across his head. A timely dodge prevented success. Once however, was he slightly nipped in that appendage, and thereupon he set up a bray of which even his ancestral kin, in the time of Balaam, might in nowise have been ashamed. Whatever malicious waggery may insinuate, I do declare that now I began to feel great sympathy for the ass, and therefore was I extremely delighted to see him, through a well-directed aim, plank his left hind hoof compactly into the nether jaw of his foe. That heel-tap was of terribly spiteful, intense energy, satisfying me that however asinine might be his blood, his antagonist would never think of writing him down an ass. That antagonist expressing himself in a yelp, sulkily retired and the combat closed. "When will there be another fight?' asked I retiring, of the old woman from whom I had purchased my ticket. 'Next Sunday, sir,' was the reply. The fact is, the Combat-des-animaux and the Louvre, are open to all the world on Sundays. At Paris, the highest works of art and the lowest spectacle in nature, can be seen by the public, only on the sabbath.

Dining at the Trois Frères, I cogitated how I should spend the evening. Were I in Boston,' said I, 'I might join the throngs which, in a few hours will crowd the churches and prayer-meetings; but I am in Paris ; garçon, le Courrier des Théatres.' 'Bien, Monsieur.' From this little periodical I ascertained that I could choose between three Royal Operas, twenty-one Theatres, and two Concerts. Shall I go to the Italians, said I, for Grisi, and Rubini, and Tamburini and La Blache;

and where may be seen the best blood and the best diamonds of Paris? Or shall I to the Grand Opera for Taglioni, with the bravos and bouquets momently rained down upon her? Or shall I enjoy the soft voice of Damoreau Cinti, at the Opera Comique. But here again are the Theatres. Mademoiselle Mars plays at the Français, and Lemaitre at the Variétés. Shall I see performed the Three Hearts of Woman,' at the Vaudeville, or this piece entitled 'Vive le Diable,' at the Porte St. Martin? But here moreover are the Which shall be patronized, Jullien's or

Concerts.
Musard's?

Paying one franc, you may enjoy two hours of the finest music in the world. I resolved upon Musard's. In his magnificent rooms were ninety musicians, playing for their own and the pleasure of two thousand hearers. How many Parisians are this evening engaged in giving and receiving theatrical and musical pleasure? said I to myself, as the last strain of one of Musard's fine quadrilles died upon my ear. What with two concerts, twenty-one theatres, and three opera-houses, there cannot be less than fifteen hundred artists. Nay, this estimate is too small, for upon the single stage of the Grand Opera, you may often see at one time, more than three hundred performers. Say then, two thousand artists. And for their audiences, say eighty thousand. Imagine every inhabitant of Boston, looking, laughing and shouting at operas, concerts, ballets, vaudevilles, dramas and melo-dramas, and you get some notion of what on a sabbath evening is, 'Paris Gay.'

Having taken at eleven o'clock, the usual supper of Riz-au-lait, I was about retiring to my quiet chambers. I believed the amusements of the Parisian sabbath terminated. Miserable, baseless belief! For thousands on thousands those amusements are just beginning. Nine masked balls are announced for this evening. The earliest commences precisely at eleven o'clock. Pray, shall we look for an hour or two, into the masked balls? Shall we speer at frail Cyprians through the sombre domino? Shall we join the impetuous gallopade, or whirl in the dreamy gyrations of the waltz? Or far better, shall we don opera hat, white cravat and kids, and with glass at eye, gaze from a box in the Academie Royale de Musique, upon the jaleodi Tripoli, danced voluptuously in their native costume, by the first artists from the royal theatre of Madrid? I doubt not that the fagged-out reader, who so kindly has journeyed with me through this day's scenes, will answer,' no.' That reader, I trust, will join me in saying that a sabbath in this metropolis, so far from being set apart as a day of seriousness for its religion, is only set apart as a larger receptacle for its amusements, and that if for six days the rein be freely flung upon the neck of license, upon the seventh it is cast clean over its head. Paris wants a Luther in 1836, as much as Europe wanted one in the sixteenth century. And suppose the great Reformer, miraculously uprisen from his grave, and unroofed Paris exhibited to him as an illustration of the progress which the mighty impulse he commenced, had made. How vain would

seem his noble labors! The Reformation has wrought many worthy things; but Paris moral and Paris religious is, as if the Reformation, or any other Reformation had never for a moment been dreamt of.

And now were one to address the author of the motto to this sketch, justly might he say- Mr. Chevalier, you have at Paris the grandest triumphal arch in the world; you have a lovely Madeleine, a magnificent Bourse, a Louvre thronged with immortal works, a learned Sorbonne, and great literary, scientific and medical institutions. You have likewise vast military establishments; you have the glorious memory of many victories; you have a classical drama, and, moreover, an Epic Poem. These things you have, and well may you rejoice in them; but from reverence for truth, if not for its Author, do not also lay claim to religion.'

107

IX.

SHAKSPEARE IN PARIS.

I HAVE just witnessed a representation of Hamlet on the great national stage of France, the stage of the Théatre Français. The piece was announced as from the pen of Ducis, whom we know as among the most successful of the French translators of Shakspeare; and it was to be executed by some of the first artists of the company,-a company in whose ranks was once the great Talma, and of which the most distinguished member at present is, Mademoiselle Mars. I shall soon have an opportunity of judging how the English dramatist is appreciated by the French, thought I, as I entered No. 15 of the Stalles-de-Balcon. I shall soon be enabled to determine for myself, whether all the waggery I have read be true, of the style in which his plots are mutilated, his ideas caricatured, and his language travestied. At least, I shall have one instance to enlighten me on this subject.

The curtain rose, and before me was an apartment of a palace, into which I was somewhat surprised to see entering King Claudius and Polonius. The King was clad in loosely hanging red vestments. Over his shoulders was flung a black mantle, and his top was surmounted, not by a baby proof of sovereignty, but