relief from the pains of hatred by something of the comfort of good-will; whereas they who have merely a relation of policy to each other are not in close relations at all, and do not touch each other enough to feel the beating of each other's hearts or the warmth of each other's grasp. Nothing brings persons or parties together so effectually as the standing upon a common principle; and the nation may gain much by being brought to the true ground by meeting in the arena of battle, and finding that they can have a solid foundation for reconciliation and agreement. The power that is to hold us together on our constitutional ground is a hearty and wise and devout nationality. As we look to a truth and justice and protection beyond our own conceit or will we are drawn together, and the most diverse tempers and minds are wonderfully assimilated by a common loyalty. We may be quite ready enough to preach this doctrine to others, but are we ready enough to apply it to ourselves? Are we ready to accept the true principle of national life, and live, and, if need be, fight and die for it? When this bitter and fearful struggle is over, the greater heroism will be needed—the heroism that is determined to live for the country always instead of being willing to die for it once. More justice is needed between man and man, in the spirit of the golden rule; and opposing parties and districts, that vainly try by bargain to reconcile obstinate wills and headstrong passions, find themselves brought together on the common ground of rectitude. More humanity between neighbor and neighbor, State and State; and it will be found that where we are tempted to denounce wrong we may as fitly pity misfortune, and where we harshly condemn sin we may all the more humbly remember that it is not for us to cast the first stone. More of religion, the true sense of what we owe to God in our hearts, and as we bow before the mercy-seat of our Maker, we shall find it easier to bear with those with whom He is forbearing, and to forgive as we ask to be forgiven. of trade restored, and the interchanges of industry resumed, they take from the rebellion its strength. The ports will be reopened, the laws will be obeyed, and a return to the good old loyalty will secure our peace, and comfort the friends of good government, and the enemies of sedition throughout the world. Editor's Easy Chair. "Now when it flowereth, And when the banks and fields Spring comes to us with hasty step and brief, And every where makes people laugh and play." So sings Rinaldo D'Aquino, an old Italian poet of the thirteenth century, as translated by Rossetti, the English Pre-Raphaelite painter, who has recently published a delightful volume of the early Italian Poets before Dante, and including Dante and his circle. It is the same old song of spring that the earth sings in flowers and green, and our hearts in fresh emotions. It is the kindly touch of common feeling that makes medieval men and women our contemporaries, and lights their dusky life with the light of common day. May-day comes in imagination, if not actually in nature. It may be a chill and gloomy morning that ushers in the month, as wild storms may rage at Christmas. But each is a festival of the mind and heart, and the weather can not touch either. They belong to gracious associations and tender thoughts. There could not be a more charming May-day book, or book of May and summer, than this volume of the early Italian Poets. It includes a translation of Dante's Vita Nuora-the best, so the best Italian scholars and Danteans say, that there is. And indeed all the poems, even in their English form, preserve fully the Italian spirit; which will surprise no one who has seen any of the pictures painted by the translator. They are like medieval Italian poems. One especially, depicting the scene in the Fitn Nuova when Dante first sees Beatrice, is remarkable for a kind of passionate depth of color and expression. It is intense and spectral, like one's fancies of the time, but suffused with tremulous tenderness and In this line of remark, instead of striking out into an unknown region, are we not returning to the old paths and calling up associations that have not died out, although so long slumbering or kept down? We have been one people, and shall be so again. The Union feeling has been not merely a sentiment, but a habit, a mighty habit, and has given proof of its existence in the darkest times and the most doubtful sections of the country. The moment that the honest but misguided multitude who have been beguiled by designing men into the madness of insur-emotion, so that it is almost morbid—or, more truly, rection see their error, and have evidence that their rights will be secured to them under the National Government, there is reason to believe that a great reaction will set in, and the old fountains of National loyalty will be opened once more. exalté. The same delicate apprehension and sincere, subtle feeling, which are so striking in the pictures of Rossetti, give the utmost value to these translations of the poetry of an age with which he has the profoundest sympathy. One of the finest poems in the collection it seems is very famous in Italian poetry. It is the canzone of The Gentle Heart, by Guido Guinicelli, of a princely Bolognese family, in 1220. Dante praises him, and is thought even to have been influenced by him in a similar strain. Here are two stanzas of this beautiWill any bird of May sing sweeter? Public opinion, surely humane and religious principle every where, whether at home or abroad, should help on this good consummation; and such intervention we should hail with delight. The comity of nations has kept Europe from breaking our blockade, and from recognizing the rebellious States as an independent government. Why may it not go fur-ful poem. ther; and, soothing the pride and animosity that the foreign press has done so much to inflame, why may not the conservative statesmanship of Europe interpose judicious influence, and achieve, by moral and intellectual weapons, the adjustment which it has refused to force by arms? The moment that the great powers of Europe prove that they sincerely wish to have our troubles ended and the balance OF THE GENTLE HEART. "Within the gentle heart Love shelters him, As birds within the green shade of the grove; Before the gentle heart, in Nature's scheme, Love was not, nor the gentle heart ere Love. For with the sun, at once, So sprang the light immediately; nor was Its birth before the sun's. And Love hath his effect in gentleness Of very self; even as The fire of love comes to the gentle heart From out its essence that which there was vile, And so the heart created by God's breath Pure, true, and clean from guile, A woman, like a star, enamoreth." tions and races, should have furnished the arena for the final triumph of Ericsson. THE Anglo-Saxon blood is so little dramatic, when compared with the Celtic and Southern, that we are naturally inclined to smile at the "thirty centuries look down upon you from the pyramids," and the elaborate peaked hats and essential ribbons with which the Italians work out the salvation of their liberty and nationality. It was therefore a bold experiment for our Secretary of War, after the battle of Mill Spring, to issue a bulletin of congratulation couched in ringing rhetoric. But it was the experiment of genius, and was success was the conviction of sincerity. Napoleon, whose bulletins and addresses are the favorite and popular models, was always too high-flown for foreign ears, and his shrewdest soldiers must have perceived the buncombe of his fine talk. Probably Napoleon never impressed any body as a truthful or disinterested person. But despite the sharp criticisms THE great event of the month since we were talk-consequently successful. Doubtless the secret of its ing together is the conflict of the Merrimac and Monitor. The wooden walls of England were annihilated without being touched, and by a blow three thousand miles away. For while England has been for two or three years wonderingly building the Black Warrior, and emulous France la Gloire, and spending thousands and even millions of dollars upon them, the Yankees have built a floating bat-upon our war from many quarters, history will record tery of iron within a hundred days at a cost of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which arrives just at the proper moment to engage another ponderous iron battery, which it drives back to its harbor: so that the battle of Hampton Roads, on the 8th and 9th of March, marks an era more distinctly than any naval action of the century. that, upon the whole, it was waged with vigor and the utmost fidelity. Therefore when the Secretary of War sent out his ringing words, they were heard as they were spoken. General M'Clellan's address to the army of the Potomac was admirable for its spirit, as his order of the day upon the death of General Lander was one The Merrimac may come out again, may fall upon of the most touching and eloquent pieces of our milithe Monitor and destroy her, but the great fact, es-tary literature. The only feeling of a doubtful chartablished by our experiment, is that metal-clad vessels are irresistible by wood and cannon; for the cannon are harmless against their metal scales, and their terrible prows can sink the wooden ships even while they blaze with broadsides. The result is, that, for purposes of home defense, we are now equal with England. A fleet of batteries like the Monitor would sheath our whole Atlantic coast in metal, and make it truly iron-bound. The whole navy of Great Britain could be annihilated. Three months ago the prospect of war with England was gloomy enough from the fear of her ships. All terror of war from that cause has vanished. We She has supposed, and we have proved, that metallic batteries are practically invincible against wood. can now start fair. Indeed the natural consequence of the battle of Hampton Roads would seem to be the absolute impregnability of every maritime state upon its water front. For it is doubtful if effective batteries of the new kind could cross the ocean; and it is certain that if they could, they would not withstand similar devices along the enemy's shore. And so, in a way entirely undreamed of by him, Jefferson's famous gun-boat system may prove to be our stanchest shield and buckler. The Monitor was only a gunboat, and upon any leviathan of iron that a foreign foe might safely steer over the sea, a swarm of Monitors would descend. It is the great change in the methods of war developed by our struggle. Nor shall it be forgotten, that, although this triumph has been achieved in a Yankee war, it is to a Swede that the honor of success belongs. John Ericsson, one of the most distinguished engineers and inventors of the time, is the projector and the builder of the Monitor. He was born in Sweden in 1803, and his whole life has been devoted to the most incessant and successful scientific toil. It is proper that America, whose very genius is (or will soon be as it was meant to be) hospitality to all naVOL. XXIV.-No. 144.-3 H acter which the address suggested was that its tone toward the soldiers, the " Mes enfans" strain, seems hyperbolical in an American general to his volunteer army. And this is not a matter to be insisted upon. It is merely the point that might have been seized by critics resolved to carp; while to represent the address as an apology is curiously unfair. But in nothing more than in the criticism upon M'Clellan has party-spirit unhandsomely shown itself, if we except the similar treatment of Frémont. Long before these lines are read M'Clellan will have made or unmade his reputation. As they are written he is still facing the enemy at Manassas. The air is thick with conflicting rumors. Yet the papers which reproduce them are full of contradictions of similar stories, of corrections, and of apologies. man has a right to say that he knows enough to insist that M'Clellan has, up to the close of March, proved himself either an incompetent General or a traitor-for that is the charge. No So fierce and furious is party-spirit, even when the nation itself is threatened. Don't think the Easy Chair is so stupid as to suppose that patriotism consists in unswerving and indiscriminate support and praise of every thing that Government does. For the last thirty years patriotism has shown itself by vigorous denunciation of what Government has done. But it is the method of criticism and opposition which indicates the real spirit. In trying times, when you are persuaded that, upon the whole, honest efforts are making by the leaders, and when you know that a united public sentiment is inestimable, you will certainly refrain from any attack which is not substantiated by facts, and you will not hesitate to make those facts public. If a man intrusted with most important cares is known by you to be a drunkard, you are an enemy of the State if you do not expose him, and insist upon his removal. But if that man is your political enemy, and you only hear the rumor of his drunkenness, and not able to charge it plainly, you insinuate and insinuate, sapping a faith which you do not know to be unjustified, you are not less the State's enemy. In the hour of peril, every citizen has the right to expect fair play from every other. But neither M'Clellan nor Frémont have had it from their opponents during this war. Of course an Easy Chair commenting upon events a month after they have happened, does not enter into the detail of the dispute; he merely observes the spirit in which it was conducted-and it was a bad spirit. It was that sneering incredulity of partyspirit which taints every thing it touches. Perhaps already M'Clellan is victorious. Do you know what his opponents will say? They will say, "Of course he succeeds, because this is just the thing we have always said he was fit for." Perhaps he is defeated. Do you know what they will say? "Of course: we always knew it." instance, in our history of a twelvemonth it is perfectly clear that the people had resolved upon the suppression of the rebellion by arms-what further they were agreed upon no man can truly say. When an editor or orator says, "The people of this country wish this or that to be done," the value of his words is to be found in his sagacity. But we are to remember that very few writers or speakers are in haste to announce that the people wish any thing which they themselves individually do not. And the chance is that they say the people wish it because the speakers think that they ought to. If we could, therefore, believe speakers and writers to be both sagacious and sincere, their words of this kind would have great weight. But unluckily we are compelled to believe that the phrase "the people wish it" is only a rhetorical phrase. At least there is scarcely a despot in the world who does not despotize in the name of what he calls his faithful subjects. He wears his crown by the grace of God, he says; but he assumes the loyalty of his people, and he fights against them, often enough, under the plea of protecting them. This Easy Chair is not the champion of M'Clellan, but of fair play. The General himself would not accept the Philadelphia sword without saying, so that the whole country might hear, "I hope to deserve it." But perhaps the best sign is that he can hold his tongue. Let the act speak, that is the motto of a brave man. If he can not carve his laurels with his sword he will wear none. If he can not impress himself upon the nation by his deeds, none of the ludicrously extravagant praises that have incensed him in advance will make a mark for him there. Yet the attack begets the counter attack. A steady praise is too much. What if Aristides is just, we are sick of hearing it. And the anti-revolution developed, Lafayette was broken by it; Aristideans take the field, and the honest citizen but Mirabeau would have moulded it. is banished. Patience! patience! Tell your facts, if you know them, and tell them steadily and fairly. Then your withers are unwrung whatever befalls. Assume a theory, and persistently stick to it, and you are wrong, whatever happens. DURING the last few months we have all constantly read that "the people" demanded this and that. The people demanded an advance. The people demanded that we should wait. The people demanded the removal of this man. The people were united in supporting him. The people were persuaded that a total change was necessary. The people were resolved that those who clamored for a change should be suppressed. The people wished this and that. The people didn't. The people would do this and that. The people wouldn't. It is merely a figure of speech, you see. It is an ingenious method of emphasis adopted by all of us who write for the daily, or weekly, or monthly press. Before us it was the device of others to strengthen their own views. John Wilkes used to speak for "the people" in London eighty years ago. Robespierre, Danton, Mirabeau-all the leaders-used to declare in the old French Assembly and Convention that the people of France wished this thing or that to be done. So the Communes of Paris used to surge into the Chamber, and loftily insist that "le peuple" would have its way. They all meant the mob of Paris. That was the people of France in the Revolution; and the mob of Paris was the tool of a few men. What the people want can not be stated, for they do not know themselves. That is to say, they are never agreed upon the method. They want Justice and Liberty; but how they are to be secured is precisely the point upon which they differ, and upon which a few assume to speak in their name. For On the other hand, we can see that neither Robespierre nor Danton spoke for the people of France. They were the red mouths of the city faction only. Mirabeau was the orator, the true tribune, of the people so long as he lived. And so was Lafayette their representative for some time. it was the accident of agreement. it was an instinctive perception. But, in his case, With Mirabeau Therefore, as the It is impossible to determine that the people wish any thing merely because some body says so. We know what we want them to wish-how many of us know what they do wish? It is the very secret of the highest statesmanship in this country to know that, and then to do it. How, for instance, we were mistaken all round in our rebellion. The Southern wise men thought that the North would rise for them. The Northern sagamores thought the South would not rise at all. Each was disappointed. The South did rise, and nobody at the North, but a few feeble, maundering party sots wanted their rebellion to destroy the nation. The people were right, but the doctors all thought them wrong. Two or three months ago we were chatting of the different pictures that different historians paint of the same scenes: so that a student is often startled and perplexed by discovering that he has to decide what is true from the conflicting evidence of what purport to be true records; and that, after all, historians are very much like counsel in court, and you are listening to an argument when you thought that it was a description. Who, for instance, but must distrust Gibbon whenever he speaks of Christianity? Who can confide in Hume when he talks of the Puritans? Who does not feel that Macaulay praises Somers more easily than he acknowledges the claims of Tory leaders? Or who, coursing the placid page of Prescott in his Mexican History, can help asking himself whether the Spaniards, upon whom he relies, were fair historians of a land and a race they had conquered and oppressed? Is it the Romish or the Protestant historians who tell the truth about Henry Eighth and Queen Mary? But there are historical points the truth of which we are in a position to determine, which are almost universally misrepresented and misunderstood. One of these misrepresentations is just now very current | he a real person ?" We all thought we knew somein this country. The story of the Saint Domingo thing about it, but nobody could answer satisfactoinsurrection is constantly told, and told untruly. It rily. Was his book a burlesque? Wasn't it a buris one of the unfortunate chapters of history which lesque of Baron Trenck's memoirs ? It was astoncan be used as a tremendous argument, if the facts ishing how much ignorance a very few questions are falsified; so that no one ought to feel that he revealed. knows the history correctly, unless he has especially studied it. Another point of the same kind is the tale of West India emancipation. The superficial common impression is, ludicrously enough, that it was a "failure;" that is to say, that Jamaica exports less sugar than she did fifty years ago. there is not a man who has candidly investigated the subject who does not know that all the English West India Islands are really more materially prosperous than they were fifty years ago, although some parts of some islands have fallen back to the bush; and that the difficulties have always been upon the side of the employers, and not of the laborers. As for the theory that the slaves naturally prefer starving to working, the reply is, that it is very clearly their own affair. Because, granting that any body has a right to compel a man to work that he may live, it will be very hard to show that he may be compelled to earn more than is necessary for his existence. Of course you are much wiser. You know all about it. You have known little else, in fact. This section of his chat, therefore, the Easy Chair does not devote to you, but to those who are still asking who was Munchausen?-who wrote his memoirs? But--and what do they mean? But our special interest just now is with the Saint Domingo error. The usual understanding is that the slaves of that island rose against their masters, and, under the lead of Touissaint L'Ouverture, committed nameless horrors until the island was virtually depopulated and the earth shook with horror. A white refugee from Saint Domingo figures as an interesting hero of romance and pensive interest in our conversation even to this day. I remember walking with a gentleman about his grounds covered with noble trees, and when he said that the place was laid out by a Saint Domingo refugee, I was conscious of the vague interest that traditionally clings to the name, and of which we are unconscious until it is evoked. Think of the source of that pensive interest. Quamdiu, Domine! There were horrors in Saint Domingo: who was responsible for them? It is a question that all of us will have to answer a great many times in the next ten years; and it is one with whose correct answer we ought to be familiar. Here, then, is the full title of the captivating book: "The surprising Travels and Adventures of Baron Munchausen, in Russia, the Caspian Sea, Iceland, Turkey, Egypt, Gibraltar, up the Mediterranean, on the Atlantic Ocean, and through the Centre of Mount Etna into the South Sea. Also an account of a Voyage into the Moon and Dog Star, with many extraordinary particulars relative to the cooking animals in those planets, which are there called the Human Species. To which is added a Sequel containing his expedition into Africa; his being buried in a whirlwind of sand; feasts on live bulls; builds a bridge from thence to Great Britain, supported by a single arch; visits the islands in the South Sea, etc., etc.; and raises the hull of the Royal George, etc., etc. Humbly dedicated to Mr. Bruse, the African traveler, etc." It is an English edition, of course, and the dedication is a rapier-thrust of satire. But the Baron is a historical personage. Jerome Charles Friedrich von Munchausen was his name-a German, born in Hanover. He was a soldier, and an ardent lover of horses and dogs; and having served in 1737-'39 against the Turks, was never weary of telling stories of his campaigns-so marvelous and incredible that he was famous as the greatest liar in Germany. He made the acquaintance of the poet Burger, who, according to some accounts, was the first to compile and extend and adorn and publish them. Other traditions assert that Rudolph Eric Raspe, a German literary refugee in England, first published them in London in English in 1785. "The first edition," gravely says the preface of the edition whose title has been quoted, "contained no more than was written by Baron Munchausen, and includes chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, only; all the other chapters are the production of another pen, written in the Baron's manner. Some of the hints and a few of the facts are taken from Lucian's 'True History,' as he ironically calls it, particularly a short account of such things as were discovered in the The real authorities upon the subject are not Bryan Edwards and the English planters, but, rather, indifferent French eye-witnesses, who report what they saw. Dallas, who wrote the "History of the Maroons," was a West Indian by birth, and Bryan Edwards lived there for many years. Of his history, which is one of the "no-gentleman's-library-moon." without" kind, the cool M'Culloch says that it shows "a disposition to extenuate the cruelties that were too often inflicted upon the slaves." Victor Soelcher, and Ardouin, with the French memoirs of the time and place, are the proper sources of informa tion. In our country the question involved in the matter is shifting from a question of slavery to that of the colored race; and no man who wishes to think and act as every honest man should, that is to say, with intelligence, upon the subject, will allow himself to be swept away by any generalizations of men whose immediate interest prompts them to cherish prejudice. How much ignorance a very simple question often reveals! The other evening some one suddenly asked, "Who wrote 'Baron Munchausen ?" "Was Burger says that the English saw the fun of the book much sooner than the Germans; but the first English edition was rather "hard to move," as publishers say, because of its brevity. The public always wants enough of a book for a large bite. The adventures of Munchausen have served to confound the slander conveyed in the expression, "travelers' tales," and to bring those gentry to a strict and simple veracity. It was before the artless and truthful stories of the German soldier that Shakespeare wrote, "For travelers tell no idle tales And it was since his day that the great fraternity COLERIDGE wrote a piteous sonnet to an ass's foal, its mother being tethered near it; but the touch ing heroism of Hats has been hitherto uncelebrated. occult sympathy is there between limpness of hats Donkeys have the advantage of life, and heels, and and looseness of principles? Are these slouched hatteeth. Donkeys, if they are abused beyond meas-ters conspiring for the return of full hose and slashed ure, may kick-may bite-may balk-may run doublets? Are we to be plunged backward into the away, and capsize your apple-cart. But the hat Roman toga? Hold, hold, your hats! Let us pause, has no resource but silent martyrdom. Patient en- while there is yet time, and be content with the durance, thy name is Hat! nineteenth century, happiness, and hats. For consider how for the last dozen years this crowning glory of modern attire male, has been assaulted and insulted. Stiff, ugly, absurd; tile, stovepipe, beaver: no name has been spared, no obloquy unheaped upon it. The painters made a dash at it. They came home every year from Italy with a dreadful something upon their heads, which they told us was picturesque and Salvator Rosy. Poor fellow! Then the patriots took a turn. Kossuth arrived. He had a marvelous hat. It was not the Italian slouch, nor the French slouch, but the Hungarian slouch, slightly stiffened. Kossuth was eloquent. We could not all be eloquent, but we could all wear bad hats. When the epitaph of the weird orator shall be written far be the day!-it shall be engraved in marble-"He gave to Hungary Liberty, and to America the slouched hat." Meanwhile John Bull, the incessant traveler, who has the worst temper and wears the worst clothes of all civilized people, put on the wide-awake, which was, of course, the most inconceivably bad of all bad hats. But only upon his travels. Smug must Bull be as he glooms on 'Change, as he sulks to church. His coat of arms bears one universal legend-"Respectable, if I die for it." He knows the charmed secret. A gentleman, says Bull's sartorial doctors, is known by his extremities: his gloves, his boots, his hat. Respectability, thy name is Hat! THE general aspect of life in the city is not much affected by the war; but there is a natural curiosity to see how it touches amusements, as the Easy Chair discovered when it found itself the other evening rolling slowly toward the Opera. What a splendid house it is! How festal the tier on tier of white and gold gallery; the heavy, grotesque columns; the vast space; the airy openness; the fluted yellow silk of the proscenium boxes, and the ample light over all! There is no theatre more spacious, and impressive, and brilliant in the world. The Scala at Milan, the San Carlo at Naples, the Paris "French Opera," the Berlin Royal Opera-house, the pretty Munich theatre, the graceful one at Dresden-they are all inferior to this, although what St. Petersburgh may have is unknown to this Chair. The Opera itself is always a lottery in New York. Since Grisi and Mario did not surely and always fill the house it is in vain that the city talks of taste, and knowledge, and enjoyment of music. It has its metropolitan degree yet to take. For if it had known itself better it would not have built so huge a house; and if it insisted upon the Opera from knowledge, and not from fashion and imitation of other capitals, it would have recognized the great singers when they came. What wonderful singing was that of Grisi, in her resolute moments, upon this very stage! When she saw the impassive audience and determined to conquer, by the force of superb disdain, she recovered her old splendor and swept the stage and thrilled the house with great bursts of lyric passion. They had slight response, and she drooped again, and every body said "What a pity such an old woman does not sink into private life!" Then the reformers donned the invader. The stiffer the morals the slouchier the hat. Yet for respectability and conservatism this is also to be said that the ancient Jews, who haunt the flea-swarming shores of Gennesaret awaiting the restoration of the chosen race, and who have no other possession, proudly wear the hat in the midst of infidel turbans. And the old clo' dealer who calls down your area, Well, she did persist too long. Her voice in New or the Hebrew who tempts you with doubtful jew-York was not what it had been in Paris twenty years els, both share the dignity of the hat. Nay, the Commons of England sit in their hats-a most extraordinary custom of that amusing people. before. But the grandeur of her style was still the same; yes, it was finer. And Mario was in his prime when he was here. One evening, when he sang in "Lucia," the last scene was the most marvelously sung of any in the annals of the Academy stage. It is hard to believe that Rubini could have surpassed Buy a new hat, and be not dismayed. The angry and defiant waves of various slouch dash around it. Mark how it endures. Mark how calmly it stands, like Pharos amidst the hissing Mediterranean bil-it. lows. Reflect how quietly it has held its meek and constant way through all the fluctuating contemporary fashions. The slouch impudently claims novelty. Unparalleled audacity! Avaunt, temerity! What are you but the old Spanish head-gear-"that ingenious compound of the hat and umbrella," as Leigh Hunt wisely says? What are you but Fra Diavolo's covering-but Charles the Second's, which gradually stiffened and angled into the cocked hat of our fathers, whence sprung, in the fullness of time, the symmetrical stove-pipe, the heaven-aspiring tile, the Hat? The hat is progress, liberality, and civilization. The slouch is retroaction, barbarism, and chaos come again. Do the people who present themselves to public view in such things really mean what their hats say? Do they seriously wish the Pope and wooden shoes, the Pretender and the Inquisition? Let them remember that the lower, and limberer, and plumier the hats of the Cavaliers became, the higher and stiffer rose those of the Puritans. What Thus it is part of the fascination of a theatre as of a ball-room that the associations are so vivid. The ghosts and the living mingle in almost equal distinctness. Perhaps it is the scenic, half-spectral, unreal appearance of the persons upon the stage that summons the wholly spectral figures of the departed. But when I sit and hear an opera, I hear at the same time all the other operas I ever heard. It was "Martha" the other evening, and Anschutz directed, and Susini was Plunkett. But as I sat it was thirteen years before, and the opera was "Martha," and it was the Opera-house at Berlin, and it was Flotow the composer who directed, and it was Botticher who was Plunkett; then it was Formes who was Plunkett, and the whole thing seemed shadowy and languid, and the singers to be indifferent, and they and the audience to be lost in a musing trance of memory. It was not so, of course. For with Miss Kellogg, the Prima Donna, it was a very serious task of the present time. She was making her impression, and |