THE DRAMA.

PARK THEATRE. The commencement of the past month was distinguished by the close of Mr. and Mrs. Wood's most brilliant engagement in this country. La Somnambula has been the favorite, as we predicted it would be; and the increased satisfaction with which it was nightly received, gave evidence of beauties in the music undiscovered before, as well as great improvement in those who executed it. We were happy to observe throughout the whole of this engagement, the just and highly discriminating conduct of the audiences. The wreath system was entirely abandoned, and most proper is it that it should be. Mrs. Wood has long ago been crowned 'Queen of Song' by a New-York audience the first to acknowledge her sovereignty in America and a repetition of the ceremony could certainly have added nothing to its stability, while it would have taken largely from its dignity. 'Queens are crowned but once.' The miserable spirit exhibited in Boston, by sundry Janus-faced editors, toward Mr. and Mrs. Wood, in heaping upon them every evidence of enthusiastic admiration while they were present with them, and immediately bestowing upon them the most undeserved censure the most graceless abuse - the moment their backs were turned, had its proper effect in influencing the New-York audiences to treat such examples with contempt, by showing their capability fully to appreciate the excellence before them, without forgetting either their own dignity, or the respect and gratitude due to those who had honestly and fairly ministered to their gratification.

Mr. ABBOTT has filled several characters during the month, to the satisfaction of all who can enjoy the chaste and classic delineations of a highly cultivated performer. We have always admired Mr. Abbott-'gentleman Abbott'-as a wag (more just than witty) lately christened him; but with all our admiration, we hardly suspected him capable of the arduous character which this engagement has shown him able to accomplish. The philosophic 'Prince of Denmark,' the erratic Hamlet, has been almost a truant from the stage since the days of John Kemble. Kean and Charles Kemble did not fail in the character, nor did they come up to the idea which discriminating minds have formed of the wonderful original. We do not mean to say that Mr. Abbott has exactly reached that elevated point, but we can safely assert, with a dim remembrance of Kean and Charles Kemble in the character, that Mr. Abbott's Hamlet is superior in many points to either. Kean's personation of Hamlet was full of the deep thought and bold mind of its representative. In the scenes where expressions of violent feeling, or manifestations of phrenzied passion were requisite, Kean was in Hamlet, as in every other character he attempted, a master-spirit; but in those calm, quiet passages of deep musing, in which the philosophy of the crazy prince is supposed to display itself, there was a nervous hurrying from one thought to another, which went far to destroy the desperate placidity which seems the true garb of these moments. Charles Kemble, on the contrary, was great just where Kean was not, and vice versa - giving their true force and original beauty to all the soliloquies of the philosopher, and falling far short of power where violent declamation was expected. Mr. Abbott, if we may be permitted to venture a humble opinion, was just the mean between these two extremes : if he was not so powerful as Kean, in some points, he was more generally just — if not so thoroughly chaste as Charles Kemble, he gave more force to those sudden impulses which so diversify and distinguish this character. In proof of this latter effect, 'the letter scene,' (as it is called,) with Ophelia, was conspicuous. There was madness and method - philosophy and phrenzy — love and hate — advice and curses mingled — yet separate and distinct — marked, all of them, not only in bold outline, but with a filling up that left nothing to be desired. Mr. Abbott never equalled this, and Kean the greatest of the dead or living ones that we at least have ever looked upon, never exceeded it. This may be bold praise; but to the minds of all who witnessed this performance, it will seem no more than justice. Of the soliloquy, 'To be or not to be,' we cannot

speak so well. There was more hurry about it than there should have been, and not so much thought as was perceptible in Kemble's countenance during its delivery. Mr. Abbott should play Hamlet again and again; and the more numerous and discriminating his audiences, the more general and just will be his celebrity.

C.

AMERICAN THEATRE, BOWERY. - The Jewess' and the agile and graceful CELESTE have been, for the most part, the alternating attractions at this establishment during the month. We have heretofore spoken, at some length, of both performances; and it should seem that the popularity of each continues undiminished.

FRANKLIN THEATRE. Mr. SCOTT still continues his personations at the Franklin, winning for himself increased plaudits. 'Rienzi,' in which he has repeatedly appeared during the past month, has been rendered unusually effective, through his efforts. Mr. DINNEFORD's personation of Don Felix, in The Hunter of the Alps,' has evinced that his talent is not alone confined to an able managership. As an actor, he is received with marked favor.

ROCKAWAY. The re-opening of the Marine Pavilion,' at Rockaway, with numerous important embellishments and improvements, prompts us to remark, that to the laborious student, the care-worn merchant, or the professional man, groaning under the weight of arduous duties, a brief sojourn at this finest of American watering-places, during the fervors of the summer solstice, is worth a dukedom. A rail-road to Jamaica has converted the hitherto somewhat formidable distance into a matter of an hour's ride. The numerous beautiful views of varied landscape to be obtained on the waythe fruition which crowns all reasonable expectations when the brief journey is concluded the almost spiritual enjoyment of salt-water bathing-of early-rising, to play the courtier at the morning levees of the sun, what time' Dawn braids with gold and rubies the curled tresses of the eastern clouds' - the illimitable ocean-view, and the solemn sound of the 'sea and the waves roaring' — and to sum up all, the luxury and comfort of the Pavilion' itself, under its experienced and competent proprietors — are not all these things written in the memories of many a reader under whose eye these hurried remarks will fall? Verily these things are so; and he who shall remember this year's visit, will doubtless have a still more copious catalogue of enjoyments to chronicle.

FORTIFICATION AND CIVIL ENGINEERING.-D. H. MAHAN, Esq., Professor of military and civil engineering in the United States' Military Academy at West Point, has in course of publication, 'A complete Treatise on Field Fortification; containing also the general principles of Permanent Works, with their Attack and Defence,' and 'An Elementary Treatise on Civil Engineering.' These works are chiefly designed, as we learn, for text-books for the use of the cadets of the Military Academy; but the author has so arranged the matter contained in them, as to supply an important desideratum, by furnishing a large amount of accurate information, which, owing to the high price of English works on these topics, has heretofore been exceedingly difficult of access. From the known reputation of Professor MAHAN, there is good reason to believe that these volumes will be found important aids to our militia officers, and to those who have engaged in the profession of civil engineering.

J. G. WHITTIER. No young writer in America has produced more true poetry than the gentleman with whose name we have commenced this paragraph. He has enriched our literature with numerous fine compositions in prose also, as well as verse; and his renown is sufficiently loud to be heard by the humbler classes, which is more than can be said of some self-advertising bardlings of the day, who force themselves into temporary fashion, but not into fame. The reason, we apprehend, why Mr. WHITTIER is not more frequently brought forward as a prominent American poet, is, that his modesty is equal to his merit- and the world meets nobody half way. It irks us more than we can express, to see crude, disjointed rhymes - filched piecemeal, perchance, from bygone or popular modern authors-forced into transient notoriety by friendly presses, while such express and admirable' poetry as the following is suffered to occupy a quiet place in the back-ground:

THE PRISONER FOR DEBT.

Look on him-through his dungeon grate,
Feebly and cold, the morning light
Comes stealing round him, dim and late,
As if it loathed the sight;
Reclining on his strawy bed,

His hand upholds his drooping head-
His bloodless cheek is seamed and hard,
Unshorn his gray neglected beard;
And o'er his bony fingers flow
His long dishevelled locks of snow.

No grateful fire before him glows,
And yet the winter's breath is chill:
And o'er his half-clad person goes
The frequent ague thrill!
Silent-save ever and anon,

A sound, half murmur and half groan,
Forces apart the painful grip
Of the old sufferer's bearded lip;
O sad and crushing is the fate
Of old age chained and desolate!

Just God! why lies that old man there?
A murderer shares his prison hed,
Whose eyeballs, through his horrid hair,
Gleam on him fierce and red:
And the rude oath and heartless jeer
Fall ever on his loathing ear,
And, or in wakefulness or sleep,
Nerve, flesh and fibre thrill and creep,
Whene'er that ruffian's tossing limb,
Crimson with murder, touches him!

What has the gray-haired prisoner done?
Has murder stained his hands with gore?
Not so; his crime's a fouler one :

GOD MADE THE OLD MAN POOR!
For this he shares a felon's cell-
The fittest earthly type of Hell!
For this the boon for which he poured
His young blood on the invader's sword,
And counted light the fearful cost-
His blood-gained LIBERTY is lost!

And so, for such a place of rest,

Old prisoner, poured thy blood as rain
On Coucord's field, and Bunker's crest,
And Saratoga's plain?

Look forth, thou man of many scars,
Through thy dim dungeon's iron bars;
It must be joy, in sooth, to see
Yon mounment* upreared to thee -
Piled granite and a prison cell-
The land repays thy service well!

Go, ring the bells, and fire the guns,
And fling the starry banner out;
Shout Freedom" till your lisping ones
Give back their cradle shout:
Let boasted eloquence declaim
Of honor, liberty, and fame;
Still let the poet's strain be heard,
With glory' for each second word,
And every thing with breath agree
To praise our glorious liberty!

But when the patriot cannon jars

That prison's cold and gloomy wall,
And through its grates the stripes and stars
Rise on the wind and fall —
Think ye that prisoner's aged ear
Rejoices in the general cheer?
Think ye his dim and failing eye
Is kindled at your pageantry?
Sorrowing of soul and chained of limb,
What is your carnival to him?

Down with the LAW that binds him thus!
Unworthy freemen, let it find
No refuge from the withering curse
Of God and human kind!
Open the prisoner's living temb,
And usher from its brooding gloom
The victims of your savage code,
To the free sun and air of God!
No longer dare as crime to brand
The chastening of the Almighty's hand.

'PARIS AND THE PARISIANS.' - While the sheets of this department of our Magazine are passing through the press, we find this latest work of the notorious TROLLope upon our table. Like the 'Domestic Manners of the Americans,' it is often coarse, but as frequently graphic in its sketches of scenes and individual portraitures. That it is too true, in the main, may be judged from the commotion into which it threw the mercurial race of whom it treats. The volume contains upward of four hundred large and wellprinted pages, and a dozen spirited outline sketches. BROTHERS HARPER, publishers.

* Bunker Hill Monument.

LITERARY RECORD.

UPS AND DOWNS IN THE LIFE OF A DISTRESSED GENTLEMAN. A little unavoidable delay in the publication of the present number - arising from the perplexing movements peculiar to the season-enables us to chronicle the advent of a work bearing the above title, by the author of 'Tales and Sketches, Such as they Are.' Moreover, having read it entirely through, without missing a sentence, and at a single agreeably-protracted sitting, we are enabled to pronounce it entertaining in the extreme. It is pleasantly written, in a style so natural, that no reader can resist the inference that the incidents narrated are what they purport to be- and are in reality-events of real life. We should have been pleased to extract, but for reasons elsewhere mentioned, the graphic picture given of the detestable pawnbroker's shops with which New-York is cursed: and even as it is, we cannot forbear to quote a closing passage or two from the chapter which introduces the highly vivid and picturesque 'Scenes in the Lombards:'

*

*

*

'I had previously imbibed a strong prejudice against thosereceptacles of the goods, new and old, of the poor, the miserable, and the vicious. I had been told of the system of universal cheatery upon which they practised, and the enormous exactions made in grinding the faces of the poor. I had heard described their dexterity in the substitution of colored glass and crystals, for gems, while pretending to examine articles of the latter description brought for pledges, and was prepared to encounter all that was sinister and heartless. But the one-half had not been told me, and I soon found that my previous conceptions fell far short of the reality. At every one of these dens, what a crowd of victims were collected! A motley company indeed-black-legs, and would-be-gentlemen- the cheater and the cheated.' The widow parting with her last trinkets, or, perchance, her last disposable article of dress, to procure one more meal for her famishing children! A poor consumptive girl, with the hectic flush upon her wasting cheek, applying for the same purpose; and the griping miser - very likely a woman too!-without a spark of generosity, or an emotion of pity-reading the condition of the sufferers from their countenances, with the coolest imaginable calculation—thus ascertaining from their looks the urgency of their respective cases, that the utmost possible advantage might be taken, and the intended cheat be made the greater. The pickpocket, moreover, the thief, and the purloining servant, received with equal readiness, and the spoils divided between them, with the fullest understanding that no questions were to be asked! O'tis monstrous! The offence is rank, and smells to heaven!' The book has an excellent moral-is of just about the right length- and is printed with a bold type, on the best paper. LEAVITT, LORD AND COMPANY, are the publishers. THE FINE ARTS. The last, and by many considered the best painting of our countryman WEST, 'Death on the Pale Horse,' is now open for exhibition at the Academy of Arts in Barclay-street. It was our design to have entered into some detail in noticing this great work; but at every successive visit we have felt the difficulty of mere description, to afford a fair sketch for the reader's edification. The composition, though not crowded, is nevertheless so full, that the task of indicating prominent beauties would be one of no inconsiderable magnitude. We content ourselves, therefore, with this general reference to a work of art, such as is rarely to be met with in America leaving to the reader the enjoyment of a pleasure which will not 'perish with the using,' but which will incorporate itself with his reveries by day, and his dreams by night.

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RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION.-Mr. P. PRICE, New-York, has published in a small but well-filled volume of nearly three hundred pages, 'A Discussion on the conjoint question, 'Is the doctrine of endless punishment taught in the Bible? - or does the Bible teach the doctrine of the final holiness and happiness of all mankind?' In a series of letters between EZRA STILES ELY, D.D., Pastor of the Third Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, and ABEL C. THOMAS, Pastor of the First Universalist Church, Philadelphia.' Although without room for specific remark upon the great controversial talent displayed in this little book, we cannot pass it by without commending in the warmest terms the kind and Christian feeling and manner which invariably distinguish either combatant. Would that such examples were less rare, in the many religious tilts which occur in our country!