The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-10-11 00:00:00

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of his lordship's Cain, a Mystery, characterised by no less
a good Christian than Sir WALTER SCOTT as a "very grand
and tremendous drama." It—the statue—is still lying in
" cold obstruction, " in ignoble dirt and darkness, in
rotten wood, and more rotten cordage in the cellars of the
Queen's Custom-house. The statue is a noble one ; the
Danish sculptor has, as skilfully as truthfully, in happy

se,
is what ?

PEEL is dead, BUCKLAND
HOW Lord BROUGHTON

—enjoying himself, and BYRON is forgotten ! What has
become of old FLETCUEB, BYRON'S faithful servant ? His
Italian warehouse at the West-end ?—is it still redolent of
Lucca oil and Parmesan ? Asking FLETCHER one
night—some friends lodged in the first floor—mag-
nificently " FLETCHER, is it a fact that BYRON
wrote Don Juan at night over gin and water,—it is
said so ?" " Well, I don't know," said the wary and
honest Scot. " I know this, that when his lordship was
writing it, I have placed a bottle of Hollands on the table

ssel of water, and he would say to me,
FLETCIIER, you may go to bed now;' in the morning I
always found the bottle empty." Rejoinder was unneces-

himself very creditably in the

" republic of letters" is young HUNT, described 1;y. BYRON
many years ago as not being then the quietest of children.

and his new work ; it is said he means to give a series of
literary portraits—press people—in it. He will find the
latter meagre subjects,—all accomplished men, but neither
inspired nor eccentric, as some were thirty years since.
There are no Kum SUPPLES now—no D.lviz POWERS—
no NICK NUGENT& The gentlemen of the press—as they
ire calm—careful—some of them cal-

That "first person singular present of the in-
the rule laid down by the late JOHN WALTER,
Times, leaves little time or inclination for " fancy's
However, let THA.CKERAY try his hand, or
plume. His first number has created no very great im-
pression on the readers thereof. The illustrations are neat
and sharply executed, unlike the heavy ones in Bleak
House, which by the way, I may mention, cost somewhere
about £3O a number, i.e., £l5 a piece, no bad pay for
HARLOT BROWNE.
In matters theatrical I have little or nothing to com-
municate. BROOKE is filling Drury-lane theatre, the les-
see having paid the American's " man and horse" one
hundred pounds for two weeks as the keep of the latter,
in order to give the tragedian the use of the stage. In
dramatic circles it is considered that BROOKE does not act a
wise part, in leaving England for California. For example.
Remaining in England, he has searcely any one to contend
with ; he will necessarily, if he play at all, play before dis-
criminating, if not always severely critical, audiences; he
has an " improveable" mind, this is evident from the hints
he has already adopted, so that playing in the United
Kingdom he has the prospect of raising his art, by his
improvement as an artist. If he go to California, escaping
the dangers of the voyage, the still more to be dreaded
place itself,—when he has reached it, he must act, not
according to his taste and judgment,—he must play up,
or down,—they are both the same,—to uneducated, gross,
and boisterous audiences; in short, he must rant, "tear a
passion to tatters." He will be hooted else, by the men
and women who throw down a paper-full of gold dust or
two or three nuggets for admission; I am told they are
not nice about " legal tenders" and such stuff. The de-
velopment of deeper and darker shades of Shakspeare's
great characters, the nice touches—points—in Othello,
Hamlet, Macbeth, Richard, will be pearls before swine
in California. BROOKE must " rant, ' if he choose to
please. This will be fatal to his future success here,—
should he return. He requires a severe, a chastening
audience, to repress every tendency to the vice referred to;
a severe, judicious, learned, chastening, yet kind audience,
to eliminate the effulgent, the undoubted qualities which
he possesses. He may return with fifteen thousand
pounds sterling under his girdle, he cannot return a better
artist. Let us leave BROOKE, and be more discursive—
' even on " matters theatrical."
"About this time," to quote theveritable words of the cele-
brated quack of our boyish reading days —FRANCIS MOORE
—about this time there is a great accession of bile in the
dramatic body of the metropolis. Managers and proud
lessees have either been starring, like BIICKSTONE or
CHARLEY MATHEWS, or " enjoying a little repose and
country air"—every one of these words pronounced with
a self-sufficient drawl as broad as Oxford-street. The
repose and good air manager is one of the well-to-do sort.
I Talk of authors alone belonging to the genus irritabile ;
I know managers of theatres—have known others—who
could fritter into impalpability all the authors, gramma-
rians, writers, from PEISCIAN to G(EORGE,) P(rince)
R(egent), JAMES, or LEIGH HUNT. Well, our theatrical
demigods have returned to town, to kick actors as stock-
fish in their—the managers'—efforts to please the public.
CHARLES KEAN is going to stick to " Sardanapalus,"
with his " drinking cup of the period." CHARLES KEAN
is bidding fair to have his theatre like the cart of THESPIS
—two performers and an auxiliary. He will not have any
one who gains, in the legitimate exercise of his or her
• talent, a breath of applause. Hence WIGAN, WRIGHT,
WYNNE—I might alliterate the alphabet—had to leave.
A good actor enough—l believe he is now at Drury-lane—
! appeared in a suit of armour at the Princess's, took well in
it, was applauded ; straightway he was taken by the gorge,
and told that the applause was not bestowed ou him, but on
"my armour." BEN Winisruu is about the best-natured
manager we have. BUCKSTONE is good enough, but deaf
and fulgetty ; he is " very intelligent," because, though he
don't hear a word you say to him in his coulisse, he an-
swers exactly. A warm letter of introduction from an old
friend will get a " muff" an engagement from WEBSTER—
pIay a night or two, and then necessarily shelved; salary
paid all the time. Having more hands than were re-
, quired, was one of the reasons he gave up the Haymarket.
BIICKY is more careful of the money; though not stingy,

he is not profuse. CHARLES MATHEWS, son of my in-
dent friend and brother-cripple, like Skimpole you be-
lieve there is such a thing as a ten-pound note,—suppose

it is necessary,—bufwheffier it be better or worse than a
five, you neither know nor care. CHARLES MATHEWS
rarely falls out with his actors. They do with him.
Enough. I speak not here of his accomplished sposa ;
not but that she has got plenty of spice left. VESTRIS
do yon remember the Olympic and LISTON, and the noble
women you had about you? I do; and eke the gunpow-
der tea and eau de vie, commixed in the little cups in
your laced boudoir :

" But sae's my heart these nichts are gaen."