a bookstore, and soon after returned it, being desirous to exchange it for
one of larger print. 'We have at present no Bible,' said the clerk, 'of a
larger-sized type than the one you have.' 'Well,' replied the lady, 'I
wish you would _print me one_, and I'll call in a day or two and get it!'
She thought a request so reasonable could readily be complied with. One of
our most prominent publishers mentions a clever anecdote of a poetess, who
in reading the proofs of her forthcoming volume, found passages of a page
or more in length enclosed in parenthetical pen-marks in the margin, with
'THOMSON,' 'GRAY,' 'MOORE,' 'BURNS,' 'WILSON,' etc., inscribed at the end.
One day a letter accompanied the return-proofs, in which the lady
remarked, that 'she had endured the repeated insinuations of the publisher
long enough; she was no _plagiarist_, whatever her other literary faults
might be; she had on each occasion looked over the works of MOORE,
THOMSON, BURNS, GRAY, etc., but with the exception perhaps of a passage in
WILSON'S 'Isle of Palms,' there was not even the slightest _pretext_ for a
charge of plagiarism. She would thank the publisher, therefore, to
discontinue in future his groundless hints upon the margins of the
proof-sheets.' The initiated will understand that the 'insinuations' of
which the poetess complained, were simply the names of the different
compositors, indicating the lines at which they severally began to place
her effusions in type! . . . MANY a reader will recall, as he peruses the
subjoined unpretending sketch, a kindred scene in his own experience,
'when life and hope were new:'
OUR OLD MEETING-HOUSE.
LORD, 'tis not ours to make the sea
And earth and sky a home for Thee;
But in Thy sight our off'ring stands,
A humble temple, 'made with hands.'
'MANY years ago, when 'the dew of the morning was fresh upon me,'
there stood, just in the edge of the village where I was born, an
old church edifice. The graves of many an early settler were round
about it; and often as the shadows of evening were settling upon
the valley, with half-averted face and hurried steps have I stole
noiselessly by to our rural home. O, how many associations crowd
upon the memory, in connection with that rude old meeting-house!
It was an old-fashioned, square building, without portico, or
steeple, or belfry. The winter's hail and summer's rain had beaten
against it for half a century. Its numerous small windows, without
curtain or blind, let in floods of light. Its small pulpit,
perched high upon one side, and close to the wall, concealed the
preacher's body, while the heads of the congregation were just
seen rising above the square high-backed pews. Hardly a cushion
was to be seen; and the interior furnishing was of the simplest
and plainest character. I have said that it had associations of
great interest. It is now more than an hundred years since a small
band of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians settled in that valley. Though
but few in number, and braving the elements and the savages, they
determined to carry with them into the wilderness not only the
Christian's hope, but the Christian's ordinances. A small building
of logs arose soon after the settlement, in which for many years
an educated and regularly-ordained minister preached the gospel to
a little flock. The inquiry had already commenced; 'The prophets,
where are they?' The larger part of the pioneers had sunk into
peaceful graves, when the war of the revolution commenced. It was
still a frontier hamlet, and was soon swallowed up and lost in
that terrible whirlwind of death which year after year swept over
the settlements of Central New-York. When peace was restored, the
remnant of the inhabitants whom war and disease had spared,
returned to their former homes. But though war and disease had
impoverished them, they had not forgotten the GOD of their
fathers. Having no house for assembling together, the inhabitants
met in what they termed 'the meeting-house yard;' and there
organized anew that church which has continued thence to this day,
and determined upon the erection of the old meeting-house of which
I have spoken. Under the open heavens, with their feet upon their
fathers' graves, they dedicated themselves anew to the service of
HIM who was LORD overall, and whom they acknowledged as their only
Sovereign. I have looked over the records of that meeting with
emotions never to be forgotten. The gray-haired patriarch, loaning
on his staff with one hand, and with the other guiding our
youthful footsteps to the house of prayer on every Sabbath
morning, was one of that small number, and took an active part in
that solemn ceremony. The stillness of a Sabbath morning in the
country has often been remarked. How often, amid the din and
bustle of the great city, does the heart of him who has been
accustomed to the holy quietness of the day of rest in some
secluded valley, pant for a return to the home of his youth! Such
has been my own experience; in the far-off past I see again the
gathering of the quiet, orderly congregation; I hear the voice of
the good old father who ministered in holy things; I sit by the
open window and look out upon the green graves thick strown round
the old meeting-house; the warbling of the feathered songsters in
the grove near by falls softly upon the ear. The voice of prayer
is hushed, and the voice of praise ascends. Alas! the voices of
most of those which were then attuned on earth, are now attuned to
more celestial music in another world!
'But our old meeting-house, where is it? It has gone with those
who, in the midst of trials, and in the plenitude of their
poverty, with their own hands hewed out its massive timbers; and
the place that knew it knows it no more! It was in the fall of the
year that a traveller on horseback rode up to the principal hotel,
and as he dismounted and handed the reins to his host, he inquired
what building that was in the southern part of the village? On
being informed that it was the meeting-house, he remarked, with a
dogged air, that 'he had often seen the LORD'S house, but had
never seen the LORD'S _barn_ before!' The comical remark of the
traveller produced an immediate action. The good old house soon
disappeared. A more ambitious edifice was built in another part of
the village. The land-marks are now entirely effaced, and the spot
where it stood has been added to the 'meeting-house yard.' The
monuments of the young and the aged who sleep there dot over the
place where the first Presbyterian congregation, ay, the first
congregation of Evangelical Christians of any denomination, in
Central New-York, assembled to worship the living GOD.'
* * * * *
WE are promised by an esteemed friend some interesting extracts from the
original American correspondence of Mrs. GRANT of Laggan, whose 'Memoir
and Correspondence,' edited by her son, has recently attracted so much
attention and remark in Great-Britain. Mrs. GRANT appears to have been a
woman of very remarkable powers, and of the most admirable _common sense_.
Her observations upon the 'amusive talents' of THEODORE HOOK, and his
entire devotion to their cultivation, are replete with the soundest
wisdom. The distinction between living to amuse the public merely, and the
exertion of one's intellectual powers for one's own benefit, and with an
eye to the claims of riper years, is admirably discriminated and set
forth. There is not perhaps a more instructive lesson than that conveyed
by _professional_ wits, who are 'first applauded and then _endured_, when
people see that it is all they have.' As auxiliaries, as contrasts, with
reflection and thoughtful exercitations of the mind, wit and humor are
felicitous matters; as an intellectual _main-stay,_ however, they have
been weighed in the balance by a hundred brilliant examples, and have
always been 'found wanting.' . . . PUNCH, at this present writing, save
three or four numbers, in February, is among the missing. Late issues
however, furnish some valuable contributions to academical statistics; as
for example, Mr. BOYS, who in his report upon the metropolitan
school-visitation, writes as follows:
'THE use of sponge for cleaning slates he found confined to 17-1/4
per cent.; of whom 5-1/2 used the sponge wet with water, and
11-3/4 with saliva; the remaining 82-3/4 made use of the latter
liquid and the cuffs of their jackets instead of sponges, with an
occasional recourse to the pocket-handkerchief. The author found,
in schools in which the Latin language was not taught, a
lamentable deficiency in the knowledge of the meaning of 'meum'
and 'tuum;' he pointed out how the great extent of juvenile crime
might thus be accounted for, as being caused by the absence of all
instruction in the Latin language, and hoped that teaching it
would soon be made obligatory upon all school-masters.'
There is a humorous sketch of an examination of law-students, from which
we select an 'exercise' or two:
'QUES: Have you attended any and what law lectures? ANS: I have
attended to many legal lectures, when I have been admonished by
police magistrates for kicking up rows in the streets, pulling off
knockers, etc.
QUES: What is a real action? ANS: An action brought in earnest,
and not by way of a joke.
QUES: What are a bill and answer? ANS: Ask my tailor.
QUES: How would you file a bill? ANS: I don't know, but would lay
the case before a blacksmith.
QUES: What steps would you take to dissolve an injunction? ANS: I
should put it into some very hot water, and let it remain there
until it was melted.
QUES: What are post-nuptial articles? ANS: Children.
QUES: What is simple larceny? ANS: Picking a pocket of a
handkerchief, and leaving a purse of money behind.'
We have had books on etiquette, of various kinds, lately, but a work of
this sort for prisons will be found, one would think, to supply an
important desideratum. GEORGE SELWYN, when a servant was sent to Newgate,
for stealing articles from the club-house of which SELWYN was a member,
was very much shocked: 'What a horrid report,' said he, 'the fellow will
give of us to the gentlemen in Newgate!' This feeling will doubtless be
more general by and by:
'IN consequence of complaints that have been made by persons
committed to prison before trial, who object to their not being
allowed to mix with other prisoners, it has been thought necessary
to frame a Book of Etiquette for prison purposes. Of course a
superior delinquent, like a forger, could not be on visiting terms
with a mere pick-pocket, nor could a man charged with stealing a
hundred pounds, feel at his ease in the society of one whose
alleged theft might be mean and insignificant. It is, we believe,
intended to introduce the prisoners to each other formally, not by
name, but by the offence with which they are charged. Thus, the
Governor of Newgate would say to Felony: 'Allow me to introduce
you to AGGRAVATED LARCENY. You ought to know each other--indeed
you ought. AGGRAVATED LARCENY, FELONY; FELONY, AGGRAVATED
LARCENY.' By a nice adjustment and proper application of the rules
of etiquette, a very admirable system of social intercourse might
be established in all our prisons, and the present complaint of a
want of 'good society,' which falls so severely on superior
scoundrels, would at once be got rid of.'
* * * * *
DEAFNESS, although sometimes rather annoying--as for example in the case
mentioned in preceding pages by JOHN WATERS--is yet not without its
advantages. Your conversational ''Deaf BURKE,' who can endure any amount
of 'punishment' without being the worse for it,' enjoys not unfrequently a
great deal of negative felicity. We envied the condition of such an one
the other day, while sitting with a friend at the 'Globe,' over such
potables and edibles as that matchless establishment can alone set before
its guests. At a table in near proximity, sat two Englishmen, whose
comments upon 'matters and things' in America were embodied in such
'voluble speech' that we could scarcely hear ourselves speak. 'They may
_talk_ about their hinstitutions as much as they please,' said one of the
speakers, 'but honly _look_ at 'em--see their heffect, from the 'ead of
the government, down. Yesterday I perused in the 'Courier' newspaper an
account of a negro's skin, hentire, that was found with the 'ead attached,
in the Mississippi river!' ''Orid, isn't it! Think o' such a thing as that
picked up in the Tems! And last week. I read in the 'Erald of a man near
the Canada lines, who was found dead by the side of a fallen tree, half
eaten up by wild hogs or panthers. He 'ad a flask of whiskey by his side,
which he had taken 'neat,' till it had killed him; and in his pocket was a
dirty pack o' cards, wrapped up in a copy of the Declaration of
Hindependence! That's your _liberty_ for ye!' [Symbol: Hand pointing
right] See if these very absurdities be not found embodied within a
twelve-month in some new work by a travelling Englishman, upon that
'miserable experiment at self-government, the United States of America!'
. . . HERE are some scraps of '_Parisian Gossip_' which will not be
altogether uninteresting to American readers. One of our Paris letters
states that at a splendid party given by Lady COWLEY, there occurred a
rather curious incident. 'Among the guests was a Mr. L----, (one of the
_snobiculi_, most likely,) who, believing that none but a friend whom he
addressed was within hearing, said, 'And they call this a party? Why, I
never saw any thing so dull in all my life. It is not worth the trouble of
dressing for such an affair; and then the rooms are so intolerably hot.'
Unfortunately, the noble hostess was standing near, and overheard him, and
immediately said: 'Mr. L----, there (pointing to the ante-room,) is a
cooler room, and beyond it is the hall, still cooler.' This prompt and
significant hint was felt, understood, and taken.' 'Every body in Paris
knows or has heard of HALEVY the composer, and his brother, the author. A
_bon mot_ of a pretty and sarcastic lady, at the expense of both of them,
is now going the round of the gossipping circles. 'Do you like HALEVY, the
author?' inquired a friend. '_Pas du tout, pas du tout!_' answered the
lady; 'He is as dull as if his brother had composed him!' EUGENE SUE has
hatched a large brood of 'Mysteries.' The _Journal des Debats_ having
published 'Mysteries of Paris,' the _Courier Francais_ is now publishing
the 'Mysteries of London.' At Berlin no less than four different authors
have published its 'Mysteries.' The 'Mysteries of Brussels' are being
detailed in one of its journals. The 'Mysteries of Hamburg' have been
exposed in print. At Vienna they are giving the 'Mysteries of
Constantinople;' and a Paris newspaper promises in a short time the
'Mysteries of St. Petersburg.' Going on at this rate, there will soon be
no 'Mysteries' in the world, and even the very word will become obsolete.'
. . . '_The God of our Idolatry_' contains some home-thrusts at the
national love of money, and not a few just animadversions upon the
standard of respectability which obtains, in certain quarters, among us.
HAMILTON and BASIL HALL'S experience in this regard seems also to have
been that of our correspondent. The tendency of this standard, in a social
and intellectual point of view, is very far from elevating. 'You are going
to the dinner at ----'s to-day, of course,' said a lady with 'an eye to
the main chance' to a friend of ours, the other day; 'the company will be
composed of some of our most 'fore-handed citizens--all _heavy men_,' Our
friend _did_ go to the dinner; and he found the guests as 'heavy' as their
best friends could have wished them to be. . . . READING, in presence of a
travelled friend, the proof of the admirable paper which opens the present
number, we came to the passage which records the opinion of KEPLER, that
'the world is a vast animal, that breathes and reasons;' whereupon our
listener remarked: 'No doubt of it; it _is_ an animal; I've seen its
four-quarters myself!' It was a pun worthy of a butcher. . . . WE are not
so _certain_ that the moral of '_The Independent Man_' is 'an
unexceptionable one.' The 'Charcoal-sketcher' expresses the general
opinion, we fear, in this regard: 'There's a double set of principles in
this world, one of which is to talk about and the other to act upon; one
is preached and the other is practised. You've got hold, somehow, of the
wrong set; the set invented by the knowing ones to check competition and
to secure all the good things for themselves. That's the reason people are
always praising modest merit, while they are pushing along without either
the one or the other. You always let go when any body's going to take your
place at table; you always hold back when another person's wanting the
last of the nice things on the dish. That's not the way; bow and nod, and
show your teeth with a fascination, but take what you want for all that.
This is manners--knowing the world. To be polite is to have your own way
gracefully; other people are delighted at your style--you have the
profit.' . . . THE reader will not overlook the '_Alligatorical Sketch_'
in preceding pages. We begin to perceive how much the alligator has been
slandered. It _yawns_ merely, it would seem; and the only care requisite
is, to be absent when its jaws close! 'The 'gator isn't what you may call
a _han'some_ critter, but there's a great deal of _openness_ when he
smiles!' The _smile_ of an alligator!! . . . 'Cleanliness,' says FULLER,
'is godliness;' and he is not far out of the way; for no man, we think,
can be a dirty Christian. In a moral and religious point of view, then, we
are doing good service in calling public attention to the spacious baths
of Mr. CHARLES RABINEAU, at the Astor-House, and at his new establishment
at Number 123 Broadway, Albany. Go wash in them and be clean, reader, and
thank us for the joy which you will experience, when you shall have come
out of the water and gone your ways. . . . ONE of the late London
pictorial publications contains a portrait of Sir HUDSON LOWE, the
notorious keeper of NAPOLEON, the Emperor of the French, at St. Helena. It
is in perfect keeping with the generally received estimate of the
character of that functionary. The wretched thatch that disfigures without
concealing the intellectual poverty of his narrow skull; the scowling
features; the ragged penthouse brows; are 'close denotements' of the truth
of 'Common Report.' In short, judging from the much-bepraised 'likeness'
to which we allude, if Sir HUDSON LOWE was not a tyrant, and a
small-minded one withal, GOD doesn't write a legible hand. . . . SOME
clever wag in the last BLACKWOOD has an article, written in a hurry, upon
the _hurriedness_ of literary matters in these our 'go-ahead' days.
'People,' he says, 'have not only ceased to purchase those old-fashioned
things called books, but even to read them. Instead of cutting new works
page by page, they cut them altogether:
'WHEN England luxuriated in the novels of RICHARDSON, in eight
volumes, it drove in coaches and four, at the rate of five miles
an hour. A journey was then esteemed a family calamity; and people
abided all the year round in their cedar parlors, thankful to be
diverted by the arrival of the _Spectator_, or a few pages of the
_Pilgrim's Progress_, or a new sermon. To their incidental lives,
a book was an event. Those were the days worth writing for! The
fate of RICHARDSON'S heroines was made a national affair; and
people interceded with him by letter to 'spare Clarissa,' as they
would not now intercede with her Majesty to spare a new EFFIE
DEANS. The successive volumes of _Pope's Iliad_ were looked for
with what is called 'breathless' interest, while such political
sheets as the _Drapier's Letters_, or _Junius_, set the whole
kingdom in an uproar. And now, if POPE, or SWIFT, or FIELDING, or
JOHNSON, or STERNE, were to rise from the grave, MS. in hand, the
most adventurous publisher would pass a sleepless night before he
undertook the risk of paper and print; would advise a small
edition, and exact a sum down in ready money, to be laid out in
puffs and advertisements! 'Even then, though we may get rid of a
few copies to the circulating libraries,' he would observe, 'do
not expect, Sir, to obtain readers. A few old maids in the county
towns, and a few gouty old gentlemen at the clubs, are the only
persons of the present day who ever open a book!' And who can
wonder? _Who_ has leisure to read? _Who_ cares to sit down and
spell out accounts of travels which he can make at less cost than
the cost of the narrative? _Who_ wants to peruse fictitious
adventures, when rail-roads and steam-boats woo him to adventures
of his own? People are busy ballooning or driving; shooting like
stars along rail-roads, or migrating like swallows or wild-geese.'
In allusion to the illustrated newspapers, now vieing with each other in
enterprise and expense, in the British metropolis, the writer says: 'The
pictorial printing press is now your only wear! Every thing is
communicated by delineation. We are not _told_ but _shown_ how the world
is wagging. Views of the Holy Land are superseding even the Holy
Scriptures, and a pictorial BLACKSTONE is teaching the ideas of sucking
lawyers how to shoot. Libels are veiled in carricature. Instead of
_writing_ slander and flat blasphemy, the modern method is to _draw_ it,
and not to 'draw it mild' either. The columns of certain papers bear a
striking likeness to a child's alphabet, such as 'A was an Archer, and
shot at a frog.' All the world is now instructed by symbols, as formerly
the deaf and dumb. We have little doubt of shortly seeing announcements,
standing like tomb-stones in those literary cemeteries, the Saturday
papers, of 'A new work upon America, from the graver of GEORGE
CRUIKSHANK;' or 'A new fashionable novel, (diamond edition,) from the
accomplished pencil of 'H. B.'' . . . WE have a '_Query_' from a
Philadelphia correspondent, as to whether Mr. and Mrs. WOOD would not be
likely to come over here, if invited, and in company with BROUGH, and
other artists, establish English opera among us. Touching the disposition
of the WOODS in this matter, we know nothing; but BROUGH is too busily
employed to admit of such a consummation. What with his agency for the new
sporting gun-powder, (which DANIEL WEBSTER declares to be superior in
strength and cleanliness to any other thing of the kind in the world,) and
for the 'Illustrated London News,' 'Old PARR'S Life-pills' etc., he has
scarcely leisure to achieve his private calls, and execute occasionally,
for the gratification of his friends, those charming airs which are
indissolubly associated with his name. . . . Messrs. SNELLING AND
TISDALE'S '_Metropolitan Library and Reading-Room_,' at 599 Broadway, near
Houston-street, supplies an important desideratum in that quarter of the
metropolis. In addition to a well-stocked library and reading-room, there
are coffee, conversation, chess, and cigar-apartments, and all the
belongings of a first establishment after its kind. . . . WE had clipped
for insertion, from a Baltimore journal, a poem in honor of OLE BULL,
entitled '_The Bewitched Fiddle_,' which we have unluckily mislaid or
lost. It was by Mr. HEWITT, a popular song-writer and musical composer,
and was one of the most fanciful and felicitous things we have seen in a
month of Sundays. As it is at this moment out of our power to print it, we
can only counsel our readers, if they encounter it any where, not to fail
of its perusal. . . . WE have a pleasant metropolitan story to tell one of
these days, (at least we think so,) of which we have been reminded by the
following from a late English magazine: