tattered miscreant; his adversary, from being well practised at the game, throws ten handsfull of dirt for his one, and quickly bespatters him all over, while the few additional pieces that he could send, would never be discerned on his opponent's already soiled and filthy garments. The best way certainly for those who are well enough known to afford it, is to pass all such attacks over in absolute silence. Blackwood's Magazine, whose personality has at least always prostituted humor and ability to make it go off, has never been so enraged by any of the retorts of its adversaries as by the real or affected contempt of the Edinburgh Review. Notwithstanding the virulent abuse that has from time to time been bestowed upon it, the Edinburgh has never, since the commencement of Blackwood, let it appear that it was conscious there was such a journal in existence.

We are not very sanguine in anticipations of any speedy and effectual change for the better in this world of ours; but we do think the time is fast coming when, with a few exceptions, this custom of the present race of public journals in the United States will be regarded with unqualified contempt. There are already symptoms of better things. Most of the city papers in New-York, and indeed in all large towns, have lately amended their ways con

siderably in this respect, though they were never one quarter so bad as their rural brethren; and there are several journals that are respectable and entertaining repositories of news, knowledge, literature, and fashion, while their trifling disputes are conducted in a pleasant and gentlemanly spirit. Clashing interests and party views will always preserve some portion of personality in the world; but it would be more agreeable to all concerned to settle their little affairs of the pen by good-natured raillery, light repartees, and polished sarcasms, such as pass in decent society, in preference to vulgar slang and porter-house figures of rhetoric. Let such contests be carried on like two gentlemen engaged in a bout at foils, in which both exert their utmost skill and ingenuity, in a friendly temper; and when a "palpable hit" is given on either side, let it be courteously acknowledged, and then try it again; and not like a couple of ragamuffins in the street, who fight and tear themselves to pieces for the amusement of the spectators.

MR. LISTON.

Curse that incorrigible face of yours; though you never suffer a smile to mantle it, yet it is a figure of fun for all the rest of the world."

Of all the actors I have ever seen, Kean and Lis ton appear to me to be the greatest, and to have the least in common with others of their species. Of the two, perhaps Liston is the most original. He is the Hogarth of actors; and like that great painter, has been more highly than justly appreciated. Not that either have been too highly thought of" I hold the thing to be impossible"-but the broad, rich humor, which is the distinguishing characteristic of both, has, from its prominence, thrown their minor good properties into the shade. Hogarth, to the qualities peculiarly his own, added the rare merit of being a chaste and skilful colorist, (the most difficult thing to be attained in painting, considering it purely as an art,) and was, moreoverhowever generally such an opinion may be entertained-not the least of a caricaturist. Neither is

Liston, notwithstanding it pleases certain pragmatical persons, who, I humbly apprehend, know nothing about the matter, to assert the contrary. There are now, as in the days of William Shaks-peare, those who discountenance all cachinnatory movements as unbecoming; regarding gravity as the only outward and visible type of that great inward accumulation of wisdom, which generally lies too deep to be ever discovered. These people think because Mr. Liston occasionally plays coarse and foolish parts in coarse and foolish farces, that Mr. Liston is, consequently, a coarse and foolish fellow, and only fit to amuse the uneducated vulgar; and as "grimace" and "buffoonery" are the two standing words used in abusing comedians, let their faults be what they may, they have not unfrequently been applied to Liston. Now if any one be free from what is meant by these two words, as set down in many dictionaries, it is this actor. The merits of his unparalleled countenance are passive, not active; and distortion would only render that countenance common-place, which in a state of blank repose, is intensely ridiculous,

The great merit of Liston is his earnestness. Kean does not appear more earnest in Othello than does Liston at the loss of a pocket-handkerchief, or

being overcharged a shilling in a tavern-bill.

His

whole soul seems to be absorbed in an affair of this kind. He does not bustle about or put himself in a passion in order to make the audience laugh at the ridiculous nature of the circumstances, as other actors do; but all the faculties of the man's mind seem concentrated to endeavor to convince or persuade, as the case may require, solely to save the said shilling, or regain the said handkerchief; and it is the contrast between the disproportion of the exercise employed and the importance of the object to be attained-like the wars of the Lilliputians and the Blefuscudians-that is so supremely ridiculous. Fools may say that this is merely admirable foolery -it is a great deal more. It is a shrewd satire upon humanity, turning into burlesque the lofty pretensions-the power and knowledge and wit and wisdom of mankind, and presents a stronger and truer picture of the littleness of man and his pursuits than a thousand homilies. Even Heraclitus, could he look at Liston, would laugh to see the "noble reason" and "infinite faculties" of one of the "paragon of animals" utterly prostrated by the loss of an inside place in a stage-coach; and he would indeed exclaim with the poet, though in a very different sense," what a piece of work is man!" I think I never saw or read a more forcible exem