The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-11-14 00:00:00

MUSICAL, DRAMATIC, LITERARY, AND
ARTISTIC NEWS AND GOSSIP.

Another volume, the seventh, of the great Duke of.
Wellington's Despatches, edited by his son, is promised'
by Mr. Murray.
Messrs. Richard Griffin and Co. are about to publish
a cheap edition of Bowdler's well-known "Family
Shakipere."
Mr. Robert Bell is, we believe, the author of the
articles on the Ireland forgeries now appearing in the
columns of the Landon Review.

Decamps is• now enrolled among the dead great
painters of France, by the hanging of a picture of his
in the Louvre, a fine quiet piece of modern life.
M. Talexay, on Monday last, commenced his season
of French plays in the Bijou Theatre, late concert.
room of Her Majesty's Theatre, Haymarket.
A personal biography of Beethoven, by an American,
amateur, who has for many years past been engaged on
the task, may shortly be expected.
Mr. Gye has engaged, for the Royal Italian Opera,
Covent Garden, Signor and Madame Tiberini for the.
season of 1861. Report speaks highly of both.
Mr. Vincent Wallace, the eminent composer, we are
informed by the Literary Gazette, is labouring under a
severe attack of congestion of the brain.
Mes,rs. Macmillan and Co. have in preparation a new-
work by the indefatigable Mr. Maurice, " Lectures on
the Apocalypse, or Book of the Revelation of St. John
the Divine."

In the great singing festival, held at Liege on the.
30th of last month, more than 2,000 voices—French,
Belgians, and Germans—took part. The first prize was
carried off by the Concordia Society of Aix-la-Chapelle.
At the Surrey Theatre, London, a version of Mr.
Wilkie Collins's "Woman in White," dramatised by
Mr. J. R. Ware, has been performed during the week
with success.
More than half the amount required for the erection
of the monument upon the site of the martyrdom of
Bishop Hooper, at Gloucester, has been subscribed.
The committee appeals for further aid.
A rumour may be mentioned of a new opera, by Mr.
F. Clay, an amateur, which is destined for public per-
formance.—"The Bohemian Girl" is in rehearsal at.
Her Majesty's Theatre.
England, says the Athenceton, is not without its pro-
jects in regard to the musical drama and theatre, which,
if carried out, will have a result of unquestioned and
serious importance on the state of art in this country.
The London "Monday Popular Concerts," so ably
conducted during last season in St. James's Hall, are to
be revived, and the first of the coming series is to be.
given this week.
We understand that the demand for the last number
of the "Westminster Review," containing the article
on " Neo-Christianity," has been so great that the pub-
lisher is about to issue a second impression.
" The Babes in the Wood," a new comedy in three
acts, by Mr. Tom Taylor, was produced for the first time
on Saturday night, at the Haymarket Theatre, with a
moderate degree of success.
The interesting autobiography, letters, and literary
remains of Mrs. Piozzi, is to be edited by Mr. A. Hay-
ward, Q.C. The task could scarcely have fallen into
better hands than those of the biographer of Chester-
field and Selwyn.
Holme Lee, the well-known pseudonym of a popular
novelist, is about to figure in juvenile literature.
Messrs. Smith, Elder, and Co. are on the point of pub-
lishing from her pen, "Legends from Fairy Land; or,
the History of Prince Glee and Princess Tnll."
Quaint old Quarles's "Emblems " is this season to
make its appearance for the first time as a drawing-
room book. Messrs. Nisbet and Co. are preparing for
publication an edition of it, with illustrations by C.
Bennett and Harry G. Rogers.
Loder's romantic opera of " The Night Dancers" was.
performed for the first time at the Royal English Opera,
Covent Garden, on Saturday night. The character of
the performance left but little to be desired, and gave.
great satisfaction to a tolerably well-filled house.
Mr. George Wright has lately discovered, slipped
loosely into a volume formerly belonging to Isaac Reed,
a leaf containing a list of plays acted before the court in
the year 1638. Amongst the plays named are "The
Merry Wives of Windsor" and "Julius Cmsar."
Mr. R. Charnock, F.S.A., the author of a most useful
book on "Local Etymology," is at present engaged in the
completion of an unique, and we have reason to believe
standard, work on " The Etymology of 100,000 ancient
and modern, British and foreign personal names."
Mr. J. A. Langford has in the press a work on a good
and curious subject, "Prison Books and their Authors."'
This theme will enable Mr. Langford to discourse on
the romantic fortunes of Cervantes, Raleigh, Bunyan,
Southwell, Lovelace, Wither, and many more illustnous
men of letters.

The Wolverhampton School of Art is to be closed at
the end of the current quarter, viz., on the 15th of
November, for lack of funds. The council of the school,
after finding their best endeavours to win support fruit-
less, naturally enough cannot any longer face an annual
deficiency of £5O after all reductions of expenditure.
Berthold Auerback's Leipsig Almanack for the coining
year is characterised, as usual, by the excellence of its
illustrations, an excellence quite above the level of our
English almanacks. Among others, it can boast twelve
woodcuts after Kaulbach, "the Maclise of Germany,"
as he has been called.

A new opera, by Balfe, " The Bravo of Venice," is
in rehearsal at the Royal English Opera, Covent-garden,
for which Mr. Weiss has been engaged as principal
bass. Gounod's " Faust" has been withdrawn from the
list of operas to be presented at this house during the
present season.
The long-talked of opera by Vincent Wallace, en-
titled " The Amber Witch," is in rehearsal at Her
Majesty's Theatre. In this work one of our leading
sopranos was to have appeared, but we learn that so
great has been the success of Madame Lemmens Sher-
rington in " Robiu. Hood," that she will be retained
for " The Amber Witch" also.

Mr. John Camden Hotten is publishing a second
edition of Mr. James Russell Lowell's famous " Biglovr
Papers." This new edition will be distinguished by
the presence of notes, explanatory of the subjects and
persons of the work, and will thus supply an obvious
want in the bibliography of the best satire which the
literature of America has yet produced.
Cherubini's "Medea," which contains some of the
grandest tragic music in existence, is about to be revived
at the Carl Theatre in Vienna. This opera has lingered
rather than lived in the repertory at Frank Tort, hut
hardly anywhere else in Germany—as it stands, being
all but inaccessible, so merciless is the strain on the
powers of the " Medea."
The series of copies is making progress, which a cer-
tain M. Jules Frappaz has been commissioned by the
French Government to make of that portion (3,000
drawings in all) of "The Gag,niere Collection" (draw-
ings of the tombs of the royal and noble families of
France), which had found its way to the Bodleian
Library at Oxford, after " disappearing " from the
Royal Library during the French Revolution.
An interesting collection of engravings will be sold at.
Brussels during the middle of this month—that formed
by the late Joseph Paelinck, artist. It includes ex-
amples of the leaders of the old German school:
Martin Schongauer, Israel van Meeker, A. Diirer, Lucas
Cranach, and others. A collection of rare old illustrated
books and manuscripts will follow. The four days' sale
will commence en Tuesday, the 20th instant.
The three pictures which Mr. Henry Cooke painted
for the Emperor Napoleon, viz., of Magenta, Cavriano,
and Sermione, and which were some time back exhi-
bited in Manchester, have been presented to the
Emperor at St. Cloud by M. Fould. On the 27th of
October his Majesty expressed to Mr. Cooke personally,
and in most unequivocal language, the satisfaction with
which he regarded the pictures, and did Mr. Cooke the
honour of inviting him to form one at the royal break-
fast table.

On Wednesday last, Messrs. Christie, Manson, and
Woods sold the remarkable collection of antique oak
furniture and wood earrings, chiefly Flemish, collected
by the late Mr. Scarisbrick. As a whole, the collection
fetched high prices, more especially the smaller pieces and
the detached panels. The large book-cases, however,
and screen, in part consisting of genuine, though over-
elaborated, Flemish wood carvings, went, by reason of
their unmanageable size, for low prices, relatively, 1. e.,
to their original cost.
It is now fixed, says the Paris correspondent of the
Literary Gazette, that Meyerbeer's long-expected
" Africaine" is to be performed next winter (1861),
and with it the present opera house is to close, for in
1863 the new theatre is to be opened. The other is a
lesser and nearer event. In a couple of months Richard
Wagner's "Tannhauser" is to be produced, and the.
Parisians are to decide whether they approve of the
" music of the future," oui ou non It is further said
that it is mainly owing to the efforts of the Princess
Metternich that his " Tannhauser " will be given to
the Parisian public.