The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-08-23 00:00:00

THEATRE-ROYAL.

Cumberland's play of the " Mountaineers" was performed
on Monday night. Despite of a judicious compression into
two acts, leaving the hero's words and business untouched,
this all but obsolete drama retains but a questionable claim
to occasional representation on the modern stage. Octavian
is a character with which not one mixed audience of twenty
is disposed to sympathise. The words suggest little that is
either agreeable or generally interesting. Instead of point-
ing forwards, and in self-banishment and wretchedness
" hoping against hope," while talking_ fustian with his own
shadow and to the winds about the " tyrrany of fathers"(!),
he nurses feelings that are not merely moody, and morbid,
but mawkishly retrospective. In the action of the drama,
Octavian is less an essential agent, than a superadded patch :
his cues to feeling are far fetched. and like the victim him-
self, passive rather than active. Hence, nothing but subtle
acting, and of the Romantic not the Melodramatic school,
can enable actors of sheer experience to make this part tell
upon a house whose enthusiasm is not at a pitch of impres-
sible excitability.
Stage history and experience prove this. The elder Kean,
and perhaps Mr. Ward—before he became a truant to him-
self—were the only two men who, in the role of Octavian,
have succeeded in rousing, and carrying with them the sym-
pathy and appreciation of different assemblies. And even
their success was only partial : it did not depend on a sus-
tained, or level performance, but on the striking out of
sudden and dazzling beauties—points as pleasing and thril-
ling as unlooked for. The part is an eccentric one of the
Jaques and Timon class, unrecommended however, by that
philosophy and adherence to nature by which Shakspere has
depicted his manly, and, although disappointed, yet great
creatures of circumstance"—misanthropists, disappointed
ones, and whiners tho' they are.
The other parts in the " Mountaineers" were as well played
as they could be ; indeed, one or two of them better than
they need to be where the return is alike thankless. In that
fine old glee, to the air of " Ye ancient Spanish nobles,"
Mr. Horncastle's voice was heard to marked advantage. Of
Mr. Anderson's Octavian we speak with reluctance, for while
disinclined so much as to seem, and much more to be, un-
necessarily opinionative respecting his acting, yet it was as bad
as it could be in the hands of a sensible man of some expe-
rience in his profession. Something besides a thorough
knowledge of stage business is required; otherwise all acting,
up to the highest, would be reducible to a branch of Animal
Mechanics : the overlooking of this is one of the most fruitful
sources of fallacious criticism, although it is undeniable that
a knowledge of stage business is a sine qua non ; hence, far
from undervaluing it, it is so important an acquirement, that
any sensible reader possessed of it, may walk through such
parts as Hamlet, Cato, Werner, Othello, and Brutus, with
silent credit before judges, and with more than satisfaction
to ordinary audiences. In a word then, now that our mean-
ing cannot be misunderstood, Mr. Anderson's Octavian has
only the feature of a conversance with " stage business" to
recommend it ; and on Monday so disfigured was it by me-
chanical imitations of Macready, that, while disguised in
such drawbacks of manner, we think that he will prevent
himself from ever securing the admission of the competent
that he is the third actor in his mixed line, of melodramatic
tragedy and level comedy, on the stage of his own day. He
is far from wanting natural ability he has many enviable
endowments : for example, a dressable person ; and in its
undertones especially a fine voice, but sacrificed to a set and
monotonous sing-song, alike inflexible for the effects of sus-
tained declamation or of impassioned level-speaking.
Such, with others, is a dispassionate estimate of Mr. An-
derson—now, in 1839. Men and things should be spoken
of as they are. Three years since, he was a more promising
and vastly more pleasing actor, inasmuch as he seemed to
rely on his own resources, and drew upon them with the
unmistakable impress of natural feeling. Were he without
talent, or an indifferent performer, he had passed unnoticed,
and if his own eye should chance to fall upon this notice in
a reflecting vein, he will more than bear with all that is said,
and discover, while opportunity is on his side, that to study
a reputed model intellectually, is one thing ; to parrot and
caricature mannerisms with angularities (pardonable only in
an original) are very different. A faulty original, with merit,
is preferable to any copy, however cunningly taken ! John-
son said, or some other employer of a horse-power phrase-
ology enough to sprain the most elastic organs of speech
in attempts to mouth it ; that the " servile aberrations
of a hallucinary copyist call aloud for the wet sponge of
annihilation." True; for as a successful artist has recorded

—" to admire in principle, is the only way to imitate, with-
out the loss of originality." We cannot better take leave of
an interesting subject, than by inviting attention to the fol-
lowing lines of a French critic, whose acquaintance with
human nature, public assemblies, and the drama, is admitted
by all appreciators of his poetry. Speaking of acting and
imitators, he says :
Votre premier maitre est surtout votre cceur.
Soyez toujours vous-meme aux yeux du spectateur ;
Le desir d'imiter vous cache un pnicipice.
Il en est qui sans cesse au balcon du theatre,
Admirant un acteur dont on est idolare,
Copistes de son jeu, singes de ses defauts,
Gauche imitateurs des accens les plus faux,
Se sont fait une longue et puerile etude
De ses gestes d' emprunt de ses tons d'habitude ;
Et qui sans verite, sans grace, sans chaleur,
Sous les talent d'un autre, ont etouffe le leur.
That last line is worthy of a place in every artist's creed
and in every artist's practice.
Throughout the week the afterpieces have gone off with
spirit. In the " Illustrious Stranger," Miss Grant's singing
elicited a deserved encore, and Mr. Baker, as Ben Bowbell,
kept the house in a roar.
This evening a strong bill of entertainment is available on
the occasion of Mr. Vandenhoff's " Farewell," and the last
night—it may be for years—of his playing in this country.
Comment is unnecessary. Father and daughter cross the
wide Atlantic with the best wishes of the good people of Li-
verpool, and may rest assured of a hearty welcome from the
inhabitants of every city in the United States. In the face
of whatever self-libellers affect to the contrary, educated
Americans are lovers of England and the English, by the in-
dissoluble tie of a common language and its endearing asso-
ciations.

NORTH AND SOUTH WALES BANK.—At the annual meet-
ing of this bank last week, in the Clarendon-rooms, a very
numerous and respectable body of the proprietors attended,
and the report of the directors, as to the state of the bank,
was most flattering. After deducting £lO,OOO, set aside for
a reserved fund, they were enabled to declare a dividend of
7 per cent, per annum, for the half year ending 39th June,
and stated, that every branch of the bank was paying a hand-
some profit. The expense of the new building in Derby-
square would not exceed £12,000, including cost of land ;
and the directors, from the numerous applications which
have been already made for offices, had every right to expect
that, when completed, they would sit rent free. It was sta-
ted by the manager, that the bank had not, and never had,
any transactions with the Phoenix Bank, and that, owing to
the arrangement of its management, it was almost impossible
that any defalcation could take place in any of its officers,
without instantaneous detection, and that every officer had
given heavy securities to the bank. The directors had per-
sonally inspected the accounts, and had actually counted the
cash and bills in the possession of the several branches, and
had found all correct. This they did to satisfy the proprie-
tors of the correctness of the banks' proceedings.
TRIBUTE OF RESPECT TO THE MEMORY OF THE LATE
JOHN EDEN, ESQ.—At a meeting of the committee of the
Liverpool Auxiliary Bible Society, held on Tuesday last, at
the society's house, Slater-strect, the Rev. James Lister in
the chair, the Rev. Robert Davies, M.A., one of the secre-
taries of the society, called the attention of the committee to
the recent decease of one of their highly-valued members,
the late John Eden, Esq., it was resolved unanimously,
" That the secretaries be requested to convey to the widow
and family of the deceased the expression of this committee's
sincere condolence on the occasion of Mr. Eden's lamented
decease, and of their sense of the loss sustaihed by this
society, in common with many other religious and benevo-
lent institutions in the town, by the removal of one pos-
sassed of so much unbending integrity, active benevolenc3,
high principle, and practical Christian liberality." On Sun-
day last a sermon in memory of this estimable gentleman was
delivered by the Rev. John. Jones, in St. Andrew's Church,
with which place of worship he has been connected as trus-
tee for the last twenty years.
The British Queen, steam-ship, which will sail for New
York on the Ist of September, has, we hear, 150 berths en-
, gaged already. The Great Western sails to-morrow.

Sit James Duff, colonel of the 50th regiment, is now the
senior general officer of the army. He commanded this gar-
rison during the Irish rebellion in 1798.—Limerick Chroni-
cle.

OCEAN STEAM NAVIGATION.-By October, 1841, there
will be thirteen large and splendid steam-ships running across
the Atlantic ocean. Not one will be smaller than the Liver.
pool, and more than half of them will be larger than the Great
Western. Four of the thirteen will ply between Liverpool,
Halifax and Boston, and the balance will run from Bristol,
London, Liverpool,.and the Clyde to New York. The Bri-
tish Queen and President will be followed by the United
Kingdom, City of New York, the Clyde steamer, and the
United States, in rapid succession. The four Halifax steam-

ers will be ready early in 1841. There may be twenty or
thirty steamers running over the Atlantic from different ports
in Europe to' merica, but we can only speak positively of
thirteen. A gentleman who arrived in the Liverpool told ns
that the frame of the President was up, and that she would be
ready to enter the lists by the first of next May. She is lar-
ger than the British Queen.—Courier.
REMARKABLE CIRCUMSTANCE—PARISH Or TARBAY.—
There is a huge stone in the parish of Tarbat, Easter Ross,
on which tradition relates that at one time four lairds used to
sit, and yet all of them sat on their own separate properties,
each with his feet on his own land. There was a hollow in
the centre of the stone which contained the bottle and
quaich, from which, in the ancient days of feudal festivity,
these worthies, no doubt, drained copious litations.—lnver-
ness Herald.
In one of the cuttings of our railway, near Croydon` a few
days since, one of the workmen found a gold noble of Edward
111., in excellent preservation. On the obverse side is the

king in a ship, crowned and in armour, with a sword and
shield, the latter bearing the arms of England and France.—
Sussex Advertiser.

The speaker, it appears, gained the prize for the best pig
exhibited at the late Oxford agricaltund meeting. This,
some of the Oxonians say, is owing to th.: right hon. gentle-
man having' been so long accustomed " to go the whole
hog ; and others that it was a fit award to the member for
Hampshire.
The Western Vindicator, Mr. Vincent's unstamped news-
paper, is to be continued and edited by the Publisher, with
the assistance, it is announced, of Mr. Frost ; the last num-
ber indirectly suggests the firing of corn fields.--Cheltenham
Examiner.
PHYSICIANS' FEES.-At Smnersetshire Assizes on Mon-
day, an action was brought by Dr. Hickes, of Bath,
against a Mr. Fraser, to recover the sum of 4,015 guineas,
for 4,015 medical attendances. The trial lasted two days ;
and the jury at length decided to " throw physic to the
dogs," and gave a verdict for the defendant.

BRUSSELS, AUGUST 8. Yesterday afternoon, between
five and six o'clock, a terrible storm, with hailstones of
extraordinary size, burst over the town of Arlon and the en-
virons. Almost every pane of glass is broken, entire roofs
are blown off, all the standing crops are laid waste, and the
inhabitants of the country are in despair. The loss cannot
yet be estimated. No such storm has occurred in the coun-
try in the memory of man. -At Virton the disaster com-
menced at half-past four ; some of the hailstones were as
large as eggs ; they were driven by a most impetuous wind.
All the corn, potatoes, and fruit are destroyed. A letter
from Hichtel in Limburg, dated August 5, says, " Yesterday,
at half-past four, during a violent storm, such a quantity of
hail fell, that all the standing corn in the commune of Helch-
tren, and in the north part of that of Houthalen, was
destroyed."
DEXTERITY OF THE INDIANS WITH THE Bow.--While
the men were packing the horses, after breakfast, I was again
engaged with my Indian friend. I took his bow and arrows
in my hand, and remarked that the latter were smeared with
blood throughout. Upon my expressing surprise at this, he
told me, by signs, that they had passed through the body of
the buffalo. I assumed a look of incredulity : the counte-
nance of the savage brightened, and his peculiar and strange
eyes actually flashed with eagerness as he pointed to a dead
antelope lying upon the ground. aboutforty feet from us, and
which one of the guard had shot near the camp in the morn-
ing. The animal lay, upon his side, with the breast towards
us: the bow was drawn slightly, without any apparent ef-
fort, and the arrow flew through the body of the antelope,
and skimmed to a great distance over the platne-wnsmiln4
Journeg -across the Rvek# Afountaißet