quence of the low state of intelligence and the de- The true influence of art, however is not seen or basement of the moral standard, deserving of great perceived, at least in the production of the beauticompassion from their more enlightened and highly ful, and cannot be so long, as is the case here, as favored brethren of the North. Some very dis-the education in vogue is limited to what is called creet and somewhat learned men have thought this the merely useful. For instance, the art of design estimate of the cavaliers of Virginia not very well is no where taught in America or in England as it founded. Among others who entertained this opin-is in France, where every "ecole-publique" has its ion was one whose name will descend" in full odor drawing master. The consequences of this are apof sanctity" as long as Virginia shall exist, I mean parent, for in the first country, the working tinman the Right Rev. Richard Channing Moore, almost the for the purposes of the ordinary mechanic, forms Apostle of the State. The good old Bishop, whom common utensils of such beauty, that during the all men, good or bad, respected, sate one day a next year, copied by the London silver-smith, they most unwilling listener to panegyrics uttered by two are bought for the board of the noble and merchantdescendants of the Pilgrim fathers, on New Eng-prince.

blind bard. A good statue, however, will always attract attention, as has lately done the beautiful group of Hero and Leander, (by a German sculptor with an unpronouncable name,) which has recently been exhibited in the Northern cities. About this group there is much softness, grace and expression. The pose, adopted by the sculptor, is the moment of Leander's reaching the strand of Abydos.

land. Not approving of half they said, but res- I, however, must adopt for a moment the phrasetrained by that politeness which was his charac-ology of art-talk. Statuary which the Greeks teristic, he said nothing until one of the couple, a thought the queen of arts, does not exist in Americlergyman of his own diocese, said to the other in-ca. It is true that from time to time a group is terlocutor "ah, Mrs. T., such a standard of moral-exhibited, but it no more belongs to us than the rare ity as pervades New England you will look for in Agave-Americana of the hot-house to our own vain in Virginia." The good Bishop was but a Flora, or the wine of Burgundy and Champaign man and human patience was exhausted. He loved imported hither, to our own productions. The day Virginia as all the State loved him, and a wild flash for it has not yet come. While millions of acres of lit up his usually mild blue eye as he said, "Truly wild lands of surpassing fertility rest unoccupied, you rejoiced in a high standard of morality, for by it men will hesitate about paying for one block of maryou burned witches and to it you hanged Quakers." ble what would purchase a territory more valuable New England excellencies were talked of no more than many a German kingdom. We must thereat that re-union. fore, for ages to come, be satisfied with sending The people of the whole North (I speak of the Powers to Europe, and keeping his fame to ourmass) seem amazed to find that Southern gentle-selves, as the people of Scio did with their own men are educated, and utter the most naif surprise when told by Book-Sellers, that far the most costly and recherché portion of the invoices they receive from Europe, go to the curious old houses on the banks of the James and Savannah, or to the far off bluffs of the Father of waters. Your State Librarian, at his yearly visit, is an object of no small curiosity, people wondering why he does not buy the works of the established writers of New Eng- If sculpture, however, is neglected, its kindred land, instead of the quaint old books which his art architecture is not. Statues after all are but agents in New York, and Carey and Hart of the large toys, but there is a solid reality about a large city of mobs and brotherly love, collect for the offi- mansion which captivates cupidity. Stately edicials of the ancient Dominion. This state of things fices and dwellings rise daily around us, the genhere, and what I know once existed at the South, eral taste evinced in the construction of which is induce me to commence this series of letters, in most convincing of the great progress of the nawhich I wish to unfold much of that minor gossip tion's taste. I am ready, however, to confess that that rarely finds its way into journals and newspa- the styles in vogue, florid Venetian and Gothic do pers, though so important an item of the talk of the not please me as well as would the severer types of day. the Greek civilization. Heretical as this may seem, The great theme of conversation here is art, a nothing, according to my ideas, is less in consosort of conventional term, like the Indian "medi-nance with the spirit of the age and the attitude cine," applied to whatever is unintelligible and unu- Christianity has assumed than the adoption of sual. Thus besides poetry, painting, music, dan- the sombre Gothic architecture for America's cing and "the mechanics," people talk of all sorts grandest temple, Trinity Church, instead of of things as artistic. Dr. Collyer's naked women some simple Doric or ærial Ionic type, countless were called artistic and classical, though they were exemplars of which might be found. The Broadno more classical than Powers' Greek Slave dressed way Theatre, is in better taste as an edifice, in John Randolph's white surtout, or the red jacket and its exterior has an appropriateness to its use, of the negro trumpeter of the Richmond Light which the builder of the church, one would think, Dragoons, old George LaFayette, would have been. ' could have fashioned easily enough, had he felt the

inspiration of his task. After all I think the Capitol | La Borde has taken cold. In the Spanish West of Virginia the most handsome edifice in America. Indian Islands they manage these things betIt certainly would be, if the entrance, instead of be-ter, for if the illness is not perfectly well estabing through the ungainly stairways on the side, were through the portico, from which may be seen that matchless view of the river and its beautiful falls. The very word “Portico" conveys the idea of entrance, (Porta, a door,) and your own capitol like that of the great temple of Rome should have a stairway extending over a third of the first ter

race.

lished, the patient is sent to prison. I once saw a Primo Tenore Assoluto being escorted to the Moro, because the poor man fancied he could display his importance by sending from Teatro Principal, without a funcion, all the gentefina of Havana. General Tacon, the Gobernador General was, however, a very obtuse personage and did not appreciate the wit of such an operation. Mr. Fry, of PhiladelNot to churches and public edifices alone, how-phia, well known as the author of Lenora, is the ever, is this improvement confined. Stately man- Impresario, or manager of the opera in the Unisions, ware-houses, etc. rise around us, and in almost every square of the great cities of the North, some building appears as the announcement of a better day when all Palladio's dreams shall be realized. So much for architecture. Its kindred art, landscape gardening, is unknown. Estates here are too small, and land in cities is too valuable. That art most depend for its patronage on the great peers of England and the more than baronial planters of the South. The late Randolph Harrison, of Elk Island, had done much to develop this taste in Virginia, where landscape beauty is more studied than it is in any other part of America.

America has reason to be proud of her painters. Inman, the Sullys, Nagle and others have done full justice to this great penchant. This art, however, languishes, though painters make money. Few pictures, appealing to posterity, are begun, and the exhibitions of the academies of Boston, New York and Philadelphia, exhibit rows of "portraits of gentlemen and ladies," but none of the great groups which once employed our masters. The firm and manly hand of Nagle, the artist to be selected as the portrayer of dignity and ideal grace, and the fancy of Sully which made him so able an exponent of ideal beauty, are now occupied in the portraiture of green-grocers and milliners. It was not always so.

ted States, and follows in the footsteps of the Conde Tacon. He operates on their high mightinesses of the opera with nearly as much success. His modus operandi is to discharge at once all refractory personages of his troupe, and from the days of Gil-Blas till now, singers have placed on themselves nearly as high an estimate as do your own F. F. V's. The theory, however, of no song no supper, at once reduces them to reason, and he has had the triumph of making even a Prima Donna act like a woman of sense. The opera thrives and so too does the ballet which, á mon gout, however, scarcely deserves to be called an art.

There is no doubt but that the effect of the many opera troupes, which from time to time have visited the United States has already superinduced great taste for music and cannot but exert a beneficial influence on manners by expelling mere gossip from society. There are persons, however, who tell us this music-mania is doing much injury by withdrawing attention from the legitimate or literary drama. Many things, however, prove that the drama does not suffer from competition with its musical rival. Two of the foremost of these facts are, that actors are now willing and anxious to pay large prices for tragedies and comedies of what are called the legitimate schools, and that the three greatest brilliancies of the theatrical world are now almost But music is the rage because the opera affords in conjunction. I refer to Macready, Forrest and an opportunity of exhibiting so many of the minor the famous Fanny Kemble Butler, the latter of passions of the fair sex. Women crowd the dress whom it is said will resume her profession and emcircles of the opera, because they are aware how pire as a tragic queen, as soon as the litigation bewell they look in the tight-fitting scarlet and ceru. tween herself and husband shall have been termilean vests, which are now the mode. Their pretty nated. This proces attracts much attention. Howfingers beat the cadence of Rossini's and Verdi's ever strains, and their hearts and eyes grow liquid at Bellini's touching pathos. Every body now is musical. This subject is, however, important in Macready and Forrest pass together from city to another point of view. It used to be a matter of city, playing against each other in all cities where amazement to me to read in the memoirs and ana there are two theatres. How much society loses of the last century how opera-quarrels were fre- by the fact that they will not be friends and play quently as important in their consequences as cabi-together! net difficulties. This state of things no longer exists in Europe; but in America, where music begins to be a favorite, all the world i. e. about five thousand people, are thrown into hysterics, by the announcement that Truffi is indisposed, and that

.... non nobis tantas componere lites.

When actors thrive, another class of men also prosper, to whom the Germans have given the name of Theater-Dichter or stage poets. Homely, however, as the name may be, it was once a proud one, for it belonged to Shakespeare and Schiller,

Voltaire, Calderon, Racine and Sheridan. Many | Became,

new dramas have been written during the last few A witness to it all. It broke his heart!
months, some of which fell dead. Like Cornelius Casimir-(kissing her)-Cold as the marble from Carrara's
Here Marinella has fainted upon his breast.
Matthews'"Leisler," others were never allowed mine

by their authors to be placed on the stage, while Sweet-sweet and cold! Mine is but poor right
yet a third class kept up a galvanic life for a few To those sweet kisses now, etc.
days and fell when the extrinsic power which sus-
tained them was exhausted. "Leisler" was like
nothing else in the world and defies all criticism as
does Caliban. Requiescat. LovE'S MARTYR, a play
of the third class, deserves rather more attentive
consideration.

Casimir becomes suspected by the Doge and is doomed to death. When the officers come to arrest him he contrives, in a most outré manner, a quarrel and is killed. Evidently taken from some romance, there are many historical mistakes, not the least of which is the confusion of the Inquisition, as we call it, of the Ten, with the ecclesias

T. M. Read, the author, was known partially a few years since, as the writer of many magazine papers, over the signature of "the poor scholar," tical inquisition of Spain and Rome. and subsequently as a letter writer from Mexico and subaltern of the New York volunteers. The play has evidently been carefully studied and, though a farrago of what the author considered beauties, is scarcely likely to last. The scene is laid in Venice in the 14th century, when the Visconti began to attract the attention of all Italy to their city of Milan. The plot of the story is the love borne by Casimir, a noble French Adventurer, who, like Othello had become general of Venice, to Marinella (there is no such name by-the-bye) a lady of a noble Venetian house of French origin. Marinella has a brother, as she supposes, who, however, is only an adoptive son. The true relation between them she does not learn until after she has been married to Casimir, who is the friend and patron of her foster-brother. Lorenzo, a friar, is aware of all, and though a pure man, is the origin of much distress by suffering, from speaking imprudently, the secret to transpire. Morinella then discovers that she loves her foster-brother more than Casimir's wife should. The author's words, however, best explain this part of the plot.

The old play-goer and lover of the Drama will meet with many acquaintances in this play; not to speak of two Iagos and a duplicate of the Friar in Sheridan Knowles' "tale of Mantua," all the world will recognize the following verses as emanating from the cottage of one Claude Melnotte, made famous by a well known English Baronet.

In time the maiden found

A feeling undefined within her heart,

It soon became developed-it was love

Love not for him whom she had vowed to love,
But for the foster brother.

The youth, too, loved the maid-Nature had placed
The germ within their hearts, where it had lain
Amidst the darkness of an erring fate,
Till nature's self invoked it forth again
To bud and bloom.

Each sorrowed for their love-each struggled hard
To stifle it-when they had striven in vain,
Each secretly resolved to see the other one
No more on earth-they met at length to part:
'Twas then that first they knew each other's love,
Confessed at parting, parting when confessed,
And without even a kiss, they spoke the sad,
Sad word, farewell!

Meanwhile, the husband from some circumstance
Had grown suspicious of his young wife's love.
He was admonished when this parting scene
Was to take place-

And leaving for a moment honor's path

Casimir.-Far from the echoes of a troubled world
Within the soft embrace of vine clad hills
There slept a sunny vale-in whose warm lap
Had art divine, and Nature more divine
Poured out their wealth in very wantonness-
A palace rose 'midst glowing orange grove,
Whose golden foliage clustered round its walls
And kissed the snow-white marble-
Hour after hour all the live long day
Fell the soft murmurings of crystal streams
Gushing from founts of silver-when the breeze
Stole softly down from the blue Appenines-
It robbed the blossoms upon perfumed trees
To fill the air with incense-strange bright birds
Ne'er silenced their sweet songs-for when at eve
The throstle had performed his evening hymn,
The nightingale caught up the echoing note-
E'er it had ceased to wander through the grove-
Stealing its tender eloquence to win

His own coy mate half hid among the leaves!
It was indeed a scene of loveliness,

And over all

Spread a rich canopy of blue and gold-
The sky of Italy!

The versification and matter here are pretty, except that the leaves of orange-trees are never golden, that the breezes which blew over this Elysium did not come from the Appenines and that throstles are never seen in Italy. These are small matters, however; the serious objection to the play is, that Casimir, the hero, is kept in furore, for five acts and that no human audience can ever sympathise with him. The author can write a much better play than this if he pleases, and I am sure he will have better luck next time.

Do not confound T. M. Read with Thomas B. Read, the poet-painter, a man who, though a native of cold formal Pennsylvania has more fervor than any other author in the country.

But Salis jam satis, etc. In my next letter, Mr. | all sound and honest thinkers is, “confidence! give Messenger, I shall write of Northern journals and us a government which contains the essential elemagazines, and touch on a variety of other sub-ment of permanence: then, confidence will revive; jects. Till then adieu. then commercial and industrial pursuits will resume their activity. Until then, expect nothing but a complication of the difficulties arising from stagnated industry, bankruptcy, and civil discord."

JACULATOR.

Alas for the French! Why has not the National Assembly pursued the simple and easy course which logic and the plainest common sense would dictate! Why have they not made it their great and press

FROM OUR PARIS CORRESPONDENT. ing business to elaborate the constitution which was

PARIS, NOVEMBER, 1848.

The election of the first President of the French Republic, one and Indivisible, will take place on the 10th December. Thus it was determined in the National Assembly on the 26th ult., by a vote of 587 against 232.

The candidates must be at least thirty years of age, must be Frenchmen born, and must never have lost the title of French citizen. These are the sole qualifications prescribed by the new Constitution.

intended to introduce the reign of republican government in France-completed it in all its partsand having formed an uniform, barmonious systemlegislative, judicial, executive, administrative,―appointed a day for the election of all necessary officers, and a subsequent day when the Provisional should cease, the constituent assembly dissolve, and the essay of regular republican government under the new constitution commence in France? I do not believe it would succeed. I do not believe that human wisdom or superhuman wisdom could devise a truly republican government that would last a year in France without recourse to the state of siege or some other powerful arm borrowed from Despotism. But it appears clear to my mind that a republican system thus organized and thus put into operation would alone be capable of realising, by success, the benefits of republican government. But instead of this, what have the Solons of the Assembly done? They are attempting to put their constitution into operation, not as one harmonious whole, and all at once, but by instalments, by morsels. They pursue the course of a ship builder who having completed separately several portions of his ship, the keel, the prow, the masts, the yards, and

Who will be elected? This is the great question which for the next five weeks is to agitate France more profoundly than any which has been proposed since the proclamation of the Republic. For the election by universal suffrage to be valid the elect must have received the absolute majority of the votes given and that majority must be composed of at least two millions of votes. In default of this, the National Assembly will proceed to choose the President from the five highest on the list of candidates. In such an event the Assembly will vote by secret ballot, and the election will be determined by an absolute majority. Ar- having collected timber for the rest, launches each ticle 47th of the new Constitution prescribes that portion separately and commences his voyage upon the President of the Republic shall be elected for a raft, hoping during the voyage, in stormy, wintry four years; and shall not be re-eligible till after the weather, too, to put the parts all together and comlapse of four years from the expiration of his term plete his ship! All the articles of the new Conbut the term of the first President is to be abridged stitution have been voted it is true but not finally. by a few months, so as to produce no conflict with A revision is to take place and important modificaanother provision, which ordains that future presi-tions may yet be made. A work of a month or dential elections shall take place on the second six weeks is yet before the Assembly for the elabSunday in May. oration of what are called some half dozen organic

I confess that this new phase which French laws, defining the functions of ministers and public Politics are about to assume is, to my mind, any-officers more minutely than is supposed to be conthing but assuring for the future. It is an indefi- sistent with the elementary general nature of a connite prolongation of Provisional Government. But stitution. The constitution calls for a "Council of Provisional Government has existed in various State," which is to exercise in connection with the forms since the 24th February and is the great President, important functions. The Council of cause of the embarrassment and depression which State is to be provisionally supplied by a commitare now so fatally affecting all the great interests tee of thirty, chosen by the Assembly from among upon which national prosperity depends. Provi- its own members. The President is to be chosen sional Government is arbitrary. That might be by the people, to be immediately installed by the borne. But it is at the same time unstable, ever Assembly and is thenceforth to exercise all the changing. That is intolerable. The grand want powers attributed to him by the Constitution, exof France is confidence. The unanimous cry of cept those relating to the promulgation of the laws

which the Assembly reserves provisionally to its authority and consolidating it into despotism, in the own president. The Assembly then votes that un-state of anarchy and confusion which reigns in the til the inauguration of the Legislative Assembly provinces, in the irreconcilable factions into which which forms part of the regular system contempla- the Assembly itself is divided, in the enormous abuted by the constitution, it will retain possession of ses which do not yet fail to characterize the press all the powers hitherto possessed by it, except the and the clubs, and in the utter absence throughout executive power confided by the constitution to the France of the essential element of republicanism, President and which the Assembly declares itself the sentiment of obedience to the will of the maincapable of revoking. With this exception the jority. I anticipate, therefore, for the French ReNational or Constituent Assembly is to continue public, a winter of fearful trial. I hardly think it omnipotent and arbitrary. The election of the will weather the storm. Legislative Assembly and the demission of its om- But who, you ask, is to be the first President? nipotence by the constituent is put off to an inde- It may be answered almost with complete confifinite future. What will be the consequence of dence-Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte. Beauthis state of things? A complication of difficul- tiful consistency of French Republicanism! The ties: an aggravation of all the actual evils. The most ambitious of the pretenders to the French present provisional state is in my opinion prefera- throne, who has no personal merit upon which to ble. There is now at least no conflict of author- found his candidacy, who has never rendered any ities. Gen. Cavaignac who is now charged with signal service to his country, whose whole past the executive power, holds his commission from history is marked in about equal degrees by incathe Assembly-he is the mere creature of the As-pacity and ridicule, who hopes, as he himself has sembly, sets up no rival pretensions-a vote to- avowed recently from the tribune, to be foisted morrow would promptly send him unresisting, into into the Presidency simply because he is the nethe retirement of private life. Such will not be phew of his uncle, by the skilful use of a name the position of the nominee to the Presidency by and that name the very synonym of Despotism !— universal suffrage. Rival powers will find them- this is the candidate whom French republicans in selves immediately in presence,-the Constituent the exercise of universal suffrage are about to eleAssembly and the President. Should the latter vate to the highest office in their gift. It would honestly desire not to exceed his powers, yet be perhaps be impossible to proclaim in a more emdetermined, as an independent functionary he well phatic manner, than by this act, their inability to may be, to resist the arbitrary pretensions of the appreciate and unworthiness to enjoy republican inAssembly, where is he to go for the rule of his stitutions-a blessing when the people are prepared conduct? There is no Constitution with its organ- for their exercise, a curse when they are not. ic laws, and cunningly devised cheeks and balances, in full play, to which he may resort to solve his difficulties. His constitutional coadjutors, institutions and persons, are not provided. He finds himself therefore a provisional, independent, rival power. Let conflicts arise. Who may say that Presidential ambition, fresh from the people, newly affirmed by the very same power which gives all its force to the National Assembly, with all the advantages too derived from executive unity, will be seriously impeded or long checked by votes that the "President cannot dissolve or prorogue the National Assembly nor in any manner suspend the supremacy of the laws and Constitution." One who holds this opinion must attribute to legis- Legitimists will vote for him; knowing that Henry lative decrees in France more than experience V. is out of the question, and hoping, not perhaps will warrant. The thwarted President may plau- without some reason, that another Napoleon rule sibly argue, that the Provisional Assembly is may end with another restoration. He will have superseded by the Provisional President, that he a large vote from the intelligent and reasoning inconcentrates in his own person the representa- dustrial and commercial classes, who see no other tion of more suffrages than any government since mode of rapidly leaving that provisional state of February. Deriving his authority from the same things, which since February has been rapidly rusource with the Assembly, he may argue that his ining them. He will have a large vote in the army, title may invalidate and supersede that of the As- of men who dream of war, promotion, victory and sembly, in that the will under which he holds is of glory under another Napoleon. He will have too later date. The new President will find too plau-the whole of the small vote of those who from sible, if not sufficient reason for strengthening his gratitude to the uncle and a lively recollection of

The only prominent names, which have as yet been put forward as candidates for this perilous and difficult post, are those of

Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte,
Gen. Cavaignac,
Ledru-Rollin,
Raspail,
Thiers,

Marshal Bugeaud.

Louis Napoleon will have an immense country vote. He will have that too of several of the industrial and manufacturing centres which, ignorant and unreflecting, are known to cherish with undying devotion the souvenir of the Emperor. Many