The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-03 00:00:00

Gallery of Illustration,

The success that attended Mr. German Reed's
" Opera de Camera" last year has induced him to
repeat the experiment, and this season he comes
out with still greater force, producing two
operettas, each of which met with the most genuine
success. The first, entitled, "The Sleeping Queen,"
is an entirely new and original composition by Mr.
Balfe, but the libretto is an adaptation of a Parisian
piece, the chief incident of which is well known on
our stage. It is as follows :—Philippe de Aguilar
(Mr T.-Whiffle') has fallen in love with Irene, Queen
of Leon (Miss D'Este Finlayson) and the Queen of
Spain has fallen in love with Philippe. The Regent,
her prime minister (Me. R. Wilkinson) has fallen in
love with Donna Agnes (Miss Poole), her maid of
honour, but Donna Agnes has not in the least
fallen in love with the Regent. The Queen falling
asleep over the Regent's dry repetition of affairs
of state, is seen and kissed by Philippe. The Regent,
who hates him, recalls the law by which it is death
to touch the Queen, and urges on his fate with ma-
licious haste. lie has, however, two women to
plot against, and, of course, succumbs. Having
made an assignation with Donna Agnes, the Queen
assumes her mantle and personates her, and the
poor Regent commits himself the offence which i❑
Don Philippe he had found so extreme, and the
Queen so pardonable. The Queen vows his own
fate shall be the same-as Don Philippe's, and he is
obliged to sue for the life he was before so anxious
to sacrifice. The Queen consents, and bestows her
hand upon the young gentleman whose enterprise
and elan are so much to her taste.

The music is pretty and tasteful, one or two of 1
the pieces being more especially so. Amongst
these we may mention a charming serenade "The
noontide dream," sung by Mr Whiffin, and " Oaly
a ribbon," sung by our queen of ballad-singers,
Miss Poole. Taken as a whole, however, it will not
add another laurel to the wreath already
won by Balfe, as the sweet strain of melody for
which he was once so celebrated is in a great measure
wanting in this, his latest production ; but, notwitha
standing, many of the pieces will doubtless be-
come great favourities with the musical public.
" Too many Cooks" is a very humorous little affair,
and an adaptation by Mr Reed from the work of
a celebrated German composer. In this Miss Fin-
layson appeared much more at home than in the
previous piece, and, as she was well supported by
Mr Shaw and Mr Whin], the performance gave
unalloyed satisfaction.
We have to congratulate Mr Reed upon the suc-
cess of his new entertainment, which has been pro-
duced with all that completeness and taste which
marks everything done at the Gallery of Illustra-
tion.

Mr Richard Evans, for some time well-known in
the Row, died lately at St. Helen's, in Lancashire,
at the age of BG. A correspondent of the Athenceum gives
from personal knowledge the following particulars of his
life since retiring from London :—Mr Evans was formerly
in ' the Row,' and succeeded sufficiently by bookselling to
induce him to retire from business; subsequently he and
his sons became colliery owners, and last year, when I
dined with the old gentleman, who could tell his story and
cut his joke pleasantly, and who seemed absorbed in the
book he read, the firm owned some 25 locomotives, waggons
by the hundred, pits by the dozen, houses, farms, schools,
and buildings, as though they were princes. They paid in
rent to Sir R. Gerard £5,000 a year, and to MrW. J, Leigh
£4,000 a year—their machine shop for repairs was large
enough to embarrass many a machine-maker. I was fairly
bewildered with the magnitude of everything around me.
The old man died much respected ; one of his last acts was
to make a provision to build a handsome independent chapel
at Ilaydock. Fortunes are made in the Row, but not
always to such an extent as in this instance."
A BATTLE FIELD.—A writer in the Index says :
—I went yesterday to visit the battle-field of Cold
Harbour, where the Yankees are said to have lest 12,000
men. The battle had raged there about a month ago, and
yet the ground was strewn with the corpses of Yankee sol-
diers festering in the broiling sun. The carnage must have
been awful, for, within the space of about ten equate yards
I counted no less than 30 dead bodies clothed in the Fede•
ral uniform. In some cases the flesh had been gnawed
away and the skeletons alone remained. On some parts of
the field the dead were literally heaped up like stones.
Perched on these mounds of human putrefaction were the
sleek and sluggish buzzards of Virginia engaged in hideous
orgies. Like the shoddy contractors of the North, they
too have grown fat on the war. This last campaign of
Grant's must have met with their approval, for never has
the army of the Potomac supplied them with such copious
meals. Accoutrements and muskets were lying about in
all directions, mixed up with cooking utensils and every de-
scription of debris. Notwithstanding these indisputable
signs of a precipitate retreat, Grant and his employers have
the unblushing audacity to claim a victory at Cold Har-
bour. The scene of desolation was heartrending : fields
which before this deadly struggle were covered with waving
crop are now trampled under foot and devastated; the
houses in the vicinity are battered down and abandoned ;
and the poor farmers will have nothing to gather this year
but Yankee carcases mowed (lowa by Southern musketry.
'TIE BLESSEDNESS OF BOOKS.—How, during that
agonising period which intervened between my
proposal of marriage by letter to Jemima Anna, and my re-
ception of her reply, should. I ever have kept myself alive,
save for the chivalrous aid of the Black Knight in " Ivan-
hoe," To him, mainly, assisted by Rebecca, and (I am
bound to say) by that scoundrel Brian de Bois Guilbert,
are my obligations due, that I did not—through the extremi-
ties of despair and hope, suffered during that interval—
become a drivelling idiot. When her answer did arrive
—in the negative—what was it which preserved me
from the noose, the rezor, or the stream, but Mr
Carlyle's "French Revolution." Ia the woes of poor
Louis Capet, I forgot my owu ; in the just indignation of
his unhappy wife, I ceased to d well upon the cruel
manner in which Jemima Anne had 'led me on;' and,
finally, in the narration of Carrier's .11Toyeubs, that false
maiden sank from my memory, wholly ' scuttled,' so to
speak, in the tide of rushing Loire. Who, having a grate-
ful heart, can forget these things or deny the Bles.edne,l
of Books ? . . Nay, under far more serious circum-
stances, when disappointment has lain heavy on my soul,
and once when ruin itself seemed overshadowing me and
mine, what escape have I not found from irremediable
woes in taking the hand of Samuel Johnson (kindly intro-
duced to that great man by Mr, Boswell), and hearing him
discourse with wondrous wisdom upon all things under
heaven, sometimes at a club of wits and men of letters,
and sometimes at a common tavern table, and sometimes
even in an open boat upon 'he Hebridean seas.—Chatither's
Joornal.