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Collyva. It is, in fact, an offering made to the "manes" of the dead, and can certainly claim a pagan, rather than a Christian origin. It is carefully made, the principal ingredients being boiled wheat and currants. The surface of the top is ornamented with various degrees of neatness, by means of the eatable red grains of the pomegranate, almonds, or any thing of that kind. These cakes were sent by the relatives of those who had died within a year or two; and if handsome, were allowed to remain before the chancel. If more commonly prepared, the contents was thrown into a basket. In every plate of Collyva, and in every basket were stuck a number of little lighted waxen tapers, which burned during the service time.

The notion of the common people was expressed to me by a person whom I

asked to explain the purport of the ceremony. "The soul of the deceased," said he, "for whom the Collyva is offered, comes down from heaven during the service, and eats a single grain of the wheat.” But what manner of good this could do the disembodied spirit, he could not inform me; nor did he give any satisfactory reason for offering so large a quantity, when the spirit is so moderate in its desires. The parish priest, during the short prescribed forms took notice of the names of all those for whom Collyva had been offered. At the conclusion, he helped himself to his share of the cakes, after that the spirits had enjoyed an ample opportunity of eating to their hearts' content. The rest was distributed by the handful to every one present, to be carried away and eaten at home,-a feast for the dead.

IF

PLACES OF PUBLIC AMUSEMENT.

THEATRES AND CONCERT ROOMS.

labor for labor's sake is against nature, as Locke says, amusement for amusement's sake is equally unnatural. Amusement that has to be sought becomes labor, while labor becomes an amusement when properly directed. A Down East captain said to his crew, "Come, men, knock off work and go to piling staves." We seek amusement in a similar manner, by change of occupation, and, in dancing all night for pleasure, we work much harder than we have done during the day at our regular business. Amusements are as often called recreations, which is, perhaps, a better term; and the great point to be determined is what kind of amusement will yield the greatest amount of enjoyment, or recreation, affording the overtaxed mind and body opportunity to recover their elasticity after having been subjected to too tight a strain. A moment's thought bestowed upon this subject will at once tend to the conclusion that amusements must be as varied as the employments of the people to be amused. Our friend Snip, the tailor, whose employment confines him six days out of seven to his shop-board, as well as Cocker, the bookkeeper, can conceive of no more delightful recreation than a target excursion or a party to the Fishing Banks; while Sam.

Jones, the fisherman, and Bob Brown, the omnibus driver, imagine that the highest heaven of enjoyment might be found in the gallery of a theatre, where the air would be hot, and the shifting scenes as unlike as possible to any thing they had ever seen from a smack's deck or the top of an omnibus. The amusements of a people, therefore, while they must be congenial to their habits, must also be antagonistical to their employments; farmers' boys would never go into the fields for recreation, nor students to a lecture room; and hence the impossibility of transplanting national pastimes, or even of reviving them when they have fallen into disuse. If people are let alone, they will find amusements best adapted to their necessities, and therefore any legal restraints placed upon the natural tendency of a people in seeking for recreations must be productive of mischief.

Bull-baitings, and cock-fightings, and the sports of the turf, are revolting to certain classes of people, but they are essential means of recreation to certain other classes, who, when deprived of such legitimate ainusements will seek the gratification of their instincts in a more objectionable manner. Instead of boisterous enjoyments in the fields, they will create riots, mobs,

and rows in the streets. On board of men of war it is the custom to pipe all hands to mischief, occasionally, when the crew have been a long time on shipboard, that the necessity for abandonment and fun may be spent in harmless excitement. But for such safety valves, the irritation of constant restraint would lead to insubordination and mutiny. Commanders of fleets and armies make timely arrangements for the recreation of the men under them, and it would be wise in our municipal governors if they would do the same.

In most of the despotic countries of Europe, the monarch finds it to his interest to provide means of recreation to the people free of cost, and these are generally on a scale of inverse liberality to the illiberality of the government. In no other part of the world are the amusements of the people more generously attended to than in France, while in no other does the individual enjoy so little of his individuality.

In this happy country of ours, where all the natural instincts are allowed their utmost expansion, it is very remarkable that the amusements of the people are the only affairs that are hampered by statutory restrictions. One may follow any business he likes, embrace any religion, join any party, or engage in any enterprise; but the law fixes the boundary of his amusements and forbids his recreating himself in certain ways. In the State of Connecticut, the law prohibits all amusements and recreations of a theatrical or dramatic nature; Shakespeare may be read in the parlor, or from the pulpit; but to present Shakespeare's plays in the way they were intended by their author to be represented, is unlawful and would subject those guilty of so wrong an act to fine and imprisonment. Horse jockeying is an indigenous trade in Connecticut, but riding horses for the amusement of others is there an interdicted employment. In the State of Massachusetts, the laws are less rigorous, and Shakespeare's plays may be represented according to their author's intentions, by the payment of a fee and under a special license, on any night of the week but Saturday and Sunday. On those two evenings Shakespeare is interdicted as an amusement in the good Old Bay State. In this city, a man may establish a dozen whisky distilleries, or manufacture firearms, or quack medicines with perfect freedom, without fee or license; but no one can establish a place for theatrical amusements without a special license and paying for the privilege. Every theatre, and opera house, and circus in New-York

has to pay a yearly fee which is appropri ated to the use of some public charity.

The theatre is one of the greatest anomalies of modern civilization. It has been an established institution in all civilized countries, in the face of an opposition lasting through 500 years, and it still stands. Next to the sports of the chase it is the oldest of all human recreations, and claims for its votaries the loftiest geniuses that have blessed mankind. The instincts of the people demand its pleasures, and it will find a footing wherever it is not excluded by law. The taste for the stage is not merely a love of tinsel and inexplicable dumb show-it is the universal desire to see the bright side of the world, and to travel out of ourselves into the airy regions of poetry and romance.

Not

The persecution it has met, has been deserved, where it fell upon the immoralities unhappily united with it: but the undiscriminating hostility to all dramatic representations of human life, as something iniquitous per se, is a mere folly, inexcusable were it not for something worthy in the feeling from which it sprung. Had the stage been rescued to the purposes of virtue, instead of having suffered outlawry among the good, a powerful instrument would have been saved to the better side. only for the purposes of amusement, but of mental culture, dramatic show is a natural and efficient means. Regardless or thoughtless of this, good men have let it decline to base uses and then blamed the evil which in some measure at least, they might have prevented. Were every delicious taste or art abandoned on the same ground as the drama, our life would be bereft of the benefit and solace of the whole of them. There are great difficulties, no doubt, in giving to the stage a high and pure character-but are they insuperable? Is there any reason why this as well as any other natural taste may not be purged and made a "minister of grace?" there be, still let us discriminate between the thing itself and our own weakness.

If

It is a strange circumstance that while music, painting, poetry, elocution, and dancing, are not only considered as harinless, but as elevating and beneficial arts, in themselves, yet, when they are all combined in the production of a drama they are regarded as fit only to be anathematized. The church, too, combines in its ceremonials all these arts but the last, and, in all Catholic countries eclipses the feeble attempts of the stage, in their combination to dazzle the senses and thrill the imagination. Of course there can be no comparison between the theatre and the

Church, because it is the province of the one to amuse, and the other to instruct the believer in the solemn mysteries of eternal salvation. The stage, too, professes to be moral, and the punishment of vice is the inevitable end of all dramas. There is no such lusus as an immoral drama. It is the delight of the coarsest natures to see poetical justice dealt out to the wicked, and the sufferings of the virtuous form the great staple of all tragedies. There is nothing that so certainly commands the tears of an audience, as the undeserved calamities of the innocent. One of our theatres has been reaping a harvest of nightly benefits by exhibiting the untimely death of a little girl, and the hardships of a virtuous slave. The public go to the National Theatre, in one of the dirtiest streets of the city, where they sit in not over-clean boxes, amid faded finery, and tarnished gilding, to weep over Little Eva and Uncle Tom. It takes us back to the days Eschylus, and convinces us that the love of the drama is as strong as it ever was, and that it must remain for ever while men have hearts capable of being moved by human suffering. The descent from Prometheus to Uncle Tom, dramatically considered, is not a very violent one, nor so long as some may imagine.

It is the fashion with a certain class to speak of the theatre as having outlived its time, and being no longer necessary to the people; but a reference to the history of the stage, and an investigation into the condition of our theatres would prove that the theatre, as we observed just now, was never before in so thriving a condition as at present. Players are no longer vagabonds by act of parliament, nor are they exposed to any legal indignities here on the ground of their profession. An actor may now be buried in consecrated ground in France, but this privilege was denied his poor corpse in the days of Molière. Some of our actors are men of large fortune, and our actresses make themselves independent and retire to private life while they are yet young; and our managers become millionaires, and men of social standing. It is said that the stage pays well as a profession to those who are tolerably well qualified for it, and men of capital are not averse to investing their money in theatrical property. There are many pains-taking, well-intentioned men who have gone upon the stage, as coolly and deliberately as other men have gone to the bar or the pulpit, as a business pursuit, and have maintained themselves and families respectably by enacting the parts of "heavy fathers," and filling the posts of "utility

men." It must be a sorry business, to be sure, but hardly worse than being a drudge in any other profession. The vagabondage of the theatrical profession, which is generally supposed to be the necessary condition of all its members, is rather imaginary than real. Actors are, generally, when off the stage, the most matter of fact and serious people to be seen; many of them have other callings, they engage in trade, or manufacturing, and perform the parts of good citizens with as much success as those of the stage villains and heroes whom they personate for a living. It was lately revealed to the public that Salvi, the fascinating tenor of the Italian Opera, when not employed before the foot lights in fancy costume, was superintending his large soap-boiling and tallow candle establishment on Staten Island a revelation, that may hereafter mar the effect of his spirto gentil in the ears of the listeners who have so often been charmed by his tender voice. But it is not every actor who has the good fortune to be connected with so substantial a business as that of Salvi's; the actual life of too many presents a melancholy contrast to the stage splendors with which they are associated in the minds of the public, who imagine it is all fun and hilarity behind the scenes.

Mrs. Mowatt, in her autobiography, gives some instructive glimpses of the private life of the heroes of the stage, and bears her testimony to the general good character of the greater part of the members of the profession which she joined as a means of honorable independence. Even in the profession of the ballet dancer, which is looked upon as the lowest and most degraded of the whole class of industrials who draw their support from the theatre, she says "there is nothing necessarily demoralizing and degrading," and she gives a slight sketch, but perfect as far as it goes, of a poor ballet girl, who displayed such a heroic spirit in the discharge of her humble duties, that her history should be sufficient to ennoble her despised occupation. Mrs. Mowatt states that she knew this real heroine of the stage, and had the opportunity of watching her conduct for several years.

"She had been educated as a dancer from infancy. She had been on the stage all her life; had literally grown up behind the scenes of a theatre. Her parents were respectable, though it is difficult to define their position in the social scale. At the time I knew her, her mother was paralytic and bedridden. The father was enfeebled by age, and could only earn a

pittance by copying law papers. Georgina, the ballet girl, their only child, by her energetic exertions, supplied the whole wants of the family. And what were those exertions? The mind of the most imaginative reader could hardly picture what I know to be a reality. Georgina's parents kept no servant; she discharged the entire duties of the household-cooking, washing, sewing, every thing. From daylight to midnight not a moment of her time was unemployed. She must be at rehearsal every morning at ten o'clock, and she had two iniles and a half to walk to the theatre. Before that hour she had the morning meal of her parents to prepare, her marketing to accomplish, her household arrangements for the day to make; if early in the week, her washing; if in the middle of the week, her ironing; if at the close, her sewing; for she made all her own and her mother's dresses. At what hour in the morning must she have risen?

"Her ten o'clock rehearsal lasted from two to four hours-more frequently the latter. But watch her in the theatre, and you never found her hands idle. When she is not on the stage, you were sure of discovering her in some quiet cornerknitting lace, cutting grate aprons out of tissue paper, making artificial flowers, or embroidering articles of fancy work, by the sale of which she added to her narrow means. From rehearsal she hastened home to prepare the midday meal of her parents and attend to her mother's wants. After dinner she received a class of children, to whom she taught dancing for a trifling sum. If she had half an hour to spare, she assisted her father in copying law papers. Then tea must be prepared, and her mother arranged comfortably for the night. Her long walk to the theatre must be accomplished at least half an hour before the curtain rose-barely time to make her toilet. If she was belated by her home avocations, she was compelled to run the whole distance. I have known this to occur. Not to be ready for the stage would have subjected her to a forfeit. Between the acts, or when she was not on the stage, there she sat again, in her snug corner of the greenroom, dressed as a fairy, or a maid of honor, or a peasant, or a page, with a bit of work in her hands, only laying down the needle, which her fingers actually made fly, when she was summoned by the call boy, or required to change her costume by the necessities of the play. Sometimes she was at liberty at ten o'clock, but oftener not until halfpast eleven, and then there was the long

walk home before her. Her mother generally awoke at the hour when Georgina was expected, and a fresh round of filial duties were to be performed. Had not the wearied limbs which that poor ballet girl laid upon her couch earned their sweet repose? Are there many whose refreshment is so deserved-whose rising up and lying down are rounded by a circle so holy?

"No one ever heard her murmur. Her fragile form spoke of strength overtasked; it was more careworn than her face. That had always a look of busy serenity off the stage, a softly-animated expression when occupied before the audience in the duties of her profession. She had a ready smile when addressed-a meek reply when rudely chided by the churlish ballet master or despotic stage manager. Many a time I have seen the tears dropping upon her work; but if they were noticed, she would brush them away, and say she was a fool and cried for nothing. Her devotion to her parents was the strongest impulse of her nature. In her early youth she had been engaged to a young man, a musician, belonging to the orchestra. They had been betrothed for several years. Some fairer face, though he could scarcely have found a sweeter, had rendered him faithless. She bore her deep sorrow with that lovely submission which elevates and purifies the spirit, but gave her heart away no more. The breath of slander had never shadowed her name. Younger and gayer girls in the theatre used to designate her as the 'old maid,' but this was the hardest word that any one ever applied to Georgina. Was not such a heart as hers what Elizabeth Barrett Browning has described as

'A fair, still house, well kept,

Which humble thoughts had swept, And holy prayers made clean ?' "Her answer to a sympathizing 'How weary you must be at night!' was, 'Yes; but I am so thankful that I have health to get through so much. What would become of my poor mother or of my father, if I fell ill?'

"How many are there who can render up such an account of their stewardship as this poor girl may give in the hereafter? How many can say with her that life has

been

'One perpetual growth

Of heavenward enterprise?'

"And this flower blossomed within the walls of a theatre-was the indigenous growth of that theatre-a wallflower, if you like but still sending up the rich

[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed]

fragrance of gratitude to Him by whose hand it was fashioned. To the eyes of the Pharisee, who denounces all dramatic representations, while with self-applauding righteousness he boldly approaches the throne of mercy, this ballet girl,' like the poor publican, stood afar off.' To the eyes of the great judge, which stood the nearer?"

The theatrical business in New-York has, until within a short time, been almost entirely in the hands of Englishmen, and even the majority of the players are still foreigners, and it is doubtless owing in a

great degree to this fact, that the stage has continued to lag in the rear of all other institutions on this side of the Atlantic; it has not appealed to the sympathies and tastes of the people; the actors have been aliens, and the pieces they performed have all been foreign; to go inside of our theatres was like stepping out of New-York into London, where the scene of nearly all the comedies presented is laid. English lords and ladies, English squires, clodhoppers, and Cockneys; English rogues, English heroes, and English humors form the staple of nearly all the

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