The Express.
London, England, 1868-10-13 00:00:00

MR. MARK LEMON AS FALSTAFF.

LAST evening Mr. MARK LEMON gave his first
public representation of Falstaff at the Gallery of
Illustration. It was a great success, and the
hearty appreciation evinced by his audience for
Mr. LEMON'S finest points showed—and this must
have gladdened the heart of the artist—that the
praise awarded was discriminative. To our thinking
there is no actor of the present day who at all
comes up to Mr. LEMON in the delineation of this
wonderful character. The defects of his repre-
sentation are not perhaps such as a professional
actor would be likely to exhibit, and his fine his-
trionic faculty is also wholly uninjured by the
conventionalities of the stage. Mr. LEMON'S
rich and flexible voice, the humourous
twinkle of the eye, the jollity and abandon
of his appearance, fit Sir John admirably.
And the deep-seated vein of melancholy to be
found in Falstaff as in all the humorous
characters of SHAISPEARE is also visible in Mr.
LEMON'S impersonation of the Knight. Sir John
was of course the main attraction of the entertain-
ment. Mr. LEMON was assisted by Mr. HERBERT
CRELLIN, Mr. NEVILLE, Mr. BRANSCOMB, Mr.
HENRY, Mr. ROBINS, and Miss BOSE GARLAND,
who many years hence may act Mrs. Quickly
well. At present she is too young for the part.
For the rest the acting was mediocre, not bud
enough to be worthy of blame, not good enough
to be praised. This, however, was of compara-
tively little consequence. Everybody present wont
to flee Sir John Falstaff, and Sir John was de-
lightful. An evening amusement like this which
shall be not an entertainment merely, but at the
same time a highly intellectual treat, is a boon for
which to be grateful.

THE junta at Seville, we learn, are about to
give practical evidence of their sincerity in the
important matter of freedom of worship by for-
mally laying the first stone of a Protestant church

The Madrid journal Las Nomdades stated that
the German Jews aro about to address a potition
to the Spanish government asking for permission
to return to their own country, and this journal
adds, " We have not the least doubt that this do-
" mend will bo acceded to without any restriction.
" Let the Jows worship in all liberty the GOD of
" ABRAHAM and JACOB, who, after all, is the GOD
" whom we adore."

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.
(THIS DAY.)

ON TEI INDIAN 11110WITIOL

The Timm bat reason to believe that the opera-
tions undertaken by the Indian government against the
offending tribes on the north-western frontier are by no
mean. so important as the Anglo-Indian public has been
pleased to suppose. But it is not a war of any extraor-
dinary magnitude, nor have the preparations for it bean
on an uncommon scale. The description of the army in
the field as comprising 20,000 men is enormously ex-
aggerated. Our contemporary has the best authority for
dating that barely • third of that force will be
employed in the contemplated operations. The
troops engaged beyond the border will number
only 6,600 men of all arms, with ten guns. On our own
side of the frontier there will remain 1,600 more, but that
force is little in excess of the ordinary garrison of the
country. As far, therefore, as the scale of armaments is
concerned, there is no reason for attributing more than
usual scope or purpose to this frontier war. It is now,
however, clear that the Indian Government entertains no
immediate design of tongued or annexation on an im-
portant stale, and the probability is that all them irre-
pressible questions will be once more adjourned
forothe solution of time itself. With respect to ulterior
questions that may arise, although we have yet to learn
that Russia actually conceives designs against British
India, the presumption is reasonable enough to put
England on her guard.

NAVY 821

The desire of the conservative government to establish •
reputation for economy is, the Laity News thinks, • satis-
factory symptom. Possibly, however, the discovery may
soon be made that the surest way of acquiring a charac-
ter for frugal and efficient administration is to
deserve it, and the best means of obtaining credit
for retrenchment is to retrench. But while the

members of the present government preach economy,
they have practised extravagance. They have wasted
the public money, but wish for the credit of having care-
fully husbanded it. The facts are that half • million
of money in excess of the expenditure of their prede-
cessors has been wasted by the present government on un-
armed ships; that the policy of reducing the foreign
squadrons, which they have borrowed from the opposi-
tion. bas been earned out only to about one-third of the
extent proposed by its authors ; and that their increase of
expenditure upon iron-plated ships to which it is admit-
ted that naval reconstruction should be chiefly addressed,

falls far within the prevision made by the liberal govern.
mint fir that cumatial purpose.