haul the proverbs of Solomon, and when found make a note of,' we hear him saying; and then we follow him through all those inimitable scenes which cannot be easily forgotten by those who witnessed them. The scene where he cheers up Florence, and makes such dexterous play with his hook, adjusting her bonnet and manipulating the tea -and yet exhibiting a simple and natural pathos with it all; and where he sits in admiring contemplation of Bunsby, while that oracular tar delivers his celebrated opinion in regard to the fate of the vessel, with the memorable addendum: 'The bearings of this observation lays in the application on it;' the scene with the MacStingers, and the Captain's despair; the timely intervention of Bunsby; the despair changed to wondering awe; and then all the suggestive by-play consequent upon his delivery by Bunsby from the impending MacStinger vengeance; all this, and much more than we can describe, passes by like a panorama in memory. Burton's Captain Cuttle occupies a conspicuous place in the gallery of famous dramatic pictures, and there it will long remain. As we think of it in all the details which made it so perfect an embodiment, it seems a pity that Dickens himself never saw it. We can fancy, that, had he chanced to be in New York when Dombey and Son' was the theatrical sensation, and had dropped in at Chambers Street, an auditor all unknown, he would have made his way behind the scenes, and to Burton's dressing-room, and with hands would have grasped the comedian's hook and enthusiastically shaken it." In a reference to the same performance, Ireland says that Burton's "grief at the supposed death of Walter Gay, or poor Wally, as Captain Cuttle affectionately calls him, was one of the most touching bits of acting ever witnessed, and has wrung tears from many an unwilling eye." Mr. Florence's Cuttle, while not, probably, equal to Burton's, has, I surmise, some of the qualities of pathos and humor which made Burton's performance so effective. Mr. Florence has long been very popular in the part, and he gives it that fine air of sincerity which marks nearly all his acting. His talent as an actor is, by the way, unusually broad, for, if his Cuttle is a clearly outlined and droll bit of comedy, his Obenreizer is a performance approaching tragic power. Mr. Florence invests the character of Obenreizer with subtle passion and malignity, and there are moments in his acting which safely bear contrast with the greater acting of Fechter. A just idea of Mr. Florence's versatility is suggested by his performances of Bob Brierly, in "The Ticket-of-Leave Man," and of the Hon. Bardwell Slote, in "The Mighty Dollar." It is hard to conceive two individualities more veracious and human, yet in such different ways! I am indebted to Mr. A. Seymour Fitch, a thoughtful observer of the stage, for the following description of the late E. L. Davenport and J. W. Wallack, Jr., in a revival of "Oliver Twist," which excited profound interest. Mr. Fitch has kindly furnished this narrative at my request: "One of the most remarkable dramatic embodiments of Dickens' creations ever seen upon our stage was a version of Oliver Twist" performed over twenty years ago at Wallack's (the present Star) theatre. James W. Wallack, Jr., was the Fagin, Edwin L. Davenport the Sikes, and Rose Eytinge the Nancy; and these players were supported by the great company which was then assembled at this house, including in its membership Gilbert, Brougham, Fisher, W. R. Floyd, Holland, Sr., A. W. Young, Miss Henriques, Mrs. Vernon, Mrs. Sefton, Miss Morant, Mrs. Jennings, Mrs. Floyd and Ione Burke. Seldom has so perfect and memorable a dramatic ensemble of any of the novelist's characters and scenes been viewed upon the New York stage. Every personation by these artists remains indelibly impressed upon the memory. But above and beyond all of the incomparable cast stood the pictures wrought by Wallack, Davenport and Eytinge. This generation has never seen, and will never see, a Fagin to equal Wallack's, nor a Bill Sikes to compare with Davenport's. More hideous and degraded Nancys than the portrayal by Miss Eytinge may have been given, but in none was the tenderness of the woman interwoven with the repulsiveness of untutored depravity. were given a marvellous emphasis and 66 'In the Newgate cell, Wallack at- "In murdering Nancy, Davenport seized Miss Eytinge by the hair and literally dragged her across the stage, she clinging to his feet and begging for her life. Pulling the prostrate woman through a doorway, so that only her skirts remained in view of the audience, "There were three scenes to which the dull thuds of an axe were heard, mingled with her cries and moans, as the 66 very original performance, but it shows what a vast dramatic force lies in all Mr. Dickens' characters." Two American actors of high rankone of the highest rank-have been identified with that wonderfully pathetic picture of patient resignation, groping old age, gentle senility, Caleb Plummer. One was John E. Owens, a comedian of rare buoyancy and versatility; the other is Joseph Jefferson. In depth of homely There are few American playgoers who are not familiar with George Fawcett Rowe's Micawber. This is one of the salient personalities of our stage, an achievement of lucid purpose and genuine comic force. Burton's Micawber is said to have been not less amusing than his Cuttle; but Mr. Rowe is the only actor whose name appears to be inseparable from that of Micawber. In England his performance was cordially admired and praised, and he stepped easily there into a place which had been occupied by several accomplished comedians. The success of Mr. Halliday's version of David Copperfield" in London, to be strictly just, was due chiefly to Mr. Rowe. An English critic, Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, has expressed the accepted judgment on this subject: "Mr. Rowe's Micawber is a most enjoyable performance; the player seems to revel in the unctuous platitudes and stick-flourish- pathos, absolute sincerity, it has always ings; the fitful changes from hopeless seemed to me that Owens's Caleb was despondency, born of 'pecuniary em- truer than Jefferson's. On the other barrassment from his cradle upward,' hand, Mr. Jefferson applies to this charto pleasant and eager spirits, on the acter, as to every character that he immention of punch; his strange and orig- personates, a delicacy of method which inal attitudes, and quaint gamut of tones, is unrivaled. His touches of humor make up a very odd and racy picture. are exquisite, his resources abundant, All these oddities of speech and attitude his style finely chiseled without being give the notion that they are the honest expression of what is within. Had Mr. Dickens' Micawber never been written, this stage character would have been a LOTTA AS "THE MARCHIONESS." in the least formal. He is, probably,. the most gifted actor of his class who now speaks the English language, and he is totally unlike any other actor. Without resorting to broad treatment, merriest hours. She is the hoyden of he can be, with no apparent effort, the theatre, the frolicsome mischiefbroadly humorous; without resorting maker whom everyone likes and whom to the devices of the stage whimperer, none is disposed to take seriously. She he can be unaffectedly pathetic. The is not, in an exact sense of the term, an sparkle and dash of his singularly in- actress; she is simply a lively little exteresting Acres-a performance of great travaganza, and all her acting is extraoriginality and justifiable fame-throw vaganza. She comes as close to true his winning old Caleb into the sharpest acting, perhaps, in the blithesome charrelief. acter of the Marchioness as in anything she attempts, but she spoils the effect of this by making rapid changes from the Marchioness to Little Nell. As the Marchioness, however, she is a queerlyspirited creature. Miss Lotta certainly merits a pleasant word, at the end of this rather long list of popular names. For years she has been a favorite with our playgoers. And she has given them some of their JUNE. O WHAT a magic touch is thine, fair June, In those mysterious caverns where are wrought Floating upward, till that celestial siren hears The Year wears thee as brightest, proudest gem, Flashing thine emerald light and opal hue For Spring and Summer both endow thee with their best, BY WILLIAM ELEROY CURTIS. [FIRST PAPER.] On the west coast of South America is found the perfection of ocean travel-fine ships, fair weather, and a still sea. Although one floats over, or rather across, the equator, the atmosphere is cool, the breezes delicious, and the water as smooth as a duck-pond. The Pacific Navigation Company, a British institution, though founded by an American, Mr. William Wheelwright, has been sending vessels from Panama to Liverpool, through. the Straits of Magellan, for more than forty years, and has not only a monopoly of transportation on the coast, but has subsidies from the British Government and the various South American States whose ports it enters. It charges enormous rates for freight and passengers, the tariff from Valparaiso to Panama being forty dollars a ton for the former and two hundred and ninety-seven dollars a head for the latter, while the distance is only about as great as from New York to Liverpool; but the company gives its patrons the best the country can afford, and until the recent ocean greyhounds were turned out to race across the Atlantic, it had the finest and largest ships afloat. One fleet of vessels run from Panama to Valparaiso, where a transfer is made to a stronger fleet, built for heavy seas, which go via the Straits of Magellan, and Rio de Janeiro, to Liverpool. Those which ply along the west coast from Panama southward, are built for fair weather and tropical seas, with open decks and airy state-rooms, through which the breezes bring refreshing coolness. Such boats would not live long in the Atlantic nor in the Caribbean Sea, but they find no heavy weather on the Pacific, where the wind is never strong enough to ruffle the fur on a cat's back," as the sailors say, and the vessels sail in a perpetual calm. From Panama to Callao, and in fact to the end of the continent, the western coast of South America presents an unbroken line of mountains, with a strip of desert between them and the sea. Occa sionally some stream from the mountains brings down the melted snow and opens an oäsis. These oäses have been utilized, and wherever the barren strip has been irrigated it produces enormous crops of sugar, coffee, and other tropical staples. The whole of it might be redeemed by the introduction of a little capital and industry. If the money that has been wasted in revolutions had been expended in the development of mines, and the soldiers had dug irrigating ditches with the energy they have expended in fighting, there would be no richer section on the globe. Wherever the ground was cultivated by the Incas, it produced in profusion, and the wealth of the nation was fabulous. Their empire extended three thousand miles north and south, and about four hundred miles east and west, from the Pacific to the great forests of the Amazon, which the people, with their simple tools, were unable to subdue. In no part of the world does nature assume more imposing forms. Deserts as repulsive as Sahara alternate with valleys as rich and luxuriant as those of Italy. Perpetual summer smiles under the frown of eternal snow. The rainless region-this arid strip which lies between the Andes and the sea-is about forty miles in width, and the panorama presented to the voyager is a constant succession of bare and repulsive uninhabited wastes of sand and rocks, whose silence is broken only by the incessant surf, the bark of the sea-lions, and the screams of the water-birds which haunt its wave-worn and forbidding shore. The coast is dotted with small rocky islands, which have been the roost of myriads of birds for ages, and furnish the guano of commerce. The steamers seem to provide their only entertainment, and they surround every vessel that passes, soaring about and above the masts, and screaming defiance to the invaders of their resorts. The water, too, is full of animal life. Nowhere does the sea offer science so many curious forms of animate nature. |