There is not much left for him to do now, but to look on at the Revolutions of 1848; to re-write an ancient system of assurance; to edit for a few months a small, ill-supported commercial paper in Hamburgh; to sketch Louis Philippe, expose Guizot, ridicule the grave senators of Hamburgh, and write his memoirs.

But his wings are losing their power; the albatross sweeps no more wearilessly over continents and oceans; the eyes are growing dull, the flights are short and painful, and from one near point to another and so back and forward, back and forward until the end shall come. The friends of his youth are all gone; he turns from the dark angel who is drawing near, and looks back upon the sunny fields and the empurpled vineyards; but no bright faces woo him there; no loving voices greet him; and perhaps, God knows, let us hope so, perhaps there are tears in the eyes of the old cosmopolite, and long-forgotten tendernesses renewing their youth in his heart. He is to-day alone, fluttering between Hamburgh and Paris, and seventyfive years old.

But I declare that this American German Italian, who has been a merchant in Marseilles and a soldier in New Orleans; an army purveyor in Paris and a machine agent in London; a player in Hamburgh,

and author in Trieste; who has negotiated loans in Rome and caught green turtle on Bahama Banks; who has dealt with monks of San Lorenzo and Greeks of Odessa; who has sailed in a gondola and a flat-boat; who has dwelt in Stamboul without smoking a nargileh, and in Naples without seeing the sun; who has been on the Florida Reefs and in the Queen's Bench prison, and has had a suit in chancery; who has seen a volcano in Sicily, and felt an earthquake in Louisville; who is equally familiar with the Danube, the Seine, and the Mississippi; who conspired with Biddle; who has known Napoleon, James Gordon Bennett, Queen Victoria, Gen. Jackson, Admiral Coffin, Ameriga Vespucci, Chantrey, Louis Philippe, Mehemet Ali, Jefferson, Madame de Genlis, Delaroche, Talleyrand, Lafayette, Fulton, Audubon, Ferdinand of Austria and Mr. Codman of Marblehead, Massachusetts; who can paint, compose music, write prose and verse, combine a speculation, make love to a Lorette; who begins his autobiography with a joke on his mother and ends it by ridiculing the Senate of Hamburgh, along whose pages pass Presidents and Emperors and Kings; merchants, dames high and low, and none of them unscathedI declare I say that this man is a true Cosmopolite.

MY

OUR

UR title suggests something free and expansive a sort of general distribution of the editorial personage over the field of thought-a wandering hither and thither in our own balloon-a sailing and floating through the spacious realins of imagination, with nothing to guide us but our own free will, and nothing upon the earth to limit us. We revel in the liberty. We are, as Mr. Moore, that good Poet and bad man, would say, "great, glorious and free." We bear no chains. Space is a trifle to us, and we would just as soon pay our addresses to The Living Buddhia in Llassà, or the respectable and pot-bellied Fo in Pekin, as not. It is quite indifferent to us where we go, or what we say. With an editorial yawn and a stretch of the shoulders, we are ready for anything. Say! what shall it be? Shall we trim our sails, and float over the Southern seas? Spicy winds blow there, and cool groves strive to mirror their fresh greenness in the greener seas. Nutty-skinned Fayaways leap from pointed rocks into the parting and modest waves; Palmplames nod over the liquid arena, and bestow upon the swimming jousts a courtly and royal air; Dolphins, with their scaly tabards, are the heralds of the sport; Tritons blow from their conchshells the peals to charge, and the wise and wondrous Babbalanja sits on high with a holiday suit of tappa embroidered in colored grasses, as a prize for the victor swimmer!

Or shall we saddle our desert steed? The yellow seas of sand spread out before us. Rift after rift rises in amber billows that the hoofs of our nedjidi shall cleave. The shadows of Nimrod and Rameses fall largely and solemnly athwart the awful ocean. Camels with long and arched necks like the prows of the ancient triremes, steer swiftly across the plain. Long caravans, fleet-like, defile along the horizon, and the peaked summits of the Pyramids fall as the shadows of impreg nable fortresses towards us as we gaze! Shall we journey with the Howadji, and tear from out the East the secret of the sun?

Then there are bazaars of Damascus yet unexplored. Cool interiors filled with rare spices and rich brocades. Grave

merchants there are to talk to, in sentences that float in a sea of pauses, and the narghilly to inhale; through whose

sinuous tube the tobacco of Lebanon courses into the lungs, and so thrills with a calm delight all the interior being. Marble floors, across which fit in gay garinents the dusky slaves; trembling of fountains on the air, that lull the spirit like the continuous, yet broken chords of the æolian harp; scent of myrtles that steal like the sweet enfranchised soul of some expired flower through the halls, as if unknowing where to rest; while without, the busy ones chaffer, and bargain, and pass to and fro, and we lie tranced too far within, to be distracted with their moneyed talk. Speak! shall we join him who ate of the wondrous weed hasheesh, and dream the days away in wild foreshadowings of the future?

The present time, say you, O Dimes! the present time and present place is that on which you love to linger? Broadway is more to you than the painted alleys of Damascus. The surf that bursts on Coney Island you affect more readily than those cool coves in which Melville and Fayaway performed their natatory exploits. The Pyramids are as dirt heaps in your sight, when compared with the Croton reservoir, and we doubt not but the Howadji would swoon gracefully, if he heard of your preference for the Long Island plains above the desert. Nay, you are even bold enough to say that the four cent Noriegas of which you consume several each day, are much to be preferred before the water-purified fumes of the Syrian weed.

We have a respect for you, O Dimes, and an admiration for your family. We know the ancient and distinguished ancestry from whose dust the roots of your genealogical tree are nourished. We recognize and are grateful for what the Dimese's have done for our Country, and therefore is it, that we hasten to gratify your desire and strive to confine our rambles within your favorite limits. We will send our desert steed back to his stable and his oats-candor compels us to admit that he was hired from a livery man for the occasion—we will fill our case with your four cent Noriegas, and consign our Persian water-pipe back to the bar-room from which we borrowed it; and if we bathe, we will endeavor to forget Typee, and dream of Hoboken.

Where shall we go, and what shall we talk about, O Dimes? We are consuined with the desire of instructing your mind

and improving your morals. We long to be a virtuous Asmodeus to your Don Cleofas, and float with you over cities, and study mankind for your especial edification. What house shall we unroof? What heart shall we unveil? Of what scandal shall we gossip? There is a fine field opened to our inspection in Wall street, just now. Panics, fatal as the Sansar wind, rush to and fro, and at their icy breath colossal speculators crumble into dust. Friend eyes friend askance. Stockholders are insulted on change by suspicious inquiries as to the validity of the securities offered for sale. Merchants hasten to their lawyers, and make preparations for getting out the first judgment against houses rumored to be shaky. Directors of Companies sit trembling in their offices, awaiting the awful reports of committees on their books, which shall disclose unheard-of hypothecations. And a mournful but vivid picture rises up before us of a lonely, conscience-stricken man speeding away through Canadian forests, while in his ears ring the execrations of the multitude whom his recklessness has ruined.

After all, the dishonest man must be pitied rather than persecuted. What future is left for that unhappy director of the New Haven Railroad? We will suppose that he has managed to take fifty or a hundred thousand dollars away with him; where can he enjoy it? He rushes off, say to Algiers; purchases a house, changes his name, and determines to forget the past and be happy. He can never escape from his memory and his fears. His door never opens to a visitor without causing him a throb of terror, lest it may be some avenging creditor on his track. A ship never arrives, no matter from what port, that he is not irresistibly impelled to read the passenger list, racked all the while with hideous suspense, and relieved only when he finds no name that he knows in the record. This continual brooding over one subject soon preys upon his health. Even the inhabitants of the town, who only know him as a Mr. Smith in easy circumstances, gather by some subtle magnetic penetration, the dim consciousness that he is not all right. They see him walking along the shady side of the street, his back bent, and his steps undecided and irregular. His head is bowed and his eyes are never still. Restlessly they seek the countenance of every passer-by, are fixed for a moment, and then withdrawn. If a step sounds behind him, you notice

a sudden contraction of the body, as if shrinking from some invisible touch. The head is partially raised with an intense expression of watchfulness; then, as if no longer able to control his terrible curiosity, he gives a rapid glance over his shoulder, sees no one but a French soldier, and with a faint sigh of relief resumes his walk. Some day, however, when he has grown very grey, and has almost begun to charm his conscience into a sleep, with the belief that he is for ever safe from recognition, Trimmins of Wall street suddenly passes him, looks round after him, evinces a perfect recollection of him, but does not bow, nor say "How are you?" The poor defaulter returns home in an agony. He knows that Trimmins will tell every one the particulars of his past life, and all the little local friendships he was just beginning to form will be utterly destroyed. Trimmins does tell everybody the history of the supposed Mr. Smith. Trimmins having left New York himself in rather a hasty manner, owing to the peculiar style in which he kept his accounts when cashier of the Croton Bank, is, of course, merciless to the guilty Smith. Trimmins, defaulted only for a hundred thousand dollars; while Smith over-issued three millions of stock. Consequently, by comparison, Trimmins looks upon himself as innocence itself, and his little peculation as positively virtuous, when contrasted with Sinith's monstrous coup. Besides, Trimmins don't intend to stay in Algiers. He is merely passing through, and as he has got the start of the New York papers, he gratifies himself by being for a while a virtuous swaggerer, and crushes poor Smith's reputation with the same ferocity, that a woman of slightly doubtful reputation simulates, and perhaps feels, towards some poor girl, who has not had the same prudence in concealing the evidences of her wickedness. Thus Smith discovers that in the nineteenth century there is no concealment for the criminal. Too old to pitch his tent elsewhere, avoided by every one and worn out with remorse, Smith at last dies, and

A lesson for you, O Dimes! when in course of time you become a director of the Nebraska Railroad!

But let us leave the region of dollars, and hypothecated stocks. Let us fly from that defaulting street; let us eschew bankers and directors, bulls and bears, and hover over some lighter and more graceful topic. There's the opera! Dimes, thou Apollo of the boxes, does

not thy heart beat a sort of overture of delight at the very sound of the word? Ah! you say, in that elegant lackadaisical manner which you alone know how to manage; ah! dear delightful Astor Place, how charming it was. What happy, happy hours did I spend there, languishing with Donizetti, flirting with Rossini, trembling with Mozart, deafened with Verdi, Truffi, Benedetti, Bosio, Beletti-names that, spell-like, conjure up visions of past delights! What delicious little boxes, what enchanting gossips, what nods and becks and wreathed smiles flew across the little house in which everybody knew everybody! It was heavenly, I tell you!

But those times are past now, and the old Astor is gone with them, and in its place a splendid edifice has sprung into existence, farther up. We cannot venture to predict the success of the Fourteenth street opera house, because to be connected with an opera enterprise appears to be as unlucky for those concerned, as it was to be the owner of the Seiian Horse, or to have a piece of Tholosan gold in one's pocket.

But say you, Dimes, that, notwithstanding all these terrible failures, opera managers appear to be a thriving race?

There's the miracle! The opera manager in the dull season rushes off to Europe to engage a troupe. He has just been utterly ruined by his last speculation, yet we find him taking a first class passage on board of a Cunarder, and drinking his Burgundy and Geisenheimer every day at dinner. After he has been gone a couple of months, indefinite rumors reach us through the medium of the press, of the great things that he has been doing; the wonderful artists he has engaged, the extraordinary stratagems he was obliged to resort to in order to circumvent rival impresarios, who wanted to obtain possession of the celebrated prima donna assoluto, Signora Chizzzzilini, from the Teatro San Felice. It is also hinted that he has been obliged to pay the artists prodigious sums of money, as earnest for the continuance of their engagements, though where he got said moneys the public is not informed. Well, in a month or so, the broken down and bankrupt manager returns per steamer in the very best health and spirits, and accompanied by the different members of his new troupe. Ha! at last the campaign is about to be conducted with spirit. Every wall is covered with placards containing a glow

ing prospectus of the ensuing season. There are at least two dozen new operas, never performed in this country, that are to be produced almost immediately, "with new scenery, costumes and decorations, at an expense of several millions of dollars." The public is on the tip-toe of expectation, and every one talks about the good time coming, and every one feels a sort of mental shower bath, when La Sonnambula is announced for the first night. And La Sonnambula it is, through the whole season, with perhaps a slight sprinkling of Lucia just to freshen the people up a little. But they go, notwithstanding, with a good natured pertinacity worthy of all praise, and listen to the choruses they know by heart, and the solos they could sing in their sleep, with a sort of trusting confidence that the manager will perform his promises yet. The season draws to a close. Notwithstanding the fact of the house having been full nearly every night, it is whispered dolefully, that the manager, poor fellow, is again ruined. One or two of the chief artists get suddenly indisposed on the evening of the performance, and the tickets are returned. It leaks out however, that the real cause was a rebellion on the part of the tenor, who was owed three weeks' salary, and who peremptorily refused to sing until he was paid. Every one pities the poor bankrupt manager, and when it is announced on the bills, that, as a close to the season and a chance for the impresario to redeem himself, the Grand Opera of "The Titans " will be produced," with new and appropriate scenery, magnificent costumes, and gorgeous effects at an expense of Heaven knows how manythousands of dollars," the public, one and all, determine to support the enterprising manager. "The Titans" is produced the scenery isn't much, certainly, for managers here seem to labor under an impression that, as long as the scenery is "new" it does not matter in the least about its being good-and the house is filled night after night to suffocation. After a splendid run of about twelve nights, the public is astounded to hear that the manager is again ruined, and the opera no more. The singers have not been paid their salaries, and there are newspaper feuds between the debtor and his creditors. The manager is désolé. He has lost everything and must begin life over again, and as a preparation for so doing, starts for his ele

gant country house on the Hudson, where he enjoys every luxury that money can give him. After a pleasant rest, he starts again for Europe, pays more prodigious sums of money, returns with another brilliant troupe of artists, "manages again, and is again undone."

Now, neither of us, Dimes, has any objection whatever to an impresario making his fortune, but he really must not make it at the expense of the public. As long as he gives us an equivalent for our money we do not care if he pockets what is over. He has a right to be well paid for his trouble, and we are willing to pay him. But we do hope that when our Academy of Music does open, that we shall see operas produced there in a different style from those wretched things, mechanically speaking, that were palmed off on the public at Niblo's and Castle Garden last season. Who does not remember the one oak-tree at the old Astor Place House? No matter

what was the opera, that inevitable tree made its appearance. It shaded Norma or concealed Donna Elvira with equal indifference. It represented a forest or a garden with the same audacity, and yet every opera-goer was familiar with every painted furrow on its canvas trunk. We have had quite enough of this sort of thing, Dimes. Most of us have seen the great European theatres, and know how things are managed there. There are plenty of capabilities in our future Academy of Music for the production of any opera on a suitable scale. The stage, although not as deep as it might be, is amply large enough for scenic effects, and in interior beauty of form, we do not think it will be surpassed by any theatre in the world. A good company, a trained orchestra, a conscientious management, prices not too low, and you, Dimes, in the boxes, with your velvet waistcoat and opal buttons, are all we lack to make the Fourteenth street Opera House a permanent success.

But why that exclamation, Dimes? What is it that so interests you? Ah! that is it! Yes! it is very prettily got up. "Cozzens's Wine-press." We know the clever editor, the most spirituel of wine merchants. It was a graceful thought, worthy of him, to throw, as it were, a veil of poetry about his business; and every page bears evidence of elegant tastes and extensive research. Look here, though, Dimes! Look what the second number of Cozzens's Wine-press discourses of. We pity you, O Fifth

avenue friend! Ten years hence, when the governor is dead, you will not be able to discour about your Chateau Margaux of 1841 or your Chateau Lafitte of 1815. The vines of Europe are all dying of consumption, and the banks of the Rhine and plains of Marne will trickle with the glorious blood no more. A terrible disease called the "Oidium" has commenced once more to ravage the vines in the south of France, and so rapid are its attacks, that it is not stretching probability too far to suppose that, in the course of ten years, European wine will have virtually ceased to exist. What a frightful revelation for the restaurants. No more Jersey cider sold at two dollars a bottle as Heidsick, for it being known that Heidsick having ceased to be made, people will naturally argue that it cannot be sold. No more vinegar and leather parings under the title of Rudesheimer; no more logwood and water masquerading as London Dock." Hotel keepers will be obliged to sell in despair natural, honest, excellent American wines, from Cincinnati, from North Carolina, and from the broad plains and slopes of Texas, which, in fifty years, will be the greatest wine country in the world. Dimes, if you have any spare thousands, go and buy up all the Latour and Lafitte you can, for you may outlive them, old fellow! and then what would become of the House of Dimes?

So Page has been doing wonders? Well, we expected as much. He has been painting Browning in Rome, and the author of "The Blot on the Scutcheon," says that it is better than anything that Titian ever painted. Browning, too, has an eye for a picture. He has too much observant poetry in him not to feel poetry on canvas when he saw it, and his opinion is worth much. Besides, Page has received a tribute from a brother artist, that is still more valuable. Crawford, the celebrated sculptor, ordered a portrait of his wife from Page, for which he agreed to give $500. When the picture was complete, he was so delighted with the execution, that he handed over $1000 to the successful artist, being double the sum originallly agreed upon. It is pleasant to see genius recognizing genius, and while it elevates the character of both, gives a terrible slap in the face to the old superstition about the habitual jealousies of artists.

You are rich, O Dimes. Go instantly and give Page $5000 for a picture of yourself. If you cannot become im