Various The wild rose, eglantine and broom Scattered around their rich perfume.Scott. Sweet is the hour that brings us home. Quoted from recollection. It was a bright and beautiful morning in March, when Clara, after taking an affectionate leave of her cousin, whom, despite her little foibles, she tenderly loved, was seated by her old friend and commenced her homeward journey. March, in our southern clime, is not always rude and boisterous, but has many a gentle day, when Nature is dressed in as lovely a garb as she wears at any season of the year, and such a day was the one of which we speak; the woods were covered with fresh green leaves, the marshes and banks of the streams were gay with the yellow jessamine, the dew-drops sparkled like diamonds in the morning sun, and the cooing of the turtle-dove, the cheerful notes of the mockingbird, and the fresh country air that fanned her cheek, were to Clara like friends of her early days. The sun was just setting when from a winding in the road Clara obtained a glance of Primrose Cottage, as it stood imbosomed in trees arrayed in the freshest green—of the river, whose banks, where she had pursued her childish sports, were now decked with wild flowers of every hue, and finally, of the group of expecting friends, who at the sound of wheels had hastened into the piazza, and Clara’s heart beat high as she recognized Edward, the foremost of the party. Clara was soon out of the carriage, and in the arms of her mother, nor did Edward neglect to press her hand very tenderly, as he handed her from the carriage, after which she was conducted into the house. “And, now, which do you like best, Home or the City, sister?” asked little Rosa, when Clara had reached her own room, and was removing her traveling dress, and arranging her hair. “Home, my dear Rosa,” replied our heroine, “there I enjoy myself much more than I ever have during my visit to the city, and yet, mamma,” added she, “if I had a house in Savannah, I would have young ladies to visit me, and I know I would make these visits delightful.” They now returned to the parlor, where they had left Mr. Seymour, and after tea, Clara sat once more with Edward in the fragrant vine-covered piazza, before mentioned, where the moonbeams sparkled on the seat they occupied, through a richly blossoming mass of yellow jessamine—that dear seat, which seemed intended for the very use of which it was made, namely, that of Edward’s offering his hand, and of Clara’s accepting the offer, which was sealed by—no matter what it was sealed by, gentle reader, only accept that patient lover, whom you have been so long trifling with, and you will soon find out for yourself. SPRING SNIPE SHOOTING OF 1850. ——— BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, AUTHOR OF “WARWICK WOODLANDS,” “MY SHOOTING BOX,” ETC. ——— It is a singular thing, and one which elucidates the great research necessary, and the extreme difficulties encountered, in the attempt to establish facts of natural history with regard to birds of passage, that this beautiful little bird, the general favorite of the sportsman and the epicure, well known to all classes of men, and a visitant, in some one of its closely allied varieties, of every known nation, is still a mystery, as regards some of its habits, and continues to baffle the inquiries of the most learned and inquisitive ornithologists. Its habits, the nature of its food, and therefore the necessities of its existence, render it an inhabitant of temperate climates, and of regions in which the moist and loamy soil, from which it derives its sustenance of small worms, insects, and the like, is not frozen during the period of its visitations so hard as to preclude its boring with its delicate and sensitive bill for its semi-aquatic prey of worms and larvÆ. Still, as extreme cold prevents it from obtaining subsistence, extreme heat would appear to be still less congenial to its tastes or temperament; for, whereas it lingers in the north until autumnal frosts seal up the marshes and the soft stream margins against its probing bill, it flies from its winter quarters in the rice-fields of Carolina and Georgia, and the farther morasses of Texas and New Mexico, the instant that opening spring admits of its return to the fresh meadows and pure rivulets of the north-east. The winter quarters of this bird, then, are fairly ascertained, ranging from Carolina southward until almost the northern limits of the Tropics; thence, so soon as the blue-bird begins to pipe in the apple-trees, the shad to appear in the rivers, the willow-buds to turn yellow, and the frogs to croak and chirrup, with us to the northward, the snipe is seen everywhere, hurrying, according to the progress of the season, singly, in whisps of ten or twelve, or in huge flights, ever, ever, northwardly. In Maryland, in Delaware, in southern Pennsylvania and New Jersey, he is wont to appear from the 1st to the 20th of March; in New York and New Jersey northward, from the 15th of March to the 20th of April, remaining for a longer or shorter period according to the steadiness of the weather, the state of the ground as regards wet or drought, and the geniality of the season. In mild, soft, temperate, moist seasons, with a prevalence of westerly weather, he will linger with us into the lap of June; and in such seasons, more or less, he woos his mate, nidificates and rears his young among us, from the Raritan and the Passaic northward and eastward to the Great Lakes, and throughout Michigan, Wisconsin probably, and Canada west, up far into the Arctic Circles. Still, those which breed with us in the United States, and even in the Canadas, are but as drops of water to an ocean, to those which rush on the untiring pinions moved by amatory instinct to the far breeding grounds of Labrador, Symsonia, and Boothia Felix, where it is supposed they resort to rear their young in hyperborean solitude, thence to reissue, in the summer and the earlier autumn, and re-populate our midland meadows. In the neighborhood of Amherstburg, Canada west, they appear very early; often in February of mild seasons, always in March; and there may breed, and remain until banished by severe cold. I shot one there myself last autumn, the last bird of the season, very late in November, I believe on the 28th or 29th; and with the plover, the Hudsonian godwit, and the Esquimaux curlew, they were seen there this spring in the first days of March. Around Quebec, I have shot English snipe on the uplands, in fallow fields and rushy pastures—for the grass in the morasses does not begin to shoot in those far northern latitudes, so as to afford them shelter, until much later in the year—in the end of April and the beginning of May; but they arrive there only by small scattered whisps, or single birds, tarry a few short days, and flit onward to their unknown destination. This, then, is their mystery—that in no known land are they perennial; in no ascertained region—so far as I can learn—are they positively known to breed in the vast concourses which must breed somewhere, in order to supply the prodigious flights which issue yearly from the northern regions of three continents, Europe, America, and Asia, to fill the warmer countries, and to be slaughtered literally by myriads, season after season, without undergoing much if any visible diminution of numbers. Ever, in all places, in all countries, in all continents, which they visit in spring, they are seen pressing northward still, from March until May; no one being able to say here ends their tide of emigration, this is their chosen resting place. Their breeding season is from the middle of May to the beginning of July; on the 4th of which month I have shot young birds, with the pin-feathers undeveloped, as large as the parents—these birds having been hatched on the ground whereon I killed them. Indeed, it is my opinion, that all birds which tarry in our latitudes beyond the 10th of May, either do breed with us, or would do so but for the persecution of the pot-hunter—all which intend to steer farther north having departed ere that time. About the 15th of July the returning hordes, young birds and old together, full grown and in fine condition, begin to reappear in the marshes of Quebec and its vicinity, which may be said to be the extremest northern point from which we have continuous and authentic annual information of their appearance. At that time the slaughter of the snipe on the marshes of Chateau Richer, and of the islands farther down the St. Lawrence, is prodigious. There they linger until the frosts become so severe as to drive them from their feeding-grounds, which generally takes place early in September, from which time, throughout that month, all October, and a portion—more or less according to the season—of November, and even December, every likely swamp, morass, and feeding-ground of Canada west, of the western, midland, and eastern states, from which they are not persecuted and banished by the incessant banging of pot-hunters and idle village boys, swarms with them, in quantities sufficient to afford sport to hundreds, and a delicacy to thousands of our inhabitants, if they were protected from useless and unmeaning persecution, by which alone they are prevented from being as numerous among us as at any former period. For I am well assured, that, unlike the woodcock, which, breeding in our midst, and dwelling with us for months at a time, is annually slaughtered while breeding, hatching, or immature, and is thus in rapid progress toward extirpation—the snipe, unmolested in its breeding-grounds, is not diminished in its numerical production, but is rendered scarcer in thickly settled districts, nigh to large towns, by incessant harassing, which drives it to remoter and securer feeding-grounds. I do not mean by this, however, to assert that the abolition of spring snipe-shooting would not be an advantage—on the contrary, I am convinced that it would; although well assured that no such measure can be hoped at the hands of our legislators; for, as the snipe ordinarily lays four eggs, the destruction of each one of the breeders on their way northward, of course diminishes the stock of the coming season by five birds. So much for the times and places of the snipe’s migrations. Of his appearance or characteristics—so well is he known—it is almost useless to speak! It may, however, be well to observe that although commonly termed the English Snipe, our bird is a thorough native American, differing from the bird of Europe in being about one inch smaller in every way, and in having two more feathers, sixteen instead of fourteen, in the tail. In other minute, but still permanent, and therefore characteristic distinctions, it differs from the Asiatic and Antarctic snipes; although in their rapid, zigzag flight and shrill squeak when flushed; in their irregular soaring through the air in gloomy weather; in their perpendicular towering and plumb descent, their drumming with the wing-feathers, and bleating with the voice, during the breeding-season, all the species or varieties so closely resemble each other that they are far more easily confounded than distinguished by the unscientific sportsman. The American bird has, however, two or three habits, during early spring-shooting, which I have never observed in the European species, nor seen noticed in any work of natural history; the first of these is frequenting underwood and bushy covert abounding in springs and intersected by cattle-tracks, and occasionally even high woods, during wild, stormy, and dark weather, especially when snow-squalls are driving; and this is a habit of the bird meriting the attention of the sportsman, as in such weather, when he finds no birds on the open and unsheltered marshes, he will do well to beat the neighboring underwoods, if any, and if not, the nearest swampy woodlands; by doing which he will oftentimes fill his bag when he despairs of any sport. The second habit is that of alighting, not unfrequently, on rail-fences, or stumps, and even on high trees, which I think I can safely assert that the European bird never does; and the third is the utterance, when in the act of skimming over the meadows, after soaring, bleating, and drumming for an hour at a stretch in mid air, of “a sharp reiterated chatter, consisting of a quick, jarring repetition of the syllables, kek-kek-kek-kek-kek, many times in succession, with a rising and falling inflection, like that of a hen which has just laid an egg.”[5] There is no Jack Snipe in America, though many persons ignorantly and obstinately assert the reverse; the true Jack Snipe being a northern bird of Europe and Asia, visiting the milder climates during the hard weather. It is an exact counterpart of the English Snipe, only about one-half smaller; it never utters any cry on rising, and rarely flies above one hundred yards, often dropping within fifty feet of the muzzle of a gun just discharged at it, although unwounded. The bird which is here confounded with it, is the Pectoral Sandpiper, a bird about one-third smaller than the snipe, of a lighter brown, with a short, arched bill, and a feeble, quavering whistle. It is found indiscriminately on the sea-shore, and in upland marshes; I have shot it from Lake Huron to the Penobscot, and the Capes of the Delaware; it lies well before dogs, which will point it, and is a good bird on the table. It is known in Long Island as the “Meadow Snipe” and the “Short Neck,” in New Jersey, and thence westward, as the “Fat Bird,” or “Jack Snipe” indiscriminately. It is not a snipe at all, but a Sandpiper, Tringa Pectoralis. The only other true snipe ascertained to exist in America, is the Red Breasted Snipe, Scolopax Noveboracensis, better known as the “Dowitcher,” an unmeaning name, adopted and persevered in by the Baymen, or as the “Quail Snipe.” At Egg Harbor the gunners call it the “Brown-back.” It is found only on the salt marshes, and is never hunted with dogs but shot from ambush over decoys. It appears, then, that the coming and stay of the common snipe in our districts, in spring, is very uncertain, and dependent on the state and steadiness of the weather. Some seasons, they will stay for weeks on the moist, muddy flats among the young and succulent herbage, growing fat and lazy, lying well to the dog, and affording great sport. Sometimes they will merely alight, feed, rest, and resume their flight, never giving the sportsman a chance even of knowing that they have been, and are gone, except by their chalkings and borings where they have fed. Again, at other seasons, they will lie singly, or in scattered whisps on the uplands, in fallow fields, even among stunted brushwood, lurking perdu all day, and resorting to the marshes by night, leaving the traces of their presence in multitudes, to perplex the sportsman, who, perhaps, beats the ground for them, day after day, only to find that they were, but are not. This variance in the habit of the snipe it is, which makes him so hard a bird to kill; for, although he is perplexing from his rapid and twisting flight to a novice, I consider him, to a cool old hand, as easy a bird to kill as any that flies. The snipe invariably rises against or across wind, and in doing so hangs for an instant on the air before he can gather his way; that instant is the time in which to shoot him, and that trick of rising against wind is his bane with the accomplished shot and sportsman, for by beating down the wind, keeping his brace of dogs quartering the ground before him, across the wind, so that they will still have the air in their noses, he compels the bird to rise before him, and cross to the right on the left hand, affording him a clear and close shot, instead of whistling straight away up wind, dead ahead of him, exposing the smallest surface to his aim, and frequently getting off without a shot, as it will constantly do, if the shooter beats up wind, even with the best and steadiest dogs in the world. The knack of shooting snipe, as some people who can’t do it choose to call it, is no other than the knack of shooting quick, shooting straight, and shooting well ahead of cross shots—this done with a gun that will throw its charge close at 40 to 50 yards, with 1½ oz. of No. 8 shot, equal measures of shot and of Brough’s diamond-grain powder will fetch three snipe out of every five, which is great work, in spite of what the cockneys say, who pick their shots, never firing at a hard bird, or one over twenty paces away, and then boast of killing twenty shots in succession. Verbum sap. The great difference of the grounds to be beaten in different weathers; the difficulty in determining which ground to assign to which day; the immense extent of country to be traversed, if birds are scarce or wild, or if there are many varieties of soil, covert, and feeding in one range, and the sportsman fail in his two or three first beats in finding game, and therefore have to persevere till he do find them, these, and the hardness of the walking in rotten quagmires and deep morasses, affording no sure foot-hold, and often knee-deep in water, these it is which make successful snipe-shooting one of the greatest feats in the art, and the crack snipe-finder and snipe-killer—for the two are one, or rather the second depends mainly on the first—one of the first, if not the first artist in the line. It is from this necessity of beating, oftentimes, very extensive tracts of land before finding birds, and therefore of beating very rapidly if you would find birds betimes, that I so greatly prefer and recommend the use of very fast, very highly-bred, and very far-ranging setters, to that of any pointer in the world, for snipe-shooting in the open—apart from their great superiority over the pointer in hardihood, endurance of cold, powers of retrieving, beauty and good-nature. Of course, speaking of dogs, whether setter, pointer, dropper, or cocking-spaniel, it is understood that we speak of dogs of equal qualities of nose, staunchness to the point, and steadiness at coming to the charge the instant a shot is fired. No dog which does not do all these things habitually, and of course, is worth the rope that should hang him; and no man is worthy the name of a shot or a sportsman, who cannot, and does not, keep his dogs, whether setters, pointers, or cockers, under such command that he can turn them to the right or left, bring them to heel, stop them, or down charge them, at two hundred yards distance if it be needful. If these things, then, be equal, as they can be made equal, though I admit a setter to be more difficultly kept in discipline than a pointer—the fastest setter you can get, is the best dog for snipe-shooting; his superiority, in other points, infinitely counterbalancing the greater trouble it requires to break and control him. I am well aware that it has been said, and that by authorities, that the best dog over which to shoot snipe, is an old, slow, broken-down, staunch pointer, who crawls along at a foot’s pace, and never misses, overruns, or flushes a bird. And so, in two cases, he is; but in one case, no dog is just as good as he is, and in the other, the argument is one of incapacity to use what is best, and therefore is no argument. If birds are so thick on the grounds, and so tame that you can fill your bag in walking over one or two acres at a foot’s pace, a very slow pointer is better than fast setters—but no dog at all, your walking up your birds yourself, which you can do just as quickly as the dog can, is better than the slow pointer. Indeed, on very small grounds, very thickly stocked, it is by far the most killing way to use no dog, but to walk up the birds. If a man is so weak and infirm of purpose, or so ignorant of the first principles of his art, as to be unable to control his setters, he must, I suppose, use a slow pointer; but it cannot matter what dog such a man uses, he never can be a sportsman. If there be a hundred birds lying, and lying well on one acre of feeding-ground, the birds can be killed without a dog, or with a slow dog, as you will; any man who can pull a trigger must fill his bag. If there be a hundred birds scattered, wild, over five hundred acres of ground, where are you with your slow dog, or your no dog? Just no where. While you are painfully picking up your three or four birds with your slow pointer, your true sportsman, and slashing walker, with his racing up-head and down-stern setters, will have found fifty, and bagged twenty-five or thirty. There are ten days in a season when birds are wild and sparse, for one when they are congregated and lie hard; and the argument comes to this, that when birds can be killed with ease, even without a dog at all, a slow pointer is the best; when they are difficult to find, and hard to kill, even by a crack shot, the slow pointer is no where, and of no use, while the racing setters will fill the bag to a certainty. For my own part, I can say to a certainty, that I have had more sport, and killed more birds, by many, many times, when birds have been widely scattered, and difficult to find, and when I have walked half or a quarter of a mile between every shot fired, than I ever have when birds have lain close, and jumped up at every pace under my feet; and for a simple reason, that the places in which birds so rise and lie, are rare and of small extent, and the days on which they do so few and far apart. Therefore I say, friend—for all true sportsmen I hold friends—choose well thy day, when the air is soft and genial, the wind south-westerly, the meadows green with succulent and tender grasses, and moist with the deposit of subsiding waters—select thy grounds carefully; in such a time as I have named, the wide and open marsh meadows; but if the wind be from the eastward, cold, squally and snow laden, then try the bushy, briary brakes, where cattle poach the soil, and the marsh waters creep, or the verge of the meadows, under the lea of the maple swamp, or at the worst the very grounds where you would beat for woodcock in July—begin from the farthest windward point of thy beat, casting thy brace of setters off from thy heel, to the right and left, and so often as they have diverged one hundred yards, taming them with a whistle and a wave of the hand, so that they shall cross continually before thy face, down wind of thee, at some thirty paces distant; and so persevere—if birds be plenty and lie well, walking not to exceed two miles the hour; if they be rare and wild, four miles, or by ’r lady! five, if thou mayest compass it. If one dog stand, while the other’s back is turned, whistle, that he shall turn his head, then hold thy hand aloft, with one quiet “toho!” but no shooting; if he be broke, he shall stand like a carved stone. Then walk up to the point leisurely, be sure that thou go down wind, making a circuit if needs be, with thy gun at half-cock, the ball of thy thumb on the hammer, and the nail of thy fore-finger inside the guard, but not upon the trigger. When the bird rises, cock your gun, and down him! If thy dogs do their devoir, they shall drop to the charge unbidden; if they do not, raise thy hand with an imperious gesture, and cry coolly and calmly “down charge;” but however ill they behave, nay! even if they run in and eat thy bird, move not till thy gun is loaded; then calmly walk up to them, drag them, pitilessly scourging them all the way, to the place where they should have charged, and rate them in the best of thy dog-language. I say “scourging them pitilessly,” because that is, in truth, the merciful course; for so one or two whippings will suffice, instead of constant small chastisement and irritation, which spoil a dog’s temper and break his spirit, without conquering his obstinacy, or gaining the ascendancy over him. If, on the contrary, they charge as decent dogs should and do charge, so soon as thy gun be loaded, lift them, with a “Hold up, good lads!” and cast them gently onward, checking them with a “Steady, dogs!” if they show disposition to be rash, until they point the dead bird, if killed, or draw on him, if running. Then, with a “Toho! Steady!” walk to their point; pick up the bird under their noses, praising them the while, or bid them “Fetch!” according to the circumstances of the case; but if they retrieve the bird without pointing him, or even after pointing him, until told to “fetch,” let chastisement not hide her head. This, rest assured, friend is the way to do it. For the rest, whether thou wear fen-boots, or shoes and trowsers, or, as I use, by deliberate preference, arch-boots, corduroy shorts, and leggins, suit thine own fancy; but let thy shooting-jacket be roomy on the chest and shoulders, and well supplied with ample pockets. Let thy gun be—for my choice—of 31 inches, 12 or 14 gauge, 7¾ to 8 pounds. Let thy powder be Brough’s diamond grain, or John Hall’s glass—on no account any other—thou mayest get it of Henry T. Cooper, in Broadway, New York—thy shot No. 8—thy caps Starkey’s central fire, or Moore & Gray’s, or Westley Richards’—by no means French, or Walker’s, the first of which fly, while the latter are, I think, corrosive. Forget not to have in thy pocket a dog-whip, a stout knife, a yard or two of strong cord, a pocket-flask, replenished, as thou wilt, with old Otard, or as I recommend thee, Ferintosh or Glenlivat whisky—stick in the seam of thy waistcoat a strong darning-needle, headed with sealing-wax, it is the only true and responsible gun-picker; and so, good sport to thee, and health and temper to enjoy it!—as good sport, gentle reader, as I trust myself to enjoy this coming week of April, the rain-gods and the river-gods permitting, and the nymphs remembering us, as their long-time adorer, in their kind orisons. The Cedars, March 25, 1850. Frank Forester’s Field Sports of North America. Vol. i. p 161.

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BY GIDDINGS H. BALLOU.

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National Academy of Design.—The twenty-fifth anniversary of this institution was held on the first of last month, at the new galleries, No. 663 Broadway, in the rear of the Stuyvesant Institute. It is extremely gratifying to the friends of Art to know that this excellent nursery of artistic talent has now suitable buildings for its accommodation, and the display of the productions of the painters of New York. It was only last fall that definite arrangements were made for the construction of this building, and already, as if at the bidding of the genii who ministered to the wants of our youthful friend Aladdin, it has sprung into existence. This result has been effected by the constant exertions and devoted attentions of the building trustees, Messrs. Durand, Cummings, Ingraham, Edmonds, Sterges and Leupp. The new edifice is situated in the heart of the fashion of the metropolis; the galleries are five in number, all intercommunicating, well lighted, airy, spacious and elegantly neat. The coup d’oeil of the whole, when filled with works of art for exhibition, will present one of the most animating and beautiful scenes which the city can afford. The artists of New York have a right to be proud of this edifice, and we do not doubt that the public will be equally proud of those splendid productions with which they will adorn its walls. At the advanced period, when we write this article, it is impossible to give any definite account of the present exhibition; but the notes of preparation, the foreshadowings and the glorious promise of an array of talented names, are the tokens that it will be of unusual brilliancy. Every exertion will be made to give Éclat to the opening, and more pains will be bestowed on this display, that its debut before the public may be dazzling and defiant of criticism.

We learn from the New York papers, and from other sources, that all the artists of that city will offer “tastes of their quality” to the public. Huntington, who has been exhibiting nearly all his prominent works for his own benefit, states in the catalogue that his latest efforts have been retained privately for the opening of the new gallery. Durand has a new work, of which report speaks in the most rapturous terms; this, with others of his elaborate and highly finished compositions, will be displayed. Cummings, Ingraham, Gray, Edmonds, Elliott, Cropsey, Stearns, Kensett, Gignoux, Cafferty, Edouart, Audubon, and others, will contribute portraits, compositions, landscapes, etc. In fact, the artists have determined by every means in their power to make the first exhibition in the new building both brilliant and attractive. We hope by our next number to be able to speak more fully of this exhibition.

The Philadelphia Art Union.—It is but a few years only since the first plan of an Art Union was suggested in Germany, and already they are in existence wherever the beautiful is venerated and art admired. In this country we have Art Unions in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Newark and Cincinnati. The Philadelphia institution differs from all the rest in its mode of distribution, and follows, we believe, in every respect the London one, which has been by far the most successful ever started. In New York the managers purchase pictures and distribute them. Under this arrangement it frequently happens that the person who draws a prize is disappointed, because he has not obtained some particular picture in the collection which pleased his fancy. The Philadelphia plan is to divide the proceeds of the subscription money into various sums, which are allotted to the subscribers, who with the certificates, when successful, can choose any picture which may suit their taste, provided it is by an American artist, and on exhibition in some accredited gallery of art in the country. The annual distribution of the Philadelphia Art Union takes place on the 6th of this month, and we are pleased to learn that its prospects are most flattering. The engraving for this year is from Huntington’s celebrated picture of “Mercy’s Dream,” which will be executed in a mixed style of line, stipple and mezzotint by A. H. Ritchie, of New York. This composition is derived from Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, where Mercy relates to Christiana the sweet dream she had in a solitary place, where she saw a winged messenger approaching, who placed a crown upon her head, and invited her to a golden gate, etc. The landscape of this picture is clothed in the first shades of evening, and the figures of Mercy and the Angel form the attraction of the work. In calm, spiritual expression, anatomical precision, delicacy of coloring, and perfect keeping, there is no modern work which can surpass this.

The Free Gallery of this Institution, located at No. 210 Chestnut Street, has doubtless had a most beneficial influence in disseminating a taste for Art, and preparing the public for its just appreciation. The walls of this gallery have been constantly supplied with much-admired pictures, and a crowd of visiters are always in attendance. We hope hereafter to find much pleasure in referring to the new pictures exhibited in this gallery. The effects which are dependent upon the success of the Art Union, are shown by the great impetus which has been given of late years to many extremely varied branches of manufactures and commerce by a judicious encouragement of the Arts of Design. It has been found, more particularly in Europe, that numerous classes, hitherto considered as inoperative and useless, have been supplied with employment, and entire districts revivified, as it were, by the establishment of certain manufactures, whose excellence depended mainly upon the skill of the artist. The surest means of effecting this result, is to create a public taste, and not merely comply with it as it exists at large; and it may be brought about by offering rewards for the best designs, by the publication of the best specimens of Art at cheap prices, by the erection of free galleries of painting, and chiefly by the encouragement of Art Unions. With such objects in view, and such results to achieve, the multiplication of these institutions in our country must be regarded as a cheering indication of the true progress of the age, and the precursor of a widely diffused love of the Beautiful in Art, which cannot but tend to the general improvement of the useful arts. All such results must be effected by our citizens at large, for we cannot expect legislative aid, and hence it is that we feel the necessity of impressing upon the public attention the operation of the Art Unions, as the great popular plan for fostering talent, infusing a love for the beautiful in Nature and Art, and cultivating those studies which invariably mark national progress in civilization, refinement and general happiness.

New Jersey Art Union.—We announce with great pleasure that an association of the friends of art in Newark have drawn up the programme of an Art Union, and made a stirring appeal to the citizens of the State for encouragement and co-operation. A free gallery will be opened immediately at Newark, and pictures purchased for distribution among subscribers. For the present, no engraving will be contracted for, and this heavy item being dispensed with, will increase the sum to be appropriated for the purchase of paintings. We most cordially wish the enterprise success, and trust that our New Jersey friends will be prompt in sending their names to Thomas H. Stephens, the Corresponding Secretary, at Newark.

Gliddon’s Panorama of the Nile.—This magnificent work has been exhibited in New York and Boston with great Éclat. Mr. Gliddon is favorably and extensively known as a lecturer on hieroglyphical literature, and has rendered popular throughout our country, the wonderful discoveries and theories of the Champollionists of ancient mythological history. As a work of art, the superiority of this panorama cannot be doubted, when we mention the facts, derived from the Boston Transcript, that while such artists as Warren, Bonomi, and Fahey, in England, aided by numerous assistants, conceived and executed the painting; Martin, the famed depictor of “Belshazzar’s Feast,” volunteered the exquisite moonlight, sunset, and other transparent scenes, where the effects of fire, light, and heat are produced with magical skill, Carbould volunteered the magnificent Arabian horses, and Weigall the boats, and similar objects that actually seem to spring forth from the canvas. The spectator of the panorama begins his supposed voyage at Cairo, ascends the eastern bank of the Nile to the second cataract, and descends on the western bank, as far as the location of the Sphinx. The interest is not in the ancient associations alone, but Turks, Arabs, Bedouins, Nubians in their variegated costumes, Mohammed Ali and his court, the manners, customs, and usages of oriental life, with the various geological, botanical, zoological, and even atmospherical singularities of the land are faithfully depicted. Even the music which accompanies the exhibition is characteristically of Eastern origin, and novel airs of Egypt, Arabia, Turkey, Greece, etc., are introduced. The whole may be considered as a work of infinite attraction, and of a high order of art.

Le Roi d’Yvetot.—This comic opera, by Adolphe Adam, is but little known in this country, except the overture, and it is very recently that it has been presented, for the first time, to a London audience. It was first produced October 1849, in Paris, at the ThÉÂtre Royal de l’OpÉra Comique, and made a very decided impression. It is founded on the political chanson of BÉranger, and of course the caricatures of royalty, and the hits at the nobility, are the very life of the drama. The music is full of vivacity and elegant melody. It is somewhat singular that Adam is an expert organist, and composes a fugue or a comic strain with equal facility; his sacred compositions are very grand, and he has a remarkable skill in adapting music to the most fantastic ideas and expressions in a libretto. Many of his works in the opera buffa are well known in our country—the “Postilion de Lonjumeau” and “Le Brasseur de Preston,” in particular, while the mournful sweetness and touching simplicity of his ballet music, in “Giselle,” have been often felt and enjoyed. We live in hopes that some day we may hear “Le Roi d’Yvetot”—

Meyerbeer’s “Prophete” was given fifty times at the Grand Opera in Paris, when it was withdrawn for a time, as Madame Viardot had to visit Berlin, to fulfill an engagement. Madame Castellan, so well remembered in this country, sung the part of Berthe in this opera.

Verdi has selected the subject of Shakspeare’s “Tempest,” for the libretto of his next opera. The genius of Verdi will luxuriate in the storm of the elements and the fierce contentions of passion, but he will never be able to illustrate the spirit of the “dainty Ariel,” or the innocent devotedness of Miranda. We should think, however, that he will construct a magnificent composition upon the many sublime themes and graphic word-paintings of the great bard.

In this beautiful and touching romance Hawthorne has produced something really worthy of the fine and deep genius which lies within him. The “Twice Told Tales,” and “Mosses from an Old Manse,” are composed simply of sketches and stories, and although such sketches and stories as few living men could write, they are rather indications of the possibilities of his mind than realizations of its native power, penetration, and creativeness. In “The Scarlet Letter” we have a complete work, evincing a true artist’s certainty of touch and expression in the exhibition of characters and events, and a keen-sighted and far-sighted vision into the essence and purpose of spiritual laws. There is a profound philosophy underlying the story which will escape many of the readers whose attention is engrossed by the narrative.

The book is prefaced by some fifty pages of autobiographical matter, relating to the author, his native city of Salem, and the Custom House, from which he was ousted by the Whigs. These pages, instinct with the vital spirit of humor, show how rich and exhaustless a fountain of mirth Hawthorne has at his command. The whole representation has the dreamy yet distinct remoteness of the purely comic ideal. The view of Salem streets; the picture of the old Custom House at the head of Derby’s wharf, with its torpid officers on a summer’s afternoon, their chairs all tipped against the wall, chatting about old stories, “while the frozen witticisms of past generations were thawed out, and came bubbling with laughter from their lips”—the delineation of the old Inspector, whose “reminiscences of good cheer, however ancient the date of the actual banquet, seemed to bring the savor of pig or turkey under one’s very nostrils,” and on whose palate there were flavors “which had lingered there not less than sixty or seventy years, and were still apparently as fresh as that of the mutton-chop which he had just devoured for his breakfast,” and the grand view of the stout Collector, in his aged heroism, with the honors of Chippewa and Fort Erie on his brow, are all encircled with that visionary atmosphere which proves the humorist to be a poet, and indicates that his pictures are drawn from the images which observation has left on his imagination. The whole introduction, indeed, is worthy of a place among the essays of Addison and Charles Lamb.

With regard to “The Scarlet Letter,” the readers of Hawthorne might have expected an exquisitely written story, expansive in sentiment, and suggestive in characterization, but they will hardly be prepared for a novel of so much tragic interest and tragic power, so deep in thought and so condensed in style, as is here presented to them. It evinces equal genius in the region of great passions and elusive emotions, and bears on every page the evidence of a mind thoroughly alive, watching patiently the movements of morbid hearts when stirred by strange experiences, and piercing, by its imaginative power, directly through all the externals to the core of things. The fault of the book, if fault it have, is the almost morbid intensity with which the characters are realized, and the consequent lack of sufficient geniality in the delineation. A portion of the pain of the author’s own heart is communicated to the reader, and although there is great pleasure received while reading the volume, the general impression left by it is not satisfying to the artistic sense. Beauty bends to power throughout the work, and therefore the power displayed is not always beautiful. There is a strange fascination to a man of contemplative genius in the psychological details of a strange crime like that which forms the plot of the Scarlet Letter, and he is therefore apt to become, like Hawthorne, too painfully anatomical in his exhibition of them.

If there be, however, a comparative lack of relief to the painful emotions which the novel excites, owing to the intensity with which the author concentrates attention on the working of dark passions, it must be confessed that the moral purpose of the book is made more definite by this very deficiency. The most abandoned libertine could not read the volume without being thrilled into something like virtuous resolution, and the rouÉ would find that the deep-seeing eye of the novelist had mustered the whole philosophy of that guilt of which practical rouÉs are but childish disciples. To another class of readers, those who have theories of seduction and adultery modeled after the French school of novelists, and for whom libertinism is of the brain, the volume may afford matter for very instructive and edifying contemplation; for, in truth, Hawthorne, in The Scarlet Letter, has utterly undermined the whole philosophy on which the French novels rest, by seeing farther and deeper into the essence both of conventional and moral laws; and he has given the results of his insight, not in disquisitions and criticisms, but in representations more powerful even than those of Sue, Dumas, or George Sand. He has made his guilty parties end, not as his own fancy or his own benevolent sympathies might dictate, but as the spiritual laws, lying back of all persons, dictated to him. In this respect there is hardly a novel in English literature more purely objective.

As everybody will read “The Scarlet Letter,” it would be impertinent to give a synopsis of the plot. The principal characters, Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, Hester, and little Pearl, all indicate a firm grasp of individualities, although from the peculiar method of the story, they are developed more in the way of logical analysis than by events. The descriptive portions of the novel are in a high degree picturesque and vivid, bringing the scenes directly home to the heart and imagination, and indicating a clear vision of the life as well as forms of nature. Little Pearl is perhaps Hawthorne’s finest poetical creation, and is the very perfection of ideal impishness.

In common, we trust, with the rest of mankind, we regretted Hawthorne’s dismissal from the Custom House, but if that event compels him to exert his genius in the production of such books as the present, we shall be inclined to class the Honorable Secretary of the Treasury among the great philanthropists. In his next work we hope to have a romance equal to The Scarlet Letter in pathos and power, but more relieved by touches of that beautiful and peculiar humor, so serene and so searching, in which he excels almost all living writers.

The reader of Carlyle will find nothing new in principle, and little new in phraseology, in this pamphlet, but it is still fresh and racy, and exhibits the author hammering as lustily as ever on his old anvil, with his old tools. The picture given of the poor simple Pope, with the New Testament in his hand—the pitying contempt with which Lamartine is alluded to—and the view of American democracy—will be found the most readable portions of the pamphlet. Lamartine, with his fine French phrases and sentimentalities, looks small enough as subjected to the surly tests of such an Icelandic critic as Carlyle—“a most eloquent, fair-spoken literary gentleman, whom thoughtless persons took for a prophet, priest, and heaven-sent evangelist, and whom a wise Yankee friend of mine discerned to be properly ‘the first stump-orator in the world, standing, too, on the highest stump for the time.’ A sorrowful spectacle to all men of reflection during the time he lasted, that poor M. de Lamartine; with nothing in him but melodious wind and soft sowder, which he and others took for something divine, and not diabolic! Sad enough: the eloquent latest impersonation of Chaos-come-again; able to talk for itself, and declare persuasively that it is Cosmos! However, you have but to wait a little, in such cases; all balloons do and must give up their gas in the pressure of things, and are collapsed in a sufficiently wretched manner before long.” The wise Yankee friend alluded to here is, we suppose, Mr. Emerson.

Carlyle, though he seems with De Tocqueville, to consider Democracy inevitable in Europe, still despises and hates it, and thinks that even in America it is nothing more than “Anarchy plus the constable.” His view of the United States, sufficiently contemptuous as a whole, closes with a bitter, sardonic jest, which we think will make the tour of the world, and injure us more than a thousand Trollopes and Basil Halls. He asks, “What great human soul, what great thought, what great, noble thing that one could worship, or loyally admire, has yet been produced there?” We might answer this question easily, but Carlyle answers it in a sufficiently provoking manner—“What have they done? They have doubled their population every twenty years. They have begotten, with a rapidity beyond recorded example, eighteen millions of the greatest bores ever seen in this world before—that, hitherto, is their feat in History.”

As regards Great Britain, Carlyle considers that the only practical way to remedy its evils, is to reject all cant about liberty and constitutional government, and enslave the lower classes. He accordingly recommends to the English government a plan of enforced labor, and puts an imaginary speech in the mouth of the Prime Minister, addressed to the “floods of Irish and other Beggars, the able-bodied Lackalls, nomadic or stationary, and the General Assembly, outdoor and indoor, of the Pauper Populations of these Realms.” This speech sounds well enough as a joke, provided a man can view a horde of men as he would so many horses, but it is ridiculous as a practical exposition of principles. It is certain that in one hour after a British minister had made such a declaration, army, navy, and party would melt away from him, and he would be on the gallows or in Bedlam. As a politician, Carlyle is little more than a philosopher of sneers and negations, without one positive practical principle. His idea of government implies a falsehood in fact, reposing on the monstrous assumption that civilized society is composed of a vast collection of men, little better than brutes, who would endure the tyranny of a smaller number of despots, little better than Carlyle.

Mr. Emerson has remarked that “it makes a great difference in the force of a sentence whether a man be behind it or no.” We hardly think that there is a true man behind the best of Mr. Gilfillan’s sentences. He has a mind of much sensitiveness to his own merits, and some to the merits of others, and welters readily into the expression of both; but his inspiration seems to spring from presumption and whisky-punch. The reader is teased into attention by Mr. Gilfillan’s confident manner, without having his attention rewarded by intimacy with Mr. Gilfillan’s nature. There is merit in his occasional thoughts, and truth in his detached remarks, but the impression of the whole is of a slush of shining words. The subject is only an occasion for the author to pour out his own memories and fancies, and thus to exhibit himself. The movement of his mind is half-way between a strut and a reel, and his faculties are ever in a state of pert intoxication. He paws rather than handles a great poet, and we never witness his approach to a Milton or Wordsworth without a shudder. Having in his intellect no presiding will or even principle, his compositions are an anarchy of opinions and terms, without any intellectual conscientiousness or austere regard for the truth of things; and their popularity is the result of that sack of the dictionary which has made so much of our popular literature a mere debauch in words.

The noble head of Humboldt which adorns the title-page of this edition gives at once a favorable impression of his capacity to treat even the vast subject which here has tasked his powers. The head is high, broad, massive, and roomy—spacious enough for knowledge as universal as his, and strong enough to use that knowledge, and not be used by it. The work promises to be one which will leave its mark on the century. Even in England it is acknowledged by some men of science to be the greatest mental product of the time. The advantage which Humboldt holds over most savans is his appreciation of the two aspects under which nature may be viewed, and the two uses she serves. He combines the philosopher and the poet, looking for beauty as well as truth, and seeing also that there is a point where they unite. “Cosmos” contains a vast amount of generalized knowledge to satisfy the understanding; but it is also replete with gorgeous descriptions of natural scenery to fill and stimulate the imagination. We know of few works which can be more profitably read by enthusiasts either for the exclusively scientific or the exclusively poetic method of observing nature.

This work is elegantly printed and appropriately illustrated. The field of the author’s travels is of exceeding interest, and the mere title, “The East,” is sufficient to stir the imagination and kindle the curiosity of all “the West.” Mr. Spencer is a scholar, a Christian, and, we may add, well versed in English Composition, but he has chosen to preserve the epistolary form in which he recorded his first impressions, and this he has done without having in his letters much of that familiar charm which is the justification of the practice. If the traveler be Lady Montagu, or Horace Walpole, or Gray, or Cowper, or Byron, or even Lord Chesterfield, we should be inclined to wish to read his letters rather than his formal “tour;” but few writers are gifted with a genius for epistolary composition; and Mr. Spencer is not one of the few. There is much in his volume which might have been omitted with positive advantage. His style is the very reverse of epistolary, and yet he says a great many things having all the unimportance of chat without its raciness. With this exception we think the book an excellent one, containing valuable information clearly conveyed.

This is the most delightful of Mr. Tuckerman’s many volumes of essays. It contains twenty-two papers, on as many subjects, is written in a style which evinces a graceful mastery of the resources of language, and is no less fluent in thought than in expression. Perhaps the most pleasing quality of the volume is its wealth of illustration. The writer’s mind is not only affluent in comparison and imagery, but his literary culture is so extensive as to give him a command of those sources of fascination which come from felicitous allusions to the world of authors and books. The object of the volume is finely stated, in an elegantly written preface, to be the search for the good in life, as that good is exhibited to one who can comment kindly on society, and interpret the true and beautiful in common experience. The best papers in the volume are those on New England Philosophy, Art and Artists, Lyric Poetry, Eye-Language, Flowers, Costume, Music, and Conversation. The volume should be on the shelves of every man who has the heart and imagination to enjoy the English essayists, for to that goodly company it is a positive addition.

This is a cheap reprint of the latest and best edition of Gibbon, and when completed will place one of the greatest historical productions in the world within the reach of the most limited means—the price of the whole not amounting to four dollars. Milman’s edition is in some degree founded upon Guizot’s French edition, and includes the principal notes of the latter. Both Milman and Guizot have gone carefully over Gibbon’s authorities, and while they have thus been enabled to correct his misrepresentations, they have also added much which he overlooked, or which has been brought to light since the period in which the history was written. Of the book itself, it may be said, that in the combination of vast erudition with philosophic thought, it is the object of emulous despair to all succeeding historians. The subject is the greatest within the range of historical composition, and Gibbon has so nearly exhausted it that even a philosophical historian like Guizot is contented to be but an annotator when he approaches it. The general reader, after many repeated perusals of the work, continually returns to it for the depth and acuteness of its reflections, the richness and weight of its style, and that masterly irony, sapping a solemn creed with “solemn sneer,” which, though sometimes an expression of the author’s moral deficiencies, and in a few instances disgracefully disingenuous, is still a weapon which makes falsehood and prejudice wither when it merely gleams, and perish when it strikes.

The author of this eloquent lecture is known principally for his great services to the cause of popular education—a cause which he has adopted with his whole soul, and into which he has thrown whatever of fire there is in his blood and of intelligence there is in his brain. The present address flames with the peculiar characteristics of his genius—vehement, rapid, and epigrammatic in style, large, generous, independent and original in thought. We disagree with some of the positions he has assumed, but we know of few books which contain, in so small a space, so much to breathe energy and aspiration into the souls of young men as this warm gush of blended thought and knowledge, from a soul eminently energetic and aspiring itself.

This book we can commend to all ladies who are, or hope to be, housewifes. It simplifies the whole art of cooking, and has a receipt for every dish which the Heliogabalus imagination of man has conceived. It has been edited, seemingly with great care, by some gentleman amateur of the table, and contains directions for the food equally of rich and poor, the dyspeptic and the ostrich stomach.

The first volume of this important work has just been issued, containing long extracts from the doctor’s early diary and correspondence, and full accounts of his life and writings to the year 1814. As the biography of a good and eminent man, furnishing, as it does, the means of understanding the process according to which his character grew into such large proportions. The work promises to be one of the most valuable of the season.

We well recollect the excitement in the novel-reading world produced by this book on its first publication. The rush on the circulating libraries was continued for a couple of months, and even boys were considered behind the age, unless they had read it. In its present cheap and elegant form, and enriched by the revision of the author’s maturer judgment, we hope it will have another term of popularity.

This work is designed as a text book for academies, high schools, and colleges, but it is well adapted also for the general reader. Principles are stated with equal clearness and accuracy, and the examples and illustrations are happily selected. The author evidently understands the avenues through which scientific knowledge must pass in order to reach the learner’s mind.

This volume is the last of the Boston edition of Hume—an edition which places one of the most valuable and fascinating works in the language within the reach of readers of the humblest means. We are glad to see that the same enterprising house, intend to issue an edition of Gibbon in the same style, and at the same low price.

Foreign Endorsement.—It must be amusing to the subscribers of Graham’s Magazine, to see the American Press praising the story of “The Village Doctor,” published in “Blackwood’s Magazine” last year as the first translation of that excellent French story. The article appeared in “Graham’s Magazine” more than two years before, i. e. in the October and November numbers, 1847, and had therefore been read in this country by at least one hundred thousand readers, before it was copied by the weekly press in this country from Blackwood.

The truth is, the American Magazines contain every month articles which would make the fortune of a London or Edinburgh periodical, which are passed over in silence, but the most inferior article of English stamp is endorsed as something extraordinary, merely because it is English. This should be corrected.

Mr. Leonard Myers, who translated the story of “The Village Doctor” for us, has just had published by Messrs. Lippincott & Co., a capital story from the French, called “Money-bags and Titles.” It is a very creditable volume in every respect; the story is well told and contains some admirable hits at the follies of the age. It can be sent by mail, and is published at the price of fifty cents the volume.

A Capital Story.—The Saturday Courier has been publishing, for the past few numbers, a story of more than usual excellence, called “Linda,” by Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz, whose stories heretofore in this admirable family paper have made so much stir among readers of light literature. Her story of the “Mob-Cap” ran through several editions, and is still praised as one of the most effective articles that ever appeared in a periodical. Mr. M‘Makin will find that “Linda” is destined to make a fresh demand for articles from the able pen of this lady, and we are sure he will receive the thanks of his hundred thousand readers for his liberality in thus catering to their refined taste.

HOur correspondent, Richard Coe, Jr., is about to publish a volume of his beautiful poems—a neat edition for the centre-table at the price of one dollar per volume. His address is 33 Church Alley, Philadelphia, where any of his friends will be supplied.

WRITTEN BY

JOSEPH A. NUNES.

COMPOSED BY

JAMES BELLAK.

Published by permission of Mr. E. L. Walker, No. 160 Chestnut Street.