332 Notes of the Month on , [MARCH, 



night she plays. This answers the purpose of the theatre, and makes her 

 worth her salary." 



So much for the protegee system. We should like to know how 

 many pounds or farthings this noble ticket buyer gave to the poor 

 during the late frost ! 



Another gives us the information that Madame Sontag, who made so 

 many annual protestations of her being married to Count somebody or 

 other, varying from A, to X, Y, Z, in the Court alphabet, is now Sontag 

 again, pure as ever, the marriage having been merely a civil act, an 

 act by which we suppose there is a privilege for actresses to have as 

 many unions and separations as they please. Then comes another im- 

 ported ornament to our country, Mademoiselle Jenny Colon, the 

 admired of all the elite of English society. " It will be remembered 

 that last year the French drama at the English Opera House, was enli- 

 vened by the beauty and talents of Jenny Colon. When she came to 

 this country she was called Colon j she afterwards took the name of 

 Madame Colon-Lafont ; and, last of all, was designated Madame Lafont, 

 from a marriage which she contracted with the actor Lafont, who per- 

 formed here along with her. On their return to Paris, it would appear 

 that these loving parties did not live in that harmony which was to be 

 expected from their new matrimonial union, and that they resolved to 

 break or unloose those ties which had been bound in London. The mother 

 of the young lady, therefore, to suit probably the object of both, has 

 applied for and obtained for them a decree of nullity of marriage, on 

 the ground of the minority of her daughter, and of her own want of 

 consent to the match at the time it was contracted. The husband, 

 Lafont, made no opposition, so that Madame Jenny Colon-Lafont is, by 

 the authority of the tribunals, Mademoiselle Jenny Colon once more." 

 Then comes Malibran. We should like to know in what part of the 

 universe she has deposited Monsieur her husband ? But passing by the 

 foreigners who are entitled, of course, to do what they will with them- 

 selves or their husbands, what a showy circle of home exhibitors our 

 stage can furnish at this hour ! It is fulsome to mention the names of 

 those wretched women. They are known to every one. But can we 

 wonder at the loss of public respect for the stage when it has such 

 exhibitors? Without a total change of system, the drama must go 

 down into still deeper neglect, if that be possible : nor can it ever be- 

 come an object of National interest, until the managers come to the wise 

 and decent determination of purifying both their companies and their 

 theatres ; and equally expelling vileness from their lobbies, and their 

 green-rooms. 



This season has been a singular contrast of frost and fire. There 

 have been more houses burnt within the last month, than in any six before. 

 Lord Rendlesham's enormous mansion in Suffolk was burned down a 

 fortnight ago. The loss is reckoned at 100,000/., of which not a shilling 

 was insured. We have no great pity for his lordship, who may be 

 consoled by the recollection that he saved the insurance, which might 

 actually have cost his purse the formidable sum of twenty pounds a 

 year. The newspapers tell us that his lordship and family were in 

 Paris at the time. Again we say that we have no pity for his nobility. 

 Why was he not at home among his tenantry, as he ought to be, distri- 

 buting charity among the people to whom he owed his own daily bread? 



