The Sun.
London, England, 1845-05-02 00:00:00

HER MAJESTY'S THEATRE•

Cerito and St. Leon have arrived, and made their
first appearance here this season, last evening, in the
beautiful divertissement, La Vivandiere. The bride
and bridegroom were greeted with enthusiastic con-
gratulations from all parts of the house. Never did
Cerito look better, never did she dance more fascinat-
ingly than last evening. The "pas de la Vivandiere"
was beautifully given, and the redowa was admirable.
St. Leon looked well, and danced as he alone can
dance. They were admirably supported by the
coryphees and the corps de ballet, and never has La
Vivandiere been more excellently represented than it
was last evening. The " Danseuses Viennoises"
appeared in it, in one of their national pas, which
was not only danced with marvellous accuracy,
but was acted with vast humour. At its
conclusion bouquets innumerable were showered upon
the stage, and the scramble for them amused the
audience vastly. The opera was I Puritani, cast in
the same admirable manner as last year. Never did
Grisi sing the beautiful cavatina " Sen Vergen Vez-
zosa" more exquisitely than last evening; and the mag-
nificent duet " Suona la tromba" wash superbly given
by Lablache and Fornasari. Mario, who was the
Arteno, was in excellent voice, and seems to have
completely recovered from the effect of the unfor-
tunate cold under which he was recently labouring.
After the first act of the opera the Danseuses
Viennoises gave us the Pas de Mirroires, the
groupings in which are exceedingly beautiful.
After the second act of the opera a new divertissement,
entitled La Bacchante, was produced, in which
Lucile Grahn appeared in one of those classical cha-
racters to which she knows so well how to do jus-
tice. The opera was succeeded by La Vivandiere ;
then we had the fourth act of Ernani, with Aloriani,
Fornasari, and Madame Rita Borio ; and after that the
Kaya, with Lucile Grahn and Perrot. The house
was crowded to excess. Every avenue to the pit,
from which there was the slightest chance of getting
even an occasional glimpse of the stage, was occupied.

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, MAY 2, 1845.

already bound—it was seen that these abominations con •
tine9d and the very face of the great
geastly bugbear Death, and so his watch and ward were
made a lighter task; he was gradually relieved of many
of his social duties; the world, to the astonishment of
some folks, still spinning on its axis, though the life of
immortal man was not, as in the good old times, offered
to stolen colt, to the king's gracious face unlawfully
stamped in counterfeit metal, to a hundred other sins all
made mortal by the wisdom of untaught humanity.
Truly, justice, turning back the leaves of the goal
calendar, might sit awhile in sackcloth and ashes, peni-
tent for past transgressions—past wrongs committed in
her moral blindness! The sword of justice! An awful
weapon truly: a weapon working out the will of highest
Providence: a solemn instrument which man solemnly
acknowledges. This has been, and may be. Yet,
thinking of the world's mistakes; of the cruel blunders
worked by law on man, the sword ofjustice—of so-called
Christian justice robed and ermined—may sometimes
seem to the eye of grieved humanity as terrible as the
blood-dripping tomahawk of the wild, revengeful savage.
The sword of justice! May not the time come—it will
come, as surely as the sun of far-off years—when justice
shall lay down her sword ?—when, with better wisdom,
she shall vindicate her awful mission to mankind, yet
shed no drop of blood?"

Poor St. Giles is condemned, and Capstick andßright
Jem endeavour to procure for him a reprieve. They
wait upon Mr. Tangle, the lawyer, for his advice
and assistance, but as it is Sunday that worthy re-
fuses to see them, and Bright Jem indulges in the
following bitter reflections on Sunday observers of
the Tangle stamp :

" And so there's a Sunday conscience like a Sunday
coat; and folks, who'd get on in the world, put the coat
and the conscience carefully by, and only wear 'em once
a week. Lord love you, when we see what some people
do all the week,—people who're staunch at church, re-
member—l can't help thinking, there's a good many poor
souls who're only Christians at morning and arternoon
service.'

" Capstick looked earnestly at Jem and said, ' My
clear fellow, it's all very well between you and me to say
this; but don't say it to the world; don't, Jem, if you
wouldn't be hunted, harried, stoned to death, like a mad
dog. Folks won't be turned inside out after this fashion,
without revenging the treatment with all sorts of bad
names. Very pure folks won't be held up to the light
and shown to be very dirty bottles, without paying hard
abuse for the impertinence. Jem, whatever coat a mall
may wear, never see a hole in it. Though it may be
full of holes as a net, never see 'em; but take your hat
off to the coat, as if it was the best bit of broad-cloth
in the world, without a flaw or a thread dropt, and with
the finest bits of gold lace upon it. In this world, Jem,
woe to the man with an eye for holes! He's a beast, a
wretch, an evil• speaker, an uncharitable thinker, a pest
to be put down. And Jem, when the respectable
hypocrites make common cause with one another, the
Lord help the poor devil they give chase to!' "
Admirably truthful are these observations of
Bright Jem and Capstick, and delightful is it in
these days of selfish and self-seeking hypocrisy to find
that there is at least one man bold enough to expose
the pretensions of the respectable Pharisees, and to
tell them to their teeth that they are naught. Young
Lord St. James, however, arrives at Tangles at the
same moment, on the same errand, and the respectable
lawyer at once puts his religion in his pocket and
attends to secular affairs, albeit it is Sunday. The
next chapter exhibits to us young St. Giles
lying in Newgate under sentence of death.
It is the most painfully interesting chapter
of the work—painful from its very truthful-
ness. The neglected boy refuses to pay any atten-
tion to the exhortations of the chaplain, and replies to
all his questions, " I knows nothing about it." His
only ambition is to die game. He disbelieves all the
Ordinary tells him about the goodness of Christians,
and shrewdly remarks that if—
" The true Christian forgives everybody—well, then,
in course, the judge and all the nobs are no Christians,
else would'nt they forgive me? Would'nt they like it so,
to teach me better, and not to kill me? But I don't
mind; 11l be game; see if I don't be game—precious!'"
The Ordinary throws himself on his knees, and
prays to God to soften the heart of the boy, " who
stood eying him with a mingled look of incredulity,
defiance, and contempt." The Governor enters and
announces that a reprieve has arrived for St. Giles
(obtained through the interest of Young St. James),
and that he will be transported for life. Then fol-
lows this exquisitely pathetic touch :
" St. Giles made no answer, but trembled violently
from head to foot. Then his face flushed red as flame,
and covering it with his hands, he fell upon his knees;
and the tears ran streaming through his fingers. Pray
with me; pray for me!' he cried, in broken voice, to the
Ordinary."
Juniper Hedgehog continues his Letters—we com-
mend his observations on the subject of the Maynooth
grant ,to the careful perusal of the Rev. Dr. Croly,
who will rise from the study of the Hedgehog corre-
spondence a wiser if not a better man. " Cathedral
Pennies" is the title of a very smart article on the de-
secration to which our cathedrals are exposed by the
conduct of the clergy, who have turned them, as the
author justly remarks, into " traps to catch pence."
The conclusion of the essay is capital :
" 111-gotten is the gain made of Cathedral tolls—most
filthy of all filthy lucre. Were change demanded for
certain thirty pieces of silver, we cannot help thinking
—it might be appropriately furnished out of Cathedral
Pennies.' "

All the other articles of this Number are excellent
—excellent not as mere literary compositions only,
although considered merely in that light their excel-
lence is of a very high order, but excellent in much
higher points of view, for there is not one of them
which does not convey a high moral lesson. Douglas
Jerrold has fully redeemed the pledge which he gave
in his prospectus, that every essay, however brief,
" should breathe with a purpose." His magazine is
eminently addressed " to the sympathies and common
sense of the people."