OBITUARIES, FOREIGN. (POSSIET RHBA.) 



673 



and Mrs. Pringle. She had previously married 

 James Ponisi, an actor of the company, which was 

 very poor and used to make its way on foot from 

 town to town. For twelve years she continued 

 in the provinces, rising slowly into recognition un- 

 til she attracted the attention of Mr. Macready, 

 whom she supported for a week as leading lady 

 of the theater at Newcastle-on-Tyne. Her first 

 appearance in London was at the Surrey Theater, 

 Dec. 26, 1848. She soon became the leading lady 

 of that house, and remained there until 1850, 

 when she came to the United States and made 

 her American debut at the Walnut Street Thea- 

 ter, Philadelphia, Oct. 7, as Mariana in Sheridan 

 Knowles's The Wife. She played seven parts in 

 her first week. She was transferred to the old 

 Broadway Theater, where she made her first ap- 

 pearance, Nov. 11, 1850, as Lady Teazle. She 

 was the leading woman of that theater until 

 its removal in 1859. She played at Niblo's Gar- 

 den as Zanine in The Cataract of the Ganges in 

 December, 1853, and as Oberon in February, 1854. 

 Edwin Forrest declared her Lady Macbeth the 

 best on the stage. Her last part at the Broad- 

 way was Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra. In 

 October, 1859, Dion Boucicault, who had written 

 the part of Mrs. Cregan in the Colleen Bawn es- 

 pecially for her, engaged her for the production 

 of that play at Laura Keene's Theater. The great 

 success of the play kept her for a long time in 

 that part. She then joined Edwin Forrest as the 

 leading woman of his plays for several tours. 

 She was the original Pompadour in Narcisse at 

 Niblo's in 1863. In 1870 she played the Duchess 

 with Fee-liter in The Duke's Motto at Niblo's, 

 and she was the leading woman of that theater 

 in the season of 1870-71. In 1871 Mine. Po- 

 nisi was engaged for Lester Wai lack's stock com- 

 pany as the representative of the '(jrandcs dames 

 of its great repertory, and she retained that place 

 until the death of Mr. Wallack ended the organ- 

 ization. To enumerate the roles played by Mine. 

 Ponisi in the course of the years she passed 

 in the Wallack company would be to make a 

 history of Wallack's Theater for a quarter of a 

 century. After the Wallack company closed its 

 career Mine. Ponisi played with Mrs. Potter in 

 'Twixt Axe and Crown for a short time at Wal- 

 lack's (Thirtieth Street), and only occasionally 

 thereafter in New York. Her la*st appearance 

 was at the Academy of Music, New York, April 

 6, 1893. She was divorced from her first husband 

 in 1855, and married Samuel Wallis, Feb. 10, 1858. 

 Possiet, Constantin Nicolavich, Russian ad- 

 miral, born in 1819; died in St. Petersburg, May 

 8, 1899. He entered the navy at an early age, 

 gained a reputation by his treatises on gunnery, 

 and was the inventor of improvements in naval 

 ordnance that enabled the fleet to co-operate with 

 the army in the conquest of the mountaineers 

 in the Caucasus, whose strongholds were on the 

 coasts of the Black Sea. He was governor of the 

 Grand Duke Alexis (now commander in chief of 

 the navy) from 1858 till 1874, and then Minister 

 of Ways of Communication till 1888, and the 

 originator in that office of extensive improve- 

 ments in the harbors and water ways of the em- 

 pire. An accident to the train on which the Czar 

 was riding occasioned his retirement. As presi- 

 dent of the Russian association for saving life at 

 sea and on internal waters he initiated the es- 

 tablishment of most of the lifeboat stations. For 

 the last ten years of his life he was a member 

 of the Council of State. 



Price, Sir Rose Lambart, English author, 

 born in Trengwainton, Cornwall, July 26, 1837; 

 died in Pontyclun, Wales, April 17, 1899. He 

 VOL. xxxix. 43 A 



served m the English army in India during the 

 mutiny in 1857, and later in China, retiring in 

 1874 with the rank of major. In 1876 he pub- 

 lished The Two Americas: An Account of Sport 

 and Travel, with Notes on Men and Manners 

 which was deservedly popular. 



Rechberg, Bernhard, Austrian statesman, 

 born in Ratisbon in 1806; died Feb. 27, 1899. 

 He was attache to the legations in Berlin, Lon- 

 don, and Brussels, then minister at Stockholm, 

 and afterward at Rio de Janeiro. In 1847 lie was 

 appointed Austrian minister to the Germanic 

 Confederation, and in this capacity he presided 

 over the federal Diet at Frankfort. In 1859 he 

 was called into the Cabinet as Minister of Foreign 

 Affairs while the Italian war was in progress. 

 The heavy task of treating for peace at Villa- 

 franca and at Zurich thus fell to him. He had 

 also to direct the long negotiations relating to the 

 Schleswig-Holstein question, which ended only in 

 a war with Prussia, but he was forced to resign 

 before the war came, and the Austrian army was 

 defeated. 



Reynolds, Joseph Williams, English clergy- 

 man, born in 1821; died in January, 1899. He 

 was trained for business life, but entered the 

 Church and was ordained to the curacy of St. 

 Peter's, Belper, in 1849. In 1854 he was ap- 

 pointed principal of the Operative Jewish Con- 

 verts' Institution. In 1859 he became the in- 

 cumbent of St. Stephen's, Spitalfields, London, 

 and subsequently rector of St. Anne's and St. 

 Agnes's, London, from 1882. He was a prebendary 

 of St. Paul's from 1880. He published The Mira- 

 cles of Our Lord and Saviour (London, 1865) ; The 

 Supernatural in Nature (1878); The Mystery of 

 Miracles (1881); My Growth in the Divine Life 

 (1883); The Mystery of the Universe (1884); 

 and The World to Come: Immortality a Physi- 

 cal Fact (1888). 



Rhea, Mademoiselle (Mile. Hortense Barbe- 

 Loret), Belgian actress, born in Brussels, Sept. 4, 

 1844; died in Montmorency, France, May 5, 1899. 

 She was the daughter of a wealthy organ builder, 

 who died while she was a child, and was soon fol- 

 lowed by his wife. She was educated under the 

 care of guardians in the Ursuline Convent in 

 Paris, and began to study for the stage soon after 

 leaving school. Her debut was made at the Thea- 

 tre de la Monnaie, Brussels, in Les Doigts de Fee. 

 After a season she was engaged as leading young 

 woman of the Theatre Frangaise, Rouen, where 

 she played for another season, and went to Paris, 

 playing with success at the Vaudeville, and sub- 

 sequently making a tour of France. She went on 

 a tour in Russia in the early seventies, and after 

 a successful engagement in St. Petersburg was 

 engaged as leading actress of the Imperial Thea- 

 ter there, in which she began in 1876 a very pros- 

 perous career which lasted five years. On the 

 assassination of the Emperor Alexander II, March 

 13, 1881, the Imperial company was disbanded 

 and Rhea went to England. She placed herself 

 under the tutelage of John Ryder, and after one 

 month's study made her debut as Beatrice in 

 Much Ado about Nothing at the Gaiety Theater, 

 London. Harry Sargent engaged her for a tour 

 of the American cities. Her first appearance in 

 the United States was at the Park Theater, 

 Brooklyn, as Camille, Nov. 14, 1881. She was not 

 very successful at first, principally on account 

 of the difficulty with which she spoke English, 

 but after a somewhat disappointing tour she en- 

 tered into an engagement in 1882 with Arthur 

 B. Chase, under whose direction she made several 

 tours that were profitable. Her repertory con- 

 sisted of Adrienne Lecouvreur, Camille, Pygma- 



