The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-13 00:00:00

St. James's Theatre.

This theatre reopened last evening, under the same
management which presided over its fortunes during the
last season; and it may be taken as a proof of the success
which has already attended Mr Webster's efforts at this
establishment that he has not thought it necessary to make
any practical alteration in his plans, or any important ad-
dition to his list of artists. Mr and Mrs Charles Mathews,
Mr and Mrs Frank Mathews, and Mrs Stirling are again
the leading members of the corps, and it is intended that
their united efforts shall be directed to the performance of
those lighter specimens of genteel comedy for which
they are especially qualified. The pieces represented were
Mr Arthur Sketchley's now comedy, called " How Will
They Get Out of It ?" Mr Burnand's burlesque of "Faust
and Marguerite," and the farce of " Under tho Rose." The
performance was extremely effective and entertaining
throughout. The house was well attended.

EARL RUSUELL FRATERNISING WITH SHEFFIELD
EXCURSIONISTC—Mr John Young, of Carver•street,

bookbinder, requests us to publish the following paragraph,
for correctness of which he vouches :—A most pleasing
incident
occurred on Saturday last, during the pleasure trip
to Haddon Hall of the workpeople of Messrs Townsend and
Son, stationers and bookbinders, Surrey-street. While the
party were halting for refreshments at one of the hotels on
the road, Earl Russell (who was on a visit in the neigh-
bourhood), accompanied by a young lady and gentleman,
happened to pass. His lordship, being recognised, was re-
spectfully desired to "partake of a glass of old English
alttuthleisßunricaenxnpieac.t'e'
sd
he
iffip nappeared
a startednindueh g r a t
iufipe
d"
cheer." He cordially acceded, the party in the meantime
d
ilreception,rd-
and continued to acknowledge the cheers waving of hats,
&c,, until a turn in the road hid him from view. The glass
"so honoured" was purchased, and will hereafter be
zealously preserved as a valued reminiscence of the very
interesting occasion,—Sheffield Independent,
THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE
PB.OMOTION or SOCIAL SCIENCa.—This association
hold its congress for the present year at Amsterdam. The
meetings are to extend from the 26th inst. to the Ist Oct.
A large number of French liberals will be present, includ-
ing Gamier Pages, Eugene, Pelletan, Jules Simon, Henri
Martin, Louis Ulbach Lavertujon, Albert Leroy, Sec. The
first question to be discussed in the section of comparative
legislation is, " 'What are the most practical means for en-
suring the liberty of the electors and the security of votes,
under representative governments ?" Some very signifi-
cant speeches from the French members of the association
may be anticipated upon this subject.
THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION.—The meeting of
British Association for 1e65 was fixed to be held at Dun-
dee, but that town having declined the honour, a meeting
of the inhabitants of Nottingham was held on Monday
morning at the Exchange Hall (the Mayor in the chair),
to consider the advisability of inviting the association to
select Nottingham as the place of meeting for 1835. The
addresses of the various speakers went to show that there
were few places in England which would better repay a
visit from the association than Nottingham, for indepen-
dently of the mechanical development for which the town
is celebrated, it is well situated for the exploring of the
rich mineral district of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire,
and numerous places of antiquarian interest are to be found
in the neighbourhood. Resolutions approving of the object,
and inviting the association at Nottingham were passed,
and the meeting separated with a vote of thanks to the
chairman.
ANNUAL INSPECTION OF THE BIRMINGHAM
VOLUNTEERS.—The official inspection of the Bir-
mingham Battalion of Rifles took place on Saturday last
in Calthorpe Park, in the presence of an immense con-
course of spectators. It had been announced that Colonel
MeMurdo, the Inspector General of Volunteers, would be
the inspecting officer of the day; but before the men left
the Hall, Col. Meson addressed them, and read a letter from
the gallant Inspector General. He expressed in his latter
how much he had admired the organisatien and drill of the
battalion, and concluded by wishing them continue I suc-
cess. The :whole of the manesuvres were gone through
most creditably. At the close of the proceedings the men
were formed into square and the officers called to the front,
when Colonel Campbell, the Inspecting Officer, addressed
them in eulogistic terms. Lord Leigh expressed the plea-
sure he felt at hearing the remarks of the gallant colonel,
who, from his having seen service, was well qualified to
give an opinion, and would certainly not flatter them for
the mere sake of the flattery. Ile was convinced from
what he had seen that the let Warwickshire was second to
none in the country. Ile regretted that family ealiction
prevented Major Itatcliti from being present. Col. Mason
briefly thanked the inspecting officer and Lord Leigh for
the remarks they had made, and the proceedings ter-
minated.
The King of Italy possesses at Rome, on a beau-
tiful eminence above Frascati, the delightful resia
dance known as the Villa Rufinella. At his Majesty's
command the Minister of Foreign Affairs lately wrote a
complimentary letter to Mr Severn, placing the villa at his
disposal whenever he should feel inclined to sojourn there.
This attention is in consideration of Mr Severn's acting as
Italian consul in Rome.

LI

A Lovely Illustrated Goldsmith.

The TVorks of Oli'ver Goldsmith. Illustrated. With
Introductions, Notes, and Biography by John
Francis Waller, LLD. One Vol. Pp. 369.
Cassell, Petter, and Galpin.
The enterprising firm across whose counters this
exquisite volume has recently been issued—a volume
on the outside of it regally arrayed in purple and
gold, and within filled, from cover to corer, with
a profusion of fanciful engravings scattered through
nearly four hundred pages of large and handsome
letter-press—the firm, of whose enterprise, this
"Illustrated Goldsmith" is the latest attestation,
are honourably known for the most part as a house
occupying a very conspicuous place among the
ranks of our cheap publishers. The Messrs.
Cassell, Pet ter, and GAlpin are, in fact, nearly,

if not entirely known, as cheap publishers.
Time and again, however, in the midst of the
multitude of their wonderfully cheap serial publi-
cations, they—as in the present instance—demon•
strate visibly how perfectly practicable it is to com-
bine cheapness in a serial form with splendour in
that serial form when completed. A few months back
to the apprehen,
st
ihoeny
ofin dthiceatedthis very
general
publicstrbiykiinsgsulying
from the press
in its completed form an Illustrated Edition of
Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress,'' such as might
have vied but a very years back with the very cost-
liest works of the kind anywhere published. If we
remember Tightly, too, in that very instance, the
publishing price of the volume, as in the present
instance, was no more than exactly one half-guinea!
Yet, in some respects, the half-guinea " Goldsmith
Illustrated," now before us, is far and away a more
remarkable achievement of the kind than the illus-
trated edition of the " The Pilgrim's Progress" just
referred to. And for this reason simply, that,
whereas " The Pilgrim's Progress" was a single
masterpiece, the book now under notice comprises
a collection of masterpieces. Mere, in effect, in this
"Illustrated Goldsmith" we have the very choicest
masterpieces of one of the most charming and be-
loved writers in the whole wide range of our Eng-
lish Literature. Not one masterpiece, as in the
-Tinker's Dream of a Religious Allegory, but,
let us repeat it, a whole throng or cluster
of equally renowned masterpieces. And how the
contents of this beautiful volume serve to illustrate

—apart from the woodcut embellishments, by their
very variety—the scope and diversity of the writer's
delightful genius I Here—adopting and readapting
David Garrick's serio-comie suggestion of an epitaph
for Oliver Goldsmith's tomb—here, in Goldsmith's
collected works, in his Plays, hie Poems, his radiant,
riant Comedies, his charming, melodious idyllic
Poems, his inimitable vers de societe , and his be-
witching domestic story of the Vicar of Wakefield
—here, in his collected writings lives and breathes
again from the pictured pages—whom ? " Oliver
Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll," who in very
deed and truth, as Garrick said of him, " wrote
like an ange!,"—what though, by word of
mouth, he may have, as Garrick said, and as even
Boswell evidently thought of him—" talked like
poor Poll." The combination in Goldsmith of this
feeble prattle and exquisite writing, is in its way a
phenomenon without any parallel. We read (If
him bewildered—we read him, Goldsmith himself,
delighted I And our delight in reading him is ever
fresh and ever new. We should find it difficult to
count up the number of times we have already gone
through his " Vicar of Wale& field." And, certainly,
we should hardly like to think that the pleasure of
one yet further repernsal of it may never again be
experienced. Who can tire of his inimitable poetical
eux d' esprit ? " The Haunch of Venison !"—or
" Retaliation r—or the " Elegy on Mrs. Mary
Blaize l" It he ,iatroducee quite casually in his
longest prose narrative (the immortal " Vicar") a
romantic love ballad—it turns out to be one of the
loveliest love ballads ever written—to wit, " Turn
Gentle Hermit of the Dale." If he indulges inci
dentally in the same way, in the same masterpiece,
in the penning of a little apologue—it proves by
a delightful necessity to be a very apologue of
apologues, in the shape of that notable
story about the Giant and the Dwarf mak-
ing a compact to fight together side by side—
the D warf, as a matter of course, getting all the
kicks, and the Giant, equally as a matter of
course, getting all the halfpence, or what
may be considered as equivalent to them,
Then the two charming, charming poems—" The
Traveller" and " The Deserted Village !" And the
two radiant, sparkling comedies—" The Good-
Natured Man" and " She Stoops to Conquer!"
The latter, one of those happy hits of
authorship assuring to the playwright—
not a life -in - death sort of an exist-
ence upon the bookshelves, as the works of an
author to be read, but a visible, tangible, living,
and breathing existence, as one may say, in the
glare of the footlights, as the recognised and ad-
mitted masterpiece of an Acting Dramatist. Such
a happy-go-lucky
hit, in its way, as in our
days Sir Bulwer Lytton has made for his
many-sided fame by the production of his
lovely romantic drama of " The Lady of
Lyons." Pauline Desokappelles and Kate
Hardeastle "holding their own" as tenaciously, if
not as triunepantly, now, year after year, as upon
their first season, respectively, when the one in the
eighteenth, the other in the nineteenth century,
they may be said to have " come oat" and to have
become thereupon, each in turn, the rage of the
town for ever afterwards. Talk of the fashionable
enameller whose skill (trumpeted by advertisement)
promises to render fair young cheeks "Beau-
tiful for Ever What are the cos-
metics of Madame Rachel, we ehould like to
ask (even if giving credence to all that ig blown to
us by the tin trumpet aforesaid) what are all her
mysterious oriental washes and aromatic pearl-
powders—to a few touches imparted by the hand of
genius,the hand here of Goldsmith, there of Bulwer,
touches rendering in very truth " Beautiful For Ever
Kate Hardcastle and Pauline DeschaPellee! But
here in the lovely volume under notice—leading off
these Poems, faux d' esprit, comedies—here, in the full
integrity of its two-and.-thirty chapters—the immor-
tal story of " The Vicar of Wakefield !' Altogether,
it must assuredly be allowed that in the choice here
made—of the Anther, first of all, and afterwards of
his works—has been one in its way eminently judi-
cious. That Goldsmith's works, and these two
works of his in particular, are just the very things
to be illustrated—well, ecce signwn ! And, to
ensure to us our having everything failyin keeping,
one of the most accomplished and vivacious Irish
p
I '—narnely, the Vice-President of
writers nowiving
the Royal Irish Academy, Dr John Franc-et Waller,
better known to the readers of The Dublin Una-
v 47-slay Maga,in,
by his comical psuedonym as
Jonathan Freke Slingeby--no less suitable a bio•
grapher and annotator than Dr. Waller, has
been selected by the publishers to preside over this
radiant edition of Dr. Oliver Goldsmith, to write his
Life (charmingly) to write the explanatory notes, to
write the graceful introduction. Among the many
choice editions of Goldsmith that have at different
times been published, the present one assumes its place
at once as among the very choicest. It chanced by
ill-luck, during the periodical issue of the work as
a cheep monthly aerial, that one or two numbers of
it, containing the very feeblest of the illustrations,
(for among so many embellishments the merit very
materially varies) fell by chance under onr obser-
vations. Insomuch that those one or two unpropi-
tious glances had in a wanner prejudiced us against
the present edition of Goldsmith's works, as one
to our thinking, of a really disappointing end un-
satisfactory character. Now, however, that the
book comes substantially before us in its completed
form, the unfavourable impression produced by
thoseincidental glances at it, during its piecemeal
issue as a monthly periodical, has been entirely
dissipated. The present volume, indeed, as a
luxuriously illustrated volume, need fear no cum-
prison either with one very brilliant eontem,
porary, or with one or two almost equally admirable
predecessors,