The Sun.
London, England, 1868-08-17 00:00:00

THE IMPERIAL FETE.

A Paris correspondent writes :—" Le Quinze Agfa,'
the Fête Napoldon,' the annual holiday of Paris, to
which all provincial France usually rushes, and from which
all fashionable Paris always {lies as from a plague, is what
I have to describe. As a commencement, I must tell
you that ' the 15th of August, 1868,' cannot, when com-
pared with last year, hold the smallest candle.
There are several very evident reasons for this
falling-off. First of all, the reaction from last year,
when all the provincials combined the fête with their
visit to the Exhibition, and so were five or six days in
Paris, spending the money for that year and this. Then
in France, as in England, there is a great slackness of
trade, and the clam ourriere,' which is the staple of the
fête, is the great sufferer ; and, finally, from six a.m. to
nine a.m. on Saturday rain fell in torrents, upsetting the
plans of all those who were coming in by an early train
for a real long day. Still, with all this, strangers
included—and there is a vast number of them—the
population of Paris is pretty nearly double on this
15th of August what it was on the 7th. The
scene in the Place de la Concorde in the evening was
very pretty. Standing in the middle, by the fountains, which
kept blushing celestial rosy red, and then turning blue or
grey—now falling like mist, now glittering down like
powdered ice, as it pleased the movers of those electric
lights—you saw on your right hand the Madeleine, the
facade and cross of which were brilliant with lamps,
while the peristyle was " electrified" till it looked weird
and sepulchral. At the two corners the Marine and the
Baby House were illuminated to match. On your
left were the Corps Ltgislatif, the columns of which
were like opal, and the Foreign Office, both lighted by
outlines of lamps dila ntodct di Firenzi; before you, as far
as the eye could reach, two long lines of clear white lamps,
serving as a hedge to a forest of trees, which, for once, bore
a wonderful crop of ruby globes. The effect of the red
lamps on the green is new here, and was wonderfully
effective. You must remember there was a mile of them
at least. If you turned round you saw the Tuileries,
the gardens of which were lighted by white lamps ;
which caused Nisus and Euryalus to look quite
young Hercules to gleam, and Apollo to glitter, while the
fountains looked like liquid light. Then came the fire-
works. They were very brilliant—somehow they always
are ; but really, speaking soberly, I think there is a family
likeness in them which after a time is wearying. How-
ever, I have never seen so many rockets go off at once ;
and as for colours, why, the stars were quite put out of
countenance. However, the people for whom they
were intended were enchanted, and cried Oh ! '
with an enthusiasm which brought back to the
elderly mind Simpson's bow, ham, and 'rack punch,
and the perpetual 50,000 extra lamps of defunct Vauxhall.
Then the company separated, or, rather, I should say,
went to supper, highly satisSed. Paris was turned inside
out, and every one was eating and drinking in the streets.
The dissipated went back to fairs, to balls, to anywhere
but home. So ends the Fête Napoleon of 1868. Favoured
by splendid weather, it has gone off gloriously; and I feel
tempted to close my letter by quoting the speech of a man
who stood next to me in the Champs Elys4es : ' Come next
year ! Of course I'll come—it's only one hundred leagues.'
Then he kissed his friend, and said Vivo I'Empereur

TIIE CHANCERY VACATION BUSINESS.—There
were suventy-three applications as vacation business on the
last occasion before Mr. Marshall, the chief clerk ; and he
will sit again on Tuesday, when the number will probably
be increased.

FILIAL PIETY.—The following conversation,
which, had it come to his knowledge, the late Mr. Leech
would have used as an illustration of " Life in the
Mining Districts," has just been repeated to us :—First
Collier : " There's been a foire (explosion) at Jackson's
pits."—Second Collier : "My feyther worked there."—
First Collier : " Yes, and he's blowed all to pieces."—
Second Collier : " By gum ; why, he'd got my knoife !"
Staffordshire 4dvertiser.

A COOL ATTEMPT AT SUICIDE. —Oll Saturday
morning George Nash, a farm labourer at Lewisham,
while proceeding to his work along a lino, called out to a
boy, saying, " Go and tell the first policeman you meet a
man has cut his throat." The boy, meeting a constable
shortly afterwards, told him what had occurred, and on
the constable hastening to the spot, he found Nash sitting
down with a razor in his hand with which he had cut his
throat. The sufferer was at once conveyed to Lewisham
Workhouse. He had been drinking freely of late, and was
evidently labouring under an attack of delirium.

THE DUKE OF BRABANT.—The Brussels corre-
spondent of the Avenir National writes :—" The reports
as to the health of the Prince Royal are more and
more alarming. After a temporary change for the
better he has become worse than ever. Dropsy of the
heart has exhibited itself in a form which leaves little
hope of cure. His mother returned from Spa yester-
day evening in all haste, and in spite of the entreaties
of her physicians. She had not seen her son for
some time previously, and the interview between them
was most affecting. The health of the Queen is by no
means strong, and it is feared that grief for her son may
have a further prejudicial effect upon it. The King has
written to his brother, the Count de Flandre, who is tra-
velling with his wife in Bohemia, begging of him to return
to Belgium. In the event of the Duke of Brabant's
death, the Count de Flandre would become presumptive
heir to the Belgian crown. The count has been married
two years and has no child."
A TELL-TALE.—TiIe Bulletin de la Societe In-
dustrielle of Mulhouse gives us an interesting account of
an extraordinary " tell-tale " apparatus in use at the
vast establishment of Dolffus, Mieg, and Cu. There are
four night watchmen on these premises, and they have to
make ten visits to ninety-three stations, in all 930 visits.
On commencing his rounds a card is delivered to each
workman, which he carries about with him.
At every station he has to visit is a frame of
the size of the card, at which, at a given time,
a stamp presents itself and impresses a mark on
the card. The marks are so arranged that when the whole
are printed they form one complete design: Any delay or
omission on the part of the watchman leaves a blank space
on the card, which tells the hour at which the man failed
in his duty. When going off duty, the men push their cards
into a kind of letter-box, and as this is done the exact time
at which they are delivered is printed. All this con-
trivance is completely beyond the men'd control, and there
is no possibility of tampering with the mechanism. No
description of the apparatus would be intelligible without
the drawings which accompany it.

MR. MARK limmoN.—Among the novelties of the
coming dramatic season will be the appearance of this
gentleman in the character of Falstaff, in scenes from
Shakspeare's "Henry 1V.," so selected as to form a con
sistent series of tableaux. The performances are not to
take place in any theatre, but will belong to the class of
amusement recognised as entertainments, although the
action and costume of a stage play will be in part retained.
Mr. Mark Lemon's powers as an actor arc well known
his theatrical experience is larger, perhaps, than any
modern writer for the theatre ; and his long association
with the wit and humour of this age renders his just
delineation of Shaksocare's lusty knight a matter of cer-
tainty. 'rho personal appearance of the popular editor
of Punch so remarkably resembles that which we are all
accustomed to imagine Falstaff's to have been, that there
can be very little doubt of the impersonation being life-
like and truthful, The text of Shakspeare will certainly
be an Improvement upon that of entertainments generally,
and the humourous conceptions of our great poet unques-
aoaably Abid §copq for P. yQry i nur3Snj and intellectual
per/on/Mgt__

Ir. .....

110
ttm
• bre

HER MAJESTY.

PENSION WALLIS, LUCERNE, August 14.

The Queen, accompanied by Princess Louise,
Prince Leopold, and Princess Beatrice, have made
some excursions in the neighbourhood when the
extreme heat of the weather has permited.

Infelicia.

LITERATURE.

By Adah Isaacs Menken. 1868.

London—Paris—New York.

A pathetic little volume, exquisitely got up, and
entitled, with a most painful appropriateness, In-
felicia, comes to our hands mysteriously, we know
not from whom, almost simultaneously with the
announcement of the quite unlooked-for death, ill
her seven-and-twentieth year, of Adah Isaacs
Alenken--the equestrian actress—the Mazeppa of
yesterday ! It is a tiny tome or volumette of 141
miniature quarto pages. It is arrayed in a glossy,
apple-green binding. It is emblazoned in gold on the
bevilled side with the autograph title " Infelicia,"
and with the autograph signature " Menken" ; and
gilt-lettered on the back with the same tersely
melancholy indications of the contents of the
book and of its authorship. Inscribed brieily 14 To
Charles Dickens," without another word upon the
dedication-page--the little volume displays upon
the back of that same page the daintiest little pho-
tographic facsimile of the following kindly accept-
ance by Charles Dickens of the proferred dedi-
cation :

" Gads Higham-by-Rochester, Kent,
Monday, October 21, 1867.
" Dear Miss Menken,—l shall have great pleasure in
accepting your dedication. I thank you for your portrait
as a highly remarkable specimen of photography. I also
thank you for the versos enclosed in your note. Many
such enclosures come to me, but few so pathetically written,
and fewer still so modestly sent.
"Faithfully yours,

CIIARLES DICKENS."

As it happens, therefore, the little book, in any
case, would have propitiated public attention, intro-
duced to the world, as it was to be and as it is,
by a great writer like Mr. Dickens--a writer
with a fame so pure, and a name so illustrious. It
comes to us, however, yet more impressively ushered
in with the added pathos of the announcement of the
young author's death. Hardly has the warmth of
life faded from her limbs, the light of life from her
eyes, the sense of life from her brain and heart, when
the book—her one book—her first and last—appears
before us posthumously. It is impossible not to
regard it with the interest of pity. Notwithstand-
ing all her antecedents, it has a touch of grace
about it that, for the passing moment, excites our
attention. Upon the inner cover of the volum.
surrounded by a mourning border, there are given
the name of the young actress-authoress, together
with the dates marking the narrow limits of her
brief career, the date of the year of her
birth and the date of the year of her death

—" Adah Isaacs Menken-1841-1868." Opp°-
site the title-pap is a charming little bright'
faced protraiture of her, a head exquisitely ea-
graved and evidently from a photograph. Scat"
tered through the book, as head-piecas and tail-
pieces to the thirty-one poems naakin4 up the
contents of the volume, there are some grace-
fully pencilled designs signed with the initials
"A. C."—the initials we are tempted to eon'
jecturo of the two first names [Christian names,
as they are conventionally called] of the
author of " Atalanta in Calydon" and tc chaste-
lard." Whosesoever they may be, they are charm-
ingly done at any rate. As for the contents of the
volume,-as literary productions, they are scarcely t°.
be examined critically. The grave of the writer of
them is hardly yet closed in. Her dead lips her°
speak of them, on the nether side of her title-
page, as—

"Lesvos pallid and sambro and ruddy,
Dead fruits of the fugitive years;
Some stained as with wine and made bloody,
And some as with tears."
The very first, on page one, entitled " Resurgatniil
begins—

" Yes, yes, dear love! I am dead!
Dead to you!
Dead to the world !
Dead for ever!"
Another, having as its heading " Myself," under fl
limning of a dead female, with weeping angels co
either hand, takes for its motto—

" La patience ost tuner(); mais le fruit en ost claim !
No; they are not for the cold-bboded analysis of
criticism. They are like those flowers spoken, of
rather sung of by Longfellow—

" Buds that open only to decay."
Not a garland of intmortelles, but a wreath of il itd
and fading blossoms fallen from a dead hand by tb°
side of an open grave. "Infelicia," as we 1108
said, these poems are called, collectively., and as if
insisting upon the appositeness of the title selected
for them by their authoress, she inscribes th
last of them as with a word of iteration, 66 Ideov.
It is significant, by the way, in regard to a 1)049%
the mere "get up" of which any publisher, 00;
might have fancied, would have been glad to bale
acknowledged, that there is no evidence, either 01;
ternally or externally, of any publisher's name
all, whether English, French, or American, vibe
Sher of London, Paris, or New York. Not 011,
;5 it thus with Menken's "Infelicia," but nowhere
is there a trace of any printer's name—a circilol;
stance, in its way, rendering the publication 111
manner illegitimate.