The Sun.
London, England, 1849-05-29 00:00:00

SPIItIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS,

TIMES.—It was but the other day that the British
public were startled with the news that a senEeless mob,

excit,d and led by a bankrupt faction, had burnt the
Parliament House of our principal colony, with. ita

archives and invaluable lib;aries; and had grossly in-
sulted her Majesty's representative, on about as empty
and beggarly a pretext as ever inflated the lungs of
an agitator, or filled the hands of a ruffian. It cer-
tainly did not occur to us that so extraordinary
an incident was likely soon to be followed by a more
marvellous and more painful affair. Such, however,
is the unhappy purport of the intelligence brought
over with unexampled rapidity by the last ocean
mail. To our English readers wa shall seem to speak
fables when we relate that on the pretence of an
utterly groundless quarrel got up at New York be-
tween the respective admirers of Messrs. Macready
and Forrest, the theatre in which the English tra-
gedian was performing has been besieged, stormed, and
all bat destroyed, audience and all, by an infuriated mob,
which did not desist till after a collision with an over-

powering military force, in which more than► twenty
lives were lost, and many were seriously wounded.
Certain it is that the most populous city of the New
World has for a day or two exhibited the aspect of those
European capitals which were last year successively the
scenes of revolution and civil war. Cprdons of troops,

• -
skilful operations, guns loaded with grape, deadly d s-
charges of mudtetry, barricades carried, are results that
we associate with ancient grievances, and new Constitu-
tions. In the city of New York they confer au adventi-
tious importance on the wounded vanity of an American
actor, who, having tried to do what no living being can
do to the perfect satisfaction of an English audience,
and what it only tolerates in two or three men of an age,
did not do what nobody else could do, and did not
attain to the rank of the two or three tolerated per-

formers of Shakspeare's principal characters. To
the English reader it is perfectly unnecessary
to defend Mr. Macready from the guilt of Mr.
Forrest's comparative want of success. on the boards of
this metropolis. On this side the Atlantic it will hardly
be credited that the proprietors and editors of London
journals have been required to send over their solemn
affidavies " that they did not conspire against Mr.
Forrest, did not take bribes against him, or admit inte-
rested critiques, or bow to Mr. Macready's dictation. It
will hardly be credited that whole columns of the
American papers are full of letters pro and con. on the
question, whether Mr. Macready's malignity did not
pursue Mr. Forrest from the principal to the minor
theatres, from the metropolis to the provinces, from
Great Britain to France, and from Europe to America.
We will not attempt to repeat ever so briefly what will
be set down at once as the reveries of a monomania.
The whole event is not only groundless in fact; it is
utterly irreconcilable with the usage and taste of this
country. If Mr. Forrest could establish his charges of
inhospitality, persecution, subornation, and Heaven
knows what, against Mr. Macready, he would drive that
gentleman from every stage in this country,
as well as from the Opera House at New
York. We in England know no such practice.
There is rivalry and jealousy enough, as there ever must
be when diversity of tastes conspires with an opposition

of interests, and when personal considerations axe allied
with the mysteries of the beautiful and sublime. But
these inevitable tumults of feeling arc confined to green-
rooms, to coteries, and as much as possible to the bosoms,
be they manly or fair, of the rivals in this keen though
graceful competition. Mr. Forrest has mistaken not so
much Mr. Macready as the dramatic and literary society
of this country when he imagines an organised attempt
to depreciate his merits emanating from any man high
in British estimati°n. Mr. Forrest has no reason what-
ever to suppose either that Americans in general lie
under a prejudice in tilt country, or that his own res
ception was not such as his credit at home entitled him
to expect, or that our native actors enjoy special favour
and protection. In the principal cities of the United
States Mr. Forrest often plays Macbeth and Lear to half-
filled benches; and the house only overflows when he ap-
pears as a champion of the masses in the characters of
Cade, Spartacus, or Metamora. He has become " the pet
" of the Bowery boys," iu consequence of the agrarian
spirit which breathes through his prizs representations;
but " his Shaksperian characters," says a Boston writer,
" are not those with which he is identified in the public
opinion." It has been precisely the same in this coun-
try. Mr. Forrest was admired in Metamora, and if the
admiration was not quite so rapturous or so productive
as on the soil of the savage hero, that is not to be won•
dered at. He was not admired in his Shaksperian cha-
racters. But Mr. Forrest ought to know that many
others than he have tried this high walk, and tried it in
vain. To a Macready, or a Kean, there are twenty who
have made a desperate push for that rank, and imme-
diately sunk into the crowd, under bitter ridicule or
chilling indifference, Our theatrical annals suffi
ciently answer the imputation that we are jealous of
American merit, as we showed last Thursday, by a
reference to the success of Messrs. Hackett and Hill,
Mrs. Mowatt, and Miss Cushman, wild triumphed the
same evening that Mr. Forrest suffered his alleged
" defeat." But where is the prejudice in favour of
native talent? Two great London theatres are lost to
the drama for want of encouragement. At the present
moment we have two Italian operas, a German opera,
and a French theatre; and it is only by the greatest
exertions that a few small theatres can be kept open for
native talent and the vernacular tongue. If Mr. Mac-
ready possessed the spell of popularity, he would rescue
Drury-lane or Covent-garden from horsemanship, tier.
man operas, concerts, bazaars, and miscellaneous per-
formances. And as for Shakspere, it is only—now and
then that he has a run of public favour. Last year the
Queen gave him a fresh start by attending in state Mac-
ready's farewell representation of Cardinal Wolsey; and
Shakspere's plays have since been all the fashion from
the Haymarket to Sadler's Wells; but the taste of the
metropolis does not often range so high as the " legiti-
mate drama," and, as we have already observed, it
is not everybody—not more than two or three in
an age—that we care to see in the almost impossible
characters of Hamlet or Othello, Lear or Macbeth.
But other causes have contributed to the catas-
trophe thanks. Forrest's ridiculous quarrel—causes
which the journals of New York appear rather back-
ward to recognise. Unfortunately there is a class ques-
tion in the affair; and nowhere are class questions so
terrible as in Republics. "In New York," says the
writer we have quoted above,—
" More than in most other large cities, there are two
distinct classes of people, whose opinions, tastes, and
manner of life are almost diametrically opposite. The
class known as the Bowery boys, although not without
their good traits of character, are naturally the opponents
of the higher or more wealthy classes who reside in the
vicinity of Waverly-place, and who pay high prices for
pews in fashionable churches, and sustain with their pre-
sence the Italian Opera. The Bowery boys have a na-
tural dislike and enmity to the frequenters of the Opera
House. The very fact that no person was admitted
within it unless in full dress and with white kids was
enough to arouse the passions of those men who nightly
fid the pits of the Bowery and the Chatham, to witness
the performance of highly wrought melodramas, in their
red shirts, and with their pockets filled with pea. nuts
and pig tail."
The Opera House, with its evening dress, and no ad-
mission under a dollar, always unpopular, was an addi-
tional crime in Mr. Macready. Ho had just returned
from a successful engagement at Baltimore, Boston,
New Orleans, and even Philadelphia, since the begins
ning of this quarrel, but he had not yet encountered
the mob element in such fearful force and antagonism.
Indeed, the outrages he suffered were such as we cannot
ascribe to Mr. Forrest and his friend'. When we read
of a heavy piece of wood and four chairs being hurled
on the stage on the previous Monday, we are forced to
suspect something more than a theatrical squabble. On
the fatal night the mob was proceeding to the actual de-
struction of the theatre. This was the work of a
" social" democracy pulling down everything to its own
level. The result.is lamentable indeed, for the wound
cannot but rankle. It is, however, consolatory to reflect
that no blame appears to rest either on the authorities
or on Mr. Macready, or on his friends. After the
violence of the previous. Monday, when he was,
in fact, driven from the theatre, he wished to conclude
his engagements, but his friends, among whom is the
illustrious name of Washington Irving, drew up an ad-
dress, urging him, for the credit of the city and nation,
not to give way. He yielded to their advice. As for
the measures taken by the authorities, though they pre-
sent a striking contrast to the details of the Montreal
riot, and though they manifest a decision and an effect
beyond what we have lately been accustomed to witness
on the part of standing armies, emperors, and king",
they do not appear to have exceeded the necessity of the
crisis. Order was to ba restored; liberty, life, and pro.
perty secured; and the good name of the union estab-
lished. When these were menaced by a desperate mob,
force was to be encountered by force. The troops could
not throw paving stones, so they returned the volley
with bullets. The consequences of a deadly collision
are inevitable, and attach to those who nrovoke it. We
cannot, however, regard the catastrophe without some
apprehension. - Already wicked attempts have been
made by incendiary placards to link the " aristocracies"
of New York and England, and represent Mr. Macready
as establishing a British tyranny in the United States.
The idea is too gross even for the " Bowery boys," hut
the excitement, supplied as it is with so much anti-
British material, is too likely to be renewed, unless
all the good sense of the union is exercised to extin-
guish it.
As' I

THE IRISH STATE PRISONERS.—The doubts ex•
pressed—or professed—by some persons in Ireland as to
the disposal of the state prisoners, Smith O'Brien,
Meagher, and M'Manus, whose appeal against their
conviction has been finally decided by the House of
Lords, are entirely misplaced, or at all events premature.
It is impossible to know or to answer for what may be
done hereafter, under other circumstances or in a dif-
ferent state of the public mind; but there can be no room
whatever for doubt that the remission of the extreme
sentence will, for the present at least, be accompanied by
the condition of banishment for life. To suppose any-
thing ;else would be to conclude that all other political
offenders less guilty than they, who are at this moment
suffiring the several degrees of punishment annexed to
their crimes, should also be released from all further ex-
piation of their offences. At the 'same time we repeat
that the Royal clemency being ut all times paramount
can be exercised at any future time, when it may be
considered safe or expedient. Amongst the arguments
against the punishment of death, it has always been
urged in favour of secondary punishments that in time
they can be mitigated or atoned. It would be, there-
fore, most inexpedient and improper in every point of
view to limit the future exercise of the Royal preroga-
tive, whatever imperious reasons may exist at the pre-
sent moment against its further extension.--Sunday
paper.
THE BRITISH MUSEUM.—The number of visitors
to this national institution yesterday was 17,370, being a
considerable decrease as compared with the number on
Whit-Monday last year,