On this page

• Departments (1)
  • 
• Text (4)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    980 T HE LEADE B,/ |-y o. 394, Q CTOBEll...

  • 

    THRKE LOVE STORIES. The Course of True L...

  • 

    (jfc It*> (3 -j*tg j/} ^ av v*aw ?

  • 

    THEATRICAL NOTES. Mr. Ivean reopens the ...

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    The Lake District. Rambles In The Lake D...

    snow-flake , upon the eddying rapids . A . sewin of three pounds weight quickly made bis rush at the hare ' s ear from behind a great black mass 3 of rock , that rising above the water ' s surface separated it into a double current It was just the sort of place one might anticipate finding a fish of his respectable proportions , lying ia ambush for all things edible floating by upon the ^ urrent , ' and wagging his fins at every silly flyV He was thorough game . Ihrice he leaped a yard or two from the surface when struck . Round spun the reel , and the v ? ater shot from the taut line in a shower of ram-drops ; but escape there was none . After a ten minutes' fi «* ht he turned his broad silvery sideand safel

    up , we y laaded him upon a patch of yellow sand . A dozen other captures , principally large grayling , succeeded : but , withthe sun now in his zenith , and the fish no longer rising , it was time to dine . No hostel lay m sight , but to one who has endured lent life in the Crimea it matters not . There was bread in the wallet , fish in the pannier , a brandy flask likewise , and hard by the crystal stream to qualify its contents So we proceeded to extemporize an al fresco cuisine underneath the shelter of a great tree , through whose foliage the sunbeams fell in golden tracery upon the stones below . Plenty of drift wood lay around Indian fashion , then , we heaped a large fire over some broad flat shingles ' and m due time sweeping them away laid on the fish , well cleansed iif t . h «

    running stream . Other heated stones were supported above , and the "lowing embers drawn all round ; resulting , as might be anticipated , in a ° most successful cookery , whose delightful odour circulated through the air . Seated comfortably under the tree , our captures , except , two or three reserved , were soon reduced to the mere skeletons of what they had been . An ancient bridge stood a few yards off . Too busily engaged in discussing the sweet -wholesome refreshment which Providence had furnished , no heed was taken of passers-by , if any such there were . At length , Sated hunger badje his brother thirst Produce the bowl :

    and whilst in the act of dipping for a cup of water , a sweet voice , though with an unmistakable Welsh intonation , sounded from above , saying " Won't you please have some milk ? " We raised our eyes to the bridge , and there , her elbows supported by the parapet , on which her milk-pail also rested , stood a young girl with a handsome dark gipsy fsice , and wearing the native costume of round beaver hat , frilled cap ., and crimson farthingale . She had doubtless been for some time intently watching the dinner operations , for a Saxon stranger in these parts , being a real live curiosity , is not to be passed unheeded . To burst through the little hazel copse that clothed tie steep bank leading from the river to the road and bridge , was the work of a moment . But the drinking-cup lay down amongst the shingles and

    an attempt to imbibe the luscious fluid from the pail only resulted in the deposition of a quart at least within the waistcoat instead of beneath it . How cheerily did her merry laugh ring out at the sight of this ludicrous mishap . Then , with a deep blush at this freedom towards a stranger , she said , '' Stop , I fetch cup . " Away , like a stag , bounded this daughter of the Cymri—over the stile , through the long meadow , up the green hill slope she held on with unbated breath , disappearing within a white farm-house at its summit . In Wales , every rustic building is coated by the lime-brush . They whiten the house , its roof , the stile , the roadway boundary stones , the village church , and even the graves . Two thousand years ago Tacitus remarked the ' whitened cottages of the Britons . ' How scrupulously this Celtic usage is traditionally preserved by their modern descendants , we have shown .

    But see , here comes our Hebe , clearing at a bound the haggard stile , down the green slope , and once more at the bridge . With the prettiest of dipping curtseys , blushing , smiling , she removes from her basket the snowy napkin which covers a cream cheese , the finest of butter in , a little crock , cakes , a bottle , and drinking-glass . Great as was her kindness to the wayfarer , her English proved small indeed . So , while discussing a portion of these delicious viands seated on the bridge parapet , our first Welsh lesson consisted in the acquirement of their native names— ' Barra kaus-barra mynin— -cwr ddha . ' What return could be proffered for such spontaneous hospitality ? The remaining contents of the pannier suggested themselves . " Indeed , she would rather not . Her brother was piscottwr—i . e . an angler . They had a noble brook below the farm on the opposite side of the hill ,

    with great silver eels under every stone , and spotted trouts in every rocky pool ; better even than Severn . Would I come up to the farm , and go fishing Avitti her brother , to-morrow ? " We need not record the reply . But how the sport turned out in that excursion time and space will not allow of a description here . At some future opportunity the reader shall go with us , mot only to that hazel-clothed brook , but up also among the far-off green hills , where the father of our pretty hostess pastures Ins thousand sheep . There , in a lone hike named Llyn y Bugnil— ' The Shepherd's Pool '—from some long-forgotten but perhaps romantic legend—though the lordly Salmo saUtr exists not—there is store of pike , perch , tench , carp , and eels . How we loaded a stout peasant man with these , until he literally staggered with " his burden down the mountain path , our friends shall also learn when next

    we meet . Mr . Harry Hardknot ' s little volume , which suggests these touring reminiscences , furnishes a most sure and acceptable guide for all whom time nnd circumstunce limit to a hasty survey of the English lakes . His descriptions of scenery exhibit a true poetic taste—we mean an unaffected appreciation of whatever is beautiful in Nature . The very economic outlay by which his three days' excursion was so satisfactorily enjoyed , -will certainly induce numbers to make his Handbook their guide in any projected ramble in his footsteps .

    980 T He Leade B,/ |-Y O. 394, Q Ctobell...

    980 T HE LEADE B , / | -y . 394 , Q CTOBEll ^ 1857 >

    Thrke Love Stories. The Course Of True L...

    THRKE LOVE STORIES . The Course of True Love Never Did Run Smooth . By Charles Roade . Bentley . Thesis three slight sketches constitute a fair representation of the kind of ability possessed by Mr . Charles Rea . de . He tells a story violently and rapidly ^ ; he constructs , with much labour , short , hard sentences ; he invents dramatic situations , which , if remote from the possibilities of life , are nevertheless amusing . Considered simply as a writer , his success ia mediocre . His style

    is characteristically bad-crude , irregular , mechanical ; but , at times" 7 swells into eloquence , or sharpens into epigram . Mr ReadP in scarcely does justiceto himself & en he defiSAhe lawfof ^ SafcS makes a boost of his neglect . Some of his paragraphs Save £ fc ' r 2 fl twice before we can get at the meaning . Does this imply contempt of Si ? cisin , or ignorance ? It cannot be ignorance . Mr . Keade is a < m nf culture , and has a vigorous mind . We are afraid that he considers hiSsrff superior to all literary codes , and this spirit would account for his mveterl habit of jerking off his antipathies and prejudices , as thoug h they' 2 * round shot , knocking society to splinters . Perhaps the weakness ^ 2 makes him idol . ze the First Napoleon , tempts him to imitate the doublp shotted style in which the Emperor was accustomed to speak . It would h unfair , of course , to create an impression that Mr . Charles Reade do nothing more , in this volume , than make a display of himself and his m ? ticular crotchets . On the contrary , he constructs three tales , two of whil are really entertaining , the other— Art '—being forced , farcical and not withstanding , dull . ' The Bloomer' is art agreeable fragment of ' the e ' xtra vaganzn class . It presents a young American heiress , betrothed to an Englishman , but determined to triumph over conventionality and wear for

    bidden garments . Her lover blames the folly ; they quarrel ; she persists in making her appearance at a ball as a Bloomer ; he quits America that ni"ht for England . But , in other scenes and after days they meet a « ain and the lady , around whose limbs are furled a pair of silken trousers , is " enabled by her power of swimming , to rescue the gentleman out of a river . He then says she may wear what she pleases ; moderate in victory , she resolves in future to discard Turkish and Persian fashions , and so the romance -winds up with a pretty moral . There is one good passage in the story—a masquerade of costumes . In * Clouds and Sunshine' there is a good deal of mock tragedy mixed up with a good deal of audacious satire , Mr . Reade having privileged himself to laugh at science , no less than at nature . Well , they can avenge themselves , and no harm will be done . We have marked ' two passages for extract . The first , a propos of a rural merry-makin < r is the best in the book : — ° '

    The fiddlers being merry , the dancers were merry ; the dancers being merrv , the fiddlers said to themselves " Aha ! we have not missed fixe , " and so grew merrier still ; and thu 3 the electric fire of laughter and music darted to and fro . Dance , sons and daughters of toil 3 None had ever a better right to dance than you have this sunny afternoon in clear September . It was you who painfully ploughed the stiff soil ; ft was you who trudged up tbe high incommoding furrow and cast abroad the equal seed . You that are women bowed the back and painfully dr illed hole 3 in the soil , and poured 5 n the seed ; and tbis month past you have all bent , and with sweating brows cut down and housed the crops that came from the seed you planted . Dance ! for those yellow ricks , trophies of your labour say you have aright to ; those barns , bursting with golden fruit , swear you have a light to . Harvest-tide comes but once a year . Dance ! sons and daughters of toil . Exult over your -woik , smile with the smiling year , and , in this bright hour , oh , cease , my poor souls , to envy the rich and

    great ! Believe me , they are never , at any hour of their lives , so cheery as you are now . How can they be ? With them dancing is tame work , an every-day business —no rarity , no treat—don ' t envy them—God is just , and deals the sources of content with a more equal hand than appears on the surface of things . Dance , too , without fear ; let no puritan make you believe it is wrong ; things are wrong out of season , and right in season ; to dance in harvest is as becoming as to be grave in church . The Almighty has put it into the heart 3 of insects to dance in the afternoon sun , and of men and women in every age and every la-nd to dancs round the gathered crop , whether it be corn , or oil , or wine , or any other familiar miracle that springs up sixtyfold and nurtures and multiplies the life of man . More fire , fiddlers ! p lay to the foot , play to the heart , the sprightly ' Day in June . ' Ay ! foot it freely , lads and lasses ; my own heart is warmer to think you are merry once or twice in your year of labour —dance , my poor brothers and sisters , sons and daughters of toil ! The second exhibits Mr . Reade in a tragic mood : —

    All eyes turned and fastened upon Rachael ; and those who saw her at this moment will carry her face and her look to their graves , so fearful was the anguish of a hig h spirit ground into the dust and shame ; her body seemed that moment to be pierced with a hundred poisoned arrows . She rose white to her very lips , and stood in the midst of them quivering like an aspen-leaf , Iict eyes preternaturally bright and large , and she took one uncertain step forwards , as if to fling herself on the weapons of scorn that seemed to hem her in ; and she opened her mouth to speak , but her open lipa trembled , and trembled , and no sound cauie . And all the hearts round , even the old farmers , began now to freeze and fear at the sight of this wild agony . The stories are no more than ephemerals ; but , upon the whole , they are pleasant to read , and may attain a certain sort of popularity .

    (Jfc It*&Gt; (3 -J*Tg J/} ^ Av V*Aw ?

    € \) i Itte-. —*—

    Theatrical Notes. Mr. Ivean Reopens The ...

    THEATRICAL NOTES . Mr . Ivean reopens the Princess ' s on Monday night with the Tempest , which has not yet attained the usual * run' of revivals at that house . " Tbe house , " snya the Times , " has been so thoroughly renovated , that not 11 square inch of the original surface 13 now visible . The chief defect , which consisted in a predominance of hot heavy colour , ia rectified by the adoption of a light renaissance style , in which French white and gold predominate . The panels of tlie dress circle sire adorned with a series of paintings from the works of Shakspcare , as performed at the establishment . These comprise 'the Vision of Queen Katharine , ' ' the Triul of Hcrmionc , ' the first appearance of the Ghost to Hamlet , * ' Richard II . ablatintho

    dicating his Crown , ' 'the Caldron Scene iu Macbeth , ' ' Falstaff contemp g body of Hotspur , ' ' Hubert and Arthur , ' ' Titania in her Bower , ' and ' tho Interview between Prospero and Ariel in the presence of the sleeping Miranda . ' HeUvceni tho panels are a series of tho Shaksni'arinu Kings , —John , KichaTd II ., Henry IV ., Henry V ., Henry VI ., Edward IV ., Richard III ., Henry VII , and Henry V 1 H ., — all at full length and historically costumed . The coiling is beautifully painted vitlj an allegorical subject , and there is a superb new drop-curtain by Messrs . ( Jrievc and Tolbin , representing a drapery of crimson tapestry , which , partially withdraw " , reveals a statue of Shakspenrc . The renovation of the house has been cfFccted by MrCharles Kuckuchdecorator to the King of Hanover"

    . , . , Mr . T . P . Cooke ' s engagement continues at tho Ai > em'hi , and lie seems toi > c going- through the list of all his great sea partB . On Monday night , he rcapponred in tho old Sunnuv drama of My Poll and my Partner Joe , now almost forgotten , but onco ' all the rago . ' We need scarcely say ho renewed his original success .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 10, 1857, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_10101857/page/20/