LONDON GOSSIP.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6309, 6 August 1888, Page 2

LONDON GOSSIP.

• PERSONAL, LITERARY, AND DRAMATIC. (Fkom Our London Correspondent.) London, June 14. PERSONAL AND GENERAL. SIR W. BULLER. Sir Walter JBuller has leased a furnished house (the late Sir Barnes BlHb's) in that highly aristocratic thoroughfare, the Cromwell road, and considers himself settled down in. England for the nest few years. Lady Buller was up at Oxford for Commemoration last week, and I notice her husband attended the levee on Tuesday. ' THE FIEST AUSTRALIAN. At the annual dinner of the famous Palmer&ton Club, ab Oxford last week, an Australian (a Mr Murray) for the first time in its history took the chair. Lord Hartington and Lord Her&chell were the principal guests of the evening, and amongst the undergraduates the Speaker's eldest sou, Mr W. Peel distinguished himself by making a capital speech. i JAMES GIBBONS, DECEASED. The will of the late Mr James Gibbons, a rich Australian who was for many years a leader of the Anglo-Colonial set in South Kensington, and had a beautiful house in Kensington. Park road, has just been sworn (the English e3tate only) at .£246,000. The sole charitable bequest ib one of £500 to the rector and churchwardens of Kettering, where he bad a charming house. THE IMPERIAL INSTITUTE. The death of Lady Abel will have seriously affected the fortune of that luckless project, the Imperial Institute, if, aa is rumoured, it leads to Sir Frederick's retirement from the Chairmanship. SIANT HAPPT RETURNS. The World, of June 6, congratulates your Sir William Fox on the attainment (June 9) of his seventy-sixth birthday. l-AST WOBK. The Etruria'a last success in boating the record across the Atlantic deserves more attention that it has received. On one day of the run she absolutely steamed 503 knots, which is at the rate of twenty-four statutejnileß an hour, or about the speed of a Continental express train. V t JOE SCOTT. . Joe Scott will have to give up all notion of tackling the victorious Littlewood. The latter's toes are festered to the bone. THE STAGE. PROFESSIONAL FABS. Mr H. M. Imano, a popular baritone and "Savage," has sailed for Australia, where he will be eeen in opera for the next fifteen months. I fancy it is Miss Sherwin's Company he joins. Fanny Leslie has finally signed for a long tour in Australia and New Zealand, and sails in the autumn. She will be a success. Her " Jack-in-the-Box " ia just the sort of piece to go down with you, and needs no particular mounting. The object of Kyrle Bellew's affections is not, after all, the fair Mrs Brown-Potter, but a Mrs Carter. Thiß lady's husband, it seems, declines to hand her over to "Curly," and is resisting her application for a divorce. Miss Leonora Braham did not make a long Btay with you, from which I infer that her mature charms did not "catoh on." She has not been asked to resume her old part in the revival of " The Mikado." The Australian playwright — Haddon Chambers — has secured a first-class cast, including Mr and Mrs Beerbohm Tree, Lady Monckton, and Messrs Kemble and Macklin for Mb new play. j JENNIE LEE. Poor Jennie Lee cannot escape the inevitable " Jo." She has tried new play j after new play, honouring first one ; author and then another, but always seemingly with the same result — failure. Then, of course, "Jo" has to bo revived, to pay for mounting Bcenery and costumes. Now, I'm afraid even poor "Jo" has at last been worked out. Looking in at the Theatre Royal, Brighton, the other evening, I found the house only half full, and poor Jennie toiling through the too familiar part sadly and half-heartedly. No doubtshe will try America soon. AUTOBIOGRAPHIES. "Theory is still they come." Toole and " friend Irving" we have long Jrnown intended to follow the Bancrofts' example, but 'tis news to learn that John Hollingshead means to give us a history of his management at the Gaiety Theatre, and to enlighten ub as to the innermost recesses of the eacred lamp of burlesque. It ought to be a very racy chronicle, especially if fr Honest John" furnishes biographies of his leading " stars," and can manage to recollect certain famous greenroom " chestnuts." Wilkie Collins, too, is on the war-path, and will contribute an autobiographical article to the June Universal Review. James Payn has had a volume of reminiscences in hand for some time past, but the date of its publication is uncertain, and the same observation applies to Sala's memoirs. George Meredith's diaries, &c., will not be published till after his death, but someone who has been permitted to dip therein prophesies great things for his autobiography when it appears. Tates', Friths, and the Bancrofts' would have been more readable if they had not been so desperately careful to eliminate every trace of acidity. Meredith is not like that. A man of strong feelings he expresses them truly, without animus, but also without humbug. VALUABLE BUT NOT PERMANENT. The short revival runs of "The Sorcerer," "Pinafore," and "The Pirates," have revealed to the Savoy management, and Messrs Gilbert and Sullivan, that their comic operas are far less valuable properties than they (and most people) thought. Mr Carte, I know, imagined that with judicious occasional novelfciea it would be possible to play the sequence of operas for years and years, jußt aa the Bancrofts did the "Caste," "School," "Ours," comedies. Instead of that should the new opera! by chance fail, a revival of "Patience" -would absolutely be the only alternative to closing the theatre. " BEN-HT-CHREE." In vain-has Mr Hall Came endeavoured .to preserve the sombre tone of his novel ("The Deemster") in the new drama at the.Princess. The public hate Borrowful endings. Mona's death and Dan's withdrawal to the scaffold, threw a gloom over the evening, and sent folks home vexed and disappointed. So now a new finale has been evolved, and the curtain

falls on the reunion of far >" '0 and heroine, with animmediato pr<f«|wc« f>t brighter days in 6tore for them, i hi* }lay has also been compressed,and nnpr.-.v. d vi other ways. Several persona \nsh to acquire the Australian rights, l.ut. Ut ■Wilson. Barrett seems iaoiintd ior t'.a present to stick to them. You sa«>, sh<-.nld he resolve to visit the Colonies with Miss Eastlake and his brother, " B^'n-aiy-' Chree" would be a capital piece to open with. KS BAKNEB OF .NEW TOEE. . I went to see " Mr Barn ea of Xew York " at the Olympic Theatre the other night. It is really a capi'al play, the duel scene at. Ajaccio, and the winding-up act beiDg specially effective. Everything, however, depends on the representatives of th« Count and of Marita. Mr <Vil!ard nnd Mibs Sophie Eyre ate, of course, fitted so perfection, but I could see, in less ab!e hands, that the piece vmghfc ensilv become boneless and ineffective. Mo.rita's bloodthirsty foster-father also requires careful Acting, or he becomes fuuny instead ot cruel. LITERARY, &c. A SUCCESSFUL PA.PEB. The Sheffield Weehly Telegraph is now tne largest and best-selected pennyworth of miscellaneous reading in the world. The Messrs Leng have spared -no expense to bring this about, and have now the satisfaction of seeing their paper circulate not merely through all the Midland and northern Counties, but in London itself. Coloni6ts and others who live abroad, and order this paper and the Pall Mall Budget will be kept well en. courant with the world's doings for 6d a week, postage included. • 6 NEW. BOOK 6, The young lady who writes as "Hugh Enroll, ' and who achieved considerable success with '^An Ugly Duckling," haa ]usu finished her second novel, "The Academician." Ab the name implies it is a story of artist life, and the sort of book girls like. miss beaddon's latest MiHs Braddon'a new story (her fortvthird) is called "The Fatal Three," and will be published forthwith by Simpkin Marshall, to whom the copyrights of the Braddon novels have just been sold for .£30,000. Miss B. has aleo in hand a tale called "The Day Will Come," which, like "The Fatal Three," will run serially through tha Weekly Telegraph and its tributaries. miss warden's earnings. If it is true that Ward and Downey gave Miss Warden .£2OOO for " A Woman's Face" (which ran through Bow Bells as " Psyche ") I can only cay they paid a big price for a particularly rubbishy story. From first, to last the heroine ia wrapped in a mystery, which the author leads up to elaborately, but which somehow strikes the reader aa abortive. It is all very nonsensical and London Joumal-iah — quite unworthy, at any rate, of the clever baud that gave us " Scheherazade " and "The House on the Marsh." "burglar bill." This is a reprint of the really capital parodies which appeared in Punch, under the heading of "The Guide to Young Reciters." " Burglar Bill," which w, of course, a take-off of Mrs Burnett's " Editha's Burglar," makes a first-rate comic recitation in capable hands. Mr Chamberlain's Secretary gave it at a concert on board the Etruria, when they were returning from America a few weeks back, with immense effect. When the verses, &c, appeared in, Punch, they were generally attributed to Mr Burnand, whose style Mr Anstey has copied. By the way, Mr Laurence Oliohant'a " Scientific Religion," published yesterday by Blackwoods, is expected to cause a rare sensation. A, clever reviewer tells me it is one of the most daring and remarkable books he has read for years. HOME, THB SPIRITUALIST. If the volume of memoirs just published by his widow be any criterion, the jttbtoriiaif spiritualist medium, Some, 'midst nave been a sorry fraud. . The stories of-hia stances are of the stalest sort. Evidently Home's effects would not compare for -one moment with those of Eglinton, who, if nothing more, is at any rate a first-rate conjuror. By the way, I see the Phila* delphian Commission on spiritualism, whose report I described to yon not long ago, want Eglinton to appear before them, and have offered him his expenses and a substantial sum in cash to visit America. I wish he would, as one can rely alike on the shrewd" ness and the justice of this Commission, and Eglinton is the only man, so far, who has succeeded in puzzling both scientists and conjurors. In appearance, the popular medium resembles Beeant's "Herr Paulus," save that he is older and has a worn, strained 100k — probably put on professionally for effect, lik9 rouge. LUCAS MALET's LAST BOOK. Lucas Malet's (Mrs Harrison's) new story, "A Counsel of Perfection," has been published in one volume at 6s, and will consequently find ita way out to the Colonies forthwith. It is a sombre, twilighty tale, written in a minor key, and ending Badly. The heroine, a young-old maid of thirty, has spent all her life buried in a quiet country parsonage, acting as secretary and amanuensis to a selfish old student, her father. This ultra-refined and sensitive, yet most objectionable, old man cannot, or will not, see that his daughter is sacrificing youth, happiness,, and even '", love for his sake. He is so intensely selfish, that when at last, after long years of work, his daughter gets an opportunity of a trip to Switzerland, he objects to her going. For once, however, the " Counsel of Perfection " strikes against parental tyranny, and accepts the invitation. Abroad she, of course, enjoys life intensely, and without realising it, falls in love. Her admirer is a man of the world, but a good fellow in the main. He more then three parts loves the girl, but is frightened of her simple goodness and the beauty of her character. " Almost too good and perfect" is his verdict, and he allows the holiday to pass away without proposing. Months after, however, when the "Counsel of Perfection" has resumed her daily drudgery and is living chiefly on memories of Switzerland, her lover makes his appearance, and after some little fencing with himself, asks her to be Bis wife. He thinks he has only to ask and to have, and is consequently intensely surprised when she quietly refuses him. The girl has dutifully resolved to sacrifice Herself to her father. The lover goea away, not without a secret feeling of relief, and the young-old maid takes up her cross again with a broken heart. MISCELLANEOUS. New novels, either out or on the eve of publication, include "The Mystery of Mirbridge," by James Payn ; " Eve," by the too prolific Baring Gould j "Strange Adventures of a Houee-boat," by W, Black; "Hester, the Novelist," by J. W. Sherer; and "Fraternity," by an anonymous author. Mr Gladstone has not, apparently, any very profound belief in his Bon's abilities, or he would not have appointed Canon M'Coll his biographer and literary executor. An eighth edition haa been called for of "Eobert Elemere," which seems to increase in popularity as it gets known. This is more than can be said for the author of the work. Mrs Ward professes to hate being " lionised." After going to the new i Gallery private view, and one or two parties, and effectually overwhelming Mrs Stannard and Mrs Praed, she retired from the field, and now flatly refuses to be drawn. Needless to say she is writing another novel. The Empress of Germany, like most of our Queen's children, is a great admirer of the late Mrs Craik's works, and haa subscribed 300 marks (£ls) towards the memorial to the author of "John Halifax," which, is to be erected at Tewkeßbury.