The Press. — London, England, 1856-06-07 00:00:00

ng tunity of acquiring knowledge of the interior habits of the peo c le ; and hence her book is fu!l of domes tic) sketches, portraits of character, and traits of manners. The picturesque forms and habits of Oriental life linger in Persia, and are sketched by Lady Sheil with great distinctness and animation. The account of a Persian breakfast in the province of Mazanderan (page 266), and the patriotism of the lady (268), are amusingly described. Of all her own habits the strangest to her female friends was her undressing at night, as they invariably rolled themselves to sleep in their dress of the (lay. She found the Persian women naturally shrewd, and generally ruling their households and lords in an arbitrary manner. She gained the impression that Persia is in a state of decay ; the ountry is desolate, the cities are ruinous, the population is compara tively scanty. Huw it is that the nations of the old world which survive should exhibit degradation is ait , asily explicable. We can understand better the advance of the Weste n than the decline of the Oriental nations—more especially when, as in the case of Persia, the latter have preserved their inde pendence. The lady recounts at length the abortive conspiracy to slay the Shah in August, 1852. Colonel Sheil endeavoured to moderate the anger of the Court, but in vain. "Fear," says the authoress, " has no mercy.'• The chief conspirator was barbarously tortured. Holes were pierced in various p iris of his body, in which lighted candles were placed and allowed to burn down into the flesh. The volume is genuine, very amusing, and written with the taste and observettun which usually distinguish narratives of travel from a female pen. The Old Grey Church. By the Author of " Trevelyan." Three Vols. London : Bentley. A DOMESTIC drama of painful interest, written with quiet, and for the subject pleasing, propriety. The recent case of Sir John Dean Paul perhaps suggested the story, but Mr. Lushington lived in a harsher time, and met with a more dreadful fate. 'the bright spot in the tragic narrative is at the close, where the g ntle ai d much-tried Lucy at list finds peace. Genius c; n clioo.e what tb mes it pleases for fiction, an l is often most su cesslul when dealing with cloud sal atom. but m c of the success of agreeab'e wrters must a ways depend on the geue.al cheerful. n si of th‘lir leiatsentathms. P. 0. Beeson—Colburiee New Monthly Magazine. Chap• man and Hall—Muriine of Cry' Marlin. ..:napinan and Hall—The Churchman's Magazine. Harrison—The Tram. tirooniltridge—Oitherall's Cheater Handbook. Whittaker and Co —The Orford and Cambridge Magazine. Bell and Dalay—The Parlour Library. " The Heireks of Brugt s.', 'f. Hodgson—Tait'a Magazine. Partridge—The Art Jour nal. Virtue and Ball—The Wes! of Scotland Magazine- Hall and Virtue. The Monthly Review. J. Mitchell. PAMPHLETS. The Spirit of the D. bate in the House of Commons on Education. T. Hatchard—Observance on the Proposed Decimal Coinage. K. Langor—The Art of Dining. T. Murray—Marengo and its Monuments. Tucker and Co.— On Juvenile Criminals' Reformatories—Macphairs Edin burgh Ecclesiastical Journal. Simpkin and Manthan— deallh, Work, and Play. J. H. and J. Parker—The Sudsy Guide. Lougmana. Ett prima. LYCEUM THEATRE,RISTO RI. THE memory is in vain taxed. We go back to the period when as a child Mrs. Siddons was seen, on her return to the stage for only one night, in Lady Randolph, for her brother's benefit, the late Charles Kemble. The stately walk of a matron advanced in years is not forgotten. Later, we have a stronger recollection of Miss O'Neil, in Shell's Evadne : the intensity of passion of this actress made the deepest impression. Since her days how many tragediennes, native and foreign, have fretted their hour within the experience of the present playgoing generation! Mlle. Georges, Rachel, Pasta, Malibran, Grist, Viardot, Wagner, Miss Fanny Kemble, Miss Ellen Tree (Mrs. C. Kean), Miss Cushman, Miss Helen Faucit, Jenny Lind, and innumerable names that have gone altogether out of mind, may be cited as great artistic celebrities ; but compare the character istics of all these distinguished artistes, and still would it be difficult to assert that RISTORI resembles any one of them in one single attribute. The Italian tragedienne is unlike any actress who has yet been witnessed in this or any other country. Her indi viduality is unquestionable—her speciality is unde niable. She is Ristori—site is herself—she has copied no predecessor, she has studied in no recog nised school, she is essentially natural, impulsive, intense, and sublime. She shines not by dazzling flashes ; she is no maker of points; but her portraitures are coherent and consistent. The entire part which she delineates is grasped, and every gradation of tragic sentiment is truthfully marked. On Wednesday night, at the Lyceum, when Medea stepped on the boards with her two children, the art loving public at once recognised in the stately stature, dignified deportment, and finely-formed features of Risto.i the reasons why the Parisians had questioned the hereto ore undisputed supremacy of Rachel. Who con listen to the heart penetrating speaking contralto tones of Ristori without being at once deeply moved? Whilst the accents and inflec tions are thus sympathising in their influence, mark the mobility of the physiognomy, watch the ever varying expression of those fine flashing eyes ; bow tenderness, anger, scorn, rage, and frenzy in turn can be depicted, as th terrible emotions of Medea are developed ! How picturesque are the poses, how statuesque the attitudes, and graceful the carriage ! And we have, then, at last a Medea. not the heroine of Colchis of Euripides ; not the Medea %Ouch Cli a•u bini has presented so powerfully id notation; not the Medea which Simon lilayr has composed, and which Pasta delineated, but which Grisi has always de clined, because she feared that her Norma was too close in the family likeness ; but it is a flesh and blood Medea of a French poet, translated into choice Italian. It is not the mythical Medea of the classics Ernest Legouve wrote for Rachel. It is not the magician who, with her charms and incantations, could restore to old age the bloom of youth. And perhaps Rachel for this reason might have shrunk alter her classic por traitures from descending to a mere woman, strong in her maternal feelings, overwhelming in her de voted attachment to Jason, and fierce and unrelent ing in her vengeance, when driven to desperation by the husband's infidelity. Legouve has made Medel malignant only in her despair. Oa Jason he fastens the responsibility of her alleged crimes; and her advocate throughout the three acts is no less a per nonage than Orpheus, a kind of Corinthian Cobdenite during the tragedy—a prosy personage of the peace at-any-price principles—who promenades the stage, striving to reconcile conflicting people, at moments when all the mischief has been perpetrated. From the representative of Orpheus—or Morpheus, as he should be called—Ristori received nu aid; and her Jason was also not up to the mark. There was toe secondary cha racters was prejudicial fur the great tragedienne, and she labour-d likewise under another very serious drawback. To the majority of the auditory Medea was new, and it was the first time an Italian tragedy had been heard on an English stage. The visltoni followed, consequent y, the books so perseveringly that Itistori was not watched so closely iu the quieter portions of the tragedy as she was in the grand outbreaks of passion, when the cheering became vehement. For our ordinarily undemonstrative audience the reception was a complete triumph. In the scene between Creusa and Medea, in the first act, up to the discovery that the iso betrothed ngrad of ua t l i l l y e lormer is the husband of the latter, i absorbed the attention of her auditors until she carne to the reply to Creusa's question as to what she (Medea) would do if Jason could be found at the ieet of another, and then the house " rose " at her on the delivery of the lines that she would, like the leopard, tear her victim limb from limb. And in the utterance of this vehement passage the peculiarities of Itisteri's style are fully shown. She illustrates every word by pantomime. 'ME con-. tinuous action is observable throughout the play. Looked upon from an English point of view, critics might deem the incessant movement of the head, arms, hands, and fingers redundan , but it must be borne in mind that the Italians indulge in agitated pantomime even in simple convers'ition. In the demand from Orpheus whether Jason lived, Ristori again electrified Lime house; and in the final exclama tion of scorn at Creusa's declaration that she will marry Jason, the first act closed with universal acclamations of wonder and delight at the power of the Italian tragedienne. The scene in the next act between Jason and Medea was one of the finest exhibitions of histrionic genius on the part of Risturi we have ever witnessed. It was particularly in the quiet touches that the acting was most to be admired. The assumed calmness of manner, only interrupted by sneers and sarcasms at Jason's proposal for the separation, was remarkable for truthfulness and ac curate appreciation of the inner workings of the human breast. The cc:mite:lug effects of despair at the prospect of losing her children, and of joy at the thought that she can revenge herself on Jason by aiming at the life of Creusa, told powerfully in the soliloquy. Most skilful was the hesitation at taking the hie of her rival, when Creusa expresses sympathy for her woes and offers her the means of escape from the fury of the populace. Itistores exit with the children folded in her robes, at the end of the second act, muttering threats of vengeance, was finely conceived. A tigress at bay, turning furiously on her pursueru, can alone convey the notion of His tori's last scene, the giandeur of which is at the height when Medea replies to Jason's demand " Who has killed her children ? " "Thou." The curtain fell on this marvellous pose, and Itistori's genius asserted its undisputed supremacy and un upploached pre-eminence in the highest regions of tragic art. 546 THE PRESS. SATURDAY , ravelled overland through Russia to Tahreez in the Magazine. Hurst and Blackett—Bentley's Miscellany. I about the usual specimen of the " heavy father" in summer of 1819, and the lady conceived, on the Bentley—Fraser's. Bosworth—Blackwood . .. Blackwoods the avast woo was Creon; and the Creusa (Glance) whole, a favorable impression of Russian couriesy. During her re-idence in l'ersiasiie took every oppor- tunity of acquiring knowledge of the interior habits nn. • am! !Wile.? liar hook fu!l of domes- —The Eclectic Review. Ward and Co. — Buy ' s Own Maga- zine. P. G. ileetini — E . aglishictiman ti -Domestic Magazine. in P. 0. Beeten— Colburns Aetti , Monthly . Magazine. Chap. lira ., and . 11 . a . 11—: . 11arti . t.s . of Cro 7 nupin . an_ and although prepossessing, scarcely justified Jason his infidelity. This weakness in the secondary cha- racters was prejudicial for the great tragedienn r, and she laboured likewise under anion liar The Attaché in Madrid. Translated from the German. London : Sampson Low, SOLI, and Co. THOUGH pretending to be translated from the German, this volume is evidently from the pen of a Yankee. It is in the N. P. Willis manner, prodigiously fine and flippant, with some attempt.; at routine romance, and a great ruffling of the plumes of coxcombry. This soi disant German attaché. eh se " mother was a lovely Neapolitnn," gives the, pera of Norma Ros sini ; talks of Dickens's Mrs. Gam i ; alludes to the crowding of London routs, and the cushioned pews of L melon chapels ; quotes sneh phrases as " Where's " Bru nmel ? Dished. Where's Long Pole Wellesley? "Di idled" ; and winds up the volume by inquiring— w st Was. ingto.i, with his " cool head, honest " heart, unbiasse I judgment," would have done• had he had the direction of the Madrid insurrection in 1854. Mr. S Lie Atueii a I Minister, figures as a hero. Ni • duel with the French Ambassador, M. Turgot, when tie latter had a ball lodged in his Lim is recounted to the brute's honour :—" Mr. "Soule, who was as cool as if going out to breakfast, " remarsed just before the duel began, ' I shall not " kills tl. rurgot, I shall merely put a ball in his knee.' " The author was probably present in Madrid during the greater part of the time the letters cover—:rom Sept. 11353 to Oct. 1854—and might have been at tached to the American mission, but from the falsi ticaions detectable in his narrative it is not possible to place credit in his veracity in any instance. The scenes of the revolution are the best portion of the hook, as they are described with spirit, and seem the result of actual observation. Before young American tourists can hope to on layour for their " pencillings " in this t ouuury, they must learn to write with more truthfulness and less pretence. PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.---JUNE 5. BOOKS. The Dramatic Works of Wiilian7Shakespeare. Bell and Daldy. The Old Grey Church. Three Vois. Bentley. Lana Roukh. An Oriental Romance. Thomas Moore. Longrnans. Dish Melodies. Thomas Moore. Ditto. Songs, Ballads, and Sacred Songs. Thomas Moore. Ditto. Lonely Hours. Poems. Caroline Criffartl Phillipson. John Moron. The History of Gustavus Adolphus. Longmans. PE RIOD !CALS. Le Pallet. Simpkin „,,a31;;;;;11411—The United Church Journal. Seeley and Jackson—The Dublin University i THE AMATEUR PANTOMIME. WE are at least half inclined to think that the amateur mimes had better have reposed upon their last year's laurels. A patito.nime by gentlemen was a very good jrke, and it was let off very smartly, but the repetition of a joke is not, usually, conducive to amusement. In this case the ordinary rule has held goad, and the general verdict of society is that society was bored at the Lyceum on Monday night. Yet the performers may indignantly retort that society is what Mr. Bumble itreverently called the law—namely, "an ass." They had got a smart burlesque opening, and a pantomime which had been rehearsed with a care that did them the utmost credit. Indeed, in the article of correctness they set an ex cellent example to professionals, many of whom habitually insult an audience by never knowing their parts on a first night. Everybody did his best, and the ladies did admirably. We must leave the question to the parties on each side the footlights. Perhaps both indulged in undue expectations, think ing that they should amuse and b: amused as much as before, though the. one great element of fun was omitted—namely, novelty. This being said, we have only to mention that the subject of the pantomime was William Tell. A prologue, written by Mr. Tom Taylor and Mr. Albert Smith, brought up, alter the fashion of the old Lyceum burlesques, a series of characters from past history, each of whom was dismissed with a smart allusion, and then a veil of clouds was drawn, and discovered a Swiss landscape. A comic version 4 1f William Tell's history was then presented. The .litferent charactets were personated by Mr. Thomas Knox Holmes, Mr. C. Wray, Mr. Luard, Mr. Albert Smith, Mr. M. W. Hallett, Lir. Edmund H. Yates, Mr. G. L. Hall, Mr. Parkinson, Mr. Andrew Arcedeekne, Miss M. Oliver, and Miss Rosins Wright. O