The Press. — London, England, 1857-09-12 00:00:00

TriE PRESS, SEPTEMBER 12, 1857. tnszx. PRINCESS'S THEATRE. ON Saturday night Verdes lyric gem, the Trovatore, closed the series of Italian Opera representations at the Princess's Theatre. As on other occasions when this popular opera has been performed, the house was crowded to overflowing. The performance was a repetition of the brilliant successes achieved on previous evenings, when Grisi, Alboni, and Mario have played together. Of each the singing was per fect, but the " make.up " of Mme. Alboni for the Gipsy wants elaboration. A bright, clear com plexion, and naturally jovial, good-humoured ex pression of countenance, need all the help that art can give, when fierce passion has to be portrayed. Mine. Al boni is the only artiste who plays Azucena without the face darkened, and the adjuncts of beads and trinket finery characteristic of the tribe; thus the disguise was never so complete as to deceive. For want of care in the "make-up," the performer's identity was never absorbed in the character, so that in striking situations what was in truth a triumph of histrionic art left rather the impression of over acting on the mind. It is a pity not to remedy what can be so easily done. In the prison scene, when Azucena appealed to the indications of death in her countenance, nobody believed in it. Even Mario lapsed here into tameness, which bore strange contrast to the previous scene, where, announcing to Leonora his determination to effect his mother's deliverance, he displayed an intensity of feeling and impassioned energy which electrified the house. It is satisfac tory to know that Mr. Beale's spirited enterprise has met its reward. The theatre has been crowded nightly. On Saturday morning the box-office opened pro forma, but the officials had no other duty than to bow out the disappointed applicants. In the evening the scene was almost ludicrous, as one party after another received the announcement, " not a seat vacant in the house." The active and very obliging gentleman who represented Mr. Beale was beset with importunate inquirers; all sorts of entreaties were resorted to, and they who got a glazed peephole at the bask of the dress circle, or stool at an open box door, or in the stall passages, considered them selves indeed fortunate above the numbers who were of necessity refused admission. HER MAJESTY'S THEATRE.—The reappearance in London for two nights, the 18th and 19th of Sep tember, at Her Majesty's Theatre, of Mlle. Piccolomini, in the operas of Don Giovanni and La Traviata, at reduced prices, is announced. MADAME RISTORI, after a brilliant English cam paign, has arrived in Paris, en route for Madrid, where she is engaged to perform fifteen nights. THE ITALIAN OPERA IN PARIS opens on October Ist. M. Calzado is using every effort to get together an efficient company. Weber's Euryanthe has been brough out at the Paris Lyrique. NORWICH MUSICAL FESTIVAL.—The sale of tickets for this festival proceeds satisfactorily. The number digpo.ed of up to Tuesday evening was about 5,000. The total accommodation afforded for the six per formances is between 9,000 and ] 0,000. THE Italian journals record the success of a new opera by Verdi, or rather the reproduction of one of his early works, with additions and many changas. This opera is called Aroldo. and was brought out at Rimini. Stiffeli& was the original title of the work. SOME FRIENDS OF THE LATE EMILE L'ANGELIER have published in the North British Daily Mail what they term a "Vindication of the character of the late M. L'Angelier." This vindication consists of an attested copy of L'Angelier's diary, and of letters from the deceased's mother, and also from various respectable merchants, clergymen, and others. His mother writes as follows :—" Allow me to say, in behalf of my poor Emile, that he was not only a dutiful son, but that he did all in his power to assist his mother and sisters by remitting to them occasionally a part of his earnings, and contributing with his limited resources to defray a part of his sisters' scholastic expenses." Several testimonials in favour of L'Angelier, from persons who knew him in Jersey and Glasgow, are then given. The follow ing are extracts from L'Angelier's diary or memo randum book :—" Wed. 11 2157 : Dined at Mr. J. Mitchell's. Saw M. at 12 p.m. in C. H. room. Thur. 19 : Saw Mimi a few moments. Was very ill during the night. Frid. 20: Passed two pleasant hours with M. in the drawing-room. Sat. 21: Don't feel well. Went to J. F. Kennedy's. Sun. 22 : Saw Mimi in drawing-room. Promised me French Bible. Taken very ill." At the end of diary—" I insist to have an explicit answer to the question you evaded. Who gave you the trinket? an d i s i t t rue that you are directly or indirectly engaged to Mr. M., or any CCe else but me? I must insist on this answer." LORD BROUGHAM AT MANCHESTER, Loran BROUGHAM attended the annual meeting of the Lancashire Institutional Association, held at Man chester on Tuesday last. The fourth annual report was first read, and which, among much interesting matter, contained the following reply to the question, "What is the most attractive feature in these insti tutions?" The replies from 75 give the following result : In 30 the reading-room is the moat attractive, in 28 the classes, in 11 the library, in '2 the lectures, in 2 the singing, and in 1 (Patricroft) the coffee supplied in the reading room to the working men. The failure of lectures appears to be complete. The returns from fifty associated insti tutes show that 19 have entirely given them up, 14 have had less than five lectures each in the past year, anti 17 village institutions have each had five lectures and upwards, chiefly gratuitous, in the same period. It is a striking but a consoling fact that where lectures have been abandoned as a department of the institution, the evening classes are most flourishing. Tea parties, concerts, and exhibitions of dissolving views, have been found generally successful. The prizes were then distributed by Lord Brougham, who at the conclusion of these preliminaries addressed the meeting on the subject of the use and necessity of mechanics' and other mutual improve ment institutions. With regard to the present state of these institutions, Lord Brougham declared his belief that great and satisfactory progress was being made by their means in the education of the people : One circumstance that I have heard with the greatest satisfaction proves this more than any other—that within the last ten or twelve years those admirable institutions of Sunday schools are no longer confined to mere instruction on the. Lord's day, but that the pupils are instructed on the week days also ; so that hundreds—and I hope very soon we shall say thousands—l might almost say thousands at present—are not merely obtaining the inestimable benefit of Sunday-school instruction, but on the week days are taught reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, and other useful, and 1 might almost say necessary branches of knowledge. Lord Brougham then impressed upon his hearers the necessity of conducting these institutions with economy and regularity, and concluded his address with some practical remarks upon the employment of time, and of the reprehensibility of a working man attempting "to assuage his thirst for knowledge until after he had done his day's work:"— The first duty of a man is to provide for his own inde. pendence by his own work, and not either to amuse hint• self cr to indulge in any gratification, not even in the most sacred—more than innocent—gratification of assuaging his thirst for knowledge, until he has done his day's work, and done that which it is his bounden duty as well as his highest interest to do, worked with his own hands for the provision for himself and family. When I talk of working, I am myself, and have been all my life, a working man, and as long as I am blessed by Heaven with health enough to continue work, even at my advanced time of life I shalt continue to work and labour. I shall never hence. forth, any more than I have ever done hitherto, partake of any relaxation, not even in gratifying my thirst for know ledge, until I have earned the right to it by having dune my day's work. There are other rules and other maxims up.• . l which I should be disposed to be a great deal more rigorous than upon those which I have mentioned, in which I would allow no compromise, no middling course whatever, and they are the maxims that ought to preside over a man's whole employment of his time in his business and in his pleasures. The one is to do one thing at a time only; the next is, never to put off till to•marrow what you can do to-day ; and the third is connected with these two, to always finish one thing before you begin another. A very great and et l!brated man in a neighbouring country—l mean the illustrious De Witt, in Holland—was once asked how it happened that be could get through so much business as he did, and of such various kinds, for he was not only a great statesman and a Minister, but he was also a most emi nent mathematician and a literary man; and he answered that it was by two rules, which he always followed. The one was to do one thing only at a time, and the other, never to put off till tomorrow what you can do to day. Those were his golden rules. I knew another statesman, in another country, a man of very great emi nence, who is now no more, who used to say, on the contrary, that he objected to De Witt's maxims, for his principle was never to do to-day what you can put off till to.morrow. When I cried out against this as a most heterodox political doctrine and practical rule, lie gave me half a dozen instances, which were no doubt very remarkable, in which he had been called upon to do something on one day, and a second, and a third, and measures had been strongly pressed upon his attention again and again. In all these cases it did so happen, though it was far from being sufficient, in my mind, to prove his rule—he had turned the exception, as it were, into the rule—that the delay had put an end either to the application or to the measure which he had been solicited to consider. I admit it was rather by way of pleasantry than anything else that he had laid down this exceedingly bad and heretical doctrine; but there is no question that lie produced these few instances in his be half. There were one or two other rules of a similar kind, but which I shall not trouble you with now. willingness to find society for the time which will notprove troublesome in the future. But I am disposed to give our cousins over the water more credit for kindred affection. I have always found them cordial, warmhearted, frank, and hearty companions and friends. I was, perhaps, fortunate in those whom I met, but they were many, lords, spiritual and temporal, soldiers, sailors, and shopkeepers; and 1 found the name of American a pass to their hearts. Some had friends in our new country, and perhaps I had seen and known them—and once or twice I had—all had an idea that we were a race of brave and active men, given to boasting, but goodnatured at that, nearly related to them in blood, and allies of England as champions of freedom against the despotisms of the world. This last idea was one of new and atartling force to me, as I looked back from Europe and the East to England and America. The line between freedom and tyranny runs up the British Channel. It is not the broad At lantic. Our Constitution is of English origin, based on English law, and the boast which we inherit from our revolutionary patriots was, that Britons would never be *ayes. PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED-SEPT. 10. BOOKS. Sister Anne. Groombridge. Katherine Evering. Groombridge. A Lord of the Creation. Groombridge. The Stay of my Girlhood. Mrs. Henry Lynch. Longmnns. Soyer's Culinary Campaign. G. Routledge. The Refugee- A Novel. Hirschfeld. The I.;lt . irsqf Horace Walpole. Vol. IV. R. Bentley. Four Shades of Love. G. Rout ledge. Journal of a Bashi Bazouk. Groombridge. The Revolt of Hindoston. E. Wilson. The People's Blue Book. G. Kou'ledge. The North-West Coast. Illustrated. Sampson and Low Davidson's Elementary Drawing. Chapman and Hall. Kiana. James J. Jarves. Sampson and Low. Two Letters on Girl's Schools. Chapman and Hall. PERIODICAL. ' The Commercial Traveller's Magazine. Kent and Co.— The Wee of Scotland Magazine. Hall and Virtue — Journal of the Statistical Society. J. W. Parker. CRYSTAL PALACE.—The autumn flower show this week has been a great success. Though London was empty, and the weather as bad as if it were a fete. day at Chiswick, the Palace was crowded with a brilliant company. The show of flowers was mag nificent, that of fruit superb ; and the comfort of being cheered with the sight and scent of each, safe from the pelting showers overhead, and perfectly dry underfoot, enhanced the pleasure of this most agreeable lounge. Altogether the fete was a triumph worthy to be recorded. THE BRITISH MUSEUM bas been opened to the public, after being closed for the usual period for the cleansing of the galleries and rearrangement of the contents. The general department of Antiquities, Natural History, &c., is now open from ten to five o'clock. The new reading room is open to readers now from nine a.m. tc, five p.m. A PORTRAIT OF THE FOUNDER OF PENNSYLVANIA, William Penn, has just been added to the collection of historical figures at Madame Tassaud's. This portrait, we understand, is intended to form part of a group of American benefactors. The figure has been modelled from a celebrated bust by Oudon. SOME CORRESPONDENCE between the Rev. Mr. Jones and the Earl of Harrington which preceded the late trial for slander, in which the Countess of Harrington was a principal, has been recently pub• fished. The curate appears anxious to explain how he came to repeat the remarks of the countess : "Since I have been at Elvaston, my lord, I have had to acknowledge repeated acts of kindness from both your lordship and Lady Harrington. But, on the other hand, many and fearful and severe charges have been uttered by Lady H. against the character of Mr. Highmore. This induced me to make a searching inquiry into Mr. H.'s character, which I found to be far, very far indeed, from the colouring Lady H. had given it. This so surprised me that I long felt a difficulty as to my course ; but when it came to the charging of Mr. H. with keeping the Sacrament money and the like—so serious was the charge—l honestly and plainly asked Mr. H. how he disposed of this money, and I found nn agreement between his statements and those of the recipients of the money in the parish. All this, my lord, you may well conceive greatly surprised me." Lord Harrington replies :—" Dear Sir,—l know nothing of Mr. Highmore, except as our parish priest. You were received at my board as a friend. You listened to the discourse held, and you now tell me that you have divulged what you heard there, find it to be incorrect, and hold out to me 'the olive branch.' Ask the first gentleman you meet what he thinks of my conduct and of yours." The correspondence is continued, but it is of the same character on each side throughout. THE Ost Deutsche Post expresses " astonishment and regret " at the Prussian Government not having sent a delegate to the Statistical Congress at Vienna, though twenty. seven other Governments, and amongst them Turkey and even Russia, have done so. .1 1