Part 15

The truth is, that we must depend upon _revelation_ for an assurance of immortality; which promises, however, the resurrection of the body, as philosophy is unequal to its demonstration, and modern researches into animal life have rendered the proof more difficult than heretofore.' By the by, 'speaking of animals:' there is a letter from LEMUEL GULLIVER in the last number of BLACKWOOD, describing a meeting of 'delegates from the different classes of consumers of _oats_, held at the Nag's-Head inn at Horsham.' The business of the meeting was opened by a young RACER, who expressed his desire to promote the interests of the horse-community, and to promote any measure which might contribute to the increase of the consumption of oats, and improve the condition of his fellow quadrupeds. He considered the horse-interest greatly promoted by the practice of sowing wild oats, which he warmly commended. A HACKNEY-COACH HORSE declared himself in favor of the _sliding-scale_, which he understood to mean the wooden pavement. Things went much more smoothly wherever it was established. He contended for the abolition of nose-bags, which he designated as an intolerable nuisance; urged the prohibition of chaff with oats, as unfit for the use of able-bodied horses; and indeed evinced the truth of his professions, that he 'yielded to no horse in an anxious desire to promote the true interests of the horse-community.' An OLD ENGLISH HUNTER impressed upon the young delegates the good old adage of 'Look before you leap,' and urged them to go for 'measures, not men.' A STAGE HORSE 'congratulated the community upon the abolition of bearing-reins, those grievous burdens upon the necks of all free-going horses; and he trusted the time would soon arrive when the blinkers would also be taken off, every corn-bin thrown open, and every horse his own leader.' Several other steeds, in the various ranks of horse-society, addressed the meeting. 'Resolutions, drawn by two DRAY-HORSES, embodying the supposed grievances of the community, were finally agreed upon, and a petition, under the hoof of the president, founded upon them, having been prepared and ordered to be presented to the House of Commons by the members for Horsham, the meeting separated, and the delegates returned to their respective stables.' · · · WHAT habitual theatre or opera-goer has not been tempted a thousand times to laugh outright, and quite in the wrong place, at the incongruities, the inconsistencies, the mental and physical _catachreses_ of the stage, which defy illusion and destroy all vraisemblance? A London sufferer in this kind has hit off some of the salient points of these absurdities in a few 'Recollections of the Opera:'

'I'VE known a god on clouds of gauze With patience hear a people's prayer, And bending to the pit's applause, Wait while the priest repeats the air.

I've seen a black-wig'd Jove hurl down A thunder-bolt along a wire, To burn some distant canvass town, Which--how vexatious!--won't catch fire.

I've known a tyrant doom a maid (With trills and _roulades_ many a score) To instant death! She, sore afraid, Sings: and the audience cries 'Encore!'

I've seen two warriors in a rage Draw glist'ning swords and, awful sight! Meet face to face upon the stage To sing a song, but not to fight!

I've heard a king exclaim 'To arms!' Some twenty times, yet still remain; I've known his army 'midst alarms, Help by a bass their monarch's strain.

I've known a hero wounded sore, With well-tuned voice his foes defy; And warbling stoutly on the floor, With the last flourish fall and die.

I've seen a mermaid dress'd in blue; I've seen a cupid burn a wing; I've known a Neptune lose a shoe; I've heard a guilty spectre sing.

I've seen, spectators of a dance, Two Brahmins, Mahomet, the Cid, Four Pagan kings, four knights of France, Jove and the Muses--scene Madrid!'

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The leading paper in the present number will not escape the attention nor fail to win the admiration of the reader. The description of the _Ascent of Mount Ætna_ by our eminent artist, is forcible and graphic in the extreme. It will derive additional interest at this moment from the recent eruption of this renowned volcano, which still continued at the last advices, and by which already seventy persons had lost their lives. If our metropolitan readers would desire a _due_ impression of the magnificent scene which our correspondent has described, let them drop in at the rooms of the National Academy of Design, where they will find the Burning Mountain, as seen from Taormina, depicted in all its vastness and grandeur; and not only this, but the noble series of allegorical pictures, heretofore noticed at large in this Magazine, called '_The Voyage of Life_,' representing Childhood, Youth, Manhood, and Old Age; '_Angels ministering to Christ in the Wilderness_,' a picture that has an horizon, and an aërial gradation toward the zenith, which alone, to say nothing of the figures, and the composition itself as a study, would richly repay a visit; '_The Past and the Present_,' two most effective scenes, especially the second, which is overflowing with the mingled graces of poetry and art; a glorious composition, '_An Italian Scene_,' of which we shall speak hereafter; as well as of the view of '_Ruined Aqueducts in the Campagna di Roma_,' fading into dimness toward the imperial city, and of '_The Notch in the White Mountains_' of New-Hampshire. _Apropos_: we perceive by a letter from an American at Rome, in one of the public journals, that THORWALDSEN, the great sculptor, was an enthusiastic admirer of Mr. COLE'S pictures, particularly of his 'Voyage of Life,' which he pronounced 'original, and new in art.' 'He could talk of nothing else,' says the writer, 'for a long time; and every time he speaks of him, he adds: '_Ma che artista, che grand' artista, quel vostro compatriota! Che fantasia! quanto studio della natura!_' 'But what an artist, what a great artist, is this countryman of yours! What fancy, what study of nature!' · · · WE are aware of a pair of 'bonny blue een' swimming in light, that will 'come the married woman's eye' over a kind but most antiquarian husband, when the following is read, some two weeks from now, in their 'little parlor' in a town of the far west. It reaches us in the MS. of a Boston friend: 'Old Colonel W----, formerly a well-known character in one of our eastern cities, was remarkable for but one passion out of the ordinary range of humanity, and that was for buying at auction any little lot of trumpery which came under the head of 'miscellaneous,' for the reason that it couldn't be classified. Though close-fisted in general, he was continually throwing away his money by fives and tens upon such trash. In this way he had filled all the odd corners in his dwelling and out-houses with a collection of nondescript articles, that would have puzzled a philosopher to tell what they were made for, or to what use they could ever be put. This however, was but a secondary consideration with the Colonel; for he seldom troubled his head about such articles after they were once fairly housed. Not so with his wife however, who was continually remonstrating against these purchases, which served only to clutter up the house, and as food for the mirth of the domestics. But the Colonel, though he often submitted to these remonstrances of his better-half, couldn't resist his passion; and so he went on adding from week to week to his heap of miscellanies. One day while sauntering down the street, he heard the full, rich tones of his friend C----, the well-known auctioneer, and as a matter of course stepped in to see what was being sold. On the floor he observed a collection that looked as if it might have been purloined from the garret of some museum, and around which a motley group was assembled; while on the counter stood the portly auctioneer, in the very height of a mock-indignant remonstrance with his audience. 'Nine dollars and ninety cents!' cried the auctioneer. 'Gentlemen, it is a shame, it is barbarous, to stand by and permit such a sacrifice of property! Nine dol-_lars_ and ninety---- Good morning, Colonel! A magnificent lot of--of--_antiques_--and all going for nine dollars and ninety cents. Gentlemen, you'll never see another such lot; and all going--going--for nine dollars and ninety cents. Colonel W----, can _you_ permit such a sacrifice?' The Colonel glanced his eye over the lot, and then with a nod and a wink assured him he could not. The next instant the hammer came down, and the purchase was the Colonel's, at ten dollars. As the articles were to be paid for and removed immediately, the Colonel lost no time in getting a cart, and having seen every thing packed up and on their way to his house, he proceeded to his own store, chuckling within himself that _now_ at least he had made a bargain at which even his wife couldn't grumble. In due time he was seated at the dinner-table, when lifting his eyes, he observed a cloud upon his wife's brow. 'Well, my dear?' said he, inquiringly. 'Well?' repeated his wife; 'it is _not_ well, Mr. W.; I am vexed beyond endurance. You know C----, the auctioneer?' 'Certainly,' replied the Colonel; 'and a very gentlemanly person he is _too_.' '_You_ may think so,' rejoined the wife, 'but I _don't_, and I'll tell you why. A few days ago I gathered together all the trumpery with which you have been cluttering up the house for the last twelve-month, and sent it to Mr. C----, with orders to sell the lot immediately to the highest bidder for cash. He assured me he would do so in all this week, at farthest, and pay over the proceeds to my order. And here I've been congratulating myself on two things: first, on having got rid of a most intolerable nuisance; and secondly, on receiving money enough therefor to purchase that new velvet hat you promised me so long ago. And now what do you think? This morning, about an hour ago, _the whole load came back again, without a word of explanation_!' The Colonel looked blank for a moment, and then proceeded to clear up the mystery. But the good VROUW was pacified only by the promise of a ten-dollar note beside that in the hands of the auctioneer; on condition, however, that she should never mention it.' Of course she kept her word! · · · HOW seldom it is that one encounters a good sonnet! Most sonnetteers of our day are like feeble-framed men walking in heavy armor; 'the massy weight on't galls their laden limbs.' We remember two or three charming sonnets of LONGFELLOW'S; PARK BENJAMIN has been unwontedly felicitous in some of his examples; and H. T. TUCKERMAN has excelled in the same poetical rôle. Here is a late specimen of his, from the 'Democratic Review,' which we regard as very beautiful:

DESOLATION.

THINK ye the desolate must live apart, By solemn vows to convent walls confined? Ah! no; with men may dwell the cloistered heart, And in a crowd the isolated mind: Tearless behind the prison-bars of fate The world sees not how sorrowful they stand, Gazing so fondly through the iron grate Upon the promised, yet forbidden land; Patience, the shrine to which their bleeding feet, Day after day, in voiceless penance turn; Silence the holy cell and calm retreat In which unseen their meek devotions burn; Life is to them a vigil that none share, Their hopes a sacrifice, their love a prayer.

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'OUR Ancient,' the editor of the handsome 'Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine' hight '_The Columbian_,' (which is to run a brisk competition, as we learn, with the other 'pictorials,' GODEY'S, GRAHAM'S, and SNOWDEN'S,) should have enabled us to speak of it from an examination of _our own copy_, instead of being obliged to filch an idea of its merits from the counter of those most obliging gentlemen, Messrs. BURGESS AND STRINGER. The work is a gay one externally, and spirited internally; having several good articles from good writers, male and female. One of the best things in it, however, is the paper on '_Magazine Literature_,' by the Editor. How many writers, now well known both at home and abroad, who began and continue their literary career in the KNICKERBOCKER, can bear testimony to the truth of the following remarks:

'WE have said that this is the age of magazines; adverting not merely to their number, but even more especially to their excellence. They are the field, chiefly, in which literary reputation is won. Who ever thinks of JOHN WILSON as the learned professor, or as the author of bound volumes? Who does not, when WILSON'S name is mentioned, instantly call to mind the splendid article-writer, the CHRISTOPHER NORTH of Blackwood? CHARLES LAMB was long known only as the ELIA of the New Monthly. Most of the modern French celebrities; SUE, JANIN, and half a hundred others, have made their fame in the _feuilletons_ of the Parisian journals; a more decided graft, by the way, than is elsewhere seen, of the magazine upon the newspaper. In our own country, how many there are whose names are known from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, that are as yet innocent of books, but have nevertheless contributed largely and well to the growing stock of American literature. How many more who are bringing themselves into notice by their monthly efforts in the pages of some popular magazine. In fact, the magazine is the true channel into which talent should direct itself for the acquisition of literary fame. The newspaper is too ephemeral; the book is not of sufficiently rapid and frequent production. The monthly magazine just hits the happy medium, enabling the writer to present himself twelve times a year before a host of readers, in whose memories he is thus kept fresh, yet allowing him space enough to develope his thought, and time enough to do his talent justice in each article. Then, too, on the score of emolument, justly recognised now as a very essential matter, and legitimately entitled to grave consideration, the magazine offers advantages not within the reach of either book or newspaper. · · · BUT after all, the great point is, that magazines are more read than any other kind of publications. They just adapt themselves to the leisure of the business man, and the taste of the idler; to the spare half hours of the notable housewife and the languid inertia of the fashionable lady. They can be dropped into a valise or a carpet-bag as a welcome provision for the wants of a journey by steam-boat or rail-road, when the country through which the traveller passes offers nothing attractive to be seen, or the eyes are weary of seeing; they while away delightfully the tedious hours of a rainy day in summer, and afford the most pleasant occupation through the long evenings of winter.'

Touching the matter of payment for magazine articles: Mr. WILLIS informs us that many of the American magazines pay to their more eminent contributors nearly three times the amount for a printed page that is paid by English magazines to the best writers in Great-Britain; and he instances GODEY and GRAHAM as paying often twelve dollars a page to their principal contributors. This refers to _a few_ 'principal' writers only, as we have good reason to know, having been instrumental in sending several acceptable correspondents to those publications, who have received scarcely one-fourth of the sum mentioned. Mr. WILLIS adds, however, that many good writers write for nothing, and that 'the number of clever writers has increased so much that there are thousands who can get no article accepted.' All this is quite true. There is no magazine in America that has paid so large sums to distinguished native writers as the KNICKERBOCKER. Indeed, our _most_ distinguished American writer was never a contributor to any other of our Monthlys than this. The books of this Magazine show, that independent of the Editor's division of its profits as joint proprietor, or his salary as editor, (a matter which its publishers have always kept distinct from, and in all respects unconnected with, the payments to contributors,) annual sums have heretofore been paid for literary _matériel_ greater than the most liberal estimate we have seen of any annual literary payment by our widely-circulated contemporaries. To the first poet in America, (not to say in the world, at this moment,) we have repeatedly paid fifty dollars for a single poem, not exceeding, in any instance, two pages in length; and the cost of prose papers from sources of kindred eminence has in many numbers exceeded fifteen dollars a page. Again: we have in several instances paid twice as much for the MS. of a continuous novel in these pages as the writer could obtain of any metropolitan book-publisher; and after appearing in volumes, it has been found that the wide publicity given to the work by the KNICKERBOCKER has been of greatest service to its popularity, in more than one subsequent edition. We should add, however, that we have had no lack, at any period, of excellent articles for our work at moderate prices; while many of our more popular papers have been entirely gratuitous, unless indeed the writers consider the honorable reputation which they have established in these pages as _some_ reward for intellectual exertion. But 'something too much of this.' We close with a word touching the pictorial features of the '_Columbian_.' It has four 'plates' proper, with an engraving of the fashions; is neatly executed by Messrs. HOPKINS AND JENNINGS, and published by ISRAEL POST, Number Three, Astor-House. · · · SAINT VALENTINE'S DAY is just at hand; and a pleasant correspondent, in enclosing us the following lines, begs us to mention the fact, and to refer to the festivities of the day. We know of _one_ 'festivity' that will be a very _recherché_ and brilliant affair, on the evening of that day; namely, '_The Bachelors' Ball_,' to be given with unwonted splendor at the Astor-House, under the supervision of accomplished managers, whose taste and liberality have already been abundantly tested. 'Take it as a matter granted,' says our friend, 'that very many of your lady-readers will commit matrimony before the year is done; and tell them so plainly; for it will gratify their palpitating hearts; and even should it not be true in every individual case, the disappointed ones will never complain of you for the pleasing delusion; for it was their own fault, of course, not yours. It behooves you, moreover, as a conservator of the general weal, to give the young wives that are to be some goodly counsel; and to aid you in the laudable office of advice-giver, I send you some appropriate verses, which some fifteen years ago went the rounds of the press, and met with 'acceptance bounteous.' The moral of the stanzas, I take it, is unexceptionable, whatever may be said of their execution:'

EPISTLE

ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG LADY JUST MARRIED.

On matrimony's fickle sea I hear thou'rt ventured fairly; Though young in years, it may not be Thy bark is launched too early. Each wish of mine to heaven is sent, That on the stormy water Thou'lt prove a wife obedient, As thou hast been a daughter.

If every wish of mine were bliss, If every hope were pleasure, Thou wouldst with him find happiness, And he in thee a treasure: For every wish and hope of mine, And every thought and feeling, Is for the weal of thee and thine, As true as my revealing.

To please thy husband in all things, Forever be thou zealous; And bear in mind that Love has wings, Then never make him jealous: For if Love from his perch once flies, How weak are Beauty's jesses! In vain might plead thy streaming eyes, And thy dishevelled tresses.

Be prudent in thy thoughts of dress, Be sparing of thy parties; Where fashion riots in excess, O! nothing there of heart is! And can its palling sweets compare With love of faithful bosom? Then of the fatal tree beware, There's poison in its blossom!

Each thought and wish in him confide, No secret from him cherish; Whenever thou hast aught to hide, The better feelings perish. In whatsoe'er ye do or say, O never with him palter; Remember too, thou saidst 'obey' Before the holy altar.

Bear and forbear, for much thou'lt find In married life to tease ye, And should thy husband seem unkind, Averse to smile, or please ye, Think that amid the cares of life His troubles fret and fear him; Then smile as it becomes a wife, And labor well to cheer him.

Aye answer him with loving word, Be each tone kindly spoken, For sometimes is the holy cord By angry jarring broken. Then curb thy temper in its rage, And fretful be thou never; For broken once, a fearful change Frowns over both forever.

Upon thy neck light hang the chain, For Hymen now hath bound ye, O'er thee and thine may pleasure reign, And smiling friends surround ye. Then fare ye well, and may each time The sun smiles, find ye wiser: Pray kindly take the well-meant rhyme Of thy sincere adviser.

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