The Sun.
London, England, 1864-04-25 00:00:00

clouds of bigotry and prejudice; but a sun rose from out a
small house in Stratford, dispelled those clouds, and gave
to the drama of England its strength and vigour and en-
during brightness. (Cheers.) Who could forget the noble
works which the child then born into the world had done
for the world ; and who could forget that kings, princes,
conquerors, and the mighty wielders of the pen and the
sword had entered with reverence the little home of Shak-
spere and the neighbouring chancel which contained his
dust ? (Applause.) These things spoke With a trumpet
tongue that the prejudice formerly existing with respect to
the drama had been dispelled. On such an occasion he
trusted that the confession of a little extra pride would be
pardoned on the part of one who had the happy privilege
of making the study of Shakspete's matchless works the
pleasant labour of his life (cheers) ; and he could not
but believe that at this present day the hearts and
minds of all his fellow students must be moved by similar
emotions. (Continued applause.) Ho could assert from'ex-
perience that whatever cares, disappointments, or rebuffs
they met with in their career they found their greatest
solace, support and strenght—save that which religion gave
in the remembrance that their art was one for which great
Shakspere wrote, which gent'e Shakspere practised, and
Which good Shakspere loVed. (Applause.) To a reflecting
mind it appeared strange that the Great Creator should
have inspired the greatest genius, humanly speaking, not
to tothasel them froth the eenate, not to judge them from the
bench, not to admonish them from the pulpit, but to teach,
move, soften, mould, and instruct them from the stage.
(Cheers.) It was a happy and fortunate thing for him that
he could invoke Bhakspere's sacred memory to vindicate
the fact that that great genius had ennobled the drama.
(Applause,) He thanked the company in the name of his
profession for drinking their health; he thanked the people
of Stratford for what they were now so nobly doing, and he
thanked the Festival Committee for the honourable position
acorn ded in the programme to the actor's art. (Great ar -
plans.) Actors would best show their appreciation of the
honour done them by their deeds, by the conscientious and
honourable fulfilment of their mission. When Shakspere
first drew breath thay had barely escaped from the rnLracle
plays of Coventry and the mysteries of the travelling monks.
Now they had passed through three centuries of glorious
names, and perhaps for both dramatic author and actor
they had culminated. If so the drama might languish, as
it had done before, but could it ever die ? No, while
Shakspere lived it would endure until—

" The cloud capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit shall dissolve ;
And, like this, insubstantial pageazt faded,
Leave not a rack behind,"
(Loud cheers.)
At this period of the entertainment, an address from the
Free German Hochstift, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, for the
spread of sciences, &c., to the mayor and corporation of
Stratford-upon Avon, was read by Professor Leitner, of
King's College, London, who was, attended by Dr. Karl
Dammann and Mr Heinrich Brock haus.

Professor LEITNER observed that it was both right and
fi ting that the reasons should be given why the deputation
regarded the Stratford Corporation as representatives of the
nation of Shakspere, and themselves as not altogether in-
appropriately speaking in the name of the nation of Goethe.
With the highest civic body in the town which had given
birth to Shakspere, the many associations of his name must
make a worship of the intense veneration which all English-
men felt for his mighty genius, or else it were vain that a
great man should live and labour and bequeath a legitimate
source of pride to his country for all succeeding if in his
own town he were not regarded with gratitude. Here the
house of Shakspere had been rescued from the stranger's
hand with powerful efforts and disinterested self-sacrifice,
and in Germany it had been deemed a duty to acquire the
House of Goethe, and in that house the Hochstift met, and
that house with its varied appliances they threw open to
every aspirant for knowledge and literary usefulness. A
fellow-feeling had thus been engendered between them by a
community of action with regard to their respective national
poets, and what had been conquered by private energy had
been ratified by public sanction. (Hear, hear.) The
Hochstift might, therefore, worthily represent the nation
of Goethe. They also sent their address to Stratford-
upon -Avon, because of the performance of a corporation,
while committees for special celebration were apt in their
very nature to be of ephemeral existence. The Hochstift
met in Frankfort, the possible capital of a united German
empire, a free city, whose noble and enlightened citizens
were the pride of Germany, a free city and a national
body that was worthy to address a free people. Let, then,
the present greeting be considered as the greeting of
Goethe's country to that of Shakspere, and as a tribute
to his mighty genius. The Germans also grudged to
England the accident of his birth. (Cheers.) His influence
first roused the Germans to a consciousness sf their powers,
and showed them that there was a race of emulation to run
with a kindred nation, and this race they believed they had
not disgraced by want of diligence or by prejudice, (Ap-
plause.)
The following is a translation of the address, the reading
of which elicited much cheering. The document was beau-
tifully emblazoned and ornamented with representations of
Shukspere's house at Strattord-upen-Avon, and Goethe's
house at Frankfort :

"The Free German Hocbstift, for the spread of sciences,
arts. and general enlightment, from their seat at the house
of Goethe.

" Lends its voice to the whole German people in congra-
tulating by this document the people of Great Britain on the
tercentenary of the birth of William Shakspere, and ad-
dresses this letter to the Mayor and Council of the town of
Stratford-on-Avon.
" Once as their blood so was the language of the nation
of the Saxons on both sides of the German Ocean, the same
sprung trom one stem, two separate branches developed into
a separate and perfect growth.
"On the one side was formed that English tongue which
enabled the greatest poet and painter of the human heart
and its passions, whose cradle stood on the banks of the
Avon, to give expression to the creations of his mind. On
the other side grew that German mother tongue in which
Goethe, the greatest among the host of admirers of Shak-
spere, described with such graphic touches, as before him no
other mortal bad done, the macrocosm (the universe) toge-
ther with the microcosm (man).
" At one time our country sent to Britain's shores that
heroic youthful band, who came as deliverers, and vie
toriously established themselves against the invasion of
Latin races and influences by the foundation of a new Saxon
nationality. Shakspere's poems, in return, restored to
the mother home of Germania at a time when in a cen-
tury of civil commotion they were almost forgotten in their
own country, old Teutonic virtue gained their footing
as emancipators and expellers of Latin corruption, and
finally gate birth to a new heroic youth, but this time, one
of intellect, which forced its way through storm and op-
pression into light, and grouped the brilliant host of our
writers round the bold forms of Goethe and Schiller. As
England's sons, wherever they be on this globe, so do all
Germans, in their middle empire of Europe, gratefully
praise the one and only William Shakspere. May the kin-
dred- of blood once more assert its power by uniting in one
fellow-feeling all the members of the nation of the Saxons
on this or that side of every sea. This we wish by our
greeting—' Hail to the memory of William Shakspere I
Hail to the town of Stratford-upon-Avon I Hail to the
people of England.' In the na.7le of the Executive of the
Hochatift, at their seat in Goethe's Louse.

pre,jdent.
" TOLGER,
KRE Sf Vice-fZeSidelltS.
HEY DEN,
S CRIDECK, Secretary."
The Mayor of ST RATFORD-UP ON. AVON (Mr Flower) said
it was a pride to him and to the corporation to receive the
address just read from a kindred nation, which had so great
a sympathy with Eneishmen in honouring the genius of
Shakspere. He promised t' et the address should be depo-
sited in Shakspere's house and creserved them for future
generations. (Cheers.) The corpora:4on of Stratford was
not a juvenile body; for it was 600 yearn old—but though
he and other members of it were getting iL tothe sear and
yellow leaf, they had new recruits, and he trus:ed that the
corporation would last as long as England existed, which
case the present address, together with many other do:11
manta deposited in Shakspere's house, where it would be
seen by thousands who visited Stratford from all parts of
the world, and be handed down to many succeeding gene-
rations. (Great applause.)

Sir R. HARILTON proposed the health of the Chairman,
the President of the Festival,

The toast was drunk with unanimous applause.

The CHAIRMAN returned thanks and proposed, " The
Poets of England," coupling with the toast the name of
Lord Houghton.

Lord HOUQHTON, in acknowledging the toast, said that
when he looked through the list of toasts and found that
after the eloquent speeches they had heard already, they
were to hear three more speeches all about the poets of Eng-
land, Ireland, and Scotland, which were to be followed by
the glee, "Ye spotted snakes," he did not think that last
connexion very flattering—(laughter)—but the kindness of
the present audience took away all bitterness from his
mind, and, therefore, he was able to say that he was most
grateful for having been invited to that splendid spectacle.
He only wished that the poets of England had been collected
round that table, and that they could have chosen the wor-
thiest among them for the honour they had done him.
Nevertheless, as his humble name had been connected with
the toast, he could say that at an earlier period he would
have been glad to have occupied some minutes of their at-
tention by illustrating the relation of Shakspere to the poetry
of the country; bat at the same time he was quite consci-
ous that he could have performed the task but imperfectly
at whatever time ho had risen to address them. They no
doubt recollected the Arabian tale of the great genie who
came out of a small jar and spread over the whole heavens
with his strength and power. That was wonderful, but the
astonishment was greater still when this genie was seen to
descend into the jar again. (Laughter.") That was something
like what he was asked to do•—to concentrate into a short
after-dinner speech an exposition of how the mighty genius
of Shakspere expanded over the whole world. (Hear,
hear.) What were called the poems of Shakspere consti-
tuted a portion of his less familiar writings, and though re •
markable for unsurpassed ingenuity, and interesting on ac-
count of biographical facts connected with them, they never
would have made Shakspere what he was. That great man,
however, applied himself to dramatic composition ; his stage
was the world and his cfraingis personae mankind, An idea