The Sun.
London, England, 1864-12-20 00:00:00

Mr and Mrs, Charles Kean in California,

(From the San Francisco Gleaner of Oct, 28.)

These admirable artists have appeared during the week
in " King John " and " Hamlet." The former tragedy
was, until late years, rarely played upon the London boards;
the elder Kean did not play it at all at the late period of his
life; and during the early career of Macready it was the
only Shaksperian character in which he attained success—
his talents being hemmed into the limited space interven-
ing between Charles Young and Edmund Kean, To enter
into an analysis of the performance of those accomplished
artists would be a superogatory task. If our readers
can imagine perfection, they are that in ever, point of
view, and this must be conceded by many who,
not entering into the beauties, consider this tragedy
heavy and unadapted for the stage. Observers
cannot fail to notice the vast improvement in the stage
direction ; a master spirit is plainly discernible ; the fall of
Arthur from the battlements, for instance—the height and
concealment of the point of contact with the earth aro Geis
tically managed, but more worthy of remark is Mr Kean's
medihival knowledge as exemplified in costume. The dress
in which he takes the field is precisely copied from coins
in a cabinet that was many years ago familiar to us. This
exactitude in apparently slight matters marks the artist, and
to whose research we owe tribute—at least with the pen.
Mr Cathcart's " Hubert" was a good performance, and
Int y upholds his reputation. Of the rest of the dramatis
personal, we cannot say much ; the princes and nobles made
up in stiffness what they lacked in nobility; but this deport-
ment was perhaps common to the time when princes'
" mouths were the only parliament," and of which Shak-
Spero himself seems to have had but imperfect notion.
What are we to say of Mr Mayo's Faulconbridge P Any-
thing but to the purpose. Shakspere threw his whole soul
into this character, and since his time many a King John
may hale convulsively writhed his last, and been remem-
bered, but very few Faulconbridges exist in the annals of
the stage. To look for a brilliant impersonation of such a
character from so young and inexperienced an actor as Mr
Mayo, is to expect too much, a part for which possibly he
never had a model, and he naturally trod timidly when he
knew his footing was uncertain. We quote a passage which,
though he might have carefully studied, he did not com-
prehend. Constance concludes a withering reply to Austria,
who bids her to piece :
Const.—And dost thou now fall over to my foes ?

And wear a lion's skin ? doff is for shame,

And hang a calf's skin on these recreant limbs.
Austr.—O, that a man should speak those words to me
Fazelc. —And hang a call's skin on those recreant limbs,
Austr.—Thou dar'st not say so, villain, for thy life.

Fauk —And hang a calf's skin on those recreant limbs.
Now, Faulconbridge, in the first instance, merely reite•
rates the taunt of Constance, but in the second, it is in
direct answer to a challenge from the craven Austria, and
demands, as may be readily inferred from ordinary observa-
tion, a pecuFar intonation. To this Mr Mayo failed to pay
regard, uttering both the taunt and response in the same
measured key. Many other points might be remarked, but
" a word to the wise," &o.
On Wednesday night an immense house assembled to
witness Kean's first appearance in " Hamlet," and strange
as may seem our statement, we nevertheless assert that the
Prince of Denmark had never till that night been seen in
California. We had been satisfied to see his ghost, and we
mistook that incorporeality for the reality. We find our-
self totally incompetent to express our own feel-
ings at this performance, and we venture to affirm
with respect to the audience, that the most san-
guine expectation was realised, and no greater prof of this
could be adduced than that a crowded audience sat under
uncomfortable circumstances the tragedy throughout, and
among whom scarcely the slightest shifting was visible; and
this was a remarkable circumstance, for though we have the
highest respect for the patrons of the legitimate dams, we
have still hitherto failed to see in them the aesthetic people
who have love or even taste for the higher order of art. We
may congratulate ourself that we see Mr Kean at the period
when he has attained to the acme of his art, and that he is
likely to retire from public life at the point of time when his
laurels are not only unfaded, but in mature freshness, wait-
ing no culmination, and avoiding those painful scenes that
too often accompany the late phases of an actor's life; we
have the privilege to see within the compass of a few
weeks the whole successes of his career—the studies
of his life—and this we should not fail to do. We
have never had a finer dramatic treat than the per••
formance of which we now write ; it contained
excellencies upon which we might dilate interminably, and
we might be tempted to enter into comparative analyses
between the talents of Mr Kean and artists of renown who
have preceded him upon our boards in "Hamlet," and for
whom we have high respect ; but we dare not. 'We saw in
them melancholy gentlemen who infused something of the
same sentiment into us, but the soul—Hamlet's living
principle—the Prince interiorly, if we may use the term,
we never saw. These words may be, to quote Hamlet,
" wild and windy," but they are tine, and not biassed by
either theatrical friendships, or other motives. In Mr
Kean it was an embodiment of art, and must maintain a
place in tho remembrance of even the duller sort of men
who, ignorant of the text, or the hundreds of subtle disquie
sitions that have arisen from it, were entranced by the magic
of the scene alone. We now make a statement, and do so after
carefully weighing relative merit, that we never saw
the part of Gertrude acted till that occasion. It appeared
like the breaking forth of a new life—a diamond to which
additional lustre and refrangibility had been given. Taking
this performance as a whale, we may safely say that one
more elaborate and finished has eever been seen in the city,
and many years may elapse before newer artists may damp
its brilliancy. The only real deficiency was found in
Aldrich's Claudius ; this part has an individuality that this
gentleman failed not only to convey to others, but himself
t o realise.

REF.'S IMPROVED DIARY AND ALMANAC FOR
1865.—The thirty-fourth number of this little annual has
just been published. The present edition is a great im-
provement on its predecessor, and to commercial men it
will be found of great value. as it contains a diary for every
day in the year.

Hooker v. Burnaby.

TO THE EDITOR OP THE SUN.

Sir,—My attention having been directed to a letter from
Mr Burnaby, contained in The Sun of this day, I trust
you will give me the oppottunity of replying thereto. 1
could have wished that he had not made it necessary for me
to do so, but, as his account of the of sir is so totally opposed
to the sworn testimony given on the trial, a substantially
correct report of which appeared in The Sun of the 15th inst.,
I have no alternative.

Mr Burnaby appears to imagine that, by starting with
the denial of that which was never stated to have occurred,
either by me or my witnesses, his task would be somewhat
easier in endeavouring to convey to the public an impression
that the expression of feeling exhibited by bath judge and
jury was called forth by a misrepresentation of the facts.
Another impression Mr Burnaby would in like manner
attempt to convey in his statement that he had no opportu-
nity affirded to him on the trial of saying a word or two in
his own defence. Why, sir, whose fault was that ? Surely
he had, in instructing his own solicitors and counsel, given
to them his own version of this unpleasant affair, and can it
be conceived that they would not have called upon him and
his alleged witnesses to enlighten the jury with that Version
if they had. not felt assured that the evidence they were
prepared to give would not in the least degree refute the
testimony given by me and corroborated by several inde-
pendent witnesses ?
So much, then, for Mr Burnaby's alleged reasen for de-
siring still to continue before the public, who must attach
such weight to it as it deserves.
It would be a very unpleasant occupation to again go
through the evidence given by me on the trial, but I must
with your permission refer to some portions contradictory
of Mr Burnaby's assertions, lle says that I commenced
the dispute "as admitted by my own evidence." In no por-
tion of that evidence will there be found any such admission.
Oa the contrary, Mr Burnaby commenced the affair by an
offensive remark and gesture respecting the shooting, ac-
companied by a coarse and vulgar expression. My reply
contained no such expression, and could only have been
offensive to him by the truth of the desire it expressed—
viz , that the sooner his friend did give up the shooting, as
he recommended, the better I should like it if he brought
down such sport: men as him. This was followed by an
insulting and offensive rejoinder by Mr Burnaby—" the
war of words then waxed wroth." I deny most positively
that I ever invited him to fight, and this denial was corro-
borated on the trial by the evidence of Mr Walmisley. The
fact was Mr Burnaby was himself the challenger—he fired
off his gun and commenced to square up to me, and it was
only from my threat to use my gun that. he did not then
strike me. A reference to your report of the evidence will
corroborate the truth of this statement. What Mr Burnaby
means by his allegation that I offered to ".give him a sound
thrashing," and that when he expressed his willingness to
accede thereto, I threatened to blow his brains out, I do not
know. But does not even this vague expression contradict
what he desires should be inferred from it ?

I also deny most emphatically, Sir, that the defendant,
through his two friends and brother officers, in any way
expressed his willingness to withdraw any expression of his
calculated to hurt my feelio gs, upon my doing the same. As
I stated in my evidence, and as was the fact, an apology
was demanded of me, and as an inducement for giving it
I was told that Burnaby was a queer fellow to deal with.
Feeling, sir, that the apology ought to have come from
him, I declined to make one.

This, however, is merely begging the question. My com-
plaint was, and is, that we afterwards proceeded with our
shooting, and after the lapse of two hours, the dispute hav-
ing apparently ended, Mr Burnaby, taking advantage of
my having parted with my gun, came up to me, and what
then took place I will give from your own report of my
evidence, which is strictly correct. "Mr Burnaby then
walked up to me and said, 'Do you mean to apologise ?' I
said, Certainly not.' Before the words were out of my
mouth he struck me with one hand under the eye and with
the other on the temple, and almost stunned me. Ha then
kicked me with all his force on the hip, and followed up the
blows. He .struck me in the face two or three times without
stopping. I endeavoured to parry the blows as well as I
could, but did not attempt to strike the defendant. He then
stopped to take breath and again proceeded to strike and
kick me. He kicked me in the groin inside the thigh. He hit
me on the side of the head and otber parts of the body. He
again stopped and asked me if I had had enough, and would
I apologise, I said, ' Certainly I should not apologise,
but that he should hear of the matter again.' He
then commenced hitting me again, and struck me a violent
blow in the mouth. He then kicked me on the top of the
knee, and, as he did it, I caught his foot and tried to throw
him. 1 could not do so. He hopped on one leg, and kept
hitting me with all his force on both ears."

The above, sir, is an account of the attack made upon
me by the defendant, whose demur that he ever kicked me
while upon the ground, and that I never was on the ground
at all, was entirely gratuitous, because I never asserted
anything of the kind, either on the trial or elsewhere. As
much reliance may also be placed upon his statement as to
kicking me twice behind. My back was never towards him.
All the wounds and bruises about my person as dr3posed to
by the surgeon on the trial were in front.

With reference to the assertion that I " proposed to accept
£5O damages prior to the hearing of the case," I beg to
give this my most emphatic and unqualified denial. Neither
I, toy solicitors, nor counsel at any time ever solicited any
arrangement, nor were any overtures ever made on behalf
of the defendant until after khe jury had retired to consider
their verdict, when, as my solicitor informed me, an offer
had been made to him by the defendant's counsel to give
me a verdict for £5O and an ample apology, but I declined
acceding thereto, considering that the offer had come too
late.

Mr Burnaby very ingenuously acknowledges and appears
to be proud of his proficiency in manly exercises. I would
ask him, sir, in what do these consist ? If in striking,
kicking, and otherwise brutally ill-treating one who offers no
defence, I leave you and your readers to judge whether it
is a proficiency to be proud of or for which he will find
many admirers.
In conclusion, I beg to state that the defendant's last as,.
sertion as to my height, six-, and age is as equally erro-
neous as the other staten•enta contained in his letter,--I
have the honour to remain, sir, your obedient servant,
JOHN M. HOOXER.
Brenchley, Kent, Dec- 19.