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winter see, not one but two prosperous opera houses, and Von Weber and Beetho ven will become as familiar to us as Rossini and Verdi, Bellini and Donizetti. Indifferent to music we certainly have not shown ourselves to be. Nor need the drama dwindle and die out among us for lack of the vital air of popular interest. The splendid success of Mademoiselle Rachel sufficiently shows that any really admirable dramatic artist might safely count upon discriminating admiration, and cordial sympathy from our audiences, and the three theatres which profess to furnish as with dramatic entertainments would unquestionably receive a much more generous support than they now command, if the managers would put confidence in the really advancing tastes of the community, and would elevate the standard of their plays and their performances to the level of the public demand. The truth is, our managers do not seem to understand that the decay into which the stage fell a few years since, was due to a decline in the character of the stage itself rather than to the indifference of its patrons. Every good actor who has appeared during the last winter, and every attempt at the proper production of a good play has been met with anything but indifference on the part of the critics and of the public. Which of our managers will be the first to avail himself of the abundant indication which this winter has afforded of a desire on the part of the public for a really hightoned, well administered, and satisfactory theatre?

Some of the London critics, and some, too, of our own have made themselves very merry over Mr. Charles Kean's magnificent "realisms" at the Princess's; but would it not be as well for Mr. Wallack, or Miss Keene, or Mr. Burton to emulate with discretion the perhaps extravagant attention to every detail of effect and of attraction which Mr. Kean has been bestowing upon his stage? The sufficient answer to this question, it seems to us, is to be found in the success which has attended Mr. Kean's experiments, a success utterly unexampled in the recent history of the theatre. Whatever may be Mr. Kean's faults and foibles, this much at least is certain, that he has treated his profession with the respect due from every artist to his art, he has trampled upon the tradi

tions which condemned the stage to poverty in an age opulent in resources. It may be very true that Garrick was a greater actor than any man now living; but Garrick's greatness had no mysterious affinities with bobwigs and green baize carpets. The drama appeals to the living generation, and if the hearts of the living generation are to be reached by the appeals of the actor, these appeals must be made in forms and through shows which will not revolt the taste, or fail to fill the eyes of the living generation.

We are persuaded that it is always tolerably safe to assume that in a great community, like ours of New York, there is more of taste and feeling latent than has yet been touched, and every artist in whatever art will find his account in that assumption. That mysterious and incomprehensible entity the "public" is quite as often sinned against as sinning, and it is quite as possible for those who would reach the public, to miss their aim by striking below the average of the public intelligence or aside of it, as by striking above it.

In thinking upon these matters, we are often reminded of an old school committee man in a New England town, who used to to say in answer to complaints of the dullness and inattention of the scholars," boys are bad and stupid I know, and so are girls," (the wretch!) "but I have generally found that a clever teacher, somehow or other, made a clever school."

When we consider how enthralling are the mere material pursuits into which the fierce competition and the unspiritual temper of our times urge the vast majority even of our educated classes, we own that we are continually surprised at the vivacity rather than at the feebleness of the interest which can be excited in such a community as ours. by objects which appeal to the finer and higher nature of man. How impressive, in this respect, was the feeling aroused among us by that atrocious outrage upon decency, justice, and freedom, which has made the present session of our National Congress infamously memorable!

After all that has been dinned into our ears of declamation against the debasing influences of trade and city life, who could have expected to see such a sight as was presented in the Tabernacle, when citizens of every class and calling met together, not by hundreds, but by thousands, to utter

the voice of New York in indignant condemnation of the cowardly violence which had stricken down an American Senator in his seat, and prostrated the honor of a state long renowned for chivalrous gallantry? Tradesmen and men of fashion, scholars and lawyers, politicians and preachers, "theoretical" men and "practical" men, caught from each other the glow of a healthy manhood, and it was not possible to stand in that atmosphere without a kindling sense that whenever freedom and honor spoke, the heart of the busy metropolis would answer as the war-horse answers the trumpet. One such experience must forever dissipate the vulgar fancy that industry makes men ignoble; that the refinement of the intelligence absorbs the grand old instincts of manliness; that commerce makes cowards of us all.

But we touch on matters of an interest too painful and too passionate for us to treat them here. Yet was not this passing allusion incongruous with our theme, for with Schiller we believe that the root of all things beautiful is in the moral sentiments and the generous impulses of men; and it revives our confidence in the intellectual destiny of America, for us to find how warm and living in our people are the great qualities that constitute a state.

It was our purpose still further to have illustrated the growth of New York into metropolitan dignity, and its worthiness to fill that high and useful post, by some words with you upon the state of the fine arts and of literature among us, but these are themes too vast and noble to be dismissed in a paragraph, and, as we hope to meet you again one of these days, we shall not touch upon them now. Else would we have bid you mark, as a good and graceful sign of the temper of our city, the quiet and hearty homage rendered during the past month, by some of the best and wisest of our citizens, to the accomplished and energetic gentleman to whom we are so largely indebted for the present usefulness and the noble promise of our finest library. The day is not far distant, when all the land will begin to reap in the rich harvests

of a riper literature, the fruits of that unobtrusive zeal and industry which are steadily building up for us a mighty storehouse of the seeds of thought, and it is pleasant to see that those who can best anticipate the future, must justly estimate the labors which prepare it.

Nor, since we are to-day in the mood of praising, should we slight the stately show that glittered over all the Bay when the yachtsmen went forth, "sailing and to sail." Just for their beauty alone, those light, swift, careering vessels, pressing so closely one upon another in emulous flight over the glancing waters, sometimes with the swaying, graceful movement of birds, sometimes leaping suddenly, like racers at the touch of the spur, (one could not help the fancy,) seeming instinct with the healthy passion of the human wills that guided their course, and ardent as their owners in the generous rivalry, just for their beauty they were a pleasant sight for our eyes to rest on when we cease from our talking together. But when you reflect how those light yachts are in a manner the studies for the grand triumphant miracles of naval art which bear the glory of our nautical genius and courage and skill, into every sea, the pleasant spectacle assumes a higher claim, and takes upon itself something of the old Olympic quality.

Not that the yachtsmen fancied any such thing, or supposed themselves contending in the sight of all assembled Greece. In fact we doubt whether most of them so much as thought of Greece, or national games, or even of the many lovely eyes that watched their fine contention from the decks of exclusive steamers, or the heights of promiscuous headlands! Their souls were in their sails that day, we opine, and just as wholly there as was the soul of Horace in the trifles which he meditated, walking on the Sacred Way. Nor are they to be the worse considered for that. A good hearty manly excitement it is, that of a yachting race, and we most devoutly wish that of this and kindred masculine sports our world of New York were a hundred times more fond than it is!

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Black Thursday.

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New York, July 1st, 1856. With the present number commences the Eighth Volume of "Putnam's Monthly."

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