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. Alboni 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? and is it true 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.