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I checked the thoughtless g irl ; Margaret , however , replied— "I was only answering Alfred ' s question ; but 1 said , Julie , at first , that women have no principles ; they nave only intentions . " j } . _ " And desperate intentions you must have , then , my dear , " cried Juhe . "And now , who delivers judgment next P " But we none of us felt judicial . Perhaps we were all somewhat surprised by the settled purpose indicated in Margaret's manner rather than her words ; and by general consent , the conversation dropped into a separate fit of musing that seized us all .
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THE OLYMPIC AND ITS NEW MANAGEMENT . ( With a Word about Robson . ) On Monday , the Olympic opened its doors , with by far the greatest prospect of success since the days when Madame Vestris made it the most novel , the most elegant , and the most attractive theatre in London . Alfred Wigan , a great favourite , socially and theatrically , has made a good start . His friends are satisfied . The game is in his own hands , — a perilous game , as all managers know ; a game in which luck is greater than skill , and yet skill itself as indispensable as luck . To please a public with successive novelties is a terrible task ; for the public , facile in enthusiasm , ready to gape at any absurdity others are gaping at , ready to rush out and see any " reed shaken by the wind , " is also a most capricious as well as stupid public , and more ungrateful than either .
"Wigan is , I hope , too wise to be cajoled into security by his opening success . We all know how promising are the honeymoons of management ! Great as Wigan ' s " reception" was , ( expressive of real hearty good-will and admiration , ) great as was the enthusiasm of Monday night , such things have no permanent influence . Jones , who has shouted himself hoarse , and blistered his beefy hands in enthusiasm , will mercilessly hiss the first inferior piece , and as mercilessly keep away from the first dull one ! Jones himself , like his enthusiasm , is a vanishing phenomenon , not a perdurable noumenon ! This by way of moralizing . On Monday , then , to resume narrative , the season was " inaugurated . " Tlie Olympic Camp , a sort of revue by
Planche , and written in his very happiest vein , introduced the forces ( and the " weaknesses" ) of the company , and while incidentally satirizing the present state of the drama , announced the " intentions" of the new management . The piece is on an old and not agreeable plan , and is rather too long ; but there are so many admirable and " telling" lines in it , the fun is so appreciable , and so removed from coarseness , that it passes off gaily . One point I wish to remark , because it is characteristic . The opening scene is meant to represent the bare walls and stage of a theatre ; but on the stage it is almost impossible to get reality , and this scene , instead of being the reality , ( which was surely facile enough ?) was the " stage idea" of a bare stage !
Plot and Passion , the drama in three acts , which folio-wed , is the joint production of Tom Taylor and John Lang , ( known as " Mofussilite " Lang , ) and is an effective piece , carrying the audience with it from the first . The germ of the drama is Fotiche ' s known practice of employing persons of rank as his spies . Among his unhappy victims is the beautiful Marie de Fontamjes , thrown into his power b y her unfortunate passion for gambling . Ho gives her money to indulge her vice , and she in return gives him information . Become his instrument , through dread of exposure to the world which believes her spotless , sho is forced to act as a decoy to bring to Paris one of Fouclie ' s enemies . In doing so , sho falls in 16 ve with the man wliose ruin she is sent to effect . I will not tell you more of the plot , lest the edge of curiosity be taken from your interest ; but you can at once see the capabilities of such a story for powerful
situation . If it were a work of more pretensions , I would pause to point out several serious defects both of characterization and construction ; but there are only two points needful to be alluded to , and I allude to thorn because even in a drama of this ¦ unpretending class , they are sources of weakness . The first is a want of earnestness and passion in the- dialogue ; tho second is the undramatic disposition to take for granted what ought to bo shown : I allude to such points as Marie do Fonlanaes , both as gambler and spy , not being represented , but merely spokou of . We ought
to see her under the fascinations " of play , and under the infamy of her office . Very fine dramatic material is lost oy this neglect . If I am told that by such a picture her character would lose its " interest" with the audience , I reply , that , in the first place , an audience sympathi s es strongly-with human passion and human infirmity , and would be more inclined to pardon Marie if they felt her . temptation , and saw her struggles ; and , in the second place , do what you will , you cannot efface the stain from her forehead—she has been a spy and a gambler . Another point of the same "take for granted style , is FouchS ' s consummate ability and astuteness of which we are perpetually told , but of which , throughout the piece , he ' exhibits no evidence . AH deductions made , however , the piece is an ingeniousl y-wrought
drama of the modern French school , abounding in good situations , with characters strongly marked , and with the interest kept up to the last . Wigan played the Creole lover with very remarkable force of passion—^ the passion of a gentleman , not of a stage lover ; and there were accents in his voice which made the audience thrill . Mrs . Sterling—what a favourite she is !—threw all her pathos into the part of Marie ; and Emery was careful in the part of Fouche . But tf £ ej > art in the piece was one I have not yet mentioned—a secretary of the Marall species , raised into dominant eminence by the admirable acting of Hobson , who made a " hit" in it which will draw the town .
I had only seen this now popular actor in the burlesque ShylocJc ; and it may be as well to repeat here what were my first impressions , given in Leader No . 174 : — " His performance is certainly peculiar , showing mimetic power , and significance of gesture , but no humour . It was not funny—yet was it not tragic , although hovering on the confines of tragedy . It had the merit of originality and invention ; but I must see Mr . Eobson in some character not burlesque before venturing on an opinion as to his powers , " Those were my first impressions ; and those remain with me , after s eeing him play the serpent secretary . He is a remarkable—a very remarkable actor ; and I shall be much surprised if he do not become , in his way , a great
actor ; for he has two essential qualities—originality and mimetic power . Humour he has none ; he is as dry and hard as " Crabstick Persius ;" and it is not as a low comedian that he will take rank , but as an actor of Bouffe parts , in which character—individuality—is- represented by truthful details . For I think those critics who credit him with tragic power make a fundamental mistake ; because his Shyloch was more serious than comic , they jumped to the conclusion that he would have played Shakspeare ' s Shyloch finely ; because in this secretary the emotive passages were finely represented , his admirers pass on in admiration to the belief that he lias
tragic passion at command . Now , I must not we understood as depreciating Eobson ' s powers , but as describing and defining them , in saying , that he seems to me unequal to the force , breadth , and impassioned dignity of a tragic scene . It is not passion so much as excitability he portrays . The details by which he illustrates his emotion are all good , true , and suggestive ; but they are small—they are the details of an irritable nature easily moved , and moved from the surface—not of a passionate nature moved from the depths , " which moveth all together , if it move at all . " And hence my impression of his acting in burlesque , that it " hovered on the confines of tragedy / ' remains true of his serious acting ; it lies as near tragedy as temper does to passion—as the exasperation of an ordinary man against his wife does to the deep and all-absorbing passion of wronged Othello . As an actor of what may be called BoufTe parts , I believe Kobson will eventually take his position . In spite of his success—in spite of the powers which legitimate that success—he must not , however , be spoken of in the same breath with Bouffe—yet . Bouffd had both passion and humour . But ho had , also , one quality which Eobson must work very hard still to attain— -I mean , that of being an artist . In his performance , on Monday , the details , taken separately , were admirable ; but tliey made no homogeneous creation . There were dashes of burlesque , and rapid
transitions , which marred the unity , because they were transitions not from one emotion to another , but from one individuality to another . He represented emotions of rage , jealousy , love , triumph , hate ; but he never represented those emotions in their subsidence ; on the contrary , the passage from one to the other was like that of figures in a galantceshow . j direct bis attention to this defect ; because , with his intelligence , and mobile face , ho can remedy it ; whereas , to tell an actor like Charles Kean to express subsiding emotions , is like telling Daniel Lambert to jump over a hurdle ! Vivian .
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Tiih Nkw Duties on Skkvanth . —By tho now Annexed T .-ixGH Act , mastorH have to pay from tho 1 Oth inHtant for ovory male aorvant of the ago of eighteen and upwards tho annual duty of 1 / . ltf ., and under that age 10 . i . ( id . Last year the duty on HorvantH brought to the revenue ' 209 , ( SUM . Cuinickio " JiiKTioic . " —Not , long since , an the Kmporor wuh walking on the slopes in his garden at Pekin , an attempt wan made upon his life , but , happily for the "Son of Hoaven , " a chamberlain interposed hiH arm , and sucoowled , at the hazard of hiH own , in Having hit ) master ' s life . It wjih never prociHnly aHcertainod whether tho miscreant were instigated to tho act by tho rebeln , but eighteen mandarins of the higliOHt rank were accused of complicity , and they , and every member of ( . heir roHpootivo families we ' re put to death , and the country for many miloH round their dwellingH wuh absolutely laid waste ! Such in Chinese justice , at leant under the old rtUjime /• -.-New . Quarterly Review for ( kM ) ha \ . Kkvicnum fhom RicoEU'T Rtamph . By a Parliamentary paper just printed it appears that the revenue from receipt stamps in the year ended the 6 th January , 1861 , WaH 109 , 670 / . ; in 1862 , 174 , 744 / . ; and in 1863 , 180 , 491 / .
Ahuab Pahha and inn Do « . — Abban Pasha lately obtained fromj ^ England , by groat exertion , a gigantic maHtiff , of the celebrated Ivy mo breed , and the mounter wiiH the talk of the whole city of Cairo . An the Panha ' H private Secretary proceeded through the narrow streets , accompanied by hin very dooilo but very formidable - looking acquisition , the Turks did not Hy , nor did thoy Hoelc shelter , nor put thcniH « lvuH in attitude of resistance . They tttood still and trembled . Some muttered only "Wonderful I wonderful ! " others adopted literally the Haydon phrase , "Our trust is in God . " One old man we heard to exelaim , "Many of the creations of God are terrible !" and another gravely asked the dignified dog , "Art then son ! , to consume us utterly V The general expression , however , was u (! od can protect iih oven from theo , oh terrible one ! - New Quarterly Jtevteio for October . JIhink run ( Jickman Poict . The German pool ,, . Henry Jinino , has for many yearn past been htruck with paralysis . His limbs , his body , his features , tivon to his very eyelids , are lamo , and to all purposos like those of n , dead man . j ndood it may be naid that lifo only lingers in the brain and tongue—the man \ h a more corpse : tho poot alone survives . An exilo iYom
his country for many long years past , and for many yearn past , too , a captive to illness in the hack room of a small apartment in the Faubourg Poissiniero at PariH , the poet , whose early flighte of fancy created a new ^' -i in German lyrics—and , one might almont s ; iy , in ^< ( f 1 ' . man politics and religion—hiih still been active ; and i not his best , at leant his most pungent books have issued from that living head attached to » dead body , which keeps its long vigils in tho heart of tho Babel o l ' raneo . —New Quarterly llemew fwr October . OJ ' -jkiuiamhm in Amkiwoa . —Tho American Pateiifcoflieo does not confine its duties to the , mere busnioHH of granting patents , but , in addition , ondonvours «¦<> collect information on the Hulyeotof invontionfl a »« l J ^ dustrial progress in every part of the world . ' . ° . ' ' ' purpose the American couhuIh in each of their distiu ¦ are charged with the duty of reporting to tho » lltho " 4 " j at home everything that may be calculated t » '" ' " to home industry . — -Jawnud of the Society of Artjt-Stiuciw ItMMVAYH IN Amuiuoa . —The inhabitant of Brooklyn , United StatoH , have taken tho leu" ^ . street locomotion , and are aliout , ' with the sanction the Common Council , to laj rails and run earn lieu of omnibuses and eabw , through tho prmcip wtrootfl , Sunduyti expected .
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1028 THE LEADER- £ SatWax ,
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 22, 1853, page 1028, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2009/page/20/
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