Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

father's grooms that had been down with some school necessaries-a badger and a brace of bull-dogs, I believe-to say he wanted me about his Derby book: so down I go; and after luncheon at the Christopher with him and half-a-dozen other imps of blazes like himself, we had in cards for a quiet bit of hookey. At first I had the best of it: there's no use in telling a lie, for there's a good deal in knowing how to make a pack at hookey-all right and straight, you know; but scientific. Well! this lasted about half-an-hour, when the luck changed, as they called it; but it was the cards that were changed for a cut pack, if ever I see one before; and so they got every blessed sixpence I had about me; and here I stand, cleaned ont of my two thousand. What do you think of that?"

"Do you want to make me believe" I exclaimed, "that you continued to play with cards one deal after you knew that they were

false?"

"No!" said the Leg with perfect composure; "I stopped as soon as I came to my senses, which wasn't till my last penny was gone; for-you may believe it or let it alone-the champagne I had at my luncheon was drugged!....tell me, what do you think of that?"

I didn't tell him; but, laying by my allegory and my deductions from it, for the day, and calling for my hat and cane, I took my way westward of Waterloo Place, in search of balm for my stricken philosophy.

"

PUBLIC AMUSEMENTS OF THE METROPOLIS.

Some men, of an ill and melancholy nature, incline the company into which they come to be sad and ill disposed; and, contrariwise, others of a jovial nature dispose the company to be merry and cheerful."-BACON's Natural History.

"These sweepings do as well

As the best-ordered meal;

For who the relish of these guests will fit
Needs set them but the alms-basket of wit."

-BEN JONSON.

Public amusements, even as the men who create them, are diversely disposed; some fulfilling the "end and aim" of their creation duly and laudibly; others quite running athwart of their pristine purposes, and inclining the spectator rather to ennui and melancholy than to mirth and jollity. We have seen a tragedy so played at the PRINCESS's as to beget merry thoughts of a burlesque; and a three-act opera of Balfe's, as enacted at DRURY, incline the most cheerful portions of the audience to a suicidal summerset off Westminster Bridge, as the consummation of the evening's weariness. And what wonder, when excellence and natural fitness are so constantly neglected by our theatrical managers, for mere convenience or ill-ordered economy? No

doubt the easy indolence and gullibility of John Bull are at fault in this matter. Call an ill-translated and worse-fashioned French melodrama by the name of farce, and be sure three-fourths of the London audience will find fun in it: a plot ever so hacknied shall be esteemed new, because it is so called; and an actor ever so unskilful shall establish a reputation by the mere repetition of his name in the public journals. In all respects, from railway jobbing down to Cremorne fêtes, we take up with pretences instead of realities.

Before we speak of what has been, let us glance at what is to be, at the FRENCH THEATRE. Under Mr. Mitchell's management, Hope tells not a flattering tale in vain of any salle de spectacle. Only think of a programme for the French plays, commencing on Monday, the 3rd: Lafont the first star, with Mademoiselle Martelleur, of the Theatre Français, Paris and Lyons, at present an incognita with us. Another novelty also in the lady line is a Mademoiselle Eugénie, of the Theatre du Vaudeville. Thereafter will follow Madame Albert; Messieurs Laferriere and Felix; Mesdames Doche, Rose-Chéri, Déjazet, Plessy, and last, but greatest, the (to make use of a German idiom) gift-encumbered Rachel. Mademoiselle la Directrice, the popular Eliza Forgeot, will ensure, as usual, a well-ordered management, and the early commencement of this highly-appreciated series of performances will, no doubt, accord to Mr. Mitchell the brilliantly successful season he so well merits by his uniform exertions for the public entertainment.

DRURY LANE, at which the everlasting repetitions of Balfe's operas had seemed to weary even the meek and camel-like necks or spirits of its patient incomers, has at length been transformed into a hall of novelty. Mr. Forbes's opera of "The Fairy Oak" and the ballet of "The Marble Maiden," under the guidance of Mons. Albert, work this change in the face of affairs. Several times in the week, though still too often, the old stories of "The Bohemian Girl," &c., pall upon the tired and stupefied senses. We cannot say as much for the music of the new opera as for the dancing and dancers of the new ballet: the latter are excellent, and naturally secure excellent houses. Adèle Dumilâtre, Petipa, Albert, and Pichler, with Masdemoiselles Adèle and Louise, would be forcible attractions any whither.

The HAYMARKET Theatre is, the year round, so well organized for the entertainment of the public, that it feels less the influence of the reviving theatrical season than most of the minors; yet this agreeable resort has been rendered more than usually attractive by the great accession of Miss Helen Faucit. This lady's acting has the art of moving the passions at will: she has genius, and the skill necessarily acquired by long practice, joined to the heart which moves the genius and the skill to act as the lever that raises the feelings of an audience to the highest pitch. The success which she formerly met with as Pauline, in "The Lady of Lyons," with Macready as Claude Melnotte, is no whit diminished in her present engagement with Mr. Anderson (but lately returned from America) as her supporter. Bulwer's plays are all highly dramatic, and can hardly lose their popularity: each is founded on a human passion, and each is treated humanly-that is, naturally, and of course effectively: Love,

pride, avarice, ambition-these find echoes in many bosoms; and the two first are finely depicted by Miss Faucit in Pauline. In many situations she creates the part she enacts: the injury she has endured at the hands of Claude, and the corresponding sense of bitter resentment in the heart of the proud lady, conflicts finely with the involuntary interest with which she listens to his relation in the third act, and with the love and remorse with which she is afterwards affected. Mr. Anderson is an acquisition to this theatre; while Farren still bears the palm of interest over every other of its actors. The old comedies revived, in which he holds the chief rôles, and the new and good comedies that have appeared during the last two seasons, and in which also he retains the chiefest parts, assist much to content its audiences.

The little theatre of the PRINCESS's has been made important by the advent of Mr. Macready on its boards. The legitimate drama has now a most fitting mouthpiece in this small salle de spectacle. Macready has returned to us unimpaired in vigour, and renewed in spirit. With what refreshment have we again imbibed the soulstirring words of Shakspeare from the lips of his restorer on the stage! With what gusto, if not with what force, he throws himself into the myriad ideas of the dramatist of nature! Without depreciating the merits of Miss Stanley for indefatigability and industry, how often do we wish that Miss Helen Faucit were acting with him, and up to him! Oh! for the good old times, when a play was a whole thing, excelling in its minutest as in its chiefest parts: when one name was not sufficient for the public! Such thoughts crowded into our mind when listening the other night to the stirring scenes in "Hamlet," so worthily enacted by Macready; nor could we resist ejaculating

"But oh! ye Muses nine, and fair-haired Graces three,
A new Ophelia grant when next this play we see."

"Don Cæsar de Bazan" still holds its popular place; and here Mrs. Stirling shows off to advantage. Oxberry and Honner are amusing in the farce of "Jack o' both Sides"-a new trifle, in which also Miss Emma Stanley is very effective. It is in such characters as The Sempstress that she is highly meritorious: it is vexatious to tax her above her powers. We have not space to mention several other novelties brought out since last month at this house.

At the ADELPHI, we find as the newest novelty the "Diable à Quatre," the piece which has created such a sensation of late in Paris, rendered into irresistible pleasantry, as well as good English, in its British dress. No better adaptation, or more highly executed piece has been bestowed upon the public from the Adelphi répertoire for a long time back. The plot is much the same as "The Devil to Pay," and turns upon the exchange effected between the wives of a dissipated basket-maker and a moral count, of characters just the reverse of their respective husbands. The interest is sustained by excellent dancing of the comic order between Wright and Celeste (the basketmaker and his wife), in which the Polka is delightfully travestied, and between Mungard and Miss Ellen Chaplin. The scenery is good, and the putting on the stage, considering the limited capacities

of the theatre, altogether admirable. Paul Bedford and Miss Woolgar both assist in this piece.

The LYCEUM Theatre has shared in the propulsion given to amusement by the commencement of winter, and goes on as prosperously as the managers thereof can desire. Keeley is rather rich in "The Last of the Bravoes," otherwise an uninteresting novelty. The new farce, "Peter Jenkins," has more available properties of fun in its composition.

Who has not, that is addicted to spectacles (not spectacles) au grand and equestrian shows, who has not visited Mr. W. Batty's Theatre, and pronounced "The Bride of the Nile" a worthy successor to worthy predecessors in the same line of bustle, pageantry, and glitter, and all the properties dear to the juvenile imagination, and mayhap, also, to those of a riper growth? Who, therefore, need be told categorically of the various items that form the whole, and who of the claims to precedence always maintained by the far-famed riding in the circle? If we advert to the merits of Mr. Batty as the spirited manager of a truly national establishment, it is rather in the way of our office than as a matter of need, to remind the public that the proprietors of this house, and the company thereof, are as enterprising aud as zealous as heretofore in the discharge of their laborious functions.

The STRAND Theatre continues its career of magical delusions, under the auspices of Monsieur Philippe, with unabated vigour. His magic basins attract crowds within their vortex nightly; and his experiments are pleasingly varied by dancing on the tight rope, in which Mademoiselle Kophel au la fille des fleures bears the chief interest.

LITERATURE.

STABLE TALK AND TABLE TALK, OR SPECTACLES FOR YOUNG SPORTSMEN. BY HARRY HIEOVER, LONDON. LONGMANS & Co., 1845. Twenty years ago, probably nothing within the possibility of letters was more improbable than that the author of these pages should write a book, except that he who has laid them before him at this moment for notice should be their reviewer. But "time works wonders" is a proverb to which every man's experience echoes "Amen!" Poor Harry Hieover! - that the shadow of thy exchequer should ever have waxed less! Thou, with ever a good horse in thy stable, a good bottle of claret in thy cellar, and the best of welcomes to both in thy heart for a friend! Well, what though we meet here in unexpected fellowship, a cordial good speed to thee, says one who knew thee in the sunshine of thy fortunes, and who holds thee-if such may be-in better account now that, by thine own telling, a cloud has come o'er the spirit of thy career. That thou wert a sportsman we

needed not this written guarantee; that none but a sportsman could have accomplished this work is most certain. Literature it is said does not rank as a profession-is not recognized as such, because "any one may take it up." Imagine a young gentleman at Swan and Edgar's, writing "Notitia Venatica!"... But to the matter in hand. This volume does not relate to any sport in particular, but to all manner and means of sporting in general. It wants an index sadly; and that is all it wants to be as nearly a perfect work of its sort as one might wish to lay hands on of a dull day, or any other, when in the mood to read. Hieover is a thoroughly practical man; and he is more than that he is a thoroughly amusing one: the pleasantest quill-driver probably that ever drove four horses as they ought to be driven. His Stable Talk is not destined to be a sporting classic, certainly; but it will be a welcome tome in the sanctum of every Englishman with a taste for his national recreations, and a relish for the proper style of their treatment by the essayist.

THE DOG; by William Youatt. Charles Knight and Co., Ludgate Street. Published under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. -One strong objection "the trade" is certainly sure to point out to any hapless man who may have taken into his head to write a book of what may be considered a sporting nature, is the proverbially confined circulation of such compositions. It may prove acceptable to one particular class; and if so, all well and good; but if not, there is very little chance of getting it off with the rest of the world. Now, there never yet was a more striking, or more triumphant, exception to this, perhaps but generally too correct, rule than Mr. Youatt's well-known work on the Horse-one that the great mass, "the anybody," might peruse without ever finding himself at sea, or bothered with a succession of strange terms he lacked the experience to understand, or the energy to inquire about; and still, on the other hand, one from which the most practised sportsman might derive almost an equal amount of amusement and information, with little chance of being annoyed with what Jack Tar would call "lubber's lingo," or ridiculous, theoretical opinions. It is in this well-determined arrangement, assisted by many other and really more weighty (but not so catching) recommendations, that we find the immense success, the universal approval, of decidedly one of the most popular works the Society ever brought out. To say that its successor, the undertaking we have now under consideration, is based upon the same admirable principle, will be only confirming that which all must have supposed would be the structure of it: we have the same wonderful research, the same complete power in treating every section of the subject, and the same desire pervading every page, that the volume should never be read but to be understood. In one leading feature, indeed, we must say we consider this far excels its elder brother; and, for that very reason, feel inclined to believe it will attain even still greater popularity-a superiority, however, that arises entirely from the difference in the nature of the two animals, and not from a greater ability or experience of their author with one or the other. The more rational and higher deve

« FöregåendeFortsätt »