ART, LITERARY, AND DRAMATIC GOSSIP.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1710, 13 August 1879, Page 4

ART, LITERARY, AND DRAMATIC GOSSIP.

(From English files.) Amy Sherwin, in “Ttaviata,” was not a great success in San Francisco, being rather amateurish ; but her voice is pronounced superb, and she is said to bo “full of promise.” Of the French Company which has been recently playing in London, the correspondent of the “Leader” writes The company of the Theatre Francaia of Paris —the most classic dramatic society in the worldia now giving a series of performances in London. At the time of the FrancoPrussian war a part of the company came over here, but we have never before had them in their complete strength. During their stay at the Gaiety Theatre they will produce the chief plays of their repertory, both ancient and modern, with the exception of one or two which English prudery has induced the Lord Chamberlain to inhibit. On the opening night, M. Got, the director and leading actor of the company, delivered an inaugural address, in which, apostrophising Moliere and Shakspeare, ho said—

O toi, noire immortol honneur, touto la terre, Poete sans pareil, te saluo anjonrd’hui.

Toi Shakspeare, immortel honneur do I’Anglo terre, Moliere te salne ! et la France aveo lui!

To many Englishmen the names of the chief members of the company—the names of Got, Coquelin, and Delaunay, of Oroizette, Favarf and Sarah Bernhardt, are almost as well known as those of the leading actors on the English stage ; and to judge from the rush wcich there has been after places they are a good deal more highly valued. The public interest,Jhowever, seems to settle in Mdlle. Bernhardt, one of the most ptpnlar and notorious women in all Paris, one who tries everything, and in a sense succeeds in everything. In addition to being an actress and a musician she has exhibited busts of her work in the salon on three or four occasions, and just recently sho even painted a portrait in oil. Last year she was to be seen once or twice a week ascending in the captive balloon from the back of “ The Tnileries,” and she has published an amusing volume relating her experiences in the air. During the siege of Paris sho served as a hospital nurse, and received a gold medal from the Societe pours I’Encouragement des Bien, She is consumptive, and more than once she has been carried from the stage in a fainting condition ; but fragile though she is, her energy and industry seem indomitable. As an actress she is said in certain parts to surpass Baohel herself. Her greatest creations are in the Phedre of Bacine, and in the characters of Mrs Clarkson in Dumas' “ L’Etrangere ” and of Berthe in Henri Bernier’s “La Fille de Roland.” Few people now-a-daya remember that Mdlle. Bernhardt made her first appearance of note in the scantily-dressed ■' Biche an Boia ” on the stage of a very third-rate theatre ; but, aa it was, the Theatre of the Porte Saint Martin deserves the credit of having first made her illustrious. She soon, however, bounded from burlesque to high art, and for the last ten or twelve years, first at the Odeon and then at the Theatre Francaia, she has had an assured position as a great tragic actress.

Salsbury’s Troubadours ihave recently played a most successful engagement in New York, and on the occasion of the farewell performance in New York, the ‘‘Herald” thus writes of Miss Helen Dingeon :—“ Undoubtedly the public’s bouquet of roses should, when falling ou the Troubadours, lie at the feet of the New York girl, Miss Helen Dingeon, who can sing in fire languages and accompany her rich and powerful mezzosoprano voice with rare skill on the piano, harp, guitar, and zithern.” Miss Dingeon is now on a visit to the city, and her many friends will be glad to hear of the success she has achieved.

Alboni, the famous contralto, is still alive and well, and yet retains her magnificent voice. “ I never,” she told a friend, “do anything that can tire me mentally or physically, and literally forget that I have a voice, so that when I wish to sing it is there. The dolce far niente is the only one possible for a singer,” But she worked intensely before her fame was achieved, Mr Gladstone’s “ Miscellanies ” will make seven volumes, of which four are already published. Charles Dickens’ last letter, dated June Bth, 1870, has just been presented to the British Museum.

Anew work by the late Mi Michelet—“Le Banquet”—has just been published in Paris by Mme. Michelet. Blanchard Jerrold ia editing a new work, shortly to appear in London, called “ Egypt Under Ismail Pasha.”

Einglako has almost finished the sixth and concluding volume of his History of the Crimean War,” It ia styled “Winter Troubles,”

Mrs Burton, wife of the British consul at Trieste, is authority for the statement that Othello’s family is not yet extinct at Venice, and that the original Desdemona had blonde hair, brown eyes, and a delicate month.

The life of the late Charles Mathews, which has been edited and partly written by Mr Charles Dickens, will shortly be published by Messrs. Macmillan and Co. The autobiographical portion of the work comes down to the period of Mathews’s return to England in 1850 and 1860, shortly after his second marriage. It therefore includes his memorable management of the Lyceum in association with Mdme. Vestris, The volume will include many interesting letters of contemporaries, also reproductions of Bichard Lane’s sketches of Mathews in the various characters which ha was wont to assume in his curious entertainment, “ Patter versus Clatter.”

Fanny Davenport, interviewed by a San Francisco reporter, says Henry Irving is the homeliest man sho ever saw. His feet are enormously large, and his legs tremendously long ; besides which, ho limps “funnily.” Miss Davenport is to be married in September. It is pretty evident that Henry ia not the man.

In the new opera, “ Hdloise et Atdlard,” which he is at present writing, M. Qounod will, we are informed, take new and for him extraordinary ground. The libretto is, in fact, written with the serious object of showing the struggle of conscience against the Church law, and ia intended as a vindication of freedom of mind agaiustthe dogma of orthodox priesthood and Boman Catholicism. That 41. Gonod, who was educated for the priesthood, and was in his younger days in Borne received into minor orders as a preparation for the subdiaconate, should at the mature age of sixty ono bo concerned in that which is practically n Protestant opera ia sufficiently extraordinary. One difficulty in the story ia overcome by the murder of Abelard in a bye street at the instigation of the clergy ; while the principal scene of the fourth act ia where Abelard before the ecclesiastical tribunal throws all his religious books into the flames. The legend that Heloise rises from her tomb to receive the corpse of Abelard will be represented as a vision, in a tableau like the apotheosis of Faust, in which the clouds at the back of the stage divide and the tomb of Heloise and Abelard in the cemetery of Pere-la Chaise is discovered. It is, however, pretty obvious that before the new opera can be represented on the stage considerable modifications of the libretto will be necessary.

A FAMOUS PERFORMER. Old Astley was a famous man in his day. He had a celebrated trick horse called Punch, who after a variety of gambols with the clown, would thrust his head and neck through a napkin, made for the purpose, then sit down to a well-spread table, knock his hoof on the table as a hint to look sharp, and a warning to the clown who was his attendant; ho would furiously seize with his mouth a hellpull; hellpulls were then common in every house ; he would eat whatever was put before him, mock turtle, i.e., bran mash, a bread fowl, beans, turnips, carrots, oats, &0., dignified by choice terms French dishes ; then taking a kettle in his mouth hy the handle would pour out some water in a punch bowl, seize a trick bottle made for the purpose and marked “ brandy,” pour it into the punch bowl and deliberately lap, nodding good health to tho clown—then waltz gaily, and finally fall down as a drunken man would. This scene used to elicit ronnds of applause, in fact,- Punch was one of the stars of the company. Old Astley concocted a scheme to send some of his big people into tho provinces, and amongst them Punch. They exhibited with varied success until they reached Belfast, whore, from bad management, they collapsed. Telegraphs -were not invented then ; pad weather and

other causes prevented Astley bearing the sad news • ruthless creditors seized the effects and stud, and amongst them poor Punch was hauled c£E and sold at a horse fair All traces of him were lost, but though lost to sight, he was to memory dear; for ou Astley hearing Punch was not to be traced, he advertised as largely as he could in those days of limited inquiry. But Punch had vanished. About eight years after, going into a low quarter of the town, he saw in a costermonger’s cart a poor cast-down abject creature, the bones protruding through the skin, a wretched semblance of his lost but" beloved Punch. Astley paused in doubt, then tremulously muttered “ Punch.” The animal pricked up his ears, stood up on his hind legs, upsetting the costermonger and the contents of his cart, then waltzed up to his old master. The meeting was a strange one, but positively affecting. Astley’s “ down, sir,” was instantly obeyed, Punch’s neck was as instantly grasped, the caresses of the horse and manager blended, and the recognition was complete. “Well, I’m dashed," said the costermonger, “he is the devil, and no greens ; everybody swears it, and so will I.” “Will you part with the animal ?” said Astley, " Will I, won’t I. and glad to get rid of him. Oh, Lord, sir, don’t have anything to do with him ; he’s a born devil. The tales I’ve ’erd about that there Aawimal is enough to take yer ’air bout by the roots ; why, if ever he sees a kettle on the fire he’ll rush in, he’ll seize it, and commence all sorts o’ games ; every bell-pull ho sees, up goes his ’oof on to the table, and there he tugs and bangs till table or bell comes to smash. If the band plays in the street, he waltz’s like a nateral Christian, and then pretends to fall dead as a herring." He was re-purchased by his old master for a fivepound note, well fed and tended, and in less than a month Punch was at his old post, ringing bells and drinking brandy and water daily.—“ Sydney Mail.”

A curious trial for abduction, resulting in the condemnation of the Lady Superior of a convent, has just taken place at Bordeaux. AM. T., employed in a large house of business, having separated from his wife, had placed his two young daughters _ by the marriage who had remained with hirn in the convent of the Presentation do _Mario, the wife in the meantime going to live in England. A short time back M. E., a commercM traveller, godfather of one of the girls, called at the convent, and obtained from the Lady Superior permission to take them out for a couple of hours. Aa they did not return, information was given to the police, and it was subsequently discovered that they had been conducted to their mother, who was waiting for them in an hotel, and that all four had left immediately by train for London. M. T., subsequently, received a letter from his wife, stating that she had gone with her daughters to America. The father prosecuted the Lady Superior as responsible for the abduction by her negligence, and she has now been condemned to pay 800 f. damages and the costs. The Prince of Wales laid the foundation stone of the new Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, at Norwich, The new hospital will coat £45,000, of which £IO,OOO remains to be raised.