Gianni, the Italian tailor, visited Paris in the year | liarities of the style. I obtained a copy of the double 1800, and was greeted by Napoleon with the title of improvisation, and have transmitted it for your peruimprovvisatore imperiale, and the more welcome stipend of six thousand francs a year. His exhibitions in the private circles of Paris were highly spoken of. Tomaso Sgricci, of Arezz›, produced an extemporaneous tragedy, and the subject and the characters were furnished by the spectators. This took place at Florence, in 1816, but in Paris he produced the impromptu tragedy of Missolonghi, in 1826. He declaimed, extempore, the tragedy of Hector at Turin, and a tragedy on the death of Mary Stuart, at Florence, in 1823. It is but lately that the improvvisatori have began to give public exhibitions of their wonderful faculties. A German poet was the first to extemporise for money in public places Wolf, a professor of Altona, consented to exhibit himself in the year 1824, and in the | following year, Eugene de Pradel gave several public exhibitions of his talents in France. Pistrucci, “the old man eloquent," is the most famous of the impromptu poets of the modern school, and even now, in his old days, can excel in vigor and variety, the boasted productions of the ancient German or Provençal school. It is impossible to describe the wonderful fire of the Italian's verse, the versatility of his genius, or the play of his unbounded fancy. We have a letter before us, written some months ago, containing an account of his last annual concert in London. The writer, a friend now in England, describes the scene with graphic effect, and we hasten to place the extract before our readers. scene. "Yesterday, I witnessed a curious and a wonderful Jerrold took me to Pistrucci's concert. This man is a celebrated improvvisatore, and seems to keep a magazine of splendid original poetry within the receptacles of his mind. Several of the most popular vocal and instrumental performers of the day graced the orchestra upon this occasion; but, in my eyes, the only beauty of the scene was the wonderful beneficiare the observed of all observers-the cynosure of eyes and hearts-and well he deserves his popularity, for he is truly an extraordinary man. After an act of a concert that at any other time would almost have turned my brain, from the soft variety of sweet sounds that marked its progress, Pistrucei appeared upon the platform. He was well received by the audience, which comprised upwards of fifteen hundred persons of the first fashion. He requested, in the purest Italian, that some one present would give him a subject for his muse. A gentleman named "FIESCHI'S INFERNAL MACHINE." A loud laugh followed the announcement, for a more uncongenial subject could scarcely have been assigned-but Pistrucci went to work, and instantly produced a poem of excessive power and boldness of expression. There was no hesitation in his manner, and his vigor. ous lines received additional force from the expressive manner of the poet, who really seemed to glow with the fire of his verse. Dr. Southey, the laureate, sat on the same bench with me; and, as Pistrucci roared out his lines, the English poet translated them with the happiest attention to the literal sense and the pecu sal. 66 "Pistrucci again mounted the orchestral stage, and asked for two or three subjects, promising to give equal and satisfactory attention to all of them at the same time. Seven titles were handed up; and the ancient poet, nothing daunted, selected seven gentlemen to act as amanuenses, and fired away at an astonishing rate. The subjects were of the most singular variety, and this wonderful man ran from one scribe to the other, and gave out his impassioned stanzas with a redundancy that shamed their slow progress, and extracted an overwhelming burst of delight from the admiring auditors. The seven subjects were The Moon," "The Effects of Vanity upon the Mind," "The Birth of Venus," "The Fall of the Roman Empire," « The Beauties of Truth,” “England," and "The Three Days of the Revolution." In contributing his ideas to the various scribes, he never once mistook the persons apportioned to the subject he was illustrating, but ran from one to the other, with a newly coined verse, full of pertinent wisdom and experience, and peculiarly applicable to the nature of the matter he was poetising about. Southey could not restrain his rapture, and the audience testified their satisfaction by long and loud applause. The seven poems, which were all finished within ten minutes of one another, were read from the stage, and redounded to the credit of this most wonderful improvvisatore. "Pistrucci has taken a strange stand in the following poem-a stand that caused him twice the difficulty in the management of the style of the strain, and the delicacy of the execution. He is opposed to the tyranny of the people's king, and execrates him as an honest bard would, but he deprecates the assassin and his motives in words of burning import. "The following is the poem in question. You must bear in mind that Pistrucci composed it in Italian as fast as he could talk, and that Southey's translation was equally rapid-therefore do not criticise the production too severely." To TREAT of the argument prescribed, is No issue auspicious I find. But lo! the clouds clear from my vision, My design instantaneous is plann'd— I denounce the misrule of the tyrant, Usurper! though once in thy palace Awakes my extempore song- THIS remarkable lady, whose recent death has stopped a long career of active benevolence, paid the penalty of her excessive good fortune in suffering the attacks of the envious and malignant. Every disgrace ful propensity and vicious indulgence has been imputed to her not only by the mercenary and the in terested who failed in their attacks upon her purse, but the members of her former profession have assailed her name with the foulest obloquy, and branded her fair fame with every mark that " envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness" could invent. Those who are most intimate with the arcana of theatric life, can best resolve the reason; popularity pays a heavy tax, particularly upon the stage; the impotent and the ignorant impute their want of success to the extra luck of the talented professor; and instead of exerting themselves to soar beyond the confines of their original mud, employ their utmost powers in daubing the public's favorite with the filthiness of side-scene scandal and tavern slander. Had the Duchess of St. Albans, when Miss Mellon, have been guilty of twice the number of positive improprieties which a numerous host of enemies have imputed to her, not a slanderous word would have been uttered against her name, had she continued in her original humble station;—but the secret of her villany was in the word "success." She possessed talents and beauty; the former brought her into notice with the public, and the latter secured her an elevated station in life—the harpies of the green room-" for where is the place into which foul things sometimes intrude not?"—the theatrical ravens who quarrel and peck at each other, but concentrate their forces at the smell of carrion, pounced upon her name and fame, “and strived to damn her with their foul report." The Duchess of St. Albans has passed through a series of gradations that seldom mark the course of human life. She was born in the midst of penury and wretchedness, but died the possessor of countless thousands. Her father, it has been said, was a gentleman of the name of Mellon, in the service of the Honorable East India Company; but this report is incorrect-the facetious Jack Kinnear, an eccentric Irishman, who distinguished himself in Dublin at the time of the rebellion, and was compelled to flee to England to avoid the consequences of his fatuity, has the honor of our heroine's paternity. The disgrace attendant upon his treason, and the dissolute nature of his life, induced his wife to resume her maiden name, and the little Harriett was christened a Mellon at the place of her birth, in one of the small towns of Lancashire. Her father had taken up the profession of an actor, and was spoken of with much delight by many of the ancient denizens of Kendal, Carlisle, and Rockdale; the company was managed by a man named Bibby, and under his auspices the little Mellon rolled upon the stage. At the age of five years, she distinguished herself in the interesting assumption of stage infants, and was a plump, curly headed lump of beauty, as broad as she was long. The family of Mr. Roydes, or Rhodes, of Halifax, in Yorkshire, endeavored to remove her from this uncongenial sphere of action; she profited by their friendship in acquiring a portion of that education which afterward distinguished her in life, but shortly returned to the fascinations of the stage. couch, and ran furiously at Grant, brandishing his drawn sword. Grant knew that it was useless to "chafe the lion in his mood," and, " with his pipe in one hand and his pot in the other," as the old song says, the royal ghost vanished at the wing. Enthusi astic peals of approbation crowned his exit-the remainder ghosts were rung down, Catesby was beckoned on, but the audience clamored loudly for the reappearance of the dead monarch and his beer, and continued their uproar till the fall of the curtain. atre. Her appearance was tolerably successful, but she made no decided hit till the production of Tobin's Honeymoon, when she took the town by storm in the character of Volante, which Mrs. Jordan had refused. Her charms attracted general attention, and from one of the papers of the day we extract the following jeu d'esprit: At the age of eighteen, she was engaged by the vulsions of laughter-there was "the buried mamanagers of the theatres royal at Liverpool and Man-jesty" of England, the spirit of the murdered Henry, chester, for the first range of characters in the line of in a black jacket, and dirty white trowsers of mogenteel comedy. Shortly after our heroine had ap-dern cut, gloriously splashed with London mud. peared upon the stage, her mother married a person A pewter pot and tobacco pipe stood by the side of his of the name of Entwisle, a leader of the band at a dirty Wellingtons. The bothered actor looked conprovincial theatre-but we have no account of the fusedly at his brother and sister ghosts, who were death of Jack Kinnear, nor did we ever find a person peeping from their appropriate holes. To complete who pretended to know what became of him. Miss the joke, which, by the way, is strictly true, Elliston, Mellon, while at Manchester, attracted the attention who enacted the crookbacked tyrant, opened his eyes of several rich and influential persons, and received when he heard the shouts of the audience, and permore than one offer of marriage; she was then a well-ceiving the situation of the actor, started from his grown, plump, raven-locked, black-eyed brunette, with singular vivacity of temper and sprightly powers of conversation. She rejected her mercantile swains, and fixed her affections upon an actor of the name of Grant, to whom she was actually betrothed, but from some unexplained cause, the marriage never took place. Grant was a Scotchman, and well known in later years about the minor theatres of London; he was an ugly and unlucky man, but steady in his conduct, and well-informed. He lived for several years in great distress, but when his former sweetheart Miss Mellon joined Stanton's company in 1794, and heard of his penury, she sent him a monthly allow- while at Stafford, formed an intimacy with the family ance of sufficient extent to smooth the downhill path of the Hortons, (not Wright, the banker, as generally of his life. Grant's last engagement was at the Sur- reported,) and, by their influence with Sheridan, who ry Theatre, when that establishment was managed by was really pleased with her performances, she sucthat glorious compound of talent and eccentricity, El-ceeded in forming an engagement at Drury Lane Theliston. Grant was selected by that worthy to play King Henry in his curious version of King Richard the Third. By the manager's direction, the ghosts were not to appear in the usual orthodox manner, at a chasm in the back drapery of the monarch's tent, but were to stud the front of the stage, by popping up their heads from the various traps and sliding panels that are scattered about the scenic floor. Grant, who knew that King Henry has a long wait, as it is technically termed, from the end of the first act to the middle of the fifth, had removed his black and kingly robes for his citizen's attire, and with a pipe of mild tobacco and a pint of porter, sat at the back door of the theatre puffing sorrow away, and awaiting the prompter's call to the scene of action. When he received it, his white wig was hastily put on; his coat and vest re-riett, and evinced his friendship for her by presenting moved; and the black jacket of the unfortunate mo- several valuable gifts as tokens of admiration of her narch donned, retaining the well-splashed white trow- histrionic abilities. Mr. C.'s father, a merchant in sers, because, having only to poke his bust above the Edinburgh, had married a daughter of Sir John Stuart, level of the stage, there was no necessity for any far- whose mother was a grand-daughter of Miss Grizel ther change. Grant knew that all stage-carpenters Cochrane, daughter of Sir John Cochrane, the son of have a propensity for porter; he was aware that while the first Earl of Dundonald. We have mentioned the he was speaking the ghostly warning to the naughty course of this genealogy for the sake of noticing an tyrant, the carpenter employed to turn the windlass of unexampled instance of female heroism and filial affecthe trap would demolish the remainder of his pint; tion performed by Grizel Cochrane in behalf of her so, like a prudent and a canny Scot, he placed the father, who was one of the principal performers in pewter vessel on the two feet square that sustained his Argyle's rebellion against the tyranny and bigotry of ghostly corpus, and laid the ambrosial pipe lengthways James the Second. The doom that enveloped the across the top-the trap was not to come within sight house of Campbell affected the safety of Sir John Cochof the audience, therefore his precaution could not in- rane; he was taken prisoner after a deadly struggle, terfere with the scenic effect-but the carpenter saw tried, and condemned to die upon the scaffold. The his motive, and in revenge, pretended to misunder- royal warrant for his execution was hourly expectedstand his instructions, and rolled poor Grant com- the prisoner's father, the Earl of Dundonald, hastened pletely up till the top of the trap attained the to London, to exert his influence in behalf of his unlevel of the stage. The audience burst into con- fortunate son-but he had scarcely left the good city For an apple, old Adam, 'tis said, d-d himself, About this time, Mr. Thomas Coutts, a celebrated London banker, became much attached to Miss Har of Berwick ere the authorities were apprised that the | Sir F. Burdett married one of the daughters, and when next mail would bring the death warrant of Sir John. he was sent to the Tower of London, Queen Charlotte But that mail never reached its destination-the rider signified to Mr. Coutts that she meant to withdraw her was attacked upon the dreary moor of Tweedmouth, account from his bank; but as there was a heavy ba by a stripling in a coarse jerkin and cloak, who grasped lance, half a million of pounds sterling, she would give the mail bag and disappeared in the shades of the him three days to make up the accounts. Mr. Coutts night. The prisoner was not led to execution. Four-informed her majesty in return that to withdraw such teen days elapsed, and the efforts of his father were a small amount as half a million from his house, reunsuccessful-a letter was received from the anxious quired no notice at all. parent with the painful intelligence that another warrant was to be despatched by the ensuing mail. Preparations were again made for the execution, when news reached the city that the mail carrier had again been robbed-not only of the mail, but of his horse, on which the assailer mounted with the leathern bag, and fled rapidly away. Fourteen days must again elapse ere the warrant could be renewed-but just before the expiration of the time, the old Earl of Dundonald rushed into the arms of his son, and proved to be the bearer of his pardon, wrung from the king, by the interest of Father Petre, his confessor, who had stipulated to receive the sum of five thousand pounds as the price of his intercession. The mail robber was the prisoner's daughter, Grizel Cochrane, who, in disguise, had twice perilled her life in attempting the arduous achievement, but received her reward in the rescue of her beloved sire. Mr. Coutts was a worthy, liberal, good-hearted, old man-profuse in his charities, generous and hospitable in his household arrangements, but strict and exact in all business arrangements and money matters. A friend who had dined with him, and gazed with admiration at his well spread board, had occasion to pay in the balance of an account at the bank on the ensuing morning-there was an odd penny left. "I shall not change silver to pay you the penny," said the gentleman. "I must have it," replied the banker. "How is this? You gave me a dinner yesterday that must have cost you a hundred pounds; to day you insist upon receiving a penny at my personal inconvenience." "It is by attending to the trifles of business hat I am enabled to give the hundred pound dinners." Mr. Coutts was once sojourning at Bristol, in England, and frequented an obscure alehouse near the theatre, well known by the sign of the Shakspeare. His morning's draught was a glass of ale, and he would daily spend some time over the perusal of the London papers. The landlord was a real Boniface, and pitying the supposed poverty of his customer, who was dressed in a well-worn suit of brown cloth, invited him to eat his Christmas dinner with the family; and, at table, in the overflow of his heart, proffered the loan of a small sum to relieve the necessities of his guest. An explanation ensued-Mr. Coutts was at Bristol to superin tend the affairs of the bank there, which was deeply indebted to his firm; but he never forgot the hospitality of his landlord. He assisted him with his purse and his recommendations; and eventually established him in one of the largest coach businesses ever attempted in England. Mr. Coutts evinced his friendship to Miss Mellon by presenting her with several heavy drafts upon his bank. This was sufficient to open the mouths of her sisters of the sock, who were beginning to hate her for her popularity with the public and to plan her downfall. But whatever was the nature of her con nexion with the banker during the lifetime of the first Mrs. Coutts, nothing criminal could be proved, even by the jealous eyes that daily watched her residence, which was immediately in the vicinity of the theatre, and under the control of her parent whose name was affixed to the door. There Mr. Contts paid his morning visits, for the old man never courted concealment; and his three married daughters, persons of title and respectability, visited their father's protege. But the bed-ridden and decrepid wife died; and the banker made the actress his own by the laws of the church of England. Mr. Coutts and our heroine have been very deservedly blamed for the indecent haste of their wedding. It is true that in this instance, there existed redeeming points; the deceased had long been morally dead— confined, palsied and senseless, to the bed of disease, and scarcely drew the breath of life-true, too, that the husband was an aged man, without an hour to spare-he was anxious also to preserve the reputation of the woman he long had loved. But there is something so outrageous to all the better feelings of our nature-so disgustingly opposite to all the proprieties of life in thus hastily blending the funeral and marriage ceremonies, that had the actress attempted to appear again upon the stage, the indignant audience would have driven her from it with contempt and execration. For eight years, Mrs. Coutts enjoyed every possible happiness with her old man, and filled the station of life to which she had been advanced with propriety and respect. Her charities were numerous in the extreme. Raymond, at one time stage manager of Drury Lane Theatre, became involved, and she sent him a thousand pounds for a benefit ticket. Each of the Funds for the maintenance of decayed actors par took largely of her liberality-Emery's widow receiv ed fifty pounds a year, and the same annuity was paid to her former stage servant, who was also placed in a ready furnished house in the vicinity of London. Her friend Wewitzer was allowed the sum of one hundred pounds per annum, till he justly forfeited any title to her esteem by a course of dissipation and extravagance. Mrs. Coutts was married in January, 1815. Her husband died in 1822, aged 91. He left the whole of his immense fortune, amounting to several millions Mr. Coutt's first wife was named Susan Starkey, and sterling, to his wife, recommending only certain an was at one time nursery maid in Mr. Coutt's brother's fa- nuities to her consideration, all of which were inmily. Several children were the produce of this match.stantly fulfilled. For five years she preserved her widowhood, during which time she was courted by several of the first rank and fashion, who had no objection to "fat, fair, and fifty," garnished with half a dozen millions. The Duke of York had some idea of extricating himself from his pecuniary difficulties, but the banker's widow gave the scion of royalty a check that he duly honored. In 1827, Lord Burford, who had barely attained his majority and the Dukedom of St. Albans, led his rich prize to the hymeneal altar, and bestowed the title of Duchess upon the ci-devant actress. Her aristocratic career has been splendid and appropriate; her im mense wealth has been distributed, not with the hand of lavish profligacy, but with a princely generosity that will embalm her name in the hearts of thousands when her weak and puling assailers shall have passed from the memories of the world. Her patronage was kindly bestowed upon the worthy and the poor; many a member of the histrionic corps owes heavy obligations to the Duchess of St. Albans. Her influence was exerted for the friendless and the distressedseveral criminals have been rescued from the gallows foot by her intercession and unwearied exertion in their behalf. But the breath of calumny assailed her in the privacy of her domesticity; her habits were maligned; her charities ridiculed; and, after various futile attempts at extortion, the revenge of the scum of the press settled into a general series of illiberal and unworthy remarks in the columns of the Sunday papers devoted to the propagation of indecency and sin. This excellent woman died on Sunday, the 6th of August last, in her sixty-seventh year. A general paralysis of nature was the cause of her death, which took place in the room where Mr. Coutts had breathed his last. Previous to her decease, she informed the Duke of her intention to leave the bulk of her fortune to the relatives of her former husband, from whom she had inherited it. She also signified her wish that the Duke should marry her heiress, and preserve the title to the estates, but he declined making any reply. Nine millions of dollars were bequeathed to Miss Angela Burdett, the youngest daughter of Sir Francis; one hundred thousand to his lady; and a life annuity. of fifty thousand dollars was assigned to the support of the widowed Duke. The Duchess did not approve of the conduct of the Beauclerc family; and has inserted clause in her will, that if any of its members shall re side with the Duke of St. Albans more than five days at any one time, "his legacy shall pass out of his hands as if he were dead." THE POETRY OF NIAGARA. READER! I am not going to indulge in a long dis- | of water," is not more ridiculous than the matter-ofquisition upon this living wonder of the world-I am fact guide-book sort of narratives that some tourists not about to prose over the poetry of this glory of crea- give of their visits to the Falls. A young lady (bless tion-nor shall I stir up the etherialities of my fancy, her sweet eyes!) in a letter written during a tour and wing my thoughts into the seventh heaven of in-round the Lakes, remarks-"I cannot and dare not vention for the purpose of coining similies for this in attempt to describe my feelings as I gazed upon the comparable cataract, or attempt depicting this inde- vastness of the scene! I never believed it possible scribable scene. Yes! I agree with Fanny Kemble. for any created thing to imbue me with such a strong Niagara cannot be described-although various scrib-conviction of my utter nothingness as was impressed bling tourists have attempted it-but, like gibbetted upon my soul when I stood at the river's brink beneath crows, they hang, in terrorem, an awful warning to the Table Rock-and yet Niagara is but a speck amidst their tribe. creation's wonders-a touch from the finger of God!" In the summer of 1836, I passed some time in the vicinity of the Falls, and rambled to the right or to the left, as my fancy dictated-free from the trammels of uncongenial companionship or the tyranny of a Niagara cicerone, with his hacknied phrases of de. light and stereotyped notions of the sublime and beautiful. It is amusing to observe the nonchalance of these fellows when they apportion out the “ways and means" of the scenery to a group of admiring cockneys-so much beauty to each scene-so much time to each beauty-so much description in so much timeand so much money for so much description! "A Hierocles mentions a pedant who wished to sell a house, and carried a brick about with him as a specimen of the building. There are many pedants of the present age who steal a pebble from Niagara, and think that they are exhibiting the wondrous whole. There is more real poetry in the observation of the Indian, who endeavored to account for this gushing outlet of a world of water by supposing that the Great Spirit in his wrath had cut the throat of the Lakes, than in the ebullitions of myriads of the small poetizers, who do the cataract in "sonnets and sounding rhymes." The homely phrase of the Yankee who gazed upon Niagara for the first time, and merely said, Falls Guide," if business is brisk, gobbles up Goat 'Wael, I swow, but that's a pretty considerable spurt | Island in a quarter of an hour-Terrapin Bridge is 44 |