The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-12 00:00:00

Southampton, 65

MISCELLANEOUS.
British Indian Tea, Ern., 3
Company of African Merchants, lira., 2i
Copper Miners of England, pt. 76 per cent., 21
Discount Corporation, limited, 113/4
Gen. Credit and Finance ot London, Um., 6i
II udson's Bay, 17a
Joint •stock Discount, 6E
London Finanaial Association, lira., 2.
Mercantile Credit Association, lira., 7 8 and 81 for Money
National Discount Company, Um., 10}
National Steam Navigation, lira., 2
Ocean Marine (Insurance), 191 ,
Peninsula and Oriental Steam, 71

TIIE EMPEROR has made the Due de Persigny a
present of a handsome palace in a side street near the
Palace Elys6e Napol6on. The street has only just been
made, and the fine houses built on the site. It is to be called
Rue Persigny.

MR, FALCONER'S POEMS,

Memories : the Bequest Of my Boyhood. Poems.
By Edmond Falconer. One vol., pp. 160. Tinsley
Brothers.

Versatility—whatever Sir Balwer Lytton may
say towards the tabooing of that word by means
of one of the most ingenious arguments put
forth, to that express end, in his " Caxtoniana"—
Versatility is, beyond any doubt of it, the distin-
guishing peculiarity of the genius of Mr. Falconer.
If ever the word is to be applied to any display of
intellectual capacity whatever, it is to be applied in
his instance. By whatever phrase you may call it,
it is versatile. It is many-sided, it is ductile, plastic,
elastic, admitting of all kinds of adaptations. Either
the word ought to be swept out of the dictionary
altogether, or it is quite allowably to be applied in
an instance like that of this accomplished artist and
gentleman. Comprehensive, his ability may be, in
its scope, if you will ; but, in its manifestation, its
chief characteristic appears to us to be quite as
readily expressible by our talking of its versatility.
Only a few weeks since, we had occasion to com-
ment upon the exceptional powers of a rarely gifted
artist like Mr. Woolner : an artist so rarely gifted
in his :way, as to handle with Equal skill, vigour,
and refinement, the pen of the Poet or the chisel
and mallet of the Sculptor. And, in criticisir'g his
charming love poem of "My beautiful Lady,"
we then spoke of the possibility, nay, if he
would but so direct his powers in earnest, of the
exceeding probability, of Mr. Woolner making
for himself a reputation, in the future, if he
cared but to make the attempt, equally well as a
painter or as a musician. As it is, his verses
glow with colour, while they and his sculpture
alike are conspicuous for the harmony of their
proportions—both the rhythm and the rhyme,
moreover, in this sculptor's poem abounding with
melody. But while we are hinting thus at pos-
sibilities, or even, we might say, probabilities, i❑
regard to the Poet-Sculptor becoming, as well as
a Poet and a Sculptor, a Painter and a Musician
—here is an artist of a wholly different kind who
has already made good his claims to be viewed, at
one and the same time, as an Actor and as a
Dramatist, as a Poet and as a Theatrical Manager.
During several seasons the playgoing Londoners
have recognised Mr. Falconer's powers as an
Actor and as a Dramatist, and, in addition to that,
during the last season or two, as theatrical manager
also. His capabilities, in each of these characters,
have all along been recognised as beyond the dead
level of mere respectability. One of his pieces had
such a " run," it will be remembered, as has not often
been surpassed. He is now, moreover, joint lessee
with Mr. Chatterton at Old Drury. A new drama
of his fab;ication was performed the-re for the first
time as recently as Saturday evening last—with
what success we shall elsewhere notify. Our object
now is simply to specify no less distinctly the bril-

liant success achieved by Mr. Falconer—quite ex-
ceptionally, as it appears to us, among Actors—as a
Lyrist. Already, we observe, that our author-actor's
came has been brought into comparison with
those of Barton Booth and John Cunningham—
Actors and Lyrists like himself. But judging
him simply by his " Memories," Edmund Fal-
coner need not for one instant shrink from the
comparison thus suggested, His poems are far
beyond those either of Booth or of Cunningham.
And this, not merely as viewed, here and there, in
brief fragmentary passages. The sentiment of the
whole work is expressed in the terse motto selected
by Mr. Falconer for his title-page, from the master-
►yrist of Germany, perhaps of all Literature.
"Never forget tha dreams of your youth," is the
tender, lovely, pathetic thought of Schiller, the
thought here echoed with many graceful and touch-
ing variations in these " Memories " of Edmund
Falconer. Although the contents of the little
volume will be found comprised within the moderate
compass of considerably less than two hundred
pages, although the poems here collected together
as the Bequest of the writer's Boyhood are scarcely
more than seven in all, they give us ample taste of
their author's quality. They are singularly various.
They are written in all kinds of moods of an evi-
dently variable temperament, They include
poignant Green Room Sketches—graceful Love
Elegies—now a mere "Je ne sais quoi" a
love tryste—a Byronical phantasma—celebrations
one while of Egeria, another of Helen, another
of Virginia. Here is an exemplar of our author's
skill in weaving a Sonnet apropos to Stella :

Trifles in idle hours give grave debate,
And so we argued wisely yesterday
What colour'd eye made most for Love or Hate,
The tender blue, the more impassioned gray ?
The back one's luminous unchanging ray,
The hazel's varied loveliness elate ;
Of conquest sure, and yet deep thoughted too,
And beaming brown of every shade and hue.
Each had an advocate, and each maintain'd
His choice with learn'd and clerk-like argument :
List'ning to one you must have been content,
But heark'ning all, you ev'ry one disdained ;
To end the strife, I turned to Stella's eyes,.
And there all memory of a purpose dies.
It was Bulwer who sang—years ago—in one of his
loveliest ditties :

" Those eyes, those eyes, how full of Heaven they are I "
A refrain—how tenderly expressive of the tender-
ness Jf the tender passions /—from which, from the
meaning of which at least, for the life of him, Mr.
Falconer can seldom—if we may venture to say so
—refrain ! Not only does he sing thus of Stella's
eyes in his Sonnet above given, but another while
he cries out in a sort of rapture, thus, about the
eyes of Virginia—

But oh! her deep and tranquil eyes,
With lids that ever slowly rice,
What words can image ? you should see,
And then you'd learn to pity me
Who, loving her, despair to win,
Against myself my love a sin
Their beauty ne'er by passion blurr'd,
A tender theme—a touching word
Unlocks the fountains of her heart,
But there delaying—loth to part,
Gathering in light along their lines,
The trembling tear-drop lovelier shines
Than Earth's most rare and priceless gem
Sparkling upon a sparry stem
In stalactite or crystal cell,
By Genii watch'd and guarded well,
Making the light wherein they dwell.
The gem of the book, however, as in truth such a
theme should make it, wnen once selected thus ap-
propriately by a Poet-Actor, is the Ballad commemo-
rative of the Poet-Actor's beloved, his " espouk
wife "—Anne Hathe way ! As affording the most
readily a completer notion of the lyrical powers of
Mr. Falconer than anything else might do selected
from his pages—we gladly transfer to our columns
entire the closing stanzas of this charming English
love poem, aptly commemorative just now of the
loves and lives of his

'WILL SHAKSPERE AND ANNE HATHAWAY.
One evening in Autumn deep sadness came o'er
As her pitcher she fill'd in the well near the door,
For an over-ripe apple she found by the brim,
And she thought what a gift it had once been for him ;
A drop speck'd its bloom, and it came spite of "Nay,"
From thy heart, not the cold well, proud Anne Hathaway
It was warm, and spread over the fruit the rich dye
Of a heart-mist exhaled by Love's roseate sky,
Like gems on the pitcher the cold drops shone clear
But the gem of all gems was that quick-wasting tear :
She put up the apple to kiss it next day,
"I must cull in the children," said Anne Hathaway.

She set down the pitcher and lean'd o'er the gate
To toll the young truants their supper did wait;
Susannah was spelling for Judith a book,
And Hamet was paddling about in the brook;
And she saw near the bridge, just a stone's throw away,
One who seem'd a great lord unto Anne Hathaway.

His doublet and trunks were of velvet, that shone
Like the mellow-green moss on an old coping-stone,
A plume of white feathers his felt hat did grace,
And his collar and ruffles were broad Flat:alt.:re lace,
With his buff boots and spurs ho look'd gallant and gay,
Yet were tears in his eyes then, cold Aim° Hathaway.
Susannah stopp'd reading and bade Judith look,
For Hamel stood fast in the mud of the brook;
With his eyes wondar-fix'd, and his mouth open wide.
Then the stranger advanced, and when close by Anne's

side,
Though his bearded lip quiver'd, did smilingly say,
it Will you give me an apple, dear Anne Hathaway ?"
Anne started, and trembled, and look'd in his face,
Oh I could it be Willie's with majesty's grace ?
Though it batted youthful still, there the boy was no
more,
For the full front of power and command it now wore;
And she shrank back afraid when she heard Shakespeare
6a
Don 't y,
you know your own husband, dear Anne
Hathaway ?"

"'Tis my father," cried Susan, and sprung to his breast,
From that moment ever beloved there the best,—
But the others he call'd, and with hand and lip graced,
And tenderly then the.ir coy mother embraced ;
" When I ask'd for an apple you never said Nay,"
But a kiss was a great gift from Anne Hathaway,"

He went o'er to Stratford the very next morn,
And bought the great house where the Clopton was born ;
And rich lands round Welcomb he purchased right out,
And a propertied gentleman was, past all doubt;
And though the poor title his fame flouts to• day,
Still, she married an Esquire, did Anne Hathaway !
Very cordially we may congratulate Mr. Falconer
upon the publication of poetical effusions such a 3
these—effusions that few need disdain to have had
bequeathed from Boyhood to Manhood (the Child
being Father of the Man, as Wordsworth has it,
and therefore capable of making, thus, a distinct
bequest), bequeathed, here, in the golden numbers
rung out of the coinage of the author's brain in
the shape of these same pure and virginal

" memories.'

TIIE IMPARTIAL LEADER. No. I. Denis Love.
—A new sixpenny monthly organ has been com-
menced. Its general character appears to be very
ambitious. Its aim is to be of No Party. Truth
is its idol. Its aspirations are at once political and
literary. It is desirous of pleasing everybody, but
we are very much afraid in this wish it is doomed
to very considerable disappointment.

EVENTS OF TIIE MONTH. Part I. S. and C.
Mozley.—Another sixpenny monthly periodical, of
a less ambitious kind. Also political, also literary.
A carefully compiled, and so far useful, but, we
grieve to add, somewhat dull epitome of facts in
regard to the events of the month—events political,
literary, scientific, and connected with matters of
general information.

THE WEATHER AN) THE PARKS,

The comparatively mild temperature which on
Saturday succeeded to the frosty atmosphere and
cutting winds that had prevailed during the earlier
portion of the week was so far maintained on Sund,y
night that the mercury had fallen but four degrees
in the thermometer at midnight. The highest
point reached on Sunday was 40 degrees, or 8 above
freezing point; the minimum temperature during
the night was 30 degrees, while the lowest point
touched was 30 degrees. At nine o'clock yesterday
morning Messrs. Negretti and Zambra's standard
thermometer at the Royal Humane Society's re-
ceiving-house, Hyde-park, registered 30 degrees;
and at noon the mercury had risen to 45 degrees, or
5 ebovo the highest point of yesterday. The wind
blew in the moaning from E.S.E. ; at noon it was
almost due south ; but it afterwards chopped round
to south-east by east. At four o'clock the mercury
fell to 40 degrees, and later in the evening the tem-
perature indicated was a shade lower than 39 deg.':
Notwithstanding the dangerous condition of the
ice on the Serpentine, and the unwearied exertions
of the icemen of the Royal Humane Society, whose
orders were to prevent all persons from venturing
upon it, over 200 skaters pursued the sport yester-
day, and apparently with all the greater zest that it
was an enjoyment which, under the circumstances,
prudence would have forbidden. They, however,
disregarded all warning, and, being literally swift
of foot, eluded the efforts made to remove them: A
large number of boys, encouraged by the example
of their seniors, crowded on the ice at various
places. They were in one respect more easily dealt
with, but they contrived to return to the frozen sur-
face at one point or another almost as soon as they
ware removed from it. Happily no serious casualty
occurred during tae day, and this the more to be
wondered at from the " ragged" and honeycombed
state of the ice. It is now little over two and a halt
inches in thickness, and, owing to the lines and
cracks which intersect each other in every direction,
resembles a monster skeleton map loosely put to-
gether, or a Chinese puzzle on a large scale.
The ice on the Round Pond, near Kensington
Palace, is of an average thickness of 4 inches, and
the water being shallow except at one point, which
is marked, and where the depth is about ten feet,
the number of skaters and sliders was comparatively
large, amounting curing the entire day to over 300.
A few skaters also ventured on the ice which covers
the Long Water. Although not considered safe for
a crowd, it is in a better condition than that on the
Serpentine, being still 32 inches in thickness ; that
being, however, 2 inchee less than its average thick-
ness on Friday last. _

At Regent's and St. James's parks the ornamental
waters are still frozen over; but the ice has thawed
to such an extent that it is not in a fit state to resist
the pressure of the numbers of persons who hastened
to the parks yesterday with a view to engage in the
sport of skating and sliding. The icemen were
busily employed in keeping the ice clear, end full
notice was given to the public that it was unsafe to
venture upon it ; but in the case of many urchins,
who insisted on running into danger, the conclu-
sive argument of the rope's-end had to be resorted

to.
The skating season, so far, has been short and
sharp. The sun set yesterday with what is under-
stood by the weatherwise as a "frosty appearance,"
and there are some who profess to be learned in
such matters who predict that a return to extremely
cold weather is at hand. Should such not be the
case, however (and the weatherwise are sometimes
otherwise), those who have locked forward to a long
run of sport on the ice will, at least, have the con-
solation t of
their n
knowing
a that the genial influence which
work to the labourer, and mitigates one of the many
poor have to endure. hardships which the

(From the Scotsman.)
The weather on 'Saturday was more genial than
it had been for some days previous, the keenness of
the frost being somewhat neutralised by the rays of
the sun, which occasionally shone out brightly
through the thick misty atmosphere. As was to be
expected, the lochs proved the great centre of
attraction
of
pleasure-seekers. All day long
crowds
of all ranks of the community
thronged the Drive
between Edinburgh and Dud-
for the
people
and returning from the ice; and
the t
towardsactivity such as in ordinary circum-
stances presented an appearance
dso fi
an road
bustle
going
asne to
seldom
om
see
a in the greatest thoroughfares
of the city. Carriages, coaches, cabs, gigs, and
other conveyances swelled the living tide that rolled
eastwards by Arthur Seat, bearing thousands of
skaters and spectators to the ice, and at parts of the
route the crowd of people and vehicles was so great
as somewhat to impede the 'Negress of pedestrians.
The scene at Duddingst on Loch during the day was
strikingly
and picturesque. From the hill
and rising ground overlooking the ice thousands of
ladies
gentlemen watched with keen interest
the
shifting
and
h ift
iu:posing
and manifold phases of the wintry
apastimesppeared in progress upon the loch below. These
as
endless as they
were exciting, and
afforded infinite amusement to the onlookers. Here
and there, within privileged enclosures swept clear
of snow, skilled and veteran skaters performed
mystic evolutions with an ease and grace that made
them conspicuous among the motley thousands who
sought recreation upon every part of the firm and
compact expanse of ice. Higher up, towards the
eastern end of the loch, eager, high-spirited curlers
game in presence of
laugh mingling with
a m amused carried
sed onsp
et
ehteai
tr
r invigorating
jest
a ud
the rumbling music of the stones as they slid swiftly
from goal to goal. Occasionally dense crowds of
boys pursuing the flying ball swept, whirlwind
fashion, over different parts of the ice, now, as seen
from a distance, settling into a confused end indis-
tinguishable mass, and then, breaking up, scatter-
iug into long, straggling files, and carrying
humorous terror into the hearts of nervous and
Without
undisciplined skaters, who,warning, hap-
pened to be enveloped in and carried away with the
rushing tide. Prominent in the changing scene
crowds of gaily-dressed ladies and gentlemen en-
joyed with unflagging energies the healthy and
exciting exercise of the slide, receiving with hearty
good humour the little accidents and laughable
contretemps to which the pastime not unfrequently
gave rise. These constituted the chief features of
the sports; the minor episodes of the scene were
almost innumerable, and afforded endless gratifica-
tion to the beholder. The ice swarmed wits skaters
—skilled and unskilled, graceful and ungraceful,

w hose fantastic and seemingly interminable ma
nceuvres generally gave rise to admiration, but not
unfrequentiy to uncontrollable mirth. Between-
-12 and 4 o'clock the number of people upon the loch
could not have been less than 6,000 at one time ;
and as crowds were continually arriving and de-
parting, the number who visited the ice throughout
the day must have been between 12,000 and 15,000.
During the two hours preceding 4wilight the sight
which Duddingston and the acclivities surrounding
it presented was one that has been rarely seen in
Vat) neighbourhood of Edinburgh. The bold features
of the neighbouring scenery, partially disclosed
through the overhanging mist—the gay aspect of
the crowds who watched the sports from the banks
and from the carriages drawn up along the drive—
the sharp, whirring sound of innumerable chairs
driven at headlong pace by skaters over the ice,
and bearing young ladies in swift flight across the
loch—the varying aspects of the surface of the loch
as the huge crowds skimmed and swayed to and fro
upon its surface—the brilliant colours of the ladies'
dresses; these combined with the noise and bustle
everywhere prevalent, formed a panorama that was
pleasant above measure to the eye to dwell upon.
Nor did evening, which closed with a keen air and
thick fog, wholly interrupt the progress of the sport.
For hours after darkness fell adventurous skaters
traversed the loch in all directions bearing torches,
which, as seen from the upland overlooking Dud-
aingston, glared ruddy and wild through the thick
misty atmosphere. Many lovers of the pastime,
whom business prevented attending during the
day, and not a few whose enthusiasm made them
eager to make the most of the time while the frost
lasted, remained on the loch till near midnight,
steering their uncertain course over the ice by the
aid of paper lanterns and other improvised helps
to safety. The ice was very good throughout the
day, and with the exception of some concealed ruts
that occasionally overthrew the unwary tyro, or
taxed the good temper of the practised skater, there
was little to complain of in its quality or condition.
About an hour before dark the number of people
who thronged the road leading citywards, on their
return from the loch, was almost as large as the
crowd that pours down to the Queen's Park to
welcome her Majesty on her visits to Edinburgh.
Notwithstanding the immense number of people on
the ice during the day, we can say that only one
accident occurred. Skaters—and their name is
legion—will be sorry to learn that the healthy and
invigorating exercise which they have enjoyed with
such zest during the past week is likely for the
present to be suspended. Early on Sunday morn-
ing a thaw set in accompanied with a gentle breeze,
which sent the mercury up to 12 deg. above freezing
point. On Sunday night the thermometer regis-
tered 43 deg., and there was a prospect of the mer-
cury rising still higher. There were two inches of
water on Duddingston Loch on Sunday.