MRS. BUTLER'S JOURNAL

Is a clever, smart, and characteristic book. It has the appear- ance, moreover, of being what it professes to be—a faithful tran- script of daily thoughts, feelings, and impressions, jotted down at the time; and possessing all the freshness and familiarity which must distinguish such compositions. The time extends from

August 1832 to July in the following year. The scenes are the Atlantic, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, Boston. and the intermediate places between Niagara and the -

coast of New England. The subjects are the circumstances at- tendant upon a sea voyage, and the inns, horses, managers, compa- nies, " properties," and audiences of the States ; together with the manners, behaviour, and social system of the people; intermingled

with disquisitions on acting, religion, and polities; the whole re- ceiving its spirit and colour from the individual character of FANNY KENIBLE. It is this personal display, indeed, which gives life and interest to the work; though we do not affirm that this dis- play is altogether of an engaging nature. On the contrary, we think Mr. BUTLER a bold man ; and if any love-sick swain should be repining at his success, let him read the journal, and, like Melibceus, he will not envy, but admire. FANNY, as painted by herself, appears to have the artificial confidence and boldness of her calling, superadded to the sauciness of a petted, spoiled, and clever girl. She does odd things, she thinks odd things, and she writes odd things. Vulgar, in form and feature, we know she IS (lot; vulgarity of carriage and bearing, we may suppose impos- sible in tragedians, whose personal accomplishments form .part of their stock in trade ; but her manner seems occasionally to have passed the familiarity to which Polonius limits behaviour: her airs appear to have been sometimes wilful, and sometimes rude; her language is often disfigured by terms that, even if happily applied Os hich they are not), sound unmusical from a lady's lips; and herjudgments, on matters which she does not, and once or twice on characters which she cannot understand, seem to smack of presumption pushed to vulgarity. In short, she exemplifies the beau ideal of a green-room belle whose head has been turned by flattery. It may be said that the work professes to be a journal of private thoughts and feelings. Very true; but some of them were sup- pressed, if we judge by the gaps; and besides, a really elegant and disciplined mind cannot think, far less write, otherwise than with propriety. Neither is much that we speak of either useful or ornamental. The complete exhaustion consequent upon thea- trical fatigue, might, for instance, have been expressed otherwisa than by "perfectly done up an apostrophe to Time, would have lost nothing by the omission of " go it, old fellow ; whilst the frequent invocations to the Devil, proprio nounne, had better have been omitted altogether. Again, if haste had penned such sentences as the following upon the author of the Preface to SHAKSPEARE, and one of the greatest practical critics that ever lived, there is no justification for the self-sufficiency that could print them. Came home; supped; finished marking the Winter's Tale. What a dense fool that fat old Johnson must have been in matters of poetry ! his notes upon Shakspeare make one swear ; and his summing up of the Winter's Tale is worthy of a newspaper critic of the present day ; in spirit, I mean, not language: Dr. Johnson always wrote good Engiish. What dry, and sapless, and dusty earth

his soul must have been made of, poor fat than! After all, 'tis even a greater misfortune than fault to be so incapable of beauty.

These are flaws of individual character. There is much in the work of a better kind and a better spirit,—an ardent admiration of nature, a charitable feeling for misery, and a womanly or rather a girlish indignation against wrong and oppression. We shall leave the illustration of these points, however, for matter of a more amusing kind. See the shocking familiarity of the Yankees, to begin with— After reheasal, walked into a shop to buy some gauze. The shopmen called The by my name, entered into conversation ts•th us; and one of them, alter showing ine a variety of things which I did not want, said, in they were :110st anxious to show me every attention, and render my stay or this country alreeahle. A Chi istian, I suppose, would have met these benevolent advances With an infinitude Of thankfulness, and an outpouring of grateful pleasure ; but for my own part, though I had the grace to smile, and say "Thank you," I longed to add, " but be so good as to measure your rthands, and hold your tongue." I have no idea of holding parley with clerks behind a counter, still !r,s of their doing so with me. So much fur my first impression of the courtesy of this land of liberty ! I should hard been much better pleased It they had called Ine " Ma'am," which they did not.

They are better, however, in Canal . Street : perhaps the " clerks " do not walk there; it would seem not, as it is a pleasure crowd—

The street was very much thronged, and I thought the crowd a more civil and orderly one than an English crowd. The men did not jostle or push one another, or tread upon one's feet, or kick down one's shoe-heels, or crush one's bonnet into one's face, or turn it round upon one's head,—all which I have seen done in London streets. There is this to be said: this crowd was abroad merely for pleasure, sauntering along, which is a thing never seen in London ; the proportion of idle loungers who frequent the streets there being very incon- siderable, when compared with the number of people going on business through the town. I observed that the young men to-night invariably made room ffir women to pass ; and many of them, as they drew near us, took the segar from their mouth, which I thought especially courteous. They were all smoking, to a man, except those who were spitting ; which helped to remind me of Paris, to which the whole place bore a slight resemblance.

Dr. JOHNSON has been much remarked upon for his con- temptuous estimate of a player's sensibilities, and his scepticism about "Punch's feelings :" the ndive coufessions of the actress seem to bear out the observations of the philosopher. Her com- plaints frequently let us into all the mechanism of the stage,— how some " washed-out man" (?) does not know his part (Fazio), which spoils the effect—how some of the underlings neither know their parts nor their business, which prevents points being made, and puts the show into confusion. It may be urged that this is in parts dependent upon drilling for scenic effect. Be it so : but in the death-scene of Romeo and Juliet, where the maiden wife is clinging distractedly to the yet warm corse of her husband, FANNY sinks from the woes of Juliet into " Why, where the Devil is the dagger?" However, let us take a whole scene. It will be guessed from it—and the opinion is distinctly expressed in many other parts—that Miss KEll BLE professed to despise her vocation ; forgetting that the attention which she claims, and the celebrity which she prizes, rest upon her being an actress.

VENICE PRESERVED.

The house was very full, and they received Mr. K— with acclamations and shouts of applause. When I went on, I was all but tumbling down at the sight of may Jaffier ; who looked like the apothecary in Romeo and Juliet, with the addition of some devilish red slashes along his thighs and arms. The first scene passed well and so: but, oh! the next, and the next, and the next to that ! Whenever he was not glued to my side, and that was seldom, he stood three yards behind me; he did nothing, but seize my hand, and grapple it so hard, that unless I had knocked him down, which I felt much inclined to try, I could not disengage myself. In the Senate scene, when I was entreating, fur mercy, and steu;rgling, as Otway has it, for my life, he was prancing round the stage in every direction, flourishing his dagger in the air : I wislt to heaven I had got up and run away ; it would but have been natural, and served him extremely right. In the parting scene—oh, what a scene it was! Instead of phig away front in when he said " Farewell for ever !" he stuck to my skirts, though in the sante breath that I adjured him, in the words of my part, not to leave me, I added, aside, " Get away from me, oh do !" When I exclaimed, " Not one kiss at parting?" he kept embracing and kissing me like mad ; and when I ought to have been pursuing him and calling after him, " Leave thy dagger With me," he hung himself up against the wing, and remained dangling there for five minutes. I was half crazy; and the good people sat and swallowed it all : they deserved it, by my troth they did. I prompted him constantly ; and once, after struggling in vain to free myself from him, was obliged, in the middle of my part, to exclaim, " You hurt me dreadfully, Mr. Keppel !" Ile clung to me, cramped me, crumpled me—dreadful ! I never experienced any thing like this before, and made up my mind that I never would again. I played, of course, like a wretch, finished my part as well as I could, and as soon as the play was over, went to my father and Mr. Simpson, and declared to them both my de- telinination not to go upon the stage again with that gentleman for a hero. Three trials are as many as in reason anybody can demand ; and, come what may, / will not be s,ubjected to this sort of experiment again. At the end of the play, the clever New Yorkians actually called for Mr. Keppel ! And this most worth- less clapping of hands, most worthlessly bestowed upon such a wortlikss ob- ject, Is what, by the nature of my craft, I am bound to care for! I spit at it from the bottom of my soul. Talking of applause, the man who acted Bedamar to-night thought fit to be two hours dragging roe off the stage; • in consequence of which, I had to scream, "daffier, daffier!" till I thought I should have broken a blood-vessel. On my remonstrating with him upon this, lie said, " Well, you are rewarded, listen!" the people were clapping and shouting vehe- mently. This is the whole history of acting and actors.

Punch again— The play was Romeo and Juliet, the house was extremely full ; they are a delightful audience. My Romeo had gotten on a pair of trunk breeches that looked as if he had borrowed them from some worthy Dutchman of a hundred years ago. Had he worn them in New York, I could have understood it as a compliment to the ancestry of that good city ; but here, to adopt such a costume in Romeo, was really perfectly unaccountable. They were of a most unhappy choice of colours too,—(k11, heavy-looking blue cloth, and offensive crimson satin, all he-puckered, and be-plaited, and be-puffed, till the young man looked like a magical figure growing out of a monstrous, strange-coloured melon, beneath width descended his unfortunate legs, thrust into a pair of red slippers, for all the world like Grimaldi's legs en costume for clown. The play went off pretty smoothly, except that they broke one man's collar-bone, and nearly dislocated a woman's shoulder, by flinging the scenery about. My bed was not made in time ; and whim the scene drew, half a dozen carpenters in patched trousers and tattered shirt-sleeves were discovered smoothirtg down my pillows and adjusting my draperies. The last scene is too good not to be given verbatim.

14311.0. Rice, rise, my Juliet, And from this (MAU Ul &AI II. this house of horror,

Quick It me snatch thee to thy Itonwo's here lie pounced upon me, plucked me up in his arms like an uncomfortable bundle, and staggered down the stage with me.

Jrt.i ET. (abide.) Oh, you've got um up horridly ! that'll never do; let me down, pray

let me down. Roam). There, breathe a vital spirit on thy lips. And call thee back, my soul, to tile awl level

Jur.IFT. Piay put me dou it; you'll certainly throw me down if you don't set the on the ground directly.

In the midst of " cruel, cursed fate," his dagger fell out of his dress.: I, em- bracing hint tenderly, crammed it back again, because I knew I should want it at the end.

Itomto. Tear not our heartstrings thus!

They crack! they tweak ! Juliet ! Juliet I (Dies.) JCLIET. On ('rwpve.) Am I smothering you ? ConesE. (to .1,00.) Not at all. Could you be so kind, do you think, as to putt my wig on again for me ?—it has fallen ofl JUI.IET. ,(to ('orpgc.) I'm afraid I can't ; but I'll throw my muslin veil over it.

You've broken the phial, haven't you ?

((.orpse nodded.)

JULIFT. (t0 CuTre.) Where's your dagger? CORPSE. (f0 Abet.) 'Pon my soul, I don't know.

The following remarks upon the Gentlemen of the Press—whom Mrs. BUTLER, Willi no great originality of wit, denominates the Press-gang—will excite ire where it hits. Indeed, we have seen already something like " Madam, your sex protects you."

THE PRESS-GANG ABROAD AND AT /1031E.

Except where they have been made political tools, newspaper writers and editors have never, I believe, been admitted into any good society in England. It is otherwise here : newspapers are the main literature of America ; and I have frequently heard it quoted, as a proof of a man's abilities that lie writes in such and such a newspaper. Besides the popularity to be ditained by it, it is often attended with no small literary consideration ; and young men here, with talents of a really high order, and who might achieve far better things, too often are content to accept this very mediocre mode of displaying their abilities, at very little expense of thought or study, and neglect far worthier objects of am- • bition, and the rewards held out by a distant permanent fame. I know that half my young gentlemen acquaintance here would reply, that they must live in the mean time, and it is a real and deep evil, arising from the institutions of this country, that every man must toil ftom day to day for his daily bread ; and in this degrading and spirit-loading care, all other nobler desires are smothered. It is a great national misfortune.

When this opinion was formed, we know not. The preference, it would seem, did not last long. Some playhouse squabble about a benefit—following, probably, some foregone conclusion in the critical way—gave rise to this

VOW Or FANNY.

I do solemnly swear, never again, with my own good will, to become acquainted with any man in any way connected with the public press. They are utterly unreliable people, generally; their vocation requires that they should be so ; and the very few exceptions I must forego, for however I might like them, I can neither respect nor approve of their trade; for trade it is in the vilest sense of the word.

See what rash vows lead to. The "delightful man" below thought the star was very rude, no doubt; instead of which, it was silliness expressed in the form of rudeness.

In the middle of the evening, Dr. — asked if I would allow him to introduce to me one Mr. —, a very delightful man, full of abilities, and writer in such and such a paper. I immediately called to mind my resolution, and refused. In the mean time, Mts. —, less scrupulous, and without asking my leave, brought the gentleman up' and introduced him. I was most ungracious and forbiddiug, and meant to be so. I am sorry for this, but I cannot help it : he is —'s brother too, which makes me doubly sorry. As he is an agreeable man, and —'s brother, I esteem and reverence him; but as he belongs to the press-gang, I will not know him. The following is in better taste and better feeling ; though wilful even in its goodness. The Doctor is, we conjecture, an Epis- copalian clergyman, whose ministry the KEMBLES attended at New York • but Mrs. BUTLER generally substitutes dashes for names. Indeed, it must be said, that as regards individuals she takes liberties with few save herself. We may ask, by the by, would an endowed minister in England have taken the same freedom with a star, on a very short acquaintance ?

WALTZING.

After a little time, dancing was proposed ; and I stood up to waltz with Mr. ____, who observed that Dr. — was gone, as he never chose to be present while waltzing was going on. I felt shocked to death that, unconsciously, I should have been instrumental in driving him away, and much surprised that those who knew his disapprobation of waltzing should have proposed it. How- ever, he was gone, and did not return. Therefore I waltzed myself out of my

•

conscientious remorse. It poured with rain all day. Dr. — called, and gave me a sermon about waltzing. As it was perfectly good sense, to which I could reply nothing whatever in the shape of' objection, I promised him never to waltz again, except • with a woman, or toy brother.

After all, 't is not fitting that a man should put his arm round one's waist, whether one belongs to any one but One's self or not. 'Tis much against what I have always thought most sacred—the dignity of a woman in her own eyes and those of others. I like Dr. — most exceedingly. He spoke every way to my feelings of what was right, to-day. After saying that he felt convinced* from conversations which lie had heard amongst men, that waltzing was im- moral in its tendency, he added—" I am married, and have been in love ; and cannot imagine any thing more destructive of the deep and devoted respect which love is calculated to excite in every honourable man's heart, not only for the individual object of his affections, but for her whole sex, than to see any and every impertinent coxcomb in a ball-room come up to her, and without remorse or hesitation, clasp her waist, imprison her hand, and absolutely whirl her round in his arms. So spake the Doctor ; and my sense of propriety and conviction of right bore testimony to the truth of his saying. So farewell, sweet German waltz !—next to hock, the most intoxicating growth of the Rheinland.

THR [RUBLES AT PHILADELPHIA.

I am sure there is no town in Europe where my father could fix his resi- dence for a week without being immediately found out by most of the residents of any literary acquirements or knowledge of matters relative to art ; I sin sure that neither in France, Italy, or Germany, could he take up his abode in any city without immediately being sought by those best worth knowing in it. I con- fess it surprised me, therefore, when I found that during a month's residence in Philadelphia scarcely a cieature came near us, and but one house was hospitably opened to us. As regards myself, I have no inclination whatever to speak upon the subject ; but it gave me something like a feeling of contempt, not only for the charities, but for the good taste of the Philadelphians, when I found them careless and indifferent towards one whose name alone is a passport into every refined and cultivated society in Europe. Everywhere else in America our reception was very different ; and I can only attribute the want of courtesy we met with in Philadelphia to the greater prevalence of that very small spirit of dignity which is always afraid of committing itself.

THE CRITICS CRITICIZED.

Came to bed, in tremendous dudgeon. The few critiques that I have seen upon our acting, have been upon the whole, laudatory. One was sent to me from a paper called the Mirror ; which pleased me very much ; not because the praise in it was excessive, and far beyond my deserts, but that it was written with great taste and feeling, and was evidently not the produce of a common press hack. There appeared to me in all the others the true provincial dread of praising too much, and being led into approbation by previous opinions ; a sort of jealousy of critical freedom, which, together with the established nil admi-

rari of the press, seems to keep them in a constant dread of being thought en- thusiastic. They need not be afraid: enthusiasm may belong to such analyses as Sehlegel's or Charming's, but has nothing in common with the paragraphs of a newspaper; the inditers of which, in my poor judgment, seldom go beyond the very threshold of criticism, i. e. the discovery of faults.

There are reflections of a deeper kind in the bcolc, many descriptions of landscape, of a higher order of merit as composi- tions, though somewhat too scenic in style, anti numerous pieces of poetry of a respectable class; but we have preferred. the more characteristic parts, and now we have not room to exhibit the others. The bit we can spare shall tie devoted to some cheering remarks on the people. For a social system like the following, one might almost submit to the unheard-of monstrosity of a shop- keeper talking familiarly to a play-actor.

I think the European traveller, in order to form a just estimate both of the evils and advantages derived from the institutions of this country, should spend one day in the streets of New York, and the next in the walks of Hoboken. If in the one the toil, the care, the labour of mind and body, the outward and vi- sible signs of the debasing pursuit of wealth, are marked in melancholy charac- ters upon every man he meets, and bear witness to the great curse of the country ; in the other, the crowds of happy, cheerful, enjoying beings, of that order which in the Old World are condemned to ceaseless and ill. requitedla- bour, will testify to the blessings which counteibalance that curse. I never was so forcibly struck with the prosperity and happiness of the lower orders of society in this country, as yesterday returning from Hoboken. The walks along the river and through the woods, the steamers crossing from the city, were absolutely thronged with a cheerful, well-dressed population abroad, merely for the purpose of pleasure and exercise. Journeymen, labourers, handicrafts- men, tradespeople, with their families, bearing in their dress and looks evi- dent signs of wellbeing and contentment, were all flocking from their confined avocations, into the pure air, the bright sunshine, and beautiful shade of this lovely place. I do not know any spectacle which could give a foreigner, espe- cially an Englishman, a better illustration of that peculiar excellence of the American Goveenment—the freedom and happiness of the lower classes. Nei- ther is it to be said that this was a holyday, or an occasion of peculiar festivity ; it was a common week-day, such as our miserable manufacturing population spends from sunrise to sun-down, in confined, incessant, unhealthy toil, to earn at its conclusion the inadequate reward of health and happiness so wasted. The contrast struck me forcibly ; it rejoiced my heart ; it surely was an object of

contemplation that any one who had a heart must have rejoiced in. • • This country is in one respect blessed above all others, and above all others deserving of blessing. There are no poor—I say there are none, there reed be none; none bete need lift up the despairing voice of hopeless and helpless want, towards that heaven which hears when men will not. No father here need work away his body's health and his spirit's strength in unavailing labour from day to day, and from year to year, bowed down by the cruel curse his fellows lay upon him. No mother need wish, in the bitterness of her heart, that the children of her breast had died before they exhausted that nourishment which was the only one her misery could feel assured would not fail them. None need be born to vice, for none are condemned to abject poverty. Oh, it makes the heart sick to think of all the horrible anguish that has been suffered by thousands and thousands of those wretched creatures, whose want begets a boat of moral evils fearful to contemplate, whose exigence begins in poverty, struggles on through care and toil, and hew-grinding burdens, and ends in

destitution, in sickness—alas! too often in crime and infamy. Thrice blessed is this country, for no such crying evil exists in its boeom ; no such moral re-

proach, no such political rottenness. Not only is the eye never offended with .those piteous sights of human suffering, which make one's heart bleed, and whose number appals one's imagination in the thronged thoroughfares of the European cities ; but the mind reposes with delight in the certainty that not one human creature is here doomed to suffer anti to weep through life ; not one immortal soul is thrown into jeopardy by the combined temptations of its own misery and the heartless selfishness of those who pass it by without holding out so much as a finger to save it. If we have any faith in the excellence of mercy and benevolence, we must believe that this alone will secure the blessing of Providence on this country.

The specimens we have quoted are pleasant and readable enough ; and the same character will apply to any continuous portion of the book ; but as a whole, it is somewhat tediaus. Various causes contribute to this. Its form is of necessity without plan or progression; its abruptness removes that appearance of connected narrative which appertains even to a common tour; there is 103 little matter too sustain the reader through two volumes; and rather too great a predominance of those subjects which seem invariably to characterize actors, and low litterateurs in any way connected with the stage,—eating, drinking, dress, and the other commonplace materialities of everyday life. In England, the work will be read, laughed at, and forgotten. We are not quite sure that it will be so innocent in America. Our cousins are thin-skinned ; and though Mrs. BUTLER mingles praise and blame together, the blame predominates, is applied to the majority, aud touches them upon matters where they are most sensitive. They will also say that they feel degradation from the baud that deals the blow.

WRITE'S BELGIC REVOLUTION.

IN the preface to his book, Mr. WHITE informs us that he has re- sided upwards of four years in Belgium, witnessed the first outbreak of the Revolution, and watched its various phases. He has had access " to a vast mass of oral and documentary testimony ;" he is acquainted with some of the most distinguished actors on the

scene, besides bearing several parts himself in tile drama ; and he has thought and written much upon the subject: so that SALLUET had no better opportunities for composing his Catiline Conspiracy. But these advantages, he says, have their draw- backs: he cannot allude to his own deeds "without incurring the imputation of egotism," he cannot tell much that he knows without betraying confidence, he cannot praise without often ap- pearing to flatter enemies, nor blame without (oftener perhaps) touching friends; neither Dutch nor Belgians are particular about truth when speaking of each other; and the unfinished state of the negotiations renders it impossible to procure many official documents. He has therefore abandoned the idea of writing " a history, at once impartial, accurate, and comprehensive," and con- tented himself with a" cursory narrative of general events." As this narrative extends to nearly eight hundred pages, we may con- clude that the length of the work and the time of the reader were not amongst the reasons which deprived the world of a history worthy of "outliving the feverish interest of the day."

Front some incidental allusions in the narrative, it would appear that Mr. WHITE has acted as a sort of unrecognized political agent ; and, judging only from his composition, one would have decided that he was in the diplomatic line. He has a sort of official method of arranging his materials, and the character of his style is quite diplomatic—balanced and rotund, disfigured here and there by official or foreign slang, and possessing a kind of histo- rical air. But it is manner only. The author cannot rise to the historical spirit. He makes no distinction between essentials and non-essentials ; hence his narrative is overloaded with unnecessary minutia, which keep the attention of the reader in suspense; and though a general impression is left upon the mind from a perusal of the whole, no distinct ideas are separately conveyed. The author, moreover, is too disquisitional, and expounds or argues when he should narrate. Still, his subject is important and interesting ; there is also a story to tell ; and, bulky as the two volumes are, they may be read through. The opinions of Mr. WHITE seem impartial : he expounds in detail the unjust, oppressive, and it may be said tyrannical domination of the house of Nassau, and strikingly depicts the wretched mismanagement of the Dutch Government both in its obstinacy and its weakness, as well as the insolence and folly of the Belgian democrats. His leanings have all a professional cast : whatever an "enlightened diplomacy" would consider the best to do, that he bolds is right to be done. We do not think he has thrown any new light upon the origin or conduct of the Revolu- tion in important points; but he presents us with some historical portraits and scenes which have a personal interest about them, though drawn in too ambitious a style, and reported at too great a length. The Belgic Revolution, in short, is a continuous and connected set of articles on the subject, with no pretensions to the character of history or even of annals. To those who wish to acquire fresh knowledge or renew their old, the work will be useful ; but it will not give them a great deal beyond what they might glean from newspapers and other periodicals.