The Press. — London, England, 1853-06-25 00:00:00

JUNE 25, 1853. to the •25th of October next. The exhibition will comprise oil paintings, sculpture, cartoons, architec tural and other drawings, copperplate engravings, superior lithographs, .tc., winch must be at the Academy Local of Munich on or before the 10th of August. The exhibition is open to artists of the whole world. STRANGE NUMISMATIC Discovicay.—The Panama Echo of a late date contains a notice of the discovery of a great number of Roman copper coins, found in an earthen vessel under ground at Old Panama, viz., the place where the former Spanish Panama stood. They are of the third and fourth centuries, and on some the names of Maximizing, Diocletian, and Con stantin are pretty legible. They are the first Roman coins found in America, but nothing certain is known how they came there. On the north-east coast of Ireland, also, it is known Roman coins had been found, although the Romans had never reached Hibernia, while they could see the shores from some parts of the British coast occupied by them. The American coins are in the possession of Dr. Auten rieth, of Panama, of whom some detailed notice of the circumstances under which they were found is expected. dusicu Aar News.—The stained windows for the chapel of St. Peter at Cambridge, which have been ordered at the royal glass painting establishment, are iu a fair way of progress. Their dimensions are thirteen English feet by seven, and they represent the Nativity and Resurrection of Christ, as the window already existing, at the sides of which they are to be placed, represents the Crucifixion. The design is by M. Claudius Schraudolf, and the execution has been confided to M. Ainmiiller, the well-known director of the glass-painting establishment at Munich. The colours exhibit all that astonishing brilliancy for which the Bavarian glass paintings at the Great Exhibition of London were conspicuous.—During the middle of May a uew sort of photographs on glass were exhibited at the Art-Union. Several persons claim the honour of discovery, and it is in tended to employ it in the publication of a gallery of contemporaries ; still the expense will be very great until the transferring of the photographs on a plate for impression has been found.—The royal brass foundry has been lately engaged in several works of great import—the casting of the statue of Gustave Adolph of Sweden, the colossal statue of Henry for the Washington monument in the United States, and some great relievos. all which works have been finished with that precision and tact characteristic of that great atelier of art.—The new building of the Physiological Institution, which will be erected after the plan of Professor von Siebold by the architect, M. Voit, in the) Singeratrasse, has been begun, and will be pit under roof at the end of summer. THE MSS. OF LUDWIG Tiecx.—The arrangement of the MSS. left behind by the departed poet has been confided to a younger savant, with whom Tieck had communicated on the subject some time pre vious to his death. Instructions he left none, and no more has been hitherto done than to have copied the correspondence of his friends and some other works, with the addition of such subsequent notes as may have been added thereto by the author. Although Tieck was very averse to writing letters, and did not correspond but with persons who stood in close relation to him, still, by the lapse of years, a voluminous mass of letters has been accumulated. To publish it entire would be impracticable, even if it were intended to do so. But the selection and arrangement will re quire years of labour ; and it is, after all, pleasing to know that the task has devolved on a gentleman to whom the departed poet had communicated his in tentions and views, at least in a general way. Many letters have, however, reached the editing gentleman of late to suppress some or other correspondence, or to return it altogether. Of new works ot' importance nothing has been found, except some sketches of Tieek's younger years, when, if we were to believe Goethe, man is better than at any subsequent period of his life. STOCKHOLM.—M. Uppstrum, one of the Docents of the University of Upside, is occupied in a new edition of the Codex Argenteus of Ulphilas. This work, and the Sweaska Sprateks Lagar of the King's librarian, 31. Rydvist, will be great additions to the latest lite rature of Scandinavia. zkt prama. PRINCESS'S THEATRE. LORD BYRON'S tragedy, Sardanapalus, was produced at thi* theatre last week on the occasion of Mr. and Mrs. Kean's benefit, upon a scale of magnificence almost unparalleled in the annals of the English stage. This tragedy, though never intended by the author for representation in the theatre, is nevertheless a creation of much originality and power. The cha racter of Sardanapalus is full of dignity and tender ness ; and the devotion of Illyrrlia, the rugged honesty of Salamenes, and especially the scene between the Queen and her husband, afford opportunities to the actor to portray the highest and most affecting pas- THE PRESS. slops of the human heart. The chief defects of this play, in our opinion, are the want of smoothness in the versification, and the attempt which the author has made to preserve what he calls the unities, by commit ting important events to relation instead of represent ing them on the stage. But iu spite of these drawbacks we think that, if this work could be interpreted by effi cient dramatic talent, it would hold a higher place in public estimation than it does at the present day. We regret that we cannot speak favourably of the manner in which the play is acted. Mr. Kean, as Suntanned!us, failed to render any one of the poet's numerous suggestions : he seems to have lost all his energy, and, with the exception of the dream, which be ranted in an unmeaning manner, his whole per formance consisted of a mere repetition of the words, unrelieved from those faults of emphasis which con stitute his chief defect as au actor. The part of Myrrh(' was very cleverly played by Mrs. Kean; but, in the absence of any extraordinary dramatic ability, youth and beauty seem indispeusible to render this character interesting. Miss Heath was very ineffective as the Queen. Either by design or accident, she imi tates the pe !tiller inflections of Mrs. Ketui's voice to an extent that is quite painful to hear. Mr. Ryder was very good as Saiamenes : in person and manner he is well calculated to play the rough anti honest soldier, anti he declaimed several of his speeches with intelligence and effect. Mr. Kean does not, however, depend either upon the reputation of Lord Byron or upon the abilities of his company for suc cess : he relies upon more certain ground, by making the production of this play a means of displaying to the public the costume sand antiquities of Nineveh, taken from Mr. Layard's works, and executed, as we understand, under the superintendence of the dis coverer himself. Our space will not permit the elaborate notice which the artistic features of this most important revival in justice demand ; and we must, therefore, return again to the subject next week, contenting ourselves with stating that the cos tumes and groupings seem to us most perfectly con ceived and executed, and vastly superior in every respect to the scenery and stage decoration. The coldness with which this play was received, and the little impression it made on a well-disposed audience, were very remarkable, for we never saw Turning the Tables go better and create more merri ment, though all the parts, with the exception of Mr. Harley's, were but moderately acted. ADELPHI THEATRE. MR. Webster has retraced the false step taken in the production of The Merry Wives of Windsor by giving to the public, on Monday last, a " Real Adelphi Drama," as the bills have it; that is to say, a drama more peculiarly adapted to the power of his company and the old reputation of his theatre. (3ene vieve is an adaptation of a drama produced originally at the Theatre Historique, Paris, under the title of Le Chevalier de Maison Rouge, being a dramatic version of Dumas' romance of the same name. It is full of the defects common to all pieces in which an attempt is made to condense into the short space of a dramatic action all the minute elaboration and detail of the romance ; but nevertheless it is full of interest, and abounds in strong dramatic. situation. The trans lator, Mr. Bourvicault, has very judiciously subdued the strong political feeling of the original, and tl►rown the interest of the drama entirely upon the fortunes and fate of the heroine ; but in the endeavour to compress the piece i►►to an endurable length, and yet to preserve the principal incidents, he has produced a crowding of " effects" that is almost confusing. There was considerable evidence of hurry in the pro duction of thin drama, but, taking into consideration the confined space on the Adelphi stage for the representation of spectacle, a great deal was dune with very limited means. As regards the acting, Messrs. Webster and Leigh Murray were so imperfect in the words of their author as seriously to mar the effects they might have produced in the gallant, frank, light. hearted Lorin, and the passionate and enthusiastic Maurice. Madame Celeste played the heroine with great feeling, but the part suffered sadly front her imperfect pronunciation of English, which in many important positions made her quite unintelligible. Mr. Wigan made a strong impression upon the audience by the quiet intense v of his performance of Dimner ; and his sabre-fight ( with Mr. Webster) and his death were warmly applauded. FRENCH PLAYS. Ox Wednesday, for the benefit of Mlle. Rachel, we had Louise de Lignerolles. This play is an exception to the generality of French dramas, for it is moral and maud lin, or perhaps we should say, the usual characters ap pearing in the cast, our sympathies are invoked rather for the wife than for the mistress. Unfortunately the laudable effort is a little overstrained, for injured inno cence is too easily vindicated, and surreptitous vice is too uniformly miserable. The notion of eqttipoise is further removed by the absence of all commendable qualities in the guilty. The unfaithful husband is a senti mental scamp, who scribbles verses, and excuses his delinquencies by his mistimed combination of enthu 189 Mans with integrity. The wife is a noble-minded creature, of superior impulses and ideas; and whose excellence, side by side with the meanness of her husband, suggests the neees.sity of her paying for her condescension. The other prominent characters are the husband of the lady who wrongs and the father of the lady who suffers; the latter a heavy old gen tleman whose entrances and exits are pertinaciously malapropos. Roth of these personages unite in over whelming castigation of the delinquent, whom ulti mately the husband shoots in a duel, which the former welcomes naturally as a mitigation of his punishment. Independently of this exaggeration in the con ception of the subject, the play. we may add, is badly °mum-titled. At the close of the third act the dra matic movement ceases, and it is not revived by the repetition of the offence for which the husband was then reprieved, or by the confirmation of his sentence with the help of the man he has injured. Despite these drawbacks, however, MUe. Rachel, and she alone, sustained the interest of the spectators. Her appeal to her rival in the third scene of the third set, her returning confidence in the protestations of her husband, and, in the fourth act, her disdainful re jection of his second appeal, were rendered with • truth to nature which was an evidence of her con summate art. We are not, however, on this account, inclined to qualify the opinion we before expressed, that in dramas of this kind Mlle. Rachel is out of her ele ment. While we are grateffil to Mr. Mitchell for giving us an opportunity of beholding genius taxed by difficulties to which it is not atlated, we demur to the result. In the level parts of these modern plays we especially miss the flexibility of manner and the happy byplay which our brother critics have discovered; and it is only as the passion rises that we se the traits of greatness. At such mo ments, the gauze of modern conventionalism, we see the proportions of a brace or a M icnad ; and such outbursts of the true Rachel, in expressing strong and simple passions, suggest to the imagina tive other powers which she does not appear to possess proportionately. At least this is our opinion, firmed after some careful deliberation, and we shall not, because it may be questioned, refrain from express ing it. 11%sig. ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA. On Saturday last Madame Medori, a lady who has acquired a considerable reputation in various conti nental theatres, appeared for the first time iu London, and obtained a decided success. She has a voice of much power and mane sweetness, and her histrionic ability, which in paint of intelligence and weaning is much superior to that of the great majority of prime douse, gives an additional interest to her performance. In person she is neither handsome nor even good looking ; but the energy she displayed, and the cer • vsiuty and confidence with which she sang the music of au opera she had never fully rehearsed in this theatre, deservedly called forth loud applause from a well-filled house. Madame Modori's defects aro imperfect musical elocution and bad pronunciation. We suspect, moreover, though it is scarcely fair to speak a fte r one hearing, that she is not overburdened with musical feeling and sensibility. The music of Maria di Bohan becomes more intolerable and ap • pears inure worthless after every fresh hearing. We should gladly have hoard the opinions of the fashion able critics had this opera been the work of au English composer. A short ballet divertissement produced the same night is remarkable fur nothing except a very beau tiful scene painted by Mr. Beverley. The general design and arrangement is excessively good, and many of the subordinate parts are admirably executed. If we are to find a fault we should say that a better effect would have been obtained had the background beenless undefined. Berlioz's opera, &menet° Gel lisi, is positively announced for to-night; and Mme. Tedesco, a new singer, is to appear next week in Meyerbeees opera 11 Pro/eta. QUARTET' ASSOCIATION. THE programme of the last concert was ax follows : Quartett. No. 32, Haydn, WAWA (MM.), Piano and Violin, Bente diet, Brat time of perfornistuoti—guartett, N.'. L op. 44. Illeudela. wadi; Solo Pianoforte, Tito Mattel; (trawl Nonotto, The two quartetts were both led by Mr. Cooper, and admirably executed. It speaks well fur M. Sainton's feeling for art that he should take the second violin part with so little hesitation. We were much pleased with Mr. Benedict's sonata for pianoforte and violin • the "intermezzo" movement in particular is very clever and original. The performance of Spohr'a nouetto received an additional interest from the pre sence of the veteran composer, and, with the exeeptimt of one or two slips on the part of the horn, this most important chamUy-work in existence woo RpII played ; but we were 00011d0W1 ar more mail 441 1 power amougst the stringed instruments thanioggr ps desirable. The boy Mattel is a very clever