The Express.
London, England, 1865-05-31 00:00:00

1, and

" picked up" their
of their own. " Doi
Mr. Trollope, " by
aides of a covert bel
and good, but nineteen .
the twentieth will be =Tied
with that elasticity without which we would as soca
travel by railway.
Mr. Trollops is silent on the NAPA ausWe-
bounds and barriers. No doubt fox-hunting is the I
truer sport, and leas debased by Cockney eeeeele,7
time • yet, we are not ashamed to own ties
the beet run we ever rode to was with
the royal buck hounds, on the 10th of January to
thepresent year. The "meet" was at Denham,
the " take" close to Barnet • 25 miles in au hour
and three-quarters, nearly ail over grass, mid the
ground in the very finest order. No one who was
out will ever forget the day. It compensated,
we dare say, for niauy indifferent ones before and
since.

The Second Empire as Exhibited in French Litera-
ture, 1852-1863. By Sir C. F. Lescauss
WILAXALL, Bart. 2 vol.. London : John
MaxwelL
• more appropriate title for this work would
bare been " A Glance at the Literature of the
Sawed Empire." Except a chapter in the begin-
ning referring to the coup d'itat, the Second Empire
has no further relation than co-existence in the
same period with the books and authors noticed
in
these volumesbySieLasoullea Wrs.xall. We mention
this lest readers who may hope to bud in the work
an exposition of the influence of the present political
condition of France on the intellect of her writers
should be disappointed. If the book be read simply
for what it is—a collection of reviews and notices—
it will disappoint no one. We may perhaps object
that Sir Lascelles treats not only the hooka, but the
authors, too much en maitre, and leaves not suffi-
cient doubt of his own infallibility, but the
authority he thus assumes he uses kindly, and not
without a certain patronising generosity which
pleads his excuse. Some of the literary portraits
ace very good, and will convey to readers
in this couutry an unusual vivid impression
of some of the leading writers in France. Edmond
About, one of the wittiest, and to the Pope perhaps
the moat troublesome of feuilletouista, is very well
introduced, and his genius and character satisfac-
torily illustrated from,his writings. The Dumas,
pere et fits, receive a good deal of our author's at-
tentiou, and furnish some of the most amusing and
clever pager in the book. The character of these
two writers, their relations to each other, their
intercourse, and their fame, form altogether a pe-
culiarly French affair, which could hardly have
existence in any other country. The voluminous
publications of the father, his unscrupulous
plagiarism and self-repetition, his superhuman
conceit, the manner in which he makes merchan-
dise of everything that comes to his knowledge,
constitute him altogether a celebrity of his time.
The son, on the other hand, having commenced his
literary career by pandering to the most degrading
and prurient tastes of his countrymen, when wisdom
or consideration came, turned round upon his former
clientele, the Louth*, Ilitaerae, and demimonde
generally, with full resolution to whip the offence
in public. Be has done some good 'Nevi°e in this
respect. The vile fashion that made bad women
the leaders of ton, and compelled virtuous women
to imitate their style and manners to the utmost
limits of virtue, has, we are glad to learn, shrunk
before the chastisement of Dumas ills, and uow at
least pays 0 morality the external homage of
hiding its guilty head in darkness. For the service
Dumas has done to public decency he deserves the
thanks of all men, but it must not be supposed
for all this that he has become prudish, austere ;
this would be a greater sin against his public
than any that the most impudent Louth could be
guilty of. No, he still flatters those contraband
amours, and that piquant nibbling at fruit defends
which are dearto every Frenchman's heart, only M.
Dumas ills, recommends that everything should be
done decently and in order. There shall be no brutali-
ties, nothing to offend the birtisdances ; that your
vices, in short, be made to look as like virtues as
possible, and that when their ugliness is so mani-
fest that you cannot dress them up so as to pass in
the crowd, he does not recommend that you
should get rid of them, as foul and degrading, but
that you should practise them in the dark. We
are not of those who fear the corrupting influence
of French literature upon our population. There
are among us many, no doubt, who can revel in the
contemplation of vulgar and nasty themes, and a
broad joke or double entendre is not always un-
acceptable even to religious people ; but all
this is interwoven in French fiction with
manners and habits, principles and aspirations,
I so utterly foreign to ours, that they can never come
ihome to our people with any touch of sympathy.
The author's accounta of Balza° and of Madame
Dudevant are clever and just, and the lady's career
in connexion with that of De Mused is fairly,
though with no uncalled for severity, expounded.
Balzac, Engine Sue' and Dumas pen, are verit-
able types of slightly differing verities, which have
given the tone to the leading schools of French
fiction. They all agree in some of their chief per-
sonal characteristics, and these are so decidedly
national that we should strive in vain to estimate
them by airy English standard. What we should
call most intolerable self-conceit and pretentious-
ness are accepted at the other side of the Channel as
manifestations of irrepressible genius. On the
strength of having exhibited himself successfully
in a few piquant stories, your French writer
claims not mere equality, but sometimes a marked
superiority over silent men of science who have
spent their lives in extending the boundaries of
human knowledge, and the power of man over his
own happiness. In no other country than France
is such a phenomenon as Madame Dudevant die
George Sand possible : a woman calling herself a
man, and acting in a manner which few men would
venture upon, writing out her own experiences,
expounding all her feelings towards the other sex,
drawing the veil of nature off the delicate and
modest emotions of the female heart, and substi-
tuting for it a conventional gauze, which hides
nothing, however ingenious and elegant may be its
texture. George Sand, like the male writers just
named, makes !Remy capital out of all her own
experiences, works them up into her stories, and
makes her publications the media of her own pas-
sions, both of love and hatred. Sir LascellesWeamill
tells us that she has recently taken a line more in
accordance with general notions of morality, and
for this she would no doubt deserve credit, did not
the change follow so immediately upon the exponf
eerasant of " Ltd et Elle." Our readers, we should
hope, know little of the scandals of French fictitious
literature, nor is it our intention to indoctrinate
them with such profitless stuff. We may observe,
however, without damage to anyone, that the book
just mentioned was published in reply to one of
George Sand's, entitled "Elle et Lei. ' It was a
record of one of her amours, and was recognised
by all readers in France as a true story in the
main, though slightly disguised by fiction and mis-
representation. In this book she vents her spite
upon her deceased lover, covers his memory with
reproach, and vituperates the whole current of his
life. The brother of the dead man was outraged
st this assault, and in revenge published his own
version of the affair, which showed up the lady in
a most odious light. The marvellous part of the
whole is that these heart-rending transactions
take place between middle-aged and somewhat
withered people, in whom the stolid English reader
would suppose that the irrational fire of youth bad
been long covered with repentant ashes. Neither
she nor he reproached the other with the open vio-
lation of morality and decency of which they had
both been guilty ; they seem to take the violation
of the seventh commandment as a thing in itself
quite proper. They are far above ahy of the paltry
prejudices of Christianity, but they have a code of
their own which takes the place of both morals and
religion, a system resembling that most dis-
honourable of all rules of ooudnct which not long
since went by the name of the " code of honour "
in our own country. The difference between the
Ensgish and French codes is prescribed by the dif-
ference between the two peoples. In the French
there is no absolute necessity for truth, or loyalty,
or hielity, but whatever you (lo you must do

Haunted London. t
and By W4.LtI& Tnoitsscray.
Hurs Blacket
A reviewer should be a man of most universal
sympathies, and, if we may say so, of cosmopolitan
taste. His appetite should be keen, as his diges-
tion should be vigorous. He should be ready at
the appointed hour to eat and be thankful, be the
literary dish set before him more or less savoury.
The ordinary reading public, those ladies and gec-
tlemen who linger over the shelves of Booth's or
kindle's, either in search of au appetite or to satisfy
one somewhat feeble or squeamish, if they reject
this theory at least profit by its application.
Charles Lamb has said, "Much depends upon
when and where you read abuok." Be bad books
for all places, all hours, all intervals. We think
we have heard the same of Leigh Hunt. With our-
selves it has long been a recognised truth that there
are periods of mind during which a dictionary
or a broadsheet of miscellaneous advertisements is
pleasant reading. We do not mean to apply this
truth without reserve to Mr. Thornbury's volume,
but it has certainly given us amusement of the same
desultory sort as the broad-sheet to which we have
referred. Aud Tet there are numbers of readers
who will delight in it, that is if they are not misled
by the title.
" Haunted London" is sot a book about ghosts
—save that of Cock-lane--but a book of pleasant
gossip about London within a mile or so of Charing-
cross, and the people who lived, loved, worked, and
died there, from a century and a half back until

DOW.
To thews who love such records of the past, who
delight in being able to say to themselves or to their
companion. " Old Johnson used to dine here,"
" There Oliver Cromwell lived ;" " Coaches were
first introduced into England from Hungary in
1080," and the like, we recommerd Mr. Thorubury.
It would be a pleasure to walk down the Strand
arm-in-arm with a friend who was well " up" in
him.
Old playgoers, too, will like the book. It
is particularly rich in theatrical lore and
legends. We are told of Mr. Rice, the
" original Jim Crow," who appeared at the
Adelphi in 1836. Who does not remember him 1
"He was an American actor who had studied the
drolleries of the negro singers and dancers,
especially those of one' Jim Crow,' an old boatman
who hung about the wharves of Vicksburg. He
initiated among us negro tunes and dances ;" and,
it is well added, " this was the fatal beginning of
those negro entertainments, falsely so called."
"Matthews the elder first appeared at Hull in
1806." "Madame Lucia Elisabeth Vestria was
born in 1797 ;" this announcement will satisfy many
inquiries. " She was the daughter of Franoesco
Bartolorri, the engraver, and was married to the
celebrated dancer, Yeah* in 1813, and in the
same year appeared at the King's Theatre iu
Winter's opera of Proserpina."
We have notices, too, of Quin, Garrick, the
Siddons, Liston, Suett, Grimaldi, of whom Mr.
Thornbury writes :—" Grimaldi, the sou of Queen
Charlotte's dentist, was born in 1779. He made
his Mot at Drury-lane in a Robinson entice
pantomime in 1781, and retired from the stage in
1828. He was the very bean-ideal of thieves, says
a critic of the time ; robbery became • science in
his hands ; you forgave the larceny from the humour
with which Joe indulged his irresistible weakness.
He was famous for his rich ringing laugh, his com-
placent chuckle, the roll of his eyes, the drop of
his chin, and his elongated respiration."
Mr. Thornbury's notice of Madame Malibrau
has at least the merit of conciseness. We give it
entire. "In 1830 Madame Malibran (De Besot)
appeared at Drury-lane as Iselin in Ralfe's Maid
of Artois, which was a great success. At the close
of the season she went abroad. Returned in Septem-
ber, she sang at the Manchester Festival, and after a
duet with Madame Caradorl Allen (sic) was taken
ill, and died a few days after. This gifted woman,
the daughter of a Spanish Jew—an opera singer—
was bore iu 1808."
The above might be improved, but Mr. Thorn-
bury hex • little more enthusiasm for " charming
Mrs. Nisbett, that peach of a woman" as Douglas
Jerrold need to call her. "It was worth going a
hundred miles to hear her merry, singing, silvery,
laugh." And so it was ; but how many more miles
to hear Malibran I

Fifty Modern Poems. By W I LLI Alt ALLINORAM.

Bell and-Daldy.

- -
A critic disposed to cavil about trifles might be
temptedto question the utility of the epithet
" modern " inserted in the title of this goodly
little bundle of minor poems. It would probably
be assumed by the least imaginative reader
that the lays of a contemporary bard are to be
classed among modern rather than among ancient
inspirations. It so happens, however, that
one poem of the collection is a direct imitation
of the rustic dialect spoken at Stratford-on-Avon
in Shakespeare's time, and in that sense can hardly
be called modern. And while thus engaged in
seeking occasion for unfavourable comment, a cap-
Itious censor might object to such very prosaic and
, unmusical lines as— .

Boney'd gallant wile en invitation to the gypsy bees ;
and

---
Haag in those powscfal yellow claws, and ors the bloody
flesh aad for.
• •

-- ---
Neither does it quite satisfy ear or sense to be
told that
..

•G, M.

' 3:

MUSIC.

—sec Ise tiii,tad-'"'" " ..evia
MAJESTY'S THEMA'.
.. you have no intention- di Mdlle. de Murska • peered last night in •
:hem. You are at liberty by the sosemibbiaahaabalsair p
.. Ilt• to chroelve and dishonour, to -
_, ,___ ~_
.., ~., of Leila' is midi° be that ki whis
'educe and to henry, butofou must do it all gram- . `'t "• °°—'''" dmileteeeflesefal triemfdiet sad this
fully. You must di
w I, bow (monists. e, and .. we sae well holler, for we Lee seldom Idibellja a IWO fai.
above all, von ismit respect the feelim of ~,,,r thuslastie reception than that which she has reedited is it
victims. This La t sore plaoe is French society, from the Leaden Ind"' Tt• theatre wee litsgsar full to
every Best la every part of the Imam bad
and oould not have coutinued to extend as A did oThrfiowlee ;
up to a very recent period without eatiug the very 'us ""P"t: .ad waebeze of Pe°Yle VV• weouslobt°ll
heart out of all that is estimable among our neigh- ;bY tee". et chain
Thep
la every spot lute WU& SheY
bouts. Happily, the tide has turned, and there ' could be thrust. lDfotottoDe of Ow Paw., bad ivi-
are many indications that the ebb has set in. The ; dingy been highly raised, awl were sot la my respect dia.
truly virtuous and religions among oar allies are aPPointed. The impersonation of Seniors most shanties
better appreciated, a wholesome style of literature brmiee V 66 • meatorlawie of dramatic and Total seas fall of
is spriuglog up • conjugal fidelity and feminine truth, beauty. and irresistible pathos. Mdlle. de Mamba
chastity are beginning to be rightly esteemed. made Do aorta to give sew readiois of the Para,
or to stertlegthe indiums by Meisel effects. She sated
Someof the greatest offenders against thine principles
of domestic peace and general happiness have , the character simply and naturally, not seeming to be
changedaides, and are now theirdevoted supporters. ' (Glided by authority or tradition, but to fellow the
If the Second Empire bad done no more than thus to I dletetee of her owe i•i•ilig•Dr• sad feeling, thee Maw-
change the tone of popular literature it would still i•S • remit similar to that arrived at by her most din.
have conferred one of the greatest possible benefits 1 thiguiebed precursors ;I the great beauty and charm of her
upon the nation. We do not, however, ascribe the • performance lying, not in the exhibition of Dove' (*taro,
change to the political circumstances under which bat in the exquisite perfection sod Baia of every Pert.
it iii taking place. We regard it and necemary reao- fa all* too. lay the charm of her stallier• She embellished
ti
from the former corrupt and degrading ooune Shoes pasesges which are generally embellished by Wean,
of prurient licence in which the people indulged for bemuse those are tbe pewees* which her own abate
so loug a period. A monotony of salacious reading sad judgment tell her ought to be embellished ;
will pall upon even the uioet seusual ; there will arise a bat she doss it with a richness and variety of
longing for something purer, more manlike, and if fancy and brilliancy of voice and execution which soared,
this revulsion be taken advantage skilfully the say singer now oe the stage man even approach. In short,
germ of a new taste may be implanted. There are her whole perfornmoce of this character was worthy of the
multitudes of high and pure-minded men and wo- warmest eulogies that have been bestowed u
pon it. She was
has
men in France with fully as much talent as the forteaste A Wipe supported by Gardooi, whose El
caterers for depraved appetites, and in their hands always been admirable sad lest night was es fine as
ever.
lies at the present time to a very essential manner The smell but agreeable pert of Comet Eodolfo derived Wi-
th* honour and happiness of their country. podiums from beiog sustained by Bentley ; sod the whole
opera was very completely and seMsfactorily got up sad
performed.

Dignifying shapee of mountains wave on each horizon lino i
But it is a far more agreeable as well as
a more reasonable duty to award the weed of
praise to Mr. Allingham's usually harmonious
versification. His imagery, too, is drawn from
nature's own book, and evinces a keen and healthy
sense of the beauties of the external world. There
may not be much that is either original or startling
iu his poetic effusions, but at least be has the art of
clothing familiar ideaa in graceful and elegant diction,
and of imparting to them a charm far more pleasing
than mere novelty. At times be reminds one of
the kindly spirit of Longfellow, the teachings of a
loving and gentle philosophy, not untinotured
sadness, prevadiug his less ambitious but not leas
thoughtful pieces. if not a poet of a very high
order, Mr. Allingham is certain imbued with a
poetic vein, and may fairly claim a place in the
foremost ranks of the minor minstrels of the day.

FORILION-OFFICIL, MAY 15.—The Queen bee been
graciously pleued to appoint Colonel Edward Sta•tee,
C. 8., now bar Majesty's consul-general et Weeny, to be
her Majesty's agent and consul-general to Egypt.-oexttr.

i• • .
‘: 'etar:. PA W
ESSI .
i w 1 -1,
.A• •
knowled AL each 1.?". politelyliyon b .ff a
net d' P"'".‘ •or Ar.--_., mues ..al!, I with e
. gll." og ' dow 0, '''''"' .. aut. "-one. :ot •lo
afore the lox is away." " ell one well enough, though yo
eon men oat of twenty will,
_and f_tilifiLl.ing..Aonetuoibuthttmem..
but
oe carried in the rte„ 4cileffriiii node of She iiiad tai to thl