some of George IV.'s port royal, was not to be declined, and occupied in the pleasing parsing of the glasses, the hour for commencing the performance arrived much sooner than was expected, and Budd, the time-honoured housekeeper of the theatre, appeared to summon the tragedian to his nightly duty.

said to wear occasionally, but I am incredulous. Seeing would be believing.

Mr. Kendall, the popular and adventurous editor of the Picayune, has been "Lucy-Long"-ing it somewhat over his eagerly-expected book on Mexico, but has lately dis"A crowded house was anxiously expecting him, the or- covered that his celebrity would stand any halt in the trumchestra had been rung in three or four times, and had peting. He purchased recently a copy of Captain Marryscraped through the animated overtunes of old Romberg,at's new book, "Monsieur Violet," to go to bed with of a till at last the spectators began to be impatient, and were calling for the tragedian in no very gentle terms.

"In the hilarity of the moment, the illustrious Edmund consigned them to the eternal Tophet, and swore that he would not leave the house, and go out to perform that evening to please any one. If they could get him on the stage, without his having to go out of the house, he'd play, but not otherwise-if they couldn't, the audience must be content with the performance of his friend the surgeon, who would, as usual, give a medical certificate of his, Kean's indisposition. This the surgeon readily agreed to do.

"How was this determination to be got over? "Poor Budd was in the greatest perplexity; the honest housekeeper began to fear for the safety of the structure intrusted to his care. At length the very exigence of the emergency inspired him with an idea.

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Agreed, sir,' said he. Dress for your part-here are your things-tunic, trunks, burnt cork, and pomatum, all ready, and I promise you, you shall not have to go out into the air, but shall perform without.'

"I agree to that, friend Budd,' said Kean, triumphantly, seeing no way by which it was to be accomplished; but you'll find your hopes nipped in the bud here, depend on it.'

"We shall see, sir,' said the housekeeper; only dress and follow me, and you shall very soon find yourself on the stage, without the trouble of treading the green.'

Kean began to black his face, and Budd retired to put his project into execution.

"Fortunately for the audience of the Richmond theatre of that evening, it happened that the coal-cellar of the dwelling-house was only divided from the pit of the theatre by the party-wall that ran through the two structures. The pitites were very soon astounded by a most mysterious knocking in this direction, rivalling that of the far-famed Cock-lane ghost.

"Thump-thump-thump-proceeded in quick succession from some invisible Hitites, and in a very few moments part of the wall began to give way-bricks and mortar tumbled about in all directions, affording serious apprehensions that the whole house was giving way-a cloud of dust arose —a large aperture appeared-and from the dark recesses of the coal-cellar emerged the triumphant Budd, with the noble Moor, the sooty hero of the night, who thus kept his oath, and yet did not disappoint the audience.

"The aperture which forms the communication between the dwelling-house and the theatre, through the medium of the coal-cellar, is still in existence, or at least was so very lately."

JOTTINGS.

rainy afternoon, and had the pleasure of lying on his back and reading his own adventures amplified in the best style by the author of Peter Simple. Kendall's letters in the Picayune were, of course, the basis of the extended and illustrated work he has in press, and this basis Captain Marryat (who is a subscriber to the Picayune) has taken bodily, and thereupon built his romance with but a small outlay of his own clapboards and shingles. An action of replevin for half the price of the captain's copyright, would "lie," I should think,-at least in the court of equity. Mr. Kendall, I had nearly forgotten to say, is spoken ill of in one portion of the captain's book, and his rejoinder has appeared in the Courier.

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I have been looking through the new publication called Etiquette, by Count D'Orsay." That D'Orsay revised the book and lent it his name "for a consideration," I think very possible, but there is, to my thinking, internal evidence in its style that he did not write it. There is an acquaintance with vulgarity, and a facility of "hitting it on the raw," which could only have been acquired by a conversance of fellowship with vulgar people, and D'Orsay knows as much of such matters as the thistle-down while afloat knows of the mud it floats over. Beside, the vulgarities are dwelt upon with a kind of unction totally foreign to D'Orsay's nature. He is a most kindly, as well as delicate and fastidious man, and his mind would instinctively avoid the knowledge of such matters, let alone the qualifying himself to describe them graphically. From one or two little anecdotes told in the book, I trace its authority to a Mr. Abraham Hayward, a frequenter of many different strata of London society, and probably the best judge in England of what is " genteel," by knowing better than anybody in England what is vulgar. It is undoubtedly an invaluable book, and circulated in one of these mammoth editions at the shilling price, it will prepare Americans of all classes, if they sin against good manners at all, to sin with knowledge-taking away at least the ridicule of the matter.

DIGRESSIVE LETTER TO THE READER. Dear pastoral-minded, centrifugally-bent, and moderately well-off reader,

I address you" with all the honours," to be quite sure The female dynasty is gaining ground. I mentioned in that my letter be not misapplied. We, the parties in this a previous letter that a Ladies' Oyster-shop was opened in correspondence, are neither rich nor poor;-as they express New-York, and a Ladies' Reading-room was projected. || it elegantly in the mother country, “neither nob nor snob.” The latter is since organized and about going into operation, I would the critics had not the trick of calling the having and meantime, another masculine privilege has gone over to one's own way " affectation;" else would I, (simple, though the ladies. A Club Bowling-alley has been established in I am,) coin for my own use, since the language is deficient Broadway, near Franklin-street, most luxurious in all its in them, some of those epithets, descriptive of a class, which appointments-carpets, ottomans, dressing-rooms, &c. The are at the same time so crisp, definite and expressive. For families subscribing are of the most fashionable cliques, and instance: were I to address a letter to a young man of a no male foot is suffered to enter this gynesian gymnasium- certain style, (a very prevalent style indeed,) and wish to the pins being set up by girls and the attendance exclusively convey from the first word my appreciation of the character feminine. The luxuries remaining to our sex, up to the preat which I aimed, I should be compelled to use the followsent time, are fencing and boxing—the usurpation of which ing circumlocution:- My dear universally-benevolent,— are probably under consideration. The fashions, you would i. e., - spending-all-the-money-you-can-get-and-makingsuppose, would scarcely gain by masculinifying, but the la- || love-to-all-the-women-you-see, young man. Now, the dies are wearing broadcloth cloaks-for a beginning. There French have a gracious and modest dissyllable for all this. is another article of male attire which they have long been The word expansif expresses it all. How much briefer, and

more courteous, in the case just supposed, could I commence One of the lesser evils of this appetite for sympathy in in English with My dear expansive! Again: in English, rhyme, is the very natural forgetfulness of a man absorbed we should say, Oh, you-all-things-to-all-men,-who-say- in grief, touching the trifle of postage. Reading a death in you-have-nono - prejudices,-but-are-understood-by-your- the newspaper affects me, now, like seeing myself charged friends-to-mean-no-principles! but in German they phrase with eighteen and three-quarter cents at the grocer's. If I it, quite short, Oh many-sided! Understand me not as were writing from the "palace of truth," to one of my "beleaning at all to Carlyle's system of personification and word-reaved husbands," I should still stoutly assure him of my linking. Two and three are five is better than Two and Three died when Five was born, though this is but a moderate illustration of Carlylism. I would introduce no new epithet that is not the essence of a phrase, no new-linked words that are not the chord of a circumlocutory arc. Touching my trade:

In the matter of pen-craft, I confess to a miserly disposition, yearly increasing. It is natural, I suppose, to tuck up close the skirts of those habits in which we run for our lives, (or livings,) and it is not inconsistent, I would fain hope,|| with prodigality of other belongings. In my college days, ere I discovered that a bore in my brains would produce any better metal than brass, (bored since for "tin,") I had a most spendthrift passion for correspondence. Now-paid duly for my blotted sheet-I think with penitential avarice of the words I have run through!

sympathy, having lost one and sixpence by the same melancholy event. My bill of mortality, (postage, they call it,) would frank me for broiled oysters at Florence's, the year round, and, begging pardon of the survivors, (not the oystershells,) I should like it in that shape quite as well.

Hereafter, I shall make an effort to transfer the cipher to the other side of the unit. If called upon to mourn, (in black and white,) for people I never before heard of, I propose to send my effusion as "commodity," to the first “enterprising publisher" who pays. Honour bright as to bygones-let them be by-gones! Indeed, they are mostly too personal to interest the public, one of the most felicitous of my elegies, turning, (by request,) on the deceased's “fascinating and love-inspiring lisps." But in all composed, after this date, I shall contrive so to generalize on the virtues and accomplishments commemorated, that the eulogy will apply promiscuously to all over-rated relatives-of course, forming, for a literary magazine, an attraction which comes home to every subscriber's business and bosom. I may premise, by the way, that my advertisement to this effect would be addressed only to mourners of my own sex, and that ladies, as is hardly necessary to mention, are supplied with epitaphs on their husbands, without publicity or charge; though it is a curious fact that my customers, in the epitaph line, have hitherto been widowers only! Whether widows choose usually some other vehicle for the expression of their grief, preferring that it should be recorded on tablets less durable than marble, (pardon me! more durable!) I have no data for deciding. I merely contribute this fact also to statistics.

"Pray, how does that face deserve framing and glazing?" asked a visiter, to-day. The question had been asked before. It is a copy from a head in some old picture-one of a series of studies from the ancient masters, lithographed in France. It represents a peasant of the campagna, and certainly, in Broadway, she would pass for a coarse woman, I have been brought to and not beautiful for a coarse one. think the head coarse and plain, however, by being often called on to defend it. I did not think so when I bought it in a print-shop in London. I do not now, unless under

People are apt to fancy it is a natural amusement-laborum dulce lenimen-for an author to write letters, epitaphs, &c. But there are two animals at least, who might differ from that opinion—the author, and the baker's horse, out on a Sunday's excursion, in the baker's pleasure-wagon. The truth is, that the tax on authors, in this particular, is a disease in the literary system, and since it is not likely to be cured while the human race want autographs, epitaphs, epithalamia, and opinions on MSS., the solace seems to lie in the expediency of fat Jack-we should "turn the disease into commodity." If every third epitaph in the graveyards of this country be not by the author of -, &c. &c. all I can say is, there must be a very considerable number of gravestores; and I am only sorry that I did not take out copyrights from the start, and serve injunctions on plagiar. izing stone-cutters. Here is a letter now from a gentleman in Arkansas, (whose grammar, by the way, is not very pelTucid,) informing me that his wife is dead, and giving me an inventory of her virtues; and I am requested to write the lady's epitaph, and send it on in time for the expectant marble. Of course I am extremely sorry the lady is dead, and since she was "such a pagoda of perfection," as Mrs. Rams. bottom would say, very sorry I had not the pleasure of her acquaintance; but my "head" is not "waters," (nor am I teetotaller enough to wish it were,) and I cannot weep for all the nice women who die, though grieved to think this particular style of person should diminish. Ours is a most romantic nation, for it would seem that there are few who do not think their private sorrows worthy of poetry, and the distinction between meum and tuum, (as to the authors,) having long ago been broken down by our copyright robbe-gularly harsh and inflexible. There is no refinement in it ries, the time and brains of poets are considered common now, and, to be sure, little mobility or thought-but it is a property. People, accustomed to call for poetry when they face in which there is no resistance. That is its peculiarity. want it, look upon the poet, quoad hoc, as they do upon the The heavy eyelid droops in indolent animal repose. The town-pump, and would be as much surprised at a charge for lips are drowsily sweet. The nostrils seem never to have poetry as for water. Possibly it is one of the features of a been distended nor contracted. The muscles of the lips and new country. I have lived in a neighbourhood where the stop-cheeks have never tingled nor parched. It is a face on ping of a man who should be taking what fruit he wanted from your garden, or what fuel he wanted from your woods, would surprise him as much as stopping his nostrils with corks, till he was off your premises; and with fruit and fuel, perhaps, time and brains may assume a value. At present, (it may as well be recorded among the statistics of the country,) poets, lumber and watermelons are among the "inalionable rights of freemen."

catechism.

To me, the whole climate of Italy is expresse. in the face of that Contadina. It is a large, cubical-edged, massy style of feature, which, born in Scotland, would have been sin

which a harsh wind never blew. If the woman be forty, those features have been forty years sleeping in balm-enjoying only-resisting, enduring never. No one could look on it and fancy it had ever suffered or been uncomfortable, or dreaded wind or sun, summer or winter. A picture of St. Peter's a mosaic of Pæstum-a print of Vesuvius or the Campanile-none of the common souvenirs of travel would be to me half so redolent of Italy.