The Press. — London, England, 1855-01-27 00:00:00

USit. M. JULLIEN'S CONCERTS.—The Mozart festival formed as novel as it was a plea-ant feature on Tues day evening at these popular concerts, and, as might have been predicted, was no less successful than the preceding Beethoven and Mendelssohn festivals. The house was crowded to excess in every part, and the expectations of the audience were completely sa tisfied by the excellence of the performance. The selection consisted of the overture to the Zauberflote, the entire symphony in E fiat, the aria, " L'Addio," sung by Miss Dolby, the sonata in E flat, for the pianoforte and violin, played by Mme. Pleyel and Ernst, and the Jupiter symphony in C. The sym phonies throughout were played with great spirit and with great delicacy of execution, but some of the movements, especially the finale in the symphony in E tiat, were played much quicker than we have been accustomed to hear; there was scarcely time allowed to dwell upon the exqui-ite melody of the composition, thus rather impairing their effect than otherwise. The minuetto in this symphony was yet justly en cored with enthusiasm, an honour that was also unanimously accorded to Miss Dolby in the " Addio." The sonata in E flat, played by Mme. Pleyel and Ernst, was very attentively listened to and warmly applauded, and the final rondo encored, though not without some signs of dissent. The concert was so highly successful that it was repeated to a crowded house on Friday evening, and Mozart will now, we trust, have his niche allowed him in future concerts, for who among all composers can compete in melody with Mozart? ' • PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY.-It is announced that Herr Richard Wagner has been engaged as the con ductor of the Philharmonic concerts of this season, in the room of Mr. Costa. Herr Wagner is a musi cian of great continental reputation. He has distin guished himself, not only by many works belonging to the highest branches of his art, but by his labours in musical literature and criticism. In this country his music, as yet, is very little known ; but the ques tion of its merits has divided the whole of Germany into two parties—the one party extolling it to the skies, while the other hold it to be altogether fan tastic and extravagant. Wagner see ins, in this res pect, to be in the same position as Berlioz ; the position for a time of every man, of a bold and ori ginal genius, striking out new forms of art for which his age is not prepared, and which, consequently, are not immediately comprehended and appreciated. But, whatever controversy there may be respecting Herr Wagner's music, it is (Omitted on all hands that as all able and experienced musical director be has no superior in Germany. HARMONIC UNION.—This society has announced a series of eight concerts during the ensuing season; the first to take place on Wednesday, the 31st inst. Herr Molique has been engaged as the conductor, an office for which no musician in London is oetter qualified. The concerts are to be held in the Hano ver square Rooms, instead of Exeter-hall, as hereto fore. Among the works promised during the season are The Messiah, The Creation, The Seasons, Elijah, The Lobgesang,Acis and Galatea, Beethoven's Ruins of Athens, The Walpurgis Night, Rossini's Stabat Mater, and symphonies, concertos, &c., by Mozart, Beethoven, Sterndale Bennett, and other eminent composers. MRS. FANNY KEMBLE.—This accomplished lady will give a reading of Shakspeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, at Exeter-hall, on Monday, February sth. The reading of the play will be accompanied by the whole of the incidental music composed by the illustrious Mendelssohn for this beautiful and imaginative play. The musical portion of this per formance is to be executed by a powerful orchestra and chorus, under the direction of Jules Benedict. The conjunction of Shakspeare and Mendelssohn, with such exponents as Mrs. Kemble and Jules Be nedict, promises a rare intellectual and musical en joyment. Re pram. OLYMPIC.—A cheerful, lively little piece, called Tit for Tat, was brought out on Monday even ing at this theatre with decided success. It is an adaptation from the French, slight in plot, rather threadbare in material, but animated in dialogue and in a variety of amusing situations, making up for the want of any peculiarly striking incident. The story is simple—that of "jealous husbands "—and the moral is so amusingly worked out that, although the subject is by no means a novel one for the stage, the interest never for a moment flags from the first to the closing scene. A Mr. Thornby, who is a happy bachelor with very pecu liar notions about matrimony and the duties of husbands, takes a malicious pleasure in paying THE PRESS. marked attentions to the wife of a Mr. Sowerby, the suspicious and jealous husband. Mr. Thornby, however, has a double motive in this, for he not only amuses himself by torturing poor Mr. Sowerby, but he hides his real design, which is to make successful love to the pretty niece of his old fiiend Mr. Frankland (Sowerby's partner), who lives in the same house. A series of absurd tricks are contrived between Mr. Thornby and the ladies to tease Mr. Sowerby, until at length be is worked up to such a pitch of jealous suspicion that he hides himself behind curtains and tables, in cupboards, and everwhere, to assure himself of his wife's inconstancy. He orders Thornby out of the house, confines his wife to her own room, and commits all sorts of ex travagancies short of murder. However, Thornby, who it appears, is living in chambers which belong to Mr. Sowerby, calls " purely as a lodger." and only upon " matters of business," and drives poor Sowerby to the verge of distraction by constantly call ing at the house to make endless domestic complaints. At length Mr. Sowerby's miseries are terminated by his discovering what a fool he has been, and that Thorn by has simply been making love to Mr. Frankland's niece, who returns the affection, and the first act concludes with their marriage. Now that the unscru pulous bachelor, with those peculiarly red-republican notions of the duties of husbands so destructive to all connubial felicity, has at length become a "Bene dict" and "one of us," Sowerby's joy is unbounded as the shadow of the idea of being able to pay off Mr. Thornby in his own coin flits through his mind. The second act opens, many months have elapsed, and Mr. and Mrs. Thornby are now seen in their own house, with the Franklands and Sowerbys as their guests. Thornby's romance has soon sunk into the commonplace ; he no longer plucks pretty bouquets of a morning for his wife, neglects his personal ap pearance, wears easy boots and a dressing-gown, and, in fact, is rapidly sinking into a state of alarming indif ference. Sowerby is delighted ;he sees the moment has come, and, like a good general, does not neglect the opportunity. Infinite bouquets are suddenly sent to Mrs. Thornby from some unknown hand, but with no effect. A well-known plausible lady's-man is next invited down through Sowerby's means, but by mis take a gentleman of the turf arrives in his place. Mrs. Thornby, who is partly in the secret, and rather piqued at her husband's indifference, sees that she can flirt with Mr. Easy Bolton without any danger, and she goes so far as to consent to an assignation with him in the garden. Meanwhile Thornby has been watching this growing preference of his wife for the society of Mr. Easy Bolton, and, as might be imagined, Sowerby loses no opportunity to represent to his friend the danger which he ran*, and at length so works upon his real love for his wife, and upon his hidden suspicions, that he is led gradually from one step to the other, till Thornby himself, once the torment of married men, hides behind curtains and in cupboards, and goes through all the frantic manifestations of a jealous husband, to Sowerby's intense delight. In the end, of course, everything is explained, and Thorn by being sufficiently punished, the moral is inferred. The acting throughout was capital. Mr. Robson, as Sowerby, was admirable in his ridiculous exhibi tion of the pangs of jealousy, and so perfectly natural throughout. There is no effort or stage con ventionality in his acting. He is the preposterously particular little man fully impressed with the strictest notions upon the subject of the married state and a wife's duty to her husband. Mr. Wigan, on the other hand, is the lively and amusing " young man " who torments all his married friends, gets married himself, and finds out that, after all, his "liberal ideas " of married life cannot stand a practical trial when applied personally. His acting, natural and easy, is clever to a degree, and his attitudes remark ably good, especially when Sowerby and he have a " little private conversation," and also when he comes in " purely as a lodger " and sits upon the corner chair, placing his hat upon the ground. It was a capital characteristic bit. Mr. Emery, too, must not be forgotten; his make-up was remarkably clever. The " turf " man was also very well repre sented by Mr. Clifton; and the ladies, whose respective parts are rather insignificant, were yet sustained by Miss Bromley, Miss Maskell, and Miss Turner, with grace and spirit. The piece was highly successful, as it well deserved to be, supported as it is by such capital acting, and the curtain fell amid loud and continued applause. It has been repeated with the greatest success during the week, and will, we have little doubt, obtain a good run dating the winter season. HAYMARKF.T.—Miss Cushman has been engaged, 'and is to appear on Monday next as Romeo, with a provincial celebrity as Juliet. There is a rumour also that the Spanish dancers will return once more to this theatre. M. VAN CUTSEM, of Neuraringen, in Belgium, has discovered a process by which the dust of coal may be converted into a fuel which burns longer than ordinary coal. SATURDAY, jortign gtrt, Xittraturt, ar. THE FRENCH MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE, COM. MERCE, AND PUBLIC WORKS paid a visit a few days since to the College of France, to examine the appa. ratus for hatching fish, established by M. Coste. He found 250,000 recently-hatched fish, 150,000 of which had only just been brought up from the establishment at Hunninguen. All this large number was con veyed to Paris at the same time, and with a scarcely perceptible loss. It consists of common trout, trout from the lakes, salmon from the Rhine, and trout from the Swiss lakes. THE WHOLE ACADEMY OF VIENNA are employed in illustrating a prayer-book as a present to the Em press of Austria. The Deutsche Kunstblatt speaks of it as creditable to the art of the present century. The Giornale di Roma announces the presentation to the Pope of the magnificent tiara offered by Queen Isabella of Spain. The presentation was made by the Cardinal-Archbishop of Toledo, the Archbishop of Compostella, the Bishop of Salamanca, the Chargé d'Affaires of Spain, Count de Cedillo, and M. Pizzala, the Queen's jeweller, by whom the tiara was con structed. The framework of the tiara is in silver ; the three crowns are in brilliants, pearls, emeralds, and rubies ; and on the summit is a cross of diamonds placed on a globe of sapphires. The total number of precious stones employed is nineteen thousand, and they are all fixed in such a way that light plays upon them in all directions. The tiara, which for nearly the last half century has been used on grand occasions by the Popes, was a present from Napo leon I. THE FRENCH POST-OFFICE DEPARTMENT have issued four kinds of postage stamps. One kind is of the value of ten centimes, or a penny ; another of the value of twenty centimes, or twopence; a third forty centimes, or fourpence ; and a fourth of eighty centimes, or eightpence. The 10c. stamp is coloured yellow, the 20c. blue, the 40c. red, and the 80c. purple. They are all of a square form, about the size of an English penny postage stamp, and they all have a square border, on which is stated the amount of postage they pay. In the centre is a pro file of Napoleon 111., set in a round space, the filling in of which is deeply coloured. The paper of which the French stamp is made is thinner than that of the English, and it sticks better to the letter. The French Government has avoided embossed stamps, the diffi culty of making them stick to letters being very great. The four colours selected for the French stamps are admirably distinguishable. taltsiastiral. \M■mm. PREFERMENTS AND APPOINTMENTS. The Rev. R. F. Ozanne, M.A., to the Incumbency of St. Mat thew's Church, Guernsey. The Rev. James Wallace, M.A., to the Vicarage of Wellow, near Bath. The Rev. Joseph George Cumming, M.A. to the Head Mae• tership of King Edward Vl:s Grammar School, Lichfield. The Rev. G. Thompson, MA., to the Incumbency of Leigh, near Sherbome. The Rev. William Webb Ellis, M.A., to the Rectory of Itlag• dalen Laven, near Chipping Ongar. The Rev. Charles smith, M.A., to the Vicarage of Torrington, near Ledbury. VACANCIES. The Vicarage of Medmeubam, near Great Marlow, in the dio cese of Oxford; worth 2001. a year, in the gift of Mr. C. It. Scott Murray. The Curacy of Glandford Brlgg, in the diocese of Lincoln in the gift of the Rev. John R. West, M.A. The Curacy of Holy Trinity Church, Huhu& Manchester; worth lOW. a year, in the gift of the Rev. Thomas Todd, M.A. Rt Anag. WAR-OFFICE, JAN. 28. BREVET. Major-General Sir Colin Campbell, K.C.8., and Major- General John Lysaght Pennefather, C. 8., to have the local rank of Lieutenent-Generais in Turkey ; Colonel Hugh H. Rose, C. 8., holding the rank of Brigadier-General in Turkey, to be promoted to be a Major-General; Captain and Brevet Major the Hon. St. George Gerald Foley, Unat tached, to be Lieutenant-Colonel in the Army. OFFICE OF ORDNANCE, JAN. 19. Royal Regiment of Artillery—Brevet Colonel Burke Cuppage to be Colonel ; Brevet Major John Noble Arbuth• not Freese to be Lieutenant-Colonel; Second Captain Charles John Strange to be Captain ; First Lieut. Edward Jackson Bruce to be Second Captain; Second Lieut. Charles Richard Franklen to be First Lieutenant; Brevet Colonel Robert Burn to be Colonel; Brevet Major Frederick Darby Cleaveland to be Lieutenant-Colonel; Second Captain It. Gregory to be Captain ; First beat. William Powell Richards to be Second Captain ; Second bent. Clennell Collingwood to be First Lieutenant ; Brevet Colonel John Hungerford Griffin to be Colonel; Captain Henry Austin Lim_r to be Lieutenant-Colonel ; Second Captain Horace Parker Newton to be Captain ; First Lieut. John Edward Hope to be Second Captain ; Second bent. Rodney Ashbrook Mitchell to be First Lieutenant; Brevet Colonel Daniel Thorndike to be Colonel ; Captain Thomas Beckett Fielding Marriott to be Lieuteuant•Colonel ; Second Captain Alerruider Cameron Gleig to be Captain; First Lieut. Henry Walpole John Daahwood to be lieorind 92