International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1. Various
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Brougham is thoroughly individualized as regards his talents and all that constitutes idiosyncratic difference, even while he is identified with the political and moral advancement of the people. During all the agitations of a period almost unparalleled, he has remained untainted by the influence of party spirit. That he has entered, and hotly too, into almost every question of any moment that has come before the Legislature during many years is true; but he has never appeared in the character of a partisan; he has always been the consistent supporter of liberal measures per se, and not because they were the means adopted by a party to gain political power. With his political steadfastness he has preserved his intellectual integrity from profanation. For although, had he early devoted his powers to the study of abstract or practical science, as a leading and not a subsidiary pursuit, the acuteness of his mind was such, that he must have risen to eminence upon the basis of discovery, yet it is no slight proof how little the struggles of the world affect superior intellects, that he has all along turned aside, with a never cloying avidity, to the pursuits of mind—to science, to literature, and to philosophy.
THE WHITE LADY
The readers of The International may have seen some account of an apparition said to have been seen recently in the royal palace at Berlin, and known under the name of the "White Lady." M. Minutoli, lately chief of the Police at Berlin, has been amusing himself by looking up the history of this visitant from the unknown world, and has published a variety of curious particulars respecting her, drawn in a measure from documents preserved in the royal archives, as well as from old-time chronicles and dissertations, Latin and German middle age doggerel, and the records of jurists, historians and theologists. Several persons are designated in the early history of the family of Hohenzollern as that unquiet soul who for some three hundred years has performed the functions of palace-ghost. Many writers agree that she was a Countess named Orlamünde, Beatrice, or Cunigunde, and that she was desperately in love with Count Albert of Nuremberg, and was led by her passion to a crime which is the cause of her subsequent ghostly disquiet. Mr. Minutoli proves that this lady cannot be the same that alarms the palace with her untimely visitations. The accounts of the White Lady ascend to 1486, and she was first seen at Baireuth. Subsequently two ghosts were heard of, one white and one black. They were several times boldly interrogated and interesting discoveries arrived at. In 1540, Count Albert the Warrior laid in wait for the apparition, seized it with his powerful arm and flung it head over heels down into the castle court-yard. The next morning the chancellor, Christopher Hass, was found there with his neck broken, and upon his person a dagger and a letter proving him to have had treasonable designs. Notwithstanding the spirit has several times been thus compromised, it has maintained itself to the present day. It was first seen in Berlin January 1, 1598, eight days before the death of the Prince Royal John George. When the French invasion took place, it returned to Baireuth and was patriotic enough to take up its abode in the new chateau which had never been occupied before the arrival of the French officer. Even Napoleon called the place ce maudit chateau, on account of its mysterious inhabitant, and had to give up his lodgings to the ghost. He stopped in the chateau on his way to Russia but when he returned next year he avoided passing the night there. With regard to the last appearance at the palace at Berlin just before the late attempt on the life of the king, and which has been described as "a fearful apparition of a White Lady dressed in thin and flowing garments, moving slowly and silently around and around the fountain to the terror of a corporal standing near the entrance to the silver chamber," M. Minutoli proves it to have been an old woman once a cook at the chateau who has since lived there and is known, by the nickname of Black Minna.
MRS. FANNY KEMBLE'S "READINGS" IN LONDON
MRS. KEMBLE has been giving a series of dramatic readings in London, and her success in the scene of her early triumphs appears to have been as decided as it was in New York. She was never in a situation more agreeable to her temper and ambition than that represented in the above engraving, which we have copied from one in The Illustrated News. She is triumphant, and "alone in her glory."
Mrs. Kemble is now about forty years of age. Gentleness is acquired in three generations; she is removed but two from the most vulgar condition; and by the mother's side but one. The Kembles of the last age were extraordinary persons. John Philip Kemble and Mrs. Siddons had both remarkable genius, and Charles Kemble has been an actor of consummate talent. Whatever intellect remains in the family is in his children; one of whom is a man of learning and refinement, another a woman of some cleverness in musical art, and Frances Anne, of whom we write more particularly.
The first appearance of Miss Kemble on the stage was on the evening of the 5th October, 1829, at Covent Garden, and was hazarded with the view of redeeming the fortunes of the theater. The play was "Romeo and Juliet," and the heroine was sustained by the debutante with unexpected power. Her Siddonian countenance and expressive eyes were the general theme of admiration; while the tenderness and ardor of her action went to the soul of the spectator, and her well-instructed elocution satisfied the most critical ear. It was then, also, that her father took the part of "Mercutio," for the first time. It is recorded that he earned by it thirteen rounds of applause. Nor was its merit overrated. It was then, and continued to be, a wonderful impersonation of the poetic-comic ideal. On the 21st of the same month of October, the performers of Covent Garden presented to Miss Kemble a gold bracelet as a testimony of the services which she had rendered to the company by her performance of "Juliet." It was not until the 9th of December that she had to change her role. She then performed Belvidera in "Venice Preserved," and achieved another triumph. For some time the part was alternated with that of "Juliet." The latter, during the season, was performed thirty-six times; the former, twenty-three. The "Grecian Daughter," and Mrs. Beverley, Portia in "The Merchant of Venice," Isabella, and Lady Townley, followed, and in all she was eminently successful. Her season finished on the twenty-eighth of May, and in it she performed altogether, one hundred and two times. Her reputation, however, proved to be greater in the metropolis than in the provinces. Nevertheless, on her return to London, she was greeted with an enthusiastic reception. The next season was celebrated by the failure of the "Jew of Aragon," and the affair with Mr. Westmacott; however, Miss Kemble added to her répertoire the characters of Mrs. Haller, Beatrice, Lady Constance, and Bianca in "Fazio."
In 1832 she came with her father to the United States, where she played with unprecedented success in the principal cities, confirming the reputation she had acquired, of being the greatest British actress of the age. While here she published her dramas, "The Star of Seville" and "Francis the First," and at this period she was a frequent contributor to the literary journals,—many of her best fugitive poems having appeared in the old "New York Mirror."
In 1834 she retired from the stage, and was married to Mr. Pierce Butler of Philadelphia, a gentleman of fortune, accomplishments, and an honorable character. The history of this union is sufficiently notorious. On both sides there was ambition: it was a distinction to be accepted by a woman of so much genius; it was a great happiness to change the dominion of a spendthrift and sometimes tyrannical father for that of a rich and indulgent husband. But a woman accustomed to the applause of the theater never yet was content with the repose of domestic life, and she was of all her sex the most ill-fitted by nature for such an existence. Her second resort to the stage in 1847, her fortunes at Manchester and in London, her return to America, her public readings of Shakspeare here, her divorce, and the very curious and unexplained circumstance of her translation of a profligate French play, and disposal of it as a piece of her own original composition, are all matters of too late occurrence to need recapitulation.
She is a woman of masculine abilities, tastes, and energies; fitted better for the camp than for the drawing-room, and often evincing a degree of discontent that she is not a man. She always acts, and has seldom, except when on the stage, the tact or ability even to seem natural. Her equestrian exhibitions in Boston and New York, during her more recent visits, illustrated the quality of her aspirations. Every day, at a particular hour, so that a crowd might assemble to look upon the performance, her horse was brought to the front of her hotel, and when mounted, with affected difficulty, made to rear and pitch as if he never before had felt the saddle or bit, and then to dash off as if upon a race-course or to escape an avalanche. The letters to her husband, with much tact but without any necessity displayed to the public, in her answer