A project is on foot to build a very large Opera House near the site of the old one. The proprietors are in Paris, we believe, and they hope to join Marti, the great Havana manager, with them. The undertaking is based on the supposition that in this country it is better to appeal to the many than the few. The basis is good, where the many have the taste to which to appeal; but an opera audience must be a steady one, and it remains to be seen whether a taste for the opera is yet sufficiently diffused here to insure large audiences always, at remunerating prices. The Havana company do not make their expenses on their summer visits, even at Castle Garden, but in the summer all that they receive is gain.
Mr. Paine's "water-gas," after serving for months as the butt for ridicule, appears about to take its place among the ascertained facts of science. Whatever may be true respecting his theory that water is wholly converted into hydrogen or oxygen, which we certainly believe to be erroneous, there is little room to doubt that he possesses the means of producing hydrogen from water, with great facility, and in any quantity; and that the hydrogen acquires a high illuminating power by passing through spirits of turpentine. If one-half that well-informed men believe in respect to this discovery is true, it is the most important one made in the department of physical science within the century.
Count Dembinski, who bore so prominent a part in the Hungarian struggle, and who is represented as a very accomplished engineer, is now engaged as a dealer in cigars in New York. The condition of the political refugees from Germany in other parts of the world is less desirable than even this. In London many of them hawk Lucifer matches about the streets. In Australia doctors and professors break stone on the highways. Two barons and an artist, from Berlin, are thus employed; a Hamburgh physician deals in milk; and the son of a Berlin manufacturer is a cattle-driver.
Missionaries in Western Africa report the existence of a regularly written language among a people there discovered. The alphabet is said to be syllabic like the Ethiopic and Cherokee; each character, of which there are about a hundred, representing a syllable. This fact, if authenticated, taken in connection with the existence of a very highly developed language in some of the rude African tribes, suggests many interesting problems in ethnographical science.
GREAT BRITAIN.
The Earl of Carlisle, formerly Lord Morpeth, delivered recently two lectures before the Mechanics' Institute at Leeds. One of these, upon the Poetry of Pope, was a pleasant criticism and eulogy upon the poet. The second lecture was devoted to an account of his own travels in America, some eight years since; being the first account he has publicly given of his observations and impressions. In speaking of persons he confined himself to those whose historical celebrity has made them in a manner public property; and his observations upon individuals and institutions were characterized throughout by a tone of moderation and good-feeling. The phenomenon of a live lord lecturing before an association of mechanics seems to have startled the good people of Leeds no little; and to have caused an excitement that reminds one of an American Jenny Lind ovation viewed through a telescope reversed. A due sense was manifested of the noble lord's condescension in appearing in a character so novel as that of a public lecturer, and afterward revising the lectures for publication. Copies of the lectures are to be sent to similar associations in the neighborhood that they may be read to the members. The lectures, though very creditable to his lordship, would certainly not have received such an enthusiastic reception had the author been Mr. Brown or Smith.
Walter Savage Landor writes through the Examiner, to and at Lord Brougham, respecting the claims upon the nation of literary men in general, and of Southey in particular. He says that since Southey commenced writing in behalf of the Church, more than twenty millions have been paid to the English bishops, of which the Bishop of London—(the Master C.J. London of the exquisite satire in the last Number of the New Monthly, entitled "A Crisis in the Affairs of Mr. John Bull," than which nothing keener has been written since the days of Swift, and which is worthy of forming a supplementary chapter to the "Tale of a Tub")—has received well-nigh a million; all of whom have not done for the Church a tithe of what Southey accomplished. He thinks that if money enough to reward amply a half-score of the men whose genius has adorned and exalted their age, can be expended in building stables for a prince hardly tall enough to mount a donkey, the nation would not be ruined by appropriating five hundred a year to six, and three hundred a year to as many more of the chief living geniuses.
Sir Charles Napier—(there are three Napiers, all equally ready with the sword and pen, and with the Bishop of Exeter probably the four most impracticable and crotchety men now alive: William, major-general, author of the "Peninsular War," "Conquest of Scinde," and other works; Charles J., major-general, commander-in-chief in India, author of the oddest dispatches and general-orders on record; and Charles, rear-admiral, and author of the pamphlet of which we are about to speak)—has issued a publication in which all the horrors which Sir Francis Head foresees in a French invasion and conquest of England are abundantly magnified. The admiral proves, to his own satisfaction at least, that England is at any moment liable to fall a prey to French, Russian, or American rapacity.
A life of Edward Williams, a Welsh poet of the last century, has just been published in London, which is said to contain a good deal of pleasant literary gossip. We find mentioned in it a rencontre with the great Dr. Johnson, which is characteristic, and interesting enough to be repeated. Mr. Williams seems to have been fond of lounging in book stores, and on one such occasion was thus occupying a leisure hour, and quiet corner, in this banqueting-room, "when a large, ungraceful man entered the shop, and seating himself abruptly by the counter, began to inspect some books and pamphlets lying there. This austere-looking personage held the books almost close to his face, as he turned over the leaves rapidly, and the Bard thought petulantly; then replaced them on the counter, and finally gave the whole a stern kind of shove out of the way, muttering as he rose, 'The trash of the day, I see!' then, without word or sign of recognition to the bookseller, rolled himself out of the shop. When he was gone, the Bard inquired of his friend who that bluff gentleman might be. The reply was, 'That bluff gentleman is the celebrated Dr. Johnson.'" This excited the desire of Mr. Williams to see him again, and he accordingly took another opportunity to meet him; and in order to have an excuse for speaking to him, presented three Grammars to him, and "solicited the favor of Dr. Johnson's advice which of them to choose, observing that the judgment of such a masterly writer must be the most valuable he could possibly obtain. Johnson either disregarded this really graceful compliment to him as a model author, or he was in an ungracious temper—no uncommon condition with him—for taking the volumes into his hands, he cast an equivocal look, between a glance and a scowl, at the humble stranger before him, hastily turned over the several title-pages, then surveyed him from head to foot, with an expression rather contemptuous than inquisitive; and, thrusting back the Grammars in his huge fist, rather at the inquirer than toward him, delivered this oracular reply 'Either of them will do for you, young man.'"
The portrait of Sir Robert Peel, painted by Lawrence some years ago, is said to be the only one by which the statesman wished his person to be handed down to posterity. The judgment of a person of his exquisite taste, as well as the reputation of the painter, stamps this as the only truly historical portrait. An engraving from this picture, which is pronounced to do full justice to the painter, has been executed, and can not fail of a wide circulation. Copies will soon, without doubt, be brought to this country.