A VISIT TO WALLACK'S THEATRE.

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"Adoration of the Shepherds," evince the energy displayed in procuring pictures. I dined at the five o'clock ordinary at the Metropolitan; the dining-room will easily contain upwards of 200 persons. The dinner is excellent, both in matériel and cookery. The ladies dine with the gentlemen, seats in particular places being generally pre-engaged for parties travelling together. They dress very nicely, and with great attention to effect. What a temptation to a pretty girl (brought up à l'Américaine) with plenty of money for making herself the observed of all observers ! A table goddess! Whatever effect all this may have on ladies, it is agreeable enough to the gentlemen to have pretty faces to look at and admire, even though they may claim no more acquaintance with their owners than a cat with a king. In the evening I went to Wallack's Theatre, in Broadway, to see the "Lady of Lyons" acted; the theatre is a neat and pretty one, the scenery and acting were both good, and the audience remarkably orderly and well-behaved: I had never seen Bulwer's celebrated play before, it quite delighted me! The beautiful character of Pauline Deschappelles was sustained by Miss Laura Keene, and ample justice was done it by this accomplished and fascinating actress. The successful conquest of woman's deep unalterable love over her wounded pride and sense of wrong was most touchingly and delicately rendered. Every feeling of woman's heart,-her love, disdain, contempt, devotion, pride, and despair,—were all truthfully and faithfully portrayed. The character of Claude Melnotte, her

lover, was likewise well acted, and the minor actors sufficiently good not to mar the interest of the piece.

Feb. 13th.-Snowing hard when I awoke. I gazed from the garret I occupied with some satisfaction at the falling flakes, picturing to myself amusement in the spectacle of Yankee sleighing. I walked to Trinity Church, and heard the Bishop preach, and confirm afterwards, as I had been led to expect I should. The sermon was good, and much to the point; it was on the subject of confessing Christ before men. I took a long walk after church, traversing nearly the whole length of Broadway, and visiting the site of the projected Crystal Palace. This latter is partially constructed, and gives promise of being both an elegant and beautiful building. It looks infinitely smaller than the Exhibition building in England, and is situated quite in the outskirts of the town, on a piece of ground adjoining the great Croton Reservoir. The two erections will be a striking contrast to each other,—evanescence and durability side by side. The neighbourhood of the chosen site is very wild and barren, and the buildings in the vicinity by no means either picturesque or ornamental: we shall see what change the hand of man may be able to accomplish when the 1st of May comes. An intelligent citizen, of whom I made some inquiries, informed me that there were to be all kinds of Hippodromes in the neighbourhood, and that a French confectioner was about to erect a Fairy Palace, and dedicate it to cakes and gingerbread.

'I was much struck by the many noble-looking private

AN EXPENSIVE DINNER BELLE.

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residences I passed on my way to this place. Fifth Avenue, Union, and Madison Squares abound in them. The number of the wealthy class, "the upper ten thousand" in New York, must be very considerable: mendicants there appear to be scarcely any, and I have only seen one object. The Irish supply the bone and sinew to Brother Jonathan for carrying out his enterprising designs and speculations. An Irishman, after a short residence in the States, endeavours often to outYankee the Yankees themselves: he cultivates a peaked beard, guesses with a rich brogue, and wishes for a sallow complexion. This I cannot say I have encountered myself, but I can easily believe it. To-day at dinner I sat close to a most gorgeously apparelled damsel, who, but for her high cheek-bones, might have been mistaken for a Frenchwoman; she was dressed in a rich scarlet geranium-coloured silk gown, trimmed and ornamented with black, her hair brushed well back, after the American fashion, and with "rings on her fingers," and, for aught I could tell to the contrary, "bells on her toes;" her complexion was most delicate, and something between a maiden-blush and a peachblossom. Altogether she was a bright object, and relieved the black coats of the men near her most admirably: she was stylish, without being pretty or attractive; had she been either of the latter I should have spoken of her with more reverence. A Sunday evening in a large hotel where you know no one is not likely to be lively. I wrote some journal, read three or four of Macaulay's speeches (which pleased me much)

and watched several happy pairs of ladies and gentlemen promenading up and down one of the large passages of the hotel. It struck me as rather a remarkable circumstance, but one which I noted in many cases, that the doors of private sitting-rooms, in which ladies are sitting talking to one another, were almost invariably left wide open, to afford passers-by an opportunity of beholding and scrutinising a series of small natural tableaux vivants. A young damsel, whom I judge from her eyes, complexion, and youth, to be fresh from the South, and from school, has for the last day or two directed occasional glances at me,-not of love, but apparently of compassion for my solitary and isolated position. I endeavour in return to infuse as much gratitude as I can into my looks, and I always, on sitting down at table, glance my eye round the room in search of my sensitive little friend. I shall begin soon to feel that we are acquainted, and shall perhaps, if I am near her and absent in mind, ask after her father in New Orleans, or whether she finds New York cold after the South.

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Feb. 14th.-Cold, but bright and cheerful. After breakfast I sauntered down Broadway, and visited several Law Courts in the City Hall. The absence of wigs and gowns is at first very striking to an Englishman. The judge, too, is by no means the same terrible and imposing person (whose very frown agitates the hair of a culprit) that we see administring justice at Westminster Hall or the Old Bailey. He is a simple citizen in a black coat, sitting in an arm

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chair behind a kind of elevated desk. He is addressed as "the Court." The counsel engaged in several of the courts sat on opposite sides (if the term be admissible) of a round table, placed near the centre of the Court. They did not appear to me to conduct the examination and cross-examination of witnesses quite so regularly as an English barrister does; but they generally looked keen, 'cute men, ready to catch a point instantaneously, or detect any flaw in statement or argument. I was fortunate enough at the District Court of New York to hear a celebrated lawyer, a Mr. Caleb B. Cushing, plead a cause for the defence. He spoke more than three hours. I heard the latter half of his address, which struck me as very powerful and impressive. The charge against the prisoner, whose cause he pleaded, was for smuggling,—a crime which in the United States is most severely punished, the greater part of the revenue of the country being derived from the Customs.

"I continued my stroll down Broadway after this visit to the Majesty of Law, and lounged into Barnum's American Museum, a vulgar collection of curiosities. The state-coach formerly belonging to Queen Adelaide figures conspicuously: the footmen and coachmen in wax are dressed in state liveries. There is an extraordinary petrifaction exhibited in this Museum, which, if genuine, is certainly very curious. It is a group, consisting of a man on horseback encircled by a huge boa constrictor. The man is represented as a South American, and the group is asserted to have been discovered in a cave, where it had been lying