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

ear.

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, JULY 1, 1863,

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, E. 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-
mark able. Born in 1799, the same year in which
his father, then Colonel Lennox, fought his duel
with the Duke of York, the author of thesememoit B
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, and his painful e.speri-
ence at " fagging'' fitl up the first chapters of the
first volume. In 1814 Lord William accompanies
the Duke of Wellington to Paris, being appointed
attaché 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 otten as 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.
" 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 At ars,
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 3 uileries. 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 thesyren.
" As soon as the performance was over, the Emperor sent
Crescentini the order of the Iron Crown. Not being able
to decorate (.) rnssini in the same way, he enclosed to her a
slip of paper, on which he had written with hie own
hand :

" ' Bon pour vingt mine livres.—NApoLzorr.'

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

sutra.'
" ' 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 beet 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 said, to take to the stage. She is a spoilt con-
tralto,' they added.
" Let me hear her,' said Grassini.
"No sooner
chenerilhd' o
had the girl emitted her first note, than she
you on in your v
threw her arms about her neck, and said—
yesotuisrne.qu
yireounronvesLfe
ism
assistancey
not
a n alto;
mitnhee firbst soprano in the world, and far stronger than
c ott e o
is t
it
Labour well, my little darling, there is a rich bank
in your throat.'

4, The young girl to whom Madame Grassiti predicted so
brilliant a destiny was Giulia Grisi."
w mediately Mlowing these fest ive remembrances,
comes the memorable episode of Waterloo, of which

battle, and the scenes connected with it, Lord Wil-
liam, although wounded at the time, was through-
out a prominent spectator. Lord William's
mother, it should be remembered, was the
Duchess of Richmond, who gave that ever-
memorable ball on the eve of the battle—" when
Belgium's capital had gathered there her Beauty
and her Chivalry." The second volume finds
Lord William an officer in the Horse Guards, and
a page at the coronation of George IV. Then as
we turn over the succeeding chapters what a be-
wildering variety of scenes and characters pass
before us. The leading stars of the theatrical
and musical worlds, Kean and Kembie, Vestris and
Malibran—the wits and humorists of the past
generation—Theodore Hook and Charlas Matthews
the elder, and among others Count D'Orsay and

the men of faelion! The marriage of King George
IV., the death of the Princess Charlotte, the publi-
cation of the Waverley novels—such are a few
among the rematkable incidents and events with
which these two volumes superabound. It is true

the work, as a whole, is (almost inevitably, per-
haps), somewhat superficial in its style, and ephe-
meral in its character; but it is written throughout
in a kindly, genial tone, and cannot fail to afford
pleasure to those who read it. It will amuse all,
and will certainly interest the majority of those
who may happen to make its acquaintance.

Recent Campaigns in Virginia and Maryland. By
Captain C. C. Chesney, R.E. One vol., pp. 230.
Smith, Elder, and Co.
The author of this exceedingly clever, and in
some parts very brilliant summary of General
Pope's and General M.Clellan's operations during
1862 in Virginia and Mary land, has regarded those
hapless Federal campaigns from a purely military
point of view. In this precisely consists the dis-
tinctive value.and interest of. the volume here sub-
mitted to our consideration. Brief though it
is, extending as the work does to no more
then ten rapidly-written chapters and a postscript,
the book we cannot but pronounce, at once, a highly
creditable performance on the part of Captain
Chesney, whether regarding him as an Author or
as a Soldier. To the student of the science of stra-
tegy, it holds out very conspicuous attractions. By
them especially its pages are secure of being scanned
with eager eyes of interest. How far the writer is
qualified to descant thus currente calamo upon
themes of such manifest complication, and
of such instantly recognisable importance,
the very title page of the volume indicates to
the reader, immediately upon his openingit, and be-
fore commencing its perusal, there being attached
to Captain Chesney's name, the reminder to us of
his being already installed at Sandhurst Colleg-
as the Professor of Military History. To his Royal
Chie,
Highnesstthe thebook Fis, as a parenthesis informs us
ield-11arshal Commanding-in-
''(with H.R.H.'s gracious permission)" respectfully
dedicated, as to one " under whose direction the study
of military history has first been introduced [surely
it ought to have been said systematically and not
altogether!] into the education of the British officer!"
After giving a very lucid, and yet at the sametime a
very comprehensive description of the seat of war—
that is to say, in Virginia and Maryland—Captain
Chesney describes in this rapid survey the opposing
armies and their respective Leaders. He then re-
lates the circumstances of M'Clellan's advance upon
Richmond, followed, soon enough, by his retreat
from Richmond. Pope's campaign in Virginia is
then sketched with a few swift, but some of them
masterly touches. The invasion of Maryland,
the fall of Harper's Ferry, the battle of
Antietam, Lee's retreat into Virginia, and the
fourth invasion of that ravaged State, lead the
reader on, at last, to the superseding of M'Clellan
by Burnside, when the base of the Federal ope-
rations was altogether changed. The narrative
closes, so to speak, as we pause before Fredericks-
burg. Captain Chesney in it has contrived to t' row
much light upon the course of la cent military
events in the melancholy war still raging between
Federals and Confederates. And he does this
simply, if one may say so, without appearing thereby
to depreciate the merit of his labours as a military
historian, by systemising, within the compass of a
little more than 200 very readable pages, our hitherto
somewhat confused recollections of the war as it
began in Virginia and Maryland.

Old New Zealand. By A Pakeha Maori. One
vol. Pp. 216. Smith, Eider, and Co.
Several books relating to New Zealand, and the
recent wars in New Zealand, have latterly, one after
another, made their appearance. Among these more
than twice-told tabs, however, this new volume
upon the self-same occurrences, will hold its own
without difficulty. And this mainly, we would
say, by reason of its vivacity. Past and Present—
New Zealand and the New Zealanders stand before
us vividly, here, in lively contrast. The Mariner,
as the voyageur to our antipodes, who writes
the fifteen amusing chapters, here under notice,
needs must be as such—we ourselves " needs must
hear," as inevitably as the wedding guest was con-
strained to listen t,) the Ancient Mariner in Cole-
ridge's eltrich ballad. That is, we needs
must hear, or rather read, the Pakeha Maori
who here discourses to us, if we but once fairly
begin turning over his pages and reading them with
an attentive eye. Scenery and dress, mermaids
and melons, sham fighting and real fighting,
flotsam and jetsom, these and countless other
matters are sketched in by the Pakeha Maori with
a pen in its way almost as vivid in its picturesque
touches as though it were a pencil, and that pencil,
too, a coloured crayon ! Unadorned by a single
engraving, or even woodcut illustration, the volume
so far resembles one of the famous storybooks of
Hans Christian Andersen, inasmuch as it is to a
certain extent also a picture-book without pictures.
By the mere vivacity of his style the writer is his
own illustrator.

A KNOUT AND KNOUT SCOUNDREL.—Genera
Mouravieff —Fun.

EUGENE SUE, writes Captain Gronow, in his re-
cently published volume of small-talk, entitled
"Recollections and Anecdotes," was the very reverse of
Balzac, both in appearance and manner. Nothing could
have been more coned and scrupulously neat thaa hit,
dress, which was rather dandified, but in good taste, ac-
cording to the notions of 20 or 30 years ago. He wore
aiways a very broad-brimmed hat, of glossy newness, and
remarkably tight, light-coloured trousers; which, by-the-
by, were not particularly becoming to a man built in a
stout mould ; but a Frenchman who cannot diminish the
rotundity of bis abdomen, generally revenges himself upon
his legs, which he circumscribes in the smallest possible
compass, giving himself very much the appearance of what
we Englishmen are taught to believe to be his national
characteristic and prototype—a frog. . . . He was
remarkable for the beauty of his horses; his cab was one
one of the best appointed in Paris ; his house in the Rue
de la Pepiniere (L.ow an asylum) was a perfect " bonbon-
niere," and his dinners were renowned for their excellence.
He was supposed (and to my knowledge with considerable
reason) to lead a very Sardanapalian life. Strange stories
are told of his castle in Sologne, where he was waited on
by a number of beautifat women, of alt countries, and of
all shades of colour.

DEERFOOT CONTESTING A RACE ON BOARD TPe
monster GREAT
vessel EAR.—Daring S
tThEe Rr
eN
w. •-a s a
D
ClCOrnintignuatlh succession c cpassage
o f os
sports,
otrthse,
games, and diversions among the thousand passengers and
the crew. Thinning matches, purses for walking, jumping
in sacks, steeplechases on all fours, and—name it not to the
police--" cock-fighting" prevailed- The whole was con-
cluded, while the ship was going up the Sound, with a
race for a purse between Deerfoot and Mr. Rafferty (engi-
neer's steward.) The distance was three times round the
dock—about three-quaeters of a mile. At ten o'clock on
`Wednesday, May 27th, the pedestrians appeared at the
starting-place. Deerfoot was the favourite, although un-
used
to the sea and running on planks, where Rafferty, who
is accounted a capital pedestrian, was quite at home. Deer-
foot, however, won easily by ten yards.
THE QUEEN OF SPAIN A HOMCEOPATHIST.—For
years past the homosepathists have had a royal patron in
the Queen of Spain. Latterly her Majesty has entirely
broken with the allopathists and all other lets, and trusted
herself entirely to homoeopathy. As a consequence, most
writers of homoeopathic books now send a book to Madrid,
and in return mostly receive a Spanish decoration of some
kind or other. Thus the order of Charles 111. has just
been bestowed upon two French pupils of Hahnemann,
Messrs. Jahr and Peroussel..

It is proposed to erect in Westminster Abbey a
bust and tablet in honour of the late Sir George Cornewall
Lewis.
Their Royal Highnesses the Duchess of Cam-
bridge and the Princess Mary of Cambridge will honour
Lady Howard with their company at her morning party at
Craven Cottago, Fulani, to-morrow (7.lursday), the 2d
4