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Leader (1850-1860), 31st December 1853, Edition 2 of 2, Page 20, PHOTOGRAPHY. £fouut« article J In leavin...

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      Christmas Week At The Theatres. Chbistma...

      the scenes are beautiful , but the one which closes the first act is . . . . (}* I were a Beverley of the pea I could paint it , not being one I must leave it to your imagination , so much more pictorial !) The last scene of all is quite new . After the many combinations and inventions of splendour which those " last scenes" have shown us , it is , surprising to find anything at once so novel and so beautiful as this . , .. With regard to the Fairy tale itself , the Burlesque element has almost vanished , and . the fairy tale alone remains . There is little ¦ " fun" in it , although Wright , Bland , and Frank Mathews in the cast would lead one to expect it . Nor are there so many happy lines as Planche usually throws in . Some pleasant music , a charming ballet most picturesquely grouped , with Rosina Wright as a centre , gratify ears and eyes , and aid in Beyerley ' s triumph . The cast of the piece is unusually strong—Madame Vestris ( who made her first appearance this season and was welcomed with English heartiness ) , Julia St . George , Wright , Frank Mathews , Bland , Robinson , and Baker .

      1268 The Leader. [Saturday ^

      1268 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ^

      Number Nip. The Adelphi Also Gives Up Pa...

      NUMBER NIP . The Adelphi also gives up Pantomime ; without , however , taking to Bur . lesque—for which , thanks ! Its Christmas piece is a wild , legendary melodrame , interesting as a piece as well as a vehicle for spectacle , _ ballet , and music . Miss Woolgar is a fascinating German nobleman , ruined in purse but rich in personal charms ; Madame Celeste has a part peculiarly suited to her talents of ballet cVaction , and in a descriptive dance , La Tauromaclrie , produced the wildest delight in the audience ; Paul Bedford is a comic pirate , not in the least comic—dismally hilarious ; Mrs . Keeley has more changes of costume than effective scenes . The music is pretty and well selected .

      Columbus. The Olympic Has Its Pantomime,...

      COLUMBUS . The Olympic has its Pantomime , and the subject is Columbus . I don't know anything of Pantomimes , and my ignorance makes me think Columbus a failure . There are some admirable things in it—such as the costumes , scenery , masks , Columbine , and the dog , who is by far the best actor in the piece . But the Introduction is not funny ; the Harlequin is bad , the Clown bad , the Pantaloon detestable ; nothing but the pretty and elegant Columbine—Miss Wyndbam—and the " talented" dog , rendered the Pantomime endurable . The piece has been got up lavishly and tastefully . The masks are works of art . There is a certain Archbishop of Toledo , whose mask is worth paying the price of admission to see— -such fat , sleek , sensual , priestly imbecility and comfort , are written on his features . The Moors , too , are Moorish ; and the Spaniards , Spanish . Vivian .

      A Course Of Pantomimes. A Simultaneous R...

      A COURSE OF PANTOMIMES . A simultaneous rush at Pantomime has been made by the managers . Every theatre , except two , presents us with this kind of Christmas entertainment ; for the very first time wo have heard a Hay market gallery shrieking for " Codlins ; " and only at * the Lyceum does Extravaganza appear , with its musical parodies and its lucid intervals , as usual . We pulled a cracker bon-bon once , and read in faint little type on the scrap of flimsy , with which the sugar was encircled , a couplet , implying a neat puff of the confectioner ; something 1 after this style : —

      Quand on a ( lit " je t aime , ot tout va bien , Appellez Jujube-tils , et no crnignez ricn . " When faltering lips the secret have confest , —To Chips and Co . we wisely leave the rest . " This pretty and practical sentiment , reflecting a great feature of the age , is enforced throughout the opening of the Drdkt-lane pantomime . Appiness , a stout young person in bugles , impresses the fact of her personality on a sceptical and otherwise weak-minded prince , who , after being driven from glittering pillar to dazzling post , is bewildered into acknowledging Appiness as a solid existence , and " wisely leaves the rest" to the stage management . What is done for the delight of the prince oiir readers must go and see . If they are proper readers , they will like to know that a sceno awaits them in the World of Toys , where all the houses are toy-houses , and all the trees are those queer curly evergreens that constitute the timber in a child ' s Paradise .

      Here , however , a great efFect is missed . The people in this sceno ought certainly to have been figures from a Noah ' s ark , and as tall as the houses . One or two of these buildings might also , with great propriety , have been discovered on their beam-ends . But what is clone , is done well ; the peg-tops are ingeniously humane and the King ' s troops arc stuck on the sciseor-like contrivance , which alternately expands and contracts the phalanx . Tom Matthews was the clown ; and we arc almost inclined to think , though we know popular opinion will be with us , that his is the correct style after all . If neat tumbling , such ai 8 Auriol ' s , is to take the place of clownishness , then let us have the fanciful dress of the fool , without the bismuth and vermillion . T . M . is , however , the Clown for the gallery . That faction has set its face against all gymnastic displays requiring tho introduction of a carpet ; and really , of the two things , wo believe the " drawing-room entertainments" professors in salmon-coloured tights are lower in point of tasto than " Hot Codlins" and " Tippky-witehet . " But tho Prury-huio manager has supplied posture-making for those who like it , by the engagement of a certain Ethair family , whose dislocations accompany the conventional fun .

      Little Silver flair and the Three . Bears , at the Haymaukict , are as good as they arc in tho original tale ; ho that tho pantomimic fun and Hplendour may be counted so much in addition . The opening scenes are creditable to the author as well as tho decoratist . Very little has been added to the story , except to make it a fairy tale . The change from a ruined abbey to a scene of fairy brightness was' as artistically . effected us it would have been at tho Lyceum . Tho harlequinade was an full of bustle us it should be , and the Columbine was ai Miss Mary Brown . Did anyone ever hear of a Columbine among tho Browns ? It seems hardly possible that iier success can bo regarded ais a triumph by the family . . Tho opening- scenes in The Miller and his Men , which is the pantomime at the FniNOKSs ' s , amaze indeed the very faculties of eyes aind ears . Thoy are by turns exquisitely beautiful and wildly grotoHque . Over all reigns Art . The fierce movements of tho dancers in tho second soeno of King Salamander's Court , the wild gestures of tho crowd , the change of four terrible objects into one human face , far more terrible in its humanity ntul fleshiness , airo . all truly indescribable . But is this a paintomimo for littlo children ? In tho course of

      the harlequinade there are scenes quite as ingeniously contrived , and more to the purpose of childish amusement . For instance , there is a startling trick , by which Harlequin contrives to furnish an empty room . Sjx tall women , in the dress of Watteau ' s shepherdesses , come in and stand in a demure row . In an instant they are furniture ; four chairs , their legs free from anv drapery , a French clock , and an elegantly furnished toilette table , stand iii the places of the Watteau pastourelles . The trick itself is amazing ; but when the chairs are used as real chairs , by the pantomimists , the spectators are almost induced to believe that there has been no life in the matter , till the chairs use their arms in self-defence upon the Clown , when applause for the first time greets the device . Cormack is the Harlequin here , and the best anywhere . We may almost say the same of Miss Desborough , as Columbine , but cannot forgefc the name in the Oiampic bills . Mr . Huline , the Clown , is a " new light , " and aims at grace in his posturing . It is fair to say that he succeeds always , and is the best translation of Auriol on the English stage . Of Sadler ' s Weles we hear excellent accounts , but are unable to speak of Harlequin Tom Thumb this week . » -..: ' " ¦ 0-

      Barker's Picture Of Nelson On The Quarte...

      BARKER'S PICTURE OF NELSON ON THE QUARTER-DECK OF THE SAN JOSEF . It is not difficult to trace , in the picture now on view at Messrs . Legggatt , Hay ward , and Leggatt ' s , in Cornhill , the hand of a painter accustomed conscientiously to master his subject . Mr . T . J . Barker is rapidly gaining a reputation as an illustrator of British despatches , and may yet stand in the position of a Horace Vernet to our United Service jtherebeing no formidabl e competition for the post . The picture of " Nelson on the Quarter-deck of the Spanish Admiral ' s ship , San Josef , " is intended as a companion to the " Meeting of Wellington and Blucher at La Belle Alliance , " a work noticed by us some considerable time since . Nelson , a commodore at the time ^ has , with a seventy-four , beaten a Spanish eighty-gun ship , and has led his boarding party across her deck to take , in turn , the San Josef , a first-rate , with the Admiral ' s pendant . On the quarter- deck he is receiving the swords of the Spanish officers . His bargeman , standing coolly by , puts the swords

      under his arm as he receives them from the Commodore . Round Nelson are grouped his companions in the exploit ; Captain Berry and Lieutenant Pierson , of the 69 th , being prominent portraits . The uniforms vary so as to produce a pleasant effect . The artist ' s great anxiety to compile a good likeness of Nelson , from Flaxman ' s bust and the most authentic pictures , seems to have found its way into the hero ' s face . It is , to say the truth , the least pleasing part of the work . In general respects Mr . Barker has produced a telling scene . Without compression of time , there is much incidental action goin ^ on , such as the striking the Spanish flag , and the hoisting the Union Jack . The linear perspective of the foreground and the truthful distance are evidences of no common power . We have heard the technical accuracy of ropes , spars , blocks , and the smallest matters of detail spoken of with unqualified praise by excellent naval authority . Q «

      Photography. £Fouut« Article J In Leavin...

      PHOTOGRAPHY . £ fouut « article J In leaving the daguerreotype , to enter on the different paper processes , our subject widens very considerably . Sir John Herschel ' s experiments , for instance , have all been subordinate to a grand inquiry into the nature of the prismatic spectrum . He saw in heliography not " an insulated and anomalous affection of certain salts of silver and gold , but one which , doubtless , in a greater or less degree , pervades all nature . " He saw in nature " nothing that doth fade ; " but continual decomposition and recombination ; and lie referred to the same great law which governs organic growth and decay this curious pictorial result from the deoxidation of certain inorganic compounds . A similar result was obtained by Herschel with a great variety of substances ; notably with the juice of flowers , as we have

      seen in the case of a semi-cultivated variety of red poppy ( papaver rheum ) His experiments are no longer , if they have ever been , of much practical utility to the amateur , who seeks only the means of obtaining good pictures in the shortest time . We may , howcvei ' , qualify even this detraction from the value of Herschel ' s labours in heliography : he was the first , we believe , to use glass plates , and the introduction of this practice was ^ certainly a most important step . Still , the many beautiful processes discovered by Herschel are , though generally simple and easy of manipulation , imperfect in their results ; that is , of course , taking the merely practical view . In some , tlve sensibility to actinism is too tardy ; in others , curious and complex changes occur , which it has been found impossible to arrest , so that the pictures are worthless . Of this unstable land is the ferro-cyanotype ; a process , however , of such exceeding beauty , that we cannot refrain from giving si brief description of it . in

      I he cyanotypo is the name given to an endless series of processes which cyanogen is employed . The particular process we arc now engaged with is one in which iron enters and is the main cause of the curious changes already alluded to . This process formed one of the first remarkable examples of the deoxidation of a non-argentinc compound , in the practice of heliography ; and it occurred to Herschel in his examination of the ferrosesquicyanurct of potassium , a salt abundantly formed by voltaic action on tho common or yellow forrocyanuret . In HerschePs communication to the Royal Society , he gave the following description of the

      process : — " Taper simply washed with a solution of this salt is highly ( sensitive to the action ot light . Prussian bluo is deposited ([ tho baao being neccssurilv supplied by tlio destruction o one portion of tho acid , and the acid by decomposition of itnothor ) . After half an hour or an hour ' s exposure to sunshine , a . xory beautiful negative photograph is tho result , to n which , nil Unit is necessary it * to sonic it in water in which a little- sulphate of soda is » i 3-isolved , to ensure tho fixity of tho Prussian bluo deposited . While dry tho impression w dove-colour or lavender bluo , which has u curiouu and striking efl ' ect on the grccius - yellow ground of the paper , produced by tho aaline solution . Arcer washing , the firi ! u " colour disappears , and the photograph becomes bright blue on a wliito ground . If * °° | ? ¦ , exposed , it guts ' over sunned , ' and tho tint has a brownish or yellowish tendency , w '" » however , jb removed in ^ fixing ; but no incrcaso of intensity beyond a certain point is tained by continuance ! o ( exposure . ... a " If paper be washed with n solution of nuimonio-citrato of iron , and dried , un " . ' . wash passed over it of tho yellow ferrocyaimret of potassium , there is no immediate lor

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 31, 1853, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_31121853/page/20/