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

LITERATURE,

Fifty Years' Biographical Reminiscences. By Lord
William Pitt Lennox. 2 vols., imp. Bvo. Hurst
and Blackett.
Lord William Lennox has given us, in these two
very charming volumes, h 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 modestly 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-
markebie. Born in 1799, the same year in which
bis father, then Colonel Lennox, fought his duel
s it h the Duke of York, the author of these memoii a
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 of Westminster School, end his painful experi
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 illustration 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-
served her attractions as a beautiful and accomplished

vocalist.
" Tbia 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 Mars,
Duval, or Duchesnois—endowed with a physiognomy so
expressive and 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.psy eyes, now
flashing with the fiery passions of tragedy, then languish-
ing with the tender emotions of love—and that astonish-
ing ensemble of perfection which nature had collected in
her, as if to review all her gifts in one woman, exer-
cised on the spectator a charm he found it impossible to
resist.

One evening in IEIO, Grassini and Crescentini were
singing Romeo and Juliet, at the Tuileries. After the ad-
mirable scene in the third act, Napoleon, transported, and
forgetting the rules of etiquette, clapped and shouted like a
school boy.
" Telma was weeping, seated on a bench near the orches-
tra. The great tragedian confessed that he had never felt
anything so deeply in his life before as what he now felt
after listening to the syren.
" As soon as the performance was over, the Emperor sent
Crescentini the order of the Iron Crown. Not beingable
to decorate (rassini in the same way, he enclosed to her a
slip of paper, on which he had written with his own
hand :

' Bon pour vingt mile Iivres.•—NAPOLEON.'

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

Bum.'
" 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 extremely pretty, but she lacked spirit and tone of
voice, they eaid, to take to the stage. She is a spoilt con-
tralto,' they added.
the Your
world,yo
" Let me hear her,' said Grassini.
"No sooner had the girl emitted her first note, than she
threw her arms about her neck, and said—
iysotuheonfiinnesyto
suorpra no vocation.
in
" Dear child, you require none of my assistance to get
ice is
mine. Labour well, my little darling,here is a rich bank
in your throat.' tnfaort as
tronger contralto; it
than
a
"The young girl to whom Madame Grassini predicted so
brilliant a destiny was Giulia Grisi."
Immed lately following these festive remembrances,
come the memorable episode of Waterloo, of Iyhigh