spoils as were accumulated by Jenny Lind, Fanny Ellsler, and other foreign distinguéesto say nothing of the glorifications, the chairings, triumphs, and public processions! All was a failure-money and glory-a fraud of fortunea grievous defeat of hope and anticipation; and there was even some lachesse in the payment of hotel scores-vulgar necessities that distress even a divinity of the ballet. Beauvallet suffered from some mortifications of this sort even. But he had his revenges. He took his change out of us after a very frequent foreign fashion-made a book as soon as he got back to Paris-and such a book! Such a sorry showing as we had in that book!-Sorrow's the word-we shall hardly ever get over the shame of it. He saw us through the false medium. His glass was inverted. His sight was jaundiced, though no gold was laid upon his eyes, and he handles us accordingly, with a savage sort of monkey-tigerism, which would be quite terrible were it not so very ridiculous. But we must not waste gunpowder on Monsieur Beauvallet; and the good reader naturally asks what has he and his book to do with the Palmetto City? Very little, perhaps; a single paragraph from its pages will suffice to show for what reason we have bestowed so much space on him. He does not think Charleston so very beautiful. Nay, would you believe it, he does not think it beautiful at all! For that matter, examining his paragraphs more closely, we are half inclined to say that he thinks it an ugly city, a very unclean city; in brief, a very poor apology for a city after all! But, lest we should misrepresent him, we give his own language: "This city is dreadfully filthy; besides, it is very ugly and outrageously built." It strikes us that this is rather an unfavorable opinion. The epithets do not seem to have been chosen with any very anxious desire to compliment. Coleridge, when he said of Cologne, "the body and soul stinking town of Cologne," was hardly more equivocal in expression. "Filthy!" The comical, conceited, little Frenchman! and this is said of a city which prides itself upon its cleanliness, which has been complimented because of its cleanliness, and keeps Mayor, Town Council, Boards of Medicine, Health, Police, Sewers, and Streets, and Markets, for no other purpose than to see to the proper ablutions of the city. How could Monsieur Beauvallet come to such an opinion? for we need scarcely tell you that the epithet of "filthy" is decidedly antagonistic to any proper notion of cleanliness. The fact is, Monsieur Beauvallet had all the prying curiosity of a clever Frenchman on his travels. He was admitted into the parlor, and he saw that was clean enough, and as showy as expensive; a parlor at twenty-five dollars a week, in a fashionable hotel, must be tolerably nice. But Beauvallet was not to be imposed upon. He said to himself, with a shrug and snigger, "Ha! But I shall see for myself, I rader tink dere must be some place about dis establishment dat shall not be quite so sweet to de nose of a gentleman!" and, not to be gulled, he seeks it out, perhaps finds it! So, parading Broad and Meeting streets, the Battery, and all the better thoroughfares, he says: "All dis looks mighty superb, tolerable fine, very decent and respectable, but I shall look some oder where, and shall no doubt find some odor dere, dat Thrusting his ridiculous nose, He caught it and carried it off in his clothes! "Ugly, and outrageously built too!" ovens of the North. They hold your fine red brick to be wretchedly vulgar. They insist that their demure gray brick gives to their city a noble air of antiquity which is gratefully aristocratic. But they do not reject stone entirely, and you will see some pretentious fabrics of white marble, Quincy and other granites-a growing taste, by-the-way-with trim iron railings and decorated gates of the same materials. These, as in other cities, will be found to garnish the fronts of retired shop-keepers; and there are fancy vanes which spread their wings or tails upon all the modern chimney-tops! And to be told, after all this, that their city is ugly and outrageously built! Oh! Monsieur Beauvallet, how could you? But these Frenchmen, they know nothing of that glorious saving and sheltering maxim, "De gustibus," etc. But, we confess it, our Beauvallet is half right. The Palmetto City architecture, except in recent instances, is certainly of very anomalous creation. It is with our Charleston structures as with those more famous fabrics brought home by Shakspeare's Tailor for the special use and behoof of that proverbially shrewish lady, Mrs. Katharine Petruchio, of dramatic celebrity. The stuffs are good enough, but sometimes hor Was ever a slander so deliberate and strained! Certainly, the good people of Charleston never dreamed of such an accusation. They spend a great deal of money in the Palmetto City, building new palaces and furbishing up the old. The newspaper press every now and then teems with a glowing description of what is done and doing. And, recently, they have nurtured a whole brood of flourishing young native archi-ribly marred in the making. tects, who are doing ambitious things every day in brick and granite, which every body goes to see. The brick and mortar of the place are supposed to be especially good. The Charlestonians take great pride in their gray brick, which they prefer a thousand times to the flaunting, flashy red loaves from the more fashionable "The sleeves curiously cut!" That covers all the mystery and mischief. "There's the villainy!" We shall see what comes of this cutting of the sleeves so curiously: though the people of Charleston may say of their houses, even as Mrs. Katharine said of her gown: "I never saw a better fashioned gown [house], There are certainly some monstrous houses in Charleston. Such gables-such broadsides, pierced with pigeon-holes-such toppling verandas-such ghostly chimneys-such antique rookeries-such modern roosts-such totter-ups --such tumble-downs-such a want of paint on some-such a variety of paints on others-such resemblances-such contrasts-the most precious variety of styles ever exhibited by mortal city since the days of Hiram the Phoenician. ood fellow, not for any such poor devil as you. We don't care a straw for your opinions! We are not, let us tell you, any of your slavish copyists from Greek and Tuscan, Saracen and Goth. We are a law unto ourselves. Each man builds as it seems best in his own eyes, and each man's amour propre is on the qui vive lest he should be suspected of doing something under the guidance of his neighbor." Some truth in what the citizen says to Beauvallet. No people ever so little toiled together, in the mass, as those of the Palmetto City. No people were ever more tenacious of their individuality. Like Falstaff, they will give no man reason upon compulsion. This is one of their chief merits as well as misfortunes; since it strengthens the individual moral by self-esteem, while it prevents the consummation of any public objects which require the working together of the masses. There is rarely any massing of any purely agricultural people any where; one of the secrets, by-the-way, to account for the deficiency of the arts among all such people. But there are two very distinct cities in Charleston-the old and new-representing rival communities. They perpetually confront each But, as we have said, dear reader, there is an other. The palace and the hovel, the modern architectural idiosyncrasy in all old cities which villa and the antique rookery, are side by side. compels respect, as it answers for the individu- The modern is daily growing more and more ality of their people. This individuality is one insolent and obtrusive; but the ancient is forof the most distinguishing features of Charles- midable in sheer stubbornness, and his very ton. It declares for the independence of the vis inertia makes him immovable. He opposes popular mind. It says: "Look you, Beau-weight and passivity to the motive power of the vallet, we never thought of you when we built other; and, though he rocks and heaves under that structure. We fashion for ourselves, my the pressure, he has yet proved too fast rooted in the soil for absolute overthrow. He will fall | him out of position. Let us give some glimpses down upon it, no doubt, but you can not wheel of this old and new, as they show themselves in THE ROPER HOSPITAL. the public buildings of the place. Almost as you enter the city-assuming that you do so from the sea-you behold the present Custom-house, built during the colonial period. The building is a square; the principal or first story was originally an arcade, every where open, and making a spacious and appropriate hall, which was naturally employed as an exchange, where "merchants most did congregate:" of late years this area has been partially inclosed, and applied to the uses of a post-office. The second story and basement are yielded to the officers of the customs. The building has undergone some changes-hardly for the better-since the time of its erection. The present front, which looks west, along the whole range of Broad Street (which it entirely closes on the east) was not originally the front view. This looked out upon the ocean without impediment; but the view from this quarter is now impossible, by reason of the massed warehouses which have strode in between it and the wharves. Here is the fabric, as you now see it from Broad Street and East Bay. or property. In these damp, dismal regions, hundreds perished of privation and their wounds. Here Isaac Hayne, the martyr, was held in durance vile till taken out to the gallows. You Simple and unpretending enough as a work note that chamber, to the left, in the rear of the of art, but built according to the recognized second story? In that chamber did the noble scientific principles of the period of its erection. victim make his toilet the fatal morning. He You will note, however, that the cupola is mod- had been brought up from the cells below to ern, though not recent; that it hardly accords this apartment, in order that he should habit with the general style of the building; that it himself properly for his doom, and exchange somewhat belittles it in fact, and is wanting in the last greetings with his friends. This old size and symmetry as in style. It was stuck on, fabric, associated with so much that is grateful a sort of pepper-box on a terrapin's back, dur- to patriotism, the Charlestonians will hardly ing the dynasty (we think) of Martin Van Buren, suffer to be pulled down to make way for strucand when Mr. Poinsett was his War Secretary. tures of even greater excellence. It is beautiWe are inclined to suspect Mr. Poinsett of this fully situated, and might be employed for vagraffing upon the ancient fabric. Its purpose rious public purposes when it is withdrawn from was that of a marine observatory, and for tele- present uses. The new Custom-house is in graphing to the city the appearance of vessels rapid progress; and having shown you the old, in the offing. But we need waste no words it is but fair that we should exhibit the more upon the cupola, which has its uses if not beau- imposing successor. This, you will readily adties, and may be made a loophole of observation mit, is a noble structure, and one of which our to those who look out in search of the beautiful. Palmetto City need not be ashamed. It is of The building itself has quite a history, and marble, lofty and extensive. It is a costly work, rises into classical dignity among the sons of and will consume several millions of dollars; the soil. In the basement of this fabric old large sums have been already swallowed up in Moultrie walled up some 100,000 pounds of gun- the mere piling, the site chosen being upon the powder, in order to keep it from the British very margin of the bay, and the piles encroachwhen the town was about to fall into their hands, ing upon the mud-flats of the harbor. in the third attempt which they made for its place is admirably chosen, at once for business capture; and here it remained safe from dis- and for show, the structure looking out directly covery during the three years that they had pos- upon the open sea, the in-rolling billows of session. The vaults of this same basement were which will dash against its base. As our puremployed as a Provost or prison, in which the pose is more pictorial than statistical, we shall captured rebels were locked up for starvation or not trouble our readers with any details in reexecution, or when it was necessary to work spect to the dimensions or the divisions of the upon the fears of friends, and extort submission | fabric, the numbers of its chambers, or their par The |