tryman he may. The mythologies of all ages and nations have been raked up, and the evil spirits with which they abound re-produced upon the stage. It is really fearful to look upon a dead wall, covered with play-bills, and read the dreadful announcements for the evening's amusements, rendered terribly distinct by ominous red and sombre black type of gigantic stature. Some of the managers ground their claims to public patronage and support on the immense expense they have been at in order to do justice to the views of the interior of the infernal regions; and one spirited lessee has actually constructed a false or double stage, which, at the termination of the piece, sinks down with the particular fiend and victim of the evening, amid cataracts of flame spouting forth from the side-wings. The enacting of demons has become a regular branch of theatrical business; and Mr. O. Smith, a man with an unamiable countenance, and a voice horrifically hoarse, is as distinguished in this line as Kean in tragedy, or Liston in comedy. "The prince of darkness is a gentleman," says Shakspeare, but two-thirds of his representatives in London make him out little better than an illiterate scoundrel. It is rather too bad on the most serious occasions, to hear the father of all evil transposing his v's and w's, and leaving out his h's, in the true

cockney style, unable even to pronounce his own proper place of residence in a correct manner.

The public appetite for gloomy horrors is at present perfectly ravenous. I know not how to account for this, except by attributing it to the alarming increase in the consumption of pork which has taken place in the metropolis within these few years. This species of animal nutriment is the favorite food of the lower orders, and I am inclined to think, generates more diabolical tastes and propensities than "flesh of muttons, beeves, or goats." How is it possible that a person who banquets off pork sausages and heavy porter, and then swallows two or three drams of spirits of turpentine, miscalled gin, can have his sensibilities aroused by such slight provocations as wit and humor? Is he a man to be tickled with a straw? What is a joke or a scrap of sentiment, or a lively conceit to him? You might as well give a glass of delicately flavored wine to an habitual bibber of fourth-proof brandy. Take him to see "Much ado about nothing," and he thinks the play well named-or "As you like it," and he likes it not. No he pays his money and goes to witness "The Infernal Compact; or, the Fiend, the Victim, and the Murderer !"-he puts his hands in his pockets, and criticizes the vagaries of Mr. Smith, in his favorite character of the "Demon of the Val

ley of Skulls," (as performed by him fifty-seven successive nights, with distinguished approbation !) These monstrosities have been of gradual growth. First came "Cherries and Fair Stars," " Visions of the Sun," and similar tales of enchantment; but these were soon found to be mere moonshine, and a class of melo-dramas was got up where "murders were done too terrible for the ear." The Newgate calendar was regularly dramatized, and a most atrocious state of things prevailed for some time; but, as the anti-temperance man goes on regularly to increase the strength of the dose, as his acuteness of taste decreases, so the managers, after blunting the feelings and perceptions of the public, were obliged to resort to still stronger stimulants, and hence the present sulphureous state of the stage. But even this is beginning to fail. Notwithstanding the "infernal abysses," by the help of chemical substances, which throw on the stage a strong glare of red, blue, or yellow light, are rendered, as the term is, "highly effective," insomuch, indeed, as to produce a strong impression on any person unused to such exhibitions, the cockney surveys the whole with critical coolness, until a superabundant quantity of flame elicits some such exclamation of admiration as-" I say, Bill, vot do you think of that 'ere? My eyes!" delivered in a tone of voice which

evidently shows that the view of the place of punishment before him has not made any impression on the mind of the speaker in regard to his own ulterior prospects. If the stage at present actually shows "the very age and body of the time, its form and pressure," the millenium is much further off than many people suppose.

EDITORIAL COURTESIES.

'I must speak in a passion, and I will do it in King Cymbyses' vein."-Shakspeare.

IF Socrates, or any other sensible ancient, could be resuscitated, and have half-a-dozen flaming rhapsodies on the benefits and blessings of the "press," put into his hands, what a glorious and mighty change would he suppose had taken place in the ordering of public affairs, since the time when the Athenian rabble were led by the nose by every noisy demagogue who chose to spout nonsense to them in their market-places. How the good man's heart would be filled with rejoicing as he read glowing descriptions of the tremendous capabilities of this mighty engine, wielded solely for the benefit of mankind, and of its unwearied exertions to disseminate useful information and correct knowledge of political events to the meanest citizen of the state! He would suppose, that with this almost