NOTES OF A READER

THE JEWS.

The undeviating and uniform identity of the features and general character of countenance, which accompany the Jews, wherever they settle, is one of the most curious phenomena in nature; climate and all those physical circumstances belonging to localities, which work such wonderful changes in the physical character of man, appear to have no influence upon the tribe of Israel. The circumcised of Monmouth-street is as like that of Judea-Gape, in Frankfort, as two individuals of the same nation can be; let them be by birth and residence German, English, Russian, Portuguese, or Polish, still the one and only set of features belonging to the race will be seen equally in all.—Granville's, Tour.

FRENCH MUSIC.

About the year 1760, Piccini, who was the Rossini of his day, was called to Paris to reform the grand opera. The French, roused by the elegant tirades of Rousseau, and the piquant witticisms of all the foreigners who visited Paris, began to conceive it possible that their music was not the finest in the world. The reform which Piccini introduced, was however, but partial, and the French insisted on having Italian music adapted to French words. They have still an opera of their own; but nothing can be more noisy, or less harmonious than the music at the Académie Royale—all tumult, glitter, and show. There is no ballet, except that incidental to the opera; but in scenery and machinery they surprise the English visiter. The French military bands too are equally discordant; so fond are they of drums, that they seem to have converted the tympana of their ears into parchment.

MATHEMATICS.

We consider it quite possible to bring down to ordinary capacities even the truths of pure mathematics, by the substitution of a less general and precise species of evidence. We have ourselves made the attempt, and hence we are satisfied of its entire practicability. Into what a small space would the useful and practical truths of geometry be reduced, were we to dispense with the auxiliary propositions which are required merely to complete the rigid process of demonstration. How simple, for example, would be the doctrine of parallel lines!—Foreign Review.

THE SOUTH SEAS.

The government of the United States are fitting out a commercial expedition to explore the South Seas. The vessels are to stay long enough to complete the necessary inquiries, to ensure the safety of the traders, and to give time for the establishment and consolidation of relations of reciprocal utility. The advantages which it is evident America must derive from this undertaking will, it is supposed, not cost more than 50,000 dollars—Lit. Gaz.

THE OPERA.

Rousseau defines the opera to be a dramatic, lyrical, and scenic representation, in which agreeable sensations are conveyed by the combined effect of all the fine arts, the poetry and action being addressed to the mind, the music to the ear, and the scenic decorations to the eye of the spectator.

PICTURESQUE DRESSES IN SPANISH MARKETS.

On entering Madrid by the gate of Toledo, or the Place de la Cenada, where the market is held, nothing is more striking than the confused mass of people from the country and provinces. There a Castilian draws around him with dignity the folds of his ample cloak, like a Roman senator in his toga. Here a cowherd from La Mancha, with his long goad in his hand, clad in a kilt of ox-skin, whose antique shape bears some resemblance to the tunic worn by the Roman and Gothic warriors. Farther on may be seen men with their hair confined in long nets of silk. Others wearing a kind of short brown vest, striped with blue and red, conveying the idea of Moorish garb. The men who wear this dress come from Andalusia.

HYMN.

MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS.

LEARNING FRENCH.

Fashion dominates in this, as in other things. Of late its dictation has been to cradle children in French; often, even to prohibit English in the nursery and school-room; and, frequently, at a later time, to detach our youth from their own country, for the sake of forwarding the same object in foreign pensions, or schools. We have seen this fashion extending itself to more mature life; and serious and discreet men, senators and judges, toiling painfully through elements, vocabularies, and rules of pronunciation, to acquire an amount of speech sufficient to attract ridicule, and produce inconvenience, but very inadequate to any useful or ornamental purpose.—Ibid.

POOR-MAN-OF-MUTTON

Is a term applied to the remains of a shoulder of mutton, which, after it has done its regular duty as a roast at dinner, makes its appearance as a broiled bone at supper, or upon the next day.

The late Earl of B., popularly known by the name of Old Rag, being indisposed in a hotel in London, the landlord came to enumerate the good things he had in his larder, to prevail on his guest to eat something. The earl at length, starting suddenly from his couch, and throwing back a tartan night-gown which had covered his singularly grim and ghastly face, replied to his host's courtesy; "Landlord, I think I could eat a morsel of a poor man." Boniface, surprised alike at the extreme ugliness of Lord B.'s countenance, and the nature of the proposal, retreated from the room, and tumbled down stairs precipitately; having no doubt that this barbaric chief, when at home, was in the habit of eating a joint of a tenant or vassal when his appetite was dainty.—Jamieson's Diet.

THE GREEN ROOM.

Nothing can be more striking than to hear a lady, who has just been figuring upon the stage as a coquette or a romp, explaining to some friend the distress she is labouring under in consequence of the serious illness of her mother or aunt; or to see a gentleman fresh from the boards, upon which he has been amusing the audience as Caleb Quotem or Jeremy Diddler, with tears in his eyes, and a low comedy wig on his head, giving an account of the melancholy state of his wife and three children, all dying of scarlatina; but such is too often the case: too often, while the player is tortured with physical pain, or sinking under moral distress, he is obliged in his vocation to wear the face of mirth, and distort his features into the extremes of grimace. The actress, writhing under the pangs of ingratitude in man, or insult from woman, is similarly driven to strain her lungs to charm the ears of an audience, or exhibit her graceful figure to the best advantage in the animated dance, for the amusement of the half-price company of a one shilling gallery, while her heart is bursting with sorrow; add to all these inevitable ills, the constant labour of practice and rehearsal, the caprice of the public, the tyranny of managers, the rarity of excellence, the misery of defeat, and the uncertainty of health and capability, and then might one ask, Who would be an actor, who could be any thing else?—Hook's Gervase Skinner.

The first Italian performer that made any distinguished figure in London was Valentini, a true, sensible singer at that time, but of a throat too weak to sustain those melodious warblings, for which the fairer sex have since idolized his successors. However, this defect was so well supplied by his action, that his hearers bore with the absurdity of his singing his first part of Turnus, in Camilla, all in Italian, while every other character was sung and recited to him in English.—Life of Colley Gibber.

To attain complex and difficult ends by simple means, whether in physics or politics, falls not to the lot of man. What should we think of the man who should insist on having a simple watch, which should answer every object of that machine, and yet possess the simplicity of a sun-dial? The artificer would naturally say to such a customer, "Sir, if you want a sun-dial, you can have a very cheap and a very simple one; but if you desire a watch, I shall be glad to learn how its operations are to be accomplished without complex mechanism."