The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 / Volume 23, Number 2

by Various

EDITOR’S TABLE.

American Manners and American Literature.—We ask the attention of every right-minded American to the following remarks, which we take the liberty of transcribing from a welcome epistle to the Editor, from one of our most esteemed and popular contributors. The follies which it exposes and the evils which it laments have heretofore formed the themes of papers in this Magazine from the pens of able correspondents, as well as of occasional comment in our own departments; but we do not remember to have seen the subject more felicitously handled than by our friend: ‘The crying vice of the nation, and the one which of all others most fastens the charge of inconsistency on our character and professions, is that apish spirit with which we admire and copy every thing of European growth. While we exalt our institutions, character and condition over those of all other nations, and give ourselves ‘a name above every name,’ is it not supremely absurd for city to vie with city and family with family in adopting the latest fashions in dress and opinions originating in nations which have grown old in profligacy, and abound in the worthless excrescences of society? We profess to be perfectly independent of all control in our thoughts and actions: ‘Nullius addicti jurare in verba magistri.’ Yet who more readily than we shout in chorus to the newest modes of thinking ushered into ephemeral life by philosophers across the water? Who adopt so early or carry so far the most outre and preposterous styles of dress invented in Paris, as our American belles and dandies? The newest cut in garments which was hatched in Paris beneath the crescent-moon, her waning rays see carried to its utmost verge in our bustling marts. We follow the revolutions in the configuration of coats, from square to round, and from round to angular, with as scrupulous and painful a precision as if our national honor depended on the issue. Nay, we are usually a little too faithful, and fairly ‘out-Herod Herod.’ Does the cockney of the ‘world’s metropolis’ compress his toes in boots tapering at an angle of forty degrees? The republican fop promenades Broadway with his pedal extremities squeezed into an angle of thirty; and the corns ensuing he bears with christian fortitude; for does he not find his ‘exceeding great reward’ in being more fashionable than the Londoner himself? Has the fat of the Siberian bear, or ‘thine incomparable oil, Macassar’ called forth a thicket of hair on the cheek of the Frenchman, reaching from the cerebral pulse to the submaxillary bone? Instantly the pews of our churches, the boxes of our theatres, and the seats of our legislative halls, are thronged with whey-faced apes, the moisture of whose brains has exuded in nourishing a frowning hedge, of which the dark luxuriance encircles the whole face, resembling the old pictures of the saints wherewith our childhood was amused, encompassed with a glory! When the whiskered ‘petit-mâitres’ of Hyde-Park shall begin to transport their adorable persons to this new world on a summer’s trip, they will be astonished not a little to be stared at on landing through opera-glasses by counterparts of themselves; exact to the last hair of the moustache. ‘Werily,’ will be their ejaculation, ‘hit his wery great presumption in these wulgar democrats to himitate us Henglish in this way-ah!’ Every easterly wind blows in a fleet laden with cargoes of folly, and every outward-bound vessel bears an order for fresh importations of absurdity, of which milliners and tailors are the shippers, and flirts and fops the consignees. So far has this mimicking spirit proceeded, that we regard neither climate nor season. Were some accident to delay for a few months our advices from Europe, I question not but our fashionable ladies would adopt in mid-winter the same form and materials for their dresses which the Parisian damsels sported on the Boulevards beneath the scorching dog-star. The changeful and chilly atmosphere of our sea-board differs widely from the genial airs of ‘La belle France,’ and to adopt their fashions in detail is about as wise and tasteful in us as it would be for the negro panting beneath the line to wrap himself in the furs of Siberia, and substitute for his refreshing palm-juice the usquebaugh of the Highlands. Who would not laugh himself into a pleurisy to see the dandies of Timbuctoo stalking along in solemn gravity beneath their torrid sun, encumbered with a Russian fur-cloak, or a Lapland ‘whip’ on a snow-sledge, driving his canine four-in-hand, with a Turkish turban and Grecian robe folded carelessly around him? Yet wherein do we greatly differ in our absurdities! Again: we profess to have lopped from our democratic tree the old-world customs of hereditary title and patrimonial honor. We are no respecters of persons. We have no reverence for ancestral virtues, and the lustre that shines only by reflection has no charms for us. We respect no grandees but ‘nature’s noblemen.’ We look through the glittering atmosphere of place, and title, and factitious distinction, at the man himself. The artificer of his own fortunes we hail as a brother. He who possesses superior abilities or unblemished integrity, we honor, though his hands be on the plough; and he who is imbecile or dishonest, we despise, though his brow be encircled by a coronet. All noble, consistent, rational, and right. But how is this? ‘Lo! a foreigner has landed on our shores.’ Well; what then? We also should be foreigners in Europe. ‘Yes; but he bears the honorable appendage of Lord, or Sir, or De, or Di, or Von, or Don.’ Happy, meanwhile, thrice happy the youth whom his titleship will allow to treat him; blessed, triumphantly blessed, the Miss whose charms have warmed into life the cold gaze of my Lord Highbred, or Monsieur De Nonchalance. And oh! beatified beyond all rapture the doting mother, who in her ripened and expanded miniature begins to realize her dreams of ‘young romance,’ and to hope by connection with a family more lineally descended from Adam than her own, to obtain a rank

‘Whose glory with a lingering trace,

Shines through and deifies her race!’

Truth, every word truth—satire most justly bestowed; and before relinquishing this general theme, let us ask the reader to admire with us the cognate remarks of a writer in the last number of the ‘North-American Review’ upon the importance of a Literature which shall be distinctive and national in its character, and not a rifacamento of the varying literatures of various nations: ‘The man whose heart is capable of any patriotic emotion, who feels his pulse quicken when the idea of his country is brought home to him, must desire that country to possess a voice more majestic than the roar of party, and more potent than the whine of sects; a voice which should breathe energy and awaken hope where-ever its kindling tones are heard. The life of our native land; the inner spirit which animates its institutions; the new ideas and principles, of which it is the representative; these every patriot must wish to behold reflected from the broad mirror of a comprehensive and soul-animating literature. The true vitality of a nation is not seen in the triumphs of its industry, the extent of its conquests, or the reach of its empire; but in its intellectual dominion. Posterity passes over statistical tables of trade and population, to search for the records of the mind and heart. It is of little moment how many millions of men were included at any time under the name of one people, if they have left no intellectual testimonials of their mode and manner of existence, no ‘foot-prints on the sands of time.’ The heart refuses to glow at the most astounding array of figures. A nation lives only through its literature, and its mental life is immortal. And if we have a literature, it should be a national literature; no feeble or sonorous echo of Germany or England, but essentially American in its tone and object. No matter how meritorious a composition may be, as long as any foreign nation can say that it has done the same thing better, so long shall we be spoken of with contempt, or in a spirit of benevolent patronage. We begin to sicken of the custom, now so common, of presenting even our best poems to the attention of foreigners, with a deprecating, apologetic air; as if their acceptance of the offering, with a few soft and silky compliments, would be an act of kindness demanding our warmest acknowledgments. If the Quarterly Review or Blackwood’s Magazine speaks well of an American production, we think that we can praise it ourselves, without incurring the reproach of bad taste. The folly we yearly practise, of flying into passion with some inferior English writer, who caricatures our faults, and tells dull jokes about his tour through the land, has only the effect to exalt an insignificant scribbler into notoriety, and give a nominal value to his recorded impertinence. If the mind and heart of the country had its due expression, if its life had taken form in a literature worthy of itself, we should pay little regard to the childish tattling of a pert coxcomb who was discontented with our taverns, or the execrations of some bluff sea-captain who was shocked with our manners. The uneasy sense we have of something in our national existence which has not yet been fitly expressed, gives poignancy to the least ridicule launched at faults and follies which lie on the superficies of our life. Every person feels, that a book which condemns the country for its peculiarities of manners and customs, does not pierce into the heart of the matter, and is essentially worthless. If Bishop Berkeley, when he visited Malebranche, had paid exclusive attention to the habitation, raiment, and manners of the man, and neglected the conversation of the metaphysician, and, when he returned to England, had entertained Pope, Swift, Gay, and Arbuthnot with satirical descriptions of the ‘compliment extern’ of his eccentric host, he would have acted just as wisely as many an English tourist, with whose malicious pleasantry on our habits of chewing, spitting, and eating, we are silly enough to quarrel. To the United States in reference to the pop-gun shots of foreign tourists, might be addressed the warning which Peter Plymley thundered against Bonaparte, in reference to the Anti-Jacobin jests of Canning: Tremble, oh! thou land of many spitters and voters, ‘for a pleasant man has come out against thee, and thou shalt be laid low by a joker of jokes, and he shall talk his pleasant talk to thee, and thou shalt be no more!’ In order that America may take its due rank in the commonwealth of nations, a literature is needed which shall be the exponent of its higher life. We live in times of turbulence and change. There is a general dissatisfaction, manifesting itself often in rude contests and ruder speech, with the gulf which separates principles from actions. Men are struggling to realize dim ideals of right and truth, and each failure adds to the desperate earnestness of their efforts. Beneath all the shrewdness and selfishness of the American character, there is a smouldering enthusiasm which flames out at the first touch of fire; sometimes at the hot and hasty words of party, and sometimes at the bidding of great thoughts and unselfish principles. The heart of the nation is easily stirred to its depths; but those who rouse its fiery impulses into action are often men compounded of ignorance and wickedness, and wholly unfitted to guide the passions which they are able to excite. We want a poetry which shall speak in clear, loud tones to the people; a poetry which shall make us more in love with our native land, by converting its ennobling scenery into the images of lofty thoughts; which shall give visible form and life to the abstract ideas of our written constitutions; which shall confer upon virtue all the strength of principle and all the energy of passion; which shall disentangle freedom from cant and senseless hyperbole, and render it a thing of such loveliness and grandeur as to justify all self-sacrifice; which shall make us love man by the new consecrations it sheds on his life and destiny; which shall force through the thin partitions of conventialism and expediency; vindicate the majesty of reason; give new power to the voice of conscience, and new vitality to human affection; soften and elevate passion; guide enthusiasm in a right direction; and speak out in the high language of men to a nation of men.’

The North-American Review for the January quarter is one of the best issues of that ‘ancient and honorable’ Quarterly which we have encountered for many months. It contains eight extended reviews, five brief ‘Critical Notices,’ and the usual quarterly list of new publications. The first article is upon the ‘Poets and Poetry of America,’ a work ‘which has travelled through many States and four editions,’ and for the production of which Mr. Griswold is justly commended. In the progress of this paper, the writer indulges in a sort of running commentary upon the more conspicuous poets included in the compiler’s collection, as Bryant, Halleck, Sprague, Dana, Percival, Longfellow, Willis Gaylord Clark, Holmes, Whittier, etc., etc. Of Bryant the reviewer among other things remarks:

‘Mr. Griswold says finely of Bryant, that ‘he is the translator of the silent language of nature to the world.’ The serene beauty and thoughtful tenderness, which characterize his descriptions, or rather interpretations of outward objects, are paralleled only in Wordsworth. His poems are almost perfect of their kind. The fruits of meditation, rather than of passion or imagination, and rarely startling with an unexpected image or sudden outbreak of feeling, they are admirable specimens of what may be called the philosophy of the soul. They address the finer instincts of our nature with a voice so winning and gentle; they search out with such subtle power all in the heart which is true and good; that their influence, though quiet, is resistless. They have consecrated to many minds things which before it was painful to contemplate. Who can say that his feelings and fears respecting death have not received an insensible change, since reading the ‘Thanatopsis?’ Indeed, we think that Bryant’s poems are valuable, not only for their intrinsic excellence, but for the vast influence their wide circulation is calculated to exercise on national feelings and manners. It is impossible to read them without being morally benefitted. They purify as well as please. They develope or encourage all the elevated and thoughtful tendencies of the mind.’

We are glad to see the reproof which the reviewer bestows upon those critics of Longfellow’s poetry, who to escape the trouble of analysis, offer some smooth eulogium upon his ‘taste,’ or some lip-homage to his ‘artistical ability,’ instead of noting the tendency of his writings to touch the heroic strings in our nature, to breathe energy into the heart, to sustain our lagging purposes, and fix our thoughts on what is stable and eternal. The following is eminently just:

‘The great characteristic of Longfellow, that of addressing the moral nature through the imagination, of linking moral truth to intellectual beauty, is a far greater excellence. His artistical ability is admirable, because it is not seen. It is rather mental than mechanical. The best artist is he who accommodates his diction to his subject. In this sense, Longfellow is an artist. By learning ‘to labor and to wait,’ by steadily brooding over the chaos in which thought and emotion first appear to the mind, and giving shape and life to both, before uttering them in words, he has obtained a singular mastery over expression. By this we do not mean that he has a large command of language. No fallacy is greater than that which confounds fluency with expression. Washerwomen, and boys at debating clubs, often display more fluency than Webster; but his words are to theirs, as the roll of thunder to the patter of rain. Language often receives its significance and power from the person who uses it. Unless permeated by the higher faculties of the mind, unless it be not the clothing, but the ‘incarnation of thought,’ it is quite an humble power. There are some writers who repose undoubting confidence in words. If their minds be filled with the epithets of poetry, they fondly deem that they have clutched its essence. In a piece of inferior verse, we often observe a great array of expressions which have been employed with great effect by genius, but which seem to burn the fingers and disconcert the equanimity of the aspiring word-catcher who presses them into his service. Felicity, not fluency, of language is a merit.’

Exactly; yet these same ‘fluent’ versifiers are the persons who talk with elaborate flippancy of the ‘simple common-places’ of this noble poet! The reviewer adds: ‘Longfellow has a perfect command of that expression which results from restraining rather than cultivating fluency; and his manner is adapted to his theme. He rarely, if ever, mistakes ‘emotions for conceptions.’ His words are often pictures of his thought. He selects with great delicacy and precision the exact phrase which best expresses or suggests his idea. He colors his style with the skill of a painter. The warm flush and bright tints, as well as the most evanescent hues of language, he uses with admirable discretion. In that higher department of his art, that of so combining his words and images that they make music to the soul as well as to the ear, and convey not only his feelings and thoughts, but also the very tone and condition of the soul in which they have being, he likewise excels.’ The reviewer illustrates these remarks, by citing the ‘Psalms of Life,’ the ‘Saga of the Skeleton in Armor,’ ‘The Village Blacksmith,’ etc., which were written by Mr. Longfellow for the pages of this Magazine, and adds, that our poet indulges in no ‘wild struggles after an ineffable Something, for which earth can afford but imperfect symbols. He appears perfectly satisfied with his work. Like his own ‘Village Blacksmith,’ he retires every night with the feeling that something has been attempted, and something done.’ There is a subtle analysis of the style of that first of comic poets, Holmes, for which we shall endeavor to find space hereafter. Of the writings of the late lamented Willis Gaylord Clark, the reviewer remarks, that they ‘are all distinguished for a graceful and elegant diction, thoughts morally and poetically beautiful, and chaste and appropriate imagery. They exhibit much purity and strength of feeling, are replete with fancy and sentiment, and have often a searching pathos and a mournful beauty, which find their way quietly to the heart.’ The poetry of our friend and correspondent Whittier is warmly commended: ‘A common thought comes from his pen ‘rammed with life.’ He seems in some of his lyrics to pour out his blood with his lines. There is a rush of passion in his verse, which sweeps every thing along with it.’ The remaining references are to the lady-poets, Mesdames Brooks, Child, Sigourney, Smith, Welby, Hall, Ellet, Dinnie, Embury, Hooper, the Davidsons, etc. The whole article is well considered; and we cordially commend it to the attention of our readers. The remaining papers are upon Palfrey’s admirable ‘Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity,’ ‘Trade with the Hanse-Towns, the German Tariff-League;’ ‘Gervinus’s History of German Poetry;’ ‘Debts of the States,’ an excellent and most timely article;’ ‘Prescott’s History of Mexico;’ ‘Sam Slick in England;’ and a valuable dissertation on Libraries, based upon the catalogue of the library of Brown University.

Joseph C. Neal’s ‘Charcoal Sketches.’—Right glad are we to welcome from the teeming press of Messrs. Burgess and Stringer a new edition of these most humorous and witty sketches, illustrated with engravings by D. C. Johnston, of Boston. We have re-perused them with renewed delight, and awakened again the echoes of our silent sanctum, in the excess of our cachinnatory enjoyment. Our friend Morton M‘Michael, in the ‘advance Graham’ for February, (which by the way contains a breathing likeness of the sketcher,) has the following remarks upon the papers composing the volume before us, which we most cordially endorse: ‘No one, who has his faculties in a healthy condition, can read them and not feel convinced that they are the productions of a superior and highly gifted mind. They not only smack strongly of what all true men love, genuine humor; rich, racy, glorious humor; at which you may indulge in an honest outbreak of laughter, and not feel ashamed afterward because you have thrown away good mirth on a pitiful jest; but when you have laughed your fill, if you choose to look beneath the surface, which sparkles and bubbles with brilliant fancies, you will find an under current of truthful observation, abundant in matter for sober thought in your graver moments. In all of them, light and trifling as they seem, and pleasant as they unquestionably are, there is a deep and solemn moral. The follies and vices which, in weak natures, soon grow into crimes, are here presented in such a way as to forewarn those who are about to yield to temptation, not by dull monitions and unregarded homilies, but by making the actors themselves unconscious protestants against their own misdoings. And to do this well requires a combination of abilities such as few possess. There must be the quick eye to perceive, the nice judgment to discriminate, the active memory to retain, the vigorous pen to depict, and above all, the soul, the mind, the genius, call it what you will, to infuse into the whole life and spirit and power. Now, all these qualities Neal has in an eminent degree, and he applies them with the skill of an accomplished artist. What he does he does thoroughly, perfectly. His portraits, which he modestly calls sketches, are unmistakeable. The very men he wishes to portray are before you, and they are not only limned to the outward eye, but they speak also to the outward ear, and in sentences thickly clustered with the drollest conceits, they convey lessons of practical philosophy, and make revelations of the strange perversities of our inward nature, from which even the wise may gather profitable conclusions.’ Our friend speaks of Mr. Neal’s being ‘comparatively little known.’ We have good reason to believe that one great cause of this is, that his name has often been confounded with that of another and altogether different species of Neal, whose infinite twattle—infinite alike in degree and quantity—has prejudiced the public mind against any thing that may seem to come in ‘questionable shape’ from a questionable source. This error has had its advantages to one party, no doubt, since there was ‘every thing to gain and nothing to lose;’ an advantage however which the prefix of the first two initials of our friend and correspondent to passages from his work which may hereafter find their way into the newspapers, will transfer to the rightful recipient. But to the volume in question, from which we are about to make a few random selections, illustrating the characters of sundry ‘city worthies,’ who are ‘comprehended as vagrom men’ by the ‘charleys’ or watchmen of the good City of Brotherly Love. Let us begin with the soliloquy of the poetical Olympus Pump:

‘‘Genius never feels its oats until after sunset; twilight applies the spanner to the fire-plug of fancy to give its bubbling fountains way; and midnight lifts the sluices for the cataracts of the heart, and cries, ‘Pass on the water!’ Yes, and economically considered, night is this world’s Spanish cloak; for no matter how dilapidated or festooned one’s apparel may be, the loops and windows cannot be discovered, and we look as elegant and as beautiful as get out. Ah!’ continued Pump, as he gracefully reclined upon the stall, ‘it’s really astonishing how rich I am in the idea line to-night. But it’s no use. I’ve got no pencil—not even a piece of chalk to write ’em on my hat for my next poem. It’s a great pity ideas are so much of the soap-bubble order, that you can’t tie ’em up in a pocket handkerchief, like a half peck of potatoes, or string ’em on a stick like catfish. I often have the most beautiful notions scampering through my head with the grace, but alas! the swiftness too, of kittens, especially just before I get asleep; but they’re all lost for the want of a trap; an intellectual figgery four. I wish we could find out the way of sprinkling salt on their tails, and make ’em wait till we want to use ’em. Why can’t some of the meaner souls invent an idea-catcher for the use of genius? I’m sure they’d find it profitable, for I wouldn’t mind owing a man twenty dollars for one myself.’

Mr. Fydget Fyxington is another worthy, who reverts continually to ‘first principles,’ and is full of schemes and projects, especially when he chances to have ‘a stone in his hat.’ Hear him:

‘‘Nothin’s fixed no how; our grand-dads must a been lazy rascals. Why didn’t they roof over the side-walks, and not leave every thing for us to do? I ain’t got no numbrell, and besides that, when it comes down as if raining was no name for it, as it always does when I’m cotch’d out, numbrells is no great shakes if you’ve got one with you, and no shakes at all if it’s at home. It’s a pity we ain’t got feathers, so’s to grow our own jacket and trowsers, and do up the tailorin’ business, and make our own feather beds. It would be a great savin’; every man his own clothes, and every man his own feather bed. Now I’ve got a suggestion about that; first principles bring us to the skin; fortify that, and the matter’s done. How would it do to bile a big kittle full of tar, tallow, beeswax and injen rubber, with considerable wool, and dab the whole family once a week? The young’uns might be soused in it every Saturday night, and the nigger might fix the elderly folks with a whitewash brush. Then there wouldn’t be no bother a washing your clothes or yourself, which last is an invention of the doctor to make people sick, because it lets in the cold in winter and the heat in summer, when natur’ says shut up the porouses and keep ’em out. Besides, when the new invention was tore at the knees or wore at the elbows, just tell the nigger to put on the kittle and give you a dab, and you’re patched slick; and so that whole mobs of people mightn’t stick together like figs, a little sperrits of turpentine or litharage might be added to make ’em dry like a house-a-fire. ’Twould be nice for sojers. Stand ’em all of a row, and whitewash ’em blue or red, according to pattern, as if they were a fence. The gin’rals might look on to see if it was done according to Gunter; the cap’ins might flourish the brush, and the corpulars carry the bucket. Dandies could fix themselves all sorts of streaked and all sorts of colors. When the parterials is cheap and the making don’t cost nothing, that’s what I call economy, and coming as near as possible to first principles. It’s a better way, too, of keeping out the rain, than my t’other plan of flogging people when they’re young, to make their hides hard and water-proof. A good licking is a sound first principle for juveniles, but they’ve got a prejudice agin it.’

‘A pair of Slippers’ brings us acquainted with another original personage, who one dark night soliloquizes on this wise:

‘‘I’ve not the slightest doubt that this is as beautiful a night as ever was; only it’s so dark you can’t see the pattern of it. One night is pretty much like another night in the dark; but it’s a great advantage to a good-looking evening, if the lamps are lit, so you can twig the stars and the moonshine. The fact is, that in this ‘ere city, we do grow the blackest moons, and the hardest moons to find, I ever did see. Lamps is lamps, and moons is moons, in a business pint of view, but practically they ain’t much if the wicks ain’t afire. When the luminaries are, as I may say, in the raw, it’s bad for me. I can’t see the ground as perforately as little fellers, and every dark night I’m sure to get a hyst; either a forrerd hyst, or a backerd hyst, or some sort of a hyst; but more backerds than forrerds, ‘specially in winter. One of the most unfeeling tricks I know of, is the way some folks have got of laughing out, yaw-haw! when they see a gentleman ketching a reg’lar hyst; a long gentleman, for instance, with his legs in the air, and his noddle splat down upon the cold bricks. A hyst of itself is bad enough, without being sniggered at: first, your sconce gets a crack; then, you see all sorts of stars, and have free admission to the fire-works; then, you scramble up, feeling as if you had no head on your shoulders, and as if it wasn’t you, but some confounded disagreeable feller in your clothes; yet the jacksnipes all grin, as if the misfortunes of human nature was only a poppet show. I wouldn’t mind it, if you could get up and look as if you didn’t care. But a man can’t rise, after a royal hyst, without letting on he feels flat. In such cases, however, sympathy is all gammon; and as for sensibility of a winter’s day, people keep it all for their own noses, and can’t be coaxed to retail it by the small.’

‘Dilly Jones’ is one of those unfortunate wights ‘just whose luck’ it is never to succeed in any thing they undertake. In a state of ‘mellow’ mental abstraction, while lamenting that the trade of one’s early days might not likewise be the trade of one’s latter years, he unconsciously utters his thoughts aloud:

‘‘Sawing wood’s going all to smash,’ said he, ‘and that’s where every thing goes what I speculates in. This here coal is doing us up. Ever since these black stones was brought to town, the wood-sawyers and pilers, and them soap-fat and hickory-ashes men, has been going down; and, for my part, I can’t say as I see what’s to be the end of all their new-fangled contraptions. But it’s always so; I’m always crawling out of the little end of the horn. I began life in a comfortable sort of a way; selling oysters out of a wheel-barrow, all clear grit, and didn’t owe nobody nothing. Oysters went down slick enough for a while, but at last cellars was invented, and darn the oyster, no matter how nice it was pickled, could poor Dill sell; so I had to eat up capital and profits myself. Then the ‘pepree-pot smoking’ was sot up, and went ahead pretty considerable for a time; but a parcel of fellers come into it, said my cats wasn’t as good as their’n, when I know’d they was as fresh as any cats in the market; and pepree-pot was no go. Bean-soup was just as bad; people said kittens wasn’t good done that way, and the more I hollered, the more the customers wouldn’t come, and them what did, wanted tick. Along with the boys and their pewter fips, them what got trust and didn’t pay, and the abusing of my goods, I was soon fotch’d up in the victualling line—and I busted for the benefit of my creditors. But genius riz. I made a raise of a horse and saw, after being a wood-piler’s prentice for a while, and working till I was free, and now here comes the coal to knock this business in the head.’ · · · ‘I wonder if they wouldn’t list me for a Charley? Hollering oysters and bean-soup has guv’ me a splendid woice; and instead of skeering ’em away, if the thieves were to hear me singing out, my style of doing it would almost coax ’em to come and be took up. They’d feel like a bird when a snake is after it, and would walk up, and poke their coat collars right into my fist. Then, after a while, I’d perhaps be promoted to the fancy business of pig ketching, which, though it is werry light and werry elegant, requires genus. ’Tisn’t every man that can come the scientifics in that line, and has studied the nature of a pig, so as to beat him at canœuvering, and make him surrender ‘cause he sees it ain’t no use of doing nothing. It wants larning to conwince them critters, and it’s only to be done by heading ’em up handsome, hopping which ever way they hop, and tripping ’em up genteel by shaking hands with their off hind leg. I’d scorn to pull their tails out by the roots, or to hurt their feelin’s by dragging ’em about by the ears. But what’s the use? If I was listed, they’d soon find out to holler the hour and to ketch the thieves by steam; yes, and they’d take ’em to court on a railroad, and try ’em with biling water. They’ll soon have black locomotives for watchmen and constables, and big bilers for judges and mayors. Pigs will be ketched by steam, and will be biled fit to eat before they are done squealing. By and by, folks won’t be of no use at all. There won’t be no people in the world but tea-kittles; no mouths, but safety-valves; and no talking, but blowing off steam. If I had a little biler inside of me, I’d turn omnibus, and week-days I’d run from Kensington to the Navy Yard, and Sundays I’d run to Fairmount.’’

There is a world of wisdom in the syllabus, or ‘argument,’ prefixed to each sketch; but for these we must refer the reader to the volume itself. The Dogberrys too are as wise as their ‘illustrious predecessor,’ and are quite as profuse of advice to ‘the plaintiffs’ who fall into their hands. Take a single specimen: ‘Take keer—don’t persume; I’m a ‘fishal functionary out a-ketching of dogs. You mustn’t cut up because it’s night. The mayor and the ‘squires has gone to bed; but the law is a thing that never gets asleep. After ten o’clock the law is a watchman and a dog-ketcher; we’re the whole law till breakfast’s a’most ready.’ ‘You’re a clever enough kind of little feller, sonny; but you ain’t been eddicated to the law as I have; so I’ll give you a lecture. Justice vinks at vot it can’t see, and lets them off vot it can’t ketch. When you want to break it, you must dodge. You may do what you like in your own house, and the law don’t know nothing about the matter. But never go thumping and bumping about the streets, when you are primed and snapped. That’s intemperance, and the other is temperance. But now you come under the muzzle of the ordinance; you’re a loafer.’ One of these ‘‘fishal functionaries’ justifies extreme physical means in ‘captivating obstropolous vagroms’ both by reason and distinguished precedent: ‘Wolloping is the only way; it’s a panacea for differences of opinion. You’ll find it in history books, that one nation teaches another what it didn’t know before by wolloping it; that’s the method of civilizing savages; the Romans put the whole world to rights that way; and what’s right on the big figger must be right on the small scale. In short, there’s nothing like wolloping for taking the conceit out of fellows who think they know more than their betters.’ ‘And so forth, et cetera,’ as may be ascertained on a perusal of the volume.

Life and Times of the late William Abbott: Third Notice.—This most entertaining manuscript-volume, from which we have already drawn so largely for the entertainment of our readers, has not been published in America, as it was designed to have been, owing partly as we learn to the fact that, through ‘something like unfair dealing’ toward the widow of the writer, a copy of half the volume had been transmitted to England, parts of which have already reached this country in the pages of a London magazine. We had the pleasure to anticipate by a month or two the best portions even of these printed chapters; and we proceed to select passages from other divisions of this interesting auto-biography, which were written out after a duplicate copy of the earlier chapters had been transmitted to the London publisher. Mr. Abbott (aside from the society to which he had the entrée on account of his professional merits,) was a personal favorite with many of the most eminent personages among the English nobility, with whom he was on terms of close intimacy; but we never find him illustrating his own importance by the narration of the social anecdotes or careless table-talk of his distinguished friends, as too many of his contemporaries have done. He was honored with the cordial friendship of the Earls Glengall and Fitzharding; and ‘at their tables,’ he writes, ‘I was a frequent guest, where I constantly met with society embracing the highest rank and most distinguished talent in England. I refrain, from obvious reasons, from mentioning names; but I may say that if there was ever a class of persons who confer honor upon the society in which they mingle, it is the Aristocracy of Great-Britain. There is a delicacy and forbearance in their manner, and that air of perfect equality which is so indicative of the accomplished gentleman and scholar. Colman was a very frequent guest at these dinners, and was, with the exception perhaps of Lord Alvanley, one of the most brilliant diners-out in London.’ This testimony, let us remark in passing, in favor of the ease and simplicity of the really high-born gentlemen of England, is confirmed by all Americans who have been well received in English society. The reader will especially remember the tribute paid on this point by Mr. Sanderson, the accomplished ‘American in Paris,’ in his ‘Familiar Letters from London,’ in these pages. But we are standing before Mr. Abbott. In Edinburgh ‘there lies the scene:’

‘I again visited Edinburgh at the close of the Covent-Garden season, and received the same undiminished hospitality as on a former occasion. I established an intimacy with the Ballantines of celebrated Scott memory. Matthews was indebted to John Ballantine for his famous old Scotch woman, and he certainly rivalled his preceptor in the quaint and dry humor with which he narrated that most amusing story. The management of the Edinburgh Theatre rested in the hands of Mr. Murray. He was the only son of the Murray formerly of Covent-Garden Theatre, who was one of the most chaste and impressive actors I ever saw. His Adam, in ‘As you Like it,’ was really the perfection of the art. Mrs. Henry Siddons, in whom the property was vested at the death of her husband, was, fortunately for me, residing with her charming family in Edinburgh, and I was a constant guest at her table. Her manners were fascinating in the extreme, and a greater compliment could not well be paid than in having the entrée to a family so intellectual in their resources, and so perfectly amiable in disposition. A very amusing and agreeable club was got up by a party of young advocates. Delightful it was, from its very absurdity; in fact the nonsense of men of sense is an admirable couch to repose upon. Our numbers were limited, and embraced some of that powerful intellect which the modern Athens possesses in so eminent degree. Mr. Miles Angus Fletcher, Mr. Anderson, Sir William Hamilton, and a son of the late and brother of the present Lord Meadowbank, were among those I knew intimately, and whose varied talents gave life and soul to the society. We scorned the artificial light that illumined our midnight orgies, and seldom separated before the beams of the sun were dancing in our festive cups.’

The following account of the first Theatrical Fund Dinner, an entertainment of which we hear so much latterly in England, with the defence of actors against the charges of extravagance and improvidence so often brought against them, will possess interest for American readers:

‘The Covent-Garden Theatrical Fund about this period was languishing for want of support; and the great importance to be derived from an increase of its means seriously occupied the attention of the committee. We naturally looked upon it as affording an opportunity of increasing the respectability of the profession, and the means of preventing those individual appeals to the public from our impoverished brethren. There is a popular delusion that actors form a class in which the most reckless profusion is displayed; that the habits of their lives are necessarily dissipated, and that in the enjoyments of the luxuries of to-day, the wants and cares of to-morrow are entirely lost sight of. I do not believe in these sweeping assertions. I will not pretend to say that actors are exempt from the frailties of humanity; nay, I will admit that their course of life perhaps exposes them to greater temptations; but this fact ought rather to operate in their favor, than to tell so powerfully against them. I would ask those persons who are so inimical to the profession of an actor, whether longevity is the result of dissipation; and if they will take the trouble of examining, they will find that actors in general are extremely long-lived. There is a want of thriftiness in their composition, I grant; and fortunately for them the same charge is brought against the poet; the man whose high intellectual powers prevent his descending to the level of this work-day world. But will any one take the trouble of explaining from whence the actor is to derive his wealth? We will imagine that his salary is respectable, that it is regularly paid, and that there is no excuse for his being in debt. And now take into consideration that he has an appearance to maintain; that he has a family to support; and then what becomes of the opportunity of laying by a modicum even, to guard against the decline of life when the ‘winter daisies’ shall crown his head, and a new race of performers have started up and driven the others from their posts? We have some rare instances of very large fortunes being made and retained by members of the profession it is true, but they were instances of dazzling genius, or had the world’s belief that they possessed it. I will take names within the memory of us all: Mrs. Siddons, Mr. Kemble, Miss O’Neil, the ‘Young Roscius,’ and the late Mr. Lewis; and I will add to that list men of accomplished talents and great honor to the profession; Young, Bannister, Munden, Braham, Wroughton, Liston, Harley, Johnstone, Power, Jones; and I am sure the reader will believe me when I state, that I heartily wish I could place my own name in the list. Take the members of any other profession, however honorable, limit their numbers and means to the same proportion, and I ask if you would be enabled to produce a greater list of independent persons. The great advantages to be derived from a Theatrical Fund are here I trust made apparent; and after many suggestions, I believe it fell to the lot of Charles Taylor to propose an annual public dinner; and it proved a most fortunate idea. The first great point to be obtained was a patron, and then a president for the dinner. Our application met with immediate success, and His Royal Highness the Prince Regent condescendingly gave his name at the head of our undertaking, accompanied by a solid mark of his favor in the donation of one hundred pounds. We then had the gracious consent of the Duke of York to be our President, aided by his Royal brothers Kent and Sussex. The list of vice-presidents embraced many of the most distinguished noblemen and gentlemen in the country. In what an amiable point of view do the Royal Princes place themselves before the public in so thoroughly identifying themselves with the many interesting charities to which London gives birth! The grateful spirit of joyousness which they invariably displayed on these occasions, gave an interest to the festive scenes, and confirmed many a heart in its loyalty to their illustrious house. The late Duke of Gordon sat on the right hand of the Royal President, and favored the company with a song, which greatly surprised them, and elicited a general encore, and with which, with great good humor, he immediately complied. Matthews always held a conspicuous position at these dinners, and made a point of giving an original song, selected from his forth-coming entertainment. The amount collected at our first dinner was extraordinary; no less a sum than one thousand eight hundred and seventy pounds. The Drury-Lane Fund in the following year adapted our plan of the dinner, and both these institutions now annually derive a very large sum from the volunteer subscriptions of the Friends of the Drama. The same Royal patronage is most graciously continued by her present Majesty, and Royalty continues to preside at the festival. With this accumulation of patronage the actor may fearlessly look forward to the close of his mortal career without the dread of eleemosynary contributions, and also feel the proud gratification that he has personally contributed to support so interesting a Fund.’

As a specimen of Mr. Abbott’s’ stock-breaking and gambling experiences, we quote the subjoined passages:

‘A friend of mine connected with the Stock Exchange on one occasion pointed out to me the great advantage of occasionally purchasing five thousand consuls on time, knowing that I had capital unemployed; the certain profits were placed before me in such an agreeable point of view, that I could not resist the bait. In the course of two days I received a check for fifty pounds, a sum by no means unpleasant, considering that I had not advanced one farthing. The natural consequence was that I repeated the dose with various success until I was ultimately well plucked. I sustained a loss of one thousand pounds. I then began to be very uneasy, until I fortunately discovered that by one coup I had made two hundred pounds. My broker had waddled of course, without being able to make up his differences. The parties of whom I had purchased, through my agent, refused to pay me, as they had no knowledge of a third person, and were themselves considerable sufferers by the aforesaid broker. I could not understand the justice of this measure, for I had always paid my losses to the moment; so I walked to Temple-Bar, pulled off my hat most gracefully to that venerable arch, and vowed never again to pass it in the pursuit of ill-gotten wealth. I had always a perfect horror of gambling, and little imagined I was pursuing it in a wholesale manner. To satisfy my inordinate curiosity, for sight-seeing, I have twice or thrice in my life passed the threshhold of a gambling-house in London, but never felt the least personal desire to embark the smallest sum, although keenly alive to the dangerous excitement in others. On one of these occasions it fell to my lot to witness a most affecting and trying scene. The names of the parties came to my knowledge afterward, which from delicacy I of course suppress. A gentleman had for some years been separated from his wife, in consequence of infidelity on her part with a man of high fashion, an officer of the Guards. An action and divorce ensued; but two children whom he had previous to this unfortunate event, he refused to acknowledge, thus endeavoring to put the stain of illegitimacy upon them. Years rolled on, and the father and son never met. Rouge-et-Noir was the fashionable game of the day, and Pall-Mall and St. James-street swarmed with gambling-houses. Two gentlemen were quarrelling upon a point, each accusing the other of taking the stake. The younger man was the officer on guard that day, and consequently in uniform. High words ensued; cards were exchanged; and in one moment, from the most ungovernable rage, they became motionless as statues. The silence was at length interrupted by an explanation of ‘By Heaven! my son!’ This remark was made from the impulse of the moment, and probably struck a chord in the parent’s heart that let loose all his affections. They retired to another apartment; explanations ensued; and a reconciliation was the result.’

Elsewhere Mr. Abbott describes the gambling-houses of Paris, ‘those dens of iniquity,’ as he terms them. ‘The varied scenes of frantic joy and human debasement,’ he writes, ‘which I witnessed at Frascati’s, were truly appalling. The extremes of excitement were as powerfully exhibited in the loser of twenty francs as in the man who had lost his twenty thousand.’ The annexed sketch of the lamented career of poor Conway, who will be ‘freshly remembered’ by many of our readers in the Atlantic cities, is authentic in every particular. It is not without its lesson, in more regards than one:

‘I find I have neglected to mention an actor, who stood sufficiently forward, both by his position and his misfortunes, to be entitled to a respectful notice; I mean Mr. Conway. He was said to be the illegitimate offspring of a distinguished nobleman; but whether his own pride prevented his making advances, and he was resolved to lay the foundation of his own fame and fortune, or whether he met with a check upon his natural feelings from one who was bound to support him, I know not; but, gifted as he was with a commanding person, a most gentlemanlike deportment, and advantages peculiarly adapted for the stage, it is no wonder that the histrionic art held forth inducements and hopes of obtaining a brighter position than any other career open to him, without the aid of pecuniary means, and the patronage which was withheld from him. He made his appearance in 1813, the season previous to Kean, in the character of ‘Alexander the Great.’ He met with a very flattering reception, and produced a great effect upon the fair sex. Indeed, the actors, who are upon these occasions lynx-eyed, could not avoid their remarks upon a certain Duchess, who never missed one of his performances, and appeared to take the deepest interest in his success. Conway was upward of six feet in height. He was deficient in strong intellectual expression, yet he had the reputation of being very handsome. His head was too small for his frame, and his complexion too light and sanguine for the profound and varied emotions of deep tragedy. There was a tinge of affectation in his deportment, which had the effect of creating among many a strong feeling of prejudice against him. His bearing was always gentlemanly, and with the exception of a slight superciliousness of manner, amiable to every body; and his talent, though not of the highest order, was still sufficiently prominent to enable him to maintain a distinguished position. And yet this man, with so little to justify spleen, was literally, from an unaccountable prejudice, driven from the stage by one of the leading weekly journals, edited by a gentleman whose biting satire was death to those who had the misfortune to come under his lash. In complete disgust, he retired from the boards, and filled the humble situation of prompter at the Haymarket-Theatre, but afterward left for the United States, where he became a great favorite. But the canker was at his heart. He again quitted the stage, and prepared himself for the Church; but there again he was foiled. The ministers of our holy religion refused to receive him, not from any moral stain upon his character, but because he had been an actor! What is to become of the priesthood, who in the early periods were the only actors, and selected scriptural subjects for representation? He left in a packet for Savannah, overwhelmed with misery and disappointment. ‘Ushered into the world by a parent who would not acknowledge him; driven out of it in the belief that he was the proscribed of Heaven!’ At the moment they were passing the bar at Charleston, he threw himself overboard. Efforts were made to save him; a settee was thrown over for him to cling to until they could adopt more decisive measures for his rescue. He saw the object; but his resolution was taken. He waved his hand, and sunk to rise no more. I have reason to believe, that the gentleman to whom I have alluded as having made such fearful use of his editorial powers, felt deep remorse when the news of his ill-timed death arrived. He also is now no more! Poor Conway! Had he possessed more nerve, he might still have triumphed over the unkindness of his fate:

‘Who has not known ill fortune, never knew

Himself or his own virtue.’

In the same chapter we find a bit of artistical grouping in a historical picture, which the reader will agree with us is well worthy of preservation:

‘The world never witnessed such powerful scenes of exciting interest as took possession of Great Britain about this period. The people were drunk with enthusiasm. One victory followed so rapidly on the heels of another, that they had not time to sober down. The peninsular campaign had closed, and the hitherto sacred soil of France was invaded. The restoration of legitimacy, and the momentary enthusiasm of the French in favor of their exiled monarch, disturbed the intellects of half mankind. The magnificent entrée of Louis the Eighteenth into London from Heartwell Park, where he had resided for some years, almost conveyed the idea that it was his own capital he was entering, after his long and weary exile. The silken banner with the fleur de lis flaunting from the walls of Devonshire-House and all the neighboring mansions in Piccadilly; immense cavalcades of gentlemen superbly mounted, all wearing the white cockade; the affectionate sympathy and profound respect shown by all classes toward the illustrious representative of the Bourbons, was touching in the extreme. On his route from Heartwell, and through Stanmore, troops of yeomanry turned out to give him an honorable escort; and what could be more honorable than the voluntary attendance of the farmers who represented the very bone and sinew of the country? The large portly figure of the King perfectly disabused John Bull of the long-cherished idea that Frenchmen lived entirely upon frogs. Even that particular fact interested them, and repeated huzzas greeted him throughout the whole of his route to London. On his arrival at Guillon’s Hotel in Albermarle-street, which had been most splendidly prepared for his reception, His Royal Highness the Prince Regent received him with that delicate attention so worthy of his high and gallant bearing; and there Louis must have met with one of the most touching scenes that ever thrilled the human heart. One hundred and fifty of the ancient noblesse were waiting, after years of hopeless expectation, to greet the head of that illustrious house, the recollection of whose sufferings awakened the most painful feelings. Not one of them but had shared in the horrors of that bloody revolution; and not one of them but truly felt that the happiness of that moment repaid them for all their sufferings.’

A rich specimen of the pompous ignorance sometimes exhibited by theatrical managers is afforded in the following anecdote, which has appeared in England, but which we are sure will be relished by our readers. It may seem extraordinary that a manager should be such an ignoramus; but ‘half the actors on the English stage,’ says a recent writer, ‘dare not address a gentleman a note, lest they should ‘show their hands:’’

‘When I first became a member of Covent-Garden, Mr. Fawcett held the reins of management, in consequence of the retirement of Mr. Kemble from that position. He had experience to guide him, but he unfortunately possessed a dictatorial manner, and a want of that refinement and education which had so distinguished his great predecessor. In speaking of his public position, however, let me pay homage to his private virtues. He was a tender husband, an affectionate father, and a warm friend. During my first season a play was produced called the ‘Students of Salamanca.’ The author was Mr. Jamieson, a member of the bar, who had been particularly successful in several light pieces produced at the Haymarket. Mr. Jones and myself were ‘The Students,’ and it occurred to me in my character to say, ‘My danger was imminent.’ These words had scarcely passed my lips, when a dark and lowering look dimmed the countenance of the manager. I saw that something was wrong, but was quite at a loss to guess the cause. At the end of the scene, unwilling to mortify me in the presence of the company, he beckoned me aside, and said: ‘Young man, do you know what you said?’ I changed color, feeling that something fearful had occurred. I replied, very much agitated, that I was not aware of any error. ‘I thought so! Do you know where you are? You are in London, not in Bath!’ The fact was so self-evident that I did not attempt to disprove it. ‘You will be delivered up to scorn and contempt; the critics will immolate you; the eyes of this great metropolis are fixed upon you. I thought you were a well-educated young man, but I have been deceived—grossly deceived!’ The effect of this tirade may be more easily conceived than described. My face flushed, my heart beat, and I at length mustered courage to say, ‘For heaven’s sake, Sir, pray tell me; I am extremely sorry—deeply regret—but pray tell me!’ The kindness of his disposition got the better of his pedantry, and seeing the agitation under which I was really suffering, he replied: ‘Do you remember that you said your danger was imminent’? Now, Sir, there is no such word in the English language: it is eminent!!’ Need I mention the unbounded relief this explanation gave me? I quietly suggested the difference of their significations, and was never after troubled with any corrections. He was a man of sterling qualities, somewhat like a melon, as his friend Colman said; ‘rough without, smooth within.’’

In the way of a hoax, we remember nothing more cleverly performed, than the rather cruel one whose execution is pleasantly recorded below:

‘There was a lady attached to the Worthing Theatre, (mark me, reader, I did not say attached to me,) who was very eccentric, and who was, ‘small blame to her,’ as the Irishman says, also very susceptible. I was on very intimate terms with Mr. Harley, who was then at Worthing; and one day, while quietly dining together, we mutually agreed that there was a fickleness about this lady which deserved some reproof. We were really liberal in our feelings, and would not have objected to her shooting an extra dart occasionally; but it was not to be borne that she should let fly a whole quiver at once. We had observed that by way of having two or more strings to her bow, she had got up a flirtation with the leader of the band, a most respectable man by the way, and of considerable talent. After giving the affair all due consideration, we decided upon a mock-duel, in which I was to personate one of the heroes, my rival being the aforesaid leader. We carefully and ostentatiously avoided all appearance of communication, and in such a way that it always reached her knowledge. Thus by gentle innuendoes she discovered that something serious was in contemplation, and of course she was not a little flattered, as she was the object of dispute. Our duelling-pistols were one day ostentatiously paraded, and evident anxiety took possession of the company, who were carefully excluded from the secret. The following morning at five o’clock we each left our lodgings, accompanied by our seconds, the rain pouring in torrents. Harley then went to the lodgings of the frail or rather fair one, knocked at the door most violently, and at length she appeared at the window, in evident alarm. He urged her if she had the feelings of a woman immediately to accompany him, and prevent murder; briefly stating, that her ‘beauties were the cause and most accursed effect.’ In a state of real excitement, mixed up with woman’s vanity, she rushed out of the house, and accompanied that wag of wags. A white beaver hat, sweet emblem of her purity, was on her head, and partially concealed her disordered ringlets, hastily gathered together. We arranged with Harley always to keep ourselves a certain distance in advance on the pathway bordering the sands. The first thing that occurred was a sudden gust of wind which swept the white beaver a considerable distance and covered it with mud; her flowing locks then fell upon her alabaster neck, and her romantic appearance was perfect. We most cruelly led her on a distance of at least two miles, and took our station near some lime-kilns, close to the sea. When she was sufficiently near, one of the seconds stepped forward and gave the signal by dropping a blood-stained handkerchief, prepared for the occasion. Bang! bang! went the pistols; when she gracefully sank into the arms of Harley, who held her in a fine melo-dramatic attitude. The report was soon over all the town, and of course in the newspapers. My adversary put his arm in a sling, and whenever I happened to be near her, in a perfect state of despair I vowed that I could never forgive myself for having shot my friend. We mutually repulsed her by severe looks whenever she approached us; and she soon left the Worthing Theatre to seek for victims of less sensibility in other places.’

We once more take our leave of Mr. Abbott’s agreeable manuscript volume; by no means certain, however, that its entertaining pages may not again tempt us to share with our readers the enjoyment they have afforded us.

Gossip with Readers and Correspondents.—Will the author of ‘Public Concert-Singing’ favor us with his address? We are desirous of communicating with him, although he does not ‘find his hastily-jotted thoughts in the pages of the Knickerbocker,’ for reasons which perhaps he can partly divine from the present number, and which we could impart more directly in a private note. We agree with him entirely in his views; and if he will permit us, we will here quote a passage from an article which we penned upon a subject collateral to his general theme, many years ago, before we were hampered with the professional ‘we,’ and could write out of our ‘company dress.’ It is a little sketch of the first public singing, save that of the church, to which we had ever listened: ‘How well do I remember it! It was at the theatre of a country village; a rough, barn-like edifice, at which several Stentor-lunged Thespians ‘from the New-York and Philadelphia Theatres’ split the ears of the groundlings, and murdered Shakspeare’s heroes and the King’s English. I had been watching with boyish curiosity the play which had just concluded: the mottled, patched, yellowish-green curtain had descended upon the personages whose sorrows were my own; and I was gazing vacantly at the long row of tallow candles placed in holes bored for the purpose in the stage, and at the two fiddlers who composed ‘the orchestra,’ and who were reconnoitering the house. Presently a small bell was rung, with a jerk. There was a flourish or two from ‘the orchestra;’ another tinkle of the bell; and up rose the faded drapery. An interval of a moment succeeded, during which half of a large mountain was removed from the scenery, and a piece of forest shoved up to the ambitious wood that had been aspiring to overtop the Alps. At length a young lady, whom I had just seen butchered in a most horrid manner by a villain, came from the side of the stage with a smile, which, while it displayed her white teeth, wrought the rouge upon her face into very perceptible corrugations, and made a lowly courtesy. She walked with measured step three or four times across the stage, in the full blaze of the flaring candles, smiling again, and hemming, to clear her voice. Presently a perfect stillness prevailed; ‘awed Consumption checked his chided cough;’ every urchin suspended his cat-call; and ‘the boldest held his breath for a time.’ Our vocalist looked at the leader of the orchestra and his fellow-fiddlers, and commenced, in harmony with their instruments. How touching was that song! I shall never have my soul so enrapt again. That freshness of young admiration possessed my spirit which can come but once. The air was ‘The Braes of Balquither,’ a charming melody, meetly wedded to the noble lines of Tannehill; and enthusiasm was at its height when the singer had concluded the following stanza, almost sublime in its picturesque beauty:

‘When the rude wintry wind wildly raves round our dwelling,

And the roar of the lion on the night-breeze is swelling,

Then so merrily we’ll sing, while the storm rattles o’er us,

Till the dear shealing ring with the light-lilting chorus!’

The air was old as the hills, but like all Scottish melodies, as lasting too. To every body the songs of Scotland are grateful; and the universal attachment to them arises from their beautiful simplicity, deep pathos, and unaffected, untrammelled melody. The romantic sway of the songs of Scotland over her sons when ‘far awa’ is to me no marvel. If they possess the power to thrill or to subdue the hearts of those who have never stepped upon the soil of that glorious country, is it at all surprising that they should exert a powerful influence over the native-born, who associate those airs with the purple heath, the blue loch, the hazy mountain-top, and the valley sleeping below?

‘What sweet tears dim the eyes unshed,

What wild vows falter on the tongue,

When ‘Scots wha ha’ wi’ Wallace bled,’

Or ‘Auld Lang Syne’ is sung!’

The association however is touching, not alone because it awakens old recollections, but because the music is natural; it is the language of the heart. Affectation has not interpopolated tortuous windings and trills and shakes, to mar its beauty, and to clip the full melodious notes of their fair proportions. It is pleasant to think that fashion, though never so potent, can neither divert nor lessen the popular attachment to the simpler melodies. We have the authority of the Woods, Wilson, Sinclair, Power, and other eminent artists for stating that ‘Black-eyed Susan,’ ‘John Anderson my Jo,’ ‘The Last Rose of Summer,’ and kindred airs, could always ‘bring down the house,’ no matter what the antagonistical musical attraction might be. We could wish that the Venerable Taurus, or ‘Old Bull,’ as many persons call him, would take a hint from this. Let him try it once; and we venture to say that no one, however uninitiated, will again retire from his splendid performances as a country friend of ours did lately, assigning as a reason: ‘I waited till about ha’-past nine; and then he hadn’t got done tunin’ his fiddle!’ A touch of ‘music for the general heart’ would have enchained him till morning. Christopher North, we perceive, in the last Blackwood, fully enters into the spirit of our predilection. He has just returned from a concert of fashionable music, where he ‘tried to faint, that he might be carried out, but didn’t know how to do it,’ and was compelled to sit with compressed lips, and listen to ‘sounds from flat shrill signorinas, quavering to distraction,’ for two long hours. When he gets home, however, he ‘feeds fat his grudge’ against modern musical affectations. Let us condense a few of his objurgations:

‘It is a perfect puzzle to us by what process the standard of music has become so lowered, as to make what is ordinarily served up under that name be received as the legitimate descendant of harmony. There is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and this entrancing art, it seems, has taken it; sorely dislocating its graceful limbs, and injuring its goodly proportions in the unseemly escapade. We hate your crashing, clumsy chords, and utterly spit at and defy chromatic passages, from one end of the instrument to the other, and back again; flats, sharps, and most appropriate ‘naturals,’ spattered all over the page. The essential spirit of discord seems to be let loose on our modern music. Music to soothe! the idea is obsolete. There is music to excite, much to irritate one, and much more to drive a really musical soul stark mad; but none to soothe, save that which is drawn from the hiding-places of the past. There is no repose, no refreshment to the mind, in our popular compositions. There is to us more of touching pathos, heart-thrilling expression, in some of the old psalm-tunes, feelingly played, than in a whole batch of modernisms. The strains go home, and the ‘fountains of the great deep are broken up;’ the great deep of unfathomable feeling, that lies far, far below the surface of the world-hardened heart; and as the unwonted yet unchecked tear starts to the eye, the softened spirit yields to their influence, and shakes off the moil of earthly care; rising, purified and spiritualized, into a clearer atmosphere.’

We often hear of odd things happening in consequence of mistakes in orthography, but seldom of any benefit accruing therefrom to the orthoöpist. But a friend mentioned to us a little circumstance the other day, which would seem to prove that it does a man good sometimes to spell somewhat at variance with old Johnson. In a village not far hence lived a man known by the name of Broken Jones. He had dissipated a large fortune in various law-suits; had become poor and crazy; and at last, like another Peebles, his sole occupation consisted in haunting the courts, lawyers’ offices, and other scenes of his misfortunes. To judge and attorneys he was a most incorrigible bore; to the latter especially, from whom he was continually soliciting opinions on cases which had long been ‘settled,’ and carried to the law-ledgers, where they were only occasionally hunted up as precedents in the suit of perhaps some other destined victims. As Jones hadn’t a cent of money left, it was of course impossible for him to obtain any more ‘opinions;’ but this didn’t cure him of his law-mania. One morning he entered the office of lawyer D——, in a more excited state than he had exhibited for a long time, and seating himself vis-a-vis with his victim, requested his ‘opinion’ on one of the ‘foregone conclusions’ already mentioned. D—— happening at the moment to be very busy, endeavored to get rid of his visiter, and contrived various expedients for that purpose. But Jones was not in a mood to be trifled with. ‘I came, ‘Squire,’ said he, ‘to get your opinion in writing on this case, and I will have it before I leave the room, if I sit here till the day of judgment!’ The lawyer looked upon his visiter, while a thought of forcible ejectment passed through his brain; but the glaring eye and stout athletic frame which met his gaze, told him that such a course would be extremely hazardous. At length the dinner-bell rang. A bright thought struck him; and putting on his coat and hat, he took Jones gently by the arm: ‘Come,’ said he, ‘go and dine with me.’ ‘No!’ said the latter, fiercely; ‘I’ll never dine again until I get what I came for.’ The lawyer was in a quandary, and at length, in very despair, he consented to forego his dinner and give his annoyer the desired opinion. ‘Well, well, Jones,’ said he, soothingly, ‘you shall have it;’ and gathering pens, ink and paper, he was soon seated at the table, while Jones, creeping on tiptoe across the room, stood peeping over his shoulder. The lawyer commenced: ‘My oppinion in the case——’ ‘Humph!’ said the lunatic, suddenly seizing his hat, and turning on his heel, ‘I wouldn’t give a d—n for your opinion with two p’s!’ ••• Many of our public as well as private correspondents seem to have been not a little interested in the articles on Mind and Instinct, in late numbers of this Magazine. A valued friend writing from Maryland, observes: ‘The collection of facts by your contributor is very industrious, their array quite skilful, and the argument very strong. I think, however, that if I had time I could pick several flaws in the reasoning, or rather erect a very good counter-argument, founded principally upon the fact that the intelligence of animals is generally as great in early youth as it is in the prime of their beasthood. The author might have added to his list of facts, an account which I read when a boy, of the practice of the baboons in Caffraria, near the orange-orchards. They arrange themselves in a row from their dens to the orange-trees. One then ascends the tree, plucks the oranges, and throws them to the next baboon, and he to the next, and so on throughout the whole file; they standing some fifty yards apart. In this manner they quickly strip a tree, and at the same time are safe from being all surprised at once. The early French missionaries in Canada, also asserted that the squirrels of that region, having denuded the country on one side of the big lake, of nuts, used to take pieces of birch bark, and hoisting their tails for canvass, float to the other side for their supply.’ We have been struck with a passage in a powerful article upon ‘The Hope that is within Us,’ in a late foreign periodical, wherein the fruitful theme of our correspondent is touched upon. ‘If matter,’ says the writer, ‘be incapable of consciousness, as Johnson so powerfully argues in Rasselas, then the animus of brutes must be an anima, and immaterial; for the dog and the elephant not merely exhibit ‘consciousness,’ but a ‘half-reasoning’ power. And if it be true, as Johnson maintains, that immateriality of necessity produces immortality, then the poor Indian’s conclusion is the most logical,

‘Who thinks, admitted to that equal sky,

His faithful dog shall bear him company.’

The truth is, that we must depend upon revelation for an assurance of immortality; which promises, however, the resurrection of the body, as philosophy is unequal to its demonstration, and modern researches into animal life have rendered the proof more difficult than heretofore.’ By the by, ‘speaking of animals:’ there is a letter from Lemuel Gulliver in the last number of Blackwood, describing a meeting of ‘delegates from the different classes of consumers of oats, held at the Nag’s-Head inn at Horsham.’ The business of the meeting was opened by a young Racer, who expressed his desire to promote the interests of the horse-community, and to promote any measure which might contribute to the increase of the consumption of oats, and improve the condition of his fellow quadrupeds. He considered the horse-interest greatly promoted by the practice of sowing wild oats, which he warmly commended. A Hackney-coach Horse declared himself in favor of the sliding-scale, which he understood to mean the wooden pavement. Things went much more smoothly wherever it was established. He contended for the abolition of nose-bags, which he designated as an intolerable nuisance; urged the prohibition of chaff with oats, as unfit for the use of able-bodied horses; and indeed evinced the truth of his professions, that he ‘yielded to no horse in an anxious desire to promote the true interests of the horse-community.’ An Old English Hunter impressed upon the young delegates the good old adage of ‘Look before you leap,’ and urged them to go for ‘measures, not men.’ A Stage Horse ‘congratulated the community upon the abolition of bearing-reins, those grievous burdens upon the necks of all free-going horses; and he trusted the time would soon arrive when the blinkers would also be taken off, every corn-bin thrown open, and every horse his own leader.’ Several other steeds, in the various ranks of horse-society, addressed the meeting. ‘Resolutions, drawn by two Dray-Horses, embodying the supposed grievances of the community, were finally agreed upon, and a petition, under the hoof of the president, founded upon them, having been prepared and ordered to be presented to the House of Commons by the members for Horsham, the meeting separated, and the delegates returned to their respective stables.’ ••• What habitual theatre or opera-goer has not been tempted a thousand times to laugh outright, and quite in the wrong place, at the incongruities, the inconsistencies, the mental and physical catachreses of the stage, which defy illusion and destroy all vraisemblance? A London sufferer in this kind has hit off some of the salient points of these absurdities in a few ‘Recollections of the Opera:’

‘I’ve known a god on clouds of gauze

With patience hear a people’s prayer,

And bending to the pit’s applause,

Wait while the priest repeats the air.

I’ve seen a black-wig’d Jove hurl down

A thunder-bolt along a wire,

To burn some distant canvass town,

Which—how vexatious!—won’t catch fire.

I’ve known a tyrant doom a maid

(With trills and roulades many a score)

To instant death! She, sore afraid,

Sings: and the audience cries ‘Encore!’

I’ve seen two warriors in a rage

Draw glist’ning swords and, awful sight!

Meet face to face upon the stage

To sing a song, but not to fight!

I’ve heard a king exclaim ‘To arms!’

Some twenty times, yet still remain;

I’ve known his army ‘midst alarms,

Help by a bass their monarch’s strain.

I’ve known a hero wounded sore,

With well-tuned voice his foes defy;

And warbling stoutly on the floor,

With the last flourish fall and die.

I’ve seen a mermaid dress’d in blue;

I’ve seen a cupid burn a wing;

I’ve known a Neptune lose a shoe;

I’ve heard a guilty spectre sing.

I’ve seen, spectators of a dance,

Two Brahmins, Mahomet, the Cid,

Four Pagan kings, four knights of France,

Jove and the Muses—scene Madrid!’

The leading paper in the present number will not escape the attention nor fail to win the admiration of the reader. The description of the Ascent of Mount Ætna by our eminent artist, is forcible and graphic in the extreme. It will derive additional interest at this moment from the recent eruption of this renowned volcano, which still continued at the last advices, and by which already seventy persons had lost their lives. If our metropolitan readers would desire a due impression of the magnificent scene which our correspondent has described, let them drop in at the rooms of the National Academy of Design, where they will find the Burning Mountain, as seen from Taormina, depicted in all its vastness and grandeur; and not only this, but the noble series of allegorical pictures, heretofore noticed at large in this Magazine, called ‘The Voyage of Life,’ representing Childhood, Youth, Manhood, and Old Age; ‘Angels ministering to Christ in the Wilderness,’ a picture that has an horizon, and an aërial gradation toward the zenith, which alone, to say nothing of the figures, and the composition itself as a study, would richly repay a visit; ‘The Past and the Present,’ two most effective scenes, especially the second, which is overflowing with the mingled graces of poetry and art; a glorious composition, ‘An Italian Scene,’ of which we shall speak hereafter; as well as of the view of ‘Ruined Aqueducts in the Campagna di Roma,’ fading into dimness toward the imperial city, and of ‘The Notch in the White Mountains’ of New-Hampshire. Apropos: we perceive by a letter from an American at Rome, in one of the public journals, that Thorwaldsen, the great sculptor, was an enthusiastic admirer of Mr. Cole’s pictures, particularly of his ‘Voyage of Life,’ which he pronounced ‘original, and new in art.’ ‘He could talk of nothing else,’ says the writer, ‘for a long time; and every time he speaks of him, he adds: ‘Ma che artista, che grand’ artista, quel vostro compatriota! Che fantasia! quanto studio della natura!’ ‘But what an artist, what a great artist, is this countryman of yours! What fancy, what study of nature!’ ••• We are aware of a pair of ‘bonny blue een’ swimming in light, that will ‘come the married woman’s eye’ over a kind but most antiquarian husband, when the following is read, some two weeks from now, in their ‘little parlor’ in a town of the far west. It reaches us in the MS. of a Boston friend: ‘Old Colonel W——, formerly a well-known character in one of our eastern cities, was remarkable for but one passion out of the ordinary range of humanity, and that was for buying at auction any little lot of trumpery which came under the head of ‘miscellaneous,’ for the reason that it couldn’t be classified. Though close-fisted in general, he was continually throwing away his money by fives and tens upon such trash. In this way he had filled all the odd corners in his dwelling and out-houses with a collection of nondescript articles, that would have puzzled a philosopher to tell what they were made for, or to what use they could ever be put. This however, was but a secondary consideration with the Colonel; for he seldom troubled his head about such articles after they were once fairly housed. Not so with his wife however, who was continually remonstrating against these purchases, which served only to clutter up the house, and as food for the mirth of the domestics. But the Colonel, though he often submitted to these remonstrances of his better-half, couldn’t resist his passion; and so he went on adding from week to week to his heap of miscellanies. One day while sauntering down the street, he heard the full, rich tones of his friend C——, the well-known auctioneer, and as a matter of course stepped in to see what was being sold. On the floor he observed a collection that looked as if it might have been purloined from the garret of some museum, and around which a motley group was assembled; while on the counter stood the portly auctioneer, in the very height of a mock-indignant remonstrance with his audience. ‘Nine dollars and ninety cents!’ cried the auctioneer. ‘Gentlemen, it is a shame, it is barbarous, to stand by and permit such a sacrifice of property! Nine dol-lars and ninety—— Good morning, Colonel! A magnificent lot of—of—antiques—and all going for nine dollars and ninety cents. Gentlemen, you’ll never see another such lot; and all going—going—for nine dollars and ninety cents. Colonel W——, can you permit such a sacrifice?’ The Colonel glanced his eye over the lot, and then with a nod and a wink assured him he could not. The next instant the hammer came down, and the purchase was the Colonel’s, at ten dollars. As the articles were to be paid for and removed immediately, the Colonel lost no time in getting a cart, and having seen every thing packed up and on their way to his house, he proceeded to his own store, chuckling within himself that now at least he had made a bargain at which even his wife couldn’t grumble. In due time he was seated at the dinner-table, when lifting his eyes, he observed a cloud upon his wife’s brow. ‘Well, my dear?’ said he, inquiringly. ‘Well?’ repeated his wife; ‘it is not well, Mr. W.; I am vexed beyond endurance. You know C——, the auctioneer?’ ‘Certainly,’ replied the Colonel; ‘and a very gentlemanly person he is too.’ ‘You may think so,’ rejoined the wife, ‘but I don’t, and I’ll tell you why. A few days ago I gathered together all the trumpery with which you have been cluttering up the house for the last twelve-month, and sent it to Mr. C——, with orders to sell the lot immediately to the highest bidder for cash. He assured me he would do so in all this week, at farthest, and pay over the proceeds to my order. And here I’ve been congratulating myself on two things: first, on having got rid of a most intolerable nuisance; and secondly, on receiving money enough therefor to purchase that new velvet hat you promised me so long ago. And now what do you think? This morning, about an hour ago, the whole load came back again, without a word of explanation!’ The Colonel looked blank for a moment, and then proceeded to clear up the mystery. But the good vrouw was pacified only by the promise of a ten-dollar note beside that in the hands of the auctioneer; on condition, however, that she should never mention it.’ Of course she kept her word! ••• How seldom it is that one encounters a good sonnet! Most sonnetteers of our day are like feeble-framed men walking in heavy armor; ‘the massy weight on’t galls their laden limbs.’ We remember two or three charming sonnets of Longfellow’s; Park Benjamin has been unwontedly felicitous in some of his examples; and H. T. Tuckerman has excelled in the same poetical rôle. Here is a late specimen of his, from the ‘Democratic Review,’ which we regard as very beautiful: