The Express.
London, England, 1856-08-23 00:00:00

IHR IXPRB3S, SATURDAY WINING, AUGUR? 28, 1858.

SKETCHES OF LONDON ACTORS.

MISS CUSHMAN.

Bowe tee or sloven yeses---ago, i; the rides days
Shea George Hudson wee Ring, and everybody was
making fabulous foetuses in the mad lottery of scrip
and premium, ai Asterism actress appeared at the
Priscese's Theatre, then nods the manernamit of
Mr. Maddox, whose obarasteriedse were so marked
and peculiar se at onto to divide the world of theatri-
cal criticism into two sakes parties of "pre*" sod
"cons." The "..as • were prissipally to be
found moor the devoted followers of the mai-
bent tragedies who at that time held "move•
reign sway sad masterdom • in the higher
regions of dramatic art, and of whom it was currently
said, with what degree of troth we care sot now to
'squire, that as he " bore no brother sear the
throeo." he was not disposed to regard without
jealoosy the rival claims of a sister potentate. This
school of cables at once pronounced it impossible that
a Transa,lantie lady without a profile, end not with-
out a certain drip of Americaoism in speech and
gesture, should ever succeed in establishing for her-
self a permanent position amongst the queens of
British tragedy. The opposite party, admitting at
once the want of outline, and the presence of
• scarcely perceptible intonation not strictly of British
origin, maintained nevertheless that the possession of
a splendid pair of eyes, an infinitely mobil* physiog-
nomy and a commaeding figure, more than made
amends for any of those defects in physique on which
the adverse orifice relied; while as to the more intel-
lects.' portion of the lady's acting, they rested their
ease triumphantly on a sustained force and energy of
passion, a depth of pathos, and an overpowering in-
tensity of natural emotion, which caused all miner
defeats to be forgotten and took fest bold of die
sympathy and admiration of those who went to
witness those remarkable performances, not indeed
in the spirit of ingesioas detraction but of intelli-
gent appreciatioe. The public ranged themselves
on the side of the more favourable 'nirvana. The
Bianca, the Mrs Haller, the Emilia, and the
ec Lady
Mheth of the gifted stranger drew thronged au&
'aces and predated a oontinually increasing sensation.
It was not, however, till Miss Cushman left the
Princess's for the Haymarket, and appeared at the
latter hoses is the character of Romeo, with her
sister, Miss Boma Cushman, es Juliet, that her
plate as an actress of drat-rite gads was firmly
sod difinitivaly find. Oa the mereirag after that
memorable performers. dm head liesselllesservedly
10810•46 The fervid, ell-mseheries ponies of the
Italian youth, seek ee the genies of the ping
bliskspeare bad conceived 0111118•181 desire
and the poetic purity—the bounding blood and the
lesavensearieg farrow—ths infinite depths of the
tenderness and the app lling madness of the
despair, all were renewed and reproduced in
this extraordiaary portanness. This impassiosed
spirit from the Jong weeteen world had Realised in
all its intensity, and all its teeth, that vision of love
which to the old world of bad grown to be
little more than the d' extravagance of a
post's dream. The Rowse of Kies Cushman was
no
drram, bat a reality. We saw him smitten by
that great passion as with a anostroks : never after
Juliet had risen on him was the devoted Montages
aught but the minion of love, the thrall of fate.
How absolutely was all seam of the performer's sex
merged in the alreorbing interest of the performance.
What an elastic vigour of fresh manhood in the
tread! what an exuberant* of high-hearted energy
in every tone and eery gesture! And when the asap
comes, and the morrow—when the shadows of doom
begin to descend—how is it still the lovestriekes
man, sot the basilisk woman, wham heart-
anguish is laid bare before us. When in
impotent. of despair the banished Montague dings
himself full booth on the earth," taking the mesas
of an nem& grave," it is no woman passion that
stealers him in the throes of that marts' agony.
In the iaterview with the Apothecary, what con-
strained and manly eadnese—in the heart.harrowieg
scenes that follow, what a stands' of life,
what a terrible self-surrender to death! are,
we know, people whose cionveationd sentiments of
propriety are apt to take cities at the nodes of snob
an impersonsties Oy a wumae, has +villein the ewe
of our ewa expertise. we never met with one
ea whales orbital judgment we said rely who,
having ppaat theory to petrel, by gang to witness this
extrassdiiaey perfermeoes. did net eine away with
a firm mievistien that in the Ilenteed Miss Cashman
he had whammed ens of the met entirely pleasing
as well sewer the nest innintably powerful pre•
seamen §of • Shannon chariot., which it has
Vallee to the let of the existing generation to enjoy.
The nose el the actress power is decisively
shows by the variety
_of parte in which she
has eshiend a dedded noose& Bianco, Mrs.
Haller, Tains, Lady Macbeth, Qum Katherine,
may all ha authored ameept her triumphs. The
lost of these is perhaps her obefercenere
in the higher range of the legitimists drama. It
has always appeared to us an emissatly beautiful
sad poetise' personalism. The gunny dignity of the
outraged win n the wain assnee-.lbe Indignant
name of wrong, the yespd ems width breaks out
oat again* the YesCatlin* se fir 111180041 from all
the vehesennes el vdm,_ vi_tupeseties—treeelmly oce-
temples% sod yet se bonny Miter--the upbraid's,
tear, more le sorrow than is sent, with whist she
turns to 'he Xing, form a flee sad pathetic entreat
to the elOOlOl sense is which the physical debility,
thank sot canned, is net paraded, sad the coos
faecal fretful's. of a breaking heart is chastened
sod sehdoed fate the wen and holy loftiness of
religion redgeation. But perhaps of all Miss Cush-
man's that whisk has mast completely takes
pcemsmfma el the penis is the Meg Merrill's. This
le a sempletely original swiss of the actress ; and a
terribly Immoral areatise it is. In the whole
=ear nateisystery actin we know of
that essiene so strong sad infiniteness
en
tad on the imeginetien se the dial apparitioe of
the sedrd wean, when suddenly, with a swift mad
=nonensat, something between a ghost's
et tiger's spriapshe Issesesse visible, a lean.
gnat Rpm of wrath sal glees, en the summit of
the reit Ike meets the am isises save. It ie mie of
thee swung mements of suede. the memery of
whisk nets trough a Mims. The whole •
tenor of the partermense filly sestaies the premise
of its seatmensmout. Bat it would be a waste of
weeds te socemont at any Meth on the merits of an
impersonation white is posbably mere popular sad
mere generally familiar, net only to matrepolitia but
to previnial plitygosee, than any other of sir time.
Min Ossimeaa's powers se a eosin astresesenles
nen neassiderable. Is sun parts as Ludy
ligneler, in Lea** elseisresev, her Anna
genial dew of animal spirits. kw keen pampas of
the Indium% and wee of behigiag oat the pits of
epigrammatic and sparkling dialogue, tell very sat -
sessfelly. In nab ohmmeters as Lady Townley she
is lees at ban. Her nature is tee impalsin and
fervid is tree itself &owe nth@ sannetionel slogans
and nerdy frivolity of the high-beed wenn of
18811011. She but set the art of hang siegeatly in-
sipid and graseibUy neon Her pediment is
se admirable readies of the tat. all the wit
of whisk she beings en la Mgt and ekes
Wier, bet those is a wet of repose and
Annoy .heal Ihe Ism and gating whisk it
loam vlll the doe gesesslosat of the shunter.
Ohs is tee mina kr eke sea wield
dagger ar genii a Misr than she sae
fit a fan

Was Closbaies, as duo palls are aware, Issi
sae at*, pampas amoseet ancr URA= siegagesasuit.
la Ilia satistimrsists se the asalaspillas siege it is
at saw •Is useaf tbat sion el lima add& ars
Mat asleakital
_te Afar kr& Ist pastier perm&

EXPRESS FROM PARIS.

(non ova owa

PARIS, FILISAT Evarnre!

The annual Boaapartist dinner of the society of the
10111 of December, came off the day before yesterday,
at Hollot's restaurant, areas the Barrier. du Resale.
IL lieheontet, who, se usual, was the principal spokes-
men, revealed the feet that the famous stet of Bor
deans, L' Empire eget is Pais, wee not, an most pro-
ph must have supposed, the expression of the
Beeperee's ripped judgment founded upon a consi-
deration of the political situation of Europe in 1812,
bet that it wane mere repetition of what Louis Napo
hon had ones confidentially told M. Belasontet when
walking arm-hparns with him twenty-three years ago.
la 1833, a short time after the death of the Duke de
Beichstadt, the young prince, Louis Napoleon, was
invited to a little town in the Duchy of Baden on the
lower lake of Constance, and nearly oppoeite to the
Chkteau of Areeemberg. There, in Rodolhsell—that

is the name of the little town—uoret emissaries from
several sovereigns were, according to IL Benzoate,
sent foe the purpose of learning the real political
opinions of the son of Hortense. M. Behoontet had
the honour to accompany the penes in a "little
boat with a single waterman," bet which frail
bark =fled " Cesar and bis terbium." In returning,
the prince confided to M. Belmostet that the sou*
reigns of the north of Europe. feeling distrustful of
the duration of Lou's Philippe's power, and "doubt.
leek" foreseeing the timetable revival of the empire,
were anxious to know what Louis Napoleon's ideas
were, and that be had told them that the reestab-
lishment of the empire could not but consolidate
friendly relations between France and the powers
'of Europe! that. having received then baptism
of glory," Frau, had now only to fructify
the Institutions created or strengthened by
the Emperor, sad to improve her materiel
and moral position—in a word, that rEnspire itail
la pais, but " • peace great, solid, and durable, by
lesion of its own strength." After this curious ir
velatioa, M. Delineate concluded a very florid pee*
gyrio oo the Emperor, by asserting that if Napoleon
the First had lived he weed have extinguished
pauperism in "his giant arms," and that in all ha-
ste probability it was reserved for his snooessor,
Napoleon lIL, to complete the work and put as end
to misery. " Chatlemegoe mould only shed tears
when he looked towards the north and thought of the
castinaal invasion of the barbarians. But the
modern Charlemagne, struggling with the present
public enemy (pauperism seibeedder) will not confine
himself to idle lainsatatione—be will moque.' M.
Belgrade therefore proposed the health of "Napo-
leon, the born opposeat of the public calamities."
I think this a fitting @cession I. refer to • 'abject
which has been the town talk of political circle in
Paris this week, and to which, bet for such an oppor-
tunity, I should have herniated to allude. Two
stately leading articles from the pen of M. Oranier de
Cassague have lately appeared in the Constitugionsel
with the beading "The Demon of Socrates," in
which it is sought to be proved that Socrates really
believed is an attendant demos, bat that he was not
therefore mad, but only " hallucinated.* When I
first read these articles, I had no other thought than
that the writer, being lace many other journalists at
the present time, hard driven for a subject, bed
merely chosen Socrates sea vacation topic on which
to hug a display of learning and ingenuity. But I
find • very general indisposition to believe that the
principal political writer in the leading go-
vernment journal can have broached this theme with-
out some practical object. It is seriously said is
many quarter. time U *lactate', dad a demon, modern
great men may have • demon too, sad that it is well
to prepare the public mind to receive • distinction
between what secede and septic, would call mad-
ness and that ecstatic state of the intellect which is
in reality to be attributed to the agency of a good
angel.

Tea Pays contradicts the statement that the Rus-
Man government has adopted a complete plan for on.
building debsetopeL No Arabi* as tiro sabfeet yet.
it says, has boss taken. After tin coronation the
Cur proposes to visit Southern Ruin, Bessarabia,
and the Chimes, and it is not till thou that any defi-
nitive decision will be eons to resardisi**Pal
Tiro Pays cosilmes the rumour which has long bees
circulated, that the Bossism have evacuated the Isla
of Serpents, and says that the Treks who renal'
upon the is sod have redeem' the lighthouse, and
will provisionally lisp it in ort4st.
Tin lames for the lighthouses* the Isle of Ber-
-1 Pests was use from Paris yawn, to its destisatiom
Th. Turkish 'meanest has ennead a groat many
non for various parts of its met, both in Imps
sad Asia. .

The Bourse was as doll se it hes been almost all
the week. The Raab, which resatio. ea the streagth
of a rise of k in Comb, dropped dews to 70fr. 76c. for
seek, sad 70fr. 80e. for eeooent, triode' with a fall of
100 and ife. Credit Mobilise fell 2fr. 60c. Rail we, s
were inanimate. Meet of the lines fell :fr. et Sfr.

I have meta to believe that the Preach govern-
meet looks very coldly span the prolested expedition
wing the Riff pintos.
M. Thieve was among the snivels at Boulogne
yesterday.
The Joon& is Zane says:

Thu Emperor, the Piapeass: tai Oa Prises Ispariai
Mad t►soagk the ♦ateals stain s t a gassier past eight as
Tuesday sisals.. The trek stomped see slowly a quarter et
as boss at the station, ►at as sae alighted. It w quits
dark at the dam, bat thu salsas is which the Etaporee
and laps. was NUM was ►.UlLatiy tlg►lad,
sad mg Gas amid les shalt Majeatiss. His llsjosty 4011.
versed sit► the taaatiosarits wits won plant at tM sta.
tbs. sag questisasi then es to the slats of the lames la
Ow Haas" mad as the asamasasse a the laaadatiaas is
Ile disperleeast. The Isepreseeeleted, with her weal pass
sag ~IL tha pas* asaisabisi. Oa* si thaw basis,
said, "Pledeme, we timid like to sea eh. Prises Imperial,"
her Iffefeety repbett. "lip bleak I &said ►e happy te
show hi. I* pas, bat ha is Weep " "De met ilketeeb his,
Ilea," was the reply, mai the peepie s►slalwd bola asp
tines, that ties obey of the Peres should ast ha bashes.