Lady of Lyons

     “Miss Kate Bateman will make her last appearance at this house to-night, prefacing it with a matinee at 1 o’ clock.  The young tragedienne will undoubtedly say good-bye to the largest audience ever assembled within the walls of Niblo’s Theatre.”

     “Miss Bateman’s engagement of five weeks came to an end on Saturday night, when Niblo’s Garden was again crowded to its greatest capacity.  It may well be doubted if a more brilliant engagement has ever been played in this City; in point of receipts, there has been nothing to equal it.  The fair tragedienne has manifested a conspicuous progress in her art.  Her reputation need not depend on ‘Leah’—although that play is in such demand that it naturally forms an important item of her repertoire.  As Bianca and Pauline she is admirable.  In these characters Miss Bateman fairly challenged criticism—a change of bill being unnecessary, save for the illustration of her own powers.  That she has passed through the ordeal triumphantly is beyond question.  Let us add, too, that Mr. Cowper, who did not satisfy us as Fasio, was much more artistic as Claude Melmotic, displaying considerable power in the better scenes of the play.”

     “Miss Bateman is an uneven actress, at times rushing things as if she really felt all she was assuming, and again moving along like a piece of wound up machinery.  She draws, however; she puts money in the purses of managers, and ‘there all the honor lies’ in these sensational times.”

     Separate item.  “As Pauline she was not exactly our ideal of Bulwer’s young lady. . . . She appeared at times to be puzzled to manage properly the modulations of her voice, and placed the emphasis occasionally at random, so as to greatly mar, if not pervert, the sense of the author’s language. Taken as a whole, it was an unsatisfactory performance.”