Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

The Prince
Consort.

No fear of death.

Meredith, &c. Mr. Chapman retired from business some sixteen years before his death.

The fifth and concluding volume of 'The Life of His Royal Highness the Prince Consort,' by Theodore Martin, is reviewed on the 20th of March. "Nearly every public event of importance which occurred in 1860 and 1861 is touched upon in this volume......Mr. Martin's last chapter is very pathetic." He says:

"It was characteristic of the Prince Consort that he contemplated the prospect of death with an equanimity by no means common in men of his years. This was owing to no indifference or distaste for life. He enjoyed it, and was happy and cheerful in his work, in his family circle, in loving thoughtfulness for others, and in the sweet returns of affection which this brought back to himself. But he had none of the strong yearning for life and fulness of years which is felt by those who shrink from looking beyond the warm precincts of the genial day' into a strange and uncertain future. He had no wish to die, but he did not care for living. Not long before his fatal illness, in speaking to the Queen, he said: 'I do not cling to life. You do; but I set no store by it. If I knew that those I love were well cared for, I should be quite ready to die to-morrow.' In the same conversation, he added: 'I am sure, if I had a severe illness, I should give up at once, I should not struggle for life. I have no tenacity of life.' This was said without a trace of sadness he was content to stay, if such were Heaven's will; he was equally ready to go hence, should that will be otherwise. Death in his view was but the portal to a further life, in which he might hope for a continuance,

under happier conditions, of all that was best in himself and in those he loved, unclogged by the weaknesses, and unsaddened by the failures, the misunderstandings, the sinfulness, and the sorrows of earthly existence."

Mr. John Morley, it is announced on the 15th The Pall Mall of May, has accepted the editorship of the Pall

Mall Gazette.

Gazette.

The death of one of the ablest of contemporary James Hamilton Fyfe. journalists, Mr. James Hamilton Fyfe, is noticed on the same date. He was born in 1837. Two unpretending but popular works were given by him to the public in the years 1860 and 1863, the one being entitled 'Triumphs of Invention and Discovery,' the other 'British Enterprise beyond the Seas; or, Our Colonies.' Mr. Fyfe soon drifted into the journalistic department of literature, and obtained an engagement on the reporting staff of the Times. He had pre

viously been a contributor to the Scotsman...... As a result of the good work which he did for the Times, he was requested by the founders of the Pall Mall Gazette to transfer his services to them, and he acted as assistant-editor of their paper from its beginning till 1871. In the latter year the post of assistant-editor of the Saturday The Saturday Review being vacant, Mr. Fyfe was asked to fill it, which he did till two years ago, when a severe and, as the event proved, an incurable attack of illness disabled him from using his pen."

Review.

J. R. Planché.

A long obituary notice of J. R. Planché, "the veteran archæologist, herald, and playwright," is given on the 5th of June. He was born on the 27th of February, 1796, and was articled at the age of fourteen to a bookbinder. In 1818 'Amoroso.' 'Amoroso' was produced at Drury Lane. The success of the piece is believed to have materially influenced his future career. "In 1821

His marriage. Planché married, but his gifted wife, who had been seized with paralysis in 1843, succumbed in 1846 to the attack of another disorder. Mrs. Planché also wrote for the stage. Her biography, written by an able contributor to that journal, will be found in the columns of the Literary Gazette. Of her two daughters, the younger one, Mrs. Mackarness, writes with considerable ability. Her 'Trap to Catch a Sunbeam' was received with universal approbation, and raised expectations which have since been 'King John': justified.* In 1823 'King John' was played at Covent Garden under the direction of the late Mr. Kemble, with dresses and appointments arranged by Planché, whose knowledge of mediæval costume and taste for the proprieties of stage details were even then conspicuous. The success of this venture was a severe blow to the conventional but incongruous mode of putting

an innovation.

* Mrs. Mackarness died in 1881, and an obituary notice of her appears in the Athenæum on May 28th of that year.

historical plays upon the stage which prevailed at the time. It was an important innovation, and not attempted without hesitation; but the idea was sensible and novel, and, in the hands of Mr. Planché, sure to be carried out in a thoroughly perfect and harmonious manner. It

Charles X.

The Haymarket.

is undoubtedly one which has conferred lasting benefits alike on the dramatist and the public. ......In 1825 Planché went to Paris to prepare drawings of the costumes worn on the occasion of the coronation of Charles X., and on his Coronation of return a representation of this stately ceremony was performed, under his supervision, at Covent Garden, with very great success....... Planché began to work for the Haymarket Theatre in 1827, and in the autumn of that year he made a tour in Germany, a description of which he published as 'The Descent of the Danube from Ratisbon to Vienna' in 1828. This was republished under the title of 'The Danube from Ulm to Vienna' in 1836. In 1828 he was writing for Covent Garden and Drury Lane. The success of Charles XII.,' produced at the latter theatre, led to its reproduction at the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, in a rather unfair fashion, and prompted the passing, in 1833, of the first Dra- The first Dramatic Authors Act. The following year saw Act. him occupied upon the words for 'The Vampire,' to the music by Marschner, for the Lyceum, and

matic Authors

'Gentle Zitella.'

F.S.A.

on 'The Brigand' for Drury Lane, in which the song 'Gentle Zitella' made an extraordinary sensation, yet although the publishers of this song reaped 1,000/., Planché himself obtained nothing at all for it. In this year Planché joined the Society of Antiquaries, and became a frequent contributor to the Archæologia and other publications of the Society. From the year 1831, when he was engaged with Madame Vestris at the Olympic, down to 1853, he was continually busy, producing either the greater part or the whole of, it is believed, nearly two hundred separate dramatic pieces.......In 1843 The British Mr. Planché assisted materially in the formation Archæological Association. of the British Archæological Association, of

Madame
Vestris.

which he acted as honorary secretary for upwards of twenty years, editing in that capacity the Journal of the Society.......In March, 1854, Mr. Planché was made Rouge Croix Pursuivant at the College of Arms, and in 1857 he was emThe Meyrick ployed to arrange the well-known Meyrick collection of armour and weapons for exhibition. at Manchester." In 1866 he was promoted to the office of Somerset Herald. "His amusing "A profes- and instructive Recollections and Reflections,'

Collection.

sional auto

[ocr errors]

biography." a professional autobiography,' appeared in two volumes in 1872, enlarged from articles contributed to London Society in the preceding year. ..It was in 1872 that Mr. Gladstone conferred

« ZurückWeiter »