The Press. — London, England, 1855-11-03 00:00:00

1054 " cannot for a moment be placed on a level with " Knowles, and is, perhaps, not superior to Maturin." This is au opinion from which, we think, the world will not generally be inclined to dissent. Gerald Griffin, author of the well-known novel of " The Collegians," comes into the catalogue of dramatic writers in virtue of his one tragedy of Gisippus, acted at Drury Lane in 1842, two years after the author's death. He had, indeed, as early as 1825, " procured the representation of an operatic melo " drama at the Lyceum, but the result does not " appear to have been very encouraging," for he wrote no more for the theatre. Gisippua was written before he was twenty, but was rejected by all the London managers, and was not played till nineteen years afterwards, when it came into the hands of Macready. This circumstance furnishes the writer with an opportunity of giving us a short but interesting and valuable sketch of the unmerited fate which has attended so many dramatic publica tions from Venice Preserved to Paul Pry:— Otway's Don Carlos is a poor tragedy in rhyme, but it was infinitely more applauded, and better followed for many years, than either The Orphan or Venice Preserved. The Provoked Wife was a failure, and Congreve's Way of the World, his best comedy, was coldly received. The Distressed Mother, a weak translation of Racine's An dromaque, kept the stage with popularity for more than a hundred and twenty years. The Wonder of Mrs. Centlivre, one of the 'lest comedies in the language, was only acted six times the first season, and was completely laid aside after the second Cymon, a poor operatic piece, met with great success, while a revival of Ben Jouson's Silent Woman proved a failure. Cobb's opera of The Flaunted Tower vas acted above eighty times during the two first seasons, and now would fail to command a single audience. A miserable opera called The Woodman, written by the Rev. Bate Dudley, music by Shield, ran upwards of thirty nights. Speculation, one of Reynolds's worst comedies, was acted thirty-six times, and The Castle Spectre drew forty-seven crowded houses during the first season. It is still on the living list, and generally comes forth at Christmas to usher in the humours of the panto mime. Howard Payne's cento from many plays, which he called The Tragedy of Brutus, met with a great success, en tirely owing to the powerful acting of Edmund Kean. It had a run of fifty-two nights, and for a time completely retrieved the failing exchequer of the theatre. Paul Pry was acted forty-one times during the season of 1825, in which it was first produced at the Haymarket, and about seventy three in the next. After this let us be silent as to success being a fair criterion of merit. We could go on multi plying instances, but enough have been adduced. We must not omit to mention also an amusing extra vaganza, denominated How I became an Egyptian. It is clever and well sustained. The number is con cluded with No. 12 of " The Rivers of Ireland," the subject of the present one being the Barrow, which flows by the scenes of many an interesting episode in Irish history. The New Monthly contains no less than sixteen articles. If editors would take our advice, they would cease for the future to lead off with an article about Russia—for our part, we are tired of it. Almost every magazine begins this month with a paper on this subject. The one in question is but a consomme of telegraphic messages, and weakly done too. Of the other articles, one on the eighteenth century, by Alexander Andrews, and that on modern song-writers, will repay perusal. This is a capital number of the Law Magazine. The second article, " On the Competency of Loan Contractors to sit in Parliament," is of more than legal interest. Another on " Personal Protection Acquired by Bankruptcy and Insolvency" deals with a question that must, sooner or later, be taken up by the Legislature. The most interesting article to the general reader will be that on Lord Lyndhurst. The September and October part of the new comic publication Falstaff, is not more witty than usual. Part XII. of the new series of the Home Companion is well got up and amusing. In No. 1•l of The Martins of Cro' Martin we have a vivid picture of one of the " three nights" of 1848. Here, as may be supposed, Mr. Lever is in his element, and we think his account of the barricades equal to anything he has ever written. PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED. BOOKS. History if Piedmont. Antonio Gallenza. Chapman and Hall. Lectures to Ladies on Practical Subjects. Macmillan and Co. Mrs. Boss's Niece. Author of " Stories on Proverbs." J. and C. Mozley. The Abominatian of Desolation Come; or, Revelation Revealed. A Cambridge M.A. Layman. Nisbett and Co Minnesota and the Far West. Laurence Oliphant, Esq. I Ilackwoods. The Relations of Science. John ➢J. Ashley. Bell and I)aldy. The Great Sieges of History. William Robson. Routledge. Sebastopol; the Story of its Fall. G. R. Emerson. Do. Elementary Chemistry itt the Imponderable .4genls, and of Inorganic Bodies. Houlston and Stoneman. Selections from the Holy Seriphs res. Rivingtons. Removal of Nuisances. H. Sweet. Metropolis Loofa Management Act. Toulmin Smith. Do. THE PRESS. The Poetical Works of Lord Byron. A New Edition in Six Vola. Vol 11. Murray. The Constitutional History of England. Henry Hallam, L.L.D., F.R.S. Vol. 111. Do. Memoirs of James Montgomery. Vols 111 and IV. John Holland and James Everett. Longinus. Edward Irving. Washington Wilks. W. Freeman. The Yellow Frigate. James Grant. ttoutledge. Gilbert Massenger. liolme Lee. Smith and Elder. Villette. Currer Bell. Do. Conversations on Harmony. Author of " Conversations on Botany." Longmans. The song of Hiawatha. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Bogue. Do. Author's Protective Edition. Do. PAMPHLETS. On Money, Morals, and Progress. Anglo•Americano. Sampson, Lowe, and Son. Notes on some Remarkable Objects in the Paris Universal Exhibition. Chapman and Hall. On Caries of the Teeth. Churchill. The Object of the War. Booth. An Examination of the Rev. W. .I. Wilberforce's Charges against the Church of England. J. C. Mozley. The Railroad Children. Do. Literally Literal Diversion. Do. An Orthographical Appendix to the English Dictionaries. Do. The Peoples' Sunday. E ;; ngham Wilson. Lessons in General Knowledge. Robert J. Mann, M.D. Longman. The Policy of a National System of Agricultural Statistics. Ridgway. The Seasons of the Church. J. and C. Mozley. An Inaugural Lecture on the Study of the Law, Bic. Madras: Pharoah and Co. Map of the Road between Odessa, iv. Stanford. PERIODICALS. Royal Gallery of Are. No. 12. Edited by S. C. Hall, Colnaghi and Co. Fraser's Magazine. J. W. Parker. (Jolburn's New Monthly._ Chapman and Hall. The New Existence of Man upon the Earth. Part 7. Effingham Wilson. Tracts for the Present Crisis. Nos. 20, 30, 31, 3'2. BlackwoodsMagazine. Blackwoods. Dublin University Magazine, Orr and Co. The Home Companion, Do. Bentley's Miscellany. Bentley. Marlins of Cro' Martin. Chapman and Hall. Falstaff. Part 1. Law Magazine. Butterworth. North British Review. Hamilton and Adams. Freemasons' Monthly Magazine. lioutledge• tqf puma. HAYMARKET THEATRE. WANT of space has compelled us to postpone our notice of The Little Treasure, both play and actress, until it is almost too late ; on such a subject, how ever, " potius est si;ere quam parum dicere." The piece is one of those quiet bits of home life, with its every-day tears and laughter, which need the aid of an accomplished rather than a powerful artist to produce any effect; but wl ich, when developed and filled up by such an actress as Miss Blanche Fane, go at once straight to the heart of every audience. To those who look for striking effects of situation, and clever novelties of dialogue, there is little merit in the play ; beyond compact construction, and that is borrowed, there is nothing to arrest attention. It is a fireside scene, and pretends to be nothing greater. The dialogue is homely, made up of the gentle prattle of mother and child (for Gertrude is hardly more), springing from the heart rather than the head, and some good-humoured quizzing, with• out mush point, with no good things, and no sparkle and brilliancy, but we fancy nobody misses them ; all is quiet and gentle, save the awful Mrs. Med dleton; and we go away softened and subdued by the simple nature of the scene, perhaps with a slight but very natural regret that we have no such friend as Gertrude to plead our cause with the enemy. The story has been described at full length by most of our contemporaries ; it is very simple, its peculiar beauty lying in the idea of employing the influence of a daughter to reconcile a husband and wife long since estranged. The real cause of their first quarrel is a mother-in law, that fertile source of domestic dis agreement and dramatic involvements. Sir Charles Howard (Mr. Howe) has a peculiar dislike, so says Mrs. Meddleton (Mrs. Poynter), to babies in long clothes and the agonies of teething; and poor little Gertrude very soon after her birth becomes the regular family grievance, and so improved on by her grandmamma that a separation soon takes place between Sir Charles and Lady Howard. During the twelve years of their disunion, the little baby in long clothes, in the common course of nature, grows up into a pretty girl ; and when the action commences, we find her, half child, half-woman completely mistress of her yielding mother, and quite a match for awful grandnaamma herself—fairly ruling the house by her pretty wilfulness and coaxing ways. The secret of the separation has of course been care fully kept from her; but, alarmed by a hint in cautiously dropped by a shy cousin, Walter, she easily wins the whole story from him, and imme- SATITRDAY, diately organises an innocent scheme with ber quondam playmate —who is half-afraid of her—for the recomiliation and reunion of her father and mother. An engagement is extemporised with Walter, to which she gains her mother's consent, and a letter having opportunely arrived from Sir Charles to Lady Howard, asking permission to have a portrait of his child, Gertrude resolves on going to town to present him with the original instead; a scarcity of Berlin wool, and a want of "all manner of things," being the ostensible reasons for the journey. She discovers her father in the midst of his worthless associates, a little softened towards Lady Howard by a previous interview with Walter, who has explained his intentions and feelings towards Gertrude. Sir Charles, completely subdued by the beauty and affection of his child, consents to be present at her marriage ; husband and wife are at length brought together, and Gertrude with a depth of feeling which hides its intensity under a veil of girlish fear, pleads the cause of each to the other, until the hands long separated are once again clasped together, and the penitent husband asks and wins the forgiveness of his injured wife. Then follow the elimination of Mrs. Meddleton, Walter's discovery that a day has converted his friendship for his cousin into love (very natural under the circum stances), Gertrude's real engagement, and the hap piness of all. The character of Gertrude in the hands of Miss Pane wins the hearts of all her hearers. The effect of her acting to those accus tomed to frequent the theatres is novel and surprising; it is long since we have seen so universal a homage to the mimic art of the actor ; all, old and young, men and women, yield to a common emotion, and prove, by their laughter or their tears, the presence and influence of a real artist. But there is nothing strange in this but its novelty—" one touch of nature makes the whole world kin"—and from the beginning to the end of the play we seem to be witnessing a reality and not an imitation. In the scene with her father, the sweet, unaffected pathos of her tones, or the childlike fun breaking out through her tears, like a gleam of sunshine through a falling shower, and strug gling through the sobs which oppress her utterance, are all alike true to life and reality. Comparedto the mechanical sorrows of the stage, Miss Pane's art (we hardly like to call it art) is flesh and blood to an automaton ; her nature shows by the side of the imitations of many artists like a dew-drop to a glass lustre; it is the pure fresh odour of the violet to the smell of a perfumer's shop • a beam of the light of heaven stealing in on the glare of the footlights to show artifice and conventionality their own ghastly ugliness. Mr. Buckstone and the public have cer• tainly found a " little treasure " in this charming actress, and it is for him to be careful of the gem and its setting. LORD PANMURE has received from her Majesty the dignity of a Grand Cross of the Bath. THE GERMAN BUND had its first sitting after the re"ess last Thursday, at Frankfort. Baron von Pro kesch•Osten took leave of the assembly, and an nounced that Count Rechberg would succeed him as President of the Diet. BARON BAPTISTE DAMIER, a negro baron of the empire of San Domingo, who has just come to Eng land to represent the Emperor Solouque at the Court of St. James's during the absence of the present Hayden ambassador, is described as a very handsome black. He speaks the French language fluently, the English grammatically, and is remarkably shrewd and well-informed. THE TELEGRAPHIC CONVENTION between Russia and Germany, concluded on the 29th of June last, was ratified at Berlin on the 30th, between M. de Manteuffel for Prussia, and MM. de Nothomb and Malaret for the Austro-German Union. On the pro position of Prussia it has been agreed that this con vention shall come into operation on the Ist of November. Russia has adhered to this arrange ment. THE AUSTRIAN GOVERNMENT has granted to Id. Hermann Lindheim, a banker and great landed pro prietor, the right to construct a railroad from Vienna, by way of Linz, to Salzburg. The whole line is to be finished within two years from the present time, so that (if the Bavarian authorities keep their en gagements) travellers between London and Trieste will, in the year 1858, be able to accomplish the journey in four days, or at most four days and a half. THE LORD HIGH COMMISSIONER, after a month's absence, during which he visited the Southern lowan Islands, returned to Corfu on the 10th. His excel lency was everywhere warmly received by the popu lations. THE soi-disant PRINCE LEON OF ARMENIA, who was stated a few days ago to have offered his services to the Russians, under Lieneral Mouravieff, against the Turks, has ,just been arrested at Berlin as an im postor. Some curious details are given in the Berlin papers of the successful swindle which this gentle man has achieved in many parts of the Continent. MI VII