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Exhibitions of Works of Art in London.

tention to this most ancient, most useful, most praise-conferring of the sister arts!

Mr. Soane illustrated his whole course with a number of splendid and elaborate drawings, which reflect great credit on his liberality, and on the talents and industry of his pupils, by whose laborious application he stated himself to have been enabled to produce them. Approaching Exhibition at the Royal Academy.

The pictures are now nearly all arranged, and before our Magazine will be before the public, will be displayed for their inspection. From the proportion of those pictures we have seen or heard of, this exhibition may be reasonably expected to surpass in portrait, landscape, aud fancy, most former years, although in history, and in the higher class of art, we do not augur very favourably.

Mr. LAWRENCE sends whole-length portraits of the Emperor Alexander, the King of Prussia, the Prince Regent of England, the heroic veteran Frince Blucher of Wahlstadt, and the bold leader of the Cossacks, the Hettman Count Platoff; and a half-length of Mrs. Wolfe reading by candle-light, a perfect masterpiece of art.

Mr. PHILLIPS has a Groupe of a Fa mily in his usual excellent style, Lord Algernon Percy, and several illustrious

commoners.

Sir WM. BEECHY has, among others, portraits of Blucher, Platoff, and the Duke of Sussex.

DRAMATIC DRURY-LANE. Feb. 19, a new ballet was produced at this theatre by the title of Indian Nuptials. It was wholly taken up with the ceremony of an Indian marriage, all the details of which, in characters, dresses, and incidents, are extremely ludicrous. It was received with bisses by one part of the audience, and shouts of laughter by the other. The exertions of the elegant Miss Smith, the heroine of the piece, somewhat assuaged the violence of the storm, but the indulgence due to a youthful debutant was not extended to Mr. D'Egville, jun. the hero, who made his first appearance on this occasion. The piece was repeated, with improvements, but not without a warm opposition, on the 27th.

Feb. 25. After the tragedy of Hamlet, a new musical after-piece, intitled Poor Relations, was performed; but nei

[May 1,

JOSEPH has Miss O'Neill as Melpomene.

DEVIS has also a portrait of the same lady, that was announced by us a few months ago as being engraved for the house of Boydell and Co.

TURNER, as usual, is great in Landscape.

WILKIE sends his "Distraining for Rent," not inferior to any of his former. Among other exhibitions of the fine arts now open or about to open, are the following:

:

Miss LINWOOD's, in Leicester-square, of Copies of Needle-work, from celebrat ed pictures, which we shall notice in a future number.

LUCIEN BONAPARTE's magnificent collection of Pictures, on sale by private contract at the New Gallery, Pall-Mall.

A grand Altar-piece, by GUERCINO, from the church of St. Grisogana, at Rome, at 87, Pall-Mall.

The Panoramas of the Battle of Vittoria and the Battle of Paris, Leicestersquare.

The Panorama of the same subject in the Strand.

Mr. WEST's great picture of Christ Rejected, in Pall-Mail, formerly mewtioned by us.

Sir GREGORY PAGE TURNER's splen did Collection of Pictures, at Mi H, Phillips's Great Rooms, New Bond-street, which are to be sold by auction by him in the course of next month,

REGISTER.

ther the excellence of the music, nor the talents of the vocal department, could save it from condemnation.

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Feb. 28. Mr. Penley, from the Eng lish theatre lately established at Bra sels, was introduced for the first time to a London audience, in the character of Young Norval, and was received with universal applause, He appeared, the 7th of March, in Belcour, in the West Indian, and justice compels t admission, that a more successful det! has seldom been made by any candidate for the first walk in elegant comedy. H voice is good, his countenance exprese sive, and his person of the middle s and well proportioned.

March 9, Shakspeare's tragedy Richard the Second, with considerah e alterations, was brought forward. Kean personated the weak, licentio

1815.]

Dramatic Register-Drury-Lane.

monarch, from whom this piece derives its tltie, and though we agree upon the whole with a correspondent who has favoured us with his remarks on this play, in the present number, vet we cannot help thinking that in the first representation Mr. Kean indulged rather too freely in what constitutes a predominant feature in his acting-a certain sarcastic, epigrammatic turn, which gives peculiar force and meaning to particular passages. Now Richard's pusillanimity is so strongly marked, that in our opinion there is no character on the stage to which this sharp and caustic humour is less applicable. Mr. Kean represented him rather as what he ought to have been, than what he really was; but he seems himself to have felt the impropriety, as in the repetitions of the piece he softened down, in a very great degree, that harshness of which we complain. The other principal characters were well filled. Mrs. Bartley as the Queen, Elliston as Bolingbroke, Pope as John of Gaunt, and Holland as York, were severally honoured with the approbation of the audience.-The new scenery for this play is eminently beautiful; the dresses are superb, and the overture, symphonies, and marches, by Burrowes, grand and appropriate. With all these advantages, no doubt can be entertained that it will be a permanent favourite. Of the alterations, our limits will not allow us to speak fully. Some appear judicious, others the reverse. Among the latter, we include the sudden conversion, by the tears of the Queen, of the fiery, anbitious, Bolingbroke, who, overcome by her sorrow, determines to resign his illacquired power. This is a gross violation of character; and the prison scene, in which the Queen, after reciting the speech of Lear over the dead body of Cordelia, expires, is not less opposite to historical fact.

March 11, after this tragedy, a new farce, from the fertile pen of Mr. T. Dibdin, was performed. Its title, Past Ten d'Clock, and a Rainy Night, has very little affinity to the piece. The plot is very simple. Mr. Snap, an old merchant, has a fair daughter, Lucy, and a ward called Nancy, equally fair. He hopes to marry the former to Sir Peter Punctual, a very old gentleman, and to bring about a match between the latter and his own son. The ladies, however, have supplied themselves with lovers. Lucy declares for Sir Peter's son, and Nancy is enamoured of young Wildfire, a dragoon officer. The attempts of these NEW MONTHLY MAG,-No, 16,

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gentlemen to get into the house in oppo sition to Dosey, a Greenwich pensioner, errand-boy, and watchman, and Squib, a disbanded corporal, employed by Snap, form the chief attractions of the piece. The dialogue is not remarkable for wit, but there is a great variety of ludicrous situation, and a perpetual change of scene and subject, which have ensured the constant repetition of the piece, ever since its first appearance.

On the 29th of March, a new opera, the Unknown Guest, ascribed to the pen of Mr. Arnold, was produced. The plot is strongly marked by the marvellous, a quality in which few modern operás are deficient. If, however, it possesses no other merit, it may claim that of introducing to the public some very good music, chiefly composed by Kelly and Braham, and of again bringing into play the abilities of several firstrate singers, who have recently been kept almost entirely in the back ground. Mrs. Dickons made her first appearance since her late indisposition, as Celestina, the heroine of the piece, and proved that her illness has not robbed her voice of one particle of its strength, compass, or sweetness. Braham, as Rodolf, the hero, executed his different airs in a fine style, and Philipps deserved not less praise for the energy of his acting than for the taste which he displayed in singing. This opera has since received some judicious alterations, and been frequently repeated.

On the 12th of April, Mr. Bartley made his first appearance in the character of Falstaff, and has since repeated his performance, with loud and deserved approbation. There is much arch drollery in his manner, but untinctured with that buffoonery which actors sometimes mistake for humour: Without being loud or boisterous, without any over-strained efforts, he, by a flow of rich, chaste, and truly natural humour, presents Falstaff to the audience in the most diverting point of view. In his under-acting, in which the knowledge of a character is perhaps as decidedly expressed as in the direct performance, Mr. Bartley is peculiarly happy; though in our opinion his voice is at times too bold and firm for the old bon-vivant, and his movements occasionally display too much celerity. Mr. S. Penley personated Hotspur; but, though he possesses undoubted talents, they are not of such an order as to give effect to this difficult character.

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Dramatic Register-Govent-Garden.

COVENT-GARDEN.-At this theatre the talents of the fascinating Miss O'Neill continue to be the grand object of attraction, and every new character in which she appears adds to her fame. Indeed if there be any thing in her that we are disposed to regret, it is the very circumstance that constitutes her extraordinary excellence-the ardour with which she enters into the spirit of the characters she personates, and which impels her to efforts that rend and consume the powers by which such wonderful effects are produced. In Mrs. Haller, in the Stranger, in which character she appeared several times during the month of February, this painful consideration does not force itself upon the spectator. With the exception of two or three scenes, all is calm and quiet action; subduing every thing before it by sweet and melting pathos, by the delineations of sorrow and repentance, in which her sweet and silver sounds, while they die away upon the ear, sink more deeply into the heart. Among the singularities attending the performances of this enchanting actress may be observed a peculiar expression of applause: while she speaks, while she is engaged in the business of the scene-the audience listen with undivided, with admiring attention; they seem fearful, lest by a premature expression of delight they may lose a single syllable that she utters. This is the true homage of the heart, and to command it is the most decisive proof of real genius. In her Mrs. Haller, too, there is something unique even in comparison with her other characters; for the male part of the audience betray what some might call a womanish weak ness, and appear not less deeply affected than the female.

On Easter Monday, March 27, a new oriental melo-dramatic romance was pro'duced at this house; it is entitled Zembuca, or the Net-maker and his Wife. The chief points of the fable are as follow:-Zembuca, sultan of Persia, (Mr. Farley,) becomes enamoured of Almazaide, (Miss S. Bootb,) a young beauty, betrothed to Selim, (Abbott,) a brave and faithful officer, and orders her to be seized and conveyed to his barem, while ber intended lord is sent to fight a battle, in which the sultan, by withholding reinforcements, has effectually provided, if not for his destruction, at least for his defeat. On this ground he orders him to be proscribed; and Selin seeks an a glum in the hut of Mirza, the netnker, (Emery.) At this critical moment

[May 1,

Buffardo, (Liston,) a sort of court jester, is sent to fetch Ebra, (Mrs. Gibbs,) the handsome wife of Mirza, to the sultan's harem, but, in her stead, he unwittingly conducts Selim in disguise to the palace. The persecuted lover is discovered at the moment of interchanging vows of fidelity with his mistress, and consigned to a dungeon. The exertions of Korac, (Terry,) the slave and confident of Zembuca, whose life had been saved by Selim, and those of Mirza, procure his freedom; Korac incites the troops to revolt and to declare in favour of Selim, who it appears is the legitimate sovereign. The plan succeeds, and the piece concludes with the defeat and death of the usurper.-Though oriental manners are not very strictly preserved in this romance, and the dialogue contains nothing original, yet the piece is by no means deficient in stage situation. It combines also great splendour of decoration, much mechanical ingenuity, and extraordinary merit in the painting of the scenery, The attack of the fortress is managed with uncommon skill, and the idea of opening the sluice, and overwhelming the usurper's troops posted in the ditch with the watery element is new. The bombardinent of the fortress, and the final conflagration, are also ingeniously conducted. Those who are fond of a grand pageant, and not very fastidious about consistency of character-that is to say, the majority of the frequenters of the theatre-will be delighted with Zembuca, which promises to have a considerable run.

March 28, in the first part of Henry the Fourth, Mathews for the first time in this Theatre sustained the part of Falstaff, in which he displayed a goodnatured joviality, an apparent knowledge of his own weaknesses, and of the best means of disguising them so as to impose upon the ignorant, quite characteristic of the eccentric being drawn by our un rivalled poet.

On the 31st, a new after-piece, enfi tled Love in Limbo, was exhibited. Its the production of Dr. Millengen, the suc cessful author of the Bee Hive; and like that piece, is marked by a strange com bination of whimsical circumstances. The scene is laid in one of the Spanish colonies, and the plot is strongly marked by that complexity of incident which considered essentially necessary in 3 piece that attempts to represent the des terity of Spanish intrigue. As it was net repeated, we conceive it unnecessary to enter into any detail of the plot.

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On the 7th of April was performed a new opera, under the title of the Noble Qutlaw, which had no pretensions to originality, being chiefly taken from one of the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher. The outline of the story is briefly this: Don Cynthio, an outlaw in the disguise of a friar, falls into the hands of his inveterate enemy the Prince Zerbino, from which he is extricated by the address of his mistress Donna Orynthia. Many difficulties and embarrassments succeed, and finally the prince obtains the outlaw's pardon, and bestows on him the hand of the lady. Mr Sinclair as the outlaw, and Miss Stephens in Donna Orynthia, had many beautiful airs. Prince Zerbino, a part of small compass, was sustained by Mr. Conway; and Miss S. Booth, in Astuto, was a page full of life and spirit. The music and decorations constituted the chief merit of the piece, which, after two repetitions, was consigned to oblivion.

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April 15th, Mr. Kemble made his first appearance this season in the Stranger, and was received with every mark of respect which could possibly be manifested upon the return of an old favourite, and, in many respects, unrivalled performer. It has always been the great praise of Mr. Kemble, in his delineation of the Stranger, that he combines, in a higher degree than any other actor by whom the character has been attempted, the harsh and suspicious melancholy of the misanthrope with the polish and refinement of the gentleman. Miss O'Neill was the Mrs. Haller of the evening, and for the first time in London performed with Mr. Kemble. We have already paid our tribute to the merit displayed by that accomplished actress in this character; and it is no mean compliment to assert, that her professional reputation is not likely to suffer by her appearance on the same boards with the first male performer

of the age.

NEW PATENTS;

(From the Repertory of Arts, No. 155.)

RALPH DODD and GEORGE STEPHEN- ELIZABETH BEVERIDGE, Hatton-garSON, Killingworth, Northumberland, en- den; for an improved bedstead. gineers; for various improvements in March 14. the construction of locomotive engines. Dated Feb. 28, 1815.

SAMUEL BROWN, Mark-lane, commander in the royal navy; for a rudder, and certain apparatus connected therewith, for governing ships and vessels of all descriptions with much more certainty and effect, and for producing various advantages not hitherto practised or known. -Feb. 28.

JOHN MILLS, Holywell-street, Strand, stay and corset-maker; for an improved elastic stays for women and children, and also to give relief to women in a state of pregnancy.-March 14.

ROBERT DICKENSON, Great Queenstreet, esq.; for improvements in the making of sundry tools, implements, or articles, used in various arts or manipulations, or the ordinary occasions of life.

WILLIAM BELL, Edinburgh, writer to the signet; for improvements in the apparatus for copying manuscripts, or other writings or designs.-March 14.

DUDLEY ADAMS, Fleet-street, optician-March 14. and mathematical instrument-maker; for certain improvements in the constraction of paper-vellum tubes for telescopes, and other optical parts for telescopes.-March 7.

THOMAS DEAKIN, Ludgate-hill, furnishing ironmonger; for a portable kitchen.-March 7.

WM. MITCHELL, Glasgow, watch-maker, and JOHN LAWTON, King-street, Snow-hill, manufacturer; for a lock and key applicable to various purposes. March 7.

WM. WOOD, Shadwell, shipwright; for the manufacture of materials, and the application thereof to the more effectually making water-tight and seaworthy ships, and all other vessels; which he denominates adhesive felts. March 9.

JONATHAN RIDGEWAY, Manchester, plumber; for a method of casting and fixing at the same time metallic types on the surface of metallic cylinders or metallic rollers, or any cylinders or rollers having metallic surfaces, or on blocks of metal, or on blocks having metallic surfaces, or on flat metallic plates, for the purpose of printing patterns on cloth made of cotton or linen, or both.March 14.

THOMAS POTTS, Rickmansworth, halfstuff manufacturer; for combining and applying principles already known, for the purpose of producing pure fresh air, and of such mode or means of combina

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Proceedings of Buonaparte.

[May 1,

of discharging the air, or air and con

tion and application of principles already known, to such purposes as aforesaid. densed steam, from pipes used for the March 14. conveyance of steam, for the purposes of heating buildings or other places.March 18.

HENRY HOULDSWORTH, Anderston, Glasgow, civil engineer; for a method

DIGEST OF POLITICAL EVENTS.

FRANCE.

WE gave in our last number a brief statement of the events which, seconded by the most criminal indifference, and the most atrocious treason, have once more enabled Buonaparte to usurp the supreme authority over France. The universal defection of the regular troops from the royal cause, and their attachment to a monster by whom their blood has been so prodigally wasted, are phenomena which nothing but that universal demoralization resulting from the French revolution is capable of explaining.

So early as the 13th of March, the arch-traitor Ney, who but a few days before had assured Louis XVIII. that " if he should subdue the enemy of his Majesty of France, he would bring him prisoner in an iron cage," issued a proclamation announcing to his troops, that "the legitimate dynasty was about to ascend the throne," and that " he was leading them to join that immortal phalanx with which the Emperor Napoleon was approaching Paris." The news of this perfidy spread terror through the departments nearest to the capital; the troops in Paris were infected with the contagious disloyalty, and the only course which the king could pursue, was to retire with the household troops, on whose fidelity alone he could rely, His majesty, who had sent the Duke of Bourbon to the western departments, and had transmitted to the Duke of Angouleme, then at Bourdeaux, the powers necessary for arming the southern provinces, thought it advisable to repair to the departments of the north, with a view to preserve the fortresses in that quarter. He accordingly left Paris on the night of the 19th of March, as we have already stated, followed by his military household under the conduct of Monsieur, the Duke of Berri, and Marshals Berthier, Macdonald, Marmont, and Mortier. His majesty proceeded by the way of Abbeville to Lille, with the intention of fixing his quarters there, but the defection of the garrison of that fortress compelled the Ling, to relinquish that intention, and by

the persuasion of Mortier, the governor, to whom an order had been sent unknown to his majesty, to arrest him and all the princes, he proceeded to Ostend, and thence to Ghent, where he resides for the present.

It would appear that Buonaparte felt himself so secure of ultimate success, that during his stay in Lyons, he issued various decrees annulling every measure which had been adopted since his abdi cation. The principal of these enjoin the dissolution of the two chambers of le gislation; the proscription of the house of Bourbon and its emigrant adherents; the sequestration of all property restored to the ancient families; the suppression of all feudal titles and honorary distinc tions excepting the order of the Legion of Honour, as it stood previously to the return of Louis XVIII. to France. He announced also his determination to convene the members of the Electoral Col leges in May, to " remodel the constitu tion according to the interests and the will of the nation, and to be present at the coronation of the Empress and the King of Rome."

The usurper, after passing the night of the 19th at Fontainebleau, arrived in the evening of the following day at the Tuileries. His first care was to provide himself with ministers suitable to his pur poses. Caulaincourt, the chief agent in the murder of the Duke of Enghien, was appointed minister for foreign af fairs; Daroust, notorious for his atroci ties at Hamburgh, minister at war; Carnot, the incorrigible Jacobin, minister of the interior, with the title of Count; Fouche, minister of general police; Ma ret, secretary of state; and that grovel ling glutton Cambaceres, minister of justice. Addresses, couched in the most fulsome language, were immediately poured forth from all quarters by the degraded people of France, hailing the re turn of their beloved and much-injured sovereign to that throne to which the wishes of the whole nation had called him!

At no period of his life has this wily Italian proved himself a more complete

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