their present need; for the government prevents the exportation of gold by giving the ounce (doubloon), which is actually worth but sixteen dollars, the legal value of seventeen. I remember one of them, thin-faced, with straight yellow beard and hair; a fellow like Falstaff's friend Justice Shallow, "so forlorn that his dimensions to any thick sight were invincible." He stood listlessly behind two others who were selling dust to an old Spaniard, who took no notice of him until he found that his companions turned continually around to consult him, for he was the sharpest and the richest of the party. In spite of the miscellaneous condition of their wardrobes, these

men have a certain manliness of manner, which contrasts favorably with the air of those around them, and which, aided not a little by the full growth of that manly ornament, the beard, makes them not unpleasing objects of contemplation,at a distance.

Having put money in their purses, their first desire after "a drink all round," is for a drive. They have a contempt for the volante, which they call "a damned parson's gig with the wheels behind." Some of them are obliged to take up with the despised vehicle; but as many as can, get into an old barouche, which for years has been getting mouldy in some out-ofthe-way stable. There are but three other four-wheeled vehicles in the city, to wit, the state carriages of the Captain General and of a foreign dignitary; and after being reluctantly convinced that neither of those gentlemen would "hire out" their carriages, half a dozen of our Californian friends take this, and sitting in it and out of it in all possible and impossible attitudes of nonchalance, they drive about the town and the suburbs, through the pascos, to the Bishop's Garden; everywhere but to the baths; not neglecting to stop and drink at every other posada, and make themselves fit subjects for the cholera as they go up the Mississippi.

Every body dines in Havana at three o'clock. There is nothing remarkable at dinner, except that the fish, though firm, is insipid, and the beef dark-colored, and of a strong flavor. Fish in great variety

and abundance are to be found in the fish market of Havana, of which, till lately, Señor Marty, the manager of the opera, had the entire possession, by monopoly. But all the varieties are almost equally tasteless. This is accounted for by some, from the fact that all the fish for Havana are taken upon the coral reefs, the lime in which has this effect upon them. How much of a reason this may be, I will not pretend to say; but I have remarked that trout, the highest flavored of all fish, are never found in a brook which flows over lime-stone rocks. Beef always must re main bad in Havana, until the Cubans are taught how to raise it and how to butcher it. It is ill-fed, over-driven, improperly killed, and instead of being divided into proper joints, is cut into strips, with the grain. There are one or two butchers, however, who cut joints for the few American and English tables in the city. Coffee concludes dinner; after which no Habanero does any thing but go to the paseo, the grand plaza, the theatre, the café or a cock-fight.

On Sundays and saints' days, the ladies drive upon the paseo Isabella II., for an hour and a half before sundown. They go in full dress, and without hats:-no lady in Havana ever wears a hat, except some person of high fashion and fortune who may wear a very costly one in a ball-room. Two always, and sometimes three, occupy one volante; but it is not the custom for a gentleman to share the seat with a lady. The volantes thus filled.

and with their tops thrown down, pass slowly up one, and down another, of the long avenues of the paseo, which are sometimes so full, that the checking of one horse stops the whole line. The gentlemen walk at the sides, or crowd together at the ends of the avenues, where they scrutinize the ladies as they pass, without reserve. Should one admire matron or maid, he tells his admiration, and his avowal is graciously received. This general custom of driving in full dress, affords continual opportunities to judge of the pretensions of the fair Habaneros to beauty. I became reluctantly convinced that personal charms are rare among them, especially in the higher classes. I saw but one of gentle blood, and but three or four among the middle class, who would be made the marks for opera glasses in New-York. The ladies, Creoles and Spaniards, generally have bright black eyes, and dark glossy hair, but the mouth is apt to be large and heavy, and the eyes are rarely expressive or finely formed. Their figures incline too often to excessive fulness or its opposite. Their hands and feet are small; but they spoil the appearance of the latter by wearing shoes which are too short, by which they are made to look clubbed and ungraceful. They dress more hideously than it is possible to conceive. Their fashions are, of course, Parisian; but their combinations of colors would drive a French modiste mad. An orange-colored robe with maroon flounces, or the same flounces upon a green robe, or a French gray robe, with rose-colored flounces, are not uncommon. Their fans are magnificent, and it is needless to say what an important part of the female pa

raphernalia they are here, as in Spain. Some ladies have a hundred, and more.

On two or three evenings a week, one of the regimental bands plays in the Grand Plaza, before the Palace. At this time the square is surrounded with a double row of volantes filled with ladies in full dress. Gentlemen walk in the square and pay their respects to such of their fair friends as they may recognize. This answers the purpose of our evening visits. Society, as we understand it, does not exist in Havana. Set balls and fêtes, the paseo, the Grand Plaza, and the theatre, take its place. The music over, the ladies drive home, and soon the streets are almost deserted. At half-past eight o'clock the watchmen make their appearance. Each one is armed with a lance, a long knife, and a pair of pistols, and carries a lantern; and thus they bristle through the city, blowing a whistle, and calling the time and the weather at every half hour. Their orders are "to comprehend all vagrom men," and they are not slow to obey them. The police of the city, especially at night, is very rigid, and any man in the street after ten o'clock, is liable to be called to an account. This, among other things about the place, smacks of antiquity; and as you are dozing off into your first sleep and beginning to think uncertain thoughts, the long drawn nasal cry of the watchmen will mingle with your fancies, and take you back perchance, in dreams, to Messina, and Dogberry, who had "two coats and every thing handsome," and Verges, who was as honest as any man who was no honester than he;" and to that soldierly bachelor Benedick, and the lady Beatrice, who loved him from the

66

AMORE congenial task was never given

to an artist, than the composition of American history has been to Mr. Bancroft. If genius is subject to the law of predestination, we should say that he was born expressly for the fulfilment of this work. At all events, he has made it his peculiar mission; he has engaged in it as a chosen and favorite labor; he has gathered constant inspiration from his theme; and melted all that was harsh and prosaic in its details into fluent and harmonious beauty, by the warm glow of his enthusiasm. Seldom has a work of literary art borne such an impress of the sentiment, in which it was conceived. Its profound sincerity of thought, its faithfulness to the convictions from which it proceeds, its loyalty to the ideas with which it identifies the action of Providence in the progress of the ages, give a freshness and vitality to its narrative, which we rarely find in philosophical histories. We venture to believe that no other subject could present such a powerful appeal to the sympathies of the author; and we are certain that it is precisely the intellectual characteristics which he possesses, that are best adapted to develope the great theme in all its grandeur and comprehensiveness.

Its

The condition of American history, previous to the cultivation of the field by Mr. Bancroft, afforded little promise of brilliant success in its elaboration. leading facts had been succinctly related. Its annals had been recorded with diligent minuteness. The principal dates and incidents were familiar to every schoolboy. The simple narratives of contemporary documents had been wrought up into popular displays of festive eloquence. Poetry had thrown its enchantments around the romantic features of our colonial and revolutionary epochs. But still every thing was in a chaotic state. No plastic spirit had shaped the crude materials into the epic symmetry, which forms the appropriate dress of truth, as well as of fiction. No previous writer had dreamed of the singular capabilities of the subject. It had been regarded only with the most superficial views. The general principles involved in the development of American civilization, had never been investigated; scarcely had they occupied the attention of thinking men. The time for that had not yet come. Thus far, our history had been written only by piecemeal; and the sublime

unity, which pervaded its different elements, and connected it with the politics and culture of Europe, was hardly suspected; much less was it unfolded in its profound relations with the past and the future. When Mr. Bancroft first announced his intention of writing the history of the United States, the plan was received, as we have been told, with utter indifference by eminent literary men whom he consulted. They perceived that there was already a plenty of isolated narratives; but they had no comprehension of the philosophic unity which might be given to the subject by the hand of a master. It remained for the youthful and ambitious scholar, fresh from historical and philosophical studies under the influence of the best European culture, to falsify their predictions, and enlarge the sphere of their ideas, by the production of a work combining originality, depth, and picturesque beauty, to such a degree, as at once to elevate it to the highest rank in American literature. He has redeemed the subject from the repulsive barrenness of the mere annalist, connected its events with the principles on which they depend, evolved the universal laws which underlie the special developments of history, thrown around the fortunes of a few struggling victims of oppression, the fascinations of eloquence, seized upon the imaginative elements in their story with the alert fancy of a poet, and illustrated their progress from dependence to freedom by the lights of a noble and suggestive philosophy.

The adaptation of the subject to the author, and of the author to the subject, has been a singularly happy circumstance in Mr. Bancroft's literary career. Not that he would have failed of distinction in any department of intellectual effort, to which he might have devoted his energies. He possesses too choice and brilliant gifts of nature, not to have attained an enviable eminence. Uniting a remarkable versatility of thought with great activity of temperament, he has exhibited the qualities which insure the success of the poet, the orator, the elegant essayist, and the founder of philosophical systems. But in no other sphere than that with which his name has become identified, could he have found such scope for the exercise of his peculiar endowments. He was the first writer to conceive of the history of his country, as an integral