After running a very successful and popular career at the Park-Theatre, our artist-actor is induced to assume the management of a circus-theatre just then in high vogue at the Tattersall’s building in Broadway. The subjoined was one of the many incidents which occurred on his assuming the reins of the establishment:
‘The company was both extensive and excellent; a stud of thirty-three horses, four ponies and a jack-ass, all so admirably selected and educated, that for beauty and utility they could not be equalled any where. The company was popular and our success enormous. Of course, like others when first placed in power, I made a total change in my cabinet. John Blake I appointed secretary of the treasury and principal ticket-seller; and to prove how excellent a judge I was of integrity and capacity, he was engaged at the Park at the end of the season, and has held that important situation there ever since. A delicious specimen of the Emerald Isle, with the appropriate equestrian appellation of Billy Rider, received an office of nearly equal trust, though smaller chance of perquisites—stage and stable door-keeper at night, and through the day a variety of duties, to designate half of which would occupy a chapter. He was strict to a fault in the discharge of his duty, as every urchin of that day who attempted to sneak into the circus can testify. Conway the tragedian called to see me one evening, and in attempting to pass was stopped by Billy, armed as usual, with a pitch-fork.
‘‘What’s this you want? Who are ye? and where are you going?’ says Billy.
‘I wish to see Mr. Cowell,’ says Conway.
‘Oh then, it’s till to-morrow at ten o’clock, in his office, that you’ll have to wait to perform that operation.’
‘But, my dear fellow, my name is Conway, of the theatre; Mr. Cowell is my particular friend, and I have his permission to enter.’
‘By my word, Sir, I thank ye kindly for the explination; and it’s a mighty tall, good-looking gentleman you are too,’ says Billy, presenting his pitch-fork; ‘but if ye were the blessed Redeemer, with the cross under your arm, you couldn’t pass me without an orther from Mr. Cowell.’
‘Joe Cowell,’ in years gone by, has made us laugh many a good hour; and we hold ourselves bound to reciprocate the pleasure he has afforded us, by warmly commending his pleasant, gossipping volume to the readers of the Knickerbocker throughout the United States.
An Elementary Treatise on Human Physiology: on the Basis of the ‘Précis Elémentaire de Physiologie’ of Magendie. Translated, enlarged, and illustrated with Diagrams and Cuts, by Prof. John Revere, M. D., of the University of New-York. In one volume. pp. 533. New-York: Harper and Brothers.
The American translator and editor of the volume above cited is of opinion that since the death of Sir Charles Bell, there is no physiologist who stands so preëminent as an original observer and inquirer, or who has contributed so much to the present improved state of the science by his individual efforts, as M. Magendie. In facility in experimenting upon living animals, and extended opportunities of observation, no one has surpassed him; while through a long professional career his attention has been chiefly devoted to physiological inquiries. There is one excellence which constitutes a predominant feature in his system of Physiology that cannot be estimated too highly by the student of medicine; and that is, the severe system of induction that he has pursued, excluding those imaginative and speculative views which rather belong to metaphysics than physiology. The work is also remarkable for the conciseness and perspicuity of its style, the clearness of its descriptions, and the admirable arrangement of its matter. The present is a translation of the fifth and last edition of the ‘Précis Elémentaire de Physiologie,’ in which the science is brought down to the present time. It is not, like many modern systems, merely eclectic, or a compilation of the experiments and doctrines of others. On the contrary, all the important questions discussed, if not originally proposed and investigated by the author, have been thoroughly examined and experimented upon by him. His observations, therefore, on all these important subjects, carry with them great interest and weight derived from these investigations. The translator and editor, while faithfully adhering to the spirit of the author, has endeavored, and with success, to strip the work of its foreign costume, and naturalize it to our language. He has added a large number of diagrams and pictorial illustrations of the different organs and structures, taken from the highest and most recent authorities, in the hope of rendering clearer to the student of medicine the observations and reasonings on their functions. He has also made a number of additions on subjects which he thought had been passed over in too general a manner in the original work of Magendie. In a word, his aim ‘to present a system of human physiology which shall exhibit in a clear and intelligible manner the actual state of the science, and adapted to the use of students of medicine in the United States,’ has been thoroughly carried out.