The Sun.
London, England, 1863-04-09 00:00:00

MR. WOODTIT AT EDINBURGH:

(From the Caledonian Nereury.)

Last Monday night Mr. W. S. Woodin commenced bis
admirable entertainment in the Waterloo Rooms. Since
his last appearance in Edinburgh Mr. NV oodin has altogether
changed, not so much the nature of his entertainment as
the line of characters he represents. His clever imitation
of the varied personages to be met with in a railway
train has given place to a description of the social habits of
the community during the four seasons of the year ; and
ihere is a freshness about the whole entertainment which
cannot fail to be attractive. The numerous characters
which Mr. Woodin represents to his audience are hit off
to the life; and the rapidity with which the changes
are made is truly marvellous. Perhaps Mr. Woodin's
greatest success is his personation of Lord Dundreary ; and
those who have not seen Mr. Sothern in this great piece
could find no better impersonator of the character than Mr.
Woodin. We can warmly recommend this entertainment
to the Edinburgh public ; and from the reception which ➢lr.
Woodin met with last night from a crowded audience, there
is no doubt that his cabinet of curiosities will be largely
patronised during his stay in this city.

(From the Courant.)

However delusive the title of Mr. Woodin's entertain-
ment is, everybody knows that he is the " Cabinet," and
himself is (or are, as the reader may choose) the "Curi-
osities." One might say of him literally, as we observe of
many good fellows figuratively, that he is "a host in him-
self." Or to use another well-tubbed quotation, he is "a
man so various" that if not in reality " mankind's epitome,"
he is to us the whole circle of London life. We carry away
from Mr. Woodin's entertainment a perfect crowd of recol-
lections, many more, our readers will not doubt, than we
have time or space to recount. Somebody writes of
" People we have met "—here we have them all in one
procession—not perhaps the plain respectable friends
of our social and domestic circle, but all the "charac-
ters," the kind of persons we in passing make men-
tal notes of. Mr. Woodin's entertainment is divided
into the four seasons, and, like the panoramas which take
us to China and Japan and back in one sitting, so Mr.
Woodin goes through the business of a twelvemonth in two
hours. As he is "everything by turns," he is vastly en-
tertaining; and as he is "nothing long," he has not time
to be wearisome. Spring and its ramblers, summer and its
excursionists, autumn and its tourists, and winter and its
entertainers, are all in succession depicted and personified.
The celerity of the changes of character is only less re-
markable than the versatility with which so many different
individuals aro represented and distinguished. There
is, no doubt, the same
general likeness through-
out, as we expect to find in Leitch's carica-
tures, or in illustrations by Millais—the artist's
style being always recognisable. But the change
of costume is but the auxiliary to that change of
voice, manner, and guesture which stamps a specific char-
acter upon the costume. Mr. Woodin not only exhibits a
long series of different personages illustrating all ranks and
classes, and both sexes, but he makes the bold attempt to
represent three people at once. A coffeeroom box is fitted
up, within which the actor is seated on a pivot. He wears a
duplicate
wig and dressing, and represents a dark and domi-
nearing gentleman on one side, and the very opposite kind of
person on the other. The welter does not appear in persona,
but a very mirthful -Vox of the Widdicombe style does duty
for him. Out of the coffee-boa, which presents wall, the two
gentlemen peep out alternately—one would sometimes
imagine both at once—address, and at last quarrel with each
other, while the interjected sentences of the waiter keep
up the semblance of a triple colloquy. A special feature
of the entertainment is Mr. Woodin's celebrated imitation
of Mr. Sothern as Lord Dundreary. In point of costume
he is the complere Me simile of the original, and in regard
to acting he very nearly approaches him. The reception of
Brother Sam's letter is the point selected by the mimic,
who certainly gives a most faithful copy of the actor's voice
and manner. The performance (which we should mention,
in passing, takes place in the Waterloo Rooms), concludes
with a most spirited nigger delineation in Mackney's style
by Mr. Woodin, who makes everybody laugh with the
humour of his singing, and likewise calls forth general ad-
miration by the agility and grace. of his dancing. We hope
our readers will go to see Mr. Woodin; we feel sure they
will be both delighted by his clever delineations and sur-
prised by his magical changes.

The relations between the Italian Government
and the Court of Rome, although still cool and dis-
tant, have not prevented the Italian Cabinet from proposing
Mgr. Losana, Bishop of Bielle, for the Archiepiscopal see
of Turin, vacant by the death of Mgr. Franzoni. The
Pontifical Court, it is expected,
will accept the proposition.
A QUIET SCENE.—A low, one-storied house
standing opposite a hospital, built on a hilly street,
with a great white port-coehere closed and barred, and then
a garden wall : nine or ten windows only a foot from the
ground, all blinded and shuttered in a row ; a brass plate
on the door, with Stephen ourneur engraved thereon, and
grass and chickweed growing between the stones and
against the white walls of the house. Passing under the
archway, you come into a grass- grown courtyard ; through
an iron grating you see a little desolate garden with wall-
flowers and stocks, and tall yellow weeds all fl Avering to-
gether, and fruit trees running wild against the wall. On
one side there are some empty stables, with chickens
pecketting in the sun. The house is built in two long
low wings ; it has a dreary moatecl-granga sort of look;
amid see, standing at one of the upper windows, is not
that Elizabeth looking out ? An old woman in a
blue gown and a white coif is pumping water at the
pump, some miserable canaries are
piping shrilly out 01
green cages, the old woman clacks away with her sabots
echoing over the stones, the canaries cease their piping,
and then nobody else
Comes, There are two or three tall
poplar trees growing a'ong the wall, which shiver plain-
tively; a few clouds drift by, and a very distant faint sound
of military music comes borne on the wind. " Ah, how
dull is it to be here! ab, how I hate it, how I hate thFm
all I" Elizabeth is saying to herself ; " there is some music,
all the Champs Ely-sees are crowded with people, the sol-
diers are marching
along with glistening bayonets and flags
flying. Not one of them thinks that in a dismal house not
very far away there is anybody so unhappy as I am. This
day year—it breaks
my heart to think of it—l was nine-
teen; to-day lam twenty, and I feel a hundred, Oh,
what,a sin and shame it is to condemn me to this hateful
life I Oh, what wicked people these good people are I Oh,
how dull, oh, how stupid, oh, how prosy, oh, how I wish I
was dead, and they were dead, and it was all over 1"
' JAN Ibackeray's &pry of ,Eitizaifth,

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

(REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.)

THE VISIT OF THE SULTAN TO EGYPT,
ALEXANDRIA, APRIL 8.

The Sultan, on his arrival, declared that he
wished to bo considered and treated only as a guest
of the Viceroy.

The Sultan has received the foreign Consuls, who
were presented to him by the Viceroy.

Yesterday morning he drove through the streets
of the city in order to witness the illuminations