Charles Reade.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 208, 25 June 1887, Page 7

Charles Reade.

A life of Charles Reade has just been published by Mr Coin p ton Readc and Mr Charles Liston Reade. It seems from this, work that the novelist was descended, on the father's side, from King Henry 111. and King John ; on the mother's side from John Balliol, and even was related by marriage to Charlemagne. Reade's mother is '•in every fibre a lady." Nevertheless, she was of a rather singular disposition, for though " a devoted mother," yet when her children came home from school or college " s-he loved them for a day, tolerated them for a week, and then devoutly wished they were out of the house." "She was honey one moment, and vinegar the next," and " much as she loved the baby Charles, she loved her own whims and fancies more." It is interesting to know that " she abominated the low wit of Dickens " because her son did not follow her example. He held Dickens to be the greatest Englishman of the century, and was indignant that he was not raised to the peerage. About the year ISSO Reade wrote " about thirteen dramas which nobody could play." He was, however, more successful in collaboration with Tom Taylor, with the drama "Masks and Faces." There are many curious matters in this work, but space will only permit the quotation of the following estimate which Charles Read formed of Ellen Terry : " Ellen Terry is an enigma. Her eyes are pale, her nose rather long, her mouth nothing particular, complexion a delicate brick dust, her hair rather like tow. Yet, somehow, she is beautiful. Her expression kills any pretty face you see beside hers. Her figure is lean and bony, her hand masculine in size and form. Yet she is a pattern of fawnlike grace. Whether in movement or repose grace pervades the hussy. In character impulsive, intelligent, weak, hysterical —in short, all that is abominable in women."