And a dozen other London journals might be quoted to the same effect. But critics disagree, as well as doctors, and the Boston Puritan Recorder comes down on the Howadji in the following exemplary manner:

"This is a much-vaunted book, by a young American, but one in which we take no pleasure. In the first place, it is written in a most execrable style,—all affectation, and verbal wriggling and twisting for the sake of originality. The veriest sophomore ought to be "rusticated" for such conceited phrases as "beautiful budburstiness of bosom,"—"her twin eyes shone forth liquidly lustrous"—and innumerable expressions in the same namby-pamby dialect. But dellacruscan folly is but a trifle compared with the immoral tendency of the descriptions of the gahzeeyah, or dancing girls of Egypt, and the luscious comments on their polluted ways and manners. We thought the Harpers had done publishing this indecent trash."

* * * * *

D. M. Moir, the "Delta" of Blackwood's Magazine, has just published in Edinburgh, Sketches of the Poetical Literature of the Past Half Century, in six Lectures, delivered at the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution.

* * * * *

The Rev. Satan Montgomery, otherwise called Robert Montgomery, is not dead, as some have supposed, but is still making sermons and verses—probably sermons and verses of equally bad quality; and we see with some alarm that the Rivingtons advertise, as in preparation, a complete edition of his Poetical Works [we never saw any works by him that were poetical] in one octavo volume, similar in size and appearance to the octavo editions of Southey, Wordsworth, &c., &c., and including the whole of the author's poems—Satan, Woman, Hell, and all the rest,—in a revised form, with some original minor pieces, and a general preface. We don't suppose he will take our counsel, yet we will venture it, that he make use of Macaulay's reviewal of his poems, instead of any "general preface" of his own.

* * * * *

Documentary History of New-York.—The forthcoming (third) volume of this State contribution to our historical literature will well sustain the reputation of its predecessors and of its zealous editor. Dr. O'CALLAGHAN is an enthusiast in his zeal for lighting up "the dark ages of our history," as Verplanck called the Dutch period; and he has done as much as any man living to rescue the fast perishing memorials of the founders of the Empire State. It is fortunate for the State that his industry and patient research are secured for the proper arrangement of the Archives—too long neglected and subject to loss and mutilation. The new volume has come to hand too late for any elaborate notice or review of its contents; but a glance at the list of papers and illustrations alone warrants the opinion we have expressed. We notice particularly the account of Champlain's explorations in Northern New-York, &c., from 1609 to 1615—translated from the edition of 1632. The historical student cannot fail to note the coincidence of discovery and exploration by the Dutch and French; and the credit due to the "Founder of New France;" to which we have alluded in the article on the Jesuit Relations. The translations of the extracts from Wassenaar (1624, etc.), give an interesting cotemporaneous view of the progress of the European discoveries and settlements in America. A chapter on Medals and Coins contains attractive matter, particularly that portion which relates to the "Rosa Americana coins," connected as they are with the "Wood's half-pence," immortalized by Dean Swift. The notes and biographical sketches by the editor, scattered through the volume, add materially to its value—as also the numerous maps and engravings. We have heard hints that some small suggestions of disinterested economists of the public money, or other considerations less creditable, have been brought to bear against the continuation of this publication—but we trust that they will end when they begin. New-York owes it to her own great history to make its material accessible to all.

* * * * *

Colonel Albert J. Pickett, of Montgomery, has in the press of Walker and James, of Charleston, The History of Alabama, and incidentally of Georgia and Mississippi, from the Earliest Period. It will make two handsome volumes, and from some passages of it which we have read, we believe it will be a work of very unusual attraction. It will embrace an account of the invasion of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, by De Soto, in 1539-41; of the Aborigines of these states, their appearance, manners and customs, games, amusements, wars, and religious ceremonies, their ancient mounds and fortifications, and of the modern Indians, the Creeks, Chickasaws Choctaws, Alabamas, Uchees, Cherokees, and other tribes; the discovery and settlement of Alabama and Mississippi by the French, and their occupation until 1763; the occupation of Alabama and Mississippi by the British for eighteen years; the colonization of Georgia by the English; the occupation of Alabama and Mississippi by the Spaniards for thirty years; and the occupation of these states by the Americans from 1800 until 1820. One whole chapter is taken up with an interesting account of the arrest of Aaron Burr in Alabama in 1807; and the exciting controversies between Georgia, the Federal Government, Spain, and the Creek Indians, are treated at length. The work will be illustrated by really valuable engravings, after original drawings made by a French traveller in 1564.

* * * * *

Mrs. Farnham, author of Prairie-Land, (a very clever book published three or four years ago by the Harpers), and widow of the late Mr. Farnham who wrote a book of travels in Oregon and other parts of the Pacific country, is now living in a sort of paradise, about seventy miles south of San Francisco. In a published letter she gives the following description of her farm:

"It is very heavily timbered and watered with clear living streams running through valleys of the most fertile soil, on which delicious vegetables grow ten months of the year. The region is especially famed for potatoes, which become almost a fruit here. The farm I live on is charmingly situated about a mile from the old Mission, and two from the beach, on which a tremendous surf breaks and thunders day and night. From my house I look over the coast-table and range of mountains, the hills of Monterey, the bay, and a near landscape, exquisitely diversified by plain and wood, hill and valley, and almost every shade that herbage and foliage, in a country without frost, can show. The rainy season is about a month old, and the earth as green as it is at home in June. Another month will pile it with clover, and less than another variegate it with an inconceivable variety of the most exquisite flowers—for this is the land of flowers as well as of gold. Our prairies are quite insignificant in their floral shows, compared to it. The country and climate are faultless—except in the lack of showers through the dry months. Nearly every thing one can desire may be grown upon one's own farm here."

* * * * *

Mr. Charles Gayarre, a gentleman distinguished in the affairs of Louisiana, in which state he has held some important offices, has just published in a handsome octavo, Louisiana, its Colonial History and Romance, (Harper & Brothers.) It appears from the preface, that Mr. Gayarre has had excellent opportunities for the collection of materiel for a really good book of the sort indicated by his title; but this performance is utterly worthless, or worse than worthless, being neither history nor fiction, but such a commingling of the two that no one can tell which is one or which the other. The uncertainty with which it is read will be disagreeable in proportion to the interest that it excites; and, knowing something of the colonial history of Louisiana, we are inclined to think that a book quite as entertaining as this might have been composed of authenticated facts. Indeed the Historical Collections of Louisiana, by Mr. French, (published by Daniels and Smith, Philadelphia,) must be to even the most superficial reader a far more attractive volume.

* * * * *

The Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution, by BENSON J. LOSSING, (Harper & Brothers,) is a work that cannot well be praised overmuch. There have been an immense number of illustrated and pictorial histories of this country, all or nearly all of which are worthless patchwork; but Mr. Lossing's is a production of equal attractive interest and value. The first volume only has been completed; one more will follow with all convenient haste, ending the work. The letter-press is written from original materials, the drawings of scenery are made from original surveys, the engravings are executed, all by Mr. Lossing himself; and in every department he evinces judgment and integrity. The Field Book will not serve the purposes of a general history, but to the best informed and most sagacious it will be a useful companion in historical reading, while to those who seek only amusement in books, it may be commended, for its pleasant style and careful art, as one of the most entertaining works of the time.

* * * * *

We are glad to perceive that Mr. J. H. INGRAHAM, author of The Southwest, by a Yankee; Burton, or the Sieges; and a large number of the vilest yellow-covered novels ever printed in this country, has been admitted to the deaconate in the Episcopal church at Natchez, and intends shortly to remove to Aberdeen, in the same state, to found a society in that city.

* * * * *

Mrs. Judson ("Fanny Forrester") left Calcutta in January for the United States, by way of England, and she is now daily expected home, by her old and warmly attached friends here. We see suggested a volume of her poems—some of which have much tenderness and beauty; and hope that measures will be taken to insure such a publication, for her exclusive benefit, immediately.

* * * * *

Our contemporary, the Philadelphia Lady's Book, is a little out of season in its fashions. The April number of that excellent periodical contains the Parisian Fashions which appeared in The International for February; and for this present month of May, we see in The Lady's Book the altogether too warm and heavily made dresses given in The International for last January—mid-winter. Certainly Philadelphia ought not to be so far behind New-York in these matters. In its literary character the Lady's Book is still sustained by the contributions of its favorite critic Mr. Henry T. Tuckerman, with those of Mr. T. S. Arthur, Miss Adaliza Cutter, and Mrs. Sarah J. Hale.

* * * * *

We regret that the terms in which we lately announced Mr. J. R. TYSON'S forthcoming History of the American Colonies were capable of any misapprehension. We know Mr. Tyson quite too well to entertain a doubt of his perfect integrity as a historian; but it has been a subject of frequent observation in the middle and southern states that the New-England writers, who have furnished most of our histories, have exaggerated the influence of the Puritans and depreciated that of the Quakers and Cavaliers: Mr. Tyson himself, we believe, has been of this opinion; and we merely look for an able, fair, and liberal history, from his point of view.

* * * * *

Mr. VALENTINE is preparing a new volume of his Manual of the Common Council of New-York. The volumes hitherto published have been edited with great care and judgment; they embody an extraordinary amount and variety of interesting and important facts connected with the advancement and condition of the city; and the series is indispensable to any one who would write a history of New-York, or the lives of its leading citizens. The last volume was unusually rich in maps and statistics, and we understand that the next one will be even more interesting and valuable.

* * * * *

Mr. WILLIS has just published (through Charles Scribner) a new volume under the characteristic title of Hurry-graphs, or Sketches of Scenery, Celebrities and Society, taken from life. It embraces the author's letters to the Home Journal, from Plymouth, Montrose, the Delaware, the Hudson, the Highlands, and other summer resorts, with personal descriptions of Webster, Everett, Emerson, Cooper, Jenny Lind, and many other notabilities. It will be a delightful companion for the watering places this season.

* * * * *

Among the most beautiful books from the American press is Episodes of Insect Life, by ACHETA DOMESTICA, just reprinted by J. S. Redfield. The natural history and habits of insects of every class are delineated by a close observer with remarkable minuteness, and in a style of unusual felicity; and the peculiar illustrations of the book are more spirited and highly finished than we have noticed in any publication of a similar character.

* * * * *

The Harpers have published a new edition of the Greek Grammar of Philip Buttman, revised and enlarged by his son, Alexander Buttman, and translated from the eighteenth German edition by Dr. EDWARD ROBINSON. It is not to be doubted, we suppose, that this grammar, in the shape in which it is now presented, is altogether the best that exists of the Greek language. We are not ourselves competent to a judgment in the case, but from all we have seen upon the subject by the best scholars, we take this to be the general opinion.

* * * * *

JOHN P. KENNEDY has in the press of Putnam a new and carefully revised edition of his Swallow Barn, or a Sojourn in the Old Dominion, one of the most pleasant books illustrative of local manners and rural life that has ever been written. It is more like Irving's Bracebridge Hall than any other work we can think of, and is as felicitous a picture of old Virginia as Jeffrey Crayon has given us of Merrie England. The first edition of Swallow Barn was published twenty years ago; the new one is to be beautifully illustrated in the style of Irving's Sketch Book.

* * * * *

Dr. FRANCIS LIEBER, the learned Professor of the South Carolina College, has been elected a member of the National Institute of France. Dr. Lieber is a German, but he has resided in this country many years. Among Americans who have been thus complimented are Mr. Prescott and Mr. Bancroft. The late Henry Wheaton was also a member of the Institute.

* * * * *

The entertaining book, Ship and Shore, by the late Rev. WALTER COLTON, has just been published by A. S. Barnes & Co., who will as soon as practicable complete the republication of all Mr. Colton's works, under the editorship of the Rev. Henry T. Cheever.

* * * * *

The Domestic Bible, by the Rev. Ingram Cobbin, just published in a very handsome quarto volume in this city by S. Hueston, we think decidedly the best edition of the Scriptures for common use that has ever been printed in the English language. Its chief merit consists in this, that without embracing a syllable of debatable matter in the form of notes, it contains every needful explanation and illustration of the text that can be gathered from ancient art, literature and history, expressed with great distinctness and compactness, together with such well-executed wood engravings as unquestionable knowledge in this age could suggest—omitting altogether the absurd fancy embellishments which in most of the illustrated Bibles are so offensive to the taste, and so worthless as guides to the understanding. The editor we believe is a clergyman of the Episcopal Church in England, but he has had the good sense to avoid, so far as we can see, everything that would vex the sectarian feelings of any one who admits that the Bible itself is true.

* * * * *

The Life, Speeches, Orations, and Diplomatic Papers of Lewis Cass, are in press at Baltimore, under the editorship of Mr. George H. Hickman. The Speeches, Forensic Arguments, and Diplomatic Papers of Daniel Webster (to be comprised in six large octavo volumes), are in the press of Little & Brown of Boston, under the care of Mr. Edward Everett. The Memoirs and Works of the late John C. Calhoun are soon to be published in Charleston, by Mr. R. K. Craller, and we hear of collections of the Speeches and Public Papers of Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Benton. All these are important works in literature, affairs or history.

* * * * *

Professor GILLESPIE, of Union College, has just published (Harper & Brothers) a translation of The Philosophy of Mathematics, from the Cours de Philosophie Positive of AUGUSTE COMTE. The intellect of Europe in this century has evolved no greater work than the Philosophie Positive, and Professor Gillespie has done a wise thing in rendering into English that part of it which relates to the field of mathematical science.

* * * * *

Professor LINCOLN'S edition of Horace (recently published by the Appletons) is the subject of much commendatory observation from critical scholars. For purposes of instruction it is likely to have precedence of any other that has been printed in this country. Those having marginal translations may be very convenient for indolent boys, but they are not altogether the most serviceable.

* * * * *

A work of very great ability has appeared in Paris, under the title of De la Certitude, (Upon Certainty), by A. JAVARY. It makes an octavo of more than five hundred pages, and for originality of ideas and illustrations, and cumulative force of logic, is almost unrivalled. The sceptical speculation of the time is reduced by it to powder, and thrown to the winds.

* * * * *

Mr. MCCONNELL, who gave us last year a brilliant volume under the title of "Talbot and Vernon," has just published, The Glenns, a Family History, by which his good reputation will be much increased. It displays much skill in the handling, and is altogether an advance from his previous performance. (C. Scribner.)

* * * * *

The wife of a shipmaster trading from Boston in the Pacific, has just published a volume entitled Life in Fejee, or Five Years among the Cannibals. It is a very entertaining book, and we are obliged to the cannibals for not eating the author.

* * * * *

Noticing the appointment of Mr. S. G. GOODRICH to be consul for the United States at Paris, the London News says: "In these days of testimonials and compliments, we should not be surprised to hear of an address of congratulation to the admired Peter, from the 'children of England.'"

* * * * *

Of recent American Novels, the best that have fallen under our notice (except those of Hawthorne and McConnell, before noticed), are, The Rangers, or the Tory's Daughter, a very interesting tale illustrative of the revolutionary history of Vermont, by D. P. Thompson, author of "The Green Mountain Boys," (B. B. Mussey & Co., Boston); Mount Hope, or Philip, King of the Wampanoags, by C. H. Hollister, (Harper & Brothers); Rebels and Tories, or the Blood of the Mohawk, by Lawrence Labree, (Dewitt and Davenport); and Second Love, a pleasant domestic story, by an anonymous writer, (G. P. Putnam.)

* * * * *

The Hakluyt Society, in London, has commenced its series of publications with Divers Voyages touching the Discovery of America and the Islands adjacent, collected and published by Richard Hakluyt, Prebendary of Bristol, in the year 1582: edited, with notes and an introduction, by John Winter Jones. The society should have many subscribers in this country.

* * * * *

Dr. MAYO has published a new book of tales, not unworthy of the author of "Kaloolah" and "The Berber," under the title of "Romance Dust from the Historic Placers." We shall give it attention hereafter. (Putnam.)

* * * * *

MASANIELLO is suppressed at Berlin, as Tell had been—not modern imitations of those heroes, but the operas so called, by Rossini and Auber. The Prussian Government, liberal as it was a few months ago in professions, cannot stand the performance of operas!

* * * * *

Mr. THACKERAY is to commence in London, about the middle of the present month, a course of lectures embracing biographical reminiscences of some of the comic writers of England during the eighteenth century.

* * * * *

Mr. ALISON, the historian, has been chosen Rector of the University of Glasgow, by the casting vote of Col. Mure, the historian of Greek Literature, who occupied the same place before Macaulay.



The Fine Arts.

The engravings of the several Art-Unions of this country for the coming year will be from excellent pictures. The American Art-Union will offer its subscribers Mr. Woodville's Mexican News, engraved by Alfred Jones; the Philadelphia Art-Union, Huntington's Christiana and Her Children, by Andrews; and for the same purpose, Mr. Perkins, of Boston, has allowed the New-England Art-Union to make use of his magnificent picture of Saul and the Witch of Endor, painted by Alston, and generally considered one of the finest historical productions of that eminent artist. Each of the Unions, we believe, will also publish some less important works for distribution or prizes.

The twenty-sixth exhibition of the National Academy of Design, has commenced under favorable auspices. Upon the whole, the collection of pictures is the best ever made by the society. We have not space for any particular criticism, but must refer to Mr. Durand's admirable landscapes; the Greek Girl and full length portrait of General Scott by Mr. Kellogg; Mount Desert Island by Mr. Church; The Defence of Toleration by Mr. Rothermel; The Edge of the Wood by Mr. Huntington; Mr. Gignoux's Winter Sunset, and other pictures in the same department by Richards, Cropsey, and Kensett; and portraits by Elliott, Osgood, Hicks and Flagg,—are the works which strike us as deserving most praise.

* * * * *

The Bulletin of the American Art-Union for April, describes the opposition to the institution of which it is the organ, as directed by "envy, malice, and uncharitableness," and intimates that it is occasioned by the inability or unwillingness of the committee to purchase the trashy productions of incompetent painters constantly offered to them. We submit to the gentlemen connected with the Art-Union, that they should not suffer the hirelings they may sometimes employ upon the Bulletin, thus to refer to such artists and such men as Durand, Wier, Kellogg, Elliott, and many others, who have ventured to think that their Association does not present altogether the best means to be devised for the promotion of the fine arts. Taste may be displayed in writing, as well as in buying pictures.

* * * * *

There was recently sold at auction at Paris, for 2,700 francs, a picture by GIRODET, which in its time caused not a little amusement to the Parisians. It was originally a portrait of an actress of the Theatre Francais, who married a rich banker. Girodet tried to get the pay for his picture, but the lady and her husband obstinately refused. Hereupon he transformed her into a Danae, receiving the shower of gold, adding other figures, such as a turkey cock representing the eagle of Jove, which rendered the whole work as laughable as it was uncomplimentary to its subject. It was exhibited in one of the expositions in the time of the empire, and no picture was ever more successful with the public.

* * * * *

KOTZBUE, a historical painter, now residing at Munich, has nearly completed a large picture representing the battle of Zuellichau, in 1759, where the Germans under General Wedel were defeated by the Russians under Soltikoff. The work is highly praised, and its author even compared with Horace Vernet for vividness of narrative, truth in detail, and force and harmony of color.

* * * * *

Mr. ELLIOTT, probably the best portrait painter now living, will soon visit Marshfield, where Mr. Webster has promised to sit to him, for a friend of his in this city.

* * * * *

Two statues by the lamented SCHWANTHALER have just been set up in the royal library at Munich. The first represents Albert V., Duke of Bavaria, the founder of the library, and a great patron of science. Of course, he is presented in middle-age costume; his head is bare, his face reflective, and his right hand supports his chin,—an image of repose, after a work is accomplished. The other statue is of King Louis (of Lola Montes memory), in royal robes, the left hand resting on his sword, and his right holding the plan of the edifice containing the library, which was built by him. His whole expression is the opposite to that of the Duke, not repose, but restless activity in search of new objects. A critic says that these statues do not stand well on their feet, and that the knees are bent as if one leg was lame, a fault, he says, not peculiar to Schwanthaler.

* * * * *

We last month spoke of the New Museum at Berlin, one of the finest edifices of modern times. It may be interesting to our readers to know that the total expense of the building and interior decoration was in round numbers $1,100,000. Of this sum the execution of the ornamental work and works of art in the interior, including the frescoes of Kaulbach and others, with the arrangement of objects of art and furniture necessary for their display, cost upwards of $220,000.

* * * * *

The Exhibition of the Munich Art-Union took place in the beginning of March. Among the pictures, attention was particularly drawn to a series of sketches from Syria, Palestine, and Asia Minor, by Loefller. Baade exhibited a Norwegian picture, representing an effect of moonlight: Peter Hess two small humorous pieces from military life, which were greatly admired, as was especially a series of aquarelles representing scenes in Switzerland and Italy, by Suter, a Swiss artist.

* * * * *

KAULBACH only works at Berlin on his frescoes in the New Museum during the pleasant season. The second picture, the Destruction of Jerusalem, was nearly finished last fall when the cold came on. He left it, and it is now covered and concealed by brown paper till he shall again set to work on it.

* * * * *

M. LAMARTINE recently presented in the French Assembly a petition from William Tell Poussin, formerly minister of the Republic in the United States, praying the French Government to grant a block of granite, taken from the quarries of Cherbourg, for the national monument to Washington.

* * * * *

WIDNMANN, the sculptor, of Munich, has recently completed in plaster a group of the size of life, of a man defending his wife and child against the attack of a tiger. The figures are nude, and the only figure yet finished, that of the man, is spoken of as a model.



HAS THERE BEEN A GREAT POET IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY!

The Eclectic Review for the last month, in an article upon the writings of Joanna Baillie, answers this question in the manner following:

"We may enumerate the following names as those of real poets, dead or alive, included in the first half of the nineteenth century in Britain:—Bloomfield, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Campbell, Moore, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Professor Wilson, Hogg, Croly, Maturin, Hunt, Scott, James Montgomery, Pollok, Tennyson, Aird, Mrs. Browning, Mrs. Hemans, Joanna Baillie, and the author of 'Festus.' We leave this list to be curtailed, or to be increased, at the pleasure of the reader. But, we ask, which of those twenty-three has produced a work uniquely and incontestably, or even, save in one or two instances, professedly GREAT? Most of those enumerated have displayed great powers; some of them have proved themselves fit to begin greatest works; but none of them, whether he has begun, or only thought of beginning, has been able to finish. Bloomfield, the tame, emasculate Burns of England, has written certain pleasing and genuine poems smelling of the soil, but the 'Farmer's Boy' remained what the Scotch poet would have called a 'haflin callant,' and never became a full-grown and brawny man. Wordsworth was equal to the epic of the age, but has only constructed the great porch leading up to the edifice, and one or two beautiful cottages lying around. Coleridge could have written a poem—whether didactic, or epic, or dramatic—equal in fire and force to the 'Iliad,' or the 'Hamlet,' or the 'De Rerum Natura,' and superior to any of the three in artistic finish and metaphysical truth and religious feeling—a work ranking immediately beside the 'Paradise Lost;' but he has, instead, shed on us a shower of plumes, as from the wing of a fallen angel—beautiful, ethereal, scattered, and tantalizing. Southey's poems are large without being great—massive, without being majestic—they have rather the bulk of an unformed chaos than the order and beauty of a finished creation. Campbell, in many points the Virgil of his time, has, alas! written no Georgies; his odes and lesser poems are, 'atoms of the rainbow;' his larger, such as 'Gertrude of Wyoming,' may be compared to those segments of the showery arch we see in a disordered evening sky; but he has reared no complete 'bow of God.' Moore's 'Lalla Rookh' is an elegant and laborious composition—not a shapely building; it is put together by skilful art, not formed by plastic power. Byron's poems are, for the most part, disjointed but melodious groans, like those of Ariel from the centre of the cloven pine; 'Childe Harold' is his soliloquy when sober—'Don Juan' his soliloquy when half-drunk; the 'Corsair' would have made a splendid episode in an epic—but the epic, where is it? and 'Cain,' his most creative work, though a distinct and new world, is a bright and terrible abortion—a comet, instead of a sun. So, too, are the leading works of poor Shelley, which resemble Southey in size, Byron in power of language, and himself only in spirit and imagination, in beauties and faults. Keats, like Shelley, was arrested by death, as he was piling up enduring and monumental works. Professor Wilson has written 'Noctes' innumerable; but where is his poem on a subject worthy of his powers, or where is his work on any subject whatever? Hogg has bound together a number of beautiful ballads, by a string of no great value, and called it the 'Queen's Wake.' Scott himself has left no solid poem, but instead, loose, rambling, spirited, metrical romances—the bastards of his genius—and a great family of legitimate chubby children of novels, bearing the image, but not reaching the full stature, of their parent's mind. Croly's poems, like the wing of his own 'seraph kings,' standing beside the sleeping Jacob, has a 'lifted, mighty plume,' and his eloquence is always as classic as it is sounding; but it is, probably, as much the public's fault as his, that he has never equalled his first poem, 'Paris in 1815,' which now appears a basis without a building. Maturin has left a powerful passage or two, which may be compared to a feat performed by the victim of some strong disease, to imitate which no healthy or sane person would, could, or durst attempt. James Montgomery will live by his smaller poems—his larger are long lyrics—and when was a long lyric any other than tedious? Hunt has sung many a joyous carol, and many a pathetic ditty, but produced no high or lasting poem. Pollok has aimed at a higher object than almost any poet of his day; he has sought, like Milton, to enshrine religion in poetic form, and to attract to it poetic admirers: he did so in good faith, and he expended great talents and a young life, in the execution; but, unfortunately, he confounded Christianity with one of its narrowest shapes, and hence the book, though eloquent in passages, and dear to a large party, is rather a long and powerful, though unequal and gloomy sermon, than a poem; he has shed the sunshine of his genius upon his own peculiar notions, far more strongly than on general truths; and the spirit of the whole performance may be expressed in the words of Burns, slightly altered,—'Thunder-tidings of damnation.' His and our friend, Thomas Aird, has a much subtler, more original and genial mind than Pollok's, and had he enjoyed a tithe of the same recognition, he might have produced a Christian epic on a far grander scale; as it is, his poems are fragmentary and episodical, although Dante's 'Inferno' contains no pictures more tremendously distinct, yet ideal, than his 'Devil's Dream upon Mount Acksbeck. Tennyson is a greater Calvinist in one sense than either of the Scotch poets we have named—he owes more to the general faith of others in his genius than to any special or strong works of his own; but let us be dumb, he is now Laureate—the crowned grasshopper of a summer day! Bailey of 'Festus' has a vast deal more power than Tennyson, who is only his delicate, consumptive brother; but 'Festus' seems either different from, or greater than, a work. We are reminded of one stage in the history of the nebular hypothesis, when Sir W. Herschel, seeing a central mass in the midst of a round burr of light, was almost driven to the conclusion that it was something immensely greater than what we call a star—a kind of monster sun. So with the prodigious birth men call 'Festus.' Our gifted young friend Yendys is more likely than any, if he live and avoid certain tendencies to diffusion and over-subtlety, to write a solid and undying POEM.

"It were easy to extend the induction to our lady authors, and to show that Mrs. Hemans, Mrs. Browning, and Joanna Baillie, Mrs. Shelley, &c., have abounded rather in effusions or efforts, or tentative experiments, than in calm, complete, and perennial works."

The critic appears never to have heard of our Bryant, Dana, Halleck, Poe, Longfellow, or Maria Brooks, any one of whom is certainly superior to some of the poets mentioned in the above paragraph; and his doctrine that a great poem must necessarily be a long one—that poetry, like butter and cheese, is to be sold by the pound—does not altogether commend itself to our most favorable judgment.



THE REAL ADVENTURES AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF GEORGE BORROW.

Generally, we believe, Lavengro, though it has sold well everywhere, has not been very much praised. It has been conceded that the author of "the Bible in Spain" must be a Crichton, but his last performance looked overmuch like trifling with the credulity of his readers. We find in Colburn's New Monthly Magazine for April a sort of vindication of Borrow, which embraces some curious particulars of his career, and quote the following passages, which cannot fail to interest his American readers:

"We have yet to learn where our author was during the years intervening from the epoch of the dingle to the date of Spanish travel; that he was neither in mind nor body inactive, ample testimony may be adduced, not only in the form of writings made public during that interval, but in the internal evidence afforded by them of laborious research. In a work published at St. Petersburgh in 1835, known but to few, entitled "Targum; or, Metrical Translations from Thirty Languages and Dialects, by George Borrow," we find indications of how those intervening years were spent. He says, in the preface to this work, "The following pieces, selections from a huge and undigested mass of translation, accumulated during several years devoted to philological pursuits, are with much diffidence offered to the public," &c. These translations are remarkable for force and correct emphasis, and afford demonstration of what power the author possesses over metre. We shall cite but few examples, however, for it is believed that not only that huge mass, but many an additional song and ballad now is digested, and lies side by side with the glorious "Kaempe Viser," the "Ab Gwilym," and other learned translations, by means of which it may be hoped that the gifted Borrow will ere long vindicate his lasting claim to scholarship—a claim to which it is to be feared he is indifferent, for he is no boaster, and does himself no justice; or, if he boasts at all, prefers, as with a species of self-sarcasm, the mention of his lesser, on which he dwells with zest, to that of his greater and more enduring triumphs. The "Targum" consists of translations from the following languages: Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Tartar, Tibetian, Chinese, Mandchou, Russian, Malo-Russian, Polish, Finnish, Anglo-Saxon, Ancient Norse, Suabian, German, Dutch, Danish, Ancient Danish, Swedish, Ancient Irish, Irish, Gaellic, Ancient British, Cambrian British, Greek, Modern Greek, Latin, Provencal, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Rommany. A few specimens from this work may be acceptable to the English reader—a work so rare, that the authorities of a German university not long ago sent a person to St. Petersburgh to endeavor to discover a copy:"

ODE TO GOD.

FROM THE HEBREW.

Reign'd the Universe's master ere were earthly things begun; When his mandate all created, Ruler was the name he won; And alone He'll rule tremendous when all things are past and gone; He no equal has, nor consort, He the singular and lone Has no end and no beginning, His the sceptre, might, and throne; He's my God and living Saviour, rock to which in need I run; He's my banner and my refuge, fount of weal when call'd upon; In his hand I place my spirit, at nightfall and rise of sun, And therewith my body also;—God's my God,—I fear no one.

PRAYER.

FROM THE ARABIC.

O Thou who dost know what the heart fain would hide; Who ever art ready whate'er may betide; In whom the distressed can hope in their woe, Whose ears with the groans of the wretched are plied— Still bid Thy good gifts from Thy treasury flow; All good is assembled where Thou dost abide; To Thee, save my poverty, nought can I show, And of Thee all my poverty's wants are supplied; What choice have I save to Thy portal to go? If 'tis shut, to what other my steps can I guide? 'Fore whom as a suppliant low shall I bow, If Thy bounty to me, Thy poor slave, is denied? But, oh! though rebellious full often I grow, Thy bounty and kindness are not the less wide.

O LORD! I NOTHING CRAVE BUT THEE.

FROM THE TARTAR.

O Thou from whom all love doth flow, Whom all the world doth reverence so, Thou constitut'st each care I know; O Lord! I nothing crave but Thee.

O keep me from each sinful way; Thou breathedst life within my clay; I'll therefore serve Thee night and day; O Lord! I nothing crave but Thee.

I ope my eyes, and see Thy face, On Thee my musings all I place, I've left my parents, friends, and race; O Lord! I nothing crave but Thee.

Take Thou my soul, my every thing; My blood from out its vessels wring; Thy slave am I, and Thou my King; O Lord! I nothing crave but Thee.

I speak—my tongue on Thee doth roam; I list—the winds Thy title boom; For in my soul has God his home; O Lord! I nothing crave but Thee.

The world the shallow worldling craves, And greatness need ambitious knaves; The lover of his maiden raves; O Lord! I nothing crave but Thee.

The student needs his bookish lore, The bigot shrines to pray before, His pulpit needs the orator; Oh Lord! I nothing crave but thee.

Though all the learning 'neath the skies, And th' houries all of paradise, The Lord should place before my eyes, O Lord! I'd nothing crave but Thee.

When I through paradise shall stray, Its houries and delights survey, Full little gust awake will they; O Lord! I'll nothing crave but Thee.

For Hadgee Ahmed is my name, My heart with love of God doth flame; Here and above I'll bide the same; O Lord! I nothing crave but Thee.

Nor was this the only literary labor performed by Mr. Borrow while at St. Petersburgh: to the "Targum" he appended a translation of "The Talisman," and other pieces from the Russian of Alexander Pushkin. He also edited the Gospel in the Mandchou Tartar dialect while residing in that city. In connection with the latter undertaking there is an anecdote told of which, like the story of his making horse-shoes, shows his resources, and redounds to his credit. It runs thus:—"It was known that a fountain of types in the Mandchou Tartar character existed at a certain house in the city of St. Petersburgh, but there was no one to be found who could set them up. In this emergency the young editor demanded to inspect the types; they were brought forth in a rusty state from a cellar; on which, resolved to see his editorial labors complete, he cleaned the types himself, and set them up with his own hand."

Of his journeyings in Spain Mr. Borrow has been his own biographer; but here again his higher claims to distinction are lightly touched on, or not named. In 1837 a book was printed at Madrid, having the following curious title-page:

"Embeo e Mafaro Lucas. Brotoboro randado andre la chipe griega, acaana chibado andre o Romano, o chipe es Zincales de Sese.

"El Evangelio segun S. Lucas, traducido al Romani, o dialecto de los Gitanos de Espana. 1837."

And this work is no other than the remarkable antecedent of the "Zincali,"—the translation of St. Luke's Gospel into the Gipsy dialect of Spain.[A] Of the Bible in Spain it is unnecessary to speak; there can be no better evidence of the estimation it is held in than the fact of its having been translated into French and German, while it has run through at least thirty thousand copies at home. But it is on the "Zincali" that Borrow's reputation will maintain its firm footing; the originality and research involved in its production, the labors and dangers it entailed, are duly appreciated at home and abroad. During the past year a highly interesting account of the Gipsies and other wandering people of Norway, written in Danish, was published at Christiana; it is entitled "Beretning om Fante—eller Landstrygerfolket i Norge" (Account of the Fant, or Wandering People of Norway), by Eilert Sundt. At the twenty-third page of this work, the Danish author, in allusion to the subject of this notice, says: "This Borrow is a remarkable man. As agent for the British Bible Society he has undertaken journeys into remote lands, and acquainted from his early youth, not only with many European languages, but likewise with the Rommani of the English Gipsies, he sought up with zest the Gipsies every where, and became their faithful missionary. He has made himself so thoroughly master of their ways and customs that he soon passed for one of their blood. He slept in their tents in the forests of Russia and Hungary, visited them in their robber caves in the mountainous pass regions of Italy, lived with them five entire years (towards 1840) in Spain, where he, for his endeavors to distribute the Gospel in that Catholic land, was imprisoned with the very worst of them for a time in the dungeons of Madrid. He at last went over to North Africa, and sought after his Tartars even there. It is true, no one has taken equal pains with Borrow to introduce himself among this rude and barbarous people, but on that account he has been enabled better than any other to depict the many mysteries of this race; and the frequent impressions which his book has undergone within a short period, show with what interest the English public have received his graphic descriptions."

Of the extraordinary acquisitions of Mr. Borrow in languages, a pleasant story is told by Sir William Napier, who, looking into a courtyard, from the window of a Spanish inn, heard a man converse successively in a dozen tongues, so fluently and so perfectly, that he was puzzled to decide what was his country,—Germany, Holland, France, Italy, Russia, Portugal, or Spain; and coming down he joined his circle, asked the question of him, and was astonished by the information that he was an English Bible agent. Between the historian of the Peninsular War and the missionary an intimacy sprung up, which we believe has continued without any interruption to the present time.



THE FAUN OVER HIS GOBLET.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

BY R. H. STODDARD.

I.

My goblet was exceeding beautiful; It was the jewel of my cave; I had A corner where I hid it in the moss, Between the jagged crevices of rock, Where no one but myself could find it out; But when a nymph, or wood-god passed my door, I filled it to the brim with bravest wine, And offered them a draught, and told them Jove Had nothing finer, richer at his feasts, Though Ganymede and Hebe did their best: "His nectar is not richer than my wine," Said I, "and for the goblet, look at it!" But I have broken my divinest cup And trod its fragments in the dust of Earth!

II.

My goblet was exceeding beautiful. Sometimes my brothers of the woods, the fauns, Held gay carousals with me in my cave; I had a skin of Chian wine therein, Of which I made a feast; and all who drank From out my cup, a feast within itself, Made songs about the bright immortal shapes Engraven on the side below their lips: But we shall never drain it any more, And never sing about it any more; For I have broken my divinest cup And trod its fragments in the dust of Earth!

III.

My goblet was exceeding beautiful. For Pan was 'graved upon it, rural Pan; He stood in horror in a marshy place Clasping a bending reed; he thought to clasp Syrinx, but clasped a reed, and nothing more! There was another picture of the god, When he had learned to play upon the flute; He sat at noon within a shady bower Piping, with all his listening herd around; (I thought at times I saw his fingers move, And caught his music: did I dream or not?) Hard by the Satyrs danced, and Dryads peeped From out the mossy trunks of ancient trees; And nice-eared Echo mocked him till he thought— The simple god!—he heard another Pan Playing, and wonder shone in his large eyes! But I have broken my divinest cup, And trod its fragments in the dust of Earth!

IV.

My goblet was exceeding beautiful. For Jove was there transformed into the Bull Bearing forlorn Europa through the waves, Leaving behind a track of ruffled foam; Powerless with fear she held him by the horns, Her golden tresses streaming on the winds; In curved shells, young Cupids sported near, While sea gods glanced from out their weedy caves, And on the shore were maids with waving scarfs, And hinds a-coming to the rescue—late! But I have broken my divinest cup, And trod its fragments in the dust of Earth!

V.

My goblet was exceeding beautiful. For rosy Bacchus crowned its rich designs: He sat within a vineyard full of grapes, With Ariadne kneeling at his side; His arm was thrown around her slender waist, His head lay in her bosom, and she held A cup, a little distance from his lips, And teased him with it, for he wanted it. A pair of spotted pards where sleeping near, Couchant in shade, their heads upon their paws; And revellers were dancing in the woods, Snapping their jolly fingers evermore! But all is vanished, lost, for ever lost, For I have broken my divinest cup, And trod its fragments in the dust of Earth!

FOOTNOTES:

[A] The writer has before him another translation of St. Luke's Gospel in the Basque, edited by George Borrow while in Spain—(Evangeloia S. Lucasen Guissan.—El Evangelio segun S. Lucas. Traducido al Vascuere. Madrid. 1838).



THE JESUIT RELATIONS.

DR. O'CALLAGHAN'S MEMOIR—NEW DISCOVERIES IN ROME, &c.

At the stated meeting of the New-York Historical Society, in October, 1847, Dr. E. B. O'CALLAGHAN, well known as the author of a valuable history of New-York under the Dutch,[B] and now engaged in superintending the publication of the Documentary History of the State, under the act of March 13, 1849, communicated a paper, which was read at the subsequent meeting in November, and published in the "Proceedings," on the "Jesuit Relations of Discoveries and other Occurrences in Canada and the Northern and Western States of the Union, 1632-1672."[C] This memoir embraces notices of the authors of the Relations, a catalogue raisonnee, and a table showing what volumes are in this country and Canada, and where they are to be found. A French translation of this work, with notes, corrections and additions, has been published (in 1850) at Montreal, by the Rev. Father MARTIN, Superior of the Jesuits in Canada. As the notes and additions contain valuable information, especially upon the discovery of new matter for the illustration of the general subject, we shall endeavor to present an intelligible compend of their substance.

The French editor carries back the history to 1611, when the first Jesuit missionaries to North America, Father Pierre Biard and Enmond Masse, arrived in Acadia. They took part in the establishment of Port Royal and that of St. Sauveur, in Pentagoet, now Mount Desert Island. The former wrote a Relation of his voyage.

Dr. O'Callaghan had spoken of the nomadic race which was to be subjected to the influences of the gospel, under the auspices of the Jesuit missionaries, as inhabiting the country extending from the island of Anticosti to the Mississippi. The translator qualifies this statement by a note, in which he says that this term nomadic is applicable to the nations of Algonquin origin, but not to the Hurons nor the Iroquois, who had fixed abodes and regularly organized villages or towns. The Five Nations were the Agniers (Mohawks), the Oneionts (Oneidas), the Onontagues (Onondagas), the Goiogoiens (Cayugas), and the Tsonnontouans (Senecas). The Tuscaroras, a tribe from the south, were admitted to the confederation, making thus Six Nations, during the last century.

CHAMPLAIN was the first European who reached the Atlantic shores of the state of Maine from the St. Lawrence by way of the Kennebec. This illustrious discoverer was sent in 1629 to explore that route as far as the coast of the Etechemins, "in which he had been before in the time of the Sieur du Mont."[D]

The French editor adds the following notices of two of the fathers who filled the office of Superior in Canada, not mentioned by Dr. O'Callaghan.

PIERRE BIARD, according to the history of Jouvency, was born at Grenoble, and entered the Society of Jesus while yet very young. He came to Port Royal in 1611, and took part in the establishment of St. Sauveur a Pentagoet, in 1613. The English came from Virginia to destroy this settlement, scarcely yet commenced. After having suffered greatly from the enemies of Catholicism and the Jesuits, Father Biard was sent back to France. He taught theology at Lyons for nine years, and died at Avignon, November 17, 1622. He was then chaplain to the King's troops. He left a Relation de la Nouvelle France, and of the Voyage of the Jesuits, as well as some other works.

CHARLES LALEMANT was born at Paris in 1587, and entered the Society of Jesus, at the age of twenty. Two of his brothers, Louis and Jerome, shortly afterwards followed his example, and the second labored for a long time in the Canadian mission. He first came to Canada in 1625. Charlevoix says he accompanied the expedition from Acadia in 1613, for the establishment of Pentagoet. He crossed the ocean four times in behalf of his beloved mission, and was twice shipwrecked. Having been captured by the English in one of these voyages, he was retained some time as a prisoner. His last voyage to Canada was made in 1634. In the following year, he took charge of the House of our Lady of Recovery, which was then established in the lower city of Quebec, and commenced at the same time the first schools for the French children. It was this father who was with Champlain in his last moments. Many years afterward, he returned to France, when he was successive chief of the Colleges of Rouen, of La Fleche and Paris, and Superior of the Maison Professe in the last named city. He died there, on the eighteenth of November, 1674, aged eighty-seven years.

Father CHARLES wrote an interesting Relation on Canada, inserted under the date of August 1, in the Mercure Francais of 1626, and a letter on his shipwrecks, which Champlain published in his edition of 1632. We have also some religious works left by him.

The Relation of Father Biard was published at Lyons, 1612 and 1616, in 32mo. It gives an account of his travels and labors—the nature of the country, its mineral and vegetable productions, &c.

That of Father Lalemant is a long letter addressed to his brother Jerome, and inserted in the Mercure Francais, 1627-28: Paris, 1629. It treats of the manners and customs of the Indians, the nature of the country, and the fatal change which trade had undergone since it had become a monopoly.

Continuing the researches of Dr. O'Callaghan, Father Martin found, from a catalogue of manuscripts on Canada, preserved among the archives of the Jesuits at Rome, that there was a Relation du Canada for 1676 and for 1677: but it was not ascertained whether these were complete. Other manuscripts were found in the same collection, but fragmentary, and could only serve as the materiel of a general Relation. But a more important acquisition was made in the recovery of valuable manuscripts in Canada. There have been found two complete Relations, following that of 1672, and continuing the series to 1679. One is the Relation of 1673, and the other comprises a period of six years, from 1673 to 1679. They fortunately escaped the pillage of the Jesuit College at Quebec, Father Casot, the last of the old race of Jesuits, dying at Quebec in 1800, had confided them, with other manuscripts, to the pious hands of the nuns of the Hotel Dieu, in that city, who preserved them for a long time as a sacred trust, and restored them, to the Jesuits, when they returned to Canada in 1842.

What increases the value of these historical monuments, is the fact, that they are contemporary with the facts to which they relate. They bear numerous corrections, notes, and even entire pages, in the handwriting of Father Dablon, then superior of the missions in Canada, who, without doubt, prepared them for publication.

That of 1672-3 is anonymous, and in three parts. The first is on the Huron mission near Quebec, the second on the Iroquois missions, and the third on the various missions to the west of the great lakes. In the last part, consisting of eighty-seven pages, the thirty-ninth and fortieth are missing.

The Relation for 1673-9 is also anonymous and without a general title, but on the back of the last leaf is an endorsement in the handwriting of Father Dablon, "Relation en 1679, abrege des precedentes." On the first page the writer announces that the relation embraces a period of six years. It is divided into eight chapters, subdivided into paragraphs. The second chapter is devoted to an account of the last labors and heroic death of Father MARQUETTE, on the lonely shore of the "Lac des Illinois," now Lake Michigan. This relation passes in review all the missions of the west, and enters into minute details concerning the missions to the Iroquois, the Montagnais, the Gaspesiens, those of the Sault St. Louis, and Lorette. It extends to 147 pages, but unfortunately one entire sheet is lost, embracing the pages 109 to 118.

This last Relation should have included the other voyages of Father Marquette, and especially the discovery of the Mississippi in 1673; but another manuscript of the same epoch, and which bears the same evidence of authenticity, explains the omission. Under the title of "Voyage and Death of Father Marquette," it recites in sixty pages the labors which have immortalized that celebrated missionary. This curious manuscript furnished Thevenot with the materiel for his publication in 1687, entitled "Voyage et Decouverte de quelques Pays et Nations de l'Amerique Septentrionale, par le P. Marquette et le Sr. Joliet."[E] What adds great value to the manuscript is the fact that it is much more extended than the publication of Thevenot. The causes and the preparations for the expedition are recounted; and we can follow the missionary in his various travels, even to his last moments in 1675.

Two other documents, which complete this valuable historical discovery, are noticed by Father Martin:

1. The autograph journal of Marquette's last voyage, from the twenty-fifth of October 1674 to the sixth of April 1679, about a month before his death.

2. The autograph map (by Marquette) of the Mississippi, as discovered by him. This extends no farther than the "A Kansea" (Arkansas), where his voyage in that direction terminated.

The map published by Thevenot, and recently reproduced by Rich, Bancroft, and others, is incorrect in many particulars, especially with regard to this fact of the Arkansas being the lowest point reached by Marquette.

Besides the two Relations (MS.) aforesaid, and the Marquette manuscripts, fragments of the Relations for the years 1674, 1676, 1678, and the following years, have been found, but incomplete.

In addition to all these, Father Martin calls attention to one of the printed Relations, little known out of Italy, in the language of which it was written. It was printed at Macerata in 1653. A recent letter from Father Martin announces that he has completed translations into French and English, which will soon be published. It is the work of Father Francois Joseph Bressani, and is thus noticed by Charlevoix:

"Father Bressani, a Roman by birth, was one of the most illustrious missionaries to Canada, where he suffered a cruel captivity, and severe tortures. He speaks little of himself in his history, which is well written, but which relates almost entirely to the Huron mission, in which he labored with great zeal so long as it continued. After the almost entire destruction of that nation, and the dispersion of the remainder, he returned to Italy, where he continued to preach until his death, with the greater success, inasmuch as he bore in his mutilated hands the glorious marks of his apostleship among the heathen."[F]

The translation by Father Martin will be illustrated by maps and engravings.

Recent letters from Italy announce further discoveries in the library of the Dominican Friars at Rome. We congratulate the historical student on the recovery of these and similar memorials of the early history of the country. Especially the labors of the Jesuit missionaries deserve to be more generally familiar to the readers of history; and we cordially respond to the sentiment of approbation with which the services of Dr. O'Callaghan and Father Martin have been greeted heretofore by the press.

FOOTNOTES:

[B] History of New Netherland, or New-York under the Dutch. &c. 2 vols. 8vo. New-York: Appleton & Co., 1846-8.

[C] Proceedings of the New-York Historical Society. For the year 1847, pp. 140-158.

[D] Voyage du Champlain. Ed. 1632. p. 209.

[E] A copy of this very rare work was destroyed with the valuable library in the burning of the Parliament House in Montreal, 26th April, 1849.

[F] Charlevoix: Hist. Nouv. France. Liste des Auteurs.



THE HAT REFORM AGITATION.

New hats are inevitable. Genin, who appears to be as clever in writing as in making hats, has avowed himself a conservative, and in a long argument has vindicated the style of which he is so eminent a manufacturer. But the "people" are for reform, and we must all bend to the will of the people; land reform, bank reform, all kinds of reform, now are forgotten in the cry for a reform in hats; this has rallied around it all ranks, classes and orders: they say, "Take off your funnels!"

It has been responded to with enthusiasm. From the lord of one hundred thousand acres to the hard-worker for his daily bread—from the ultra-conservative to the ultra-destructive—from the High-Churchman to the No-Churchman—from the Puseyite to the Presbyterian—from the gentleman down to the veriest "gent," this new question of Reform has drawn unanimous adhesion. In fact, the attempted revolution in our head gear, more fortunate than the other revolutions talked about of late years, promises to be successful.

Says the London News, "The ladies are as unanimous as the gentlemen on the subject, and give the potent assistance of their voices to the movement, and wonder how it is that men, who have so keen a sense of the beautiful, should have been so long blinded to the ugliness imposed upon their lordly foreheads by the hat-makers. A few of the most conservative of these hat-makers are the only persons who venture a word in defence of the ancient barbarism which it is the object of the revolutionists to remove. Now and then a hatter of all novelties, whether of hats or of ideas, will venture to come to the aid of the hat-makers, and to ask if any one can suggest a better head 'accoutrement' than the old familiar hat which it is attempted to scout out of society with such hasty ignominy. But, if hatters and the hat conservatives are closely pressed to tell us what recommendation the article has, they are obliged to give up the argument in despair—to intrench themselves in the old fortress of such reasoners, and to defend what is, merely because it is. They would stand on the old ways, were they knee-deep in slush; and they would wear the old hat, were it not only of the shape, but of the material and the color of a chimney-pot.

"Every body who has worn a hat, has perceived it to be a nuisance, although he may never have said any thing on the subject till the present cry was raised. As soon as a man gets out of the streets of the capital, or of his own accustomed provincial town, and sets foot in a railway carriage or on board of a steamboat, his first care is to make himself comfortable by disembarrassing his aching temples of his hat. The funnel is put away, and a cap, more ornamental and a thousand times more easy, is elevated to the place of honor, to the great satisfaction of the wearer. Who ever wears a hat at the sea-side? One might as well go to bed in a hat, as wear one out of the purlieus of the town. At the sea-side, or in travelling, or sporting, or rambling over the hills, the ordinary hat is utterly out of the question. Not only is the hat unsightly, expensive, and incommodious;—not only does it offend those aesthetic notions which are so fashionable in our time, but it may be safely alleged that it is hostile to all mental effort. Did any man ever make an eloquent speech with a hat on? Could a painter paint a good picture if he had a hat on while engaged at the easel? Could a mathematician solve a problem? could a musician compose a melody or arrange a harmony? could a poet write a song, or a novelist a novel, or a journalist a leading article, with a hat on? The thing is impossible. Would any man who respected himself, or the feelings of his family and friends, consent to have his portrait painted with the offensive article upon his cranium? It would be almost a proof of insanity, both in the sitter who should insist upon, and the artist who should lend himself to, the perpetration of such an atrocity. We have but to fancy one out of the thousand statues of bronze or marble which it is proposed to erect to the memory of Sir Robert Peel in our great towns and cities, surmounted with a hat of marble or of bronze, to see, at a glance, the absurdity of the thing, and the reasonableness of the demand for a change. There is a very good bust of Chaucer, with a cap on, and there is a still more excellent bust of Lorenzo de Medici, which has also a cap; but we put the question to the most conservative of hatters, and to the greatest stickler for the etatus quo in head attire, whether he would tolerate the marble or bronze portraiture of either of those worthies with the modern hat upon its head? The idea is so preposterous, that, if fairly considered, it would make converts of the most obstinate sticklers for the hat of the nineteenth century.

"Seriously, the suggestion for the reform of this article of costume is entitled to the utmost respect. Already Englishmen, when they throw off the trammels of ceremony, and wish to be at their ease, substitute for the stiff, uncomfortable, and inelegant hat, such other article as the taste and enterprise of the hat and cap manufacturers have provided; and in France and Germany the hat has, for the last six or seven years, been gradually altering its form and substance, until it bids fair to be restored, at no distant day, to the more sensible and picturesque shape which it had a couple of centuries ago. So much unanimity has been expressed on the desirability of a change, so much sober truth has been uttered under the thin veil of jest on this matter, and so keenly felt are the inconveniences—to say nothing of the inelegance—of the tube which has usurped and maintained a place upon our heads for so long a period, that there can be no doubt the time is ripe for the introduction of an article of male head-dress more worthy of an educated, civilized, and sensible people. The Turks, under the influence of that great reformer, Sultan Mahmoud, and his worthy successor, Abdul Medjid, have been for some time assimilating themselves in dress to the other inhabitants of Europe. They have adopted our coats, our trousers, our vests, our boots. They have got steamboats and newspapers—but Sultan Mahmoud stopped short at the hat. With all his penchant for imitating the 'Giaours,' he could not bring himself to recommend the hat to a people whom he was desirous to civilize. Any man of taste and enterprise, who would take advantage of the present feeling on the subject to manufacture a hat or cap of a more picturesque form, would confer a public benefit, and would not lack encouragement for his wares. An article which would protect the face from the sun, which the present 'funnel' does not—which should be light, which the hat is not—which should be elegant, and no offence to the eye of taste if painted in a portrait or sculptured in a statue, which the hat is not—and which should meet the requirements of health, as well as those of comfort and appearance, which the hat is very far from doing—would, all jest and persiflage apart, be a boon to the people of this generation. It needs but example to effect the change, for the feeling is so strong and universal that a good substitute would meet with certain popularity. We have no doubt that, sooner or later, this reform will be made; and that the historian, writing fifty years hence, will note it in his book as a remarkable circumstance, and a proof of the pertinacity with which men cling to all which habit and custom have rendered familiar—that for three-quarters of a century, if not longer, a piece of attire so repugnant to the eye of taste, and so deficient in any quality which should recommend it to sensible people, should have been not only tolerated, but admired. In all seriousness, we hope that the days of the tubular hat are numbered, and that in this instance philosophy in sport will become reformation in earnest."



PROFESSIONAL DEVOTION.

Lord Campbell said lately in the House of Lords, that the bill for the Registration of Assurances was drawn by Mr. Duval, and he related an anecdote illustrative of that gentleman's entire devotion to his professional pursuits. A gentleman one day said to him, "But do you not find it very dull work poring from morning until night over those dusty sheep-skins?" "Why," said Duval, "to be sure it is a little dull, but every now and then I come across a brilliant deed, drawn by a great master, and the beauty of that recompenses me for the weariness of all the others."



"THE WILFULNESS OF WOMAN."

In an early number of The International we mentioned a MS. comedy by the late Mrs. OSGOOD, in connection with the commendations which the dramatic pieces of that admirable woman and most charming poet had received from Sheridan Knowles and other critics in that line. We transcribe the opening scene of the play, which strikes us as excellently fitted for the stage. The friends of the lamented authoress will perceive that it is an eminently characteristic production, though having been written at an early age it scarcely illustrates her best style of dialogue.

ACT FIRST.—SCENE FIRST.

A room in the Chateau de Beaumont. Victorine de Vere and Rosalinde—the former sitting.

ROSALINDE.—But consider, sweet lady, you have been betrothed from childhood to my lord the Count. You say it was your father's dying wish that you should marry him, and he has been brought up to consider you his own.

VICTORINE.—And for that reason wed I not the Count; I might have loved him had I not been bid, For he is noble, brave, and passing kind. But, Rosalinde, when 'mid my father's vines, A child I roamed, I shunned the rich, ripe fruit Within my reach, and stretched my little arm Beyond its strength, for that which farthest hung, Though poorest too perchance. Years past away, The wilful child is grown a woman now, Yet wilful still, and wayward as the child.

(She Sings.)

Though you wreathe in my raven hair jewels the rarest That ever illumined the brow of a queen, I should think the least one that were wanting, the fairest, And pout at their lustre in petulant spleen. Tho' the diamond should lighten there, regal in splendor, The topaz its sunny glow shed o'er the curl, And the emerald's ray tremble, timid and tender— If the pearl were not by, I should sigh for the pearl!

Though you fling at my feet all the loveliest flowers That Summer is waking in forest and field, I should pine 'mid the bloom you had brought from her bowers For some little blossom spring only could yield. Take the rose, with its passionate beauty and bloom, The lily so pure, and the tulip so bright— Since I miss the sweet violet's lowly perfume, The violet only my soul can delight!

I prize not Henri—for a breath, a nod, Can make him mine for ever. One I prize Whose pulse ne'er quickened at my step or voice, Who cares no more for smile from Victorine, Whom princes sue—than Victorine for them. But he shall love me—ay, and when he too Lies pleading at my feet!—I make no doubt But I shall weary of mine idle whim, And rate him well for daring to be there!

ROS.—Please you, my lady, who is this new victim?

VIC.—Whom think you, Rosalinde? Eugene Legard! the brave young captain—lover of Carille—betrothed to her—about to marry her!

ROS.—But who's Carille, my lady?

VIC.—(Impatiently.) Now know you not the youthful village belle whose face my gallant cousin raves about? I would he'd wed the girl, and leave Legard and me as free, to wed! (Enter the Count.) What, torment! here again! (Exit Rosalinde.)

COUNT HENRI.—Where should I be, sweet coz? I love the sunshine!

VIC.—So love you not this room—for here the sun ne'er shines.

COUNT.—The sun—my sun is smiling on me now!

VIC.—Oh, don't! I'm so tired of all that!

COUNT.—Lady, it shall not weary you again; I've borne your light caprice too long already. For the last time I come to ask of you, madam, Is it your pleasure we fulfil at once your father's last injunction?

VIC.—Ah! but this isn't the last time, Henri; I'll wager you this hand with my heart in it, you will ask me the same question a dozen times yet ere you die.

COUNT.—I'll not gainsay you, lady; time will show. (A short pause.) Yet, by my sword, if such your wager be, I will be dumb till doomsday.

VIC.—Then book the bet! and claim my heart and hand—(she pauses—he waits in eager hope)—on—doomsday morning, cousin!

COUNT.—I claim thee now or never!

VIC.—If they only hadn't said we must, Henri!

COUNT.—Pshaw!

VIC.—Beside, all the world expects it you know; I do so hate to fulfil people's expectations: it is so commonplace and humdrum!

COUNT.—Depend upon it, Lady Victorine, nobody ever expected you to do any thing reasonable or commonplace or humdrum!

(He Sings.)

Archly on thy cheek, Worth a god's imprinting, Starry dimples speak, Rich with rosy tinting,— What a pity, love, Anger's burning flushes E'er should rise above Those bewitching blushes!

Warm thy lip doth glow, With such lovely color, Ruby's heart would show Hues of beauty duller,— What a shame, the while, Scorn should ever curl it, And o'ercast the smile That should still enfurl it!

Soft thy dark eye beams, With the star-night's splendor, Now with joy it gleams, Now with tears 'tis tender,— Ah! what pain to feel, Ere another minute, Passion's fire may steal All the softness in it!

VIC.—There! you CAN sing! I'll give the——hem!—his due. I only wish you could make love as well as you make verses.

COUNT.—And how should I make love?

VIC.—How? You should be at my feet all day and under my window all night; you should call black white when I call it so, and—wear a single hair of my eyelash next your heart for ever.

COUNT.—Hum! Any thing more, cousin?

VIC.—Yes: you should write sonnets on the sole of my shoe, and study every curve of my brow, as if life and death were in its rise or fall! (He turns away.) Henri, come here! (He approaches.) Come! you are a good-looking man enough, after all! Ah! why couldn't my poor father have forbidden me to marry you! He might have known I should have been sure in that case to have fallen desperately in love with you, Henri!

COUNT.—By Heaven, I will bear this trifling no longer! I will write instantly and propose to the peasant girl, Carille—she will be proud to be called La Contesse de Beaumont.

VIC.—Will you do so? Oh, you darling cousin! I shall love you dearly when you are once married! And, cousin, I don't believe she'll live till doomsday, do you? Don't forget that I'm to be your second—on doomsday morning, cousin. (Exit Count in a rage.) I am so happy—and Carille will be so happy too—I am sure she will! I know if I were a village girl I should be dying to be a lady—for now I am a lady I am dying to be a village girl—heigh-ho. (Exit.)



A STORY WITHOUT A NAME.[G]

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE

BY G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.

Continued from page 57.

CHAPTER XXII.

In a very gaudily furnished parlor, and in a very gaudy dress, sat a lady of some eight or nine and thirty years of age, with many traces of beauty still to be perceived in a face of no very intellectual expression. Few persons perhaps would have recognized in her the fair and faulty girl whom we have depicted weeping bitterly over the fate of Sir Philip Hastings' elder brother, and over the terrible situation in which he left her. Her features had much changed: the girlish expression—the fresh bloom of youth was gone. The light graceful figure was lost; but the mind had changed as greatly as the person, though, like it, the heart yet retained some traces of the original. When first she appeared before the reader's eyes, though weak and yielding, she was by no means ill disposed. She had committed an error—a great and fatal one; but at heart she was innocent and honest. She was, however, like all weak people, of that plastic clay moulded easily by circumstances into any form; and, in her, circumstances had shaped her gradually into a much worse form than nature had originally given her. To defraud, to cheat, to wrong, had at one time been most abhorrent to her nature. She had taken no active part in her father's dealings with old Sir John Hastings, and had she known all that he had said and sworn, would have shrunk with horror from the deceit. But during her father's short life, she had been often told by himself, and after his death had been often assured by the old woman Danby, that she was rightly and truly the widow of John Hastings, although because it would be difficult to prove, her father had consented to take an annuity for himself and her son, rather than enter into a lawsuit with a powerful man; and she had gradually brought herself to believe that she had been her lover's wife, because in one of his ardent letters he had called her so to stifle the voice of remorse in her bosom. The conviction had grown upon her, till now, after a lapse of more than twenty years, she had forgotten all her former doubts and scruples, believed herself and her son to be injured and deprived of their just rights, and was ready to assert her marriage boldly, though she had at one time felt and acknowledged that there was no marriage at all, and that the words her seducer had used were but intended to soothe her regret and terror. There was a point however beyond which she was not prepared to go. She still shrunk from giving false details, from perjuring herself in regard to particular facts. The marriage, she thought, might be good in the sight of heaven, of herself, and of her lover; but to render it good in the eyes of the law, she had found would require proofs that she could not give—oaths that she dared not take.

Another course, however, had been proposed for her; and now she sat in that small parlor gaudily dressed, as I have said, but dressed evidently for a journey. There were tears indeed in her eyes; and as her son stood by her side she looked up in his face with a beseeching look as if she would fain have said, "Pray do not drive me to this!"

But young John Ayliffe had no remorse, and if he spoke tenderly to her who had spoiled his youth, it was only because his object was to persuade and cajole.

"Indeed, mother," he said, "it is absolutely necessary or I would not ask you to go. You know quite well that I would rather have you here: and it will only be for a short time till the trial is over. Lawyer Shanks told you himself that if you stayed, they would have you into court and cross-examine you to death; and you know quite well you could not keep in one story if they browbeat and puzzled you."

"I would say any where that my marriage was a good one," replied his mother, "but I could not swear all that Shanks would have had me, John—No, I could not swear that, for Dr. Paulding had nothing to do with it, and if he were to repeat it all over to me a thousand times, I am sure that I should make a blunder, even if I consented to tell such a falsehood. My father and good Mrs. Danby used always to say that the mutual consent made a marriage, and a good one too. Now your father's own letter shows that he consented to it, and God knows I did. But these lawyers will not let well alone, and by trying to mend things make them worse, I think. However, I suppose you have gone too far to go back; and so I must go to a strange out of the way country and hide myself and live quite lonely. Well, I am ready—I am ready to make any sacrifice for you, my boy—though it is very hard, I must say."

As she spoke, she rose with her eyes running over, and her son kissed her and assured her that her absence should not be long. But just as she was moving towards the door, he put a paper—a somewhat long one—on the table, where a pen was already in the inkstand, saying, "just sign this before you go, dear mother."

"Oh, I cannot sign any thing," cried the lady, wiping her eyes; "how can you be so cruel, John, as to ask me to sign any thing just now when I am parting with you? What is it you want?"

"It is only a declaration that you are truly my father's widow," said John Ayliffe; "see here, the declaration, &c., you need not read it, but only just sign here."

She hesitated an instant; but his power over her was complete; and, though she much doubted the contents, she signed the paper with a trembling hand. Then came a parting full of real tenderness on her part, and assumed affection and regret on his. The post-chaise, which had been standing for an hour at the door, rolled away, and John Ayliffe walked back into the house.

When there, he walked up and down the room for some time, with an impatient thoughtfulness, if I may use the term, in his looks, which had little to do with his mother's departure. He was glad that she was gone—still gladder that she had signed the paper; and now he seemed waiting for something eagerly expected.

At length there came a sound of a quick trotting horse, and John Ayliffe took the paper from the table hastily, and put it in his pocket. But the visitor was not the one he expected. It was but a servant with a letter; and as the young man took it from the hand of the maid who brought it in, and gazed at the address, his cheek flushed a little, and then turned somewhat pale. He muttered to himself, "she has not taken long to consider!"

As soon as the slipshod girl had gone out of the room, he broke the seal and read the brief answer which Emily had returned to his declaration.

It would not be easy for an artist to paint, and it is impossible for a writer to describe, the expression which came upon his face as he perused the words of decided rejection which were written on that sheet; but certainly, had poor Emily heard how he cursed her, how he vowed to have revenge, and to humble her pride, as he called it, she would have rejoiced rather than grieved that such a man had obtained no hold upon her affection, no command of her fate. He was still in the midst of his tempest of passion, when, without John Ayliffe being prepared for his appearance, Mr. Shanks entered the room. His face wore a dark and somewhat anxious expression which even habitual cunning could not banish; but the state in which he found his young client, seemed to take him quite by surprise.

"Why what is the matter, John?" he cried, "what in the name of fortune has happened here?"

"What has happened!" exclaimed John Ayliffe, "look there," and he handed Mr. Shanks the letter. The attorney took it, and with his keen weazel eyes read it as deliberately as he would have read an ordinary law paper. He then handed it back to his young client, saying, "The respondent does not put in a bad answer."

"Damn the respondent," said John Ayliffe, "but she shall smart for it."

"Well, well, this cannot be helped," rejoined Mr. Shanks; "no need of putting yourself in a passion. You don't care two straws about her, and if you get the property without the girl so much the better. You can then have the pick of all the pretty women in the country."

John Ayliffe mused gloomily; for Mr. Shanks was not altogether right in his conclusion as to the young man's feelings towards Emily. Perhaps when he began the pursuit he cared little about its success, but like other beasts of prey, he had become eager as he ran—desire had arisen in the chase—and, though mortified vanity had the greatest share in his actual feelings, he felt something beyond that.

While he mused, Mr. Shanks was musing also, calculating results and combinations; but at length he said, in a low tone, "Is she gone?—Have you got that accomplished?"

"Gone?—Yes.—Do you mean my mother?—Damn it, yes!—She is gone, to be sure.—Didn't you meet her?"

"No," said Mr. Shanks; "I came the other way. That is lucky, however. But harkee, John—something very unpleasant has happened, and we must take some steps about it directly; for if they work him well, that fellow is likely to peach."

"Who?—what the devil are you talking about?" asked John Ayliffe, with his passion still unsubdued.

"Why, that blackguard whom you would employ—Master Tom Cutter," answered Mr. Shanks. You know I always set my face against it, John; and now——"

"Peach!" cried John Ayliffe, "Tom Cutter will no more peach than he'll fly in the air. He's not of the peaching sort."

"Perhaps not, where a few months' imprisonment are concerned," answered Mr. Shanks; "but the matter here is his neck, and that makes a mighty difference, let me tell you. Now listen to me, John, and don't interrupt me till I've done; for be sure that we have got into a very unpleasant mess, which we may have some difficulty in getting out of. You sent over Tom Cutter, to see if he could not persuade young Scantling, Lord Selby's gamekeeper, to remember something about the marriage, when he was with his old father the sexton. Now, how he and Tom manage their matters, I don't know; but Tom gave him a lick on the head with a stick, which killed him on the spot. As the devil would have it, all this was seen by two people, a laborer working in a ditch hard by, and Scantling's son, a boy of ten years old. The end of it is, Tom was instantly pursued, and apprehended; your good uncle, Sir John, was called to take the depositions, and without any remand whatever, committed our good friend for trial. Tom's only chance is to prove that it was a case of chance-medley, or to bring it under manslaughter, as a thing done in a passion, and if he thinks that being employed by you will be any defence, or will show that it was a sudden burst of rage, without premeditation, he will tell the whole story as soon as he would eat his dinner."

"I'd go over to him directly, and tell him to hold his tongue," cried John Ayliffe, now fully awakened to the perils of the case.

"Pooh, pooh! don't be a fool," said Mr. Shanks, contemptuously. "Are you going to let the man see that you are afraid of him—that he has got you in his power? Besides, they will not let you in. No, the way must be this. I must go over to him as his legal adviser, and I can dress you up as my clerk. That will please him, to find that we do not abandon him; and we must contrive to turn his defence quite another way, whether he hang for it or not. We must make it out that Scantling swore he had been poaching, when he had done nothing of the kind, and that in the quarrel that followed, he struck the blow accidentally. We can persuade him that this is his best defence, which perhaps it is after all, for nobody can prove that he was poaching, inasmuch as he really was not; whereas, if he were to show that he killed a man while attempting to suborn evidence, he would speedily find himself under a cross-beam."

"Suborn evidence," muttered John Ayliffe to himself; for though ready to do any act that might advance his purpose, he did not like to hear it called by its right name.

However that might be, he agreed to the course proposed by the attorney, and it was determined that, waiting for the fall of night, they should both go over to the prison together, and demand admittance to the felon's cell. The conversation then reverted to Emily's distinct rejection of the young man's suit, and long did the two ponder over it, considering what might be the effect upon the plans they were pursuing.

"It may hurry us desperately," said Mr. Shanks, at length, "unless we can get her to hold her tongue; for depend upon it, as soon as Sir Philip hears what we are doing, he will take his measures accordingly. Don't you think you and Mrs. Hazleton together can manage to frighten her into silence? If I were you, I would get upon my horse's back directly, ride over, and see what can be done. Your fair friend there will give you every help, depend upon it."

John Ayliffe smiled. "I will see," he said. "Mrs. Hazleton is very kind about it, and I dare say will help, for I am quite sure she has got some purpose of her own to serve."

The attorney grinned, but made no answer, and in the space of a quarter of an hour, John Ayliffe was on the road to Mrs. Hazleton's dwelling.

After quarter of an hour's private conversation with the lady of the house, he was admitted to the room in which Emily sat, unconscious of his being there. She was displeased and alarmed at seeing him, but his words and his conduct after he entered, frightened and displeased her still more. He demanded secrecy in a stern and peremptory tone, and threatened with vague, but not ill-devised menaces, to be the ruin of her father and his whole house, if she breathed one word of what had taken place between them. He sought, moreover, to obtain from her a promise of secrecy; but that Emily would on no account give, although he terrified her greatly; and he left her still in doubt as to whether his secret was safe or not.

With Mrs. Hazleton he held another conference, but from her he received better assurances. "Do not be afraid," she said; "I will manage it for you. She shall not betray you—at least for a time. However, you had better proceed as rapidly as possible, and if the means of pursuing your claim be necessary—I mean in point of money—have no scruple in applying to me."

Putting on an air of queenly dignity, Mrs. Hazleton proceeded in search of Emily, as soon as the young man was gone. She found her in tears; and sitting down by her side, she took her hand in a kindly manner, saying, "My dear child, I am very sorry for all this, but it is really in some degree your own fault. Nay, you need not explain any thing. I have just had young Ayliffe with me. He has told me all, and I have dismissed him with a sharp rebuke. If you had confided to me last night that he had proposed to you, and you had rejected him, I would have taken care that he should not have admittance to you. Indeed, I am surprised that he should presume to propose at all, without longer acquaintance. But he seems to have agitated and terrified you much. What did he want?"

"He endeavored to make me promise," replied Emily, "that I would not tell my father, or any one, of what had occurred."

"Foolish boy! he might have taken that for granted," replied Mrs. Hazleton, forgetting for an instant what she had just said. "No woman of any delicacy ever speaks of a matter of this kind, when once she has taken upon herself to reject a proposal unconditionally. If she wishes for advice," continued the lady, recollecting herself, "or thinks that the suit may be pressed improperly, of course she's free to ask counsel and assistance of some female friend, on whom she can depend. But the moment the thing is decided, of course, she is silent for ever; for nothing can be more a matter of honorable confidence than an avowal of honorable love. I will write him a note, and tell him he is in no danger, but warn him not to present himself here again, so long as you are with me."

Emily made no answer, trying to decide in her own mind whether Mrs. Hazleton's reasoning was right; and that lady, choosing to take her assent for granted, from her silence, hurried away, to give her no opportunity for retracting.

FOOTNOTES:

[G] Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by G. P. R. James, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New-York.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Before the door of a large brick building, with no windows towards the street, and tall walls rising up till they overtopped the neighboring houses, stood two men, about an hour after night had fallen, waiting for admittance. The great large iron bar which formed the knocker of the door, had descended twice with a heavy thump, but yet no one appeared in answer to the summons. It was again in the hand of Mr. Shanks and ready to descend, when the rattling of keys was heard inside; bolts were withdrawn and bars cast down, and one half of the door opened, displaying a man with a lantern, which he held up to gaze at his visitors. His face was fat and bloated, covered with a good number of spots, and his swollen eyelids made his little keen black eyes look smaller than they even naturally were, while his nose, much in the shape of a horsechestnut, blushed with the hues of the early morning.

"How are you, Cram, how are you?" asked the attorney. "I haven't been here for a long time, but you know me, I suppose."

"Oh, yes, I know you, Master Shanks," replied the jailer, winking one of his small black eyes; "who have you come to see? Betty Diaper, I'll warrant, who prigged the gentleman's purse at the bottom of the hill. She's as slink a diver as any on the lay; but she's got the shiners and so must have counsel to defend her before the beak, I'll bet a gallon."

"No, no," answered Mr. Shanks, "our old friend Tom Cutter wants to see me on this little affair of his."

"You'll make no hand of that, as sure as my name's Dionysius Cram," replied the jailer. "Can't prove an alibi there, Master Shanks, for I saw him do the job; besides he can't pay. What's the use of meddling with him? He must swing some time you know, and one day's as good as another. But come in, Master Shanks, come in. But who's this here other chap?"

"That's my clerk," replied Mr. Shanks, "I may want him to take instructions."

The man laughed, but demurred, but a crown piece was in those days the key to all jailers' hearts, and after a show of hesitation, Shanks and his young companion were both admitted within the gates. They now found themselves in a small square space, guarded on two sides by tall iron railings, which bent overhead, and were let into the wall somewhat after the manner of a birdcage. On the left-hand side, however, was another brick wall, with a door and some steps leading up to it. By this entrance Mr. Dionysius Cram led them into a small jailer's lodge, with a table and some wooden chairs, in the side of which, opposite to the entrance, was a strong movable grate, between the bars of which might be seen a yawning sort of chasm leading into the heart of the prison.