The Sun. — 1840-03-23 (London, England)

OLYMPIC THEATRE.—After the Ladies Club, which, by the bye, under the able chairwomanship of Mrs. Stirling, still proves as attractive as ever, a new burletta, from the pen of Mr. Bernard, was produced, entitled, The Happiest Man Alive. We hardly know how to describe this piece. The bill calls it a burletta, but it appears to be rather a mixture of excellent comedy and broad farce, with a little dash of tragedy. The plot, which is founded on a story called " The Reverses," published, we believe, a few years ago, in one of the periodicals of the day, is founded on the moral lesson taught to a young man of fashion, who believes, in consequence of his possessing a fortuno of 80,000/., a mistress devotedly attached to him, and a faithful friend, that he is the " happiest man alive." A lawyer, however, decamps with his money ; he rushes to his friend for advice, and to his mistress for consolation; but both, for excellent reasons, are out of the MIN'. Imagining that they are deserting him in his misfortune, the " happiest man alive" determines to commit suicide, when he is fortunately stopped by the intervention of his faithful friend, who has pursued the fugitive attorney, and has succeeded in obtaining the restoration of his lost fortune. His mistress, too, accounts for her absence, in a plea which no court of love could reject, namely, an intercession with an aunt in her lover's behalf, and the piece is made to conclude with the hero declaring his penitence, Lis unshaken faith in love and friendship, and that he is then in reality the "happiest man alive." The character of Charles Euston, " the happiest man," was capitally played by Mr. F. Vining. The piece was eminently successful, and was announced for repetition every night without a dissentient voice.  -We regret to learn that the world of science has sustained a heavy loss in the death, at Bremen, of the celebrated astronomer Olbers, at the advanced age of eighty-one. He was a member of most of the European learned societies, and the author of many important contributions to the progress of modern astronomy. Letters from Alexandria mention likewise the death of the well-known French engineer, M. Lefeyre, travelling correspondent to the Museum of Natural History in Paris. He died at Mohammed-Ali-Polis, in S:enaar, in October last—having gone thither commissioned by, the Egyptian Government to search for the metallic mines supposed to exist in Senaar. While busy with these obituary records, we may mention the death, at Paris, of Doctor Biett, head physician to the Hospital of Saint Louis, and a person of great eminence in his profession, for all the qualities which can render its members the benefactors of their kind. His courage and devotion in the fearful times of the cholera will be long remembered ; and having, by his unwearied humanity and generous sacrifices, worn out his constitution, and laid himself an a death-bed, at the age of fifty-six—surrounded by the most distinguished of his professional brethren, he made his own disease a valuable study for their use, predicting the day and hour of its final struggle—and died, amid the most intense sufferings, with the calmness of a stoic and the hopes of a martyr. Athencrion.