The Sun.
London, England, 1863-07-01 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Fifty Fears' Biographical Rentimseences, By Lord
WiHium Pitt Lennox. 2 vols., imp. Bvo. Hurst

and Blackett.

Lord William Lennox has given us, in these two
very charming volumes, a pleasant glimpse of the
glittering surface of society, and the different
celebrities of every various kind and character who,
meteor-like, have '• come" and " gone " in rapid
succession during the last half century. Lord Wil-
liam very modtstly tells us that his book is "sent
forth entirely without literary pretension. It is
given," he adds, "as the lightest possible gossip,
put together without art; a mere collection of memo-
randa of the remarkable characters I have known."
And certainly during his fifty years' experience his
acquaintance has been singularly varied and re-
markable. Born in 1'799, the same year in which
his father, then Colonel Lennox, fought his duel
with the Duke of York, the author of thesememoiks
had for his godfather no less a personage than Wil
liam Pitt. Reminiscences of Dublin Society during
his boyhood (when his father was Lord Lieutenant).
and cf Westminster School, 9nd his painful e/peri
ence at " fagging '' fill up the first chapters of the
first volume. In 1814 Lord William accompanies
the Duke of Wellington to Paris, being appointed
attache to the British Embassy in the capital. As
an illusti ation of the easy, gossipping style in which
these memoires are written, and the pleasant anec-
dotes with which they abound, let us quote the fol-
lowing passage :
" I knew almost every body in Paris, who might be consi-
dered worth knowing; celebrities of almost every variety.
Talma I saw as often es I could ; but there was another
theatrical star of whom I saw a good deal more.
" Madame Grassini has since paid the debt of nature at
Milan. She was about seventy•eight years old, but
looked scarcely fifty, so wonderfully well had she pre-
serv.d her attractions as a beautiful and accomplished
vocalist.

" This admirable lady possessed in the highest degree
the art of touching the feelings. Talma used to say of her
that he had never seen any other actress—not even Mare,
Duval, or Duchesnois—endowed with a physiognomy so
expressive end so mutable.

" Her profile, with its Grecian outline, her fine marble
brow, and dark hair, which formed a frame of ebony about
it—her incomparable eye brows, her black g pay eyes, now
flashing with the fiery passi, ns of tragedy, then languish-
ing with the tender emotions of love—and that astonish-
ing ensemble of perfection which nature he d collected in
her, as if to review all her gifts in one woman, tier-
cis. d on the spectator a charm he found it impossible to
resist.

'• tine evening in IEIO, Grassini and Crescentini were
singir g Romeo and Juliet, at the 'I uileries. Atter the ad-
mirable scene in the third act, Napoleon, transported, and
torizett ng the rules of etiquette, clapped and shouted like a
schoolboy.

" Telma was weeping, seated on a bench near the orches-
tra. The great trageoian confessed that he bad never felt
anything so deeply in his lite before as what he now felt
after listening to the syren.

" As soon as the pertot mance was over, the Emperor sent
Crescentini the order of the Iron Crown. Not bang able
to decorate C nesini in the same way, he enclosed to her a
slip of paper, on which he had written with his own
hand
" ' Bon pour vingt mille livres..--NA.POLEON:

" Crescentini, who was frantic with joy at the unexpected
favour conferred upon himsell, could not help peeping at the
lady's note.
" Twenty thousand francs cried he, that's a large

sum.'
" ' It is the marriage portion of one of my nieces,'replied

Grassini.
" Indeed no artist could be more generous or more indul-
gent than she was to her family.
"Long after the Empire had been swept away, as the
great actress chanced to be at Bologna, they presented an-
other niece to her, who was also to be provided for. The
girl was eztremsly pretty, but she lacked spirit and tone of
voice, they said, to take to the stage. She is a spoilt con-
tralto,' they added.

6, ' Let me hear her,' said Gressini.
"No sooner had the girl emitted her first note, than the
threw her arms about her neck, and said—
"' Dear child, you require none cif my assistance to get
you on in your vocation. Your voice is not a contralto; it
is the finest soprano in the world, and far stronger than
mine. Labour well, my little darling, there is a rich bank
in your throat.'

4, The young girl to whom Madame Grassiti predicted so
Liilliant a de3tity wee Giulia Grisi."
Immediatelyfullowing these festive remembrances,
cvna tha ramorabia opisolla of Watalco, of vy.4-41a