consider the praise bestowed upon one turn its very defects, its broken and as a deduction from the ample measure rugged dissonance to advantage, more of another's reputation? why should especially in those turbulent and tu the laurels placed upon the brows of multous convulsions of the soul which a new actor be regarded as a plunder may be supposed to pass the boundafrom the wreath with which those of a ries of speech and absorb its powers mighty rival have so long and so de-in the violence of conflicting emotions. servedly been encircled?

Mr. Kean is said to possess an in

The prejudice which exalts a fa- [tellect, acute and dextrous, with a vourite into faultlessness is scarcely prompt and ardent imagination. less injurious and surely not less ab- Minds of this class are often accomsurd than that which allows no merit panied with an indolence which dișto an object of dislike; through the poses them rather to await the necessity dangers of both these popular tributes of immediate and occasional exertions, to extraordinary talents it must be ad- than voluntarily to employ themselves mitted that Mr. Kean has borne him- in the mental labour that requires the self gallantly; and is well entitled to perseverance of connected prosecution; be recorded (whatever the intrinsic and thus the energies of Mr. Kean's value of such a fame may be) as one intellect will perhaps be found to deof the most successful in the list of velope themselves more frequently by eminent English tragedians. sudden flashes and sparkling points in The person of Mr. Kean is con- parts of a performance than by a considerably below the ordinary height, sistent and steadily sustained delineabut muscular and actively formed. tion of the whole. His feelings, too, His countenance is handsome, intelli- appear of that deep and sensitive nagent, and capable of strong expression, ture which may still further conduce long and oval with an Italian cast of to give this character to his perform character in the features, the complex- ances, for such feelings readily indulge ion pale, the forehead clear and broad, in the calms of inaction, and are chiefly the eyes large, dark and particularly alive to the mortal agitations of those brilliant, quick in their motion and elementary passions only which conintense in their power, and his phy- found and swallow up the minor dissiognomy has been remarked as alto- tinctions of individual character, and gether possessing that kind of inde- reduce all human beings to one great scribable interest about it, which never and general similitude. If other perfails to attract and fascinate the atten- formances, therefore may have exhibittion of the spectator. His voice has ed from beginning to end the preserbeen generally noticed as the qualifica- vation of a more consonant and tion in which he is most defective, but unbroken propriety, a more perfect this is only true as far as regards its and continued distinctness of identity, power and its compass, pushed beyond none perhaps ever equalled those of its limits, it becomes harsh, hoarse, Mr. Kean, in the beauty and the and totally inadequate to the great de- grandeur of isolated passages. In inands of loud and impassioned utter- momentary & incontrollable influences ance, but within its compass its qua- of strong feeling, in the sudden and lity of tone is sweet and pleasing, modulating through the level discourse of affection, tenderness and melancholy with much beauty and clearness of enunciation., And so skilful is Mr. Kean's management of this defective organ, that he, frequently contrives to

sweeping explosions," the torrent, tempest, and whirlwind," of our master passions, the collective voice of public opinion seems to acknowledge his unrivalled superiority, so that if other tragedians may surpass him in what may be termed the epic character.

and a river not deep enough to drown a rat; in bronzed pillars, and faces of bronze; in Sunday finery, and Saturday filth; in grim mustachios a la militaire, and gay ear-rings a la femme in shoe-blacks as-polished as they are polishing, and fish-women as fanciful as a fine lady, and fat as a porpoise.

What a contrast does Paris offer to London!-show seems to have presided in the building of one, comfort in that of the other. The houses of the Parisians are much loftier and statelier than ours; but then "every man's

tenant for every floor, nay, perhaps for every room. In London the comfort of private society was never before,

The late Mr. Whitbread whose abilities, character and station in the country gave no ordinary value to his praise, after paying some just compliments to the merits of Mr. Kemble and to the memory of Mr. Garrick, said" In judging of Mr. Kean we must look to him as he is not the copyist of any other-not the pupil of a school-but an actor who found all his resourses in nature-who delincat-house is not his castle," and there is a ed his passions only from the expressions that the soul gives to the voice and features of man-not from the images that have before him been re-equalled in any stage of the social propresented on the stage. It is from gress; in Paris the French escape from the wonderful truth, energy and force their comfortless brick floors, naked with which he strikes out and presents walls, and fireless hearths, to seek ento the eye this natural working of the joyment without. The Boulevards, in human frame, that he excites the emo-point of momentary amusement, are tions and engages the sympathy of unrivalled; but Paris, as far as regards his spectators and auditors. It is to continued gratification, posesses nohim, that after a hundred and thirty-thing that is capable of vying with our five nights of continued loss and dis- squares. You may walk in London appointment, the subscribers are in- for miles on an excellent pavement, debted for the success of the season, equal to the floor of a Frenchman's and that the public are indebted for drawing-room; but there is nothing the high treat which they received by ostentatious in all this. The wonders the variety of characters which he of London are concealed almost enrepresented." tirely from the eye; the countless means by which water and light, the two greatest wants in a populous city, are circulated through all the veins of the metropolis, are unseen, and scarcely thought of. The new street in London is indeed a magnificent dance of architectural beauties; but this is an exception; while Paris in quarter presents the coup-de-cit of a new Babylon.

PARIS-A SKETCH *

Thou wonderful city! shrine of luxury, emporium of amusement, temple of pleasure, and microcosm of the world! how and where shall I begin thy picture? how describe the indescribable?-A Pencil dipped in the colours of the Rainbow would vainly attempt to sketch thy ever-shifting complexion, and mercurial humours; thy unfixable caprices, and interminable contrarieties; in splendid houses and dirty lanes; in a toe-torturing pavement beneath, and a hat-spoiling water-spout above; in quays capacious enough for the commerce of the world,

every

We can conceive nothing grander in the most far-famed cities of ancient times, than the view from the Pont de Louis Quinze; particularly when looking accross the river to the Chambre des Deputes, backed by the gorgeous dome of the Hospital des Invalides

OR WEEKLY REGISTER.

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resolving to run the gauntlet of the Boulevards, and see all that is to be seen, one thinks of the speech of poor Damien, when first fastened to the rack- Ce sera une journee forte !"

The golden palace, temple, grave of war. Nor can we readily believe that Rome, "in her most high and palmy state,' possesed a condensed assemblage of more magnificent objects than are to be met with in a walk from the Bole-One is fairly thumb-screwed, picketed, wards Italiens, down the Rue de la and pressed to death, by the eagerness Pait, through the Place Vendome, to of the Parisian desire to please. A the Place Louis Quinze, and so on to Savoyard torments with his eternal the river, proceeding along the Quai to thrumming, or a fiizeur twists the the Tuilleries and the Louvre. The most wry hair into pliant corkscrews, Tuilleries gardens, it is true, are small, or a grimacier tortures "the human in comparison with our Kensington face divine" into monstrasitics of uggardens; but then they have the su- liness, which would have petrined the perior advantage of being near at hand. Gorgons. Next stands a conjuror It must at the same tine be allowed, with all his tools of trade spread out that they are laid out in very bad taste. before him, and farther on, a female The trees seem as if they were ranged professor, who engages to perform any for a country dance or a cotillion.- given operation on your poodle. Here Each orange has a partner; every pop- a fruit-seller, with fruit which might tar and lime tree shakes his head at a tempt Eve to a second perdition; and relation, and "half the terrace just there the "brown marchande," with reflects the other." The bronzes are a ved handkerchief round her head, crowded upon a wall, as if it were a scarcely redder than her sun-burnt skin, broker's shop; the ground is patched arranges her gaudy tray of all the with diamonds, quadrants, circles, and Circean mysteries that restore or creovals, like a lady's inlaid work box; ate beauty, rouges and essences, false and the fountains struggle and spirt in eyes, false teeth, false ringlets, false all manner of antic dribblings. How-noses. The line of exhibitants seems ever, it cannot be denied that ingenuity "to stretch out to the crack of doom," has done its utmost, in a small compass, and the intervals of the interminable to amuse and accommodate the peo-series, are filled up with every species ple. The same objection, as to bad of all monstrous and prodigious taste, does not apply to the stately avenues of the Boulevards. Nothing in London is calculated to vie with its triple arcade, broad as Portland Place, shaded during a course of seven miles by lofty and luxuriant elms, and flanked by an unintermitted succession of palaces, flower gardens, fountains, and theatres. The only bad taste discernable, is not in the scene, but in the dramatis persona. Indeed the spectators themselves are a part of the spectacle, and none more so than the beaux, who, with determined anxiety for the repose of their legs and arms, contrive to ocupy three chairs at a time. All besides is in restless motion the tension of excitement is apt up almost to torture, and while

things:" beggar bards and beggar fortune-tellers, merry andrews, and tragic actors as merry, dancing children and dancing dogs, white mice, learned monkeys, and militant Canary birds.

It is not surprising, therefore, that Paris, considered merely as a place of gaiety and recreation, should comma d the preference of strangers. All kinds of luxuries and sensual pleasures are not only in the highest state of refinement, but easily procurable. The comparative smallness of Paris is attended with the same superiority as a small theatre has over a large one; the spectacle is compressed into a smaller compass, and the dulcia vitia of the place are more available. In Paris there no sulphurous clouds of smoke to

THE MAN OF LETTERS. Among the members of the republie of literature there is a class to whom may be appropriately assigned the title of MEN of LETTERS.

The man of letters, whose habits and whose whole life so closely resembles those of an author, can only be distinguished by the simple circumstance, that the man of letters is not an author.

Yet he whose sole occupation through life is literature, who is always acquiring and never producing, appears as ridiculous as the architect who never raised an edifice, or the statuary who refrains from sculpture. His pursuits are reproached with terminating in an epicurean selfishness, and amidst his incessant avocations he himself is considered as a particular sort of idler.

This race of literary characters, as they now exist, could not have appeared till the press had poured its influence; in the degree that the nations of Europe became literary, was that philosophical curiosity kindled, which induced some to devote their fortunes and their days, and to experience some of the purest of human enjoy- Such is that life of self-oblivion of the ments, in preserving and familiarising | man of letters, for which so many have vothemselves with "the monuments of va-luntarily relinquished a public station or nished minds," that indestructible history their rank in Society; neglecting even for

tune and health. Of the pleasures of the man of letters it may be said, they combine those opposite sources of enjoyment observed in the hunter and the angler. Of

a great hunter it was said, that he did not live but hunted; and the man of letters, in his perpetual researches, feels the like heat, and the joy of discovery, in his own chase; while in the deep calm of his spirits, such is the sweetness of his uninterrupted hours, like those of the angler, that one may say of him what Colonel Venables, an enthusiastie angler, declared of his favourite pursuit," many have cast off other recreations and crel raced this; but I never knew any angler wholly cast off, though occasions wight interrupt, their affections to their beloved recreation."

ing through life those magnificent collec tions which often bear the names of their founders from the gratitude of a following age; Venice, Florence, and Copenhagen, Oxford and London, attest the existence of their labours. Our Bodleys and our Harleys, our Cottons and our Sloanes, our Cracherodes and our Townleys, were (our Spencers our Staffords and our Roscoes are) of this race! In the perpetuity of their own studies, they felt as if they were extending human longevity, by throwing an unbroken light of knowledge into the next age. Each of these public works, for such they become, was the project and the execution of a solitary man of letters during half a century; the generous enthusiasm which inspired their intrepid labours; But "men of the world," as they are so the difficulties overcome; the voluntary emphatically distinguished, imagine that a privations of what the world calls its pleaman so lifeless in the world" must be sures and its honours, would form an inone of the daud in it, and, with mistaken || teresting history not yet written; their due, wit, would inscribe over the sepulchre of yet undischarged. his library, here lies the body of our friend," If the man of letters has voluntarily quitted their "world," at least he has past into another, where he enjoys a sense of existence through a long succession of ages, and where Tine, who destroys all things for others, for him only preserves and discovers. This world is best described by one who has lingered among its inspirations. "We are wafted into other times and strange lands, connecting us by a sad but exalting relationship with the great events and great minds which have passed away. Our studies at once cherish and controul the imagination, by leading it over an unbounded range of the noblest scenes in the overawing company of departed wisdom and genius.”

Living more with books than with men, the man of letters is more tolerant of opinions than they are among themselves, nor are his views of human affairs contracted to the day, as those who in the heat and hurry of life can act only on expedients, and not on principles; who deem themselves politicians because they are not moralists; to whom the centuries behind have conveyed no results, and who cannot see how the present time is always full of the future; as Leibnitz has expressed a profound reflection. "Every thing," says the lively Burnet, "must be brought to the nature of tinder or gunpowder, ready for a spark to set it on fire," before they discover it. The man of letters is accused of a cold indifference to the interests which If the man of letters is less dependent on divide society. In truth, he knows their others for the very perception of his own miserable beginnings and their certain terexistence, his solitude is not that of a de-minations; he is therefore rarely observed scrt, but of the most cultivated humanity; as the head, or the rump, of a party. for all there tends to keep alive those con- Antiquity presents such a man of letters centrated feelings which cannot be indulg-in Atticus, who retreated from a political ed with security, or even without ridicule, in general society. Like the Lucullus of of Plutarch, he would not only live among the votaries of literature, but would live for them; he throws open his library, his gallery, and his cabinet, to all the Grecians. Such are the men who father neglected genius, or awaken its infancy by the perpetual legacy of the "Prizes" of Literature and Science; who project those benevolent institutions, where they have poured out the philanthropy of their heartstinctly marked the character of the man of in that world which they appear to have forsaken. If Europe is literary, to whom does she owe this, more than to these men of letters? To their noble passion of amass

to a literary life; had his letters accompanied those of Cicero they would have illustrated the ideal character of a man of letters. But the sage Atticus rejected a popular celebrity for a passion not less powerful, yielding up his whole soul to study. Cicero, with all his devotion to literature, was still agitated by another kind of glory, and the most perfect author in Rome imagined that he was enlarging his honours by the intrigues of the consulship. He has dis

letters in the person of his friend Atticus, and has expressed his respect, although he could not content himself with its imitation. "I know the greatness and ingenuousness