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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'When you said, 'Who knows?' you had a hope?'

'Yes.'

'And what did you hope for?'

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

'This great grief always ...'

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

'You have preserved it?'

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

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

'Nothing.'

'But this coral necklace?'

'It belongs to the ogresse.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

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

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

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

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

'How! you also, Monsieur Rodolphe?'

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

'What happiness! Monsieur Rodolphe!'

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

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

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

'How kind is the Bon Dieu for having given us such a fine day!'

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

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

---

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

'Boston, Sunday Night.

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

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

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

'Yours, —— ——.'

---

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

---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

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

'A THING OF BEAUTY IS A JOY FOREVER.'

BY N. P. WILLIS, JUN.

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

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

'WHAT IS LOVE?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

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

---