The Sun.
London, England, 1865-07-14 00:00:00

FINE ARTS.

Mr. Webster's Triplet in " Masks and Faces."
The Dramatic Number of " IVaudin's Portfolio.',
No. IX. Office, 124, Brompton-road.

An exquisite number of this very charming
periodical—but just now issued from the press—con-
tains within it a couple of pictures, certain under
any circumstances to be welcome, as flowers in May,
to every true-hearted playgoer, no matter what the
time of the year or of the theatrical season that
witnessed their publication. One of them is a view
of the garden-facade of The Royal Dramatic
College at Woking—a noble and picturesque
edifice worthy, no less from an architectural than
from a purely philanthropic point of view, of
being thus photographed. But—the other of these
two beautiful illustrations That is to our mind,
if you like, the attraction of the number. It is a
portrait group that must alone of itself (if this had
been No. I. instead of No. IX.) have made the
reputation of " Naudin's Portfolio," as one of the
most remarkable photographic serials ever given to
the public since the invention of the art of pho-
tography. The mere selection of the subject of
this group is of itself an eloquent tribute to
the genius of one of the most accomplished
artists upon the stage, himself the Master of the
Royal Dramatic College just mentioned. And it
is a tribute, moreover, to the genius of Benjamin
Webster' such as is all the more welcome to our-
selves, individually (as claiming to be among the
number of that distinguished actor's heartiest appre-
ciators), because of its representing him in what we
must always regard as about the very finest
of his impersonations. And that ? Who will not
guess the character upon the instant? To wit, TRIP-
LET, in " Masks and Faces !" James Triplet, pre-
cisely as he has long since been rendered familiar
to us, thanks to the rare mastery exercised over all
the artifices of his craft by the genius of Mr. Web-
ster—James Triplet, just exactly as we have so
often before now seen him yonder upon the boards
of the Adelphi—that poor, starving, threadbare,
man-of-parts, beheld first of all when fresh from
his garret and his impoverished family, beheld
afterwards in his wretched garret, and sur-
rounded by his hungry wife and children—poet,
playwright, musical-composer, man-of-letters,
portrait-painter, violinist, and a dozen other
things as well all in one Who knows him
not, that poor starving genius of a hundred
years ago or more, whose mastery over our
emotions, as exercised by the merest glance of the
actor's eye, by the most casual inflexion in his voice,
we have so often had attested to our recognition
by mingled tears and laughter—tears and laughter
at those times often elicited from us simultaneously !
The particular scene from Triplet's pathetic history
here selected by M. Naudin for commemoration
thus in this really exquisite photograph, is, to
our thinking, the very scene of all that
ought to have been selected ! The Garret
Scene, that is, where Triplet is seated at the
poor table between his wife and his children—Peg
Woffington (charmingly represented by Mrs.
Stirling) standing over them, presiding cheerily at
the little banquet of her own providing—Triplet's
fiddle and bow, the while, littered conspicuously
against the champagne basket in the foreground !
An impressive and most touching group this forms,
altogether, and one that will be dearly welcome
to all who have learnt to appreciate one of the
few True Artists yet left to us upon the stage.
Number Nine of Naudin's Portfolio ought to com-
mand an immense circulation both to-morrow (Satur-
day), the 15th instant, and on Monday, the 17th, at
the Crystal Palace--constituting as it does one of the
most charming souvenirs there could possibly be of
the Royal Dramatic College Fête of this present
season down at Sydenham.

On Tuesday last the marriage of the Hon.
Maurice Wingfield to Mary Agnes, youngest daughter. of
Mr. James Block, and sister of Lady Sherborne and Mrs.
l'opham, was solemnised at St. George's, Hanover-square.