two views of the house were taken. These 'Whatever impression the Devonian and Subcarboniferous sediments of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton may make upon a geologist from the Middle States, certainly his wonder will be piqued by striking analogies between the exhibitions of the workable coal-measures at two such distant places as Sydney and Pittsburgh. The resemblance is more than general; it has special points. At Pittsburgh there are about a thousand feet of coal measures, (to the top coal,) with a great bed eight or ten feet thick near the top, a sixfoot bed half-way down, two small workable beis in the lower half of the column, and a large bed (four to eight feet) at the bottom. At Sydney Glace Bay, in like manner, there are about a thousand feet of coal measures, with an eight or nine-foot bed towards the top, a six-foot bed half-way down, two small er beds in the lower half of the column, and a seven or eight-foot bed near the bottom. At Pittsburgh, as at Glace Bay, the upper eighteen inches or two-foot of the high main coal is rejected. At Pittsburgh, as at Glace Bay, the middle six-foot coal (Upper Freeport of the Alleghany River and Cook Vein of SixMile Run) is famous for its solid face and excellent quality.' MUSIC AND THE DRAMA. THE last days of the first operatic season at the New-York Academy of Music were the best, owing to the production, at the eleventh hour, of Gou NOD's 'Faust.' Why Mr. MARETZEK SO ception here. On the first night of its ficult After the departure of the company for Philadelphia, the German opera, under the direction of CARL ANSCHUTZ, took possession of the house; but the season -if we except the two last nights, when 'Faust' was produced — was not attended with much success, and came to a premature termination. It was unexpectedly succeeded by the reappearance of the MARETZEK troupe after their return from Philadelphia, and preparatory to leaving for Boston. In the dramatic world the event of the month has been the production at the Winter Garden of Mr. Toм TAYLOR'S five-act drama called 'The Ticket-of Leave Man,' which has a good moral and a good plot, abounding in scenes of thrilling and absorbing interest. It is far superior to the French adaptations with which Mr. TAYLOR has so often favored the English public, and in most respects is the best work he ever wrote, certainly much superior to the 'American Cousin,' both in power and originality. It has, moreover, the merit of dealing with a phase of English society which has hitherto been little if at all depicted on the stage; and the dramatist, in tracing the career of the Ticket-ofLeave Man,' has not exaggerated the misfortunes which beset the liberated criminal struggling to earn an honest livelihood. The prejudice against him is unjustly severe, and in the majority of instances it interposes a bar to all respectable employment. Even in this country, innumerable cases might be cited where men, after their liberation. from the State prison, have been the objects of suspicion without reason, and dogged by the police until circumstantial evidence fixed guilt upon them, and they were convicted of crimes of which they were entirely innocent. No doubt Mr. A. OAKEY HALL could mention some such instances which have transpired under his own official cognizance as District-Attorney. The play inculcates the doctrine of charity, and reminds us that we should do unto others as we would they should do unto us, and should forgive those who trespass against us as we ask to be forgiven our trespasses. The part of the Ticket-ofLeave Man'—'Robert Brierly' — was well acted by Mr. FLORENCE, and abounded in real pathos. The other characters were well sustained. At WALLACK's, Mr. LESTER WALLACK's play of 'Rosedale,' which ran for many weeks without interruption, was withdrawn in favor of a revival of the old English comedies. The 'Love Chase' was first selected, with Mrs. WILKINS, from the Haymarket Theatre, London, as the 'Widow Green.' She acted with much spirit, and met with a favorable reception. At Niblo's Garden, Mr. and Mrs. BARNEY WILLIAMS have been playing Irish farce, and at the French Theatre, in the saloon adjoining, a series of suc cessful performances are in progress. Mrs. and Miss BROWN gave some miscellaneous readings during the month at Clinton Hall, which were well received, the elocution of Miss BROWN being especially admired. Mr. STEPHEN MASSETT, otherwise 'Mr. Jeems Pipes, of Pipesville,' delivered his serio-comic entertainment called 'Drifting About' twice at Niblo's Saloon to audiences which he alternately moved to mirth by his drollery and reduced to pensiveness by his pathos. He is now drifting about' elsewhere. Melancholy. 'AWAY with melancholy, Why should we be melancholy, whose business 't is to die?' OLD SONG. AWAY with melancholy, it relaxes the nerves, saps purpose, beclouds the mind, and fosters selfishness. What if we have griefs, even total disappointment, we are not alone in the universe, we can yet think and do for others; God never gave us the wonderful machinery of our being, with its great motive-power, to be ever grinding for ourselves. Away with melancholy; overcome the evil with good; fill your mind with pleasant images, 'A thing of beauty is a joy forever;' let in thoughts that flow and ripple, not such as stamp or gallop, 'printing their hoofs in the receiving' brain. Enjoy yourself to-day, and you will add to the happiness of all your after-life; our life is not a stream gliding under the light that here and there gleams on it. No; no ray shot from between clouds of an overcast sky, no stray moonbeam, no distant-star glimmer, but is borne along till it is not lost-but drowned in the light that never shone on earthly waters. Open your heart to enjoyment; the leaves of the Australian trees can but turn out their edges, lest they should absorb all the moisture of the atmosphere. We need not thus fear to unfold our souls; our atmosphere is saturated with joy; a great ocean of bliss washes our island-shores, and its waters are wafted on every breeze. We are as a people too avaricious to take time for enjoyment. It is with us too much work to too little pleasure; ours are the opposite of Falstaff's rations an intolerable deal of bread to one halfpenny-worth of sack. Have you heavy griefs; sometimes forget them; resolve to enjoy the present time; push back all care, anxiety, all remorse, as the waters of the sea were pushed back for the Israelites to pass over; you will not wade in them this day, or, it may be, but this hour or halfhour, though, the next, they may in a flood rush over you. How delightful are such moments, though we are continually sprinkled with the spray of the forcibly parted waters. I never waste sympathy on the melancholy man, who constantly cherishes the sparks of his discontent, lest they should die out, selfishly beclouding the atmosphere of those around him. He has no genuine sorrow, no heart-consuming grief; the brisk fire emits but little smoke. There is a lack of sincerity, of heartiness, about all these fumers; whether it be the lover, sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad to his mistress' eyebrow;' the Pharisee ever groaning over his own unworthiness, yet inwardly thanking GoD] 'that he is not as other men;' or the 'patriot,' loudly lamenting the distracted state of his country, in secret anguish because he has failed to procure a 'shoddy contract.' I have n't much respect for, or faith in, the melancholy that finds vent in sighs, woful ballads, groans, and lamentations that are meant for the world's ear. Byron says: chill, we will think of the light and warmth of our father's house. Let us not go fasting and sighing, we will 'eat, drink, and be merry,' not only if 'to-morrow we die,' but though we die to-day, and because we must die, 'Mute the camel labors with the heaviest load, for, with all our bravery, with all our And the wolf dies in silence.' Yet Pollok truly says of him: 'His groanings filled the land his numbers filled.' He groaned in numbers, 'for the numbers came,' but I suspect that, had he been limited to plain prose, he would not have groaned audibly; and many an echo had been lost from college halls. As for this groaning in numbers, I do n't believe in it; pain is silent, or finds 'no language but a cry,' 'The bird forlorn, That singeth with her breast against a thorn,' is but a myth, only shrill screams can come from the agony-pierced breast. There is no poet's lyre whose strings would not snap asunder under the agony-nerved hand. . . . Yet there are woes that may be sung; and all, after they have become remembrances, may be set to music-and we would not lose one note of those sad, sweet strains, or of those grand 'organ peals,' whose 'Echoes roll from soul to soul And grow forever and forever.' But we have had too much of selfish Byronism; we should not so concentrate our attention on ourselves, that We would lament the breaking of a cog in our machinery, as if it were the snapping of the main-spring of the universe. 'Why should we be melancholy, whose business 'tis to die?' We will pluck the flowers, and drink of the brooks, and rest under the spreading oaks by the wayside, in spring-time and summer. In autumn we will step aside to gather the golden pippins; we will not whimper at the dust and stones, though we must trudge along on foot, while others go mounted. There is rest at home. And when wintry winds begin to blow,' and the night air grows เ cheerfulness, the highway of life is a weary road to travel. Well was 'the poniard, with which the knights dispatched their enemies, called the dagger of mercy.' Why should we be melancholy, whose privilege 't is to die? 'The impious Nimrod, enraged at the destruction of his gods' by Abraham, 'sought to slay him, and waged war against him.' GOD, in order to punish Nimrod, 'sent a gnat, which vexed him night and day, so that he built himself a room of glass in his palace, that he might dwell therein and shut out the insect. But the gnat entered also, and passed by his ear into his brain, upon which it fed and increased in size day by day, so that the servants of Nimrod beat his head with a hammer continually that he might have some ease from his pain; but he died after suffering these torments for four hundred years.' 'Ir is the little rift within the lute That by and by will make the music mute, And ever widening slowly silence all. 'The little rift within the lover's lute, Or little, pitted speck in garnered fruit, That, rotting inward, slowly moulders all.' How many, like poor Nimrod, are constantly annoyed by a gnat. We know when a great shark-like grief, that has perhaps been lying in wait for a man, or following in his wake, seizes him as its prey. We know when one more is incidentally crushed beneath the wheels of Fate, as the blind and deaf victim is mangled by the merciless engine, that with swift but measured tread, so like the strides of Fate, passes on. But the gnat that is ever with the man, that hums him to sleep at night, and stings him awake in the morning, that nothing that would not exclude the life-sustaining air can shut out, that the swiftness of no railway train can leave behind, who sees it or knows its vexatious stings? GOD never sent it; therefore he may rid himself of it. Alas! too many attempt to do so by wallowing in the mire of intemperance. He should rid himself of it before it enters his brain, and feeds itself into an insanity that death alone can dispossess of its royal banquetroom. He should call to his aid religion or philosophy, whatever is his surest help to crush, drive away, or extract the sting of the gnat, 'THAT settles beaten back, and beaten back Settles, till one could yield for weariness.' Why, a great grief even is often a benefit to a man, it drives away the little annoying trouble; somewhat, you may think, as Paddy drove the fly from the man's nose with a club. But, man, if you have annoyances, vexations, what do you think of your sister? Yours are but as one gnat hers are as a swarm of mosquitoes. But 'the women, God bless them!' many of them know how to extract the stings. The vegetation, trampled down by the elephant, will spring up again; the insect stings the plant at the root, and it wither and dies beyond the help of Nature's sunshine and rain. The pulsations of the warm heart of Mother Earth, that send the life-blood into the veins of her poor crushed ones, are but idle beatings for these. Our first parents did not leave Eden to be devoured by wild beasts, or stricken by lightning; Heaven's wrath did not meet them in some fearful form. No; the ground was cursed to bring forth briers and thorns, so that they could not pluck a rose even without being - pierced. These little cares, little sor- Speak respectfully of little things; Little things, despise them not— That by and by will make the music mute, Is your heart that lute? The time was 2694 |