The Sun.
London, England, 1870-03-26 00:00:00

TOWN TALK.

(From the Wutern Mail of this Morning.)
LONDON, Friday Evening.

The Commons, denied the possibility of Lenten
fare in " short commons" (which would clearly be a
luxury), ate chastening their spirits over the grinding
labours of committee. There is the consideration in
committee of. the new Coercion Bill, euphemistically
entitled the Peace Preservation Bill; .and there is the
tolerably dry work involved in the prospective dis-
cussion, cause by clause, cf the Land Tenure Bill, also
in committee. If these two ordeals are insufficient
in the way of 1 atliamentary maceration, there is the
anticipative work of the House in regard to Mr.
Forster's Bill in reference to National Education. If
these are not enough in the self-scourgings of the
House, both pre sent and prospective, there are
seasonably appreciable knots in the thongs of the
Committee discipline, so to speak, in the instance
of such conspicuous participators in the toil of com-
mittee-debating, as the member for Mayo county,
who moved the amendment on Monday evening, and
the member for North Warwickshire, by whom that
loud-talking, strident-voiced arguer was followed
most lugubriously.
But for Mr. Ayrton's impertinence in answering
questions addressed to him in his capacity
as Chief Commissioner of Public Works, I don't
know what would become of us in the dead-
level dulness now weighing down the Commons
House in Parliament assembled. The right hon.
member for the Tower Hamlets has got the knack of
treading on a favourite corn poignantly. "If any
man's foot is before you," says Thackeray somewhere,
in one of his deliciously ridiculous touches of cynic-
ism, "trample on it." Mr. Ayrton, coaching up his
rather flim knowledge upon Art, has taken literally,
and acted upon, this dictum of Michel Angelo—
Titmarsh. And he is always at it. In season and
out of season he is treading on the toes of his ques-
tioners—knowing precisely where the shoe pinches—
picking out, by a sort of infernal instinct, the most
petted corn and the most cherished bunion. And, in
the absence of any other excitement, the House seems
rather to like it than otherwise. Every fresh im.
pertinence of Mr. Ayrton's it welcomes with a kind
of a surprised burst of laughter—halt as much as to
say to the victim, " There you had it !" half as though
to say to the victimiser, " It's like his impudence."
For all that, the general sense of dulness weighs on
the House like a nightmare, insomuch that when the
Premier announced early on Monday evening the
intention of her Majesty's Government (in conside-
ration of the lateness of Easter this year) to revert
to the old custom of having the longer holidays at
Easter, instead of at Whitshntid.e, the crowded house
cheered like a parcel of schoolboys. The intimation,
it seemed to me as I listened to those cordial and
prolonged " h:ar, hears" from both sides, was wel-
comed as a foretas' eof the a'rearly longed-for August
break-up for the grouse shooting.
Occasionally, there cornea to me through the
Transatlantic post a budget of papers full of the
wildest ex. fa,vagancies, blasphemies, and scurrilities
of the most'incendiary character, purporting to be
descriptive of the sayings and doings of George
Francis Train, of America. For tall-talking, for
bunkum, for high fallutin, there surely never was
anything comparable to the out-come of Mr. Train.
A creature like G. F. T. was never " raised" outside
the United States. Anyone lecturing as he lectures,
anywhere else but in America, would be—not lynched,
but—simply and very summarily bonneted.

A successor to Ltmartine is about to be chosen to
the great poet's vacant post as one of the Forty of the
French Academy. Who is that succcssor ? M. Emile
011ivier, the virtual Prime Minister of France, or
head of the new Constitutional G overnment under the
regime of Napoleon 111. as a liberalised sovereign.
"ro-and-tweivy years ago M. 011ivier was induct d
into put liclife under the auspices of M. de Lamartiue.
It is in the Rat S 3 of things, therefore, that he shou'd
succeed to his pl:lce as an academician. Not that
the French Minister of Justice has any pretensions
to recognition as a notable con!ributor in any way
to literature. His one only literary pet formance, the
brochure entitled, " 19 Janvier," is only remarkable
as a demi-semi political manifesto—one as successful,
as it eventually happened, in lifting the advocate
who penned it into power as the leader of an admi-
nistration, as that last military demonstration of
Prim's which conducted the latter into Madri I as,
there also, in his turn, master of the situation.
'•

If in that eloquent orator and brilliant con•titu-
tionalist, Em leollivier, a so far suitable successor may
hare been found at the board of the French Academy,
for M. de Lamartine—where can the academicans
hope to find a fitting substitute for M. de Montalem-
bert? That illustrious man, breathing his last in
his sixtieth year, it may interest you to know looked
in reality at least ten years younger. Slightly below
the middle height, and delicate in his proportions, he
nevertheless bore anything but the appearance of a
dying man, so great was the animation of his manner
and the vivacity of his expression. His head was
covered with grizzled hair that was thinning slightly
(without
worn g
iv indignation of baldne.,s), and
was rathering any
longish. His face was smooth-
shaven,
leaving freely to view very regular fea-
tures, and a countenance altogether singularly hand-
some. In the Count de Montalembert there was
more than the great author, the great orator, and
the great man ; there was one whose whole soul
was fired, through and through, with the genius of
Christianity.

One of the griefs of the season is that Mr. Santley
has been relegated by the allied Directors of the two
Opera houses—meaning, of course, Mr. Mapleson,
of her Majesty's, and Mr. Gye, of the Royal Italian
at Govent Garden—to Drury-lane Theatre. No
doubt the company associated with the great Eng-
lish basso for the coming opera season at Drury-lane
is in many respects worthy of him, worthy that is,
of that association. But still, for all that, where
Titiens went, where the other leading members of
Mr. Mapleson's company went, there, by right, ought
to have gone Mr. Santley. He is one of the very
greatest living artists on the lyrical stage. There is
no basso of the time that can, for one moment, be
brought into comparison with him. Superb as a singer
all through his career, he has of late years become as
an actor entitled to our heartiest admiration. With
lkIar:o, with Titiens, with Adelina Patti, rather than
with any lesser stars, would the English public, lam
certain, have rejoiced to see Mr. Santley's name as-
sociated under the direction of the two great operatic

managers:
While our London Theatres are increasing and

multiplying, how is it, I marvel to myself sometimes,
that a great histrionic genius, who has delighted so
many of the capitals of Europe with his Shaksperian

impersonations, should never yet have appeared upon
the boards anywhere in the land of Shakspere? It

is said by competent judges that the young Italian
actor, Salviati, is, in characters like Hamlet and
Othello, simply matchless. Recently, all through
Germany, all through Italy, through France, through
Belgium, through Switzerland, I repeatedly heard of
the genius of the great tragedian Salviati; often
hoped, always longed, to see him ; never lighting
upon him, however, as ill-fortune would lave it.
And ever since, I have wondered to myself why some
distinguished caterer for the public, like Mr. Mitchell,
of 13oiid:street, has never thoaglit of introducing a
great Shaksperiau actor like Salviati to those who
are certainly the best qualified to appreciate his
genius, the playgoers of London. CJntinentally,
Salviati has the reputation of. immeasurably surpass-
ing histori, and of being akin even to the resplen-
dent genius of the incomparable tragedienne, Rachel.
If so, if he is anything equal to all this, he ought cer-
tainly to be brought, w.th the least further delay
possible, face to face with us Londoners.