HE THEATRE: AN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE OF DRAMA, MUSIC, ART AND LITERATURE.-Published every Saturday at No. 26 West Thirty-second Street, New York.

The price of yearly subscription to THE THEATRE is four dollars in advance. We cannot undertake to return manuscript that is not suitable, unless we receive sufficient postage to do so. Care is always taken not needlessly to destroy valuable manuscript.

*** The Editor solicits contributions from the readers of THE THEATRE, and suggests that old play bills, and scraps relating to the stage, notes, news and items appertaining to the different arts, would be acceptable. It is the desire of the Editor to establish a widely-circulated magazine, and to further that end every good idea will be acted upon so far as possible.

All articles appearing in THE THEATRE are written especially for it unless credited otherwise.

*** Advertising rates of THE THEATRE will be furnished

DRIFT.

WHOLE NO. 52

WITH this number the second volume and the first year of THE THEATRE are complete. For fifty-two weeks the edito has labored diligently through literary, social, and financial sunshine and storm. He has often, no doubt, been kept awake at night and had no chance to snatch balmy sleep by day, from the grip of grim giant, Toil. Sometimes artists and correspondents, printers, proof-readers, and binders, have not put in an appearance even at the eleventh hour, and possibly the result of all this confusion of the editorial brain has often been discernible. There has been no fortune yet made in THE THEATRE, but the editor is

W. HARLAN, Manager Advertising Department.

THE MOST AGREEABLE OF ITS
KIND IN THE WORLD.

(Hon. William Dorsheimer in the N. Y. Star, March 4, 1887.)

A CONTINUED and increasing interest in the drama, a more intelligent appreciation of the true principles and purposes of the dramatic art and the constant accession to our metropolitan stage of refined and cultivated artists has produced a natural want for a high-class journal devoted primarily to the interests of actors and theatre goers.

As the old-time rowdy rendezvous of actors and their satellites have developed into refined and dignified clubs, so the old rowdy dramatic papers, full of vulgar personalities, jobs and professional spites and jealousies, have been supplanted by a sound, thoughtful and critical weekly magazine called THE THEATRE, of which Mr. Deshler Welch is the editor.

But, apart from its close affiliation with the stage, Mr. Welch is at pains to associate his journal with all that is fresh and attractive in music, art and literature, and the various departments are so happily blended and so cleverly illustrated that we find the product to │ rank with the most agreeable of its kind in the world.

words but it is the few who give up their cash. If all the "friends" were friends indeed, there would be no difficulty about the future. Under all these and many other annoyances which most positively can be styled multifarious, may I not say: "uneasy lies the head of the man who attempts a newspaper" with no political party behind him. There is no politics of any sort, except the selfish kind, in the theatrical profession, and as THE THEATRE is by no means an organ of the stage, it must look to the people who love the stage for its art, to grind it. But Bacon said: "Words are used to conceal thoughts;" so enough. "The king is dead-long live the king!" was shouted from the balcony of the palace as the monarch closed his eyes on regal pomp and went to be food for the worms, while another put on the painted robes and the glittering bauble called a crown-to lay them down again for yet another in his turn, to take up. So the first year's record is a thing of the past, and the new volume begins as bright as Aurora, soothing as Zephyrus, witty as Hermes, merry as Bacchus; and as wise as the editor can make it; comes from the things that are and we hope are to be, as long as "to be" means "to prosper," for when Hamlet said: "To be or not to be, that is the question," he meant will subscribers and advertisers come or will they not."

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BUT the baby has grown and waxed well. It has been fostered with much care and ambition, and if the hands which are feeding it now keep in health and prosperity there need

438

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"'Tis sweet, as year by year we lose

Friends out of sight, in faith to muse, How grows in Paradise our store." HENRY WARD BEECHER, the greatest living orator, minister, and reasoner, died at his home in Brooklyn, March 8, at the age of seventyfour years. He was not a man who stole the livery of the court of Heaven to serve the Devil in. He was a philosopher and a warrior He made with the Bible written on his flag. majesty and power out of God and religion, not by fairy tales and harps, but by reason and its elements. His public life was public utterance for public good. He was never at a loss to find new thoughts worthy of being engraved upon the steel of time; he was never wanting when the Devil was to be fought against, and where the putrid breath of scandal has blown against his cheeks, let it be said that although shapes of ill may hover round the surface of the calm stream in which much good has been mirrored they take no shadows from it.

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MR. BEECHER was always in good humor with everybody, and for that reason if no other, he ought to have been President of the United States. He once wrote the following in response to a notice of a "dead" letter:"

OCTOBER 28, 1880.

to cremation.

HENRY WARD BEECHER,

HENRY WARD BEECHER.

I HAVE just read over one of Mr. Beecher's most remarkable sermons which he preached The Background of in 1877. It is entitled Mystery," and awakened great interest at the time on account of the portion which shaped his doctrine on evolution and future punishIt ought to be read in every church.

ment.

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I UNDERSTAND that the advance sale for a Adonis" in Cincinweek's performance of nati amounted to $10,000.

IT is gossiped that Oliver Wendell Holmes has refused a large sum of money for writing a poem on a certain shoe polish. This is very strange. I was astounded upon finding a halfcolumn puff of a certain make of razor in Mr. Holmes's article in the March number of the Atlantic. Its publication showed that the editor of that monthly is not a stool-pigeon of the counting-room, but the wisdom of printing such a huge advertisement with Mr. Holmes's name attached is questionable.

I

THE Boston correspondent of THE THEATRE describes this week the production of "Antoinette Rigaud," at the Museum in that city, and it seems to have been a success. wish here to call the attention of every reader of THE THEATRE to the fact that I have some especially well informed correspondents. Mr. Whiting, who does not live very far from the navy yard, of Boston; Mr. Carrington, of Chicago, and Mr. Jefferies, of Philadelphia, always say something interesting in their letters, and it has often occurred to me that they are three singularly philosophic men.

IT has always seemed to me that a refined and intellectual man, a literary man, should always be generous and kind. An actor who embraced all these qualities ought to be especially so, and the stories told about Mr. Hamilton, of Wallack's Theatre, would lead one to rather believe that he did not possess these attributes in full. He is an Englishman, and an actor and a playwright who has made some singularly disagreeable remarks about American people. He resides at the Sturtevant House, and inquiry there will substantiate the statement that he will not tolerate anything American. He has even gone so far as to completely rehabilitate his room, using only "English" articles of furniture. The first thing he did was to change his carpet for "an English make." It is said, however, that he lives in blissful ignorance of the fact that it was manufactured in New England. When Mr. Ham

ilton's play of "Harvest" was brought out at Wallack's, THE THEATRE appreciated its merit, and quoted some of the dialogue. It hardly seems possible now that Mr. Hamilton wrote this:

"Where is Bohemia? Anywhere, everywhere, nowhere. It exists in the hearts of its denizens, in the lives of those who love it It's the land of staunch comradeship, of kind y sympathy, of kindred intellect, where hearts beat high and hands grasp firm; where poverty is no disgrace; where charity does not chill; the land where the primitive virtues have fled for refuge from the shams of society, and where Mrs. Grundy holds no sway.'

""

THERE were very few ladies present. There was one who attracted much attention. While otherwise respectably clothed, she exposed a back that was almost wholly naked! Sitting behind this curious dressing, the idea of being allowed such close view of skin that ought to be kept private, excepting an occasional display in the Metropolitan Opera House bath-tub boxes, was rather startling.

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CYRIL SEARLE, a well-known actor, theatrical manager and journalist, died in Savannah, March 10, of consumption. Mr. Searle first came into prominence as an actor in the English "provinces" when he made a hit as Capeau, in "Drink," the dramatic adaptation of Zola's "L'Assomoir." He came to the country in 1877 and played at the Union Square, Daly's, Wallack's old theatre and the Brooklyn TheaHe supported Rose Eytinge in "Rose Michel" and played Bill Sykes in Oliver Twist." He went to San Francisco with Miss Eytinge and appeared there with her in "Antony and Cleopatra." at Baldwin's Theatre, He afterward married Miss Eytinge. Mr. Searle's last appearance in this city was in August, with the Kiralfy Brothers, in "Around the World in Eighty Days," at Niblo's Garden.

tre.

MR. THOMAS's popular concerts at the Metropolitan are attracting much attention. His "request" programmes indicate a growing intellectuality of the people. Trophonius.

ART CHAT.

THE STEWART COLLECTION.

III.

ZAMACOIS is indeed the prince of the painters represented in the Stewart collection. He is moreover prince and jester combined. Being at once a royal colorist and a cultivated wit-a brilliant comic poet. His canvases are his nonpariel of miniature paintings. If I knew that Mr. Stewart selected himself the two paintings by this artist in his collection, I would have no small an estimation of his taste as a connoisseur. The principal of this is, "Court Jesters in Antechamber of the Louvre, time of Henry III.," in which the jester's faces are portraits of the artist, his brother, and some of his friends, among whom are the painters Jules Worms, Berne-Bellecour, and Madrazo. The second example is entitled "The Begging Monk." Zamacois' finish is quite perfect, he is not cold like Geroméo, nor dry like Meissonier's. He seems to finish by instinct rather than labor. Just so with his compositions, he groups his figures in the most easy and effectual manner, seeming without forethought or the assistance of any science whatever. Meissonier is proud of his science, but Zamacois would have been the last person to give his art that appellation. The color in the "Court Jesters" is like the color in some tropical landscape or like a crown of many-hued jewels. One feels the faces must be life-like portraits, and the invention displayed drawing the little deformed and dwarfed bodies sprung from no ordinary mind.

Zamacois has been likened to Molière; might he not too be coupled with Horace? He seems to delight in seeing his satire in an exquisite dress as possible. His figures are in extreme miniature, but they are human beings, not marionettes. Are not the two men upon the bench, the jester and the friar, on his mule, in The Begging Monk," portraits, not only in face but in body? There is here as strong an assertion of individuality as art is capable of. And the independent personality of each fool in the "Court Jesters in the Antechamber of the Louvre" need not be pointed out.

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I HAVE grouped Fortuny with Gérôme, Meissonier, Zamacois, Boulanger, Kaemmerer and Knaus. But I find that the two examples in the Stewart collection are essentially works of high technical excellence only, and will not bear comparison with pictorial works of these artists. We will therefore postpone consideration of his works, placing them rather with the Munkacsy and the Benjamin Con

stant.

Boulanger's conglomeration of Roman pleasure seekers promenading on "The Appian Way" (au temp d'Auguste) is highly interesting. It would take fully a page of this magazine to describe it. The pleasure of which we will therefore forego. It is composed in a crazy manner, overcrowded with figures which become fairly mixed up with each other, so that you have to unravel them like a puzzel to get at them. Nevertheless, the work is thor

oughly original and belongs to a good order of painting. The artist may be said to be clever rather than great.

Kaemmerer's" Croquet Party" is almost a vulgar work, very tame in color, only mentioned here because of the artist's wide popularity in America.

Ludwig Knaus, a healthy teutonic humorist, is not fairly represented by his belabored "Children's Party," which lacks snap and smacks of the Düsseldorf school. It is a pity he could not be seen in his freer and fresher moods.

NOTES.

MR. FREDERICK KEPPEL has now on exhibition in his shop in Seventeenth Street, a collection of etchings, heliographs, lithographs and woodcuts, done by J. François Millet, and an impression of each state of the plates. It was formed during the last thirty years by M. Alfred Lebrun of Paris, and was bought by Mr. Keppel from him. The collection is absolutely complete, and we are able to follow step by step Millet's progress with the etching needle. From a tiny plate of "A Vessel Under Sail," a very slight and imperfect work, to a little better, Woman Hanging Out Clothes," then a "Peasant Resting," a Man Leaning on his Spade," "Two Cows," "A Sheep Grazing,"

Sketches, "Various Sketches, The Seaweed Gatherers," till we come to his eleventh essay, "A Woman Sewing," and he has mastered his technique enough to assert his individuality so that any one would know this proof to be a Millet. His next work is "A Woman Churning," where his drawing becomes firmer, and one step more and a "Peasant with a Wheelbarrow" is one of the artist s strongest etchings, the action of the figure is perfect, containing the same rythm of motion as is found in the celebrated "Sower." The first impression of this plate, which cost $500, was taken by Millet himself with oil-paint in lieu of ink, and printing it by pressing the paper upon the plate with the back of a spoon. The Gleaners,"

37

Two Men Digging" and the ugly "Wool Carder" are well-known prints. "The Watchers" is a poor plate, a dry point. "A Girl Minding Geese" is extremely slight.

Uglier than the wool carder is a mother in "The Woman Feeding her Child," said to be Millet's daughter. In connection with Millet's fondness for coarse types the following from Lensier's "Life" is not without interest:

Yes,

"Let no one think," he (Millet) added, "that they can force me to prettify my types; I would rather do nothing than express myself feebly. Give me sign-boards to paint; give me yards of canvas to cover by the day, like a housepainter, but let me imagine and execute my own work in my own way. On this subject he was unmovable. "Yet, one sees handsome peasants, pretty country girls" yes; but their beauty is not in their faces-it is in the expression of their figures and their appropriate actions. Your pretty peasant girls do not do well for picking up wood, gleaning in the August sun, drawing water from a well. I am to paint a mother, I shall try to make her beautiful simply by her look at her child Beauty is expression."

If

There is certainly no beauty in the features of this mother, other than what one can find in her look at her child. Strange enough the plate which follows this one is the very prettiest of Millet's etchings, the "Shepherdess Knitting." You