Bonds to the amount of '2,000,0001. ; but like most Government announcements, its meaning is not very clear. It is, however, believed to refer to " Se ries C.," the last instalment of the whole amount voted by Parliament. It is scarcely thought possible or expedient to go on much longer without having recourse to a loan, especially as by the lapsing of Three-and-a-Quarter per Cents. into Three per Cents. which occurred last month, and by the cessation of a large amount of terminable annuities in 1859 and '6O, many millions could be raised without additional taxation. Rumours that a new French loan is con templated are also prevalent : the amount is said to be for about 24,000,000/. Corn has maintained the ad vance of last week. The arrival of gold have been 183,000/. in specie by the Africa from New York, and 104,0001. by the Tamar West Indian mail steamer. That which arrived from New York has been exported to the Continent, where the demand for gold is increasing. It is also said that bullion has been sent to Egypt on account of purchases of corn. Money is abundant, and the rate of interest much lower than the 51 . per ce nt. char g ed by the Bank. The bankers and discount houses in Lom bard-street are the glad to obtain gd commercialls. At the se t t lement of account ( in Consols on l Wbied nesday there was only one defaulter, and the amount of his liabilities was trifling. Consols, which on Saturday last averaged 93, closed this afternoon at 911 to 01 1 for money, and for the 7th of December, 911 to 911. Exchequer Bills are extremely dull at 2s. to ss. prem. FOREIGN FUNDS. The fall in French Rentes last week was 3 per cent., and this week they have again fallen. Advices from Amsterdam and Frankfort, show also a further decline in Austrian Stock. Russian Five per cents. are nominally 97, but the few transactions which oe.tir are attributed to the direct intervention of BUSSIPII agents. The Emperor is said to be again endeavouring to effect a loan in foreign markets. In Turkish Bonds the agitation we noticedll en last week has not diminishe d ; the y have again fa, and are now at a discount of from 5 to 6 per cent. One cause of their original decline was an allegation that they were not issued in pursuance of the fir- n man by which they were autho r i s ed; the productio of the firman was promised, but it has not yet ar rived, although sufficient time for that purpose has since elapsed. The following table does not truly describe the present position of the loan, as a considerable amount has been paid in advance for the sake of the discount allowed, but it gives the terms on Which A was issued : \