Adah Isaacs Menken

'Previous to last week the name of Miss Adah Isaacs Menken became familiar to the perambulating public, while her somewhat Byronic countenance was little less so, through the media of gigantic posters and well executed lithographs. This, with the uniform verdict of the London press in her favour as an artiste and actress of great power, which preceded her advent here, together with the altogether novel nature of her rôle, had the effect of rousing the greatest curiosity and exciting the highest expectations among playgoers, the most blasé of whom could scarcely help looking forward with unusual interest to the spectacle of a woman lashed to the bare back of a horse, and risking her neck and good looks by a catastrophe at a high elevation; and this was abundantly proved by the crowded audience which assembled on the first evening of her performance, which, moreover, has been uniformly the case during the fortnight. We purpose giving a résumé of the plot of "Mazeppa," which is sufficiently romantic and melodramatic to render it to some not at all attractive, and is only redeemed by the superb character of the figure and acting of the daring lady, who represents Mazeppa, the impersonation around which almost the whole interest of the piece centres. But in the first place we shall devote a few lines to a glance at the physique of Miss Menken: - In height she appears to be above the average of the sex. We infer from this the fact that she does not seem diminutive when in male attire. We would add that her figure is in a rich condition of development, were it not that we might be slightly mistaken in the sense apparently implied, for the development in her case does not include embonpoint. Nor would we use the term muscular with regard to her in the "training" school of expression. But if our readers can imagine a form uniting the rounded limb and delicate muscle of womankind with the suppleness and activity of an equestrian, for instance, like John Henry Cooke [the proprietor of the Royal Circus], he will be able to form an idea of the lithe, free, graceful, and powerful bearing of Miss Menken' (Dundee Advertiser, 24 March 1865).

The article continues with an extremely long and very detailed exposition of the plot.

Photographed by Charles Reutlinger of Paris.