The Sun.
London, England, 1830-01-01 00:00:00

MAGAZINE DAY.

BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.
This is a very excellent number, with less of

nationality or egotism, and consequently with
more of general interest than usual. We have

no frantic Scotticisms from James Hogg, no

high Tory diatribes from Christopher, and for
this we are grateful. As regards our reprieve
from the last, we unhesitatingly exclaim with old

Paoli, " esto perpetua." The first article, on
the " Education of the People," is truly an

excellent one. It is penned in a philosophical

and lofty tone of thought, by one who knows
how to combine a shrewd knowledge of mankind,
in all its most enlarged sense, with a habit of

deep and enlightened reflection. We will
not mar the completeness of this essay by
any garbled extract, but will prefer recom-
mending it strongly to the reader's most

earnest attention. " On the recent Architectural

Improvements of London" is clever, but some-
what prosy, like one of Sir James Scarlett's best

speeches; in point of style, however, it has con-
siderably the advantage of his Majesty's ♦ttor-
ney-General. " Political Economy" is one of

.hose hacknied subjects which not even the ver-

satile pen of a Scott can render interesting. It
is here discussed spiritedly and with acumen,
but will meet, we apprehend, with very few
readers. " Desultory Reminiscences of Miss
O'Neill" is an ekquent, forcible, and compre-
hensive specimen of theatrical criticism. Indeed
we have no hesitation in saying it is the finest
thing of the sort we have ever read. But the
leader shall judge for himself:—

"Miss O'Neill was a woman—a confiding, tender, pas-
sionate, love-inspiring woman ; yet not without dignity
and grandeur too, and a proudly humble sense of what
was.due to her feminine majesty. It is not my intention
to go through her performance of that disagreeable play,
the Fatal Marriage, which her performance alone could
have rendered bearable,—or indeed to give any of her cha-

racters a regular and critical consideration. I rather wish
to impart to my reader some general notion of her merits,
if he has been so fortunate as never to have seen her,—or
if he has, to recall them to his remembrance. Miss O'Neill,
in face and figure, might he characterized by the epithet
lovely. There was a harmony in her features, and in the
proportions of her form, which was music to the mind.—
Had she been taller, she might have been a tragedy Queen

—but she would ,not have been Miss O'Neill: Had she
pssessed a dark eye and beetling brow, she might have
frowned and scowled to the delight of the distant galleries ;
but what would have become of her smile—of all the just

gradations of feeling which dawned and melted away upon
her fair cheek?

" I have always thought it a favourable circumstance
;hat her countenance, when at rest, was not fixed and

frozen into any marked expression. This allowed of its
taking the impress of all. Some faces seem petrified into
fierceness by a glance at the Gorgon ; others appear always
striving to repress a simper. Any malformation of the
mouth, more especially, will give an unfortunate eternity
to Lome one, and that, generally, not very agreeable ex-
. ..

pression. But Miss face was wholly devoid of
any professional or pertinacious look. Her countenance
was the sleep of feeling. When awakened, it was but the
instrument of the internal agency, Passion moulded her
delicate features to its own purposes, and Genius hallowed
it as the interpreter of his meaning. The mouth—the
wonderful organ of intelligence, thatdistinguishing charac-
teristic of humanity—which requires not the aid of words
to confer upon it the gift of speech—that marvellous fea-
ture, whose mutable vitality baffles the painter's skill even
more than the eye, common to all animated beings—the
mouth of Miss O'Neill was exceedingly beautiful. The
lower lip just protruded enough to rescue it from that
symptom of fatuity—its retreat—' Some bee had stung
it newly.' Her brow, as I said before, was not marked
enough for the beau-ideal of a tragic empress--and I am
glad it was not. The manner in which her head was set
upon her bust might have challenged the art of Pkidias.
Nothing could possibly be more devoid of fault than the
line from the back of her head to her shoulder, when her
face was turned in profile. Her hand was beautiful, and
her foot worthy of such a hand. From this exquisite
conformation, and from the mind which dwelt within so
fair a shrine, resulted a presiding grace, which modelled
every gesture, and swayed every movement. Never, in
the course of my long life, have I seen a being so graceful
as Miss O'Neill—and I never expect to see one. Our
actresses are, in general, sadly deficient in this particular.
I remember, after being on the Continent for some time,
that, when I returned, the women on our stage seemed to
toss their arms like so many windmills in full sail. Miss
O'Neill never displayed such starts and flings. Ido not
think that it was possible she could• Even had she been
obliged to perform a saraband over the kitchen poker, she
would have done it gracefully—she was grace even to the
very tips of her fingers. I used to remark that she never
grasped the arm of a lover or husband, as some ladies,
whom I have seen give a gripe like a blacksmith's vice, but
tenderly and delicately. She laid her white fingers upon
the arm of hint whom she addressed in love or in sup-
plication."
" Her Mrs. Haller, and, indeed, all her charac-
ters, in general, possessed the rare merit of an un-
broken unity of design. As, in a perfect picture, every
accessory is harmonized by the master's hand so as to pro-
duce one great result—as every part tends towards the
effect of the whole—so, in Miss O'Neill's acting, every
ray of genius was but a component part of one refulgent
orb. She did not strain after insulated graces, or surprising
exhibitions of momentary power—neither was any portion
of her part hurried over, or even carelessly touched, as if
is were insignificant. She did not appear to be husband-
ing her strength for one ranting speech, or a few starts and
screams. From the beginning to the end she was the
being she represented. Not sometimes only, but conti-
nually, she was agitated by the same fears, awakened by
the same hopes, impelled by the same motives of action—
as might be supposed to influence the character which she
delineated. This continuity of feeling was marvellously
evident in the expression of her countenance. I remember
being particularly struck with this. in her representation
of Mrs. Qakley in the Jealous Wife. While conversing
on indifferent subjects—while apparently rambling from
the main plot of the piece—there was always an air of anx-
iety—a wandering of the eye—a slight abstraction—which
indicated that there was an under-current of more im-
portant thought. In society, as well as in solitude, she
was still the uneasy, jealous wife. Miss O'Neill's per-
formance of this very character sufficiently refuted the in-
vidious assertion that she did not succeed in comedy.—
When I speak of comedy, I must be understood to mean
the drama of real and every-day life, in distinction to the
drama of ideal and heroic life."
" The Effects of Variations on the Currency"
is a perplexed, elaborate subject, treated in an
elaborate manner. Its chief defect is the absence
of powerful or original thinking. " The Pawn-
broker's Daughter" is a quaint and lively farce
from the pen of that subtle metaphysician, Elia.
It is not equal to his Mr. H—, the minute
but brilliant splendour of whose wit was lost in
the broad, coarse glare of the lamp-lights at
Drury-lane—but is still worthy of Charles
Lambe. " The First Grey Hair," a serious
thing with most ladies, whether married or
single, is treated with befitting gravity, and a
pleasing moral wrought out of it. Mr. Haynes
Bailey is the fabricator of this pretty poetic play-
thing. " The Age" is a truculent review, in
Blackwood's most envenomed style, of a poem
of that name. We have no iflace for extracts.