The Sun.
London, England, 1866-09-26 00:00:00

New Editions of Famous Books

Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature—recently ap -
pearing anew, in a periodical re-issue of it by the
Messrs. George Routledge and Sons, in sixpenny
parts or numbers—has now at length been published
complete as a goodly three-and-sixpenny volume,
one of the very cheapest volumes, surely, that ever
yet has been printed. Affecting to be, aczording
to its most happy title, no more than a mere com-
pilation of some among the unnumbered Curiosities
of Literature—it is in itself a very hive of know-
ledge, richly stored with honeycombs of wit and
wisdom, and all of it the work not as of a swarm of
bees, but of one solitary labourer—of one whose la-
bour was a labour of love--of one whose whole
blameless career was, as it were, a beautiful realisa-
tion or fulfilment of the innocent industry inculcated
by the most famous and familiar of all old Isaac
Watts's lyrical apologues. Among the leaves of his
library, this other Isaac was " gathering honey all
the day"—and half the night—through the chief
part of a long lifetime : and the most luscious accu-
mulation of all that honey he has here stored up in
the very noblest of all his honeycombs—the
" Curiosities of Literature." That one work is in
itself a library. It is better even than that—con-
taining within it, as it does, the culled and excerpted
excellences of many libraries, of the libraries of all
ages, of all languages, and of all literatures. It
is a book to treasure up on our bookshelves. It
is a book ever welcome at our elbow, and one
that may be taken up at any hour and dipped into
anywhere as an entertaining and most instructive
table book. It never palls upon us. We can read
it over and over again—and this, because it is racy,
thoughtful, elevating, and delightful throughout.
Lockhart's Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, illustrated
by George Cruikshank, has just now been re-issued
from the press by Mr. Tegg, in a new one-volumed
edition of 643 pages, elegantly bound in blue cloth
and richly emblazoned with golden bees, the im-
perial diadem, and a fac-simile of the autograph of the
Great Napoleon. The work—which, by the way, was
originally written by J. G. Lockhart for " Murray's
Family Library"—has never appeared (to our know-
ledge at any rate) in a handsomer form; and, see-
ing that extraordinary cheapness is the rather
singularaccornpaniment of this same external beauty
of the present edition, to say nothing of the work's
own intrinsic excellenceasan epitome of the astound-
ing career of the modern Sesostris, it is likelier now
than ever, as a compact record of the valour, the
genius, and the mighty achievements of Napoleon
the Great, to win for itself a wider and wider popu
larity.

Original Penny Readings by George M. Fenn—is
a little shilling volume (first issued by Messrs.
Routledge), consisting of a most amusing contribu-
tion of that writer to the pages of Chambers's
Journal, Once a Week, and All the Year Round.
A Set of Shilling and Sixpenny Song-books, Edited
by J. E. Carpenter—have also just been given to the
public by the same publisher under all sort of names
—Comic, National, Humorous, Fireside, Fashion-
able, Convivial, and we know not what else ; some
good, hardly one bad, but a great many, it must be
confessed, very indifferent.

Timor
6112

HER MAJESTY.

BALMORAL, Sept. 23.
The Queen, accompanied by Princess Christian,
drove out yesterday morning, and went out in the
afternoon with the Princess of Wales and Prince
Arthur.

Princess Louise, attended by Lady Churchill,
went out driving.

The Earl of Derby had the honour of dining With
the Queen and the Royal family last night.

Sept. 24.
The Queen, Princess Louise, and Prince Arthur,
attended by Lady Churchill and the Hon. Major-
General hood, were present at Divine service yes-
terday at the parish church of Crathie.
The Rev. Dr. Boyd officiated.
The Prince and Princess of Wales dined with the
Queen last night.

The Hon. Mrs. Coke and the Earl of Derby had
also the honour of being invited to dinner.

Her Royal Highness the Princess Mary Adelaide
and his Highness the Prince Teck aro expected to return
from the Continent towards the end of the ensuing mouth.
the Earl and Countess Vane were prevented by
illness in their family from joining the party assembled at
Dunrobin Castle to meet their Royal Highnesses the Prince
and Princess of Wales.

The Countess Cowper and family come to town
on Friday. On the following day the marriage of Lady
Adiue Cowper, her ladyship's second daughter, with the
lion. Julian Fane, is to take place at St. James's Church,

The Countess of Portsmouth and family have
left Cataldi's Hotel for Devonshire.

Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean at Glasgow.

We are delighted to see that these distinguished
artistes are now starring it with great eclat in the
provinces—the fact of their doing so giving assur-
ance that the health of the tragedian is in a fair
way towards its re-establishment. The following
account of their appearance is taken from the North
British Daily Mail of yesterday :
" According to announcement these distinguished
artistes made their appearance last night on our
Glasgow boards. Their reception, we are glad to
say, was warm, honest, and heart-stirring—such as
became their eminence in their profession, the in-
calculable services they have rendered to it, and the
well deserved popularity which they have long en-
joyed. The house was crowded from floor to ceiling,
the treasurer having to perform the very disagreeable
duty of intimating that "no more money could be
taken." Both Mr. and Mrs. Kean were received
with rapturous and prolonged applause.
" It is an old story now to attempt any recital of
the extraordinary devotion and high success with
which Charles Kean has striven to elevate the stage,
and to make the drama more purely attractive. His
whole life-time, since as a stripling he first came be-
fore the foot-lights in the decline of his father's fame,
has been given with conscientious assiduity to this
purpose. By social position, by personal character, by
a commanding talent which (surely a noble triumph)
has conquered rancorous jealousy and dislike, he has
long entitled himself to the first rank among actors.
In his own vacation there has never been a more
striking illustration of Carlyle's dictum that, after
all, genius consists in the power of taking uncommon
pains. Under the influence of a high idea he has
wrought with all his heart. Assigning to himself
a clear aim and well-defined limits, his success has
been slowly and carefully earned by dint of the
most elaborate and painstaking care.
His greatest qualities as an actor are remarkably
exemplified in his impersonation of Louis the
Eleventh. By common consent it is allowed to be, in
subtlety of conception, in carefulness of study, and
in vigour of expression, • the most masterly por-
traiture of the kind that has been seen, at any rate
on the British stage, since Macready's Richelieu.
The character is one that must tax the self-restraint
no less than the expressive powers of its interpreter.
In its swiftly varying moods it sometimes approaches
to the verge of what might be deemed almost pan-
tomime. Not one man in a thousand could depict
it without running either in the Charybdis of can-
eAture or on the Scylla. of inanity and tameness.
For the Louis which M. Casimer Delavigne has put
into his play is that same Louis with whom Sir
Walter has made us all so familiar in " Quentin
Durward"— the Louis of the chroniclers as well of
the novelists—of Brantome and De Comines as well
as of Scott. He seems a mere bundle of eccentric
and impossible inconsistencies—such a character as
no one could either create or sustain—awakening
at every turn uncertainty, curiosity, and sur-
prisedness. What evil is there that may
not be believed of him—a parricide in
design, a fratricide in fact, the sovereign who slew
four thousand nobles without a trial by cruel tor-
tures, the gross sensualist for whom the Cent Nou-
velles Nouvelles were compiled ? With what folly
may he not stand chargeable—the devotee who gave
the Blessed Virgin military rank as Colonel of his
Guards, who invented the prayer called the
" Angelus," who wore as a sacred thing the vest of
St. Peter had on when he first said mass at Rome,
who carried in his cap those little leaden images of
saints before one or other of which he would de-
voutly kneel in what Sir Walter Scott describes as
one " of those ague fits of devotion which gave one
of the mo.. sagacious monarchs who ever reigned
the appearance of a madman ?" What baseness
might not be expected from the man who was at once
a poltroon and a gallant, the dupe of fortune-tellers
and impostors, yet a match for the keenest wits of
his time, in love with sin, but in constant fear of
death and hell ? Add to these characteristics others
—such as keen insight, wide views, large forecast,
intrepid courage—which we know must have be-
longed to the man who humbled the power of
feudalism, extended direct taxation, fostered the
growth of commerce, and first brought into recog-
nition the existence of a middle class—and one may
have some idea of the psychological puzzle which
Mr. Kean undertakes to depict.
No one will say that he fails to impress upon it
the features of a distinct and self-consistent indivi-
duality. In a manner which one feels to be at once
natural, and yet the consummation of art, he ren-
ders the blending of motive, the sudden alternations
of mood, the subtle self-deception, the cautious self-
regard, the utterly craven fear, the fearful torture
living, and the morbid craving for life. His power
was established, in the judgment of the critical
spectator, before he was five minutes on the stage-
From first to last he has the most perfect command
of himself, and directs all his powers to help the
illusion he represents. The most intent regard
could not have detected a movement of attitude or
feature that was not entirely appropriate. Withal
there was an ease, or an appearance of ease, which
contributed in au essential degree to the satisfactory
effect. The performance was a copy of nature close
enough to satisfy the most ardent pre-Raphaelite,
yet it was one instinct with vividness and reality.
It
might be hard to determine which scene was best
where all were excellent. The death, managed 30
it was with consummate skill, probably impressed
the audience less than the admirably acted par
where Nemour's destruction is suggestively cow-
manded to Tristran. •

Mrs. Kean in the little part of Marthe was veil
graceful and piquant; Miss Chapman was spirited
and galldnt as the Dauphin ; and a word of very
special commendation is due to the mannerin 14,1)01
Miss Leclerq filled the part of Maria. Mr. Cali'
cart's Nemour had all the merits, and all the faults/
of his usual impassioned and declamatory style'
while Mr. Everett was as dark and gloomy a villain'
as heart could desire.
The piece is to be alternated through the wed:
(except on Saturday, when the Kean party do not
appear) with Shakspere's " Henry the Eighth*"
We cannot doubt their favourable opening will be
the prelude to a highly Successful engagement.

BOAT-RACE ON THE TYNE.—On Monday afterl
noon a rowing match for .£3O a side, from the High Levey
Bridge, Newcastle, to the Scotswood Suspension Bri°g
four miles, took place between J. H. Clasper, of DurhalTh
and J. Percy, of Newcastle, two well-known river athlee.tes•
After a good race Percy won by six lengths, compltlng
the distance in 27m. 375.