the barn, which was nearly inaccessible from the banks of snow, he assisted wrappers, and declared that I was ready. The Picker and Piler had inspired The "bar-room" fire burnt brightly, and never was fire more welcome. | Room was made for me by four or five rough men who sat silent around it, an with a keen comprehension of "pleasure after pain," I took off my furs and moccasins, and stretched my cold contracted limbs to the blaze. When, a few minutes after, a plate of cold salt beef was brought me, with a corn cake and a mug of "flip" hissing from the poker, it certainly would have been hard to convince me that I would have put on my coats and moccasins again to have ridden a mile to Paradise. The faces of my new companions, which I had not found time to inspect very closely while my supper lasted, were fully revealed by the light of a pitch-pine knot, thrown on the hearth by the landlord, and their grim reserve and ferocity put me in mind, for the first time since I had entered the room, of my errand in that quarter of the country. The timber-tracts which lie convenient to the rivers of the west, offer to the refugee and desperado of every description, a resource from want, and, (in their own opinion,) from crime, which is seized upon by all at least who are willing to labor. The owners of the extensive forests, destined to become so valuable, are mostly men of large speculation, living in cities, who, satisfied with the constant advance in the price of lumber, consider their pine-trees as liable to nothing but the laws of nature, and leave them unfenced and unprotected, to increase in size and value till the soil beneath them is wanted for culture. It is natural enough that solitary settlers, living in the neighborhood of miles of apparently unclaimed land, should think seldom of the owner, and in time grow to the opinion of the Indian, that the Great Spirit gave the land, the air, and the water, to all his children, and they are free to all alike. Furnishing the requisite teams and implements therefore, the inhabitants of these tracts collect a number of the stragglers through the country, and forming what is called a "bee," go into the nearest woods, and, for a month or more, work laboriously at selecting, and felling the tallest and straightest pines. In their rude shanty at night they have bread, pork, and whiskey, which hard labor makes sufficiently palatable, and the time is passed merrily till the snow is right for sledding. The logs are then drawn to the water sides, rafts are formed, and the valuable lumber, for which they have paid nothing but their labor, is run to the cities for their common advantage. The only enemies of this class of men are the agents who are sometimes sent out in the winter to detect them in the act of felling or drawing off timber, and in the dark countenances around the fire, I read this as the interpretation of my own visit to the woods. They soon brightened and grew talkative when they discovered that I was in search of hands to fell and burn, and make clearing for a farm; and after a talk of an hour or two, I was told in answer to my inquiries, that all the "men people" in the country were busy "lumbering for themselves," unless it were the "Picker and Piler." As the words were pronounced, a shrill neigh outside the door announced the arrival of a new comer. “Talk of the devil”—said the man in a lower tone, and without finishing the proverb he rose with a respect which he had not accorded to me, to make room for the Picker and Piler. A man of rather low stature entered, and turned to drive back his horse, who had nearly followed him in. I observed that the animal had neither saddle nor bridle. Shutting the door upon him without violence, he exchanged nods with one or two of the men, and giving the landlord a small keg which he had brought, he pleaded haste for refusing the offered chair, and stood silent by the fire. His features were blackened with smoke, but I could see that they were small and regular and his voice, though it conveyed in its deliberate accents an indefinable resolution, was almost femininely soft and winning. "That stranger yonder has got a job for you," said the landlord, as he gave him back the keg and received the money. Turning quickly upon me, he detected me in a very eager scrutiny of himself, and for a moment I was too much thrown off my guard to address him. "Is it you, Sir?" he asked, after waiting a moment. "It is a rough night, Sir," said he, as he shouldered a rifle he had left outside, and slung the keg by a leather strap over the neck of his horse, "but I will soon show you a better climate. Come, Sir, jump on!" 66 And you?" I said inquisitively, as he held his horse by the mane for me to mount. It was a Canadian pony, scarce larger than a Newfoundland dog. "I a am more used to the road, Sir, and will walk. Come!" It was no time to stand upon etiquette, even if it had been possible to resist the strange tone of authority with which he spoke. So without more ado, I sprang upon the animal's back, and holding on by the long tuft upon his withers, suffered him passively to plunge through the drift after his master. Wondering at the readiness with which I had entered upon this equivocal adventure, but never for an instant losing confidence in my guide, I shut my eyes to the blinding cold, and accommodated my limbs as well as I could to the bare back and scrambling paces of the Canadian. The Picker and Piler strode on before, the pony following like a spaniel at his heels, and after a half hour's tramp, during which I had merely observed that we were rounding the base of a considerable hill, we turned short to the right, and were met by a column of smoke, which, lifting, the moment after, disclosed the two slopes of a considerable valley enveloped in one sea of fire. A red, lurid cloud, overhung it at the tops of the tallest trees, and far and wide, above that, spread a covering of black smoke, heaving upward in vast and billowy masses, and rolling away on every side into the darkness. We approached a pine of gigantic height, on fire to the very peak, not a branch left on the trunk, and its pitchy knots distributed like the eyes of the lamprey, burning pure and steady amid the irregular flame. I had once or twice, with an instinctive wish to draw rein, pulled hard upon the tangled tuft in my hand, but master and horse kept on. This burning tree, however, was the first of a thousand, and as the pony turned his eyes away from the intense heat to pass between it and a bare rock, I glanced into the glowing labyrinth beyond, and my faith gave way. I jumped from his back, and hailed the Picker and Piler, with a halloo scarcely audible amid the tumult of the crackling branches. My voice evidently did not reach his ear, but the pony, relived from my weight, gallopped to his side, and rubbed his muzzle against the unoccupied hand of his master. He turned back immediately. "I beg pardon," he said, "I have that to think of just now which makes me forgetful. I am not surprised at your hesitation, but mount again, and trust the pony." The animal turned rather unwillingly at his master's bidding, and a little ashamed of having shown fear, while a horse would follow, I jumped again upon his back. "If you find the heat inconvenient, cover your face." And with this laconic advice, the Picker and Piler turned on his heel, and once more strode away before us. Sheltering the sides of my face by holding up the corners of my wrapper with both hands, I abandoned myself to the horse. He overtook his master with a shuffling canter, and putting his nose as close to the ground as he could carry it without stumbling, followed closely at his heels. I observed, by the green logs lying immediately along our path, that we were following an avenue of prostrate timber which had been felled before the wood was fired; but descending presently to the left, we struck at once into the deep bed of a brook, and by the lifted head and slower gait of the pony, as well as my own easier respiration, I found that the hollow through which it ran, contained a body of pure air unreached by the swaying curtain of smoke or the excessive heat of the fiery currents above. The pony now picked his way leisurely along the brookside, and while my lungs expanded with the relief of breathing a more temperate atmosphere, I raised myself from my stooping posture in a profuse perspiration, and one by one disembarrassed myself of my protectives against the cold. I had lost sight for several minutes of the Picker and Piler, and presumed by the pony's desultory movements that he was near the end of his journey, when, rounding a shelvy point of rock, we stood suddenly upon the brink of a slight waterfall, where the brook leaped four or five feet into a shunken "Yes, I have some work to be done hereabouts, but-you seem in adell, and after describing a half circle on a rocky platform, resumed its on hurry. Could you call here to-morrow." "I may not be here again in a week." 'Do you live far from here?" He smiled. "I scarce know where I live, but I am burning a piece of wood a mile or two up the run, and if you would like a warmer bed than the landlord will give you " ward course in the same direction as before. This curve of the brook and the platform it enclosed lay lower than the general level of the forest, and the air around and within it, it seemed to me, was as clear and genial as the summer noon. Over one side, from the rocky wall, a rude and temporary roof of pine slabs dropped upon a barricado of logs, forming a low hut, and before the entrance of this, at the moment of my appearance, stood a woman and a showily dressed young man, both evidently confused at the That personage decided the question for me by telling me in so many sudden apparition of the Picker and Piler. My eyes had scarce rested on words that I had better go. His beds were all taken up, and my horses the latter, when, from standing at his fullest height with his rifle raised as if should be taken care of till my return. I saw that my presence had inter-to beat the other to the earth, he suddenly resumed his stooping and quiet rupted something, probably the formation of a "bee," and more willingly mien, set his rifle against the rock, and came forward to give me his hand. than I would have believed possible an hour before, I resumed my furs and "My daughter!" he said, more in the way of explanation than introduc tion, and without taking further notice of the young man whose presence seemed so unwelcome, he poured me a draught from the keg he had brought, pointed to the water falling close at my hand, and threw himself at his length upon the ground. The face and general appearance of the young man, now seated opposite me, offered no temptation for more than a single glance, and my whole attention was soon absorbed by the daughter of my singular host, who, crossing from the platform to the hut, divided her attention between a haunch of venison roasting before a burning log of hickory, and the arrangement of a few most primitive implements for our coming supper. She was slight, like her father, in form, and as far as I had been able to distinguish his blackened features, resembled him in the general outline. But in the place of his thin and determined mouth, her lips were round and voluptuous, and though her eye looked as if it might wake, it expressed, even in the presence of her moody father, a drowsy and soft indolence, common enough to the Asiatics, but seldom seen in America. Her dress was coarse and careless, but she was beautiful with every possible disadvantage, and, whe|| ther married or not, evidently soon to become a mother. The venison was placed before us on the rock, and the young man, uninvited, and with rather an air of bravado, cut himself a steak from the haunch, and broiled it on the hickory coals, while the daughter kept as near him as her attention to her father's wants would permit, but neither joined us in eating, nor encouraged my attempts at conversation. The picker and piler cat in silence, leaving me to be my own carver, and finishing his repast with a deep draught from the keg which had been the means of our acquaintance, he sprang upon his feet and disappeared. "The wind has changed," said the daughter, looking up at the smoke, "and he has gone to the western edge to start a new fire. It's a full half mile, and he'll be gone an hour." with a decisive gesture, he pointed the young man to a "shake-down" of straw in the remotest corner of the rocky enclosure. "With your leave, old gentleman," said the intruder, after glancing at his intended place of repose, “I'll find a crib for myself." And springing up the craggy rock opposite the door of the shanty, he gathered a slight heap of brush, and threw it into a hollow left in the earth by a tree, which, though full grown and green, had been borne to the earth and partly uprooted by the falling across it of an overblown and gigantic pine. The earth and stones had followed the uptorn mass, forming a solid upright wall, from which, like struggling fingers, stretching back in agony to the ground from which they had parted, a few rent and naked roots pointed into the cavity. The sequel will show why I am so particular in this description. 66 'When peace was declared between England and this country," said the Picker and Piler (after an hour's conversation, which had led insensibly to his own history,) I was in command of a privateer. Not choosing to become a pirate, by continuing the cruize, I was set ashore in the West Indies by a crew in open mutiny. My property was all on board, and I was left a beggar. I had one child, a daughter, whose mother died in giving her birth. Having left a sufficient sum for her education in the hands of a brother of my own, under whose roof she had passed the first years of her life, I determined to retrieve my fortunes before she or my friends should be made acquainted with disaster. my "Ten years passed over, and I was still a wanderer and a beggar. "I determined to see my child, and came back, like one from the dead, to my brother's door. He had forgotten me, and abused his trust. My daughter, then seventeen, and such as you see her here, was a drudge in the family of a stranger-ignorant and friendless. My heart turned against mankind with this last drop in a bitter cup, and, unfitted for quiet life, I looked around for some channel of desperate adventure. But my daughter was the perpetual obstacle. What to do with her? She had neither the This was said with a look at me which was any-thing but equivocal. I manners nor the education of a lady, and to leave her a servant was imposwas de trop. I took up the rifle of the picker and piler, forgetting that there sible. I started with her for the West, with the vague design of joining was probably nothing to shoot in a burning wood, and remarking that I some tribe of Indians, and chance and want have thrown me into the only would have a look for a deer, jumped up the waterfall-side, and was imme-mode of life on earth that could now be palatable to me." diately hidden by the rocks. "Is it not lonely,” I asked, “after your stirring adventures?" 66 I had had no conception of the scene that lay around me. The natural cave Lonely! If you knew the delight with which I live in the wilderness, or hollow of rock in which the hut lay embosomed, was the centre of an with a circle of fire to shut out the world! The labor is hard, it is true, area of perhaps an acre, which had been felled in the heart of the wood, but I need it, to sleep and forget. There is no way else in which I could before it was set on fire. The forest encircled it with blazing columns, seclude my daughter. Till lately she has been contented, too. We live whose capitals were apparently lost in the sky, and curtains of smoke and a month together in one place-the centre like this of a burning wood. I flame, which flew as if lashed into ribands by a whirlwind. The grandeur, can bear hardship, but I love a high temperature-the climate of the trothe violence, the intense brightness of the spectacle, outran all imagination.pics-and I have it here. For weeks I forget that it is winter, tending my The pines, on fire to the peak, and straight as arrows, seemed to resemble, fires and living on the game I have stored up. There is a hollow or a at one moment,the conflagration of an eastern city, with innumerable mina-brook-a bed or a cave, in every wood, where the cool air, as here, sinks to rets abandoned to the devouring element. At the next moment, the wind, the bottom, and there I can put up my shanty, secure from all intrusionchanging its direction, swept out every vestige of smoke, and extinguished but such as I bring upon myself." every tongue of flame, and the tall trees, in clear and flameless ignition, standing parallel in thousands, resembled some blinding temple of the genii, whose columns of miraculous rubies, sparkling audibly, outshone the day. By single glances, my eye penetrated into aisles of blazing pillars, extending far into the forest, and the next instant, like a tremendous surge alive with serpents of fire, the smoke and flame swept through it, and it seemed to me as if some glorious structure had been consumed in the pass-pany which sometimes comes over the solitary, to go with me to the fallow ing of a thought. For a minute, again, all would be still except the crackling of the fibres of the wood, and with the first stir of the wind, like a shower of flashing gems, the bright coals rained down through the forest, and for a moment the earth glowed under the trees as if its whole crust were alive with one bright ignition. The look he gave to the uprooted ash and the sleeper beneath it, made an apology for this last clause unnecessary. He thought not of me. "Some months since," continued the Picker and Piler, in a voice husky with suppressed feeling, "I met the villain who sleeps yonder, accidentally, as I met you. He is the owner of this land. After engaging to clear and burn it, I invited him, as I did yourself, from a momentary fever for com I was clearing. He loitered in the neighborhood awhile, under pretext of hunting, and twice on my return from the village, I found that my daughter had seen him. Time has betrayed the wrong he inflicted on me." The voice of the agitated father sank almost to a whisper as he pronounced the last few words, and, rising from the rock on which we were sitting, he paced for a few minutes up and down the platform in silence. The reader must fill up from his own imagination the drama of which this and I can tell but what I saw and heard. In the narration of his story he seemed recapitulating the prominent events for his own self converse, rather than attempting to tell a tale to me, and it was hurried over as brokenly and briefly as I have put it down. I sat in a listening attitude after he concluded, but he seemed to have unburthened his bosom sufficiently, and his lips were closed with stern compression. With the pungency of the smoke and heat; and the variety and bewilderment of the spectacle, I found my eyes and brain growing giddy. The brook ran cool below, and the heat had dried the leaves in the small clear-is but the outline, for the Picker and Piler was not a man to be questioned, ing, and with the abandonment of a man overcome with the sultriness of the summer, I lay down on the rivulet's bank, and dipped my head and bathed my eyes in the running water. Close to its surface there was not a particle of smoke in the air, and, exceedingly refreshed with its temperate coolness, I lay for some time in luxurious ease, trying in vain to fancy the winter that howled without. Frost and cold were never more difficult to realize in midsummer, though within a hundred rods, probably, a sleeping man would freeze to death in an hour. "I have a better bed for you in the shanty," said the Picker and Piler, who had approached unheard in the noise of the fires, and suddenly stood over me. He took up his rifle, which I had laid against a prostrate log, and looked anxiously towards the descent to the hut. "You forget," he said, after pacing awhile, "that I offered you a place to sleep. The night wears late. Stretch yourself on that straw, with your cloak over you. Good night!" I lay down and looked up at the smoke rolling heavily into the sky till I slept. I awoke, feeling chilled, for the rock sheltered me from the rays of the fire. I stepped out from the hollow. The fires were pale with the gray of "I am little inclined for sleep," I answered, " and perhaps you will give the morning, and the sky was visible through the smoke. I looked around me an hour of conversation here. The scene is new to me" "I have another guest to dispose of," he answered," and we shall be more out of the smoke near the shanty." I was not surprised, as I jumped upon the platform, to find him angrily separating his daughter and the stranger. The girl entered the hut, and for a place to warm myself. The hickory log had smouldered out, but a fire had been kindled under the overblown pine, and its pitchy heart was now flowing with the steady brilliancy of a torch. I took up one of its broken branches, cracked it on my knee, and stirring up the coals below, soon sent up a merry blaze, which enveloped the whole trunk. Turning my back to the increasing heat, I started, for, creeping towards me, with a look of eagerness for which I was at a loss to account, came the Picker and Piler. "Twice doomed!" he muttered between his teeth, "but not by me!" He threw down a handful of pitch pine knots, laid his axe against the burning tree, and with a branch of hemlock, swept off the flame from the spot where the fire was eating through, as if to see how nearly it was divided. I began to think him insane, for I could get no answer to my questions, and when he spoke, it was half audibly, and with his eyes turned from me fixedly. I looked in the same direction, but could see nothing remarkable. The seducer slept soundly beneath his matted wall, and the rude door of the shanty was behind us. Leaving him to see phantoms in the air, as I thought, I turned my eyes to the drips of the waterfall, and was absorbed in memories of my own, when I saw the girl steal from the shanty, and with one bound overleap the rocky barrier of the platform. I laid my hand on the shoulder of my host, and pointed after her, as with stealthy pace, looking back occasionally to the hut, where she evidently thought her father slept, she crept round toward her lover. genius and the appliances of taste, to illustrate in a manner commensurate to their great requirements. Superadded to her capabilities as an actress, she was endowed with a voice as musical as the spheres, and attuned to the expression of the most popular of all English music-ballads and songs. Thus gifted, and thus perfected in all the great essentials of her profession, it was a sad lesson to learn, that the few only--the judicious few, could suitably appreciate the varied charm of her personations, unaccompanied by those personal attractions it was once her pride to possess. The Mathews' left us in coldness and anger, concealing apparently, even from themselves, the real cause of their failure, and attributing it to circumstances as little influential on the mind of this community, as the croakings from the fens. From that moment, the Park fell into a state of unmitigated languishment, far beyond what has been endured for years; and although the management made a few feeble and spiritless efforts to regain its wonted prosperity, it was of no avail. The company struggled with their declining popularity, but it did not possess the elements of attraction; and the few, whose talents in another sphere would have been available, were doomed to drag through stupid plays to empty benches. At length, in a species of frenzied despair, the manager suddenly resolves on an expedient to recover the sunken fortunes of the Park, that astonished the theatrical world, and gave serious umbrage to the friends of "Old Drury." The services of one who was deemed obnoxious to the grave censure of the community, was accepted as a boon, and the old enemy of the Park trod its boards in triumph. This last effort of the management was only wanting to complete the disasters of the year, thus alienating his friends, adding disgrace to the misfortunes of his house, and plunging the establishment into settled unpopularity, without the sympathy of steadfast patrons or the regrets of the Down came the axe into the very heart of the pitchy flame, and trembling One half of the dissevered pine fell to the earth, and the shock startled Blanched to a livid paleness, the girl moved about in the sickly daylight, when I recovered; but the Picker and Piler, with a clearer brow than I had yet seen him wear, was kindling fires beneath the remnants of the pine. The Theatre. THE PARK. THE NATIONAL. At the NATIONAL, the season has been more propitious. Mr. Forrest, Mr. Wallack, and Celeste, each fulfilled fortunate engagements, and relieved the management from any embarrassments of the previous year. But the crowning glory of the season was achieved at this house by the operatic company. There seemed to be a peculiar appropriateness in restoring the charms of this delicious amusement at the National. It was there our music-loving citizens had indulged their tastes to the utmost, not merely for harmonic concords, but in the plentitude of wealth they had fitted up, in style of eastern luxury, this once gorgeous monument of vanity, enthusiasm, fashion, and music. To mark the era yet more strongly, it was boldly determined to bring out a new opera, fresh from the hands of its composers, thus risking a chance of failure, in music entirely unassociated with other days and other favorites, for the possibility of attaining at once a proud eminence in triumphant success. The event justified the judgment of the manager. Amilie was played twenty-five nights to overflowing houses, composed of amateurs and much of the fashion of the town. The past theatrical season at our two principal houses has been one of varied character. Both opened the campaign with brilliant prospects, and for some months the hopes of the managers were realized in golden results. At the PARK, the engagements of Miss Clifton, Madam Caradori, Mr. Power, and Miss Tree, succeeded each other with unwonted eclat, and betokened yet more marked success for the distinguished artists about to present themselves for the first time before an American audience. The Mathews' at length appeared. The public was disappointed, and, singularly enough, in both. Mrs. M. did not equal expectation-Mr. M. surpassed it altogether, but without supplying that degree of attraction which was re-supporters in the bass and tenor departments. The former being esteemed quired to fill the void in the public mind. In the prima donna were recognized a variety of qualities, both attractive and elevating. Miss Shirreff was found to possess an exquisitely charming voice, great ability as an actress, with fascinating manners, and the magic power of giving expression to her music through the witchery of her smiles; but above all, her modest demeanor, and the purity of her life, added a charm that made her quite irresistfble. She became at once a favorite, and has sustained herself in the enthusiastic admiration of her friends in all she has since attempted. Seguin and Wilson were found able Various have been the attributed causes of this failure, so fatal to the prosperity of the Park. In our humble opinion, there was but one principal cause, and had each spectator consulted his own bosom, he would have found it. It consisted in the almost entire destitution of that striking and high order of beauty, which was imagined to constitute the great charm of an actress so celebrated, and who had narrowed down her line of characters to that class, in which distinguished personal charms were indispensable. Tell us not of the gossip of hotels-of the scandal of the press-of American sensitiveness and prudery; "The Vestris" would have triumphantly surmounted all these obstacles, had not that ruthless destroyer of beautytime and a life of vicissitude and excitement, left their usual traces on features once, perhaps, irresistible, but now, alas! patched and painted, to a degree so palpable, that instead of concealing the traces of decay, there was presented the melancholy spectacle of ostentatious vanity, eagerly inviting applause in the livid hues of treacherous cosmetics, totally unredeemed by a most tasteful and elaborate toilet. by some equal to the best we have ever had-even the magnificent Fornasari, and the latter, "with his note so true," is so really excellent, that we have little to regret, save in the want of expression, resulting rather from a certain stolidity of countenance than from any deficiency in the variety or sweetness of tone. More recently, a new galaxy of operatic stars have created some sensation in our musical circles. Mrs. Seguin and De Begnis appeared in the Barber as Rosina and Figaro. We were particularly pleased with the quality of voice and the science of Mrs. Seguin. Her acting was lady-like, yet there was wanting that soul, so requisite to the full developement of the intense feeling of the passionate Spanish maiden. The music was rich and melodious; our ears were delighted, but the eye wandered to discover the throat from whence issued such miraculous notes, for nothing indicated that the quiet lady who stood before us, was uttering such dulcet sounds. De Begnis is an accomplished man, both as singer and actor. His Figaro is a study, and probably embodies the conception of the composer more entirely than that of any other actor ever on our stage. The press, with a delicacy highly creditable to its gallantry, refrained Alternating with opera and the engagements of Celeste, we have had from the expression of a truth so unwelcome and so reluctantly acknow- another order of representations at this house. They met with all the enledged by one long accustomed to the accents of admiration and the ap-couragement they deserved. A caterwauling pit, known in this community plause of millions. Yet let us be just, and bestow the meed of praise where as the Bowery boys, a corresponding display in the boxes, with galleries to it was so signally deserved. As an artist we have never seen Vestris sur-match, gave dreadful note of the character of the performance. We forpassed on our stage. Time, that had so cruelly dimmed her beauty, had perfected the power and delicacy of her acting. With most consummate skill, she portrayed a series of characters that demand the originality of bear to illustrate farther our sense of the transcendent loathsomeness which 14 the fumes of gin and the din of oaths, conspired to the production of a pan- gian giant, Mr. Bihin, with his 8 feet, (his height) pay the expenses and demonium as yet unsung. The great feature, however, of this establishment, consists in the enterprise, the spirit, and the liberality of its manager. Years of experience have not failed to teach him the useful lesson, that in no other business does a bold expenditure of capital, judiciously devoted to the increase of attractions, so surely repay the outlay; and that it is only a penny-wise policy to seek for modes of retrenchment, so long as there is scope for improvement. This conviction prompts the unwearied exertion of the manager to increase the novelties and attractiveness of his house. It is to this enterprising spirit we must attribute the signal success of the National. While, however, we honestly commend the judgment of the manager in regard to others, we are astonished at his want of forecast in regard to himself. Why he has deemed it wise to lay himself on the shelf, as an actor, is better known to Mr. Wallack than to ourselves. Occupying a position at the very head of that class of actors, now so rare, whose personations have ever constituted the most attractive and the most brilliant pictures of life, he makes himself liable to the charge of capriciousness or indolence, in thus retiring from the front rank of the business-doers, to repose on the laurels already achieved. No man can so easily afford to lay aside all professional pride, and, like the great Talma, set the example of occasionally doing that well which gives but little scope to his powers, or of making much of that, of which others make so little. Besides, there are numerous characters in the British drama peculiarly his own, others which a little industry would readily make so, and we therefore discover no good reason to excuse his disregard to the general and oft expressed wish of his admirers, to see him again on the boards of his own theatre. We have a word to say to "both your houses," on star engagements. For a series of years past, it has been found quite a sufficient attraction to be able to present one distinguished actor or actress at a time. But the practice has outlived those gifted beings that made it feasible. In the days of Cook and Kean, of Macready and the Kembles, it would have been downright prodigality to engage more than one of these "primary planets" for the season; but since their exit from the stage, a species of "asteroids" have arisen, and shed their twinkling light where those great luminaries once shone resplendently. Yet the old practice continues, and managers wonder in well-feigned surprise that their boxes are no better filled, when they announce the appearance of cn, of these modern stars. Now, what one man cannot do, many so netimes may; and if these merely fair actors, be not indulged in their exorbitant demands, the manager can well afford to strengthen his attractions by engaging three or four of them at a time, and thus present a constellation, whose united light might be less vivid than that dispensed of yore, but the measure would at least dispel some of the darkness that has so "lowered upon our houses." LONDON THEATRICALS. Parliament is in session-the Court in Town, and the two Patent Theatres are dividing between them the great influx of strangers to the London world. Macready, a host in himself, and vicegerent of Covent Garden, presents the legitimate Drama in all its power and classic excellence. He is supported by Vandenhoff, Anderson, Phelps, and G. Bennett, who seem perfectly contented to play second fiddle to the great tragic maestro. Helen Faucit heroinises all that's loving and pathetic, and Mrs. Warner, late Miss Huddart, queens it as majestically as an impediment in her speech will allow. At Drury Lane, Alfred Bunn, commonly called 'Alfred the Great," waves his managerial wand, and with the power of a magician commands the Stars. Evergreen Braham, the sexagenarian vocalist, leads the Opera, and the charming Miss Romer syrenises the public with her alluring notes so effectively, as to fill the Theatre. By the bye, we wish Miss Romer would take it into her head to roam this way, for in vocal powers she has no equal in England except Mrs. Wood. The Queen has visited Drury Lane to see Van Amburgh, the Lord of Lions, and Covent Garden to see the Lady of ditto. Both houses have been well patronized, though not by any means generally fashionable. We learn that Her pretty little Majesty displeases her most loyal subjects in not patronising the English Drama more extensively, but we can readily forgive her for preferring the delicious entertainments at the Italian Opera, to any thing that the Patent Theatres can produce. Vestris meets with more favor and success at the Olympic than she did at the Park. However, she is powerfully supported by the veteran Farren, her own "Dear Charles," Mrs. Nisbett, a lady of high attainments and exquisitely refined manners, Mrs. Orger, and our old friend little Keeley. Such a galaxy of talent must draw-we don't say a blister. The Italian Opera has Grisi, Tamburini, Lablache, Rubini, and Persiani; each a star of the first magnitude, and the house, under the judicious management of Laporte, is filled every night. leave a little in pocket besides. Generally speaking, the London managers have nothing to complain of up to the present moment, and with the late accession of play-goers following the Court and Parliament, they must close the season with well filled exchequers. MADAME VESTRIS' RECEPTION AT HOME. There is a great deal of twaddle in many of the English papers on the enthusiastic reception of Vestris on the boards of her own little theatre in Wyche street-the Olympic. It argues well for the good-heartedness of John Bull that such was the case; but we fancy there were mingled in this outburst, feelings of wounded pride and spite toward their transatlantic brethren for not having more fully appreciated one, whom, they at home had so long flattered with the incense of their applause, and whom they now desired to soothe by a ready sympathy with her mortifications and her resentments. We hardly imagine, however, that many of us will die of chagrin for having committed the imputed crime of not thinking Vestris, bedaubed with paint and distorted with paralysis, quite as beautiful as an angel, nor hardly to be compared to some of her countrywomen we have seen on our boards. There was but one opinion of her acting. She was pronounced peerless, but taste could go no farther. Yet we can easily understand that to those, who are old enough to recollect how fascinating she probably was in the height of her charms, she may still be attractive, and retain the power to recall to their minds the brilliant scenes she was wont to portray and adorn; but the decrepitude, the decay, the ghastliness of the artist, were not redeemed here by any such favoring associations-the Vestris of the Olympic in London, was another being when she became the Vestris of the Park in New York. Every candid and judicious man will comprehend this, and cease to wonder at the result. Indeed, though her friends and idolizers blow off the roof of the Olympic with their “seven minutes and a half cheering" at her cuts on the Yankees, it will be difficult to make us believe that they really find more to admire in this stuccoed specimen of flesh and blood than we Brother Jonathans. We claim on this side the water to have some idea of what beauty is. We now and then have seen a beautiful woman, we think, and we all confess to be much under the influence of her dominion, but we must humbly acknowledge that we have not the power to endow a painted doll with any of those attributes that distinguish the truly beautiful of our own land. Nor do we sympathize with those who fancy they participate in the pleasures of the nobility, when they are permitted to add their clamorous shouts to swell the triumphs of one whose fashionable popularity at home has been mainly dependent on the fact of her having been the recherchè favorite of the titled Lotharios of a licentious capital. However, we will not find fault with other people's bread and butter. We hope to survive even Vestris' cutting rebukes, and trust that the world will wag on in its destined course, the "Olympian's" to the contrary notwithstanding. But there is one thing, we fear, we shall never surviveone thing there is impending over the destinies of this fated country, that must convulse it to the centre. Master Charles Vestris Mathews is writing a book; it is even already announced, with a most ominous title, and yet the blind, infatuated people of this doomed republic go to bed at night and expect to rise in the morning. Tell it not in Gath! Publish it not in Askalon, but the Book is to be called "How do you like our Country?" Ye gods and little fishes! where shall we, the natives, hide ourselves. The pure, the elevated, the scrupulous, the tasteful, the dainty possessor of all the charms of the paragon of the Olympic, has threatened us with a book, an absolute book, containing his critical observations on the philosophy of republicanism, the state of morals in America, our disregard to public opinion, the fashions of a Philadelphia theatre, the whole to be concluded with a veracious statement of the cause of Madame's failure, together with a faithful report of that speech addressed to the Park audience on his bidding adieu to the American stage.-Ilium fuit will then be written across this continent-the glorious Union will be dissolved, and our little, feverish republic, will pass away like the baseless fabric of a vision. FRENCH THEATRES. Since the death of immortal Talma, the classic drama has been almost entirely neglected by his sucessors. Spectacles, opera, the ballet, comedy, and those extravagant tragedies of the modern school, have nightly given satisfaction to the immense crowds of the theatre-goers in the gay capital of France. The opera and the ballet divided the patronage of the fashionable, and the minor theatres have been crowded with the middle classes. ›› The lovers of the heroic style mourned over the neglect into which their favorite authors had fallen, but were unable to suggest a remedy to restore them to their deserved consideration. The fact was, there was no actor nor actress on the boards, deemed capable of recalling to the memorics of the old worshippers of Talma, the serene grandeur and vivid portraiture of that unmatched tragedian. The Adelphi, affiliating itself on Yates, does well. The Bayadere ex- her. Her parentage was obscure-her avocations were the most humble rarely moves her arms, evinces the deepest emotions, and elicits deafening applause in passages where the ranting and gesticulation of other celebrated actresses, have scarcely extorted an acclamation. She is now seventeen, rather tall—pale and thin, with a striking though melancholy expression of countenance. Her salary is 20,000 francs. The King and Royal family extend to her their patronage, but it is said that the talented Jules Janin, of the Journal de Debats, first claimed for her in the columns of his Journal, that distinguished position which she now occupies, and to the spirited critiques of his partial pen has been attributed her continuance at her present elevation,—the acknowledged first actress of France. But notwithstanding the extraordinary hold which the revival of Racine, Corneille, and Voltaire, has upon the public attention, the all-absorbing spirit of Apollo bears away the palm. Be it known to our readers that there is but one Italian Opera Company in Europe; it is the Company, and consists of Guibetta, Grisi, Rubini, Tamburini, the larger Lablache, and Ivanhoff, they stroll from capital to capital, and draw largely upon the enthusiasm and the purses of their admirers. They constitute a powerful "band," producing a concert of harmonies hitherto unheard. Separately they might please and perhaps astonish, but united, they enthrall the senses and elate the heart. The expense to managers for these gifted musicians is about twelve hundred dollars per night. They have just completed their engagement in Paris, and are now in London. The length of the operatic representations is commensurate with the public affection for it, as we observe in a late French paper that Messrs Scribe and Halery have written an opera for which Meyerbeer is to compose the music, and it is stated by way of congratulation that it is not to take more than three hours and a half in representation. The gay souls of the gayest city in the world do not depend entirely upon grand operas and deep tragedy for their passe temps. The graceful and agile Taglioni, and the brilliant Fanny Elsler by turns draw crowds to the Academie Royale de Musique. Fanny is now there, and so great is the importance attached to this species of entertainment, that Scribe, the author of some five or six hundred pieces, and Auber, the composer of Massaniello and Guechara, have united their abilities in the production of a new operatic ballet. Then again they have Victor Hugo, the prince of horrors, author of "the Hunchback and Notre Dame, and Sforza Duke of Milan, holding in chains the tearful and soft-hearted at the Ventadour theatre, whilst those who wish to laugh only, repair to the Vaudeville, a species of theatrical entertainment, which none, so well as the French, know how to "get up" and enjoy. EXPOSURES OF FASHIONABLE CHARACTERS Extracts from a new novel called "Horace Vernon." There is something disgusting, says an English critic, in the Tory Duke and Marquis, father and son, associating together at an infamous house; and it is singular that within a few weeks the Duke alluded to has become food for worms, and the Marquis of Marigold has stepped into the Ducal slippers. The party which Mrs. Maxwell had invited on the evening before adverted to, not being numerous, was of course select; such description being now-a-days invariably applied to any small number of human beings, whether congregated at the mansion of a Marquis in May fair, or the house of a butcher in Whitechapel. It was, we have said, a select party. There was lolling, half asleep upon a sofa, the Duke of Rockingham-a nobleman, whose sole business in this life seemed to be to dress, to take snuff, and to wait till apoplexy could find leisure to take charge of him. And there was his son and heir, the Marquis of Marigold, a distinguished orator | on agricultural distress, a perpetual president of county meetings, a Colonel of Yeomanry, who dined with his corps once a year, a zealous friend of farmers who could afford to pay rent, a staunch supporter of the Corn Laws and dear bread, and one who, like the unfortunate Maria Antoinette, wondered at the poor being hungry, when "three such nice cakes could be bought for a halfpenny!" Then there was my Lord Walgrave, and Mr. Robinson in his green spectacles, of whose private character and virtue we have heretofore tendered specimens. In addition to these, was the Hon. Mr. Scampington, a gentleman about thirty years of age, and six feet in height, with a ruddy complexion, and generally wearing a colored striped cravat, a yellow waistcoat, green riding coat, white cords and top-boots. Tom Scampington was of a race nearly extinct. They flourished about thirty years ago, but have almost vanished with the advent of quadrilles and French cookery. He was one of those who cared for nothing-his debts and the devil not excepted; who could drive any thing, from a four-inhand to the barrow of a dog's meatman; who could chaunt any thing, from the buffo of Lablache to the "take off" of a dustman; who could say any without it. 66 thing but his prayers, and do any thing-even a lawyer! He knew all party. THE GAMBLING SCENE. 66 "I believe we are to have a rubber,” said Scampington; but they expect somebody else to make up a set. Oh, oh, I know," said Vanely; "they are looking for Vernon, the banker. I wonder he is not come, for he is as fond of a rubber as any man in the kingdom." At this moment the servant announced Mr. Vernon, who was warmly received by Mrs. Maxwell, and by her introduced to Lord Walgrave and the other gentlemer. Lord Vanely he appeared to know slightly, and Mr. Robinson intimately; the latter greeted him with all the respect which he usually paid to rank or wealth. Mr. Vernon appeared to be about six and thirtyyears of age, about the middle size, and rather stout. His countenance was prepossessing; there was an air of frankness and good humor about it; but the uncertainty and wavering of his very light grey eye bespoke irritability and indecision. His complexion was what is usually called sanguine, his teeth were very even and white, and his hair was light and curling, though scanty. An almost imperceptible shade of heightened color came over his countenance on seeing Walgrave seated in so very familiar a manner beside Mrs. |