did. When I was at low water mark, with scarce a rag to my back or a crust

to my stomach, and without a prospect of getting one, you took me by the hand, and in a d----d gentlemanly way gave me a h'ist out of the gutter. _That's_ what you did; and if you _did_ flare up now and then, and haul me over the coals; it was soon over, and soon forgotten. I don't bear malice, old fellow; no, no. It isn't my way; and as you're in trouble now, if I _can_ help you, I _will_. Never desert any one; am unfortunately bloody short of cash; but you can have what I've got, and when I get more, you shall have _that_ too.'

As he spoke, he plunged his hand to the bottom of his pocket, drew out a very shabby-looking pocket-book, deposited it on the table.

'It isn't much; but you'll find it useful here, and you're welcome to it. This isn't the shop where nothing put out at interest produces a heavy income.'

This offer had a powerful effect upon Rust; and it seemed as if some long dormant feelings were working their way to the surface from the depths of his heart. He gazed earnestly at his clerk, and once or twice opened his mouth to speak; but finally he got up, and taking the pocket-book from the table, handed it back to Kornicker, saying:

'I'm not in want of money. Gold is but dross _now_. I've plenty of it; but its value in my eyes is gone.'

'But,' remonstrated Kornicker, holding his hands behind him, and looking obstinately in another direction, partly to avoid taking the pocket-book and partly to resist the solicitations of his own necessities, which were strenuously urging him to do so, 'but you may want a lawyer to fight for you at your trial.'

'For that farce I am prepared. I _have_ one. He's paid for it, and he'll fight,' said Rust. 'It will avail nothing, for I did slay the man. It was a cold-blooded, deliberate murder. I planned it; I went up to that place with the stern determination to commit it; and I _did_ commit it. It was no hasty act, done in a moment of fierce and sudden passion; but a deed duly and deliberately meditated, and one that I would repeat. What _he_ had done, it's useless to mention. I had no redress, except what my own hand could give me. He has paid his forfeit, and I'll pay mine. I'll fight to the last; because,' added he, with that expression of stern purpose which so often settled on his face, 'Michael Rust never yields; and then, let the law do its worst. Take your money; I don't need it.'

Kornicker hesitated; and then thrusting it in his pocket, said: 'I suppose, if you should happen to be short, you'll let me know.'

'I will,' replied Rust; 'but I've enough to last until my sand is run out. They'll hang me.'

'Don't talk so,' exclaimed Kornicker, with a feeling not a little akin to fear, at the cold, indifferent manner in which the other spoke. 'You _may_ escape--who knows?'

Rust looked at him steadily, and then said, in a low, calm voice: 'If it were not that man and law were leagued against me to _force_ me to my doom, not one dollar would Michael Rust give to add an hour to his life. He looks to the grave only as that dark abyss which knows neither thought nor care; where the past is forgotten; where the future ends. Death is but a deep dreamless sleep, which has no waking. Yet even this boon he will not accept, if it's _forced_ upon him.'

'But the disgrace, the disgrace of such an end,' exclaimed Mr. Kornicker, twisting his fingers together, and in his earnestness cracking the knuckles of all of them. 'Think of that, my old fellow. Think of the stain that will always rest upon your memory.'

A smile, without a trace of pleasure, but cold and icy, passed across Rust's face.

'What is my memory to me? What care I for the whispers and sneers and surmises of the reptiles who crowd this world, and who will soon be as _I_ then shall be? What are these very men themselves? Shadows!--shadows! Go--my course is chosen. You can do nothing for me.'

Still Kornicker did not show any intention of quitting the room, but shifted from one leg to the other, in a fidgety manner, as if he had something farther to communicate, upon which however he did not like to venture. At last he said: 'Your daughter?'

Rust turned a quick keen eye on him, but farther than this evinced no emotion.

'Perhaps she may need a friend, when--when----'

'I'm dead,' said Rust, concluding what seemed to be rather an embarrassing sentence to Kornicker.

'I'm not exactly the fellow to make the offer,' said Kornicker, adopting the conclusion which Rust had given to the phrase; 'but--but I'll keep an eye on her, and will lend her a helping hand if she gets in trouble.'

Rust's countenance expressed neither pleasure nor anger, as he answered:

'Nothing can be done for her. Her fate is sealed; her path is marked out. There is neither turn nor winding in it, nor escape from the destiny to which it leads. She has taken the first step in it, and must follow it to the end. Look at the reckless and abandoned of her sex, who crowd our thoroughfares at night. _Their_ fate must be _her_ fate; an outcast--then the tenant of a public prison where her associates will be the thief and the felon. That's her second step. The third is--to her coffin; broken down; beggared, perhaps starving, she'll die surrounded by the offscouring of the earth--happy if she reaches her grave before she has run her full course.'

There was something in the apathetic manner in which the old man pointed out the future fate of his own child, that actually silenced Kornicker. He knew not what to say. There was no grief to console; no anger to deprecate; no wish to be fulfilled. He had however come to the prison with his mind made up to do something, and he did not like to be thwarted in his purpose. But before he had fairly determined what course was to be pursued next, Rust interrupted the current of his ideas by saying, as he pressed his hand upon his heart:

'You can do nothing for me. The disease is _here_; and the only physician who can heal it is Death. Could you blot the past from my memory and leave it one vast blank; could you gild the future with hopes which this heart did not tell me were utterly hollow; then perhaps Michael Rust might struggle on, like thousands of others, with some object in view, always to be striven for, but always receding as he advanced, or turning to ashes in his grasp. But it cannot be. I've played my part in the great drama of life, and the curtain will soon fall.'

A spirit of callous indifference pervaded all that he said and did; and making a gesture to Kornicker, forbidding all farther remark, he threw himself on the bed, and drew the clothes about his head, as if determined to shut out all sound.

Kornicker made one or two efforts to draw him again into conversation, but the communicative mood was past; and finding that nothing farther was to be done, he left him to his meditations.

From that time Kornicker, true to his maxim of deserting no one, was constant in his visits and endeavors to comfort and assist him in preparing for his trial. But never had man a more arduous task than he found in this self-imposed duty; for the hidden transactions of Rust's past life had become public, and had turned the full tide of popular feeling against him; and far and wide, through town and country, with all that could excite public animosity, rang that bloody tale, (for the dead man had powerful friends to battle for vengeance.) It was in every mouth, and whispered in every ear. In the broad glare of day, and before the eyes of the whole world, was paraded every secret of Rust's life. Witnesses who had been forgotten and had sunk from sight, and were supposed to be dead, sprang into life, all having some dark deed to record. Pamphlets, teeming with exaggerated details of the murder, were hawked through the streets; peddled at every corner; hung in every shop window. Rust's own black life had prejudged him, and had turned public opinion into public hate; until every voice called out for blood. It was under this feeling that his trial came on.

Early on that morning, long before the court was opened, a stream of people was thronging toward the City Hall by twenties and thirties and hundreds. The iron gates were barred to keep them out; still they contrived to get in, and swarmed through the halls. And when the court was opened, officers armed with staves were stationed on the stairs, to fight them down, for there was no room for them. The court-room was crammed with men heaped upon men, climbing one on the other; heads upon heads, swarming like bees, and packed and wedged together, leaving not a foot to spare. And in the midst of all that living mass sat Rust, unmoved, unflinching; returning look for look, defiance for defiance; reckless as to his fate, but resolute not to yield.

There was one however at that trial who was not so indifferent. He was a man of about fifty, tall and thin, with a grave, dignified face, which yet bore a strong resemblance to that of Rust. He was deadly pale, and sat next to Rust's lawyers, conversing with them in a low earnest tone; and at times, as the trial went on, suggesting questions to them. This was Rust's brother; the father of the two children, who, generous to the last, had forgiven all, and was battling for the life of him who had done his utmost to blast his. If Rust's cold eye sank, or his spirit quailed, it was only when he encountered the mild, sad eye of that brother.

The jury was empanelled. The District Attorney opened for the prosecution; and then the examination of witnesses commenced. Foot by foot and inch by inch was the ground contested by Rust's counsel. Exceptions to testimony were taken, points of law raised, and every informality or technicality, which afforded a loop-hole for objection, was taken advantage of. The day dragged heavily on, and Rust grew weary. The constant stir about him; the hum of voices, occasionally hushed into silence at the cry of the officer, or the tap of the judge on his desk; the hot, stifling air of the room; the wranglings of the lawyers, all tended to bewilder him. All excitement had long since left him. A leaden heaviness had settled upon all his faculties, and leaning his head upon the table, even while life and death were in the scale, he slept soundly.

He was aroused by his lawyer, touching his arm. He sat up, and gazed vacantly about him.

'Who's that?' said he, pointing to the witness's stand.

Rust half started to his feet; then clasping his hands hard together, sat down, and leaned his head on the table, but said not a word.

The clerk called out her name.

'Ellen Colton.'

'Who is she?' demanded the lawyer.

Rust drew himself up; and many who had been watching him, observed that his face had become perfectly corpse-like; his breathing oppressed, and that his eyes seemed starting from their sockets, as he fixed them on the witness.

'My own flesh and blood,' muttered he; 'my own child!'

The girl was sworn; but it was evident that a terrible struggle was going on, and she had to be supported to a chair. The lawyer for the prosecution took down her name, and then asked her a question. He received no answer. He repeated it; but the girl was silent. She held down her head, and seemed half fainting.

'You _must_ reply,' said the judge.

The girl raised her eyes, and said, in a low supplicating tone, 'He's my father.'

The judge shook his head. 'It's a very painful task,' said he, 'but there's no alternative.'

The girl uttered not a word, and the court-room became so hushed that even the hard breathing of the witness was audible.

'I must have a decided answer,' said the judge, gravely, yet mildly, for he respected the feelings which dictated her course. 'Will you answer the question put by the district attorney?'

'I will not,' was the firm reply.

The face of the judge grew a little flushed, and he compressed his lips, as if the duty which now rested with him were an unpleasant one. But before he had time to speak, the district attorney rose, and muttering in a tone loud enough to be heard, 'I will not slay the parent through the child,' said: 'If the court please, I withdraw the question. I'll call another witness.'

The judge bowed, and the girl was led away.

Rust had risen to his feet as if to speak, but he sat down, and the trial proceeded. The whole of that day passed in the examination of witnesses; so did the day following. Then came the summing up of the lawyers, and the charge of the judge to the jury. During the whole time the crowd came and went, but at all times the room was thronged. The jury went out; still the crowd hung about the Hall. It grew dark; but they could not go to their homes until they knew the result; but round and round the Hall, and through the avenues of the Park, they wandered, watching the dim light in the jury room, and wondering what the verdict would be. One of them stole up to the gray-headed constable who watched at the door, and inquired what the chance was; and as the old man shook his head, and muttered that they leaned toward a fatal verdict, he rubbed his hands with glee, and hastened to communicate the tidings to those below. Twelve--one--two--three o'clock at night came; still the twelve men held out, and still the judge, an upright, conscientious, patient man, maintained his post, waiting for the verdict, and ready to solve any doubts or points of law that might arise. The court-room grew cold; the fires went out, except one near the bench, and where the prisoner was. Sixty or seventy persons were sitting in the dim recesses of the room, looking like dark shadows, resolved to await the result. A few stretched themselves on the benches, and others gathered in knots near the fire, and whispered together; and now and then there was a loud laugh, suddenly hushed, as the person who uttered it remembered where he was. At last the judge went out, and left word with the officer to send for him if the jury agreed, or wanted his advice. The night waned; the sky grew gray in the east; and presently the day broke--but no verdict. At an early hour the judge returned, and the court-room filled again. Nine--ten--eleven. Suddenly there was a hum--a shuffling in the hall. The door was thrown open by the gray-headed constable, and the jury entered.

'The jury's agreed,' cried the officer. There was a dead silence; and the foreman gave in the verdict:

'GUILTY OF MURDER IN THE FIRST DEGREE!'

Rust moved not; no change of color or feature was perceptible, except a slight smile, and that too faded in a moment.

The trial was over; and the crowd poured through the streets, yelling with delight, and stopping those whom they met, to tell them that Michael Rust was doomed to die.

Rust sat without stirring, until an officer touched him, and told him that he must go. He then rose, and followed him without a word. The crowd gathered around him, as he went out; but he did not notice them. His brother walked at his side, but he heeded him not; and when he reached his prison, without uttering a word, he flung himself wearily upon his bed, and was soon sound asleep.

He awoke, a different man; and when his lawyer called to see him on the following day, he found him as fierce as a caged beast. He endeavored to utter some remark of consolation; but Rust impatiently motioned him to be silent. He spoke about a clergyman; but the reply was a laugh, so mocking and scornful, that he was glad to drop the theme.

'Is the game ended?' at last inquired Rust. 'Is there no farther cast of the die left?'

The lawyer looked at him, as if in doubt of his meaning.

Rust, in response to the look, repeated the question. 'Is there nothing more to be done, in that farce called the law? Is there no farther blow to be struck for life?'

'We can appeal,' replied the lawyer; 'but there is little chance of success.' He took Rust by the hand, and said in a soothing tone: 'My poor friend, you must be prepared for the worst; for I cannot promise to save your life.'

Rust rose and stood directly in front of him; and pointing to a small coin which lay on the table, said: 'Not the tenth part of _that_ would Michael Rust give to have one hour added to his life; but I _will not_ be driven from it. I _will not_ be beaten down and crushed.' He stamped furiously on the floor.

'Fight!' said he, fixing his glaring eye on the lawyer; 'fight to the last; leave nothing untried; spare not gold; bribe--corrupt--suborn; do any thing; but do not leave the triumph to my enemies. It's that that is tearing away at my heart. It's _that_ which is killing me,' exclaimed he, bitterly, shaking his hands over his head.

'We shall leave nothing untried,' said the lawyer. 'Perhaps too we may obtain a pardon, for if ever a murder was justifiable, that was.'

'Pardon!' exclaimed Rust with a sneer; '_pardon_! Because I defended my own flesh and blood; because the laws had forced upon _me_ the task which _they_ should perform! I must die, or sue for pardon. A noble thing is law!'

The lawyer was silent. He felt that Rust's own previous criminal life had been his worst enemy, and that it was the disclosure of his own evil plans which had been in every mouth long before the trial, that had done much to harden the feelings of the jury, who in another case might have stretched a point to save him.

Merely repeating what he had already said, that every thing should be tried, he took his leave.

* * * * *

Several weeks elapsed. The appeal was made, and was unsuccessful; the decision of the court below was affirmed; and nothing was left but that the sentence of the law should be enforced. Rust still maintained his indifferent bearing. All attempts to move him to any thing like repentance were unavailing. Pious men had conversed with him, but he had turned a deaf ear to their words; clergymen, too, anxious even at the last hour to turn his thoughts to holier things, had called upon him, but were equally unsuccessful; and at last he forbade them admission.

It was just about dusk, on the day previous to that fixed for his execution, that he was sitting in his cell, when he was aroused by the opening of the door. He looked up, and observed a dim figure just inside the door, cowering as if with fear; but it was so dark that he could not distinguish more than its mere outline.

'What do you want?' demanded he, harshly. 'Am I a wild beast, that you have come to stare at me?'

The only reply was a low, suppressed cry, as of one endeavoring to stifle down severe pain.

Rust rose up, advanced to the figure, and with a sudden jerk threw off the cloak which enveloped it. It was his own child.

'So it's _you_!' said he, bitterly, as he turned from her. 'And you've come to see your work. Look at me well. You've succeeded to your heart's content.'

The girl endeavored to clasp his hand, but he flung her from him; and facing her, said: 'What you have to say, say at once, and be gone. There is little policy in seeking me out now, for I have nothing to give.'

The girl cast herself at his feet, in a passion of grief. 'Oh! father! dear father! I ask nothing, except your forgiveness. Give me _that_, for the love of GOD! I ask nothing more. Do not refuse me that, as you hope for forgiveness of your own sins!'

'There was a time,' said Rust, 'when I could not have resisted those tones, when I could have refused you nothing. My very heart's blood was yours; but I am changed--changed indeed; since not a single spark of tenderness for you is left; not even the shadow of the love which I once bore to you. You are a stranger to me; or worse than that, you are _she_, whose wanton conduct has placed me here, and to-morrow will lead me to the gallows.'

The girl rose up hastily, and said in a quick husky voice:

'Farewell, father; I will not stay until you curse me, for I fear it may come to that. May GOD forgive both you and me! I have done wrong, and most bitterly have I suffered for it.'

She caught his hand, pressed it to her lips, which were hot as fire, and left the cell.

That was the last time that the father and daughter ever met.

The gaoler soon afterward brought in a light, and asked Rust if he wanted any thing; and on being answered in the negative, went out.

The night wore on heavily. Rust heard the clock, as its iron tongue struck the successive hours from his life. At last the hour of midnight sounded. He took out his watch, wound it up, and set it.

'Your life will last longer than mine,' said he, as he held it to the light, and examined the face. He then placed it on the table, and leaning his head on his hand, contemplated it for a long time. Time was hurrying on; for while he was sitting thus, the clock struck--one. He looked about the room; went to the door, and listened; then resumed his seat, and thrusting his hand in his bosom, drew out a small vial, containing a dark liquid. He held it to the light; shook it; smiled; and applying it to his lips, swallowed its contents.

'I'll disappoint the sight-seers,' said he. He raised the light; took a long and earnest survey of the room; undressed himself; sat on the edge of his bed, for a moment, apparently in deep thought; then got into bed and drew the cover closely about him.

'Now, then,' said he, 'the dream of life is past. I'll soon know whether there is any waking from it.'

These were his last words; for when the cell was opened in the morning, he was dead in his bed. As in life, so in death, his own evil acts clashed with his interests; for at an early hour in the morning a messenger arrived with a pardon. In consideration of the heinous nature of the provocation, which had led to the commission of Rust's crime, and of the inadequate punishment inflicted by the laws for such offences, the governor had remitted his sentence.

NIAGARA.

Behold! again I view thee, in thy majesty and might, Thy broad sheet flashing in the blaze of morning's glorious light; I mark thee maddened in thy fall, and pale with hoary rage, And fretting in thy passion, that hath boiled from age to age.

Like thunder on my startled ear, thine everlasting roar Hath broken, and reverberates from shore to echoing shore; Continuous and fearful, with dread power in its tone, That shakes the earth's foundations and rives the solid stone!

How tremulous beneath the shock the fearful earth hath grown! Reeling beneath the mighty plunge, it sighs with ceaseless moan; Now rush thy waves, with frenzy wild, in foam of dazzling white, Now, placidly they sweep along, with ever-changeful light.

O, wondrous Power! O, giant Strength! how fearful to behold, Outstretched on yon o'erhanging crag, thy mad waves downward rolled: To look adown the cavernous abyss that yawns beneath-- To see the feathery spray flash forth in many a glittering wreath!

Voluminous and ceaseless still, forever swift descend The waters in their headlong course, then turning, heavenward wend: Now, disenthralled, their essence hath its spirit-shape resumed; Bright, bodiless and pure, its fright to yon empyrean plumed!

_The Falls, 1842._ CLAUDE HALCRO.

TO MARY.

I wonder if the magic spells That in the days of yore Bewitched so oft poor harmless folks (Unlucky wights!) are o'er?

I can't believe it, for I've felt The witchery of thy smile; I've felt thy magic arts, and yet I've loved thee all the while.

Is it the gleam of snowy teeth, Or wave of silken tress, That brings me to thy side, to gaze Upon thy loveliness?

It cannot be, for I have seen Full many a maid as fair; I've seen as ruby lips before, I've seen as glossy hair.

Some dark enchantress has bequeathed To thee her magic art, And thou hast bound me with thy spell, And stolen all my heart.

HORACE.

LITERARY NOTICES.

CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE, AND THE LITERARY CHARACTER ILLUSTRATED. By I. C. D'ISRAELI, Esq., D. C. L., F. S. A. With Curiosities of American Literature. By RUFUS W. GRISWOLD. Complete in one volume. New-York: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, Broadway.

The ensuing remarks refer rather to the Supplement to D'ISRAELI'S 'Curiosities of Literature,' edited by Rev. RUFUS W. GRISWOLD, than to the well-known work to which it adds its attractions. It is an excellent collection of the many odd and quaint and foolish and good things which our forefathers 'did and performed.' Mr. GRISWOLD has spiced his work with a variety, though he has done it more judiciously than a splenetic author whom he introduces in his work, who, in a vexatious mood at some severe criticisms on a former book, puts a dozen or more rows of interrogation and exclamation-points, commas, semicolons, etc., and tells his readers 'they may pepper and salt it as they please.' Mr. GRISWOLD well understands the history of American literature; and we venture to say there is no man in the country who knows the names and contents of so many American books as he. This knowledge he has found of great service to him, enabling him to lay his hand at once on those things most worthy of preservation. If he had understood the linking process a little better, it would perhaps have added to the interest of his work. A sort of running commentary would have given greater vivacity to the numerous extracts. The way isolated specimens of an author are introduced affects very much the impression they make. But Mr. GRISWOLD has succeeded well in gathering up the ravelled ends of our early literature; and the present edition of D'ISRAELI'S Curiosities of Literature will be the only one for the future in the American market. The most 'curious' part of our literary history is embraced in the revolution, with the short period preceding and following it. The British and Tories furnished endless themes to the pasquinader and ballad-maker, while the grave rights involved in the struggle called forth the efforts of more serious and thoughtful pens. The Puritans of New-England wrote most; and there is a union of the soundest sense with the most childish folly, the strongest character with the weakest prejudices in our good Yankee forefathers, that is quite incomprehensible. Like the Puritans of England in the time of CROMWELL, when called into the hall of debate to discuss the rights of man, or into the field to battle for them, he were a bold man who dare smile at them. Yet in their religious acts they were often bigoted, intolerant and puerile. The same incongruity is seen in their tastes. Men of deep poetical sentiment, they often murdered poetry for conscience sake. A man who could write a defence of the colonies with a pen that fairly glowed with the burning Saxon that fell from it, would not be shocked at all at the impropriety of the following epitaph on a tomb-stone:

'Here lies Jonathan Auricular, Who walked in the ways of God perpendicular.'

Mr. GRISWOLD gives us a specimen of the versification of the 137th psalm, in the Bible; one of the sweetest lyrics ever written, beginning 'By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down; yea, we wept when we remembered Zion; we hanged our harps upon the willows,' etc. This psalm, whose exquisite beauties are so well preserved in our common English version, was put into verse with the rest of the psalms, by our pious forefathers. To their credit we can say, however, that the authors of the first version declare that they 'have attended to conscience rather than to elegance' in completing their work. We cannot excuse President DUNSTER of Harvard College, so easily, who revised the edition and sent it forth with the advertisement that they had in it a 'special eye both to the gravity of the phrase of sacred writ, and to the sweetness of the verse;' especially when we find this same sweet psalm completely murdered by him. After stumbling along through two stanzas, he thus paraphrases. 'They that led us into captivity,' he says:

Required of us a song, and thus Askt mirth us waste who laid, Sing us among, a Zion's song, Unto us then they said.

The LORD'S song sing can we, being In stranger's land?--then let Lose her skill my right hand if I Jerusalem forget.

Let cleave my tongue my palate on If mind thee doe not I, If chief joys o'er I prize not more, Jerusalem my joy,' etc., etc.

Such wretched stuff as this our good forefathers sung with the profoundest gravity; and those who thus murdered the king's English and the Hebrew's poem were called 'poets!' Yet this same age could produce such poets as Mrs. ANN BRADSTREET, of whom her great panegyrist, JOHN NORTON, in a poetical description of her says:

'Her heart was a brave palace, _broad street_, Where all heroic simple thoughts did meet, Where nature such a tenement had ta'en, That other souls to hers dwelt in a lane.'

The _pun_ here is good, but the comparison might have been dropped sooner without damage. The poem of Mrs. BRADSTREET, entitled 'Contemplations,' possesses a great deal of merit, and proves her to be worthy of the extravagant praise of her extravagant admirer. The extracts from the poetry of Governor WOLCOTT are very favorable to the poetic reputation of the governor. But the richest thing in the whole collection is the 'Simple Cobbler of Aggawam,' occupying ten columns. The king-fashionable ladies, and long-haired young gentlemen, are successively put on the cobbler's lapstone and hammered most industriously. And we must say, cobbler as he is, he appears to us to give vastly more _blows_ than he takes stitches. This part of the work alone is worth the price of the whole book. It is quite too long to quote entire, and a mere extract would do it injustice. FRENEAU was a rare character, and his pasquinades on RIVINGTON, a tory editor, are rich specimens. The confession he puts in the mouth of RIVINGTON, in his 'Address to the Whigs of New-York' immediately after the close of the war, is equal to 'Death and Dr. Hornbook' on the poor Scotch quack.

This RIVINGTON, however, was not a more unlucky dog than another tory named BENJAMIN TOWNE, editor of the 'Pennsylvania Evening Post.' Supposing the cause of the rebels to be hopeless, he undertook to win favor and reward from the British by the most unsparing abuse of the Americans. But when the cause of freedom finally triumphed, the unlucky editor was left on the sand. Without money, without patrons, he found himself in the midst of those whom he had traduced, and dependent on them for a livelihood. In this emergency, he goes to the celebrated Dr. WITHERSPOON for aid. The stern republican doctor would listen to nothing, unless TOWNE would make his peace with his country by a most humble confession. Finding no other resource, he consented to publish in his paper any thing the doctor would write. This confession is given by Mr. GRISWOLD at length; and if the tory editor does not make himself out a most precious scoundrel, the fault is certainly not with the doctor. He acknowledges that he had lied without limit, and was willing to publish bigger lies had they been brought him; he assures the people that he did every thing for personal gain, and was willing to do and say any thing now for the same purpose. He was moreover a brave man! 'I hope,' says he, 'the public will consider that I have been a timorous man, or if you will, a coward from my youth, so that I cannot fight; my belly is so large that I cannot run; and I am so great a lover of eating and drinking that I cannot starve. When these things are considered, I hope they will fully account for my past conduct, and procure me the liberty of going on in the same _uniform_, tenor for the future.' The collection teems with rich matter, and we have not even skimmed the surface. Here and there only have we touched a point. We could fill twice the space allotted us, with the revolutionary ballads alone, for the gathering of which Mr. GRISWOLD deserves our thanks. New-England epitaphs come in for their share; and there is a capital anecdote of Dr. DWIGHT and Mr. DENNIE, at which we gazed and pondered wistfully for a long time, in the hope, (a vain one, we are sorry to say,) of being able to present it to our readers.

This collection of Mr. GRISWOLD brings together and preserves what was before floating around and slowly disappearing with the lapse of time. Our early literature is now grafted on a work which will secure its life; and those peculiar characteristics of a remarkable age, which grow more valuable the more distant the point from which we view them, will never pass away. Nothing is more difficult than to preserve the scanty and fugitive literature of an early age. A _great_ work will live; but those fragments which are thrown off here and there, in a careless or earnest moment, perish, because they _are_ fragmentary. They do not belong together in a book, and cannot stand alone. In a later period of the history of the country, this would be of little consequence, because there is enough else to stand as exponents of that age. But these fragments are all that is left to tell us how our fathers felt, and thought, and spoke. Without them, we are without every thing. This collection greatly enhances the value of the English edition, and cannot fail to increase its already extensive sale.

NORTH-AMERICAN REVIEW FOR THE APRIL QUARTER. Number CXXIII. pp. 268. Boston: OTIS, BROADERS AND COMPANY. New-York: C. S. FRANCIS AND COMPANY.

There has not been issued for many a long month so good a number of this excellent and venerable Quarterly, as the one before us. It abounds in a good variety, alike of theme and style; and there is a manly, vigorous tone, and an independence of thought and expression, which we have not before observed, at least in so marked a degree. The number opens with a caustic and well-deserved critique upon the writings of JAMES, the novelist; and we are the more gratified at this, because the defects of this romancer are the besetting sins of certain of our own novelists, who had at one time a fair degree of transient popularity. A lack of skill in the creation or accurate delineation of individual character, which, instead of representing men and women, are didactic exhibitions of the author himself, projected into various personages, and all bearing an unmistakable family resemblance--this it is that is at the bottom of the sudden decadence into which the writings of one or two of our more prolific romancers have fallen, past all redemption; and this is the great fault of Mr. JAMES. 'To be successful in the exact delineation of character,' says the reviewer, 'requires a rare combination of powers--a large heart and a comprehensive mind. It is the attribute of universality; it can be obtained only by outward as well as inward observation; not by that habit of intense brooding over individual consciousness, of making the individual mind the centre and the circumference of every thing, a habit which only makes of the writer an egotist, and limits the reach of his mind.' Mr. JAMES has certain types of character which he generally reproduces in each successive novel. His heroine is idealized into something which is neither spirit, nor flesh and blood. 'His women, like his men, are ideas and feelings embodied; they are constructed, not created nor painted; built, not drawn. They do not stand boldly from the canvass.' His rascal is an unmitigated rascal, intermingled with the machinery of his plot, and appearing regularly in every novel. 'Mr. JAMES is a great spendthrift of human life. The carelessness with which he slays, evinces the feebleness with which he conceives. If his personages were real to his own heart or imagination, he would not part with them so easily, nor kill them with such _nonchalance_.' A very faithful description is given of Mr. JAMES'S style; and it is one which will apply with equal force, though certainly in a subordinate case, to certain of our own novelists, whom the reader will readily recall, but whom it would be invidious perhaps to mention. 'His style,' says the reviewer, 'has little flow and perspicuity, and no variety. It is usually heavy, lumbering, and monotonous. Half of the words seem in the way of the idea, and the latter appears not to have strength enough to clear the passage. Occasionally, a short, sharp sentence comes like a flash of lightning from the cloud of his verbiage, and relieves the twilight of his diction. There are but few felicitous phrases in his manifold volumes. He has hardly any of those happy combinations of words which stick fast to the memory, and do more than pages to express the author's meaning. He has little command of _expression_. His imagery is common; and his manner of arranging a trite figure in a rich suit of verbiage, only makes its essential commonness and poverty more apparent. His style is not dotted over with any of those shining points, either of imagery or epigram, which illumine works of less popularity and pretension.'

The review of Mr. JAMES'S works is followed by an excellent critique upon the poems of Mr. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, which receive due commendation. There are some 'rough truths' in the reviewer's opening remarks. 'We have among us little companies of people, each of which 'keeps its poet,' and not content with that, proclaims from its small corner, with a most conceited air, that its poet is the man of the age.' Instances are mentioned, closing with this irresistible climax: '_One man_ thinks CORNELIUS MATHEWS has written the finest American poetry!' In allusion to the whimsical peculiarities of Mr. CARLYLE--a man of genius, learning, and humane tendencies--and their effect upon the servile tribe of imitators, the reviewer observes: 'The study of German became an epidemic about the time that CARLYLE broke out; the two disorders aggravated each other, and ran through all the stages incident to literary affectation, until they assumed their worst form, and common sense breathed its last, as the '_Orphic Sayings_' came; those most unmeaning and witless effusions--we cannot say of the brain, for the smallest modicum of brains would have rendered their appearance an impossibility--but of mere intellectual inanity.' The American Euphuists, being possessed of the demon of affectation, strive to set themselves apart from the common herd, imagine that they are inhabitants of a sublimated ether, and look down with pitying contempt on all who profess an inability to detect a meaning in their vapid and mystical jargon. 'These be _truths_;' and our readers will bear us witness that months ago, with but little variation of terms, we promulgated them in these pages.

There is an excellent paper upon the 'Forest Lands and the Timber Trade of Maine;' it is full of interest, despite the nature of its general theme. The 'Boundary Question' did not indicate the first usurpations of the British in Maine. It was the acts of parliament that forbade the use of water-falls, the erecting of machinery, of looms and spindles, and the working of wood and iron; that set the king's arrow upon trees that rotted in the forest; that shut out markets for boards and fish, and seized sugar and molasses, and the vessels in which these articles were carried; and that defined the limitless ocean as but a narrow pathway to such of the lands that it embosoms as wore the British flag; it was these restrictions, to release which the revolution was created. The articles upon the various 'Theories of Storms,' and 'The Recent Contest in Rhode-Island,' we have not found leisure from pressing avocations to peruse. The paper on 'Architecture in the United States' is from the pen of one who '_knows_ whereof he writes;' and he has not been sparing of deserved satire upon the sad and ridiculous mistakes of those among us who are miscalled architects. High praise is awarded to our Trinity Church, now in progress of erection. 'In size, in the delicacy and propriety of its decoration, and in the beauty of its general effect, it surpasses any church erected in England since the revival of the pointed style.' In a notice of the 'Writings of Miss BREMER,' MARY HOWITT 'suffers some,' on account of a certain hysteric preface of hers to a translation of one of the Swedish lady's productions, in which she complains of the American translations from this popular writer. Among the 'Critical Notices' which compose the last article in the Review, is a critique upon Mr. CORNELIUS MATHEWS'S 'Writings,' including his poem on 'Man in his Various Aspects,' which embodies the opinions we have ourselves expressed in relation to them. Since the unfounded charge of being 'actuated by private pique,' which was brought against us by the author, cannot be assumed against the North American Review, we trust that our 'complainant' will not object that we fortify our own estimate of his literary merits by grave authority. The following is an extract:

Mr. MATHEWS has shown a marvellous skill in failing, each failure being more complete than the last. His comedy of 'The Politicians' is 'the most lamentable comedy;' and the reader exclaims, with Hippolyta, 'This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.' The 'Career of Puffer Hopkins' is an elaborately bad imitation of DICKENS; and must be ranked in fiction where 'The Politicians' stands in the drama. It aims at being comical, and satirical upon the times. The author studies hard to portray the motley characters which move before the observer in a large city; but he has not enough of the vision and the faculty divine, to make them more than melancholy ghosts of what they profess to be. The attempts at humor are inexpressibly dismal; the burlesque overpowers the most determined reader, by its leaden dulness. The style is ingeniously tasteless and feeble. He who has read it through can do or dare any thing. Mr. MATHEWS suffers from several erroneous opinions. He seems to think that literary elegance consists in the very qualities which make elegance impossible. Simplicity and directness of language he abominates. When he has an idea to express, he aims, apparently, to convert it into a riddle, by inventing the most forced, unnatural, and distorted expressions. If the thing can be obscured, he is sure to obscure it. He seems to say to the reader, 'Can you guess? do you give it up?' But then, less obliging than the maker of charades, he leaves the puzzled victim without an explanation at last. He studies a singularity of phrase at once crabbed and finical, and overloads his pages with far-fetched epithets, that are at once harsh and unmeaning. He seems to have been told that he has wit and humor, and--strange delusion!--to believe it. He writes as if he imagined that he possessed the inventive power: never was a greater mistake. These qualities and these mistakes make his prose writings unreadable and intolerable, at least all the later ones. But when to the charms of his ordinary style are added the attractions of verse, then the sense aches with the combined and heightened beauties. The present volume exaggerates all his literary vices. The plan of these poems is very well; if executed with taste and power, the volume would have been interesting. As it is, we have here and there a good line, a striking figure, or a bold expression. But most of the poems are deformed by harshness of versification, feebleness of thought, and every species of bad writing. Compounded words, never seen before, and impossible to be pronounced, epithets detailed on service for which they are wholly unfit, figures that illustrate nothing but their own absurdity, and rhymes that any common book would die of, astonish the reader on every page. Had the poet purposely aimed to twist the English language into every conceivable form of awkwardness; had he designed to illustrate, for the use of beginners, every possible defect and every positive fault of diction; his success in accomplishing the object could not have been more complete.'

We annex a few of the 'original' beauties which the reviewer has selected from Mr. MATHEWS'S poem. Two or three of them, we perceive, are identical with those which we ourselves selected from that luminous effort of the mind and the imagination:

'We had marked many characteristic passages in the present volume, to illustrate the observations we have felt called on to make. But we have space only for a few lines. In the first poem, besides many other absurdities of thought as well as expression, occurs this line:

'Strides he the globe, or CANVASS-TENTS the sea.'

Who ever heard of the verb to _canvass-tent_? To _canvass-back_ the sea would be much more rational.

In the second poem we find this luminous line:

'CLEAR AS THE CLEAR, round midnight at its full,'

which must be very clear indeed.

What can be the meaning of the following words in the 'Teacher?'

'Whose eyes cry light through all its dawning void.'

Again, in the 'Farmer:'

'Fierce revolutions rush in WILD-ORBED haste.'

In the 'Mechanic,' the following very intelligible direction is given to the architect:

'In the first Builder's gracious spirit work, Through, hall, through enginery, and TEMPLES MEEK, IN GRANDEUR TOWERED, OR LAPSING BEAUTY-SLEEK, Let order and creative fitness shine.'

In the 'Merchant,' the poet affirms:

'Undimmed the man should through the trader shine. And show the soul UNBABIED by his craft.'

This can only mean, that the soul of the trader ought not to be supplied with babies by his craft.

The 'Sculptor' ends with this prediction:

'And up shall spring through all the BROAD-SET land, The FAIR WHITE PEOPLE of thy love unnumbered.'

In the 'Journalist,' we find the following _directions to the printer_:

'Hell not the quiet of a Chosen Land, Thou grimy man over thine engine bending.'

_Hell_, as a common noun, is a sufficiently uncomfortable idea; but when converted into an active verb, it becomes positively alarming.

The poet thus advises 'The Masses:'

'In vast assemblies calm, let order rule, And every shout a cadence owning, Make musical the vexed winds moaning, AND BE AS LITTLE CHILDREN AT A SINGING-SCHOOL.'

And the 'Reformer' is told to

'Seize by its horns the shaggy Past, Full of uncleanness.'

A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON MIDWIFERY. By M. CHAILLY, M. D., Professor of Midwifery, etc., etc. With two hundred and sixteen wood-cuts. Translated from the French, and edited by Dr. GUNNING S. BEDFORD, of the University of New-York. In one volume. pp. 530. HARPER AND BROTHERS.

This work comes to us under the fairest auspices. The author, M. CHAILLY, is a distinguished Parisian lecturer on Obstetrics, a pupil of the eminent PAUL DUBOIS, of the University of Paris, and generally recognized as the exponent of the views of that celebrated _accoucheur_. By all who are familiar (and who of the medical world is not?) with the high reputation of DUBOIS for sound medical philosophy and unbounded practical knowledge, it has been long regretted that the just opinions he so eloquently promulgates in the lecture-room have never assumed the diffusible shape of a printed book. M. CHAILLY, in the work before us, supplies us with that which has been so much desired, and which Prof. DUBOIS himself, from some cause not easily appreciated, has so long withheld from the world. The Parisian board of public instruction has moreover stamped the work of M. CHAILLY with their approbation, and fixed it as the standard text-book of the French medical schools. This is a promise of excellence which a diligent perusal of the work will fully confirm. Professor BEDFORD, the American translator, who has performed his duty as might be expected from his high character and prominent position, as Professor of the flourishing medical school of the University of New-York, felt the want of a good text-book for the student, and a sound practical guide for the physician, and has exhibited a sound judgment in this selection to supply that want. The work of VELPEAU, hitherto unquestionably the most popular book with the medical profession, is diffuse and speculative. The present work is direct, concise, and complete. Dr. BEDFORD has enriched the original with copious notes, the result of his own extensive experience and observation. The publishers have performed their duty well, in presenting the work in a handsome library form; and it is only the very extensive business facilities of the MESSRS. HARPERS that could afford so full and well illustrated a _scientific_ book at so reasonable a price.

THE LITERARY REMAINS OF THE LATE WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK: including the 'OLLAPODIANA' papers, 'The Spirit of Life,' and a choice Selection from his Miscellaneous Prose and Poetical Writings. With a Memoir of the Author. Edited by LEWIS GAYLORD CLARK. Complete in five Numbers of ninety-six pages each. New-York: BURGESS, STRINGER AND COMPANY.

It does not become us, perhaps, to enlarge upon the merits of this work, the character of which is known to many of our readers. As there are _other_ many of them, however, who may not be conversant with much of the prose which makes up a large portion of its contents--having become subscribers to this Magazine since the 'Ollapodiana' papers and the other prose miscellanies appeared in its pages--we shall venture to present a few extracts, and to preface them with the following remarks of the able Editor of the _United States Gazette_, of Philadelphia, upon the writer's merits; praise, we may add, which has been confirmed by the kindred commendation of almost every journal in the Union: 'Messrs. BURGESS, STRINGER AND COMPANY, of New-York, have commenced the publication, in a series of numbers, of the Literary Remains of WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK. The first number has been for some days upon our table, and after a biographical notice of the author, contains a portion of the '_Ollapodiana_,' those admirable papers furnished for the KNICKERBOCKER. Almost every body, who read five years ago, knows the _beauties_ of CLARK'S composition. They are permanent beauties; beauties that always are to be found by those who ever had taste to admire them. They are not dependant upon a jingle of words for temporary popularity; they appeal from the heart to the heart, in language that knows no variation of time. They express sentiments that are permanent, feelings common to mankind; and those who would profit by a delicate delineation of the affections of the human heart, will love the poetry of CLARK. Those who would have a broader seal set upon manners, and the peculiarities of the mind set forth in pleasant grotesqueness, will smile at the 'Ollapodiana.' But all will profit by _all_; and we regard it as a literary obligation conferred upon the age, and carrying with it a moral obligation also, to multiply the copies of such writings as CLARK prepared. We express not our feelings, when we write of CLARK as an author. There are some of us who knew his heart better than he did, and who have never forgotten his worth. These monuments, that are erected to his fame from his own works, like the trophies of victory, moulded to a triumphal pillar, denote public respect. Individual feeling loves a silent flow, that is constant and hearty.'

If the reader has had the fortune to travel in a canal-packet, in the summer solstice, he will readily recognize the faithfulness of the following picture:

'At first, when you embark, all seems fair; the eleemosynary negro, who vexes his clarionet, and governs its tuneful ventiges, to pay for his passage, seems a very Apollo to your ear; the appointments of the boat appear ample; a populous town slowly glides from your view, and you feel quite comfortable and contented. As yet, you have not gone below. 'Things above' attract your attention--some pretty point of landscape, or distant steeple, shining among the summer trees. Anon, the scenery becomes tame, and you descend. A feeling comes over you as you draw your first breath in the cabin, which impels to the holding of your nose. The cabin is full; you have hit your head twice against the ceiling thereof, and stumbled sundry times against the seats at the side. Babies, vociferous babies, are playing with their mothers' noses, or squalling in appalling concert. If you stir, your foot treads heavily upon the bulbous toes of some recumbent passenger; if you essay to sleep, the gabble of those around you, or the noisy gurgle of a lock, arouses you to consciousness; and then, if you are of that large class of persons in whom the old Adam is not entirely crucified, then you _swear_. Have you any desire for literary entertainment? Approach the table. There shall you find sundry tracts; a copy of the Temperance Recorder; Goldsmith's Animated Nature, and Plutarch's Lives. By and by dinner approaches: and oh! how _awful_ the suspense between the hours of preparation and realization! Slowly, and one by one, the dishes appear. At long intervals, or spaces of separation from each other--say five for the whole length of the boat--you behold tumblers arranged, with two forlorn radishes in each. The butter lies like gravy in the plate; the malodorous passengers of the masculine gender draw nigh to the scanty board; the captain comes near, to act _his_ oft-repeated part, as President of the day. Oh, gracious! 'tis a scene of enormous cry and scanty wool. It mendicants description. · · · But the grand charm and scene of a canal packet is in the evening. You go below, and there you behold a hot and motley assemblage. A kind of stillness begins to reign around. It seems as if a protracted meeting were about to commence. Clergymen, capitalists, long-sided merchants, who have come from far, green-horns, taking their first experience of the wonders of the deep on the _canawl_, all these are huddled together in wild and inexplicable confusion. By and by the captain takes his seat, and the roll of berths is called. Then, what confusion! Layer upon layer of humanity is suddenly shelved for the night; and in the preparation, what a world of bustle is required! Boots are released from a hundred feet, and their owners deposit them wherever they can. There was one man, OLLAPOD beheld him, who pulled off the boots of another person, thinking the while--mistaken individual!--that he was disrobing his own shrunken legs of their leathern integuments, so thick were the limbs and feet that steamed and moved round about. Another tourist, fat, oily and round who had bribed the steward for two chairs placed by the side of his berth, whereon to rest his abdomen, amused the assembly by calling out; 'Here, waiter! bring me another pillow! I have got the ear-ache, and have put the first one into my ear!' Thus wore the hours away. Sleep, you cannot. Feeble moschetoes, residents in the boat, whose health suffers from the noisome airs they are nightly compelled to breathe, do their worst to annoy you; and then, Phoebus Apollo! how the sleepers snore! There is every variety of this music, from the low wheeze of the asthmatic, to the stentorian grunt of the corpulent and profound. Nose after nose lifts up its tuneful oratory, until the place is vocal. Some communicative free-thinkers talk in their sleep, and altogether, they make a concerto and a diapason equal to that which Milton speaks of, when through the sonorous organ 'from many a row of pipes, the sound-board breathes.' At last, morning dawns; you ascend into pure air, with hair unkempt, body and spirit unrefreshed, and show yourself to the people of some populous town into which you are entering, as you wash your face in canal water on deck, from a hand basin! It is a scene, I say again, take it for all in all, that throws description upon the parish, and makes you a pauper in words. '_Ohe jam satis!_'

Let the old bachelor, who 'longs but fears to marry,' perpend the annexed invitation to matrimony:

'Some of my contemporaries have supposed that the estate of a Benedict forbiddeth the resident therein to disport himself as aforetime, in the flowery fields of fancy, and to ambulate at random through the remembered groves of the academy, or the rich gardens of imaginative delight. Verily this is not so. To the right-minded man, all these enjoyments are increased; the ties that bind him to earth are strengthened and multiplied: he anticipates new affections and pleasures, which your cold individual, careering _solus_ through a vale of tears, with no one to share with him his gouts of optical salt water, wots not of. As a beloved friend once said unto me: 'When a good man weds, as when he dies, angels lead his spirit into a quiet land, full of holiness and peace; full of all pleasant sights, and 'beautiful exceedingly.' One's dreams may not all be realized, for _dreams_ never are; but the reality will differ from, and be a thousand fold sweeter, than any dreams; those shadowy and impalpable though gorgeous entities, that flit over the twilight of the soul, after the sun of judgment has set. I never hear of a friend having accomplished hymenization, without sending after him a world of good wishes and honest prayers. Amid the ambition, the selfishness, the heartless jostlinq with the world, which every son of Adam is obliged more or less to encounter, it is no common blessing to retire therefrom into the calm recesses of domestic existence, and to feel around your temples the airs that are wafted from fragrant wings of the Spirit of Peace, soft as the breath which curled the crystal light

----'of Zion's fountains, When love, and hope, and joy were hers, And beautiful upon her mountains, The feet of angel messengers.'

No common boon is it--we speak in the rich sentence of a German writer--to enjoy 'a look into a pure loving eye; a word without falseness, from a bride without guile; and close beside you in the still watches of the night, a soft-breathing breast, in which there is nothing but paradise, a sermon, and a midnight prayer!'

Here is a specimen of 'the show-man's trick,' which, as old MATTHEWS used to say, 'made a great laugh at the time:'

'It is diverting in the extreme to observe the pompous grandiloquence in the advertisements of the amusement-furnishing public, about Christmas and New-Year. Sublimity glares from the theatrical hand-bill, and the menagerie _affiche_. Curiosities, then, have a 'most magnanimous value.' I remember, not long ago, that I desired a lovely lady, a French countess, to accompany me to a Zoological Institute, to behold _an American Eagle_. I was pleased at the expressed wish which led me to make the invitation, and proud of the prospect of showing a living emblem of our country's insignia to one who felt an interest in the subject. The bills of the institute set forth, that 'the grand Columbia's Eagle was the monarch of its tribe, measuring an unprecedented length from the tip of one wing to the other, in full plumage and vigor.' The countess had never seen but one eagle, in the _Jardin des Plantes_ at Paris, and that was a small one, and ungrown; so that her anticipations of novelty were as great as mine. We went, and with interesting expectancy, asked of the president of the institute, who was engaged in the noble pursuit of feeding a sick baboon with little slips of cold pork, to discover to us 'Columbia's eagle.' He marshalled us to the other end of the institute, past the cages of lions, bears, libbards, and other animals--among which was a singular _quadruped_, with six legs--to the cage of the eagle. 'There,' he exclaimed, with professional monotony, 'there _is_ the proud bird _of_ our country, that _was_ caught _in_ the West, and _has_ been thought to have killed many animals _in_ his life-time. He _was_ five hours and twenty-three minutes _in_ being put into the cage, _so_ strong _was_ his wings. Look at him _clus_. He'll bear inspection. Jist obsarve the keen _irish_ of his eye.'

'An involuntary and hearty laugh from us both, followed the sight, and the announcement. It was a dismal looking bird, about the size of a goodly owl, with a crest-fallen aspect, the feathers of the tail and wings dwindled to a few ragged quills; and the shivering fowl, standing on one leg, looked with a vacant, spectral eye at his visitors. Nothing could be so perfectly burlesque, and we enjoyed it deeply and long. I shall never be deceived by show-bills again.'

The following must close our quotations. We venture to say that it describes a scene which many a reader has more than once witnessed:

'Talking of a man's making a hero of himself, reminds me of an old friend of mine, who is fond of telling long stories about fights and quarrels that he has had in his day, and who always makes his hearer his opponent for the time, so as to give effect to what he is saying. Not long ago I met him on 'Change, at a business hour, when all the commercing multitudes of the city were together, and you could scarcely turn, for the people. The old fellow fixed his eye on me; there was a fatal fascination in it. Getting off without recognition, would have been unpardonable disrespect. In a moment, his finger was in my button-hole, and his rheumy optics glittering with the satisfaction of your true _bore_, when he has met with an unresisting subject. I listened to his common-places with the utmost apparent satisfaction. Directly, he began to speak of an altercation which he once had with an officer in the navy. He was relating the _particulars_. 'Some words,' said he, 'occurred between _him_ and _me_. Now you know that he is a much younger man than I am; in fact, about _your_ age. Well, he '_made use of an expression_' which I did not exactly like. Says I to him, says I, 'What do you mean by that?' 'Why,' says he to me, says he, 'I mean just what I say.' Then I began to burn. There was an impromptu elevation of my personal dandriff, which was unaccountable. I didn't waste words on him; I just took him in this way,' (here the old _spooney_ suited the action to the word, by seizing the collar of my coat, before the assemblage,) 'and says I to him, says I, 'You infernal scoundrel, I will punish you for your insolence on the spot!' and the manner in which I shook him (just in _this_ way) was really a warning to a person similarly situated.'

'I felt myself at this moment in a beautiful predicament; in the midst of a large congregation of business people; an old gray-headed man hanging, with an indignant look, at my coat-collar; and a host of persons looking on. The old fellow's face grew redder every minute; but perceiving that he was observed, he lowered his voice in the _detail_, while he lifted it in the worst places of his colloquy. 'You infernal scoundrel, and caitiff, and villain,' says I, 'what do you mean, to insult an elderly person like myself, in a public place like this?' and then, said he, lowering his malapropos voice, 'then I shook him, _so_.'

'Here he pushed me to and fro, with his septuagenarian gripe on my collar, as if instead of a patient much bored _friend_, I was his deadly enemy. When he let go, I found myself in a _ring_ of spectators. 'Shame, shame! to insult an old man like him!' was the general cry. 'Young puppy!' said an elderly merchant, whose good opinion was my heart's desire, 'what excuse have you for your conduct?'

'Thus was I made a martyr to my good feelings. I have never recovered from the stigma of that interview. I have been pointed at in the street by persons who have said as I passed them, 'That's the young chap that insulted old General ----, at the Exchange!'

We should not omit to state that the publishers have done ample justice to the work. It is beautifully stereotyped and printed upon new type and fine white paper, and the numbers are enclosed in very neat and tasteful covers. The work we are glad to say meets with a liberal and constant sale.

ITALY AND THE ITALIANS. In a Series of Letters. By J. T. HEADLEY. In one volume, pp. 64. New-York: I. S. PLATT.

Mr. PLATT has commenced a series of publications, at a moderate price, which should secure a liberal share of the public favor. These 'Letters,' which form the initial number, are replete with interest. Many of them appeared in the original foreign correspondence of the '_Tribune_' daily journal, where they excited the admiration of the press, and 'the people' whom the press represents; but a large portion now see the light for the first time. Mr. HEADLEY has not given us, in tiresome detail, minute descriptions of galleries of art and public edifices; although his description of St. Peter's at Rome, (a 'nice building, with a dome handsomely scooped out,') is the most vivid picture of that world-renowned structure that we ever perused. He has wisely chosen rather to illustrate the people and country by things perhaps trifling in themselves, but which give to the reader a constant succession of 'sketches from Nature,' which are not only very pleasant to read, but which it is quite evident are exceedingly faithful. 'The condition of the people,' in short, 'occupies more space than the condition of art, simply because the latter is well known, while the former is almost wholly neglected.' Briefly, for 'brief must we be,' the book affords what Mrs. RAMSBOTTOM would call 'a supreme _cow-dyle_' (coup d'oeil) of 'Italy and the Italians,' and is presented in a dress worthy of its internal merits.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

OUR old friend and correspondent 'HARRY FRANCO' cometh late, but he can never arrive too late to be welcome. Let us hope only that he will not object to being placed as it were 'below the salt,' instead of being seated with his peers at the more conspicuous board of the 'regulars.' He has deftly touched a fruitful theme, at which we have more than once hinted in this department of the KNICKERBOCKER.

THE IMPUDENCE OF THE FRENCH.

KEEP your tempers, Messieurs; we shall not quarrel. There is a difference between Impudence and Impertinence. The two words are often used synonymously by the vulgar, but they are no more alike than any other two words that begin with an I. 'When we behold an angel, not to fear is to be IMPUDENT,' says DRYDEN: 'We should avoid the IMPERTINENCE of pedants,' says SWIFT. These two great masters of the English tongue have well defined the difference between the two words. There is always an air of confident greatness about impudence that wins respect, and not infrequently success. ALEXANDER was assuredly the most impudent man of his time; so was CÆSAR; so was LUTHER. Even now, when half the human race has grown impudent, we cannot but wonder at the impudence of that obscure monk. GALILEO, too, was a very impudent fellow until the well-bred 'Rev. and dear Sirs' of his time taught him modesty. And CROMWELL! what an Arch-Impudence was he! And NAPOLEON! he put Impudence itself to the blush. And have there been no Impudences among us? It cannot be denied that our Fourth-of-July-men made a very impudent declaration, to say the least of it. But these were all individual instances. The French are impudent as a nation. They have no sense of modesty. They insist that all the world shall eat French, drink French, talk French, dance French, and dress French. Did ever any traveller visit a city or town in any quarter of the globe in which a Frenchman had not set up a restaurant? FANNY ELLSLER was astonished when she landed at the American Hotel, to find that her dinner had been prepared by a Parisian cook; and yet she had come over here to show us her French steps. Simple Fanny! How did she think we could live without French cookery, if we could not live without French dancing? What traveller has ever visited a remote village that a French _modiste_ had not visited before him? Is it possible to dine any where, without having a French bill of fare thrust into your hand, and some dish with an _à la_ under your nose? Is there a living being in any part of the world willing to make oath to having visited a ball-room or a church without encountering a French dress or a French bonnet? The Quakers cannot; they would as soon wear scarlet ribbons as any other than French gloves and French muslins.

Untravelled New-Yorkers as they walk through Broadway, and see the names of Madame Grand-this and Mons. Grand-that '_from Paris_,' over every other shop-door, and see the French shoes, the French gloves, the French chocolate, the French clocks, the _liqueurs_, the _bon-bons,_ the _bijouterie_, the _meringues_, the _pâtes-de-foi-gras,_ in the windows, may think that the Gauls have marked us for their 'own peculiar;' but it is so in St. Petersburgh, 'tis so in Constantinople, 'tis so in Lima, in the Banda Orientale, in Rio, in Mexico, in Montreal, in London, in Vienna, in Boston, in Philadelphia, in Grand Cairo--'tis so all over the earth. The Sorbonne and the Louvre rule the world. Can any body be tired, or weary, or dumpish? No. We must be _ennuyeèd_, or _blazè_, or _fatiguè_, or something else ending in _è_. Does any lady ever give an evening party? No. Nothing but a _soirée_. Are there any more gatherings of friends? No; only _reünions_. Is it possible to dance a cotillion in English? Is there any body in New-York with sufficient moral courage to sleep upon any thing short of a French bed-stead? Is there a chamber-maid who will lie upon any thing less than a _paliastre_? Are there any more fat, or plump, or round, or full people? No. Even Falstaff would be inclined to _embonpoint_ if he were alive, in these days of Gallic supremacy. Well might VICTOR COUSIN and the rest of them declare that the French were not defeated at Waterloo. The allied armies entered Paris it is true, but they made their Exodus in slavery. The English, Germans and Russians went home from France manacled with French fashions, and not a soul of them has dared to assert his independence since.

We are by no means sure that French cookery has not done more to preserve the peace of Europe, during the last twenty years, than all other causes put together. It is impossible to think of a war with France. The mind staggers under the supposititious case of the nations of the earth deprived of French _bon-bons_. Imagine the commerce with France suspended! Who would perfume us? who feast us? who dress us? Where would our gloves come from? what should we do for slippers? how should we be off for soap? Would there be any more ribbons? any more brandy fruits? any more meringues? any more chocolate? Where should we look for another BLANCARD, another FAUVEL-GOURAUD? Would there be any more dancing? any more fashions? any more any thing? The true _Mystéres de Paris_ nobody knows any thing about but the Parisians themselves, and they are too cunning to pronounce their open sesame loud enough to be heard by the rest of the world. How like gudgeons we all snapped at the bait of EUGENE SUE! But the Mysteries of Paris are written in a kind of Parisian Coptic, which none but the Parisian can read.

The English eat, or at least a portion of them do, and they cook, but who ever heard of an English eating-house, or of an English cook? We have heard of DOLLY'S chop-house, but its reputation was gained by the quality of its guests rather than the merit of its cooks. For aught the world knows to the contrary, there is not an eating-house in any of the European capitals beside Paris. But every body knows the names, the situation, and even the _carte du jour_ of at least a dozen restaurants in the French capital without ever having been there. The 'Rocher' is as well known as the Rock of Gibraltar, and Very and Châtelain have reputations as extended as those of Guizot and Theirs. Vatel is more famous than Vattel, and the cook will doubtless be remembered when the philosopher is forgotten: he will never die, at least, while the memory of Sevignè lives.

Not long since we saw on a sign-board, stuck up at the entrance of a cellar on the corner of Reade-street and Broadway, '_Au Rocher de Cancale_,' painted in very soup-maigreish looking letters, with an attempt at the representation of an oyster-shell. Now look at the impudence of the thing; at the Frenchiness of it! Here we are with our Prince's Bays, our York-rivers, our Mill-ponders, our Shrewsburys, and Blue pointers, a shilling's worth of either worth all the shell-fish that ever grew on the French coast; and this Parisian sets up his sign in the midst of these marine riches, with a 'ROCHER DE CANCALE!' No other nation could have been guilty of such arrogance. No Englishman has ever had the temerity to insult us with an allusion to his dirty 'natives.'

What would be thought of an American who should have the presumption to open a House of Refreshment in the Rue St. Jacques or the Palais Royale, and announce to the Parisians that he would serve up for them Prince's Bay oysters, fried, stewed, roasted or in the shell; clam soup, pumpkin-pies, waffles, hoe-cakes and slap-jacks, or mush-and-milk and buck-wheats? Would the most inquisitive or most vulgar man in France venture within the doors of a house where such barbarisms were perpetrated? But why not, Monsieur? Why not, as well as for us to crowd the _salons_ of the Messieurs who tempt us with their equally outlandish _carte à manger_, or who exclaim to us when we enter:

'MON salon est toujours gami, Et mon buffet bien assorti, Ou vante mon chablis, Mes huitres, mes radis, Ainsi que raes salmis De perdrix:

Mes godiveaux au ris; Mes tourtes, mes hachis; Fameux pâlis, gros et petits; Boeuf au naturel, au coulis; Papillotes, Gibelotes, Matelotes, Fines compotes,' etc., etc.

Why should not we send over some of our JENNINGSES and STETSONS, our BERGALEWS and DOWNINGS, to repay our French friends for their many favors, and instruct them in the art of making pumpkin-pies and eating canvass-back ducks? The French at present know little more about us than that Doctor FRANKLIN made lightning-rods, and that COOPER writes Indian novels. They eat nothing that we raise, they wear nothing that we make, they adopt none of our fashions, they use none of our phrases. You would look in vain in the _carte_ of any restaurateur in Paris for such delicacies as apple-dumplings or corn-bread, and you might call in a Parisian café until you were hoarse, for a 'cobbler' or a julep, without getting either. Yet our uppish people will eat nothing, drink nothing, wear nothing that is not French. We have been told of certain brokers in Wall-street who import even their _desserts_ from Paris; not their _deserts_, my friend, for the guillotine is the only French thing which we don't imitate or import. No wine is fit for our tables without the prefix of a _chateau_ something; every thing that is composed of wool is something _de laine_, and all our clothes are made of _drap de_ this or _drap de_ that.

But let us not paint our Gallic friends a shade darker than they deserve. They have taught us the use of napkins and silver forks; they give us the best perfumery in the world, and make the best gravies for our meats. What is the privilege of writing the songs of a nation, compared with the privilege of setting its fashions? The supremacy of the French in all matters of taste is not the effect of accident. Why do they rule the world by their elegancies? There is a philosophy in these things, as well as in every thing else, which is worthy of grave consideration.

The secret of French authority lies in the simple truth that they count every thing worthy of being well done which is worth doing at all. We have grades of usefulness. Not so with them. Whether they make a pâté or build a palace, it is a grave matter; and the consequence is, that their pâtés as well as their palaces excel those of the other kingdoms of Europe. The Louvre is as much superior to Buckingham Palace as a Charlotte-Russe is to a Yorkshire pudding. Cookery and Architecture are the first arts practised by mankind, and the last in which they arrive at perfection. The French excel all other nations in both. The condition of one art might be ascertained with precision by examining the state of the other in any part of the world, or in any age. When cooks served up pastry with peacocks' tails sticking out of the top crust, architects built gothic churches and campanile towers. Penault and Vatel ornamented the same age. One built a palace and the other cooked a dinner, and they are both immortal. It would be no difficult matter to guess at the extravagance and unhealthiness of our kitchens, from a glance at our Exchange and Custom House. The ponderous marble and granite boulders in these senseless structures have their correspondents in many a lump of indigestible food; and the bizarreterie of the new Trinity Church have their correspondents in many a temple composed of macaronis and cocoanut candies.

We have grades of usefulness, but it is no easy matter to discover the principles upon which our scale of respect is graduated: money is not always the test of merit; it matters how you get it. If you earn it yourself, it will not entitle you to half the respect it would if your father or grandfather earned it for you. Any occupation which soils the hands or the clothes, is looked upon with disfavor by the upper classes. A broker who never does any thing that is either useful or ornamental, grows nothing, invents nothing, imagines nothing; who instructs nobody, amuses nobody, enriches nobody; who leaves the world in the same condition that he found it, may be called a gentleman, visit in the first circles, have those mysterious letters, E.S.Q., written after his name, and if he is rich, will be elected a member of more societies than will be agreeable to him. But a wig-maker who has invented a new spring for a toupée, or a new dye for the hair, and thereby really done mankind a service, could no more get into the first circles with us than he could go to heaven, like Mahomet, on the back of an ass. Shoemakers' wives and bakers' daughters are people of whose acquaintance nobody ever speaks boastingly. I once knew the nephew of a barber who always blushed when his uncle was named in his hearing. But an attorney's lady, or a banker's daughter, are often paraded in an ostentatious manner before one by their friends, and I have never known the nephew of a soldier-officer, whose business is to take people's lives, blush at the profession of his relative. It cannot be expected that men will labor in callings that gain them only the contempt of their neighbors; and therefore while it is accounted disgraceful among us to do any thing that is useful, we must be content to remain dependent upon any people who have more sense in regard to this matter than ourselves.

We are very well aware that shoemakers and pastry-cooks are not the kind of people who compose the French court; but there can be no denial of the fact that certain kinds of artisans are treated by the French people with a greater degree of respect than they are with us. Very different from the dogged surliness of an Englishman, or the who-cares-for-_you_ manner of our own countrymen, is the air of conscious self-respect of certain classes of French tradesmen. In the present condition of our society, we hold it to be among the impossible things to make a decent pastry-cook out of an American citizen, or a decent citizen out of a pastry-cook. But is there any good reason why we should not? Do not pastry-cooks contribute as much toward human happiness as sugar-refiners or importers of molasses? Should you not feel as well disposed toward the individual who had made a meringue to your liking, as toward him who had imported the materials of which it was composed? The King of the French seats artists at his dinner-table, bestows the 'legion of honor' upon them; pays them liberally for their works, and settles pensions upon them. Artists with us, as artists, do not often find their way into our upper circles; if they are respectable in their habits and associates, they are rather countenanced for their respectability than noticed for their genius. We know a whiskey-distiller who refused his daughter to a portrait-painter, unless he would abandon his profession; simply because it was a low calling.

It is very common with us to call the French triflers; but it is one of the many bad habits which we have inherited from the English, and the sooner we free ourselves from it, the better will it be for us. We shall never be ambitious to excel a people whom we pretend to despise. If doing small things well be trifling, then the French are triflers. But what must we call them for their great works? There is no art, no science, no department of learning in which the English excel them. They are the best architects in Europe; the best physicians; the best chemists, the best astronomers. They have cut off the head of one king and banished another; what more have the English done? But they can afford to be called any thing: they set the fashions of the whole world. Queen VICTORIA is as much a subject of LOUIS PHILLIPE in her dress as any lady in France. With all her immense territory, her great authority, she cannot change the fashion of a bonnet.

The difference between French and English art is as great as the difference between the Louvre and the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square; and about the same relative difference prevails with regard to us. At the last exhibition of the Louvre there were four thousand paintings offered; at the last exhibition of the National Academy there were about four hundred. This is not a very correct method of judging of the artistic excellence of a nation, but it is not far from correct in this case.

H. F.

A PICTURE BY MURILLO.--The time has yet to arrive when the march of empire _westward_ will bring in its train our portion of those chef d'oeuvres of painting and sculpture which adorn the princely palaces of Europe, and confer distinction upon the possessors of wealth and taste in humbler abodes. To us, who have never visited those miracles of art, the sight of one of them is too gratifying to be passed over without imparting a share of the pleasure to our less fortunate readers. For the first time in our lives, we have enjoyed the delight of seeing at the house of a friend one of the grand pictures of MURILLO, which was obtained by a distinguished connoisseur at Lima, in 1828, from the cloister of an old convent, where it had hung for countless years in ignoble seclusion. It had probably been brought from Spain during the life-time of the painter, as it is not described by any of his biographers, who have carefully enumerated the works of his pencil. This idea is strengthened by the fact of his having inscribed his name upon the picture, which is not to be found upon any of his master-pieces at Madrid and Seville. Although it has not escaped the injuries of time and ignorance, it appears to have had the rare good fortune never to have passed through the hands of a restorer or scourer: the whole effect of its magical colouring remains unobscured, except a few touches of the brush of some dauber, who has tried the experiment of adding freshness to the rose.

The subject of it is the Holy Family, of life-size. Saint Joseph is seen in the background, with the infant SAVIOUR in his arms, presenting him to his mother, who is kneeling with extended hands to receive the precious burden of love. Like most of his great scriptural pictures, the composition is simple and natural, exhibiting a familiar scene in domestic life, elevated by expression, and ennobled by beauty. The Saint's face, which is of the true Andalusian type, is fraught with benignity, as he graciously inclines toward the mother, with the infant resting tenderly in his hands as if supported by a bed of down. Nothing can surpass the graceful figure and attitude of the mother, whose features are literally overflowing with maternal affection, while she caressingly holds out her hands to receive her son. But the charm of the picture is the infant DEITY himself, upon whom the painter has lavished his art, and poured forth the inspiration of his genius. His position forms the centre of the group, and instantly arrests the attention and commands the admiration of the spectator. He looks as if just awakened from a deep slumber; his eye-lids are tinged with red, and the motion of his limbs betokens the sudden consciousness of suspended existence; his playful smiling features are radiant with joy at recognizing his mother, toward whom his hands are invitingly opened. His figure is foreshortened, and to such a degree that his legs are out of the canvass, instinct with life and motion. His flesh has the plumpness and transparency of perfect health, flushed with roseate tints; his appearance denotes a child of nine or ten months old, but without that expression of premature intelligence by which the infant SAVIOUR is distinguished in the pictures of RAPHAEL. He is, in short, just one of those angelic creatures fresh from the hands of the CREATOR, oftener found in the cradles of peasants than of princes. The hands and feet of all the figures are painted with warmth, and with such sun-light transparency, that the ruddy current seems actually coursing beneath the skin. Indeed the whole tone of the picture is so life-like, that for the moment we cease believing it to be an illusion of lights and shadows reflected upon canvass. All the draperies are large and flowing, and broadly touched: that of the infant is a luminous white; the saint's is sombre; the mother's is of that violet tint, said to be peculiar to MURILLO, styled by the French, _lie de vin_.

In the grand compositions of RAPHAEL, we often see the actors grouped into a pyramidal form. In this of MURILLO, they present a diagonal line; extending from the head of the Saint to that of the mother, and down to a pannier in the corner of the picture, which contains her needle-work attached to a cushion in the Spanish fashion. At her feet a small dog is seated, of the Mexican race, which appears alive. Saint Joseph is painted in shadow, and forms the second plan of the picture. Behind him are suspended some of the implements of his humble trade.

The fame of MURILLO out of his native country, has risen within these last ten or fifteen years to the highest rank, and his historical pictures are now classed with those of the greatest masters of the Italian school: as a colorist he is admitted to stand without a rival. This sudden extension of his merits is in some degree owing to the cheap acquisition of eight of his finest works by Marshal SOULT, when he was NAPOLEON'S governor of Andalusia. These pictures have been seen and admired by all the world in Paris. Two of them, the Return of the Prodigal Son, and Abraham Receiving the Angels, have passed from the gallery of the illustrious Marshal to that of the Duke of Sutherland, for a _consideration_. The fine collection of pictures of the Spanish schools, purchased by Baron Taylor for LOUIS PHILIPPE, and now exhibited in the LOUVRE, has contributed to the same effect. It contains MURILLO'S Virgin de la Faxa, a perfect master-piece of coloring, which cost one hundred and thirty thousand francs.

None of his great compositions are taken from profane history or mythology. He was in a manner interdicted from using subjects derived from those copious sources, by a decree of the Holy Inquisition of Andalusia, which prohibited painters and sculptors, under the penalties of fine and excommunication, from displaying in their works any lascivious or naked images. His landscapes and flower-girls are painted in the highest style of beauty; and his beggars have never been excelled in all the loathsome attributes of misery and disease. The fact of his never having been out of his native country, disposed critics to believe that his works must be deficient in that highest order of merit which exclusively belongs to the classic schools of Italy: they would not admit that species of excellence which knew how to adapt the highest subjects of art to the unlearned. Yet such was MURILLO'S influence over the human heart, that his genius enabled him to embellish truth, and to present it with all its graces and attractions to the understandings of all those who are endowed with an innate love of the beautiful. His pictures, like Gray's Elegy in a Country Church-yard, may with equal truth be said 'to abound in images which find a mirror in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo.'

It is true that there is nothing academic to be found in his groups; no mysterious allegory; no theatrical display of the passions; very little of what is more talked of than understood, the beau-ideal. Nevertheless, he is always original, and never vulgar; his drawing is nearly faultless; his compositions are instantly felt and understood by all who have read the Scriptures, because they convey to the mind more of the evangelical character and attributes of Christianity than those of any other painter. On this subject some very characteristic remarks are made by the late Sir David Wilkie, in his letters from Jerusalem.[2]

[2] SEE letter to WILLIAM COLLINS, ESQ., Vol. 3., p. 424: ALLEN CUNNINGHAM'S Life of Sir DAVID WILKIE.

'His Madonnas, his saints, and even his Saviours, have the Spanish cast; all his figures are probably portraits, and all his forms have a national peculiarity of air, habit, and countenance; and although he often adopts a beautiful expression of nature, there is generally a peasant-like simplicity in his ideas. He gives occasional instances of great sublimity of expression, but it is a sublimity which neither forces nor enlarges nature: truth and simplicity are never out of sight. It is what the painter sees, not what he conceives, which is presented to you. Herein he is distinguished from his preceptor VELASQUEZ. That great master, by his courtly habits of intercourse, contracted a more proud and swelling character, to which the simple and chaste pencil of MURILLO never sought to aspire. A plain and pensive cast, sweetly attempered by humility and benevolence, marks his canvass; and on other occasions, where he is necessarily impassioned or inflamed, it is the zeal of devotion, the influx of pious inspiration, and never the guilty passions which he exhibits. In short, from what he sees, he separates from what he feels, and has within himself the counter-types of almost every object he describes.'

If it be true, (says his biographer, BERMUDEZ,) that painters put their own portraits in their works, that is to say, that they exhibit their own genius, their propensities, affections, and the dispositions of their minds in them, the pictures of MURILLO bear a great analogy to his virtues, and the gentleness of his character. He was distinguished above all others of his profession by the mildness with which he instructed his pupils; by the urbanity with which he treated his rivals; by the humility with which he excused himself from becoming the painter of the Camara to CHARLES the Second, which was offered to him by the court; and for the charity with which he distributed the most liberal alms to the poor, who afterward deplored his death. But those who were most affected by it were his beloved scholars, who, overwhelmed with grief and anguish, could find no consolation for the loss of a father who loved them most dearly; of a master who instructed them with the utmost kindness, and of a protector who encouraged them by giving to each such portions of employment as enabled them to maintain themselves. This affectionate tribute to the character of MURILLO, must recall to the minds of our readers that beautiful passage in the letter of BALDASSARE CASTÍGLIONE to his brother, which is said to express the feelings of all the artists in Rome upon the death of his friend RAPHAEL: 'Ma non mi pare esser a Roma, perchè non vi è piu il mio poveretto RAFFAELLO.'

MURILLO was born at Magdalena, near Seville, on the first day of January, 1618, and died on the third of April, 1682. He was buried in the church of Santa Cruz at Seville. The immediate cause of his death, although he had long been worn out by the anguish of his infirmities, was a fall from a scaffold while he was painting the Marriage of Saint Catharine for the Convent of Capuchins at Cadiz. Notwithstanding the many pictures which he painted, he died possessed of only a few rials, and some property which he had acquired by his wife.

GOSSIP WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.--We would respectfully ask the reader's attention to the advertisement of the '_Knickerbocker Library_,' on the second page of the cover of the present number. 'Our best exertions shall not be wanting' to make the series all that the publishers hope for it. That the _matériel_ is good, our readers, we think, need not be informed. The plan has been cordially welcomed by the press, with a single exception; and in that, the _quo animo_ was so apparent as to neutralize the slur intended by the writer. We shall be enabled to secure the earliest literary rarities on both sides of the water for the 'Knickerbocker Library,' and the style in which they will be presented will be unsurpassed. · · · WE lament in the recent death of WILLIS GAYLORD, the loss of a beloved relative, who was our elder companion in childhood and youth, and our faithful friend and correspondent, to the close of his useful and honored life. Mr. GAYLORD died at his beautiful residence of Limerock Farm, Onondaga county, on the 27th ultimo, after a brief illness. 'Few men,' says the _Albany Argus_, 'were better known throughout the agricultural community than Mr. GAYLORD. He was for many years one of the editors of 'The Genesee Farmer,' and since the death of Judge Buel, has been the senior editor of 'The Cultivator.' As an agricultural writer, it is not too much to say, that his equal is not left to mourn his loss. He was also favorably known by his contributions to our literary and scientific journals. He was distinguished as a warm-hearted philanthropist, and few men have more largely benefitted the community by their labors. His social virtues endeared him warmly to all by whom he was known. In the pathetic language of one by whom the intelligence of his death is communicated, he was truly 'the friend of the farmer--the friend of humanity.' We have the proceedings of a meeting of the New-York Agricultural Society, held in the State-House at Albany, on receiving the intelligence of the death of Mr. GAYLORD. The President, JOHN P. BEEKMAN, Esq., of Columbia county, passed a high and deserved eulogium upon the character of the deceased. 'The judgment of every intelligent farmer in the State,' he observed, 'will respond to the assertion that to no man whatever, excepting perhaps Judge BUEL, is the agriculture of the State more indebted than to Mr. GAYLORD. For myself, I can declare in all sincerity that there is no man whose writings caused within me a greater desire to be honored with a personal acquaintance. The character of WILLIS GAYLORD was in all respects what might be expected from his writings; benevolent, enlightened, elevated; yet plain, practical, unassuming. Every day of his useful life was marked, not merely by the exercise of his versatile talents on the multifarious subjects embraced by agriculture and the domestic arts, but by the acquisition and promulgation of knowledge in the wide range of science.' He was cordially esteemed by all who knew him; he had not an enemy in the world. Hon. CALVIN HUBBARD, of the Legislature, offered resolutions in testimony of the deep regret which the death of Mr. GAYLORD had created in the public mind, copies of which were ordered to be transmitted to the relatives of the deceased; after which, as a token of respect to his memory, the meeting was adjourned. 'A scholar, a gentleman, a christian, a friend of man, Mr. GAYLORD lived universally beloved, and died universally lamented.' · · · IT has been assumed lately by certain of the political and financial enemies of the late NICHOLAS BIDDLE, Esq.,--an accomplished gentleman and scholar, whose pen has often entertained and instructed the readers of this Magazine--that he had little power of style, and that his intellectual rôle was a limited one. Nothing could be farther from the truth. That point however we are not now to discuss. We merely wish to ask the reader's attention to the subjoined remarks of Mr. BIDDLE upon the besetting sin of our American style, oral as well as written: 'A crude abundance is the disease of our American style. On the commonest topic of business, a speech swells into a declamation--an official statement grows to a dissertation. A discourse about anything must contain every thing. We will take nothing for granted. We must commence at the very commencement. An ejectment for ten acres reproduces the whole discovery of America; a discussion about a tariff or a turnpike, summons from their remotest caves the adverse blasts of windy rhetoric; and on those great Serbonian bogs, known in political geography as constitutional questions, our ambitious fluency often begins with the general deluge, and ends with its own. It is thus that even the good sense and reason of some become wearisome, while the undisciplined fancy of others wanders into all the extravagances and the gaudy phraseology which distinguish our western orientalism.' A specimen of this 'orientalism' we gave in our last number. Here is another example of a somewhat kindred character. A western orator recently delivered himself of it from the summit of a sugar-maple stump at a political barbacue:

'Whar, I say _whar_, is the individual who would give up the first foot, the first outside shadow of a foot of the great Oregon! There aint no such individual. Talk about treaty occupations to a country over which the great American eagle has flew! I scorn treaty occupation; d--n treaty occupation! Who wants a parcel of low-flung, 'outside barbarians,' to go in cahoot with us, and share alike a piece of land that always was and always will be ours? Nobody. Some people talk as though they were afeard of England. _Who's_ afeard? Haven't we licked her twice, and can't we lick her again? Lick her! Yes! just as easy as a bear can slip down a fresh-peeled sapling! Some skeery folks talk about the navy of England; but who the h-ll cares for the navy? Others say that she is the _mistress_ of the ocean. Supposin' she is? aint we the _masters_ of it? Can't we cut a canal from the Mississippi to the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, turn all the water into it, and dry up the d----d ocean in three weeks? Whar then would be the navy? It would be _no whar_! There never would _have been_ any Atlantic ocean if it hadn't been for the Mississippi, nor never will be, after we've turned the waters of that big drink into the Mammoth Cave! When that's done, you'll see all their steam-ships and their sail-ships they splurge so much about, lying high and dry, floundering like so many turtles left ashore at low tide. That's the way we'll fix 'em. _Who's afeard!_'

* * * * *

WE have often thought, that if the various _similes_ employed in the Scriptures were thoroughly understood, that their appositeness and beauty would be themes of increased admiration. Observe how the latent meanings of the following passage reveal themselves to the heart:

THE REFINER.

BY MONTGOMERY.

'HE is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap. And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.'--MALACHI iii. 2, 3.

A FEW ladies in Dublin, who often met together to read the Word of GOD, one day occupied their attention with the passage now before the eye of the reader. One of the ladies expressed her opinion that 'the fuller's soap and the refiner of silver' were only the _same_ image to convey the same view of the sanctifying influence of the grace of CHRIST. 'No,' said another, 'they are not the same image; there is something remarkable in the expression, 'HE shall _sit_ as the refiner and purifier of silver.'' On going into the town, this lady called on a silver-smith, and desired to know the process of refining silver, which he fully explained to her. 'But do you _sit_, Sir,' she asked, 'while you are refining?' 'Yes, Madam, I must sit with my eye steadily fixed on the furnace; since if the silver remain too long, it is sure to be injured.' She at once saw the beauty and comfort of the expression. CHRIST sees it needful to put his people into the furnace, but HE is seated by the side of it--HIS eye is steadily fixed on the work of purifying--and his wisdom and his love are both engaged to do all in the best manner for them. As the lady was returning to her friends, to tell them what she had heard, as she turned from the shop-door, the silver-smith called her back, and said, he had forgotten one thing, and that was, he only knew the process of refining to be complete by seeing his own image in the silver.

When CHRIST sees his own image in his people, the work of purifying is accomplished.

It may be added, that the metal continues in a state of agitation, until all impurities are thrown off, and then it becomes quite still; a circumstance which heightens the analogy of the case; for how

'Sweet to be passive in His hand, And know no will but HIS!'

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DOES 'M.' well to be angry? We 'referred publicly' to his query touching our choice of prose or poetry, _at his own request_, in a playful, but certainly not in an intentionally 'offensive' manner. And now, a 'good that was intended us' is clean gone forever! Very well--we must submit, with what grace we may.' 'My 'spected bredren,' said a venerable colored clergyman, on a recent occasion, 'blessed am dat man dat 'spects noth'n, 'cause he an't gwine to be disapp'inted!' We solace ourselves with this scrap of Ethiopian philosophy. · · · The experiments alluded to below, in the happiest vein of the amusing 'Charcoal-Sketcher' of Philadelphia, have been frequently tried in this city, we understand, but with very infrequent success. Pulling teeth while the patient is asleep is not 'practised to a very great extent in _this_ community;' for no sooner is the glittering instrument of torture 'placed in communication' with the jaw, than it is found to 'disturb the Mesmeric function' to an extraordinary degree:

'MANY who would be valiant in battle, turn pale at sight of the dentist's chair. To stand up to be shot at in a duel is unpleasant to the nerves, and to storm a breach requires a considerable modicum of determination; but to pull the dentist's bell and not to run away; to walk boldly in and not to request a postponement, though it gains one no laurels and probably would not help to secure a political nomination on the score of heroism, is pure unadulterated valor; intrinsic--deriving no aid from association or example; nothing from the instinct of discipline or the thirst for glory. In encountering other dangers, there is a large hope, too, of impunity. An expectation of survival, a fond trust to be with the unhurt, always exists. But here, in that morocco throne, so grotesque, so mystical, so strange in all its aspects; your mouth wide open and your head thrown back--what hope can there be? To be hurt is an inevitable thing. We are in the clutches of a fate, and must realize our mortal frailty. To march to this with a whistle; neither to kick the smaller dogs on our route, nor to thrust little children aside spitefully; to take our usual interest in the occurrences of the street as we pass along to execution; to laugh, to jest, to talk of the weather with the identical man as he rattles his glittering instruments and smiles upon their brightness; to shake hands with him and to make a tolerable pretence of being glad to see him, is an effort, though we may have never encountered a war, equal to that which wears medals and puts pensions in its pocket. There is some comfort, however, to the afflicted in the fact that there have been of late symptoms of a combination of animal magnetism with dentistry, which affords a gleam of consolation. The exhibitors in New-York frequently have teeth extracted from mesmerised patients, to prove that in many cases they are insensible to pain--a thing which has been done very often in private in this city, and in many instances with complete success. What a cause for rejoicing would it be then, if the proper degree of 'impressibility' were general with those who have failing and recreant teeth, that the dentist and his magnetiser might be one and indivisible? Surgery in all its branches would be benefitted by the same connection; but this strange physical condition is not an invariable concomitant of the mesmeric state; so that valor, such as that to which we have already alluded, cannot go completely out of use, even if all could be subjected to the nervous influence of the magnetiser.'

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'PHAZMA,' the cleverest of our western poets, who has written so many beautiful things for the New-Orleans '_Picayune_,' presents us lately with the subjoined tender sonnet. He has 'discharged' it as well as if he had previously read the directions of our eastern 'manufacturer of the article,' in our last issue:

MATERNAL TENDERNESS.

A MOTHER bends above her weeping child, Her bosom heaving with convulsive throe, Her large eye lighted with expression wild, That, ah! too plainly speaks maternal wo! The tearful infant, lost in bitter grief, Thrills forth its plaintive call for tender care; While from a mother's trembling hand relief, Alas! can answer no imploring pray'r. Swift-falling tears! and piercing cries of pain! Maternal passion kindling into glow! Peace banished from its sweet domestic reign! _Stricken_ with grief!--ah! sad and cruel _blow_! Behold the matron in a fury blue, _Beating her screaming Bobby with a shoe!_

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OUR esteemed friend, JOHN SANDERSON, the distinguished 'American in Paris,' whom the readers of this Magazine have known so long, and regarded so highly, is no more! Sad indeed is the task of recording the demise of a scholar so profound, a gentleman so accomplished, and a man so widely admired and beloved. SANDERSON was a delightful companion; and as we record this hasty tribute to his memory, we cannot help recalling the many pleasant passages, personal and epistolary, that we have had together. A correspondent of the _Philadelphia Gazette_, who knew him well, furnishes the following notice of the deceased, in the justice of which all who knew him will cordially concur:

'JOHN SANDERSON was a man of genius, a man of talent, a man of feeling. He was a Philadelphian, and by his life and writings he added to the good reputation of his country. To natural abilities of a high order, he added a calm, chaste scholarship, an intimate knowledge of mankind, a singularly amiable disposition, and a frank and high-bred courtesy. His departure is lamented not alone by those who enjoyed his society and his friendship; he is mourned by our republic of letters; America as well as our city, has lost one of her most accomplished sons. Mr. SANDERSON has long been known as a writer. His first publication was the collection of Memoirs of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, in nine octavo volumes; a work embracing a vast amount of original and authentic information; and his last, excepting contributions to the literary journals, was '_The American in Paris_.' He was a man of most excellent humor, blending happily the characteristics of RABALAIS and STERNE and LAMB. When with his chosen associates, we doubt whether even COLERIDGE was more entertaining or instructive. Turn to his Parisian letters and see the union of wit and humor, of playful satire and nice observation which pervade them. Examine all the pleasant books of travel of which this age has been so prolific, and answer whether they have been surpassed. 'You know SANDERSON,' we said a few weeks since to a French Deputy who was travelling here. 'Know JOHN SANDERSON? I derived from him my knowledge of Paris.' 'But you are a Parisian?' '_Je ne sache pas qu'il y ait eu un Français qui ait plus connu Paris et son monde._' In that home of the gay, the brilliant and the profound, of all that in life or art attracts the man of genius, or learning, or taste, Mr. SANDERSON was the favored guest of the most celebrated savans and wits, many of whom since his return to the United States, have waited anxiously for his restoration to their circles. And he himself looked forward with happy anticipations to the renewal of his old friendships. In a few months he was to reöccupy his apartments in the Rue Rivoli. 'There,' he said to the writer of these recollections but a week ago, 'there with congenial spirits I shall spend the residue of my days.' How much those friends will sorrow when they learn that JOHN SANDERSON is no more!

He was a wit; he had a most delicate perception of the beautiful, and a keen sense of the ludicrous. But those who knew him can tell with what care he directed his powers. He never summoned a shadow to any face, or permitted a weight to lie on any heart. He was as amiable as he was brilliant. He was no man of the world. He knew society, its selfishness and its want of honor, but he looked upon it less in anger than in sadness. He was no cynic, no Heraclitus; he deemed it wisest to laugh at the follies of mankind. Through all his experience he lost none of his natural urbanity, his freshness of feeling, his earnestness and sincerity. The late THEODORE HOOK, the first humorist and most celebrated bon-vivant of our day, was employed by his publisher to edit Mr. SANDERSON'S 'American in Paris.' He read it, adapted it as well as he could to the English market, and returned it with the observation that 'there was never a book which suffered more from slightest change.' Had the author devoted the chief portion of his time to letters, he would have been little less distinguished in the same department than his famous friend. But he lived a quieter and happier life; he died a happier death, suddenly, but in a _home_, and with his friends about him.'

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The following '_Lines to a Bouquet of Flowers_,' are from the pen of the lamented Governor DICKINSON, whose melancholy suicide will be fresh in the minds of many of our readers. We learn from the friend through whom we derive them, that they were handed to him by the author, while sojourning for a short time in Albany:

EMBLEM of life and loveliness, Welcome, sweet harbingers of Spring! Clad in thy beauteous summer dress, And wafted on Time's fairy wing.

Would thou wert fadeless as the sky, All redolent of hope and gladness, But soon, alas! thou'lt lonely lie, Emblem of Death, of Grief, of Sadness.

Emblem of Life! thing of an hour, How soon thou'lt hang thy sickly head, And bow beneath the conqueror's power, And lie among the sleeping dead!

Emblem of Life! beyond the tomb, Thy flowers again shall form a wreath; Shall germinate amid the gloom. And triumph o'er the monster Death!

D. S. D.

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WE have repeatedly in these pages 'borne testimony' in behalf of a more general cultivation of the fine arts, and especially in the department of architecture. We have had too much reason to concur with JEFFERSON in the opinion that 'the genius of architecture never yet condescended to visit the American Republic.' The Count RENAULT St. JEAN D'A---- was wont to say, while residing among us, that 'more was to be learned by viewing Grace-Church in Broadway, touching the state of mental culture among us in the science of architecture, than by all the methods of reasoning which philosophy could furnish on any abstract point of knowledge;' and yet we believe the plan of this edifice was the result of a confederation of intellectual powers! Moreover, as our old friend, the late Gen. MORTON, was wont to say, we must bear in mind that beside the several recognized orders of architecture, we have also an _order by the corporation_! We may have more to say on this theme on another occasion. We have been led to these incidental remarks, by the recent death in this city of a man of rare genius, and unwearied effort in the promotion of a kindred branch of art--THOMAS HORNER, of England, the well-known draftsman and painter of the wonderful panorama of London, which constitutes the attraction of the great collosseum in that metropolis. The labor to affect this great work, the result of years of toil and severe exposure to the inclemencies of a noxious atmosphere, doubtless predisposed to that prolonged suffering which wasted his physical strength; while sad disappointments, and the precarious means of existence which he derived from his art in this country, may be justly regarded as concurring causes in hastening his final departure from among us. For a period of about fifteen years, he had devoted himself to the taking of sketches of numerous rural views and edifices in different parts of our northern states, and of the public buildings of our prominent cities. His delineation of the city of New-York is perhaps the most conspicuous of the efforts of his pencil. He died in this city on the morning of the 18th of March, aged about sixty years. It may be gratifying to his relatives and friends abroad to know, that there were not a few of our citizens who were ready at all times to aid him by their benefactions; and that in his illness he found in Dr. FRANCIS, whose name is a synonyme for considerate kindness, a constant friend and faithful medical adviser. His funeral was attended by some of our first citizens, among whom it was gratifying to observe Mr. FOWLER, the President of the St. George's Society, and other well-known countrymen of the deceased. · · · OUR correspondent, Mr. THOS. COPCUTT, has opened the present number with an admirable paper, compiled from Carlyle, on the never-tiring theme of NAPOLEON. We always associate, and at once, with NAPOLEON'S name, the dreadful scenes presented by his deserted battle-fields; such for example as marked the sanguinary contests of his Russian campaign. Here is a sketch of one, from the pen of an eye-witness: 'The battle-field presented a terrible picture of ruin and carnage, especially on the left and centre, where the greatest efforts had been made to take, maintain, and retake the redoubts. Corpses of the slain, broken arms, dead and dying horses, covered every elevation and filled every hollow, and plainly indicated the progress of the action. In the front of the redoubts lay the bodies of the French; behind the works, showing that they had been carried, lay the Russians. On many points the heaps of corpses told where squares of infantry had stood, and plainly pointed out the size of the closely formed masses. From the relative number of the slain, it was easy to perceive that the Russians had suffered more than the French.' And this is but one of hundreds of similar scenes! Yet, 'had these poor fellows any quarrel? Busy as the Devil is, not the smallest! Their _Governors_ had fallen out!' If one could indulge a 'grim smile' at any thing in relation to BONAPARTE, it would be at the potential _military_ standard to which he reduced every thing. Do you remember his order on the appearance of the Mamelukes in Egypt? Form square; artillery to the angles; asses and savans to the centre!' Characteristic; but complimentary that, to the 'learned savans!' · · · WE have bestowed but little of our tediousness upon the reader in this department of the present number, whereat he may felicitate himself, since our excellent correspondence will be found a welcome substitute for much that we had written, and which 'lies over' until our next. The _Quod Correspondence_ will arrest the attention of every reader. No two chapters of the entire series excel the present in power of delineation, or depth of interest. For 'Babyhood,' addressed to 'JULIAN;' 'Excelsior,' a parody upon LONGFELLOW; 'Punchiana, with clippings,' and various Gossip with Correspondents, whose favors were intended for the present number, we must refer all concerned to our next issue. · · · WE have _received_ the following works; and to such as we have found leisure to _read_, we shall here briefly advert: From the BROTHERS HARPER, the first two numbers of a 'pocket edition' of select (and _old_?) novels, containing 'The Yemassee,' by Mr. SIMMS, and 'Young Kate, or the Rescue:' of the 'Library of Select Novels,' three issues--'The Heretic,' from the Russian; 'The Jew,' and 'The Grumbler,' by Miss PICKERING: From LEA AND BLANCHARD, HUGO'S 'Hunchback of Notre-Dame:' From J. S. REDFIELD, Clinton Hall, 'NAPIER'S History of the War in the Peninsula and the South of France:' From LEAVITT, TROW AND COMPANY, 'Poems by WILLIAM JAMES COLGAN:' From JOHN ALLEN, 139 Nassau-street, 'The Lady at Home, or Leaves from the Every-day Book of an American Woman:' and from LITTLE AND BROWN, Boston, Lives of PATRICK HENRY and LA SALLE, commencing the second series of SPARKS'S 'American Biography.' Miss PICKERING'S 'Grumbler' is one of the best and most interesting novels we have read for many a day; 'The Hunchback' of HUGO is too well known to our readers to require mention; and the same may be said of NAPIER'S excellent history. 'The Lady at Home' will commend itself to all readers, for its truly admirable lessons to American women. COLGAN'S poems deserve more space than we can devote to them. The writer has the true poetical _feeling_, and his execution is often very felicitous, and always creditable. · · · THE 'Nile Story' of our Boston correspondent; a notice of the Phreno-Mnemotechny of Professor GOURAUD; of the Re-publication of English Magazines and Reviews; of New Music, and other late publications; are all _unavoidably_ postponed, for reasons already stated, until our next number.