in the holy city of the Damascus caravan. But our want of space forbids, and we must send our readers to the book itself, confident that, if they can endure a dash of flippancy in speaking of things religious, and an occasional sin against good taste, for the sake of novelty, sprightliness, and the true traveler's temper, they will gladly go with so instructive a companion to Medina, and will be anxious to follow him again, in the fall, to Mecca, whither he goes in his third volume.

-Mr. ARTHUR HELPS, whose essays, called "Friends in Council," made him somewhat known in this country, undertook, some time since, a semi-fictitious history of the Spaniards in America, under the title of the "Conquerors of the New World and their Bondsmen." This work originated in a philanthropic mood; as the author said he wished to find out for himself, and to show to others, "how the black people came to the new world; how the brown people faded away from certain countries in it; and what part the white people had in these doings." The book was neither an essay nor a novel, nor a history; and though it was full of interesting reflections, and of good things well said, it shared the fate of all amorphous productions. The studies which Mr. Helps had pursued, in writing the book, however, fitted him, and inspired him to attempt a more serious and satisfactory treatment of the subject, and he has, accordingly, been engaged upon an elaborate History of the Spanish Conquest of America, the first two volumes of which have been issued.

Mr. Helps has chosen for his journey a much-traveled road, and treads in the footsteps of very illustrious predecessors.

But he describes the career of Spain in the new world rather in its results than in its progress; he does not follow tamely in the track already occupied by Mr. Prescott, but aims to illustrate the influence of the conquest upon the races subjected to the Spanish dominion. In fact, his book may be regarded as a contribution to the history of human misery, rather than to the records of human glory.

He writes always with feeling, and has an eye for the picturesque, which sometimes misleads him. In describing the Mexico of Montezuma, as a city, then "the fairest in the world," and which has never since been equaled, he certainly goes beyond

the limits of reasonable poetic license; and it is not seldom that the judicious reader will find himself obliged to regret that Mr. Helps is so imperfectly convinced of the difference between an essay and a history.

For the light which this book throws on the story of mankind in the western world, Mr. Helps deserves our thanks; and, although he has not told the story of the Mexican conquest in such a way as to give his book the attraction of novelty, he has developed some facts slightly treated by others, and, in particular, has done not a little to clear up the character of the Spanish government, in connection with the proceedings of Cortez, Pizarro, and their compeers.

Mr. Helps has verified the conjecture of Robertson, that the government at home has been unjustly charged with many of the atrocities committed, against its orders and without its knowledge, by the adventurers in the new world. If we will reflect, how unwilling we should be, that the American government should be held responsible for the lawlessness and oppression which have marked the relations of the Americans in California with the Mexican natives, we shall be more disposed to admit, that the council of the Indies may have been maligned for many an act, of which it never had any cognizance.

-The Nestor of English poets, who, in his latter days, aped too much the evil-tongued Thersites, having been quietly gathered to his fathers, it remained for his friends to do him the last injustice of publishing his memoirs. This they have done, and all whom the tongue of Rogers ever stung, may hold themselves avenged.

The editor of the Recollections of the Table-Talk of Mr. Rogers ought to have entitled his book, "Mr. Roger's Recollections of Table-Talk ;" for there is hardly a good thing in the book which was not said to Mr. Rogers, by somebody else; while the treasured sayings of Mr. Rogers himself are almost invariably flat and pointless. The critical observations of the old poet and connoisseur are particularly odd, but not otherwise striking. He preferred the Colosseum in Regent's Park to the Coliseum at Rome; and it made him sick to hear people say balcony instead of balcony!

But Mr. Rogers had lived too long, and seen too much of the world, and been too curious in his experience, not to have col

lected a great many entertaining and instructive anecdotes, and all manner of distinguished people pass before us in these volumes, some in full dress, some in undress-all in characteristic style and guise, from Byron waking his wife from her sleep on their marriage-night, by exclaiming that he was "certainly in hell!" to Porson

drinking off, as good gin, a whole can of Mr. Hoppner's lamp-fluid.

Porson, by the way, is lugged in as an appendix, apparently to fill out the volume; but all that we have here of the great scholar, is, to say the least of it, quite as interesting as what is told us of the respectable poet.

THE WORLD

The proverbial truth, that "everybody's business" is usually done by nobody, never had a sadder illustration than it has received during the past winter, in the condition of our beloved metropolis. We, last month, mourned in common with all the world, over the outrageous obstructions in our highways, which barred us from our business, and made the pursuit of pleasure a peril.

And yet at this present writing, Broadway still looks like the Boulevards, after a barricade, and the hospital doors still swing daily open to contused citizens, the victims of municipal misconduct.

After all, things are not so unevenly balanced in this world! Paris has no ballot-boxes, but she has safe pavements; we have primary meetings, but from thirty to forty sovereigns have been daily picked up, bruised and wounded, from our dangerous flag-stones.

The number is startling, yet such we are assured, and by good authority, was the fact.

"Was the fact," we say, for though we speak in the middle of March-your eyes, oh reader, will not rest upon our words till April begins to scatter flowers and catarrhs over the reawakening earth. Like our grandmothers, who wore the original hoops, and went to balls on the king's birthday, this our Lady Maga has to submit to her toilette long before she makes her début. Those dear souls, so long departed, used to sit in patience with heads high-frizzed, through many an hour, incapable of motion and almost afraid to speak, ere the happy moment came for displaying what it had cost such time and such endurance to achieve. Indeed, there is a legend in one of the eastern towns of New England, that once upon a time, when successful privateering had begotten a pecuniary plethora in the place, and fes

OF NEW YORK.

tivities abounded, some lovely dames had to be "hair-dressed" and hooped three mortal days in advance of every ball which they attended. Upon us, too, the necessity of this anticipatory toilette entails some slight discomforts. Thus it was, for instance, that we were compelled last month to omit the cordial word of praise, which is due, from every one who cares for the progress of the public pleasure, to Mr. Burton, in acknowledgment of his zealous efforts to revive the Shakespearian drama upon our stage. He chased the winter of our discontent with the great poet's "Winter's Tale ;" and, vexed and frozen as we were, compelled us all to shake our sides, and thaw into mirth over the facetious villainies, and most humorous roguery of the inimitable Autolycus. Mr. Burton is not only the first of living comedians; he is a sound Shakespearian scholar, and takes an artist's pride in the proper production of the master's works.

That he could not create players equal to himself, is hardly to be laid as a charge at his door. He gave us appropriate and respectable scenery-elaborate costumes, good music-parts correctly spoken, if not finely performed, and effective tableaux.

That Hermione was only herself, when she stood a silent statue upon her pedestal to await the sun ray of love from her husband's eyes, ere she awoke to musical life; that the sweet Perdita would have seemed more truly a fair human flower, had she, like the flowers, spoken only to the eye; that all the tragedians of the play had lately left the theatre of Mr. Vincent Crummles-that these things were, let not Mr. Burton be reprehended. They came by our fault as much as by his, for we who insist upon good playing, make light of players and leave the boards to be upheld by the groundlings. But that Mr. Burton,

supported by a capital clown, and a most egregious shepherd, made of himself the most rollicking, sly, sinful, and sensual Autolycus ever seen, an Autolycus, whom to look upon might have tickled the heart of Shakespeare himself,-this is Mr. Burton's especial merit, and for this we beg him to receive our heartiest thanks. May the Winter's Tale find listeners till the Midsummer Night shall come with Dreams! Meanwhile, as the town is too large for us to be content with one good thing, we look anxiously to Miss Laura Keene and Mr. Wallack, for variety of entertainment. Mr. Wallack can give us as many novelties as he shall please for though he has lately produced no very effective new play, everything which he does produce is put upon the stage in a style of such uniform excellence, that we have no hesitation in demanding much from one so capable of responding to our demand. Since we last gossiped with our readers, many of them no doubt have laughed over the brilliant absurdities of Mr. Walcot, in the play of the "Knights of the Round Table," which is the best novelty Mr. Wallack has recently given us. The play itself is most preposterously improbable in plot, and not very felicitous in dialogue, but the situations were so effective, and the acting was so clever, that everybody forgave everything for the sake of Tom Tidler, and Captain Smith.

Yet the drama can hardly be said to be prospering, while this indulgence is so constantly demanded of the public, and the talent of an actor is interposed as a shield between the twaddle of the text and the temper of the audience.

We must repeat and re-repeat our cry for good plays. We certainly shall not be appeased by the revival of Colman's Heir-atLaw, which is not sufficiently striking and original, in conception or dialogue, to atone for the want of reality which lapse of time and distance in space have given to its characters. Nor can we hail as a great success Mr. Charles Reade's drama of "Two Loves and a Life," produced, or traduced, at Miss Keene's "Varieties." The plot of this play is excessively melo-dramatic-the main incidents being neither new nor probable, and the text is overfine and flighty. Still, if poor plays get more than justice from Mr. Wallack's troupe, they get even less than justice from Miss Keene's. Are

there no good disposable actresses in the country, and no actors who will consent to attend a course of lectures, by Hamlet Prince of Denmark, before strutting their brief hour upon the stage?

To touch and teach our modern audiences, the managers must give honorable encouragement to the production of plays on subjects taken from modern life, or, at least, infused with the modern spirit ; and our actors must shake off the ridiculous traditions of the stage voice, and vision, and stride. Nobody now, on entering one of our theatres, expects to see the mirror held up to nature, or society.

All men do not growl and frown their emotions in private life; but upon the stage, they all must do so. All women do not gasp and shriek their joy or sorrow by the domestic hearth; but upon the stage they all must do so. It is high time that "Siddons on Gesture" should be sent to Coventry. In "plays of society," particularly, the absurdity of the stage demeanor is flagrant. A hundred years ago, when feudal distinctions still flourished in all the gorgeousness of their fall season, a gentleman or a lady was never allowed to be unconscious in manner. Now, the essential principle of good manners, for a lady or a gentleman, is unconsciousness, real or assumed.

A gentleman or a lady who, in society, shows any visible consciousness of the ef fect which he or she is producing upon the company, loses, at once, the distinguishing quality of modern good-breeding, and begins at once to be theatrical. The phrase, in its familiar use, condenses a volume of criticism. The stage gentleman and the stage lady are not the gentleman and the lady of the world; and if we take Mr. Walcot and, shall we say, Miss Keene, from our boards, we shall find not a single actor or actress in New York who seems capable of conceiving and representing the rôle of a man or woman of the world, without becoming perfectly ridiculous.

Perhaps the audiences are partly to blame for their tolerance of the false and the forced upon our stage; and a little wholesome ferocity from pit and gallery might help to accelerate the progress which we are anxious to see made by our actors, in the direction of sound art.

The craving for amusement that shall at once delight and expand the mind, unques

tionably grows stronger in the breasts of our people, with every year. It cannot be said that anything really good, in the way of art, which has yet been offered to us, has absolutely failed of appreciation.

Mr. Paine, to be sure, has hardly made a fortune at the Academy, this winter; but then "Her Majesty's Theatre" has never proved exactly a gold mine, to any of its managers, and the Grand Opera House of Paris might have been turned, like Drury Lane, into a Hippodrome, long ago, but for the steadying hand of the government.

Boston and Philadelphia have handsomely treated our "strayed revellers," and now that they have come back again, New York really means, does she not? to give them a hearty welcome.

As we were walking up Broadway, the other night, we came upon a crowd which caused us to rub our eyes, with a vague, astonished notion that the Opera had already returned, and to the old familiar place where we passed so many gay and pleasant hours six years ago.

Astor Place was blockaded with carriages. Omnibusses continually hauled up, driving remorseless poles into each other's doors. Ladies, in hoops, darted, with surprising agility, in and out among the wheels and trampling horses, scaled the dingy mountains of the highway, and swarmed together again, in little groups, about the anxious cavaliers who awaited them on the pavements. It was a crowd and clamor of women.

We gave ourselves up to the tide, and were borne into the ancient temple of the Muses.

There we found an altar, indeed, and a priest, but not the service of former days. Yet we soon ceased to be astonished that the enthusiasm of former days should have revived about the doors of Clinton Hall.

"most

For the priest was young, and a proper man," and his words were words of sweetness and persuasion. Like Saadi of old, he had wandered East and West (though not for thirty years), and all that he had gathered he was laying a fragrant offering -flowers and pomegranates-at the shrine of genius.

Need we be plain and precise, and speak the speech of newspapers, and say that "Mr. Curtis's Lectures upon Contemporary English Fiction, which were so cordially received in Boston, have been repeated

with equal success in New York"? Very successful they were, and well they deserved to be so. It would have reflected small credit upon the culture and the taste of our people, had they refused to listen when an accomplished, and genial, and thoughtful man invited them to hear what he had to say of the great writers who have most deftly charmed the ear and heart of this generation. Next after the pleasure of being pleased comes the pleasure of finding out why we are pleased; and cordial criticisms are hardly less delightful than genial creations. Cordial criticisms Mr. Curtis gave us; he talked of men and books with warmth and feeling; recognized the inevitable limits of time and space, and attempted less to analyze the genius of the authors he discussed, than to exhibit the tendencies of their influence upon ourselves.

Of course, we did not all agree with him in every opinion which he emitted, and this vexed some of us sadly; for Narcissus cannot help liking a good mirror more than the best of pictures. We all have our loves and our hates; and some of us were angry with the scoffer (so" atrociously young," too) who flouted Bulwer; and others of us raged at the infatuated idolater who worshiped Thackeray.

But what did we go to hear at Clinton Hall? Did we go for a revelation, or only for a course of lectures?

We, individually, went for a course of lectures, and we found what we went to find, and liked it exceedingly.

Mr. Curtis thinks that the books of Bulwer are honey on the tongue, but gall and poison in the stomach; he thinks, too, that Hood and Dickens are the fascinating prophets of humanity and generous trust, who have breathed a breath of large, and noble, and aspiring life into the literature of modern England. We think that he has done Bulwer sad injustice; we also think that he has done Hood and Dickens something more than justice. But the temper which so prefers Hood and Dickens to Bulwer is honorable alike to his head and his heart. And can we not afford to dissent from the critic while we sympathize with the admirer?

Mr. Curtis rather unwisely jeers at Byron and boarding-schools, while he hails Charles Kingsley as the most poetic of preachers and the most parænetic of poets,

and as the fame of Byron is in no immediate danger of extinction, should we not, on the whole, be glad to see the boardingschools desert Don Juan for Alton Locke?

We are sure that many a good book will be more thoughtfully read by hundreds who listened to Mr. Curtis's words; that his elevated and earnest treatment of writers who wrote with a purpose, will lead many to find the soul of wisdom in the substance of amusement. And so we are sincerely glad that Astor Place was crowded on six successive nights with the best and brightest of New-York; that anonymous admiration laid its nightly boquet upon the lecturer's desk; and even the grim reporter smiled upon the unwonted pleasure of his task.

Of more illustrious orators, preaching "Washington and Common Sense," we have nothing just now to say.

But we cannot lay down our pen without a word for the first great festival of art which our country has witnessed. Boston, so long the pioneer in the path of musical cultivation, has sealed her claims to artistic distinction among the cities of America, by the tribute which she has paid to the genius of music's mightiest master.

On the 1st of March, Crawford's noble statue of Beethoven was "inaugurated" (that is to say, set upon its pedestal) in the Music Hall of Boston.

It had been intended that the services upon this occasion should be truly memorable in the annals of American art. But the programme, as programmes will, suffered mutilations; choral symphonies were performed without a chorus, and personal preferences and private piques, as they are apt to do, thrust themselves up-ugly brambles among the roses.

Yet, on the whole, the performances were fine, and the occasion truly noteworthy. That an American citizen should have presented to an American city a splendid statue of the first of composers, designed by American genius-that the gift should have been received with enthusiastic welcome by an immense audience, and celebrated in fitting strains by an American poet-all this is certainly a not unimportant sign of better times to come.

The poet of the occasion may be regarded as an apt type, in his own person, of the significance of the event he sang. Mr.

Story, as the son of our most distinguished jurist, and himself a lawyer of learning and ability, fairly belongs to the "practical" world of American talent; while in his triple quality of musician, sculptor, and poet, he prefigures the larger culture which shall yet develop the finer qualities of the national intellect.

Those who have seen Mr. Story's own admirable statue of Beethoven, will best appreciate the generous tribute which he paid to Crawford's work; and all our readers, we trust, will echo the lofty words into which he translates the suggestions of the place and the celebration.

"Topmost crown of ancient Athens towered the Phidian Parthenon;

Upon Freedom's noble forehead, art, the starry jewel, shone.

Here as yet in our republic, in the furrows of our soil,

Slowly glows art's timid blossom 'neath the heavy foot of toil.

Spurn not--but spare it, nurse it, till it gladden all the land;

Hail to-day this seed of promise, planted by a generous hand

Our first statue to an artist-nobly given, nobly planned.