in

years, leaves the bed and board of her husband, in consequence of long-continued ill treatment, and by her next friend' sues for alimony. Her husband, it appears in evidence, is an 'unclean beast' personally; moreover, he throws his tea-cup at her at the table; will not permit her to have a fire in the room in which she is ill, though it is in the depth of winter, but opens doors and windows to freeze her out; orders all the beds taken down, that she may not sleep; goes himself about the house at times in puris naturalibus; threatens to throw his wife into the well; when she is seated on a chair, pushes her out of it, and when she takes another, pushes her out of that also, and so forth. Now reader, it would amuse you to look over the Points on the part of the Apellant' in this case. By his next friend,' the attorney, he complains that vicechancellors are exceeding their credentials in assuming to be 'Chesterfieldian censors of the lesser morals.' He admits indeed that the husband was uncourteous, in rudely throwing his tea-cup instead of handing it respectfully to the lady-in-waiting,' meaning the wife aforesaid; that he was guilty of impoliteness, in capriciously commanding a change of chairs;' that he certainly did use 'an inconsiderate expression concerning the well;'.but that in driving his wife out of her sick room, by opening all the doors and windows on a cold winter-day, he was only enforcing wholesome exercise as a substitute for prejudicial inaction!' All these examples, let us add, are of the lesser abuses and grievances which the unhappy woman suffered, year after year; yet the 'deeds without a name' are softened or defended with equal plausibility and ingenuity. The counsel for the appellant objects to the interference of the law-officers with such matters. 'Courts of chancery,' says he, with true Johnsonian grandiloquence, 'cannot, like ecclesiastical tribunals or inquisitions, regulate, by means of auricular confession and domiciliary visitation, connubial rights and duties! The chancellor's doctrine would perpetuate wordy wars and family feuds, and impart to conjugal caterwauling more than feline vitality!' But hold; we are 'interfering between man and wife,' an injudicious act, as 't is said. 'D. G.'s' Height of Impudence' (it is not new ') reminds us of an incident which occurred in the hearing of a friend at one of our cheap metropolitan eating-houses last winter. A tall, raw boned Hibernian called for a dish of pork-and-beans. Let it be 'most all pork, and plenty of beans,' said he; and a liberal supply was placed smoking before him. Before he had gorged his fill, he called for more bread; it was given him, and soon disappeared, with the remainder of his dish. He then called for another slice, and was piling the butter in pyramids upon small pieces of the same, when the waiter, who had been eyeing him closely, and who thought the repast rather too much for a shilling,' addressed him with: Mister, that butter cost two shillings and sixpence a pound.' The huge feeder said nothing, but proceeded to pile about a quarter of a pound of it on a small crust of bread, placed it in his mouth, rolled it for a time as a sweet morsel under his tongue,' and then remarked: 'Well, I should say 't was well wor-r-th it!' His main anxiety appeared to be, to convince the waiter that his principal had not been taken in by the vender.. We promised that our readers should renew their acquaintance with 'Hugh Trevor;' accordingly we condense a scene or two from that remarkable work. Going down St. James'-street, London, one evening, with a person who has treated him with much civility, our hero is run violently against by an accomplice of his companion, knocked down, and robbed of all his money. His civil' friend leaves him in the lurch, and he seeks his lodgings, there being no remedy for his loss. To divert his mind, he repairs to the theatre, and takes his stand among the crowd which surround the entrance. He observes that the people about him seem watchful of each other; and presently the cry of Take care of your pockets!' renews his fears; and putting his hand to his fob, he misses his watch! Looking eagerly around, he fixes his eyes upon his quondam friend, who had aided in robbing him:

...

Tas blood mantled in my face You have stolen my watch,' said I. He could not immediately escape, and made no reply, but turned pale, looked at me as if entreating silence and commiseration, and put a watch into my hand. I felt a momentary compassion, and he presently made his retreat. His retiring did but increase the press of the crowd, so that it was impossible for me so much as to lift up my arm: I therefore continued, as the safest way, to hold the watch in my hand. Soon afterward the door opened, and I hur. ried it into my waistcoat pocket: for I was obliged to make the best use of all my limbs, that I might not be thrown down and trodden under foot. At length, after very uncommon struggles, I made my way to the money door, paid, and entered the pit. After taking breath and gazing around me, I sat down and inquired of my neighbors how soon the play would begin? I was told in an hour. This new delay occasioned me to put my hand in my pocket and take out my watch, which as I supposed had been returned by the thief. But, good Heavens whit was my surprise when, in lieu of my own plain watch. in a green chagrin-case, the one I was now possessed of was set round with diamonds! And, instead of ordinary steel and brass, its appendages were a weighty gold chain and seals! My astonishment was great beyond expression! I opened it to examine the work, and found it was capped. I pressed upon the nut and it immediately struck the hour. It was a repeater!'

It will not greatly puzzle the reader, we may presume, to conjecture what this adroit movement on the part of the pick-pocket ultimately led to; nor will he fail to recognize in the following limning a portrait of more than one character of these times. Mr. GLIBLY is entertaining Mr. TREVOR with a running commentary upon some of the prominent personages who enter the theatre: 'THERE,' said he pointing, is a Mr. MIGRATE; a famous clerical character, and as strange an original as any VOL. XXII 50

this metropolis affords. He is not entitled to make a figure in the world either by his riches, rank, or understanding: but with an effrontery peculiar to Limself he will knock at any man's door, though a perfect stranger, ask him questions, give him advice, and tell him he will call again to give him more on the first opportunity. By this means he is acquainted with every body, but knows nobody; is always talking, yet never says any thing; is perpetually putting some absurd interrogation, but before it is possible he should understand the answer, puts another. His desire to be informed torments himself and every man of his acquaintance, which is almost every man he meets; yet, though he lives inquiring, he will die consummately ignorant. His brain is a kind of rag shop, receiving and returning nothing but rubbish. It is as difficult to affront as to get rid of him; and though you fairly bid hum begone to day, he will knock at your door, march into your house, and if possible keep you answering his unconnected, fifty times answered queries to-morrow. He is the friend and the enemy of all theories and of all parties; and tortures you to decide for him which he ought to choose. As far as he can be said to have opinions, they are crude and contradictory in the extreme; so that in the same breath he will defend and oppose the same system. With all this confusion of intellect, there is no man so wise but he will prescribe to him how he ought to act. He has been a wreat traveller, and continually abuses his own countrymen for not adopting the manners and policy of other nations. He pretends to be the universal friend of man, a philanthropist on the largest scale, yet is so selfish that he would willingly see the world perish, if he could but secure paradise to himself. This is the only consistent trait in his character. In the same sentence, he frequently joins the most fulsome nattery and some insidious question, that asks the person whom he addresses if he do not confess himself to be both knave and fool. Delicacy of sentiment is one of his pretensions, though his tongue is licentious, his language coarse, and he is occasionally seized with fits of the most vulgar abuse. He declaims against dissimulation, yet will smilingly accost the man whom - Ha! MIGRATE! How do you do? Give me leave to introduce you to Mr. TREVOR, a friend of mine, a gentleman and a scholar; just come from Oxford. Your ranke of knowledge and universal intimacy with men and things, may be useful to him; and his erudite acquisitioES, and philosophical research, will be highly gratifying to an inquirer like you. An intercourse between you must be mutually pleasing and beneficial, and I am happy to bring you acquainted This, addressed to the man whom he had been satirizing so unsparingly, was inconceivable! The unabashed facility with which he veered from calumny to compliment, and that too after he had accused the man whom he accosted nf dissimulation, struck me dumb. I had perhaps seen something like it before, but nothing half so perfect in its kind. It doubly increased my stock of knowledge; it afforded a new instance of what the world is. and a new incitement to ask how it became so ?'

A

A single passage more, which will have especial interest for the correspondent to whom we are indebted for the capital sketch of 'Love-Making in Boarding-Houses,' must close our excerpts. maiden of an uncertain age is making a 'dead set at our hero:

Sax was sure I must find myself a great favorite; I was a favorite with every body; and, for her part, she did not wonder at it. 'Not but it is a great pity, added she, aside, that you are such a rake, Mr TRSTOR ' This repeated charge very justly alarmed my morality, and I very seriously began a refutation. But in vaD I might say what I would; she could see very plainly i was a prodigious rake, and nothing could convince her to the contrary. Though she had heard that your greatest rakes make the best busbands Perhaps it might be true, but she did not think she could be persuaded to make the venture. She did Lot know what might happen, to be sure; though she really did not think she could. She could not conceive how it was, but some how or another she always found something agreeable about rakes. It was a great pity they should be rakes, but she verily believed the women loved them, and encouraged them in their seducing arts. her part, she would keep her fingers out of the fire as long as she could: but, if it were her destiny to love a rake. what could she do? Nobody could help being in love, and it would be very hard indeed to call what one cannot help, a crime.'

For

WE must commend the cogent arguments in favor of national theft, contained in the article on 'International Copy-right' în preceding pages, to the attention of the reader. It strikes us as one of the most tenable positions yet taken by the opponents of an exceedingly impolitic' literary measure. By the by; a new 'American Copy-right Club' has been recently established, with WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT and GULIAN C. VERPLANCK, Esquires, for its president and vicepresident; and for its secretaries and executive committee, several of the most prominent advocates of the proposed law to be found in our midst; including, we are glad to perceive, Mr. PUFFER HOPKINS MATHEWS, who has labored more abundantly than they all in the good cause, but with little success hitherto, we regret to be obliged to add. His metropolitan lecture last winter could scarcely have realized his own expectations; though it was not difficult to meet those of the public. A friend of ours who repaired early to the Tabernacle, with a ticket bearing a number above twelve hundred, found not three-score auditors in that capacious edifice. It is equally certain, that the following unkindest cut of all' at Mr. MATHEWS's international copy-right essays, which reaches us in the last number of the 'Dublin University Magazine,' embodies the opinion generally entertained of those efforts on this side the Atlantic: While on the subject of America, we would wish to add a line of a certain CORNELIUS MATHEWS, who writes pamphlets and delivers lectures in New-York, on the subject of an international copy-right law. Such is the complex involution of his style; such the headlong impetuosity with which tropes, figures, and metaphors run down, jostle, and overturn each other, that we have puzzled ourselves in vain to detect his meaning or the gist of his argument. Giants, elephants, 'tiger-mothers,' and curricles; angels, frigates, baronial castles, and fish-ponds, dance through his writings in all the mazes of metaphorical confusion;' and however desirous we may feel that a law of copy-right might protect British authors from American piracy, yet as one of the craft we boldly say: 'Non defensoribus istis! non tali auxilio! Let the question be put forward manfully and intelligibly; let it not be a piece of Indian jugglery, performed by CORNELIUS MATHEWS, but the plain and simple acknowledgement that literary property is property, and as such has its rights, sacred and inviolabl »? We have quoted this passage for the purpose of showing that our own opinion of Mr. MATHEWS'S rambling thoughts and disjointed style finds abundant confirmation wherever his 'writings are

forced into temporary notice. . . . 'SERVED you right!' Carelessness like your's deserved just such a result. You'll not be guilty of a similar act of folly very soon, ''t an't likely: '

'THE blank-verse halts for it' in the lines entitled 'Mournful Memories.' Beside, the tendency of the sentiment is not, we think, a useful one. Were all the dangers or ills of life to present themselves to the imagination in a body, drawn up in battle array, the prospect would indeed be dreadful; but coming individually, they are far less formidable, and successively as they occur are conquered. Foreboded, their aspect is terrific; but seen in retrospect, they frequently excite present satisfaction and future fortitude. It is with human life as with the phases of nature, whose regular course is calm and orderly; tempests and troubles being but lapses from the accustomed sobriety with which Providence works out the destined end of all things.'... MUCH is said of the 'freedom' or 'licentiousness' of our public press; but we are far behind the press of London in this regard. Look for example at the comments in some of the London journals upon the recent marriage of the Hereditary Duke of Mecklenburg, a' royal pensioner,' with the Princess AUGUSTA of Cambridge. The produce of his dukedom is described by the Charivari' as consisting of nothing in particular; its revenue purely nominal.' The wedding is turned into the broadest ridicule. The Duke had an audience of himself in the morning in the glass of his dressing-case; his 'master of the wardrobe, who was also comptroller of the leather portmanteau and groom of the hat-box,' being the only person in attendance. He wore the white seam of the German order of princes, and was looking remarkably well-as all the annuitants of England contrive generally to look.' The ceremony was performed in the usual style of royalty. And when the prelate who performed the office came to the words ' With all my worldly goods I thee endow,' the Duke of Cambridge, who always thinks out loud, kept up a running accompaniment: 'Well, that's capital! worldly goods, indeed! I should like to see some of 'em!' and other pleasant observations; all which were taken to be a gush of fervent ejaculations from the father of the bride, invoking the happiness of the newly-married couple. The happy pair set out for Kew, to which place the Duke's Lord of the Luggage had already conveyed his carpet-bag! The trousseau of the Princess had been laid out at Cambridge House for the inspection of the bride's friends; but the illustrious bridegroom, with more modesty, laid out his trousseau on the bed in his private apartment, previous to packing.' Various articles are enumerated; among the rest, 'a splendid uniform for state occasions, consisting of the superb coat of an officer of the Blues, with Grenadier trowsers and a Lifeguards-man's helmet;' 'twelve false collars; nine pairs of cotton socks; two stocks, with long ends,' etc., etc. Such an invasion of aristocratic privacy may be termed licentiousness of the press' with as much truth, we conceive, as any of the gossipry of the American newspapers. IN looking lately over the 'Souvenirs Historiques' of NAPOLEON and MARIA LOUISA, by the Baron MENEVAL, his ancient secretary,' we were forcibly impressed with a passage which depicts the love of the Great Captain for his infant son. The child was brought every morning to his apartment:

...

'YES that cabinet, which saw the origin of so many mighty plans, so many vast and generous schemes of administration, was also witness to the effusions of a father's tenderness. How often have I seen the emperor keeping his son by him, as if he were impatient to teach him the art of governing: Whether, seated by the chimney on his favorite sofa, he was engaged in reading an important document, or whether he went to his bureau to sign a despatch, every word of which required to be weighed, his son, seated on his knees, or pressed to his breast, was never a moment away from him Sometimes, throwing aside the thoughts which Occupied his mind, he would lie down on the floor beside his beloved boy, playing with him like another child, attentive to every thing that could please or amuse him. The emperor had a sort of apparatus for trying military manoeuvres; it consisted of pieces of wood fashioned to represent battalions, regiments, and divisions. When he wanted to try some new combinations of troops, or some new evolution, he used to arrange these pieces on the carpet. While he was seriously occupied with the disposition of these pieces, working out some skilful manoeuvre which might ensure the success of a battle, the child, lying at his side. would often overthrow his troops, and put into confusion his order of battle, perhaps at the most critical moment. But the emperor would recommence arranging his men with the utmost good humor."

How different the scene with these mimic troops, from that presented by his human legions! No long columns of smoke streamed up from their line of march, indicating burning villages and fields trampled in the dust; no explosions of artillery; no thundering of cavalry; no steel clanging with steel in the desperate conflict of life for life; no smoke, nor darkness, nor infernal din; no groans of the dying; no piercing shouts, revealing the last fierce efforts of human nature, wrought up to the infuriated recklessness of revenge and despair. None of these! Not greater was the difference between that infant and his sire! Yet it is a pleasant feature in the character of NAPOLEON, his love of children. 'He entered,' says Miss BALCOMBE, who knew him so intimately at St. Helena, 'into all the feelings of young people, and when with them was a mere child, and a most amusing one. I think his love of children, and the delight he felt in their society; and that too at the most calamitous period of his life, when a cold and unattachable nature would have been abandoned to the indulgence of selfish misery; in itself speaks volumes for his goodness of heart.'... AH! yes; we understand your insinuation, dear Sir, and possibly may wish that we had let you alone.' And yet, here is your letter before us, requesting an opinion of the merits of your piece, in the entertaining gossip of the Editor's Table!' How does that read? Our correspondent, if his ability were equal to his inclination, would doubtless make us feel the truth of this scrap of advice from one who was a judge of human nature: Let no man despise the opinion of blockheads. In every society they form the majority, and are generally the most powerful and influential. Laugh not at their laborious disquisitions on the weather, and their wonderful discoveries of things which every one knows. If you offend a fool, you turn the whole muddy port of his composition into rancid vinegar, and not all the efforts you can make will abate its sourness." One word here to correspondents generally. We have no pleasure in rejecting a communication, privately or publicly. Often have we sat, with a 'dubious' paper in hand, hesitating for an hour whether to 'print or burn;' thinking of the fervent wishes of the writer, and the labor that he had bestowed upon his production. Every part, every period, had perhaps been considered and re-considered, with unremitting anxiety. He had revised, corrected, expunged, again produced and again erased, with endless iteration. Points and commas themselves perhaps had been settled with repeated and jealous solicitude. All this may be, and yet one's article be indifferent, or unsuited to our pages. Give us credit for candor, gentlemen, as well as for plain-speaking. ... HERE are two clever epigrams; the first from a contributor to whom the reader has heretofore been indebted for several caustic tersities in its kind; the second from a friend who does not confess the cape' of authorship:

Way is a belle, attired for public gaze,

Like to a ship? She' goes about in stays.'

We can enlighten the ignorance of our Port-Chester friend. Ladies in this meridian eschew 'stays,' as he calls them. They are passée, out of date, things that were.' 'Hence we view the gr-e-ät necessity there is' written on a 'Yankee Belle.'

of

being au fait to the latest fashion. The ensuing purports to have been 'Guess not,' though; 'tis n't the way of Yankee belles:

'SHE's dressed so neatly for the ball,

In truth, she 's scarcely dressed at all;
A fact to Yankees quite distressing.

It leaves so little room for guessing!'

'Oh! go 'long, you p'ison critter, you! What d' you mean?'... WE should have published the lines entitled 'What is our Life?' but for some forty lines, the thoughts of which are 'conveyed' entire from CARLYLE. Looking down upon the wilderness of London, the thoughtful TEUFELSDRÖCKH exclaims: 'There in that old city was a live ember of culinary fire put down, say only two thousand years ago; and there, burning more or less triumphantly, with such fuel as the region yielded, it has burnt, and still burns, and thou thyself seest the very smoke thereof. Ah! and the far more mysterious live ember of Vital Fire was then also put down there, and still miraculously burns and spreads.' THE DRAMA is once more in the ascendant. The PARK THEATRE, Our 'Old Drury,' is a personification of The Deformed Transformed.' Externally, it has assumed the aspect of a fine granite temple, in the Doric style of architecture, with a noble statue of SHAKSPEARE lording it over the pile; while internally, from pit to ceiling; boxes, walls, proscenium, stage; every thing, in short, is new and beautiful. Mr. BARRY deserves the highest praise for the good taste, the liberality, and the untiring industry which he has brought to bear upon our favorite place of theatrical resort. The house opened with WALLACK; WALLACK, that 'love of a man,' who can never grow old, and who has lost no whit of his power to delight his auditors. He opened in his inimitable 'Rolla' and 'Dashall,' to a house crowded from proscenium to dome with the élite of the metropolis; and he has since gone through his round of characters, including that most touching of modern plays, 'The Rent-Day,' with undiminished popularity. Apropos of this

...

6

latter play a good story is told of its first production in London. The celebrated FARREN declined a part in it; remarking, that if the piece ran beyond a single night, he would eat an old hat for every time it was played. The play rose to immediate and almost unprecedented popularity. On arriving at the theatre one evening, Mr. FARREN was informed by the call-boy that Mr. WALLACK had left something on a side-table for him, covered with a large white sheet. 'Hum!' grunted FARREN,' what is it?' The boy lifted the covering; and behold, ranged in the most exact order, were thirty-six of the dirtiest, shabbiest, 'shocking bad hats' in London! FARREN started, and turned angrily to the lad. 'Please, Sir,' said the boy, Mr. WALLACK says as how you said, when you refused the part of Crumbs in The Rent-Day,' that if the piece ran beyond a single night, you would eat an old hat; so as it has now been played thirty-seven times, he thinks it right to give you something to eat, afore the meal becomes too large for your digestion!' FARREN said it was all right- and left.' WELL pleased are we to remark the opening of Messrs. COUDERT AND PORTER'S English and Classical Lyceum, at Number ninety-five Eighthstreet, near Tompkins's-Square. The principals have no superiors; their assistants are of their careful selection, and have their approval. On these points, therefore, ' enough said.' The situation is delightful, and the terms consistent with the times. Let these gentlemen be patronized. Ah! that is not the term; but we have no good synonyme for it. We have always detested the word; and especially since we encountered Dr. JOHNSON's comment upon it, in a letter to Lord CHESTERFIELD, Soon after finishing his immortal Dictionary: 'I entertain, Sir, a very strong prejudice against relying on patrons. Seven years, my Lord, have now passed since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing on my work, through difficulties of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it at last to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favor. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before.'... OUR friend who writes us from Florence (his excellent article is filed for our next) is quite right in his ideas of 'Letters of Introduction.' There is much and exaggerated abuse of this courtesy, emanating from this country. His own case, we can assure him, is by no means a solitary one. We like the frank reply given by a distinguished American to a young, conceited whipster, who sought, through the claims of his father's friendship, to obtain letters to persons of distinction abroad: 'I want,' said he, 'to get letters to SCOTT, to MOORE, to SOUTHEY, and to JEFFREY. Father would like to have me see them.' So should I,' replied the expected donor, but I don't wish them to see you. If that objection could be removed, perhaps your wish might be gratified.' It was stated at the time' that our young gentleman 'left the presence.' WE are struck with this remark of Count ROSTOPTCHIN, in his sententious memoirs, in preceding pages: 'I had an involuntary veneration for the sun, and his setting always made me sad.' How often, with kindred emotion, have we stood and gazed at sunset-clouds, with one who now sleeps in his early grave! Saying little, but thinking much, and feeling more; and as the day-god sank below the horizon, reflecting upon the period when all the living world that saw him then, should roll in unconscious dust around him. Oh! the mystery of nature! - the mystery of life! Quakers' is at hand and on hand, and will be for some time, we cal'late. sentiments of our Plymouth correspondent, any way 'at he can fix it.' however, which is worth pickling. Why are the Quakers always well-to-do in the world?' asks a Friend of one of the world's people.' 'They are chargeable to no man, and yet are always thrifty. Zactly!' was the rejoinder; and I'll tell you why. The Quakers are rich, that's sartain; and the way of it at first was this: When our SAVIOUR was took up onto the top of an exceeding high mounting, the OLD GENTLEMAN offered him all the riches of the world, if he'd fall down and worship him. 'T wouldn't do the SAVIOUR Said 'No;' but a Quaker who was standing by, took the OLD KNICK up: 'Friend BEELZEBUB,' says he, 'I'll take thy offer! He did so ; and there's been no scursity of money among your folks sence that time!' . . . 'HONORS are easy' with sundry of our correspondents. We perceive that, among others, the 'Mail-Robber' was elected a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Cambridge University, at the late 'commencement' of that institution. 'Served him right;' he deserved it. We have known things of him' that would have brought this visitation upon him before, had we chosen to mention them. 'Justice, though slow, always overtakes,' etc. The proverb is something musty. ... WE must be permitted to doubt whether 'bally-ragging,' as poor POWER used to term scolding, is the 'eftest way' for our New-Haven friend, to whose favor we recently alluded. Many men of many minds.' A spoonful of molasses will catch more flies than a quart of vinegar; and an inch of laugh is worth an ell of moan, in any state of the market.' 'The vices of the times, the vices of society, the vices of literature, require rigid scrutiny and fearless censors.' Very likely; thereforePay away at them!' say we; but excuse us from monopolizing our pages with gloom,

:

'The Puritans vs. The Could n't' approve the We segregate a joke,