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THE SCOUTS AT THE ACADEMY.

"See Naples and die," was the exclamation of an ancient Italian patriot, but here today, in cold blood, we exclaim, without prejudice, "See the Scouts of the Prairie on the stage and die rather than see them again." Not that a second look would in any way destroy the first impression, but because it might remove, in some measure, the fine romantic flavor, the đelightful poetical aroms, always associated in the memory with delicately conceived and cunningly wrought creations of the imagination. It is with dramatic performances as with pictures, the gleam and glory of the first revelation can never be forgotten, although both picture and drama may, at last, by familiarity, become things of indifference. Frequent contemplation has the effect of building a bridge of commonplace across which we have to pass in order to reach the Arabian retrospect which else would have stood to the mind as a glorious reality. In recognition of this fact it is that we say "die, rather than see the scouts a second time;" nothing in the form of dramatic pleasure will compensate for the loss which the spectator would certainly sustain, should he be tempted to such a second experience.

“The Scouts" were at the Academy last night, and their presence, having been duly advertised, had the effect of thronging the gallery of that classic edifice with an audience altogether representative of the polite patrons of what, for the want of a better name, is known as popular, fiction, done up in ten cent packages The youths and maidens who revel in frontier sketches, who dream of warwhoops and sealp hunts, who waking fancy teams with hatchets, soalping knives, tomahawks and firearms, whose high conception of life have been reared upon the deeds of the stolcal Lo and his genie adversary, the dauntless peddler of moccasins and bear skins, occupied all the front seats and made themselves pardonably conspicuous by the frequency and heartiness of their applause. There were several ladies and gentlemen present of an earlier generation who had not, it was evident, got beyond the traditions of Scott, Thackeray and Dickens, but they were in such a miserable minority that they wisely concluded to look with complacency upon things which their prejudices, under other circumstances, would have led them to combat. For the information of the undramatic and literate reader, it is proper to state here that "The Scouts of the Prairie" is a realistic picture of wild Western life, in three acts, by that most accomplished winter, Mr. Ned Buntline. The scenes are laid generally among the Rocky Mountain that is, they are arranged for the convenience of scene painters, so that a lava bed, a yellow stone canon or forest of ten thousand years old California pine traces may with equal propriety be called into use. The play is, upon the whole, highly moral; it has three commendable ends in view, to show first that Buffalo Bill, Texas Jack and Cale Durg (Ned Buntline) are the three greatest men that ever lived; second, that Lo, the poor Indian, is a fraud, and third that gunpowder and bourbon whisky are the most destructive and explosive material agents at present known to the descendants of Adam. If the plot were not so complicated we would explain it at length, but it's subtle character will not admit of proper analysis at the hands of daily