proper people to talk about men and manners and society in America?' · · ·
'NEVER mind, my dear,' says Baron POMPOLINO, while endeavoring to fit the
fairy slipper of the lovely CINDERELLA upon the long splay foot of one of
his ungainly daughters, 'never mind, my dear, _she is not at all like
you_!' The doting father, it will be remembered, gives this verdict as a
flattering compliment. We have sometimes been amused, where the _quo
animo_ was apparent, with similar compliments at the hands of reciprocal
critics of literature. Pleasant examples in this kind have been furnished
lately. A very voluminous critic, very far 'down east,' spoke recently in
a metropolitan journal of GOLDSMITH's '_Deserted Village_' as 'a very
common-place poem, at the best, and only saved from utter and most
contemptuous forgetfulness by two or three pleasantries about 'broken
tea-cups,' etc., and by one single passage that smacks of sublimity!' Of
the poetry however of the author of '_Man in his Various Aspects under the
American Republic_,' he expresses in the same columns quite a different
opinion. 'There has been,' he writes, 'no English poetry better than his,
within the memory of man!' A writer in the last number of the '_Southern
Literary Messenger_,' likewise voluminous in prose and verse, if we
rightly surmise, exhibits contrasts of judgment somewhat kindred with the
foregoing, although certainly less violent. The author of 'Man in his
various Aspects,' he tells us, 'has a _boldness_ that attracts;' his are
the 'strong and struggling conceptions which seek utterance in new and
original forms.' He dares 'to shun the beaten paths,' and is not afraid to
be obscure. His is not the poetry 'which takes the popular ear without
tasking the popular thought,' like 'the simple common-places of
LONGFELLOW.' Such 'criticism' as this we have cited must needs 'make the
judicious' laugh merely, being too impotent to make them 'grieve.' It is
not perhaps assuming too much to suppose, that GOLDSMITH's 'Deserted
Village' and LONGFELLOW's 'Psalms of Life,' _simple_ though they be, will
live and be cherished in generations of human hearts, when the volumes of
our critics and their client that yet survive the recollection of any save
their publishers, shall be 'forgotten and clean out of mind.' · · · IT is
related of the celebrated clergyman, JOHN MASON, that sitting at a
steam-boat table on one occasion, just as the passengers were 'falling to'
in the customary manner, he suddenly rapped vehemently upon the board with
the end of his knife, and exclaimed: 'Captain! is this boat out of the
jurisdiction of GOD ALMIGHTY? If not, let us at least thank HIM for his
continued goodness;' and he proceeded to pronounce 'grace' amidst the most
reverent stillness. It is to be hoped, however, that his 'grace' was not
like the few set words handed down from father to son, mumbled without
emotion, and despatched with indecent haste, which one sometimes hears
repeated over country repasts. 'Bless this portion of food now in
readiness for us; give it to us in thy love; let us eat and drink in thy
fear--for CHRIST's sake----LORENZO, _take your fingers out of that
plate!_' was a grace once said in _our_ hearing, but evidently not in that
of the spoilt boy, 'growing and always hungry,' who could not wait to be
served. We should prefer to such insensible flippancy the practice of an
old divine in New-England, who in asking a blessing upon his meals, was
wont to name each separate dish. Sitting down one day to a dinner, which
consisted partly of clams, bear-steak, etc., he was forced in a measure to
forego his usual custom of furnishing a 'bill of particulars.' 'Bless to
our use,' said he, 'these treasures hid in the sand; bless this----' But
the bear's-meat puzzled him, and he concluded with: 'Oh! LORD, _thou only
knowest what it is_!' · · · A FAVORITE correspondent of this Magazine, who
appears in the pages of the present number for the first time in several
months, accompanies his excellent paper with a letter, from which we take
these sentences: 'Since you last heard from me, I have experienced a
severe domestic affliction in the loss of my father, who died during the
last summer. Day after day and night after night for two months I sat by
his bed-side, hoping in vain for his recovery, until life's star was
extinguished in the darkness of the grave.' Our cordial sympathies are
with our correspondent; but sympathy for affliction such as his can carry
with it little of consolation to the bereaved:
----'A FRIEND is gone!
A FATHER, whose authority, in show
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
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest, in little place, a million;
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work:
Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined two mighty monarchies:
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide one man,
And make imaginary puisance.
Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs in the receiving earth;
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings--
Carry them here and there.'
Advice as necessary at the present day as then; for we may enlarge our
stages, increase our supernumeraries, and engage 'real horses;' but we can
never make any one believe the stage is other than the stage. The audience
can realize for themselves. This trust in the all-sufficiency of
imagination is precisely that acted on by children in their daily sports,
where from the boundless wealth of the imagination, the rudest materials
supply the place of the costliest. Whoever watches boys 'playing horse,'
making a pocket-handkerchief dangling behind to represent the tail, and
sees them stamping, snorting, prancing, and champing the imaginary bit,
witnesses the alchymy of the imagination, an alchymy out-stripping all the
wonders and out-weighing all the treasures of the prosaic positive
chemistry, so longed for by the present generation. The child 'supposes'
the handkerchief a tail, and it becomes a tail. He has but to say to his
companion: 'This shall be a whip and this shall be the harness,' and the
things are there; not as matters of literal fact, but of imaginative
truth. He plays for the enjoyment of the game and the exercise of his
imagination; and therefore the handkerchief serves every purpose. This is
the procedure of nature. But the modern parent, anxious to realize for the
child, and to instil a love of accuracy into his mind, gives him a superb
horse-hair tail, bidding him at the same time be careful not to spoil it.
What is the result? The child's attention is called from the game, to the
consideration of or delight in the tail, which, originally meant as a
collateral aid, now takes the first place. The boy no doubt is delighted
with his horse-hair tail; but (if it be not altogether superfluous,) it
will soon destroy his game, so that the exercise, both of frame and
imagination, is lost; the end becomes subordinate to the means. This is
precisely what takes place with the drama. Observe also one important
point: The tail is _real_; accuracy is attempted: but though the tail be
real, the horse is not; the horse is played by a boy, and only by a boy;
it is in this mimicry that the enjoyment consists. But how absurd to put a
real tail on an unreal horse! How revolting this mixture of imagination
and fact! It is equalled only by that ludicrous practice of placing the
face of a _real_ watch in the place of a church-clock in a landscape;
where one may not only see the time of day, but may also hear it _struck_,
and that amidst painted trees and houses! This effect, except to the most
literal and prosaic minds, is revolting and discordant. But this the
modern drama is strenuously endeavoring to produce. 'In opera, ballet, and
spectacle, scenery and illustrations must be effective, because they form
elements of the piece. In the drama, where the source of entertainment is
intellectual, they are merely accessories, and should be used in such wise
as to keep up the harmony of effect, but never so as to distract attention
from the drama to themselves.' Here is a passage which is not less
applicable in America than in England: 'A few years ago it was not
uncommon to see several performers of rival excellence supported by others
of ability, all playing in the same piece. It is now a rare thing for
rivals to play together. A single good actor, among a dozen bad, is deemed
sufficient. Are we then to wonder that the regular drama does not pay?' ·
· · OUR readers will remember the order given by the Chinese Emperor to a
corps of Mandarins, who were to exterminate the 'barbarian Englishers' in
the harbor of Canton, by going down to the bank of the river in the night,
and then and there 'dive straight on board those foreign ships, and put
every soul of them to death!' Subsequently however the red-bristling
foreigners managed to land, when, as it since turns out, it became
necessary to adopt more sanguinary measures. The Emperor called up one of
his 'great generals,' and gave him his dreadful orders: 'You must dress
your soldiers,' said he, 'in a very frightful manner, painting their faces
with the most horrid figures, and depicting dragons and monsters on your
banners: you must then rush upon the barbarians with fearful outcries, and
terrify them so that they will fall down flat on their faces; and when
they are once down,' said the Imperial potentate, '_their breeches are so
tight that they can never get up again_!' · · · 'I give you five minutes
every day to look at the stars, but don't particularize; for some in those
far-off places send down their light long after they have been knocked out
of existence, and you may be looking at a blank.' So wrote 'JULIAN' in
this department of our last number. Prof. OLMSTEAD, of Yale-College, in a
recent lecture before the 'Mercantile Library Association,' described the
difficulty of ascertaining the distance of the stars from each other and
from our earth; yet, he remarked, it had been done. The nearest star's
distance from us had been measured, and by the aid of light, by which it
could alone be accomplished. That distance, he said, was immense,
requiring ten years for light to traverse it! The planets, he had no
doubt, were inhabited. Of what use was the reflection of the sun's rays
upon them, if there were no eyes there to behold it? What was the use of
moons, which the planets certainly have? He spoke also of the fixed stars,
which seem by the aid of a telescope to be innumerable. What was their
purpose?--for a guide to mariners? No; for a very small portion of them
could be seen by the unassisted eye. They were suns like our suns, to
worlds like our worlds! To the inhabitants of those fixed stars our sun
appears as a star, and the planetary system revolving around it, of which
the earth is one, are unseen by them, as are those of theirs by us! Great
GOD! 'When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and
the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is _man_, that thou art mindful
of him, and the son of man, that thou visitest him!' · · · OUR
correspondent who writes of '_The Country_,' in preceding pages wields a
facile pen. His allusion to the choice of _names_ for a country-seat
reminds us of the pleasant satire of '_Thinks-I-to-myself_' upon this
theme: 'We lived, you must know,' he writes, 'in a _Hall_; not when I was
born, however, nor till long afterward. My sister happened to have a
correspondent at school near London, who finding it essentially necessary
to the support of her dignity among her school-fellows, always directed
her letters so; for the parents of one she found, lived at something
HOUSE; and of another at What's-its-name PLACE; and of another at
Thingummy _Lodge_; of another at the _Grange_; of another at the _Castle_;
of another at the _Park_; Miss BLAZE, the daughter of a retired
tallow-chandler, whose father lived at Candlewick-Castle, was continually
throwing out hints that not to live at a 'Castle,' or a 'Park,' or a
'Place,' or a 'House,' or a 'Lodge,' unequivocally bespoke a low origin!'
Is this folly altogether indigenous to England? Let the high-sounding
names of scores of painted pine palaces not a thousand miles from this
metropolis make answer. · · · 'IT don't weigh as much as I expected, and I
always _thought_ it wouldn't!' We were reminded of this remark of a person
who desired a certain result, but was at the same time unwilling to
relinquish his pride of opinion, by the note of our Mississippi
correspondent, to whose long communication we alluded in our last number.
We _have_ 'taken its measure,' as we promised, and find it quite beyond
our compass. · · · OUR friend the _Poetical Englishman_ is somewhat severe
upon the godly inhabitants of 'BOTOLPH'S TOWN;' yet we see nothing in his
epistle that is not justified by recent occurrences in the 'Literary
Emporium.' It is lamentable that Boston should be robbed of a decent
theatre by an epidemic of pseudo-sanctity. MACREADY was compelled to play
a recent engagement at a second-rate house, down in the 'Wapping' end of
the town, whither all the beauty and fashion crowded nightly through the
mud to see him. It strikes us that the '_Purification Hymn_,' alluded to
by our correspondent, must have been a choice production of some MAWWORM
of the day. Its reasoning is highly pellucid, and its dignity is past all
question. 'Mimic scenes, and mirth and joy,' it would seem, 'allure souls'
to endless perdition! Now against the licentiousness and drunkenness of
the theatre too much cannot be said; but for 'mimic scenes' dragging men
to ----. But _cui bono_? 'Your dull ass will never mend his pace with
beating.' By the by, we are well pleased to see our English friend's
preference for mind over matter, in the way of _dramatic_ personations.
Yet England has little reason to boast. What says 'the VISCOUNT' to the
Chevalier (d'industrie) PIP? 'What's the good of SHAKSPEARE, PIP? I never
read him. What the devil is it all about? There's a lot of feet in
SHAKSPEARE'S verse, but there ain't any legs worth mentioning in
SHAKSPEARE'S plays, are there, PIP? Juliet, Desdemona, Lady Macbeth, and
all the rest of 'em, whatever their names are, might as well have no legs
at all, for any thing the audience know about it. I'll tell you what it
is; what the people call dramatic poetry is a collection of sermons. Do I
go to the theatre to be lectured? No; if I wanted that, I'd go to church.
What's the legitimate drama, PIP? Human nature. What are legs? Human
nature. Then let us have plenty of leg-pieces, PIP, and I'll stand by you,
my buck!' This is 'the ticket' in London, as well as in 'BOTOLPH his
town.' The 'legs have it' there as well as here. Meanwhile the sometime
gallant Thespian is in a sad plight, from having little to do and little
pay for it. Admirers fall off, one after another, under such
circumstances; and even the gentle sex forget their old enthusiasm:
'Oh! once again we met, but no bandit-chief was there;
His rouge was off, and gone that head of once luxuriant hair:
He lodges in a two-pair back, and at the tavern near
He cannot liquidate his 'chalk' nor wipe away his beer.
I saw him sad and seedy, yet methinks I see him now,
In the tableau of the last act, with the blood upon his brow.'
And thus he goes on, following his 'occupation' in one sense, and
gradually sinking lower and lower; until at length:
'ALAS! poor rat!
He has no cravat;
A seedy coat, and a hole in that!
No sole to his shoe, no brim to his hat;
Not a change of linen, except his skin:
No gloves, no vest,
Either second or best;
And what is worse than all the rest,
No light heart, though his breeches are thin!
* * * * *
IS not the following illustration of '_The Affections_,' by Rev. GEO. B.
CHEEVER, 'beautiful exceedingly?' 'On a bright day in summer, while the
west wind breathes gently, you stand before a forest of maples, or you are
attracted by a beautiful tree in the open field, that seems a dense clump
of foliage. You cannot but notice how easily the wind moves it, how
quietly, how gracefully, how lovingly, the whole body of it. It is simply
because it is covered with foliage. The same wind rustling through its dry
branches in winter, would scarce bend a bough, or only to break it. But
now, softly whispering through ten thousand leaves, how gently the whole
tree yields to the impression! So it is with the affections, the feelings.
They are the foliage of our being, moved by the spirit of GOD.' · · · THE
annual _Festival of Saint Nicholas_, beloved of all good KNICKERBOCKERS,
was celebrated on the sixth ultimo at the City Hotel, by a crowded
assemblage of the members of the Society, and their invited guests. The
new President was invested with the orange-badge and venerable cocked-hat
of his 'illustrious predecessor,' and new subordinate officers were
installed into their several stations; after which ceremony a sumptuous
repast, served in the well-known style of Messrs. JENNINGS AND WILLARD,
was discussed with universal _goût_. For the toasts regular and volunteer,
and speeches voluntary and involuntary, we must refer the reader to the
daily journals 'of that period;' while we simply add, that from soup to
Paäs eggs, _schnaaps_, and pipes, every thing passed off with unwonted
hilarity and spirit. May we live to see fifty kindred gatherings of the
votaries of our patron saint! · · · 'YOU don't like smokin', 'taint
likely?' asked a lank free-and-easy Yankee, as he entered a room where
four or five young ladies were sewing, puffing a dank 'long-nine.' 'Well,
_we do not_,' was the immediate reply. 'Umph!' replied the smoker,
removing his cigar long enough to spit, '_a good many people don't!_'--and
he kept on smoking. We know of _one_ reader of the KNICKERBOCKER, a
thousand miles from the hand that jots down this anecdote, who will enjoy
it hugely; and indeed it is mainly for him that we record it. · · · THIS
is _Thanksgiving Evening_ in the Empire State; and as there is a
fair-haired, hazle-eyed little boy pulling at our 'sword-arm,' (too
fatigued with writing to offer any resistance) suppose we read to you,
while he sits 'throned on his father's knee,' this timely and admirable
passage from the pen of CHARLES HOOVER, Esq., of New-Jersey, a fine
scholar, and a writer of as pure Saxon English as the best among us:
'THERE is much in the aspect of Divine Providence at the present
time, both toward our own country and the world, to awaken
gratitude and thoughtful joy. An unexampled spectacle is
presented in the current history of the world. It is moving on
almost without a ripple. The changes of time are taking place as
noiselessly as the ordinary changes of nature. The decay of old
and injurious social and political systems is going on like the
crumbling of ruins in a desert, by the force of inherent
tendency rather than by external violence; and milder and more
benignant systems are appearing, not like those islands sprung
by volcanic shocks above the bosom of the deep, but like the
beauty of spring, or the glory of summer, by a natural and
imperceptible growth. Within the memory of many yet living there
was a very different state of things. Scarcely a month then
passed without a shock, a press and medley in human affairs that
amazed and bewildered men, and kept anxiety on the stretch. Such
was the history of Europe. Every change was a concussion; every
fear a storm; every revolution a convulsion. Not less in motion
is society now, but it is like the motion of the spheres, grand
and silent; and that silence is the emblem and the evidence of
greatness and power in the present movement of Providence in
human affairs. The once apparently random and divergent lines of
that Providence now seem to be flowing to a common point, and
terminating in one great result--the improvement and happiness
of our race. Abating much of what has been extravagantly vaunted
about the march of mind and the perfectibility of human society,
it is still visibly true that the general condition of the world
is improved and improving. Vast accessions have been made to
science; knowledge has been diffused over a wider surface, than
was ever before known; ignorance is felt to be a calamity if not
a crime; truths that were formerly contemplated only in the
closet of the sage, have become familiarized in the cottage and
the common mind; the rights of men are better defined and
understood; the power of rulers is swayed within juster limits,
and is every where abandoning its old apparatus of racks and
halters and dungeons as the means of governing immortal mind,
and is silently conceding to it its alienable prerogative of
free thought.'
* * * * *