Part 11

THIS transcendant work is at length completed, and in four well-bound and well-printed volumes, may be obtained of the publishers at one tenth of the price charged for the English copy. It certainly is unnecessary for us to enlarge upon the many and various merits of this great work. They are every where, and by all classes of readers and critics, cordially conceded. Certain mistakes there were, indeed, in the chapters upon Great Britain and this country, to the commission of which the monarchical and aristocratical predilections of the author naturally led him; but when pointed out to him by Chancellor KENT, he had the candor to acknowledge them, and the justice to correct them, in the edition before us. Another great defect in the European edition has here been supplied. The original work was issued without any Index, so that any particular document or fact could with difficulty be discovered by the reader. The very copious Index which is now supplied, adds largely to the value of the work, and so facilitates the references which may be necessary, that every prominent occurrence and record amid all its multitudinous subjects can be traced throughout the history. A series of explanatory notes, tending materially to rectify the author's principal errors, and to enhance the value of the narrative, leave little to be desired in this monument of historical research, which will be as lasting as it is unrivalled.

THE ROSE OF SHARON: A RELIGIOUS SOUVENIR, for 1844. Edited by Miss SARAH C. EDGARTON. pp. 304. Boston: A. TOMPKINS AND B. B. MUSSEY.

HERE is a modest but very pleasant annual, which contains, aside from its embellishments, matter which would far more than repay the small cost of its purchase. Of its engravings, however, we may say in passing, that the first is a charming view, exquisitely drawn and engraved, of 'Sabbath-Day Point' on Lake George; the third, a capital engraving of LIVERSEEGE'S 'Good Resolution;' the fourth, 'JEPHTHAH'S Daughter;' and the fifth a pleasant 'Scene on the Hudson.' The volume opens with an essay on 'Human Life,' from the pen of HORACE GREELEY; a paper which we should be glad to copy entire, but for the 'tyranny of space.' It is written in an easy, graceful style, and is replete with thought and feeling. 'Emma,' by Miss L. M. BARKER, deserves all the praise of the Editor, and will that of the public. The overflowings of a bereaved heart are visible in the almost _sobbing_ 'Lines on the Death of an only Daughter;' and to the writer, as well as to others who have suffered the loss of near and dear friends, we commend 'The Happy Thought' which succeeds it, the conclusion of which will forcibly remind the reader of the close of Rev. Mr. DEWEY'S unrivalled and inimitable discourse upon the 'Natural Dread of Death.' The Editor's portion of the volume is by no means the least of the attractions of 'The Rose;' and her fair collaborateurs have lightened her task by the excellence of their own contributions. With variety and excellence in its prose and verse; unexceptionable in all its inculcations; well printed and tastefully bound; we cannot choose but commend the volume to the favor of the public, in the holiday season which is approaching.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

VISITORS AT THE 'HOME DEPARTMENT.'--'I cannot make a speech myself,' said a wag, when suddenly called upon to address a political assemblage, 'but if any body else wants to speak, I'll hold his hat!' This was an obliging person; and we here ask leave in some sort to imitate his example. While we are making out the Index to the twenty-second volume of the KNICKERBOCKER, our readers will permit us to introduce to their acquaintance our thoughtful friend 'HANS VON SPIEGEL,' and our imaginative and mercurial correspondent 'JULIAN,' whose '_Top of New York_' in our last number, by the by, we placed to the credit of a new contributor to this Magazine, whose hand-writing greatly resembles his own. These gentlemen came too late to sit at the regular board; so an' please you, reader, make them welcome, as we do, to our round-table. We have 'taken their hats;' and while the one addresses you, upon a theme _seasonable_ at this present, and fraught with reminiscences of golden days, and the other enlightens unwedded people on the subject of 'matrimonial gettings-up of a morning,' permit us to accomplish our ungrateful task of composing a 'curtailed abbreviation compressing all the particulars' of the various matters contained in the last six numbers of the KNICKERBOCKER. Ladies and gentlemen, 'HERR VON SPIEGEL,' in an 'Epistleized Reverie:'

'While I mused, the fire burned.'

'THE gorgeous autumnal sun had just sunk behind the line of the Jersey shore as HANS, an hour since, turned homeward. He had it in his thoughts, dear EDITOR, to give thee a desultory train of reflections which the quiet loveliness of the scene suggested: the hills of Long Island stretching away to the eastward, with their wooded sides yet mantled with the many-colored foliage, that brightened in the evening glory of the sun; the radiant surface of the Narrows, dotted here and there with sails, their swelling bosoms spread to the land breeze; the white gulls returning in many a gyration to find their resting-places among the rocks on the beach; as they had done ages before; when the red man, who harmed them not, alone and happy, paddled his canoe around the head-lands which now are crowned with the tasteful dwellings of civilization; the gray sky bending over all, and arching in the landscape. He thought to discourse with thee of these; but now, seated before a coal-grate, all a-blaze and cheerful, he has changed his mind. Through the window-blinds of his chamber he can see the cold twinklings of the Northern Bear; and, if he would, the star that looks so brightly down on the Arctic Sea. There, now he _does_ gaze upon it--sadly though, and tearful. Thou mayest not know _why_ that star makes him sad. Again his eyes are turned away from his window, and his heart from sad thoughts. He pusheth the table a hair's breadth farther from the fire; presseth the cushion of a comfortable chair with a pair of curious slippers, in which his feet are encased; adjusteth himself at an easy angle; droppeth his head upon his breast, and wooeth the enchantress FANCY, lustrous-eyed and beautiful.* * * Hast thou never felt, gentle reader, while enjoying the first cold evening of the season, beside thy glowing hearth, a sudden influx of fresh life; a flow of quiet joyousness, as mysterious as pleasant; the melancholy gloominess with which thou beheldest the approach of winter, all at once disappearing to trouble thee no more for a whole year?--the dread of snow-tempests, and keen winds, and hurrying, gray clouds, on the instant giving place to a longing love for merry sleigh-bells, jingling in the frosty air? Well! HANS _thought_ he was not the only one who experienceth the like.

Give us thy hand, Old WINTER! Thou art welcome! Thou awakenest visions of other days, when HANS, in the simplicity of his childhood, believed that 'Thanksgiving' and 'Christmas,' some how or other, came into town in an old-fashioned double-seated sleigh, with racing gray horses and cracking whip, wielded by an invisible Jehu. How the idea got into his head, is more than he can tell. Exquisitely happy were those days of uncareful childhood; when the winter school called scores of rosy-cheeked urchins, hallooing on the morning air, through the snow to the old red school-house in the village of HANS'S nativity. The larger boys all with their sleds, on which sat their sisters, with the 'dinner-basket' in their laps; and their smaller brothers floundering through the drifts which they sought, contrary to the last injunctions of their mothers, along the fences. The huge box-stove roared a 'good morning' to them, as the boys stamped off the ice from their shoes, and the girls untied the strings which kept down their pantalettes. As there were no unlucky flies to inter and imprison in transparent quills, nor coke-berries wherewith to paint the sides of their noses farthest from the master's eye, the boys, perforce, studied their tasks; and the girls, as _girls_ always are, were equally the objects of pedagogical favor. Was the day 'thawy,' the noon-time witnessed magic castles erected; and the numberless streaks of bare turf showed where the huge balls of snow of which they were constructed had been rolled into unwieldy masses; and the wet mittens under the stove in the afternoon amply compensated for the want of water in the iron basin on the top of it. Shouting when four o'clock released them, they hurried home, only to prepare for the evening's sport of 'riding down hill.' HANS would give worlds to be a boy again, and for one single moonlight evening slide down 'Furnace-hill,' as of yore! * * * When a few winters had passed over your boyish head, beloved reader, and you first knew that magnetic feeling which told you what gave the charm to rosy lips, and you _guessed_ what kissing was, did you not feel all ecstasy while the bell-bedizzened horses and the belle-enlivened sleigh scoured with half a score of you over hill and through dale; the thick hood of the maiden next you being excuse unquestionable for telling her pretty lips what her ear could not so well apprehend? You needn't be ashamed to confess it; for those were, let HANS tell you, the golden days of your life. Before the wide fire-place of thy father's kitchen, thou hast, days long gone by, arranged the pippins just outside the andirons, and placed the gallon-pitcher of good brisk October on the coals, and cracked hickory nuts, (yes, and the more _accessible_ butternut,) for thy semi-circle of smiling, grown-up sisters and sweet blooming cousins, until the apples were roasted and the cider warmed. Then, when nine o'clock came, and thy spectacled and pious grandmother had read a chapter in the Holy Book, and thy father had knelt in prayer, didst thou not, as HANS does now, while thou laidst thy head upon thy pillow, and heard the whistling wind shaking thy window, bless Old Winter for making you so happy? * * * Courteous reader, HANS, while he draweth up the bed-clothes, biddeth thee 'Good Night!'

IT is not possible that the foregoing can be read by any one who has enjoyed the blessed privilege of passing his early years in the country, without 'kindling the flame of memory,' and placing before him, as in a backward-moving panorama, the hallowed associations of childhood and youth. Listen now to 'JULIAN.' He keeps a late appointment with a friend, with whom he is once more to look down upon 'the top of New-York.' He is certainly highly colloquial, and very familiar; but you'll find _thought_ enough in him, expressed and suggestive, albeit at the first glance he may seem rambling and desultory:

'MY dear Sir, how are you now? Hope you haven't been waiting. Possible? Been here all the morning under an umbrella! You must have breakfasted very badly. I should have been up sooner, but my wife----Ugh! how the wind blows! Won't you have part of my cloak? There goes your umbrella inside out. Ah, well; it's better than a collapse. This 'falling inward,' as the women call it, is frightful. This, then, is December. Chimney-tops pirouetting, tiles on the wing, and clouds pouring out of the North, legion upon legion, as though all the winds of Heaven had been gathering them for the last month, and were now bound to the tropics with the momentum of the world's motion. The top of New-York, Sir, is very well of a warm day; but allow me to say that there is air below, now--plenty of it. Suppose we step down and look out of the window? * * * Well, Sir, how have you been? Down in the mouth again! Ah, Sir, you have been looking at something too long. Never should do that. In a world that's whirling a thousand miles an hour, every thing should be taken at a glance. Get the wit of a thing, and have done with it. I give you five minutes every day to look at the stars, but don't particularize; for some in those far-off places send their light down long after they have been knocked out of existence, and you may be looking at a blank. Look out for such delusions, and _act_, remembering that the poetry of the hour, like the cream of your coffee, should be fresh every morning. Oh, Sir! in a world that never halts for a single moment in its everlasting round of changing amusement, your small agony is unpardonable. Why, the clouds and darkness are part of the play. Certainly--part of the play. Rain and snow, and chilling winds, pain, trouble, and torment--these are the variations for which you may thank GOD. If there were not plainer faces and worse figures, your little wife would soon be a fright to you--a perfect fright. Find your bubble and blow, but never stop to look at the colors. Let them burst; no matter for that, while your wind lasts. Blow away; there's nothing like it. If you are tired, like myself, and would like to look on, I can only say that the moralities of such speculation are hazardous; and if you have any wind left, it's better to die with a round cheek than a hollow one. A man without a bubble is flatulent; and a woman without one--but that's impossible. Take my advice, Sir, and let the world wag. If it choose to run off the track, _let it_, and if any comet is amind to take us _en route_ to the sun, why, blaze away! There are thousands of better dots in creation than this old concern; and whether we go up, down, or sideways--rocket, earthquake, or thirty-two pounder--we shall land somewhere; can't get lost. In short, Sir, you have no right to grumble, unless you are----But that's my secret. Shall I confess it? Mind, a _secret_; for if my wife should hear of it, she would tease me to death. Of course you will dine with me to-day; beg you wouldn't hint this in the remotest manner; not a whisper. * * * Sir, I am _nervous_--a solemn truth. Been examined by a double-combined microscope, and found to have two sets of nerves. I can see double, hear double, think double, and sleep double; and yet with such nerves, I have this very day been outwitted by a woman with only a common set. 'Nothing remarkable about that,' you say. Perhaps not; we shall see. * * * Speaking of nerves; now a day like this is endurable. People, you observe, are in earnest. There is what the new school would call a 'oneness' in the public mind to get out of the rain; and cloaks, handkerchiefs, umbrellas and skirts are used for the temporary shelter, because one can't stop to be nice. But of a warm day, when people can afford to dally and act their part, my nerves are troublesome, and I mount to the top of New-York. Did you ever look at a crowd of faces, when, under some dull lecture or sermon, the mind is comparatively at rest, and the character stands out upon the countenance? the smile, and all the other acted poetry of the face, gone for the moment, leaving only the impress of the slow march of years, the crows'-feet, the hieroglyphic, the line upon line of the devil's own hand-writing? If you could forget that you have looked at such things for a life-time; say for instance, you were a modest individual, just dropped from the moon, or any star that may be a part of Heaven; what would be your first impression? Why, Sir, you can't make your own dog look you in the face. There are different ways of viewing things, and in this light, one would be disposed to say that if the sun _is_ the bad place that some people think, why, the farther planets may not, after all, be such outside barbarians as we generally imagine. There may be a reason, a very convenient reason, why _we_ are not farther off.

'But, Sir, I was speaking of my wife. As you are a man of family, and I am only experimenting a little, _nervously_ so to speak, return the compliment by giving me a little advice upon a matter of my own. How is it, Sir, about getting up first? We can't agree. She insists (my wife) that the man should rise first, as the sun before the moon, the useful before the ornamental, etc. Now, if I am gifted in any one thing, it is the half-hour dream after the first rouse in the morning; but my wife, Sir, in that particular is a perfect genius. Talk about sympathies! Let me tell you that people must not count upon married happiness from unanimous likenesses. The likes may be _too_ like, and they may like _too well_. They may. I have decided that point. Well; this morning I was roused from the half-hour dream by the breakfast-call, and was provoked to find my wife still asleep; that is, she pretended to sleep; and I must confess that she had studied her attitude, so far as longitudinal position would admit, with no little skill. Having this important engagement with you, I gave her a little shake. 'Fanny! Fanny!' said I; but she didn't move a dimple. So I gave another shake. 'Eh?' said she; 'what's that? mercy! how you frightened me!' and then dropped away again. 'I say, _Fanny_,' accenting it a little. 'Ah, _don't_, dear, you are so rude!' She opened her eyes the merest trifle, and then lapsed away again into perfect oblivion as any one would suppose, who didn't know all about it. Putting on another emphasis, I sung out again, '_Are_ you going to get up?' She raised her eye-brows a trifle: 'Why, my dear child, you know it's your turn this morning.' _My_ turn! and 'my dear child!' I knew from the manner of her saying that, that she would lie there all day before getting up first; but as I was determined to give her a trial, and am always easy at a nap, I thought of my interrupted dream, and sliding gently into the continuation, was soon fast asleep. When I woke again, it was twelve o'clock, but there was Fanny, just as before, the arm perhaps a little more _à la Grecque_, and a tinge on her cheek that looked a little _saucy_; but that might be the thought of her dream; the fit of a cap, or a new bonnet, any of those innocent little things that make up the burden of women's night-thoughts in the way of dreams. Any one would have sworn it was sleep, deep and profound; a child asleep after a day's frolic would not have been more perfect in the 'doing' of it. By this time, people were beginning their morning visits; but of course, Mrs. Julian was 'not at home.' People came and went for an hour; and I was about despairing of my breakfast, when the sleeping wife sprang suddenly from the bed and ran out of the room.

'What now?' said I; but I didn't get up, for I knew there was some mischief a-foot; and sure enough, back she came in a jiffy, and got straight into bed, _munching a large piece of ginger-bread_!

'Now, Sir, what is the _law_ in such a case?

JULIAN.

LIFE AND TIMES OF THE LATE WILLIAM ABBOTT: SECOND NOTICE.--This entertaining work, from the MS. of which we quoted several admirable passages in our last number, is now in the hands of the BROTHERS HARPER; and when it shall appear, it will be found to sustain, and more than sustain, the character we have given of it. We annex one or two additional extracts which were prepared for our November issue. In the following incident, we rather incline to the opinion, Mr. ABBOTT 'had the worst of it;' his evident self-satisfaction to the contrary notwithstanding:

'ON my return to London from Paris, the farewell engagement of Mr. _Kemble_ took place; and in the play of 'Cato,' Mr. YOUNG had relinquished the toga of 'Portius,' which fell most unworthily upon my shoulders. A rehearsal was called on my account; but all the adjuncts of trumpets, drums, etc., were not considered necessary. My usual exuberance of spirits would have placed me in a most awkward position, but for the extreme simplicity of the great tragedian. When CATO is seated in council, an announcement is made of ambassadors from the senate, through the medium of a flourish of trumpets. Without a moment's hesitation or thought, I gave an imitation of the required instrument, to the perfect astonishment of all the performers. They looked at me, to see if there was any appearance of sanity left in me. I hung my head in dismay, fully expecting a severe lecture from the chief; the actors of course enjoying the anticipated censure; but to the astonishment of all parties, Mr. KEMBLE looked up with evident surprise, and said: 'Well, I declare, that is one of the most extraordinary things I ever heard in the whole course of my life. My good boy, do it again.' I naturally felt that this was meant as a kindly reproof, and with some little hesitation, I repeated it. The actors now began to chuckle; but Mr. KEMBLE retained his gravity, and was again astonished by my performance. He then made an asthmatic attempt to do the same, but his wind would not fill the instrument; and with an effort amounting to 'Pooh! I can't do it!' he said: 'Well, now we will go on with our rehearsal.' It was quite evident, from his general manner, that he really did look upon it as an extraordinary effort. I triumphed, consequently, and had the laugh against those who were exulting in the prospect of congratulating me on the loss of a week's salary.'

The annexed anecdote of 'old MATHEWS' occurs in a description of the dinner given by JOHN KEMBLE, soon after his retirement from the stage, to some of the principal actors of Covent-Garden Theatre, at which TALMA was present, as already recorded: