The Sun.
London, England, 1852-11-22 00:00:00

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TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES,

Sir,—As the writer of the article of July 4, in the
Morning Chronicle, from which Mr. Disraeli is charged
with having taken a passage of his panegyric upon the
late Duke of Wellington, I think it but just to that
gentleman to exonerate him entirely from this unfounded
accusation.

It is more than ten years ago since Mr. Disraeli first
mentioned to me this very striking eulogium of the
military character, which he remembered having read
15 years before in a French review.

Having subsequeutly discovered that this article was
by no less a, personage than M. Thiers, I made use of
the quotation in some comments on Frencb military
statesmen.

It is therefore but fair to state that, instead of Mr.
Disraeli being indebted to the Morning Chronicle for the
passage in question, the Morning Chronicle was in
debted to Mr. Disraeli.—l have the honour to be, Sir,
your obedient servant,
68, Harley-street, Nov. 21.

GEORGE SYDNEY SMYTHE.

HAYMARKET THEATRE,

A new two-act comedy, entitled Masks and Faces, the
joint production of Mr. Tom Taylor, and Mr. Charles
Reade, was produced on Saturday evening. The prim
cipal character in the piece is the celebrated Peg
Woffington, whose wit and fascination during her theatri-
cal career, about the middle of the last century, brought
around her so many fashionable flatterers, and gave her
so much importance among the players of the period.
The comedy is altogether a work of great cleverness,
and contains some admirable situations, while the dra-
matic interest seldom relaxes. The traditional liveliness
of Peg Woffington, Lthe antique gallantry of Colley Cib-
ber, now bent and palsied with years, the coarse glut-
tony of Quin, and the professional impertinence of Kitty
Clive, are all delineated with sharpness and skill ; while
the poor garret author, the critics Snarl and Soaper, and
the town beau, Pomander, may be readily accepted as
types of people who flourished at this particular epoch of
our dramatic history. The sentiment of the time, in a
word, is ably reflected. The dialogue is sprightly and
pointed, and the humour easy and natural in its tone.
The authors, again, have laboured strenuously to
give force and substance to an amiable and sugges-
tive moral. Amid all her gaieties of temperament,
Peg Woffington ponders on the social degradation
of her calling. She feels that she is an outlaw,
and she bitterly resents the prejudice. She wears
the mask of cheerfulness, but her heart is torn with emo-
tion ; and while exposed to the insults of profligacy and
the slanders of " respectability," she preserves her
tive honesty, notwithstanding the perpetual provocation
she has to do wrong, and the little credit she gets for
doing right. The possibility of an actress being actuated
by the virtues and integrities of humanity is set forth
with pregnant emphasis.
The comedy was capitally performed. Mrs. Stirling,
as Peg, presented an unrivalled picture of the shrewd
laughing actress, and how, amid the tinsel and artificiali-
ties of her existence, she was still animated by the best
charities of human nature. The Triplett of Mr. Web-
ster was equally excellent. The scene in the garret,
with the sickly wife and the starving children, the
wan and dilapidated author, blinded with tears
at the household misery, which he cannot alleviate,
vainly essaying to write a comedy, was eminently
affecting. The part of Mabel Vane, the gentle wife,
whose unsophisticated nature vanquishes the conven-
tionalisms of a life of artificiality and insincerity, was
prettily filled by Miss Rosa Bennett ; and Mr. Leigh
Murray personated the imperturbable man of fashion,'
Sir Charles Pomander, with the requisite heartlessness,
indifference, and sang froid. Among the minor sketches
that of the Colley Cibber of ,Mr. Lambert was the most
noticeable; while the bitter and sardonic strictures of
the critic, Snarl were delivered with measured and
searching acrimony by Mr. Stuart. Mr. Parselle, Mr.
James Bland, and Mrs. Leigh Murray were the repre-
sentatives of the other characters ; and there was also
Miss Fanny Maskell, a debutante on the London boards,
whose personal appearance is in her favour.
The comedy was quite successful, and at the fall of the
curtain the call for the actors was universal.

TErt COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.—The General Command-
ing-in-Chief,l Viscount Hardinge, has issued invitations
for a grand dinner to-morrow evening, in Stanhope-
street, to the foreign general officers who came over to
attend the Duke of Wellington's funeral.
THE DUKE'S HORSE COPENHAGEN.—Lady Catherine,
the dam of the horse, was the charger of the Marshal,
then Major-General, Grosvenor at the siege of Copen-
hagen, who, on his return thence, received the thanks
of the House of Commons, in company with his asso-
ciate, Sir Arthur Wellesley, on the Ist of February,
1808, both Generals being members of the house. The
mare gave birth soon after to a colt foal, which, hi
memory of the event, was named Copenhagen, and was
reared by General Grosvenor. The horse went after-
wards into other hands before he became the favourite
charger of the illustrious man we have lost.
THE DUKE'S PRIVATE CARRIAGES. —The carriages
which followed in the funeral procession on Thursday
last, belonging to the late Duke, struck the spectators
on account of their antiquity of appearance in respect to
decoration and form. The fact is, the Duke never would
have any new carriages after he had purchased the
equipages for his embassy to Paris in 1815. He found
that those which he possessed then answered his purpose
Very well; and as he seldom went out in the daytime
excepting on horseback, he did not care for appearance
at night. Indeed, he generally made use of a brougham
for evening visits.—United Service Gazette.
DECORATIONS OF THE LATE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.—
The various orders and decorations of the late Duke of
Wellington, which were exhibited at the lying in state at
Chelsea Hospital, will be on view at Messrs. Gerrard's
Panton-street, Haymarket, in the course of this week.
The decorations will be exhibited in a large glass case,
upon black velvet, the batons being placed in front. At
the top is the unpretending-looking Order of the Garter,
and near this is a decoration which is unique, being the
only one of the kind ever conferred, the Collar of
Victory, presented to the Duke by George the Fourth ;
it is of massive gold, and on the medallion shields which
are interspersed among the other ornaments are inscribed
the names of the several victories won by the Duke. In
a corner bn the right, almost too small to be observed, is
the Duke's favourite badge, the Waterloo medal, which
he wore on most public occasions, and which is precisely
similar to that worn by the common rank and file of the
army. Below hangs a broad blue faded-looking ribbon,
to which many interesting associations are attached, as
the relic of a dynasty long passed and almost forgotten.
It is the celebrated cordon bleu of the Bourbons—the
Order of St. Esprit, the star and badge of which, set in
diamonds, is valued at thirty thousand pounds.
THE DUKE'S HATCHMENT.—On last Saturday after-
noon the final act of the great hero's obsequies was per-
formed by Messrs. Banting and Son, the undertakers,
in placing the funeral hatchment of Wellington in the
front of his Grace's mansion, Apsley-house. It is fixed
under the grand portico, and immediately over the line
of the entrance door. The whole field of the escutcheon
is sable, thereby indicating the demise of
debcoetahse husband
someusband
and wife, the late Duchess having been
years.
This will correct •an error which has been
published in some of the cheaper engravings of his Grace's
shield, which represents only one half of it hi black.
Yesterday, all day, numbers of passers by stopped to
read the motto, " Fortune the companion of valour,"
whilst little groups formed here and there, to discuss the
life of Wellington.
THE ARMY.—The times are now gone by when the
veriest demagogue could convince his audience that our
army officers are a set of ouer-fed, over-paid scions of a
Pampered aristocracy. We ai e very confident thatwe
are understating the case when we say that the circum-
stances of two-thirds of the officers in our Army List are
not such as would make them objects of envy to any
person who is earning some 4001. or 500/, as the annual
reward of his exertions.—Tinta.