'The man (NAPOLEON) was a Divine Missionary, though unconscious of it, and preached through the cannon's throat this great doctrine: La carriere ouverte aux talens; 'The Tools to him that can handle them.' . . . Madly enough he preached, it is true, as Enthusiasts and first Missionaries are wont, with imperfect utterance, amid much frothy rant, yet as articulately perhaps as the case admitted. Or call him, if you will, an American Backwoodsman, who had to fell unpenetrated forests, and battle with innumerable wolves, and did not entirely forbear strong liquor, rioting, and even theft; whom notwithstanding the peaceful Sower will follow, and as he cuts the boundless harvest, bless.'

SARTOR RESARTUS: BOOK II., CHAP. VIII.

SONNET I.—NAPOLEON.

Napoleon was a Missionary merely, Who through the cannon's throat this truth expressed, Unconsciously, divinely and sincerely, The Tools to him that handles 'em the best. Madly enough, indeed, the man did preach, Amid much rant, as all Enthusiasts do, And yet with as articulate a speech As the strange case, perhaps, allowed him to. Or call him a Backwoodsman, if you will; Who, forced to fell unpenetrated woods, And doomed innumerable wolves to kill, Got drunk sometimes, and stole his neighbor's goods; Whom will the Sower follow ne'ertheless, And as he cuts the boundless harvest, bless.

Or let us try the following description of the Hotel de Ville in the French Revolution:

'O evening sun of July! how at this hour thy beams fall slant on reapers amid peaceful woody fields; on old women spinning in cottages; on ships far out on the silent main; on Balls at the Orangerie of Versailles, where high-rouged dames of the palace are even now dancing with double-jacketted Hussar officers; and also on this roaring Hell-porch of a Hotel de Ville. Babel-tower, with the confusion of tongues, were not Bedlam added with the conflagration of thoughts, was no type of it. One forest of distracted steel bristles endless in front of an Electoral Committee.'

FRENCH REVOLUTION: BOOK V., CHAP. VII.

SONNET II.—THE HOTEL DE VILLE.

O evening sun of most serene July! How at this hour thy slant refulgence pours On reapers working in the open sky, And women spinning at their cottage doors, On ships far out upon the silent main, On gay Versailles, where through the light quadrille Hussars are leading forth a high-rouged train, And on the hell-porch-like Hotel de Ville. Not Babel's tower with all its million tongues, Save Bedlam too therewith had added been, To mingle burning brains with roaring lungs, Could feebly imitate that dreadful din; One endless forest of distracted steel Bristling around that mad Hotel de Ville!

Or to return to Professor TEUFELDROeCKH'S vast chaos of ideas. Let us try another passage therefrom:

'It struck me much as I sat beside the Kuhbach, one silent noontide, and watched it flowing, gurgling, to think how this same streamlet had flowed and gurgled through all changes of weather and of fortune, from beyond the earliest date of history. Yes, probably on the morning when JOSHUA forded Jordan; even as at the midday when CAESAR, doubtless with difficulty, swam the Nile, yet kept his Commentaries dry; this little Kuhbach, assiduous as Tiber, Eurotas or Siloa, was murmuring on across the wilderness, unnamed, unseen.'

SARTOR RESARTUS: BOOK II., CHAP. III.

SONNET III.—ETERNITY OF NATURE.

One silent noonday, as I sat beside The gurgling flow of Kuhbach's little river, Methought how, even as I saw it glide, That stream had flowed and gurgled on forever. Yes, on the day when JOSHUA passed the flood Of ancient Jordan; when across the Nile CAESAR swam (hardly, doubtless, through the mud,) Yet kept his Commentaries dry the while, This little Kuhbach, like Siloa's rill, Or Tiber's Tide, assiduous and serene, Ev'n then, the same as now, was murmuring still Across the wilderness, unnamed, unseen. Art's but a mushroom—only Nature's old; In yon grey crag six thousand years behold!

From the same chapter of the same book we venture one more extract. It is where the Professor is full of grief and reminiscences; where, reflecting on his first experience of wo in the death of Father ANDREAS, he becomes once more spirit-clad in quite inexpressible melancholy, and says, 'I have now pitched my tent under a cypress-tree,' etc.:

SONNET IV.—BLISS IN GRIEF.

Under a cypress-tree I pitch my tent: The tomb shall be my fortress; at its gate I sit and watch each hostile armament, And all the pains and penalties of Fate. And oh ye loved ones! that already sleep, Hushed in the noiseless bed of endless rest, For whom, while living, I could only weep, But never help in all your sore distress, And ye who still your lonely burthen bear, Spilling your blood beneath life's bitter thrall, A little while and we shall all meet there, And one kind Mother's bosom screen us all; Oppression's harness will no longer tire Or gall us there, nor Sorrow's whip of fire.

But we are borrowing too much from our embryo volume. Patience, dear Public! until we can find a publisher. In the mean time, examine the specimens we have presented to you. Can any one tell us where to look for sonnets, more satisfactory than these? We congratulate our country on the prospect of our soon having an American literature. Let our industrious young aspirants try a work in which they may succeed in producing something of sterling value. A year or two will suffice to turn half the plodding prose writers of Britain into original poets. Every brilliant article that appears in the Quarterly might here renascent spring forth like Arethusa, in a new and more melodious voice; bubbling up in a pretty epic or stormy lyric. See, for example, how easily SIDNEY SMITH might be done into rhyme:

SONNET V.

I never meet at any public dinner A Pennsylvanian, but my fingers itch To pluck his borrowed plumage from the sinner, And with the spoil the company enrich. His pocket-handkerchief I would bestow On the poor orphan; and his worsted socks Should to the widow in requital go For having sunk her all in Yankee stocks; To John the footman I would give his hat, Which only cost six shillings in Broadway: As for his diamond ring—I'd speak for that; His gold watch too my losses might repay: Himself might home in the next steamer hie, For who would take him—or his word? Not I.

'LEGENDS OF THE CONQUEST OF SPAIN.'—Some eighteen years ago, a work in a single volume, entitled as above, and written by the author of the 'Sketch-Book,' was issued from the press of MURRAY, the celebrated London book-seller. It would seem to have been put forth as a kind of avant-courier of 'The Chronicles of the Conquest of Granada;' but unlike that elaborate work, was never republished in this country, and has never been included in any of the complete editions of Mr. IRVING'S writings. We are indebted to the kind courtesy of a gentleman who has been spending some months with our distinguished countryman and correspondent at Madrid, for a copy of the book, which he obtained at that capital. We have good reason to believe that it has been encountered by few if any readers on this side the Atlantic. A very stirring extract from its pages will be found elsewhere in this Magazine. Mr. IRVING introduces the legends to his readers with a few prefatory sentences, in which he states that he has ventured to dip more deeply into the enchanted fountains of old Spanish chronicle than has usually been done by those who have treated of the eventful period of which he writes; but in so doing, he only more fully illustrates the character of the people and the times. He has thrown the records into the form of legends, not claiming for them the authenticity of sober history, yet giving nothing that had not a historical foundation. 'All the facts herein contained,' says the writer, 'however extravagant some of them may be deemed, will be found in the works of sage and reverend chroniclers of yore, growing side by side with long acknowledged truths, and might be supported by learned and imposing references in the margin.' To discard every thing wild and marvellous in this portion of Spanish history is to discard some of its most beautiful, instructive, and national features; it is to judge of Spain by the standard of probability suited to tamer and more prosaic countries. Spain is virtually a land of poetry and romance, where every-day life partakes of adventure, and where the least agitation or excitement carries every thing up into extravagant enterprise and daring exploit. The Spaniards in all ages have been of swelling and braggart spirit, soaring in thought, and valiant though vainglorious in deed. When the nation had recovered in some degree from the storm of Moslem invasion, and sage men sought to inquire and write the particulars of the tremendous reverses which it produced, it was too late to ascertain them in their exact verity. The gloom and melancholy that had overshadowed the land had given birth to a thousand superstitious fancies; the woes and terrors of the past were clothed with supernatural miracles and portents, and the actors in the fearful drama had already assumed the dubious characteristics of romance. Or if a writer from among the conquerors undertook to touch upon the theme, it was embellished with all the wild extravagances of an oriental imagination, which afterward stole into the graver works of the monkish historians. Hence the chronicles are apt to be tinctured with those saintly miracles which savor of the pious labors of the cloister, or those fanciful fictions that betray their Arabian Authors. Scarce one of their historical facts but has been connected in the original with some romantic fiction, and even in its divorced state, bears traces of its former alliance. The records in preceding pages are 'illuminated' by these prefatory remarks of our author, if their truth be not altogether established! How the Count JULIAN receives the account of the dishonor of his child, and his conduct thereupon; and how DON RODERICK hastens, through various tribulation, to his final overthrow; will be matter for another number. Meanwhile the reader will not fail to note the great beauty of the descriptions, which in the hands of our great master of the power and beauty of 'the grand old English tongue,' assume form and color, and stand out like living pictures to the eye.

AMERICAN PTYALISM: 'QUID RIDES?'—A pleasant correspondent, whom our readers have long known, and as long admired and esteemed, in a familiar gossip, (by favor of 'Uncle SAMUEL'S mail-bag,) with the Editor, gives us the following 'running account' of his ruminations over an early-morning quid of that 'flavorous weed' so well beloved of our friend Colonel STONE. It is in some sort a defence of American ptyalism, and in the tendency of its inculcations, reminds us of the arguments in favor of the cultivation of a refined style of murder, which should constitute it one of the fine arts, to which we gave a place many months back: 'After having in my broken dreams perambulated every part and parcel of the universe, and then tossed about for hours on an ocean of bodily discomforts, each a dagger to repose, and mental disquietudes, of which any one was enough to wither all the poppies of Somnus, I rose about four o' my watch, and commenced chewing the narcotic weed of Virginia. For you must know that in childhood almost, through a precocious mannishness and a desire of experimental knowledge, I commenced the habit of tobacco-chewing, and the vice born of a freak, has 'grown with my growth,' till now it holds me as in a 'vice' screwed up and secured by a giant. (Please observe that there's a pun in that last sentence.) Where the conventionalities of society compel me to attidunize my appearance and customs into the stiffness of gentility, I puff the Havana; but when the privacy of my own room or the solitude of the roads and fields permit me to vulgarize to my liking, I thrust a ball of 'Mrs. MILLER'S fine-cut,' or a fragment of the 'natural James' River sweet,' between the sub-maxillary bone and its carnal casement, and then masticate and expectorate 'a la Yankee.' or 'more Americano.' Pah! oh! fie! for shame! and all other interjections indicative of horror, or expressive of disgust. 'Quousque tandem?' Beg your pardon, Mrs. TROLLOPE. 'Quamdiu etiam?' I implore your commiseration, Captain BASIL. 'Oh, tempora! oh, mores!' Have mercy, illustrious and praise-bespattered, and almost Sir-Waltered BOZ. Do not, under the uneasy weight of glory, and in the intoxicating consciousness of a right to the oligarchic exclusiveness of the goose-quill 'haute volee,' strike right and left among your sturdy democratic adorers, because they choose to convert their mandibles into quid-grinders, and their [Greek: chasmat' odonton] into ceaseless jet d'eaux of saliva. Reflect that the 'quid' assists in a philosophic investigation of the 'quiddities' of things, and that from this habit alone perhaps we have made such advances in casuistry as to have discovered equity in repudiation, freedom in mobocracy, and the sword of justice in the bowie-knife. Chewing is eminently democratic, since all chewers are 'pro hac vice' on a perfect equality, and a 'millionaire;' or, for that matter, a 'billionaire,' if we had him, would not hesitate to take out of his mouth a moiety of his last 'chew' and give it to an itinerant Lazarus. What can be more admirable than this 'de bon air' plebeianism, and universal right-hand of fellowship? Does not he who extends among the people the use of this democratizing weed, emphatically give them a 'quid pro quo?' Are not slovenliness and filth the virtues of republics, while neatness and elegance are vices of court-growth, and expand into their most ramified and minute perfectness of polish only in the palaces of kings? Furthermore, oh laurelled and triumphant PICKWICK! if expectoration be filthy, it must be because the 'thing expectorated' is unclean; and if so, is it not more decent to become rid of the 'unclean thing' by the readiest process, than to retain it, making the stomach a receptacle of abominations? And are you, Sir Baronet of the realm imaginary, subject to no gross corporeal needs and operations? And if, as you will say, you perform those foul rites in a state of retiracy, are you not adding the sin of hypocrisy to your preexistent guilt? If it has succeeded to you, as to few penny-a-liners, to have emerged by the sale of your Attic-salt from the attics of Grub-street into the 'swept and garnished chambers' of the Regent, and if after quaffing the ale of Bow-street, procured by caricatures of Old Baily reports, you have sipped your hockheimer, while standing, scarce yet unbewildered, in the gas-light splendor reflected from the 'vis-a-vis' mirrors of Almack's, yet do not exalt yourself above all that is fleshly. Reflect that you, so lately unrivalled, can now see a EUGENE SUE whose brow is umbraged by laurels of a more luxuriant and lovely green. Cease your expectorations of bile upon a great people; admit that mastication of the 'odorous vegeble' is a Spartan virtue; and we will again vote you an Anak in the kingdom of pen and paper. Then again shall we be led to believe that your praises and your vituperations are equally unpurchasable. Then once more shall we think you would swallow no golden pill, nor suffer your throat to be ulcerated by a silver quinsy.'

GOSSIP WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.—If any of our readers are desirous of looking into the rationale of irrationality, to employ a highly 'unitive' phrase, let them take up, if they can command it, the 'Annual Report of the Managers of the New York State Lunatic Asylum,' one of the clearest and most comprehensive documents in its kind that we have ever perused. It proceeds from the capable pen of A. BRIGHAM, M. D. the superintendent and physician of the institution, and is full upon the definition, causes and classification of insanity; the size and shape of the heads of the patients; the pulse; description of the building; daily routine of business, diet, labor, amusements, religious worship, visitors, suggestions to those who have friends whom they expect to commit to the care of the asylum, etc., etc. The cause of insanity in fifty out of two hundred and seventy-six patients is attributed to religious anxiety, produced by long attendance on protracted religious meetings, etc. Want of sleep is decidedly the most frequent and immediate cause of insanity, and one the most important to guard against. 'So rarely (says the superintendent) do you see a recent case of insanity that is not preceded by want of sleep, that we regard it as almost the sure precursor of mental derangement.' As evidences of the difficulty of arranging the insane in classes, founded on symptoms, Dr. BRIGHAM gives us the following synopsis of individual peculiarities noticed among certain of the inmates of the Asylum:

'In addition to emperors, queens, prophets and priests, we have one that says he is nobody, a nonentity. One that was never born, and one that was born of her grandmother, and another dropped by the devil flying over the world. One has had the throat cut out and put in wrong, so that what is swallowed passes into the head, and another has his head cut off and replaced every night. One thinks himself a child, and talks and acts like a child. Many appear as if constantly intoxicated. One has the gift of tongues, another deals in magic, several in animal magnetism. One thinks he is a white polar bear. A number have hallucinations of sight, others of hearing. One repeats whatever is said to him, another repeats constantly words of the same sound, as door, floor. One is pursued by the sheriff, many by the devil. One has invented the perpetual motion and is soon to be rich; others have already acquired vast fortunes: scraps of paper, buttons and chips are to them, large amounts of money. Many pilfer continually and without any apparent motive, while others secrete every thing they can find, their own articles as well as those of others. A majority are disposed to hoard up trifling and useless articles, as scraps of tin, leather, strings, nails, buttons, etc., and are much grieved to part with them. One will not eat unless alone, some never wish to eat, while others are always starving. One with a few sticks and straws fills his room with officers and soldiers, ships and sailors, carriages and horses, the management of which occupies all his time and thoughts. Some have good memory as regards most things, and singularly defective as to others. One does not recollect the names of his associates, which he hears every hour, yet his memory is good in other respects. One says he is THOMAS PAINE, author of the 'Age of Reason,' a work he has never read; another calls himself General WASHINGTON; and one old lady of diminutive size calls herself General SCOTT, and is never so good-natured as when thus addressed. One is always in court attending a trial, and wondering and asking when the court is to rise. Another has to eat up the building, drink dry the canal, and swallow the Little Falls village, and is continually telling of the difficulty of the task.'

The superintendent prefers a classification founded upon the faculties of the mind that appear to be disordered; and he thinks he could place all his patients in one of the three following classes: Intellectual Insanity, or disorder of the intellect without noticeable disturbance of the feelings and propensities; Moral Insanity or derangement of the feelings, affections, and passions, without any remarkable disorder of the intellect; and General Insanity, in which both the intellectual faculties and the feelings and affections are disordered. The State Asylum is a fine imposing edifice, delightfully situated near the pleasant village of Utica, in Oneida county, and is becoming greatly distinguished for success in the treatment and cure of insanity. . . . WE heard a little anecdote at a bal costume the other evening, (whether from the dignified and stately HELEN MACGREGOR or the beautiful MEDORA, we 'cannot well make out,') which is worth repeating. A retired green-grocer, rejoicing in the euphonious name of TIBBS, living at Hackney, near London, sorely against his will, and after warm remonstrance, finally yielded to his wife's entreaty that he would go in character to a masquerade-ball, given to the 'middling interest' by one of his old neighbors. He went accoutred as a knight, wearing his visor down. What was his surprise on entering the room, to find first one and then another member of the motley company slapping him familiarly on the back, with: 'Halloa! TIBBS! who thought to see you here! What's the news at Hackney?' In dismay that his ridiculous secret was out, he hurried from the scene, and hastened home in a state of great excitement from the mortification to which he had been subjected. 'I told you I should be known,' said he to his wife; 'I knew I should!' 'No wonder!' she replied; 'you've got your name and residence on your steel cap: 'Mr. TIBBS, Hackney!'' He had forgotten to remove the address which the London costumer had affixed to it as a direction! . . . HOW many thousand times, in thinking of the onward career of our glorious and thrice-blessed country, have we felt the emotions to which our esteemed friend and contributor, POLYGON, gives forceful expression in the closing lines of a beautiful poem of his, which we have encountered to-day for the first time:

'Oh! long through coming ages, born When we shall slumber cold and still, The sultry summer will adorn The verdant vale and hazy hill; And Autumn walking even and morn Through bearded wheat and rustling corn, See Plenty from her streaming horn His largest wishes fill.

'Europe's rich realms will then admire And emulate our matchless fame, And Asia burn with fierce desire To burst her galling bonds of shame! Greece will resume th' Aonian lyre, And Rome again to heaven aspire, And vestal Freedom's quenchless fire From the pyramids shall flame!'

* * * * *

There is a sort of pathetic humor in the following parody by PUNCH upon the prize exhibitions of cattle in England. A more forcible exposition of the different condition of the human and brute animal in that country could not well be conceived. It must be premised that a large hall is fitted up with pens on either side, and over the head of the occupant paste-board tickets are appended by the Poor Law Commissioners, detailing their names, weights, ages, the regimen to which they have been subjected, and other particulars; as thus: 'PETER SMALL. Aged forty. Weight at period of admission twelve stone. Confined three months. Present weight nine stone. Fed principally on water-gruel. Has been separated from his wife and children in the work-house, and occasionally placed in solitary confinement for complaining of hunger. Employment, breaking stones.' 'JANE WELLS. Aged seventy. Weight five stone; lost two stone since her admission, one month ago. Gruel diet; tea without sugar; potatoes and salt. Has been set to picking opium.' 'JOHN TOMPKINS. Aged eighty-five. Has seen better days. On admission, weighed eleven stone, which has been reduced to eight and three-quarters. Diet, weak soup, with turnips and carrots; dry bread and cheese-parings; a few ounces of meat occasionally, when faint. Came to the work-house with his wife, who is five years younger than himself. Has not been allowed to see her for a month; during which period has lost in weight two ounces on an average per day. Employed in carrying coals.' Faithful portraits, no doubt, of thousands who crowd the thick-clustering pauper-houses of England, who have

'No blessed leisure for love nor hope, But only time for grief!'

* * * * *

Our umqwhile New-Haven friend, who commented upon our 'light gossip' a few months since, will pardon us for quoting, in corroboration of the exculpatory 'position' which we assumed in alluding to his animadversions, the following remarks by the author of the 'Charcoal Sketches,' JOSEPH C. NEAL, Esq.: 'Gossip, goodly gossip, though sometimes sneered at, is after all the best of our entertainments. We must fall back upon the light web of conversation, upon chit-chat, as our main-stay, our chief reliance; as that corps de reserve on which our scattered and wearied forces are to rally. What is there which will bear comparison as a recreating means, with the free and unstudied interchange of thought, of knowledge, of impression about men and things, and all that varied medley of fact, criticism and conclusion so continually fermenting in the active brain? Be fearful of those who love it not, and banish such as would imbibe its delights yet bring no contribution to the common stock. There are men who seek the reputation of wisdom by dint of never affording a glimpse of their capabilities, and impose upon the world by silent gravity; negative philosophers, who never commit themselves beyond the utterance of a self-evident proposition, or hazard their position by a feat of greater boldness than is to be found in the avowal of the safe truth which has been granted for a thousand years. There is a deception here, which should never be submitted to. Sagacity may be manifest in the nod of Burleigh's head; but it does not follow that all who nod are Burleighs. He who habitually says nothing, must be content if he be regarded as having nothing to say, and it is only a lack of grace on his part which precludes the confession. In this broad 'Vienna' of human effort, the mere 'looker-on' cannot be tolerated. It is part of our duty to be nonsensical and ridiculous at times, for the entertainment of the rest of the world. If we are never to open our mouths until the unsealing of the aperture is to give evidence of a present Solomon, and to add something to the Book of Proverbs, we must for the most part, stand like the statue of Harpocrates, with 'Still your finger on your lips, I pray.' If we do speak, under such restrictions, it cannot well be, as the world is constituted, more than once or twice in the course of an existence, the rest of the sojourn upon earth being devoted to a sublimation of our thought. But always wise, sensible, sagacious, rational; always in wig and spectacles; always algebraic and mathematical; doctrinal and didactic; ever to sit like FRANKLIN'S portrait, with the index fixed upon 'causality;' one might as well be a petrified 'professor,' or a WILLIAM PENN bronzed upon a pedestal. There is nothing so good, either in itself or in its effects, as good nonsense.' Upon reading the foregoing, we laid Mr. YELLOWPLUSH'S 'flattering function' to our soul, that after all, we need not greatly distrust the reception of our monthly salmagundi, since one good producer and critic may be held as in some sort an epitome of the public; and especially, since any one subsection of our hurried Gossip, should it chance to be dull, or void of interest, may be soon exhausted, or easily skipped. . . . WE observed lately, in the pages of a monthly contemporary, an elaborate notice of the poems of ALFRED TENNYSON, who has written many somewhat affected and several very heartful and exquisite verses; and were not a little surprised to find no reference to two of the most beautiful poems in his collection; namely, the 'New-Year's Eve,' and its 'Conclusion.' The first embodies the reflections of a young maiden, sinking gradually under that fell destroyer, CONSUMPTION. It is new-year's eve, and she implores her mother to 'call her early,' that she may see the sun rise upon the glad new year, the last that she shall ever see. How touchingly the associations of nature are depicted in these stanzas:

To-night I saw the sun set: he set and left behind The good old year, the dear old time, and all my peace of mind; And the New-year's coming up, mother, but I shall never see The blossom on the black thorn, the leaf upon the tree.

There's not a flower on all the hills: the frost is on the pane: I only wish to live till the snow-drops come again: I wish the snow would melt, and the sun come out on high; I long to see a flower so before the day I die.

The building rook will caw from the windy tall elm-tree, And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea, And the swallow will come back again with summer o'er the wave. But I shall lie alone, mother, within the mouldering grave.

Upon the chancel-casement, and upon that grave of mine, In the early, early morning the summer sun will shine; Before the red cock crows from the farm upon the hill, When you are warm asleep, mother, and all the world is still.

When the flowers shall come again, mother, beneath the waning light, You'll never see me more in the long gray fields at night: When from the dry dark wold the summer airs blow cool, On the oat-grass and the sword-grass, and the bulrush in the pool.

You'll bury me, my mother, just beneath the hawthorn shade, And you'll come sometimes and see me, where I am lowly laid. I shall not forget you, mother, I shall hear you when you pass, With your feet above my head in the long and pleasant grass.

I have been wild and wayward, but you'll forgive me now; You'll kiss me, my own mother, upon my cheek and brow; Nay, nay, you must not weep, nor let your grief be wild, You should not fret for me, mother, you have another child.

If I can I'll come again, mother, from out my resting-place; Though you'll not see me, mother, I shall look upon your face; Though I cannot speak a word, I shall hearken what you say, And be often, often with you, when you think I'm far away.

Good-night, good-night! when I have said good-night for evermore, And you see me carried out from the threshold of the door, Don't let Effie come to see me till my grave be growing green: She'll be a better child to you than ever I have been.

She'll find my garden-tools upon the granary floor: Let her take 'em: they are hers: I shall never garden more: But tell her, when I'm gone, to train the rose-bush that I set About the parlour-window and the box of mignonette.

The poor girl's prayer to 'live to see the snow-drop,' in the spring-time, is answered. The violets have come forth, and in the fields around she hears the bleating of the young lambs. She is now ready to die, and knows that the time of her departure is at hand, for she has had a 'warning from heaven.' The reader should have sat by the bed-side of one slowly fading away by consumption, and have heard the wild March wind wail amidst the boughs of leafless trees without, rightly to appreciate the faithfulness of these lines:

'I did not hear the dog howl, mother, nor hear the death-watch beat, There came a sweeter token when the night and morning meet: But sit beside my bed, mother, and put your hand in mine, And Effie on the other side, and I will tell the sign.

All in the wild March-morning I heard the angels call; It was when the moon was setting, and the dark was over all; The trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll, And in the wild March-morning I heard them call my soul.

For lying broad awake I thought of you and Effie dear; I saw you sitting in the house, and I no longer here; With all my strength I pray'd for both, and so I felt resign'd, And up the valley came a swell of music on the wind.

I thought that it was fancy, and I listen'd in my bed, And then did something speak to me—I know not what was said; For great delight and shuddering took hold of all my mind, And up the valley came again the music on the wind.

But you were sleeping; and I said, 'It's not for them: it's mine.' And if it comes three times, I thought, I take it for a sign. And once again it came, and close beside the window-bars, Then seem'd to go right up to Heaven and die among the stars.'

'This blessed music,' she says, 'went that way my soul will have to go.' She is reconciled to her inevitable fate; yet still she casts a 'longing, lingering look behind,' to the beautiful world she is leaving forever. Her reflections are imbued with a deep pathos; the second line of the first stanza, especially, 'teems with sensation:'

'O look! the sun begins to rise, the heavens are in a glow; He shines upon a hundred fields, and all of them I know: And there I move no longer now, and there his light may shine, Wild flowers are in the valley for other hands than mine!

O sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this day is done The voice, that now is speaking, may be beyond the sun; For ever and for ever with those just souls and true: And what is life, that we should moan? why make we such ado?

For ever and for ever, all in a blessed home, And there to wait a little while till you and Effie come; To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast, Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.

* * * * *

We are indebted to a friend and correspondent at the Phillippine Islands, for two very instructive and amusing volumes, of which we intend the reader shall know more hereafter. The first is entitled 'Portfolio Chinensis,' or a collection of authentic Chinese State Papers, in the native language, illustrative of the history of the late important events in China, with a translation by J. LEWIS SHUCK; the second, a 'Narrative of the late Proceedings and Events in China,' by JOHN SLADE, editor of the 'Canton Register.' In looking over these publications, we are struck with the vigor and pertinacity with which, when once their minds were made up, the Chinese authorities pursued their object of abolishing opium forever from the celestial empire. Edicts against the 'red-bristled foreigners' from England, and the people of the American or 'flower-flag nation,' who should hoard up the smoking earth or vaporous drug, were enforced by others addressed to the natives, intended to lessen or annihilate the demand. The remonstrances with the opium-smokers themselves are exceedingly pungent. The 'Great Emperor, quaking with wrath,' having examined the whole matter, and 'united the circumstances,' saturates the High Commissioner LIN with his own bright 'effulgence of reason,' who thereupon promulges: 'Although the opium exists among the outside barbarians, there is not a man of them who is willing to smoke it himself; but the natives of the flowery land are on the contrary with willing hearts led astray by them; and they exhaust their property and brave the prohibitions, by purchasing a commodity which inflicts injury upon their own vitals. Is not this supremely ridiculous! And that you part with your money to poison your own selves, is it not deeply lamentable! How is it that you allow men to befool you? Thus the fish covets the bait and forgets the hook; the miller-fly covets the candle-light, but forgets the fire. Ye bring misfortunes upon yourselves! Habits which are thus disastrous are unchangeable, being like the successive rolling of the waves of the sea. Is not your conduct egregiously strange? We the governor and Fooyuen have three times and five times again and again remonstrated with and exhorted you, giving you lucid warning. Surely, you are indeed dreaming, and snoring in your dreams!' These multiplied edicts, and the offers of rewards, to 'encourage repentant and fear-stricken hearts,' seem to have led to a little trickery on the part of certain cunning mandarins, if we interpret aright this clause in an ensuing 'lucid warning:' 'The opium-pipes which are delivered up must be distinguished clearly as to whether they are real or false. Those having on the outside of them the marks of use, and within the oily residue of the smoke, are the genuine ones; and those which are made of new bamboo, and merely moistened with the smoky oil, are the false ones.' A 'spec.' had evidently been made by means of false 'smoking-implements.' But the most amusing portions of these volumes are the vermillion edicts against the 'outside barbarians,' who had irritated the sacred wrath to the cutting off of their trade. The estimates of the Fooyuen, it will be seen, are of that vague kind usually designated among us as 'upward of considerable.' Alluding to the 'blithesome profits' which had accrued from an intercourse with China, he says: 'I find that during the last several tens of years the money out of which you have duped our people, by means of your destructive drug, amounts I know not to how many tens of thousands of myriads. Your ships, which in former years amounted annually to no more than several tens, now exceed a hundred and several tens, which arrive here every year. I would like to ask you if in the wide earth under heaven you can find such another profit-yielding market as this is? Our great Chinese Emperor views all mankind with equal benevolence, and therefore it is that he has thus graciously permitted you to trade, and become as it were steeped to the lips in gain. If this port of Canton, however, were to be shut against you, how could you scheme to reap profit more? Moreover, our tea and rhubarb are articles which ye foreigners from afar cannot preserve your lives without; yet year by year we allow you to export both beyond seas, without the slightest feeling of grudge on our part. Never was imperial goodness greater than this! Formerly, the prohibitions of our empire might still be considered indulgent, and therefore it was that from all our ports the sycee leaked out as the opium rushed in: now, however, the Great Emperor, on hearing of it, actually quivers with indignation, and before he will stay his hand the evil must be completely and entirely done away with.' But these denunciations are not unmingled with incitements to fear in another direction: 'You are separated from your homes by several tens of thousands of miles, and a ship which comes and goes is exposed to the perils of the great and boundless ocean, arising from curling waves, contrary tides, thunders and lightnings, and the howling tempest, as well as the jeopardy of crocodiles and whales! Heaven's chastisements should be regarded with awe. The majesty and virtue of our Great Emperor is the same with that of heaven itself! Our celestial dynasty soothes and tranquillizes the central and foreign lands, and our favor flows most wide. Our central empire is exuberant in all kinds of productions, and needs not in the slightest degree whatever the goods of the outer seas.' As matters are about proceeding to an open rupture with the 'red-bristled foreigners,' and preparations are making to 'fire upon them with immense guns,' there ensues a bit of Chinese diplomacy, which is especially rich. After a long interview by a committee with the Chefoo, during which all sorts of arguments are urged upon Snow, the American Consul, and VAN BASEL, the Netherlands Consul, to induce them to sign a 'duly-prepared bond,' that none of their countrymen shall thenceforth bring opium to China, the audience is suddenly closed with: 'To-morrow the Chefoo will be at the Consoo-house, and wait from nine till night to receive the bonds. Now go home and go to bed!' But enough for the nonce of JOHN CHINAMAN. . . . IN alluding to Mr. COLE'S graphic account of the Ascent of Mount AEtna, in our last issue, we spoke of its late eruption. While reading the proof of that portion of our 'Gossip,' a friend handed us a letter lately received from an American missionary lady at the Sandwich Islands, from which we extract the subjoined vivid description of the great volcano at Hawaii: 'You know,' says the writer, 'something, I suppose, of the geological character of this island. It seems as though a vast crater had boiled over and poured its fiery liquid in every direction. This lava, having cooled and hardened, forms the basis of the island. The district of Kau is a rich, luxuriant spot, surrounded by desolate fields of scoriae, which renders it difficult of access. We are situated six miles from the sea, sufficiently elevated to give us a commanding view of its vast expanse of waters. We can occasionally spy a sail floating like a speck on its surface. From the shore, the country gradually rises into a range of verdant mountains, whose summits appear to touch the clouds. Proceeding northward toward Hilo, there is a gradual rise, until you reach the Great Volcano, about six miles distant. In making the tour to Hilo, we camped here the second night, on the brink of the burning gulf. Suppose a vast area of earth, as large as the bay of New-York, to have fallen in to the depth of several thousand feet. At the bottom of this great cauldron, you behold the liquid fire boiling and bubbling up, partly covered with a thick black scum. There are two or three inner craters, which have been formed by the lava cooling on its sides while the liquid sunk below. The gentlemen mostly descended into this crater, but I was fully satisfied with a look from above. The earth is cracked all around at the top, and portions of it are continually falling in. Steam issues from open places in all the region. This volcano has been in action from time immemorial, as the natives all assert, and has been with them an object of idolatrous worship. The range of mountains continues for some thirty miles beyond this, and terminates in the snow-capped summit of Mounadoa. This mountain is in full sight at Hilo, and about thirty miles distant. Since we have been here it has been the scene of the most wonderful volcanic eruptions ever yet seen on this island. Mr. P——, in company with Mr. C——, visited it a week or two since, and ascended the mountain to the old crater, from whence the flood of lava proceeded. Fire has not been seen in it within the remembrance of the oldest natives. An immense river of burning lava is at this time running down the side of the mountain, in a subterraneous channel, from three to four miles wide. They had a good view of it through air-holes in the lava, over which they were walking, which was like a sea of glass; frequently sinking in different places in consequence of the intense heat below. It will probably yet find its way to the surface somewhere, and, laying prostrate every thing that opposes it, pursue its devastating course to the sea. Truly we live in a world of wonders!' . . . BY the by, speaking of volcanos: it will be remembered that in 1831 an island was thrown up by volcanic eruption in the Mediterranean sea, off the south coast of Sicily. It presented the form of a round hill, about one hundred and twenty feet above the sea's level, with thick clouds of white smoke issuing from it. As may well be imagined, it excited great wonder and curiosity, and was visited by vast numbers of people. An Austrian, a French and a British vessel met there at the same time. A dispute arose as to what power the island should belong, what it should be named, etc.; when a British sailor leaped on shore, and planted on the topmost peak the union-jack. Nine cheers proclaimed Britannia victorious. On returning shortly after, to take another look at their newly-acquired possession, they found to their dismay that, like Aladdin's palace, the island had disappeared, leaving the Mediterranean as smooth as if the magic wonder had never reared its head! This circumstance suggested the following lines by a correspondent:

FATHER NEPTUNE, one day, as he traversed the seas, Much wanted a spot to recline at his ease: For long tossed and tired by the billow's commotion, ''Tis a shame,' cried the god, 'I'm confined to the ocean. I'll have an island!' To VULCAN he flew, Saying, 'Help me this time, and in turn I'll help you. To make a new island's an excellent scheme; And I think, my dear VULCAN, we'll raise it by steam.' 'Agreed!' cried the god. Straight to work they repair, And throw an abundance of smoke in the air. This mariners saw, and it did them affright; They straightway concluded all could not be right. 'We'll to Sicily repair, and appeal to powers civil, For certainly this is the work of the devil!' The Austrians and French came the wonder to view: Said Britain, in anger, 'That isle's not for you! For us, us alone, did Britannia design it, And, d' ye see, we'll be d——d if we ever resign it! On that island we'll land! there our standard we'll raise! We will there plant our jack, if the island should blaze!'

The gods, in great wrath, heard all this contention: 'Dear NEPTUNE,' said VUL., 'this has spoiled our invention.' 'It has,' said the god, 'but, I swear by my trident, The proud sons of Britain shall never abide on 't! It was raised for a god, and no vile worthless mortal On that island shall dwell, to eat oysters and turtle. Down! down with it, VUL., that will best end the quarrel, And I'll be content with my old bed of coral.'

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'MILK FOR BABES,' an elaborately-concocted satire upon a certain class of 'learned and pious hand-books for urchins of both sexes,' is not without humor, and ridicules what indeed in some respects deserves animadversion. We affect as little as our correspondent what has been rightly termed 'a clumsy fumbling for the half-formed intellect, a merciless hunting down of the tender and unfledged thought,' through the means of 'instructive' little books, wherein an insipid tale goes feebly wriggling through an unmerciful load of moral, religious and scientific preaching; or an apparently simple dialogue involves subjects of the highest difficulty, which are chattered over between two juvenile prodigies, or delivered to them in mouthfuls, curiously adapted to their powers of swallowing. 'The minor manners and duties,' says our correspondent, 'are quite overlooked by misguided parents now-a-days;' and this he illustrates by an anecdote: 'THOMAS, my son,' said a father to a lad in my hearing, the other day, 'won't you show the gentleman your last composition?' 'I don't want to,' said he. 'I wish you would,' responded the father. 'I wont!' was the reply; 'I'll be goy-blamed if I do!' A sickly, half-approving smile passed over the face of the father, as he said, in extenuation of his son's brusquerie: 'Tom don't lack manners generally; but the fact is, he's got such a cold, he is almost a fool!' Kind parent! happy boy! . . . WE would counsel such of our readers as can command it, to secure the perusal of 'Hugh Adamson's Reply to John Campbell,' in the matter of international copy-right. Mr. CAMPBELL, being a paper dealer, and greatly benefitted in his business by the increased sale of stock consequent upon the influx of cheap republications, is naturally very anxious to prevent the passage of an international copy-right law. As might be anticipated of such an advocate, his real reasons are all based upon the argumentum ad crumenam, the argument to the purse. Mr. ADAMSON, in a few satirical, well-reasoned, sententious paragraphs, has fairly demolished the superstructure which Selfishness had reared, and exposed the misrepresentations upon which alone the unsubstantial fabric could have rested. It is quiet and good-natured, but cutting; and will act as an antidote to the elaborate sophistry of Mr. CAMPBELL'S ambitious brochure. . . . WE think we shall publish 'L. D. Q.'s 'Parody;' but should like him to change the third stanza, which is 'like a mildewed ear, blasting its wholesome brothers.' The other verses are capital. One of the cleverest modern parodies which we remember, was written in a Philadelphia journal, and touched upon some exciting city event, before the Court of Sessions. It was in the measure of 'The Cork Leg,' and ran somewhat as follows:

'The defendant said that it was too bad To be taken up before Judge CON-RAD.

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Now Mr. H——, the lawyer, was there, With a pretty good head, but not very much hair, So little, in fact, that a wig he must wear, Ri tu den u-den a!'

The parody had the jogging, jolting air of the original, and was replete, we recollect, with whimsical associations. . . . WE shall venture to present here the comments of two most valued friends and contributors, upon the performances of two other esteemed friends and favorite correspondents. Of 'The Venus of Ille,' the one writes as follows: 'I fully sympathise with you in your admiration of this tale, as well as of 'The Innocence of a Galley-Slave.' I could not in the perusal of them both but feel the vast superiority of the Grecian over the Gothic style. For in spite of all the humor and wit and nature and pathos of the DICKENS and LEVER school, there is something more of the Gothic and grotesque in their paintings than in these pure and unforced limnings of the able Frenchman. Where the ground-work of the tale is of sufficiently bold conception, and the incidents offer hooks enough to hang interest upon, there can be no doubt that this cool style is by far the most effectual in the end. The more strained and heated style of some other modern authors will be very effectual for awhile, but the excitement of the reader will flag sooner. The reason is, that too much descriptive and passionate power is expended on minor portions of the tale; and the enthusiasm of the reader is partially exhausted before he comes to the grand catastrophe, where it should be most of all elicited. But writers like WALTER SCOTT, or this Frenchman, are self-possessed and meditative in a great portion of their writings; by skilful touches giving the reader every thing necessary for him to know in reference to characters and scenes; and on any great emergency their sudden heat carries the reader away captive.' The admiration expressed by our other accomplished friend for the chaste and graceful essays of a still more accomplished correspondent (there is nothing like disparagement in this comparison) is widely shared, as we have the best reason to know, by our readers on both sides of the Atlantic: 'JOHN WATERS! There is a drab-coated plainness about the name, which is at the same time liquid and musical; not more liquid and musical, howbeit, than those charming commentaries of his on every variety of quaint topic; full of an amiable grace, tinged with the most delicate hue of a fine humor; a refined ore drawn from no ordinary mine without alloy; like the compositions of SAPPHO, to which an unerring critic has applied the expression, [Greek: chruseiotera chrusou]; the very best of gold. Doves never bore choicer billet-doux beneath their wings. A beautiful sentiment always touches the heart, though couched in homely phrase; but when one knows how to cull from our mother-tongue the most expressive words, and has gained that enviable mastery, making them fall into their own places, and thus become inseparable from the idea, the perfection of art is gained. Serve us up these choice morceaux each month, dear EDITOR; let them not be missed from the generous board, lest the banquet be incomplete. Let me tell you, in passing, that your correspondent HARRY FRANCO'S tale is a caution to dowagers. Never have I encountered such a startling incident on the high seas, out of 'DON JUAN.' . . . DID it occur to 'N.' that the change suggested in the mere inscription of his epigram, 'Religious Disputation,' would be entirely out of keeping? 'Uniting the circumstances,' as Commissioner LIN would say, would produce such discrepancy as was occasioned lately at a democratic meeting in one of the western States, where a certain resolution in favor of our old friend and correspondent, Gen. CASS, was made to undergo a slight metamorphosis by the substitution of the name of Mr. VAN BUREN; causing it to read something like this: 'Whereas Gen. MARTIN VAN BUREN emigrated to the west from New-Hampshire in early life with his knapsack on his back, and unsheathed his sword in repelling the Indians and fighting against the British!' etc. This historical fiction, in the antagonistic excitement of the moment, was carried by an almost unanimous vote! . . . INVERSION of mere words, or involution of phrase and syntax, let us whisper in the ear of our Troy correspondent, is not a very great beauty in poetry. His own good thoughts are spoiled by this affectation. It requires an artist to employ frequent inversion successfully. The opening of the 'Lines on a Bust of Dante', by Mr. T. W. PARSONS, affords a pleasing example in this kind. It is clear and musical:

'See from this counterfeit of him Whom Arno shall remember long, How stern of lineament, how grim The father was of Tuscan song.'

Inversion should be naturally suggested, not forced. . . . IT is to be inferred, we fear, that the late 'principal editor' of the 'Brother Jonathan' does not take it in good part that the new proprietors of that now popular journal saw fit to arrest its rapid decadence, by a removal of the inevitable cause of such a consummation. Lo! how from his distant down-east ambush, with characteristic phrase, he denounces them as 'cowards' and 'puppies!' Whereupon, in a response appropriately brief, the 'brave few' of the 'principal editor's' old readers who have 'endured unto the end,' are informed by the new incumbent, that the tabooed ci-devant functionary 'seems disturbed because he was not suffered to kill the 'Brother Jonathan' as he had killed every journal in which he was permitted to pour out his vapid balderdash. He is a perfect BLUEBEARD among newspapers. He no sooner slaughters one, than he manages to get hold of another, and butcher that with the same remorseless indifference.' The editor adds: 'He once enjoyed the honor of some connection with the 'New World,' and would have consigned that well-known sheet to the tomb of the Capulets, had not the publishers foreseen the danger, and escaped in season.' We merely note these facts, as corroborative of a remark or two of our own, in our last issue. . . . 'An Incident in Normandy', we shrewdly suspect, is not 'from the French;' if it be, all that we have to say is, that such pseudo-rhapsodists as the writer could never by any possibility love nature. The thing is altogether over-done. A Frenchman's opinion, however, COWELL tells us, should never be taken where the beauties of nature are concerned, unless they can be cooked. There is another grave objection to the article; which consists in the undue frequency of Italian and French words and phrases, foisted into the narrative. We have a strong attachment to plain, perspicuous English. Ours is a noble language, a beautiful language; and we hold fully with SOUTHEY, who somewhere remarks that he can tolerate a Germanism, for family sake; but he adds: 'He who uses a Latin or a French phrase where a pure old English word does as well, ought to be hung, drawn and quartered, for high treason against his mother-tongue.' . . . 'The Song of the New Year, by Mrs. NICHOLS, in a late number,' writes a Boston correspondent, 'is an excellent production, and a fair specimen of the improved style of our occasional American verse. Suppose a book-worm should light on poetry of equal merit among FLATMAN'S, FALCONER'S, PRIOR'S, or PARSELL'S collections? Would it not shine forth, think you? Indeed our lady-writers are wresting the plume from our male pen mongers unco fast.' 'That's a fact.' Mrs. NICHOLS has a sister-poet at Louisville, Kentucky, who has a very charming style and a delicious fancy. A late verse of hers in some 'Lines to a Rainbow,' signed 'AMELIA,' which we encountered at a reading-room the other day, have haunted our memory ever since:

'There are moments, I think, when the spirit receives Whole volumes of thought on its unwritten leaves; When the folds of the heart in a moment unclose, Like the innermost leaves from the heart of a rose.'

MOORE never conceived a more beautiful simile than this. . . . NUMBER TWO of the 'Reminiscences of a Dartmoor Prisoner' will appear in our next issue. We have received from the writer a very interesting and amusing manuscript-volume, filled with patriotic poetry, containing vivid pictures of scenes and events in the daily routine of the prison, as well as sketches of Melville Island Prison, and reminiscences of striking events in the lives of sundry of the prisoners, in the progress of the American war. We shall refer more particularly to this entertaining collection in an ensuing number. . . . THE Lines on 'Niagara Falls at Night' are entirely too terrific for our pages. They are almost as 'love-lily dreadful' as the great scene itself. 'M.' must 'try again,' that is quite certain; and we are afraid, more than once. . . . TU DOCES! Doubtless many of our young readers, especially in the country, have often pondered over the zig-zag hieroglyphics which covered the tea-chests at the village-store, and marvelled what 'HOWQUA,' which was inseparable from these inscriptions, could mean. It was the name of the great Hong merchant, 'the friend of Americans,' who died recently at Canton, at an advanced age, leaving his vast wealth to two sons. Here is an elegy written upon his death by his brother-merchant TINGQUA, which is now being sung about Canton to a dolorous air, accompanied by the yeih-pa and the tchung, a curious sort of guitar and harp in common use. The elegy comprises a little outline, together with hints and allusions, prettily conveyed, of the principal biographical events of HOWQUA'S career, and is entitled

TINGQUA'S TEARS.

I weep for HOWQUA. He was the friend of my youth. We often rose before day-break, and gazed together at the soft blue clouds round the retiring moon.

At that time I smiled on HOWQUA. We both grew old together. We often went to the tombs of our fathers, side by side, and thought tenderly of the loving dead.

Weep friends of the Hong. All friends at home (literally Celestial friends,) and all natives of outside countries weep; weep excessively. For HOWQUA is no more.

HOWQUA was a fixed man. He had reason. Loving old laws, old customs, and all things long since established as wise, he therefore hated change.

HOWQUA was very rich. He had no half-thinkers and third-smokers (meaning no partners,) and no branch-breakers to his universal tea-dealings.

Also he had lands for rice and pasture, and to play at ball, and villas, and ponds of fish, and fifteen field-bridges of carved wood gilt, and seven domestic bridges inlaid with ivory birds and dragons.

Also he had money in the foreign mysteries (probably meaning the funds.)

Also he had doings with several things of great value, and shares of large ship-loads. But never would he touch the hateful opium-trade, after the recent mad insolences.

Also he had some wives.

Also the GREAT EMPEROR loved him, though HOWQUA was only as the poorest man before that Yellow Illumination of our day and night.

The body of my friend was slight, and easily injured; like the outside of people's pocket-watch when she walk against the sun (that is, an injured watch that goes wrong.) But my dear friend for whom I shed these tears had a head with many eyes.

HOWQUA knew what to do with his unnecessary gold. He built a temple to Buddha, and thus made the god a present of 2,000,000 dollars, to the excessive delight of his Essence and Image.

Also, HOWQUA gave 800,000 dollars to assist the ransom of his beloved Canton from the fangs of the late war; to the excessive delight of the Fighting-minded Barbarians.

Weep, then, for HOWQUA, even as I weep. He was the friend of my youth. Together we grew old, walking toward our fathers' tombs. We might have died together; but it is well that one old friend should be left a little while to weep.'

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The paper upon 'American Interior and Exterior Architecture' we are quite certain would not have the tendency which the writer contemplates. It would discourage rather than foster that better taste which is gaining ground among us. In this city, how great have been the improvements in the exterior and interior decorations of our dwellings, within the last eight years! We remember the time as it were but yesterday, when the beautiful muslin window-shades, first introduced among us by Mr. GEORGE PLATT, were considered a luxury of interior decoration—as indeed many of them were. But from these small yet promising beginnings, our accomplished artist has gone on, until his extensive establishment is filled with specimens of rich and elaborate architectural decorations, for the various styles of which the reigns of French and English sovereigns have been put under the most liberal contribution. Our wealthy and tasteful citizens have vied with each other in the enriching and beautifying of their mansions; while, also emulous, a kindred class in our sister-cities have laid requisitions upon Mr. PLATT'S architectural and decorative genius, (for in him it is genius, and of no intermediate order,) which have convinced him at least, that the 'laggard taste' which our correspondent arraigns, is 'not so slow' as he seems to imagine. . . . WHO was 'Dandy Jim from Caroline,' of whom every boy in the street is either whistling or singing, and whom we 'have heard spoken of' by musical instruments and that of all sorts, at every party or ball which we have found leisure to attend during the gay season? We are the more anxious to glean some particulars touching the origin and history of this personage, because his fame is rife among our legislators, and the 'lobby-interest' at Albany; if we may judge from a quatrain before us, which hints at a verbal peculiarity of our excellent representative, Alderman VARIAN, whose v always takes the form of a w, especially in his rendering of a foreign tongue; as witness his being 'just on the qwi-wi-we for the capitol,' on one occasion, and the subjoined versification of another of his Latin sentences, with cockney 'wariations:'

'Then here's a health to WARI-AN, That 'Weni, widi, wici' man! He talk de grammar werry fine, Like DANDY JIM o' Caroline: For my ole massa tol' me so,' etc.

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There is in these humane and benevolent days an increasing sympathy in the public mind for a man condemned to 'march sorrowfully up to the gallows, there to be noosed up, vibrate his hour, and await the dissecting-knife of the surgeon,' who fits his bones into a skeleton for medical purposes. 'There never was a public hanging,' says a late advocate of the abolition of capital punishment, 'that was productive of any thing but evil.' There is an anecdote recorded of WHITFIELD, however, which seems to refute this position, in at least one instance. This eloquent divine, while at Edinburgh, attended a public execution. His appearance upon the ground drew the eyes of all around him, and raised a variety of opinions as to the motives which led him to join in the crowd. The next day, being Sunday, he preached to a large body of men, women and children, in a field near the city. In the course of his sermon, he adverted to the execution which had taken place the preceding day. 'I know,' said he, 'that many of you will find it difficult to reconcile my appearance yesterday with my character. Many of you will say, that my moments would have been better employed in praying with the unhappy man, than in attending him to the fatal tree, and that perhaps curiosity was the only cause that converted me into a spectator on that occasion: but those who ascribe that uncharitable motive to me are under a mistake. I witnessed the conduct of almost every one present on that occasion, and I was highly pleased with it. It has given me a very favorable impression of the Scottish nation. Your sympathy was visible on your countenances, and reflected the greatest honor on your hearts: particularly when the moment arrived in which your unhappy fellow creature was to close his eyes on this world forever, you all, as if moved by one impulse, turned your heads aside and wept. Those tears were precious, and will be held in remembrance. How different was it when the Saviour of mankind was extended on the cross! The Jews, instead of sympathizing in his sorrows, triumphed in them. They reviled him with bitter expressions, with words even more bitter than the gall and vinegar which they gave him to drink. Not one of them all that witnessed his pains, turned the head aside even in the last pang. Yes, there was one; that glorious luminary, (pointing to the sun,) veiled his bright face and sailed on in tenfold night!' This is eloquence! Would that we could have seen the beaming features, the 'melting eye, turned toward heaven,' which indelibly impressed these words upon the heart of every hearer! . . . MANY of our readers will doubtless remember the time when Professor J——, the celebrated 'artist in hair,' was flourishing in his glory, and when his fame was perhaps as rife in New-York and Boston as that of any man living, in his line of art. His advertisements too, so unique in their grandiloquent phraseology, will not soon be forgotten by those who relish such things. The Professor is not now, as regards worldly prosperity, the man he used to be; but his gentlemanly feeling still clings to him, and his pride in his profession is as enthusiastic as ever. We observe by a Boston journal that he is once more trying his luck in our eastern metropolis; and this reminds us of an anecdote concerning him. A friend tells us that some months since he encountered the professor at a coffee-house, where he was rehearsing to a rather verdant customer the former glories of his professional life. Among other things, 'At one time,' said he, 'I was sent for by express, to go to Philadelphia on professional business.' 'To do what?' asked his listener. 'To make wigs for the Signers of the Declaration of Independence!' replied J——, with a pompous air. Now the professor's comrade was not very quick-witted, as we have already hinted, and it did not occur to him at the moment whether the signers were men only of yesterday, or of the last century; and he rejoined, in a tone of wonder: 'What! do they all wear wigs?' 'All?' replied the professor, with a look of mingled piety and triumph; 'why, Sir, did you ever know a wax-figure to wear its own hair? Men of flesh and blood, now-a-days, don't know any better; but the man of wax, Sir, possesses a truer taste, and always consults the PERRUQUIER!' The relator says it would be impossible to convey an adequate idea of the superb manner in which the last word was uttered; the full round tone, and the tonsorial flourish of the right hand, as if it still grasped the magic brush and scissors. . . . THE reader will have gathered from an incidental allusion in an article by Mr. GEORGE HARVEY, in our last number, some idea of the fervent enthusiasm with which he has studied and copied Nature, in her every variety of season and changes of the hour, in executing his beautiful Landscape Drawings. We have neither the leisure nor space for an adequate notice of these pictures; but being solicitous that our town readers should participate in the great enjoyment which they have afforded us, we would direct them to Mr. HARVEY'S exhibition-room at the old Apollo Gallery, nearly opposite the Hospital, in Broadway. . . . HERE is a pleasant specimen of an 'Unnecessary Disclaimer,' for which we are indebted to a metropolitan friend: 'A few evenings since, as a gentleman was walking up Broadway, and just as he was crossing the side-walk at the junction of White-street, his feet suddenly slipped from under him, his hat flew forward with the involuntary jerk, and he measured his length on the side-walk, striking his bare head on the hard ice, till all rang again. At the instant it chanced that a lady and gentleman were just emerging from White-street into Broadway, and the prostrate sufferer, lying directly across their path, interrupted for a moment their farther progress. He soon recovered his feet, however, and with one hand on his newly-developed bump, and the other on his breast, he turned to the couple whose passage he had impeded, and exclaimed with cool gravity: 'Excuse me; I didn't intend to do it!' Probably he didn't; at all events, his word was not disputed. . . . MOST likely our readers have not forgotten an admirable satire upon the 'Songs of the Troubadours,' from which we extracted some months since the affecting story of 'The Taylzour's Daughter.' Something in the same style is 'The Doleful Lay of the Honorable I. O. Uwins,' a gentleman who threw himself away upon a bailiff's daughter, to escape from the restraints and pungent odors of a sponging-house. The 'whole course of wooing' and the result are hinted at in the ensuing lines:

'There he sate in grief and sorrow, Rather drunk than otherwise, Till the golden gush of morrow Dawned once more upon his eyes; Till the spunging bailiff's daughter, Lightly tapping at the door, Brought his draught of soda-water, Brandy-bottomed as before.

'Sweet REBECCA! has your father, Think you, made a deal of brass?' And she answered: 'Sir, I rather Should imagine that he has.' UWINS, then, his whiskers scratching, Leer'd upon the maiden's face; And her hands with ardor catching, Folded her in his embrace.

'La, Sir! let alone—you fright me!' Said the daughter of the Jew: 'Dearest! how these eyes delight me! Let me love thee, darling, do!' 'Vat is dish?' the bailiff mutter'd, Rushing in with fury wild; 'Ish your muffins so vell butter'd Dat you darsh insult ma shild?'

'Honorable my intentions, Good ABEDNEGO, I swear! And I have some small pretensions, For I am a Baron's heir. If you'll only clear my credit, And a thousand give or so, She's a peeress; I have said it! Don't you twig, ABEDNEGO?'

'Datsh a very different matter!' Said the bailiff, with a leer; 'But you musht not cut it fatter Than ta slish will shtand, ma tear! If you seeksh ma approbation, You must quite give up your rigsh; Alsho, you mosht join our nation, And renounch ta flesh of pigsh.'

* * * * *

At a meeting of the Rabbis, Held about the Whitsuntide, Was this thorough-paced Barabbas Wedded to his Hebrew bride. All his former debts compounded, From the spunging-house he came; And his father's feelings wounded With reflections on the same.'

It is a very dear marriage for UWINS, for on visiting his father the Baron, that incensed nobleman tells the double-dyed apostate never to cross his threshold again, and directs JOHN the porter to kick him into the street. The order is anticipated:

'Forth rushed I. O. UWINS, faster Than all winking, much afraid That the orders of the master Would be punctually obeyed; Sought his club, and there the sentence Of expulsion first he saw: No one dared to own acquaintance With a bailiff's son-in-law.

Uselessly down Bond-street strutting, Did he greet his friends of yore; Such a universal cutting Never man received before. Till at last his pride revolted; Pale, and lean, and stern, he grew; And his wife REBECCA bolted With a missionary Jew.

Ye who read this doleful ditty, Ask ye where is UWINS now? Wend your way through London city, Climb to Holborn's lofty brow; Near the sign-post of 'The Nigger,' Near the baked-potato shed, You may see a ghastly figure, With three hats upon his head.

When the evening shades are dusky, Then the phantom form draws near, And, with accents low and husky, Pours effluvia in your ear; Craving an immediate barter Of your trousers or surtout, And you know the Hebrew martyr, Once the peerless I. O. U.'

* * * * *

A friend, in a recent letter to the Editor, thus alludes to the 'National Intelligencer,' one of the ablest and most dignified journals in the country, and to two of its 'special correspondents:' 'Mr. WALSH, who writes from Paris, seems an incorporation of European literature and politics; and his articles are, in my belief, the most valuable now contributed to any journal in the world. Willis is the lightest and most mercurial 'knight of the quill' in all the tournament. It is astonishing with what dexterity, felicity, and grace he touches off the veriest trifle of the day, investing the trite with originality, and giving the value of wit and poetry to the worthless and the dry. Pity that this brilliant 'quid nunc' should degenerate into a mere trifling 'arbiter elegantiarum,' and expend his buoyant and ductile genius in the indictment of ephemeral paragraphs. His genius, it is true, has little solidity; but if he would rest two or three years on his oars, he might collect the scatterings of wit and poetry, which would in that time accrue to him from his readings and reflections, into a volume of essays, etc., which would be inferior in brilliancy and piquancy to but few of any nation.' Possibly; but in the mean time, let us advise our friend, Mr. WILLIS has the little substantials of every-day life to look after. He 'pleases to write' frequently and currente calamo, because he 'pleases to live.' Fame is one thing, and can be waited for; there are other things that cannot tarry so well. Mr. WILLIS has 'seen the elephant.' He knows that KENNY MEADOWS is not far out of the way in his humorous picture of 'The Man of Fame and the Man of Funds,' wherein a shadowy hand protrudes from cloud-land, holding a pair of steel-yards, to resolve the comparative weight of an appetizing leg-of-mutton, and a huge laurel-wreath. The mutton 'has it' all to nothing, and the wreath 'kicks the beam! . . . PUNCH, up to the latest dates, suddenly makes his appearance in our sanctum. Merriest of Merry Andrews, he is ever welcome! His 'COMIC BLACKSTONE,' must be of great service to legal gentlemen. In it, among other things, we are enlightened as to the 'Rights of the Clergy.' We subjoin a few items: 'An archbishop is a sort of inspector of all the bishops in his province; but he does not call them out as an inspector would so many policemen, to examine their mitres, and see that their lawn sleeves are properly starched, before going on duty in their respective dioceses. An archbishop may call out the bishops, just as a militia colonel may call out the militia.' 'A bishop (episcopes) is literally an overseer, instead of which it is notorious that some of them are overlookers of their duties, and blind to the state of their diocese, though they call it their see.' 'The duties incumbent on a parson are, first to act as the incumbent, by living in the place where he has his living. Formerly, a clergyman had what is called the benefit of clergy in cases of felony; a privilege which, if a layman had asked for, he would have been told that the authorities would 'see him hanged first.' 'A curate is the lowest grade in the church, for he is a sort of journeyman parson, and several of them meet at a house of call in St. Paul's Church-Yard, ready to job a pulpit by the day, and being in fact 'clergyman taken in to bait' by the landlord of the house alluded to.' Concerning 'Subordinate Magistrates,' as officers of the customs, overseers of the poor, etc., we glean the following information: 'Tide-waiters are overseers of the customs duties, therefore it is their duty to overlook the customs. Custom is unwritten law, and a practice may be termed a custom when it can be proved to have lasted for a hundred years. Now, can any man doubt that the custom of defrauding the customs has endured more than a hundred years? Then the practice has become a law, and for observing this law, which, it seems, is one of our time-revered institutions, and a profitable proof of the wisdom of our ancestors, landing-waiters and tradesmen are to be prosecuted and punished. Monstrous injustice!' 'Overseers of the Poor are functionaries who sometimes literally over-see or over-look the cases of distress requiring assistance. The poor law of ELIZABETH has been superseded by a much poorer law of WILLIAM the Fourth, the one great principle of which is, to afford the luxury of divorce to persons in needy circumstances. It also discountenances relief to the able-bodied, a point which is effected by disabling, as far as possible, any body who comes into the work-house. The Poor Law is administered by three Commissioners, who spend their time in diluting gruel and writing reports; trying experiments how little will suffice to prevent a repeal of the union between the soul and the body.' We have this information concerning the clock heretofore complained of: 'PUNCH has been accused of hitting this clock very hard when it was down; and it certainly must be admitted that it was wholly unable to strike in return. We are happy to say that the wound has been followed by the clock being at last wound, and we now offer to take it by the hands in a spirit of friendship. We have been told that the long stagnation has been caused by the absurd scruples of the pendulum, which refused to go from side to side, lest it should be accused of inconsistency.' Under the different months, 'PUNCH'S Almanack' gives many important directions, one of which is for the proprietors of the public gardens: 'Now trim your lamps, water your lake, graft new noses on statues, plant your money-taker, and if the season be severe, cut your sticks.' The following 'Tavern Measure' is doubtless authentic: Two 'goes' make one gill; two gills one 'lark;' two larks one riot; two riots one cell, or station-house, equivalent to five shillings.' For office-clerks, as follows: Two drams make one 'go;' two goes one head-ache; two head-aches one lecture; two lectures 'the sack.' To those gentlemen who are lovers of the Virginia weed in its native purity, a list of prices, 'furnished by one of the first Spanish houses,' is published. It includes 'choice high-dried dock-leaf regalias,' 'fine old cabbage Cuba's,' 'genuine goss-lettuce Havana's,' and 'full-flavored brown-paper Government Manilla's!' Two scraps under the head of 'University Intelligence' must close our quotations: 'Given the force with which your fist is propelled against a cabman, and the angle at which it strikes him; required the area of mud he will cover on reaching the horizontal plane.' 'Show the incorrectness of using imaginary quantities, by attempting to put off your creditors with repeated promises to pay them out of your Pennsylvania dividends.' . . . MANY German physicians and surgeons hold that there remains in the brain of a decollated head some degree of thought, and in the nerves something of sensibility. It is stated by his biographer, that in the case of Sir EVERARD DIGBY, executed for a participation in the Gunpowder Plot, the tongue pronounced several words after the head was severed from the body. After the execution of CHARLOTTE CORDAY, also, it is alleged that the executioner held up her lovely head by its beautiful hair, and slapped the pale cheeks, which instantly reddened, and gave to the features such an expression of unequivocal indignation, that the spectators, struck by the change of color, with loud murmurs cried out for vengeance on barbarity so cowardly and atrocious. 'It could not be said,' writes Dr. SUE, a physician of the first eminence and authority in Paris, 'that the redness was caused by the blow, since no blow can ever recall any thing like color to the cheeks of a corpse; beside, this blow was given on one cheek, and the other equally reddened.' Singular facts. Do they not militate against certain theories of 'nervous sensation' recently promulgated in our philosophical circles? . . . DOESN'T it sicken you, reader, to hear a young lady use that common but horrid commercial metaphor, 'first-rate?' 'How did you like CASTELLAN, last evening, Miss HUGGINS?' 'Oh, first-rate!' 'When a girl makes use of this expression,' writes an eastern friend, 'I mutter inly,' 'Your pa' sells figs and salt-fish, I know he does.' And it is all very well and proper, if he does; but for the miserable compound itself, pray kill it dead in your Magazine! Hit it hard! By the by, talking of odd phrases, hear this. A young Italian friend of mine, fresh from Sicily as his own oranges, a well-educated, talented person, who has labored hard to get familiar with English letters, and has read our authors, from CHAUCER downward, dilated thus on the poets: 'PO-PE is very mosh like HORACE; I like him very mosh; but I tink BIR-RON was very sorry poet.' 'What!' quoth I, 'BYRON a sorry poet! I thought he was a favorite with Italians?' 'Oh, yes; I adore him very mosh; I almost do admire him; but he was very sorry poet.' 'How so? BYRON a sorry bard?' 'Oh, yes, very sorry; don't you think so? molto triste—very mel-an-choly; don't you find him so? I always feel very sorry when I read him. I think he's far more sorry than PETRARCA; don't you?' This will remind the reader of the very strong term used by a Frenchman, who on being asked at a soiree what was the cause of his evident sadness, replied: 'I av just hear my fader he die: I am ver' mosh dissatisfied!' . . . WE shall probably find a place for the paper entitled 'Foreigners in America.' The writer touches with a trenchant pen upon 'the social abuses which the first families in the metropolis tolerate at the hands of disreputable exquisites and titled rascals.' Nervous words, but not undeserved. 'How much more rapidly a fashionable foreigner will move in the high road of preferment than one of your thinking, feeling, complex persons, in whom honor, integrity and reason make such a pother that no step can be taken without consulting them!' . . . WE have indulged in one or two sonorous guffaws, and several of Mr. COOPER's 'silent laughs,' over the following 'palpable hit' from a New-Jersey journal: 'A talking-machine,' says the 'Newton Herald,' 'which speaks passable French, capital English, and choice Italian, is now to be seen at New-York. It is made of wood, brass, and gum-elastic.' 'A similar machine,' adds the 'Sussex Register,' 'compounded of buckram, brass, and soap-locks, and familiarly called 'GREEN JOSEY,' is to be seen in Newton, at the Herald office; though we cannot say that it speaks any language 'passably.' It frequently makes the attempt, however, and here is one of its last 'essays:' 'Gov. GILMER is understood to have had a standing CART-BALANCE for any appointment under the present administration, which he might choose to except; but he will not except an appointment of any kind under this administration.' Isn't that 'standing cart-balance' rich? The usual phrase carte-blanche, which in the sentence quoted might be rendered by 'unconditional offer,' is transmogrified into cart-balance! Among all the blunders perpetrated by conceited ignorance in its attempts to parley-voo, this stands unequalled. We have seen hic jacet turned into his jacket, in an obituary; that was a trifle; but CART-BALANCE overcomes our gravity!' So it does ours. The anecdote, to adopt the reading of a kindred accomplished linguist whom we wot of, is a 'capital jesus-de-sprit!' . . . THE beginning of 'L.'s 'Stanzas' is by no means unpromising; but what a 'lame and impotent conclusion!'

'Lord HOWE he went out, And LORD! how he came in!'

The third verse would do credit to STREET, so graphic and poetical are the rural images introduced; but it runs into the fourth, a stanza 'most tolerable, and not to be endured.' Our young friend may be assured that we shall not 'regard with indifference' any thing from his pen that may fulfil the promise of the lines to which we allude. Na'theless, he must 'squeeze out more of his whey.' . . . THE admirers of one of the most popular contributors that this Magazine ever enjoyed, will be glad to meet with the following announcement:

'BURGESS, STRINGER AND COMPANY, corner of Broadway and Ann-street, New-York, have in press the Literary Remains of the late WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK, including the Ollapodiana Papers, with several other of his Prose Writings, not less esteemed by the public; including also his 'Spirit of Life,' a choice but comprehensive selection from his Poetical Contributions to the Literature of his Country; together with a Memoir: to be edited by his twin-brother, LEWIS GAYLORD CLARK, Editor of the KNICKERBOCKER Magazine. The publishers do not consider it necessary for them to enlarge upon the character of the writings which will compose the above volume. The series of papers under the title of Ollapodiana will be remembered with admiration and pleasure, by readers in every section of the United States. Their rich variety of subject; their alternate humor and pathos; the one natural, quiet, and irresistibly laughable; the other warm from the heart, and touching in its tenderness and beauty; won for them the cordial and unanimous praise of the press throughout the Union, and frequent laudatory notices from the English journals. Reminiscences of early days; expositions of the Ludicrous and the Burlesque, in amusing Anecdote; Limnings from Nature; and 'Records of the Heart,' were among their prominent characteristics. It is not too much to say of the other Prose Writings which the volume will contain, that although of a somewhat different character, they are in no respect inferior to the Ollapodiana, in their power to awaken and sustain interest. The Poetical Writings of Mr. CLARK are too well known to require comment. They have long been thoroughly established in the national heart, and have secured for the writer an enviable reputation abroad.'