The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1858-02-07

Lectures and Lecturers.
Some years ago an epidemic. which we may
call the leeturng fever, broke out in this city,
or rather was imported here from the rural
districts, taking its rise, We believe, in the aca
demic groves of the modern Athens. Briefess
lawyers, fashionable clergymen, broken down
editors, penniless literary men, were the princi-
pal victims of this terrible disease. 1t was ac-
companied with mild form of insanity, ap-
proximating idiocy The patient broke out
with TRADE Of meaningless babble, here and
there interspersed with fact stolen from an
encyclopedia, OF quotation from favorite
poet The patients friends would generally at
tend him during the spasms, and these sympa-
thizers were reinforced by few benevolent,
good natured people without occupation for
their time, and very glad to find something
wherewith to relieve their ennui, on the princi-
pie that it is better to be bored than to do no
thing. In time, however, the nuisance became
too great to be borne The press applied vio-
lent remedies, and the disease vanished, or
rather was banished to the provincial towns
where ii had originated.
But in these latter days two new lights have
arisen in the oratorical horizon-two brilliant,
fascinating, dazzling consultations, upon whose
lips the bees of Hybla have deposited their ho-
ney. The frst of these orators is Mr. Everett,
the calm clear, polished, scholarly, graceful de-
claimer, whose every period is turned with
curve as graceful as a Phidian statue and
whose eloquence flows like the gentle murmurs
of the running brook. Mr. Everett has given to
the ears of hundreds of thousands Of people,
Nerth and South, an elaborate and beautiful
analysis Of the character Of Washington, and
likewise @ discourse upon Charity" an admi-
rable production. The first has been pronounced
for the purpose Of aggregating funds where
with the burial place of the Puter Purie may
become the property of the nation and the Sc
cond for the benefit of sundry worthy benevo-
lent societies in this city and elsewhere. Mr..
Everetts audiences have included what is call
ed the cream of the fashionable, the religious
and the literary world. Great lawyers and dis
tinguished preachers have sat at the feet Of this
Gamaliel, who makes the barren desert Of CON-
mon places to blossom with the Poses Of oratory
The other light Of the lecture room Is Lola
Montez, whose eccentric career has afford
ed the journalist many q piquant para
graph. Mr.. Everett lectured on one night
at the Academy, and Lola on the succeeding
evening at Hope Chapel, 80 that there was q
fair opportunity for comparison.
Mr.. Everett is cold, classical and ornate. His
graceful gestures are the result ofclose study
Lola Is blythe, sparkling, undulating and witty
Her motions are free, unrestrained, natural
her delivery is no less excellent her gestures,
without study, no less graceful than those of the
Boston orator. Mr.. Everett has the pure Anglo
Saxon type of face and head but in Lola's
wealth of raven hair and large dark eyes we
may read the electricity and passion Of south
ern climes. Mr.. Everett might have been the
leading orator for the Athenian stoics; Lola
Montez would have been crowned with laurel
by the Epicureans. She Is the Tenth Muse
not Hypatia herself, teaching at Alexandria
from the chair of Ammonius and Hierocles,
was more fascinating Lola Is the Hypatia of
the nineteenth century. Not unlike the Alex
andrians, lepissimum hominurn genus, are her New
York auditors Her audiences are more cosmo-
politan than Mr.. Everett's, but many of the
same persons may be found sitting under the
teachings of both. Mr. Everett Ii In high
favor, as we have said BEFORE with the
religious world, which considers Lola
an incorrect, wicked Bohemian, who is not to
be patronized by pious people on any account.
They have said TO her, In the language Of the
Pharisee, Procdi o procaa este profanH On the
same principle the Alexandrians tore Hypatia
to pieces, but there were no pious and benevo-
lent societies in want of funds In those days.
We hear now that some of the pious people
here are striving TO concoct some indirect
means by which Lola may be induced to deliver
a lecture at the Academy of Music in aid Of
the funds Of some of their religious and chart
table institutions. They don't like to apply to
her directly, and are much exercised on the
subject, praying and wrestling with the spirits
night and day, asking for counsel by which
some new road may be opened to them. We
sympathise with these brethren; and as the
easiest way 10 solve the difficulty we suggest to
Lola that she should take the Academy, as the
Yankee fishermen say, "on her own hook" and
then and there give lecture in aid of all the
benevolent societies in New York. She would
attract the greatest crowd ever seen within the
building, not excepting perhaps the jam on the
occasion of the Charity Ball What does
Madame Montez say to this?