Part 16

How many thousands in Great Britain, whose experience is here described as with a pencil of light, has FATHER MATTHEW rescued from 'slippery places,' and placed once more within the charmed circle of sobriety and virtue! * * * THE grammatical blunder recorded by 'S. T.,' and 'suggested by the sixth _claw_ of the constitution,' reminds us of a clever anecdote which we derive from Mr. ROBERT TYLER. The old negro who receives and ushers visitors at the President's mansion is always very precise in his announcements. On one occasion a gentleman named FOOT, with a daughter on each arm, was shown into the drawing-room with this introduction: 'Mr. FOOT and _the two Miss Feet_!" * * * 'CRY you mercy!' gentlemen of the long robe and of the bar; we have neither 'abused the law' nor yet 'the lawyers,' though by your wincing you would seem to say so; at least some score of law-students would, if we may judge from the communications which have thickened upon us since our last. Saving the sordid and obscure tricksters of abused law; such, for example, as may be seen any day in the week, holding their sanhedrim of babble around or within the miscalled 'Halls of Justice;' and the undignified personal bickerings of the members of the bar; nothing of a _local_ character, in a legal point of view, deserves the whip and the branding-iron. The latter matter, too, is generally understood, we believe, by the public. A pair of lawyers, like a pair of legs, may thoroughly bespatter each other, and yet remain the best of friends and brothers. Our allusion to courts implied no reflection upon _Judges_. We hold in proper respect and reverence these sacred depositories of the people's rights. 'The criminal, and the judge who is to award his punishment, form a solemn sight. They are both men; both the 'children of an Universal FATHER, and sons of immortality;' the one so sunken in his state as to be disowned by man; the other as far removed by excellence from the majority of mankind.' _No_ function can be more honorable, more sacred, or more beneficial, than that of an upright judge. With his own passions and prejudices subdued; attentive to the principles of justice by which alone the happiness of the world can be promoted, and by the rectitude of his decisions affording precedent and example to future generations; he presents a character that must command the reverence and love of the human race. * * * THE 'London Charivarri,' or 'Punch,' maintains its repute--for which it is partly indebted to the high indorsement of the 'Quarterly Review,' 'Examiner,' 'Spectator,' etc.,--undiminished. It really _overflows_ with genuine humor, not unmixed, certainly, with many failures. We condense from it a few items of metropolitan intelligence, commencing with an office-seeker's 'begging letter' to Lord LYNDHURST: 'MY LORD: I am an Irishman, in the direst distress. To say that I am an Irishman, is I know a passport to the innermost recesses of your soul. I want something of about three hundred pounds per annum; I will not refuse four hundred. At present, however, I am destitute, and terribly out of sorts. You will have some idea of my condition, when I tell you that I have not tasted food these six weeks, and that I am so disastrously off for clothing, that the elbows of my shirt are hanging out of the knees of my breeches! P. S. Don't mind the hole in the bearer's trowsers; he is trustworthy.' To this missive the 'noble lord' replied: 'SIR: That you are an Irishman, is a sufficient passport to my fire-side, my purse, my heart. Come; never mind the shirt. With or without that conventional ornament, you will be equally well received by your devoted LYNDHURST.' The writer 'went very often to the house of his lordship, but as often as he went, just so often was his lordship not at home!' Curious, wasn't it? The plan of the '_Joke Loan Society_' reminds us of SANDERSON'S joke-company for the _Opera-Comique_ in Paris, several members of which, with due economy, managed to live for an entire quarter upon the 'eighth of a joke' which they had furnished to the management! 'The object of the institution is, to supply those with jokes who may be temporarily distressed for the want of them. The directors invite the attention of barristers to a very extensive stock of legal jokes, applicable to every occasion. The society has also purchased the entire stock of a retired punster, at a rate so low that the jokes--among which are a few that have never been used--can be let out on very moderate terms. Damaged jokes repaired, and old ones taken in exchange. Dramatic authors supplied on easy terms, and a liberal allowance on taking a quantity. Puns prepared at an hour's notice for large or small parties!' Under the 'Infantry Intelligence' head we find the following: 'The Twelfth Light Pop-guns acquitted themselves very creditably, and discharged several rounds of pellets with great effect and precision. The First Life Squirts also highly distinguished themselves, and kept up a smart fire of ditch-water for upward of a quarter of an hour; and the Hop-Scotch Grays went through their evolutions in admirable order.' A 'commercial problem' must close our excerpts: 'How can a junior partner be taken into a house over the senior partner's head? By the senior partner sitting in the shop, and the junior partner being taken in at the first-floor window!' * * * THE eulogy entitled '_Mr. Webster's Noble Speech at Rochester_' is from the pen of an Englishman, or we have for the first time in our life mistaken the 'hand-write' of JOHN BULL, Esq. The _spirit_ of the paper is not in the main unjust to this country; yet it touches with severity upon those culprit States of our Republic, that abroad are considered remarkable for their 'swaggering beginnings that could not be carried through; grand enterprises begun dashingly, and ending in shabby compromises or downright ruin;' and for their treasuries, filled with evidences of 'futile expectations, fatal deficit, wind, and debts.' Cruel words, certes; but are they wholly groundless? 'Guess not!' But Sir Englishman, pr'ithee, don't despond--don't be scared! Look at the progress of our western States, as evinced in the growth of their towns. Louisville, in three years, has gained eight thousand additional inhabitants; Saint Louis twelve thousand; Pittsburgh nearly the same amount; Cincinnati has erected within that period nearly three thousand houses, and gained seventeen thousand inhabitants. Four western cities have added to them nearly fifty thousand inhabitants in three years; and the adjacent country has kept pace with the towns. And the like progress is visible elsewhere. Truly, this _is_ 'a great country!'

----'WHO shall place A limit to the giant's unchained strength. Or curb his swiftness in the forward race? Far, like the comet's way through infinite space, Stretches the long untravelled path of light Into the depths of ages: we may trace. Distant, the brightening glory of its flight Till the receding rays are lost to human sight.

* * * * *

----'seas and stormy air Are the wide barrier of thy borders, where, Among thy gallant sons that guard thee well, Thou laugh'st at enemies; who shall then declare The date of thy deep-founded strength, or tell How happy, in thy lap, the sons of men shall dwell?'

We sometimes wish that we had been born fifty years later than it pleased Providence to send us into the world, that we might behold the ever-increasing glory of our native land. * * * The reader will be struck, we think, with the paper upon '_Mind in Animals_,' elsewhere in the present number. The writer 'has firm faith in every conclusion he has drawn. He has considered the ultimate tendencies of his doctrine in many different points; and the result is, an additional confidence in the correctness of his conviction, that one principle of intelligence is bestowed upon all created beings; modified, like their physical structure, to adapt them to different spheres.' Time is an abstract term; and as touching the faculty of abstraction in animals, the writer has a curious calendar which he kept of the time of the crowing of the roosters in his neighborhood. Having observed that they gave their midnight signal at about the same hour for several nights in succession, the following record was preserved:

AUG. 30, 11.25 P. M. Pleasant.

" 31, 11.22 " "

SEPT. 1, 11. 7½ " Cloudy.

" 3, 11.27 " Pleasant.

" 4, 12.24 " Moonlight.

" 6, 11.30 " Rainy.

" 7, 11.29 " Cloudy.

" 9, 11.20 " Moonlight.

As a new style of _crow-nometer_, this is a curiosity; but we cannot perceive that it proves any thing very conclusively. If it were in our power, however, to watch the operations of animals as carefully as our own, one could very soon place the whole question above controversy. * * * THACKERAY, the exceedingly entertaining author of '_The Yellowplush Correspondence_,' has in a late number of 'FRAZER'S Magazine' some judicious advice in relation to the _modus operandi_ of novel-reading. 'Always look,' says he, 'at the end of a romance to see what becomes of the personages before you venture upon the whole work, and become interested in the characters described in it. Why interest one's self in a personage whom one knows must at the end of the second volume die a miserable death? What is the use of making one's self unhappy needlessly, watching the symptoms of LEONORA, pale, pious, pulmonary, and crossed in love, as they manifest themselves, or tracing ANTONIO to his inevitable assassination? No: it is much better to look at the end of a novel; and when I read: 'There is a fresh green mound in the church-yard of B----, and a humble stone, on which is inscribed the name of ANNA-MARIA,' or a sentence to that effect, I shut the book at once, declining to agitate my feelings needlessly. If you had the gift of prophecy, and people proposed to introduce you to a man who you knew would borrow money of you, or would be inevitably hanged, or would subject you to some other annoyance, would you not decline the proposed introduction? So with novels. The book of fate of the heroes and heroines is to be found at the end of the second volume: one has but to turn to it to know whether one shall make their acquaintance or not. I heartily pardon the man who brought CORDELIA to life. I would have the stomach-pump brought for ROMEO at the fifth act; for Mrs. MACBETH I am not in the least sorry; but as for the General, I would have him destroy that swaggering MACDUFF, or if not, cut him in pieces, disarm him, pink him, certainly; and then I would have Mrs. MACDUFF and all her little ones come in from the slips, stating that the account of their murder was a shameful fabrication of the newspapers, and that they were all of them perfectly well and hearty.' * * * IT has pleased some late English writer to laud the conduct of Sir HUDSON LOWE, at Saint Helena, while NAPOLEON was under his 'treatment,' and as BYRON says, 'stood unbowed beneath the ills upon him piled.' The least said on _that_ point, the better. 'He was England's greatest enemy, and _mine_, but I forgive him!' said that notorious military martinet, when informed that his renowned captive was no more. This is rather rich; and almost justifies the remark of NAPOLEON, in exhibiting to an English visitor, in a copy of ÆSOP'S Fables (which Sir HUDSON had sent him, among other English books) the fable of the sick lion, which, after submitting with fortitude to the insults of the many animals who came to exult over his fallen greatness, at length received a kick in the face from an ass. 'I could have borne every thing but this!' said NAPOLEON; and pointing to the wood-cut, he added: 'It is me and your governor!' A friend of ours once informed us, that at a _table d'hôte_ at which he was seated in a German inn, soon after BONAPARTE'S death, Sir HUDSON LOWE was announced; when nearly every person arose from the table, and 'left him alone in his glory.' * * * IT is somewhat remarkable that so little attention is paid to the _clearness_ of expression. Every body remembers the geographer who, in describing ancient Albany, represented it as having 'two thousand houses, and ten thousand inhabitants, _all standing with their gable-ends to the street_!' A similar error was made not long since by a western journalist, who in publishing a clever poem, remarked that it 'was written by an esteemed friend, who had lain in the grave many years, _merely for his own amusement_!' A scarcely less ludicrous _misstatement_ occurred very lately in one of our popular daily journals. In describing the explosion of a brig, near the Narrows, and certain accidents which resulted from the disaster, the editor, among other items, had the ensuing: 'The only passengers were T. B. NATHAN, who owned three thousand dollars' worth of the cargo, _and the captain's wife_!' * * * BRYANT, our most eminent American poet, has entirely 'satisfied the sentiment' of our correspondent 'SENEX'S' stanzas on '_Old Age_,' in his fine lines commencing, 'Lament who will, with fruitless tears,' etc. A modern English poet, too, has recently reëxhausted the theme, in an extended string of six-line verses, from which the subjoined are derived:

'To dark oblivion I bequeath The ruddy cheek, brown hair, white teeth, And eyes that brightly twinkle; Crow's feet may plough with furrows deep My features, if I can but keep My heart without a wrinkle.

'A youthful cheer sustains us old. As arrows best their course uphold Winged by a lightsome feather Happy the young old man who thus Bears, like a human arbutus, Life's flowers and fruit together.'

* * * * *

WE should be bound to dissent from the conclusions of 'T. R.' on the Hudson, were we to give his paper a place (which we _shall_ do, with his permission,) in the KNICKERBOCKER. His _pecuniary_ conclusions are right, no doubt; but his _natural_ deductions are, in our poor judgment, decidedly wrong. 'Oh! mad world!' exclaims one who knows it well; 'oh! incomprehensible, blind world! Look at the rich! In what are they happy? In what do they excel the poor? Not in their greater store of wealth, which is but a source of vice, disease, and death; but in a little superiority of knowledge; a trifling advance toward truth.' * * * WE do not know who drew the following 'picture in little' of fashion's changes, (changes alike of person and apparel,) but to our mind it has the 'veritable touch and tint:' 'There is something awful in the bed-room of a respectable old couple, of sixty-five. Think of the old feathers, turbans, bugles, petticoats, pomatum-pots, spencers, white satin shoes, false fronts, the old flaccid, boneless stays, tied up in faded riband, the dusky fans, the forty-years' old baby-linen; FREDERICK'S first little breeches, and a newspaper containing the account of his distinguishing himself in the field; all these lie somewhere damp and squeezed down into glum old presses and wardrobes.' * * * WE have observed going the rounds of the press a paragraph which speaks of 'excitements' of all kinds as prejudicial to longevity; and citing, among other examples, the constant whirl of the stage, as a reason why theatrical persons are generally so short-lived. But the _premises_ in this particular instance are _wrong_. As a class, actors attain to more than common longevity. Call to mind those who in our own era have nourished in England and in this country, in proof of the correctness of this position. And it was thus in a previous age. Look at MACKLIN. He performed the part of 'Sir Pertinax MacSychophant' in his own Comedy of 'The Man of the World,' consisting of thirty-six 'lengths' or nearly sixteen hundred lines, including 'cues,' with a vigor and spirit that astonished every beholder, when he was in his one hundredth year! How old was GARRICK when he was seen for the last time as Macbeth, marching at the head of his troops (in a modern court-suit, and a well-powdered peruke!) across the blasted heath? We do not exactly remember his age, but he was 'no chicken.' * * * THERE is great beauty as well as truth in the annexed brief synopsis of the characteristics of the author of 'The Spectator.' ADDISON, says the writer, seemed at the same moment to be taken by the hand by Pathos and by Wit, while Fiction enrobed him with her own beautiful garments which Truth confined with her cestus, and Imagination put her crown upon his head, and Religion and all her band of Virtues beckoned him along the path to immortality, both in the life of the genius and the life of the soul. All the lineaments of beauty wake into splendor in his prose. It is in his essays that his muse beams out upon the reader, and calls forth all the sleeping wonders of her face. His true tragic energy is exhibited in his earnest panegyric of virtue; his true comedy is contained in the history of Sir ROGER DE COVERLY, and his true fancy in the 'VISION OF MIRZA.' He was an essayist, a tale-writer, a traveller, a critic. He touched every subject, and adorned every subject that he touched.' Do we seek for the opinions of a man of letters upon the aspect and the antiquities of the most famous country in Europe? We have his 'Remarks on Italy.' Are we fond of examining the aids which history derives from some of the obscurer stores of antiquity? We can turn to his 'Dialogues on Medals.' Are we charmed with the stateliness of Eastern fiction and the melancholy grandeur of Eastern allegory? We find it in all the allegories and visions of this charming writer. Or do we seek to be withdrawn from the cares of our maturer life into the thoughtless sports and pleasures of our youth? Who so good a guide as ADDISON, in those papers which unlock all the gentler and purer emotions of the heart? * * * AMONG the pleasant papers of the late ROBERT C. SANDS, which we intended to have included in our late series of his 'Early and Unpublished Writings,' was the following extract from a burlesque imitation of the literary-antiquarian 'researches,' so common some years ago. The poem was 'edited' by a celebrated cook in London, and was 'intituled '_Kynge Arthour, his Puden_.' It purported to have been derived from the MS. which 'contained the original Welsh, as well as the version.' It throws great light on the gastrology of the olden time:

'Ys KYNGE for Sonday mornenge bade Hys cooke withoute delaie To have a greate bagge-puden made, For to dyne upon yt daie.

'Ye cooke yn tooke hys biggeste potte, Yt 90 Hhds. helde, And soon he made ye water hotte Wyth which yt potte was fyllede.

'Hys knedynge-troughe was 50 yds In lengthe, and 20 wide; And 80 kytchen wenches stode In ordere bye its side.

'Full 60 sakes of wheaten floure They emptyed in a tryse, And 15 Bbls. of melases, & 7 casks of Ryse!'

This really seems somewhat common-place, just at this period; but twenty-five years ago it was a 'gem of one of the old English school of metrical writers!' * * * WITH perhaps as strong sympathies in behalf of the great philanthropic moments of the age as most of our readers possess, we are nevertheless sometimes inclined to wish that the liberal patrons of the great benevolent societies could now and then have a glance behind the curtains at the chief actors there. In many of these institutions true Christian principle is doubtless paramount, and the managers men of exalted piety and worth; but there are _others_ of them which, while the _names_ of good men are paraded upon the 'Boards' to inspire confidence, are really directed by a set of individuals who would have done honor to the Spanish Inquisition in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Some facts have recently come to our knowledge in regard to the doings of the directors of a _soi-disant_ charitable institution, which operates in this city and State for the ostensible benefit of a transatlantic colony, which, were they known to the public, as without doubt they soon will be, would pretty effectually set the seal of condemnation upon all their efforts toward collecting moneys from the benevolent, for many years to come. A friend and correspondent of ours, whose character stands above reproach, fell by chance into the hands of some half a dozen of these directors, who, among a body of thirty for the most part honorable men, usually form the quorums and do the business; and the treatment he received (these same half-a-dozen sheltering themselves the while under the sanctity of their religious body) would have disgraced a band of King PHILIP'S warriors in the old Pequot war. We are no Abolitionists, technically so called, as our readers well know; nor do we take sides with either of the two great societies whose professed object is the benefit of the colored race; so that we cannot be charged with speaking from prejudice. But we _do_ go for justice, for truth, for fair-dealing, and Christian principle; and when any body of men, whatever may be their standing or professions, outrage these; and worse than all, when they commit this outrage under the garb of pharisaical sanctity, we know of no reason why they should be screened from public rebuke. * * * SOME kind-hearted and affectionate female correspondent, an integral portion of the girlery of New-York, on the strength of some remarks in our last upon the universality of the tender passion, has sent us a love-tale, with this motto:

----'ALL things seem So happy when they love; the gentle birds Have far more gay a note when they unite To build their simple nest; and when at length The 'anxious mother' watches o'er her young. Her mate is near, to recompense her care With his sweet song.'