The Sun.
London, England, 1863-04-04 00:00:00

Dundreary's Farewell Speech,

The Haymarket Theatre was filled with a highly
fashionable audience on Wennesday evening, on the
occasion of Mr. Sothern's farewell benefit—a fare-
well, however, which playgoers will be glad to learn
is only for a season. The long-sustained and stile
unfl igging popularity of Mr. Sothern's marvellous
impersonation of Lord Dundreary is a dramatic
phenomenon, yet it can cause no surprise to those
who comprehend the real merits of the performance.'
It is not only irresistibly humorous but pyscholo-
gically true. Not that Lord Dundreary is to be
looked upon as a special type of aristocratic imbe.
cility. That he is a lord is a mere dramatic acci-
dent, for his intellectual kindred are to be found in
every class. His muddle-headed logic. —sometimes
reasoning rightly from wrong premises, sometimes
reasoning wrongly from right ones—is reflected
constantly i❑ Parliament, on the platform, and in
the drawing room ; and it is to the recognition of
this fidelity to nature as much as to its over-
whelming drollery that the great and legitimate
.access of thi3 performance must be fairly ascribed.
At the end of " Our American Cousin," in which
he played as admirably as ever, Mr. Sothern csme
forward in obedience to an enthusiastic call and
.;poke a' follows :

" It affords me infinite gratification, ladies and gentlemen,
to receive so very hearty a tribute at your hands upon the
occasion of this my 396th performance of the character of
Dundreary. After so lengthened and continuous a repre-
sentation it might fairly have become unpalatable, but your
happy presence and enthusiasm to-night indicate that even
further doses might be administered with safety. (Hear,
hear, and laughter.) However, I have felt that a change of
air and scene would be desirable, and on Monday next I
commence an engagement in my native town of Liverpool.
Under these circumstances, fate wills us to be strangers until
Christmas next. You may then perhaps extend your gene-
rous favour to " Brother Sam"—(great expressions of ap-
proval)—but mind, if successful, he may inundate you with
the entire family—father, mot her, sister, brother, nurse, and
a terrific chain of cousins. (Loud laughter.) Amongst the
innumerable reports which are constantly going off in
society, one is, that the Lord Dundreary is going
into a galloping consumption. He is going into
nothing of the kind. Does he look like it? (Roars of
laughter, and ' Not a bit of it.') I beg confidentially to
intimate, as one knowing something'. about the matter,
that he never was better in all his life, (' Serve you right,'
and cheering.) Perhaps I may refer, incidentally, to his
lordship's birth. He was born, then, oddly enough—(a
laugh)—not that it was odd that he was born—(laughter)
—because that's one of these sort of things that might oa-
cur 'to any fdlah'—(tho laughter here was excessive)—
neither was he born oddly; but—but in the usual way,
(Great laughter.) However, oddly enough, he was born
on the let of April—yes, on the Ist of April—(renewed
laughter)—the day on which he now, for a time, takes his
farewell, with a grateful and deeply-marked remembrance
of your great and distinguished patronage."
Mr. Sothern then retired, and another outburst
of continued applause brought him for a third
time before his admirers; but he merely gave a
Dundreary chuckle, and shaking his right hand to
the audience, like the flapping of the wings of an
idiotic sea gull, said quaintly and significantly,
" Bless you! bless you !" As every one has seen
Dundreary, every one can imagine how intense
was the merriment which this benediction excited.

A GIGANTIC JOKE.

(From the A" cotsinan)

It may be proper, by-the-by, lest some of our
Leith friends should pretend they do not see it, to
mention what was the gigantic joke which the
Premier played off yesterday. After having been
fully informed of what had been and is about to be
done in the way of docks, he said gravely to the men
of Leith—'' To your honour be it said that all you
have, and, I believe I may assert also, all you are
going to do, has been done by the expenditure of
your own capital and money, and therefore it is
doubly honourable to you than if it had been the
result of donations from other parts of the empire.''
Nothing could be better than this, addressed to
people who a few months ago " applied the sponge"
io one great debt, and a few weeks ago contracted
another almost as great. Some Leith folk may
try to say that his lordship was not making a joke,
but only a mistake—that he really knew no better,
or worse. But Lord Palmerston is not the sort of
man to make such a 11 istake, and he is the very sort
of man to make such a joke. Out of Leith, peopl,
may suppose that the Premier had drawn a parti-
cular conclusion as to Leith from the general pre-
inise that Scotch people have not been in the way
of asking, much less of getting, " donations from
(,ther parts of the empire" for such purposes. Bui
that supposition is inadmissible, seeing that, in tht
debate only a few nights ago on the Galway Can-
tract, Mr. Whiteside, in the hearing of Lord Pal-
merston, went into the Lk-ith affair with his usual
fulness and emphasis. No, depend upon it, it wag
.1 joke; and, like most of Lord Patmerston's jokes,
add a good deal of meaning. And, as First Lora
A the Treasury,
he was entitled to be the maker of
that joke, and Leith was well entitled to be its sub-
ject. The Treasury had prepaid well for it. It
was said of the prodigal Buckingham, and his love
of having people about him with whom he could
make fun, "He had hisjest, and they had his estate."
S'a it is here. The First Lord has had his jest—
and Leith has had £263,000 16s. 6d.

A new volume of thc Bunyan Library will con-
tain " An Essay on the Improvement of Time, and Literary
Remains," by John Foster, author of the celebrated essays
on the " Evils of Popular Ignorance" and "Decision of
Character." The "Essay on the Improvement of Time"
has never before been printed, and will occupy from 150 to
200 pages.