The Sun.
London, England, 1868-04-08 00:00:00

HER MAJESIYS OPERA.

Last evening a very brilliant audience assembled
on the occasion of the performance of Verdi's opera
"Il Trovatore." The great novelty of the evening
was the first appearance of Mdine. Trebelli-Bettini
as Azucena, and Signor Fraschini as Manrico, but
great disappointment was occasioned by the an-
nouncement that Madame Titiens, who was cast for
Leonora, not having sufficiently recovered from her
severe attack of cold, the music of the part had
been undertaken by Madame Sinico. This unlooked-
for arrangement seemed todamp to an unusal extent
the not over usually demonstrative audience, but
notwithstanding this adverse circumstance Madame
Trebelli accomplished a perfect and genuine triumph.
She threw the utmost intensity into the part,
and her vocalisation throughout was faultless.
The duo with Manrico, " Un Memento," was re-
demanded, and she received the honour of a recall
after " Del rallentati." Fraschini sang with the
greatest taste and effect, eliciting very loud applause
in "Di quella pira ;" and Madame Sinico was
positively charming in " Tacea la notte," and for
her splendid reading of "D'amor sull' ali rosce "
she received a perfect ovation. The " Miserere,"
with the delicious introductions for Leonora
and Manrico, received an enthusiastic, and
well-deserved encore. Mr. Santley, as Count
de Lune, gave the celebrated "11 balen" with all
that taste and power which was to be expected from
such au accomplished musician. The choruses were
all given with fine effect, and altogether the entire
representation was in the highest degree satis-
factory.
For to-morrow" Linda" is announced, with Mdlle.
Kellogg and Trebelli.

UNCER7AIN DISTRIB U?ION OF

HONOURS.

We have seen how extremely unequal and un-
certain is the commemoration, or absence of com-
memoration, of our famous men. It is this which
renders the interment or notice within our walls
a dubious honour, and makes the Abbey, after
all, but an imperfect monument of greatness.
But it is this also which gives to it that per-
fectly natural character of which any artificial
collection is entirely destitute. In the Valhalla
of Bavaria every niche is carefully portioned
out ; and if a single bust is wanting from the
catalogue of German worthies its absence becomes
the sabject of a literary conversation, and the va-
cant space is at last filled. Not so in the abbey;
there, as in English institutions generally, no fixed
rule has been followed. Graves have been opened
or closed, monuments erectel or not erected, from
the most various feelings of the time. It is the
general wave only that has borne in the chief cele-
brities. Viewed in this way the absences of which
we speak have a touching significance of their
own. They are eloquent of the force of domestic
and local affection over the desire for metropo-
litan or cosmopolitan distinction—eloquent of the
force of the political and ecclesiastical preju-
dice at the moment—eloquent also of the
strange caprices of the English public. Why
are men so famous as Burke and Peel amongst
statesmen, as Pope and Gray, Wordsworth and
Southey amongst poets, not in the Statesmen's or
the Poet's Corner ? Because the patriarchal feel-
ing in each of these men, so different each from the
other, yet alike in this, drew them from the neigh-
bourhood of the great, with whom they con-
sorted in the tumult of life, to the graves of
father and mother, or beloved child, far away to
the country churchyards
,where they seve-
rallyp
repose— in each, perhaps, not unmingled
with the longing desire for a simple resting-
place which is expressed in Pope's epitaph on him-
self at Twickenham. Why is it that Montague
Earl of Sandwich, Monk Duke of Albemarle, re-
storers of the monarchy, Archbishop Usher, the
glory of the Irish Church, Clarendon the historian
of the Great Rebellion, rest here with no contempo-
ary monument, three of them with none at all? That
blank void tells again in the bare stones the often
repeated story of the ingratitudeof Charles 11. to-
wards those to whom he owed so much and gave so
Why is it that poets like Coleridge, Scott and
Burns,
astronomers like Herschel, discoverers like
little.
Harvey and Bell, have no memorial? Because, for
the moment, the fashion of public interment had
drifted away from the abbey, or lost heed of de-
parting greatness in other absorbing interests or
ceased to regard proportion in the distribution of
sepulchral honours. It is well that this should be so.
Westminster Abbey is, as Dr. Johnson well said, the
natural resting place of those great men who have no
bond elsewhere. Its metropolitan position has, in
this respect, powerfully contributed to its fame. But
even London is, or ought to be, insignificant com-
pared with England; even Westminster Abbey must
at times yield to the more venerable, more enduring
claims of home and of race. Those quiet graves
far away are the Poets' Corners of a yet vaster
temple ; or may we take it yet another way, and
say that Stratford-on-Avon and Dryburg, Stoke
Pogis, and Grasmere are chapels-of-ease united by
invisible cloisters with Westminster Abbey itself ?
Dean Stanley's Memorials of Westnzinster Abbey.

PORTSMOUTH; ruesday. His Imperial Royal
Apostolic Majesty the Emperor of Austria has been most
graciously pleased to confer the decoration of the order of
Franz Joseph on the Chevalier Van den Bergh, Imperial
Rayal Austrian Vice-Consul at Portsmouth. Southamp-
ton, drc., as a mark of his Majesty's approbation of his
services.

REPRESENTATION OF LAUNCESTON.—There is no
reason to doubt that this Cornish seat, vacant by the re-
signation of Mr. Campbell, will be filled by Mr. Lope; of
the Western District, who has arrived in the borough ani
issued his address. There is no probability of any oppo-
sition, the Liberals deeming it useless to engage in a fight
until the general election, when the constituency will be
considerably enlarged. The nomination is fixed for
Thursday.

EARTHQUAKE AT JERSEY.—The inhabitants of the
island of Jersey were alarmed on Saturday morning, be-
tween the hours of 1 and 2 o'clock, by two distinct shocks
of earthquake, which followed each other in rapid succes-
sion. The sound and the effect of the shock were like what
would Le produced by a heavy vehicle or other heavy ob-
ject being dragged over rough paving stones. Many of
the residents in the town of St. Helier were awakened by
the noise and the peculiar sensation produced. Several
got out of bed and looked into the street, expecting that
the noise was produced by a passing vehicle. Articles of
furniture were made to vibrate most distinctly in numbers
of dwellings. The course of the vibration appeared to be
from east to west.

THE TEA TRADE, April 6.—The deliveries in
Loudon made up for the week aro 3,425,3921 b., being an
increase of 617,3611 b., as compared with the previous
week.

PREFERENCE SRARES.
Great Western, 5 per cent., rd., 83
Mid Consolidated, 6 per cent. stook,
Ditto, Bristol and Bina., 6 per cent., 130
rItEFERENCE kiIIAREB AND STOCKS.
Great Eastern 4} per cent.,
Ditto, 5 per cent., 1862, 69
London, Chatham, tc., Metrop. Ext. 13, 6 per cent., 36
London, Brghton. 4a per cent., 1858,
Ditto, 5 per cent., 1865, 88
LINES LEASED AT FIXED RENTALS.
London and Biackwall, 88
FOREIGN RAIL WAY/A.
Saida and San:Francisco, gua.l7 per cent,,
Great Luxembourg, 14
FOREIGN MINES.;
Anglo Brazilian Gold,
St. John del Itey, lim, 20k

.. . _
DOCKS
London and St. Katharine, 474
BAN.IIS.

kustrian,:lo/
Consolidated, lim., 41
Imperial Ottoman, 11
Latta Mortgage Bank of India, 11m..1
London Bank of Mexico and S. America, Urn., 10
London and County, 513
London and t estminster. 681
Metropolitan Bank, lim., 71
National Provincial of Eagiand, 131

q. .z+
L" -~-~i

Ditto, and 3d issue, 39 I
Provincial of Ireland, 891
MISCELLANKO US:
Anglo American Telegraph, 22f
Bo übay Gas, lim., 41 I
B. and I. Magnetic Telegraph, Bin., 125
Ceylon Company, 7
Credit Fancier of England, Um., 21 3
Egyptian 9 per Cent., Viceroy Loan, gua.by:Egypt.GoV., 891
Gen. Credit and Discount, inn., bi
international Financial society,
New Quebrada,
Ottoman Gas Um., 11
Venn:mita and Oriental Steam, 5 1
Ithymney Iron, 1.74
Rio de Janeiro City Improvements, 181
Royal Mai Steam, 59 63
Submarine Telegraph, 72
Telegraph Construct. and Maintenance, 13k
Thames and Mersey Marine, Insurance, lita., 41
Viceroy of Egypt, 7 per sent. (Mortgage) Loan, 74

REGULATION OF RAILWAYS BlLL.—Yesterday
afternoon a meeting of Liverpool tradesmen was held at
the Law Association Rooms, Mr. J. Anderson in the chair,
when the loth clause of the Regulation of Railways Bill
was discussed, and it was resolved—" That, in the
opinion of this meeting, it is undesirable that the monopo-
lizing powers of railway companies should be in any way
increased ; that the bill now before Parliament, called the
Regulation of Railways Bill, will have that effect, and,
therefore, it is necessary that such steps should be taken
as will prevent its becoming law, and that the Council
of the Tradesmen's Guild and the committee of the
Guardian Society be appointed a committee, with power
to add to their utleaber, to oppose the said Bill in Far-
listout,"

GRIMINAL COURT.—This Day.

OLD COURT.
(Before Mr. Justice Keating.)
THE MURDER AT FOREST-HILL.

Richard Bishop was indicted for the wilful mur-
der of Alfred Cartwright at Forest-hill.
It will be recollected, from the report of the case
which has already appeared in The Sun, that the
prisoner was with others drinking at the Swiss
Cottage public-house on Thursday last, the deceased
and his father being then present. After a short
time had elapsed the prisoner said he was quite
ready to fight any one for a shilling, and then
he struck the deceased twice with his fist.
Cartwright said he should give the prisoner into
custody, because if he did not know better he must
be taught. He then left the place with the inten-
tion of looking for a policeman ; but not finding
one he returned to the public-house, by which time
a constable had arrived there. He gave the pri-
soner into custody, and on their way to the police-
station, after they had gone about 300 yards, the
prisoner said to Cartwright, " Are you going
to lock me up for the trumpery affair ?"
Cartwright told him that be intended to so,
and they continued on the road to the
station. Having gone some distance further, Cart-
wright went up to the constable who had the pri-
soner in custody, with the intention of speaking to
him, when the prisoner repeated the question he
had already put to him, and receiving the same
answer, he fumbled about with his right hand until
he got a large clasp ktife from his pocket, with
which he made a thrust at Cartwright and stabbed
him in the abdomen, and before the wounded man
could be conveyed to the hospital he expired. Evi-
dence was produced on the part of the prosecution
to prove that the prisoner was not drunk as was
alleged.

The jury returned a verdict of guilty.
The Clerk of the Arraigns asked the prisoner, in
the usual form, whether he had anything to say
why sentence of death should not be passed.
The Prisoner replied—Yes, I have. I had been
drinking hard that day a great quantity of rum.
Eight witnesses could be found to speak to that,
but the case had not been inquired into as it ought
to have been.

Proclamation of silence having been made,
Mr. Justice Keating said the jury had come to
the concltision that he was guilty of the indictment
preferred against him, and he did not see how any
body of men, under the obligation of an oath, could
have done otherwise. It was the most wilful, pre-
meditate 3, and deliberate murder he had ever
known, and he hop 3d the prisoner would make the
best use of the time that was left him on earth. The
law was more merciful to him than he had been to
the unfortunate man, the father of a family, whom
he hurried out of the world without one
minute's preparation, as it gave him time
to prepare to meet the sentence he would have
to undergo; and he also implored the prisoner to
use that time in the consideration of the position he
would occupy hereafter. The sentence of the law
was that he be hanged by the neck until he be dead,
and that his body be afterwards buried within the
precincts of the prison.

The Sheriff of Kent was ordered to see the sen-
tence of the law carried into effect.
The prisoner left the dock quite unmoved.
CHARGE OF MANSLAUGHTER.

Henry Lee, a carman, was indicted for feloniously
killing and slaying Robert Forster on the 12th of
March last.

The death of the unfortunate man was occasioned
through a public-house row in Bermondsey.
The jury found a verdict of not guilty, but the
learned judge cautioned the prisoner to avoid pub-
lic-houses for the future.

NEW COURT.
(Before Mr. Justice Piggott.)
CHARGE OF WILFUL MURDER BY BURNING.

Mary Manning, an Irishwoman, with a baby in
her arms, was indicted for the wilful murder of
Honorie Sweeting.

- The prisoner resided at Providence-place, Ful-
ham, in the same house as the mother of the unfor-
tunate child. On the 27th of February Mrs.
Sweeting had occasion to leave her room to chop
some wood, leaving the child, which was about ten
months old, sitting up in its cradle, the prisoner
being in her own room putting her baby to sleep.
Mrs. Sweeting then heard her child crying, and on
returning up stairs she found the prisoner sitting
in front of the fire with her own baby in her lap.
Her (Mrs. Sweeting's) baby continued to cry very
violently, but up to this time she had taken no no-
tice
of the child beyond trying to quiet it. This
she was unable to do, and then she saw blood about
the child's legs. She took up the infant, and then
found it had been dreadfully burned about the lower
part of the body, although there was no mark of
fire being applied to the clothes of the unfortunate
infant. Mrs. Sweeting accused the prisoner with
having burnt the child, but she denied it in very
strong terms. The child was at once taken to the
doctor's, but it expired the following day.
Mr. M. Williams, for the defence, said there was
no evidence to prove that the prisoner had placed
the child near the fire, and as it might have fallen
close by it and thus received the injury, he hoped
awnodufildndadthoeptprtihsoennelogstairaltyerciful view of the
of manslaughter.
telhatseseyhould be remembered that the prisoner alleged
she and the mother of the child had been drinking
during the day, on which the child received by some
means not clearly known the injury which caused
its death.

The jury after a short deliberation returned a
verdict of guilty of manslaughter.
Sentence deferred.

THIRD COURT.
(Before the Common Sergeant.)
OBTAINING 3IONEY BY FALSE PRETENCES.

Edward Vaughan Arbuckle was indicted for un-
lawfully obtaining by false pretences a sum of
money from Abnnaduke Marsden.
The jury found him guilty, and the learned Judge
sentenced him to five years' penal servitude.

FOURTH COURT.
(Before the Recorder.)
STEALING TEA.

William Neville, carman, was indicted for steal-
ing a quantity of tea, the property of the London,
Chatham, and Dover Railway Company ; and a
man named Solomons was also indicted for re-
ceiving the same.

The learned Judge sentenced the prisoners to 18
mouth's imprisonment with hard labour.

POLICE 11VTEI,LIGENCE.-THIS DAY.

THAMES.

AN UNMANLY SEAMAN. —Thomas Byrne, a sailor,
who has recently been paid off, and with the usual
.improvidence of sevnen has spent all his money and
lost all his clothes, except those he stood upright in,
was brought before Mr. Benson charged with as-
saulting several persons.
Last night the prisoner was intoxicated and stag-
gering about Rateliff-highway, running at and
pushing down every girl he met with. He met
with a girl named Alice Simmons and knocked her
down with his fist. Her screams brought a police-
constable, named Edward Bucknell, 169 11, to the
spot, and he took the prisoner into custody. The
policeman was then struck.

_
The prisoner, in extenuation of his conduct, s aid
that he had lost his money and his clothes, and he
was very tipsy last night.
_.... . .

Mr. Benson—That is no excuse for your running
a muck and assaulting every girl you met with.
You also assaulted the police. You are sentenced
to 10 days' imprisonment and hard labour.
WORKHOUSE BIRDS.—Anna Tinsley, Eliza Byrne,
and Jane Mahoney, three able-bodied girls, were
brought before Mr. Benson, charged with refrac-
tory conduct in the City of Loudon Unien House,
Bo w -road.

Mr. John Saunders, master of the Union, said
that the prisoners had been in the workhouse or the
workhouse schools all their lives. They were very
disorderly and violent girls, and they were swear-
ing, roaring, and shouting and difiturbing. tine other

inmates yesterday. They set all authority at de-
fiance. Tinsley and Mahoney had been in prison
before.

The prisoners all denied that they had offended
in the manner stated, and made a long and cla-
morous defence. They declared they were ill-used,
beaten, imprisoned, and half-starved. Their state-
ments proved to be a tissue of falsehoods. The
City of London Union is the best managed in the
kingdom, and the dietary and treatment very
liberal.

Mr. Benson did not think that any advice or im-
prisonment would do them good. He sentenced
Tinsley and Mahoney to 21 days' imprisonment
and hard labour, and Byrne to seven days' impri-
sonment and hard labour.

THE SPECTAIOR ON MRS. CAMP.

Mr. J. Clarke has achieved a certain success in
the delineation of Mr. Dickens's greatest character
—Mrs. Gamp—but he has produced the character
with such " modifications" (as Lard Stanley says
with regard to the Irish Church) that it could
scarcely satisfy the mind of her profoundest ad-
mirers. To act Mrs. Gamp is a greater effort, of
course,—because Mrs. Gamp herself, is so much
grander a conception,—than to act Bailey Junior ;
and we do not deny, therefore, that Mr. J. Clarke
has achieved something greater than Miss E. Far-
ren in her impersonation of Todgers's bcy. But
certainly the masculine nature in Mr. Clarke has in-
jured Mrs. Gamp, more than the woman in Miss
Farren has injured Bailey Junior. hence her
Bailey Junior, though a considerably inferior, is,
on the whole, a more perfect artistic effort than Mr.
Clarke's more ambitious and more powerful per-
formance. The pert, keen, London gamin, half
drilled, but with an ambition for flashy grandeur,
is quite within Miss Farren's grasp ; indeed, we are
not quite sure that she was not born for the part.
But the conception of Mrs. Gamp can scarcely
be within any man's grasp,—though more nearly
perhaps than within any woman's, for Mr. Dickens,
though he has constructed her character most truly
on the foundations of a monthly nurse's propensi-
ties, has given it an originality, a force of initiative,
a far-reaching variety of comprehension, to which
we never saw any actress ever approach. Still, the
masculine basis is a false basis for the character,
though it may be subservient to the effects of imagi-
native freshness and grasp with which the great
humourist has endowed his greatest creation. Con-
sider this only—that Bailey Junior's precocious ex-
ternal criticism on Mrs. Gamp has to be curtailed
of one of its most expressive features—morally as
well as physically impressive, we mean—in order to
suit Mr. Clarke's impersonation : " There's the re-
mains of a fine woman about Sairah, Poll," ob-
served Mr. Bailey, with genteel indifference ; " too
much crumb, you know, too fat, Poll; but there's
many worse at her time of life." The criticism in
italics is necessarily left out at the Olympic, for it
would be a very false criticism on Mr. Clarke's "Mrs.
Gamp." There is certainly by no means " too much
crumb" about her—too much crust rather, both
physically and mentally. She is, indeed, bony ;
and being bony, and in physique altogether more
like Mr. Dickens's conception of her " pard-
ner Betsy Prig," than the true Mrs. Gamp, there
is a want of keeping between the unwholesome
but overflowing imaginative fat of her mind, which
so fills in and cushions the hard knobs of her indi-
vidual selfishness, and her physical appearance.
But even if Mr. Clarke were fat, and not lean, we
do not think that—fat being by no means a pecu-
liarity of either sex—the shortcomings of his quali-
fications for the character would be removed. The
freshness and audacity, the incessant initiative, the
sustained selfishness of purpose in Mrs. Damp's
imagination are masculine in their originality ; but
the plan of its manifestation, the indirectness, the
subtle innuendo, the wealth of involved suggestion,
the fussy detail, the dappled surface of her profes-
sional sentiment, are all completely female, and it is
in the delineation of these that Mr. Clarke's efforts
are so imperfect. To explain what we mean, let us
contrast for a moment the style of Mr. Mould the
undertaker's professional sentiments with the style
of Mrs. Gatnp's. Both are vulgar people, full of
the same class of vulgarities, and Mr. Mould is, as
pictured by Mr. Dickens (he is omitted from the
play at the Olympic), much more of a true carica-
ture than Mrs. Gamp ; but note how Mr. Dickens
makes Mr. Mould's professional self- interest and
self-admiration diffuse itself equably and uniformly,
as it were, over his mind and speech, while Mrs.
Camp's washes and eddies in and out of the wind-
ing course of her fertile invention, with a truly
female finesse, a truly female delight in domestic
detail, and yet with a breadth and sweep of con-
ception as masculine as the form is feminine :
" tell you what, my dear' (Mr. Mould observes,
when Mrs. Gamp had just left him, after some very acute
flattery), 'that's a very shrewd woman. That's a woman
whose intellect is immensely superior to her station in life.
That's a woman who observes and reflects in an uncom-
mon manner. She's the sort of woman, now,' said Mould,
drawing his silk handkerchief over his head again, and
composing himself for a nap, one would almost be dis-
posed to bury for nothing, and do it neatly, too."

But compare that with the exquisite detail and
finesse with which Mrs. Gamp offers a suggestion
of precisely identical philanthropy and generosity—
her object being, however, to convey to Mr. Peck-
sniff an idea of the terms she should expect for her
funereal job :
" Ah !' repeated Mrs. Gamp, ah dear ! When Gamp
was summoned to his long home, and I see him a lying in
Guy's Hospital, with a penny piece on each eye, and his
wooden leg under his left arm, I thought I should have
fainted away, but I bore up !' . . . You have become
indifferent since then, I suppose ?' said Mr. Pecksniff. 'Use
is second nature, Mrs. Gamp.'—' You may well say second
nater, sir,' returned that lady, 'one's first ways is to find
such things a trial to the feelings, and so is one's lasting
custom. If it wasn't for the nerve a little sip of liquor
gives me (I never was able to do more than taste it) I never
could go through with what I sometimes has to do. "Mrs.
Harris," I says, at the very last case as ever I acted in,
which it was but a young person, " Mr. Harris," I says,
"leave the bottle on the chimley-piece, and don't ask me
to take none, but let me put my lips to it when I am so
dispoged, and then I will do what I'm engaged to do ac-
cording to the best of my ability." " Mrs. Gamp," she
says, in answer, " if ever there was a sober creetur to be
got at oighteenpence a day for working poople, and three-
and-six for gentle-folks,"—' night watching,' said Mrs.
Gamp, with emphasis, ' being a extra charge,—" you are
thatinwallable person." " Mrs. Harris," I says to her, " don't
name the charge, for if I could afford to lay all my fellow
crecturs out for nothink, I would gladly do it, sich is the
love I bears 'em. But what I always says to them as has
the management of matters, Mrs. Harris"—here she kept
her eye ,on Mr. Pecksniff—" be they gents, or be they
ladies, is, don't ask me whether I won't take none, or
whether I will, but put the bottle on the chimley-piece,
and lot me put my lips to it when so dispoged."' "
What a subtle finesse, and yet what a stretch of
bold imagination there is here—as unlike Mr.
Mould's sober and practical measurement of his
individual regard for Mrs. Gamp, by his approach
to willingness " to bury her for nothing, and do
it neatly too," as is the illimitable sea which
yet winds so close and subtly round the coasts,
and creeks, and inlets of the islands it en-
compasses, from the mere artificial moat of
a mediaeval castle I Now, what we mean
by saying that Mr. J. Clarke's sex is a great
hindrance to him in the efficient delineation of
Mrs. Gamp, in spite of some incidental advantages,
is that he fails to give to his manner this vulgar
finesse, this womanish interest in the:inns and outs,
the details and domestic pictures,
.of Mrs. Gamp's
vagrant, yet thoroughly practical imagination. He
acts her severe style admirably. Nothing could be
better than the way he hooked Mr. Pinch with the
umbrella at the steam packet wharf, and then sa-
vagely replied to his courteous question of which
packet she wanted, " I suppose nobody but your-
self can want to look at a steam packet without
wanting to go a boarding of it, can they, booby ?',
Mr. Clarke is admirable also in the common-place
servile parts, where he makes Mrs. Gamp curry
favour with young married ladies whom she
thinks possible customers. But he brings
out her meditative memories as if they were
points (which, of course, to the audience, they
are), and without any of the fat and rambling
pensiveness of Mrs. Gamp's rehearsing imagination.
For instance, when she recalls the fate of her own
children, " ' My own,' I says, has fallen out of
three pair backs, and had damp door-steps settled
on their lungs, and one was turned up amain' in a
bedstead tWinkJIQWII " Aix, ClArkv does not figto

really absorbed at all in the intrinsic interest of
what he is recalling ; but, on the contrary, speaks
it to the audience as one of his points. Mrs. Gamp
is, no doubt, almost as difficult to act when in-
dulging these great recollections, as is Hamlet in
reverie and soliloquy—and Mr. Clarke makes the
same sort of mistake in delivering her recollections
as Mr. Fechter in the celebrated, " To be, or not to
be ?'' He does not let his mind wander gently
over the subject, with a sort of chuckling emphasis
on the detail. He thrusts out his recollections with
too much emphasis on the jokes, though, we
admit, with the thick and snuffy articulation of the
true Mrs. Gamp. his conception of the way in
which Mrs. Gamp probably took snuff, and of the
audible convulsions in the throat which followed
that operation, is perfect. Again, her frenzy of
passion with Betsy Prig, when both those ladies
have drunk enough from the teapot to inflame as
well their noses as their passions, is very good. But
these are but the superficial traits of this great
creation. The audacious originality of Mrs. Gamp's
genius in inventing a Mrs. Harris (with a family
history of an immense minuteness and detail that is
worthy of Defoe, and capable of indefinite extempore
additions from time to time), and the immense
subtlety with which this artifice is used as
the medium of panegyric on her own capacities
and virtues, both professional and domes-
tic, is not at all adequately expressed in
Mr. Clarke's impersonation. We have said that
there is insufficient lovingness in the way in which
he makes her recall the real and imaginary incidents
of her picturesque career. There is also a want of
cunning self-importance in the manner of those
circumbendibuses which she always brings round
with such admirable dramatic success of aim to her
own merits and hopes. And there is a general de-
ficiency of spontaneousness and involuntary cur-
rent about the drift of her recollections and inven-
tions. Mrs. Gamp, though cunning enough, is not,
we must remark, consciously so in her recollections.
They turn on the pivot of self unconsciously.
When she offers to prepare toast and butter for
others, she asks them if they would like it " with-
out crust," and then lapses with a perfect uncon-
sciousness into the theme of herself, for Whom, of
course, it turns out that she is really, preparing it—
" by reason of her tender teeth, which Gawp, being
in liquor, knocked out four at a blow," &c. But
this turn of her reverie is entirely spontaneous, re-
verting to herself only as the natural centre of all
things, and is not in any way wrenched cunningly
to her purpose.

There is, then, an immense abandon of nature
about Mrs. Gamp, which Mr. Clarke renders very
imperfectly. Perhaps it is beyond not only him,
but all human actors. A woman who could con-
template quite casually laying out " all her fellow-
creeturs" from the love she bears them, is not easily
to be portrayed on any human stage.

NAVAL AND MILITARY IN7ELLIGENCE.

Forty non-commissioned officers and men of the
2d Battalion of the 17th Regiment at Chatham
have been transferred to the Ist Battalion in Ire-
land, in consequence of the service companies being
below their proper complement.
By direction of the Secretary of War volunteer-
ing has been opened at the Royal Engineer estab-
lishment, Chatham, for the companies of Royal
Engineers attached to the Public Works Department
in India. The volunteers required are those who
are acquainted with handicraft trades, besides archi-
tects and engineers. About half the number re-
quired have already volunteered, and volunteering
is still open. An order received from the Horse
Guards directs volunteering to be opened from the
depot and other companies at headquarters for the
four companies of Royal Engineers employed on
the trigonometrical survey of Great Britain, each
of which is below its proper strength.
The St. Lawrence, Indiaman, Commander Wil-
cox, arrived from Calcutta yesterday evening at
Spithead, with time-expired and invalided soldiers,
accompanied by the following officers :—Col. Bird,
and Capt. Macpherson, 93d Regiment; Capt. Gard-
ner, 105th Regiment; Lieut. Davy, 105th Regi-
ment ; and Sir George and Lady Youall. The St.
Lawrence sailed from Calcutta on the 3d of January
last, arrived at the Cape of Good Hope on the 9th
of February, sailed thence on the 13th, and called
in at St. Helena February 24. The troops will
disembark from the ship at-Spithead this morning.
The Admiralty paddle-yacht Enchantress, Staff-
Commander J. E. Petley, is in dry dock at Wool-
wich, being refitted and re-decorated for conveying
the Prince and Princess of Wales to Ireland on
their approaching visit to that part of the United
Kingdom.

The Repulse, frigate, is completing rapidly her
armour-plating, so as to be ready for launching
about the 25th of the present month.
Staff-Commander George Raymond, late of the
Dee steam transport, is appointed to the Britannia,
training-ship at Dartmouth.

The chartered ship Matilda Atheling, taken up
by the Government, has sailed from the Nore, having
on board a number of convicts under lengthened
terms of penal servitude from the establishment at
Chatham for conveyance to Gibraltar. Among the
convicts despatched from Chatham are several of
the Fenian prisoners, together with the two convicts,
Corbett and Sweetland, who recently made an at-
tempted escape from the Chatham prison. The
Matilda Atheling will receive on board a few con-
victs from the establishments at Portsmouth and
Portland. A strong military guard from the 13th
Light Infantry and the 15th Regiment proceeds in
charge of the convicts.

His Prussian Majesty's iron frigate Prins Frede-
rick Carl, some time under repair at Plymouth, left
on Monday for the Baltic. The Prussian corvettes
Medusa and Hertha, which arrived on Sunday from
the Mediterranean, left the Sound yesterday morn-
ing for Kiel. The Prussian brigs of war Myer and
Masquibb, are now in the Sound. The homeward
bound merchant ship Salisbury landed passengers at
Millbay yesterday morning.

AIARKETS—(This Day.)

CORN.

The general character of the tra•le is firm but quiet.
From the country markets quotations come steady, with
moderate transactions.
From the Continent the reports indicate firmer markets.
At Mark-lane to-day there was a modorate attendance,
and only a limited trade.
English wheat moves off slowly at Monday's rates. •
Foreign held for quite the previous value, but purchased
sparingly.
But little doing on the► coast; some thirty-six cargoes
there, but the samples of the greater number are only
just coming to hand, and not much therein doing at the
moment.

Flour unchanged in value, and a limited sale.
Grinding barley rather firm. Malting unaltered.
Beans very firm, and rather dearer.
Peas sell in retail at unaltered currency.
Oats in good steady demand at lato rates.
No change in seeds.
NEWGATE AND LEADENHALL.

MEAT.—The markets were firm yesterday, but to-day
are dull at the lowest quotations of Monday. Beef, 3s to
4s; mutton, 3s 4d to 4s 4d; veal, 3s 4d to 4s 6d; pork, 4s
to 4s 8d per stone of 81b by the carcase.
Poultry.—Supplies are moderate, but about adequate to
the present dull demand. Monday's quotations may be
repeated.

Wild fowl is only moderate supply, and unaltered in
value.

Eggs steady in value at 6s for French, and 8s English.
COLONIAL.

SUGAR.—The demand is very active, and prices firmer.
2,500 bags common to fair Jaggery Madras in public sales
sold at 23s 6d to 265, being 6,1 dearer. Several sales have
also been made favourably, principally in Manilla sugars,
at stiffer prices. _ _ .

COFFEE.—The market is steady, with a fair demand.
TEA.—The sales were resumed and concluded to-day
without change in prices.

RICE is firm, but without activity.
SPICES.—The auctions to-day were small, and have
passed off without quotable change.
OILS steady at 34s for linseed and 35s for brown English
rape.
TALLOW.
This market is quiet, but steady, at 44s Gd spot, 44s 9d
to 45s June, 45s to 45s 3d last three months.

The feeling in favour of annexation to the United
States is said to be steadily growing iu Nova Scotia. The
town of Digby in that province has a newspaper, called the
Bluenose, which is started for the purpose of advocating
&fil gig Vigtfid §tot9o.