place their lucubrations side by side. The inspiration common to both becomes too palpable, and people will begin to give credence to the floating legends of Aristarchs propitiated by the purchase of their farces, and by other devices calculated to sap their critical integrity. This book would have been untrue to its pervading genius, if it had not given publicity to letters never intended for any eye but Mr. Kean's. Their importance will scarcely justify the impropriety of such a proceeding. What does it concern the world to know that Mr. Kean's Louis the Eleventh kept Colonel Phipps's cheeks burning with excitement,' whilst his lower man was, like the king's in the Arabian Nights, marble from the cold;' that Mrs. Howitt was 'astonished beyond expectation;' or that Mr. Palgrave Simpson found it 'impossible to see anything but perfection' in the same performance? Some of Mr. Kean's friends may not like to see their gushing acknowledgments for stalls and private boxes put upon record in this fashion. There is one, however, who will assuredly not complain; and therefore we have no scruples in transferring his letter to our columns. Thus writes the Recorder of Hull:: Permit me to thank you cordially for the unbounded delight which you afforded all my family last night by your splendid representation of Louis the Eleventh. They hardly know how to express themselves, such is the sort of infatuation with which you have filled them; and they will not hear of my returning to chambers this morning before I write to say how greatly they are obliged to you. This is Term-time, and my evenings are uncertain; but it shall go hard if I do not in a day or two find myself in the stalls. I am most impatient to go; and to such a piece as that of last night infinitely prefer going alone. I hope you will allow me to present you and Mrs. Kean with a copy of the new edition of Ten Thousand a Year, which I have rigorously revised throughout. I am, my dear Sir, yours very much obliged, SAMUEL WARREN. Sir F. Thesiger and his family were there last night. Again are we reminded of Nicholas Nickleby. Among Mr. Crummles' patrons was a certain Mr. Curdle, who had established a footing in literature by a pamphlet, On the Character of the Nurse's deceased Husband in Romeo and Juliet; with an Inquiry whether he really had been a merry man' in his lifetime, or whether it was merely his widow's affectionate partiality that induced her so to report him.' When Nicholas made his successful début, his triumph was crowned by the receipt of A presentation copy of Mr. Curdle's pamphlet, with that gentleman's own autograph (in itself an inestimable treasure) on the fly-leaf, accompanied with a note, containing many expres sions of approval, and an unsolicited assurance that Mr. Curdle would be very happy to read Shakspeare to him for three hours every morning before breakfast during his stay in town! Mr. Kean's splendid representation' is laurea donandus Apollinari; and Mr. Warren's book, 'rigorously revised throughout,' furnishes the appropriate bay. So long as Mr. Cole has to chronicle the theatrical gossip of the last half century it is just possible to wade through his book; but when he plunges, in his second volume, into the annals of Mr. Kean's doings at the Princess's Theatre the task of following him becomes too severe. He is always in ecstasies. Nothing on the stage ever was, or ever will be, so admirable as Mr. Kean and that gentleman's dearest partner of greatness.' They are paragons not merely of histrionic genius, but of every private virtue. Language is ransacked for expletives, and twisted into a very kaleidoscope of panegyric. No contemporaries are deemed even worthy of mention by the side of Mr. and Mrs. Kean. Nor is this enough. Mr. Cole offers his personal testimony,that to the latter even Mrs. Siddons, in Constance, Lady Macbeth, and Elvira, must yield the palm; while Miss O'Neill's powers were at once more limited in their range, and feebler within that range. But if Tragedy smiled upon her birth, Comedy rocked her cradle; and Mrs. Jordan is selected by Mr. Cole as the type of joyous vivacity only for the purpose of assuring usthat her best performances were poor in contrast with Mrs. Kean's. 1859.] Mr. Kean and his Predecessors on the Stage. In fact, Shakspeare's women were never understood till they were embodied at the Princess's Theatre. The eulogy of Mr. Kean is, if possible, more unmeasured. Whatever he touches he not only adorns, he creates; and Mr. Cole longs to evoke Shakspeare from his tomb to see what the great actor has done for him. A halo of sanctity invests every emanation of his genius. Cholera itself pulls up at the threshold of his dramatic temple. Coming from the east, it paused with fatal effect in the circumjacent vicinity of Golden-square, and passing up Poland-street to the south side of Oxford-street immediately opposite the Princess's 371 plays, in a collected form, are now in course of publication by Messrs. Bradbury and Evans.' Mr. Kean is a great public teacher.' 'He has reformed, nay, he has even regenerated, the national drama of the country,' whatever that may be. And if, as a manager, England has never seen his equal, we may be sure that, as an actor, he is peerless. Comedy, tragedy, farce, drama, and melodrama all acknowledge him as their chief interpreter. That the Kembles, Young, Macready, and such lesser luminaries should_pale before him is not enough. Even Garrick is run down, that Charles Kean may soar. The brilliant wit who held his own with Johnson, Burke, the Beauclercs, Reynolds, and Goldsmith-the actor who was to the stage what Cowper was to poetry, the pioneer to nature and simplicity, and who made his way irresistibly to the hearts of all who came under the influence of his art -the sparkling writer, the intimate friend of the best men of his time, is disparaged for the glorification of a man who, to judge by this book, resembles him only in his failing. Of praise a mere glutton, he swallowed what came, And the puff of a dunce he mistook it for fame; Till his relish, grown callous almost to disease, Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please. Theatre, halted as if a barrier had arrested its progress at that point.' The fly-leaves of his play-bills, priceless monuments of antiquarian research and critical acumen, are embalmed for posterity in Mr. Cole's pages. The reprint of the plays, annotated by his master hand, are 'strongly recommended as eligible studies for the more youthful readers of the dramatic master;' and parents will be glad to know, that these Feeling but too keenly the force of what has been so often urged, that it was the spectacle and not the acting which drew people to the Princess's, Mr. Cole labours most strenuously to prove that if the spectacle was superlative, still the acting was the paramount attraction. This proposition he has probably established to his own satisfaction. But all his superlatives leave the question precisely where he found it. Mr. Cole may forget, but playgoers do not. Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona multi. Other actors and actresses have left their mark behind them; and even when Mr. and Mrs. Kean shall forsake the scene of their glories, we may hope not to be left altogether without consolation. If this book concerned only Mr. Kean and his biographer, we should have passed it by with a smile of pity at the insatiable vanity of the one and the obsequious sycophancy of the other. But it is an offence to literature, and a scandal to the profession to which Mr. Kean has the honour to belong. Here is a gentleman who has thriven far beyond his deserts, who by a series of lucky accidents and skilful manoeuvres has risen to a most prominent position, and whom the world generally may therefore be disposed to accept as a type of actors of the higher order. Not content with the fame and fortune which have not always fallen to the lot even of unquestionable histrionic genius, he thrusts himself before the public through the agency of one of his own officials, and by his mouth proclaims himself and his wife as the most gifted beings who have ever adorned the British stage. For this purpose and for no other could these volumes have been written. This is the burden of the tale throughout. Not the noble art which Mr. Kean professes to illustrate, not the high aims which are open to and will always be pursued by real histrionic genius, not the in culcation of a faith in the stage as a potent agent for enlarging the sympathies and instructing the tastewith no thought of these things has this book been written, but only to exalt the individual at the expense of his class, and to inoculate the public, if possible, with his own preposterous estimate of himself. For this Mr. Kean has toiled through life. For this he has had his reward. But he has overshot the mark. He has written his own condemnation. The dexterous manager and the conceited egotist will henceforth eclipse the clever actor. Apt as the player's vocation may be to engender a habit of selfreference, the history of our best performers, and the character of many living ornaments of the stage, demonstrate that it does not destroy their self-respect. In this parti cular, Mr. Charles Kean must not be accepted as a type of his class. It is easy to imagine the infinite scorn which such a book as this would have excited in men of the stamp of the Kembles or Youngnot to speak of more recent names. The profession has many enemies; but no assault from without could inflict one tithe of the injury which the overweening vanity of so conspicuous a member of it is likely to occasion. Had evidence been wanting of Mr. Kean's unfitness to interpret to educated men the great creations of our masterpoet, it is furnished in these volumes. A nature so self-engrossed, and an intellect so narrow as are here revealed, could never expand to the proportions of an Othello or Macbeth, or grasp the wide domain of poetic beauty which is inclosed in A Midsummer Night's Dream or The Tempest. THE LADY OF LEE. THERE'S a being bright whose beams O! the joy that beauty brings That she loves but me. There's a grace in every limb, The dazzling of her e'e. Yet there's a light amid All the lustre of her lid, That to all beside is hid, That I alone can see. 'Tis the glance by which is shown That she is all mine own- Then say, can it be wrong To the Lady of Lee? F. M. NAPLES, FRANCE, AND AUSTRIA. THOSE who have been disposed to take a hostile view of the Italian cause, and to treat the aspirations of the people as unreasonable, and their grievances as unreal, have dwelt on the bitterness and universality of their hatred to Austria as a proof that the wrongs they resent are sentimental,' and not practical. In 1848, the first use made of liberty by each of the States of Italy was to send forth its youth as volunteers to the Lombard war of liberation. However bad and oppressive their own governments might be, their strongest sentiment of hatred was not for them, but for Austria, whose rule was certainly less bad than that of the Papacy or the Bourbons of Naples. This year the same thing was repeated; the youth of Italy, instead of remaining to seize a chance of overturning the tyranny of their own princes, flocked from every part to join the standard of national independence unfurled by Victor Emmanuel. And their detractors in England and elsewhere point to this as a proof that the Italians desire rather to avenge an insult than to redress substantial injuries; are eager to be rid rather of the presence of a foreign than of the tyranny of an oppres sive government. The Italians know better. They know that though the Austrian rule in Lombardy was, until 1848, as good as any in the peninsula-Sardinia excepted-it was by Austria that all the misgovernment of Central and Southern Italy was sustained and rendered possible. The experience of that year did but impress this lesson more forcibly upon them. It has become the first axiom of Italian patriotism, that without Austria there could be no tyranny in Italy, with her there can be no freedom. No wonder that they should consider that little or nothing has been achieved for their cause while Austria holds a single fortress or a single province south of the Alps. In the case of the Two Sicilies, the influence of Austria has been less violently and obtrusively exercised. The Neapolitan kings have latterly been able to hold their own without armed assistance. They have crushed more than one incipient rebellion with Neapolitan troops, or foreign soldiers in Neapolitan pay. In 1848 a little patience and skill enabled Ferdinand to do the same, and spare Austria the trouble of doing in his dominions what she had done in the Duchies and the Legations. But the history of that year affords sufficient indication of the dependence of the Bourbon Court on the supremacy of Austria. Had Charles Albert succeeded in holding Lombardy and Venetia against Radetsky, it is evident that Ferdinand would have taken a different course. In January, when he yielded to the demands of the Neapolitans, and promised a constitution, the aspect of affairs in the north of Italy was such as to render it uncertain how soon Austria might find her hands too full to interfere beyond her own frontiers. Had the storm blown over then, the King of Naples would not have needed the shelter of a constitution, and his promise would have been quietly forgotten, or forcibly set aside. But as the horizon grew darker, and an outbreak became every day more evidently imminent, the Sicilian Court, which was anxiously looking northward, became more liberal in its acts, and more conciliatory in its demeanour. Even after the infamous 15th of May, the King thought it wisest to temporize. He held the power he had resumed with a firm hand; but he allowed a new Parliament to meet, debate on reforms, and discuss questions of finance. Shortly after the defeat of Milan and the conclusion of an armistice between Austria and Sardinia, this Parliament was prorogued, having sat for two months. Austria was triumphant in the north; France was not disposed, under the guidance of Cavaignac, to stand forth as the champion of liberty; and the King of Naples felt himself sufficiently safe to extinguish in blood the flame of Sicilian rebellion, and to work his own pleasure in Naples, without the advice of an obnoxious assembly. Still, he waited on Austria. She had as yet enough to do at home, and no strength to lend to her imitators and allies. Hungary was on the eve of rebellion; the Imperial Government sat uneasily under a constitutional régime at Vienna. Presently came The the announcement of a new and more violent revolution there, and of the flight of the Imperial family. Ferdinand shaped his course accordingly; he allowed the Constitution to remain in form, if not in force. Vienna was occupied by Prince Windischgratz on the 2nd of November, and on the 23rd Ferdinand further prorogued his Parliament until the 1st of February, 1849. By that time the Empire had recovered its unity and vigour. Hungary was still in rebellion, but the Austrian forces were evidently preparing to overwhelm her. Austrian crown was on the head of a younger and more energetic man than its late wearer. The King of Naples saw his advantage, and felt that he would now be secure in putting an end to that phantom of liberty which had been suffered to haunt the presence of the ré assoluto ed adorato. On the 12th March a royal decree from Gaëta dissolved the Parliament, reserving the appointment of a day for new elections. On the 25th the Austrian ascendancy in Italy was completely reestablished by the battle of Novara ; and from that day to this the time for new elections has never been fixed, and the Neapolitan constitution remains in a state of suspended animation. The power of Austria once restored, the Neapolitan Court resumed its usual policy of stupid and shameless tyranny. It defied the representations of France and England on behalf of its unhappy subjects, and trusted to Austria to secure it against any serious inconvenience in so doing; nor did Austria disappoint its confidence. Up to the outbreak of the late war, no amelioration had taken place in that 'negation of God erected into a system of government' under which the Two Sicilies groan. The battle of Magenta alarmed the young King sufficiently to induce him to call to his aid one of the very few Royalists who have shown either moderation or common sense. General Filangieri proved himself, in the reduc tion of Sicily, as merciless a butcher as any Bourbon could desire to find; his troops burned the wounded alive in the hospitals, and he himself sent men to be tried by courtsmartial to which he dictated the sentence, and whose deliberations he cut short by sending a file of soldiers to escort the prisoners to the place of execution. But he is a man of sense, with no delight in persecution, and no partiality for the system of espionage which prevails in Naples. Accordingly, he was coldly regarded by the late King, who considered him culpably lenient towards the disaffected islanders; and after his recal from Sicily he remained in bad odour at Court until the present sovereign, desirous at once to allay public dissatisfaction and to secure a strong government, called him to office. As all the worst creatures of the late reign still retain their places, the selection of Filangieri proves little or nothing as to the intentions of the King. The new Premier has not been allowed to remove even the worst and most disreputable of his colleagues and subordinates; and the whole army of officials, from the highest to the lowest, is resolute to thwart any attempts at improvement in the administration. Still it deserves notice that the first creditable appointment-the first concession to public decency made in Naples since 1849-was consequent upon the first reverse sustained by Austria in Upper Italy. Had the 'quadrilateral' been forced--had the victory of Solferino been followed up with such energy and good fortune as might have completed the destruction of the Austrian power, and freed Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic,' we should probably have received news of a gradual enlightenment in the mind of Francis II., progressing pari passu with the successes of the Allies;-first, a relaxation of the severities of the police; then a dismissal, pro formá, of some of the most hated of the Ministers; then concessions more or less ample to the Constitutionalists, to be faithfully fulfilled or shamelessly retracted according to the final result of the conflict. Neapolitan politics are a barometer of the Austrian fortunes; and the |