THEATRICAL INTELLIGENCE. 487 



Crusades. This might have justified the insertion of a short introductory 

 sketch of the origin, &c. of the Crusades, but certainly not ihe elaborate his- 

 tory of those Crusades which is here given. It is but justice to Mr. Wallam 

 to add that his account of the Crusades evinces much patient research. His 

 work, indeed, altogether shows that he has been at great pains in collecting 

 every thing that could illustrate his subject.^ 



THEATRICALS, MUSIC, &c. 



Every day's experience verifies the axiom that we are the 

 creatures of circumstance. Whether it relate to our appetites, 

 passions, or physical propensities, to the affairs of domestic detail, to 

 the more important one of political sovereignty, or to the tastes, 

 manners, and habits of a nation at large, certain it is, we shall find 

 our wits and our ways influenced by the "turn up" of the hour, and no 

 one can foretel what may befal us the next. There are few of us in 

 our moments of thoughtfuiness, when reflecting upon the events of 

 to-day and yesterday, but must perceive every thing confirmatory of 

 the above trueism. The laws which govern matter are immutable, 

 may be so, those to which the mind are subject, but it needs more 

 than the head of a philosopher to trace the effect to its cause. The 

 springs of action are generally so hidden in obscurity that the world, 

 like the placid lake, knows not whence the next pebble shall be cast 

 that shall agitate its rippless waters, or, like the threatened crater, 

 calmly awaits the burst of the ungovernable volcano. Our sensual 

 organs, like well-tried sentinels, are ever watchful of coming events 

 which cast their shadows before, but are not endowed with the fore- 

 knowledge of the point of attack, the strength of the foe, or the un- 

 tried power of their own resources. Limiting our argument to the 

 lighter and brighter side of our frailties — to those flowrets of a man's 

 life that garland his existence, denominated pleasures, and these 

 consisting of painted fairy lands, variegated shadows, and sounds, 

 human and inhuman, earthly and unearthly — we appeal to our 

 companions in the chase, whether we are in our postulate. Where is 

 the indifferent observer to the irruptive, ebullitionary, wayward 

 fancies of our kinsfolk the public, who one season run stark, starino-, 

 Tom-and- Jerry mad, — the same, or the next, wend their steps to the 

 altar of Shakspeare, and then, like a vacillating child, desert naturePs 

 modellist for the fool's cap and bells ? Well versed are manacrers in 

 this fickle temperament of our countrymen and women: and hence 

 the feast prepared. To talk of the day, the hour, the very moment, 

 who could have divined the present musical mania which, like an 

 epidemic paroxysm, rages through the town! The chroniclers of 

 times gone by record not such feasts of song like the immediate era. 

 We have matin, noon, twilight, evening, and midnight invocations to 

 the Apollonian muse, and the reveller tires not with the hearing 



