She was a tight-made little lady--nor young, nor old--without a cap

(_though it would be only manners to ask after it_) mighty tight, and

terrible active--spinning round like a top, and darting off like a

swallow; her head looked like a pretty tiger’s--fierce and keen: she

seemed ready to pounce on any thing--living or dead; no creature could

be easy, or quiet, or comfortable, or contented in the same room with

her. I saw that in a minute, and thought she’d be the death of my poor

lady.

As soon as she saw her and the master standing the way I told you of,

sure enough she sprung on her: you would have thought they had lain in

the same cradle, to see the delight of her: she pulled up her veil, and

kissed her on both cheeks.

“You dear creature!” she exclaimed. “Now, I know I shall have your

sympathy--your help--your experience. Now, don’t interrupt me, Cousin

Francis (the poor gentleman was looking dull and stupid) don’t interrupt

me--don’t tell me of difficulty,” she said. “I should think no one in

the county has forgotten how triumphantly I carried the question of the

_green pinafores_ in the very _teeth_ of the rector and the

churchwardens: the children wear them to this very day. I’ll organize an

opposition such as no power can withstand. I’ll neither give nor take

rest;” (I believed that,) “and if Lady Lockington’s candidate should be

returned, in violation of every constitutional right, I’ll petition the

house.” She waved her hand round like the sails of a wind-mill. I never

saw a prettier little hand, nor one that had a more resolute way with

it.

“Gently, my good sister, gently,” said the master; but Mrs. James did

not hear him. She pressed my lady into a chair, commanded her maid, with

a fine French name, to lay down the basket, and said that she longed for

sympathy quite as much as for assistance. “Active as I have been, and

am,” she said, “it would delight me to turn over a few of my duties to

your care. In town, it is worse--absolutely worse! Remember my

committees--_seven of a morning_! Remember the public meetings--the

bazaars, which could not go on without me--the Shanghai Commission--the

petitions of the women of England--the concerts--the Attic Improvement

Society!--duties of such public importance, that I have not spent an

hour in my own house for weeks together; never seen your master’s face

except beneath the shadow of a night-cap.” [Aunt, dear! I thought she

was a widdy woman until that blessed minute, never hearing tell of her

husband.] “Then the college committees for the education of young

females, prevent my having time to inquire how my own daughter’s

education progresses; and the ”Pap and Cradle Institute“ occupied so

much of my attention, that my charming Edward will never get over the

effects of that horrid small-pox, all through the carelessness of his

nurse--dreadful creature! No, no; there is no repose for me, sweet

cousin.” All this time she was tossing over the letters, like one mad,

and my mistress shrinking away farther and farther from her. “Is it

possible,” she exclaimed at last, “you take no interest in these

things?”

The master said that his cousin was fatigued.

“Well, well! it is just possible,” said the lady; “but positively,

before she goes to her room, I must interest her in my LITTLE ELECTION.”

At night, when I went up to attend upon my mistress, I told her I did

not see any sign of what I should call an election, either in the house,

or out of the house, though every living creature was tearing and

working away for the dear life, at they could hardly tell what, and not

a bit of dinner until half-past eight at night, when Christians ought to

be half-way in their beds. Now, my poor lady always had her dinner at

two, and yet what did you think she said to me? why--“_eight is the

fashionable hour_!” But she was not herself, for she never troubled

about what she’d put on next morning, only sat there like a statue; and

when at last I coaxed her to go to bed, she laid awake, keeping down the

sobs that rose from her very heart. Sure the quality has quare ways, and

quare thoughts! And just as she fell into that sweet sleep which is as

soft as swan’s-down, and as refreshing as the flowers in May, before the

young birds call for food, or the sun looks upon the earth--that little

whirligig of a lady came spinning into the room, as alive and as brisk

as if no mortal ever needed sleep. “Whisht!” I says, stopping her

frisking. “Whisht! if you plaze, whisht!” The start she took! and asked

me what language “whisht” was; and, seeing it diverted her, I drew back

to the door, and out on the landing, saying all the “Avourneens” and

“Grama-chrees” and real Irish words I could think of, to take her off my

mistress. So she called me a “dear creature,” and declared I would be

quite attractive at her little election, if she might dress me up as a

wild Irishwoman, and if I really would make myself useful. I was glad to

get her out of my lady’s room, so that she might rest, but I had no

notion of making a fool of myself for all the elections upon the face of

the earth--I know my place better than that--I leave that to my

superiors. Well, if the house was in a state of disturbance that day,

what was it the next? Nothing but making cockades of blue glazed calico

and of ribband, and turning her blue silk dresses into flags; and open

house--all trying to waste and destroy the most they could; and such

sending off dispatches, here, there, and every where; and such

baskets-full of letters. Oh, then, surely the post-office should pray

for an election as hard as ever it prayed for Valentine’s-day. I lost

sight of my poor dear mistress that day, for as good as five hours, for

the Honorable Mrs. James Cranley locked me and three others into a loft,

making them cockades; and to be sure I did work. And I told one of the

girls, when we were fairly come to the end, that I would not have worked

as I did, and out of the sight of my poor lady, only for the honor of

working for a member of parliament; and to hear the laugh was raised

against me. “Why,” said Mrs. James’s English maid, “it’s not a

parliament election at all, but an election for the master and mistress

of a sort of a charity, called Cranley Hurst College, where children of

some particular class are fed, and all that; and I believe some of the

country gentry say they ought to nominate the master and mistress; but

the Honorable Mrs. James has persuaded the Honorable Mr. Francis that

the Cranleys should do it; and the people in the little town said it was

neither the gentry, nor the Cranley family, but that every householder

had a vote! and that one man’s vote was as good as another’s! and had

_that_ printed in the country paper.” And then the lawyers smelt it out,

and gathered like crows in a corn-field, trying to strike war between

neighbours--which is their custom--and, indeed, poor things, their

bread, which must be very uncomfortable food for them, if they have any

consciences--which I never heard tell they had; and there seemed but

little doubt, if the Cranleys stood to their rights, there would be a

lawsuit, and no election till that was over. This drove the Honorable

Mrs. James mad: she said if once it got into law, none of them could

ever expect to live to see an election at all; and, as I understood,

settled it so that each named a candidate, and canvassed for votes. The

Honorable Mrs. James wanted to get in one _Mr._ and _Mrs. Bradshaw_ (I

wonder had they any call to _the book_); and they were decent

people--bred, born, and reared in the Cranley family--and to be sure,

Mrs. James beat Bannagher at canvassing! She was hand and glove with

every one that had the least call in life to a vote; she kissed every

child in the village; she promised every thing that everybody wanted;

she promised Mr. Skeggs his eyesight, and an ould Mrs. Bland the use of

her limbs; she danced in a hay-field, and sang Italian songs to those

who never heard a word of the language before. Dear! Oh, dear! I could

not help thinking how she was wasting her vitals--doing no real good for

man or beast! Oh, if my poor mistress had but half her strength, what a

woman she would be! And it was sore to see the downright black lies and

falsities they all told of each other. There was some grand point of

dispute about the weight of a loaf: at one time, one party had held with

a mistress of the Cranley charity, that so much bread was enough for

each child; and the other set said; “No; so much.” This was a grand

quarrel. But those who would have voted for the small bread gave in, and

owed they were wrong, and agreed to the large weight; but this made no

differ, the others cried against them all the same, and paraded the

country with a lump of bread pinched in, to make it look less, and

decked it out on the top of its pole with black ribbands, and called it

“The Cranley Hurst Starvation Loaf for Poor Children.” Well, I was

fairly bothered amongst them; and every time the Honorable Mrs. James

came across me--full or fasting, in public or in private--she would make

me go over my Irish, and smile, and say--turning to ladies or gentlemen,

no matter which, until I was shamed out of my very life--“Now, is not

she delicious? Will she not make a sensation? She will carry all before

her!”

I’d have given the world for a clear head, just to think about my

mistress, and the Honorable Mr. Francis, and that horrid old Maud, who

ought to be burnt for a witch, as she is. My mistress was obliged to get

her own bonnet and shawl; and indeed, when she went out, she had not

strength to come in, only that the Honorable Mr. Francis helped her. At

last the day came: I had been up stairs to my lady, and found she had

gone down stairs to breakfast!--there was a wonder!--and returning

through the back hall, I saw two such pretty looking children, all in

rags, not real natural rags, such as we see (I am sure I ought to know

what rags are,) but nice, pretty, clean, pink gingham frocks, with

pieces cut out of them on purpose--torn down here, and looped up

there--and their clean, pretty white legs and feet quite bare, and their

dear little, sweet, fat, fubsy hands filled with _artificial_ flowers,

poppies, and ears of corn. Well, aunt, you know how I doat on children;

so as I just stooped down to kiss them, as I used poor Tom’s, and it

seemed so natural to say to the youngest, who was hardly bigger than a

Clonmel turf--“O! lanna machree was you, every bit of you”--when I heard

a scream of delight from the Honorable Mrs. James: it was like the

_skirle_ of a paycock.

“You dear creature!” she shouted, “to get up such a delicious rehearsal;

the very thing I wanted. Your dress is quite ready; Clotilde shall dress

you. You must talk Irish unceasingly, it will prove the extensive

charity we propose--that we mean to take in _even the Irish_. It is a

bold stroke, but this is the period for bold strokes.” And so she talked

and hustled me into a room, and the children with me; and before I could

turn round (I had not had a bit of breakfast that day, and was starving

alive with the hunger) she had my cap off, and my hair down about my

shoulders, and my gown off, and a bran new bright scarlet petticoat,

that (saving your presence) was half a mile too short, cut into a

scollop here, and a scollop there, and a bright blue patch tacked on it

here, and a green one there; and the body of a gown that did not half

fit, in the same style, with folds of _white muslin_ for shift-sleeves;

and a bran new blue cloak, with such a beautiful pink bow in the back of

the hood, and--the wickedness of her--to tare two or three slits in

_that_. I was so bothered entirely, that I could not speak; and then the

maid tossicated my hair, and stuck a bunch of shamroques over my ear,

and placed one of the children in my arms (the _grawleen_ of a thing got

hers about my neck in a minute;) and every now and then the Honorable

Mrs. James would stop and clap her hands, and talk that outlandish

gibberish to her maid.

“And what is it all for, my lady?” I asked, when the breath returned to

my body, and the courage to my heart. “Now that you are done with me,

I’d like to go back to myself, if you plaze, for I never did join the

mummers in my own country, and I don’t like it, my lady.”

“But you must like it!” she exclaimed, “you _must_ like it--you are to

be an Irish beggar-woman.”

“None of my breed was ever that ma’am.” I said, feeling as if a bolt of

ice had run through my heart; but she never heeded me.

“And those are to be your children!”

“My _children_!” I repeated, “my children--oh, holy Father!--to even the

like of that to _me_, and I came all over like a flash of fire. So with

that she called me a fool, and repeated, it was all for the good of the

country--to show the boundless nature of the ”Cranley Hurst

Charity“--that it took in _even the Irish_. Oh, how my blood boiled; and

I up and told her, that it was true the English now and again did a

great deal for Ireland, and very good it was of them, for no doubt the

Irish were a mighty troublesome people; and indeed, it was hard to think

how any people could sit down quiet and cheerful that had only potatoes

to eat, and rags to cover them. But if the English were good to them,

they were always telling them of it, and they never gave their gratitude

_time to grow_; and as for me, I had seen too much real misery in rags

ever to make a play of it;” and then the tears would come and choke me

almost, and I hid my face in the child’s lap; I was so ashamed of them

tears. Now, would you believe, that instead of being angry, she got out

her pencil, and wrote it every word down--and clapt her hands in

delight, and said it was as fine as Mrs. Keeley’s humor and pathos--and

begged of me to say it again, that I might be sure to say it right--_in

public_--and when she found I would not make a mummer of myself, in what

she called a _tablou_, she said she would pay me to do it. And I made

answer, that what I could not do for _love_, I would never do for money,

which surprised her. The English think they can get every thing done

through their money. And, aunt, she got into such a state, poor lady,

she cried, she wrung her hands, she declared she was ruined, she

upbraided me, she said I had promised to do it--and all this time the

blue flags were flying, and the band playing on the lawn, and a great

flat, open carriage of a thing, waiting to take me and the children _for

a show_--for a show through the place! think of that! and while she was

debating with me, some one came in, and told her she was guilty of

bribery--and while the band played, “See the Conquering Hero comes,” she

went off into little hysterics--upbraiding me all the time. And in the

thick of it my mistress entered, leaning on Mr. Francis’ arm. “Oh,

cousin, cousin!” she screamed, “that horrid Irish woman will lose me my

little election!”

The Hon. Mr. Francis seemed not much to mind her, but I heard him

whisper my lady--

“_But I have gained mine!_”

-----

[7] “Picture”--“model.”

[8] Opposite.

* * * * *

=NOVEMBER.=

=BY MRS. JULIA C. R. DORR.=

Fie upon thee, November! thou dost ape

The airs of thy young sisters;--thou hast stolen

The witching smile of May to grace thy lip,

And April’s rare, capricious loveliness

Thou ’rt trying to put on! Dost thou not know

Such freaks do not become thee? Thou shouldst be

A staid and sober matron, quietly

Laying aside the follies of thy youth,

And robing thee in that calm dignity

Meet for the handmaid of the dying year.

But ah! thou art a sad coquette, although

The frost of age is on thee! Thou dost sport

With every idle breeze that wooeth thee;

And toy and frolick with the aged leaves

That flutter round thee; and unto the low,

Soft murmur of the brooklet, thou dost lend

A willing ear; and crowning thy pale brow

With a bright coronet, that thou hast woven

Of the stray sunbeams summer left behind.

Thou dost bend o’er it lovingly, and strive

To answer in a cadence clear and sweet

As springs first whispers! In the valleys now

The flowers have faded, and the singing-birds

Greet thee no longer when thou wanderest forth

Through the dim forest; and yet thou dost smile,

And skip as lightly o’er the withered grass,

As if thou hadst not decked thee in the robes

That thy dead sister’s wore in festal hours!

* * * * *

=SONNET.--MUTABILITY.=

=BY WM. ALEXANDER.=

Things changing show no permanency here;

Writ on Earth’s face is Mutability;

The surface of old hills wears fast away,

And the mutations of this globe appear

Inscribed upon her rocks, which still record

That present must into the future pass;

That Man and his frail works shall like the grass

So perish and decay. Moves he vain lord

And monarch of a mighty throng, to-day;

Flit by a few short summers, hies he back

Unto his primal clod, leaving no track

Behind. His storms--tell, where now are they?

Search for them in the herbage fresh and green,

Or find them in the flowers in humble valley seen.

* * * * *

=AMBITION’S BURIAL-GROUND.=

=BY FRANCIS DE HAES JANVIER.=

“A late letter from California states that the writer counted

six hundred new graves, in the course of his journey across the

Plains.”

Far away, beyond the western mountains, lies a lovely land,

Where bright streamlets, gently gliding, murmur over golden sand,

Where in valleys fresh and verdant, open grottoes old and hoar,

In whose deep recesses treasured, glitter heaps of golden ore--

Lies a lovely land where Fortune long hath hidden priceless store.

But the path which leadeth thither, windeth o’er a dreary plain,

And the pilgrim must encounter weary hours of toil and pain,

Ere he reach those verdant vallies--ere he grasp the gold beneath;

Ay, the path is long and dreary, and disease, with poisonous breath,

Lurks around, and many a pilgrim finds it but the way to death.

Ay, the path is long and dreary--but thou canst not miss the way,

For, defiant of its dangers, thousands throng it night and day,

Pouring westward, as a river rolleth on in countless waves--

Old and young, alike impatient--all alike Ambition’s slaves--

Pressing, panting, pining, dying--strewing all the way with graves!

Thus, alas! Ambition ever leadeth men through burial plains--

Trooping on, in sad procession, melancholy funeral trains!

Hope stands smiling on the margin, but beyond are gloomy fears--

One by one, dark Disappointment wastes the castles Fancy rears--

All the air is filled with sighing--all the way with graves and

tears!

Wouldst thou seek a wreath of glory on the ensanguined battle-field?

Know that to a single victor, thousands in subjection yield;

Thousands who with pulses beating high as his, the strife essayed--

Thousands who with arms as valiant, wielded each his shining blade--

Thousands who in heaps around him, vanquished, in the dust are laid!

Vanquished! while above the tumult, Victory’s trump, with swelling

surge,

Sounds for him a song of triumph--sounds for them a funeral dirge!

E’en the laurel wreath he bindeth on his brow, their life-blood

stains--

Sighs, and tears, and blood commingling, make the glory that he

gains--

And unknown, sleeps many a hero, on Ambition’s burial plains!

Or, the purple field despising--deeming war’s red glory shame--

Wouldst thou, in seclusion, gather greener laurels, purer fame?

Stately halls Ambition reareth, all along her highway side--

Halls of learning, halls of science, temples where the arts abide--

Wilt thou here secure a garland woven by scholastic pride?

Ah! within those cloisters gloomy, dimly wastes the midnight oil--

Days of penury and sorrow alternate with nights of toil!

Countless crowds those portals enter, breathing aspirations high--

Youthful, ardent, self-reliant--each believing triumph nigh;

Countless crowds grow wan and weary, and within those portals die!

Ay, of all who enter thither, few obtain the proffered prize,

While unblest, unwept, unhonored, undeveloped genius dies!

Genius which had else its glory on remotest ages shown--

Beamed through History’s deathless pages, glowed on canvas, lived in

stone--

Yet along Ambition’s way-side, fills it many a grave unknown!

But, perchance thou pinest only for those grottoes old and hoar,

In whose deep recesses hidden, Fortune heaps her glittering store:

Enter, then, the dreary pathway--but, above each lonely mound

Lightly tread, and pause to ponder--for, like those who slumber

round,

Thou mayst also lie forgotten on Ambition’s burial ground!

* * * * *

=REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.=

_The Upper Ten Thousand. By Charles Astor Bristed. Stringer &

Townsend, Broadway._

A very clever book, by a rather clever man. We learn it is the most

popular _brochure_ of the season, nor do we wonder at it, for it has all

the elements to procure it a fleeting popularity--pungency, personality,

impudence, insolence, ill-nature, satire and slang, malignity and

mendacity--every thing, in short, likely to tickle the palates of all

classes, to pander to the worst tastes, please the worst passions, and

gratify the self-adulation of all readers.

It is not to be denied that the descriptions are racy and pointed; that

some caste-affectations are skillfully satirized; some local absurdities

happily shown up; and that there are some points of humor, and even some

sound criticisms, mixed up with much grossness, much ill taste, most

disgusting egotism, and personality the most broad, brutal, and malign.

As to Mr. Charles Astor Bristed’s denial of the applicability of Harry

Benson, alias Harry Masters, in this edition, to himself, and of all

personality or individual satire throughout the pages of the work--he

may say what he will, but no one will believe him. An author who, in

depicting a fictitious hero, chooses to identify that hero with himself,

to the extent of accurately describing the houses of his own grandfather

and father-in-law, with their respective bearings, distances and

situations in the city, as those of the same kinsmen of his hero--of

attributing to him well-known incidents of his own life, such as lending

money to a dissipated and debauched young ex-lieutenant of the English

army, and then dunning his half heartbroken father for the paltry

amount, with rowdy letters, which he subsequently published in the

newspapers--buying a negro slave, in order to liberate him and gain

Buncombe, as it is called, by making capital of his philanthropy in the

public journals--and, lastly, ascribing to his fictitious personage his

own domestic grievances, and his own quarrels at a watering-place--all

matters of actual notoriety--has no earthly right to complain if the

public say he has made himself his own hero.

Nor when he describes invidiously, and most ill-naturedly depicts

well-known persons of “our set,” as he chooses to denominate it--though

we greatly doubt his belonging even to it, trifling, ridiculous and

contemptible as it is--so accurately that neither the persons

caricatured, nor any who know them, can avoid at a glance recognizing

their identity, has he any reason to wonder if his wit be rewarded with

the cowhide. When we compare Mr. Charles Astor Bristed’s positive denial

of any personality, with his broad and brutal delineation of the _Hon.

Pompey Whitey_, editor of a New York Socialist, Anti-Rent, Abolition,

and Ghost-believing journal, ex-member of Congress--we say _brutal_,

because in it he lifts the veil of domestic life, and touches upon

matters which, whether true or false, the public has no right to hear

of--we know not which most to wonder at, the audacity, or the

shortsightedness, of the falsehood.

The attempt at disguise is so feeble that we doubt not the prototype,

either of Pompey Whitey or of the Catholic Archbishop Feegrave, could

readily obtain exemplary damages from any jury, if he should think it

worth the while to break a butterfly upon the wheel.

To show the perfect identity of the persons Henry Masters and Charles

Astor Bristed, we shall proceed to quote two or three passages, which

are, by the way, singularly good specimens both of the style of the

book, with its flippancy and smartness, its insolence and egotism, its

blended capability of amusing and disgusting--the revolting effect it

must have on every high judgment and right thinking mind, and the power

of entertaining the fashionable mob, who delight in scandalizing and

abusing their dearest friends, and the vulgar mob, who are always dying

to hear something about the fashionables, be it right or wrong.

* * * * *

_Mr. Charles Astor Bristed’s money concerns with ex-Lieutenant Law of

the British army!_

“At that moment Clara appeared, in a dressing-gown also; but hers was a

tricolor pattern, lined with blue silk.

“‘A very handsome young couple, certainly,’ thought the Englishman, ‘but

how theatrically got up? I wonder if they always go about in the country

dressed this way!’ And he thought of the sensation, the _mouvemens

divers_ that such a costume would excite among the guests of the

paternal mansion at Alderstave.

“Masters, with a rapid alteration of style and manner, and a vast

elaboration of politeness, introduced his wife and guest. Ashburner

fidgeted a little, and looked as if he did not exactly know what to do

with his arms and legs. Mrs. Masters was as completely at her ease as if

she had known him all her life, and, by way of putting him at his ease

too, began to abuse England and the English to him, and retail the old

grievance of her husband’s plunder by Ensign Lawless, and the

ungentlemanly behavior of Lawless père on the occasion, and the

voluminous correspondence that took place between him and Harry, which

the _Blunder and Bluster_ afterward published in full, under the heading

‘American Hospitality and English Repudiation,’ in extra caps; and so

she went on to the intense mystification of Ashburner, who couldn’t

precisely make out whether she was in jest or earnest, till Masters came

to the rescue.”

* * * * *

_Mr. Charles Astor Bristed’s purchase of the negro, and his opinion of

Southern gentlemen in general. Of which said Southern gentlemen will

doubtless die broken-hearted!_

“‘I got these a bargain for 800 dollars from a friend,’ quoth Masters,

anent his horses, ‘who was just married and going abroad. Probably a

jockey would have charged me four figures for them. That was a year ago

last month. I had twenty-six hundred then to spend in luxuries, and

invested it in three nearly equal portions. It may amuse to know now.

These horses I bought for myself, as I said, for 800 dollars; a grand

Pleyel for Mrs. Masters for 900 dollars; and a man for myself for the

same sum.’

“‘_A man?_’

“‘Yes, a coachman. You look mystified. Come, now, candidly, is New York

a slave State? Do you know, or what do you think?’

“‘I had supposed it was not.’

“‘You supposed right, and know more about it than all your countrymen

take the trouble to know. Nevertheless, it is literally true that I

bought this man for the other 900 dollars; and it happened in this wise.

One fine morning there was a great hue and cry in Washington. Nearly a

hundred slaves of different ages, sexes, and colors, most of them

house-servants in the best families, had made a _stampedo_, as the

Western men say. They had procured a sloop through the aid of some white

men, and sailed off up the Potomac--not a very brilliant proceeding on

their part. The poor devils were all taken, and sentence of

transportation passed upon them--for it amounts to that: They were

condemned (by their masters) to be sold into the South-Western States.

Some of the cases were peculiarly distressing--among others, a quadroon

man, who had been coachman to one of our government secretaries. He had

a wife and five children, all free in Washington; but two of his sisters

were in bondage with him--very pretty and intelligent girls report said.

The three were sold to a slave-trader, who kept them some time on

speculation. The circumstance attracted a good deal of attention in New

York; some of the papers were full of it. I saw the account one morning,

and happening to have those 900 dollars on hand, I wrote straight off to

one of our abolition members at Washington, (I never saw him in my life,

but one doesn’t stand on ceremony in such matters, and the whole thing

was done on the spur of the moment,) saying that if either of the girls

could be bought for that sum I would give it. The gentleman who had the

honor of my correspondence put upon him, wrote to another

gentleman--standing counsel, I believe, for the Washington

abolitionists--and he wrote to the slave-trader, one Bruin, (devilish

good name that for his business!) who sent back a glorious answer, which

I keep among my epistolary curiosities. ‘The girls are very fine ones,’

said this precious specimen; ‘I have been offered 1000 dollars for one

of them by a Louisiana gentleman. They cannot be sold at a lower price

than 1200 dollars and 1300 dollars respectively. If I could be sure that

your friend’s motives were those of unmixed philanthropy, I would make a

considerable reduction. The man, who is a very deserving person, and

whom I should be glad to see at liberty, can be had for 900 dollars; but

I suppose your correspondent takes less interest in him.’ The infernal

scamp thought I wanted a mistress, and his virtuous mind revolted at the

thought of parting with one of the girls for such a purpose--except for

an extra consideration.’[9]

“‘It must have been a wet blanket upon your philanthropic intentions.’

“‘Really I hardly knew whether to be most angry or amused at the turn

things had taken. As to Clara, she thought it a glorious joke, and did

nothing for the next month but quiz me about the quadroon girls, and ask

me when she might expect them. However, I thought, with the Ethiopian in

the ballad, that ‘it would never do to give it up so,’ and accordingly

wrote back to Washington that I should be very glad indeed to buy the

man. Unfortunately, the man was half-way to Mississippi by that

time----Now we are well up that hill and can take a good brush down to

the next. G’l-lang, ponies! He-eh! Wake up, Firefly!’

“‘And then?’

“‘Oh, how he got off, after all! It was a special interference of

Providence. (G’lang, Star!) The Hon. Secretary felt some compunctions

about the fate of his coachman, and hearing that the money was all ready

to pay for him, actually paid himself the additional 50 dollars required

to bring him back to Washington; so he lives there now a free man with

his family--at least, for all I know to the contrary, for I never heard

any more about him since.’

“‘And what became of the girls?’

“‘There was a subscription raised for them here. My brother Carl gave

something toward it--not that he cared particularly for the young

ladies, but because he had a strong desire to sell the gentleman from

Louisiana. They were ransomed, and brought here, and put to school

somewhere, and a vast fuss made about them--quite enough to spoil them,

I’m afraid. And so ends that story. What a joke, to think of a man being

worth just as much as a grand piano, and a little more than a pair of

ponies!’

“Ashburner thought that Masters treated the whole affair too much as a

joke.

“‘Tell me,’ said he, ‘if these people came to New York, or you met them

traveling, would you associate with them on familiar terms?’

“‘Not with Mr. Bruin, certainly,’ replied Harry. ‘To give the devil his

due, such a man is considered to follow an infamous vocation, even in

his part of the country.’

“‘But the Honorable Secretary and the other gentlemen, who sell their

men to work on the cotton plantations and their women for something

worse?’

“‘H-m! A-h! Did you ever meet a Russian?--in your own country, I mean.’

“‘Yes, I met one at dinner once. I wont pretend to pronounce his name.’

“‘Did you go out of the way to be uncivil to him, because he owned

serfs?’

“‘No, but I didn’t go out of my way to be particularly genial with him.’

“‘Exactly: the cases are precisely parallel. The Southerners are our

Russians. They come up to the North to be civilized; they send their

boys here to be educated; they spend a good deal of money here. We are

civil to them, but not over genial--some of us, at least, are not.’

* * * * *

_Mr. Charles Astor Bristed’s opinions of British officers in general,

which will probably set him forward a good deal when he again visits

England! Lieutenant Law again!_

“Ashburner felt no disposition to deny the beauty and grandeur of the

Hudson. At first the shore was lined with beetling ramparts of

trap-rock. After many miles of this, the clear water spread out into a

great lake with apparently no egress. But on turning a promontory, the

river stretched away nearly as wide as before, under wooded cliffs not

dissimilar to those of the Rhine. Then came the picturesque Catskill

mountains; and near these Harry was to stop, but Ashburner did not stop

with him. At West Point the boat had taken up, among other passengers,

two young officers of his acquaintance, then quartered in Canada. They

were going to take the tour of the lakes, including, of course, Niagara,

and offered Ashburner, if he would accompany them on this excursion

first, to show him the lions of Canada afterward. On consulting with

Masters, he found that the trip would not occupy more than a month or

five weeks, and that after that time the watering-place season would be

at its height.

“‘And it will be an excuse for my staying with Carl till August,’ Harry

continued, ‘The women are half crazy to be at Oldport already. I would

rather stay at Ravenswood. We shall expect you there at the end of July.

But,’ and here, for the first time since their acquaintance, Ashburner

perceived a slight embarrassment in his manner, ‘don’t bring your

friends.’

“‘Oh, dear, no!’ said Ashburner, not comprehending what could have put

such a thing into the other’s head, or what was coming next.

“‘I don’t mean to Ravenswood, but to Oldport; that is, if you can help

their coming. To tell you the truth, your university men, and literary

men generally, are popular enough here, but your army is in very bad

odor. The young fellows who come down among us from Canada behave

shockingly. They don’t act like gentlemen or Christians.’

“Ashburner hastened to assure him that Captain Blank and Lieutenant Dash

were both gentlemen and Christians, in the ordinary acceptation of the

terms, and had never been known to misconduct themselves in any way.

“‘Doubtless, inasmuch as they are your friends, but the general

principle remains the same. So many of your young officers have

misconducted themselves, that the _primâ facie_ evidence is always

against one of them, and he stands a chance of being coolly treated.’

“Ashburner wanted to know what the young officers had done.

“‘Every thing they could do to go counter to the habits and prejudices

of the people among whom they were, and to show their contempt of

American society; to act, in short, as if they were among uncivilized

people. For instance, it is a custom at these watering-place hotels to

dress for the table-_d’hôte_. Now I do not think it altogether

reasonable that a man should be expected to make his evening toilette by

three in the afternoon, and, indeed, I do not strictly conform to the

rule myself. But these men came in flannel shirts and dirty shoes, and

altogether in a state unfit for ladies’ company. Perhaps, however, we

were too fastidious in this. But what do you say to a youngster’s

seating himself upon a piano in the public parlor, while a lady is

playing on it?’

“Ashburner allowed that it was rather unceremonious.

“‘By various similar acts, trivial, perhaps, individually, but forming a

very disagreeable aggregate, these young men made themselves so

unpopular, that one season the ladies, by common consent, refused to

dance with any of them. But there is worse behind. These gentlemen, so

stupid in a drawing-room, are sharp enough in borrowing money, and

altogether oblivious of repaying it.’

“Ashburner remembered the affair of Ensign Lawless, and made up his mind

to undergo another repetition of it.

“‘I don’t speak of my individual case; the thing has happened fifty

times. I could tell of a dozen friends who have been victimized in this

way during the last three years. In fact, I believe that your _jeunes

militaires_ have formed a league to avenge the Mississippi bondholders,

and recover their lost money under the form of these nominal loans. You

may think it poetic justice, but we New-Yorkers have no fancy to pay the

Mississippians’ debts in this way.’”

It must be a strangely constituted mind that will, for spite at a single

loss of an amount trifling to one so wealthy as Mr. Bristed is reputed

to be, stoop to slander a whole class of men who have always, till he

thought fit to _lie_bel them, borne a reputation the world over, for

strict honor; and whose bills are readily cashed the world over, on no

recommendation save that of their being proved to be British

officers--Lieutenant Law was not one when he swindled Mr. Charles Astor

Bristed--the price of their commissions being responsible for their

bills if unpaid.

It must be a strangely constituted mind that will stoop, for the sake of

gaining pseudo popularity in a foreign country averse to slavery, to

slander and abuse a whole section of his countrymen, every one of whom,

we mean the gentlemen of the south, after all we have heard, is better

born, better bred, better informed, better educated, if not so

pedantically drilled to a little Latin and less Greek, than their

egotistical slanderer.

But what cannot be expected of a man, who, after a disgraceful brawl,

almost in a ball-room, has passed away, and been almost forgotten, has

no better taste or sense of decency than to renew it in one-sided print,

provoking fresh violence; and cowardly attacking by the pen which he

himself wields, with some fluency, if with little force, an enemy

unskilled to defend himself with that weapon.

Verily Mr. Pynnshurst was not so far out of the way, when in his

wanderings and ways of thinking he embodied this epigram.

“The plume, you know,” says the lady, “is greater than the sword. I read

that now in all the journals; what do you think it means?”

“That the pen is more brutal than the sword, with less danger to its

wielder.”

At least Mr. Charles Astor Bristed seems to have thought so. It is

certainly safer to malign an enemy under the disguise of a false name,

than to play at a game with him in which, it is proverbial, that two can

play as well as one.

The fact seems to be, that an insane desire for notoriety has fallen

upon this unfortunate young man, who has, since first he entered upon

the stage of life, been constantly running mucks at all and sundry, in

which he has as constantly achieved the renown of being thoroughly

belabored. He has now attained his desired notoriety; but it is a

notoriety, than which any one, save himself, would prefer the most

profound obscurity.

It may be thought that we have dwelt too long upon such a galimatia of

frippery, flippancy, and falsehood as this book; but as it is going the

round, and selling with almost unequaled rapidity, and will probably

continue to do so, owing to its piquancy and sneering levity, we think

it right that people with the bane should have the antidote. The book is

a bad one, holding up a bad set, false views of society, false notions

of morality, a false tone of honor, not to be palliated, much less to be

praised and admired, but to be condemned. Nothing about it seems to be

true but the self-portraiture of the author.

-----

[9] All the above incidents are literally true, and the extracts from

Bruin’s letter almost _verbatim_ copies.

* * * * *

_The Heirs of Randolph Abbey. A Novel. Stringer & Townsend. New

York._

This is a wonderfully powerful and striking romance, reprinted from the

pages of the Dublin University Magazine, a paternity which is almost

tantamount to saying that it is excellent; for the Dublin University

contains probably less trash than any other magazine in existence, with

the exception of Blackwood, and--of course--Graham.

“The Heirs of Randolph Abbey” was at first selected for republication in

Stringer & Townsend’s “International,” and was, of course; discontinued

when that excellent magazine was merged in Harper’s; so great, however,

has been the demand for the conclusion of the tale that the publishers

have now produced it in cheap book form.

It is a story of the darkest and most terrible interest, affecting the

reader with a sort of grave and mystic awe, like that arising from the

perusal of a supernatural story; yet there is nothing supernatural or

mystical in the narrative, nothing in short beyond the conflicts of

human passions, carried to excess, and unregulated either by human

principle or Christian religion, against humility, benevolence, and the

charity that thinks no harm.

The tale, as regards the fortunes of the two principal actors, the

hapless Aletheia and the noble-minded Richard Sydney, is almost too

painfully interesting to be pleasurable reading. The circumstances out

of which this powerful romance is formed, probably never did exist, and

therefore some readers might consider them unnatural. I am not, however,

prepared so to regard them, since such circumstances might readily arise

from the natural causes to which they are assigned, and, if arising,

might and indeed probably would produce consequences not unlike those

deduced by the genius of the author.

The terribly fierce passions of Sir Michael and the Lady Randolph are

less easily reconciled, not to Nature--for Nature has exhibited far

stronger and more terrible displays of fierce and morbid love distorted

into fiercer and more monstrous hatred--but to the routine of daily

probabilities, and to the tenor of social life in these days, when the

formalities and decencies of society render the display of such

feelings, in their extremity, wholly impossible.

Still, so skilfully are the sterner and darker portions of the tale

contrasted and relieved by the soft graces and pure gentleness of other

characters, such as the sweet Lilias and the high-minded Walter, that

there is nothing morbid or repulsive in the pervading gloom which is the

general characteristic of the novel, and that the impression left upon

the mind at the conclusion is agreeable, rather than the reverse; while

the reader feels, on reaching the last page, that he has not been merely

entertained, but in some degree edified, by the perusal of a work,

affecting nothing less than to preach, and pretending neither to the

inculcation of a set moral, nor to the propagation of a creed.

The following passage, one of the finest descriptive passages in the

book, will give you an admirable specimen of the forcible style, and

thrilling interest, which is conspicuous in every line, and engrafted in

every chapter of this singular work.

Lilias Randolph has been suddenly summoned from the humble home in which

she has passed her childhood and the first spring time of her youth,

under the care of an aged grandsire, among the green hills of Connaught,

to visit the proud halls of Randolph Abbey, in order there to become

acquainted with her uncle, Sir Michael. For in his old age, prescient of

his approaching death, the wealthy baronet has collected his connections

around him, that he may study, during the familiar intercourse afforded

by a six months’ visit, the character of each; and so decide to which of

the four--for so many they prove to be in number, all the orphan

children of his brethren, and therefore cousins german--as the

worthiest, he shall bequeath his broad domains and more than princely

inheritance.

The four are Lilias, Walter, Gabriel, and last in place, but first in

interest, Aletheia--a creation of real genius--who is thus introduced to

the reader.

“‘This is not all,’ said Sir Michael, who had watched the scene; he

turned to Lady Randolph--‘Will she come?’

“His wife made no answer, but walked toward a small door which seemed to

open into some inner apartment: she opened it, pronounced the name of

‘Aletheia,’ and returned to her place. There was a pause. Lilias had

heard no sound of steps, but suddenly Walter and Gabriel moved aside,

she looked up, and Sir Michael himself placing a hand within hers,

said--‘This is your cousin, Aletheia; her father, my third brother, died

only last year.’ The hand she held sent a chill through Lilias’ whole

frame, for it was cold as marble, and when she fixed her eyes on the

face that bent over her, a feeling of awe and distress, for which she

could not account, seemed to take possession of her.

“It was not a beautiful countenance, far from it, yet most remarkable;

the features were fixed and still as a statue, rigid, with a calm so

passionless, that one might have thought the very soul had fled from

that form, the more so as the whole of the marble face was overspread

with the most extraordinary paleness. There was not a tinge of color in

the cheek, scarce even on the lips, and the dead white of the forehead

contrasted quite unnaturally with the line of hair, which was of a soft

brown, and gathered simply round the head; it was as though some intense

and awful thought lay so heavy at her heart that it had curdled the very

blood within it, and drawn it away from the veins that it might be

traced distinctly under the pure skin. It was singular that the

immovable stillness of that face whispered no thought of soothing rest,

for it was a stillness as of death--a death to natural joys and

feelings; and mournfully from under their heavy lids, the eyes looked

out with a deep, earnest gaze, which seemed to ignore all existing

sights and things, and to be fixed on vacancy alone. Aletheia wore a

dress of some dark material, clasped round the throat, and falling in

heavy folds from the braid which confined it at the waist; she stood

motionless, holding the little warm hand that Sir Michael had placed in

hers, without seeming almost to perceive the girlish form that stood

before her. There could not have been a greater contrast than between

that pale statue and the bright, glowing Lilias, the play of whose

features, ever smiling or blushing, was fitful as waters sparkling

beneath the sunbeam.

“‘Do you not welcome your cousin, Aletheia?’ said Sir Michael, with a

frown. She started fearfully, as if she had been roused by a blow, from

the state in which she was absorbed. She looked down at Lilias, who felt

as if the deeply mournful eyes sent a chill to her very soul. Then the

mouth relaxed to an expression of indescribable sweetness, which gave,

for one second, a touching beauty to the rigid face; a few words,

gentle, but without the slightest warmth, passed from her pale lips.

Then they closed, as if in deep weariness. She let fall the hand of

Lilias, and glided back to a seat within the shadow of the wall, where

she remained, leaning her head on the cushions, as though in a

death-like swoon. Lilias looked inquiringly at her aunt, almost fearing

her new-found cousin might be ill. But Lady Randolph merely answered,

‘It is always so,’ and no further notice was taken of her.

“They went to dinner shortly after, and Lilias thought there could not

be a more complete picture of comfort and happiness than the luxurious

room, with its blazing fire, and warm crimson hangings, and the large

family party met round the table, where every imaginable luxury was

collected. Little did her guilelessness conceive of the deep drama

working beneath that fair outward show. Her very ignorance of the world

and its ways, prevented her feeling any embarrassment amongst those who,

she concluded must be her friends, because they were her relations, and

she talked gayly and happily with Walter, who was seated next to her,

and who seemed to think he had found in her a more congenial spirit than

any other within the walls of Randolph Abbey. All the rest of the party,

excepting one, joined in the conversation. Lady Randolph, with a few

coldly sarcastic remarks, stripped every subject she touched upon of all

poetry or softness of coloring; she seemed to be one whom life had

handled so roughly that it could no longer wear any disguise for her,

and at once, in all things, she ever grasped the bitterness of truth,

and wished to hold its unpalatable draught to the shrinking lips of

others. Sir Michael listened with interest to every word that Lilias

uttered, and encouraged her to talk of her Irish life; whilst Gabriel,

with the sweetest of voices, displayed so much talent and brilliancy in

every word he said, that he might well have excited the envy of his

competitors, but for the extraordinary humility which he manifested in

every look and gesture. There was one only who did not speak, and to

that one Lilias’ attention was irresistibly drawn. She could not refrain

from gazing, almost in awe, on Aletheia, with her deadly pale face, and

her fixed, mournful eyes, who had not uttered a word, nor appeared

conscious of any thing that was passing around her; and her appearance,

as she sat amongst them, was as though she was forever hearing a voice

they could not hear, and seeing a face they could not see. Lilias had

yet to learn that “things are not what they seem” in this strange world,

and that mostly we may expect to find the hidden matter below the

surface directly opposite to that which appears above. She therefore

concluded that this deep insensibility resulted from coldness of heart

and deadness of feeling, and gradually the conviction deepened in her

mind, that Aletheia Randolph was the name which had trembled on the lips

of her unknown friend, when he warned her to beware of some of her new

relatives. It seemed to her most likely that one so dead and cold should

be wholly indifferent to the feelings of others, and disposed only to

work out her own ends as best she might; and thus, by a few unfortunate

words, the seeds of mistrust were sown in that innocent heart against

one most unoffending, and a deep gulf was fixed between those two, who

might have found in each other’s friendship’s staff and support whereon

to lean, when for either of them the winds blew too roughly from the

storms of life.

“Once only that evening did Lilian hear the sound of Aletheia’s voice,

and then the words she uttered seemed so unnatural, so incomprehensible,

to that light heart in its passionless ignorance, that they did but tend

to increase the germ of dislike, and even fear, that was, as we have

said, already planted there against this singular person. It was after

they had returned to the drawing-room that some mention was made of the

storm of the preceding evening, to which Lilian had been exposed. Walter

was questioning her as to its details, with all the ardor of a bold

nature, to whom danger is intoxicating. ‘But, I suppose,’ he continued,

smiling, ‘you were like all women, too much terrified to think of any

thing but your own safety?’

“‘No,’ said Lilian, lifting up her large eyes to his with a peculiar

look of brightness, which reminded him of the dawning of morning, ‘the

appearance of the tempest was so glorious that its beauty filled the

mind, and left no room for fear. I wish you could have seen it. It was

as though some fierce spirit were imprisoned behind the deep black veil

that hung over the western heavens, to whom freedom and power were

granted for a little season; for suddenly one vivid, tremendous flash of

lightning seemed to cleave asunder that dark wall, and then the wild,

liberated storm came thundering forth, shrieking and raging through the

sky, and tearing up the breast of the sea with its cruel footsteps. It

was the grandest sight I ever saw.’

“‘I think there must have been another yet more interesting displayed on

board the vessel itself,’ said the sweet, low voice of Gabriel. ‘I

should have loved rather to watch the storms and struggles of the human

soul in such an hour of peril as you describe.’

“‘Ah! that was _very_ fearful,’ said Lilian, shuddering. ‘I cannot bear

to think of it. That danger showed me such things in the nature of man

as I never dreamt of. I think if the whirlwind had utterly laid bare the

depths of the sea, as it seemed striving to do, it could not have

displayed more monstrous and hideous sights than when its powers

stripped those souls around me of all disguise.’

“‘Pray give us some details,’ said Gabriel, earnestly. He seemed to long

for an anatomy of human nature in agony, as an epicure would for a

feast.

“Lilian was of too complying a disposition to refuse, though she

evidently disliked the task. ‘One instance may be a sufficient example

of what I mean,’ she said. ‘There was a man and his wife, whom, previous

to the storm, I had observed as seeming so entirely devoted to one

another; he guarded her so carefully from the cold winds of evening, and

appeared to live only in her answering affection. Now, when the moment

of greatest peril came--when the ship was reeling over, till the great

mountains of waves threatened to sweep every living soul from the deck,

and the only safety was in being bound with ropes to the mast--I saw

this man, who had fixed himself to one with a cord which was not very

strong, and who held his wife clasped in his arms, that the waters might

not carry her away. At last there came one gigantic billow, whose power

it seemed impossible to withstand: then I saw this man withdraw the

support of his arm from the poor creature, who seemed anxious only to

die with him, and use both his hands to clasp the pole which sustained

him. She gave a piteous cry, more for his cruelty, I feel sure, than her

own great peril; but with the impulse of self-preservation, she suddenly

grasped the frail cord which bound him. Then he, uttering an impious

curse, lifted up his hand--I can scarcely bear to tell it.’ And Lilian

shivered and grew pale.

“‘Go on,’ said Walter, breathlessly.

“‘He lifted up his hand and struck her with a hard, fierce blow, which

sent her reeling away to death in the boiling sea; for death it would

have been, had not a sailor caught her dress and upheld her till the

wave was passed.’

“‘How horrible!’ exclaimed Walter.

“‘Oh, miserable to be thus rescued! Happy--thrice happy had she died!’

said a deep-toned, mournful voice behind her.

“Lilian started uncontrollably, and looked round. The words had been

spoken very low, and as if unconsciously, like a soul holding converse

with some other soul, rather than a human being communicating with those

of her own kind; yet she felt that they came from Aletheia, who had been

sitting for the last hour like an immovable statue, in a high-backed

oaken chair, where the shadow of the heavy curtain fell upon her. She

had remained there pale and still as marble, her head laid back in the

attitude that seemed habitual to her; the white cheek seeming yet whiter

contrasted with the crimson velvet against which it lay; and the hand

folded as in dumb, passive resignation on her breast. But now, as she

uttered these strange words, a sudden glow passed over her face, like

the setting sun beaming out upon snow; the eyes, so seldom raised,

filled with a liquid light, the chest heaved, the lips grew tremulous.

“‘What! Aletheia,’ exclaimed Walter, ‘happy, did you say; happy to die

by that cruel blow?’

“‘Most happy--oh! most blessed to die by a blow so sweet from the hand

she loved.’

“Her voice died into a broken whisper; a few large tears trembled in her

mournful eyes, but they did not fall; the unwonted color faded from her

face, and in another moment she was as statue-like as ever, and with the

same impenetrable look, which made Lilian feel as if she never should

have either the wish or the courage to address her. Her astonishment and

utter horror at Aletheia’s strange remark were, however, speedily

forgotten in the stronger emotion caused her by an incident which

occurred immediately after.”

This specimen of the author’s style will prove a better recommendation

than any thing we can say in favor of the book; yet we do recommend it

earnestly. It is a work of real genius.

* * * * *

_Up-Country Letters. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 12mo._

This is a brilliant and thoughtful volume, giving fine views of country

life in spring, summer, autumn and winter, with here and there a capital

daguerreotype of character and manners.

* * * * *

_Anglo-American Literature and Manners. From the French of

Philarète Chasles, Professor in the College of France. New York:

Charles Scribner. 1 vol. 12mo._

This brilliant and vigorous volume should be read for its happy flashes

of original thought, and occasional keenness of observation, rather than

for its consistent truth. It swarms with errors, but the errors are so

sparklingly expressed that they are valuable as epigrams when worthless

as opinions. Every thing is sacrificed to point, and even the truths the

volume contains are lit up in such a glare of witty impertinence, that

they are truths suggested rather than truths expressed. French dogmatism

is pertness, and our lively Frenchman’s pertness almost amounts to

genius. But he is still a scholar and a critic, and some of the

principles he announces are really deep and valuable; it is in their

application that he fails. He lacks all sobriety of mind in observing

character, manners and men, being chiefly solicitous to find in them

pegs to hang his epigrams on, so that the object seen will not be

America, Franklin, Irving or Bryant, but Philarète Chasles. And then he

is so perfectly content with himself--he chuckles and chirrups so

blithely over his own brilliant little self--he has such a sweet

unconsciousness that the limits of his conceptions are not the limits of

the human mind--that his quick, sharp, knowing, and gleeful spirit

becomes, after the first shocks of opposition are over, quite delightful

to the reader’s reason and risibles. He seems continually to say of

himself, with little Isaac, in Sheridan’s Duenna--“roguish, perhaps, but

keen, devilish keen.” We envy the students of the College of France such

a Professor of Belles Lettres, who must hear himself talk as gladly as

others hear him, and whose very seriousness seems got up for effect. He

has a philosophy regarding the “fitness of things;” but to him this

fitness consists in the predetermined ease with which nature and man

yield occasions for point and antithesis to such a charming fellow as

Philarète Chasles.

In truth, our author is a French Hazlitt. We will give some of his

sprightly decisions on our American writers, in illustration of his

manner. He is a joking, but a hanging judge, vivacious as a coxcomb but

ruthless as a Jeffries. In speaking of Washington Irving, he overlooks

Irving’s subtle sentiment, purely native to his character, and calls him

a mere graceful imitator of old English literature. All that he writes

“is a somewhat timid copy, on silk paper, of Addison, Steele and Swift,”

and “it glows with the gentle, agreeable lustre of watered silk.” He

praises Cooper, it is true, and praises him intelligently; but then he

calls Joel Barlow’s Columbiad “a poem which has both eloquence and

vigor.” Afterward, forgetting this praise, he lumps the “Columbiad,”

Dwight’s “Conquest of Canaan,” and Colton’s “Tecumseh,” together, as

“epics, colossi of cotton and papier maché, forming a mass of about ten

thousand verses, which, however, yield the palm in absurdity to the epic

called ”Washington,“ printed in Boston, in 1843.” It is needless to say

that the first three of these epics few Americans have ever read, and

the last, which is made the butt of our author’s satire, no American

ever heard of. We have made particular inquiries of “the man who read

Cooper’s Monnikens,”--who, we are happy to inform the public, is

gradually recovering from the effects of his gigantic feat--and even

that remarkable individual had not yet got on the trail of “Washington,

an Epic.” It seems, if we may believe Philarète Chasles, that the poet

in question had read in one Dr. Channing’s writings that America had no

national literature. Struck with this astounding fact, which had never

occurred to him before, he naively says, that he resolved at once to

present his country with an epic. Our French critic deposes that the

present has been made, but as the country, which ought to know, is

ignorant of the matter, it will take more than a foreigner’s assertion

to make us believe it. The coming man, with his coming epic, should

therefore be awaited in breathless wonder; “Expectation sits i’ th’

air;” let all our astronomers of letters be on the watch, with

telescopes sweeping the whole field of observation, for this new and

“mighty orb of song” which is to “swim into our ken.”

Our friend Griswold’s collection of American poetry, the invariable

target of all that “gentle dullness which ever loves a joke,” is, of

course, made the especial mark of our Frenchman’s malicious raillery.

“The distinctive sign of all the specimens,” he says, “is commonplace;

they are all made with a shoemaker’s punch. Take off your hats, salute

these images, they are from the _Gradus ad Parnassum_. The worn-out

forms of Europe make fortunes in the States, as bonnets of past fashions

do in the Colonies. The figures are stereotyped; the lake is ever blue,

the forest ever trembling, the eagle invariably sublime. The bad Spanish

poets did not write more rapidly _stantes pede in uno_, their wretched

rhymes, than the modern American verse-makers, bankers, settlers,

merchants, clerks, and tavern-keepers, their epics and their odes. In

the way of counterfeiting they are quite at ease. One re-does the Giour,

another the Dunciad. Mr. Charles Fenno Hoffman repeats the songs of

Thomas Moore; Mr. Sprague models after Pope and Collins. One takes the

Byronic stanza, another appropriates the cadence and images of

Wordsworth. Mrs. Hemans, Tennyson, Milnes, all find imitators. Once the

consecration of the British public given, the American counterfeit soon

appears.” Is not this in the very spirit of little Isaac--“roguish,

perhaps, but keen, devilish keen!” Still, it is really too bad that a

Frenchman should presume to attack our poetry on the ground of imitation

and diffuseness. What has been the larger part of French poetry for five

centuries? Has it not been cold imitation of classical models or

red-republican spasm? The French poets have been five centuries at work,

and yet where is French poetry? graceful, vigorous, vital, national

poetry? Why, is it not notorious that it was fast dwindling from frigid

imitation into hopeless imbecility when it was roused by the convulsive

school--which is but feebleness gone stark mad and raving? The French

never had any poetry, growing naturally out of the national mind, like

the poetry of Greece, or Italy, or Spain, or England. Ah! Philarète

Chasles, smirking so conceitedly in your national glass-house, beware

how you throw stones! You Frenchmen, who imitate even in your

revolutions--you, whose republican heroes are but caricatures “done

into” French from Plutarch, and about as much like the original as Ovid

“Englished” by a Grub-Street hack of Charles’s day--you talk of

imitation!

The best poets of America, according to our pleasant Frenchman, are

Bryant, Emerson and Longfellow. “Bryant has created nothing great; his

voice is feeble, melodious, somewhat vague; but pure, solemn, and not

imitative. . . . . . By his contemplative gentleness and gravity he

reminds one of Klopstock; fantasy and free caprice are found in

neither.” Mr. Emerson “is the most original man produced in the United

States up to this day;” a true remark, if it be meant to be confined to

literature, but perhaps unjust if extended to politics, as in that

department our country has produced many marked originalities, ranging

all the way from original sin to original virtue. Chasles emphasizes the

exquisite beauty of Emerson’s lines to the Humble-Bee--one of the finest

poems in the language. Of Longfellow it is said, that he is more varied

than either Emerson or Bryant; and “severe intellectual beauty,” “a

peculiar sweetness of expression and rhythm,” “great calm approaching to

majesty,” “a sensibility stirred in its very deeps, but exhibited in

moderated vibration and rhythm,” “a sad, sweet grandeur,” are mentioned

as characteristics of this, the first in rank of American poets, and

first in virtue of having soared highest “into the middle air of Poesy.”

The essential flavor and fragrance of Emerson’s poetic thought, it is

hardly to be expected that a foreigner could appreciate, and we are

therefore not surprised that after naming Emerson as the most original

man in the United States, he should still prefer Longfellow’s poetry.

Our author exercises the utmost severity of his pertness on the female

poets whom he selects from our “forests of versifiers;” but we are too

gallant to quote his impertinences. There is a good chapter on Audubon,

and the introductory paragraph of description is so striking that we

cannot refrain from extracting it. “Had you visited the English

drawing-rooms in 1832, you would have remarked in the midst of a

philosophic crowd, speaking obscurely, and overthrowing without pity the

highest questions of metaphysics, a man very different from those about

him. The absurd and mean European dress could not disguise that simple

and almost wild dignity which is found in the bosom of the solitude

which nurses it. While men of letters, a vain and talking race, disputed

in the conversational arena, the prize of epigram or the laurels of

pedantry, the man of whom I speak remained standing, head erect, with

free, proud eye, silent, modest, listening sometimes with disdainful,

though not caustic air to the æsthetic tumult, which seemed to astonish

him. If he spoke it was at an interval of repose; with one word he

discovered an error, and brought back discussion to its principle and

its object. A certain naive and wild good sense animated his language,

which was just, moderate and energetic. His long, black, waving hair was

parted naturally upon his smooth white forehead, upon a front capable of

containing and guarding the fires of thought. In his whole dress there

was an air of singular neatness; you would have said that the waters of

some brook, running through the untrodden forest, and bathing the roots

of oaks old as the world, had served him for a mirror. . . . At the

sight of that long hair, that bared throat, the independent manner, the

manly elegance which characterized him, you would have said, ‘that man

has not lived long in old Europe.’”

In taking leave of this volume it may be proper to remark, that it is

rather a series of sketches, published originally in a separate form,

than a connected view of American institutions and literature. This will

account, in some degree, for its lack of proportion and its omissions.

As a whole, if a conglomerate can be called a whole, it is a shrewd,

mischievous, witty, sparkling, egotistical, flippant, free-and-easy,

cut-and-come-again, impertinent, inconsistent, sprightly, Frenchified

performance, sipping “the foam of many minds.”

* * * * *

_The Clifford Family; or A Tale of the Old Dominion. By One of

her Daughters. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 12mo._

The authoress of this volume evinces many admirable qualities of mind

and heart, and is especially felicitous in depicting the struggle of

generous with selfish passions. The scene of the story is laid in

Virginia, at the breaking out of the revolutionary war, and the sad

havoc which that event made among lovers whose hearts were opposed to

their duties, is very truthfully represented. There is, however, a

pervading tone of sadness in the book which weakens the impression due

to its essential vigor of description and characterization.

* * * * *

_Precaution; a Novel, by James Fenimore Cooper. Containing W. C.

Bryant’s Oration on the Life, Writings, and Genius of the

Author. Stringer & Townsend, New York._

This is a new and revised edition of the first maiden efforts of the

greatest novelist America has yet produced, or, it is probable, ever

will produce--the first, the most purely American, and thoroughly

original of all American writers. What he lacked in grace, finish, ease

of style, plot and composition, he amply overbalanced by his force,

sometimes rugged but ever truthful, the sterling, earnest soundness of

his heart, the sturdy independent manhood with which he upheld what he

esteemed truths, because he believed them to be true, whether they were

popular or no. Mr. Cooper was for many years an esteemed contributor to

our Magazine, for many years a personal and valued friend, and will

forever be by us respected and admired. It has not been with Mr. Cooper,

as Antony was willing that it should be with Cæsar,

“The evil that men do lives after them,

The good is oft interred with their bones;”

for he never was rightfully appreciated until he was taken away from us.

His good has survived him, and much of what was accounted to him for

evil during his life, is now admitted to have been good; not least his

brave, manly, and successful stand against the tyranny of the press; and

the valuable and true lesson which he taught its members, that however

much, when an author has stepped out upon the public stage, his public

writings, public doings, and published opinions are open to the sternest

animadversions of the press, his private life, his domestic affairs, his

personal character, and self-entertained opinions are his own, and

sacred--that the public has no right to them, and that the press may not

go behind the record, without suffering the penalty of meddling and

impertinent interference.

To say that Precaution is a great work, or even that it gave any clear

indication of its author’s matured powers, were to speak hyperbolically;

but it is, at least, highly creditable as a maiden effort: like all Mr.

Cooper’s works, it is sensible, sterling, and sincere, and is eminently

readable.

Mr. Bryant’s oration is the ideal of what such an oration should be, a

model of appreciative criticism--fine style, and just laudation of high

qualities, and worthy contribution to the land’s literature. We rejoice

to learn that Messrs. Stringer & Townsend propose shortly to bring out a

splendid complete edition of his works, finely illustrated by Darley,

like Putnam’s edition of Irving, and prophecy equal success to their

enterprise.

* * * * *

_The Master Builder: or a Life at a Trade. By Day Kellog Lee.

Author of “Summerfield, or Life on a Farm.” Redfield, Clinton

Hall, New York._

This is a simple, domestic tale, founded on the difficulties, the

struggles, and the ultimate success of a poor foundling boy, thrown in

his infancy among strangers, and fighting his way, through the great

battle-field of life, in spite of all difficulties, by dint of genius,

backed by industry, perseverance, energy, honesty, and faith, to

happiness, fame, and fortune.

The subject is well conceived, the plot well planned, the characters, in

the main, well drawn, though in some sort exaggerated, and the tale, as

regards matter, well told.

It would be pleasant to end here; but we should do justice neither to

the author nor to ourselves, did we not speak the truth, right out. And

the truth is--that all these excellences, and the book itself, are

almost _in toto_ ruined by the detestable affectation, false sentiment,

and sickening transcendentalism of the manner.

Young ladies of an æsthetic turn of mind, members of a sentimental

clique in some small western town, may think such passages as the

following _sweetly pretty_: “She lived opulently in a lofty

book;”--monstrous poor lodgings for opulence, it seems to us--“she was

industrious; and yet she lived all she could in the woods, and loved to

lie down in the hay-fields, or under the oaks on the hill pasture

overlooking the village, and warble responses to the birds, and let them

sing her at last to sleep. She loved to feed the fishes in

meadow-brooks. She built nests for robins and sparrows every spring.”

But the author may rely on it, that men of judgment and sense, and women

of matured taste, will, according to their natures, laugh at or lament

such perversity.

For the writer can write better, but chooses to write worse. Some of his

descriptions of scenery are simple, terse, and beautiful--some of his

glimpses at character true, shrewd, and striking--though his style is,

at times, provincial, inelegant, and ungrammatical; as when he writes

that some person “like to have done so and so”--meaning that he “was on

the point of doing so;” or that a boy’s nostrils “palpitated the spirit

of a man,” which is neither grammar nor sense, much less English.

The author is, as we judge, a young man and a young writer; and

therefore it is that we have written so freely, for we are convinced

that, if he will lay aside his besetting affectations, eschew pseudo

sentimentalism, and write naturally about nature, he may yet take high

place as a describer of the domestic and rural life of America.

* * * * *

_Personal Memoirs and Recollections of Editorial Life. By Joseph

T. Buckingham. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 2 vols. 16mo._

The present volumes are the production of one of the veterans of the

American press, connected for more than fifty years with many

enterprises in the periodical department of literature, such as the

Polyanthos, the New England Magazine, and the Boston Courier. He has

known intimately most of the authors, artists, actors, poets, eminent

merchants, politicians and statesmen, of his section of the country, and

his work overflows with reminiscences of their personal and public

character. Starting as a practical printer, he worked steadily up to

editorial life and political position; and now enjoys a wide reputation

in New England, not only for fearlessness and for ability, but for

independence, incorruptible honor, unswerving honesty, and

uncompromising consistency--qualities which have stood a little in the

way of his interest in those emergencies when judicious apostacy is the

road to wealth and consideration. To no one better than to him can be

justly applied the words of Sidney Smith, in relation to Sir James

Scarlett: “He has never sold the warm feelings and honorable motives of

youth and manhood for an annual sum of money and an office. He has never

touched the political Aceldama, nor signed the devil’s bond for cursing

to-morrow what he has blessed to-day.”

The introductory portion of these volumes, describing the condition of

the author’s parents at the close of the revolutionary war, conveys a

vivid idea of the injustice done to those soldiers and officers of the

war, who had invested their whole means in the discredited continental

currency. The tale of poverty which Mr. Buckingham tells, is one of the

most pathetic we ever read. The description of the struggles of his

mother, left after his father’s death with a large family, to support

herself and her children, is more powerful than any thing of the kind we

remember in romance. The trusting piety, which mingled with all her

miseries and lightened their load, is touchingly delineated. Indeed, the

first fifty pages of the book are worthy to be placed in the front rank

of biographical literature.

Mr. Buckingham’s style of composition is vigorous, condensed, and pure;

and, more than all, bears the mark of his sturdy character and

determined will. We trust his work will have a wide circulation.

* * * * *

_Sicily: a Pilgrimage. By Henry T. Tuckerman. New York: George

P. Putnam. 1 vol. 16mo._

The subject of Mr. Tuckerman’s volume is novel, as Sicily is rarely

visited by the tourist, rich as it is in picturesque and beautiful

scenery. The author has happily described, in the course of an

interesting story, the many natural beauties of the island, and the

manners and customs of the inhabitants. The book is written in Mr.

Tuckerman’s rich, tasteful, and condensed style, an artist’s hand being

visible in every sentence. It deserves to rank as a classic among books

of travels. It tells in a short space what some other tourists would

have expanded into a couple of volumes--and it tells it well and

thoroughly. The author’s reflections on the character of the people are

marked by justice and charity, sounding “as bad as truth,” yet

explaining the causes of what he is compelled to condemn. The volume

belongs to Putnam’s Semi-Monthly Library, and is the sixteenth number of

that cheap and admirable miscellany.

* * * * *

_Anna Hammer; a Tale of Contemporary German Life. Translated

from the German of Temme, by Alfred H. Guernsey. New York:

Harper & Brothers._

This is an American translation of a German novel, written by Temme, “a

man who bore a prominent part in the attempt made in 1848 to construct a

German state from the scattered fragments of the great German people,”

and meeting the usual fate of German patriots, was arrested. During his

imprisonment he began the present novel, the object being not so much to

construct an artistical novel, as to give striking representations of

the servility, corruption, and tyranny which result from the present

constitution of German government. The author has certainly succeeded in

his object, and conveys a great deal of important information in the

course of his story. The translation, which is well executed, forms No.

173 of Harper’s “Library of Select Novels.”

* * * * *

_The Personal Adventures of “Our Own Correspondent” in Italy. By

Michael Burke Honan. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 12mo._

The author of this dashing and exhilarating volume was the correspondent

of the London Times during the troubles in Italy, and gives here his

personal adventures in the camp of Charles Albert. It is a glorious

volume, written by a man whose animal spirits are carried to the height

of genius, and full of disclosures which will startle the reader. It is

deliciously impudent and reckless, showing, in the author’s own phrase,

“how an active Campaigner can find good quarters when other men lie in

the fields; good dinners while many are half-starved; and good wine,

though the king’s staff be reduced to half-rations.”

* * * * *

_Daniel Webster and his Contemporaries. By Charles W. March. New

York: Charles Scribner. 1 vol. 12mo._

This is the fourth edition of a work originally published under the

title of “Reminiscences of Congress.” It is mostly devoted to Mr.

Webster, and gives an animated account of his life, with long

descriptions of the great debates in which he has been engaged. Benton,

John Quincy Adams, Grundy, Livingston, and many other statesmen, are

also more or less powerfully and truthfully sketched. Mr. March’s style

is unequal, but has many brilliant and vigorous, and some splendid

passages. The book is calculated to be extensively popular.

* * * * *

_Marco Paul’s Adventures in the Pursuit of Knowledge. By Jacob

Abbot. New York: Harper & Brothers. 4 vols. 18mo._

These little volumes are in Abbot’s most attractive style, giving an

account of the journeys of a boy in Maine, New York and Vermont, in

search of knowledge. The volume on the Erie Canal and that on the

Forests in Maine, are especially interesting. Each volume is well

printed and illustrated.

* * * * *

_Lydia; a Woman’s Book. By Mrs. Newton Crossland. Boston:

Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 1 vol. 16mo._

This is a well-written and elegantly printed novel, designed to exhibit

the fatal injury done to a woman’s nature when her affections are

lavished on an object unworthy of her love. The description of Lydia’s

resistance to all the facts which would demonstrate to another the

wickedness of Charlton, and her continued love for him to the very point

where she discovers him playing the part of a poisoner, is exceedingly

well done, and evinces a more than ordinary familiarity with the

weakening effect of affection on character, where affection is not

accompanied by sense and principle. The different parts of the story are

not very artistically combined, and the characters are not very

powerfully conceived, but the volume will still well reward perusal for

the excellence of its sentiments and design, and its exposure of the

rascality and meanness of that class of fine and “fast” young men who

are commonly most successful in winning the love of beautiful,

accomplished and virtuous young women.

* * * * *

_The Life of Franklin Pierce. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. Boston:

Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 1 vol. 16mo._

General Pierce was Hawthorne’s companion at college, and the present

biography is in some respects a labor of love, though it has not the

usual felicity of such labor in having in it the best qualities of the

author’s genius. It is well written, in the ordinary meaning of the

word, but it has hardly a single peculiarity of thought or style to

remind one of the author of “The Scarlet Letter,” and “The Blithedale

Romance.”

* * * * *

_The School for Fathers. An Old English Story. By T. Gwynne. New

York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 12mo._

The object of this novel is to present a vivid representation of English

town and country life as it existed a century ago. It is generally

well-written, but the story indicates an unpracticed hand in romance,

and the transition from Addisonian description to Ainsworthian horrors,

is abrupt and unnatural. The scene where the choleric lover blows out

the brains of the beautiful lady, as she is going to church to be

married to his rival, is a little too exciting even for our hardened

critical nerves.

* * * * *

_Arctic Journal; or Eighteen Months in the Polar Regions. By

Lieut. S. Osborn. New York: Geo. P. Putnam. 1 vol. 12mo._

This is the work of a thorough English sailor, bluff, honest, with a

quick eye for what he sees, and a racy dogmatism in recording his own

impressions. The descriptions are almost daguerreotypes of objects, and

throughout the whole volume a delightful spirit of hope and health

breathes. It is invigorating as well as interesting.

* * * * *

_Atlantic and Transatlantic: Sketches Afloat and Ashore. By

Captain Mackinnon, R. N. Author of Steam Warfare in the Parana.

New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 12mo._

The sprightly naval captain who stands responsible for this book of

American travels, is well-known to many of our citizens as a genial and

companionable cosmopolite, who understands the art of making himself at

home in a foreign land. His volume is complimentary to the United

States, is racily written, and contains much good advice as well as

praise. The remarks on American society, and the scale of expanse on

which it is conducted, deserve to be carefully pondered by our people of

fashion.

* * * * *

_Lectures on the Works and Genius of Washington Allston. By

William Ware, author of Zenobia, Aurelian, Julian, etc. Boston:

Phillips, Sampson & Co. 1 vol. 12mo._

These lectures were prepared just before the accomplished author’s

death, and contain by far the best estimate of Allston’s genius and

works we have ever read. Though genially, they are critically written,

and give evidence of a profound study of art in the works of its great

masters. Like all of Mr. Ware’s writings, the book is marked by elegance

of style, accuracy of thought, and vigorous powers of description. It

will rank high among the best and most readable works of interpretative

criticism which have been produced in the United States.

* * * * *

_Spiers’ and Surenne’s French Pronouncing Dictionary. Carefully

Revised, Corrected and Enlarged. By G. P. Quackenbos, A. M. New

York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 8vo._

This superb octavo is the best and most complete French dictionary we

have ever seen. The English edition was considered to be unimprovable,

but Mr. Quackenbos has added the pronunciation of each word according to

the system of Surenne’s pronouncing dictionary, together with the

irregular part of all the irregular verbs in alphabetical order, the

principal French synonymes, etc., and to crown all, 4000 new words of

general literature and modern science and art. The work is calculated to

supersede all other French dictionaries.

* * * * *

_Summer Time in the Country. By the Rev. R. A. Wilmott. New

York: B. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 16mo._

A quiet, thoughtful, delightful volume, written with much graceful

serenity and sweetness of style, and overflowing with beautiful

descriptions of nature and apt illustrative quotations from the poets.

The author has a wide and catholic taste in wit and literature, abounds

in literary anecdote and criticism, and is not without pretensions

himself to original thought and accurate discrimination. The volume is

one of the pleasantest yet published in “Appleton’s Popular Library.”

* * * * *

_Bishop Butler’s Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to

the Constitution and Course of Nature. New York: Harper &

Brothers. 1 vol. 12mo._

This is the best edition we have seen of Bishop Butler’s celebrated

work, as regards its adaptation to the wants of students and the general

reader. It is furnished with a complete analysis of the topics of the

Analogy, prepared partly by Dr. Emory, President of Dickinson College,

and completed by the present editor, G. R. Crooks. The latter has also

supplied a life of Butler, together with notes to the Analogy, and an

index. By the aids afforded by this edition, the work is brought within

the comprehension of ordinary minds.

* * * * *

=GRAHAM’S SMALL-TALK.=

=Held in his idle moments, with his Readers, Correspondents and

Exchanges.=

As we approach the close of the year 1852, we feel disposed to be plain

in speech--and rude, perhaps, as Brutus was--but at any rate pointed and

personal. _We have given our readers 112 pages in every number._ Has any

imitator kept pace with us, or truth with the public, in regard to the

amount of reading matter which was pledged for the year? We ask merely

for information, and that windy _prospecting_ for 1853 may be taken at

its value--that is all. “Only this, and nothing more.”

* * * * *

Sartain’s Magazine.--After a vigorous struggle for three years, against

adverse fate, Sartain’s Magazine has been suspended and the list is to

be furnished out by others. The publishers spent money with a lavish

hand to American authors, but the tide had set in against them--the

flood of foreign literature overwhelmed the gallant bark and she has

gone down to rise no more. We do not intend to say an unkind word, but

we trust that the readers of “Graham” will see in this the safety of

standing by old friendships, and not go running after every new

doctrine. This Magazine, which was founded in 1826, has gone on steadily

and with a secure foothold. No number has ever failed to appear or been

delayed in its appearing. But steadily improving in all its years we

trust that it thus meets the approval of our large body of readers.

We felt, a year ago, the demand for English magazine articles--the

success of the reprint magazines confirmed what we felt, and we

therefore nearly doubled the number of pages of Graham that we might

give to our readers, in addition to our former supply of original

American articles, such papers from foreign sources as struck us as of

value or interest to our subscribers. How far we have succeeded in

improving the tone and character of Graham it is for you--reader--to

say. We shall only add, in answer to carpers generally, that Graham’s

Magazine for the last ten years has paid _over $80,000 to American

writers alone_, and that if we meet the public taste, by compulsion--in

supplying foreign articles--that we have a right to say to all grumblers

who control periodicals--Go and do likewise, or forever be dumb.

Sartain’s Magazine, we understand, spent in _three_ years over $15,000

for original contributions, and it is wrecked--hopelessly wrecked. Will

there never be pride enough in the American people to stand by those who

support a National Literature? Or to urge upon Congress an International

Copy-right Law?

* * * * *

The delicacy and rare seductiveness of a rose-tinted and almond-scented

note, which comes to us all the way from Alabama, has awakened us to

thoughts of beauty and flowers, of black eyes, rosy lips, and smiles of

sunlight. In the very air we hear the rustle of rare music--the dress of

our beloved that _ought to be_--and we wonder whether a bachelor has any

right to be happy. The wood is all alive with birds singing to their

mates, and from the very roof of our dwelling comes the challenge of a

bold songster to some lady-bird, in robe of green and gold, to come and

be happy. We are in the country now, and we are going home _with a

wife_! What do you think of that--you vagabonds--who have been assailing

our bachelorship in a hundred newspapers.

* * * * *

One of the magazines mentions the astounding sum of “$500!” as designed

to be spent upon the illustrations of each number. We have published

many a number on which we have expended _four times_ that sum, without

any parade about it. The printing and paper of one of our steel-plates

costs over that sum always, to say nothing of the original cost of the

engraving, which is from one to two hundred dollars. We shall have to

begin to brag.

* * * * *

An Impostor.--A fellow who signs himself “G. W. Fox, Ag’t,” has been

taking subscriptions for Graham’s Magazine. We have no such agent. Take

your magazine of an editor or postmaster, and you wont be cheated.

* * * * *

In Graham’s Magazine will be found _one hundred and twelve_ pages every

number this year. We remember a magazine that promised one hundred pages

each number, two years ago, but the April number could have been

convicted of only sixty pages, for which the December issue only atoned

so far as ten additional pages went. _But, as_ Graham _promises, we have

multiplied 112 by 12 and get 1344, an amount its readers may devoutly

expect._--_Republican, Winchester, Va._

Other magazines, _this year_, occasionally imitate this feature of

Graham, but even by counting the pages of advertisements, plates, and

even the cover sometimes. It is supposed that nobody knows this, but we

find that those who have bound volumes of the first six months are wide

awake, and the whole twelve numbers of the year will tell the whole

story. Next year we shall surprise all parties.

* * * * *

Beautiful Music.--Messrs. Firth, Pond & Co., of New York, the extensive

music publishers, have sent us copies of their latest issues, all of

them produced in the highest style of art. We give a list of them for

the benefit of our readers.

VOCAL MUSIC.

Ella Dee--a Southern ballad. Words by Julia M. Harris, of Alabama. Music

by A. S. Pfister.

Will no Maiden Marry Me. Written by Charles P. Shiras, Esq. Music by H.

Kleber--and really a taking song.

Click Clack, or The Song of the Village Wind-mill. Music by Albert

Smith.

Broken Hearted Weep no More--and, Be of Good Cheer. Two pleasing and

easy ballads. By T. B. Woodbury, the popular author of Forget Not the

Loved Ones at Home.

ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE PIANO-FORTE.

Spirto Gentil, from Le Favorita, easily arranged by Charles Wels; The

Pearl and The Elena. Two beautiful polkas, by Kleber.

Institute Polka Rondo, for young players. By Wm. Juchs.

I’d Offer Thee this Hand of Mine--the well-known melody, arranged with

variations.

F., P. & Co. will mail copies to any address.

* * * * *

_Lectures on the Results of the Exhibition, delivered before the Society

of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, at the suggestion of H. R. H. Prince

Albert. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart._

We have here a series of twelve lectures, reprinted from the English

edition by Mr. Hart, embracing a variety of interesting and instructive

matters upon the Arts and Manufactures, suggested by the Great

Exhibition. The topics are all admirably handled by competent men, and

will afford abundant resources to the practical student for examination

and inquiry. The lectures are by Professors Solly, Lindley, Willis, Owen

and Boyle; and by Messrs. Bell, Playfair, Hensman and others.

* * * * *

=SIPS OF PUNCH.=

[Illustration: =PERILS OF PIC-NICS.=

Mr. Pipkin makes a vigorous but unsuccessful effort to secure that

“Darling Water Lily.”]

[Illustration: =“Hallo, Smith!” | “Hallo, Brown!”=]

[Illustration: =PLEASANT!=]

_Nervous Gentleman._ Don’t you think, Robert, going so fast down hill is

very likely to make the horse fall?

_Robert._ Lor bless yer--no, Sir! I never throwed a Oss down in my Life,

’cept once; and That was one Frosty Moonlight Night, (just such a Night

as this it was,) as I was a-drivin’ a Gent (as might be you) from the

Station, when I throwed down this werry Oss, in this werry identical

Place!

[Illustration: =LOUIS NAPOLEON’S AIRS.=]

Lately the extreme mildness of the weather in the North of Europe has

been the subject of remark in the Paris papers, and it is said that even

Russia has not been visited by its usual cold. The Paris press may well

talk about the weather, there being scarcely any other topic that the

French journals can touch upon. The alledged mildness in Russia may be

accounted for, perhaps, by the rules of comparison; for after the

severity that has existed since the 2d of December at Paris, and the

airs of Louis Napoleon, the air of St. Petersburgh would seem to the

Parisians mild in the extreme.

* * * * *

Touching Resignation.--So firm a believer is Sir Francis Head in the

intensely virtuous principles of his adorable Prince President, that he

has lately been heard to express himself “prepared to suffer martyrdom

in so just a cause.” We must confess we think the sacrifice would be of

benefit to society in _one_ respect; for, of course the worthy baronet

would wish to be burnt on his own _Faggot_.

[Illustration: =A PRODIGIOUS NUISANCE.=]

_Learned (but otherwise highly objectionable) Child (loq.)_ Oh, Mamma,

dear! What do you think! I asked Mr. ---- and Miss ---- to name some of

the Remarkable Events from The Year 700 to the Year 600 B. C., and they

couldn’t. But _I_ can--and--The Second Messenian War commenced; and--the

Poet Tyrtæus flourished; Byzantium was founded by the inhabitants of

Megara; Draco gave Laws to Athens; Terpander of Lesbos, the Musician and

Poet; Thales of Miletus, the Philosopher; Alcæus and Sappho, the Poets,

flourished; and Nebuchadnez----(_Sensation from right and left, during

which the voice of Child is happily drowned._)

[Illustration: =THE RULING PASSION.=

“Now, tell me, dear, is there any thing new in the Fashions?”]

* * * * *

[Illustration: =FASHION PLATE.=]

CARRIAGE COSTUME.

Dress of _chinée_ silk, with three broad flounces. The body half high

opens in the front _èn cœur_; the sleeves are of the pagoda form.

_Mantille à la Reine_ of white lace lined with blue: the lace with which

it is trimmed is very broad, and is set on in small festoons, headed by

a plaiting of narrow satin ribbon, above which is a narrow lace: the

hood, _à revers_, is trimmed to correspond; the neck is finished like

the edge of the hood. Bonnet of _paille de riz_, with a transparent

edge, which is covered with a broad _blonde_; this _blonde_ is continued

round the curtain.

CHILD’S COSTUME.

Embroidered muslin frock, with two flounces, the worked petticoat

appearing below it: colored embroideries are now much admired for

children. The body is plain, and is trimmed with work _èn stomacher_:

broad pink sash, tied in front, the ends finished by a broad fringe.

PROMENADE COSTUME.

Dress of blue _moire antique_; the skirt long and full, is trimmed up

the centre of the front breadth by six rows of narrow velvet. _Watteau_

body, and rather short pagoda sleeves, with deep _engageantes_ of lace.

Sutherland _pardessus_ of white muslin, lined with pink silk; the body

opens in front nearly to the waist; the skirt has two openings at each

side; the _pardessus_ is trimmed entirely round with two rows of white

silk fringe. The sleeves are large; they are of the pagoda form, and are

open about half way to the elbow; they are trimmed to correspond. Bonnet

of white lace, the form round and open; it has a full, light feather

drooping at the left side; the interior is ornamented with pink flowers.

* * * * *

=Transcriber’s Notes:=

Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Punctuation has

been corrected without note. Other errors have been corrected as noted

below. For illustrations, some caption text may be missing or incomplete

due to condition of the originals used for preparation of the ebook.

Page 454, pleasant t’is to greet ==> pleasant ’tis to greet

Page 454, which burts in an imposing ==> which bursts in an imposing

Page 455, only a mile a part ==> only a mile apart

Page 455, receives it supply ==> receives its supply

Page 460, 144 feet in breath ==> 144 feet in breadth

Page 466, strange noctural movements ==> strange nocturnal movements

Page 467, birds of of Long Island ==> birds of Long Island

Page 472, by twenty four inches ==> by twenty-four inches

Page 482, So _distinguè_! == So _distingué_!

Page 485, I shall he ready ==> I shall be ready

Page 491, the workman s head ==> the workman’s head

Page 494, Cedi Mahommed Ibn Amar ==> Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar

Page 497, artifical wants of the ==> artificial wants of the

Page 502, two valves meeting ==> two halves meeting

Page 508, the house-carpentery generally ==> the house-carpentry generally

Page 509, skillful. Carpentery must ==> skillful. Carpentry must

Page 514, while papa dosed, ==> while papa dozed,

Page 516, and inexorablv as ==> and inexorably as

Page 516, culinary and millenery, ==> culinary and millinery,

Page 517, a few week’s rent ==> a few weeks’ rent

Page 520, the gentlemen was like ==> the gentleman was like

Page 525, in the house of of a Roman ==> in the house of a Roman

Page 529, approaching the corps of ==> approaching the corpse of

Page 533, please to rember that ==> please to remember that

Page 535, curiously tutfted hair ==> curiously tufted hair

Page 540, had an invita- to a place ==> had an invitation to a place

Page 540, turned to at it again ==> turned to look at it again

Page 540, right land eft ==> right and left

Page 543, its not a parliament ==> it’s not a parliament

Page 550, through Lilia’s whole frame ==> through Lilias’ whole frame

Page 550, that one Lilia’s attention ==> that one Lilias’ attention

Page 555, Harper & Brother ==> Harper & Brothers