The Press. — London, England, 1855-10-13 00:00:00

OCIVBER 13, 1855. FAREWELL DINNER TO MR. THACKERAY, A FAREWELL dinner was given at the London Tavern, on Thursday, to Mr. Thackeray, who sails for New York this day. The banquet was a private one, but its character entitles it to record. About sixty gentle men assembled, a number which would have been swelled to three hundred and upwards, could the applications for tickets have been acceded to. Litera ture and art were very amply represented. Mr. Charles Dickens took the chair in the earlier part of the evening, and delivered a single speech, in which, with his accustomed felicity of expression, he gave utterance to the sentiment which had brought the party together, that of honour and regard for the distinguished man " whom we were about to loan to Brother Jonathan, on the understanding that he should be returned with good interest." Mr. Thackeray's acknowledgment was full of geniality, and he introduced some recollections of certain his torical leave-takings, of a peculiarly grave description, with great humour and effect. Mr. Douglas Jerrold subsequently took the chair, proposed several toasts with much brilliancy, and elicited some charac teristic speeches from members of the party, and one of Mr. Thackeray's best songs from that gentle. man himself. The dinner was admirable, and the wines were especially choice. Some of the dishes bad been christened in honour of the Newcomes, Becky Sharp, la Fotheringay, drc. Among the party were Lord Tenterden, the Rev. James White, Mr. Beckett, Mr. Macready, Mr. Stanfield, Mr. D. Roberts, Mr. Lemon, Mr. Peter Cunningham, Mr. John Murray, Mr. William Longman, Mr. Robert Bell, Mr. S. Lucas, Mr. John Leech, Mr. John Forster, Mr. Joseph Parkes, Mr. Serjeant Murphy, Mr. Arthur Barlow, Mr. O'Dowd, Mr. Tenniel, Mr. Justice Willes, and Mr. Shirley Brooks, and in the course of the evening a song, written by the last named gentleman, was sung by Mr. John Deane, as the O'Mulligan," who made patronising allusions to his friend Mr. Thackeray's works ; and Mr. Albert Smith sang a rapid recapitulation of the whole pro ceedinga at the banquet up to the moment of hir commencing. The meeting was a brilliant one, and a fitting farewell to the eminent novelist in whose honour it was held. THE KING of PRUSSIA, lately, in his tour through 'the Rhenish provinces, passed through a small town near Cocheim (district of Treves) ; the clergyman presented to his Majesty a glass of fine wine, with the observation, " the sentiments of the inhabitants troand here are as pure as the wine in this glass." 'The King thanked the clergyman, and raising up 'the glass to the light, to admire the fine colour of the wine, added," I must suppose that it is not of the vintage of 1848!" THE KING OF SARDINIA, it is believed, will have - sufficiently recovered his strength by the end of this month to be enabled to pay his long•talked-of visit to the Emperor of the French. Lou) WESTMORLAND does not return to Vienna till the beginning of next month. THE EMIR ABD•EL KADER has arrived at Mar seilles, on his way to Damascus. _ _ THE DUKE AND DUCHESS DE BRABANT left Brussels yesterday for Paris, and were accompanied by the Countess de Gruna and the Baroness de Marches, Colonel d'Hanins de Moerkerke, and a large suite. GENERAL PARR, Commander•in Chief of the Aus trian troops in Moldavia, is now making a tour in Bournelia and the Dobrudscha, and carefully ex amining the fortifications and military works he finds upon his road. THE FRENCH CHARGE D'AFFAIRES at Florence will, it is said, undertake the mediation in settling the differences which have arisen between Piedmont and Tuscany. M. BISMARCK SCHONHAUSEN is to be the new Presi dent of the German Diet. Baron Prokesch Osten is to act in the interim. THE WILL OF THE LATE HENRY COLUMN has been proved in the Consistory Court, Doctors-com mons. The whole of his property, consisting of money in the funds, goods, chattels, and credits, is sworn to be under 35,0001. He has left his widow, Eliza Ann Colburn, sole executrix. He bequeaths to her sole use and benefit the sum of 10,0001., together with his leasehold house in Bryanston-square, furniture, pic tures, stock, copyrights, Ste., and a like sum of 10,0001. to her sister, the wife of Mr. Malcome Douglas Cros bie, and her six children. With the except;on of the sum of 5001. to Mrs. Hurst, and two small annuities of 801. and 501. respectively to two other persons, there are no bequests whatever to any of his friends or dependents. PLICA PoLONICA, the peculiar disease of the hair, is at this moment very prevalent in Pol a nd. It i s at tributed to the extensive and prolonged inundations to which the inhabitants of countries near the Vistula have this year been subjected THE PRESS. etc pram. DRURY-LANE THEATRE. AFTER a long preparation, the new Egyptian drama, the result of Mr. Smith's " researches in Herodotus, Denons, Wilkinson, and the libraries and museums of London and Paris," was brought out on Monday night, and though its first trial proved on the whole a trial of patience to the audience, yet the spectacle has been gradually growing in public favour, and the malcontents diminishing in force and number, at each successive representation. Nitocris is, however, not exactly what it pretends to be. It is not a drama, except in the sense in which the equestrian and military spectacles at Astley's are dramas; indeed, Mr. Fitzball's bombastic dialogue reminds us of nothing so much as the ambitious nonsense so loudly applauded on the Surrey side of Westminster bridge. The Drury Lane public, however, expect something better; and it is more than probable that the disappointment of anticipations naturally enough raised by the appearance of such names as those of Miss Glyn and Mr. Barry Sullivan in Mr. Smith's announcements, contributed not a little to the dis satisfaction so plainly expressed on Monday night. The public looked for a good play as well as a splendid spectacle, and were naturally not very well pleased at getting only one-half of what they ex pected, however excellent in itself. Instead of a good play, however, they had the annoyance of hearing good actors condemned to utter rubbish so utterly absurd, so completely below criticism, that no human being, by any conceivable excellencies of voice or gesture, could by any possibility have com pletely unnonsensified it. But we will not dwell on the absurdities of the dialogue ; they are patent to all. Let us take Nitocris for what it really is, not for what it pretends to be, and we shall find enough to praise in the splendid and instructive historical spectacle so effectively presented to us. The story on which the action is founded is rather complicated, and the treatment it has received makes the play, abstracted from dialogue and scenery, sufficiently absurd without any assistance from bad blank verse. Nitocris (Miss Glyn), a priestess of Isis, in love with Tihrak (Mr. Sullivan), a captain of the Ethiopian guard, who has saved her from the jaws of death and a crocodile, and returns her affection, is discovered to be the sister of Mesphra, King of Egypt, who has murdered Tihrak's father, wad, escorted, by the King's order, from the Temple of the Goddess to the Royal Palace by her dark and gloomy lover. On her arrival at Memphis, Mesphra requests her hand for some person whose name we forget, and being met by Nitocris with the little difficulty of a previous attachment, proposes to murder her. As she makes some slight but very natural objections to this fraternal offer, be ventures to take the whole responsibility of its execution on himself, when Tihrak rushes opportunely from an adjoining chamber, and of course immediately, and in a hoarse and horrible stage whisper, proceeds de liberately and with emphasis to recognise the mur derer of his father. It is now Tihrak's turn to stab somebody ; hut that somebody being the brother of Nitocris, it becomes at the same time her turn to rush between the intending slabber and the possible stabbee, and to cry " Hold" in her loudest and most commanding tones. Tihrak not only "holds,' but, his blood being up, and a clear dramatic necessity existing that somebody should be stabbed, liberally offers his own breast to Mesphra's sword rather than allow an opportunity for bloodshed to pass unem ployed. Enter Tihrak's brother, Kcephed, and the King's guards. Kcephed stabs the King from be hind, the guards are about to stab Tihrak, and so get rid of two very stupid and tiresome people at once. When Nitocris, now Queen of Egypt, retain ing her feminine weakness for a blockhead, com mands her guards again to "Hold," they at once obey the spirit, if not the letter, of her commands, by "letting" Tihrak "go," and, much to the annoy ance of all, the bore survives, ready for more blood. The next day the Queen is to give her hand to Tihrak in Council, against the law, and to the offence of the old Egyptian party, headed by Amenophis (Mr. Stuart), and the late King's Premier, who, already disliking Tihrak, is naturally only more con firmed in his execrable prejudice by the account which the King Consort proceeds to give of the de tails of the death of the crocodile which first intro duced him to the Queen. A conspiracy to murder Tihrak at a supper to be given in the Grotto of Memphis is planned by Amenophis, and revealed by Kcephed, who acts listener throughout the play. Tihrak " pays off" his enemies by letting the waters of the Nile into the banquet-hall. All but Amenophis (got out of the way by a slave) are drowned, in the most affective scene of the spectacle. The rest of the play, involving the expedition and counter-expedition against Tihrak, with a good deal of claptrap about the popularity of the war, to which the audience did not respond, the death of Amenophis, the sup posed capture of Tihrak, much calling on the ghadi " (tragic for gods ") thereon by Nitocris, his return safe and sound, and as stupid as ever, and the grand coronation procession, might well have been omitted, but for the difficulty of disposing of two or three effective pieces of scenery. Taken as a spectacle, with but few exceptions, Nitocris answers its end; the architecture, costume, sky, and soil of Egypt are accurately rendered, and the whole use fully illustrative of Egyptian history. The banquet room in the Grotto of Memnon has, to us, by far the richest effect ; and the immersion of the Nile, the roaring of the " astounding flood," the sudden dis appearance of the conspirators, the gradual subsi dence of the waters, and the reappearance of the dead bodies flung in stilled impotence about the floor of the grotto in a lurid unearthly light, Tihrak's avenging form towering high over all, make a picture really full of horrible grandeur not easily forgotten. The actors do their best to make the nonsense allotted to them "go down," but the audience, it is plain, tolerate the play for the sake of the scenery ; and, except when Mr. Sullvan forces notice by a louder shout than usual, remain perfectly silent and patient under their sufferings. On Wednesday Mr. Charles Mathews made his first appearance in a revival of the comedy of the Rich Widow, under the title of Married for Money. The plot is very simple : a broken dandy, who has no other chance of escape from i uin, has united himself to four thousand pounds a year plus a widow of strong will, old enough to be his mother. As a natural result, both are miserable. Combining the characters of mother and wife, Mrs. Mopus makes her unhappy Alfred suffer the double curtail ment of liberty due to the authority of the one and the jealousy of the other. At length, however, he is fortunately arrested for the "very last" of his youth ful debts, which his wife has refused to pay, and, under the influence of a dinner with some "jolly fellahs," in the spunging-house to which her obdu racy has consigned him, but whence he is released almost as soon as her atlection returns, he is em boldened to assert his authority as a husband. These events, even with the assistance of a love affair between the widow's daughter and a friend of Mopus, interrupted by an old baronet, to whom the young lady has been consigned by her mamma, are slight materials for three acts ; but the brilliancy of the dialogue, and the excellent acting of Mr. Mathews and Mrs. Frank Matthews kept the audience in roars of laughter during the whole of the play. A few lines introduced at the beginning of the first scene, alluding to Mathews's appearance in a "new house," with some amusing hints at " bills," "tradesmen," and " embarrassments," were eagerly caught at by the audience, who showed their pleasure at again meeting an old favorite by hearty and continued applause. HAYMARKET.----A petite Comedy, entitled The Little Treasure, was brought out with great success on Thursday night. Miss Blanche Fane, Miss Swan borough, and Mr. Buckstone support the principal characters. ADELPin.—This theatre opened on Monday last with Mr. Hudson in Rory O'Mort, and the Keeleya in The Forty Thieves. Mr. Hudson, who has been absent from the stage for some years, appears to have lost neither in popularity nor power to achieve it. He was warmly applauded, and acted as inimitably as he ever did. The Forty Thieves of course achieved its usual success. Omaric.—This theatre, which has been entirely redecorated and cleaned, opens on Saturday next. STRAND.-Mr. McVicker, the American actor, has been engaged for this theatre, which opens ou Mon day next. THE PANAMA ROUTE TO AUSTRALIA is again being agitated in Sydney. The Legislative Council have a scheme at present under their consideration. The com munication is to be between Panama and Talliti,with branch lines from Tahiti to Melbourne and Sydney. Tahiti will thus become the great entrepot for com merce in the Pacific. The harbour of Tahiti is a beautiful basin, perfectly protected by reefs, and docks could be formed there for a small outlay. Labour is there abundant and cheap When the steamer. Golden dge touched at Tahiti to coal, 1,500 tons of coal were placed on board in sixty-five hours, and the expense of putting it on board was only 4s. 2d. a ton. It is calculated that the voyage between Australia and Tahiti could be made in thirteen days, and between Tahiti and Panama in eighteen days. New York would by this scheme be brought within forty five days of Australia, and England within fifty days. HEALTH OF LONDON.—NO death from cholera has been registered in the week that ended on Saturday, October 6, but the deaths from diarrhoea were fifty one. The deaths from all causes were 951, —namely, 280 from zymotic diseases; 210 from cancer, con sumption, and other constitutional diseases ; 320 from diseases of the brain, lungs, and other organs ; 113 from infantile diseases and old age; and 24 from various kinds of violence. Of five sudden deaths the causes were unascertained, and of nineteen other deaths the causes were not waded. tillB moment very prevalent m Poland. It is at- the populanty or the war, to which the audience trom intanute diseases &DU Ulti ago mama 411, Kama.. tributed to the extensive and prolonged inundations did not respond, the death of Atncnophis, the sup- various kinds of violence. Of five sudden desalt; the to which the inhabitants of countries near the posed capture of Tihrak, much calling on the causes were unasceruiined, and of nineteen other Vista's have this year been subjected ghads " (tragic for "gods") thereon by Naomi*, deaths the causes were not specified.