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Eds. Crescent

Among the long resident literary and professional men here, no ordinary event of the last few months has caused more sympathy and talk than the death, last Monday, of Mr. Simpson, of the Park theatre. Going by the Park, early that same morning, I stopped a few minutes to look at the workmen, busy in their plans of demolition and reconstruction. The lower front of the theatre, with the steps and entrance, are all taken down; and the inner regions thoroughly disembowelled, without saving an item! It looks indeed like a day of revolution to see such work as this; for the Park theatre of the last thirty years had become so associated in the minds of New Yorkers with "the stability of our institutions," as to make an attack upon it something beyond even the most daring minds. There on those old boards we saw Mrs. Knight in her palmy days, before her voice had settled upon the one-tone, than which she now sings nothing else. To Richings's Caliban, how sweetly she could then play and sing the gentle Ariel. And poor Fisher, with his Trinculo quips?, shall we ever forget him? And Mrs. Chapman, too, (otherwise Mrs. Richardson,) she too was in the spring of health and vigor then: all the dry goods clerks in the pit were in love with her. She was famous in sentimental young ladies—one or two of whom are in every old English comedy. Then Mrs. Wheatly; O, Lord! to see her in Miss Lucretia MacTub​ MacTab​ , and in the Old Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, and in Mrs. Duberly—ah, those were treats indeed! Her daughters, Emma and Julia, used to dance in a way that (bless our innocent souls!) we all thought, then, quite divine. And young Wheatley, we remember well—so straight that he bent over backwards. Mrs. Vernon, too—and Placide— than whom better players (they gave the intellectual as well as the physical to comedy,) never trod the boards.

On the Park stage we first saw Fanny Kemble. Hers was playing. She "did" Marianne, in The Wife; and many a man, who had visited the theatre for years, then saw playing for the first time. We well remember the impression caused on the audience, (as full and fashionable a one as New York could boast,) when the heroine of the piece came sailing up the stage on the startling announcement of "the Duchess," in the midst of her husband's camp, while his treacherous brother was pouring out a tale of falsehood and cruelty. Miss Kemble was about the first of the long train of English stars and staresses that have since poured in among us with uninterrupted succession. It is somewhat singular, that with hardly an exception, the principal personages (literary as well as dramatic) who have been thus lionized, returned Yankee fallibility with slander and flippant insolence.

In still later times, the Park has introduced more modern matters. Specially worthy of mention is the way it brought out King John, three years ago, with Mrs. and Mr. Charles Kean. Beyond question this was the most perfect in its appointments and general getting up, of any piece that has yet been produced upon the American stage.

But the Park has passed into new hands, and Mr. Simpson is dead! So the world "marvels" along. And perhaps it is better to. The old must give place to the new; those who have sat long at table must sooner or later yield to fresh-comers—if gracefully and cheerfully, the better for both parties. The advent among us of a whilom New Yorker, but more lately a resident of New Orleans, Mr. Jacob Barker, has given rise to several newspaper paragraphs, all of them good natured. Mr. Barker is a fine specimen of the enterprising New Englander—always ready, whether successful or "down" for a speculation and for business enterprize.

The Hermann is not in yet, but it is not improbable she may be before sundown. The city wears a pleasant appearance—partly attributable to the delightful weather we have had for the last two days.

MANHATTAN.