Star.
London, England, 1821-10-22 00:00:00

NEWPORT, ISLE OF WIGHT.

Friday, the 12th inst. the Annual Hunting Club
Ball was held at the Guildhall in this town ; and on
no similar occasion do we recollect seeing a more
numerous and brilliant assemblage of the Nobility,
Officers of the Garrison, and Gentry of the neighbour.
hood. The Ball-room was fitted up with great taste
and elegance; and justly celebrated as this delicious
Island is for the beauty of its women, we could hardly
conceive that, even here, any public place could dis-
play such groups of loveliness as we beheld on enter-
ing the room. On the arrival of the company, the
Ladies were successively presented to Miss SnEDDON,
the Lady Patroness of the Ball, who, surrounded by
her charming sisters, received them with the most
impressive sweetness of manner, and unaffected gen-
tleness and dignity. Country dances commenced soon
after nine o'clock, led off in one set by the Lady Pa-
troness and Captain HAMMOND, one of the Stewards;
and the other by the amiable and interesting Lady of
our excellent Representative, Sir L. T. W. HoLerzs,
Bart. These were succeeded by quadrilles, and the
whole was kept up with unabated spii it till fite o'clock
in the morning, when onr grand national anthem of
Goa save Me King concluded the festivities of the
evening. Refreshments were handed round in the
utmost profusion, and the polite attention of the Gen-
tlemen of the Club and the Stewards, left nothing to
be withed for by their delighted and happy guests.

The French Navy b.t present consists of 58 sail of
the line and 40 frigates.
Skipper, the Norwich pedestrian, has declined his arduous
task of walking 1000 milts in twenty days, in consequence of
the interference of ebb Mies:fates, after having completed 390
I mike b eight dais.

READING SCHOOL TRIENNIAL
VISITATION.

We have again the high gratification of recording
in our pages one of those fine classical exhibitions, for
which we are indebted to 'the taste and learning of
Dr. VA LPY, and the talents and industry of his pupils.
The Orestes of Euripides was represented last week
by the young Gentlemen of Reading School, with a
completeness and splendour of effect seldom equalled
even on that Theatre, whose triennial performances
have long been associated with our truest and rarest
delights. It is a pleasure of no common cast to find
those " time-honoured" names, those old glories of
the Athenian Stage, revived into glowing life by their
youthful representatives, to see the spring and elasti-
city of youth lending a new grace to the great tragic
pictures ; and to hear with a distinctness of enuncia-
tion that seems to " syllable men's names," the grand
sound of that magnificent language. The very con-
sciousness that it is Greek would be charm enough.
The present Tragedy is founded on the well-known
story of the perils of Oman after the death of CLY•
TEMNESTRA. Nothing can exceed the beauty of the
opening scene, where Electra watches over the couch
of her sleeping brother, with such an intensity of wo-
manly carefulness and of sisterly love. The anxious
sympathy of her companions—the rebuke with which
that sympathy is received, when she fears that it
should disturb the object of her care—the gradual
awakening of Orestes—his most hazardous, but most
natural, exhibition of the waywardness of sickness—
his growing consciousness of misery and of madness—
and the affectionate ministerings and gentle soothings
of Electra—all this forms a picture of domestic ten-
derness seldom equalled, and never surpassed, by any
Poet of any age. FLETCHER himself, " the gentle
Fletcher, the poet of woman," has nothing finer in his
exquisite delineations of female devotedness than the
stern and high-born Electra, beading, amidst encir-
cling enemies and failing friends, over the sick-bed of
her unhappy brother. The impression of that scene
lingers on the fancy and sheds a redeeming sweet-
ness over the remainder of a Play, which, though
abounding in agitating situations and dramatic con-
masts, is yet darkly stained by injustice and revenge.
—The noble acting of Mr. P - ALAIRET iS another re-
deeming grace. He did the fullest justice to the
trying and difficult character of Orestes, whether in
the wildly passionate parts when goaded to madness
by a wounded conscience (in the Allegory of the Poet
haunted by the Furies), or in those tenderer passages,
when he pours forth his whole soul in penitence or in
gratitude. In the scenes with Pylades (Mr.
LA-
MoTTE), both the young Actors exhibited a glowing
and magnificent picture of the old heroic friendship.
They looked the two princely Greeks to the very life ;
their foi ms seemed to dilate, and their voices to swell
and tremble with the fullness and depth of the inter-
nal feeling. Some of Mr. PALAIRET'S gentler touches
would have done honour to any Stage. Mr. R. Pa-
LA I RET gave by his kingly port and his youthful fresh-
ness, an attraction not its own to the mean part of
Menelaus; and Mr. S. PALAIRET, as an Argive, deli-
vered the fine narrative of the trial and condemna-
tion of Orestes with admirable spirit and variety. We
cannot but sympathise with the proud delight which
the father of these most promising youths, himself a
distinguished scholar, must have felt on this occasion.
The bitter resentment of Todarus, which EURIPIDES
has so finely grounded on the remembrance of a fond
old love, was forcibly depicted by Mr. ADAMS ; and
the abject terror and crouching humility of the Phry-
gian slave were excellently given by Mr. BocKETt.
Mr. LEIR, as Apollo, performed his short but splendid
part with proper grace and dignity. The female
characters were admirably filled. Mr. HARRIS was
equally great in the sisterly tenderness of the unri-
valled opening, and in the stern and manly resolution
of the later scenes. However impetuous and unre-
lenting Electra became, he never forgot that he was
personating a woman and a Princess. Mr. HALL
gave the golden-sandaled Helen with much elegance ;
and the young and unsuspecting Hernsione, whose
artless character is amongst the happiest reliefs of the
Play,- was very gently and delicately touched by Mr.
Nests e !WAS r. The Chorus of Argive Ladies, always
so beautiful a part of the grouping and so fine a
vehicle of lyrical poetry, is in the Orestes very natu-
rally blended with the business of the scene. It was
excellently sustained by Messrs. H. HARRIS, RICH•
ARDSON, and PIDGEON. One or two of Mr. Rica-
ARDSON'S speeches, especially, were given with a
sweetness, a sensibility, a dramatic power, sech as we
have never seen before in so young an actor.
Of the accuracy of the costume it is needless to
speak. It was combined on this occasion with more
than usual splendour, and a. taste and attention to
pictorial effect which would have alike gratified an
antiquary and a painter.
The Orestes was followed by the last three Acts of
King John, altered from SHAKSPEARE by Dr. VALPY.
We have already trespassed too largely on our limits
to do more than mention the principal actors in the
English Play, of whom Mr. JouNsorr, as King John;
Mr. CURTIES, as Prince Lewis; Mr. S. PALAIRLT,
as Falconbridge ; Mr. J. H.. LAMOTTE, as Hubert;
Mr. MOREWOOD, as Pandulph ; and Mr. DE LISLE,
as Arthur, were particularly distinguished. The ma-
ternal agony of Constance, was exquisitely depicted
by Mr. RICHARDSON, who looked and played that
difficult character to admiration. lie gave a further
proof of the versatility of his talents, by his delight-
ful delivery of Mr. TALFOURD'S delightful Epilogue,
to whose just and playful satire he gave the fullest
and happiest effect. We ought not to omit a just tri-
bute of applause to Mr. LAMOTTE'S excellent delivery
of the Prologue.
The anxiety to procure admission was greater even
than on any former occasion ;—a very considerable
number of applications was made in vain for tickets
for the last evening of the performance, when the
visitors of the School—the Vice-Chancellor of the
University of Oxford—the Bishop of Oxford as War-
den of All Souls', and the President of St. John's Col-
lege—attended. We understand that these distin-
guished Scholars expressed the highest admiration
and delight at the whole performance, and the fullest
satisfaction with the general attainments of the Pupils
of Reading School.—The Prologue and Epilogue
will be given to-morrow.

The Earl of Uxatunca is President of the young
Nobs' and Gent's Club, at the Cafe Royal. Prince
ESTERHAZIr was one of its earliest, Members.