The Sun.
London, England, 1838-12-27 00:00:00

INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 2 VoLs.

Bentley London, 1838.
These volumes are__ written in a cheerful, intelligent spirit ;
d. if they do mitten us anything absolutely new respecting
1.
eece, Turkey, and Russia, accounts of which countries
e constantly issuing from the press, yet they abound in
o,,,hic descriptions, some of which—that of the ascent,
er; nlatance of the Acropolis of Corinth—would do no dis-
T,"it even to the classic e
pen of a Eustace or a Matthews,
" writer, an American gentleman, named Stephens,
p„Btruelr. the soil" of Greece at Missolonghi, though not in
b::Ataost agreeable manner, for he "literally stuck in the
V"
.for some time, and was' not without considerable dia.
thtorced on shore by the aid of long fishing-poles. Of
Ote town of Missolonglii, for ever celebrated as the scene
Lord Byron's death, we are informed that it is in the
o st Pitiable state of decay—in fact a mere ruin, with little
sii.t!,° chance of regeneration. Mr. Stephens, consequently,
`‘'le but a shortstay in it, and then hurried on to Athens,
an 08e
arc.,tecturai, remains struck him more forcibly than
th:
(similar ruins he had ever witnessed. Here he heard of
brat Maid of Athens," whom " Childe Harold" has cele-
s, ad in one of his earliest lyrics, and of whom he says,
Nu_ Tine the Maid was almost an imaginary being, some-
141bng fanciful, a creation of the brain, and not a corporeal
The'tance, to have a little urchin of a boy. But so it was.
,Maid of Athens is married ! She had a right to marry,
lifeno übt ; and it is said that there is poetry in married
now; and doubtless she is a much more interesting person
she .than the Maid of Athens at thirty-six could be ; but
t, Is married to a Scotchman, yes, the Maid is now Mrs.
11..lackt wife of George Black, head of the police, and she
04ar several little Blacks!" This seems to have shocked
,siL.Arnerican traveller " pretty considerably," but his
t,t, rat f.plitisrq wore more outraged by the sight of
te.°ll°wing ;advertisement which was printed in a Greek
the q'aPer The public lAr e hereby informed, that on
nineteenth instant, an Omnibus will commence running

between Athens and the Pyra2us, and will continue to do
so every day at certain fixed hours, until further notice.
The Omnibus starts from the corner of the Hermes and
Eolus-streets at Athens, and from the bazaar at the Pyraeus,
and will wait five minutes at each place. Small parcels and
packages May be sent by this conveyance at a moderate
charge. Smoking cannot be allowed in the Omnibus, nor
can dogs be admitted!" Imagine a London-built Omnibus
with a Greek cad behind it, in the sacred city of
the Plato's, the Socrates's, the Pericles's, and the Aspa-
sia's ! What an insult to the genius loci! Quitting Athens,
Mr. Stephens started off for Asia Minor, where he visited
the plain of Troy, and thence departed for Constantinople.
Having sufficiently explored the wonders of this Imperial
City, he coasted along the Black Sea ; halted at Odessa,
one of the most flourishing of the Euxine ports ; and after-
wards visited Moscow and St. Petersburg, which he de-
srjribes in an easy, unexaggerated style. We have been
•.nuch pleased with this portion of his travels ; but, indeed,
his vo!umes throughout are full of entertaining matters of
information.

THE CHRISTIAN'S COMPANION.
Dorton, London, 1838.

This cheap and elegant little volume, which is most ap-
propriately styled " The Christian's Companion," contains
a selection of passages from the works of Archbishop
L4•ighton, and Dr. Owen, Vice Chancellor of Oxfcrd,
both of whom stood foremost among the divines of their
day, and the former of whom was considered by Dr.
Johnson—no mean authority—as one, of the soundest
thengical writers this country ever produced. The selec-
tior is made wish great judgment.

S E L 111 A.
Smith, London, 1838

A Poem modelled on the Walter Scott style, and dis-
playing, like most imitations, just that order of poetic
ability, which, as Horace assures us, neither Gods, men,
nor columns allow. It is, in truth, a merely respectable
performance, correct in metre, and amiable in sentiment.

THEATRES.

DRURY-LANE,

The Drury-lane celebration of Christmas-tide and time
commenced last night (after the two first acts of Bellin?s
Sonnambula), with the display of a new grand comic pan-
tomime, entitled Harlequin and Jack Frost ; or, Old Goody
Hearty. The story is, according to custom, founded upon
one of our popular nursery tales, and made up of that
blended mixture of marvel and romance, with grotesque-
ness and absurdity, which has impressed the imagination
and tickled the fancy of every rising generation ever since
pantomime's were invented—and generations born to rise.
The overture introducing Jack Frost to the juveniles was,
to coin a phrase, " put together popularly," by bringing in
snatches of familiar tunes dearly loved by the merry mobs
of London, and accordingly" Rory O'More," " Jim Crow,"
and "Sick a gittin' up stairs," were fairly shaken hands with
by the tremendous gallery audience. The appropriate Jack
Frost opening, too, of " My lodging is on the cold ground,"
was encored. We may here add that the general management
of the music all through reflected credit upon Mr. Eliason.
The first scene opens with the dwelling near the North
Pole, of Druda, the Titania of the fairies in that cold
region, who of course exercises all power there and there-
after—and there is a graceful starry dance of her fairy train
by the northern lights, which makes favourable " first im-
pressions." Then comes the magic story. There is a
King (Mr. Howell), who has a sister, the Princess Hump-
tia Dumptia (Wieland), who will succeed him if he dies
unmarried, and who is still, after a fashion, his Queen—for
she lords it well, and plays the vixen with dexterous absur-
dity. For this kind of prowess she is hated by the Court
and people, who advise their Monarch
" To marry with a wife as soon as may be,
And bless his subjects with a little ba-by"—
On whichoccasion his Majesty repeats the old joke of She-
ridan, and says, " If I am to take a wife whose wife shall I
take ?" This point, however, as soon settled, for Old Goody
Hearty (Madame Simon) has two daughters, in whom
the Fairy Queen (Miss Forde) takes an interest—and
Blanche (Mr. F. Fenton), the eldest of these is des-
tined by her for the wife of the King. After this am-
bitious woman has got a King for a husband, there
are all sorts of pantomimic rows got up between her
and the Princess Humptia Dumptia—such as a fight
for a crown, and other similar illustrations of female
quarrel, in which other characters are not lost sight of.
For instance, there is the Chamberlain (Mr. Simpson),
who having the same name, and not an unsimilar office,
made it a joke to dress and look to the life like his late re-
spected namesake, the master of the ceremonies at Vauxhall.
The appearance of a " baby colonel" also afforded a laugh-
able burlesque, and we heard a Frenchman in our neigh-
bourhood jeering at him as the " pantomimic grandson of
Louis Philippe." But revenons a nos moutons, the new-
made Queen is unmade presently, and the squalls of royalty
de-royalised, until Druda, the fairy, comes in and settles
the business of avenging Blanche, by turning her King ex-
husband into Harlequin, her sister Rose into Columbine ;
her ex-sister-in-law, Princess Humptia Dumptia, into
a Clown, and the ex-Lord High Chancellor (Mr. Elliot)
into a Pantaloon. Now, of course, commence the
tricks and transformations, varied and vivified by the
droll and clever antics of Wieland from beginning to end.
Before the corner of Windmill-street a piano is turned into
a coffee-shop—horse-beans are substituted for coffee—jalap
for treacle—the beverage brewed, and the internals of
tile customers demented accordingly. Finally, Windmill-
street itself becomes a windmill, and Wieland is taken up,
and whirled round by the sails. The mill pun is continued,
and there is a brown jar, upon two wooden legs, sur-
mounted with a young Mill-stone, topped with a 4'
. we r-
shovel, and clothed in a cloak and cap, which
as man as it
is thus dressed like an old woman, walks
'like an old woman
off the stage. The mill is claan-
aed into a
,flotoeogarclon
and nursery-house and grog
.ids; the little children come
out of the nursery ; the
clown and Pantaloon throw them
into tile hot-bed, there, 4 course, they directly grow
up ! We 11;tve then a 'actor's shop, kept by Mr. Killem,
with q".:dck medicine ptacards, next door to an undertaker's,
Mr.. 6ihellem; and the doctor thinks proper to intimate by
ra bill, that he has no connection with the next shop. He,
however, belies this : for, being presently called upon to
cure Clown of a bruised face, he very dexterously decapitates
him entirely ; and his head is only safely afterwards re-instated
upon his shoulders by the application of " Holloway's Uni-
versal Ointment," a skit, of course, upun Holloway's cements
There is then a coffin scene, in which Undertaker makes play.
Clown is measuredand laid down, but the saollin changes into a
box ; so that when it is taken off, they are carrying one
trunk away in another ! There are some smart hits at
general quackery about this part of the pantomime. We
have next an imitation of Yates, and a skit at the Bayst•
deres ; but the speech that is made is not witty enough,
nor did the whole scene make the expected impression,
though the burlesque Bayadere swallowed a red hot poker,
which ought to have pleased the galleries. A mock Van
Amburgh academy, for brute taming, followed, without
making a hit, and in its turn was suceeeded by the real
Simon Pure with the real lions, who was immensely ttpu
plauded. Some more jokes were then tried, A cock was
put upon the stage as a New Morning Herald. A book-
seller's shop illustrated Pope by turning him into a Guy
Fawkes of the Vatican—produced Annuals in, the guise of
Jacks-in-the-Green—and allowed a host of children to rush
from his shop to show that he let out the periodicals. A box i
of Murphy's Almanacs also became transplanted into a tin of
hot potatoes, which was fair with Frost. Another attraction
was now introduced in the persons of the Lehmann and
Winther families, who varied for a short time the tone of
the exhibition. They were not in the commencement well
received, though they performed some really clever tricks,
and the Cupid and Columbine were interesting little people.
Some of the transformations in this episode of the entertaltr.
rnent were good. An egg was laid by a cock in a 11 Maw
manner—a Cupid's boat sailed away with effect—an old
man in white followed in a washing-tub, with his handker-
chief for a sail, and some kind friends on slThre blowing him
along with bellows. The same pars afterwards emerged
":I.aate—trees were transformed
from the belly of a fished-up
giants, and so forth ; and the into ogres—giant-oaks
man in white had, 'mg person divided in a box, his legs and
body malting their exit on one •sido of the stage, and his
head and shoulders on the other. Next the scene changes to a
frost fair on the Thathes,tvith ships, and boats and booths, and
an ox roasting and men skating, and snow-balls flying, and a
bright, hilarious, busy, bustling turmoil, full of motion, ani-
mation, and fuss. In the midst of this the tight ropes are
fixed, and Iwan de Winther as Zephyr, and Fanny as Flora,
dance agilely, gracefully, and beautifully a pas-de-deu.r.
The great cheering they received did not surpass their great
merit. Iwan then danced alone on the tight rope, and per
formed some truly wonderful feats with a pliancy of body,
a strength and activity the most remarkable we have ever
seen, blended with the ease, grace, and expression of the
higher spirit of the art. Your Jumpers are seldom Coulons,
nor your Columbines Taglionis. After the breaking up
of the fair, and the display of Jack Frost's icicled cavern,
the charm of the pantomime is dissolved by the Queen
Fairy in the usual way, and the whole exhibition winds
up with a brilliant, gorgeous, and magnificent general
tableau, full of the crowning effects of melodrama, and really,
in point of scenery and arrangement, splendidly produced.
Take it all together, Mr. Bunn appears to have spared
neither pains" nor expense in the getting up of this pan-
tomime. The scenery is all good—the features of the lions
and the rope-dancing curious and attractive—and there are
some clever jokes. There is not enough broad fun in it,
however, and it is too long,. It wants to be curtailed, and a
little more merry spice thrown into the Christmas mixture.
But, after all, there is nothing in the pantomimes to criticise
though we arc obliged to talk so much about them to cur
holiday friends. And though perhaps a little more noise,
wit, and sparkle, would add live blood to the Drury-lane

exhibition, yet the world who wish to be amused may go and
see it with a fair certainty of attaining that main object.
The audience last night was excessively crowded, and there
was a good deal of disapprobation expressed at some points
of the pantomime, but from its perseverance, and sonietimes
from its injustice, we think it came from people who did not
wish to be amused.