OUR OLD MEETING-HOUSE.

Gossip with Readers and Correspondents.—Coming home lateish to-night from the opera, we found the following, written in what Mrs.Malapropwould term ‘rather ineligible characters,’ as if hastily reduced to paper. Howbeit, we knew it at once for the ‘hand-write’ of our favorite, facile and felicitous historian of Tinnecum. He is one of your persons now who thinks, and not a member of that hum-drum class who onlythinkthey think; moreover, he knows ‘how to observe’ better even than MissMartineau. It was an every-day thing which struck him, in the aspect of our winter-sleighs, as he rode up in one of them a day or two ago; but this sketch of ‘The Snow-Omnibus’ is not so common: ‘Pastmidnight! The embers are dying. The thunder of the city becomes a dull roar, the roar a murmur: then comes a dead pause, interrupted sometimes by the watchman’s club as it rings on the pavement, or the shrill, solitary whistler executing the threadbare airs of the opera, or ‘Life on the Ocean Wave.’ The door opens without noise. I lift up my nodding head and see Dr.Bartolo, his hat like a miller’s, and his whiskers fringed with white. With tread soft as a mouse or an apparition, he illumes his candle, turns on his heel, and says in a whisper very appropriate to the time, the place, and the fact conveyed: ‘It snows!’ Such is the only intimation to break the magic and the mystery of the early morning, unless it be the small tinkling of bells like frogs in a brook; a complete shifting or rather change of scene noiselessly wrought; a foul city purified, whitened, sparkling, and glorious, like a Scarlet Lady who emerges with her meretricious charms in chaste robes, chaste as Diana. She taketh the veil. The virgin-snow is unsullied upon her bosom, just as it dropped softly out of heaven, undefiled by footsteps, dazzling only to conceal. ’Tis but the momentary semblance of purity. The sun is up. Hark! the tumult and excitement is begun. The crowds throng and jostle through the pure element; the horses prance to the gay and perpetual chimes, and Broadway is the paradise of belles. Underneath all is the obscenity of filth! What attracts our attention, however, is your snow-omnibus, very different in looks, spirit and animation from the same lumbering carriage upon wheels. What do you see in the latter? A set of cross, hungry-looking men, going up town to dinner, packed together in a magnetizing attitude, with knees jammed against knees, and eyes wherever they can find a place to put them; women crushed between stout fellows, and indecently nudged at every apology of a jolt; in short, a penthouse of ill-humour; twelve ‘all full’ people; whiskerandi, gentle maidens, wives, and ‘live widders,’ ranged with solemn regularity like coffins in a vault. All fix their eyes where their minds are, on vacuity, and try tobefor the time present, what theyseemto be, as stupid as the devil, as if they dreaded some sympathetic contact, revealing bank-frauds and transactions in stocks. Who ever saw a smile in an omnibus, even when court-plasters have changed places? You might as well look into a slow-driven hearse for something sunshiny! Your broker dares not even chuckle. Your exquisite cannot resort for consolation to the suction of his cane, but all look grim and virtuous as Seneca, until they pull the leather, pass up six-pence through the port-hole, and as they open the door, their faces begin to expand, but only with the animal anticipation of dinner. Compare this with thegroupingand animation of the Sleigh-omnibus; heads piled upon heads, as in a picture; black hats, feathers, plumage, barrel-caps, etc., bobbing about in a lively manner to the music of bells. Down they go into the gullies, through thick and thin, with a ludicrous contrast and juxtaposition of faces; all forced in spite of themselves to give expression to their several humors, mirth, deviltry, or spleen. Cheeks glow, eyes shine, spectacles sparkle, glances fly impudently to the windows where the face of beauty presses against the cold pane. The runner sinks into a ‘rut,’ and that makes the company bow to each other, and gives that old rascal of a sexegenarian an excuse to bring his gray whiskers very near to the blooming visage of a girl whose charming modesty is shrined in colors more delicate than the blush on the cheek of a magnum-bonum plum. Sixty must not aspire after such fruitage; but in anomnibus, where’s the harm? But we have a remarkto make onnosology, or the noses of the group. So spicy a variety of folk cheek-by-jowl (Parthians and Elamites, Medes, Jews and Persians,) begets contrast. Nose-bridges of all styles show their peculiar architecture, Roman or Grecian; while straight, crooked, bottle, snub, pug; some flat and with no bridge at all, others very muchabridged; are brought together in an amicable jostling, ‘comparing themselves by themselves,’ and setting off one another as a rose sets off a geranium. While I point out these peculiarities to my friendPhiz, a coral shriek rends the air, and by heavens! the whole load is upset!’•••Wehear from all quarters ‘good exclamation’ on theDirections for Sonnet-Making, from the popular pen of our friend‘T. W. P.’in our last number. An eastern correspondent, however, questions the correctness of one assumption of the writer: ‘It would be well to avoid coupling such words as moon and spoon; breeze and cheese and sneeze; Jove and stove; hope and soap; all of which it might be difficult to bring together harmoniously.’ Our correspondent thinks that this decree was issued without due reflection; and he proceeds to substantiate his position by ‘the ocular proof:’SONNET.Through hazy clouds, scarce ruffled by the breeze,Methought, last night, I sawthe man i’ th’ moon;As in the hollow bowl of silver spoonA broad reflected face the gazer sees;(Who trifling, dinner done, with bread and cheese,Abstractly lifts the spoon aforesaid up;)Or the same thing beholds in polished cup,Or concave snuff-box, whence the vocal sneeze!Sight ofthe mansuggestedHotspur’sboast;But the night froze; and to express such hopeSounded far softer than the softest soapTo me, who rather chose my heels to toastIn the warm vicinage of glowing stove,Than pluck the moon’s-man’s nose, beneath the frigidJove!5Ifthere be not a fruitful lesson in the subjoined, which we venture to separate from its context in a recent letter from an esteemed friend and contributor, then we—are mistaken: ‘Aproposof ‘American Ptyalism,’ in your March number: a friend was telling me the other day of the agonies he had suffered from dispensing with the use of tobacco. He had used it in various ways for thirty years, but finding that he was breakingdownunder it, he brokeoffabruptly, about a year ago. ‘Let a tobacco-chewer,’ said he, ‘who wishes to know whatnervesare, abstain for only one day, and if he has a wife who is delicate and nervous, he will forever after look upon her with a sympathy that he never felt before. Why, Sir, for months after I had forsworn tobacco, my mouth and jaws were any thing but flesh and bone. They were fire, ice, and prussic-acid, alternately. The roof of my mouth would at one moment have the feeling of blistering, and the next of freezing; and in addition to that, needles would occasionally pierce my face in every imaginable way. My head, for the most part, was a large hogshead with a bumble-bee in it, and the bung stopped up. You know that I am not imaginative; but my teeth, Sir, would suddenly grow to the length of a mastodon’s, and perhaps five minutes after, (if at the table,) a narcotic deadness would take the place of the previous excitement, and I would seem to be mumbling my food like people whose teeth are gone. But in the street, I always seemed to be grinning at every body, like some horrible beast who couldn’t get his mouth shut. If you have ever stayedagapefor an hour or so, while the doctor was on his way to reset your jaws, you can imagine how distressinglypublicthat feeling is. One bitter cold night I woke on the cellar-stairs, having got that far in search of tobacco, in my night-dress. Did you ever do so? You may think it trifling; but whenever from any cause you have become nervous, the first night that you wake on the cellar-stairs in the dark will be something to remember. At another time I dreamed of dying. I had been long sick and hadwasted to a mere nothing; but having had abundant time to prepare for death, I flattered myself that I was quite ready to go; and indeed, my hold upon life was so feeble, (a slight change in the weather would have snapped it, so it seemed,) my very breath was so fluttering and unsatisfactory, that I thought it would be as well perhaps to have done with it. The faces of friends, and the out-door world, with all its many goings-on, were pleasant to behold, butfaintlyso—indistinctly; my pulsations had gone down to such extreme tenuity, that the effort of getting at a pleasure killed it. But I was mistaken; for just before dying, the thought of my cigars came to me like a blessing; and although my physician told me I had but a few moments to live, I would not be refused. A cigar was brought; I seized it in my bony fingers, held it up to the light, smelt of it, and fondled it till the light was brought; and then, with what little grace my strength would allow, I inhaled that divine tobacco! How complacently, as far as I was able, did I then look around upon my surviving friends! My eyes, however, closed very soon from languor, and my breath now coming only at rather long intervals, the puffs were far between; notwithstanding which, I lived it through to the last inspiration; but in the closing draught, the fire from the cigar burnt my mouth so badly that I—awoke, and found I had actually bitten my lip in a most shocking manner! Well, Sir, you may think it was pleasantnotto be dying, and so it was; but as I then felt, I think I would sooner have gone, if I could have taken with me the fragrance of that incomparable regalia.”•••Ournew friend, the writer of the ‘Lines to an Early Robin,’ who desires us to send him six numbers of theKnickerbockercontaining his article, inquires ‘which kind of his writing we should prefer, prose or poetry?’ We hardly know what to say, in answer to this categorical query. It will not perhaps be amiss, however, to adopt thein medio tutissimus ibisstyle of the traveller, who, upon calling for a cup of tea at breakfast, handed it back to the servant, after tasting it, with the remark: ‘If this is tea, bring me coffee—if it is coffee, bring me tea;I want a change.’ If what ‘M.’ sends us is poetry, let him send us prose; if it is prose, (and it certainly ‘has that look,’) let him send us poetry, by all means.•••Judgesand other legal functionaries, though ostensibly ‘sage, grave men,’ are oftentimes sad wags, and fond of fun and frolic. From one of this class we derive the annexed: ‘A few months since, in a neighboring town, a knight of the yard-stick was paying his addresses to a MissInches, who, beside some personal attraction, was reputed to be mistress of a snug fortune. At first, the lady encouraged his addresses, but afterward jilted him. Rendered desperate by his double loss, the young man went home and deliberately shot himself; and the coroner’s jury next morning brought in a verdict of ‘Died by Inches!”•••Howvery beautiful are these lines upon the death of a young and lovely girl, the bloom of whose fair cheek refused to wither at the blighting touch of the Destroyer:‘Hereye-lids as in sleep were closed,Her brow was white like snow;A smile still lingered on her cheek,As if ’twas loth to go!‘And it may be a smile so sweet,So quiet and serene,Was never on the healthy browOf living maiden seen.‘Perchance the wondrous bliss which burstUpon her raptured mind,When first she woke in glory’s courts,Now left its trace behind.‘Her end was peace. I thought that theyWho loved her, should not grieve;For these last words they heard her say,‘My spirit,Lord, receive!’‘And when they laid her in the earth,Her cheek still held the bloom;That smile so sweet, the gentle maidBore with her to the tomb.‘Think it not strange that brighter tintsUpon the blossoms crept,Which grew above the sacred spotWhere that meek maiden slept.’Wescarcely know when we have been more amused, than in reading lately a satirical sketch, entitled ‘The House of Mourning: a Farce.’ SquireHamperand his lady, personages rather of the rustic order, who have come up to London from the family seat in the country, in the progress of shopping in a street at the west end of the metropolis, stop at a dry-goods undertakers, with a hatchment, and ‘Maison de Deuil,’ or House of Mourning, byway of a sign over the door. ‘Mason de Dool!’ exclaims the Squire, responding to his wife’s translation; ‘some foreign haberdasher’s, I ’spose.’ The lady, however, coaxes him to go in; for although she has lost no friends, she longs to see the ‘improvements in mourning,’ which she can do by ‘cheapening a few articles, and buying a penny-worth of black pins.’ The worthy pair enter, take an ebony chair at the counter, while a clerk in a suit of sables addresses the lady, and in sepulchral tones inquires if he ‘can have the melancholy pleasure of serving her.’ ‘How deep would you choose to go, Ma’am? Do you wish to be very poignant? We have a very extensive assortment of family and complimentary mourning. Here is one, Ma’am, just imported; a widow’s silk, watered, as you perceive, to match the sentiment. It is called the ‘Inconsolable,’ and is very much in vogue in Paris for matrimonial bereavements.’ ‘Looks rather flimsy, though,’ interposes the Squire; ‘not likely to last long, eh, Sir?’ ‘A little slight, praps,’ replies the shopman; ‘rather a delicate texture; but mourning ought not to last forever, Sir.’ ‘No,’ grumbles the Squire; ‘it seldom does, ’specially the violent sorts.’ ‘As to mourning, Ma’am,’ continues the shopman, addressing the lady, ‘there has been a great deal, a very great deal indeed, this season; and several new fabrics have been introduced, to meet the demand for fashionable tribulation, and all in the French style; they of France excel in thefunèbre. Here for instance is an article for the deeply-afflicted; a black crape, expressly adapted to the profound style of mourning; makes up very sombre and interesting. Or, if you prefer to mourn in velvet, here’s a very rich one; real Genoa, and a splendid black; we call it the ‘Luxury of Woe.’ It’s only eighteen shillings a yard, and a superb quality; fit, in short, for the handsomest style of domestic calamity.’ Here the Squire wants to know ‘whether sorrow gets more superfine as it goes upward in life.’ ‘Certainly—yes, Sir—by all means,’ responds the clerk; ‘at least, a finer texture. The mourning of poor people is very coarse, very; quite different from that of persons of quality. Canvass to crape, Sir.’ The lady next asks if he has a variety of half-mourning; to which he replies: ‘O, infinite—the largest stock in town; full, and half, and quarter, and half-quarter mourning, shaded off from agrief prononcéto the slightestnuanceof regret.’ The lady is directed to another counter, and introduced to ‘the gent. who superintends the Intermediate Sorrow Department;’ who inquires: ‘You wish to inspect some half-mourning, Madam? the second stage of distress? As such Ma’am, allow me to recommend this satin—intended for grief when it has subsided; alleviated, you see, Ma’am, from a dead black to a dull lead color. It’s a Parisian novelty, Ma’am, called ‘Settled Grief,’ and is very much worn by ladies of a certain age, who do not intend to embrace Hymen a second time.’ (‘Old women, mayhap, about seventy,’ mutters the Squire.) ‘Exactly so, Sir; or thereabout. Not but what some ladies, Ma’am, set in for sorrow much earlier; indeed, in the prime of life; and for such cases it is a very durable wear; but praps it’s toolugubre: now here’s another—not exactly black, but shot with a warmish tint, to suit a woe moderated by time. The French call it a ‘Gleam of Comfort.’ We’ve sold several pieces of it; it’s very attractive; we consider it the happiest pattern of the season.’ ‘Yes,’ once more interposes the Squire; ‘some people are very happy in it no doubt.’ ‘No doubt, Sir. There’s a charm in melancholy, Sir. I’m fond of the pensive myself. Praps, Madam, you would prefer something still more in the transition state, as we call it, from grave to gay. In that case, I would recommend this lavender Ducape, with only just a souvenir of sorrow in it; the slightest tinge of mourning, to distinguish it from the garb of pleasure. But possibly you desire to see an appropriate style of costume for the juvenile branches, when sorrow their young days has shaded? Of course, a milder degree of mourning than for adults. Black would be precocious. This, Ma’am, for instance—a dark pattern on gray; an interesting dress, Ma’am, for a little girl, just initiated in the vale of tears; only eighteen-pence a yard Ma’am, and warranted to wash.’ The ‘Intermediate Sorrow Department,’ however, derives no patronage from the ‘hard customer;’ and we next find her in the ‘Coiffure Department,’ looking at caps, and interrogating a show-woman in deep mourning, who is in attendance, and enlarging upon the beauty ofher fabrics: ‘This is the newest style, Ma’am. Affliction is very much modernized, and admits of moregoutthan formerly. Some ladies indeed for their morning grief wear rather a plainer cap; but for evening sorrow, this is not at all tooornée. French taste has introduced very considerable alleviations.’ Failing however, in ‘setting hercaps’ for the new customer, the show-woman ‘tries the handkerchief’ enticement; exhibiting one with a fringe of artificial tears worked on the border—‘the ‘Larmoyante,’ a sweet-pretty idea.’ The Squire intimates that as a handkerchiefto be used, it would most likely be found ‘rather scrubby for the eyes.’ But the show-woman removesthisobjection: ‘O dear, no, Sir—if you mean wiping. The wet style of grief is quite gone out—quite! The dry cry is decidedly the genteel thing.’ No wonder that the Squire, as he left the establishment with his ‘better half,’ was fain to exclaim: ‘Humph! And so that’s a Mason de Dool! Well! if it’s all the same to you, Ma’am, I’d rather die in the country, and be universally lamented after the old fashion; for, as to London, what with the new French modes of mourning, and the ‘Try Warren’ style of blacking the premises, it do seem to me that before long all sorrow will be sham Abram, and the House of Mourning a regular Farce!’•••ACanadian Correspondent, in a few ‘free and easy’ couplets, advises us how much we have lost by declining aMS.drama of his, which he is hammering out on the anvil of his brain. We subjoin a few lines of ‘The Angry Poet:’‘Thedamper, thedraftof my drama you’ve checked;You’ve stunted my laurels—my rich cargo wrecked!That cargo! O! never was galleon of SpainThus freighted, by winds wafted over the Main!There were stuffs, and brocades, and rich laces and blonde;There were Damascene blades, and thy silks Trebisond;There was armor from Milan, both cuirass and helm,Abelards, Eloïsas, and Father Anselm:There were jewels, and gold, and the amulet’s power,A hero to spout, and to rant by the hour;A lady to love, and be loved, and to faint,As a matter of course, turning pale through her paint!There were clowns who the grave-digger clown could outvie,And princes who on the stage strutted so highThat Prince Hamlet they’dcut; who could pick up a scull,Vote his morals a bore, and his wit mighty dull!There were spirits that roam in the caves of the deep,Coming back to our earth, as ghosts will do, to peep!A king of the Cannibals—warriors, a host;And a city with domes, mid the dim waters lost:There was some one descended fromBrian Boru;For Pleasaunce a hunchback, in French ‘Un Tortu;’Every scene was an episode—tragic each act;Winding up with swords clashing, or pistols well cracked.’Wehave just received the following from an esteemed correspondent, who transcribes it verbatim from the familiar letter of a friend. If we have a solitary reader who can peruse it without emotion, let him confine his indifference within his own cold bosom:‘I havejust returned from the funeral of poorEmmaG——,a little girl to whom I had been for years most tenderly attached. As there was something very touching in the circumstances connected with her death, I will relate them to you. She was the daughter of a widow, a near neighbor of mine. When I first knew her, she was a sprightly child of about four years of age, perfect in form and feature. The bloom of health was on her cheek; her eye was the brightest I ever saw; while in her bosom there glowed a generous affection that seemed to embrace all with whom she came in contact. But when she reached her seventh year, her health began to decline. The rose suddenly paled on her cheek, and her eye had acquired prematurely that sad, thoughtful expression which gives so melancholy a charm to the features of wasting beauty. Her mother looked on with an anxious heart and at an utter loss to account for so sudden a change in her health. But soon a new source of anxiety appeared. While dressing her one day, she observed onEmma’sback, just between the shoulders, a small swelling, of about the size of a walnut. As she watched this spot, and observed that it grew larger from day to day, the mother began to have sad misgivings. These however she kept to herself for a time. Soon afterward, a slight stoop in her gait became visible. The family physician wasnow called in, and the worst forebodings of the mother were confirmed. Her idolized child was fast becoming a hump-back!‘I will not attempt to describe the feelings of the mother, who was thus doomed to witness from day to day the slow growth of that which was to make one so dear to her a cripple and a dwarf. Suffice it to say, her love as well as care seemed to be redoubled, andEmmabecame more than ever the child of her affections. Nor did her little companions neglect her when she could no longer join in their out-door sports, and her own sprightly step had given place to a slow, stooping-gait, and the sweet ringing voice to a sad or querulous tone, that sometimes made the very heart ache. On the contrary, all vied with each other in administering to her amusements. Among them, none clung to her with more assiduity than her brotherWilliam, who was the nearest to her own age. He gave up all his own out-door play, in order to be with her, and seemed never so happy as when he could draw a smile, sad though it was, from her thoughtful features. But after a while,Emmagrew wayward under her affliction; and unfortunately, though generally good-natured,Williamhad a quick temper, to check which required more self-command than commonly falls to one so young. Sometimes, therefore, when he found plan after plan, which he had projected for her amusement, rejected with peevish contempt, he could hardly conceal from her his own wounded feelings. Yet, though at times apparently ungrateful,Emmawas perhaps not so in fact; and she loved her brother better than any one else, save her mother. It was only in moments when her too sensitive nature had been chafed perhaps by her own reflections—for like the majority of children in her circumstances, she was thoughtful beyond her years—that her conduct seemed unkind. And then, when she marked the clouded expression of her brother’s face, she would ask forgiveness in so meek a spirit, and kiss his cheek so affectionately, that he forgave her almost as soon as offended.‘Years thus passed on, when one day, after she had been more than usually perverse and fretful,William, who had been reading to her, on receiving some slight rebuff, started suddenly from his seat by her side, called her ‘a little hunch-back,’ and left the room. In a moment, however, his passion subsided, and returning, he found his sister in tears. He attempted to put his arm around her neck, but she repulsed him, and slipping away, retired to her own chamber. Her mother soon after learned what had happened, and going toEmma, found her upon the bed in a paroxysm of grief. She endeavored to soothe her feelings, but in vain; she refused to be comforted. ‘I want todie, mother,’ she replied to all her endearments; ‘I have long felt that I was a burden to you all.’ She cried herself to sleep that night, and on the morrow was too ill to rise. The doctor was called in, and warned the mother against an approaching fever. For three days she remained in an uncertain state; but on the fourth, the fever came in earnest, and thenceforth she was confined to her pillow.‘In the mean time, the grief ofWilliamhad been more poignant even than that of his sister. Thrice he had been to her bedside to ask her forgiveness, and kiss once more her pallid cheek; but she turned her face resolutely away, and refused to recognize him. After these repulses he would slowly leave the room, and going to his own chamber, sit brooding for hours over the melancholy consequences of his rashness. Owing to the previous enfeebled health ofEmma, the fever made rapid progress, and it soon became apparent that she must die.William, in consequence of the violent aversion of his sister, had latterly been denied admittance to the chamber, though he lingered all day about the door, eagerly catching the least word in regard to her state, and apparently unmindful of all other existence.‘One morning there was evidently a crisis approaching; for the mother and attendants, hurrying softly in and out the sufferer’s chamber, in quick whispered words gave orders or imparted intelligence to others.Williamsaw it all, and with the quick instinct of affection, seemed to know what it foreboded. Taking his little stool, therefore, he sat down beside the chamber-door, and waited in silence. In the mean time, the mother stood over the dying child, watching while a short unquiet slumber held her back for a little while longer. Several times a sweet smile trembled round the sufferer’s lips, and her arms moved as if pressing something to her bosom. Then she awoke, and fixing her eyes upon her mother, whispered faintly, ‘I thoughtWilliamwas here.’ A stifled sob was heard at the door, which stood partly open. Mrs.G——stepped softly out, and leadingWilliamto the bed-side, pointed to his dying sister. He threw himself upon her bosom, and pressing his lips to her pale cheek, prayed for forgiveness.Emmadid not heed him; but looking again in her mother’s face, and pointing upward, said softly: ‘I shant be sothere!—shall I, mother?’‘No, my poor child!’ replied the weeping parent; ‘I hope not. But don’t talkso,Emma. Forgive your poor brother, or you’ll break his heart.’‘Emmatried to gasp something; but whatever it was, whether of love or hate, it never reached a mortal ear. In a few moments she was no more.’Wetake your amiable hint, good ‘P.’ ofS——,and shall venture the forfeit. That our own ‘humor is no great shakes,’ we very cheerfully admit—so that there is an end tothat‘difference of opinion.’ ‘P.’ reminds us of an anecdote which we had not long since from a friend. ‘There, take that!’ said a would-be facetious doctor to a patient, whom he had been boring almost to extinction with what he fancied to be humor; ‘take it; ’t will do you good, though itisnauseous.’ ‘Don’t say a word aboutthat,’ said the patient, swallowing the revolting potion; ‘the man who has endured yourwit, has nothing to fear from yourphysic!’•••‘C. M. P.’sparody on ‘Oh no, I never mention Him,’ is a very indifferent affair, compared withHood’stranscript of that well-known song. We remember a stanza or two of it:‘Oh, no, I never mentioned it,I never said a word;But lent my friend a five-pound note,Of which I’ve never heard.He said he merely borrowed itTo pay another debt;And since I’ve never mention’d it,He thinks that I forget!‘Whene’er we ride, I pays the ’pike;I settles every treat;He rides my horse, he drives my cab,But cuts me when we meet.My new umbrell’ I lent him too,One night—’twas very wet;Though he forgets it ne’er came back,Ah, me!Idon’t forget!’Thekite-season has opened with great activity. Did you ever remark, reader, when Nature begins to waken from her winter-sleep; when the woods ‘beyond the swelling floods’ of the rivers begin to redden; when the first airs of spring assume their natural blandness; when ladies are out with their ‘spring hats’ and carmen with their spring-carts; when the snow has left us, and the city-trees areaboutleave-ing; how innumerous kites begin to thicken in the air? Yonder a big unwieldy fellow rises with calm dignity, trailing his long tail with great propriety behind him; here a little bustling creature ducks and dives, coquetting first on this side, then on that; until finally turning two or three somersets, it almost reaches the earth; but soon rises at a tangent, and sails far up into the bright blue firmament. Look! the air is full of them! It is a charming amusement, this kite-flying of the boys. We greatly affect it, even now, although we are ‘out of our ’teens!’ There is something ethereal in it; some thing that lifts up the young admiration‘Tothat blue vault and sapphire wallThat overhangs and circles all,’and the mysterious realm that lies beyond its visible confines.•••Weselect from the ‘Random Reminiscences of a Retired Merchant’ a single passage; the entire article being quite too short for any other department of our work: ‘There once flourished in one of our commercial cities a little French merchant, who was very well known to every man and boy by the fact of his being always followed by a curly-haired yellow dog with his tail ‘cut a little too short by ad——dsight!’ During the last war, our little Frenchman was doing a very thriving business in the dry-goods line, and was supposed to be a little sharper at a bargain than any of his fellow-tradesmen. There also flourished at the same time, in the same city, an importing merchant of Yankee origin, who was noted as a long-headed, close-fisted dealer. It is well known that during the war English goods were sold at enormous prices. The Yankee merchant was in that line of trade; and a few days before the arrival in this country of the news of peace, he received private advices from the Continent which led him to anticipate it. As he had a large supply of English goods on hand at the time, the prices of which would of course instantly fall, he set about disposing of them as soon as possible to his less informed and unsuspecting customers. The little Frenchman was one of his victims. After much haggling, and the offer of a long credit, the importer effected a bill of sale of goods to him, to the amount of something like twenty thousand dollars, taking his notes on long time in payment. These he considered perfectly good, of course, as his customer’s reputation in the money-market was unsullied. The bargain being consummated, the two friends parted, each in a capital humor withhimself; the Yankee to deposit the notes in his strong box, and the Frenchman to his store, where, receiving his newly-purchased goods, he immediately commenced marking them one hundred per cent. above cost, thus making before midnight, to use his own boast, aprofitof twenty thousand dollars on his purchase! Three days afterward the official news of peace came; English goods instantly fell one half, and our little Frenchman awoke in horror from his dream of cent. per cent. Nine persons out of every ten under such circumstances would have failed at once. Butnil desperandumwas the motto of our Frenchman. He saw that he had been ‘bit’ by his commercial friend, and he immediately set his wits at work to turn the tables upon him. So, late in the evening of the next day he repaired to the dwelling of the importer, and told a long and pitiful story of his embarrassments. He said his conscience already smote him for making so heavy a purchase while in failing circumstances, and that he had come to make the only reparation in his power; namely, to yield up the goods obtained of the importer, on the latter’s cancelling the notes given therefor. The Yankee at first demurred; but on the Frenchman insisting that he was a bankrupt, and that he feared the moment he opened in the morning the sheriff would pounce upon him with a writ that would swallow up every thing, he finally agreed to the proposition. ‘Half a loaf was better than no bread,’ he thought; and so the notes and the bill of sale were accordingly cancelled. By daylight in the morning the Yankee was at the Frenchman’s store, with his teams, as had been agreed upon the night before, and every package of his goods was soon removed. The two merchants again parted, the Frenchman with a mind relieved of a heavy load, and the Yankee rather down in the mouth at the result of his trade. Two or three days afterward, as the importer was passing the Frenchman’s store, he observed his sign still up, and every thing apparently as flourishing as ever. He stepped in to see what it all meant. ‘Hallo! Mr.S——,’said he, ‘I thought you had failed!’ ‘Failed!’ repeated the Frenchman, thrusting his thumbs in the arm-holes of his vest, and sliding his legs apart from counter to counter, till he resembled a small Colossus of Rhodes: ‘Failed?No, be gar! Firmer than ever, Mr.H——,but Ishouldhave failed,almosht, if I hadn’t got rid of dem tamn’d English goods at cost!’ Straitway the out-witted Yankee ‘departed the presence!’’•••Ithas been generally supposed that the oratorical efforts of ‘MajorPogram,’ as described by Mr.Dickensin a late number of his ‘Chuzzlewit,’ rather carricatured even the worst specimens of western eloquence; but the subjoined passage from the speech of a Mr.Maupinin the Indiana legislature, upon the subject of establishing a tobacco warehouse and inspection at Paducah, seems to militate against the validity of this ‘flattering function:’‘Mr. Speaker: I feel incompetent to measure this comprehensive subject. Were my thoughts as deep as the Mississippi, and as clear as the Ohio, I could not grasp its whole magnitude. It requires a mighty mind; one that can look beyond the landscape; he must be able to look even beyond the ocean; to grapple with all the intricacies and winding convolutions of the subject, and to map in his mind the whole length and breadth of its territories. Here, Sir, is a river, whose broad and deep stream meanders from Paducah through one of the most fertile tobacco countries in the world, to Ross’s landing, and at the terminus of the great Charleston railroad, and possessing a steam navigation of eight hundred miles, and giving commercial facilities to the briny ocean. Behold this vast channel of commerce; this magnificent thoroughfare of trade; one grand, unbroken chain of inter-communication, like to a prodigious sarpent, with his head resting upon the shores of Europe, and his lengthened form stretching over the ocean and curling along this great winding stream in serpentine grandeur, proudly flaps his tail at Paducah!•••Sir, the ball is in motion; it is rolling down in noise of thunder from the mountain heights, and comes booming in its majesty over the wide-spread plain. Yes, Sir, and it will continue to roll on, and on, gathering strength and bulk in its onward progress, until it sweeps its ponderous power to the town of Paducah, and there stand a towering monument of patriotic glory and sublime grandeur, with the noble American eagle proudly perched upon its cloud-capped summit, and gazing with swelling pride and admiration down upon the magnificent spectacle of the greatness of human wisdom and power!’Every-bodyhas heard of the good old lady who purchased a family Bible at a bookstore, and soon after returned it, being desirous to exchange it for one of larger print. ‘We have at present no Bible,’ said the clerk, ‘of a larger-sized type than the one you have.’ ‘Well,’ replied the lady, ‘I wish you wouldprint me one, and I’ll call in a day or two andget it!’ She thought a request so reasonable could readily be complied with. One of our most prominent publishers mentions a clever anecdote of a poetess, who in reading the proofs of her forthcoming volume, found passages of a page or more in length enclosed in parenthetical pen-marks in the margin, with ‘Thomson,’ ‘Gray,’ ‘Moore,’ ‘Burns,’ ‘Wilson,’ etc., inscribed at the end. One day a letter accompanied the return-proofs, in which the lady remarked, that ‘she had endured the repeated insinuations of the publisher long enough; she was noplagiarist, whatever her other literary faults might be; she had on each occasion looked over the works ofMoore, Thomson, Burns, Gray, etc., but with the exception perhaps of a passage inWilson’s‘Isle of Palms,’ there was not even the slightestpretextfor a charge of plagiarism. She would thank the publisher, therefore, to discontinue in future his groundless hints upon the margins of the proof-sheets.’ The initiated will understand that the ‘insinuations’ of which the poetess complained, were simply the names of the different compositors, indicating the lines at which they severally began to place her effusions in type!•••Manya reader will recall, as he peruses the subjoined unpretending sketch, a kindred scene in his own experience, ‘when life and hope were new:’OUR OLD MEETING-HOUSE.Lord, ’tis not ours to make the seaAnd earth and sky a home for Thee;But in Thy sight our off’ring stands,A humble temple, ‘made with hands.’‘Manyyears ago, when ‘the dew of the morning was fresh upon me,’ there stood, just in the edge of the village where I was born, an old church edifice. The graves of many an early settler were round about it; and often as the shadows of evening were settling upon the valley, with half-averted face and hurried steps have I stole noiselessly by to our rural home. O, how many associations crowd upon the memory, in connection with that rude old meeting-house! It was an old-fashioned, square building, without portico, or steeple, or belfry. The winter’s hail and summer’s rain had beaten against it for half a century. Its numerous small windows, without curtain or blind, let in floods of light. Its small pulpit, perched high upon one side, and close to the wall, concealed the preacher’s body, while the heads of the congregation were just seen rising above the square high-backed pews. Hardly a cushion was to be seen; and the interior furnishing was of the simplest and plainest character. I have said that it had associations of great interest. It is now more than an hundred years since a small band of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians settled in that valley. Though but few in number, and braving the elements and the savages, they determined to carry with them into the wilderness not only the Christian’s hope, but the Christian’s ordinances. A small building of logs arose soon after the settlement, in which for many years an educated and regularly-ordained minister preached the gospel to a little flock. The inquiry had already commenced; ‘The prophets, where are they?’ The larger part of the pioneers had sunk into peaceful graves, when the war of the revolution commenced. It was still a frontier hamlet, and was soon swallowed up and lost in that terrible whirlwind of death which year after year swept over the settlements of Central New-York. When peace was restored, the remnant of the inhabitants whom war and disease had spared, returned to their former homes. But though war and disease had impoverished them, they had not forgotten theGodof their fathers. Having no house for assembling together, the inhabitants met in what they termed ‘the meeting-house yard;’ and there organized anew that church which has continued thence to this day, and determined upon the erection of the old meeting-house of which I have spoken. Under the open heavens, with their feet upon their fathers’ graves, they dedicated themselves anew to the service ofHimwho wasLordoverall, and whom they acknowledged as their only Sovereign. I have looked over the records of that meeting with emotions never to be forgotten. The gray-haired patriarch, loaning on his staff with one hand, and with the other guiding our youthful footsteps to the house of prayer on every Sabbath morning, was one of that small number, and took an active part in that solemn ceremony. The stillness of a Sabbath morning in the country has often been remarked. How often, amid the din and bustle of the great city, does the heart of him who has been accustomed to the holy quietness of the day of rest in some secluded valley, pant for a return to the home of his youth! Such has been my own experience; in the far-off past I see again the gathering of the quiet, orderly congregation; I hear the voice of the good old father who ministered in holy things; I sit by the open window andlook out upon the green graves thick strown round the old meeting-house; the warbling of the feathered songsters in the grove near by falls softly upon the ear. The voice of prayer is hushed, and the voice of praise ascends. Alas! the voices of most of those which were then attuned on earth, are now attuned to more celestial music in another world!‘But our old meeting-house, where is it? It has gone with those who, in the midst of trials, and in the plenitude of their poverty, with their own hands hewed out its massive timbers; and the place that knew it knows it no more! It was in the fall of the year that a traveller on horseback rode up to the principal hotel, and as he dismounted and handed the reins to his host, he inquired what building that was in the southern part of the village? On being informed that it was the meeting-house, he remarked, with a dogged air, that ‘he had often seen theLord’shouse, but had never seen theLord’sbarnbefore!’ The comical remark of the traveller produced an immediate action. The good old house soon disappeared. A more ambitious edifice was built in another part of the village. The land-marks are now entirely effaced, and the spot where it stood has been added to the ‘meeting-house yard.’ The monuments of the young and the aged who sleep there dot over the place where the first Presbyterian congregation, ay, the first congregation of Evangelical Christians of any denomination, in Central New-York, assembled to worship the livingGod.’Weare promised by an esteemed friend some interesting extracts from the original American correspondence of Mrs.Grantof Laggan, whose ‘Memoir and Correspondence,’ edited by her son, has recently attracted so much attention and remark in Great-Britain. Mrs.Grantappears to have been a woman of very remarkable powers, and of the most admirablecommon sense. Her observations upon the ‘amusive talents’ ofTheodore Hook, and his entire devotion to their cultivation, are replete with the soundest wisdom. The distinction between living to amuse the public merely, and the exertion of one’s intellectual powers for one’s own benefit, and with an eye to the claims of riper years, is admirably discriminated and set forth. There is not perhaps a more instructive lesson than that conveyed byprofessionalwits, who are ‘first applauded and thenendured, when people see that it is all they have.’ As auxiliaries, as contrasts, with reflection and thoughtful exercitations of the mind, wit and humor are felicitous matters; as an intellectualmain-stay, however, they have been weighed in the balance by a hundred brilliant examples, and have always been ‘found wanting.’•••Punch, at this present writing, save three or four numbers, in February, is among the missing. Late issues however, furnish some valuable contributions to academical statistics; as for example, Mr.Boys, who in his report upon the metropolitan school-visitation, writes as follows:‘Theuse of sponge for cleaning slates he found confined to 17¼ per cent.; of whom 5½ used the sponge wet with water, and 11¾ with saliva; the remaining 82¾ made use of the latter liquid and the cuffs of their jackets instead of sponges, with an occasional recourse to the pocket-handkerchief. The author found, in schools in which the Latin language was not taught, a lamentable deficiency in the knowledge of the meaning of ‘meum’ and ‘tuum;’ he pointed out how the great extent of juvenile crime might thus be accounted for, as being caused by the absence of all instruction in the Latin language, and hoped that teaching it would soon be made obligatory upon all school-masters.’There is a humorous sketch of an examination of law-students, from which we select an ‘exercise’ or two:‘Ques: Have you attended any and what law lectures?Ans: I have attended to many legal lectures, when I have been admonished by police magistrates for kicking up rows in the streets, pulling off knockers, etc.Ques: What is a real action?Ans: An action brought in earnest, and not by way of a joke.Ques: What are a bill and answer?Ans: Ask my tailor.Ques: How would you file a bill?Ans: I don’t know, but would lay the case before a blacksmith.Ques: What steps would you take to dissolve an injunction?Ans: I should put it into some very hot water, and let it remain there until it was melted.Ques: What are post-nuptial articles?Ans: Children.Ques: What is simple larceny?Ans: Picking a pocket of a handkerchief, and leaving a purse of money behind.’We have had books on etiquette, of various kinds, lately, but a work of this sort for prisons will be found, one would think, to supply an important desideratum.George Selwyn, when a servant was sent to Newgate, for stealing articles from the club-house of whichSelwynwas a member, was very much shocked: ‘What a horrid report,’ said he,‘the fellow will give of us to the gentlemen in Newgate!’ This feeling will doubtless be more general by and by:‘Inconsequence of complaints that have been made by persons committed to prison before trial, who object to their not being allowed to mix with other prisoners, it has been thought necessary to frame a Book of Etiquette for prison purposes. Of course a superior delinquent, like a forger, could not be on visiting terms with a mere pick-pocket, nor could a man charged with stealing a hundred pounds, feel at his ease in the society of one whose alleged theft might be mean and insignificant. It is, we believe, intended to introduce the prisoners to each other formally, not by name, but by the offence with which they are charged. Thus, the Governor of Newgate would say to Felony: ‘Allow me to introduce you toAggravated Larceny. You ought to know each other—indeed you ought.Aggravated Larceny,Felony;Felony,Aggravated Larceny.’ By a nice adjustment and proper application of the rules of etiquette, a very admirable system of social intercourse might be established in all our prisons, and the present complaint of a want of ‘good society,’ which falls so severely on superior scoundrels, would at once be got rid of.’Deafness, although sometimes rather annoying—as for example in the case mentioned in preceding pages byJohn Waters—is yet not without its advantages. Your conversational ‘‘DeafBurke,’ who can endure any amount of ‘punishment’ without being the worse for it,’ enjoys not unfrequently a great deal of negative felicity. We envied the condition of such an one the other day, while sitting with a friend at the ‘Globe,’ over such potables and edibles as that matchless establishment can alone set before its guests. At a table in near proximity, sat two Englishmen, whose comments upon ‘matters and things’ in America were embodied in such ‘voluble speech’ that we could scarcely hear ourselves speak. ‘They maytalkabout their hinstitutions as much as they please,’ said one of the speakers, ‘but honlylookat ’em—see their heffect, from the ’ead of the government, down. Yesterday I perused in the ‘Courier’ newspaper an account of a negro’s skin, hentire, that was found with the ’ead attached, in the Mississippi river!’ ‘’Orid, isn’t it! Think o’ such a thing as that picked up in the Tems! And last week. I read in the ’Erald of a man near the Canada lines, who was found dead by the side of a fallen tree, half eaten up by wild hogs or panthers. He ’ad a flask of whiskey by his side, which he had taken ‘neat,’ till it had killed him; and in his pocket was a dirty pack o’ cards, wrapped up in a copy of the Declaration of Hindependence! That’s yourlibertyfor ye!’☞See if these very absurdities be not found embodied within a twelve-month in some new work by a travelling Englishman, upon that ‘miserable experiment at self-government, the United States of America!’•••Hereare some scraps of ‘Parisian Gossip’ which will not be altogether uninteresting to American readers. One of our Paris letters states that at a splendid party given by LadyCowley, there occurred a rather curious incident. ‘Among the guests was a Mr.L——,(one of thesnobiculi, most likely,) who, believing that none but a friend whom he addressed was within hearing, said, ‘And they call this a party? Why, I never saw any thing so dull in all my life. It is not worth the trouble of dressing for such an affair; and then the rooms are so intolerably hot.’ Unfortunately, the noble hostess was standing near, and overheard him, and immediately said: ‘Mr.L——,there (pointing to the ante-room,) is a cooler room, and beyond it is the hall, still cooler.’ This prompt and significant hint was felt, understood, and taken.’ ‘Every body in Paris knows or has heard ofHalevythe composer, and his brother, the author. Abon motof a pretty and sarcastic lady, at the expense of both of them, is now going the round of the gossipping circles. ‘Do you likeHalevy, the author?’ inquired a friend. ‘Pas du tout, pas du tout!’ answered the lady; ‘He is as dull as if his brother had composed him!’Eugene Suehas hatched a large brood of ‘Mysteries.’ TheJournal des Debatshaving published ‘Mysteries of Paris,’ theCourier Françaisis now publishing the ‘Mysteries of London.’ At Berlin no less than four different authors have published its ‘Mysteries.’ The ‘Mysteries of Brussels’ are being detailed in one of its journals. The ‘Mysteries of Hamburg’ have been exposed in print. At Vienna they are giving the ‘Mysteries of Constantinople;’ and a Paris newspaper promises in a short time the ‘Mysteries of St. Petersburg.’ Going on at this rate, there will soon be no ‘Mysteries’ in the world, and even the very word will become obsolete.’•••‘The God of our Idolatry’ contains somehome-thrusts at the national love of money, and not a few just animadversions upon the standard of respectability which obtains, in certain quarters, among us.HamiltonandBasil Hall’sexperience in this regard seems also to have been that of our correspondent. The tendency of this standard, in a social and intellectual point of view, is very far from elevating. ‘You are going to the dinner at——’sto-day, of course,’ said a lady with ‘an eye to the main chance’ to a friend of ours, the other day; ‘the company will be composed of some of our most ’fore-handed citizens—allheavy men,’ Our frienddidgo to the dinner; and he found the guests as ‘heavy’ as their best friends could have wished them to be.•••Reading, in presence of a travelled friend, the proof of the admirable paper which opens the present number, we came to the passage which records the opinion ofKepler, that ‘the world is a vast animal, that breathes and reasons;’ whereupon our listener remarked: ‘No doubt of it; itisan animal; I’ve seen its four-quarters myself!’ It was a pun worthy of a butcher.•••Weare not socertainthat the moral of ‘The Independent Man’ is ‘an unexceptionable one.’ The ‘Charcoal-sketcher’ expresses the general opinion, we fear, in this regard: ‘There’s a double set of principles in this world, one of which is to talk about and the other to act upon; one is preached and the other is practised. You’ve got hold, somehow, of the wrong set; the set invented by the knowing ones to check competition and to secure all the good things for themselves. That’s the reason people are always praising modest merit, while they are pushing along without either the one or the other. You always let go when any body’s going to take your place at table; you always hold back when another person’s wanting the last of the nice things on the dish. That’s not the way; bow and nod, and show your teeth with a fascination, but take what you want for all that. This is manners—knowing the world. To be polite is to have your own way gracefully; other people are delighted at your style—you have the profit.’•••Thereader will not overlook the ‘Alligatorical Sketch’ in preceding pages. We begin to perceive how much the alligator has been slandered. Ityawnsmerely, it would seem; and the only care requisite is, to be absent when its jaws close! ‘The ’gator isn’t what you may call ahan’somecritter, but there’s a great deal ofopennesswhen he smiles!’ Thesmileof an alligator!!•••‘Cleanliness,’ saysFuller, ‘is godliness;’ and he is not far out of the way; for no man, we think, can be a dirty Christian. In a moral and religious point of view, then, we are doing good service in calling public attention to the spacious baths of Mr.Charles Rabineau, at the Astor-House, and at his new establishment at Number 123 Broadway, Albany. Go wash in them and be clean, reader, and thank us for the joy which you will experience, when you shall have come out of the water and gone your ways.•••Oneof the late London pictorial publications contains a portrait of SirHudson Lowe, the notorious keeper ofNapoleon, the Emperor of the French, at St. Helena. It is in perfect keeping with the generally received estimate of the character of that functionary. The wretched thatch that disfigures without concealing the intellectual poverty of his narrow skull; the scowling features; the ragged penthouse brows; are ‘close denotements’ of the truth of ‘Common Report.’ In short, judging from the much-bepraised ‘likeness’ to which we allude, if SirHudson Lowewas not a tyrant, and a small-minded one withal,Goddoesn’t write a legible hand.•••Someclever wag in the lastBlackwoodhas an article, written in a hurry, upon thehurriednessof literary matters in these our ‘go-ahead’ days. ‘People,’ he says, ‘have not only ceased to purchase those old-fashioned things called books, but even to read them. Instead of cutting new works page by page, they cut them altogether:‘WhenEngland luxuriated in the novels ofRichardson, in eight volumes, it drove in coaches and four, at the rate of five miles an hour. A journey was then esteemed a family calamity; and people abided all the year round in their cedar parlors, thankful to be diverted by the arrival of theSpectator, or a few pages of thePilgrim’s Progress, or a new sermon. To their incidental lives, a book was an event. Those were the days worth writing for! The fate ofRichardson’sheroines was made a national affair; and people interceded with him by letter to ‘spare Clarissa,’ as they would not now intercede with her Majesty to spare a newEffie Deans. The successive volumes ofPope’s Iliadwere looked for with what is called ‘breathless’ interest, while such political sheets as theDrapier’s Letters, orJunius, set the whole kingdom in an uproar. And now, ifPope, orSwift, orFielding, orJohnson, orSterne, were to rise from the grave,MS.in hand, the most adventurous publisher would pass a sleepless night before he undertook the risk of paper and print; would advise a small edition, and exact a sum down in ready money, to be laid out in puffs and advertisements! ‘Even then, though we may get rid of a few copies to the circulating libraries,’ he would observe, ‘do not expect, Sir, to obtain readers. A few old maids in the county towns, and a few gouty old gentlemen at the clubs, are the only persons of the present day who ever open a book!’ And who can wonder?Whohas leisure to read?Whocares to sit down and spell out accounts of travels which he can make at less cost than the cost of the narrative?Whowants to peruse fictitious adventures, when rail-roads and steam-boats woo him to adventures of his own? People are busy ballooning or driving; shooting like stars along rail-roads, or migrating like swallows or wild-geese.’In allusion to the illustrated newspapers, now vieing with each other in enterprise and expense, in the British metropolis, the writer says: ‘The pictorial printing press is now your only wear! Every thing is communicated by delineation. We are nottoldbutshownhow the world is wagging. Views of the Holy Land are superseding even the Holy Scriptures, and a pictorialBlackstoneis teaching the ideas of sucking lawyers how to shoot. Libels are veiled in carricature. Instead ofwritingslander and flat blasphemy, the modern method is todrawit, and not to ‘draw it mild’ either. The columns of certain papers bear a striking likeness to a child’s alphabet, such as ‘A was an Archer, and shot at a frog.’ All the world is now instructed by symbols, as formerly the deaf and dumb. We have little doubt of shortly seeing announcements, standing like tomb-stones in those literary cemeteries, the Saturday papers, of ‘A new work upon America, from the graver ofGeorge Cruikshank;’ or ‘A new fashionable novel, (diamond edition,) from the accomplished pencil of‘H. B.’’•••Wehave a ‘Query’ from a Philadelphia correspondent, as to whether Mr. and Mrs.Woodwould not be likely to come over here, if invited, and in company withBrough, and other artists, establish English opera among us. Touching the disposition of theWoodsin this matter, we know nothing; butBroughis too busily employed to admit of such a consummation. What with his agency for the new sporting gun-powder, (whichDaniel Websterdeclares to be superior in strength and cleanliness to any other thing of the kind in the world,) and for the ‘Illustrated London News,’ ‘OldParr’sLife-pills’ etc., he has scarcely leisure to achieve his private calls, and execute occasionally, for the gratification of his friends, those charming airs which are indissolubly associated with his name.•••Messrs.Snelling and Tisdale’s‘Metropolitan Library and Reading-Room,’ at 599 Broadway, near Houston-street, supplies an important desideratum in that quarter of the metropolis. In addition to a well-stocked library and reading-room, there are coffee, conversation, chess, and cigar-apartments, and all the belongings of a first establishment after its kind.•••Wehad clipped for insertion, from a Baltimore journal, a poem in honor ofOle Bull, entitled ‘The Bewitched Fiddle,’ which we have unluckily mislaid or lost. It was by Mr.Hewitt, a popular song-writer and musical composer, and was one of the most fanciful and felicitous things we have seen in a month of Sundays. As it is at this moment out of our power to print it, we can only counsel our readers, if they encounter it any where, not to fail of its perusal.•••Wehave a pleasant metropolitan story to tell one of these days, (at least we think so,) of which we have been reminded by the following from a late English magazine:‘Thevulgar genteel are nervously cautious concerning every thing they say or do; they are ever alive to the dread of compromising their ‘gentility.’ At a ball—it was acharity-ball!—given at a fashionable watering-place, a pretty young woman, who was sitting by her mother, was invited by a gentleman to dance. He led her to a set; when, instantly, two ‘young ladies’ who were of it, haughtily, withdrew to their seats. ‘They had no notion of dancing insuchcompany’—and with good reason. The young person was nothing more than the daughter of a wealthy and respectable tradesman of the place; while they—the two MissesKnibbs—were members of its residentsmall‘aristocracy.’ The places they had vacated were good-naturedly filled by two ladies who had witnessed the proceeding, one of whom was the daughter, the other, the niece, of a nobleman.Theirposition was too well established to be compromised by dancing for a quarter of an hour in the same set with a respectable tradesman’s daughter; but the two MissesKnibbswere the daughters of a retired soap-boiler.’

Gossip with Readers and Correspondents.—Coming home lateish to-night from the opera, we found the following, written in what Mrs.Malapropwould term ‘rather ineligible characters,’ as if hastily reduced to paper. Howbeit, we knew it at once for the ‘hand-write’ of our favorite, facile and felicitous historian of Tinnecum. He is one of your persons now who thinks, and not a member of that hum-drum class who onlythinkthey think; moreover, he knows ‘how to observe’ better even than MissMartineau. It was an every-day thing which struck him, in the aspect of our winter-sleighs, as he rode up in one of them a day or two ago; but this sketch of ‘The Snow-Omnibus’ is not so common: ‘Pastmidnight! The embers are dying. The thunder of the city becomes a dull roar, the roar a murmur: then comes a dead pause, interrupted sometimes by the watchman’s club as it rings on the pavement, or the shrill, solitary whistler executing the threadbare airs of the opera, or ‘Life on the Ocean Wave.’ The door opens without noise. I lift up my nodding head and see Dr.Bartolo, his hat like a miller’s, and his whiskers fringed with white. With tread soft as a mouse or an apparition, he illumes his candle, turns on his heel, and says in a whisper very appropriate to the time, the place, and the fact conveyed: ‘It snows!’ Such is the only intimation to break the magic and the mystery of the early morning, unless it be the small tinkling of bells like frogs in a brook; a complete shifting or rather change of scene noiselessly wrought; a foul city purified, whitened, sparkling, and glorious, like a Scarlet Lady who emerges with her meretricious charms in chaste robes, chaste as Diana. She taketh the veil. The virgin-snow is unsullied upon her bosom, just as it dropped softly out of heaven, undefiled by footsteps, dazzling only to conceal. ’Tis but the momentary semblance of purity. The sun is up. Hark! the tumult and excitement is begun. The crowds throng and jostle through the pure element; the horses prance to the gay and perpetual chimes, and Broadway is the paradise of belles. Underneath all is the obscenity of filth! What attracts our attention, however, is your snow-omnibus, very different in looks, spirit and animation from the same lumbering carriage upon wheels. What do you see in the latter? A set of cross, hungry-looking men, going up town to dinner, packed together in a magnetizing attitude, with knees jammed against knees, and eyes wherever they can find a place to put them; women crushed between stout fellows, and indecently nudged at every apology of a jolt; in short, a penthouse of ill-humour; twelve ‘all full’ people; whiskerandi, gentle maidens, wives, and ‘live widders,’ ranged with solemn regularity like coffins in a vault. All fix their eyes where their minds are, on vacuity, and try tobefor the time present, what theyseemto be, as stupid as the devil, as if they dreaded some sympathetic contact, revealing bank-frauds and transactions in stocks. Who ever saw a smile in an omnibus, even when court-plasters have changed places? You might as well look into a slow-driven hearse for something sunshiny! Your broker dares not even chuckle. Your exquisite cannot resort for consolation to the suction of his cane, but all look grim and virtuous as Seneca, until they pull the leather, pass up six-pence through the port-hole, and as they open the door, their faces begin to expand, but only with the animal anticipation of dinner. Compare this with thegroupingand animation of the Sleigh-omnibus; heads piled upon heads, as in a picture; black hats, feathers, plumage, barrel-caps, etc., bobbing about in a lively manner to the music of bells. Down they go into the gullies, through thick and thin, with a ludicrous contrast and juxtaposition of faces; all forced in spite of themselves to give expression to their several humors, mirth, deviltry, or spleen. Cheeks glow, eyes shine, spectacles sparkle, glances fly impudently to the windows where the face of beauty presses against the cold pane. The runner sinks into a ‘rut,’ and that makes the company bow to each other, and gives that old rascal of a sexegenarian an excuse to bring his gray whiskers very near to the blooming visage of a girl whose charming modesty is shrined in colors more delicate than the blush on the cheek of a magnum-bonum plum. Sixty must not aspire after such fruitage; but in anomnibus, where’s the harm? But we have a remarkto make onnosology, or the noses of the group. So spicy a variety of folk cheek-by-jowl (Parthians and Elamites, Medes, Jews and Persians,) begets contrast. Nose-bridges of all styles show their peculiar architecture, Roman or Grecian; while straight, crooked, bottle, snub, pug; some flat and with no bridge at all, others very muchabridged; are brought together in an amicable jostling, ‘comparing themselves by themselves,’ and setting off one another as a rose sets off a geranium. While I point out these peculiarities to my friendPhiz, a coral shriek rends the air, and by heavens! the whole load is upset!’•••Wehear from all quarters ‘good exclamation’ on theDirections for Sonnet-Making, from the popular pen of our friend‘T. W. P.’in our last number. An eastern correspondent, however, questions the correctness of one assumption of the writer: ‘It would be well to avoid coupling such words as moon and spoon; breeze and cheese and sneeze; Jove and stove; hope and soap; all of which it might be difficult to bring together harmoniously.’ Our correspondent thinks that this decree was issued without due reflection; and he proceeds to substantiate his position by ‘the ocular proof:’SONNET.Through hazy clouds, scarce ruffled by the breeze,Methought, last night, I sawthe man i’ th’ moon;As in the hollow bowl of silver spoonA broad reflected face the gazer sees;(Who trifling, dinner done, with bread and cheese,Abstractly lifts the spoon aforesaid up;)Or the same thing beholds in polished cup,Or concave snuff-box, whence the vocal sneeze!Sight ofthe mansuggestedHotspur’sboast;But the night froze; and to express such hopeSounded far softer than the softest soapTo me, who rather chose my heels to toastIn the warm vicinage of glowing stove,Than pluck the moon’s-man’s nose, beneath the frigidJove!5Ifthere be not a fruitful lesson in the subjoined, which we venture to separate from its context in a recent letter from an esteemed friend and contributor, then we—are mistaken: ‘Aproposof ‘American Ptyalism,’ in your March number: a friend was telling me the other day of the agonies he had suffered from dispensing with the use of tobacco. He had used it in various ways for thirty years, but finding that he was breakingdownunder it, he brokeoffabruptly, about a year ago. ‘Let a tobacco-chewer,’ said he, ‘who wishes to know whatnervesare, abstain for only one day, and if he has a wife who is delicate and nervous, he will forever after look upon her with a sympathy that he never felt before. Why, Sir, for months after I had forsworn tobacco, my mouth and jaws were any thing but flesh and bone. They were fire, ice, and prussic-acid, alternately. The roof of my mouth would at one moment have the feeling of blistering, and the next of freezing; and in addition to that, needles would occasionally pierce my face in every imaginable way. My head, for the most part, was a large hogshead with a bumble-bee in it, and the bung stopped up. You know that I am not imaginative; but my teeth, Sir, would suddenly grow to the length of a mastodon’s, and perhaps five minutes after, (if at the table,) a narcotic deadness would take the place of the previous excitement, and I would seem to be mumbling my food like people whose teeth are gone. But in the street, I always seemed to be grinning at every body, like some horrible beast who couldn’t get his mouth shut. If you have ever stayedagapefor an hour or so, while the doctor was on his way to reset your jaws, you can imagine how distressinglypublicthat feeling is. One bitter cold night I woke on the cellar-stairs, having got that far in search of tobacco, in my night-dress. Did you ever do so? You may think it trifling; but whenever from any cause you have become nervous, the first night that you wake on the cellar-stairs in the dark will be something to remember. At another time I dreamed of dying. I had been long sick and hadwasted to a mere nothing; but having had abundant time to prepare for death, I flattered myself that I was quite ready to go; and indeed, my hold upon life was so feeble, (a slight change in the weather would have snapped it, so it seemed,) my very breath was so fluttering and unsatisfactory, that I thought it would be as well perhaps to have done with it. The faces of friends, and the out-door world, with all its many goings-on, were pleasant to behold, butfaintlyso—indistinctly; my pulsations had gone down to such extreme tenuity, that the effort of getting at a pleasure killed it. But I was mistaken; for just before dying, the thought of my cigars came to me like a blessing; and although my physician told me I had but a few moments to live, I would not be refused. A cigar was brought; I seized it in my bony fingers, held it up to the light, smelt of it, and fondled it till the light was brought; and then, with what little grace my strength would allow, I inhaled that divine tobacco! How complacently, as far as I was able, did I then look around upon my surviving friends! My eyes, however, closed very soon from languor, and my breath now coming only at rather long intervals, the puffs were far between; notwithstanding which, I lived it through to the last inspiration; but in the closing draught, the fire from the cigar burnt my mouth so badly that I—awoke, and found I had actually bitten my lip in a most shocking manner! Well, Sir, you may think it was pleasantnotto be dying, and so it was; but as I then felt, I think I would sooner have gone, if I could have taken with me the fragrance of that incomparable regalia.”•••Ournew friend, the writer of the ‘Lines to an Early Robin,’ who desires us to send him six numbers of theKnickerbockercontaining his article, inquires ‘which kind of his writing we should prefer, prose or poetry?’ We hardly know what to say, in answer to this categorical query. It will not perhaps be amiss, however, to adopt thein medio tutissimus ibisstyle of the traveller, who, upon calling for a cup of tea at breakfast, handed it back to the servant, after tasting it, with the remark: ‘If this is tea, bring me coffee—if it is coffee, bring me tea;I want a change.’ If what ‘M.’ sends us is poetry, let him send us prose; if it is prose, (and it certainly ‘has that look,’) let him send us poetry, by all means.•••Judgesand other legal functionaries, though ostensibly ‘sage, grave men,’ are oftentimes sad wags, and fond of fun and frolic. From one of this class we derive the annexed: ‘A few months since, in a neighboring town, a knight of the yard-stick was paying his addresses to a MissInches, who, beside some personal attraction, was reputed to be mistress of a snug fortune. At first, the lady encouraged his addresses, but afterward jilted him. Rendered desperate by his double loss, the young man went home and deliberately shot himself; and the coroner’s jury next morning brought in a verdict of ‘Died by Inches!”•••Howvery beautiful are these lines upon the death of a young and lovely girl, the bloom of whose fair cheek refused to wither at the blighting touch of the Destroyer:‘Hereye-lids as in sleep were closed,Her brow was white like snow;A smile still lingered on her cheek,As if ’twas loth to go!‘And it may be a smile so sweet,So quiet and serene,Was never on the healthy browOf living maiden seen.‘Perchance the wondrous bliss which burstUpon her raptured mind,When first she woke in glory’s courts,Now left its trace behind.‘Her end was peace. I thought that theyWho loved her, should not grieve;For these last words they heard her say,‘My spirit,Lord, receive!’‘And when they laid her in the earth,Her cheek still held the bloom;That smile so sweet, the gentle maidBore with her to the tomb.‘Think it not strange that brighter tintsUpon the blossoms crept,Which grew above the sacred spotWhere that meek maiden slept.’Wescarcely know when we have been more amused, than in reading lately a satirical sketch, entitled ‘The House of Mourning: a Farce.’ SquireHamperand his lady, personages rather of the rustic order, who have come up to London from the family seat in the country, in the progress of shopping in a street at the west end of the metropolis, stop at a dry-goods undertakers, with a hatchment, and ‘Maison de Deuil,’ or House of Mourning, byway of a sign over the door. ‘Mason de Dool!’ exclaims the Squire, responding to his wife’s translation; ‘some foreign haberdasher’s, I ’spose.’ The lady, however, coaxes him to go in; for although she has lost no friends, she longs to see the ‘improvements in mourning,’ which she can do by ‘cheapening a few articles, and buying a penny-worth of black pins.’ The worthy pair enter, take an ebony chair at the counter, while a clerk in a suit of sables addresses the lady, and in sepulchral tones inquires if he ‘can have the melancholy pleasure of serving her.’ ‘How deep would you choose to go, Ma’am? Do you wish to be very poignant? We have a very extensive assortment of family and complimentary mourning. Here is one, Ma’am, just imported; a widow’s silk, watered, as you perceive, to match the sentiment. It is called the ‘Inconsolable,’ and is very much in vogue in Paris for matrimonial bereavements.’ ‘Looks rather flimsy, though,’ interposes the Squire; ‘not likely to last long, eh, Sir?’ ‘A little slight, praps,’ replies the shopman; ‘rather a delicate texture; but mourning ought not to last forever, Sir.’ ‘No,’ grumbles the Squire; ‘it seldom does, ’specially the violent sorts.’ ‘As to mourning, Ma’am,’ continues the shopman, addressing the lady, ‘there has been a great deal, a very great deal indeed, this season; and several new fabrics have been introduced, to meet the demand for fashionable tribulation, and all in the French style; they of France excel in thefunèbre. Here for instance is an article for the deeply-afflicted; a black crape, expressly adapted to the profound style of mourning; makes up very sombre and interesting. Or, if you prefer to mourn in velvet, here’s a very rich one; real Genoa, and a splendid black; we call it the ‘Luxury of Woe.’ It’s only eighteen shillings a yard, and a superb quality; fit, in short, for the handsomest style of domestic calamity.’ Here the Squire wants to know ‘whether sorrow gets more superfine as it goes upward in life.’ ‘Certainly—yes, Sir—by all means,’ responds the clerk; ‘at least, a finer texture. The mourning of poor people is very coarse, very; quite different from that of persons of quality. Canvass to crape, Sir.’ The lady next asks if he has a variety of half-mourning; to which he replies: ‘O, infinite—the largest stock in town; full, and half, and quarter, and half-quarter mourning, shaded off from agrief prononcéto the slightestnuanceof regret.’ The lady is directed to another counter, and introduced to ‘the gent. who superintends the Intermediate Sorrow Department;’ who inquires: ‘You wish to inspect some half-mourning, Madam? the second stage of distress? As such Ma’am, allow me to recommend this satin—intended for grief when it has subsided; alleviated, you see, Ma’am, from a dead black to a dull lead color. It’s a Parisian novelty, Ma’am, called ‘Settled Grief,’ and is very much worn by ladies of a certain age, who do not intend to embrace Hymen a second time.’ (‘Old women, mayhap, about seventy,’ mutters the Squire.) ‘Exactly so, Sir; or thereabout. Not but what some ladies, Ma’am, set in for sorrow much earlier; indeed, in the prime of life; and for such cases it is a very durable wear; but praps it’s toolugubre: now here’s another—not exactly black, but shot with a warmish tint, to suit a woe moderated by time. The French call it a ‘Gleam of Comfort.’ We’ve sold several pieces of it; it’s very attractive; we consider it the happiest pattern of the season.’ ‘Yes,’ once more interposes the Squire; ‘some people are very happy in it no doubt.’ ‘No doubt, Sir. There’s a charm in melancholy, Sir. I’m fond of the pensive myself. Praps, Madam, you would prefer something still more in the transition state, as we call it, from grave to gay. In that case, I would recommend this lavender Ducape, with only just a souvenir of sorrow in it; the slightest tinge of mourning, to distinguish it from the garb of pleasure. But possibly you desire to see an appropriate style of costume for the juvenile branches, when sorrow their young days has shaded? Of course, a milder degree of mourning than for adults. Black would be precocious. This, Ma’am, for instance—a dark pattern on gray; an interesting dress, Ma’am, for a little girl, just initiated in the vale of tears; only eighteen-pence a yard Ma’am, and warranted to wash.’ The ‘Intermediate Sorrow Department,’ however, derives no patronage from the ‘hard customer;’ and we next find her in the ‘Coiffure Department,’ looking at caps, and interrogating a show-woman in deep mourning, who is in attendance, and enlarging upon the beauty ofher fabrics: ‘This is the newest style, Ma’am. Affliction is very much modernized, and admits of moregoutthan formerly. Some ladies indeed for their morning grief wear rather a plainer cap; but for evening sorrow, this is not at all tooornée. French taste has introduced very considerable alleviations.’ Failing however, in ‘setting hercaps’ for the new customer, the show-woman ‘tries the handkerchief’ enticement; exhibiting one with a fringe of artificial tears worked on the border—‘the ‘Larmoyante,’ a sweet-pretty idea.’ The Squire intimates that as a handkerchiefto be used, it would most likely be found ‘rather scrubby for the eyes.’ But the show-woman removesthisobjection: ‘O dear, no, Sir—if you mean wiping. The wet style of grief is quite gone out—quite! The dry cry is decidedly the genteel thing.’ No wonder that the Squire, as he left the establishment with his ‘better half,’ was fain to exclaim: ‘Humph! And so that’s a Mason de Dool! Well! if it’s all the same to you, Ma’am, I’d rather die in the country, and be universally lamented after the old fashion; for, as to London, what with the new French modes of mourning, and the ‘Try Warren’ style of blacking the premises, it do seem to me that before long all sorrow will be sham Abram, and the House of Mourning a regular Farce!’•••ACanadian Correspondent, in a few ‘free and easy’ couplets, advises us how much we have lost by declining aMS.drama of his, which he is hammering out on the anvil of his brain. We subjoin a few lines of ‘The Angry Poet:’‘Thedamper, thedraftof my drama you’ve checked;You’ve stunted my laurels—my rich cargo wrecked!That cargo! O! never was galleon of SpainThus freighted, by winds wafted over the Main!There were stuffs, and brocades, and rich laces and blonde;There were Damascene blades, and thy silks Trebisond;There was armor from Milan, both cuirass and helm,Abelards, Eloïsas, and Father Anselm:There were jewels, and gold, and the amulet’s power,A hero to spout, and to rant by the hour;A lady to love, and be loved, and to faint,As a matter of course, turning pale through her paint!There were clowns who the grave-digger clown could outvie,And princes who on the stage strutted so highThat Prince Hamlet they’dcut; who could pick up a scull,Vote his morals a bore, and his wit mighty dull!There were spirits that roam in the caves of the deep,Coming back to our earth, as ghosts will do, to peep!A king of the Cannibals—warriors, a host;And a city with domes, mid the dim waters lost:There was some one descended fromBrian Boru;For Pleasaunce a hunchback, in French ‘Un Tortu;’Every scene was an episode—tragic each act;Winding up with swords clashing, or pistols well cracked.’Wehave just received the following from an esteemed correspondent, who transcribes it verbatim from the familiar letter of a friend. If we have a solitary reader who can peruse it without emotion, let him confine his indifference within his own cold bosom:‘I havejust returned from the funeral of poorEmmaG——,a little girl to whom I had been for years most tenderly attached. As there was something very touching in the circumstances connected with her death, I will relate them to you. She was the daughter of a widow, a near neighbor of mine. When I first knew her, she was a sprightly child of about four years of age, perfect in form and feature. The bloom of health was on her cheek; her eye was the brightest I ever saw; while in her bosom there glowed a generous affection that seemed to embrace all with whom she came in contact. But when she reached her seventh year, her health began to decline. The rose suddenly paled on her cheek, and her eye had acquired prematurely that sad, thoughtful expression which gives so melancholy a charm to the features of wasting beauty. Her mother looked on with an anxious heart and at an utter loss to account for so sudden a change in her health. But soon a new source of anxiety appeared. While dressing her one day, she observed onEmma’sback, just between the shoulders, a small swelling, of about the size of a walnut. As she watched this spot, and observed that it grew larger from day to day, the mother began to have sad misgivings. These however she kept to herself for a time. Soon afterward, a slight stoop in her gait became visible. The family physician wasnow called in, and the worst forebodings of the mother were confirmed. Her idolized child was fast becoming a hump-back!‘I will not attempt to describe the feelings of the mother, who was thus doomed to witness from day to day the slow growth of that which was to make one so dear to her a cripple and a dwarf. Suffice it to say, her love as well as care seemed to be redoubled, andEmmabecame more than ever the child of her affections. Nor did her little companions neglect her when she could no longer join in their out-door sports, and her own sprightly step had given place to a slow, stooping-gait, and the sweet ringing voice to a sad or querulous tone, that sometimes made the very heart ache. On the contrary, all vied with each other in administering to her amusements. Among them, none clung to her with more assiduity than her brotherWilliam, who was the nearest to her own age. He gave up all his own out-door play, in order to be with her, and seemed never so happy as when he could draw a smile, sad though it was, from her thoughtful features. But after a while,Emmagrew wayward under her affliction; and unfortunately, though generally good-natured,Williamhad a quick temper, to check which required more self-command than commonly falls to one so young. Sometimes, therefore, when he found plan after plan, which he had projected for her amusement, rejected with peevish contempt, he could hardly conceal from her his own wounded feelings. Yet, though at times apparently ungrateful,Emmawas perhaps not so in fact; and she loved her brother better than any one else, save her mother. It was only in moments when her too sensitive nature had been chafed perhaps by her own reflections—for like the majority of children in her circumstances, she was thoughtful beyond her years—that her conduct seemed unkind. And then, when she marked the clouded expression of her brother’s face, she would ask forgiveness in so meek a spirit, and kiss his cheek so affectionately, that he forgave her almost as soon as offended.‘Years thus passed on, when one day, after she had been more than usually perverse and fretful,William, who had been reading to her, on receiving some slight rebuff, started suddenly from his seat by her side, called her ‘a little hunch-back,’ and left the room. In a moment, however, his passion subsided, and returning, he found his sister in tears. He attempted to put his arm around her neck, but she repulsed him, and slipping away, retired to her own chamber. Her mother soon after learned what had happened, and going toEmma, found her upon the bed in a paroxysm of grief. She endeavored to soothe her feelings, but in vain; she refused to be comforted. ‘I want todie, mother,’ she replied to all her endearments; ‘I have long felt that I was a burden to you all.’ She cried herself to sleep that night, and on the morrow was too ill to rise. The doctor was called in, and warned the mother against an approaching fever. For three days she remained in an uncertain state; but on the fourth, the fever came in earnest, and thenceforth she was confined to her pillow.‘In the mean time, the grief ofWilliamhad been more poignant even than that of his sister. Thrice he had been to her bedside to ask her forgiveness, and kiss once more her pallid cheek; but she turned her face resolutely away, and refused to recognize him. After these repulses he would slowly leave the room, and going to his own chamber, sit brooding for hours over the melancholy consequences of his rashness. Owing to the previous enfeebled health ofEmma, the fever made rapid progress, and it soon became apparent that she must die.William, in consequence of the violent aversion of his sister, had latterly been denied admittance to the chamber, though he lingered all day about the door, eagerly catching the least word in regard to her state, and apparently unmindful of all other existence.‘One morning there was evidently a crisis approaching; for the mother and attendants, hurrying softly in and out the sufferer’s chamber, in quick whispered words gave orders or imparted intelligence to others.Williamsaw it all, and with the quick instinct of affection, seemed to know what it foreboded. Taking his little stool, therefore, he sat down beside the chamber-door, and waited in silence. In the mean time, the mother stood over the dying child, watching while a short unquiet slumber held her back for a little while longer. Several times a sweet smile trembled round the sufferer’s lips, and her arms moved as if pressing something to her bosom. Then she awoke, and fixing her eyes upon her mother, whispered faintly, ‘I thoughtWilliamwas here.’ A stifled sob was heard at the door, which stood partly open. Mrs.G——stepped softly out, and leadingWilliamto the bed-side, pointed to his dying sister. He threw himself upon her bosom, and pressing his lips to her pale cheek, prayed for forgiveness.Emmadid not heed him; but looking again in her mother’s face, and pointing upward, said softly: ‘I shant be sothere!—shall I, mother?’‘No, my poor child!’ replied the weeping parent; ‘I hope not. But don’t talkso,Emma. Forgive your poor brother, or you’ll break his heart.’‘Emmatried to gasp something; but whatever it was, whether of love or hate, it never reached a mortal ear. In a few moments she was no more.’Wetake your amiable hint, good ‘P.’ ofS——,and shall venture the forfeit. That our own ‘humor is no great shakes,’ we very cheerfully admit—so that there is an end tothat‘difference of opinion.’ ‘P.’ reminds us of an anecdote which we had not long since from a friend. ‘There, take that!’ said a would-be facetious doctor to a patient, whom he had been boring almost to extinction with what he fancied to be humor; ‘take it; ’t will do you good, though itisnauseous.’ ‘Don’t say a word aboutthat,’ said the patient, swallowing the revolting potion; ‘the man who has endured yourwit, has nothing to fear from yourphysic!’•••‘C. M. P.’sparody on ‘Oh no, I never mention Him,’ is a very indifferent affair, compared withHood’stranscript of that well-known song. We remember a stanza or two of it:‘Oh, no, I never mentioned it,I never said a word;But lent my friend a five-pound note,Of which I’ve never heard.He said he merely borrowed itTo pay another debt;And since I’ve never mention’d it,He thinks that I forget!‘Whene’er we ride, I pays the ’pike;I settles every treat;He rides my horse, he drives my cab,But cuts me when we meet.My new umbrell’ I lent him too,One night—’twas very wet;Though he forgets it ne’er came back,Ah, me!Idon’t forget!’Thekite-season has opened with great activity. Did you ever remark, reader, when Nature begins to waken from her winter-sleep; when the woods ‘beyond the swelling floods’ of the rivers begin to redden; when the first airs of spring assume their natural blandness; when ladies are out with their ‘spring hats’ and carmen with their spring-carts; when the snow has left us, and the city-trees areaboutleave-ing; how innumerous kites begin to thicken in the air? Yonder a big unwieldy fellow rises with calm dignity, trailing his long tail with great propriety behind him; here a little bustling creature ducks and dives, coquetting first on this side, then on that; until finally turning two or three somersets, it almost reaches the earth; but soon rises at a tangent, and sails far up into the bright blue firmament. Look! the air is full of them! It is a charming amusement, this kite-flying of the boys. We greatly affect it, even now, although we are ‘out of our ’teens!’ There is something ethereal in it; some thing that lifts up the young admiration‘Tothat blue vault and sapphire wallThat overhangs and circles all,’and the mysterious realm that lies beyond its visible confines.•••Weselect from the ‘Random Reminiscences of a Retired Merchant’ a single passage; the entire article being quite too short for any other department of our work: ‘There once flourished in one of our commercial cities a little French merchant, who was very well known to every man and boy by the fact of his being always followed by a curly-haired yellow dog with his tail ‘cut a little too short by ad——dsight!’ During the last war, our little Frenchman was doing a very thriving business in the dry-goods line, and was supposed to be a little sharper at a bargain than any of his fellow-tradesmen. There also flourished at the same time, in the same city, an importing merchant of Yankee origin, who was noted as a long-headed, close-fisted dealer. It is well known that during the war English goods were sold at enormous prices. The Yankee merchant was in that line of trade; and a few days before the arrival in this country of the news of peace, he received private advices from the Continent which led him to anticipate it. As he had a large supply of English goods on hand at the time, the prices of which would of course instantly fall, he set about disposing of them as soon as possible to his less informed and unsuspecting customers. The little Frenchman was one of his victims. After much haggling, and the offer of a long credit, the importer effected a bill of sale of goods to him, to the amount of something like twenty thousand dollars, taking his notes on long time in payment. These he considered perfectly good, of course, as his customer’s reputation in the money-market was unsullied. The bargain being consummated, the two friends parted, each in a capital humor withhimself; the Yankee to deposit the notes in his strong box, and the Frenchman to his store, where, receiving his newly-purchased goods, he immediately commenced marking them one hundred per cent. above cost, thus making before midnight, to use his own boast, aprofitof twenty thousand dollars on his purchase! Three days afterward the official news of peace came; English goods instantly fell one half, and our little Frenchman awoke in horror from his dream of cent. per cent. Nine persons out of every ten under such circumstances would have failed at once. Butnil desperandumwas the motto of our Frenchman. He saw that he had been ‘bit’ by his commercial friend, and he immediately set his wits at work to turn the tables upon him. So, late in the evening of the next day he repaired to the dwelling of the importer, and told a long and pitiful story of his embarrassments. He said his conscience already smote him for making so heavy a purchase while in failing circumstances, and that he had come to make the only reparation in his power; namely, to yield up the goods obtained of the importer, on the latter’s cancelling the notes given therefor. The Yankee at first demurred; but on the Frenchman insisting that he was a bankrupt, and that he feared the moment he opened in the morning the sheriff would pounce upon him with a writ that would swallow up every thing, he finally agreed to the proposition. ‘Half a loaf was better than no bread,’ he thought; and so the notes and the bill of sale were accordingly cancelled. By daylight in the morning the Yankee was at the Frenchman’s store, with his teams, as had been agreed upon the night before, and every package of his goods was soon removed. The two merchants again parted, the Frenchman with a mind relieved of a heavy load, and the Yankee rather down in the mouth at the result of his trade. Two or three days afterward, as the importer was passing the Frenchman’s store, he observed his sign still up, and every thing apparently as flourishing as ever. He stepped in to see what it all meant. ‘Hallo! Mr.S——,’said he, ‘I thought you had failed!’ ‘Failed!’ repeated the Frenchman, thrusting his thumbs in the arm-holes of his vest, and sliding his legs apart from counter to counter, till he resembled a small Colossus of Rhodes: ‘Failed?No, be gar! Firmer than ever, Mr.H——,but Ishouldhave failed,almosht, if I hadn’t got rid of dem tamn’d English goods at cost!’ Straitway the out-witted Yankee ‘departed the presence!’’•••Ithas been generally supposed that the oratorical efforts of ‘MajorPogram,’ as described by Mr.Dickensin a late number of his ‘Chuzzlewit,’ rather carricatured even the worst specimens of western eloquence; but the subjoined passage from the speech of a Mr.Maupinin the Indiana legislature, upon the subject of establishing a tobacco warehouse and inspection at Paducah, seems to militate against the validity of this ‘flattering function:’‘Mr. Speaker: I feel incompetent to measure this comprehensive subject. Were my thoughts as deep as the Mississippi, and as clear as the Ohio, I could not grasp its whole magnitude. It requires a mighty mind; one that can look beyond the landscape; he must be able to look even beyond the ocean; to grapple with all the intricacies and winding convolutions of the subject, and to map in his mind the whole length and breadth of its territories. Here, Sir, is a river, whose broad and deep stream meanders from Paducah through one of the most fertile tobacco countries in the world, to Ross’s landing, and at the terminus of the great Charleston railroad, and possessing a steam navigation of eight hundred miles, and giving commercial facilities to the briny ocean. Behold this vast channel of commerce; this magnificent thoroughfare of trade; one grand, unbroken chain of inter-communication, like to a prodigious sarpent, with his head resting upon the shores of Europe, and his lengthened form stretching over the ocean and curling along this great winding stream in serpentine grandeur, proudly flaps his tail at Paducah!•••Sir, the ball is in motion; it is rolling down in noise of thunder from the mountain heights, and comes booming in its majesty over the wide-spread plain. Yes, Sir, and it will continue to roll on, and on, gathering strength and bulk in its onward progress, until it sweeps its ponderous power to the town of Paducah, and there stand a towering monument of patriotic glory and sublime grandeur, with the noble American eagle proudly perched upon its cloud-capped summit, and gazing with swelling pride and admiration down upon the magnificent spectacle of the greatness of human wisdom and power!’Every-bodyhas heard of the good old lady who purchased a family Bible at a bookstore, and soon after returned it, being desirous to exchange it for one of larger print. ‘We have at present no Bible,’ said the clerk, ‘of a larger-sized type than the one you have.’ ‘Well,’ replied the lady, ‘I wish you wouldprint me one, and I’ll call in a day or two andget it!’ She thought a request so reasonable could readily be complied with. One of our most prominent publishers mentions a clever anecdote of a poetess, who in reading the proofs of her forthcoming volume, found passages of a page or more in length enclosed in parenthetical pen-marks in the margin, with ‘Thomson,’ ‘Gray,’ ‘Moore,’ ‘Burns,’ ‘Wilson,’ etc., inscribed at the end. One day a letter accompanied the return-proofs, in which the lady remarked, that ‘she had endured the repeated insinuations of the publisher long enough; she was noplagiarist, whatever her other literary faults might be; she had on each occasion looked over the works ofMoore, Thomson, Burns, Gray, etc., but with the exception perhaps of a passage inWilson’s‘Isle of Palms,’ there was not even the slightestpretextfor a charge of plagiarism. She would thank the publisher, therefore, to discontinue in future his groundless hints upon the margins of the proof-sheets.’ The initiated will understand that the ‘insinuations’ of which the poetess complained, were simply the names of the different compositors, indicating the lines at which they severally began to place her effusions in type!•••Manya reader will recall, as he peruses the subjoined unpretending sketch, a kindred scene in his own experience, ‘when life and hope were new:’OUR OLD MEETING-HOUSE.Lord, ’tis not ours to make the seaAnd earth and sky a home for Thee;But in Thy sight our off’ring stands,A humble temple, ‘made with hands.’‘Manyyears ago, when ‘the dew of the morning was fresh upon me,’ there stood, just in the edge of the village where I was born, an old church edifice. The graves of many an early settler were round about it; and often as the shadows of evening were settling upon the valley, with half-averted face and hurried steps have I stole noiselessly by to our rural home. O, how many associations crowd upon the memory, in connection with that rude old meeting-house! It was an old-fashioned, square building, without portico, or steeple, or belfry. The winter’s hail and summer’s rain had beaten against it for half a century. Its numerous small windows, without curtain or blind, let in floods of light. Its small pulpit, perched high upon one side, and close to the wall, concealed the preacher’s body, while the heads of the congregation were just seen rising above the square high-backed pews. Hardly a cushion was to be seen; and the interior furnishing was of the simplest and plainest character. I have said that it had associations of great interest. It is now more than an hundred years since a small band of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians settled in that valley. Though but few in number, and braving the elements and the savages, they determined to carry with them into the wilderness not only the Christian’s hope, but the Christian’s ordinances. A small building of logs arose soon after the settlement, in which for many years an educated and regularly-ordained minister preached the gospel to a little flock. The inquiry had already commenced; ‘The prophets, where are they?’ The larger part of the pioneers had sunk into peaceful graves, when the war of the revolution commenced. It was still a frontier hamlet, and was soon swallowed up and lost in that terrible whirlwind of death which year after year swept over the settlements of Central New-York. When peace was restored, the remnant of the inhabitants whom war and disease had spared, returned to their former homes. But though war and disease had impoverished them, they had not forgotten theGodof their fathers. Having no house for assembling together, the inhabitants met in what they termed ‘the meeting-house yard;’ and there organized anew that church which has continued thence to this day, and determined upon the erection of the old meeting-house of which I have spoken. Under the open heavens, with their feet upon their fathers’ graves, they dedicated themselves anew to the service ofHimwho wasLordoverall, and whom they acknowledged as their only Sovereign. I have looked over the records of that meeting with emotions never to be forgotten. The gray-haired patriarch, loaning on his staff with one hand, and with the other guiding our youthful footsteps to the house of prayer on every Sabbath morning, was one of that small number, and took an active part in that solemn ceremony. The stillness of a Sabbath morning in the country has often been remarked. How often, amid the din and bustle of the great city, does the heart of him who has been accustomed to the holy quietness of the day of rest in some secluded valley, pant for a return to the home of his youth! Such has been my own experience; in the far-off past I see again the gathering of the quiet, orderly congregation; I hear the voice of the good old father who ministered in holy things; I sit by the open window andlook out upon the green graves thick strown round the old meeting-house; the warbling of the feathered songsters in the grove near by falls softly upon the ear. The voice of prayer is hushed, and the voice of praise ascends. Alas! the voices of most of those which were then attuned on earth, are now attuned to more celestial music in another world!‘But our old meeting-house, where is it? It has gone with those who, in the midst of trials, and in the plenitude of their poverty, with their own hands hewed out its massive timbers; and the place that knew it knows it no more! It was in the fall of the year that a traveller on horseback rode up to the principal hotel, and as he dismounted and handed the reins to his host, he inquired what building that was in the southern part of the village? On being informed that it was the meeting-house, he remarked, with a dogged air, that ‘he had often seen theLord’shouse, but had never seen theLord’sbarnbefore!’ The comical remark of the traveller produced an immediate action. The good old house soon disappeared. A more ambitious edifice was built in another part of the village. The land-marks are now entirely effaced, and the spot where it stood has been added to the ‘meeting-house yard.’ The monuments of the young and the aged who sleep there dot over the place where the first Presbyterian congregation, ay, the first congregation of Evangelical Christians of any denomination, in Central New-York, assembled to worship the livingGod.’Weare promised by an esteemed friend some interesting extracts from the original American correspondence of Mrs.Grantof Laggan, whose ‘Memoir and Correspondence,’ edited by her son, has recently attracted so much attention and remark in Great-Britain. Mrs.Grantappears to have been a woman of very remarkable powers, and of the most admirablecommon sense. Her observations upon the ‘amusive talents’ ofTheodore Hook, and his entire devotion to their cultivation, are replete with the soundest wisdom. The distinction between living to amuse the public merely, and the exertion of one’s intellectual powers for one’s own benefit, and with an eye to the claims of riper years, is admirably discriminated and set forth. There is not perhaps a more instructive lesson than that conveyed byprofessionalwits, who are ‘first applauded and thenendured, when people see that it is all they have.’ As auxiliaries, as contrasts, with reflection and thoughtful exercitations of the mind, wit and humor are felicitous matters; as an intellectualmain-stay, however, they have been weighed in the balance by a hundred brilliant examples, and have always been ‘found wanting.’•••Punch, at this present writing, save three or four numbers, in February, is among the missing. Late issues however, furnish some valuable contributions to academical statistics; as for example, Mr.Boys, who in his report upon the metropolitan school-visitation, writes as follows:‘Theuse of sponge for cleaning slates he found confined to 17¼ per cent.; of whom 5½ used the sponge wet with water, and 11¾ with saliva; the remaining 82¾ made use of the latter liquid and the cuffs of their jackets instead of sponges, with an occasional recourse to the pocket-handkerchief. The author found, in schools in which the Latin language was not taught, a lamentable deficiency in the knowledge of the meaning of ‘meum’ and ‘tuum;’ he pointed out how the great extent of juvenile crime might thus be accounted for, as being caused by the absence of all instruction in the Latin language, and hoped that teaching it would soon be made obligatory upon all school-masters.’There is a humorous sketch of an examination of law-students, from which we select an ‘exercise’ or two:‘Ques: Have you attended any and what law lectures?Ans: I have attended to many legal lectures, when I have been admonished by police magistrates for kicking up rows in the streets, pulling off knockers, etc.Ques: What is a real action?Ans: An action brought in earnest, and not by way of a joke.Ques: What are a bill and answer?Ans: Ask my tailor.Ques: How would you file a bill?Ans: I don’t know, but would lay the case before a blacksmith.Ques: What steps would you take to dissolve an injunction?Ans: I should put it into some very hot water, and let it remain there until it was melted.Ques: What are post-nuptial articles?Ans: Children.Ques: What is simple larceny?Ans: Picking a pocket of a handkerchief, and leaving a purse of money behind.’We have had books on etiquette, of various kinds, lately, but a work of this sort for prisons will be found, one would think, to supply an important desideratum.George Selwyn, when a servant was sent to Newgate, for stealing articles from the club-house of whichSelwynwas a member, was very much shocked: ‘What a horrid report,’ said he,‘the fellow will give of us to the gentlemen in Newgate!’ This feeling will doubtless be more general by and by:‘Inconsequence of complaints that have been made by persons committed to prison before trial, who object to their not being allowed to mix with other prisoners, it has been thought necessary to frame a Book of Etiquette for prison purposes. Of course a superior delinquent, like a forger, could not be on visiting terms with a mere pick-pocket, nor could a man charged with stealing a hundred pounds, feel at his ease in the society of one whose alleged theft might be mean and insignificant. It is, we believe, intended to introduce the prisoners to each other formally, not by name, but by the offence with which they are charged. Thus, the Governor of Newgate would say to Felony: ‘Allow me to introduce you toAggravated Larceny. You ought to know each other—indeed you ought.Aggravated Larceny,Felony;Felony,Aggravated Larceny.’ By a nice adjustment and proper application of the rules of etiquette, a very admirable system of social intercourse might be established in all our prisons, and the present complaint of a want of ‘good society,’ which falls so severely on superior scoundrels, would at once be got rid of.’Deafness, although sometimes rather annoying—as for example in the case mentioned in preceding pages byJohn Waters—is yet not without its advantages. Your conversational ‘‘DeafBurke,’ who can endure any amount of ‘punishment’ without being the worse for it,’ enjoys not unfrequently a great deal of negative felicity. We envied the condition of such an one the other day, while sitting with a friend at the ‘Globe,’ over such potables and edibles as that matchless establishment can alone set before its guests. At a table in near proximity, sat two Englishmen, whose comments upon ‘matters and things’ in America were embodied in such ‘voluble speech’ that we could scarcely hear ourselves speak. ‘They maytalkabout their hinstitutions as much as they please,’ said one of the speakers, ‘but honlylookat ’em—see their heffect, from the ’ead of the government, down. Yesterday I perused in the ‘Courier’ newspaper an account of a negro’s skin, hentire, that was found with the ’ead attached, in the Mississippi river!’ ‘’Orid, isn’t it! Think o’ such a thing as that picked up in the Tems! And last week. I read in the ’Erald of a man near the Canada lines, who was found dead by the side of a fallen tree, half eaten up by wild hogs or panthers. He ’ad a flask of whiskey by his side, which he had taken ‘neat,’ till it had killed him; and in his pocket was a dirty pack o’ cards, wrapped up in a copy of the Declaration of Hindependence! That’s yourlibertyfor ye!’☞See if these very absurdities be not found embodied within a twelve-month in some new work by a travelling Englishman, upon that ‘miserable experiment at self-government, the United States of America!’•••Hereare some scraps of ‘Parisian Gossip’ which will not be altogether uninteresting to American readers. One of our Paris letters states that at a splendid party given by LadyCowley, there occurred a rather curious incident. ‘Among the guests was a Mr.L——,(one of thesnobiculi, most likely,) who, believing that none but a friend whom he addressed was within hearing, said, ‘And they call this a party? Why, I never saw any thing so dull in all my life. It is not worth the trouble of dressing for such an affair; and then the rooms are so intolerably hot.’ Unfortunately, the noble hostess was standing near, and overheard him, and immediately said: ‘Mr.L——,there (pointing to the ante-room,) is a cooler room, and beyond it is the hall, still cooler.’ This prompt and significant hint was felt, understood, and taken.’ ‘Every body in Paris knows or has heard ofHalevythe composer, and his brother, the author. Abon motof a pretty and sarcastic lady, at the expense of both of them, is now going the round of the gossipping circles. ‘Do you likeHalevy, the author?’ inquired a friend. ‘Pas du tout, pas du tout!’ answered the lady; ‘He is as dull as if his brother had composed him!’Eugene Suehas hatched a large brood of ‘Mysteries.’ TheJournal des Debatshaving published ‘Mysteries of Paris,’ theCourier Françaisis now publishing the ‘Mysteries of London.’ At Berlin no less than four different authors have published its ‘Mysteries.’ The ‘Mysteries of Brussels’ are being detailed in one of its journals. The ‘Mysteries of Hamburg’ have been exposed in print. At Vienna they are giving the ‘Mysteries of Constantinople;’ and a Paris newspaper promises in a short time the ‘Mysteries of St. Petersburg.’ Going on at this rate, there will soon be no ‘Mysteries’ in the world, and even the very word will become obsolete.’•••‘The God of our Idolatry’ contains somehome-thrusts at the national love of money, and not a few just animadversions upon the standard of respectability which obtains, in certain quarters, among us.HamiltonandBasil Hall’sexperience in this regard seems also to have been that of our correspondent. The tendency of this standard, in a social and intellectual point of view, is very far from elevating. ‘You are going to the dinner at——’sto-day, of course,’ said a lady with ‘an eye to the main chance’ to a friend of ours, the other day; ‘the company will be composed of some of our most ’fore-handed citizens—allheavy men,’ Our frienddidgo to the dinner; and he found the guests as ‘heavy’ as their best friends could have wished them to be.•••Reading, in presence of a travelled friend, the proof of the admirable paper which opens the present number, we came to the passage which records the opinion ofKepler, that ‘the world is a vast animal, that breathes and reasons;’ whereupon our listener remarked: ‘No doubt of it; itisan animal; I’ve seen its four-quarters myself!’ It was a pun worthy of a butcher.•••Weare not socertainthat the moral of ‘The Independent Man’ is ‘an unexceptionable one.’ The ‘Charcoal-sketcher’ expresses the general opinion, we fear, in this regard: ‘There’s a double set of principles in this world, one of which is to talk about and the other to act upon; one is preached and the other is practised. You’ve got hold, somehow, of the wrong set; the set invented by the knowing ones to check competition and to secure all the good things for themselves. That’s the reason people are always praising modest merit, while they are pushing along without either the one or the other. You always let go when any body’s going to take your place at table; you always hold back when another person’s wanting the last of the nice things on the dish. That’s not the way; bow and nod, and show your teeth with a fascination, but take what you want for all that. This is manners—knowing the world. To be polite is to have your own way gracefully; other people are delighted at your style—you have the profit.’•••Thereader will not overlook the ‘Alligatorical Sketch’ in preceding pages. We begin to perceive how much the alligator has been slandered. Ityawnsmerely, it would seem; and the only care requisite is, to be absent when its jaws close! ‘The ’gator isn’t what you may call ahan’somecritter, but there’s a great deal ofopennesswhen he smiles!’ Thesmileof an alligator!!•••‘Cleanliness,’ saysFuller, ‘is godliness;’ and he is not far out of the way; for no man, we think, can be a dirty Christian. In a moral and religious point of view, then, we are doing good service in calling public attention to the spacious baths of Mr.Charles Rabineau, at the Astor-House, and at his new establishment at Number 123 Broadway, Albany. Go wash in them and be clean, reader, and thank us for the joy which you will experience, when you shall have come out of the water and gone your ways.•••Oneof the late London pictorial publications contains a portrait of SirHudson Lowe, the notorious keeper ofNapoleon, the Emperor of the French, at St. Helena. It is in perfect keeping with the generally received estimate of the character of that functionary. The wretched thatch that disfigures without concealing the intellectual poverty of his narrow skull; the scowling features; the ragged penthouse brows; are ‘close denotements’ of the truth of ‘Common Report.’ In short, judging from the much-bepraised ‘likeness’ to which we allude, if SirHudson Lowewas not a tyrant, and a small-minded one withal,Goddoesn’t write a legible hand.•••Someclever wag in the lastBlackwoodhas an article, written in a hurry, upon thehurriednessof literary matters in these our ‘go-ahead’ days. ‘People,’ he says, ‘have not only ceased to purchase those old-fashioned things called books, but even to read them. Instead of cutting new works page by page, they cut them altogether:‘WhenEngland luxuriated in the novels ofRichardson, in eight volumes, it drove in coaches and four, at the rate of five miles an hour. A journey was then esteemed a family calamity; and people abided all the year round in their cedar parlors, thankful to be diverted by the arrival of theSpectator, or a few pages of thePilgrim’s Progress, or a new sermon. To their incidental lives, a book was an event. Those were the days worth writing for! The fate ofRichardson’sheroines was made a national affair; and people interceded with him by letter to ‘spare Clarissa,’ as they would not now intercede with her Majesty to spare a newEffie Deans. The successive volumes ofPope’s Iliadwere looked for with what is called ‘breathless’ interest, while such political sheets as theDrapier’s Letters, orJunius, set the whole kingdom in an uproar. And now, ifPope, orSwift, orFielding, orJohnson, orSterne, were to rise from the grave,MS.in hand, the most adventurous publisher would pass a sleepless night before he undertook the risk of paper and print; would advise a small edition, and exact a sum down in ready money, to be laid out in puffs and advertisements! ‘Even then, though we may get rid of a few copies to the circulating libraries,’ he would observe, ‘do not expect, Sir, to obtain readers. A few old maids in the county towns, and a few gouty old gentlemen at the clubs, are the only persons of the present day who ever open a book!’ And who can wonder?Whohas leisure to read?Whocares to sit down and spell out accounts of travels which he can make at less cost than the cost of the narrative?Whowants to peruse fictitious adventures, when rail-roads and steam-boats woo him to adventures of his own? People are busy ballooning or driving; shooting like stars along rail-roads, or migrating like swallows or wild-geese.’In allusion to the illustrated newspapers, now vieing with each other in enterprise and expense, in the British metropolis, the writer says: ‘The pictorial printing press is now your only wear! Every thing is communicated by delineation. We are nottoldbutshownhow the world is wagging. Views of the Holy Land are superseding even the Holy Scriptures, and a pictorialBlackstoneis teaching the ideas of sucking lawyers how to shoot. Libels are veiled in carricature. Instead ofwritingslander and flat blasphemy, the modern method is todrawit, and not to ‘draw it mild’ either. The columns of certain papers bear a striking likeness to a child’s alphabet, such as ‘A was an Archer, and shot at a frog.’ All the world is now instructed by symbols, as formerly the deaf and dumb. We have little doubt of shortly seeing announcements, standing like tomb-stones in those literary cemeteries, the Saturday papers, of ‘A new work upon America, from the graver ofGeorge Cruikshank;’ or ‘A new fashionable novel, (diamond edition,) from the accomplished pencil of‘H. B.’’•••Wehave a ‘Query’ from a Philadelphia correspondent, as to whether Mr. and Mrs.Woodwould not be likely to come over here, if invited, and in company withBrough, and other artists, establish English opera among us. Touching the disposition of theWoodsin this matter, we know nothing; butBroughis too busily employed to admit of such a consummation. What with his agency for the new sporting gun-powder, (whichDaniel Websterdeclares to be superior in strength and cleanliness to any other thing of the kind in the world,) and for the ‘Illustrated London News,’ ‘OldParr’sLife-pills’ etc., he has scarcely leisure to achieve his private calls, and execute occasionally, for the gratification of his friends, those charming airs which are indissolubly associated with his name.•••Messrs.Snelling and Tisdale’s‘Metropolitan Library and Reading-Room,’ at 599 Broadway, near Houston-street, supplies an important desideratum in that quarter of the metropolis. In addition to a well-stocked library and reading-room, there are coffee, conversation, chess, and cigar-apartments, and all the belongings of a first establishment after its kind.•••Wehad clipped for insertion, from a Baltimore journal, a poem in honor ofOle Bull, entitled ‘The Bewitched Fiddle,’ which we have unluckily mislaid or lost. It was by Mr.Hewitt, a popular song-writer and musical composer, and was one of the most fanciful and felicitous things we have seen in a month of Sundays. As it is at this moment out of our power to print it, we can only counsel our readers, if they encounter it any where, not to fail of its perusal.•••Wehave a pleasant metropolitan story to tell one of these days, (at least we think so,) of which we have been reminded by the following from a late English magazine:‘Thevulgar genteel are nervously cautious concerning every thing they say or do; they are ever alive to the dread of compromising their ‘gentility.’ At a ball—it was acharity-ball!—given at a fashionable watering-place, a pretty young woman, who was sitting by her mother, was invited by a gentleman to dance. He led her to a set; when, instantly, two ‘young ladies’ who were of it, haughtily, withdrew to their seats. ‘They had no notion of dancing insuchcompany’—and with good reason. The young person was nothing more than the daughter of a wealthy and respectable tradesman of the place; while they—the two MissesKnibbs—were members of its residentsmall‘aristocracy.’ The places they had vacated were good-naturedly filled by two ladies who had witnessed the proceeding, one of whom was the daughter, the other, the niece, of a nobleman.Theirposition was too well established to be compromised by dancing for a quarter of an hour in the same set with a respectable tradesman’s daughter; but the two MissesKnibbswere the daughters of a retired soap-boiler.’

Gossip with Readers and Correspondents.—Coming home lateish to-night from the opera, we found the following, written in what Mrs.Malapropwould term ‘rather ineligible characters,’ as if hastily reduced to paper. Howbeit, we knew it at once for the ‘hand-write’ of our favorite, facile and felicitous historian of Tinnecum. He is one of your persons now who thinks, and not a member of that hum-drum class who onlythinkthey think; moreover, he knows ‘how to observe’ better even than MissMartineau. It was an every-day thing which struck him, in the aspect of our winter-sleighs, as he rode up in one of them a day or two ago; but this sketch of ‘The Snow-Omnibus’ is not so common: ‘Pastmidnight! The embers are dying. The thunder of the city becomes a dull roar, the roar a murmur: then comes a dead pause, interrupted sometimes by the watchman’s club as it rings on the pavement, or the shrill, solitary whistler executing the threadbare airs of the opera, or ‘Life on the Ocean Wave.’ The door opens without noise. I lift up my nodding head and see Dr.Bartolo, his hat like a miller’s, and his whiskers fringed with white. With tread soft as a mouse or an apparition, he illumes his candle, turns on his heel, and says in a whisper very appropriate to the time, the place, and the fact conveyed: ‘It snows!’ Such is the only intimation to break the magic and the mystery of the early morning, unless it be the small tinkling of bells like frogs in a brook; a complete shifting or rather change of scene noiselessly wrought; a foul city purified, whitened, sparkling, and glorious, like a Scarlet Lady who emerges with her meretricious charms in chaste robes, chaste as Diana. She taketh the veil. The virgin-snow is unsullied upon her bosom, just as it dropped softly out of heaven, undefiled by footsteps, dazzling only to conceal. ’Tis but the momentary semblance of purity. The sun is up. Hark! the tumult and excitement is begun. The crowds throng and jostle through the pure element; the horses prance to the gay and perpetual chimes, and Broadway is the paradise of belles. Underneath all is the obscenity of filth! What attracts our attention, however, is your snow-omnibus, very different in looks, spirit and animation from the same lumbering carriage upon wheels. What do you see in the latter? A set of cross, hungry-looking men, going up town to dinner, packed together in a magnetizing attitude, with knees jammed against knees, and eyes wherever they can find a place to put them; women crushed between stout fellows, and indecently nudged at every apology of a jolt; in short, a penthouse of ill-humour; twelve ‘all full’ people; whiskerandi, gentle maidens, wives, and ‘live widders,’ ranged with solemn regularity like coffins in a vault. All fix their eyes where their minds are, on vacuity, and try tobefor the time present, what theyseemto be, as stupid as the devil, as if they dreaded some sympathetic contact, revealing bank-frauds and transactions in stocks. Who ever saw a smile in an omnibus, even when court-plasters have changed places? You might as well look into a slow-driven hearse for something sunshiny! Your broker dares not even chuckle. Your exquisite cannot resort for consolation to the suction of his cane, but all look grim and virtuous as Seneca, until they pull the leather, pass up six-pence through the port-hole, and as they open the door, their faces begin to expand, but only with the animal anticipation of dinner. Compare this with thegroupingand animation of the Sleigh-omnibus; heads piled upon heads, as in a picture; black hats, feathers, plumage, barrel-caps, etc., bobbing about in a lively manner to the music of bells. Down they go into the gullies, through thick and thin, with a ludicrous contrast and juxtaposition of faces; all forced in spite of themselves to give expression to their several humors, mirth, deviltry, or spleen. Cheeks glow, eyes shine, spectacles sparkle, glances fly impudently to the windows where the face of beauty presses against the cold pane. The runner sinks into a ‘rut,’ and that makes the company bow to each other, and gives that old rascal of a sexegenarian an excuse to bring his gray whiskers very near to the blooming visage of a girl whose charming modesty is shrined in colors more delicate than the blush on the cheek of a magnum-bonum plum. Sixty must not aspire after such fruitage; but in anomnibus, where’s the harm? But we have a remarkto make onnosology, or the noses of the group. So spicy a variety of folk cheek-by-jowl (Parthians and Elamites, Medes, Jews and Persians,) begets contrast. Nose-bridges of all styles show their peculiar architecture, Roman or Grecian; while straight, crooked, bottle, snub, pug; some flat and with no bridge at all, others very muchabridged; are brought together in an amicable jostling, ‘comparing themselves by themselves,’ and setting off one another as a rose sets off a geranium. While I point out these peculiarities to my friendPhiz, a coral shriek rends the air, and by heavens! the whole load is upset!’•••Wehear from all quarters ‘good exclamation’ on theDirections for Sonnet-Making, from the popular pen of our friend‘T. W. P.’in our last number. An eastern correspondent, however, questions the correctness of one assumption of the writer: ‘It would be well to avoid coupling such words as moon and spoon; breeze and cheese and sneeze; Jove and stove; hope and soap; all of which it might be difficult to bring together harmoniously.’ Our correspondent thinks that this decree was issued without due reflection; and he proceeds to substantiate his position by ‘the ocular proof:’SONNET.Through hazy clouds, scarce ruffled by the breeze,Methought, last night, I sawthe man i’ th’ moon;As in the hollow bowl of silver spoonA broad reflected face the gazer sees;(Who trifling, dinner done, with bread and cheese,Abstractly lifts the spoon aforesaid up;)Or the same thing beholds in polished cup,Or concave snuff-box, whence the vocal sneeze!Sight ofthe mansuggestedHotspur’sboast;But the night froze; and to express such hopeSounded far softer than the softest soapTo me, who rather chose my heels to toastIn the warm vicinage of glowing stove,Than pluck the moon’s-man’s nose, beneath the frigidJove!5

Gossip with Readers and Correspondents.—Coming home lateish to-night from the opera, we found the following, written in what Mrs.Malapropwould term ‘rather ineligible characters,’ as if hastily reduced to paper. Howbeit, we knew it at once for the ‘hand-write’ of our favorite, facile and felicitous historian of Tinnecum. He is one of your persons now who thinks, and not a member of that hum-drum class who onlythinkthey think; moreover, he knows ‘how to observe’ better even than MissMartineau. It was an every-day thing which struck him, in the aspect of our winter-sleighs, as he rode up in one of them a day or two ago; but this sketch of ‘The Snow-Omnibus’ is not so common: ‘Pastmidnight! The embers are dying. The thunder of the city becomes a dull roar, the roar a murmur: then comes a dead pause, interrupted sometimes by the watchman’s club as it rings on the pavement, or the shrill, solitary whistler executing the threadbare airs of the opera, or ‘Life on the Ocean Wave.’ The door opens without noise. I lift up my nodding head and see Dr.Bartolo, his hat like a miller’s, and his whiskers fringed with white. With tread soft as a mouse or an apparition, he illumes his candle, turns on his heel, and says in a whisper very appropriate to the time, the place, and the fact conveyed: ‘It snows!’ Such is the only intimation to break the magic and the mystery of the early morning, unless it be the small tinkling of bells like frogs in a brook; a complete shifting or rather change of scene noiselessly wrought; a foul city purified, whitened, sparkling, and glorious, like a Scarlet Lady who emerges with her meretricious charms in chaste robes, chaste as Diana. She taketh the veil. The virgin-snow is unsullied upon her bosom, just as it dropped softly out of heaven, undefiled by footsteps, dazzling only to conceal. ’Tis but the momentary semblance of purity. The sun is up. Hark! the tumult and excitement is begun. The crowds throng and jostle through the pure element; the horses prance to the gay and perpetual chimes, and Broadway is the paradise of belles. Underneath all is the obscenity of filth! What attracts our attention, however, is your snow-omnibus, very different in looks, spirit and animation from the same lumbering carriage upon wheels. What do you see in the latter? A set of cross, hungry-looking men, going up town to dinner, packed together in a magnetizing attitude, with knees jammed against knees, and eyes wherever they can find a place to put them; women crushed between stout fellows, and indecently nudged at every apology of a jolt; in short, a penthouse of ill-humour; twelve ‘all full’ people; whiskerandi, gentle maidens, wives, and ‘live widders,’ ranged with solemn regularity like coffins in a vault. All fix their eyes where their minds are, on vacuity, and try tobefor the time present, what theyseemto be, as stupid as the devil, as if they dreaded some sympathetic contact, revealing bank-frauds and transactions in stocks. Who ever saw a smile in an omnibus, even when court-plasters have changed places? You might as well look into a slow-driven hearse for something sunshiny! Your broker dares not even chuckle. Your exquisite cannot resort for consolation to the suction of his cane, but all look grim and virtuous as Seneca, until they pull the leather, pass up six-pence through the port-hole, and as they open the door, their faces begin to expand, but only with the animal anticipation of dinner. Compare this with thegroupingand animation of the Sleigh-omnibus; heads piled upon heads, as in a picture; black hats, feathers, plumage, barrel-caps, etc., bobbing about in a lively manner to the music of bells. Down they go into the gullies, through thick and thin, with a ludicrous contrast and juxtaposition of faces; all forced in spite of themselves to give expression to their several humors, mirth, deviltry, or spleen. Cheeks glow, eyes shine, spectacles sparkle, glances fly impudently to the windows where the face of beauty presses against the cold pane. The runner sinks into a ‘rut,’ and that makes the company bow to each other, and gives that old rascal of a sexegenarian an excuse to bring his gray whiskers very near to the blooming visage of a girl whose charming modesty is shrined in colors more delicate than the blush on the cheek of a magnum-bonum plum. Sixty must not aspire after such fruitage; but in anomnibus, where’s the harm? But we have a remarkto make onnosology, or the noses of the group. So spicy a variety of folk cheek-by-jowl (Parthians and Elamites, Medes, Jews and Persians,) begets contrast. Nose-bridges of all styles show their peculiar architecture, Roman or Grecian; while straight, crooked, bottle, snub, pug; some flat and with no bridge at all, others very muchabridged; are brought together in an amicable jostling, ‘comparing themselves by themselves,’ and setting off one another as a rose sets off a geranium. While I point out these peculiarities to my friendPhiz, a coral shriek rends the air, and by heavens! the whole load is upset!’•••Wehear from all quarters ‘good exclamation’ on theDirections for Sonnet-Making, from the popular pen of our friend‘T. W. P.’in our last number. An eastern correspondent, however, questions the correctness of one assumption of the writer: ‘It would be well to avoid coupling such words as moon and spoon; breeze and cheese and sneeze; Jove and stove; hope and soap; all of which it might be difficult to bring together harmoniously.’ Our correspondent thinks that this decree was issued without due reflection; and he proceeds to substantiate his position by ‘the ocular proof:’

Through hazy clouds, scarce ruffled by the breeze,Methought, last night, I sawthe man i’ th’ moon;As in the hollow bowl of silver spoonA broad reflected face the gazer sees;(Who trifling, dinner done, with bread and cheese,Abstractly lifts the spoon aforesaid up;)Or the same thing beholds in polished cup,Or concave snuff-box, whence the vocal sneeze!Sight ofthe mansuggestedHotspur’sboast;But the night froze; and to express such hopeSounded far softer than the softest soapTo me, who rather chose my heels to toastIn the warm vicinage of glowing stove,Than pluck the moon’s-man’s nose, beneath the frigidJove!5

Through hazy clouds, scarce ruffled by the breeze,Methought, last night, I sawthe man i’ th’ moon;As in the hollow bowl of silver spoonA broad reflected face the gazer sees;(Who trifling, dinner done, with bread and cheese,Abstractly lifts the spoon aforesaid up;)Or the same thing beholds in polished cup,Or concave snuff-box, whence the vocal sneeze!Sight ofthe mansuggestedHotspur’sboast;But the night froze; and to express such hopeSounded far softer than the softest soapTo me, who rather chose my heels to toastIn the warm vicinage of glowing stove,Than pluck the moon’s-man’s nose, beneath the frigidJove!5

Through hazy clouds, scarce ruffled by the breeze,

Methought, last night, I sawthe man i’ th’ moon;

As in the hollow bowl of silver spoon

A broad reflected face the gazer sees;

(Who trifling, dinner done, with bread and cheese,

Abstractly lifts the spoon aforesaid up;)

Or the same thing beholds in polished cup,

Or concave snuff-box, whence the vocal sneeze!

Sight ofthe mansuggestedHotspur’sboast;

But the night froze; and to express such hope

Sounded far softer than the softest soap

To me, who rather chose my heels to toast

In the warm vicinage of glowing stove,

Than pluck the moon’s-man’s nose, beneath the frigidJove!5

Ifthere be not a fruitful lesson in the subjoined, which we venture to separate from its context in a recent letter from an esteemed friend and contributor, then we—are mistaken: ‘Aproposof ‘American Ptyalism,’ in your March number: a friend was telling me the other day of the agonies he had suffered from dispensing with the use of tobacco. He had used it in various ways for thirty years, but finding that he was breakingdownunder it, he brokeoffabruptly, about a year ago. ‘Let a tobacco-chewer,’ said he, ‘who wishes to know whatnervesare, abstain for only one day, and if he has a wife who is delicate and nervous, he will forever after look upon her with a sympathy that he never felt before. Why, Sir, for months after I had forsworn tobacco, my mouth and jaws were any thing but flesh and bone. They were fire, ice, and prussic-acid, alternately. The roof of my mouth would at one moment have the feeling of blistering, and the next of freezing; and in addition to that, needles would occasionally pierce my face in every imaginable way. My head, for the most part, was a large hogshead with a bumble-bee in it, and the bung stopped up. You know that I am not imaginative; but my teeth, Sir, would suddenly grow to the length of a mastodon’s, and perhaps five minutes after, (if at the table,) a narcotic deadness would take the place of the previous excitement, and I would seem to be mumbling my food like people whose teeth are gone. But in the street, I always seemed to be grinning at every body, like some horrible beast who couldn’t get his mouth shut. If you have ever stayedagapefor an hour or so, while the doctor was on his way to reset your jaws, you can imagine how distressinglypublicthat feeling is. One bitter cold night I woke on the cellar-stairs, having got that far in search of tobacco, in my night-dress. Did you ever do so? You may think it trifling; but whenever from any cause you have become nervous, the first night that you wake on the cellar-stairs in the dark will be something to remember. At another time I dreamed of dying. I had been long sick and hadwasted to a mere nothing; but having had abundant time to prepare for death, I flattered myself that I was quite ready to go; and indeed, my hold upon life was so feeble, (a slight change in the weather would have snapped it, so it seemed,) my very breath was so fluttering and unsatisfactory, that I thought it would be as well perhaps to have done with it. The faces of friends, and the out-door world, with all its many goings-on, were pleasant to behold, butfaintlyso—indistinctly; my pulsations had gone down to such extreme tenuity, that the effort of getting at a pleasure killed it. But I was mistaken; for just before dying, the thought of my cigars came to me like a blessing; and although my physician told me I had but a few moments to live, I would not be refused. A cigar was brought; I seized it in my bony fingers, held it up to the light, smelt of it, and fondled it till the light was brought; and then, with what little grace my strength would allow, I inhaled that divine tobacco! How complacently, as far as I was able, did I then look around upon my surviving friends! My eyes, however, closed very soon from languor, and my breath now coming only at rather long intervals, the puffs were far between; notwithstanding which, I lived it through to the last inspiration; but in the closing draught, the fire from the cigar burnt my mouth so badly that I—awoke, and found I had actually bitten my lip in a most shocking manner! Well, Sir, you may think it was pleasantnotto be dying, and so it was; but as I then felt, I think I would sooner have gone, if I could have taken with me the fragrance of that incomparable regalia.”•••Ournew friend, the writer of the ‘Lines to an Early Robin,’ who desires us to send him six numbers of theKnickerbockercontaining his article, inquires ‘which kind of his writing we should prefer, prose or poetry?’ We hardly know what to say, in answer to this categorical query. It will not perhaps be amiss, however, to adopt thein medio tutissimus ibisstyle of the traveller, who, upon calling for a cup of tea at breakfast, handed it back to the servant, after tasting it, with the remark: ‘If this is tea, bring me coffee—if it is coffee, bring me tea;I want a change.’ If what ‘M.’ sends us is poetry, let him send us prose; if it is prose, (and it certainly ‘has that look,’) let him send us poetry, by all means.•••Judgesand other legal functionaries, though ostensibly ‘sage, grave men,’ are oftentimes sad wags, and fond of fun and frolic. From one of this class we derive the annexed: ‘A few months since, in a neighboring town, a knight of the yard-stick was paying his addresses to a MissInches, who, beside some personal attraction, was reputed to be mistress of a snug fortune. At first, the lady encouraged his addresses, but afterward jilted him. Rendered desperate by his double loss, the young man went home and deliberately shot himself; and the coroner’s jury next morning brought in a verdict of ‘Died by Inches!”•••Howvery beautiful are these lines upon the death of a young and lovely girl, the bloom of whose fair cheek refused to wither at the blighting touch of the Destroyer:‘Hereye-lids as in sleep were closed,Her brow was white like snow;A smile still lingered on her cheek,As if ’twas loth to go!‘And it may be a smile so sweet,So quiet and serene,Was never on the healthy browOf living maiden seen.‘Perchance the wondrous bliss which burstUpon her raptured mind,When first she woke in glory’s courts,Now left its trace behind.‘Her end was peace. I thought that theyWho loved her, should not grieve;For these last words they heard her say,‘My spirit,Lord, receive!’‘And when they laid her in the earth,Her cheek still held the bloom;That smile so sweet, the gentle maidBore with her to the tomb.‘Think it not strange that brighter tintsUpon the blossoms crept,Which grew above the sacred spotWhere that meek maiden slept.’

Ifthere be not a fruitful lesson in the subjoined, which we venture to separate from its context in a recent letter from an esteemed friend and contributor, then we—are mistaken: ‘Aproposof ‘American Ptyalism,’ in your March number: a friend was telling me the other day of the agonies he had suffered from dispensing with the use of tobacco. He had used it in various ways for thirty years, but finding that he was breakingdownunder it, he brokeoffabruptly, about a year ago. ‘Let a tobacco-chewer,’ said he, ‘who wishes to know whatnervesare, abstain for only one day, and if he has a wife who is delicate and nervous, he will forever after look upon her with a sympathy that he never felt before. Why, Sir, for months after I had forsworn tobacco, my mouth and jaws were any thing but flesh and bone. They were fire, ice, and prussic-acid, alternately. The roof of my mouth would at one moment have the feeling of blistering, and the next of freezing; and in addition to that, needles would occasionally pierce my face in every imaginable way. My head, for the most part, was a large hogshead with a bumble-bee in it, and the bung stopped up. You know that I am not imaginative; but my teeth, Sir, would suddenly grow to the length of a mastodon’s, and perhaps five minutes after, (if at the table,) a narcotic deadness would take the place of the previous excitement, and I would seem to be mumbling my food like people whose teeth are gone. But in the street, I always seemed to be grinning at every body, like some horrible beast who couldn’t get his mouth shut. If you have ever stayedagapefor an hour or so, while the doctor was on his way to reset your jaws, you can imagine how distressinglypublicthat feeling is. One bitter cold night I woke on the cellar-stairs, having got that far in search of tobacco, in my night-dress. Did you ever do so? You may think it trifling; but whenever from any cause you have become nervous, the first night that you wake on the cellar-stairs in the dark will be something to remember. At another time I dreamed of dying. I had been long sick and hadwasted to a mere nothing; but having had abundant time to prepare for death, I flattered myself that I was quite ready to go; and indeed, my hold upon life was so feeble, (a slight change in the weather would have snapped it, so it seemed,) my very breath was so fluttering and unsatisfactory, that I thought it would be as well perhaps to have done with it. The faces of friends, and the out-door world, with all its many goings-on, were pleasant to behold, butfaintlyso—indistinctly; my pulsations had gone down to such extreme tenuity, that the effort of getting at a pleasure killed it. But I was mistaken; for just before dying, the thought of my cigars came to me like a blessing; and although my physician told me I had but a few moments to live, I would not be refused. A cigar was brought; I seized it in my bony fingers, held it up to the light, smelt of it, and fondled it till the light was brought; and then, with what little grace my strength would allow, I inhaled that divine tobacco! How complacently, as far as I was able, did I then look around upon my surviving friends! My eyes, however, closed very soon from languor, and my breath now coming only at rather long intervals, the puffs were far between; notwithstanding which, I lived it through to the last inspiration; but in the closing draught, the fire from the cigar burnt my mouth so badly that I—awoke, and found I had actually bitten my lip in a most shocking manner! Well, Sir, you may think it was pleasantnotto be dying, and so it was; but as I then felt, I think I would sooner have gone, if I could have taken with me the fragrance of that incomparable regalia.”•••Ournew friend, the writer of the ‘Lines to an Early Robin,’ who desires us to send him six numbers of theKnickerbockercontaining his article, inquires ‘which kind of his writing we should prefer, prose or poetry?’ We hardly know what to say, in answer to this categorical query. It will not perhaps be amiss, however, to adopt thein medio tutissimus ibisstyle of the traveller, who, upon calling for a cup of tea at breakfast, handed it back to the servant, after tasting it, with the remark: ‘If this is tea, bring me coffee—if it is coffee, bring me tea;I want a change.’ If what ‘M.’ sends us is poetry, let him send us prose; if it is prose, (and it certainly ‘has that look,’) let him send us poetry, by all means.•••Judgesand other legal functionaries, though ostensibly ‘sage, grave men,’ are oftentimes sad wags, and fond of fun and frolic. From one of this class we derive the annexed: ‘A few months since, in a neighboring town, a knight of the yard-stick was paying his addresses to a MissInches, who, beside some personal attraction, was reputed to be mistress of a snug fortune. At first, the lady encouraged his addresses, but afterward jilted him. Rendered desperate by his double loss, the young man went home and deliberately shot himself; and the coroner’s jury next morning brought in a verdict of ‘Died by Inches!”•••Howvery beautiful are these lines upon the death of a young and lovely girl, the bloom of whose fair cheek refused to wither at the blighting touch of the Destroyer:

‘Hereye-lids as in sleep were closed,Her brow was white like snow;A smile still lingered on her cheek,As if ’twas loth to go!‘And it may be a smile so sweet,So quiet and serene,Was never on the healthy browOf living maiden seen.‘Perchance the wondrous bliss which burstUpon her raptured mind,When first she woke in glory’s courts,Now left its trace behind.‘Her end was peace. I thought that theyWho loved her, should not grieve;For these last words they heard her say,‘My spirit,Lord, receive!’‘And when they laid her in the earth,Her cheek still held the bloom;That smile so sweet, the gentle maidBore with her to the tomb.‘Think it not strange that brighter tintsUpon the blossoms crept,Which grew above the sacred spotWhere that meek maiden slept.’

‘Hereye-lids as in sleep were closed,Her brow was white like snow;A smile still lingered on her cheek,As if ’twas loth to go!

‘Hereye-lids as in sleep were closed,

Her brow was white like snow;

A smile still lingered on her cheek,

As if ’twas loth to go!

‘And it may be a smile so sweet,So quiet and serene,Was never on the healthy browOf living maiden seen.

‘And it may be a smile so sweet,

So quiet and serene,

Was never on the healthy brow

Of living maiden seen.

‘Perchance the wondrous bliss which burstUpon her raptured mind,When first she woke in glory’s courts,Now left its trace behind.

‘Perchance the wondrous bliss which burst

Upon her raptured mind,

When first she woke in glory’s courts,

Now left its trace behind.

‘Her end was peace. I thought that theyWho loved her, should not grieve;For these last words they heard her say,‘My spirit,Lord, receive!’

‘Her end was peace. I thought that they

Who loved her, should not grieve;

For these last words they heard her say,

‘My spirit,Lord, receive!’

‘And when they laid her in the earth,Her cheek still held the bloom;That smile so sweet, the gentle maidBore with her to the tomb.

‘And when they laid her in the earth,

Her cheek still held the bloom;

That smile so sweet, the gentle maid

Bore with her to the tomb.

‘Think it not strange that brighter tintsUpon the blossoms crept,Which grew above the sacred spotWhere that meek maiden slept.’

‘Think it not strange that brighter tints

Upon the blossoms crept,

Which grew above the sacred spot

Where that meek maiden slept.’

Wescarcely know when we have been more amused, than in reading lately a satirical sketch, entitled ‘The House of Mourning: a Farce.’ SquireHamperand his lady, personages rather of the rustic order, who have come up to London from the family seat in the country, in the progress of shopping in a street at the west end of the metropolis, stop at a dry-goods undertakers, with a hatchment, and ‘Maison de Deuil,’ or House of Mourning, byway of a sign over the door. ‘Mason de Dool!’ exclaims the Squire, responding to his wife’s translation; ‘some foreign haberdasher’s, I ’spose.’ The lady, however, coaxes him to go in; for although she has lost no friends, she longs to see the ‘improvements in mourning,’ which she can do by ‘cheapening a few articles, and buying a penny-worth of black pins.’ The worthy pair enter, take an ebony chair at the counter, while a clerk in a suit of sables addresses the lady, and in sepulchral tones inquires if he ‘can have the melancholy pleasure of serving her.’ ‘How deep would you choose to go, Ma’am? Do you wish to be very poignant? We have a very extensive assortment of family and complimentary mourning. Here is one, Ma’am, just imported; a widow’s silk, watered, as you perceive, to match the sentiment. It is called the ‘Inconsolable,’ and is very much in vogue in Paris for matrimonial bereavements.’ ‘Looks rather flimsy, though,’ interposes the Squire; ‘not likely to last long, eh, Sir?’ ‘A little slight, praps,’ replies the shopman; ‘rather a delicate texture; but mourning ought not to last forever, Sir.’ ‘No,’ grumbles the Squire; ‘it seldom does, ’specially the violent sorts.’ ‘As to mourning, Ma’am,’ continues the shopman, addressing the lady, ‘there has been a great deal, a very great deal indeed, this season; and several new fabrics have been introduced, to meet the demand for fashionable tribulation, and all in the French style; they of France excel in thefunèbre. Here for instance is an article for the deeply-afflicted; a black crape, expressly adapted to the profound style of mourning; makes up very sombre and interesting. Or, if you prefer to mourn in velvet, here’s a very rich one; real Genoa, and a splendid black; we call it the ‘Luxury of Woe.’ It’s only eighteen shillings a yard, and a superb quality; fit, in short, for the handsomest style of domestic calamity.’ Here the Squire wants to know ‘whether sorrow gets more superfine as it goes upward in life.’ ‘Certainly—yes, Sir—by all means,’ responds the clerk; ‘at least, a finer texture. The mourning of poor people is very coarse, very; quite different from that of persons of quality. Canvass to crape, Sir.’ The lady next asks if he has a variety of half-mourning; to which he replies: ‘O, infinite—the largest stock in town; full, and half, and quarter, and half-quarter mourning, shaded off from agrief prononcéto the slightestnuanceof regret.’ The lady is directed to another counter, and introduced to ‘the gent. who superintends the Intermediate Sorrow Department;’ who inquires: ‘You wish to inspect some half-mourning, Madam? the second stage of distress? As such Ma’am, allow me to recommend this satin—intended for grief when it has subsided; alleviated, you see, Ma’am, from a dead black to a dull lead color. It’s a Parisian novelty, Ma’am, called ‘Settled Grief,’ and is very much worn by ladies of a certain age, who do not intend to embrace Hymen a second time.’ (‘Old women, mayhap, about seventy,’ mutters the Squire.) ‘Exactly so, Sir; or thereabout. Not but what some ladies, Ma’am, set in for sorrow much earlier; indeed, in the prime of life; and for such cases it is a very durable wear; but praps it’s toolugubre: now here’s another—not exactly black, but shot with a warmish tint, to suit a woe moderated by time. The French call it a ‘Gleam of Comfort.’ We’ve sold several pieces of it; it’s very attractive; we consider it the happiest pattern of the season.’ ‘Yes,’ once more interposes the Squire; ‘some people are very happy in it no doubt.’ ‘No doubt, Sir. There’s a charm in melancholy, Sir. I’m fond of the pensive myself. Praps, Madam, you would prefer something still more in the transition state, as we call it, from grave to gay. In that case, I would recommend this lavender Ducape, with only just a souvenir of sorrow in it; the slightest tinge of mourning, to distinguish it from the garb of pleasure. But possibly you desire to see an appropriate style of costume for the juvenile branches, when sorrow their young days has shaded? Of course, a milder degree of mourning than for adults. Black would be precocious. This, Ma’am, for instance—a dark pattern on gray; an interesting dress, Ma’am, for a little girl, just initiated in the vale of tears; only eighteen-pence a yard Ma’am, and warranted to wash.’ The ‘Intermediate Sorrow Department,’ however, derives no patronage from the ‘hard customer;’ and we next find her in the ‘Coiffure Department,’ looking at caps, and interrogating a show-woman in deep mourning, who is in attendance, and enlarging upon the beauty ofher fabrics: ‘This is the newest style, Ma’am. Affliction is very much modernized, and admits of moregoutthan formerly. Some ladies indeed for their morning grief wear rather a plainer cap; but for evening sorrow, this is not at all tooornée. French taste has introduced very considerable alleviations.’ Failing however, in ‘setting hercaps’ for the new customer, the show-woman ‘tries the handkerchief’ enticement; exhibiting one with a fringe of artificial tears worked on the border—‘the ‘Larmoyante,’ a sweet-pretty idea.’ The Squire intimates that as a handkerchiefto be used, it would most likely be found ‘rather scrubby for the eyes.’ But the show-woman removesthisobjection: ‘O dear, no, Sir—if you mean wiping. The wet style of grief is quite gone out—quite! The dry cry is decidedly the genteel thing.’ No wonder that the Squire, as he left the establishment with his ‘better half,’ was fain to exclaim: ‘Humph! And so that’s a Mason de Dool! Well! if it’s all the same to you, Ma’am, I’d rather die in the country, and be universally lamented after the old fashion; for, as to London, what with the new French modes of mourning, and the ‘Try Warren’ style of blacking the premises, it do seem to me that before long all sorrow will be sham Abram, and the House of Mourning a regular Farce!’•••ACanadian Correspondent, in a few ‘free and easy’ couplets, advises us how much we have lost by declining aMS.drama of his, which he is hammering out on the anvil of his brain. We subjoin a few lines of ‘The Angry Poet:’‘Thedamper, thedraftof my drama you’ve checked;You’ve stunted my laurels—my rich cargo wrecked!That cargo! O! never was galleon of SpainThus freighted, by winds wafted over the Main!There were stuffs, and brocades, and rich laces and blonde;There were Damascene blades, and thy silks Trebisond;There was armor from Milan, both cuirass and helm,Abelards, Eloïsas, and Father Anselm:There were jewels, and gold, and the amulet’s power,A hero to spout, and to rant by the hour;A lady to love, and be loved, and to faint,As a matter of course, turning pale through her paint!There were clowns who the grave-digger clown could outvie,And princes who on the stage strutted so highThat Prince Hamlet they’dcut; who could pick up a scull,Vote his morals a bore, and his wit mighty dull!There were spirits that roam in the caves of the deep,Coming back to our earth, as ghosts will do, to peep!A king of the Cannibals—warriors, a host;And a city with domes, mid the dim waters lost:There was some one descended fromBrian Boru;For Pleasaunce a hunchback, in French ‘Un Tortu;’Every scene was an episode—tragic each act;Winding up with swords clashing, or pistols well cracked.’

Wescarcely know when we have been more amused, than in reading lately a satirical sketch, entitled ‘The House of Mourning: a Farce.’ SquireHamperand his lady, personages rather of the rustic order, who have come up to London from the family seat in the country, in the progress of shopping in a street at the west end of the metropolis, stop at a dry-goods undertakers, with a hatchment, and ‘Maison de Deuil,’ or House of Mourning, byway of a sign over the door. ‘Mason de Dool!’ exclaims the Squire, responding to his wife’s translation; ‘some foreign haberdasher’s, I ’spose.’ The lady, however, coaxes him to go in; for although she has lost no friends, she longs to see the ‘improvements in mourning,’ which she can do by ‘cheapening a few articles, and buying a penny-worth of black pins.’ The worthy pair enter, take an ebony chair at the counter, while a clerk in a suit of sables addresses the lady, and in sepulchral tones inquires if he ‘can have the melancholy pleasure of serving her.’ ‘How deep would you choose to go, Ma’am? Do you wish to be very poignant? We have a very extensive assortment of family and complimentary mourning. Here is one, Ma’am, just imported; a widow’s silk, watered, as you perceive, to match the sentiment. It is called the ‘Inconsolable,’ and is very much in vogue in Paris for matrimonial bereavements.’ ‘Looks rather flimsy, though,’ interposes the Squire; ‘not likely to last long, eh, Sir?’ ‘A little slight, praps,’ replies the shopman; ‘rather a delicate texture; but mourning ought not to last forever, Sir.’ ‘No,’ grumbles the Squire; ‘it seldom does, ’specially the violent sorts.’ ‘As to mourning, Ma’am,’ continues the shopman, addressing the lady, ‘there has been a great deal, a very great deal indeed, this season; and several new fabrics have been introduced, to meet the demand for fashionable tribulation, and all in the French style; they of France excel in thefunèbre. Here for instance is an article for the deeply-afflicted; a black crape, expressly adapted to the profound style of mourning; makes up very sombre and interesting. Or, if you prefer to mourn in velvet, here’s a very rich one; real Genoa, and a splendid black; we call it the ‘Luxury of Woe.’ It’s only eighteen shillings a yard, and a superb quality; fit, in short, for the handsomest style of domestic calamity.’ Here the Squire wants to know ‘whether sorrow gets more superfine as it goes upward in life.’ ‘Certainly—yes, Sir—by all means,’ responds the clerk; ‘at least, a finer texture. The mourning of poor people is very coarse, very; quite different from that of persons of quality. Canvass to crape, Sir.’ The lady next asks if he has a variety of half-mourning; to which he replies: ‘O, infinite—the largest stock in town; full, and half, and quarter, and half-quarter mourning, shaded off from agrief prononcéto the slightestnuanceof regret.’ The lady is directed to another counter, and introduced to ‘the gent. who superintends the Intermediate Sorrow Department;’ who inquires: ‘You wish to inspect some half-mourning, Madam? the second stage of distress? As such Ma’am, allow me to recommend this satin—intended for grief when it has subsided; alleviated, you see, Ma’am, from a dead black to a dull lead color. It’s a Parisian novelty, Ma’am, called ‘Settled Grief,’ and is very much worn by ladies of a certain age, who do not intend to embrace Hymen a second time.’ (‘Old women, mayhap, about seventy,’ mutters the Squire.) ‘Exactly so, Sir; or thereabout. Not but what some ladies, Ma’am, set in for sorrow much earlier; indeed, in the prime of life; and for such cases it is a very durable wear; but praps it’s toolugubre: now here’s another—not exactly black, but shot with a warmish tint, to suit a woe moderated by time. The French call it a ‘Gleam of Comfort.’ We’ve sold several pieces of it; it’s very attractive; we consider it the happiest pattern of the season.’ ‘Yes,’ once more interposes the Squire; ‘some people are very happy in it no doubt.’ ‘No doubt, Sir. There’s a charm in melancholy, Sir. I’m fond of the pensive myself. Praps, Madam, you would prefer something still more in the transition state, as we call it, from grave to gay. In that case, I would recommend this lavender Ducape, with only just a souvenir of sorrow in it; the slightest tinge of mourning, to distinguish it from the garb of pleasure. But possibly you desire to see an appropriate style of costume for the juvenile branches, when sorrow their young days has shaded? Of course, a milder degree of mourning than for adults. Black would be precocious. This, Ma’am, for instance—a dark pattern on gray; an interesting dress, Ma’am, for a little girl, just initiated in the vale of tears; only eighteen-pence a yard Ma’am, and warranted to wash.’ The ‘Intermediate Sorrow Department,’ however, derives no patronage from the ‘hard customer;’ and we next find her in the ‘Coiffure Department,’ looking at caps, and interrogating a show-woman in deep mourning, who is in attendance, and enlarging upon the beauty ofher fabrics: ‘This is the newest style, Ma’am. Affliction is very much modernized, and admits of moregoutthan formerly. Some ladies indeed for their morning grief wear rather a plainer cap; but for evening sorrow, this is not at all tooornée. French taste has introduced very considerable alleviations.’ Failing however, in ‘setting hercaps’ for the new customer, the show-woman ‘tries the handkerchief’ enticement; exhibiting one with a fringe of artificial tears worked on the border—‘the ‘Larmoyante,’ a sweet-pretty idea.’ The Squire intimates that as a handkerchiefto be used, it would most likely be found ‘rather scrubby for the eyes.’ But the show-woman removesthisobjection: ‘O dear, no, Sir—if you mean wiping. The wet style of grief is quite gone out—quite! The dry cry is decidedly the genteel thing.’ No wonder that the Squire, as he left the establishment with his ‘better half,’ was fain to exclaim: ‘Humph! And so that’s a Mason de Dool! Well! if it’s all the same to you, Ma’am, I’d rather die in the country, and be universally lamented after the old fashion; for, as to London, what with the new French modes of mourning, and the ‘Try Warren’ style of blacking the premises, it do seem to me that before long all sorrow will be sham Abram, and the House of Mourning a regular Farce!’•••ACanadian Correspondent, in a few ‘free and easy’ couplets, advises us how much we have lost by declining aMS.drama of his, which he is hammering out on the anvil of his brain. We subjoin a few lines of ‘The Angry Poet:’

‘Thedamper, thedraftof my drama you’ve checked;You’ve stunted my laurels—my rich cargo wrecked!That cargo! O! never was galleon of SpainThus freighted, by winds wafted over the Main!There were stuffs, and brocades, and rich laces and blonde;There were Damascene blades, and thy silks Trebisond;There was armor from Milan, both cuirass and helm,Abelards, Eloïsas, and Father Anselm:There were jewels, and gold, and the amulet’s power,A hero to spout, and to rant by the hour;A lady to love, and be loved, and to faint,As a matter of course, turning pale through her paint!There were clowns who the grave-digger clown could outvie,And princes who on the stage strutted so highThat Prince Hamlet they’dcut; who could pick up a scull,Vote his morals a bore, and his wit mighty dull!There were spirits that roam in the caves of the deep,Coming back to our earth, as ghosts will do, to peep!A king of the Cannibals—warriors, a host;And a city with domes, mid the dim waters lost:There was some one descended fromBrian Boru;For Pleasaunce a hunchback, in French ‘Un Tortu;’Every scene was an episode—tragic each act;Winding up with swords clashing, or pistols well cracked.’

‘Thedamper, thedraftof my drama you’ve checked;You’ve stunted my laurels—my rich cargo wrecked!That cargo! O! never was galleon of SpainThus freighted, by winds wafted over the Main!There were stuffs, and brocades, and rich laces and blonde;There were Damascene blades, and thy silks Trebisond;There was armor from Milan, both cuirass and helm,Abelards, Eloïsas, and Father Anselm:There were jewels, and gold, and the amulet’s power,A hero to spout, and to rant by the hour;A lady to love, and be loved, and to faint,As a matter of course, turning pale through her paint!There were clowns who the grave-digger clown could outvie,And princes who on the stage strutted so highThat Prince Hamlet they’dcut; who could pick up a scull,Vote his morals a bore, and his wit mighty dull!There were spirits that roam in the caves of the deep,Coming back to our earth, as ghosts will do, to peep!A king of the Cannibals—warriors, a host;And a city with domes, mid the dim waters lost:There was some one descended fromBrian Boru;For Pleasaunce a hunchback, in French ‘Un Tortu;’Every scene was an episode—tragic each act;Winding up with swords clashing, or pistols well cracked.’

‘Thedamper, thedraftof my drama you’ve checked;

You’ve stunted my laurels—my rich cargo wrecked!

That cargo! O! never was galleon of Spain

Thus freighted, by winds wafted over the Main!

There were stuffs, and brocades, and rich laces and blonde;

There were Damascene blades, and thy silks Trebisond;

There was armor from Milan, both cuirass and helm,

Abelards, Eloïsas, and Father Anselm:

There were jewels, and gold, and the amulet’s power,

A hero to spout, and to rant by the hour;

A lady to love, and be loved, and to faint,

As a matter of course, turning pale through her paint!

There were clowns who the grave-digger clown could outvie,

And princes who on the stage strutted so high

That Prince Hamlet they’dcut; who could pick up a scull,

Vote his morals a bore, and his wit mighty dull!

There were spirits that roam in the caves of the deep,

Coming back to our earth, as ghosts will do, to peep!

A king of the Cannibals—warriors, a host;

And a city with domes, mid the dim waters lost:

There was some one descended fromBrian Boru;

For Pleasaunce a hunchback, in French ‘Un Tortu;’

Every scene was an episode—tragic each act;

Winding up with swords clashing, or pistols well cracked.’

Wehave just received the following from an esteemed correspondent, who transcribes it verbatim from the familiar letter of a friend. If we have a solitary reader who can peruse it without emotion, let him confine his indifference within his own cold bosom:‘I havejust returned from the funeral of poorEmmaG——,a little girl to whom I had been for years most tenderly attached. As there was something very touching in the circumstances connected with her death, I will relate them to you. She was the daughter of a widow, a near neighbor of mine. When I first knew her, she was a sprightly child of about four years of age, perfect in form and feature. The bloom of health was on her cheek; her eye was the brightest I ever saw; while in her bosom there glowed a generous affection that seemed to embrace all with whom she came in contact. But when she reached her seventh year, her health began to decline. The rose suddenly paled on her cheek, and her eye had acquired prematurely that sad, thoughtful expression which gives so melancholy a charm to the features of wasting beauty. Her mother looked on with an anxious heart and at an utter loss to account for so sudden a change in her health. But soon a new source of anxiety appeared. While dressing her one day, she observed onEmma’sback, just between the shoulders, a small swelling, of about the size of a walnut. As she watched this spot, and observed that it grew larger from day to day, the mother began to have sad misgivings. These however she kept to herself for a time. Soon afterward, a slight stoop in her gait became visible. The family physician wasnow called in, and the worst forebodings of the mother were confirmed. Her idolized child was fast becoming a hump-back!‘I will not attempt to describe the feelings of the mother, who was thus doomed to witness from day to day the slow growth of that which was to make one so dear to her a cripple and a dwarf. Suffice it to say, her love as well as care seemed to be redoubled, andEmmabecame more than ever the child of her affections. Nor did her little companions neglect her when she could no longer join in their out-door sports, and her own sprightly step had given place to a slow, stooping-gait, and the sweet ringing voice to a sad or querulous tone, that sometimes made the very heart ache. On the contrary, all vied with each other in administering to her amusements. Among them, none clung to her with more assiduity than her brotherWilliam, who was the nearest to her own age. He gave up all his own out-door play, in order to be with her, and seemed never so happy as when he could draw a smile, sad though it was, from her thoughtful features. But after a while,Emmagrew wayward under her affliction; and unfortunately, though generally good-natured,Williamhad a quick temper, to check which required more self-command than commonly falls to one so young. Sometimes, therefore, when he found plan after plan, which he had projected for her amusement, rejected with peevish contempt, he could hardly conceal from her his own wounded feelings. Yet, though at times apparently ungrateful,Emmawas perhaps not so in fact; and she loved her brother better than any one else, save her mother. It was only in moments when her too sensitive nature had been chafed perhaps by her own reflections—for like the majority of children in her circumstances, she was thoughtful beyond her years—that her conduct seemed unkind. And then, when she marked the clouded expression of her brother’s face, she would ask forgiveness in so meek a spirit, and kiss his cheek so affectionately, that he forgave her almost as soon as offended.‘Years thus passed on, when one day, after she had been more than usually perverse and fretful,William, who had been reading to her, on receiving some slight rebuff, started suddenly from his seat by her side, called her ‘a little hunch-back,’ and left the room. In a moment, however, his passion subsided, and returning, he found his sister in tears. He attempted to put his arm around her neck, but she repulsed him, and slipping away, retired to her own chamber. Her mother soon after learned what had happened, and going toEmma, found her upon the bed in a paroxysm of grief. She endeavored to soothe her feelings, but in vain; she refused to be comforted. ‘I want todie, mother,’ she replied to all her endearments; ‘I have long felt that I was a burden to you all.’ She cried herself to sleep that night, and on the morrow was too ill to rise. The doctor was called in, and warned the mother against an approaching fever. For three days she remained in an uncertain state; but on the fourth, the fever came in earnest, and thenceforth she was confined to her pillow.‘In the mean time, the grief ofWilliamhad been more poignant even than that of his sister. Thrice he had been to her bedside to ask her forgiveness, and kiss once more her pallid cheek; but she turned her face resolutely away, and refused to recognize him. After these repulses he would slowly leave the room, and going to his own chamber, sit brooding for hours over the melancholy consequences of his rashness. Owing to the previous enfeebled health ofEmma, the fever made rapid progress, and it soon became apparent that she must die.William, in consequence of the violent aversion of his sister, had latterly been denied admittance to the chamber, though he lingered all day about the door, eagerly catching the least word in regard to her state, and apparently unmindful of all other existence.‘One morning there was evidently a crisis approaching; for the mother and attendants, hurrying softly in and out the sufferer’s chamber, in quick whispered words gave orders or imparted intelligence to others.Williamsaw it all, and with the quick instinct of affection, seemed to know what it foreboded. Taking his little stool, therefore, he sat down beside the chamber-door, and waited in silence. In the mean time, the mother stood over the dying child, watching while a short unquiet slumber held her back for a little while longer. Several times a sweet smile trembled round the sufferer’s lips, and her arms moved as if pressing something to her bosom. Then she awoke, and fixing her eyes upon her mother, whispered faintly, ‘I thoughtWilliamwas here.’ A stifled sob was heard at the door, which stood partly open. Mrs.G——stepped softly out, and leadingWilliamto the bed-side, pointed to his dying sister. He threw himself upon her bosom, and pressing his lips to her pale cheek, prayed for forgiveness.Emmadid not heed him; but looking again in her mother’s face, and pointing upward, said softly: ‘I shant be sothere!—shall I, mother?’‘No, my poor child!’ replied the weeping parent; ‘I hope not. But don’t talkso,Emma. Forgive your poor brother, or you’ll break his heart.’‘Emmatried to gasp something; but whatever it was, whether of love or hate, it never reached a mortal ear. In a few moments she was no more.’

Wehave just received the following from an esteemed correspondent, who transcribes it verbatim from the familiar letter of a friend. If we have a solitary reader who can peruse it without emotion, let him confine his indifference within his own cold bosom:

‘I havejust returned from the funeral of poorEmmaG——,a little girl to whom I had been for years most tenderly attached. As there was something very touching in the circumstances connected with her death, I will relate them to you. She was the daughter of a widow, a near neighbor of mine. When I first knew her, she was a sprightly child of about four years of age, perfect in form and feature. The bloom of health was on her cheek; her eye was the brightest I ever saw; while in her bosom there glowed a generous affection that seemed to embrace all with whom she came in contact. But when she reached her seventh year, her health began to decline. The rose suddenly paled on her cheek, and her eye had acquired prematurely that sad, thoughtful expression which gives so melancholy a charm to the features of wasting beauty. Her mother looked on with an anxious heart and at an utter loss to account for so sudden a change in her health. But soon a new source of anxiety appeared. While dressing her one day, she observed onEmma’sback, just between the shoulders, a small swelling, of about the size of a walnut. As she watched this spot, and observed that it grew larger from day to day, the mother began to have sad misgivings. These however she kept to herself for a time. Soon afterward, a slight stoop in her gait became visible. The family physician wasnow called in, and the worst forebodings of the mother were confirmed. Her idolized child was fast becoming a hump-back!‘I will not attempt to describe the feelings of the mother, who was thus doomed to witness from day to day the slow growth of that which was to make one so dear to her a cripple and a dwarf. Suffice it to say, her love as well as care seemed to be redoubled, andEmmabecame more than ever the child of her affections. Nor did her little companions neglect her when she could no longer join in their out-door sports, and her own sprightly step had given place to a slow, stooping-gait, and the sweet ringing voice to a sad or querulous tone, that sometimes made the very heart ache. On the contrary, all vied with each other in administering to her amusements. Among them, none clung to her with more assiduity than her brotherWilliam, who was the nearest to her own age. He gave up all his own out-door play, in order to be with her, and seemed never so happy as when he could draw a smile, sad though it was, from her thoughtful features. But after a while,Emmagrew wayward under her affliction; and unfortunately, though generally good-natured,Williamhad a quick temper, to check which required more self-command than commonly falls to one so young. Sometimes, therefore, when he found plan after plan, which he had projected for her amusement, rejected with peevish contempt, he could hardly conceal from her his own wounded feelings. Yet, though at times apparently ungrateful,Emmawas perhaps not so in fact; and she loved her brother better than any one else, save her mother. It was only in moments when her too sensitive nature had been chafed perhaps by her own reflections—for like the majority of children in her circumstances, she was thoughtful beyond her years—that her conduct seemed unkind. And then, when she marked the clouded expression of her brother’s face, she would ask forgiveness in so meek a spirit, and kiss his cheek so affectionately, that he forgave her almost as soon as offended.‘Years thus passed on, when one day, after she had been more than usually perverse and fretful,William, who had been reading to her, on receiving some slight rebuff, started suddenly from his seat by her side, called her ‘a little hunch-back,’ and left the room. In a moment, however, his passion subsided, and returning, he found his sister in tears. He attempted to put his arm around her neck, but she repulsed him, and slipping away, retired to her own chamber. Her mother soon after learned what had happened, and going toEmma, found her upon the bed in a paroxysm of grief. She endeavored to soothe her feelings, but in vain; she refused to be comforted. ‘I want todie, mother,’ she replied to all her endearments; ‘I have long felt that I was a burden to you all.’ She cried herself to sleep that night, and on the morrow was too ill to rise. The doctor was called in, and warned the mother against an approaching fever. For three days she remained in an uncertain state; but on the fourth, the fever came in earnest, and thenceforth she was confined to her pillow.‘In the mean time, the grief ofWilliamhad been more poignant even than that of his sister. Thrice he had been to her bedside to ask her forgiveness, and kiss once more her pallid cheek; but she turned her face resolutely away, and refused to recognize him. After these repulses he would slowly leave the room, and going to his own chamber, sit brooding for hours over the melancholy consequences of his rashness. Owing to the previous enfeebled health ofEmma, the fever made rapid progress, and it soon became apparent that she must die.William, in consequence of the violent aversion of his sister, had latterly been denied admittance to the chamber, though he lingered all day about the door, eagerly catching the least word in regard to her state, and apparently unmindful of all other existence.‘One morning there was evidently a crisis approaching; for the mother and attendants, hurrying softly in and out the sufferer’s chamber, in quick whispered words gave orders or imparted intelligence to others.Williamsaw it all, and with the quick instinct of affection, seemed to know what it foreboded. Taking his little stool, therefore, he sat down beside the chamber-door, and waited in silence. In the mean time, the mother stood over the dying child, watching while a short unquiet slumber held her back for a little while longer. Several times a sweet smile trembled round the sufferer’s lips, and her arms moved as if pressing something to her bosom. Then she awoke, and fixing her eyes upon her mother, whispered faintly, ‘I thoughtWilliamwas here.’ A stifled sob was heard at the door, which stood partly open. Mrs.G——stepped softly out, and leadingWilliamto the bed-side, pointed to his dying sister. He threw himself upon her bosom, and pressing his lips to her pale cheek, prayed for forgiveness.Emmadid not heed him; but looking again in her mother’s face, and pointing upward, said softly: ‘I shant be sothere!—shall I, mother?’‘No, my poor child!’ replied the weeping parent; ‘I hope not. But don’t talkso,Emma. Forgive your poor brother, or you’ll break his heart.’‘Emmatried to gasp something; but whatever it was, whether of love or hate, it never reached a mortal ear. In a few moments she was no more.’

‘I havejust returned from the funeral of poorEmmaG——,a little girl to whom I had been for years most tenderly attached. As there was something very touching in the circumstances connected with her death, I will relate them to you. She was the daughter of a widow, a near neighbor of mine. When I first knew her, she was a sprightly child of about four years of age, perfect in form and feature. The bloom of health was on her cheek; her eye was the brightest I ever saw; while in her bosom there glowed a generous affection that seemed to embrace all with whom she came in contact. But when she reached her seventh year, her health began to decline. The rose suddenly paled on her cheek, and her eye had acquired prematurely that sad, thoughtful expression which gives so melancholy a charm to the features of wasting beauty. Her mother looked on with an anxious heart and at an utter loss to account for so sudden a change in her health. But soon a new source of anxiety appeared. While dressing her one day, she observed onEmma’sback, just between the shoulders, a small swelling, of about the size of a walnut. As she watched this spot, and observed that it grew larger from day to day, the mother began to have sad misgivings. These however she kept to herself for a time. Soon afterward, a slight stoop in her gait became visible. The family physician wasnow called in, and the worst forebodings of the mother were confirmed. Her idolized child was fast becoming a hump-back!

‘I will not attempt to describe the feelings of the mother, who was thus doomed to witness from day to day the slow growth of that which was to make one so dear to her a cripple and a dwarf. Suffice it to say, her love as well as care seemed to be redoubled, andEmmabecame more than ever the child of her affections. Nor did her little companions neglect her when she could no longer join in their out-door sports, and her own sprightly step had given place to a slow, stooping-gait, and the sweet ringing voice to a sad or querulous tone, that sometimes made the very heart ache. On the contrary, all vied with each other in administering to her amusements. Among them, none clung to her with more assiduity than her brotherWilliam, who was the nearest to her own age. He gave up all his own out-door play, in order to be with her, and seemed never so happy as when he could draw a smile, sad though it was, from her thoughtful features. But after a while,Emmagrew wayward under her affliction; and unfortunately, though generally good-natured,Williamhad a quick temper, to check which required more self-command than commonly falls to one so young. Sometimes, therefore, when he found plan after plan, which he had projected for her amusement, rejected with peevish contempt, he could hardly conceal from her his own wounded feelings. Yet, though at times apparently ungrateful,Emmawas perhaps not so in fact; and she loved her brother better than any one else, save her mother. It was only in moments when her too sensitive nature had been chafed perhaps by her own reflections—for like the majority of children in her circumstances, she was thoughtful beyond her years—that her conduct seemed unkind. And then, when she marked the clouded expression of her brother’s face, she would ask forgiveness in so meek a spirit, and kiss his cheek so affectionately, that he forgave her almost as soon as offended.

‘Years thus passed on, when one day, after she had been more than usually perverse and fretful,William, who had been reading to her, on receiving some slight rebuff, started suddenly from his seat by her side, called her ‘a little hunch-back,’ and left the room. In a moment, however, his passion subsided, and returning, he found his sister in tears. He attempted to put his arm around her neck, but she repulsed him, and slipping away, retired to her own chamber. Her mother soon after learned what had happened, and going toEmma, found her upon the bed in a paroxysm of grief. She endeavored to soothe her feelings, but in vain; she refused to be comforted. ‘I want todie, mother,’ she replied to all her endearments; ‘I have long felt that I was a burden to you all.’ She cried herself to sleep that night, and on the morrow was too ill to rise. The doctor was called in, and warned the mother against an approaching fever. For three days she remained in an uncertain state; but on the fourth, the fever came in earnest, and thenceforth she was confined to her pillow.

‘In the mean time, the grief ofWilliamhad been more poignant even than that of his sister. Thrice he had been to her bedside to ask her forgiveness, and kiss once more her pallid cheek; but she turned her face resolutely away, and refused to recognize him. After these repulses he would slowly leave the room, and going to his own chamber, sit brooding for hours over the melancholy consequences of his rashness. Owing to the previous enfeebled health ofEmma, the fever made rapid progress, and it soon became apparent that she must die.William, in consequence of the violent aversion of his sister, had latterly been denied admittance to the chamber, though he lingered all day about the door, eagerly catching the least word in regard to her state, and apparently unmindful of all other existence.

‘One morning there was evidently a crisis approaching; for the mother and attendants, hurrying softly in and out the sufferer’s chamber, in quick whispered words gave orders or imparted intelligence to others.Williamsaw it all, and with the quick instinct of affection, seemed to know what it foreboded. Taking his little stool, therefore, he sat down beside the chamber-door, and waited in silence. In the mean time, the mother stood over the dying child, watching while a short unquiet slumber held her back for a little while longer. Several times a sweet smile trembled round the sufferer’s lips, and her arms moved as if pressing something to her bosom. Then she awoke, and fixing her eyes upon her mother, whispered faintly, ‘I thoughtWilliamwas here.’ A stifled sob was heard at the door, which stood partly open. Mrs.G——stepped softly out, and leadingWilliamto the bed-side, pointed to his dying sister. He threw himself upon her bosom, and pressing his lips to her pale cheek, prayed for forgiveness.Emmadid not heed him; but looking again in her mother’s face, and pointing upward, said softly: ‘I shant be sothere!—shall I, mother?’

‘No, my poor child!’ replied the weeping parent; ‘I hope not. But don’t talkso,Emma. Forgive your poor brother, or you’ll break his heart.’

‘Emmatried to gasp something; but whatever it was, whether of love or hate, it never reached a mortal ear. In a few moments she was no more.’

Wetake your amiable hint, good ‘P.’ ofS——,and shall venture the forfeit. That our own ‘humor is no great shakes,’ we very cheerfully admit—so that there is an end tothat‘difference of opinion.’ ‘P.’ reminds us of an anecdote which we had not long since from a friend. ‘There, take that!’ said a would-be facetious doctor to a patient, whom he had been boring almost to extinction with what he fancied to be humor; ‘take it; ’t will do you good, though itisnauseous.’ ‘Don’t say a word aboutthat,’ said the patient, swallowing the revolting potion; ‘the man who has endured yourwit, has nothing to fear from yourphysic!’•••‘C. M. P.’sparody on ‘Oh no, I never mention Him,’ is a very indifferent affair, compared withHood’stranscript of that well-known song. We remember a stanza or two of it:‘Oh, no, I never mentioned it,I never said a word;But lent my friend a five-pound note,Of which I’ve never heard.He said he merely borrowed itTo pay another debt;And since I’ve never mention’d it,He thinks that I forget!‘Whene’er we ride, I pays the ’pike;I settles every treat;He rides my horse, he drives my cab,But cuts me when we meet.My new umbrell’ I lent him too,One night—’twas very wet;Though he forgets it ne’er came back,Ah, me!Idon’t forget!’

Wetake your amiable hint, good ‘P.’ ofS——,and shall venture the forfeit. That our own ‘humor is no great shakes,’ we very cheerfully admit—so that there is an end tothat‘difference of opinion.’ ‘P.’ reminds us of an anecdote which we had not long since from a friend. ‘There, take that!’ said a would-be facetious doctor to a patient, whom he had been boring almost to extinction with what he fancied to be humor; ‘take it; ’t will do you good, though itisnauseous.’ ‘Don’t say a word aboutthat,’ said the patient, swallowing the revolting potion; ‘the man who has endured yourwit, has nothing to fear from yourphysic!’•••‘C. M. P.’sparody on ‘Oh no, I never mention Him,’ is a very indifferent affair, compared withHood’stranscript of that well-known song. We remember a stanza or two of it:

‘Oh, no, I never mentioned it,I never said a word;But lent my friend a five-pound note,Of which I’ve never heard.He said he merely borrowed itTo pay another debt;And since I’ve never mention’d it,He thinks that I forget!‘Whene’er we ride, I pays the ’pike;I settles every treat;He rides my horse, he drives my cab,But cuts me when we meet.My new umbrell’ I lent him too,One night—’twas very wet;Though he forgets it ne’er came back,Ah, me!Idon’t forget!’

‘Oh, no, I never mentioned it,I never said a word;But lent my friend a five-pound note,Of which I’ve never heard.He said he merely borrowed itTo pay another debt;And since I’ve never mention’d it,He thinks that I forget!

‘Oh, no, I never mentioned it,

I never said a word;

But lent my friend a five-pound note,

Of which I’ve never heard.

He said he merely borrowed it

To pay another debt;

And since I’ve never mention’d it,

He thinks that I forget!

‘Whene’er we ride, I pays the ’pike;I settles every treat;He rides my horse, he drives my cab,But cuts me when we meet.My new umbrell’ I lent him too,One night—’twas very wet;Though he forgets it ne’er came back,Ah, me!Idon’t forget!’

‘Whene’er we ride, I pays the ’pike;

I settles every treat;

He rides my horse, he drives my cab,

But cuts me when we meet.

My new umbrell’ I lent him too,

One night—’twas very wet;

Though he forgets it ne’er came back,

Ah, me!Idon’t forget!’

Thekite-season has opened with great activity. Did you ever remark, reader, when Nature begins to waken from her winter-sleep; when the woods ‘beyond the swelling floods’ of the rivers begin to redden; when the first airs of spring assume their natural blandness; when ladies are out with their ‘spring hats’ and carmen with their spring-carts; when the snow has left us, and the city-trees areaboutleave-ing; how innumerous kites begin to thicken in the air? Yonder a big unwieldy fellow rises with calm dignity, trailing his long tail with great propriety behind him; here a little bustling creature ducks and dives, coquetting first on this side, then on that; until finally turning two or three somersets, it almost reaches the earth; but soon rises at a tangent, and sails far up into the bright blue firmament. Look! the air is full of them! It is a charming amusement, this kite-flying of the boys. We greatly affect it, even now, although we are ‘out of our ’teens!’ There is something ethereal in it; some thing that lifts up the young admiration‘Tothat blue vault and sapphire wallThat overhangs and circles all,’and the mysterious realm that lies beyond its visible confines.•••Weselect from the ‘Random Reminiscences of a Retired Merchant’ a single passage; the entire article being quite too short for any other department of our work: ‘There once flourished in one of our commercial cities a little French merchant, who was very well known to every man and boy by the fact of his being always followed by a curly-haired yellow dog with his tail ‘cut a little too short by ad——dsight!’ During the last war, our little Frenchman was doing a very thriving business in the dry-goods line, and was supposed to be a little sharper at a bargain than any of his fellow-tradesmen. There also flourished at the same time, in the same city, an importing merchant of Yankee origin, who was noted as a long-headed, close-fisted dealer. It is well known that during the war English goods were sold at enormous prices. The Yankee merchant was in that line of trade; and a few days before the arrival in this country of the news of peace, he received private advices from the Continent which led him to anticipate it. As he had a large supply of English goods on hand at the time, the prices of which would of course instantly fall, he set about disposing of them as soon as possible to his less informed and unsuspecting customers. The little Frenchman was one of his victims. After much haggling, and the offer of a long credit, the importer effected a bill of sale of goods to him, to the amount of something like twenty thousand dollars, taking his notes on long time in payment. These he considered perfectly good, of course, as his customer’s reputation in the money-market was unsullied. The bargain being consummated, the two friends parted, each in a capital humor withhimself; the Yankee to deposit the notes in his strong box, and the Frenchman to his store, where, receiving his newly-purchased goods, he immediately commenced marking them one hundred per cent. above cost, thus making before midnight, to use his own boast, aprofitof twenty thousand dollars on his purchase! Three days afterward the official news of peace came; English goods instantly fell one half, and our little Frenchman awoke in horror from his dream of cent. per cent. Nine persons out of every ten under such circumstances would have failed at once. Butnil desperandumwas the motto of our Frenchman. He saw that he had been ‘bit’ by his commercial friend, and he immediately set his wits at work to turn the tables upon him. So, late in the evening of the next day he repaired to the dwelling of the importer, and told a long and pitiful story of his embarrassments. He said his conscience already smote him for making so heavy a purchase while in failing circumstances, and that he had come to make the only reparation in his power; namely, to yield up the goods obtained of the importer, on the latter’s cancelling the notes given therefor. The Yankee at first demurred; but on the Frenchman insisting that he was a bankrupt, and that he feared the moment he opened in the morning the sheriff would pounce upon him with a writ that would swallow up every thing, he finally agreed to the proposition. ‘Half a loaf was better than no bread,’ he thought; and so the notes and the bill of sale were accordingly cancelled. By daylight in the morning the Yankee was at the Frenchman’s store, with his teams, as had been agreed upon the night before, and every package of his goods was soon removed. The two merchants again parted, the Frenchman with a mind relieved of a heavy load, and the Yankee rather down in the mouth at the result of his trade. Two or three days afterward, as the importer was passing the Frenchman’s store, he observed his sign still up, and every thing apparently as flourishing as ever. He stepped in to see what it all meant. ‘Hallo! Mr.S——,’said he, ‘I thought you had failed!’ ‘Failed!’ repeated the Frenchman, thrusting his thumbs in the arm-holes of his vest, and sliding his legs apart from counter to counter, till he resembled a small Colossus of Rhodes: ‘Failed?No, be gar! Firmer than ever, Mr.H——,but Ishouldhave failed,almosht, if I hadn’t got rid of dem tamn’d English goods at cost!’ Straitway the out-witted Yankee ‘departed the presence!’’•••Ithas been generally supposed that the oratorical efforts of ‘MajorPogram,’ as described by Mr.Dickensin a late number of his ‘Chuzzlewit,’ rather carricatured even the worst specimens of western eloquence; but the subjoined passage from the speech of a Mr.Maupinin the Indiana legislature, upon the subject of establishing a tobacco warehouse and inspection at Paducah, seems to militate against the validity of this ‘flattering function:’‘Mr. Speaker: I feel incompetent to measure this comprehensive subject. Were my thoughts as deep as the Mississippi, and as clear as the Ohio, I could not grasp its whole magnitude. It requires a mighty mind; one that can look beyond the landscape; he must be able to look even beyond the ocean; to grapple with all the intricacies and winding convolutions of the subject, and to map in his mind the whole length and breadth of its territories. Here, Sir, is a river, whose broad and deep stream meanders from Paducah through one of the most fertile tobacco countries in the world, to Ross’s landing, and at the terminus of the great Charleston railroad, and possessing a steam navigation of eight hundred miles, and giving commercial facilities to the briny ocean. Behold this vast channel of commerce; this magnificent thoroughfare of trade; one grand, unbroken chain of inter-communication, like to a prodigious sarpent, with his head resting upon the shores of Europe, and his lengthened form stretching over the ocean and curling along this great winding stream in serpentine grandeur, proudly flaps his tail at Paducah!•••Sir, the ball is in motion; it is rolling down in noise of thunder from the mountain heights, and comes booming in its majesty over the wide-spread plain. Yes, Sir, and it will continue to roll on, and on, gathering strength and bulk in its onward progress, until it sweeps its ponderous power to the town of Paducah, and there stand a towering monument of patriotic glory and sublime grandeur, with the noble American eagle proudly perched upon its cloud-capped summit, and gazing with swelling pride and admiration down upon the magnificent spectacle of the greatness of human wisdom and power!’

Thekite-season has opened with great activity. Did you ever remark, reader, when Nature begins to waken from her winter-sleep; when the woods ‘beyond the swelling floods’ of the rivers begin to redden; when the first airs of spring assume their natural blandness; when ladies are out with their ‘spring hats’ and carmen with their spring-carts; when the snow has left us, and the city-trees areaboutleave-ing; how innumerous kites begin to thicken in the air? Yonder a big unwieldy fellow rises with calm dignity, trailing his long tail with great propriety behind him; here a little bustling creature ducks and dives, coquetting first on this side, then on that; until finally turning two or three somersets, it almost reaches the earth; but soon rises at a tangent, and sails far up into the bright blue firmament. Look! the air is full of them! It is a charming amusement, this kite-flying of the boys. We greatly affect it, even now, although we are ‘out of our ’teens!’ There is something ethereal in it; some thing that lifts up the young admiration

‘Tothat blue vault and sapphire wallThat overhangs and circles all,’

‘Tothat blue vault and sapphire wallThat overhangs and circles all,’

‘Tothat blue vault and sapphire wall

That overhangs and circles all,’

and the mysterious realm that lies beyond its visible confines.•••Weselect from the ‘Random Reminiscences of a Retired Merchant’ a single passage; the entire article being quite too short for any other department of our work: ‘There once flourished in one of our commercial cities a little French merchant, who was very well known to every man and boy by the fact of his being always followed by a curly-haired yellow dog with his tail ‘cut a little too short by ad——dsight!’ During the last war, our little Frenchman was doing a very thriving business in the dry-goods line, and was supposed to be a little sharper at a bargain than any of his fellow-tradesmen. There also flourished at the same time, in the same city, an importing merchant of Yankee origin, who was noted as a long-headed, close-fisted dealer. It is well known that during the war English goods were sold at enormous prices. The Yankee merchant was in that line of trade; and a few days before the arrival in this country of the news of peace, he received private advices from the Continent which led him to anticipate it. As he had a large supply of English goods on hand at the time, the prices of which would of course instantly fall, he set about disposing of them as soon as possible to his less informed and unsuspecting customers. The little Frenchman was one of his victims. After much haggling, and the offer of a long credit, the importer effected a bill of sale of goods to him, to the amount of something like twenty thousand dollars, taking his notes on long time in payment. These he considered perfectly good, of course, as his customer’s reputation in the money-market was unsullied. The bargain being consummated, the two friends parted, each in a capital humor withhimself; the Yankee to deposit the notes in his strong box, and the Frenchman to his store, where, receiving his newly-purchased goods, he immediately commenced marking them one hundred per cent. above cost, thus making before midnight, to use his own boast, aprofitof twenty thousand dollars on his purchase! Three days afterward the official news of peace came; English goods instantly fell one half, and our little Frenchman awoke in horror from his dream of cent. per cent. Nine persons out of every ten under such circumstances would have failed at once. Butnil desperandumwas the motto of our Frenchman. He saw that he had been ‘bit’ by his commercial friend, and he immediately set his wits at work to turn the tables upon him. So, late in the evening of the next day he repaired to the dwelling of the importer, and told a long and pitiful story of his embarrassments. He said his conscience already smote him for making so heavy a purchase while in failing circumstances, and that he had come to make the only reparation in his power; namely, to yield up the goods obtained of the importer, on the latter’s cancelling the notes given therefor. The Yankee at first demurred; but on the Frenchman insisting that he was a bankrupt, and that he feared the moment he opened in the morning the sheriff would pounce upon him with a writ that would swallow up every thing, he finally agreed to the proposition. ‘Half a loaf was better than no bread,’ he thought; and so the notes and the bill of sale were accordingly cancelled. By daylight in the morning the Yankee was at the Frenchman’s store, with his teams, as had been agreed upon the night before, and every package of his goods was soon removed. The two merchants again parted, the Frenchman with a mind relieved of a heavy load, and the Yankee rather down in the mouth at the result of his trade. Two or three days afterward, as the importer was passing the Frenchman’s store, he observed his sign still up, and every thing apparently as flourishing as ever. He stepped in to see what it all meant. ‘Hallo! Mr.S——,’said he, ‘I thought you had failed!’ ‘Failed!’ repeated the Frenchman, thrusting his thumbs in the arm-holes of his vest, and sliding his legs apart from counter to counter, till he resembled a small Colossus of Rhodes: ‘Failed?No, be gar! Firmer than ever, Mr.H——,but Ishouldhave failed,almosht, if I hadn’t got rid of dem tamn’d English goods at cost!’ Straitway the out-witted Yankee ‘departed the presence!’’•••Ithas been generally supposed that the oratorical efforts of ‘MajorPogram,’ as described by Mr.Dickensin a late number of his ‘Chuzzlewit,’ rather carricatured even the worst specimens of western eloquence; but the subjoined passage from the speech of a Mr.Maupinin the Indiana legislature, upon the subject of establishing a tobacco warehouse and inspection at Paducah, seems to militate against the validity of this ‘flattering function:’

‘Mr. Speaker: I feel incompetent to measure this comprehensive subject. Were my thoughts as deep as the Mississippi, and as clear as the Ohio, I could not grasp its whole magnitude. It requires a mighty mind; one that can look beyond the landscape; he must be able to look even beyond the ocean; to grapple with all the intricacies and winding convolutions of the subject, and to map in his mind the whole length and breadth of its territories. Here, Sir, is a river, whose broad and deep stream meanders from Paducah through one of the most fertile tobacco countries in the world, to Ross’s landing, and at the terminus of the great Charleston railroad, and possessing a steam navigation of eight hundred miles, and giving commercial facilities to the briny ocean. Behold this vast channel of commerce; this magnificent thoroughfare of trade; one grand, unbroken chain of inter-communication, like to a prodigious sarpent, with his head resting upon the shores of Europe, and his lengthened form stretching over the ocean and curling along this great winding stream in serpentine grandeur, proudly flaps his tail at Paducah!•••Sir, the ball is in motion; it is rolling down in noise of thunder from the mountain heights, and comes booming in its majesty over the wide-spread plain. Yes, Sir, and it will continue to roll on, and on, gathering strength and bulk in its onward progress, until it sweeps its ponderous power to the town of Paducah, and there stand a towering monument of patriotic glory and sublime grandeur, with the noble American eagle proudly perched upon its cloud-capped summit, and gazing with swelling pride and admiration down upon the magnificent spectacle of the greatness of human wisdom and power!’

‘Mr. Speaker: I feel incompetent to measure this comprehensive subject. Were my thoughts as deep as the Mississippi, and as clear as the Ohio, I could not grasp its whole magnitude. It requires a mighty mind; one that can look beyond the landscape; he must be able to look even beyond the ocean; to grapple with all the intricacies and winding convolutions of the subject, and to map in his mind the whole length and breadth of its territories. Here, Sir, is a river, whose broad and deep stream meanders from Paducah through one of the most fertile tobacco countries in the world, to Ross’s landing, and at the terminus of the great Charleston railroad, and possessing a steam navigation of eight hundred miles, and giving commercial facilities to the briny ocean. Behold this vast channel of commerce; this magnificent thoroughfare of trade; one grand, unbroken chain of inter-communication, like to a prodigious sarpent, with his head resting upon the shores of Europe, and his lengthened form stretching over the ocean and curling along this great winding stream in serpentine grandeur, proudly flaps his tail at Paducah!•••Sir, the ball is in motion; it is rolling down in noise of thunder from the mountain heights, and comes booming in its majesty over the wide-spread plain. Yes, Sir, and it will continue to roll on, and on, gathering strength and bulk in its onward progress, until it sweeps its ponderous power to the town of Paducah, and there stand a towering monument of patriotic glory and sublime grandeur, with the noble American eagle proudly perched upon its cloud-capped summit, and gazing with swelling pride and admiration down upon the magnificent spectacle of the greatness of human wisdom and power!’

Every-bodyhas heard of the good old lady who purchased a family Bible at a bookstore, and soon after returned it, being desirous to exchange it for one of larger print. ‘We have at present no Bible,’ said the clerk, ‘of a larger-sized type than the one you have.’ ‘Well,’ replied the lady, ‘I wish you wouldprint me one, and I’ll call in a day or two andget it!’ She thought a request so reasonable could readily be complied with. One of our most prominent publishers mentions a clever anecdote of a poetess, who in reading the proofs of her forthcoming volume, found passages of a page or more in length enclosed in parenthetical pen-marks in the margin, with ‘Thomson,’ ‘Gray,’ ‘Moore,’ ‘Burns,’ ‘Wilson,’ etc., inscribed at the end. One day a letter accompanied the return-proofs, in which the lady remarked, that ‘she had endured the repeated insinuations of the publisher long enough; she was noplagiarist, whatever her other literary faults might be; she had on each occasion looked over the works ofMoore, Thomson, Burns, Gray, etc., but with the exception perhaps of a passage inWilson’s‘Isle of Palms,’ there was not even the slightestpretextfor a charge of plagiarism. She would thank the publisher, therefore, to discontinue in future his groundless hints upon the margins of the proof-sheets.’ The initiated will understand that the ‘insinuations’ of which the poetess complained, were simply the names of the different compositors, indicating the lines at which they severally began to place her effusions in type!•••Manya reader will recall, as he peruses the subjoined unpretending sketch, a kindred scene in his own experience, ‘when life and hope were new:’OUR OLD MEETING-HOUSE.Lord, ’tis not ours to make the seaAnd earth and sky a home for Thee;But in Thy sight our off’ring stands,A humble temple, ‘made with hands.’‘Manyyears ago, when ‘the dew of the morning was fresh upon me,’ there stood, just in the edge of the village where I was born, an old church edifice. The graves of many an early settler were round about it; and often as the shadows of evening were settling upon the valley, with half-averted face and hurried steps have I stole noiselessly by to our rural home. O, how many associations crowd upon the memory, in connection with that rude old meeting-house! It was an old-fashioned, square building, without portico, or steeple, or belfry. The winter’s hail and summer’s rain had beaten against it for half a century. Its numerous small windows, without curtain or blind, let in floods of light. Its small pulpit, perched high upon one side, and close to the wall, concealed the preacher’s body, while the heads of the congregation were just seen rising above the square high-backed pews. Hardly a cushion was to be seen; and the interior furnishing was of the simplest and plainest character. I have said that it had associations of great interest. It is now more than an hundred years since a small band of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians settled in that valley. Though but few in number, and braving the elements and the savages, they determined to carry with them into the wilderness not only the Christian’s hope, but the Christian’s ordinances. A small building of logs arose soon after the settlement, in which for many years an educated and regularly-ordained minister preached the gospel to a little flock. The inquiry had already commenced; ‘The prophets, where are they?’ The larger part of the pioneers had sunk into peaceful graves, when the war of the revolution commenced. It was still a frontier hamlet, and was soon swallowed up and lost in that terrible whirlwind of death which year after year swept over the settlements of Central New-York. When peace was restored, the remnant of the inhabitants whom war and disease had spared, returned to their former homes. But though war and disease had impoverished them, they had not forgotten theGodof their fathers. Having no house for assembling together, the inhabitants met in what they termed ‘the meeting-house yard;’ and there organized anew that church which has continued thence to this day, and determined upon the erection of the old meeting-house of which I have spoken. Under the open heavens, with their feet upon their fathers’ graves, they dedicated themselves anew to the service ofHimwho wasLordoverall, and whom they acknowledged as their only Sovereign. I have looked over the records of that meeting with emotions never to be forgotten. The gray-haired patriarch, loaning on his staff with one hand, and with the other guiding our youthful footsteps to the house of prayer on every Sabbath morning, was one of that small number, and took an active part in that solemn ceremony. The stillness of a Sabbath morning in the country has often been remarked. How often, amid the din and bustle of the great city, does the heart of him who has been accustomed to the holy quietness of the day of rest in some secluded valley, pant for a return to the home of his youth! Such has been my own experience; in the far-off past I see again the gathering of the quiet, orderly congregation; I hear the voice of the good old father who ministered in holy things; I sit by the open window andlook out upon the green graves thick strown round the old meeting-house; the warbling of the feathered songsters in the grove near by falls softly upon the ear. The voice of prayer is hushed, and the voice of praise ascends. Alas! the voices of most of those which were then attuned on earth, are now attuned to more celestial music in another world!‘But our old meeting-house, where is it? It has gone with those who, in the midst of trials, and in the plenitude of their poverty, with their own hands hewed out its massive timbers; and the place that knew it knows it no more! It was in the fall of the year that a traveller on horseback rode up to the principal hotel, and as he dismounted and handed the reins to his host, he inquired what building that was in the southern part of the village? On being informed that it was the meeting-house, he remarked, with a dogged air, that ‘he had often seen theLord’shouse, but had never seen theLord’sbarnbefore!’ The comical remark of the traveller produced an immediate action. The good old house soon disappeared. A more ambitious edifice was built in another part of the village. The land-marks are now entirely effaced, and the spot where it stood has been added to the ‘meeting-house yard.’ The monuments of the young and the aged who sleep there dot over the place where the first Presbyterian congregation, ay, the first congregation of Evangelical Christians of any denomination, in Central New-York, assembled to worship the livingGod.’

Every-bodyhas heard of the good old lady who purchased a family Bible at a bookstore, and soon after returned it, being desirous to exchange it for one of larger print. ‘We have at present no Bible,’ said the clerk, ‘of a larger-sized type than the one you have.’ ‘Well,’ replied the lady, ‘I wish you wouldprint me one, and I’ll call in a day or two andget it!’ She thought a request so reasonable could readily be complied with. One of our most prominent publishers mentions a clever anecdote of a poetess, who in reading the proofs of her forthcoming volume, found passages of a page or more in length enclosed in parenthetical pen-marks in the margin, with ‘Thomson,’ ‘Gray,’ ‘Moore,’ ‘Burns,’ ‘Wilson,’ etc., inscribed at the end. One day a letter accompanied the return-proofs, in which the lady remarked, that ‘she had endured the repeated insinuations of the publisher long enough; she was noplagiarist, whatever her other literary faults might be; she had on each occasion looked over the works ofMoore, Thomson, Burns, Gray, etc., but with the exception perhaps of a passage inWilson’s‘Isle of Palms,’ there was not even the slightestpretextfor a charge of plagiarism. She would thank the publisher, therefore, to discontinue in future his groundless hints upon the margins of the proof-sheets.’ The initiated will understand that the ‘insinuations’ of which the poetess complained, were simply the names of the different compositors, indicating the lines at which they severally began to place her effusions in type!•••Manya reader will recall, as he peruses the subjoined unpretending sketch, a kindred scene in his own experience, ‘when life and hope were new:’

OUR OLD MEETING-HOUSE.Lord, ’tis not ours to make the seaAnd earth and sky a home for Thee;But in Thy sight our off’ring stands,A humble temple, ‘made with hands.’‘Manyyears ago, when ‘the dew of the morning was fresh upon me,’ there stood, just in the edge of the village where I was born, an old church edifice. The graves of many an early settler were round about it; and often as the shadows of evening were settling upon the valley, with half-averted face and hurried steps have I stole noiselessly by to our rural home. O, how many associations crowd upon the memory, in connection with that rude old meeting-house! It was an old-fashioned, square building, without portico, or steeple, or belfry. The winter’s hail and summer’s rain had beaten against it for half a century. Its numerous small windows, without curtain or blind, let in floods of light. Its small pulpit, perched high upon one side, and close to the wall, concealed the preacher’s body, while the heads of the congregation were just seen rising above the square high-backed pews. Hardly a cushion was to be seen; and the interior furnishing was of the simplest and plainest character. I have said that it had associations of great interest. It is now more than an hundred years since a small band of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians settled in that valley. Though but few in number, and braving the elements and the savages, they determined to carry with them into the wilderness not only the Christian’s hope, but the Christian’s ordinances. A small building of logs arose soon after the settlement, in which for many years an educated and regularly-ordained minister preached the gospel to a little flock. The inquiry had already commenced; ‘The prophets, where are they?’ The larger part of the pioneers had sunk into peaceful graves, when the war of the revolution commenced. It was still a frontier hamlet, and was soon swallowed up and lost in that terrible whirlwind of death which year after year swept over the settlements of Central New-York. When peace was restored, the remnant of the inhabitants whom war and disease had spared, returned to their former homes. But though war and disease had impoverished them, they had not forgotten theGodof their fathers. Having no house for assembling together, the inhabitants met in what they termed ‘the meeting-house yard;’ and there organized anew that church which has continued thence to this day, and determined upon the erection of the old meeting-house of which I have spoken. Under the open heavens, with their feet upon their fathers’ graves, they dedicated themselves anew to the service ofHimwho wasLordoverall, and whom they acknowledged as their only Sovereign. I have looked over the records of that meeting with emotions never to be forgotten. The gray-haired patriarch, loaning on his staff with one hand, and with the other guiding our youthful footsteps to the house of prayer on every Sabbath morning, was one of that small number, and took an active part in that solemn ceremony. The stillness of a Sabbath morning in the country has often been remarked. How often, amid the din and bustle of the great city, does the heart of him who has been accustomed to the holy quietness of the day of rest in some secluded valley, pant for a return to the home of his youth! Such has been my own experience; in the far-off past I see again the gathering of the quiet, orderly congregation; I hear the voice of the good old father who ministered in holy things; I sit by the open window andlook out upon the green graves thick strown round the old meeting-house; the warbling of the feathered songsters in the grove near by falls softly upon the ear. The voice of prayer is hushed, and the voice of praise ascends. Alas! the voices of most of those which were then attuned on earth, are now attuned to more celestial music in another world!‘But our old meeting-house, where is it? It has gone with those who, in the midst of trials, and in the plenitude of their poverty, with their own hands hewed out its massive timbers; and the place that knew it knows it no more! It was in the fall of the year that a traveller on horseback rode up to the principal hotel, and as he dismounted and handed the reins to his host, he inquired what building that was in the southern part of the village? On being informed that it was the meeting-house, he remarked, with a dogged air, that ‘he had often seen theLord’shouse, but had never seen theLord’sbarnbefore!’ The comical remark of the traveller produced an immediate action. The good old house soon disappeared. A more ambitious edifice was built in another part of the village. The land-marks are now entirely effaced, and the spot where it stood has been added to the ‘meeting-house yard.’ The monuments of the young and the aged who sleep there dot over the place where the first Presbyterian congregation, ay, the first congregation of Evangelical Christians of any denomination, in Central New-York, assembled to worship the livingGod.’

Lord, ’tis not ours to make the seaAnd earth and sky a home for Thee;But in Thy sight our off’ring stands,A humble temple, ‘made with hands.’

Lord, ’tis not ours to make the seaAnd earth and sky a home for Thee;But in Thy sight our off’ring stands,A humble temple, ‘made with hands.’

Lord, ’tis not ours to make the seaAnd earth and sky a home for Thee;But in Thy sight our off’ring stands,A humble temple, ‘made with hands.’

Lord, ’tis not ours to make the sea

And earth and sky a home for Thee;

But in Thy sight our off’ring stands,

A humble temple, ‘made with hands.’

‘Manyyears ago, when ‘the dew of the morning was fresh upon me,’ there stood, just in the edge of the village where I was born, an old church edifice. The graves of many an early settler were round about it; and often as the shadows of evening were settling upon the valley, with half-averted face and hurried steps have I stole noiselessly by to our rural home. O, how many associations crowd upon the memory, in connection with that rude old meeting-house! It was an old-fashioned, square building, without portico, or steeple, or belfry. The winter’s hail and summer’s rain had beaten against it for half a century. Its numerous small windows, without curtain or blind, let in floods of light. Its small pulpit, perched high upon one side, and close to the wall, concealed the preacher’s body, while the heads of the congregation were just seen rising above the square high-backed pews. Hardly a cushion was to be seen; and the interior furnishing was of the simplest and plainest character. I have said that it had associations of great interest. It is now more than an hundred years since a small band of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians settled in that valley. Though but few in number, and braving the elements and the savages, they determined to carry with them into the wilderness not only the Christian’s hope, but the Christian’s ordinances. A small building of logs arose soon after the settlement, in which for many years an educated and regularly-ordained minister preached the gospel to a little flock. The inquiry had already commenced; ‘The prophets, where are they?’ The larger part of the pioneers had sunk into peaceful graves, when the war of the revolution commenced. It was still a frontier hamlet, and was soon swallowed up and lost in that terrible whirlwind of death which year after year swept over the settlements of Central New-York. When peace was restored, the remnant of the inhabitants whom war and disease had spared, returned to their former homes. But though war and disease had impoverished them, they had not forgotten theGodof their fathers. Having no house for assembling together, the inhabitants met in what they termed ‘the meeting-house yard;’ and there organized anew that church which has continued thence to this day, and determined upon the erection of the old meeting-house of which I have spoken. Under the open heavens, with their feet upon their fathers’ graves, they dedicated themselves anew to the service ofHimwho wasLordoverall, and whom they acknowledged as their only Sovereign. I have looked over the records of that meeting with emotions never to be forgotten. The gray-haired patriarch, loaning on his staff with one hand, and with the other guiding our youthful footsteps to the house of prayer on every Sabbath morning, was one of that small number, and took an active part in that solemn ceremony. The stillness of a Sabbath morning in the country has often been remarked. How often, amid the din and bustle of the great city, does the heart of him who has been accustomed to the holy quietness of the day of rest in some secluded valley, pant for a return to the home of his youth! Such has been my own experience; in the far-off past I see again the gathering of the quiet, orderly congregation; I hear the voice of the good old father who ministered in holy things; I sit by the open window andlook out upon the green graves thick strown round the old meeting-house; the warbling of the feathered songsters in the grove near by falls softly upon the ear. The voice of prayer is hushed, and the voice of praise ascends. Alas! the voices of most of those which were then attuned on earth, are now attuned to more celestial music in another world!

‘But our old meeting-house, where is it? It has gone with those who, in the midst of trials, and in the plenitude of their poverty, with their own hands hewed out its massive timbers; and the place that knew it knows it no more! It was in the fall of the year that a traveller on horseback rode up to the principal hotel, and as he dismounted and handed the reins to his host, he inquired what building that was in the southern part of the village? On being informed that it was the meeting-house, he remarked, with a dogged air, that ‘he had often seen theLord’shouse, but had never seen theLord’sbarnbefore!’ The comical remark of the traveller produced an immediate action. The good old house soon disappeared. A more ambitious edifice was built in another part of the village. The land-marks are now entirely effaced, and the spot where it stood has been added to the ‘meeting-house yard.’ The monuments of the young and the aged who sleep there dot over the place where the first Presbyterian congregation, ay, the first congregation of Evangelical Christians of any denomination, in Central New-York, assembled to worship the livingGod.’

Weare promised by an esteemed friend some interesting extracts from the original American correspondence of Mrs.Grantof Laggan, whose ‘Memoir and Correspondence,’ edited by her son, has recently attracted so much attention and remark in Great-Britain. Mrs.Grantappears to have been a woman of very remarkable powers, and of the most admirablecommon sense. Her observations upon the ‘amusive talents’ ofTheodore Hook, and his entire devotion to their cultivation, are replete with the soundest wisdom. The distinction between living to amuse the public merely, and the exertion of one’s intellectual powers for one’s own benefit, and with an eye to the claims of riper years, is admirably discriminated and set forth. There is not perhaps a more instructive lesson than that conveyed byprofessionalwits, who are ‘first applauded and thenendured, when people see that it is all they have.’ As auxiliaries, as contrasts, with reflection and thoughtful exercitations of the mind, wit and humor are felicitous matters; as an intellectualmain-stay, however, they have been weighed in the balance by a hundred brilliant examples, and have always been ‘found wanting.’•••Punch, at this present writing, save three or four numbers, in February, is among the missing. Late issues however, furnish some valuable contributions to academical statistics; as for example, Mr.Boys, who in his report upon the metropolitan school-visitation, writes as follows:‘Theuse of sponge for cleaning slates he found confined to 17¼ per cent.; of whom 5½ used the sponge wet with water, and 11¾ with saliva; the remaining 82¾ made use of the latter liquid and the cuffs of their jackets instead of sponges, with an occasional recourse to the pocket-handkerchief. The author found, in schools in which the Latin language was not taught, a lamentable deficiency in the knowledge of the meaning of ‘meum’ and ‘tuum;’ he pointed out how the great extent of juvenile crime might thus be accounted for, as being caused by the absence of all instruction in the Latin language, and hoped that teaching it would soon be made obligatory upon all school-masters.’There is a humorous sketch of an examination of law-students, from which we select an ‘exercise’ or two:‘Ques: Have you attended any and what law lectures?Ans: I have attended to many legal lectures, when I have been admonished by police magistrates for kicking up rows in the streets, pulling off knockers, etc.Ques: What is a real action?Ans: An action brought in earnest, and not by way of a joke.Ques: What are a bill and answer?Ans: Ask my tailor.Ques: How would you file a bill?Ans: I don’t know, but would lay the case before a blacksmith.Ques: What steps would you take to dissolve an injunction?Ans: I should put it into some very hot water, and let it remain there until it was melted.Ques: What are post-nuptial articles?Ans: Children.Ques: What is simple larceny?Ans: Picking a pocket of a handkerchief, and leaving a purse of money behind.’We have had books on etiquette, of various kinds, lately, but a work of this sort for prisons will be found, one would think, to supply an important desideratum.George Selwyn, when a servant was sent to Newgate, for stealing articles from the club-house of whichSelwynwas a member, was very much shocked: ‘What a horrid report,’ said he,‘the fellow will give of us to the gentlemen in Newgate!’ This feeling will doubtless be more general by and by:‘Inconsequence of complaints that have been made by persons committed to prison before trial, who object to their not being allowed to mix with other prisoners, it has been thought necessary to frame a Book of Etiquette for prison purposes. Of course a superior delinquent, like a forger, could not be on visiting terms with a mere pick-pocket, nor could a man charged with stealing a hundred pounds, feel at his ease in the society of one whose alleged theft might be mean and insignificant. It is, we believe, intended to introduce the prisoners to each other formally, not by name, but by the offence with which they are charged. Thus, the Governor of Newgate would say to Felony: ‘Allow me to introduce you toAggravated Larceny. You ought to know each other—indeed you ought.Aggravated Larceny,Felony;Felony,Aggravated Larceny.’ By a nice adjustment and proper application of the rules of etiquette, a very admirable system of social intercourse might be established in all our prisons, and the present complaint of a want of ‘good society,’ which falls so severely on superior scoundrels, would at once be got rid of.’

Weare promised by an esteemed friend some interesting extracts from the original American correspondence of Mrs.Grantof Laggan, whose ‘Memoir and Correspondence,’ edited by her son, has recently attracted so much attention and remark in Great-Britain. Mrs.Grantappears to have been a woman of very remarkable powers, and of the most admirablecommon sense. Her observations upon the ‘amusive talents’ ofTheodore Hook, and his entire devotion to their cultivation, are replete with the soundest wisdom. The distinction between living to amuse the public merely, and the exertion of one’s intellectual powers for one’s own benefit, and with an eye to the claims of riper years, is admirably discriminated and set forth. There is not perhaps a more instructive lesson than that conveyed byprofessionalwits, who are ‘first applauded and thenendured, when people see that it is all they have.’ As auxiliaries, as contrasts, with reflection and thoughtful exercitations of the mind, wit and humor are felicitous matters; as an intellectualmain-stay, however, they have been weighed in the balance by a hundred brilliant examples, and have always been ‘found wanting.’•••Punch, at this present writing, save three or four numbers, in February, is among the missing. Late issues however, furnish some valuable contributions to academical statistics; as for example, Mr.Boys, who in his report upon the metropolitan school-visitation, writes as follows:

‘Theuse of sponge for cleaning slates he found confined to 17¼ per cent.; of whom 5½ used the sponge wet with water, and 11¾ with saliva; the remaining 82¾ made use of the latter liquid and the cuffs of their jackets instead of sponges, with an occasional recourse to the pocket-handkerchief. The author found, in schools in which the Latin language was not taught, a lamentable deficiency in the knowledge of the meaning of ‘meum’ and ‘tuum;’ he pointed out how the great extent of juvenile crime might thus be accounted for, as being caused by the absence of all instruction in the Latin language, and hoped that teaching it would soon be made obligatory upon all school-masters.’

‘Theuse of sponge for cleaning slates he found confined to 17¼ per cent.; of whom 5½ used the sponge wet with water, and 11¾ with saliva; the remaining 82¾ made use of the latter liquid and the cuffs of their jackets instead of sponges, with an occasional recourse to the pocket-handkerchief. The author found, in schools in which the Latin language was not taught, a lamentable deficiency in the knowledge of the meaning of ‘meum’ and ‘tuum;’ he pointed out how the great extent of juvenile crime might thus be accounted for, as being caused by the absence of all instruction in the Latin language, and hoped that teaching it would soon be made obligatory upon all school-masters.’

There is a humorous sketch of an examination of law-students, from which we select an ‘exercise’ or two:

‘Ques: Have you attended any and what law lectures?Ans: I have attended to many legal lectures, when I have been admonished by police magistrates for kicking up rows in the streets, pulling off knockers, etc.Ques: What is a real action?Ans: An action brought in earnest, and not by way of a joke.Ques: What are a bill and answer?Ans: Ask my tailor.Ques: How would you file a bill?Ans: I don’t know, but would lay the case before a blacksmith.Ques: What steps would you take to dissolve an injunction?Ans: I should put it into some very hot water, and let it remain there until it was melted.Ques: What are post-nuptial articles?Ans: Children.Ques: What is simple larceny?Ans: Picking a pocket of a handkerchief, and leaving a purse of money behind.’

‘Ques: Have you attended any and what law lectures?Ans: I have attended to many legal lectures, when I have been admonished by police magistrates for kicking up rows in the streets, pulling off knockers, etc.

Ques: What is a real action?Ans: An action brought in earnest, and not by way of a joke.

Ques: What are a bill and answer?Ans: Ask my tailor.

Ques: How would you file a bill?Ans: I don’t know, but would lay the case before a blacksmith.

Ques: What steps would you take to dissolve an injunction?Ans: I should put it into some very hot water, and let it remain there until it was melted.

Ques: What are post-nuptial articles?Ans: Children.

Ques: What is simple larceny?Ans: Picking a pocket of a handkerchief, and leaving a purse of money behind.’

We have had books on etiquette, of various kinds, lately, but a work of this sort for prisons will be found, one would think, to supply an important desideratum.George Selwyn, when a servant was sent to Newgate, for stealing articles from the club-house of whichSelwynwas a member, was very much shocked: ‘What a horrid report,’ said he,‘the fellow will give of us to the gentlemen in Newgate!’ This feeling will doubtless be more general by and by:

‘Inconsequence of complaints that have been made by persons committed to prison before trial, who object to their not being allowed to mix with other prisoners, it has been thought necessary to frame a Book of Etiquette for prison purposes. Of course a superior delinquent, like a forger, could not be on visiting terms with a mere pick-pocket, nor could a man charged with stealing a hundred pounds, feel at his ease in the society of one whose alleged theft might be mean and insignificant. It is, we believe, intended to introduce the prisoners to each other formally, not by name, but by the offence with which they are charged. Thus, the Governor of Newgate would say to Felony: ‘Allow me to introduce you toAggravated Larceny. You ought to know each other—indeed you ought.Aggravated Larceny,Felony;Felony,Aggravated Larceny.’ By a nice adjustment and proper application of the rules of etiquette, a very admirable system of social intercourse might be established in all our prisons, and the present complaint of a want of ‘good society,’ which falls so severely on superior scoundrels, would at once be got rid of.’

‘Inconsequence of complaints that have been made by persons committed to prison before trial, who object to their not being allowed to mix with other prisoners, it has been thought necessary to frame a Book of Etiquette for prison purposes. Of course a superior delinquent, like a forger, could not be on visiting terms with a mere pick-pocket, nor could a man charged with stealing a hundred pounds, feel at his ease in the society of one whose alleged theft might be mean and insignificant. It is, we believe, intended to introduce the prisoners to each other formally, not by name, but by the offence with which they are charged. Thus, the Governor of Newgate would say to Felony: ‘Allow me to introduce you toAggravated Larceny. You ought to know each other—indeed you ought.Aggravated Larceny,Felony;Felony,Aggravated Larceny.’ By a nice adjustment and proper application of the rules of etiquette, a very admirable system of social intercourse might be established in all our prisons, and the present complaint of a want of ‘good society,’ which falls so severely on superior scoundrels, would at once be got rid of.’

Deafness, although sometimes rather annoying—as for example in the case mentioned in preceding pages byJohn Waters—is yet not without its advantages. Your conversational ‘‘DeafBurke,’ who can endure any amount of ‘punishment’ without being the worse for it,’ enjoys not unfrequently a great deal of negative felicity. We envied the condition of such an one the other day, while sitting with a friend at the ‘Globe,’ over such potables and edibles as that matchless establishment can alone set before its guests. At a table in near proximity, sat two Englishmen, whose comments upon ‘matters and things’ in America were embodied in such ‘voluble speech’ that we could scarcely hear ourselves speak. ‘They maytalkabout their hinstitutions as much as they please,’ said one of the speakers, ‘but honlylookat ’em—see their heffect, from the ’ead of the government, down. Yesterday I perused in the ‘Courier’ newspaper an account of a negro’s skin, hentire, that was found with the ’ead attached, in the Mississippi river!’ ‘’Orid, isn’t it! Think o’ such a thing as that picked up in the Tems! And last week. I read in the ’Erald of a man near the Canada lines, who was found dead by the side of a fallen tree, half eaten up by wild hogs or panthers. He ’ad a flask of whiskey by his side, which he had taken ‘neat,’ till it had killed him; and in his pocket was a dirty pack o’ cards, wrapped up in a copy of the Declaration of Hindependence! That’s yourlibertyfor ye!’☞See if these very absurdities be not found embodied within a twelve-month in some new work by a travelling Englishman, upon that ‘miserable experiment at self-government, the United States of America!’•••Hereare some scraps of ‘Parisian Gossip’ which will not be altogether uninteresting to American readers. One of our Paris letters states that at a splendid party given by LadyCowley, there occurred a rather curious incident. ‘Among the guests was a Mr.L——,(one of thesnobiculi, most likely,) who, believing that none but a friend whom he addressed was within hearing, said, ‘And they call this a party? Why, I never saw any thing so dull in all my life. It is not worth the trouble of dressing for such an affair; and then the rooms are so intolerably hot.’ Unfortunately, the noble hostess was standing near, and overheard him, and immediately said: ‘Mr.L——,there (pointing to the ante-room,) is a cooler room, and beyond it is the hall, still cooler.’ This prompt and significant hint was felt, understood, and taken.’ ‘Every body in Paris knows or has heard ofHalevythe composer, and his brother, the author. Abon motof a pretty and sarcastic lady, at the expense of both of them, is now going the round of the gossipping circles. ‘Do you likeHalevy, the author?’ inquired a friend. ‘Pas du tout, pas du tout!’ answered the lady; ‘He is as dull as if his brother had composed him!’Eugene Suehas hatched a large brood of ‘Mysteries.’ TheJournal des Debatshaving published ‘Mysteries of Paris,’ theCourier Françaisis now publishing the ‘Mysteries of London.’ At Berlin no less than four different authors have published its ‘Mysteries.’ The ‘Mysteries of Brussels’ are being detailed in one of its journals. The ‘Mysteries of Hamburg’ have been exposed in print. At Vienna they are giving the ‘Mysteries of Constantinople;’ and a Paris newspaper promises in a short time the ‘Mysteries of St. Petersburg.’ Going on at this rate, there will soon be no ‘Mysteries’ in the world, and even the very word will become obsolete.’•••‘The God of our Idolatry’ contains somehome-thrusts at the national love of money, and not a few just animadversions upon the standard of respectability which obtains, in certain quarters, among us.HamiltonandBasil Hall’sexperience in this regard seems also to have been that of our correspondent. The tendency of this standard, in a social and intellectual point of view, is very far from elevating. ‘You are going to the dinner at——’sto-day, of course,’ said a lady with ‘an eye to the main chance’ to a friend of ours, the other day; ‘the company will be composed of some of our most ’fore-handed citizens—allheavy men,’ Our frienddidgo to the dinner; and he found the guests as ‘heavy’ as their best friends could have wished them to be.•••Reading, in presence of a travelled friend, the proof of the admirable paper which opens the present number, we came to the passage which records the opinion ofKepler, that ‘the world is a vast animal, that breathes and reasons;’ whereupon our listener remarked: ‘No doubt of it; itisan animal; I’ve seen its four-quarters myself!’ It was a pun worthy of a butcher.•••Weare not socertainthat the moral of ‘The Independent Man’ is ‘an unexceptionable one.’ The ‘Charcoal-sketcher’ expresses the general opinion, we fear, in this regard: ‘There’s a double set of principles in this world, one of which is to talk about and the other to act upon; one is preached and the other is practised. You’ve got hold, somehow, of the wrong set; the set invented by the knowing ones to check competition and to secure all the good things for themselves. That’s the reason people are always praising modest merit, while they are pushing along without either the one or the other. You always let go when any body’s going to take your place at table; you always hold back when another person’s wanting the last of the nice things on the dish. That’s not the way; bow and nod, and show your teeth with a fascination, but take what you want for all that. This is manners—knowing the world. To be polite is to have your own way gracefully; other people are delighted at your style—you have the profit.’•••Thereader will not overlook the ‘Alligatorical Sketch’ in preceding pages. We begin to perceive how much the alligator has been slandered. Ityawnsmerely, it would seem; and the only care requisite is, to be absent when its jaws close! ‘The ’gator isn’t what you may call ahan’somecritter, but there’s a great deal ofopennesswhen he smiles!’ Thesmileof an alligator!!•••‘Cleanliness,’ saysFuller, ‘is godliness;’ and he is not far out of the way; for no man, we think, can be a dirty Christian. In a moral and religious point of view, then, we are doing good service in calling public attention to the spacious baths of Mr.Charles Rabineau, at the Astor-House, and at his new establishment at Number 123 Broadway, Albany. Go wash in them and be clean, reader, and thank us for the joy which you will experience, when you shall have come out of the water and gone your ways.•••Oneof the late London pictorial publications contains a portrait of SirHudson Lowe, the notorious keeper ofNapoleon, the Emperor of the French, at St. Helena. It is in perfect keeping with the generally received estimate of the character of that functionary. The wretched thatch that disfigures without concealing the intellectual poverty of his narrow skull; the scowling features; the ragged penthouse brows; are ‘close denotements’ of the truth of ‘Common Report.’ In short, judging from the much-bepraised ‘likeness’ to which we allude, if SirHudson Lowewas not a tyrant, and a small-minded one withal,Goddoesn’t write a legible hand.•••Someclever wag in the lastBlackwoodhas an article, written in a hurry, upon thehurriednessof literary matters in these our ‘go-ahead’ days. ‘People,’ he says, ‘have not only ceased to purchase those old-fashioned things called books, but even to read them. Instead of cutting new works page by page, they cut them altogether:‘WhenEngland luxuriated in the novels ofRichardson, in eight volumes, it drove in coaches and four, at the rate of five miles an hour. A journey was then esteemed a family calamity; and people abided all the year round in their cedar parlors, thankful to be diverted by the arrival of theSpectator, or a few pages of thePilgrim’s Progress, or a new sermon. To their incidental lives, a book was an event. Those were the days worth writing for! The fate ofRichardson’sheroines was made a national affair; and people interceded with him by letter to ‘spare Clarissa,’ as they would not now intercede with her Majesty to spare a newEffie Deans. The successive volumes ofPope’s Iliadwere looked for with what is called ‘breathless’ interest, while such political sheets as theDrapier’s Letters, orJunius, set the whole kingdom in an uproar. And now, ifPope, orSwift, orFielding, orJohnson, orSterne, were to rise from the grave,MS.in hand, the most adventurous publisher would pass a sleepless night before he undertook the risk of paper and print; would advise a small edition, and exact a sum down in ready money, to be laid out in puffs and advertisements! ‘Even then, though we may get rid of a few copies to the circulating libraries,’ he would observe, ‘do not expect, Sir, to obtain readers. A few old maids in the county towns, and a few gouty old gentlemen at the clubs, are the only persons of the present day who ever open a book!’ And who can wonder?Whohas leisure to read?Whocares to sit down and spell out accounts of travels which he can make at less cost than the cost of the narrative?Whowants to peruse fictitious adventures, when rail-roads and steam-boats woo him to adventures of his own? People are busy ballooning or driving; shooting like stars along rail-roads, or migrating like swallows or wild-geese.’In allusion to the illustrated newspapers, now vieing with each other in enterprise and expense, in the British metropolis, the writer says: ‘The pictorial printing press is now your only wear! Every thing is communicated by delineation. We are nottoldbutshownhow the world is wagging. Views of the Holy Land are superseding even the Holy Scriptures, and a pictorialBlackstoneis teaching the ideas of sucking lawyers how to shoot. Libels are veiled in carricature. Instead ofwritingslander and flat blasphemy, the modern method is todrawit, and not to ‘draw it mild’ either. The columns of certain papers bear a striking likeness to a child’s alphabet, such as ‘A was an Archer, and shot at a frog.’ All the world is now instructed by symbols, as formerly the deaf and dumb. We have little doubt of shortly seeing announcements, standing like tomb-stones in those literary cemeteries, the Saturday papers, of ‘A new work upon America, from the graver ofGeorge Cruikshank;’ or ‘A new fashionable novel, (diamond edition,) from the accomplished pencil of‘H. B.’’•••Wehave a ‘Query’ from a Philadelphia correspondent, as to whether Mr. and Mrs.Woodwould not be likely to come over here, if invited, and in company withBrough, and other artists, establish English opera among us. Touching the disposition of theWoodsin this matter, we know nothing; butBroughis too busily employed to admit of such a consummation. What with his agency for the new sporting gun-powder, (whichDaniel Websterdeclares to be superior in strength and cleanliness to any other thing of the kind in the world,) and for the ‘Illustrated London News,’ ‘OldParr’sLife-pills’ etc., he has scarcely leisure to achieve his private calls, and execute occasionally, for the gratification of his friends, those charming airs which are indissolubly associated with his name.•••Messrs.Snelling and Tisdale’s‘Metropolitan Library and Reading-Room,’ at 599 Broadway, near Houston-street, supplies an important desideratum in that quarter of the metropolis. In addition to a well-stocked library and reading-room, there are coffee, conversation, chess, and cigar-apartments, and all the belongings of a first establishment after its kind.•••Wehad clipped for insertion, from a Baltimore journal, a poem in honor ofOle Bull, entitled ‘The Bewitched Fiddle,’ which we have unluckily mislaid or lost. It was by Mr.Hewitt, a popular song-writer and musical composer, and was one of the most fanciful and felicitous things we have seen in a month of Sundays. As it is at this moment out of our power to print it, we can only counsel our readers, if they encounter it any where, not to fail of its perusal.•••Wehave a pleasant metropolitan story to tell one of these days, (at least we think so,) of which we have been reminded by the following from a late English magazine:‘Thevulgar genteel are nervously cautious concerning every thing they say or do; they are ever alive to the dread of compromising their ‘gentility.’ At a ball—it was acharity-ball!—given at a fashionable watering-place, a pretty young woman, who was sitting by her mother, was invited by a gentleman to dance. He led her to a set; when, instantly, two ‘young ladies’ who were of it, haughtily, withdrew to their seats. ‘They had no notion of dancing insuchcompany’—and with good reason. The young person was nothing more than the daughter of a wealthy and respectable tradesman of the place; while they—the two MissesKnibbs—were members of its residentsmall‘aristocracy.’ The places they had vacated were good-naturedly filled by two ladies who had witnessed the proceeding, one of whom was the daughter, the other, the niece, of a nobleman.Theirposition was too well established to be compromised by dancing for a quarter of an hour in the same set with a respectable tradesman’s daughter; but the two MissesKnibbswere the daughters of a retired soap-boiler.’

Deafness, although sometimes rather annoying—as for example in the case mentioned in preceding pages byJohn Waters—is yet not without its advantages. Your conversational ‘‘DeafBurke,’ who can endure any amount of ‘punishment’ without being the worse for it,’ enjoys not unfrequently a great deal of negative felicity. We envied the condition of such an one the other day, while sitting with a friend at the ‘Globe,’ over such potables and edibles as that matchless establishment can alone set before its guests. At a table in near proximity, sat two Englishmen, whose comments upon ‘matters and things’ in America were embodied in such ‘voluble speech’ that we could scarcely hear ourselves speak. ‘They maytalkabout their hinstitutions as much as they please,’ said one of the speakers, ‘but honlylookat ’em—see their heffect, from the ’ead of the government, down. Yesterday I perused in the ‘Courier’ newspaper an account of a negro’s skin, hentire, that was found with the ’ead attached, in the Mississippi river!’ ‘’Orid, isn’t it! Think o’ such a thing as that picked up in the Tems! And last week. I read in the ’Erald of a man near the Canada lines, who was found dead by the side of a fallen tree, half eaten up by wild hogs or panthers. He ’ad a flask of whiskey by his side, which he had taken ‘neat,’ till it had killed him; and in his pocket was a dirty pack o’ cards, wrapped up in a copy of the Declaration of Hindependence! That’s yourlibertyfor ye!’☞See if these very absurdities be not found embodied within a twelve-month in some new work by a travelling Englishman, upon that ‘miserable experiment at self-government, the United States of America!’•••Hereare some scraps of ‘Parisian Gossip’ which will not be altogether uninteresting to American readers. One of our Paris letters states that at a splendid party given by LadyCowley, there occurred a rather curious incident. ‘Among the guests was a Mr.L——,(one of thesnobiculi, most likely,) who, believing that none but a friend whom he addressed was within hearing, said, ‘And they call this a party? Why, I never saw any thing so dull in all my life. It is not worth the trouble of dressing for such an affair; and then the rooms are so intolerably hot.’ Unfortunately, the noble hostess was standing near, and overheard him, and immediately said: ‘Mr.L——,there (pointing to the ante-room,) is a cooler room, and beyond it is the hall, still cooler.’ This prompt and significant hint was felt, understood, and taken.’ ‘Every body in Paris knows or has heard ofHalevythe composer, and his brother, the author. Abon motof a pretty and sarcastic lady, at the expense of both of them, is now going the round of the gossipping circles. ‘Do you likeHalevy, the author?’ inquired a friend. ‘Pas du tout, pas du tout!’ answered the lady; ‘He is as dull as if his brother had composed him!’Eugene Suehas hatched a large brood of ‘Mysteries.’ TheJournal des Debatshaving published ‘Mysteries of Paris,’ theCourier Françaisis now publishing the ‘Mysteries of London.’ At Berlin no less than four different authors have published its ‘Mysteries.’ The ‘Mysteries of Brussels’ are being detailed in one of its journals. The ‘Mysteries of Hamburg’ have been exposed in print. At Vienna they are giving the ‘Mysteries of Constantinople;’ and a Paris newspaper promises in a short time the ‘Mysteries of St. Petersburg.’ Going on at this rate, there will soon be no ‘Mysteries’ in the world, and even the very word will become obsolete.’•••‘The God of our Idolatry’ contains somehome-thrusts at the national love of money, and not a few just animadversions upon the standard of respectability which obtains, in certain quarters, among us.HamiltonandBasil Hall’sexperience in this regard seems also to have been that of our correspondent. The tendency of this standard, in a social and intellectual point of view, is very far from elevating. ‘You are going to the dinner at——’sto-day, of course,’ said a lady with ‘an eye to the main chance’ to a friend of ours, the other day; ‘the company will be composed of some of our most ’fore-handed citizens—allheavy men,’ Our frienddidgo to the dinner; and he found the guests as ‘heavy’ as their best friends could have wished them to be.•••Reading, in presence of a travelled friend, the proof of the admirable paper which opens the present number, we came to the passage which records the opinion ofKepler, that ‘the world is a vast animal, that breathes and reasons;’ whereupon our listener remarked: ‘No doubt of it; itisan animal; I’ve seen its four-quarters myself!’ It was a pun worthy of a butcher.•••Weare not socertainthat the moral of ‘The Independent Man’ is ‘an unexceptionable one.’ The ‘Charcoal-sketcher’ expresses the general opinion, we fear, in this regard: ‘There’s a double set of principles in this world, one of which is to talk about and the other to act upon; one is preached and the other is practised. You’ve got hold, somehow, of the wrong set; the set invented by the knowing ones to check competition and to secure all the good things for themselves. That’s the reason people are always praising modest merit, while they are pushing along without either the one or the other. You always let go when any body’s going to take your place at table; you always hold back when another person’s wanting the last of the nice things on the dish. That’s not the way; bow and nod, and show your teeth with a fascination, but take what you want for all that. This is manners—knowing the world. To be polite is to have your own way gracefully; other people are delighted at your style—you have the profit.’•••Thereader will not overlook the ‘Alligatorical Sketch’ in preceding pages. We begin to perceive how much the alligator has been slandered. Ityawnsmerely, it would seem; and the only care requisite is, to be absent when its jaws close! ‘The ’gator isn’t what you may call ahan’somecritter, but there’s a great deal ofopennesswhen he smiles!’ Thesmileof an alligator!!•••‘Cleanliness,’ saysFuller, ‘is godliness;’ and he is not far out of the way; for no man, we think, can be a dirty Christian. In a moral and religious point of view, then, we are doing good service in calling public attention to the spacious baths of Mr.Charles Rabineau, at the Astor-House, and at his new establishment at Number 123 Broadway, Albany. Go wash in them and be clean, reader, and thank us for the joy which you will experience, when you shall have come out of the water and gone your ways.•••Oneof the late London pictorial publications contains a portrait of SirHudson Lowe, the notorious keeper ofNapoleon, the Emperor of the French, at St. Helena. It is in perfect keeping with the generally received estimate of the character of that functionary. The wretched thatch that disfigures without concealing the intellectual poverty of his narrow skull; the scowling features; the ragged penthouse brows; are ‘close denotements’ of the truth of ‘Common Report.’ In short, judging from the much-bepraised ‘likeness’ to which we allude, if SirHudson Lowewas not a tyrant, and a small-minded one withal,Goddoesn’t write a legible hand.•••Someclever wag in the lastBlackwoodhas an article, written in a hurry, upon thehurriednessof literary matters in these our ‘go-ahead’ days. ‘People,’ he says, ‘have not only ceased to purchase those old-fashioned things called books, but even to read them. Instead of cutting new works page by page, they cut them altogether:

‘WhenEngland luxuriated in the novels ofRichardson, in eight volumes, it drove in coaches and four, at the rate of five miles an hour. A journey was then esteemed a family calamity; and people abided all the year round in their cedar parlors, thankful to be diverted by the arrival of theSpectator, or a few pages of thePilgrim’s Progress, or a new sermon. To their incidental lives, a book was an event. Those were the days worth writing for! The fate ofRichardson’sheroines was made a national affair; and people interceded with him by letter to ‘spare Clarissa,’ as they would not now intercede with her Majesty to spare a newEffie Deans. The successive volumes ofPope’s Iliadwere looked for with what is called ‘breathless’ interest, while such political sheets as theDrapier’s Letters, orJunius, set the whole kingdom in an uproar. And now, ifPope, orSwift, orFielding, orJohnson, orSterne, were to rise from the grave,MS.in hand, the most adventurous publisher would pass a sleepless night before he undertook the risk of paper and print; would advise a small edition, and exact a sum down in ready money, to be laid out in puffs and advertisements! ‘Even then, though we may get rid of a few copies to the circulating libraries,’ he would observe, ‘do not expect, Sir, to obtain readers. A few old maids in the county towns, and a few gouty old gentlemen at the clubs, are the only persons of the present day who ever open a book!’ And who can wonder?Whohas leisure to read?Whocares to sit down and spell out accounts of travels which he can make at less cost than the cost of the narrative?Whowants to peruse fictitious adventures, when rail-roads and steam-boats woo him to adventures of his own? People are busy ballooning or driving; shooting like stars along rail-roads, or migrating like swallows or wild-geese.’

‘WhenEngland luxuriated in the novels ofRichardson, in eight volumes, it drove in coaches and four, at the rate of five miles an hour. A journey was then esteemed a family calamity; and people abided all the year round in their cedar parlors, thankful to be diverted by the arrival of theSpectator, or a few pages of thePilgrim’s Progress, or a new sermon. To their incidental lives, a book was an event. Those were the days worth writing for! The fate ofRichardson’sheroines was made a national affair; and people interceded with him by letter to ‘spare Clarissa,’ as they would not now intercede with her Majesty to spare a newEffie Deans. The successive volumes ofPope’s Iliadwere looked for with what is called ‘breathless’ interest, while such political sheets as theDrapier’s Letters, orJunius, set the whole kingdom in an uproar. And now, ifPope, orSwift, orFielding, orJohnson, orSterne, were to rise from the grave,MS.in hand, the most adventurous publisher would pass a sleepless night before he undertook the risk of paper and print; would advise a small edition, and exact a sum down in ready money, to be laid out in puffs and advertisements! ‘Even then, though we may get rid of a few copies to the circulating libraries,’ he would observe, ‘do not expect, Sir, to obtain readers. A few old maids in the county towns, and a few gouty old gentlemen at the clubs, are the only persons of the present day who ever open a book!’ And who can wonder?Whohas leisure to read?Whocares to sit down and spell out accounts of travels which he can make at less cost than the cost of the narrative?Whowants to peruse fictitious adventures, when rail-roads and steam-boats woo him to adventures of his own? People are busy ballooning or driving; shooting like stars along rail-roads, or migrating like swallows or wild-geese.’

In allusion to the illustrated newspapers, now vieing with each other in enterprise and expense, in the British metropolis, the writer says: ‘The pictorial printing press is now your only wear! Every thing is communicated by delineation. We are nottoldbutshownhow the world is wagging. Views of the Holy Land are superseding even the Holy Scriptures, and a pictorialBlackstoneis teaching the ideas of sucking lawyers how to shoot. Libels are veiled in carricature. Instead ofwritingslander and flat blasphemy, the modern method is todrawit, and not to ‘draw it mild’ either. The columns of certain papers bear a striking likeness to a child’s alphabet, such as ‘A was an Archer, and shot at a frog.’ All the world is now instructed by symbols, as formerly the deaf and dumb. We have little doubt of shortly seeing announcements, standing like tomb-stones in those literary cemeteries, the Saturday papers, of ‘A new work upon America, from the graver ofGeorge Cruikshank;’ or ‘A new fashionable novel, (diamond edition,) from the accomplished pencil of‘H. B.’’•••Wehave a ‘Query’ from a Philadelphia correspondent, as to whether Mr. and Mrs.Woodwould not be likely to come over here, if invited, and in company withBrough, and other artists, establish English opera among us. Touching the disposition of theWoodsin this matter, we know nothing; butBroughis too busily employed to admit of such a consummation. What with his agency for the new sporting gun-powder, (whichDaniel Websterdeclares to be superior in strength and cleanliness to any other thing of the kind in the world,) and for the ‘Illustrated London News,’ ‘OldParr’sLife-pills’ etc., he has scarcely leisure to achieve his private calls, and execute occasionally, for the gratification of his friends, those charming airs which are indissolubly associated with his name.•••Messrs.Snelling and Tisdale’s‘Metropolitan Library and Reading-Room,’ at 599 Broadway, near Houston-street, supplies an important desideratum in that quarter of the metropolis. In addition to a well-stocked library and reading-room, there are coffee, conversation, chess, and cigar-apartments, and all the belongings of a first establishment after its kind.•••Wehad clipped for insertion, from a Baltimore journal, a poem in honor ofOle Bull, entitled ‘The Bewitched Fiddle,’ which we have unluckily mislaid or lost. It was by Mr.Hewitt, a popular song-writer and musical composer, and was one of the most fanciful and felicitous things we have seen in a month of Sundays. As it is at this moment out of our power to print it, we can only counsel our readers, if they encounter it any where, not to fail of its perusal.•••Wehave a pleasant metropolitan story to tell one of these days, (at least we think so,) of which we have been reminded by the following from a late English magazine:

‘Thevulgar genteel are nervously cautious concerning every thing they say or do; they are ever alive to the dread of compromising their ‘gentility.’ At a ball—it was acharity-ball!—given at a fashionable watering-place, a pretty young woman, who was sitting by her mother, was invited by a gentleman to dance. He led her to a set; when, instantly, two ‘young ladies’ who were of it, haughtily, withdrew to their seats. ‘They had no notion of dancing insuchcompany’—and with good reason. The young person was nothing more than the daughter of a wealthy and respectable tradesman of the place; while they—the two MissesKnibbs—were members of its residentsmall‘aristocracy.’ The places they had vacated were good-naturedly filled by two ladies who had witnessed the proceeding, one of whom was the daughter, the other, the niece, of a nobleman.Theirposition was too well established to be compromised by dancing for a quarter of an hour in the same set with a respectable tradesman’s daughter; but the two MissesKnibbswere the daughters of a retired soap-boiler.’

‘Thevulgar genteel are nervously cautious concerning every thing they say or do; they are ever alive to the dread of compromising their ‘gentility.’ At a ball—it was acharity-ball!—given at a fashionable watering-place, a pretty young woman, who was sitting by her mother, was invited by a gentleman to dance. He led her to a set; when, instantly, two ‘young ladies’ who were of it, haughtily, withdrew to their seats. ‘They had no notion of dancing insuchcompany’—and with good reason. The young person was nothing more than the daughter of a wealthy and respectable tradesman of the place; while they—the two MissesKnibbs—were members of its residentsmall‘aristocracy.’ The places they had vacated were good-naturedly filled by two ladies who had witnessed the proceeding, one of whom was the daughter, the other, the niece, of a nobleman.Theirposition was too well established to be compromised by dancing for a quarter of an hour in the same set with a respectable tradesman’s daughter; but the two MissesKnibbswere the daughters of a retired soap-boiler.’

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