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style of her musical conception and education. Without effort, and with a carelessness of effect that began to act like a charm upon us, she reached the full utterance and meaning of each passage, and her calm but thoughtful acting drew attention more and more from herself, and involved us in the interest of the play. It was not till the last scene of the first act, however, that she developed her powers with any startling effect. When the youthful priestess confessed to her superior that her vows had yielded to love, and the coming in of the Proconsul betrayed to Norma that it was he-the faithless father of her own children-with whom the erring one was preparing to fly,--then awoke suddenly the indolent genius of which we had seen but the look of possibility in her face, and a great actress was before us. The voice threw off its hoarseness, the countenance its concealments, the form its languor. Those beautiful arms, bare from the shoulder, so gestured that the most trifling motion had its degree of language. Finer attitudes of reproach and lofty fury, of passionate pleading and abandonment to overwhelming denunciation, we think a painter could scarce invent. Her great beauty, and the singular fitness of her looks to the character, completed the illusion; and it was Norma that, with moved heart, we saw and pitied, not Steffanoni. At the dropping of the curtain, upon the unexpected and wonderful acting of this scene, the applause of the electrified audience was tumultuous.

How this delightful musical advent will wear, with the trials in other characters, we cannot say. Norma kept up her power throughout the remaining scenes of the Opera, and went off with a triumph to which there was no drawback or dissent. The fascinating reserve of power which there seems to be, even when most excited, promises well for other efforts, and we can only wonder, Steffanoni being what she shows herself in this trying character, that the trumpet of Fame had not more noised her coming and value.

There is a French proverb which is worthy to be the "posy of a ring"-" on ne peut trop s'humilier devant Dieu, ni trop braver les hommes"-and, whatever may be the religious humility of Signor Marti and the Havanese company, they. seem to have made the latter expediency, that of snubbing the public, their rule of professional conduct. And it takes.

The anecdotes that are afloat, of Steffanoni's empress-like caprices and Vesuvian demonstrations of will-the questions as to the Ariadne-necked Bosio's tractability-the certainty of Marini's being, with all his vim and vehemence, as journalier as the loveliest of women-the April-like caprices of the delicate he-and-she organ of Salvi-are all, we repeat, intensifications of the public interest in this Opera company, and we would give something to hear of one indignant component of the Public who has stayed away from Niblo's in consequence. No, sir! No, Madam! Obsequiousness is too much used in business in this country, (politeness and "drumming" being the up-town and down-town terms for the same commodity,) to be politic or captivating; and we like those best who have most the air of being able to do without us— many an old-fashioned axiom to the contrary notwithstanding. See the crowded houses, on the nights after our sovereign public has been put off, at three hours' warning, and reflect upon the things put up with," such as the bouquets that suffer from " hope deferred," countermanded beaux, and general dislocation of the week's engagements!

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We take back a little of the indifference we expressed last week, as to Steffanoni's performance in "La Favorita," for we have since sat it out, and, though the first third of it is all spurts and attitudinizing, it mellows as it gets on. We had chanced never before to see the Opera except with the pussycat personation of Bertucca, and wooden-puppet playing of Forti, and it was hard to displace so unfortunate an impression. The Havanese Cleopatra, however, took up the composer's inspiration, at the point where the unhappy mistress of the King first feels true love for the husband to whom she has been given as a riddance, and, thence onward, through scorn and abandonment to forgiveness and death, she gave us the perfection of lyric tragedy, in overwhelming probability and truthfulness. She is a great woman, this Steffanoni! We were struck, by the way, with the exquisite letting-out of fold after fold of reserve, produced by the persevering acclamation of the audience at the close of the long solo, we think, in the second act. Thunder No. 1-she slightly and gravely curtesied with a simple look of "I thank you." Thunder No. 2 -she slightly spread her hands, and curtesied a little more proclivitously, with a look of "I am glad you like it, but it would have been just as good if you hadnt." Thunder No. 3—

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her features indolently relaxed, and she spread those wellmoulded and beautiful arms a little farther, with a condescending look of "You are my natural subjects, and I kindly receive your homage." Thunder and no end to it—and at last there came the indolent and reluctant smile-the curtsey was lowered to the point of overcome-itude-the magnificent arms spread and stood motionless at one graceful pose for a moment, and then-applause continuing-out turned, (like the leaves of a water-lily, blooming in a second, to the sun breaking through a cloud) those dimpled and tapering fingers, with the soft and white palm of her telegraphic hand, held for the first time, freely and affectionately open to the public. With an eighth of an inch of gesture, we never dreamed before that so much could be added to what had been already expressed, but it said, "New York really begins to know me, at last, and I'll sing as I know how-so idolize away!" And so we will, you superb and imperial creature!

FREDERIKA BREMER.

MISS BREMER left New York, in the glow of a second impression which had entirely superseded the first. By the dangerous experiment of displacing a glowing ideal by an unprepossessing reality-substituting the flesh and blood for the imaginary image-she seemed at first to be a sufferer. The slowness with which she spoke, and the pertinacity with which she insisted on understanding the most trifling remark made to her, a little dashed the enthusiasm of those who newly made her acquaintance. Further intercourse, however, brought out a quaint and quiet self-possession, a shrewd vein of playfulness, a quick observation, and a truly charming simplicity, which re-won all the admiration she had lost, and added, we fancy, even to the ideal of expectation. Those who have seen her most intimately pronounced her to be all goodness, truth, and nature, and she is (as far as our own observation goes,) a walking lesson of manners of another school, of which our own may well profit in the study.

LIEUT. WISE.-AUTHOR OF "Los GRINGOS."

CONVERSATIONAL literature, or books written as agreeable people talk, is the present fashion with authors and passion with readers. Herman Melville, with his cigar and his Spanish eyes, talks Typee and Omoo, just as you find the flow of his delightful mind on paper. Those who have only read his books know the man-those who have only seen the man have a fair idea of his books. Thackeray's novels are stenographed from his every-day rattle with his intimates. "Two Years before the Mast" is like a quiet, tête-à-tête yarn. "Kaloolah" carries you away with its un-literary reality. In writing a book, now-a-days, the less you "smell of the shop" the better it sells.

This is an exponent of the age. It is the " spirit of the time" to get rid of hindrances and "nonsense." In diplomacy, straight-forwardness has stripped the artichoke of etiquette down to a palatable pith. In war men go to battle with the least cumbrous dress instead of the heaviest armor. In legislatures, he who is least of a rhetorician and comes quickest to the point, has the most influence. In society, late balls and formal suppers are yielding to early "receptions" and light entertainment. In dress, ceremony has quite given way to comfort and convenience. And last, (though most important, and to be alluded to with proper respect,) "Puseyism" is making an alarmed rally to protect, from this spirit of nudification, the imposing ceremonials of religion.

Hearts whose fibres spread through the world-minds that could make whole nations grateful-have been the privileged prerogatives, till now, of regular poets and authors. Genius, as shown in conversation, was limited to a sphere of listeners and personal acquaintance. A man might say more brilliant things in an hour than an author could put into the reading of two hours, yet the brilliant talker occupied but a circle of friends, and the less brilliant author occupied the universe. This unequal occupancy of space, honor, and control, (by authors ruling nations of thought, as by kings ruling nations of people,) was a monopoly which, in this free day, could be permitted no longer. Superiority of all kinds must have general recognition. Talkers must share the sceptre of Pen

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and Ink. The world must be delighted with thought in its undress, and be content to yield its admiration as willingly to unclassic utterance of good things in print, as to utterance of good things in delightful conversation. The court-entrance at the eye, was made as free to all comers and costumes, as the unceremonious gateway of the ear.

Under this new franchise, numbers of gifted men, hitherto only known to their friends, are extending their acquaintance to the whole reading world. Any body who can talk agreeably to six, has only to put his thoughts down as he talks them, and he is as agreeable to ten thousand as he was to six. How often have we met persons with whose voice-born discourse we have been enchanted and wondered that, in a world of daguerreotypes and clairvoyance, such gifts could be imprisoned by the limit of vocal utterance!

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The book whose name is at the head of this article is one of the most agreeable men in the world-put into print. Wise, of the Navy," (whom we name thus familiarly, because by this designation he will be delightedly recalled to memory by the most spirituelle circles in different cities of the Union,) has had for years a moveable Dickens-dom, bounded by every four walls that contained him and his friends. To all who are fortunate enough to enjoy his society -to a few at a time-he has given the pleasure that Dickens gives to millions, using carelessly, profusely and jollily, two or three of the rarest qualities of genius. For that power of unexpected parallelism, which brings together, suddenly and laughably, the most distant opposites in grotesque similitude -for the quick analysis of a thought or feeling which supplies material for wit-for the genial and irresistible humor which makes what people familiarize by the phrase, “the merriest fellow in the world"- we hardly know the equal of the author of "Los Gringos." Mingled as these qualities are with the refinement of a high-bred gentleman, and singularly varied experience of the world as an officer and a traveller, they form a power for giving pleasure which it would have been a thousand pities not to universalize by literature.

To the tedium of ship-board we doubtless owe this conversational narrative which, for lack of better audiences, flowed out upon paper. The author's irrepressible gaiety would never have confined itself to pen and ink-on shore. He has used the leisure of his last professional cruize in the