touching the _faithfulness_ of the foregoing. · · · THERE is a fearful
lesson conveyed in the annexed communication from a metropolitan
physician, who assures us that it is in all respects an accurate statement
of an occurrence to which he was an eye-witness: 'Duty impels me, Mr.
EDITOR, to lay before you one of the little incidents which my situation
as a medical man has brought to my notice. There is no class of men who
are led with keener perceptions to investigate human nature than
enlightened practising physicians. They have a hold upon the affections
and confidence of every class of society; and for this reason they should
feel it incumbent upon themselves to act the part of _moral_ as well as
_physical_ agents. For myself, I think it would be well if medical men
were so far constituted missionaries, as to make it a duty to point a
moral whenever it would be likely to be well received. I am aware that
attempts of this sort with many persons would be vain or injudicious, and
sometimes nauseate perhaps, like the accompanying drugs; but eventually it
might prove salutary to the soul; and although cursed for good advice, is
it not in the end a blessing? But to my story: I was called a short time
since to a youth about twenty years of age: he had been only a few months
in the city, and I had occasionally seen him, but had little acquaintance
with him, being much his senior. When I entered, one of his fits of
raving, occasioned by fever, was just coming on. I approached and took his
hand: 'What do you want?' said he; 'you look so mild and yet so
penetrating. I have not got any.' 'Any _what_?' said I. 'Any money,' he
replied; 'the drawer was locked, and I could not get any without being
seen; so go away!' 'I came to cure you, not to take your money,' I
replied. 'Ah!' said he, 'did I not take some from you? Look! look! There
they come! sixpences, shillings! See! see! how they tumble from the wall!
Look! there is a piece of gold! See! look! there they keep coming! I
never took all this!--at first I only took enough to get a cigar with, now
and then. See! the room is filling! I shall suffocate!' 'What does this
mean, young man?' said I; 'be calm.' 'Did they not tell you to _come and
feel my pulse and see if there was not a sixpence in it_?' 'No, no; I came
to make you better.' 'Better? _better_? BETTER? Here, hide these; don't
let my friends know of them; they were stolen! I cannot look at them now.
Ha! ha! ha!--I cannot!' I was induced to remain until the frenzy of the
fever had passed off, and found the young man had intervals of reason. He
was now in deep despondency. I inquired his name. He had dropped it, he
said; he could not debase it. 'Debase it?' said I. 'Yes!' he answered,
with a groan like a howl. The next day the young man sent for me again. He
appeared much altered; said that he did not wish to live; that he had '_a
gnawing at his soul_.' I remarked that he was very young to be tired of
life; that if he had been guilty of any crime he should desire to live to
expiate it. 'No,' he replied, 'the stain will always last!' I told him,
not so; that if he heartily repented and turned to the right source for
consolation, it would be vouchsafed him. 'I feel that I cannot live,' he
replied, 'and my friends will be better satisfied to know that I am
repentant in my last moments, and that I am gone, than they would be to
think of me as a vagabond, let loose upon society: they will at least feel
that I shall 'cease from troubling.' I have not the excuse that many
delinquents have pleaded, early initiation into vice. My childhood was
passed with pious relatives, who labored to instil religious principles
into my mind; but I 'would none of their reproof.' My friends not being
wealthy, I was left at a proper age to my own resources. I found a
situation where my talents were appreciated by my employer, and perhaps
too highly estimated by myself. I had a brother who was ten years my
senior, whom I loved and esteemed--may Heaven keep him in blessed
ignorance of my fate!--but I thought less highly of his intellect when I
saw him excited by some sublime hymn, which angels might listen to, than I
did of my own, when I turned from the devotions of the Sabbath to join my
idle companions. In the situation I held, I might have gained
respectability; but my besetting sin betrayed me so often, that the kind
indulgence of a good master could no longer conceal my crimes. I now see
that the sting inflicted by vice must and _will_ remain! We may repent, we
may be forgiven; but the mind will not part with its bitter
recollections!' I was here called away for a few moments, and when I
returned, the unhappy young man was in the land of spirits! I learned that
he was engaged to a highly amiable young lady, who relinquished him, and
shortly afterward died of a broken heart. _Her_ sad fate threw him into a
brain-fever, and as you perceive, decided _his_ likewise. Incidents like
these I am aware have often been narrated; yet if the tragedy which I have
depicted should be blessed to the use of any young man abandoned to
temptation and addicted to small crimes, and lead him to reflection, it
will be a gratification to feel that my feeble effort, with Heaven's help,
has proved 'a word in season.'' · · · THERE are inequalities of merit in
the '_Dirge_' of 'D. D.' of Hartford, though the _spirit_ of the verse is
tender and touching. We annex a few stanzas, in illustration of our
encomium:
THRUST him in his narrow bed,
Heap the cold earth on his head,
But be sure no tear ye shed--
Not a tear for him!
Bitter toil was his from birth,
Dearly bought his homely mirth,
While his master was of earth--
Now he's of the sky.
Death knocked at his door at night,
With his crushing hand of might,
Woke him to that morning light
Which can know no noon!
When that sacred morning beam
Wakes his spirit, life shall seem
But a dreary changeful dream--
Soon o'er, and not too soon!
Patiently for few long years,
Struggling with earth's giant fears,
With hands too busy to wipe tears,
Met he life's long shock.
Yet not all blank and desolate
Was this poor man's earthly state;
Hope, toil, content, can soften fate,
As the moss the rock.
O! lost Brother! still and cold,
Sunk like rain into the mould,
Silently, unseen, untold--
Thou 'rt a GOD-sown seed!
It is a sad sight to look upon the corpse of a laborer, cut down in the
midst of a toilsome life; his hard, knotty hands clasped upon the still
breast, and the strong limbs laid in serene repose. And yet how happy the
change! No longer does he ask leave to toil; no longer is he at war with
poverty, for death has made it a drawn battle. He 'rests from his labors'
where the rich and the poor meet together, and he hears no more the voice
of the oppressor. · · · PERHAPS our readers will have observed that the
_Sketches of East Florida_ are from no common pen. The description which
has been given by the writer, of the delicious climate in that sunny
region, may to many 'Northeners' seem exaggerated; but such is not the
fact. A friend writing recently from St. Augustine, thus playfully alludes
to the effect which the climate produces upon a New-Yorker: 'If a
business-man could be caught up from the whirl of Broadway, and dropped in
a warm climate, say that of St. Augustine, and left under a fig-tree to
his own reflections, his first thought doubtless would be for an omnibus
'right up.' 'Rather queer!' he would say; 'a hot sun, sandy street, and
not a carriage to be seen! There's a man out in his slippers, and a woman
with her head tied up in a handkerchief--may-be a night-cap; probably some
old Dutch settlers that went to-sleep with RIP VAN WINKLE. Wild turkeys,
as I live, all about the market!--and oh, LORD! there's a little nigger
with only a shirt on! Halloo there! you little nigger! tell me the way to
the Broadway coaches! No coaches? no omnibii? Well, where's your
five-o'clock boats?--where's your Harlaem rail-road? I want to go back to
town!' Such would probably be his first go-off; and the next impulse would
be to run, shout, cry fire! or murder!--any thing to produce a sensation;
but unless very soon about it, he would find himself yielding to some
strange influence hitherto unfelt; and it would be amusing to notice how
soon the fretting restless man of the forty-second latitude would be tamed
down in the thirteenth to the equanimity of a child asleep. The climate
enters within the man, and brings out one by one some hidden and better
impulse, at the same time laying a gentle hand upon his rougher humors; so
that when he would shout, he hums, and when he would laugh, he smiles
only; and in undertaking to run, he is caught about the waist; and goes
floating smoothly around in the ground-swell motion of the Spanish-dance.'
· · · WE perceive that the _Copy-right Question_ has been thus early
brought before the National Legislature. From the present aspect of things
we may indulge a well-grounded hope that authors who have worn themselves
out in making other people happy, will not hereafter be left to perish
amidst age and infirmity, unrelieved by the fruit of their labors. There
is one argument exceedingly well illustrated in the recent address of the
'Copy-right Club.' In allusion to the floods of trash which have for
months inundated the Atlantic cities and towns, the writer, addressing
himself to American citizens, observes: 'In all other circumstances and
questions save that of a literature, you have taken the high ground of
freedom and self-reliance. You have neither asked, nor loaned, nor
besought, but with your own hands have framed, what the occasion required.
Whatever stature you have grown to as a nation, it is due to that sole
virtue; and by its exercise may you only hope to hold your place. In
almost any other shape than that of silent books you would have spurned
the foreign and held fast to the home-born; but stealing in quietly at
every opening, making themselves the seemingly inoffensive and unobtrusive
lodgers in every house, they have full possession of the country in all
its parts; and another people may promise themselves in the next
generation of Americans, (as the question now goes,) a restored dominion
which their arms were not able to keep. The pamphlet will carry the day
where the soldier fell back.' · · · WE derive the annexed stanzas through
a Boston correspondent. He assures us that the work of art which they
commemorate is most honorable to the genius of the sculptor, who has been
winning laurels ever since his removal to the tasteful city:
LINES
WRITTEN ON COMPLETING A MARBLE BUST OF THE LATE WASHINGTON ALLSTON.
BY M. A. BRACKETT.
UPWARD unto the living light
Intensely thou dost gaze,
As if thy very soul wouldst seek
In that far distant maze
Communion with those heavenly forms
That lifting to the sight
Their golden wings and snowy robes,
Float on a sea of light.
Anon far, far away they glide,
Shooting through realms of bliss,
Till from the spirit's eye they fade
In heaven's own bright abyss.
Such are the visions thou dost wake,
Such are the thoughts that rise
In him who 'neath thy upturned brow
Beholds thy spirit-eyes.
There is no stain upon that brow;
Pure as thy holy life
Serene and calm, thy heavenly face--
Within, no wasting strife.
How strangely have the swift hours flown
As o'er the shapeless pile
I poured the full strength of my soul,
Lost to all else the while!
When fell the last faint stroke which told
That thou and I must part,
That all of life that I could give
Was thine, how throbbed my heart!
Yet to this form that I have reared
Should aught of praise belong,
Not unto me the merit due,
But Him who made me strong:
Who with his ever fostering care
My wayward steps did guide,
Through paths of flowers, in beauty cloth'd,
Along life's sunny tide.
Semblance of him, the great, the good,
Whose task on earth is done;
Of those that walked in beauty's light
Thou wert the chosen one!
* * * * *
WE should like to see in some appropriate journal a sketch of the
_Progress of Mechanics in the United States_. Without any question, the
Americans are, in respect of that branch of science, behind no nation or
people on earth. And yet no longer ago than 1791, a clock-maker from
London, after public advertisement of his arrival from England for that
purpose, visited our scattered cities and towns to repair clocks! 'Yankee
ingenuity' was not then as now synonymous with the accomplishment of _any_
thing that can either be fabricated or 'fixed'. · · · WE have no
remembrance of the communication referred to in a note from a
correspondent at Albany, in which we find the following sentences: 'If
received, I hope it was not amenable to the censure in a late number of
the KNICKERBOCKER, of certain correspondence, for having been written 'too
carefully.' Now I do flatter myself upon so _writing_, that compositors
can have no excuse for blunders, though I am well aware that to be
esteemed a Genious, one's chirography should very nearly approach
unintelligibility. If this be true, the patience and good nature of an
Editor must be severely tried; but I incline to the opinion that a man of
Genious need not model after BYRON's facsimile,' and so forth. Our
correspondent _does_ write a good hand; so good indeed, that we lament, as
we gaze at it, that he does not know how to _spell_. A man may certainly
be a '_Genious_' without being able to write a clerkly hand; but a man who
is _not_ a 'Genious,' ought at least to be able to spell the word. As to
writing 'too carefully,' our censor has mistaken the letter for the spirit
of our remarks. · · · THE lines '_To my Mother_' are replete with the
poetry of _feeling_. Their literary execution however is marred by
deficiencies, which although slight, require amending. Our correspondent
we are sure has the true poetical vein; and we shall not despair of
hearing from her again. · · · A VERY 'inquiring' correspondent desires to
know 'whether there is any thing below a _quartette_, in music?--a
_pintette_ or a _gillette_?' He is also anxious, he says, to 'ascertain
whether PUFFER HOPKINS is any relation to the pious poet who was in
partnership in the psalm and hymn way with old Uncle STERNHOLD, a great
many years ago.' Moreover, he considers it 'a little curious' that a black
hen should lay a white egg; and states that he 'would give something
handsome to be certain whether or no NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S hands, when he was
out on grass, grew six-penny or ten-penny nails!' His remaining queries
are profane; indeed, the last one goes somewhat too near the edge. · · ·
'EVER anxious to please,' as the advertisements have it, we have placed
the original department of the KNICKERBOCKER in a larger type; and it
seems to us that we may ask with some confidence whether our readers ever
saw a Magazine in a neater garniture than 'this same?' Only have the
consideration to _reciprocate_ our endeavors to please you, good PUBLIC,
and you 'shall see what you shall see.' There are certain delinquents upon
our books, to whom we would venture to insinuate, in the most delicate
manner conceivable, that 'it is high time somebody had a sight of
somebody's money.' · · · A NEW style of frames for drawings, engravings,
paintings, looking-glasses, etc., has recently been brought to great
perfection, and into very general favor, by Mr. WEISER, at No. 43
Centre-street, near Pearl. They are composed externally of
_glass-veneerings_, beautifully painted and shaded, so as to resemble
different-tinted woods, tortoise-shell, or indeed any other colors that
may be desired. These are painted on the inner side of the glass, which is
so firmly cemented to the wood-frames as to be little liable to injury
from jarring or even falling. With a gilt beading, they have a very
beautiful appearance, by reason of the admirable lustre of the glass,
which gives to them a polish finer than that of the most susceptible
woods. They are, in short, exceedingly handsome, easily kept clean, always
new and fresh, and what is worthy of mention, much cheaper than wood or
gilt.
* * * * *
.*. WILL our readers have the kindness to exhibit the ADVERTISEMENT OF OUR
TWENTY-THIRD VOLUME to their friends? It will be found on the second and
third pages of the cover of the present number; and they can testify to
the accuracy of its unexaggerated statements. Many articles in prose and
verse await examination or insertion, and a more particular reference
hereafter. Notices are in type of new publications from the presses of
Messrs. BURGESS AND STRINGER, M. W. DODD, J. WINCHESTER, the LANGLEY'S,
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, M. H. NEWMAN, WILEY AND PUTNAM, and of the
'Columbian Magazine,' which we are reluctantly compelled to defer to our
February issue.