courts, was not without a certain chivalry of his own; and, having made many thousands of dollars out of "Caste," generously sent its author in London a draft for two hundred and fifty dollars-not, as he finely put it, because he was compelled to do so, but as "a matter of right between man and man." Mr. Robertson returned the draft, but not to Mr. Florence. He chose Mr. Wallack as his intermediary, and in a modest, but, some said, caustic letter to that gentleman, requested him to forward the draft to the gentleman who had such a highminded and exceptional appreciation of the rights between "man and man." Why Mr. Robertson didn't return the draft straight to Mr. Florence has never been explained. Possibly he was awed by that gentlemen's phenomenal memory, which, like a good rule, might work both ways.

TROUBLES, as we all know, never come singly, and unhappy England with her Irish bug-bear and her foreign complications is to have an additional sorrow in the loss of some of her most famous. America may or may not have some responsibility for the first source of anxiety; she certainly has none concerning the second; but we must admit our culpability regarding the latest trouble. We are this season taking from her some of her most cherished actors and singers. Next month Mr. Henry Irving and his entire Lyceum Theatre company visit us for a six months' stay, and Mr. Edward Lloyd and Mr. Barton McGackin, as well as some famous lady vocalists, are already tasting the pleasures of an Atlantic voyage. Mr. Irving will, this time, wisely eschew Shakespeare and tragedy and appear only in Mr. Will's version, which, according to all accounts, appear to be a sort of glorified spectacular melodrama. To know that Mr. Irving will not mutilate Shakespeare or add new terrors to tragedy is some comfort, and I shall be glad to find that in Mephistopheles he has found a congenial role. Mr. Edward Lloyd, England's leading tenor, will, I think, make a complete success on American concert platforms, to which he will confine

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his talents. His voice is as sweet as Mario's at its best, if not so powerful as that of Sims Reeves, while his method is the perfection of musical art. Mr. McGackin, on the other hand, is more noted for the power and volume than the purity of his voice, but he is a fine singer, and since I saw him last has, it is said, developed into a finished actor. will essay the operatic stage, and is specially retained for the Cincinnati Musical Festival. Among the ladies on their way here is Miss Georgiana Burns, certainly the best soprano now singing in English opera. The last two artistes have for years been members of Carl Rosa's opera company, and, of course, I must make the trite remark that Carl Rosa's loss is America's gain.

*

**

THE European iconoclast must evidently have exhausted serious work, for I now find him turning his attention to the theatre, determined to destroy one of its most cherished institutions. The innovation fiend is a Brussell's architect, and the object of his assault is our ancient and well-beloved friend, the footlights. He claims that they are wrong from an acoustic point of view, and are visions in many other particulars. But his substitute for them is a triple range of gas jets, "immediately behind the orchestra," which means, I suppose, between the occupants of the orchestra stalls and the fiddlers. I hardly think a fastidious public would care about such very contiguous illumination, and it is certain that a well-balanced band of musicians would prefer some other kind of martyrdom than blowing by triple ranges of gas jets. No, no; if our Flemish friend can find no better substitute, the footlights will not be permitted to go. Apart from the tender traditions that hang round them and their long-tried usefulness as illuminators, the footlights must remain in the interests of journalism. There are probably here and in England hundreds of hard working scribblers who school themselves particularly to the stage, and sing the changes on our friend, the footlights, with painstaking pertinacity. "Footlight and Foyer," "Footlight Flashes," "Foot

THEY claim to originate everything in Paris, but their claims cannot always be allowed. A coterie of playwrights and pretending dramatists are trying to establish a theatre for the production of rejected manuscripts, where the unsung poet may hear his verses and where the hitherto "mute, inglorious' Shakespeares can listen to their tragic inspirations. Messieurs, the idea is not original, it has been put into effect here and elsewhere, and has always failed. With characteristic courage, American and English authors have hired theatres at their own and their friends' expense, and produced plays, the virtues of which managers have failed to discern, and the public in all such cases have endorsed the practical wisdom of the manager. Not very long ago an author arrived here with a trunk full of rejected plays. He hired a popular theatre and an expensive company, and tried a series of them. He watched their performance every night with the profoundest interest. Before the hot season was over he sat almost alone in his glory, and he ended by ruining himself and an amiable old gentleman from the west, who took to the drama after a long life passed in the prosaic paths of pork packing. When the theatre closed, the old gentleman "reckoned" he'd have to return to business, and probably has once more put out his shingle in Cincinnati. The dramatist has never since been heard from, but perhaps he may have changed his name, turned his plays into French and be one of the Parisian coterie. If this should be the case, his experience will be valuable to his confreres, yet if he renders it faithfully, it will proba

bly render what Mr. About aptly calls Le Théatre Impossible-an utterly impossible project.

MR. JOSEPH JEFFERSON is playing a very brilliant engagement at the Star Theatre, but the liberties he has taken with the text of Sheridan's immortal comedy sadly ruffles the feelings of the old-timer. That he should have cut down everybody but Bob Acres is nothing, but that he should have cut the tender Julia out altogether is little short of sacrilege. Falkland he permits to live, but pray let Mr. Jefferson tell me what is Falkland without his Julia? The whole object of his life is to love and quarrel with Julia, and yet Mr. Jefferson ruthlessly relegates that heroine to the shades. I am very much afraid that if even Mr. Jefferson takes to playing Touchstone, in "As You Like It," he will cut out Rosalind and leave poor Orlando nothing but an imaginary maiden to sigh for, die for, and cry "my eye" for. I am quite certain, after his treatment of hapless Julia, that when Mr. Jefferson stars as Mercutio he will cut out Juliet and leave Romeo "without his roe, like a dried herring." But why this fiendish attack on the fair sex? Mr. Jefferson has doubtless been a lover himself, away back in the time of Andrew Jackson, and he is known to have been a devoted husband and happy father, therefore why this trespass on the rights of the majority? No doubt Mr. Jefferson has some private and occult reason for his malevolent behavior, but until he reveals, his admirers will continue to be disturbed. By the way, when is Mr. Jefferson to give us a new play, or at least a new character? Is he to be the Edwin Booth of comedy and make his professional life like that of the private soldier,

and Kean's reply to her

DEAR MADAME :-I know it.

Yours, etc.,

E. KEAN.

have been often quoted as examples of the perfection of brevity in correspondence, and she is credited with having advised a young actor, who was displeased with some press notices of himself, "always to write his own criticisms," adding, "Davy always did it."

upwards of 43 years, died on October 16th, 1822, in the same house on the Adelphi Terrace in which they had so long lived together, having reached the advanced age of 97 years. She was a remarkable woman, and the praise bestowed upon her by those who knew her best seems to have been well and wisely bestowed. Horace Walpole says of her: "I like her exceedingly, her behavior is all sense, and all sweetness, too," and Mrs. Delaney, in describing a day passed at Garrick's house at Hampton, writes as follows: "As to Mrs.

پرا

Her name was Viegel, and she was born in Vienna in 1725. She became an opera dancer very early in life, and attracted the notice of the Empress Maria Theresa, by whose command she changed her name to Violette, and whose friendship she retained during the lifetime of the Empress. In 1744 she arrived in England, bearing a letter of recommendation from the Countess of Stahremberg to Lord and Lady Burlington, who gave her their protection, received her as a member of their family, and introduced her to the numerous people of rank by whom they were surrounded. It has been said that she was a natural daughter of the Earl, and that she came over from Vienna disguised as a boy, but neither of these stories appears to have the slightest foundation in truth. She obtained an engagement at the Opera House in the Haymarket, and for three or four years "enchanted the town with

her poetry of motion." She fell

in

love with Garrick upon seeing him act, and though their meetings

were

at first clandestine, owing to

the opposition which her protectors made to their association, but the

objections were at last removed, and

she was married to Garrick June 22d, 1749, the Earl of Burlington giving her a marriage portion of £6,000, while her husband settled upon her an additional sum of £4,000. They appear to have passed

remarkable that during the whole period of their 30 years of marriage (he dying in 1779), "whatever invitations they received, or excursions they took, they never once slept

asunder. After Garrick's death she was repeatedly solicited by men of rank and station, and among the

to re-enter the marriage state, but she as repeatedly refused, and true to her first love, whom she survived

and I beg you the note from Hampton

لسم

your anger along with; for I shall always

remain your frend and

faithful serv =
M: Garnite

Delphin Shuorden

Seven's clock.

Garrick, the more one sees her the better one must like her; she seems never to depart from a perfect propriety of behavior accompanied with good sense and gentleness of manners."

THE BEECHER SALE.

The American Art Association will sell the library, engravings, paintings and bric-a-brac belonging to the late Henry Ward Beecher, on November 8th and days following.

The collection of paintings contains some half dozen early works by George Inness, which are of rare value, though not up to the standard of his later paintings. There are also works by Henry Farrer, W. Hamilton Gibson, F. S. Dellenbaugh, Jervis McEntee and several other Americans. The foreign pictures are poor.

A water-color, by Samuel Coleman, entitled " Venice from the Public Gardens," is one of the most superb water-colors I have ever seen by any artist of any nationality.

A crayon drawing, "The Ring of Freedom," by Eastman Johnson (who, by the way, this catalogue says, was born in 1860), has the following interesting history:

"During the year 1859, a little slave girl was brought to Plymouth Church to be redeemed.

"She was a child of about seven years, very pretty, with fair complexion and light wavy hair. Mr. Beecher appealed to the congregation to ransom her from slavery. The basket was passed, and about $2,000 collected. Miss Rose Terry being present, not having sufficient money with her, drew a valuable ring from her finger and cast it into the basket. There being more than enough to purchase her freedom, the ring was given to the child as her Freedom Ring. She was rechristened Rose Ward, after Miss Terry and Henry Ward Beecher.

"The drawing represents the child gazing at the ring, the emblem of her freedom." W. H. B.