When most severe, and must’ring all its force,
Was but the graver countenance of love;
Whose favor, like the clouds of spring, might lower,
And utter now and then an awful voice,
But had a blessing in his darkest frown,
Threat’ning at once, and nourishing the plant.’
Perchance our friend may now think with Cowper, that ‘although he loved, yet not enough, the gentle hand that reared him.’ ‘The chief thing that I have to reproach myself with,’ writes one who laments a kindred dispensation of the Supreme, ‘is a sort of inattention to my father’s feelings, occasionally, arising merely from the disparity of years between us, which I am sensible must at times have interfered with his enjoyments. I would gladly recall now, if I could, many opportunities I suffered to pass, of being more in his company, and more in the way of his advice and instruction.’ But he adds: ‘When I reflect on these things, it appears to me one of the strongest natural arguments for the immortality of the soul, and the renewal of our earthly relations in a world to come, that even where the greatest possible attachment subsists between parents and their children, the mere disparity of years inevitably prevents that complete association of feelings, and intimate fellowship of heart and soul, which is the cement and prerogative of all other friendships: in a world to come, but no where else, such attachments must receive their full completion.’ ••• Professor Gouraud, well known among us for his devotion to the interests of art and science, has perfected a System of Remembrance, which he designates by the term ‘Mnemotechny,’ and which we venture to predict will prove of the greatest service to nearly every class of society. No system of modern mnemonics bears any resemblance to, or comparison with it. Such is the astonishing effect of the plan, that young masters and misses, after a brief study of it, can with ease answer any question from score after score of close-printed pages, involving every variety of events, and all kinds of information. We ‘speak but the things which we do know,’ in this matter, for seeing is believing. As the scene of Prof. Gouraud’s operations is for the present the city, and as the daily journals have made his merits widely known to the community, we forbear farther comment at this time upon the useful art which he has brought to such wonderful perfection. New classes organize, we understand, at the Professor’s residence, No. 46, Second-street, on the fourth instant. They will be filled at once, and speedily followed by others. ••• There is an article in the last number of the Edinburgh Review upon ‘Theatres and the Drama,’ which is replete with wisdom, and evinces a thorough mastery of the theme. In alluding to the appeals which are now made to the eye by elaborate scenery, machinery, etc., less than to the mind and imagination by superior intellectual personation, the reviewer in effect remarks, that the first attempt at positive reality is fatal to pleasurable illusion. Every person in the pit is aware that the stage is a stage, ‘and all the men and women merely players.’ In ‘As you Like It,’ at Drury-Lane, an attempt was made to imitate the notes of birds. ‘Suppose the imitation had been so close as to deceive the audience into the belief that there were birds there singing; would not the contrast with trees of painted canvass have been revolting? These were not the conceptions of Shakspeare, when he made his chorus say:
‘Can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques