glory of the land. In the Elizabethan age, Shakspeare, Ben Johnson, Dryden, and a long, "long trail of lights descending down," shed lustre on the British stage. During her Georgian era, when England held her highest rank in the scale of nations, what could excel the stage's great success? In America, the connexion is as strongly developed; theatres have increased in number with the growth of the Atlantic cities, and the drama's progress in the wilds of the great West, will accompany the onward march of civilization. In the Augustan age, the period of our Saviour's birth, the name of Roscius spread a glory on the professors of the histrionic art, and Herod, the conqueror of Jerusalem, with other institutions intended to be beneficial, established a theatre among the Jews; it was scarcely likely to meet with much success from

.

That pamper'd people, whom, debauch'd with ease,

No king could govern, and no God could please.

Mr. Turnbull strongly comments on the profligacy observable among the audience portion of the theatres. Upon that topic, he has full right to enlarge, and if he must interfere with the intentions of the legislature, and, according to his own account, he preached his sermon to influence the minds of the representatives, (how strange that ministers of the gospel will be meddling with the slime of the world!) let him exert his power to remove the nuisances from the front of the curtain, and he may rest assured that the good sense of an American audience will always keep the stage and its members in a state of wholesome discipline. It is rather hard to visit upon the unfortunate actor, the sins of the drunkard, pickpocket, or courtezan, who may form portions of the auditory assembled to witness his exertions. We imagine that Mr. Turnbull would decline being answerable for the consequences of every love appointment kept in his church, or agree to become responsible for the virtue of every member of his pious fraternity, purged and cleansed as it is, of actors and their unholy associations. Let the pastor look at this:-it was a good thought of the peasant girl, who, observing Thales, the Milesian philosopher, walking in the court-yard of the house and bending his gaze upon the heavens, threw a small stool in his path, and caused the star-gazer to stumble. There are other erudite moralizers have need to look well at home before they fix their sight on things beyond their ken.

Our remarks have assumed a length not contemplated when we took up Mr. Turnbull's pamphlet a notice of which, like the publication of his sermon, was forced upon us by our friends. The well-being of the stage is, to us, an object of selfish and of serious import ;-we thoroughly despise the maudlin gentility that prompts some few of our empty-headed inanities to sneer at a science which requires, for the achievement of a successful issue, a greater portion of general and minute knowledge than any other profession. A good actor must be a gentleman of sound education and manifold accomplishments; a close observer of the manners of the age-with studious habits and persevering industry. Yet the reverend Mr. Turnbull stigmatizes them as "a set of idle and improvident spendthrifts, who have nothing to recommend them but the elasticity of their limbs, the melody of their voices, the grace of their appearance, or at the very most, the truth of their mimic and pantomimic representation!"

In conclusion, we shall quote the words of a reply to another anti-play sermon published last year, which reply was inserted in one of the Philadelphia papers. It says all that we desire to say.

'Let us not boast of our progress in the ways of science-of our advent from the clouds of barbarism-of our high cultivation of the humanities of life, which alone distinguish the biped from the brute-the enjoyer of God's blessings, and the grateful liver of this world's life, from the gloomy and unthankful misanthrope.— Let us talk no more of civil liberty-of the age of toleration-the black bands of ignorance and fanaticism have not been routed by the vaunted march of intellect. Cant, like the huge car of Juggernaut, yet rolls gloomily along, and crushes our vitalities in its path. The pulpit is turned from its holy use-the minister of God ceases to breathe the charities of Christianity, and

Thunders deep damnation thro' the land.

The Bible, the holy book of love and peace, is cast aside, and the worldly priest wades through the obscenities of Prynne and the atheistical impurities of Rousseau, to illustrate a sermon, unchristian in it purport, and branding thousands of his fellow creatures with the mark of shame."

SNARLEYYOW, OR THE DOG FIEND. An Historical Novel, by Capt. Marryatt.

MESSRS. CAREY and HART having purchased the remainder of this tale from Captain Marryatt, and published it in book form, the author has entered the copyright in his own name, in the Clerks' Office of the Southern District of New York. This is the commencement of Marryatt's exertions to secure a property in his own productions, and we eordially wish him every success. The principal portion of Snarleyyow appeared in monthly chapters in the Metropolitan, and on the arrival of the respective numbers in America, was speedily transferred to the pages of the multifarious periodicals. If the concluding part, hitherto unpublished in England, should be pirated here, which there is very little doubt but it will be, the Captain is resolutely determined upon prosecuting the offenders, and the issue will exhibit the capabilities of the copyright law in its present shape, and determine whether a foreigner cannot secure the production of his brains from the same robbery which becomes penal when practised on the effects of his handicraft.

Our readers must be too well acquainted with the tale of Snarleyyow, to require a critique upon its merits. It certainly is not the best of the Captain's works, and while "The Diary of a Blazé" is allowed to exist, cannot be considered as his worst. The last part of the novel is superior in interest to the commencement; the old woman's death is graphically described, and the execution of the Dutch captain and his dogfiend, is well "worked up." Snarleyyow is termed an historical novel; it might as well be termed Marryatt's Zoology. The historical details are ridiculously meagre, but the dog's life and manners are elaborately detailed.

PIERCE EGAN, the concoctor of that infamous and ridiculous work, “Life in London," is now issuing the numbers of a new publication, entitled "THE PILGRIMS OF THE THAMES," describing the adventures and sights of various cockneys who visit the banks of the Londoner's river "in search of THE National." We have looked through six numbers of Mr. Egan's production, but have failed in discovering what substantive he wishes us to place after the word national. If nationality is the word intended, the pilgrims need not extend their rambles beyond Greenwich and Chelsea Hospital, for the most liberal exemplification of the phrase.

Pierce Egan, an illiterate vulgarian, a frequenter of prize fights, and a slangologist, arrogantly undertook to depict the varieties of life in London, although he had never extended his researches beyond the interior of the watch house, and knew nothing of respectability superior to the parlor of a flash tavern. His descriptions are bald and obscure, and his work would have experienced the damnation it deserved, but for the eloquent beauty of the prints, designed by the inimitable Cruikshank. When Moncrieff, the playwright, was requested by Rod well to dramatise the work, he declared, that after spending several days over the inanity of Egan's pen-work, he threw the letter press portion into the fire, and completed his play from the living pictures presented by the artist's skill.

Pierce Egan has also perpetrated "The Life of an Actor," published with colored prints; but the heaviness of the author swamped the limner, and the work sunk to the bottom of the Lethean stream.

In "The Pilgrims of the Thames,” Mr. E. has pursued his ardent love of quotations, and lugs in every possible variety of prettinesses. The first piece of poetry quoted in “The Pilgrims" will display the author's taste, and the apposite nature of the extract, as applied to the Venus di Medicis, the subject in illustration. Ladies, like variegated tulips,

"Tis to their changes, half their charms we owe;

Fine by defect, and delicately weak;

Their happy spot the nice admirer take.

Mr. Egan has not informed us who is the author of this gem; can any our of readers discover the paternity?

The Illustrations by Pierce Egan the younger, are totally devoid of interest, and seem as if etched upon pewter. Some of the wood engravings are good.

THE most interesting work on India that we have yet seen, has lately appeared in London under the title of "FIRST IMPRESSIONS AND SCENES FROM NATURE IN HINDOSTAN. By ThoмAS BACON, Lieutenant in the Bengal Horse Artillery." Mr. Bacon gives the result of his experiences in a very attractive form; every page is full of incident, and a lively satisfied air runs through the work. It is to be hoped that we shall shortly see an American edition upon our table.

Military men are partial to amateur theatricals; the excitement connected with the production of a play is a welcome relief to the ennui of the peaceful camp, or the tedium of garrison duty. The following sketch will give some idea of the difficulties of the play-loving parvenues, particularly of the gentlemen who undertook to represent the feminine portion of the dramatis personæ.

"The rehearsals were, by no means, the least amusing part of the dramatic entertainments; here a highborn heroine came strutting on in a peasant's petticoat, put on to break her into a more maidenly gait, the upper part of the figure being clad in a drab shooting coat and a tallyho hat; then came the lover, habited very possibly in a countryman's smock, and a red scratch, which he had been fitting on in the wardrobe, when the prompt-call hurried-him to his post, the costume being intended perhaps for the afterpiece; again, the gardener or groom would very likely appear in a gold-laced uniform jacket, with a pair of leather inexpressibles drawn on over the regimental trowsers, the gold stripes appearing from the knee downward. Then the stage-manager is heard: Prompt-boy, pass the call for the Earl of Westmorland." He's sarving out the wax candles for the play-night, your honour." "Prince John of Lancaster, stand by." "Then send the drummer, who is to play Dame Quickly." "She's drunk, sir."

'He's making a nose for Bardolph, sir."

After the rehearsal, a pic-nic supper formed no disagreeable conclusion to the exertions of the evening, and here the cheerful laugh went round right merrily; the viands, the wine, the joke, and the song, were all good, and were all full cordially enjoyed.

Upon one occasion, during the race-meeting, when a large influx of society from other stations had rendered the cantonment more than usually gay, the manager had been induced to launch out more boldly than was his custom in preparations for a succession of plays. The first one to be performed, was "The Gambler's Fate," and much labor and expense were bestowed upon it. A well-crammed house rewarded the efforts of the manager, and the piece was going off most brilliantly. The feelings of the audience were wrought to the highest pitch of excitement during that beautifully portrayed scene, wherein, after Julia's marriage to. Albert Germaine, and her husband's imprisonment through the perfidy of Malcour, the latter obtains in the dead of the night admittance to her chamber, by the window. So profound was the silence of the house at this critical juncture, that a pin might have been heard to fall upon the stage during the progress of the scene. Julia, having been repeatedly foiled by Malcour, in her efforts to escape, or to alarm the house, is thrown into a pitiable state of confusion and horror by the voice of her husband at her chamber door; he having effected an escape from confinement, and being pursued by the officers of justice, eagerly demands admission. Malcour has secured the key; Albert hears his voice within, and violently bursts open the door at the moment that Maicour escapes through the window, and Julia, overwhelmed with terror and dismay, swoons, in a dead faint, falling upon her face.

The heroine performed her fall in her best possible style, and much to the admiration of the audience; but the whole delusion was suddenly dissipated in bursts and "screeches of laughter," by a jump from the summit of the sublime to the abyss of the ridiculous. Julia, bedecked in very splendid bridal array, wore in her hair a large plume of ostrich feathers, and a heavy brilliant comb; the weight of these burst the horse-hair which secured her wig, and with the impetus of the fall, away flew wig, feathers, and all, straight over to the foot-lights, leaving exposed poor Julia's naked scalp, fresh from the barber's hands, and shining as bright as a new penny.

And now La Ruse, who personated Albert, displayed an instance of his consummate self-possession and address in a stage dilemma. The chamber was supposed to be in darkness, and Julia to be unseen by Albert. La Ruse threw himself between the prostrate bald-pated heroine and the audience, with his cloak thrown over his arm, and his arm extended as if feeling his way; with a well-directed touch of his toe, he then kicked the wig and head-dress within the lady's reach, and managed to screen her from the audience until she had re-adjusted them. She was too much convulsed with internal laughter to do this cleverly, and when raised from the ground by her husband, it was found, "Ohe! Jam satis," that the wig had been put on hindpart before, so that the plumes were hanging down her back. For this difficulty, even La Ruse, with all his masterly address, failed to find a cloak; but after poor Julia had retired from the stage to rectify the evil, the play went on without let or hindrance.

These perplexities are more frequent upon an amateur stage than among professional people, and I could fill a tolerable volume with those which have come under my own notice in India. I will content myself, however, with one more anecdote of the kind.

"One night, Lydia Languish being somewhat overcome with the fatigue of acting, and the enervating heat of the climate, had seated herself, while her services were not required, upon a couch behind the scenes, and was refreshing herself with a bottle of iced champagne and a cigar. She was chatting away with some amateur groom or fiddler, when she heard the prompt boy's call, Lydia Languish, stand by;' the young lady tossed off her wine, popped her cigar in her mouth, and catching the cue, tripped on to the stage, all flounces and affectation, whiff-whiff-whiff, too well accustomed to the use of tobacco to be at all aware of her singular blunder, until a roar of laughter from the house brought her to a sinse of her sitivation.'"'

Mr. Ward's new book, "THE ILLUSTRATIONS OF HUMAN LIFE," has gone into a second edition in London—a fact that, in these times, speaks mightily for the merit of the work. The author, who has had considerable experience amid the various classes of the world, is more philosophical in this production than in his didactic novels of Tremaine and De Vere-but he is too aristocratic in his views of the present workings of society-too querulous at the sweep of liberal opinions among mankind to reason, with unbiassed predications, upon the habitudes of human life. He imagines that he has conquered his prejudices of early life-but with all his philosophy, evidence to the contrary is to be found in every page. The following extract from the division termed "Atticus," is a good specimen of his style, and descriptive of his own opinion of himself. "In my youth, when training for the world, which I hoped to conquer and possess, I read Homer and Shakspeare, Plutarch and Thucydides, Clarendon and Davita, certainly in a great measure from taste, but in a much greater to fit me for public life. With the same view also, I may have devoted myself even to the muses, whose haunts are any thing but public; but excellent in this, that in cultivating the taste by the delights of Belles Lettres, you improve those qualities which give a polish to talents for business, and therefore increase their value. This was then my chief object. But this is no more. I have been salio spectatum et rude donatum; the business part of life is over, nor seek I to prolong it. Pleasure is now my business; but the pleasure that befits an old man- the pleasure of the mind. I have passed through the world, and but for your visit, might think myself forgotten in it; but not therefore are forgotten all that formerly softened or swelled the soul; not the less cease I to be interested in the character and nature of myself and fellow-men; and if history is, as it has been called, Philosophy teaching by examples,' I, as a philosopher, have a right still to read history. Its politics and its party rage are, thank God, done with; and a man who has lived his life, can propose no good, nor even feel interest in reviving them. But the power of genius, the inspirations of eloquence, and the stern judgment of impartial historians, must still, and for ever, interest us, as promoting a more correct knowledge of men and things. This could not be so well done when under the influence of party bias, and when truth itself is, as it sometimes is, wrested from its straight line, in order to serve a particular object. The object gone, our love of truth revives; our minds are purified; the judgment is no longer obscured; and we love and read history, as we love and read poetry, for its own sake, independent of any interest but what itself inspires."

"THE GAMBLER'S DREAM," is the title of a new romance of the Roué school. The plot is curious, and the style animated and agreeable; but the undisguised villany of every member of the dramatis personæ excites disgust, rather than interest in their proceedings. An impoverished gambler falls asleep by his own fireside, after a run of excessive ill-luck. He dreams, and imagines that "the gentleman in black" invites him to a snug little supper, which, with singular taste, is to be held in the cellar of Crockford's splendid "hell." The arch-fiend introduces the luckless leg to half a dozen other worthies, " friends of his," from various parts of the globe. The geniuses entertain each other with narratives of their doings in this every-day world, and develope as pretty a series of scenes of revolting depravity as Old Nick could possibly desire. The author has concealed his name, and wisely, for the debasement of intellect is an offence deserving the bitter

est execration.

MUSIC.

THE Tyrolese Alpine Singers have been gaining much reputation and some little profit by their perform ances in Philadelphia during the last month. Madame BABET LEIDL, LEON HART BACHLER, her father-inlaw, and FRANZ SCHLEGEL, his nephew, have in them the elements of good music; the lady, a petite, blackeyed brunette, possesses a round, clear toned voice of tolerable quality, but limited extent. Franz Schlegel is a tenor of ordinary capacity, but he thumbs the citterne, discourses most eloquent music from a brace of Jew's harps, and capers the national dances with all the agility and grace of an Alpine goat—jumping, curvetting, frisking and frolicking around his lady love with an activity that, like the virtues of a quack medicine, must be seen to be believed. Bachler, the elder Tyrolien, is a prodigious wonder; his voice embraces every known quality, and he can " murmur you as gentle as a sucking dove, and anon, roar you like a lion." The clear tone and wonderful power of his falsetto is truly astonishing; and his portamento di voce being extremely perfect, the transition is imperceptible. The echo terzette, with an original solo, was a masterly performance; and his goitre song is a curious illustration of that malady of the mountaineers. His accompaniments on the mandoline were marked with correctness and exquisite grace. The rude German patois in which the words of the melodies are framed, is but little suited to the softness of musical expression; but the singers, by a distinet utterance and musical expression, rounded the volumes of consonants into clear and exquisite harmony. The doer of the songs into English, as it is called, deserves some notice for the elegance of his translation; take a couple of verses from the "Tyrolese in America:"

Philadelphia is a town,

Splendid and vast;

And the people are so kind,

Happy and good;

I should like to be an American,
By my soul I would.

But the crowning glory is reserved for the following verse:

Here they know what life is, and money

Does so abound,

The people voyage in "big ships,"

All the world round.

The Alpine Singers are worthy a visit, not only from their actual desert, which is great, but from the motive of their visit to the shores of America. The son of Bachler, when recently married to the interesting Babet, was unfortunately included in the last draught of men made by the Austrians for the recruital of their military force. A long series of years must the younger Bachler pass in the regiment, unless his family are able to raise the price of his redemption-they are now employed upon that holy errand, and the father and the wife blend their voices in the simple ballads of their native hills, to gain in a foreign land-the land of freedom-the means of liberty for the husband and the son.

The PENNSYLVANIA-the most perfect specimen of modern handicraft-has been safely committed to her destined element. The launch was perfect, and created enthusiastic delight in the minds of the largest body of spectators that ever congregated on or about the river. The Pennsylvania is undoubtedly the monarch of the seas; we have heard of larger craft-we have seen longer-but we doubt if it is in the power of man to frame a vessel more complete in all the essential qualities. Objections have been made to the enormousness of her bulk, but it is confidently asserted by experienced shipwrights and nautical veterans of high repute, that owing to the superiority of her build, she will be as easily handled as any of the crack seventy-fours.

"Big ships" have uniformly been unfortunate in their career; the huge monsters built to gratify the fancies of various nations, although carcely exceeding the tonnage of many of our Atlantic packets, have generally proved heavy useless craft, unmanageable in a gale, and ridiculously impotent in war. The Dutch, in the meridian of their naval greatness, never exceeded ninety-gun ships; and though first-rates, as they are termed, have been built in England and France, they have been regarded rather as vessels of superior show than of additional practical power.

There is very little doubt but that the ancients occasionally constructed vessels equal in magnitude to any of the monsters of modern times. The recorded size of the Isis, built by Ptolemy Philopater, or the Cedar

ship of Sesostris, or the wonderful craft built by Archimedes, by order of Hiero, containing sufficient wood for the construction of fifty galleys. The curious classicist may read a lengthy account of this leviathan in Athenæus' Feast of the Sophists. This ship contained, beside the requisite arrangements, a magnificent temple of Venus, superb banqueting apartments with floors inlaid with scenes from the Iliad, elegant galleries, baths, stables, and fish-ponds. When this floating city was finished, the monarch perceived that there was not a port in Sicily capable of receiving it; he, therefore, filled the ship with grain, and sent it as a present to Ptolemy of Egypt, who was much in want of corn.

Constantius built a vessel of sufficient capability to remove the largest of the obelisks that stood before the temple of the sun at Heliopolis, and weighed fifteen hundred tons. His father, Constantine, had removed two of the obelisks to Byzantium, but, frightened at the size of the third, had abandoned all idea of disturbing it.— His son succeeded, and even transported the enormous block to Rome, and erected it in the circus of the Vatican, where it now stands. Besides the crank, unmanageable burthen of the obelisk, the vessel was filled up with eleven hundred and thirty-eight tons of grain-making in all twenty-six hundred and thirty-eight tons, almost the burthen of the Pennsylvania. How this craft would have astonished Cicero, who mentions a ship of fifty-six tons as a vessel of remarkable capacity.

After these ancient leviathans, the largest ships on record are the celebrated Santissima Trinidada, the pride of the Spanish navy; the French vessel, the gigantic Commerce de Marseilles, the English Great Harry, The Caledonia, and The Great Michael, whose warlike appurtenances are described as “ bassils, mynards, hagters, culverings, flings, falcons, double dogs, and pestilent serpenters." These wondrous specimens of naval architecture in the olden time, had prodigiously high bows and figured sterns, immense beaks and solid castles at the stem, with towers at each side of the poop and gangways-looking like the turrets of a castellated chateau. The signal lantern on the poop of the Great Harry was on a level with the round tops, owing to the height of her extremities, and the sudden sinking-in at midships. She had four masts, with tops actually round, and shaped like huge inverted cones. Gilt work, carving, and gaudy streamers were profusely scattered over her hull and rigging. She cost $550,000 dollars, an enormous sum in those days, yet was not over one thousand tons burthen. She was burnt at Woolwich through the negligence of persons aboard.

Henry VIII., in the year 1512, built "the largest ship in the world." It was thus that the English denominated The Regent, yet she did not exceed one thousand tons. She was burnt while engaging the great carrack of Brest; both ships were blown up, and sixteen hundred men destroyed. To replace the Regent, the king built a larger ship, and named it Henri, Grace de Dieu.

The East India Company, in the reign of James I., built a ship of twelve hundred tons, and named it The Trades Increase. She was also considered the greatest ever built, and the Royal Family attended her launch. She was lost when returning from a voyage to the Red Sea, and nearly all her crew were cast away. After this mishap, James himself built a vessel of fourteen hundred tons, and mounting sixty-four pieces of ordnance; he gave it to his son Henry, who named it after his own dignity, The Prince.

The unfortunate but gifted monarch, Eric XIV., of Sweden, lost, in a sea fight with the fleet of Frederic II., of Denmark, his mammoth ship, which is described as having been of enormous bulk, and mounting two hundred pieces of brass cannon. The vessels of the enemy surrounded her, and being difficult to manage, was easily overpowered, and set on fire. She is presumed to have been the largest man-of-war that was ever built.

The English navy boasts of several vessels of one hundred and twenty guns, two of which, The Lord Howe and The Waterloo, have never been in commission. The Lord Nelson, launched July the 4th, 1814, from the King's Yard, Woolwich, is the largest man-of-war in the service, but is something smaller than the Pennsylvania, as the following comparison will evince.