Noctes Amicæ.

The "figure we cut" in the Crystal Palace was for a long time a subject of sneers by amiable foreign critics, and a cause of ingenuous shame by too sensitive young gentlemen in white gloves, who went over from New-York and Boston to see society and the show. We remember that Mr. Greeley was said to be making himself appear excessively ridiculous by writing home that we should come out very well notwithstanding we had no Kohinoor, and but little to boast of in the way of fancy articles in general. An excellent neighbor of ours down Broadway, who left London before the tide turned, sent a letter to the Evening Post, we believe, of the regret felt by the "respectable Americans in Europe" that we had been so weak as to enter into this competition at all. But see what the Times has said of the matter since the first of October:

"One point that strikes us forcibly on a survey of the last few months is, the extraordinary contrast which the attractive and the useful features of the display present. It will be remembered that the American department was at first regarded as the poorest and least interesting of all foreign countries. Of late it has justly assumed a position of the first importance, as having brought to the aid of our distressed agriculturists a machine which, if it realizes the anticipations of competent judges, will amply remunerate England for all her outlay connected with the Great Exhibition. The reaping machine from the United States is the most valuable contribution from abroad to the stock of our previous knowledge that we have yet discovered."

Again:

"It seems to us that the great event of 1851 will hereafter be found blemished by a grand oversight. Attracted by the novelty and splendid success of the occasion, we have certainly yielded more admiration to the grand and the beautiful than to the unostentatious, the practical, and the useful. The captivating luxuries which are adapted to the few have entered more largely into our imaginations and our hearts, than those objects which are adapted to supply the homely comforts and the unpretending wants of the many. We have thought more of gold and silver work—of silks, satins, and velvets—of rich brocades, splendid carpets, glowing tapestry, and all that tends to embellish and adorn life, than of the vast and still unexplored fields which the necessities of the humbler classes all over the world are constantly opening up to us. France has thus been enabled to run quietly away with fifty-six out of about one hundred and sixty of our great medals, while to the department of American "notions" we owe the most confessed and the most important contribution to our industrial system."

Again:

"Well worthy of notice is the Maynard primer, a substitution for the percussion-cap, which is simply a coil of paper, at intervals in which spots of detonating powder are placed. The action of the doghead carries out from the chamber in which it is contained this cheap and self-acting substitute for the ordinary gun apparatus, which is a vast economy in expense as well as in time. In its character the invention is one which admits of being easily adapted to every description of firearms at present commonly in use, and that at a trifling cost."

In the same pleasant way are noticed our Mr. Hobbs, his locks, and a score or so of similarly ingenious productions; and as for Mr. Palmer's leg, it is declared the chief astonisher contributed by all the world—so perfect, indeed, that some of the journals recommend a general cutting off of natural understandings in order to adopt the always comfortable and well-conditioned substitute introduced by our countryman.

A considerable number of shameless women and feeble-minded men met in convention—a sort of caldron of sickly sentimentalism, brazen atheism, and whatever is most ridiculous and disgusting in the diseases of society,—at Worcester in Massachusetts, on the 14th of October, and continued in session three days. A Mrs. Rose (who, we understand, generally makes the leading speeches of the Tom Paine birth-night festivals in New-York), and Abby Kelley Foster, and William L. Garrison, were among the principal actors. The main propositions before this convention, so far as they can be ascertained from the newspaper reports, involve the setting aside of the laws of God as they are revealed in the Bible; the laws of custom in all savage and civilized, pagan and Christian communities, in every age; and the laws of analogy—vindicating the existing order of society—in every grade of animated nature. Complaints have been made that persons of character, like the Rev. H. W. Beecher of Brooklyn, in some way sanctioned the mummery by writing letters to its managers. Such eccentricities may be pardonable, but the public will be sure to remember them.

A female, probably a cheap dress maker, named Dexter, has been lecturing in London on the "Bloomer costume;" and it appears to have been assumed by her, as well as in many English journals, that this ridiculous and indecent dress is common in American cities, where, as of course our readers know, if it is ever seen, it is on the persons of an abandoned class, or on those of vulgar women whose inordinate love of notoriety is apt to display itself in ways that induce their exclusion from respectable society. Punch has some very clever caricatures of "Bloomerism," but it would surprise the conductor of that sprightly paper to learn, that, except persons who walk our St. Giles's at late hours, scarcely any New-Yorker has ever seen such a dress.

There have never been remarked so many sudden deaths and suicides in Paris and in the suburbs, as within the last few weeks. The following is one of the most extraordinary cases of suicide:

"The body of a young man was found floating in the Seine, near St. Cloud. The corpse appeared to have remained some days in the water. The deceased appeared to have been about 25 years of age, and to have belonged to the higher class of society. His features were handsome, his hair brown, and his beard long and black. His linen was of the finest quality, and his other clothing made in the latest fashion. A small glass bottle, corked and sealed, was suspended from his neck, in which was a paper writing, containing the following words:—"I am about to die! young, it is true! and if my body be discovered a complaint may perhaps be made. This I do not wish. An angel appeared to me in a dream, who said to me, 'I am the Genius of France. Royal blood circulates in your veins; but before you occupy the sovereign power, which parties are disputing in France, you must go to see the Eternal Sovereign of all things.... God! ... die. Let the waters of the Seine swallow your body. Fear not, you shall revive when the hour of your triumph shall have struck! I have spoken!' and the angel disappeared. I have accomplished his desire. But I leave this writing in case the celestial envoy may have deceived me. I pray the Attorney-General to prosecute him,

"THE FUTURE KING OF FRANCE."

The body has not been claimed, and the police authorities have instituted an inquiry to discover his family.

The following clever and extraordinary story is told in the Paris Droit:

"A commercial traveller, whose business frequently called him from Orleans to Paris, M. Edmund D——, was accustomed to go to an hotel, with the landlord of which he was acquainted. Liking, like almost all persons of his profession, to talk and joke, he was the favorite of everybody in the hotel. A few days ago he arrived, and was received with pleasure by all, but it was observed that he was much less gay than usual. The stories that he told, instead of being interesting as formerly, were of a lugubrious character. On Thursday evening, after supper, he invited the people of the hotel to go to his chamber to take coffee, and he promised to tell them a tale full of dramatic incident. On entering the room, his guests saw on the bed, near which he seated himself, a pair of pistols. 'My story,' said he, 'has a sad dénouement, and I require the pistols to make it clearly understood.' As he had always been accustomed, in telling his tales, to indulge expressive pantomime, and to take up anything which lay handy, calculated to add to the effect, no surprise was felt at his having prepared pistols. He began by narrating the loves of a young girl and a young man. They had both, he said, promised, under the most solemn oaths, inviolable fidelity. The young man, whose profession obliged him to travel, once made a long absence. Whilst he was away, he received a legacy, and on his return hastened to place it at her feet. But on presenting himself before her he learned that, in compliance with the wishes of her family, she had just married a wealthy merchant. The young man thereupon took a terrible resolution. 'He purchased a pair of pistols, like these,' he continued, taking one in each hand, 'then he assembled his friends in his chamber, and, after some conversation, placed one under his chin, in this way, as I do, saying in a joke that it would be a real pleasure to blow out his brains. And at the same moment he pulled the trigger.' Here the man discharged the pistol, and his head was shattered to pieces. Pieces of the bone and portions of the brain fell on the horrified spectators. The unfortunate man had told his own story."

We find in the Evening Post the following notice of the citation of Mr. G. P. R. James in the courts, under the head of "Brown Linen against Law Calf:"

"Immediately previous to the sort of intermittent equinoctial which has recently prevailed, the full bench of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, presided over by Chief Justice Shaw, were at session at Lenox, in the county of Berkshire. Among the cases that were brought up for adjudication, was an action of trespass quare clausum fregit, brought by a farmer against a number of individuals, who in common with many others, had, at a time last winter, when the public highway was rendered impassible by ice and snow, made a temporary road over the farmer's grounds without leave or license first had and obtained. Mr. Sumner, of Barrington, the leading counsel of the county, appeared for the defence, and in enforceing his views, took occasion to read from Macaulay's late History of England, several passages to illustrate the state of land communication in that county, at the time of which he writes. From that author it appears that upon one occasion, worthy Mr. Pepys, our friend of the 'naif' diary, while travelling somewhere (we think in Lincolnshire, but have not the book before us for reference), got his 'belle voiture', as Cardinal Richelieu used to call his antediluvian vehicle, stuck in the mud so that it could not be extricated, and Mr. Sumner went on to argue, that by the common law, Mr. Pepys then was, and anybody now is, justified, in cases of necessity, in passing over private domains without becoming liable to the owner in damages. Mr. Porter, recently District Attorney, was for the plaintiff, and, in answering that part of his adversary's argument, to which we have above alluded, claimed the indulgence of the court to state, that a certain author had been quoted upon the other side, who had hardly as yet been recognized as authority in a court of justice, upon a mere law question, at least; that such being the case, he claimed the liberty to read from another writer, the late historiographer royal of Great Britain, a gentleman whose statements were certainly entitled to overrule the others in a question of that sort; and thereupon Mr. Porter commenced reading the first chapter of Mr. G. P. R. James's new novel of 'The Fate,' in which he so indignantly denounces the falsity of Macaulay's picture of the social condition of England two centuries ago. This created no little merriment, both on the bench and among the gentlemen of the robe, all admitting that it was the first time within their knowledge, that the black linen and the brown paper had usurped the place of the consecrated law calf, before an American tribunal at least."

A French critic has just revealed a portrait of the favorite of Lamartine and numerous other writers on the Revolution—St. Just, from which it appears that he was the author of a long poem entitled Orgaut. The opinion which the historians have caused the public to form of this man was, that he was a fanatic—implacable, but sincere—a ruthless minister of the guillotine, but deeming wholesale slaughter indispensable for securing, what he conscientiously considered, the welfare of the people. He was, we might imagine, something like the gloomy inquisitors of old, who thought it was doing God service to burn heretics at the stake.

A correspondent of the Athenæum observes, that "To justify this opinion, one would have expected to have found in a poem written by him when the warm and generous sentiments of youth were in all their freshness, burning aspirations for what it was the fashion of his time to call vertu, and lavish protestations of devotedness to his country and the people. But instead of that, the work is, it appears, from beginning to end, full of the grossest obscenity—it is the delirium of a brain maddened with voluptuousness—it is coarser and more abominable than the 'Pucelle' of Voltaire, and is not relieved, as that is, by sparkling wit and graces of style. In a moral point of view, it is atrocious—in a literary point of view, wretched. The discovery of such a production will be a sad blow to the stern fanatics of these days, who look on the blood-stained men of the Revolution with admiration and awe—who make them the martyred saints of their calendar—and whose hope by day and dream by night is to have the opportunity of imitating them. Of the whole band St. Just has hitherto been considered the purest—he has always been accepted as the very personification of 'virtue' in its most sublime form. Even the immaculate Maximilien Robespierre himself has never had the honor of having admitted that he approached him in moral grandeur. And now, behold! this 'virtuous' angel is proved to have been a debauched and loathsome-minded wretch! But, to be sure, that was before he began cutting off heads, and wholesale murders on the political scaffold redeem a multitude of sins."

A few days ago the French President received a gift of the most rich bouquets from the market women of Paris, and at the same time an application for permission to visit him at the palace. This was granted, and full three hundred of the flower of the female merchants in fruit and vegetables of the faubourgs, dressed in their utmost finery, were received by the officers in attendance, and ushered through the saloons of the Elysee.

The London Times correspondent says:

"After admiring the furniture, paintings, &c., they were conducted to the gardens, where they enjoyed themselves for some time. Refreshments were then laid out in the dining-room, and they were invited to partake of the President's hospitality. The champagne was passing round pretty freely when the President entered. They received him with acclamations of 'Vive Napoléon!' The President, after the usual salutations, took a glass of wine, and proposed the toast, 'A la santé des dames de la Halle de Paris!' which was responded to in a becoming manner; and 'La santé de Napoléon!' was in turn proposed by an elderly matron, and loudly cheered. The ladies were particularly pleased at finding the bouquets presented yesterday arranged in the dining-room. Louis Napoleon chatted for some time with his visitors, and expressed, in warm terms, the pleasure he felt at seeing them under his roof. The ladies requested that one of their companions—the most distinguished for personal attractions, as for youth—should be allowed to embrace him in the name of the others. Such a request no man could hesitate to grant, and the fair one who was deputed to bestow the general salute advanced, blushing and trembling, to perform the duty. Louis Napoleon went through the pleasing ceremony with much credit to himself, and apparently to the great satisfaction of those present. In a short time the visitors asked permission to retire, after again thanking the President for the honor he did them. Before separating they united in one last and loud acclamation of 'Vive Napoléon.'"

Johnson J. Hooper, the author of Captain Simon Suggs, and several other works similar to that famous performance in humor and in the characteristics of southern life, is editor of The Chambers Tribune, published somewhere in Alabama. Few papers have as much of the quality which is commonly described by the word "spicy." In a late number we have an election anecdote which will serve as a specimen. The hero is Colonel A. Q. Nicks, of Talladega. We quote:

"The Colonel had incurred, somehow, the enmity of a certain preacher—one who had once been ejected from his church and subsequently restored. The parson, besides, was no favorite with his neighbors. Well, when Nicks was nominated, parson Slashem 'norated' it publicly that when Nicks should be elected, his (the parson's) land would be for sale, and himself ready to emigrate. Well, the Colonel went round the county a time or two, and found he was 'bound to go;' and shortly after arriving at that highly satisfactory conclusion, espying the parson in a crowd he was addressing, sung out to him: 'I say, brother Slashem, begin to fix up your muniments—draw your deeds—I am going to represent these people, certain! But before you leave, let me give you thanks for declaring your intention as soon as you did; for on that account I am getting all of your church and the most part of your neighbors!' The parson has not been heard of since."

In a late number of Mr. Charles Dickens's Household Words, there is an amusing and suggestive paper on Nursery Rhymes, wherein the ferocious morals embalmed in jog-trot verse are indicated, for the reflective consideration of all parents. A terrible case is made out against these lisping moralists: slaughter, cruelty, bigotry, injustice, wanton delight in terrible accidents and awful punishments for trivial offences, ferocity of every kind—such a mass of "shocking notions" as would people our nurseries with demons, were it not for the happy indifference of children to anything but the rhyme, rhythm, and quaint image.

In France, we have the Univers regretting that Luther was not burnt, and that the church has not still the power to use the stake; and in England we have the Rambler, a journal which is considered the organ of the moderate party, as distinct from that of the Tablet, boldly expressing wishes and hopes of an even more debatable character. The creed of the king of Naples is authoritatively declared to be that of every Catholic. In a late number it is said—

"Believe us not, Protestants of England and Ireland, for an instant, when you see us pouring forth our liberalisms. When you hear a Catholic orator at some Catholic assemblage declaring solemnly that 'this is the most humiliating day in his life, when he is called upon to defend once more the glorious principle of religious freedom'—(especially if he says any thing about the Emancipation Act and the 'toleration' it conceded to Catholics)—be not too simple in your credulity. These are brave words, but they mean nothing; no, nothing more than the promises of a parliamentary candidate to his constituents on the hustings. He is not talking Catholicism, but nonsense and Protestantism; and he will no more act on these notions in different circumstances, than you now act on them yourselves in your treatment of him. You ask, if he were lord in the land, and you were in a minority, if not in numbers yet in power, what would he do to you? That, we say, would entirely depend upon circumstances. If it would benefit the cause of Catholicism, he would tolerate you: if expedient he would imprison you, banish you, fine you; possibly, he might even hang you. But be assured of one thing: he would never tolerate you for the sake of the 'glorious principles of civil and religious liberty.'"

Again, it is said—

"Why are we so anxious to make the church wear the garb of the world? Why do we stoop, and bow, and cringe before that enemy whom we are sent to conquer and annihilate? Why are we ashamed of the deeds of our more consistent forefathers, who did only what they were bound to do by the first principles of Catholicism?... Shall I foster that damnable doctrine, that Socinianism, and Calvinism, and Anglicanism, and Judaism, are not every one of them mortal sins, like murder and adultery? Shall I lend my countenance to this unhappy persuasion of my brother, that he is not flying in the face of Almighty God every day that he remains a Protestant? Shall I hold out hopes to him that I will not meddle with his creed if he will not meddle with mine? Shall I lead him to think that religion is a matter for private opinion, and tempt him to forget that he has no more right to his religious views than he has to my purse, or my house, or my life-blood? No! Catholicism is the most intolerant of creeds. It is intolerance itself, for it is truth itself. We might as rationally maintain that a sane man has a right to believe that two and two do not make four, as this theory of religious liberty. Its impiety is only equalled by its absurdity."

We refer above to the Univers, the organ of the Roman Catholic party in France. The editor of that print, at a dinner recently given for Bishop Hughes, at the Astor House, was complimented in a toast by our excellent collector, Maxwell, who, of course, endorses the following choice paragraph:

"A heretic," observes the editor of the Univers, "examined and convicted by the church, used to be delivered over to the secular power, and punished with death. Nothing has ever appeared to us more natural, or more necessary. More than 100,000 persons perished in consequence of the heresy of Wicliff; a still greater number by that of John Huss; it would not be possible to calculate the bloodshed caused by the heresy of Luther, and it is not yet over. After three centuries we are at the eve of a recommencement. The prompt repression of the disciples of Luther, and a crusade against Protestantism, would have spared Europe three centuries of discord and of catastrophes in which France and civilization may perish. It was under the influence of such reflections that I wrote the phrase which has so excited the virtuous indignation of the Red journals. Here it is:—'For my part, I avow frankly my regret is not only that they did not sooner burn John Huss, but that they did not equally burn Luther; and I regret, further, that there had not been at the same time some prince sufficiently pious and politic to have made a crusade against the Protestants.' Well, this paragraph might have been better penned; but as I have the happiness to belong to those who care little about mere forms of expression, I will not revoke it. I accept it as it is, and with a certain satisfaction at finding myself faithful to my opinions. That which I wrote in 1838 I still believe. Let the Red philanthropists print their declaration in any sort of type they please, and as often as they please. Let them add their commentaries, and place all to my account. The day that I cancel it, they will be justified in holding the opinion of me which I hold of them."

Far be it from us to meddle with the quarrels of the theologians—even by reprinting any attack an adversary makes on the worst of them. We merely copy these paragraphs from famous defenders of the Catholic Church, as an act of justice to her, against those slandering Protestants who say she has changed—she, the infallible and ever consistent!

The "leading journal of the world" occasionally indulges in a pleasantry, as in this example:

"A surgical operation under the influence of chloroform has just terminated fatally, to the regret of the public, to whom the patient was well known. One of the brown bears in the Zoological Garden suffering from cataract of the eye, an eminent surgeon and a party of gelehrter assembled to undertake his cure. Bruin was tempted to the bars of his den by the offer of some bread, and then secured by ropes and a muzzle. After a stout resistance, chloroform was administered. In a state of insensibility the cataract was removed, and the bonds untied, but the patient showed no signs of life! Feathers to the nose, cold buckets of water, and bleeding produced no effect. Poor Bruin had gone whither the great tortoise, two ostriches, and the African lion have preceded him, for the managers of the Berlin gardens are decidedly unlucky. With the trifling drawback of the death of the subject, the operation was skilfully and successfully performed."

We find the following anecdote as related by Baron Oldhausen: it conveys an admirable lesson:

"Charles XII., of Sweden, condemned a soldier, and stood at a distance from the place of execution. The fellow, when he heard this, was in hopes of a pardon, but being assured that he was mistaken, replied with a loud voice, 'My tongue is still free, and I will use it at my pleasure.' He did so, and charged the king, with much insolence, and as loud as he could speak, with injustice and barbarity, and appealed to God for revenge. The king, not hearing him distinctly, inquired what the soldier had been saying. A general officer, unwilling to sharpen his resentment against the poor man, told his majesty he had only repeated with great earnestness, 'That God loves the merciful, and teaches the mighty to moderate their anger.' The king was touched by these words, and sent his pardon to the criminal. A courtier, however, in an opposite interest, availed himself of this occasion and repeated to the king exactly the licentious expressions which the fellow uttered, adding gravely, that 'men of quality ought never to misrepresent facts to their sovereign.' The king for some moments stood pausing, and then turned to the courtier, saying, with reproving looks, 'This is the first time I have been betrayed to my advantage; but the lie of your enemy gave me more pleasure than your truth has done.'"

A report is current in Europe that an expedition is to be sent from France into the sea of Japan. It is said that it will consist of a frigate, a corvette, and a steamer, under the orders of a Rear-Admiral who has long navigated in the Pacific Ocean and the Chinese seas. "This expedition will", it is added, "be at once military, commercial, and scientific, and has for object to open to European commerce states which have been closed against it since the sixteenth century." Notwithstanding the sanction which the principle involved received a few years ago, from an illustrious American, we cannot regard the proposed expedition otherwise than as an act of the most shameless villainy by a nation. The Japanese are a peculiar race, and our readers who have seen a series of articles on the subject of their civilization and polity in late numbers of the Tribune, will not be disposed to think the people of Japan inferior to those of France, just now, in any of the best elements of a state. We, as well as the Japanese themselves, understand perfectly well that the opening of their ports to the Europeans and Americans, would be followed by the demoralization and overthrow of their empire.

Mr. Carlyle, in the following brief composition, of which the original was shown us a few days ago, furnishes a model for autograph writers.

"George W. C——, of Philadelphia, wants my autograph, and here gets it: much good may it do him.

T. Carlyle.

London, November 2, 1850."

The following on the silence of wives under conjugal infelicity, is as sententious and as true as any thing in La Bruyère:

"However much a woman may detest her husband, the grievance is too irremediable for her to find any comfort in talking about it; there is never any consolation in complaining of great troubles—silence and forgetfulness are the only anodynes. Women have generally a Spartan fortitude in the matter of husbands: if they have made an unblessed choice, it is a secret they instinctively conceal from the world, cloaking their sufferings under every imaginable color and pretence. They apparently feel that to blame their husbands is to blame themselves at second-hand."

We published in the International some time ago a sketch, pleasantly written, of the eccentric Lord Chancellor Thurlow, and his terrible swearing. The following from the Manchester Courier, shows that the great lawyer has a worthy follower in Baron Platt:

"At the recent assizes at Liverpool, a stabbing case from Manchester was heard before Baron Platt, who, in summing up to the jury, used these words: 'One of the witnesses tells you that he said to the prisoner, 'If you use your knife you are a d——d coward;' I say also,' continued the learned judge, apparently in deep thought, 'that he was a d——d coward, and any man is a d——d coward who will use a knife.'"

The printers of London are endeavoring to establish, in imitation of the Printers' Library in New-York, a literary institution to be called "The Printers' Athenæum," and have received considerable encouragement from compositors, and the trades connected with printing, as typefounders, bookbinders, engravers, letter-press and copper-plate printers, &c., the members of which are eligible. The object is to combine the social advantages of a club with the mental improvement of a literary and scientific institution, and to adapt them for the position and circumstances of the working classes. All persons engaged in the production of a newspaper, or book, such as editors, authors, reporters, readers, &c., although strictly not belonging to the profession, are competent to become members, and persons not so connected will be permitted to join the society on their being proposed by a member. It is expected that the Athenæum will be opened before the commencement of the ensuing year.

A Madrid correspondent writes to one of the London journals:

"The infant princess to whom the Duchess of Montpensier has just given birth has received the names of Maria Amalia Luisa Enriqueta Felipa Antonia Fernanda Cristina Isabel Adelaida Jesusa Josefa Joaquina Ana Francisca de Asis Justa Rufina Francisca de Paula Ramona Elena Carolina Bibiana Polonia Gaspara Melchora Baltasara Augustina Sabina."

Doubtless there was an extra charge for the christening.