vocal and instrumental, has kept this branch of the fine arts somewhat in
the back-ground. We have had the pleasure to see Mr. MACREADY once only at
the Park, on which occasion he personated the character of MELANTIUS in
'_The Bridal_' with transcendent power. We have seen this fine actor in no
part, if we except perhaps that of Werner, in which his genius shone so
conspicuous. He was admirably supported by the scarcely subordinate
characters represented by WHEATLY, RIDER, Miss CUSHMAN, and Mrs. H. HUNT.
Mr. WHEATLY has evidently much of 'the heavy business' at the Park upon
his broad shoulders, for he appears in two or three pieces almost every
night. On the occasion alluded to, no sooner had the curtain risen after
'The Bridal,' than we found him making Stentorian love ('in a horn') to
the 'Dumb Belle' of the evening, in which he excited shouts of uproarious
laughter. At the BOWERY THEATRE, as well as at the CHATHAM, '_The
Mysteries of Paris_' has run a most successful career. The OLYMPIC has
been crowded nightly by the mingled attractions of opera and travestie;
while the BOWERY AMPHITHEATRE and ROCKWELL'S Circus at NIBLO'S, have
shared abundantly in the favor bestowed now-a-days upon popular
entertainments. · · · 'DRESS always and _act_ to please your partner for
life, as you were fain to do before the nuptial-knot was tied.' This is an
old maxim, and here is 'a commentator upon it.' A newly-married lady is
suddenly surprised by a visit from a newly-married man, when she
straightway begins to apologize: 'She is horribly chagrined, and out of
countenance, to be caught in such a dishabille; she did not mind how her
clothes were huddled on, not expecting any company, there being nobody at
home but her husband!' The husband meanwhile shakes the visitor's hand,
and says: 'I am heartily glad to see you, JACK: I don't know how it was, I
was almost asleep; for as there was nobody at home but my wife, I did not
know what to do with myself!' · · · THE beautiful lines by Mrs. M. T. W.
CHANDLER, elsewhere in the present number, illustrate, or are illustrated
by the following passage from WARREN HASTING'S eloquent reflections upon
the changes to which the SOUL is destined hereafter: 'When the hour is at
hand which is to dissolve the mortal tie, the soul parts without regret
with those delights which it received from its sensual gratifications, and
dwells only, dwells with a fond affection, on the partner or pledges of
its love; or on friends from whom it seems to be cut off for ever; and if
it looks, as it must look, to futurity, these are the first objects of its
wishes connected with it, and the first ingredients in its conceptions of
celestial felicity. For my own part (and on a subject like this, where can
we so properly appeal as to ourselves?) although my reason dictates to me
the hope of a future happiness, whatever may be the mode of it, yet my
heart feels no interest in the prospect when viewed as a scene of
solitary, selfish enjoyment. It recoils with horror at the thought of
losing the remembrance of every past connexion, and even of those whom it
loved most dearly, and of being forgotten by them utterly and for ever. Is
this too, it asks, one of the delusions of life? No; for all its other
passions expire before it; but this remains, like hope, 'nor leaves us
when we die.'' · · · THE '_Anglo-American_' literary journal has just
issued to its subscribers one of the finest counterfeit presentments of
WASHINGTON that we have ever seen. It is a print almost the size of a
full-length cabinet portrait in oil, engraved in a masterly manner by
HALPIN after GILBERT STUART'S celebrated picture. If this superior
engraving is a sample of what the patrons of the 'Anglo-American' are
hereafter to expect from its publishers, it is easy to foresee that that
spirited journal has entered upon a long career of popularity. · · · 'T.'S
'_Stanzas_' await his order at the publication-office. They are far from
lacking merit, but are in parts artificial and labored. Lines eked out
with accented letters, in which
----'all the syllables that end in éd,
Like old dragoons, have cuts across the head,'
always seem to us to come rather from the head than the heart. We shall
expect, nevertheless, to hear from our friend again, according to promise.
· · · WE 'stop the press' to announce that Mr. PUNCH has just dropped in
from England, bringing the latest intelligence from 'the other side.' He
has lately visited several places on the continent, not so much to see
them as to be enabled to say, like other English travellers, that he _had
been there_. 'Mr. PUNCH, having arrived at Rouen late at night, left it
very early the next morning, much impressed with the institutions of the
city, both civil and architectural, as well as its manners, customs, and
social life, which he is about to embody in a work called '_Six hours and
a half at Rouen_,' to be brought out by a fashionable publisher.' From the
reports of one of the learned societies, we derive the following important
scientific information: 'Mr. SAPPY read a paper, proving the impossibility
of being able to see into the middle of next week, from known facts with
regard to the equation of time. He stated that, supposing it possible for
a person to ascend in a balloon sufficiently high for his vision to
embrace a distance of seven hundred miles from east to west, he would then
only see forty minutes ahead of him; that is, he would see places where
the day was forty minutes in advance of the day in which he lived. Thus he
might be said to see forty minutes into futurity. It has also been proved
that, in sailing round the world in one direction, a day's reckoning is
gained; so that the sailor on his return finds himself to be 'a man in
advance of his age' by one day. This one day, however, is the farthest
attainable limit; and it is therefore impossible to see into the middle of
next Week!' 'Mr. TITE, proprietor of the 'Metropolitan Bakedtatery'
brought forward his new 'Low Pressure Potatoe-Can,' upon an improved
principle. It was constructed of tin, and warranted to sustain a pressure
of twenty potatoes upon the square bottom. Mr. TITE explained that the
steam had nothing to do with the warmth of the fruit, but was quite
independent of it.' 'Mr. FLIT brought forward his new and improved Street
Telescope for looking at the moon. It was most ingeniously constructed,
being to the eye a fine instrument of six feet long. Mr. FLIT explained,
however, that the telescope itself was only an eighteen-inch one, the case
being manufactured to increase its importance, in which the real glass was
enclosed. The chief merit of this invention was, that the moon could be
seen equally well on cloudy nights, or when there was none at all, the
case enclosing an ingenious transparency of that body, behind which a
small lamp was hung. Mr. FLIT could always command a view of any of the
celestial bodies by the same means.' Here are a few items of law from
'_The Comic Blackstone_:' 'The statute of EDWARD the Fourth, prohibiting
any but lords from wearing pikes on their shoes of more than two inches
long, was considered to savor of oppression; but those who were in the
habit of receiving from a lord more kicks than coppers, would consider
that the law savored of benevolence.' 'Unlawfully detaining a man in any
way is imprisonment; so that if you take your neighbor by the button, and
cause him to listen to a long story, you are guilty of imprisonment.'
PUNCH'S idea of '_Woman's Mission_' differs somewhat from other reformers
of the times: 'To replace the shirt-button of the father, the brother, the
husband, which has come off in putting on the vestment; to bid the
variegated texture of the morning slipper or the waistcoat grow upon the
Berlin wool; to repair the breach that incautious haste in dressing has
created in the coat or the trowsers, which there is no time to send out to
be mended; are the special offices of woman; offices for which her digital
mechanism has singularly fitted her.' Apropos of '_Missions_:' we perceive
that DICKENS understands this vague verbal apology for eccentricity or
humbugeousness, if we interpret aright his frail and tearful MODDLE; 'who
talked much about people's 'missions,' upon which he seemed to have some
private information not generally attainable,' and who, 'being aware that
a shepherd's mission was to pipe to his flock, and that a boatswain's
mission was to pipe all hands, and that one man's mission was to be a paid
piper, and another man's mission was to pay the piper, had got it into his
head that his own peculiar mission was to pipe his eye, which he did
perpetually.' · · · A CURIOUS volume has recently appeared in Paris,
entitled '_Poésies Populaires Latines antérieures au Douzième Siècle_;'
and as sequels to the work, are certain satires upon the avarice and
corruption of the papal government in the twelfth century, among which is
the following curious parody:
'_Here beginneth the Gospel according to Marks of silver._--In
that time the pope said to the Romans: When the son of man
cometh to the seat of our majesty, say ye first, Friend, what
seekest thou? But if he continue knocking, and give you nothing,
cast him out into utter darkness. And it came to pass that a
certain poor clerk came to the court of our lord the pope, and
cried out, saying, Have pity on me at least you, O gate-keepers
of the pope, for the hand of poverty hath touched me. Verily I
am needy and poor; therefore, I pray ye, relieve my calamity and
my wretchedness. But they, when they heard him, were very wroth,
and said, Friend, thy poverty be with thee to perdition! get
behind me, Sathanas, for thou art not wise in the wisdom of
money. Verily, verily I say unto thee, thou shalt not enter into
the joy of thy lord until thou hast given thy last farthing. And
the poor man departed, and sold his cloak and his coat and all
that he had, and gave it to the cardinals and to the
gate-keepers; and they said, What is this among so many? And
they cast him out before the doors; and he went out, and wept
bitterly, and might not be comforted. Then there came to the
court a certain rich clerk, great and fat and swollen, who in a
riot had slain a man. He gave first to the gate-keeper, secondly
to the chamberlain, thirdly to the cardinals; but they thought
among themselves that they should have received more. And when
our lord the pope heard that the cardinals and ministers had
received many gifts of the clerk, he became sick unto death. But
the rich man sent him a medicine of gold and silver, and
immediately he was cured. Then our lord the pope called to him
the cardinals and ministers, and said to them, Brethren, see
that no one seduce you with empty words; for I give you an
example, that as I myself receive, so receive ye.'
The corruptions of this era are equally well illustrated by a very amusing
anecdote of 'a handsome Italian friar, _teres atque rotundus_, about
thirty, and extremely bold and eloquent;' doubtless one of that class so
felicitously limned by THOMSON:
'A little round, fat, oily man of GOD
Was one I chiefly marked among the fry;
He had a roguish twinkle in his eye
And shone all glittering with ungodly dew,
If a tight damsel chanced to trippen by;
Which when observed he shrunk into his mew,
And straight would recollect his piety anew.'
One day at a remote confessional of the church he declared an unholy and
forbidden passion to a young and beautiful married lady, whom he had long
'followed with his eyes,' and begged permission to visit her at her
residence. Struck with surprise at this new revelation of his character,
she evaded reply, being secretly minded to inform her husband, when she
returned home, which she did, word for word. He told his wife to contrive
to let the friar come, alone and in secret, the next evening, which
chanced to be that of Saturday, and the night before the Sunday of Saint
Lazarus, on which occasion the friar was to preach. The appointment was
made; the friar came, true to the late hour which had been designated; was
received at the door, and shown into the lady's bed-room by a servant, who
informed him that she had desired him to request the good man to retire to
rest, and to say that 'she would be with him straight.' The friar prepared
to comply with the direction, and was about stepping into bed, when the
door opened suddenly, and the lady entered in great apparent trepidation,
exclaiming: 'My husband is knocking at the door! For heaven's sake slip
into that chest,' showing him a double one in the apartment, 'and lie
there until I see what may be done! Meanwhile I will hide your clothes
somewhere or other, as well as I am able. Heaven knows I fear more for
your holy person than I do for my own life!' The unfortunate wretch,
seeing himself reduced to such a pass, did as the worthy lady desired;
while the husband, presently coming in, retired to rest with his wife, who
had first locked the friar safe in the chest. The poor prisoner uttered
sundry involuntary noises in the course of the night, and was in the
direst terror at the inquiries which they awakened on the part of the
husband. Daylight at length came, and the church-bells began to ring for
prayers, which greatly annoyed the captive, who was to preach at the
cathedral. The husband having risen, ordered two servants to carry the
chest to the church and place it in the middle, saying they were ordered
to do so by the preacher; and that unlocking the chest without raising the
lid, they should leave it there; all which the fellows did very neatly.
Every body stared, and wondered what all this could mean; some said one
thing and some another. At last the bell having ceased to ring, and no one
appearing in the pulpit, or any other part of the church, a young man rose
and said: 'Really, the good friar makes us wait quite too long; pray let
us see what he has ordered to be brought in this chest.' Having said this
much, he before all the congregation lifted up the lid, and looking in,
beheld the friar in his shirt, pale, almost frightened to death, and
certainly appearing more dead than alive, and as if buried in the chest.
Finding himself discovered, however, he collected his mind as well as he
could, and stood upright, to the great astonishment of all present; and
having taken his text from the Sunday of Lazarus, he thus addressed his
congregation: 'My dear brethren: I am not at all astonished at your
surprise in seeing me brought before you in this chest, or rather at my
ordering myself to be brought thus: ye know that this is the way in which
our holy church commemorates the wonderful miracle our LORD performed on
the person of LAZARUS, in raising him from the dead who had been buried
four days. I was desirous in your favor to present myself to you as it
were in the form of LAZARUS, in order that seeing me in this chest, which
is no other than an emblem of the sepulchre wherein he had been buried,
you might be moved more effectually to the consideration of what
perishable things we are; and that seeing me stripped of all worldly
decorations, thus in my shirt, you may be convinced of the vanity of the
things of this world, the which, if only duly considered, may tend greatly
to the amending of our lives. Will you believe that since yesterday night
I have been a thousand times dead, and revived as LAZARUS was; and
considering my dreadful situation, remember (as it were with the memory of
a similar penance in your hearts) that we must all die, and trust to HIM
who can bestow upon us life eternal: but first ye must die to sin, to
avarice, to rapine, to lust, and all those sinful deeds to which our
nature prompts us.' In such language, and in such manner, did the friar
continue his sermon. The husband, astonished at the extraordinary presence
of mind which he displayed, laughed heartily at his success; and in
consideration of the adroitness of the culprit, did not attempt any
farther revenge; 'but,' it is added, 'he took very good care to shut his
door in future against all such double-faced hypocrites.' · · · READER,
what are you thinking of at this moment? 'Nothing.' Indeed! and so were
we, and of how much a clever man once said upon the subject; observe:
'Philosophers have declared they knew nothing, and it is common for us to
talk about doing nothing; for from ten to twenty we go to school to be
taught what from twenty to thirty we are very apt to forget; from thirty
to forty we begin to settle; from forty to fifty, we think away as fast as
we can; from fifty to sixty, we are very careful in our accounts; and from
sixty to seventy, we cast up what all our thinking comes to; and then,
what between our losses and our gains, our enjoyments and our inquietudes,
even with the addition of old age, we can but strike a balance of
ciphers.' Happy are they who amidst the variations of nothing have nothing
to fear; if they have nothing to lose, they have nothing to lament; and if
they have done nothing to be ashamed of, they have every thing to hope
for. · · · SENTENTIOUSNESS, let us inform 'S.' of Cambridge, and
antitheses, do not consist of short sentences and inversion of words
_merely_; and even the most felicitous examples in each case often
sacrifice the sound to the sense. Here is an instance which is
unobjectionable: 'I knew the old miser well. He amassed a fortune by
raising hemp; and if he had had his deserts, would have died as he lived
by it.' · · · JUST as the sheets of this department were passing to the
press, we received the announcement of a public exhibition of two
collections of pictures, which we have seen, and to which we cannot resist
the impulse of directing the public attention. At the rooms of the
National Academy, corner of Broadway and Leonard-street, may be seen Mr.
COLE'S allegorical pictures of 'The Voyage of Life,' heretofore noticed at
length in these pages; '_Mount Ætna, from Taormina, Sicily_,' one of the
most noble paintings that ever came from this eminent artist's pencil;
'Angels ministering to Christ in the Wilderness;' 'The Past and the
Present;' 'A View of Ruined Aqueducts in the Campagna di Roma,' and other
pictures; altogether, an exceedingly fine collection. Indeed, the superb
view of Ætna alone, with its vast and sublime accessories, is of itself an
exhibition worth twice the price of admission. At the rooms of the APOLLO
ASSOCIATION, nearly opposite the Hospital, in Broadway, Mr. HARVEY'S
series of _Forty Historic or Atmospheric American Landscape Scenes_ are to
be seen for a short time. It needed not the high patronage of Queen
VICTORIA, the praises of English royalty and nobility, nor the warm
encomiums of ALLSTON, SULLY, MOORE, and others, to secure attention to
these graphic sketches from nature. They are their own best
recommendation. Trust our verdict, reader, and go and _see_ if they are
not. · · · 'TERPSICHORE' is the title of a very spirited satirical poem
read at the annual dinner of the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Cambridge
University in August last, by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, and copied in
'_Graham's Magazine_' for January. We subjoin a passage which although
abundantly poetical contains yet more truth than poetry. It 'bases' upon
the DICKENS dinner:
HE for whose sake the glittering show appears
Has sown the world with laughter and with tears,
And they whose welcome wets the bumper's brim
Have wit and wisdom--for they all quote him.
So, many a tongue the evening hour prolongs
With spangled speeches, let alone the songs;
Statesmen grow merry, young attorneys laugh,
And weak teetotals warm to half-and-half,
And beardless Tullys, new to festive scenes,
Cut their first crop of youth's precocious greens;
And wits stand ready for impromptu claps,
With loaded barrels and percussion-caps;
And Pathos, cantering through the minor keys,
Waves all her onions to the trembling breeze;
While the great Feasted views with silent glee
His scattered limbs in Yankee fricassee.
Sweet is the scene where genial friendship plays
The pleasing game of interchanging praise;
Self-love, grimalkin of the human heart,
Is ever pliant to the master's art;
Soothed with a word, she peacefully withdraws
And sheaths in velvet her obnoxious claws,
And thrills the hand that smooths her glossy fur
With the light tremor of her gentle pur.
But what sad music fills the quiet hall
If on her back a feline rival fall!
And oh! what noises shake the tranquil house,
If old SELF-INTEREST cheats her of a mouse!
Thou, O my country! hast thy foolish ways,
Too apt to pur at every stranger's praise:
But if the stranger touch thy modes or laws,
Off goes the velvet and out come the claws!
And thou, Illustrious! but too poorly paid
In toasts from Pickwick for thy great crusade,
Though while the echoes labored with thy name
The public trap denied thy little game,
Let other lips our jealous laws revile--
The marble TALFOURD or the rude CARLYLE;
But on thy lids, that Heaven forbids to close
Where'er the light of kindly nature glows,
Let not the dollars that a churl denies
Weigh like the shillings on a dead man's eyes!
Or, if thou wilt, be more discreetly blind,
Nor ask to see all wide extremes combined;
Not in our wastes the dainty blossoms smile
That crowd the gardens of thy scanty isle;
There white-cheek'd Luxury weaves a thousand charms,
Here sun-browned Labor swings his Cyclop arms;
Long are the furrows he must trace between
The ocean's azure and the prairies' green;
Full many a blank his destined realm displays,
Yet see the promise of his riper days:
Far through yon depths the panting engine moves,
His chariots ringing in their steel-shod groves,
And Erie's naiad flings her diamond wave
O'er the wild sea-nymph in her distant cave:
While tasks like these employ his anxious hours,
What if his corn-fields are not edged with flowers?
Though bright as silver the meridian beams
Shine through the crystal of thine English streams,
Turbid and dark the mighty wave is whirled
That drains our Andes and divides a world.
Under the similitude of a _German-silver-spoon_, 'used by dabblers in
æsthetic tea,' we have the annexed palpable hit at the small-beer
imitators of CARLYLE, and copyists after the external garb of the German
school, who have occasionally shown themselves up in the pages of 'The
Dial,' a work which formerly 'indicated rather the place of the moon than
the sun:'
SMALL as it is, its powers are passing strange;
For all who use it show a wondrous change,
And first, a fact to make the barbers stare,
It beats Macassar for the growth of hair:
See those small youngsters whose expansive ears
Maternal kindness grazed with frequent shears;
Each bristling crop a dangling mass becomes,
And all the spoonies turn to Absaloms!
Nor this alone its magic power displays--
It alters strangely all their works and ways;
With uncouth words they tire their tender lungs,
The same bald phrases on their hundred tongues;
'Ever' 'The Ages' in their page appear,
'Alway' the bedlamite is called a 'Seer;'
On every leaf the 'earnest' sage may scan,
Portentious bore! their 'many-sided' man;
A weak eclectic, groping, vague and dim,
Whose every angle is a half-starved whim,
Blind as a mole and curious as a lynx,
Who rides a beetle which he calls a 'Sphinx.'
And O what questions asked in club-foot rhyme
Of Earth the tongueless and the deaf-mute Time!
Here babbling 'Insight' shouts in Nature's ears
His last conundrum on the orbs and spheres;
There Self-inspection sucks its little thumb,
With 'Whence am I?' and 'Wherefore did I come?'
Deluded infants! will they ever know
Some doubts must darken o'er the world below,
Though all the Platos of the nursery trail
Their 'clouds of glory' at the go-cart's tail?