CHAPTER XIV: MY EPITAPH.

'HERE lies, in hope of repose, an old deceased devil, with a worn-out spirit, an exhausted heart, and a used-up body. Ladies and Gentlemen, pass on!'

DEDICATORY EPISTLE TO THE PUBLIC.

DOG of a Public! discordant organ of the passions! thou who raisest thy minion to heaven, and then plungest him in the mire; thou who extollest and slanderest without knowing why; image of the tocsin; echo of thyself; absurd tyrant; offscouring of the meanest houses; extract of the most subtle poisons and of the most exquisite perfumes; representative of the devil among the human species; a fury masked in Christian charity!--PUBLIC! whom I feared in my youth, respected in my riper years, and despised in my old age; it is to thee that I dedicate my memoirs. Gentle Public! I am at last out of thy reach, for I am dead, and consequently deaf, blind, and mute. Mayest thou enjoy these advantages for thy own repose and for that of the human race!

* * * * *

WE read in the '_Bibliographie Universelle et Portative des Contemporains_' that 'when Count Rostoptchin visited Paris, people were not a little surprised to find a man of wit and good breeding in one whom until now they had regarded as a 'ferocious Tartar.' This brutal epithet was no more suitable to a man like Count Rostoptchin than that of 'an incendiary,' with which Madame d'Abrantes has honored him in her memoirs. A great many piquant sayings are attributed to him, of which we will merely quote the following: 'I came to France,' said he, 'to judge for myself of the real merit of three celebrated men; the Duke of Otranto, Prince Talleyrand, and Potier.[C] It is only the last who seems to me to come up to his reputation.'

[C] A celebrated comic actor.

Here is another piquant anecdote. One day when the Emperor Paul I. was surrounded by a numerous circle, among whom were many Russian princes, and count Rostoptchin, his favorite minister, 'Tell me,' abruptly asked he of the latter, 'why are you not a prince?'

After a moment's hesitation at this singular question, Count Rostoptchin replied:

'Will your Imperial Majesty permit me to give the true reason?'

'Undoubtedly.' 'It is because my ancestor, who came from Tartary to settle in Russia, arrived there in the winter time.'

'Ah! and what had the season of the year to do with the title that was given him?'

'This, your Majesty; when a Tartar-lord made his first appearance at court, it was the custom for the sovereign to give him the choice between a fur-cloak and the title of prince. My ancestor arrived during a very severe winter, and had the good sense to prefer the former.'

Paul laughed heartily at this reply; and turning to the princes who were present: 'See, gentlemen,' said he; 'you may congratulate yourselves that your ancestors did not arrive in the winter!'

ANACREONTIC.

I.

PULSE of my heart! dear source of care, Of stolen sighs and love-breathed vows; Sweeter than when, through scented air, Gay bloom the apple-boughs!

II.

With thee no day can winter seem, Nor frost, nor blast can chill: Thou the soft breeze, the cheering beam, That keep it summer still!

INTERNATIONAL COPY-RIGHT.

CRISPIN, who stole leather to make shoes for the poor, was none the less a thief, says Wolfgang Menzel, in an article on literary piracy. But Menzel is a German, and it would be alike absurd and unsafe for an eminently practical people, like ourselves, to be governed in regard to our national policy by an eminently philosophical people like the Germans. We are by no means certain that Crispin is not a fellow to be copied: before we pronounce judgment upon him, we must know whether he stole from his own countrymen, or from foreigners. There is a vast difference; a difference as great as the countries may be apart. Nothing can be more evident than the proposition that a nation cannot exist by domestic thievery, for I cannot steal from my neighbor unless my neighbor steal from abroad. Therefore, in considering a theft, nationally, it is of the first importance to know who it is that has been robbed. Like many other acute critics, Menzel has furnished a very potent argument to refute his own doctrines, by reasoning a little too close: the parallel between the shoe-maker who steals his leather for the benefit of the people, and the printer or book-publisher who pirates the contents of a book, is a peculiarly unhappy one for the cause he advocates. Nothing can be more evident, no principle is more strongly interwoven in our policy as a nation, than that of encouraging domestic manufactures. It is very plain that if the material for our books cost us nothing, we can manufacture them more cheaply than a rival nation that is compelled to pay their authors for producing them; it is also equally evident that they can therefore be afforded at a cheaper rate to the people, and that the quantity sold will be in proportion to the lowness of the price, and that the intelligence of the people will be in proportion to the number of books that are read: if, in addition to the contents of our books, we could pirate the leather, paper, types, and ink of which they are composed, we should be the most enlightened and independent people in the world, if we are not so already.

The trade of authorship has always entailed on its professors poverty and disease. The sedentary habits which it induces must of necessity undermine health: the abstraction from the every-day affairs of life, requisite to its successful prosecution, almost always causes insanity, or at least mania; and it is not clear that monomania is not an essential feature of authorship: in fact, the history of authorship is but a record of wretchedness. No other profession has furnished an exclusive chapter of calamities. We never hear of the calamities of merchants, of brick-layers, or cultivators. If then we can save our countrymen from the exercise of a calling so manifestly injurious to their happiness and welfare, by availing ourselves of the labors of foreigners, to whom we owe neither protection nor fealty, what man who wishes well to his country will have the temerity to oppose a practice so conducive to our national prosperity? We have declared ourselves a free and independent people; but could it be said that we were either free or independent, if we were restrained, by self-imposed laws, from making free with the labors of a rival nation, separated from us by an ocean of three thousand miles? or independent, if we were dependent upon ourselves for our intellectual pabulum?

The only independent nation of modern times was the Algerines, now unhappily extinct. They were a model people! They were free and independent, in the most liberal and extended sense. They were dependent upon themselves for nothing which they could take from other nations; and so fully did they carry out their principle of national independence, that they looked to a foreign power to furnish them with their governors. No native of the soil was ever harrassed by the cares of government. All their rulers were imported from abroad.

In respect of mere corporeal rulers, we are as yet far behind the Algerines, but virtually we are in advance of them as respects our governing power. No one will deny that to rule the mind is far better, more honorable, more arduous, and more important, than to rule the body. Our mental rulers are all foreigners; the majority of them pensioners of a government that advocates and inculcates principles directly opposed to those that we profess. They rule us by means of the books that we cunningly pirate from them, and thereby save ourselves a very great amount of trouble and expense. It is true that some of our people are mad enough to attempt to divide this ruling power with these foreigners, by publishing books themselves; but their efforts only prove the correctness of our assertion; for in order to smuggle their works into notice, they are compelled to make them so nearly like those that are printed, that they could not be distinguished from them, were it not for their title-pages. Evidences of these truths abound, on all sides, as well in the Church as the State. Some of our young preachers have improved their opportunities of studying foreign books to that degree, that they have boldly confessed that the great reformation was not only unjustifiable, but a real detriment to the cause of humanity. Others have professed a faith in the fine old conservative doctrine of the divine right of kings; and one young presbyter that we know, has quitted his country, and now officiates as a chaplain in the dominions of her most gracious majesty, Victoria the First. Other blessings equal to these are continually manifested by our rulers and legislators, who give abundant evidence that they have profited by the continual influx of foreign mind. One great statesman, of the Virginia school of politics, a great patriot and a great orator also, profited to such an extent by his foreign books, that he could not even read a work that had been re-printed in this country. But we would not be thought to advocate so sublime and patriotic an extension of the great principle of pirating as this, because it would deprive our artisans and tradesmen of a very profitable business. Perhaps the most remarkable and beneficial effect of our independence of ourselves, is manifested by the clergy, who depend almost entirely upon England for their theology, and thereby become so thoroughly imbued with an independent spirit, that when they happen to be troubled with a thoracic disorder, or any other disease, immediately leave their flocks to the care of the great Head of the Church, and hurry off to Europe to consult foreign physicians, and inhale a mouthful of foreign air.

But the real benefits of the present system of pirating English books, consist in the employment given to capital and labor. Our paper-mills, type-founders, printers, binders, and book-sellers, are kept in constant employment by the intellect of Great Britain. The brain of Walter Scott alone gave employment to a greater number of mechanics and tradesmen than that of any American since the revolution, with the exception of Fulton. It must be borne in mind that the imagination of a foreign author creates for us a source of employment, which but for him would not exist; beside furnishing for us a never-failing source of recreation and profitable enjoyment. Were it not for Scott and Bulwer, Boz and James, we should have no novels to read; were it not for Tom Moore, we should have no songs to sing; and but for foreign composers, we should have no music. Since the successful experiment of ocean navigation, we have become more and more independent of ourselves; and we now have the gratification of seeing London newspapers hawked about our streets, to the very manifest falling off in the manufacture of the home article. If we still remain true to ourselves, and resolutely shut our ears to the complaints of these interested and mercenary writers, both at home and abroad, the time will soon come when our people will be saved entirely from all literary drudgery, and even our newspapers be re-publications of London Times' and Chronicles, as some of our Magazines already are of London and Edinburgh and Dublin monthlies.

How absurd, how impudent, how mercenary and grovelling, it is in these British authors to require of us to pass a law that will deprive ourselves of such great advantages, merely to put a few dollars in their pockets, and encourage a set of men among us to supplant them, and so inculcate a spirit of base and servile self-dependence among our people! The great object of an author should be fame. No true genius will exert himself for filthy lucre. It must be infinitely more grateful to a high nature to be read by thousands, than to be paid by hundreds; and therefore we benefit these foreigners in spite of themselves, by re-printing their works at a cheap rate, thereby greatly enlarging the circle of their readers, and adding to their reputation. It is very true that the British Parliament has passed a law giving to American authors the privilege of copyright as soon as a reciprocal law shall be passed by us; but are we to be dictated to by the British Parliament? Are we to be reminded of our duty by foreigners, who thus make a show of their magnanimity, only to entice us to follow their example? Shall we become mere copyists of another nation? Forbid it Justice! forbid it Independence!

If we concede to the foreign author a right of property in the productions of his brain, which after all is merely the distillation of other people's ideas expressed in some other way before him, or at best the promptings of Nature, which are the common property of mankind, like air and sun-shine, we shall next be called upon to recognize the inherent and indestructible right of an author to his works, for all time.

When a citizen purchases of government a quarter section of land in one of the territories, and pays for it at the rate of a dollar and a quarter the acre, it becomes his own property, and the whole nation would rise up like one man to defend him in the undisturbed possession of it to the end of time. But if this same citizen should devote the flower of his manhood, the vigor of his intellect, and even the land itself which he may have purchased of his country, in the production of a book for the benefit of humanity, he would have no right to the possession of his work but for a very limited number of years; and although he would be protected in the possession of his land, or the products of it, from foreign aggression, we would not allow him any protection in the enjoyment of the product of his brain, even though a foreign nation should civilly agree to respect our law for that purpose if we should think proper to pass one.

The reasons for these distinctions in regard to different kinds of property are so very clear and conclusive, so exceedingly simple and obvious, that we do not choose to insult the understanding of our readers by repeating them. Some of the advocates of an international copy-right have urged in its favor that a measure so just could not be otherwise than politic, and that it would be safe to adopt one, without any regard to expediency, but relying solely upon truth and justness. But such a principle as this is directly at variance with the genius of our constitution and laws; and were it adopted in one case would be urged as a precedent in another, and an entire overthrow of our system of government would be the consequence. Were so mischievous a principle as this once adopted by our legislators as their rule of action, what would become of those noble specimens of eloquence with which we are favored every session of Congress, when members who are perfectly agreed as to the justness of a measure, dispute for weeks and months in regard to its expediency or profit? What would become of our army and navy, and our corps of diplomatists? What would become of many of the peculiar institutions of the North and of the South? In short, how would our representatives contrive to lengthen out a session, or even make a speech for _Bunkum_, to be read by their constituents?

The subject widens as we write; absurdities throng around our quill, striving to get down to the nib of our pen; and the very fulness of the argument chokes our utterance; we grow fustigatory and impatient to lay about us; but we must conclude in the words with which an ingenious cotemporary a few months since began an essay upon the same subject, namely: '_Copy-right is a humbug_.'

'FULGURA FRANGO.'

LINES TO FITZ-GREENE HALLECK.

ON READING 'FORGET-ME-NOT,' IN THE JULY KNICKERBOCKER.

BY CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN.

I.

WHEN spring-time fancies haunt the brain, Or cluster round the young heart's shrine, No sadness clogs the dreamer's strain, To bid him o'er his lot repine: By Love's first fantasies oppressed, He hies him to some stream-laved spot, And sighs along the blue-flower's breast, 'Forget-me-not! forget-me-not!'

II.

To manhood's sterner cares allied, The image lords it o'er his will; In vain the struggles of his pride, The form and features haunt him still. His pillow sought, the toils of life, Trade, strifes, defeats, all are forgot, While with one theme his dream is rife: 'Forget-me-not! forget-me-not!'

III.

Poor dreamer! like his fleeting years, The autumn of his fond desires Pours disappointment's icy tears, To quench his youth's delusive fires. Within his heart, time and despair, To foil his hopes triumphant plot; Unmoved at his unceasing prayer, 'Forget-me-not! forget-me-not!'

IV.

Like to the flower when autumn comes To seek its folds with chilling breath, And winter's earliest whisper roams Its heart among, to tell of death; Thus on man's heart, as o'er the flower, Fall tears, with grief and anguish hot, And speeds the cry to Heaven's high POWER, 'Forget-me-not! forget-me-not!'

THE MAIL ROBBER.

NUMBER FOUR.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE KNICKERBOCKER MAGAZINE.

SIR: I can only account for your conduct by this one supposition: you must be a _drinking-man_. Nothing but the repeated, though perhaps unconscious, inebriation arising from an excessive use of stimulating drinks, could produce that torpidity of the moral sentiments which is manifested by your editorial career. Your late allusion to the cordwainers of Xeres, or in vulgar tap-room slang, '_sherry cobblers_,' is very strong against you. Your ill-timed merriment--the jocose levity of your 'Editor's Table'--all go to confirm my theory. You indulge--I know you do.

Now, Sir, as a strict Washingtonian, and the corresponding secretary of two temperance societies, I request you for the benefit of the community to make a statement of your case, with a phrenological chart of your developments, a brief account of your habit of body, your temperament, age, etcetera, together with the amount which you absorb daily, and a history of your propensity. In the anticipation of such a statement, I forego any offence at whatever may formerly have passed between us. You are to be pitied rather than detested. I know, from experience, that under the influence of stimulants we are not always accountable agents. We should be merciful one to another; and although I have heretofore found it difficult to repress my disgust at your folly, I assure you that I am far from entertaining unchristian feelings. May you yet live to become a respectable member of society, and an ornament of our ranks! You may find worthier employment in conducting some religious journal or temperance periodical. If you become sincerely anxious to reform, and to distinguish yourself as an ardent champion of virtue, the society will feel pleasure in lending you their powerful aid. Our funds are at present somewhat low, in consequence of the prodigious expense of a late fair and several temperance pic-nics in the country, at which we nobly burned many whole hogsheads of the most costly Jamaica and Cogniac spirits. The sight of the self-destroying monster wasting away in the blue intensity of his own suicidal flame, excelled any thing in the way of moral grandeur that I have witnessed since the Croton-aqueduct celebration. Still, in spite of our tremendous disbursements, I will venture to promise you, if you enlist under the banners of the cause, a handsome situation, either as a Reformed Inebriate, or a travelling County-Delegation Jubilee Pic-Nic Poet and Orator. Depend upon it, that under the cold-water system your profits will be increased, your morals improved, your appetite and intellectual faculties enlarged and well-balanced, and all the fibres of the frame restored to a firm, vigorous tone.

Touching the subject of these letters, I would observe that our English friend has done very wisely in permitting their publication. But surely you will not think of accepting his favors without giving him an adequate requital. I am told they are extensively read, and add much to the attractions of your Magazine. He certainly ought to be most handsomely paid. Having never thought it worth while to make any poetry myself, I cannot well judge of the labor of making it, or of its value; but I know that we have repeatedly paid clergymen in New-England thirty or forty dollars for a temperance ode, and hymn to match. For my own part, I am willing to sink my demand (albeit a prior one) in favor of his own claim. He will consider the propriety of either going on shares with me, or allowing me whatever premium he may think just upon each letter. Instrumental as I have been in preserving his epistles from the dangers of flood and fire, and procuring their secure transmission, through the pages of the KNICKERBOCKER, to their destination, he will not neglect my hint. I am willing to look upon it as merely a commission business; my object being rather an amicable arrangement, and a mutual understanding of each other's interests, than any thing of a mercenary nature. Whatever profit may fall to my hands shall all be faithfully devoted to the Cause.

I send you herewith a splendid pictorial illustration, colored to the life, of the awful appearance of the interior of a drunkard's stomach. It has produced a powerful sensation in Boston, and may persuade you to reflect upon the possible condition of your own intestines.

I beg that you will by no means print this letter, as it may look like trumpeting my own goodness.

Yours, etc., in the Pledge,

* * * * *

NOTWITHSTANDING the foregoing injunction of the pacified financier not to print his letter, it is evident that he intended it for the public eye. It would moreover be most unjust not to let the world into a knowledge of his many virtues. As to our own vices, and especially the one here dwelt upon with so much fervor, we must be permitted to remark, in reply to the commiseration and advice of our moral friend, that during the whole course of a life 'now some years wasted,' we were never 'groggy,' 'intoxicated,' 'boozy,' 'swipsed,' 'cut,' 'how-came-you-so,' 'swizzled,' or 'tight,' but _once_; and assuredly _that_, as DOGBERRY says, 'shall be _suffegance_.' On a certain evening of one of the remote 'days that were' in our history, we remember ('ah! yes! too well remember!') trying to discover whether there was any foundation for the suspicion of a friend, that we had been over-'indulging' at a supper-party from which we both were returning. The fact truly was so. We ascertained, in endeavoring, for the satisfaction of our friend, to 'toe a mark' in the pavé, that the side-walk invariably followed the lifted foot; and that when we essayed to set its fellow down, the pavement receded in such a terrific manner that the sole encountered it with a good deal more of emphasis than discretion. We recollect, too, that the key-hole of our bachelor's-apartment was found to have been stolen on that memorable evening, rendering our key nugatory, adscititious, of no account, and so forth; and that when, by the aid of a fellow-lodger, we had achieved our room and bed, we found the latter emphatically a 'sick' one, and at times during the night in a very 'sinking condition;' so much so indeed, that at one period we began to 'despair of its _recovery_.' But that one abuse of Nature, (who always revenges herself, and at once, upon her assailants,) taught us a lesson which we have never forgotten, and never shall, 'unto thylke day i' the which we crepe into our sepulchre.' For the rest, we certainly _do_ affect an occasional glass of _good_ wine at a cheerful board, with congenial guests; such wine as we are informed, on the _best_ authority, 'maketh glad the heart of man;' such as Saint PAUL recommended to his brethren 'for their stomach's sake;' a wine, in short, which 'creates a spiritual vineyard in the heart,' and 'dispenses one's affections among his fellow men.'

ED. KNICKERBOCKER.

LETTER FOURTH.

TO WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR, FLORENCE.

BY THE HANDS OF SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ., LONDON.

ON the rough Bracco's top, at break of day, High o'er that gulf which bounds the Genoese, Since thou and I pursued our mountain way, Twenty Decembers have disrobed the trees.

Rome lay before us, hid beyond the peaks Which rose afar, our longing eyes to guide; The wave was one whose name a history speaks, The Tyrrhene sea--the pure blue Tuscan tide.

So many summers, in their gay return, Have found my pilgrimage still incomplete, Doomed as I seem, Ulysses-like, to earn My little knowledge by much toil of feet.

Charmed by the glowing earth and golden sky, In Arno's vale you made yourself a nest; There perched in peace and bookish ease, while I Still journeyed on, and found no place of rest.

And here I am in this prosaic land, This new Hesperia, less be-rhymed than thine, Here try the skill of my neglected hand To catch the favors of the chary Nine.

And here, amid remembrances that throng Thicker than blossoms in the new-born June, Thine chiefly claims the witness of a song That still at least my heart remains in tune.

You will not fail to pardon as you break The blushing seal that bears the well-known crest; And every line, however rude, shall wake Kind thoughts of him who wanders in the West.

But never hope (with so refined a sense Of what is well conceived and ably wrought,) To find my verse retain its old pretence To the smooth utterance of an easy thought.

For who can sing amid this roar of streets, This crash of engines and discordant mills? Where, ev'n in Solitude's most hushed retreats, Machinery drowns the music of the rills?

True, Nature here hath donned her gala robe, Drest in all charms--wild, savage, and sublime; Within one realm enfolding half the globe, Flowers of all soils, and fruits of every clime.

Yet nothing here conveys the musing mind Beyond the landmarks of the present hour, Since every impulse is of sordid kind, Among this race, that moves the Fancy's power.

No mighty bard, with consecrating touch, Hath made the scene a nobler mood inspire; The sullen Puritan, the sensual Dutch, Proved but a barren fosterage for the lyre.

Beauty should speak: however fair the shore, With balmy groves which all the coast perfume, Until his eloquence the minstrel pour Over the landscape, vainly must it bloom.

E'en thy dear Italy, whose ashes now, Albeit feebly, warm our Saxon strains, Was once, ere yet her vallies felt the plough, Fameless and voiceless as Iowa's plains.

Imagine old OEnotria as she stood In Saturn's reign, before the stranger came; Ere yet the stillness of the trackless wood Had heard the echoes of a Trojan's name.

Young Latium then, as now Missouri's waste, Was dumb in story, soulless and unsung: Whatever deeds her savage annals graced Died soon, as lacking some harmonious tongue.

Up her dark streams the first explorers found Only one dim, interminable shade; Cliffs with the growth of awful ages crowned, Amid whose gloom the wolf and wild-boar preyed.

Afar, perchance, on some sky-piercing height, Nigh the last limit of the eagle's road, Some stray Pelasgians had assumed a site To pitch their proud, impregnable abode.

Pent in their airy dens, the builders reared Turrets, fanes, altars fed with daily flame; But with their walls their memory disappeared: Their meanest implements outlive their name.

What race of giants piled yon rocks so high? Who cut those hidden channels for the rills? Drained the deep lake, and sucked the marshes dry, Or hollowed into sepulchres the hills?

These, in the time of Romulus, were old; Even then as now conjecture could but err; In prose or verse no chronicler hath told Whence the tribes came, and who their heroes were.

A few rough sculptures and funereal urns, Which still are mocked by unimproving Art, Perplex the mind till tired reflection turns To the great people dearer to her heart.

Soon as they rose--the Capitolian lords-- The land grew sacred and beloved of GOD; Where'er they brandished their triumphant swords Glory sprang forth and sanctified the sod.

Ev'n yet their tombs, though dateless and decayed, Allure the northern pilgrim from afar; Still Contemplation's orisons are paid Where any fragments of their trophies are.

Nay, whether wandering by the swollen Rhone, Or by the Thames, we mark the Cæsar's tracks, Wondering how far, from their Tarpeian flown, The ambitious eagles bore the praetor's axe;

Those toga'd kings, the fathers and the knights, Are still our masters, and within us reign; Born though we were by Alleghany's heights, Beyond the desolation of the main.

For while the music of their language lasts, They shall not perish like the painted men (Brief-lived in memory as the winter's blasts) Who here once held the hill-top and the glen.

These had their passions, had their virtues, too; Were valiant, proud, indomitably free; But who recalls them with delight, or who Their coarse mementos with esteem can see?

From them and their's with cold regard we turn, The wreck of polished nations to survey, Nor care the savage attributes to learn Of souls that struggled with barbarian clay.

With what emotion on a coin we trace Vespasian's brow, or Trajan's chastened smile, But view with heedless eye the murderous mace And chequered lance of Zealand's warrior-isle.

Here, by the ploughman, as with daily tread He tracks the furrows of his fertile ground, Dark locks of hair, and thigh-bones of the dead, Spear-heads, and skulls, and arrows oft are found.

On such memorials unconcerned we gaze; No trace remaining of the glow divine, Wherewith, dear WALTER! in our Eton days We eyed a fragment from the Palatine.

How rich to us th' Imperial City seemed, Whose meanest relic vied with any gem! The costly stones on kingly crowns that gleamed Possessed small beauty, if compared with them.

Cellini's workmanship could nothing add, Nor the Pope's blessing, nor a case of gold, To the strange value every pebble had O'er which perchance the Tiber's wave had rolled.

It fired us then to trace upon the map The forum's line, the Pincian garden's paths; Ay, or to finger but a stucco scrap Or marble shred from Caracalla's baths.

A like enchantment all thy land pervades, Mellows the sunshine, softens autumn's breeze; O'erhangs the mouldering town and chestnut shades, And glows and sparkles in the golden seas.

No such a spell the charm'd adventurer guides Who seeks those ruins hid in Yucatan, Where through the tropic forest silent glides, By crumbled fane and idol, slow Copan.

There, as the weedy pyramid he climbs, Or notes, mid groves that rankly wave above, The work of nameless hands in unknown times, Much wakes his wonder--nothing stirs his love.

Art's rude beginnings, wheresoever found, The same dull chord of feeling faintly strike; The Druid's pillar, and the Indian mound, And Uxmal's monuments, are mute alike.

Nor here, although the gorgeous year hath brought Crimson October's beautiful decay, Can all this loveliness inspire a thought Beyond the marvels of the fleeting day.

For here the Present overpowers the Past; No recollections to these woods belong, (O'er which no minstrelsy its veil hath cast) To rouse our worship, or supply my song.

But this will come; the necromancer Age Shall round the wilderness his glory throw; Hudson shall murmur through the poet's page, And in his numbers more superbly flow.

Ev'n now perhaps, the destined soul is born, Warm with high hope, though dumbly pent within, To shield his country from the common scorn, That never duly hymned her praise hath been.

Enough--'t is more than midnight by the clock; Manhattan dreams of dollars, all abed: With you, dear WALTER, 't is the crow of cock, And o'er Fièsole the skies are red.

Good night! yet stay--both longitudes to suit, At once the absent and returning light, Thus let me bid our mutual salute; To you _Buon giorno_--to myself Good night!

T. W. P.

LITERARY NOTICES.

ANNALS AND OCCURRENCES OF NEW-YORK CITY AND STATE IN THE OLDEN TIME. BY JOHN F. WATSON, ESQ. NEW-YORK: BAKER AND CRANE.

HERE is a new work touching the KNICKERBOCKERS, which _we_ are especially bound to notice; and this we do with the more satisfaction, that we can heartily commend it to the notice of our readers, or what is the same thing, to 'the public at large.' We perceive by a few pages of the work which have been laid before us, that this is an enlargement of a former edition, favorably known to the reading public, entitled '_Historic Tales of Olden Time concerning New-York_.' It now notices the rise and progress of the inland country and towns, relates much concerning the pioneer settlers, and details the hostilities and ravages of their Indian neighbors. It is in fact a complete history of a buried age; and brings up to the imagination, for its contemplation and entertainment, a picture of 'things as they were in the days of rustic simplicity, so wholly unlike the present display of fashion, pomp, and splendor.' It is easy to perceive that Mr. WATSON gathers facts and writes _con amore_; not for profit, in this book-making age, but because he feels and sees our wonderfully rapid advancement from small things to great. 'I have written,' he says, 'for New-York and State; not for money, but for patriotism. I felt it due to the country, to tell its tale of wonder; and due to GOD, for His gracious and signal providence, in so settling and prospering our Anglo-Saxon race, in this new field of His exercise.' To quote the warm language of one of our contemporaries: 'This is in truth a work without example for its imitation; and with equal truth, it is in execution a work _sui generis_. It is a museum that will never cease to attract. Its annals and statistics will have snatched from oblivion valuable reminiscences of the early youth of our country; and will furnish the historian, biographer, and the patriotic orator with matter to adorn and beautify their productions. He deserves the gratitude of his country, and the patronage of the reading community. Wherefore, no American that can read and can afford to purchase, should be without a copy of this valuable contribution to the memoirs of early American history.' We venture to predict that the aged will be delighted to be thus reminded of things which they have heard of, or perhaps witnessed; and the young will be surprised to find such a lively picture of the doings of their forefathers. Among the many subjects considered, are the first settlements and primitive incidents connected with New-York, Albany, Schenectady, Rochester, Brooklyn, etc.; notices of the early Dutch times; manners and customs; dress, furniture, and equipage; local changes; ancient memorials, and curious facts. Much is said of the Indians; of the local incidents connected with the revolutionary war; of ancient edifices and buildings; in short, of every thing calculated to bring back scenes and occurrences of by-gone times. These matters too are related in a style peculiar to the author; they are matters moreover only to have been perceived and scanned by a mind so constituted as his own. The work is undertaken by Messrs. BAKER AND CRANE, a young and enterprising metropolitan house, and will be completed in one octavo volume of about five hundred pages; illustrated with thirty new pictorial embellishments; and furnished to subscribers at the low rate of two dollars per copy, payable on delivery. Among the engravings, which are to be executed in the best manner on wood, will be two views of New-York City; one of New-Amsterdam in 1659, one of New-Orange in 1673; a map of the city, as it appeared in 1729; pictures of the old Federal Hall, in 1789; the Walton and Provost Houses; Trinity church, now numbered in the catalogue of things that have been; the Merchants' Exchange, destroyed by the 'great fire' of '35; beside numerous other edifices, of interest to the antiquary; and also views of HUDSON'S arrival at Sandy-Hook; the Erie Canal, Niagara Falls, the Conflagration of Schenectady, etc., etc.; and 'last, though not least,' a _fac simile_ of the head and signature of the good old governor, renowned in KNICKERBOCKER'S annals as 'PETER the Headstrong,' or 'HARD-KOPPING PIET.' 'Finally, brethren,' let every KNICKERBOCKER who feels an affectionate attachment to the home of _his_ fathers, or veneration for the memory of _their_ fathers, secure at once for himself a knowledge of all manner of curious things inseparable from our history, from one who has been called 'the HOMER of his class, and in archeology, peerless.' Subscription-lists are open at the office of the KNICKERBOCKER, at the store of the publishers, number 158 Pearl-street, and at the rooms of the Mercantile Library Association.

LETTERS FROM NEW-YORK. By L. MARIA CHILD, Author of 'The Mother's own Book,' 'The Girl's Book,' etc. In one volume, pp. 276. New-York: C. S. FRANCIS AND COMPANY. Boston: JAMES MONROE AND COMPANY.

IN the dedication of this volume, the writer alludes to its being 'deeply tinged with romance and mysticism;' but to our conception, its pages exhibit a far greater amount of _truth_, undeniable, and of deep import to society at large, and to our own metropolitan community especially. Here is a woman who knows 'how to observe;' and we cannot do a better service to thousands in our city, who walk its streets and thoroughfares, and visit the hundred-and-one places of resort in its vicinity, without appreciating or enjoying the objects of interest or instruction by which they are surrounded, than to call their attention to the records of the volume under notice. And having done this, we shall proceed to illustrate the reason for the faith that is in us that they will thank us for this recommendation, by presenting a few desultory extracts. Let us commence them with a remarkable case of instinctive knowledge in birds, related by the writer's grandfather, who saw the fact with his own eyes:

'HE was attracted to the door, one summer day, by a troubled twittering, indicating distress and terror. A bird, who had built her nest in a tree near the door, was flying back and forth with the utmost speed, uttering wailing cries as she went. He was at first at a loss to account for her strange movements; but they were soon explained by the sight of a snake slowly winding up the tree. Animal magnetism was then unheard of; and whosoever had dared to mention it, would doubtless have been hung on Witch's Hill, without benefit of clergy. Nevertheless, marvellous and altogether unaccountable stories had been told of the snake's power to charm birds. The popular belief was, that the serpent charmed the bird by _looking steadily at it; and that such a sympathy was thereby established, that if the snake were struck, the bird felt the blow, and writhed under it_.

'These traditions excited my grandfather's curiosity to watch the progress of things; but, being a humane man, he resolved to kill the snake before he had a chance to despoil the nest. The distressed mother meanwhile continued her rapid movements and troubled cries; and he soon discovered that she went and came continually, with something in her bill, from one particular tree--a white ash. The snake wound his way up; but the instant his head came near the nest, his folds relaxed, and he fell to the ground, rigid and apparently lifeless. My grandfather made sure of his death by cutting off his head, and then mounted the tree to examine into the mystery. The snug little nest was filled with eggs, and covered with leaves of the white-ash! That little bird knew, if my readers do not, that contact with the white-ash is deadly to a snake. This is no idle superstition, but a veritable fact in natural history. The Indians are aware of it, and twist garlands of white-ash leaves about their ankles, as a protection against rattlesnakes. Slaves often take the same precaution when they travel through swamps and forests, guided by the north star; or to the cabin of some poor white man, who teaches them to read and write by the light of pine splinters, and receives his pay in 'massa's' corn or tobacco.

'I have never heard any explanation of the effect produced by the white-ash; but I know that settlers in the wilderness like to have these trees round their log-houses, being convinced that no snake will voluntarily come near them. When touched with the boughs, they are said to grow suddenly rigid, with strong convulsions; after a while they slowly recover, but seem sickly for some time.'

Here is a charming sketch of an actual occurrence, which goes far to confirm the writer's impression 'that instinct is founded on traditions handed down among animals from generation to generation, and is therefore a matter of education:'

'TWO barn-swallows came into our wood-shed in the spring time. Their busy, earnest twitterings led me at once to suspect that they were looking out a building-spot; but as a carpenter's bench was under the window, and frequent hammering, sawing, and planing were going on, I had little hope that they would choose a location under our roof. To my surprise, however, they soon began to build in the crotch of a beam, over the open door-way. I was delighted, and spent more time watching them than 'penny-wise' people would have approved. It was, in fact, a beautiful little drama of domestic love. The mother-bird was _so_ busy, and _so_ important; and her mate was _so_ attentive! Never did any newly-married couple take more satisfaction with their first nicely-arranged drawer of baby-clothes, than these did in fashioning their little woven cradle. The father-bird scarcely ever left the side of the nest. There he was, all day long, twittering in tones that were most obviously the outpourings of love. Sometimes he would bring in a straw, or a hair, to be inwoven in the precious little fabric. One day my attention was arrested by a very unusual twittering, and I saw him circling round with a large downy feather in his bill. He bent over the unfinished nest, and offered it to his mate with the most graceful and loving air imaginable; and when she put up her mouth to take it, he poured forth _such_ a gush of gladsome sound! It seemed as if pride and affection had swelled his heart, till it was almost too big for his little bosom. The whole transaction was the prettiest piece of fond coquetry, on both sides, that it was ever my good luck to witness.

'It was evident that the father-bird had formed correct opinions on 'the woman question;' for during the process of incubation he volunteered to perform his share of household duty. Three or four times a day would he, with coaxing twitterings, persuade his patient mate to fly abroad for food; and the moment she left the eggs, he would take the maternal station, and give a loud alarm whenever cat or dog came about the premises. He certainly performed the office with far less ease and grace than she did; it was something in the style of an old bachelor tending a babe; but nevertheless it showed that his heart was kind, and his principles correct, concerning division of labor. When the young ones came forth, he pursued the same equalizing policy, and brought at least half the food for his greedy little family. But when they become old enough to fly, the veriest misanthrope would have laughed to watch their manoeuvres! Such chirping and twittering! Such diving down from the nest, and flying up again! Such wheeling round in circles, talking to the young ones all the while! Such clinging to the sides of the shed with their sharp claws, to show the timid little fledgelings that there was no need of falling!

'For three days all this was carried on with increasing activity. It was obviously an infant flying-school. But all their talking and fuss were of no avail. The little downy things looked down, and then looked up, and alarmed at the infinity of space, sank back into the nest again. At length the parents grew impatient, and summoned their neighbors. As I was picking up chips one day, I found my head encircled with a swarm of swallows. They flew up to the nest, and chatted away to the young ones; they clung to the walls, looking back to tell how the thing was done; they dived, and wheeled, and balanced, and floated, in a manner perfectly beautiful to behold.

'The pupils were evidently much excited. They jumped up on the edge of the nest, and twittered, and shook their feathers, and waved their wings; and then hopped back again, saying, 'It's pretty sport, but we can't do it!' Three times the neighbors came in and repeated their graceful lessons. The third time, two of the young birds gave a sudden plunge downward, and then fluttered and hopped, till they alighted on a small upright log. And oh! such praises as were warbled by the whole troop! The air was filled with their joy! Some were flying round, swift as a ray of light; others were perched on the hoe-handle, and the teeth of the rake; multitudes clung to the wall, after the fashion of their pretty kind; and two were swinging, in most graceful style, on a pendant hoop. Never, while memory lasts, shall I forget that swallow-party! I have frolicked with blessed Nature much and often; but this, above all her gambols, spoke into my inmost heart, like the glad voices of little children. That beautiful family continued to be our playmates until the falling leaves gave token of approaching winter. For some time, the little ones came home regularly to their nest at night. I was ever on the watch to welcome them, and count that none were missing. A sculptor might have taken a lesson in his art from those little creatures, perched so gracefully on the edge of their clay-built cradle, fast asleep, with heads hidden under their folded wings. Their familiarity was wonderful. If I hung my gown on a nail, I found a little swallow perched on the sleeve. If I took a nap in the afternoon, my waking eyes were greeted by a swallow on the bed-post; in the summer twilight they flew about the sitting-room in search of flies, and sometimes lighted on chairs and tables. I almost thought they knew how much I loved them. But at last they flew away to more genial skies, with a whole troop of relations and neighbors. It was a deep pain to me, that I should never know them from other swallows, and that they would have no recollection of me.'

Mrs. CHILD has a remarkable power of _adaptation_ in her style. Her similes are often exceedingly forcible and felicitous. Observe the admirable comparison which closes the ensuing passage, descriptive of the services at the Synagogue of the Jews, on the Festival of the New-Year:

'WHILE they were chanting an earnest prayer for the coming of the Promised One, who was to restore the scattered tribes, I turned over the leaves, and by a singular coincidence my eye rested on these words: 'Abraham said, See ye not the splended light now shining on Mount Moriah? And they answered, _Nothing but caverns do we see_.' I thought of Jesus, and the whole pageant became more spectral than ever; so strangely vague and shadowy, that I felt as if under the influence of magic. The significant sentence reminded me of a German friend, who shared his sleeping apartment with another gentleman, and both were in the habit of waking very early in the morning. One night, his companion rose much earlier than he intended; and perceiving his mistake, placed a lighted lamp in the chimney corner, that its glare might not disturb the sleeper, leaned his back against the fire-place, and began to read. Sometime after, the German rose, left him reading, and walked forth into the morning twilight. When he returned, the sun was shining high up in the heavens; but his companion, unconscious of the change, was still reading by lamp-light in the chimney corner. And this the Jews are now doing, as well as a very large proportion of Christians.'

And in this allusion to the tyranny of public opinion, there is an important truth very adroitly enforced by an apposite anecdote, timely remembered:

'FEW men ask concerning right and wrong of their _own_ hearts. Few listen to the oracle _within_, which can only be heard in the stillness. The merchant seeks his moral standard on 'change--a fitting name for a thing so fluctuating; the sectary in the opinion of his small theological department; the politician in the tumultuous echo of his party; the worldling in the buzz of saloons. In a word, each man inquires of _his_ public; what wonder, then, that the answers are selfish as trading interest, blind as local prejudice, and various as human whim? A German drawing-master once told me of a lad who wished to sketch landscapes from nature. The teacher told him that the first object was to choose some _fixed point of view_. The sagacious pupil chose a cow grazing beneath the trees. Of course, his _fixed point_ soon began to move hither and thither, as she was attracted by the sweetness of the pasturage; and the lines of his drawing fell into strange confusion. This is a correct type of those who choose public opinion for their moral fixed point of view. It moves according to the provender before it, and they who trust to it have but a whirling and distorted landscape. Coleridge defines public opinion as 'the average prejudices of the community.' Wo unto those who have no safer guide of principle and practice than this 'average of prejudices!''

Doubtless a vast number of persons as fervently desire the time when 'wars shall cease from under the whole heaven,' as our author. Like herself, thousands feel that

'Too long at clash of arms amid her bowers, And pools of blood, the earth has stood aghast:'

but she will find few who will carry the prejudice which a hatred of war has created in her bosom so far as she has done. On visiting what was once the grave of ANDRE, she is shown by the guide the head-quarters of General WASHINGTON: 'I turned my back suddenly upon it. The last place on earth where I would wish to think of WASHINGTON is at the grave of ANDRE.' And she adds, that she never could look upon ANDRE'S execution 'as other than _a cool, deliberate murder_!' The stern necessity which impelled the FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY to this act, at which his great heart, throbbing with the cares of an infant empire, melted in pity, is termed 'a selfish jealousy, dignified with the name of patriotism!' All this, however, is creditable to the _woman's-heart_ of our author; as is her wish, and the 'strong faith' of which it is the father, that the time is not distant when 'all _prisons_ will cease from the face of the earth.' Human nature, howbeit, must undergo an important change before such an event can take place; and a long time must elapse before WASHINGTON'S memory can receive any injury from attacks upon it like the one above cited. We are getting, however, to the end of our tether, in the 'short commons' left for us in this department; but after the written and 'illustrated' praise which we have awarded to the volume before us, we are compelled, in candor, to add a word or two of censure. Now and then, it must be admitted, our author is slightly vague and _bizarre_, as if to make good the declaration in her dedication; and she can be, moreover, on occasion, a little mawkish; as in the instance where, after the sentiment has been satisfied, she pumps up a feeling, and 'drags in by ear and horn' a struggling sentence touching two doves in the room that once was ANDRE'S; their 'mated human hearts,' and so forth. These and one or two kindred simulations, or ultra-sentimentalities, are not _intellectually_ feminine, and must be set down as defects in the generally natural and fresh style of our gifted author, whose clever volume we are glad of an opportunity warmly to commend to public acceptance. Some readers may find in it matters to condemn, perhaps, but all will encounter much that is deserving of cordial praise.

DEATH: OR MEDORUS' DREAM. By the Author of 'Ahasuerus.' In one volume, pp. 66. New-York: HARPER AND BROTHERS.

WE deem it a substantial tribute to the merits of the poem before us, that it has elicited the cordial commendations of two daily journals of authority in our midst; the antipodal editors of which, (one of them the first of American poets,) in awarding their meed of praise, candidly confessed that the production was more likely to be judged by a political standard at the seat of government, than by any critical measure, based upon an impartial consideration of its literary qualities. For ourselves, we must say that we have perused the poem with a pleasure not a little enhanced by the reflection, that the author has been enabled to find leisure, amidst engagements which, if one may believe the partizan journals, must needs be numerous and pressing, to pay that attention to literary pursuits, which by so many politicians, and utilitarians of another class, are considered 'useless, if not belittling, to a man of mental calibre sufficient for any thing more manly than verse-making.' Indeed, this position we remember somewhere to have seen assumed and defended, in the words we have quoted. The opening of 'Medorus' Dream,' the fine lines on 'Death,' have already appeared in the KNICKERBOCKER, from the manuscript of the author. They will be remembered not only by the readers of this Magazine, but also by those of very many journals throughout the Union, into which they were copied, with expressions of warm admiration. In selecting, therefore, a few extracts, in corroboration of the justice of our encomiums, we shall plunge at once _in medias res_ into the volume before us; leaving our readers to judge whether the writer does not exhibit a hearty love and keen observation of Nature, in her various phases; a strong sense of the beautiful and the true; and an ease and smoothness of versification, which go far to controvert the theory that, for certain reasons, (among which 'a restless ambition' has been cited as the chief,) 'there can be little poetry in high places.' Take, for example, the annexed brief but comprehensive glance at the four seasons:

SPRING laughing comes to bless the verdant land. Sweet breezes kiss the glowing curls that lie Upon her blooming cheek; a lambent fire Plays from her radiant eyes; 'neath her light step Daisies and cowslips grow. Upon the bud She breathes, and quick the rose unfolds Its tinted leaves, and, trembling with keen bliss, Sips the pure morning dews, and soft exhales A gentle odor through the garden's walks, More sweet than beauty's breath. Hark to those sounds! The warbling notes that rise upon the gale Steal o'er the soul like voices of pure prayer, Or dream of Eden's joys. O'er all the earth Warm sunshine streams, whose fructifying rays Strike through the fibrous soil, and quicken there A thousand lovely forms; these straightway start From that deep sleep which heaven so kindly sends Through winter's rugged hour, while soon they join The happy circle of all beauteous things, That fill the world with perfume and with song, Hailing their bounteous mistress, virgin Spring!

Mark SUMMER, sitting 'neath yon spreading palm, Her shady throne. With matron dignity She gazes round, and smiles in quiet pride While counting o'er the glorious wealth that fills Her wide domain. Now wave the growing fields Beneath the rip'ning winds and the warm sun; Now the soft pulp of the distending fruits Imbibes rich nectar from the glowing beams Of the calm, golden day. Now Hope sits laughing In a world of light, and Promise near Weaves the bright numbers of a joyous lay, With Plenty still the burden of his theme.

Next AUTUMN comes, the sweet industrious maid, Who garners up the treasures of past days, Brown nuts, and yellow grain, and ripen'd stores Of mellow'd fruits; yet still a pensive smile, As soft as moonlight on some slumb'ring stream, Throws o'er her face a melancholy shade Of sober thought, as though her heart was sad That the large harvests which her sickle wins Should leave the earth so bare. And then she sings A plaintive strain that echoes through the land, Like the wild cooings of some soft-toned dove, A note of resignation and of peace, Though still a sound of sadness from the soul.

Lo! WINTER rushes from the land of storms: From the cold Arctic regions, where he sat 'Mong clouds and darkness, and vast misshaped forms, He comes, with frosts, and howling winds, and hail, And the dark terrors of a sunless sky. Unshorn his ragged beard, and his fierce eyes, Relentless as the murderer's stony heart, Condemns the victim, while his icy breath, More deadly than the lightning's fiery gleam, Sweeps life into oblivion. Spirit, no; Man's finite faculties alone may see Such evil in God's goodness: we behold A crowning mercy of beneficence In Winter's coldest blast. Could earth exist Without that change in matter and in form By which her strength recuperates, and lends An impulse unto Nature's fostering will? The pulpy fruit would perish where it falls But for the bitter kernel; flowers would fade, No more mid sweet ambrosial dews to bloom, But for the winter's torpid touch, that crusts The leathery seed with its rough coating o'er, Freezes its ardent currents ere they spring Into ephemeral being, and thus yields Unto a small and leaden speck, a power Of life perpetual, and from dull clay Maintains a breathing world.'

'A ducat to a beggarly denier' that we saw the same ocean, glowing under the same glorious summer-evening light, as is described in the lines which ensue. We have never compared notes with our author; but it seems impossible that the kindred scene in which we revelled on a memorable occasion at the Telegraph station, by the Narrows, should not have extended to Fire-Island; the _locale_, we cannot help inferring, of this picture:

OFT hath the man who loveth Nature's ways, Musing, gone forth alone by Ocean's tide, And, gazing on that amaranthine plain, Hath mark'd the rich beams of descending day Shoot slanting o'er the light and feathery waves, Until the sea, by burning passion moved, Through all its depths, turns into liquid gold, And heaves and thrills beneath those ardent rays, With love too strong for mortal minds to know, With love too deep for mortal hearts to feel. Then, from that glorious main, his soul-lit eye Hath wander'd strait to heaven, and in one view The pearl, and flame, and amethyst, and gold, The shadowy vermeil flush, the purple light, The amber-tinted streak, and banner'd clouds, Like incense streaming up from Evening's shrine, Wafted by gentle gales along the sky, The beauty, brightness, majesty, and pomp, The gorgeous splendor of the imperial West, Burst on his raptured sight! He, happy then, While Fancy's spirit-form smiles o'er his head, Deems it the lovely sky that canopies The land of Paradise.

Here is a wider reach of more varied scenery, yet not less forcible than the more 'thin compositions,' to use the painter's phrase:

FIRST, as they look'd, there rose upon the sight Long, waving chains of happy-smiling hills, Uprising gently from the sloping vales, As if to woo the rustling noontide winds: Next, wide-expansive, music-making seas, Across whose placid, soft-suspiring tides The playful breezes fly, on tireless wings. Then, 'neath their wond'ring eyes at once display'd, Behold, in one far-sweeping, lovely view, The broad green vesture of the quick'ning sod Trembling with heat, and glowing into life Under the warm sun's vivifying beams: The Desert's thirsty plains gemm'd with their green And cool oases, bright mid barren sands; Rivers whose pearly tides stretch'd far away Through fertile lands to Ocean's emerald brink; And lakes that seem'd, in their transparent depths, The crystal eyes of Earth. Here mountains, hills, And winding dales, fair seas, and shining lakes, And silvery streams, gay-blooming boughs, and flowery turf, Conspire, in all their loveliest power, to make The warm, the fresh, the pure, and beauteous form Of this enamell'd world.'

Lovers of flowers; gentle maidens, scarcely less fragile and fair; and ye of the 'sterner sex,' who are not ashamed to praise heaven and earth; we ask you if the ensuing lines are not 'beautiful exceedingly:'

The red Rose, blushing in its virgin pride, Hangs lightly on its green and briery stalk, And kisses from its pale-cheek'd sister's brow, With trembling lip, the pearly tear away.

Here Violets, that spring by stealth at night, Of rarer scents and sweeter shapes than those Pluck'd by the village maiden in the vale, Ere yet the sun hath touch'd their dewy leaves, Mingle their balmiest odors and their hues With the soft-nectar'd sighs Of wind-flowers, pansies, hyacinths, oxlips, And sun-striped tulips tall, Until the freighted airs themselves grow faint, And on their weary way sink down to sleep Among the silent wild-flowers watching there.

We have purposely abstained from a detailed review or analysis of the poem under notice; preferring that the reader should derive his impression of the performance from such portions of it, taken almost at random, as we could command space to present; leaving him to seek in the volume itself that gratification of which we are sure our extracts will give him a foretaste. It was our intention to have animadverted upon the use of certain words and compounds which struck us as being infelicitous; but we can only transcribe a few of them, without comment, from our pencilled copy: 'JEHOVAH'S _fadeless_ arms;' 'frost-enmirror'd;' 'sun-bedazzled;' '_ornamentless_ curves;' 'rich-rubied rays,' etc. 'To conclude:' we consider the present poem a manifest improvement upon 'Ahasuerus,' which was noticed at length in these pages. The author is now 'well in harness,' and moves on without incumbrance. Once more we welcome him to the quiet walks of literature, which he treads so pleasantly; and again we greet him with '_Macte virtute_!'

EXERCISES OF THE ALUMNÆ OF THE ALBANY FEMALE ACADEMY, on their Second Anniversary, July 20, 1843. Albany: C. VAN BENTHUYSEN AND COMPANY.

AH! young ladies! we wish you could 'realize' how greatly gratified we are to find you so much improved! We say 'improved,' because it can scarcely be possible that you could have written such charming compositions, before you had experienced the benefits of the system of instruction pursued at the institution upon which you reflect so much honor. We say this in no vain spirit of compliment, but in all candor. The address of the President, Miss M. ROBINSON, of this city, is not only excellent in its inculcations and tendency, but is written with great perspicuity and freedom. The prize poem by Miss ELIZA WHITNEY of Philadelphia, has many of the elements of true poetry, while its trifling defects are merely mechanical. The committee who awarded the prize, one of whom we observe was Mrs. SIGOURNEY, seem to have hesitated in their choice between this and three or four other poems of kindred excellence. 'MARY GRAFTON' need not have sheltered herself under a _pseudonyme_. Her essay on 'What should be the intellectual education of Woman, to fit her for the duties of life,' is worthy of a strong and disciplined mind and a practised pen. The honor of the best essay in French was assigned to Miss M'CORMICK of Oswego, in this State; yet the committee selected it in preference to three others, only 'because they were forced to choose;' a fact which precludes the idea of 'rejection.' The capital tale entitled 'Home Education,' by Miss MARY E. FIELD, of Haddam, (Conn.,) must certainly have deserved the honor which it won among its rivals. We have rarely seen a story, the lessons of which were so valuable, in a national point of view, kept up with so much spirit, and eliciting so much interest, in the narrative. On the whole, so favorably are we impressed with these 'exercises' of the alumnæ of the Albany Female Academy, that we begin to peer into the 'onward distance,' and to see our own little people winning honors in that popular institution. 'So mote it be!'

THE CROWNING HOUR, AND OTHER POEMS. By CHARLES JAMES CANNON, Author of 'The Poet's Quest.' etc. With a Portrait of the Author. In one volume, pp. 132. New-York: EDWARD DUNIGAN.

THUS is entitled a neat little volume which we find on our table. Without being a 'great gun' in literature, or destined to make much noise in the world, Mr. CANNON is yet a clever versifier, and occasionally 'goes off' with good thoughts very agreeably; while 'the habit of wishing to discover the good and the beautiful in all that meets and surrounds him' is quite apparent in his compositions. The 'crowning hour' is the period when COLUMBUS first discovers land from the quarter deck of his vessel. Certain incidents of the voyage, and the emotions of the 'world-seeking Genoese,' form the staple of the main poem; but the prose of IRVING is far better poetry than the verse which here records them. The remainder of the volume is devoted to the republication of several minor effusions from certain periodicals of these times, and from a previous volume of the author. The 'Dogberryotype' portrait of Mr. CANNON, in the opening of his book, strikes us as being in bad taste. We are loath to interfere with such an exhibition of harmless vanity; but the picture being what is negatively termed 'no beauty,' we must adopt the advice of HOLMES to the plain gentleman whose portrait graced the Athenæum exhibition: 'Don't let it be there any longer! Take it home, and hush the matter up!' It is but justice to add, however, that the portrait which fronts the volume under notice does not do justice to the features of its author. Engravings from Daguerreotype miniatures have never impressed us favorably, either as faithful likenesses, or specimens of pictorial art.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

'THE MYSTERIES OF PARIS.'--A 'friend and fellow-citizen' of ours has translated, so far as published, a serial novel, just now making a great noise in the literary circles of the French capital, entitled '_Les Mysteries de Paris_,' by EUGENE SUE. Premising that our readers will soon have an opportunity of perusing in an English translation some of the most striking of the very remarkable sketches of this DICKENS of France, we shall content ourselves for the present with a single extract, embodying a simple, but as it strikes us, a very touching and impressive scene. The RODOLPHE of the passage below is a German prince, who has come to Paris, and who goes forth in disguise to seek out worthy objects of benevolence. He encounters in '_La Cité_,' a quarter of the town occupied by the most abandoned classes, a girl of a beautiful, melancholy countenance, called in the peculiar language of the inhabitants, '_La Goualeuse_,' or '_Fleur-de-Marie_,' who turns out, in the subsequent progress of the story, to be a child of his own, whom he supposed to be dead, but who had in fact been left in the streets by her nurses. He proposes to take her into the country with him; and the effect which rural objects produce upon her mind is very beautifully described in the little episode of 'The Rose-bush,' which will be found in the opening of the story. The whole tale forcibly illustrates what a French metropolitan contemporary terms the '_inépuisable_ imagination' of EUGENE SUE:

'I BELIEVE you, and I thank you; but answer me frankly: is it equally agreeable what part of the country we go to?'

'Oh, it is all the same to me, Monsieur Rodolphe, as long as it is the country; it is so pleasant; the pure air is so good to breathe! Do you know that for five months I have been no farther than the flower market, and if the _ogresse_ ever allowed me to go out of the Cité, it was because she had confidence in me?'

'And when you came to this market, was it to buy flowers?'

'Oh, no: I had no money; I only came to see them; to inhale their rich perfume. For the half hour that the ogresse allowed me to pass on the quai during market-days, I was so happy that I forgot all.'

'And when you returned to the ogresse--to those horrid streets?'

'I came back more sorrowful than when I set out. I choked down my tears, that I might not receive a beating. I tell you what it was at the market which made me envious, oh! _very_ envious; it was to see the little '_ouvrières_,' so neatly clad, going off so gaily with a fine pot of flowers in their arms!'

'I am sure if you had only had some flowers in your window, they would have been companions for you.'

'It is very true what you say, Monsieur Rodolphe. Imagine: one day the ogresse at her fête, knowing my love for flowers, gave me a little rose-bush. If you could only know how happy I was! I was no longer lonesome! I could not keep from looking at my rose-bush. I amused myself in counting its leaves, its flowers.... But the air is so bad in La Cité that at the end of two days it began to fade.... But you'll laugh at me, Monsieur Rodolphe?'

'No, no! Go on! go on!'

'Well then, I asked permission from the ogresse to take my bush out for an airing; yes, as I would have taken out a child. I brought it to the quai: I thought to myself, that being in company with other flowers, in this fine and balmy air, would do it good. I moistened its poor withered leaves with the pure water of the fountain, and then I warmed it awhile in the sun. Dear little rose-tree! it never saw the sun in La Cité for in our street it comes no lower than the roof. At length I returned; and I assure you, Monsieur Rodolphe, that my rose-bush lived perhaps ten days longer than it would have done without the airings.'

'I believe it; but when it died!--that must have been a great loss for you.'

'I wept for it; I was very sorry.... Beside, Monsieur Rodolphe, since you understand how one can love flowers, I can tell it to you. Well, I felt _grateful_ to it. Ah! now _this_ time you are laughing at me!'

'No, no! I love, I adore flowers; and thus I can comprehend all the foolish things they cause one to commit, or which they inspire.'

''Eh bien!' I felt grateful to this poor rose-bush, for having flowered so prettily for me--such a one as me!' The goualeuse held down her head and became purple with shame.

'Poor child! with this consciousness of your horrible position, you must have often ...'

'Had a wish to put an end to it? Is it not so, Monsieur Rodolphe?' said la Goualeuse, interrupting her companion. 'Oh! yes; more than once I have looked at the Seine from the parapet. But then I turned to the flowers, the sun, and I said to myself, 'The river will always be there.... I am only sixteen ... who knows?'

'When you said, '_Who knows_?' you had a hope?'

'Yes.'

'And what did you hope for?'

'I do not know. I hoped--yes, I hoped, '_malgré moi_.' At those moments, it seemed to me that my fate was not merited; that there was some good left in me. I said to myself, 'I have been very much troubled, but at least, I have never harmed any one ... if I had only had some one to counsel me, I should not be where I am. That dissipated my sorrow a little. After all, I must confess that these thoughts occurred oftener after the loss of my rose-bush,' added la Goualeuse, in a solemn manner, which made Rodolphe smile.

'This great grief always ...'

'Yes; look here!'--and la Goualeuse drew from her pocket a little packet, carefully tied with a pink favor.

'You have preserved it?'

'I think so! It is all I possess in the world.'

'How! have you nothing you can call your own?'

'Nothing.'

'But this coral necklace?'

'It belongs to the ogresse.'

'How! do you not own a rag?--a hat, a handkerchief?'

'No, nothing; nothing but the dry leaves of my withered rose-bush; it is on this account I prize it so much.'

'At each word the astonishment of Rodolphe was redoubled. He could not comprehend this frightful slavery, this horrible sale of soul and body for a wretched shelter, a few tattered clothes, and impure nourishment.

'They arrived at the '_Quai aux Fleurs_.' A carriage was in waiting. Rodolphe assisted his companion to get in, and after placing himself at her side, said to the coachman:

'To Saint-Denis; I will tell you directly which road to take.'

'The horses started; the sun was radiant; the sky without a cloud; but the cold was a little sharp, and the air circulated briskly through the open windows of the carriage.

* * * * *

'AT this moment they drew near to Saint-Ouen, at the juncture of the road to Saint-Denis and the Chemin de la Revolte.

'Notwithstanding the monotonous appearance of the country, Fleur-de-Marie was so delighted at seeing the fields, that forgetting the thoughts which sad recollections had awakened in her mind, her charming face brightened up; she leaned out of the window, and cried:

'Monsieur Rodolphe! what delight!... Fields! and thickets! If you would only let me alight! The weather is so fine! I would like so much to run in the meadows!'

'We will take a run, my child. Coachman, stop!'

'How! _you_ also, Monsieur Rodolphe?'

'I also! yes, we will make it a holiday.'

'What happiness! Monsieur Rodolphe!'

'And Rodolphe and Fleur-de-Marie, hand in hand, ran over the new-mown field until they were out of breath.

'To attempt to describe the little gambols, the joyous shouts, the fresh delight of Fleur-de-Marie would be impossible. Poor gazelle! for so long time a prisoner, she breathed the pure air with intoxication. She came, she went, she ran, she stopped, always with new transports. At the sight of several tufts of daisies, and some marigolds, spread by the first frosts of approaching winter, she could not refrain from fresh exclamations of delight. She did not leave a single flower, but gleaned the whole meadow. After having thus ran over the fields--soon tired, being unaccustomed to so much exercise--the young girl, pausing to take breath, seated herself on the trunk of a tree, which lay prostrate near a deep ditch. The fair and transparent complexion of Fleur-de-Marie, ordinarily too pale, was now shaded with the most lively color. Her large blue eyes shone sweetly; her rosy mouth, half open, disclosed her pearl-like teeth; and her heart throbbing under the little orange shawl, she kept one hand on her bosom as if to compress its pulsations, while with the other she extended to Rodolphe the flowers she had gathered. Nothing could be more charming than the innocent, joyous expression which shone in that lovely face.

'As soon as she could speak, she said to Rodolphe, with touching _naïveté_:

'How kind is the BON DIEU for having given us such a fine day!'

'A tear came to the eyes of Rodolphe, as he heard this poor abandoned, despised, lost creature, without home, without bread, offering thus a cry of joy and thanks to the CREATOR, for the enjoyment of a ray of sunshine and the sight of a meadow!'

How do you like that, reader? 'Ithn't it thweet?' Excuse the levity; but we are trying to divert away two or three persevering drops of salt-water. 'You shall see more anon: 'tis a knavish piece of work.'

* * * * *

REV. JOHN NEWLAND MAFFITT: A LETTER FROM THE 'LITERARY EMPORIUM.'--A friend of tried taste in matters literary, and a good judge of _style_, both in matter and manner, whether out of the pulpit or in it, has sent us the following letter, written some months since to a correspondent in Gotham. The sketch which it gives of the peculiar eloquence of Rev. JOHN NEWLAND MAFFITT will be found to partake largely of the qualities of that remarkable declaimer's pulpit efforts. We have heard Mr. MAFFITT for five minutes perhaps at a time, when he was _truly_ eloquent; when his action was natural, his language pure, and his illustrations striking and beautiful. But a _sustained_ flight seemed beyond his powers. As was forcibly observed by a country auditor of his on one occasion in our hearing: 'He is like a cow that gives a half-pail of the richest kind o' milk, and then up's with her foot and kicks it all over!' But we are keeping the reader from our friend's epistle:

_'Boston, Sunday Night._

'DEAR ----: A quiet day has closed at last, with an excitement so great as to fatigue even _my_ temperament; and being still too feverish for sleep, I will write you, as it lulls away, the history of the matter. Fahrenheit has been rounding the hundred to-day, and this has added not a little to the proverbial quiet of an Eastern Sabbath. After the afternoon service, Boston seemed to be taking a profound sleep. The few feeble news-boys at the old State-House had disappeared; the idlers at the New Exchange had done wondering; and Long-Wharf was too blistering hot for any one to attempt a sail. It wouldn't do to venture into those cool, shady streets, that lead nowhere, without an object; to be seen to turn and walk back would be wrong, in Boston. On reaching my room I sank into an easy-chair, and thought of the prayer for rain and cooling winds, and whether the hot south wind was made here or at the south side of Cuba. A boy's whistle, some half a mile over the hill, at Bowdoin-Square, was the only evidence of life; and it was not a little provoking, having nothing else to do, to be _obliged_ to follow the little rascal, as he wound through the 'Cracovienne,' with occasional snatches from 'Old Hundred' and 'Dundee,' and worry at the intricate manner in which he combined those rather different harmonies. Perhaps the lad was executing a refined torture upon some sober old citizen, _trying_ to sleep after his long nap just taken at church, and 'not quite prepared to say,' with his ear, (very puzzling to him,) that that boy was 'doing a theatrical;' and of course it wouldn't do to take him up for whistling psalm-tunes. 'Not at all; certainly not; that was quite proper and praise-worthy. Let the boy whistle.' I varied my own performances by occasionally leaning from the coolest window, to see if any body _was_ any where; and deciding in the negative, in a perfectly clear and distinct manner, waited for the next voluntary from the whistling boy. A spruce young man, whom I had never seen before, and who talked of ASHBURTON as his bosom crony, had called in the morning, offering a seat at church, and an invitation to dinner with Mrs. ----, of the sunny land, on the Hill. Well, was there ever such a fool as I, in lazily declining those invitations, thinking I could do better! That was in the morning, with the glory of a whole day before me; but _now_ with only that boy, and all the papers read to the last accident! So kind in her, too. She had heard I was in town, and thought I might be happy to see her. _Wouldn't_ I? I have half a mind now, to send around and say I will be there to breakfast!

'I smoked out my regret with a cigar that almost crumpled with the heat; and at last, the tea-clatter at the Tremont roused me to the mental effort of declaring a Boston Sunday dull, decidedly dull. About dark I ventured into the street, and all Boston was astir again; indeed, quite bustling for the sober city; and every body so clean, so happy, so almost gay, if it were not Sunday, and so exactly at the touching-off point, that I fancied they had all been rolling in the surf on the shady side of Nahant, during the hot hours that I had been 'listlessly lounging life away.' Whew! I couldn't bear it! I affected a little smartness, and mingled with the current, trying to be pleased with, I couldn't say what; but privately in rather a hopeless humor, till I heard one man say hurriedly, 'You can't get in;' and another, 'I'll try;' and off he went like a shot. Thinking I had got hold of something at last, I followed; and as he had drab-breeches, kept an eye on him, squeezing along up street and down street, by lane and by alley, till we came to a great stream going one way, and directly fetched up square upon some thousand people, filling the whole street, before a church; from which, above the hum of the crowd, came now and then the peal of an organ, and a chorus of voices in hallelujahs. Looking up upon the sea of heads, I plunged in as others plunged out, and found myself carried to the inner door of the church. The aisles were so full that half way up men were too tight together to get their hats off; and the whole crowd, inside and out, was dotted with women and girls, their bonnets jammed up tight, so that they could only look the way they happened to face when stopping, whether desirable or not. All sorts of speeches and odd remarks were bandied about in a subdued tone; and several fat men, dripping, were let out to get dry; whereupon a man in a Roman nose slipped off his coat in a twinkling, and looked around with immense satisfaction. The abstraction of the fat men had left him, for the moment, just room to do it.

'Presently, from the far end of the church, the clear voice of MAFFITT came down upon the ear like a silver bell, and the mass was still. He began at once, like a man who knew his calling, and had mastered it. His voice was clear, full, and intelligible to the farthest ear it reached. He commenced calmly, but with nerve and strength which took the whole mass with him at the onset; and after getting fairly under way, he cast about for argument and illustration. Here began the man's inspiration. His thoughts, bathed in sun-light, came rushing one upon another, gem upon gem and crowd upon crowd; each full and bold as the stars of heaven; moving on like them, separate, but together; falling into the ranks from all manner of places; throwing light upon each other, like the spears of an host, and all speeding onward and upward to their destination. Pausing with his forces in mid-heaven, he calls out again and again for tribute, and they glance in, like sunbeams, from the land and the deep, from earth, and heaven, and the farthest star; till pleased with his grouping, he sweeps the picture into a higher light, and shadows forth the Throne of the ALMIGHTY! This, with all variety of intonation, from clarion to trumpet; every nerve and muscle in gesticulation; and no wandering, no pausing, but to the _point_, like a thunder-bolt! My dear ----, where are you? If any where within hearing, I beg leave to say 'Good night!' I'm tired, and presume you are.'

'Yours, ---- ----.'

* * * * *

POEMS BY PERCIVAL.--Mr. PERCIVAL has recently put forth an exceedingly beautiful volume, of some two hundred and fifty pages, entitled 'The Dream of a Day, and other Poems.' The book is composed for the most part of a series of shorter pieces, part of which have been published in a fugitive form, at different intervals since the publication of his last volume, in 1827, while part have until now remained in manuscript. The longer piece, and one of the latest, which opens and gives the title to the volume, takes its name partly from its subject and partly from the time in which it was written. More than one hundred and fifty different forms or modifications of stanza are introduced in the course of the volume, much of which is borrowed from the verse of other languages, particularly of the German. The imitations of different classic measures, as well as the songs for national airs, are particularly explained in the introduction to each. We remark numerous gems in this collection which were written by Mr. PERCIVAL for the KNICKERBOCKER; a fact which we cannot doubt will secure the patronage of our readers for the tasteful and most matter-full volume before us. We are not advised by whom the work is for sale in New-York, but Mr. S. BABCOCK, New-Haven, is the publisher; and it is but just to add, that it reflects great credit upon his liberality and good taste.

* * * * *

'THE ATTACHE:' BY SAM SLICK.--The clock-maker has lost none of his shrewdness, his acute observation, nor his sparkling humor. To be sure, many of his so-called _Yankeeisms_ are only specimens of cockney dialect; yet he has more genuine wit than is to be found in all the 'down-east' letters which have been inflicted upon the public _ad nauseam_ any time these three years. 'Sumtotalize' these tiresome epistles, as Mr. SLICK would say, and see what nine in ten of them amount to. Bad spelling, devoid of the ludicrous ellipses which characterize the orthographical errors of Mr. YELLOWPLUSH, constitutes the principal attraction of their _style_; while their _staple_ is derived from the worn-out jokes of HACKETT'S 'Solomon Swop' or 'Joe Bunker.' But to 'The Attaché;' to portions of which, with but slight comment, we propose to introduce the reader. Mr. SLICK'S originality is the originality of _thought_, less than of _manner_. He is no copyist; and while he equals LACON in saying 'many things in a few words,' he never sacrifices truth to the mere external form of sententiousness. In his descriptions he is never striking at the expense of verisimilitude; nor does he permit his observation of character to be diverted from its naturalness by over-cumulative features in his picture, which destroy so many otherwise clever limnings. Not inappropriate to this illustration, by the by, is this brief but graphic description of one of a great number of old family pictures which the 'Attaché' encounters in the baronial hall of a purse-proud JOHN BULL 'of family,' in one of the shires of England: 'Here now is an old aunty that a forten come from. She looks like a bale o' cotton, fust screwed as tight as possible, and then corded hard. Lord! if they had only a given her a pinch of snuff when she was full dressed and trussed, and sot her a sneezin', she'd a blowed up, and the forten would have come twenty years sooner! Yes, it's a family pictur; indeed, they're all family picturs. They are all fine animals, but over-fed and under-worked.' Observe the wisdom of the ensuing sentence, illustrating that sort of brain-picking which some persons resort to, while themselves are mum as oysters, upon subjects on which noncommitalism is desirable: 'If I can see both eends of a rope, and only one man has hold of one eend, and me of the t'other, why I know what I am about; but if I can only see my own eend, I don't know who I am a pullin' agin.'

One of the most amusing sketches in Mr. SLICK'S volume is an account of a 'pious creeter,' a deacon, who exchanged an old worn-out and vicious horse for one which he 'considered worth six of it,' and which he thought gave him 'the best of the bargain, and no mistake.' It turns out quite the other way, however, the good deacon's boasting to the contrary notwithstanding:

'THIS is as smart a little hoss,' says he, 'as ever I see. I know where I can put him off to a great advantage. I shall make a good day's work of this. It is about as good a hoss-trade as I ever made. The French don't know nothin' about hosses; they are a simple people; their priests keep 'em in ignorance on purpose, and they don't know nothin'.' 'He cracked and bragged considerable, and as we progressed we came to Montagon Bridge. The moment pony sot foot on it, he stopped short, pricked up the latter eends of his ears, snorted, squealed, and refused to budge an inch. The elder got mad. He first coaxed and patted, and soft-sawdered him, and then whipped, and spurred, and thrashed him like anything. Pony got mad too, for hosses has tempers as well as elders; so he turned to, and kicked right straight up on eend, like Old Scratch, and kept on without stoppin' till he sent the elder right slap over his head slantendicularly, on the broad of his back into the river, and he floated down through the bridge and scrambled out o t'other side.

'Creation! how he looked! He was so mad, he was ready to bile over; and as it was, he smoked in the sun like a tea-kettle. His clothes stuck close down to him, as a cat's fur does to her skin when she's out in the rain; and every step he took his boots went squish, squash, like an old woman churnin' butter; and his wet trousers chafed with a noise like a wet flappin' sail. He was a show; and when he got up to his hoss, and held on to his mane, and first lifted up one leg, and then the other, to let the water run out of his boots, I couldn't hold in no longer, but laid back, and larfed till I thought, on my soul, I'd fall off into the river too.'

The elder is decidedly taken in. His new steed is as blind as a bat, and a member of the '_opposition_ party.' After a series of provoking annoyances, the new owner of the beast finally succeeds in getting him on board a steam-boat; but on nearing the shore the perverse animal jumps overboard:

'THE captain havin' his boat histed, and thinkin' the hoss would swim ashore of himself, kept right strait on; and the hoss swam this way, and that way, and every way but the right road, jist as the eddies took him. At last he got into the ripps off Johnston's Pint, and they wheeled him right round and round like a whip-top. Poor pony! he got his match at last. He struggled, and jumpt, and plunged, and fort, like a man, for dear life. Fust went up his knowin' little head, that had no ears; and he tried to jump up, and rear out of it, as he used to did out of a mire-hole ashore; but there was no bottom there; nothin' for his hind foot to spring from; so down he went agin, ever so deep; and then he tried t'other eend, and up went his broad rump, that had no tail; but, there was nothin' for the fore feet to rest on nother; so he made a summerset, and as he went over he gave out a great, long, eendwise kick, to the full stretch of his hind legs. Poor feller! it was the last kick he ever gave in this world; he sent his heels straight up on eend, like a pair of kitchen tongs, and the last I see of him was a bright dazzle, as the sun shined on his iron shoes, afore the water closed over him forever.'

Take in all the accessories of the above picture, reader, and you cannot fail to laugh as heartily at the discomfiture of the pious but 'cunning' elder, as we ourselves did on its first perusal. There is a fine touch of natural description, and not a little philosophy, in the following sketch of a dinner at an English gentleman's country residence:

'FOLKS are up to the notch here when dinner is in question, that's a fact; fat, gouty, broken-winded, and foundered as they be. It's rap! rap! rap! for twenty minutes at the door; and in they come, one arter the other, as fast as the sarvants can carry up their names. Cuss them sarvants! it takes seven or eight of 'em to carry a man's name up stairs, they are so awful lazy, and so shockin' full of porter. Well, you go in along with your name, walk up to old aunty, and make a scrape, and the same to old uncle, and then fall back. This is done as solemn as if a feller's name was called out to take his place in a funeral; that and the mistakes is the fun of it. * * * Company are all come, and now they have to be marshalled two and two, lock and lock, and go into the dinin'-room to feed. When I first came I was dreadful proud of that title, 'the Attaché;' now I am glad it's nothin' but 'only an Attaché,' and I'll tell you why. The great guns and big bugs have to take in each other's ladies, so these old ones have to herd together. Well, the nobodies go together too, and sit together; and I've observed that these nobodies are the pleasantest people at table, and they have the pleasantest places, because they sit down with each other, and are jist like yourself, plaguy glad to get some one to talk to. Somebody can only visit somebody, but nobody can go any where; and therefore nobody sees and knows twice as much as somebody does. Somebodies must be axed, if they are as stupid as a pump; but nobodies needn't, and never are, unless they are spicy sort o' folks; so you are sure of them, and they have all the fun and wit of the table at their eend, and no mistake. I wouldn't take a title if they would give it to me, for if I had one, I should have a fat old parblind dowager detailed on to me to take in to dinner; and what the plague is her jewels and laces, and silks and satins, and wigs to me? As it is, I have a chance to have a gal to take in that's a jewel herself; one that don't want no settin' off, and carries her diamonds in her eyes, and so on. I've told our minister not to introduce me as an Attaché no more, but as Mr. Nobody, from the state of Nothin', in America.'

Mr. SLICK'S ideas of what is facetiously termed 'music' is quite coincident with our own. No 'difficult execution' and 'intricate passages' for him:

'WHAT'S that? It's music. Well, that's artificial too; it's scientific, they say; it's done by rule. Jist look at that gal to the piany: first comes a little Garman thunder. Good airth and seas, what a crash! It seems as if she'd bang the instrument all to a thousand pieces. I guess she's vexed at some body and is a-peggn' it into the piany out of spite. Now comes the singin'; see what faces she makes; how she stretches her mouth open, like a barn-door, and turns up the white of her eyes, like a duck in a thunder-storm. She is in a musical ecstasy; she feels good all over; her soul is a-goin' out along with that 'ere music. Oh, it's divine; and she is an angel, ain't she? Yes, I guess she is; and when I'm an angel, I will fall in love with her: but as I'm a man, at least what's left of me, I'd jist as soon fall in love with one that was a leetle more of a woman, and a leetle less of an angel. But hello! what onder the sun is she about! Why, her voice is goin' down her own throat, to gain strength, and here it comes out ag'in as deep-toned as a man's; while that dandy feller alongside of her is a-singin' what they call falsetter. They've actilly changed voices! The gal sings like a man, and that screamer like a woman! This is science: this is taste: this is fashion: but hang me if it's natur'. I'm tired to death of it; but one good thing is, you needn't listen without you like, for every body is talking as loud as ever.'

We are compelled to close our extracts with the subjoined capital hit at the naked meeting-houses which 'obtain' in so many quarters of our goodly land, and the still more naked 'doctrines' that constitute the weekly attractions which many of them present to church-goers:

'THE meetin'-houses our side of the water, no matter where, but away up in the back country, how teetotally different they be from 'em this side! A great big handsome wooden house, chock full of winders, painted so white as to put your eyes out, and so full of light within that inside seems all out-doors, and no tree nor bush, nor nothin' near it but the road fence, with a man to preach in it that is so strict and straight-laced he will do _any thing_ of a week day, and _nothin'_ of a Sunday. * * * Preacher there don't preach morals, because that's churchy, and he don't like neither the church nor it's morals; but he preaches doctrine, which doctrine is, there's no Christians but themselves. Well, the fences outside of the meetin'-house, for a quarter of a mile or so, each side of the house, and each side of the road, ain't to be seen for hosses and wagons, and gigs hitched there; poor devils of hosses that have ploughed, or hauled, or harrowed, or logged, or snaked, or somethin' or nother all the week, and rest on a Sunday by alterin' their gait, as a man rests on a journey by alterin' of his stirrup a hole higher or a hole lower.'

This episode is concluded with some remarks upon the 'clerical twang' which distinguishes some of the divines of our country: 'Good men always speak through the nose. It's what comes out of the mouth that defiles a man; but there is no mistake in the nose; it's the porch of the temple!' We are pleased to learn that another volume of 'The Attaché' will ere long be given to the public. We await its publication with impatient interest.

* * * * *

GOSSIP WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.--'What is the man driving at' who sends us the following? Does he intend a satire upon the peculiar style of Mr. WILLIS, who 'skims the superfices' of society with more ease and grace than any magazine-writer of this era? Or is our correspondent in love, and desirous of walking under a cloud while he reveals his passion? Let him answer: 'The top of the morning to you, my dear EDITOR; and as your sun goes up the meridian, may your shadow be longer! I can wish you nothing more improbable; but in wishes not to be granted, I will have the satisfaction of wishing to the outside of my desire. Coming home last evening, I called on a pretty woman, for a half-hour's oblivion of matter-of-fact. A few weeks since she had seen WILLIS and a very charming damsel at Saratoga Springs, and had noticed them occasionally at a delightful spot in the neighborhood, which I shall not indicate; a retreat such as a poet would choose in parting with his best thoughts, and far holier than the parting of mere lips would need; for I take it, this good-by, this farewell to the pets of the heart; this sense of lost identity gone to the public; the loosing of the dove that may no where find a spot to rest amid the waters; the spring of the falcon that _will_ away; I say, Mr. EDITOR, these things are sometimes very solemn and affecting. Well, upon that spot was found a crumpled paper, scrawled over with the goose-tracks of genius, and signed 'N. P. WILLIS, Junior.' The product of WILLIS by his _match_ should be something brilliant, to be sure; but the Junior is evidently still young in years. His opening phrase, (more applicable in these times to a bank-note than any other mistress,) and several other naïve spots, indicate the come-over-ativeness and allowable tenderness of a first passion. It is written in a kind of halting verse, that might easily be done into _blank_, I should say. It is crowned with stars, signifying I suppose that this world has nothing left worth looking at, and this beautiful motto, from Keats:

'A THING OF BEAUTY IS A JOY FOREVER.'

BY N. P. WILLIS, JUN.

'DEAREST! I thank thee, bless thee, pray the highest God to bless thee evermore, thou charm of the world to me! And now how beautiful the world again! The glorious sunlight, the waving trees, and faces of familiar friends, before so common-place--all now how beautiful! for thou hast smiled on them! A rush of joy is at my heart again, as if my pulse at each throb ran kisses from thy lips. Ah' could I take thy breath in one long kiss, and give thee Heaven, which were happier?--thou with the stars above, or I with mine and thy dear heart forever? How fast the time goes on! The world that lagged but yesterday, and seemed about to stop for very dullness, seems an express, as though the stars were nearing us, and GOD were coming down, and we were hastening to the embrace of Heaven. How my spirits mount again! I look into the heavens, face to face, and angels bending down, are whispering that I may yet be happy. Poor, poor fool! Happy for another hour, perhaps another day, and then----Why, then the sun will rise again, and all the world be glad, but I shall not know it; and every tone that to the common world is sweetest music, and every look and smile that are unlike thee; the song not thine; the book not read by thee; and every beautiful and lovely thing, that hath not caught some parted grace of thine, shall be to me a half-formed thing, lacking the tint that's loveliest, the form that's dearest to my heart; a thing unfinished, as Heaven were interrupted in the making, or lost the trick, not having thee to copy! But now, the dashing of my heart is like the seas that clap their hands in gladness. My GOD, I thank Thee for that 'joy forever!' Those words have mingled with my spirit, quickening it to lightning; and if I get a home above, and have a power in Heaven, I'll build a world whose sky shall light it with those burning words! Ah, how the time goes on! I miss it not, for I am happy, and it brings no change. The sun has set, and night has come with countless stars, as glowing, beautiful, and bright, as each one were a separate joy of mine; a heaven all full, as is my brimming heart. Well; you will laugh at all this rhapsody, and chide me for a foolish boy. I only say, 'My HEART is talking to you, not my HEAD.' * * * But we must part; and then, if angels, strayed from home, may note that scene, touched by the love of one so beautiful, it will be written down in Heaven, that two souls made to match, have gone apart forever. Farewell! I only ask of you, that when a warm thought flutters at your heart, just fancy ('t will be true) that I have come to nestle there, and give it welcome. And when the night comes, and you rest alone with your own beauty and the sentinel stars, oh, clasp the little rascal to your heart, and----think of your dream in the morning!'

Our impression is--'we may be wrong, but that is our opinion'--that the young gentleman who penned the foregoing rhapsody is hankering after some young woman. Ah! well; though his style is not over-pellucid, there is much truth in his sentences. There is a communion between the heart of Nature and the hearts of lovers; and with gentle affections and pure thoughts, her face is always beautiful. With the same mail which brought us the 'Thing of Beauty' aforesaid, came the following, copied in the neatest of all crow-quill chirography, bearing the Saratoga post-mark, and a French-gray seal, with two loving doves. It struck us, on a first perusal, that possibly it might proceed from some young lady in love with some young gentleman! 'It has that look:'

'WHAT IS LOVE?'

'IT is to dwell within A world of the young heart's creation, bright And brilliant as 'tis false and fleeting, where All seems a beauteous fairy-land; to mark No varied season and no flight of time, Save in the weary absence of the loved one; To live but in the atmosphere he breathes. To gaze upon his eyes as on the light That beacons us to bliss, the only sun Of our unreal world; in the sad hours Of absence to be filled with thousand thoughts Of tenderness, that to repeat we deem Will make the hours of meeting more delicious; Yet when that time is come, to feel they are Unutterable; then to count the moments, And watch his coming as the early dawn Of an untried existence; (is not love A new existence?) yet when he is come, To feel that deep, oppressive sense of bliss Weighing upon the heart, that we could wish To find our joy less perfect. This is love!'

No sneers, if you please, gentlemen bachelors of the incorrigible class; no 'pshaws!' ye 'paired but not matched' people, at encountering here these tender tributes of the heart; for the lover, where is he not? 'Wherever parents look round upon their children, there he has been; wherever children are at play together, there he soon will be; wherever there are roofs under which men dwell, wherever there is an atmosphere vibrating with human voices, there is the lover, and there is his lofty worship going on. True love continues and will continue to send up its homage amidst the meditations of every eventide, and the busy hum of noon, and 'the song of the morning stars.' . . . If the unhappy young man who has recently filled the journals of the metropolis with the details of his folly and crime could, before yielding to temptation, have looked in upon the state-prisoners at Sing-Sing, as we did the other day, surely he would have shrunk back from the vortex before him. Poor wretches, in their best estate! How narrow their cells; how ceaseless their toil; what a negation of comfort their whole condition! It was a sweltering August day, breathless and oppressive; but there was no rest for the eight hundred unhappy convicts who plied their never-ending tasks within those walls. Stealthy glances from half-raised eyes; pale countenances, stamped with meek submission, or gleaming with powerless hate or impotent malignity; and 'hard labor' in the fullest sense, were the main features of the still-life scene, as we passed through the several work-shops. But what a picture was presented as their occupants came swarming into the open court-yard at sound of the bell, to proceed to their cells with their dinner! From the thick atmosphere of the carpet and rug-shops, leaving the clack of shuttles, the dull thump of the 'weaver's beam,' and the long, confused perspective of cords, and pullies, and patterns, and multitudinous 'harness,' they poured forth; from murky smithys, streamed the imps of VULCAN, grim as the dark recesses from which they emerged; from doors which open upon interminable rows of close-set benches burst forth the knights of the awl and hammer; the rub-a-dub of the cooper's mallet, the creak of his shaving-knife, were still; the stone-hammer was silent; and the court-yard was full of that striped crew! God of compassion! what a sight it was, to see that motley multitude take up, in gangs, their humiliating march! Huge negroes, weltering in the heat, were interspersed among 'the lines;' hands crimson with murder rested upon the shoulders of beings young alike in years and crime; the victim of bestiality pressed against the heart-broken tool of the scathless villain; and _all_ were blended in one revolting mass of trained soldiers of guilt; their thousand legs moving as the leg of one man: all in silence, save the peculiar sound of the sliding tread, grating not less upon the ear than the ground. One by one, they took their wooden pails of dingy and amphibious-looking 'grub,' and passed on, winding up the stairs of the different stories, and streaming along the narrow corridors to their solitary cells. It was too much for the tender heart of poor E., this long procession of the gangs. As they passed on in slow succession, her lip began to quiver; and one after another drops of pity rolled down her cheek. 'All these,' said she to the keeper, 'had a mother, who looked upon their childhood, and blessed their innocence! Ah! how many infant feet, softer than velvet to the touch, have been pressed to maternal lips, that now shuffle along these prison-isles!' There spoke 'the mother;' and with her 'gentle words of pity' we take our leave of the State's-prison and its unhappy inmates. * * * THE love of literature is a beneficial and noble propensity of soul. 'It cannot be doubted,' writes the accomplished MARY CLAVERS, 'that every accession of intellectual light carries with it an increase of happiness; happiness which depends not in any great degree upon the course of public events, and not, beyond a certain limited extent, upon the smiles of fortune. Those debasing and embittering prejudices which must ever wait upon ignorance, melt away in the rays of mental illumination, and every departed prejudice leaves open a new inlet for happiness. I may be considered an enthusiast, but it is my deliberate conviction that next to religion--heart-felt, operative religion--a true love of reading is the best softener of the asperities of life, the best consoler under its inevitable ills.' HOOD, writing recently 'from his bed' to the Secretary of a provincial Athenæum, of which he had been elected a 'patron,' deposes to the comfort and 'blessing that literature can prove in seasons of sickness and sorrow; how generous mental food can atone for a meagre diet; 'rich fare on paper, for short commons on the cloth.' Although ill, and condemned to lenten fare, animal food being strictly interdicted, yet the 'feast of reason and the flow of soul' were still his. 'Denied beef, I had _Bul_-wer and _Cow_-per; forbidden mutton, there was _Lamb_; and in lieu of pork, _Bacon_ or _Hogg_.' Eschewing wine, he had still his _Butler_; and in the absence of liquor, all the _choice spirits_, from TOM BROWN to TOM MOORE. Confined physically to water, he had yet not only the best of 'home-made' but the champaigne of MOLIERE, the hock of SCHILLER, and the sherry of CERVANTES:

'DEPRESSED bodily by the fluid that damps every thing, I got intellectually elevated with MILTON, a little merry with SWIFT, or rather jolly with RABELAIS, whose Pantagruel, by the way, is quite equal to the best gruel with rum in it. So far can literature palliate or compensate for gastronomical privations. But there are other evils, great and small, in this world, which try the stomach less than the head, and the temper, and ill winds that blow with the pertinacity of monsoon. Of these, Providence has allotted me a full share; but still, paradoxical as it may sound, my burthen has been greatly lightened by a load of books. Many, many a dreary, weary hour have I got over; many a mental or bodily annoyance forgotten, by help of the tragedies and comedies of our dramatists and novelists! Many a trouble has been soothed by the still small voice of the moral philosopher; many a dragon-like care charmed to sleep by the sweet song of the poet! For all which I cry incessantly, not aloud, but in my heart. 'Thanks and honor to the glorious masters of the pen, and the great inventors of the press!'

ISN'T _Law_ a very curious thing, take it altogether? An adept in it must needs know all the precedents, all the legal discussions and litigations; must read innumerable volumes, filled with innumerable subtleties and cohesions, and written in an unintelligible jargon; must study rules by which a certain class of future events shall be judged, when those events can only be partially and imperfectly foreseen; a rule which never varies, while the cases never agree; a law which is general while the cases are individual; a law where the penalty is uniform, while the justice or injustice of the case is continually different. Who 'in view of these things' can wonder that the worse is often made to appear the better reason? Does not a lawyer triumph most, and acquire most fame, when he can gain a cause in the very teeth of the law he professes to support and revere? Who is the greatest lawyer? Not he who can most enlighten, but he who can most perplex and confound the understanding and embroil and mislead the intellect of judge and jury. We have before us a striking illustration of these remarks, in an unsettled case in the Court of Errors, on an appeal from a decree of the chancellor. A wife and mother, well stricken in years, leaves the bed and board of her husband, in consequence of long-continued ill treatment, and by 'her next friend' sues for alimony. Her husband, it appears in evidence, is an 'unclean beast' personally; moreover, he throws his tea-cup at her at the table; will not permit her to have a fire in the room in which she is ill, though it is in the depth of winter, but opens doors and windows to freeze her out; orders all the beds taken down, that she may not sleep; goes himself about the house at times _in puris naturalibus_; threatens to throw his wife into the well; when she is seated on a chair, pushes her out of it, and when she takes another, pushes her out of that also, and so forth. Now reader, it would amuse you to look over the 'Points on the part of the Apellant' in this case. By _his_ 'next friend,' the attorney, he complains that vice-chancellors are exceeding their credentials in assuming to be 'Chesterfieldian censors of the lesser morals.' He admits indeed that the husband was '_uncourteous_, in rudely throwing his tea-cup instead of handing it respectfully to the lady-in-waiting,' meaning the wife aforesaid; that he was guilty of '_impoliteness_, in capriciously commanding a change of chairs;' that he certainly did use 'an _inconsiderate expression_ concerning the well;' but that in driving his wife out of her sick room, by opening all the doors and windows on a cold winter-day, he was only 'enforcing wholesome exercise as a substitute for prejudicial inaction!' All these examples, let us add, are of the _lesser_ abuses and grievances which the unhappy woman suffered, year after year; yet the 'deeds without a name' are softened or defended with equal plausibility and ingenuity. The counsel for the appellant objects to the interference of the law-officers with such matters. 'Courts of chancery,' says he, with true Johnsonian grandiloquence, 'cannot, like ecclesiastical tribunals or inquisitions, regulate, by means of auricular confession and domiciliary visitation, connubial rights and duties! The chancellor's doctrine would perpetuate wordy wars and family feuds, and impart to conjugal caterwauling more than feline vitality!' But hold; we are 'interfering between man and wife,' an injudicious act, as 'tis said. * * * 'D. G.'s '_Height of Impudence_' (it is _not_ 'new') reminds us of an incident which occurred in the hearing of a friend at one of our cheap metropolitan eating-houses last winter. A tall, raw boned Hibernian called for a dish of pork-and-beans. 'Let it be 'most all pork, and plenty of beans,' said he; and a liberal supply was placed smoking before him. Before he had gorged his fill, he called for more bread; it was given him, and soon disappeared, with the remainder of his dish. He then called for another slice, and was piling the butter in pyramids upon small pieces of the same, when the waiter, who had been eyeing him closely, and who thought the repast 'rather too much for a shilling,' addressed him with: 'Mister, that butter cost two shillings and sixpence a pound.' The huge feeder said nothing, but proceeded to pile about a quarter of a pound of it on a small crust of bread, placed it in his mouth, rolled it for a time 'as a sweet morsel under his tongue,' and then remarked: 'Well, I should say 'twas _well wor-r-th it_!' His main anxiety appeared to be, to convince the waiter that his principal had not been 'taken in' by the vender. * * * WE promised that our readers should renew their acquaintance with '_Hugh Trevor_;' accordingly we condense a scene or two from that remarkable work. Going down St. James'-street, London, one evening, with a person who has treated him with much civility, our hero is run violently against by an accomplice of his companion, knocked down, and robbed of all his money. His 'civil' friend leaves him in the lurch, and he seeks his lodgings, there being no remedy for his loss. To divert his mind, he repairs to the theatre, and takes his stand among the crowd which surround the entrance. He observes that the people about him seem watchful of each other; and presently the cry of 'Take care of your pockets!' renews his fears; and putting his hand to his fob, he misses his watch! Looking eagerly around, he fixes his eyes upon his quondam friend, who had aided in robbing him:

'THE blood mantled in my face. 'You have stolen my watch,' said I. He could not immediately escape, and made no reply, but turned pale, looked at me as if entreating silence and commiseration, and put a watch into my hand. I felt a momentary compassion, and he presently made his retreat. His retiring did but increase the press of the crowd, so that it was impossible for me so much as to lift up my arm: I therefore continued, as the safest way, to hold the watch in my hand. Soon afterward the door opened, and I hurried it into my waistcoat pocket: for I was obliged to make the best use of all my limbs, that I might not be thrown down and trodden underfoot. At length, after very uncommon struggles, I made my way to the money door, paid, and entered the pit. After taking breath and gazing around me, I sat down and inquired of my neighbors how soon the play would begin? I was told in an hour. This new delay occasioned me to put my hand in my pocket and take out my watch, which as I supposed had been returned by the thief. But, good Heavens! what was my surprise when in lieu of my own plain watch, in a green chagrin-case, the one I was now possessed of was set round with diamonds! And, instead of ordinary steel and brass, its appendages were a weighty gold chain and seals! My astonishment was great beyond expression! I opened it to examine the work, and found it was capped. I pressed upon the nut and it immediately struck the hour. It was a repeater!'

It will not greatly puzzle the reader, we may presume, to conjecture what this adroit movement on the part of the pick-pocket ultimately led to; nor will he fail to recognize in the following limning a portrait of more than one character of these times. Mr. GLIBLY is entertaining Mr. TREVOR with a running commentary upon some of the prominent personages who enter the theatre:

'THERE,' said he pointing, is a Mr. MIGRATE; a famous clerical character, and as strange an original as any this metropolis affords. He is not entitled to make a figure in the world either by his riches, rank, or understanding; but with an effrontery peculiar to himself he will knock at any man's door, though a perfect stranger, ask him questions, give him advice, and tell him he will call again to give him more on the first opportunity. By this means he is acquainted with every body, but knows nobody; is always talking, yet never says any thing; is perpetually putting some absurd interrogation, but before it is possible he should understand the answer, puts another. His desire to be informed torments himself and every man of his acquaintance, which is almost every man he meets: yet, though he lives inquiring, he will die consummately ignorant. His brain is a kind of rag shop, receiving and returning nothing but rubbish. It is as difficult to affront as to get rid of him: and though you fairly bid him begone to-day, he will knock at your door, march into your house, and if possible keep you answering his unconnected, fifty times answered queries to-morrow. He is the friend and the enemy of all theories and of all parties: and tortures you to decide for him which he ought to choose. As far as he can be said to have opinions, they are crude and contradictory in the extreme; so that in the same breath he will defend and oppose the same system. With all this confusion of intellect, there is no man so wise but he will prescribe to him how he ought to act. He has been a great traveller, and continually abuses his own countrymen for not adopting the manners and policy of other nations. He pretends to be the universal friend of man, a philanthropist on the largest scale, yet is so selfish that he would willingly see the world perish, if he could but secure paradise to himself. This is the only consistent trait in his character. In the same sentence, he frequently joins the most fulsome flattery and some insidious question, that asks the person whom he addresses if he do not confess himself to be both knave and fool. Delicacy of sentiment is one of his pretensions, though his tongue is licentious, his language coarse, and he is occasionally seized with fits of the most vulgar abuse. He declaims against dissimulation, yet will smilingly accost the man whom----'Ha! MIGRATE! How do you do? Give me leave to introduce you to Mr. TREVOR, a friend of mine, a gentleman and a scholar; just come from Oxford. Your range of knowledge and universal intimacy with men and things, may be useful to him; and his erudite acquisitions, and philosophical research, will be highly gratifying to an inquirer like you. An intercourse between you must be mutually pleasing and beneficial, and I am happy to bring you acquainted.' This, addressed to the man whom he had been satirizing so unsparingly, was inconceivable! The unabashed facility with which he veered from calumny to compliment, and that too after he had accused the man whom he accosted of dissimulation, struck me dumb. I had perhaps seen something like it before, but nothing half so perfect in its kind. It doubly increased my stock of knowledge; it afforded a new instance of what the world is, and a new incitement to ask how it became so?'

A single passage more, which will have especial interest for the correspondent to whom we are indebted for the capital sketch of '_Love-Making in Boarding-Houses_,' must close our excerpts. A maiden of an uncertain age is making a 'dead set' at our hero:

'SHE was sure I must find myself a great favorite; I was a favorite with every body; and, for her part, she did not wonder at it. 'Not but it is a great pity,' added she, aside, 'that you are such a rake, Mr. TREVOR.' This repeated charge very justly alarmed my morality, and I very seriously began a refutation. But in vain. 'I might say what I would; she could see very plainly I was a prodigious rake, and nothing could convince her to the contrary. Though she had heard that your greatest rakes make the best husbands. Perhaps it might be true, but she did not think she could be persuaded to make the venture. She did not know what might happen, to be sure; though she really did not think she could. She could not conceive how it was, but some how or another she always found something agreeable about rakes. It was a great pity they should be rakes, but she verily believed the women loved them, and encouraged them in their seducing arts. For her part, she would keep her fingers out of the fire as long as she could: but, if it were her destiny to love a rake, what could she do? Nobody could help being in love, and it would be very hard indeed to call what one cannot help, a crime.'

WE must commend the cogent arguments in favor of national theft, contained in the article on '_International Copy-right_' in preceding pages, to the attention of the reader. It strikes us as one of the most tenable positions yet taken by the opponents of an exceedingly 'impolitic' literary measure. By the by; a new '_American Copy-right Club_' has been recently established, with WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT and GULIAN C. VERPLANCK, Esquires, for its president and vice-president; and for its secretaries and executive committee, several of the most prominent advocates of the proposed law to be found in our midst; including, we are glad to perceive, Mr. PUFFER HOPKINS MATHEWS, who has labored more abundantly than they all in the good cause, but with little success hitherto, we regret to be obliged to add. His metropolitan lecture last winter could scarcely have realized his own expectations; though it was not difficult to meet those of the public. A friend of ours who repaired early to the Tabernacle, with a ticket bearing a number above twelve hundred, found not three-score auditors in that capacious edifice. It is equally certain, that the following 'unkindest cut of all' at Mr. MATHEWS'S international copy-right _essays_, which reaches us in the last number of the '_Dublin University Magazine_,' embodies the opinion generally entertained of those efforts on this side the Atlantic: 'While on the subject of America, we would wish to add a line of a certain CORNELIUS MATHEWS, who writes pamphlets and delivers lectures in New-York, on the subject of an international copy-right law. Such is the complex involution of his style; such the headlong impetuosity with which tropes, figures, and metaphors run down, jostle, and overturn each other, that we have puzzled ourselves in vain to detect his meaning or the gist of his argument. Giants, elephants, '_tiger-mothers_,' and curricles; angels, frigates, baronial castles, and fish-ponds, 'dance through his writings in all the mazes of metaphorical confusion;' and however desirous we may feel that a law of copy-right might protect British authors from American piracy, yet as one of the craft we boldly say: '_Non defensoribus istis! non tali auxilio!_' Let the question be put forward manfully and intelligibly; let it not be a piece of Indian jugglery, performed by CORNELIUS MATHEWS, but the plain and simple acknowledgement that literary property is property, and as such has its rights, sacred and inviolable.' We have quoted this passage for the purpose of showing that our own opinion of Mr. MATHEWS'S rambling thoughts and disjointed style finds abundant confirmation wherever his 'writings' are forced into temporary notice. * * * 'SERVED you right!' Carelessness like your's deserved just such a result. You'll not be guilty of a similar act of folly very soon, ''tan't likely:'

I AM down in the mouth, I am out at the pockets! Ah, me! I've no pockets at all; And all I have left, is a braid and a locket; That's all!

It was rather solemn; quite touching, alas! As she got on a stool to be higher, I acted, no doubt, the entire jack-ass-- Yes, entire!

Arms and lips came together, and staid, as I reckon, With as much as you please of a linger, Till a finger was seen at the window to beckon, A finger!

We'd forgotten the shutters!--the world was forgot, Till we saw that sign, from her father, Which was rather a poser, just then, was it not? 'Twas, rather!

He knew I was ruined--all gone to smash! And he was a man of that stamp, Would call you a scamp if you hadn't the cash-- Ay, a scamp!

His bonds and investments--not in such brains As a poet makes up into verses; His remarks--upon never so beautiful strains, Were curses!

I called the next day, but the stool was removed, And the delicate foot, with a twirl, Walked off somewhere with the girl that I loved-- The girl!

Hang her! hang him! hang the whole planet! The stars!--they do hang--well, hang every body, And hang me, if I ain't a noddy --d ----n it! A noddy!

'THE blank-verse _halts_ for it' in the lines entitled '_Mournful Memories_.' Beside, the tendency of the sentiment is not, we think, a useful one. Were all the dangers or ills of life to present themselves to the imagination in a body, drawn up in battle array, the prospect would indeed be dreadful; but coming individually, they are far less formidable, and successively as they occur are conquered. Foreboded, their aspect is terrific; but seen in retrospect, they frequently excite present satisfaction and future fortitude. 'It is with human life as with the phases of nature, whose regular course is calm and orderly; tempests and troubles being but lapses from the accustomed sobriety with which Providence works out the destined end of all things.' * * * MUCH is said of the 'freedom' or 'licentiousness' of our public press; but we are far behind the press of London in this regard. Look for example at the comments in some of the London journals upon the recent marriage of the Hereditary Duke of Mecklenburg, a 'royal pensioner,' with the Princess AUGUSTA of Cambridge. The produce of his dukedom is described by the '_Charivari_' as consisting of 'nothing in particular; its revenue purely nominal.' The wedding is turned into the broadest ridicule. The Duke had an audience of himself in the morning in the glass of his dressing-case; his 'master of the wardrobe, who was also comptroller of the leather portmanteau and groom of the hat-box,' being the only person in attendance. 'He wore the _white seam_ of the German order of princes, and was looking remarkably well--as all the annuitants of England contrive generally to look.' The ceremony was performed in the usual style of royalty. And when the prelate who performed the office came to the words 'With all my worldly goods I thee endow,' the Duke of Cambridge, who always thinks out loud, kept up a running accompaniment: 'Well, that's capital! worldly goods, indeed! I should like to see some of 'em!' and other pleasant observations; all which were taken to be a gush of fervent ejaculations from the father of the bride, invoking the happiness of the newly-married couple. The happy pair set out for Kew, to which place the Duke's Lord of the Luggage had already conveyed his carpet-bag! The _trousseau_ of the Princess had been laid out at Cambridge House for the inspection of the bride's friends; 'but the illustrious bridegroom, with more modesty, laid out _his_ trousseau on the bed in his private apartment, previous to packing.' Various articles are enumerated; among the rest, 'a splendid uniform for state occasions, consisting of the superb coat of an officer of the Blues, with Grenadier trowsers and a Lifeguards-man's helmet;' 'twelve false collars; nine pairs of cotton socks; two stocks, with long ends,' etc., etc. Such an invasion of aristocratic privacy may be termed 'licentiousness of the press' with as much truth, we conceive, as any of the gossipry of the American newspapers. * * * IN looking lately over the '_Souvenirs Historiques_' of NAPOLEON and MARIA LOUISA, by the Baron MENEVAL, his 'ancient secretary,' we were forcibly impressed with a passage which depicts the love of the Great Captain for his infant son. The child was brought every morning to his apartment:

'YES: that cabinet, which saw the origin of so many mighty plans, so many vast and generous schemes of administration, was also witness to the effusions of a father's tenderness. How often have I seen the emperor keeping his son by him as if he were impatient to teach him the art of governing! Whether, seated by the chimney on his favorite sofa, he was engaged in reading an important document, or whether he went to his bureau to sign a despatch, every word of which required to be weighed, his son, seated on his knees, or pressed to his breast, was never a moment away from him. Sometimes, throwing aside the thoughts which occupied his mind, he would lie down on floor beside his beloved boy, playing with him like another child, attentive to every thing that could please or amuse him. The emperor had a sort of apparatus for trying military manoeuvres: it consisted of plates of wood fashioned to represent battalions, regiments, and divisions. When he wanted to try some new combinations of troops, or some new evolution, he used to arrange these pieces on the carpet. While he was seriously occupied with the disposition of these pieces, working out some skilful manoeuvre which might ensure the success of a battle, the child, lying at his side, would often overthrow his troops, and put into confusion his order of battle, perhaps at the most critical moment. But the emperor would recommence arranging his men with the utmost good humor.'

How different the scene with these mimic troops, from that presented by his human legions! No long columns of smoke streamed up from _their_ line of march, indicating burning villages and fields trampled in the dust; no explosions of artillery; no thundering of cavalry; no steel clanging with steel in the desperate conflict of life for life; no smoke, nor darkness, nor infernal din; no groans of the dying; no piercing shouts, revealing the last fierce efforts of human nature, wrought up to the infuriated recklessness of revenge and despair. None of these! Not greater was the difference between that infant and his sire! Yet it _is_ a pleasant feature in the character of NAPOLEON, his love of children. 'He entered,' says Miss BALCOMBE, who knew him so intimately at St. Helena, 'into all the feelings of young people, and when with them was a mere child, and a most amusing one. I think his love of children, and the delight he felt in their society; and that too at the most calamitous period of his life, when a cold and unattachable nature would have been abandoned to the indulgence of selfish misery; in itself speaks volumes for his goodness of heart.' * * * AH! yes; we understand your insinuation, dear Sir, and 'possibly _may_ wish that we had let you alone.' And yet, here is your letter before us, _requesting_ 'an opinion of the merits of your piece, in the entertaining gossip of the Editor's Table!' How does _that_ read? Our correspondent, if his ability were equal to his inclination, would doubtless make us feel the truth of this scrap of advice from one who was a judge of human nature: 'Let no man despise the opinion of _blockheads_. In every society they form the majority, and are generally the most powerful and influential. Laugh not at their laborious disquisitions on the weather, and their wonderful discoveries of things which every one knows. If you offend a fool, you turn the whole muddy port of his composition into rancid vinegar, and not all the efforts you can make will abate its sourness.' One word here to correspondents generally. We have no pleasure in rejecting a communication, privately or publicly. Often have we sat, with a 'dubious' paper in hand, hesitating for an hour whether to 'print or burn;' thinking of the fervent wishes of the writer, and the labor that he had bestowed upon his production. Every part, every period, had perhaps been considered and re-considered, with unremitting anxiety. He had revised, corrected, expunged, again produced and again erased, with endless iteration. Points and commas themselves perhaps had been settled with repeated and jealous solicitude. All this may be, and yet one's article be indifferent, or unsuited to our pages. Give us credit for candor, gentlemen, as well as for plain-speaking * * * HERE are two clever epigrams; the first from a contributor to whom the reader has heretofore been indebted for several caustic _tersities_ in its kind; the second from a friend who does not 'confess the cape' of authorship:

'WHY is a belle, attired for public gaze, Like to a ship? She 'goes about' in stays.'

We can enlighten the ignorance of our Port-Chester friend. Ladies in this meridian eschew 'stays,' as he calls them. They are _passée_, out of date, 'things that were.' 'Hence we view the gr-e-ät necessity there is' of being _au fait_ to the latest fashion. The ensuing purports to have been written on a '_Yankee Belle_.' 'Guess _not_,' though; 'tisn't the way of Yankee belles:

'SHE'S dressed so neatly for the ball, In truth, she's scarcely dressed at all; A fact to Yankees quite distressing, It leaves so little room for guessing!'

'Oh! go 'long, you p'ison critter, you! What d'you mean?' * * * WE should have published the lines entitled '_What is our Life?_' but for some _forty lines_, the thoughts of which are 'conveyed' entire from CARLYLE. Looking down upon the wilderness of London, the thoughtful TEUFELSDRÖCKH exclaims: 'There in that old city was a live ember of culinary fire put down, say only two thousand years ago; and there, burning more or less triumphantly, with such fuel as the region yielded, it has burnt, and still burns, and thou thyself seest the very smoke thereof. _Ah! and the far more mysterious live ember of Vital Fire was then also put down there, and still miraculously burns and spreads._' * * * THE DRAMA is once more in the ascendant. The PARK THEATRE, our 'Old Drury,' is a personification of 'The Deformed Transformed.' Externally, it has assumed the aspect of a fine granite temple, in the Doric style of architecture, with a noble statue of SHAKSPEARE lording it over the pile; while internally, from pit to ceiling; boxes, walls, proscenium, stage; _every thing_, in short, is new and beautiful. Mr. BARRY deserves the highest praise for the good taste, the liberality, and the untiring industry which he has brought to bear upon our favorite place of theatrical resort. The house opened with WALLACK; WALLACK, that 'love of a man,' who can never grow old, and who has lost no whit of his power to delight his auditors. He opened in his inimitable 'Rolla' and 'Dashall,' to a house crowded from proscenium to dome with the élite of the metropolis; and he has since gone through his round of characters, including that most touching of modern plays, '_The Rent-Day_,' with undiminished popularity. _Apropos_ of this latter play: a good story is told of its first production in London. The celebrated FARREN declined a part in it; remarking, that if the piece ran beyond a single night, he would eat an old hat for every time it was played. The play rose to immediate and almost unprecedented popularity. On arriving at the theatre one evening, Mr. FARREN was informed by the call-boy that Mr. WALLACK had left something on a side-table for him, covered with a large white sheet. 'Hum!' grunted FARREN, 'what is it?' The boy lifted the covering; and behold, ranged in the most exact order, were thirty-six of the dirtiest, shabbiest, 'shocking bad hats' in London! FARREN started, and turned angrily to the lad. 'Please, Sir,' said the boy, 'Mr. WALLACK says as how you said, when you refused the part of _Crumbs_ in 'The Rent-Day,' that if the piece ran beyond a single night, you would eat an old hat; so as it has now been played thirty-seven times, he thinks it right to give you something to eat, afore the meal becomes too large for your digestion!' FARREN said it 'was all right--and left.' * * * WELL pleased are we to remark the opening of Messrs. COUDERT AND PORTER's English and Classical Lyceum, at Number ninety-five Eighth-street, near Tompkins's-Square. The principals have no superiors; their assistants are of their careful selection, and have their approval. On _these_ points, therefore, 'enough said.' The situation is delightful, and the terms consistent with the times. Let these gentlemen be _patronized_. Ah! that is not the term; but we have no good synonyme for it. We have always detested the word; and especially since we encountered Dr. JOHNSON's comment upon it, in a letter to Lord CHESTERFIELD, soon after finishing his immortal Dictionary: 'I entertain, Sir, a very strong prejudice against relying on patrons. Seven years, my Lord, have now passed since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing on my work, through difficulties of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it at last to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favor. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before.' * * * OUR friend who writes us from Florence (his excellent article is filed for our next) is quite right in his ideas of '_Letters of Introduction_.' There is much and exaggerated abuse of this courtesy, emanating from this country. His own case, we can assure him, is by no means a solitary one. We like the frank reply given by a distinguished American to a young, conceited whipster, who sought, through the claims of his father's friendship, to obtain letters to persons of distinction abroad: 'I want,' said he, 'to get letters to SCOTT, to MOORE, to SOUTHEY, and to JEFFREY. Father would like to have me see them.' 'So should _I_,' replied the expected donor, 'but I don't wish _them_ to see _you_. If _that_ objection could be removed, perhaps your wish might be gratified.' It 'was stated at the time' that our young gentleman 'left the presence.' * * * WE are struck with this remark of Count ROSTOPTCHIN, in his sententious memoirs, in preceding pages: 'I had an involuntary veneration for the sun, and his setting always made me sad.' How often, with kindred emotion, have we stood and gazed at sunset-clouds, with one who now sleeps in his early grave! Saying little, but thinking much, and feeling more; and as the day-god sank below the horizon, reflecting upon the period when all the living world that saw him then, should roll in unconscious dust around him. Oh! the mystery of nature!--the mystery of life!... '_The Puritans_ vs. _The Quakers_' is _at_ hand and _on_ hand, and _will be_ for some time, we cal'late. Couldn't 'approve' the sentiments of our Plymouth correspondent, 'any way 'at he can fix it.' We segregate a joke, however, which is worth pickling. 'Why are the Quakers always well-to-do in the world?' asks a Friend of one of the 'world's people.' 'They are chargeable to no man, and yet are always thrifty.' ''Zactly!' was the rejoinder; 'and I'll tell you _why_. The Quakers _are_ rich, that's sartain; and the way of it at first was this: When our SAVIOUR was took up onto the top of an exceeding high mounting, the OLD GENTLEMAN offered him all the riches of the world, if he'd fall down and worship him. 'Twouldn't do: the SAVIOUR said 'No;' but a Quaker who was standing by, took the OLD KNICK up: 'Friend BEELZEBUB,' says he, 'I'll take thy offer!' He did so; and there's been no scursity of money among your folks sence that time!' * * * 'HONORS are easy' with sundry of our correspondents. We perceive that, among others, the '_Mail-Robber_' was elected a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Cambridge University, at the late 'commencement' of that institution. 'Served him right;' he _deserved_ it. We have 'known things of him' that would have brought this visitation upon him before, had we chosen to mention them. 'Justice, though slow, always overtakes,' etc. The proverb is something musty. * * * WE must be permitted to doubt whether '_bally-ragging_,' as poor POWER used to term scolding, is the 'eftest way' for our New-Haven friend, to whose favor we recently alluded. 'Many men of many minds.' A spoonful of molasses will catch more flies than a quart of vinegar; and 'an inch of laugh is worth an ell of moan, in any state of the market.' 'The vices of the times, the vices of society, the vices of literature, require rigid scrutiny and fearless censors.' Very likely; therefore 'Pay away at them!' say we; but excuse us from monopolizing our pages with gloom, groutiness, and grumbling. * * * WE have omitted to notice the superb annual engraving for the subscribers of the '_Apollo Association_,' recently put forth by that popular institution. The subject is VANDERLYN's celebrated picture of 'CAIUS MARIUS on the ruins of Carthage.' The engraving is in line, by S. A. SCHOFF, a native artist, and forms one of the finest specimens of art in its kind ever produced in this country. * * * Mr. PRENTICE, the well-known Louisville Journalist, is 'down upon' a 'gentleman of some smartness who rejoices in the euphonious name of POE,' (a correspondent of ours spells it 'Poh!') for terming CARLYLE, in one of his thousand-and-one MAC-GRAWLER critiques, 'an ass.' The Kentucky poet and politician thus rejoins: 'We have no more doubt that Mr. EDGAR A. POE is a very good judge of an ass, than we have that he is a very poor judge of such a man as THOMAS CARLYLE. He has no sympathies with the great and wonderful operations of CARLYLE's mind, and is therefore unable to appreciate him. A blind man can describe a rainbow as accurately as Mr. POE can CARLYLE's mind. What Mr. POE lacks in Carlyleism he makes up in jackassism. It is very likely that Mr. CARLYLE's disciples are as poor judges of an ass as Mr. POE is of CARLYLE. Let them not abuse each other, or strive to overcome obstacles which are utterly irremovable. That Mr. POE has all the native tendencies necessary to qualify him to be a judge of asses, he has given repeated evidences to the public.' 'Nervous, but inelegant!' as Mr. ASPEN remarks in 'The Nervous Man.' * * * CAN any native citizen of '_The Empire State_' peruse the forceful paper under this title, in preceding pages, without a feeling of natural and just pride? For ourselves, born, bred, and educated upon the soil of New-York, we cannot read it without a thrill of gratification, that our 'lines have been cast in pleasant places,' and that we have so 'goodly an heritage.' * * * WE do not know when we have been more 'horrified' than on reading the following in a London journal: 'Two natives of the cannibal islands of Marquesas have been carried to France. The story runs, that on the voyage one of their fellow-passengers asked them which they liked best, the French or the English? 'The English!' answered the man, smacking his lips; 'they are the _fattest_.' 'And a great deal more _tender_,' chimed in the woman, with a grin that exhibited two rows of pointed teeth as sharp as a crocodile's!' * * * '_The Exile's Song_,' with the note which accompanied it, came too late for insertion in the present number. It will appear in our next. * * * THE story of '_The Tobacco-Quid_' is as old as the seven hills. What a silly thing it is, to give new names and a new _locale_ to an 'ancient MILLER,' and at the same time vouch for its entire authenticity and originality! 'O git eöut!' * * * READER, did you ever see a small puppy bark at an elephant in a menagerie, whereat the dignified beast didn't even deign to flap his leather-apron ears? Did you ever see a stump-tailed ape sporting a Roman toga? And have you seen the 'Annihilation of DANIEL WEBSTER' by CRAZY NEAL, in a recent newspaper piece of his? Mr. NEAL thinks the great orator and statesman a _humbug_! He is a judge of the article. * * * IF the '_Stanzas to Mary_' are a 'little after the style of WORDSWORTH,' we can only say that the WORDSWORTH school is not a grammar-school:

----'Upon my brow Glooms gathers fast and thick,'

is not unlike 'Cats eats mice,' or 'Shads is come!' * * * SEVERAL communications, among them 'Chronicles of the Past,' Number Two; 'Evening Hymn;' 'The Deity,' etc., will receive attention in our next.

* * * * *

THOMSON'S ABRIDGEMENT OF DAY'S ALGEBRA FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS.--DAY's Algebra has sustained a high reputation during a period of fourteen years; a fact sufficiently evinced by the sale of more than forty large editions. In appropriateness of arrangement, perspicuity of expression, and adaptation to the purposes of instruction, whether public or private, it stands, we believe, unrivalled. The highest praise which can be bestowed on a school-book is, that 'it is its own teacher.' By commencing with points so simple that any child of ordinary ability can comprehend them, and advancing step by step, removing every obstacle when it first presents itself, and conducting the student gradually into the more intricate parts of the science, the author makes him master of the subject while he is yet scarcely aware of its difficulties. The exactness of definition and clearness of illustration which characterize Mr. THOMSON's 'Abridgement' together with the exclusion of the answers to the problems, (a course indispensable to an independent scholar,) are especially commendable. The method also of completing the square by multiplying the equation by four times the coëfficient of the higher power of the unknown quantity, and adding to both members the square of the coëfficient of the lower power, avoids the introduction of fractional terms, and strikes us as an improvement. The most weighty objection to DAY's Algebra has been its paucity of examples. This defect is remedied in the 'Abridgement,' the number of examples being nearly twice as great as in the original work.

LITERARY RECORD.

'PRAYERS FOR THE USE OF FAMILIES.'--Here is a volume of some three hundred pages, containing upward of seventy prayers, designed to meet all conditions of mankind, and all the wants of humanity. The author, Rev. WILLIAM JAY, of England, has aimed to be very plain and simple in his diction, since prayer admits of no brilliance, and rejects studied ornament. He has not substituted finery for elegance, nor the affectation of art for the eloquence of feeling; but has wisely avoided a strained, inflated style, unintelligible to the ignorant, lamented by the pious, and contemned by the wise. This is as it should be. It is remarkable that in the Bible no prayer is recorded, in which the figure employed is not as familiar as the literal expression. An appendix is added, containing a number of select and original prayers for particular occasions; short addresses, applicable to certain events and circumstances, and which the reader may insert in their proper place in the main prayer, or use at the end of it. A work like this, from a competent pen, may supply with many families an important desideratum. The volume is published by Mr. M. W. DODD, Brick Church Chapel, opposite the Park.

'THE WYANDOTTE, OR THE HUTTED KNOLL,' is the title of Mr. COOPER's last work, recently published by Messrs. LEA AND BLANCHARD, Philadelphia, in two well-executed volumes in the pamphlet-form. It embodies legends of the sufferings of isolated families during the troubled scenes of colonial warfare, which are distinctive in many of their leading facts, if not rigidly true in the details. We gather from the prefatory remarks of the author, that in these volumes he has 'aimed at sketching several distinct varieties of the human race, as true to the governing impulses of their educations, habits, modes of thinking, and natures.' How this aim has been accomplished, we are quite unable to say. We trust however that the friend who transported the work from our table into the country, will at least repay us for the gratification of which he has deprived us, by returning it when he is through with it, that we may be ourselves enlightened, and enabled to enlighten our readers, concerning the character of the work.

THOMPSON'S HISTORY OF LONG-ISLAND.--A second edition--revised and greatly enlarged, and included in two handsome volumes--has just appeared, of Mr. B. F. THOMPSON's history of Long-Island, from its discovery and settlement to the present time. The work embodies many interesting and important matters, connected with the first settlement of our country and its colonial and revolutionary history; and includes notices of numerous individuals and families, and a particular account of different churches and ministers. In short, the indefatigable author has availed himself of every source of authentic and valuable information which could add to the interest or usefulness of his work; which we should not omit to mention embraces two large and well-executed maps, and is illustrated by numerous lithographic engravings of edifices and other objects of interest on the island; and including the author's 'counterfeit presentment.' Messrs. GOULD, BANKS AND COMPANY are the publishers.

'THE KAREN APOSTLE.'--Messrs. GOULD, KENDALL, AND LINCOLN, Boston, have issued in a handsome little volume, 'The Karen Apostle, or Memoir of KO-THAH-BYU, the first Karen convert; with Notices concerning his Nation. By Rev. FRANCIS MASON, Missionary to the Karens.' The first American edition is revised by Prof. H. J. RIPLEY, of Newton (Mass.) Theological Seminary. The work is 'sent forth in the hope that the interest which has been felt in behalf of the Karens may be deepened, and that the cause of missions to the heathen in general may be promoted by the striking proof of the power of the gospel exhibited in its pages.' The work is illustrated by maps, in part from manuscript, and by one or two well-executed engravings on wood. The specimens of Karen literature appended to the volume do not afford a very exalted idea of the writings of that sect; nevertheless, they possess a certain interest in the connection which they sustain in the volume.

NEW MUSIC.--We have before us, from the extensive and popular establishment of Messrs. JAMES L. HEWITT AND COMPANY, Broadway, 'Woodside Waltz,' by Miss MARION S. MCGREGOR; 'Grand Austerlitz March and Quickstep, arranged as a Duet, for the Piano-forte,' by GEORGE W. HEWITT; 'The Alpine Horn, a Tyrollean,' by JOHN H. HEWITT; and 'Robin Buff, a Ballad,' the music by Mr. HENRY RUSSELL.

'WHEN THOU WERT TRUE.'--This is a very charming Song; the words by F. W. THOMAS, Esq., the music by JOHN H. HEWITT, inscribed to Mrs. ROBERT TYLER, and just published by JAMES L. HEWITT AND COMPANY, Broadway. If the noble-looking portrait upon the title-page represents Mrs. TYLER, she is justly entitled to the praises with which the journals have teemed, touching the grace and beauty of her person. The following are the words:

I.

When thou wert true, when thou wert true, My heart did thy impression take, As do the depths where skies are blue, Of some wood-girt and quiet lake, The image of the moon that gives The calmness in whose light she lives.

II.

But when doubts came, my troubled breast Was like that lake when winds do blow; Her image there, though still impressed, Beams brokenly in ebb and flow: Until the storm obscures her sight, And reigns the ebon-visaged Night.

III.

Again that changing moon shall shine, When storms are o'er within the lake. Which, like that wayward heart of thine, Can any other image take: Mine, graven like memorial-stone, Is now a memory alone.

'ALHALLA, OR THE LORD OF TALADEGA: A TALE OF THE CREEK WAR.'--Thus is entitled a narrative poem by HENRY ROWE COLCRAFT, better known as HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT, Esq., an old correspondent of this Magazine. The story turns upon the contests of the Muscogees, their exertions, their discomfitures, and their final fall. It opens at a distant northern point, within a short period after the close of the Creek war, and occupies two days and nights in its action. Its style is a union of the dramatic with the narrative and descriptive; a conjunction well adapted to the character of the story and the nature of its personages. There are appended to the main poem a few selected miscellanies, among which we recognize three or four clever effusions, originally given to the public in these pages. Messrs. WILEY AND PUTNAM are the publishers.

'THE NEW PURCHASE.'--Our task for these departments of the KNICKERBOCKER was completed, when we received from Messrs. APPLETON AND COMPANY, a native novel, in two volumes, entitled 'The New Purchase; or Seven and a half Years in the Far West.' By ROBERT CARLTON, Esq. We have not found leisure to read one of its pages; but if we may judge of its merits from the encomiums of two or three of our contemporaries of the daily press, it should prove a work of the most sterling attraction. To say that 'MARY CLAVERS' must 'look to her laurels,' there being an equally gifted laborer in a kindred field, strikes us as very high praise. We hope, but doubt, to find _that_ precaution in any degree necessary.

'USURY: THE EVIL AND THE REMEDY.'--The pages of this department of the KNICKERBOCKER were mainly in the hands of the printers, when we received the newspaper folio entitled as above. We are left but space therefore barely to state, that this essay on usury differs entirely from the usual mode of treating that subject, in that it does not rely on the _penalties_ for the repression of the evil, but proposes to root out its existence by a practical, beneficent mode of removing the temptations to, and occasions for, usury. It is for sale at BURGESS AND STRINGER'S, corner of Ann-street and Broadway.'

NEW WORKS FROM THE AMERICAN PRESS.--We have before us several excellent publications, which came too late for _notice_ in the present number. Among them, we may mention three entertaining volumes from the press of Messrs. LEA AND BLANCHARD, Philadelphia, '_The Court of England_,' from 1688 to GEORGE the THIRD; '_Nature and Revelation_,' or the Second Advent; the beautiful '_Illustrated Prayer-Book_' serials of Mr. HEWET; and PEABODY'S _Dartmouth College Address_. These publications, with others which we lack space even to mention, will be adverted to in our November number.

* * * * *

Transcriber's note:

Minor typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed.

The cover for the eBook version of this book was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.