The Sun.
London, England, 1861-11-27 00:00:00

MR. AND MRS. CHARLES MATHEWS
AT ROME.

The most delightful Actor of the Age—Charles Ma-
thews—on Monday appeared before a London Audience for
the first time as the giver of An Entertainment. What was

so familiar to the last generation is now therefore to become
familiar also to this; videlicet—MATHEWS AT HOME I
Theatrical Annalists will henceforth have additional reason
to celebrate quite as intimately together as they have ever
done those famous dramatists the Two Colmans, George
Colman the Elder and George Colman the Younger—those

inimitable monologists, the Two Mathews, Charles Ma-
thews the Elder and Charles Mathews the Younger. A
welcome to the last-mentioned we here give " with a heart
and a half"—as cordially as the crowded audience assembled

on Monday in Her Majesty's Concert Room in the Hay-
market gave him their greeting with many a ringing round

of acclamations.

If anyone ever had a doubt about Charles Mathews being
a favourite, a personal favourite of each member of the
Public at Large, that doubt might then have been effec-
tually dissipated. It must have done any man's heart
good to hear it. So spontaneous and earnest was the ap-
plause that welcomed the Entertainer and his accomplished
wife upon the rising of the curtain. For, although we

have spoken of Mr. Mathew;— and not inaccurately—as a
Monologist, just as we may say "his father was so before
him," he is yet something more than a monologist. Again
and again, throughout the evening, he has the stage en •
tirely to himself—his entertainment then being strictly a
Monologue. But repeatedly also throughout the evening
his soliloquies are agreeably intercepted by the entrance of
Mrs. Charles Mathews—when of course the Monologue
breaks into Duologue. And how well they act together,
how well they play thus into each other's hands, anyone
who longs for a hearty laugh can henceforth learn any day
in the week, literally at pleasure.
" Mathews at Home" now takes its place securely
among the most popular of our London Entertain-
ments. It is peculiarly welcome to us all now that poor
Albert Smith has disappeared from the scene—leaving a
hiatus that, ever since his premature and lamented death,

it will be considered no disparagement whatever either to
Mr. Wrodin or Mr. and Mrs. German Reed to say, has
sadly wanted filling up. Here, in truth, is at last recognis-
able that mysterious semething so often alluded to in mer-
cantile prospectuses as the long-looked-for desideratum.
We have attained it at length among our metropolitan
amusements, substantially and delightfully, in Mr. and
Mrs. Charles Mathews' AT HOME.

The Entertainment now given nightly under this name,
may be described as a Spoken and Illustrated Autobio-
graphy. And, in this respect, it is just unlike anything

that ever went before it. Mr. Charles Mathews, in fact,
hero tells the Story of his Life—recounts his recollections
and experiences. The printed programme calls them
"Reminiscences, in Bight Chapters." These eight chap-
ters being divided into two parts. Part I. entitled " The
Romance," Part 11. "The Reality." Beginning some-
thing after the fashion of David Copperfield, who heads the
first chapter of his personal history with these words, " I
am Born "—Charles Mathews starts from the date of his
birth, to wit, the 26th of December, 1803. It should have
been remarked, by the way, that, upon the rising of the

curtain, Mr. and Mrs. Mathews are discovered quite en
famille seated at the breakfast table At Home, in Gore
Lodge, Fulham. Their elegant sitting room there is, in
fact, the arena of the entertainment from beginning to end.
An extraordinary variety of exquisite little glimpses of
home and foreign scenery being intermitently opened up
to view through occasionally dis-parted curtains at the
back of the stage—revealing to us more illustrations of
the "At Home" than we care to number up, painted
by Mr. 0' Connor from Original Sketches by Mr.
Charles Mathews himself. Among these—there is his
father's charming little home-retreat of Ivy Cottage on
Highgate-hill—where, as a boy, Charles Mathews the
younger obtained his introduction to all the first wits of the
day—George Colman, Theodore Hook, Lord Alvanley,
James and Horace Smith, Sir Walter Scott, Coleridge,
Moore, Campbell, Charles Lamb, Leigh Hunt, and a crowd
of other celebrities, Afterwards, when he comes to describe
his excursion into Italy as one of the entourage of Lord
Blessington, we hear tell of others among his famous
friends and intimate acquaintance—including among them :
Lady Blessington, Count D'Orsay, Miss Power, Lord
Byron, Denon, Sir William Gell, Dr. Millingen, the Abbe
Campbell, and Sir William Drummond. We should have
liked to have heard more, by-the-bye, than the mere men-
tion of Lord Byron's name, as it were purely par paren-
these. Perhaps hereafter Mr. Mathews may interpolate
some allusion to the noble poet, comparable in its way—in
its picturesque and graphic vividness—to that graceful por-
traiture of Count Alfred D'Orsay, the incidental introduc-
tion of which elicited last evening so very cordial a wel-
come from the audience. The pictorial illustrations at this
part are introduced with an almost lavish abundance : com-
prising in the list of them—the Mole at Naples, the Villa
Arconati, the Scuola di San Marco, the Amphitheatre at
Pola, and the lovely Act Drop at the Marquis of Nor-
manby's private Teatro San Clemente at Florence. But
immeasurably beyond any pictorial delineation, are the per-
sonal illustrations, or embodiments of character, scattered
through this most varied and delightful Enteitainment.
Charles Mathews perhaps never showed himself to be a
more consummate artist than he did last night in his really
wonderful impersonations —first of all of RINALDO, a la
”i0,,tr4,1c0, !timing ArlJstOto
the lazzarani, declaiming, explaining, gesticulating, sing-
ing, with the volubility of an improvisatore—and secondly,
and beyond everything else, the gem of the whole evening,
to our mind, the ITALIAN STREET PREACHER I This last
being in truth a perfect marvel of earnest, graceful, impetu-
ous, impassioned declamation. Another, but a very different
character personated by Mr. Charles Mathews was in its
way too, very remarkable, viz., the provincial actor and ex •
manager, Barndoor Fowler, Esq., With Imitations of
Himself—that is of Charles Mathews in propria persona in
some of his more renowned characters, among them Sir
Charles Coldstream. The lady in her turn—and we are
certain she will be the last to find fault with us for giving
her gifted husband precedence in this record of the First
Night of Mathews at Rome—Mrs. Charles Mathews on her
side sustains to the full her reputation as a versatile and
accomplished artiste—representing in succession Master
Pumps, the blubbering school fag; A Lady's Maid under
Difficulties; Mrs. Dubbin, the irate landlady ; Miss Ophelia
Melrose, the tragic actress ; and, above all, a sort of Trans-
atlsntio Screamer, in the shape of Jemima Cox, the Yankee
Gal. How various the whole entertainment is may be yet
further conjectured, when we say that Charles Mathews
sings, among other things, a la Perlet, a charming chanson,
called Decant un Tuge Excellent, and his own sweet little
Welch love ditty, "Jenny Jones," and that he and Mrs.
Charles Mathews dance together with perfect grace and
agility the Tarantella Napolitana. "The Romance" of
these same personal recollections comes to a close about the
date of Mr. Mathews' first appearance upon the London
Stage as a Light Comedian, namely, on the 6th of Novem-
ber, 1835—after he has done dreaming of being a painter,
as he once did when wiling away a happy leisure time
with his friend, Sir Edwin Landseer, at the Duchess of
Bedford's hospitable Bothies of Glenfishie I Long after he
has done with his original profession—that of an atchitect,
a profession in which ho was ably tutored in the studio of
Augustus Pugin, the Great Gothic Revivalist. The sober
" Realities" of our Artist's theatrical experiences are not
by any means the least instructive, as they are also beyond
a doubt amongst the most amusing, of his personal recol-
lections, For his Father's sake—for his Wife's sake--for
his own sake—Charles Mathews the younger wins from us
that cordial applause that anyone might have pretty confi-
dently prophecied would be, could alone be, the meed of
his Entertainment. It seems an odd thing to welcome a
man at his own home—but we are here constrained to do
so nevertheless I We herewith welcome " Mathews At
Home" as earnestly and heartily as the public at large are
now safe to welcome him nightly so long as Mr. and Mrs.
Mathews shall continue to be At Home in the Haymarket.

Lady Alvanley has joined the circle meeting the
Duke and Duchess of Northumberland, at Alnwick Castle,
Northumberland.

Loss OF ANOTHER HULL STEAMER.—The news
of the loss of Messrs. Wilson's new steamer Hebe had
scarcely been received before another telegram reached
Messrs. Z. C. Pearson and Co. from Captain Vickerman,
announcing the loss of their steamer Beatrice, which was
only placed on the Rotterdam line on Sunday night, in
place of the steamer Enchantress, which was lost last week
with 16 hands. She had been engaged for some time past
in the Stettin trade, and was a favourite steamer on the
line. She was of about 500 tons burden, and of 70-horse
power. The telegram received states that the Beatrice, on
arriving at the Helvoet, was driven during a strong gale on
to the stone-pier there, rebounding from which she went on
to a bank, from which she slipped into deep water, and sank
in less than half-an-hour, her crew succeeding in saving
part of her cargo, and also themselves.
_ .

ENLARGING THE ADMIRALTY.—FormaI notices
have been issued by the Board of Works and Public Build-
ings of their intention to apply to Parliament next session
for an act enabling them to acquire, the necessary space for
enlarging the Admiralty at Whitehall. In the inquiry last
session before the Commons' Select Committee on the
Board of Admiralty, the principal witnesses agreed that, as
in France, so here the whole Naval Department should be
concentrated within one building. E;ir J. Graham stated
that ho considered it of primary importance, and that before
he left office in 1855 he brought before the Government a
scLeme for this purpose, proposing an encroachment upon
the Admiralty garden. When the Crimean war came, he
found it necessary to remove the Surveyor (now Controller)
of the Navy from Somerset-house to Whitehall, for the
sake of constant communication with him, and to take the
residences of two Lords of the Admiralty for the purpose;
but this distinction of one of the chief officers of the navy
from the rest gave rise to such jealousies that the step must
be regarded as an error of judgment. He stated, also, that
while providing room at Whitehall for the rest of the So-
merset-house branch of the department, it would be neces-
sary, if the Board of Admiralty is to remain a Board, that
there should be residences for the First Lord, a Naval Lord,
and the Secretary, so that there may always be a Board on
the spot. But in settling the plan for tho new buildings
I the question may be raised whether the Board is to continue
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