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

LORD DIINDREARY'S CHARACTER
As Mil. SOTBERN HAS CONCEIVED IT.

What he has so marvellously worked out is the
complete disappearance of all such intellectual
power as involves even a momentary effort of atten-
tion from a supercilious mind by no means devoid
of natural clearness, eager for amusement, and re-
sentful that almost every amusement does draw
upon the power of attention. He catches at straws
floating on the surface of thought, and resentfully
abandons it the moment he finds that he cannot
even follow the indolent train of association it
suggests without some effort of discrimination.
There is s chronic crave in him to individualise
his own thoughts without effort to himself, and
chronic anger because he can't succeed. Lord
Dundreary would be even a lucid-mindtd man if
he could attend to anything for two consecutive
minutes. If he calls everyone and everything "a
fellah," even to the candles on his dressing-table, it
is not confusion of thought, hut simply indolence in
expression, which induces him to use the abstract
instead of recalling the specific term. When he cin
explain himself without an effort, there is something
graphic in it notwithstanding the lassitude of his
exposition—as when he defines the game of draughts
by "remind piece of wood bopping over each on
squares of leather," or illustrates his own aasertioa
that he is a good-natured fellow, by explaining that
"two out of every thwee men who know me would
think so," and adds, after a brief pause, that
" the third fellah who didn't think so
so would bo an ass." Then the habitual angriness
of his state of mind is only the natural disgust
attending the discontinuity of his own thoughts,
and the perceived impossibility of remedying it
without an effort. Whoa he says of the peacock,
" I hate a bird all tail and no head," and reviles the
pigeons for tumbling head over heels because " I
hate a bird that doesn't know its own mind,"—the
irritation he feels is merely a mode of cutting short
his thoughts about a rather singular phenomenon
which be feels would haunt him if he didn't get up
temper and abuse it. None of this is native imbe•
cility—it is a haughty sort of lucidity which is
furious because in this universe nothing is isolated
and comprehensible at a glance, so that you are in
danger of being led on from one thing to another
in a very perplexing way which does not suit a
man anxious to fiud adequate amusement in the
straws floating on the surface of his thought. Even
the uphill triumphant catch in his voice or crow
which is his equivalent for laughter, admirably ex-
presses this momentary character of his perceptions,
for his sense of the ludicrous is not the full meeting
of two incongruous ideas in his imagination, but a
mere point, a spark, an infinitesimal gleam of in-
congruity, which it is a triumph in him to have
caught at all, and which vanishes from his grasp
just as he catches sight of It. The angry stare with
which his lordship looks at us when he gets into
difficulties about folding his arms, and can no more
remember how the double junction is effected than a
child learning to tie its shoe for the first time, is one
of Mr. Sothern's moat effective touches in this carload
ture ; the difficulty represents somehow the single
threat of his associations, which is never quite equal
to the mastery of any two simultaneous actions, and
the resentment which he evidently feels at the failure
of memory and the need of recollection, betrays the
indolent pride which is at its root. Even the lop-
sided run with which he makes his exit from the
room is expressive of this utter want of coherent
mental effort. Ono leg drags the other after it, as

it were, instead of their both marching together,
just as one thought succeeds and excludes another
which ought to be combined with it. Of course the
worth of the whole conception is is the caricature,
and in that alone. But it is wonderfully subtle
caricature, in which almost every movement of the
muscles of the face, every tone of the voice, and
every grotesque discontinuity of thought, contri-
butes something to the effect. _ _

Of course the mere power of caricature is by no
means rare in comic actors, but the powers of
subtle intellecturd caricature euch es Mr. Sothern
shows in this character, we take it, exceedingly
rate. It is a caricature, for instance, which even
Mr. Dickens—an accomplished actor, we believe,
as well as a writer of caricature—could scarcely
have executed. The whole conception is grafted
on the social condition in which Lord Dundreary is
supposed to have been brought up, and with all his
rudeness and eccentricity the notion of an aristo-
cratic substratum of manners as well as of pride and
indolence, is always perfectly conveyed. It is all
subtle caricature, though it is caricature of the
most extreme and doubly-distilled character.

Our Heroes and our Statesmen.

A PA:

,BODY.

Sing a song of greenbacks,
l'oclets tuil of frank,
Over head and ears In debt,
And out of ready cub.

---
I'orne, under Abo'e chair,
Barring Lk° a dog.

Schenk, down at Balimore,
Doing dirty work ;
Butler, at Norfolk,
As savage as a Turk.

Heaps of tax eol ectors
As busy as a bee ;
A'nt we in a pretty fix,
With go d at fifty-three.
Ab: in the White Houte,
Proolamatious writing;
Me.tde, on the Rapidan,
Afraid to do the fighting.

Banks. out in Texas,
Cutting such a fi nlre ;
Reccher, in liroorlyil.
Howling for the nigger.

Lots 01 AbAltlOniste.
Kicklv up a ye,l.
In comes emrs n BrownloW.
And sends thou all to h - IL

Seward, in the Cabin, t.
Surrounded by his n Ice ;
lint eck, w,th the telegraph,
Busy forging lies.

Burnside, at Knoxvi!le,
In k nd ot tlx ;
ilahl4r(t.n"al Sauter.
ng a. the IN icki.

Chase, in the Treasury,
Making tv, nutes ;
Curtis, At Harrisburg.
Atukb,g shoddy ousts.

grant, at Chattanooga,
T y I ragg to thrson;
is it auy wonder,
The Union's gene toe mash?

Gillmore, In Charleston,
LOJt in A fog•;

Bank of England Return•—Th s Evening.

An Account, pursuant to the Act 7th and Bth Victoria,
cap. 32, for the week ending on Wednesday, the 2d day
of March, 1864: