University of Virginia Library

MOORE AND BARRY CORNWALL.

Well — how does Moore write a song?

In the twilight of a September evening he strolls
through the park to dine with the marquis. As he
draws on his white gloves, he sees the evening star
looking at him steadily through the long vista of the
avenue, and he construes its punctual dispensation of
light into a reproach for having, himself a star, passed
a day of poetic idleness. “Damme,” soliloquizes the
little fat planet, “this will never do! Here have I
hammered the whole morning at a worthless idea,
that, with the mere prospect of a dinner, shows as
trumpery as a `penny fairing.' Labor wasted! And
at my time of life, too! Faith! — it's dining at home
these two days with nobody to drink with me! It's
eyewater I want! Don't trouble yourself to sit up
for me, brother Hesper! I shall see clearer when I
come back!

as my friend Barry sings. Poetry? hum! Claret?
Prithee, call it claret!”

And Moore is mistaken! He draws his inspiration,
it is true, with the stem of a glass between his thumb
and finger, but the wine is the least stimulus to his
brain. He talks and is listened to admiringly, and
that is his Castaly. He sits next to Lady Fanny at
dinner, who thinks him “an adorable little love,” and
he employs the first two courses in making her in
love with herself, i. e., blowing everything she says up
to the red heat of poetry. Moore can do this, for the
most stupid things on earth are, after all, the beginnings
of ideas, and every fool is susceptible of the
flattery of seeing the words go straight from his lips
to the “highest heaven of invention.” And Lady
Fanny is not a fool, but a quick and appreciative woman,
and to almost everything she says, the poet's
trump is a germ of poetry. “Ah!” says Lady Fanny
with a sigh, “this will be a memorable dinner — not
to you, but to me; for you see pretty women every
day, but I seldom see Tom Moore!” The poet looks
into Lady Fanny's eyes and makes no immediate answer.
Presently she asks, with a delicious look of
simplicity, “Are you as agreeable to everybody, Mr.
Moore?” — “There is but one Lady Fanny,” replies
the poet; “or, to use your own beautiful simile, `The
moon sees many brooks, but the brook sees but one
moon!”' (Mem. jot that down.) And so is treasured
up one idea for the morrow, and when the marchioness
rises, and the ladies follow her to the drawingroom,
Moore finds himself sandwiched between a
couple of whig lords, and opposite a past or future
premier — an audience of cultivation, talent, scholarship,
and appreciation; and as the fresh pitcher of
claret is passed round, all regards radiate to the Anacreon
of the world, and with that suction of expectation,
let alone Tom Moore. Even our “Secretary
of the Navy and National Songster” would “turn out
his lining” — such as it is. And Moore is delightful,
and with his “As you say, my lord!” he gives birth
to a constellation of bright things, no one of which is
dismissed with the claret. Every one at the table,
except Moore, is subject to the hour — to its enthusiasm,
its enjoyment — but the hour is to Moore a precious
slave. So is the wine. It works for him! It
brings him money from Longman! It plays his trumpet
in the reviews! It is his filter among the ladies!
Well may he sing its praises! Of all the poets,
Moore is probably the only one who is thus master of
his wine. The glorious abandon with which we fancy
him, a brimming glass in his hand, singing “Fly not
yet!” exists only in the fancy. He keeps a cool head
and coins his conviviality; and to revert to my former
figure, they who wish to know what Moore's electricity
amounts to without the convivial friction, may
read his History of Ireland. Not a sparkle in it, from
the landing of the Phenicians to the battle of Vinegar
Hill! He wrote that as other people write — with
nothing left from the day before but the habit of labor
— and the travel of a collapsed balloon on a
man's back, is not more unlike the same thing, inflated
and soaring, than Tom Moore, historian, and Tom
Moore, bard!

Somewhere in the small hours the poet walks
home, and sitting down soberly in his little library, he
puts on paper the half-score scintillations that collision,
in one shape or another, has struck into the
tinder of his fancy. If read from this paper, the
world would probably think little of their prospect of
ever becoming poetry. But the mysterious part is done
— the life is breathed into the chrysalis — and the clothing
of these naked fancies with winged words, Mr.
Moore knows very well can be done in very uninspired
moods by patient industry. Most people have very
little idea what that industry is — how deeply language
is ransacked, how often turned over, how untiringly
rejected and recalled with some new combination,
how resolutely sacrificed when only tolerable enough to
pass, how left untouched day after day in the hope of a
fresh impulse after repose. The vexation of a Chinese
puzzle is slight, probably, to that which Moore has
expended on some of his most natural and flowing
single verses. The exquisite nicety of his ear, though

it eventually gives his poetry its honeyed fluidity,
gives him no quicker choice of words, nor does more,
in any way, than pass inexorable judgment on what
his industry brings forward. Those who think a song
dashed off like an invitation to dinner, would be edified
by the progressive phases of a “Moore's Melody.”
Taken with all its re-writings, emendations, &c.,
I doubt whether, in his most industrious seclusion,
Moore averages a couplet a day. Yet this persevering,
resolute, unconquerable patience of labor is the secret
of his fame. Take the best thing he ever wrote,
and translate its sentiment and similitudes into plain
prose, and do the thing by a song of any second-rate
imitator of Moore, one abstract would read as well as
the other. Yet Moore's song is immortal, and the
other ephemeral as a paragraph in a newspaper, and
the difference consists in a patient elaboration of language
and harmony, and in that only. And even
thus short, seems the space between the ephemeron and
the immortal. But it is wider than they think, oh,
glorious Tom Moore!

And how does Barry Cornwall write?

I answer, from the efflux of his soul! Poetry is
not labor to him. He works at law — he plays, relaxes,
luxuriates in poetry. Mr. Proctor has at no
moment of his life, probably, after finishing a poetic
effusion, designed ever to write another line. No
more than the sedate man, who, walking on the edge
of a playground, sees a ball coming directly toward
him, and seized suddenly with a boyish impulse, jumps
aside and sends it whizzing back, as he has not done
for twenty years, with his cane — no more than that
unconscious schoolboy of fourscore (thank God there
are many such live coals under the ashes) thinks he
shall play again at ball. Proctor is a prosperous barrister,
drawing a large income from his profession.
He married the daughter of Basil Montague (well
known as the accomplished scholar, and the friend of
Coleridge, Lamb, and that bright constellation of
spirits), and with a family of children of whom, the
world knows, he is passionately fond, he leads a more
domestic life, or, rather, a life more within himself and
his own, than any author, present or past, with whose
habits I am conversant. He has drawn his own portrait,
however, in outline, and as far as it goes, nothing
could be truer. In an epistle to his friend Charles
Lamb, he says: —

Proctor slights the world's love for his wife and
books, and, as might he expected, the world only plies
him the more with its caresses. He is now and then
seen in the choicest circles of London, where, though
love and attention mark most flatteringly the rare
pleasure of his presence, he plays a retired and silent
part, and steals early away. His library is his Paradise.
His enjoyment of literature should be mentioned
as often in his biography as the “feeding among
the lilies” in the Songs of Solomon. He forgets himself,
he forgets the world in his favorite authors, and
that, I fancy, was the golden link in his friendship
with Lamb. Surrounded by exquisite specimens of
art (he has a fine taste, and is much beloved by artists),
a choice book in his hand, his wife beside him,
and the world shut out, Barry is in the meridian of
his true orbit. Oh, then, a more loving and refined
spirit is not breathing beneath the stars! He reads
and muses; and as something in the page stirs some
distant association, suggests some brighter image than
its own, he half leans over to the table, and scrawls it
in unstudied but inspired verse. He thinks no more
of it. You might have it to light your cigar. But
there sits by his side one who knows its value, and it
is treasured. Here, for instance, in the volume I have
spoken of before, are some forty pages of “fragments”
— thrown in to eke out the volume of his songs. I
am sure, that when he was making up his book, perhaps
expressing a fear that there would not be pages
enough for the publisher's design, these fragments
were produced from their secret hiding-place to his
great surprise. The quotations I have made were all
from this portion of his volume, and, as I said before,
they are worthy of Shakspere. There is no mark of
labor in them. I do not believe there was an erasure
in the entire manuscript. They bear all the marks
of a sudden, unstudied impulse, immediately and unhesitatingly
expressed. Here are several fragments.
How evident it is that they were suggested directly
by his reading: —

The lighthouse near Caldwell's Landing is seen to
great effect by the passenger in the evening boat from
New York to Newburgh. Leaving the city at five in
the summer afternoon, she makes the intervening forty
miles between that hour and twilight; and while the
last tints of the sunset are still in the sky, the stars
just beginning to twinkle through the glow of the
west, the bright light of this lofty beacon rises up
over the prow of the boat, shining apparently on the
very face of the new-starred heaven. As he approaches,
across the smooth and still purpled mirror
of the silent river is drawn a long and slender line of
light, broken at the foot of the beacon by the wild
shrubbery of the rock on which it stands; and as he
rounds the point, and passes it, the light brightens
and looks clearer against the darker sky of the east,

while the same cheering line of reflection follows him
on his way, and is lost to sight as he disappears
among the mountains.

The waters of the river at this point were the scene
of the brief and tragic drama enacted so fatally to
poor André. Four or five miles below stands Smith's
house, where he had his principal interview with
Arnold, and where the latter communicated to him
his plans for the delivery of West Point into the hands
of the English, and gave him the fatal papers which
proved his ruin.

At Smith's house Mrs. Arnold passed a night on
her way to join her husband at West Point, soon after
he had taken command. The sufferings of this lady
have excited the sympathy of the world, as the first
paroxysms of her distress moved the kind but firm
heart of Washington. There seems to have arisen a
doubt, however, whether her long and well-known
correspondence with André had not so far undermined
her patriotism, that she was rather inclined to further
than impede the treason of Arnold; and consequently
could have suffered but little after Washington generously
made every arrangement for her to follow him.
In the “Life of Aaron Burr,” lately published, are
some statements which seem authentic on the subject.
It is well known that Washington found Mrs. Arnold
apparently frantic with distress at the communication
her husband had made to her the moment before his
flight. Lafayette, and the other officers in the suite
of the commander-in-chief, were alive with the most
poignant sympathy; and a passport was given her by
Washington, with which she immediately left West
Point to join Arnold in New York. On her way she
stopped at the house of Mrs. Prevost, the wife of a
British officer, who subsequently married Colonel
Burr. Here “the frantic scenes of West Point were
renewed,” says the narrative of Burr's biographer,
“and continued so long as strangers were present. As
soon as she and Mrs. Prevost were left alone, however,
Mrs. Arnold became tranquillized, and assured Mrs.
Prevost that she was heartily sick of the theatrics she
was exhibiting. She stated that she had corresponded
with the British commander; that she was disgusted
with the American cause, and those who had the management
of public affairs; and that, through great
persuasion and unceasing perseverance, she had ultimately
brought the general into an arrangement to
surrender West Point to the British. Mrs. Arnold
was a gay, accomplished, artful, and extravagant woman.
There is no doubt, therefore, that, for the purpose
of acquiring the means of gratifying her vanity,
she contributed greatly to the utter ruin of her husband,
and thus doomed to everlasting infamy and disgrace
all the fame he had acquired as a gallant soldier,
at the sacrifice of his blood.”

It is not easy to pass and repass the now peaceful
and beautiful waters of this part of the Hudson, without
recalling to mind the scenes and actors in the
great drama of the Revolution, which they not long
ago bore on their bosom. The busy mind fancies the
armed guard-boats, slowly pulling along the shore;
the light pinnace of the Vulture plying to and fro on
its errands of conspiracy; and not the least vivid picture
to the imagination, is the boat containing the
accomplished, the gallant André, and his guard, on
his way to his death. It is probable that he first admitted
to his own mind the possibility of a fatal result,
while passing this very spot. A late biographer of
Arnold gives the particulars of a conversation between
André and Major Tallmadge, the officer who had him
in custody, and who brought him from West Point
down the river to Tappan, the place of his subsequent
execution.

“Before we reached the Clove” (a landing just below
the beacon), “Major Andre became very inquisitive
to know my opinion as to the result of his capture.
When I could no longer evade his importunity, I remarked
to him as follows; `I had a much-loved class-mate
in Yale college, by the name of Hale, who entered
the army in 1775. Immediately after the battle
of Long Island, Washington wanted information respecting the strength of the enemy. Hale tendered
his services, went over to Brooklyn, and was taken,
just as he was passing the outpost of the enemy on
his return.' Said I, with emphasis, `Do you remember
the sequel of this story?' — `Yes,' said André, `he
was hanged as a spy. But you surely do not consider
his case and mine alike?' I replied, `Yes, precisely
similar; and similar will be your fate.' He endeavored
to answer my remarks, but it was manifest he
was more troubled in spirit than I had ever seen him
before.”

Sconcia's “Preceptor for the Pianoforte,” just published
by Christman, of this city, is a curious and valuable
work. Mr. Sconcia is a thorough musician,
and he has compiled the edition before us with much
labor and a clear understanding of the beautiful science
of which it treats. Mr. S. is also the author of
a valuable scientific work, entitled “An Introduction
to the Art of Singing,” which is universally popular
among the profession.

The Messrs. Appleton have sent us a volume of
delicious poetry, entitled the “Wife of Leon” and
other metrical effusions, by two sisters of the west.
We know nothing of these delightful authors beyond
their writings; but that they are gifted, true-hearted,
and accomplished girls, is apparent in every line of
their beautiful productions. The west has cause to
be proud of these sweet “sisters,” and so has the
country, to whose literary stores the volume before us
is a graceful and valuable contribution. If this is the
authors' first appearance in print, it is the most favorable
one we have ever witnessed in our whole editorial
career, and we shall place the book in our library,
on the same shelf with the works of Mrs. Hemans, to
be referred to frequently in hours stolen from severer
duties. The Messrs. Appleton — ever

deserve the thanks of the public for the elegant edition
of the poems before us.

I saw two very distinguished gentlemen sitting visà-vis
at the Astor house table a day or two since —
striking exceptions, both, to the physique of the climates
from which they severally come. The Hon.
Mr. Choate, of Massachusetts, was one, with his pale
but intellectual countenance, and Judge Wayne was
the other, as glowing a specimen of rosy health and
vigor as ever came from the more florescent nurture
of the north. It is painful to see the precious accumulation
of a great mind's treasure intrusted to so
fragile a casket as ill-health, and the contrary is proportionably
agreeable. Judge Wayne is at present at
West Point.

It is a pretty literal fulfilment of the penalty of
Adam's transgression to do more than breathe to-day,
and I have chopped down and chopped up many a
tree of twice my age with half the “sweat of the
brow” brought out by the harnessing of this first sentence
to grammar. A gentleman is walking up Broadway,
fanning himself, as I look out of the window.
The omnibus horses drip. What an Eden would
come about again (for me, at least) if this penitential
sweat would trickle itself into these inky traceries
without the medium of brain and finger-work! One

would be almost content to become a black man to
facilitate the miracle.

Three successive boys have gone under my window,
whistling, “Dance, boatman, dance!” The air is one
that sticks in the popular memory, and, like some
other of these negro melodies, it is probably susceptible
of transmutation into a gem of music. I have
recorded somewhere else a remark Moore once made
in my presence, that one of the most pathetic of his
songs stole its air from a merry ballad of Spain, representing
a girl complaining of the wind's blowing her
petticoats about, and the change in its character was
effected by only playing it slower. No song was ever
more popular in this country than “On the lake where
drooped the willow,” which was a transfer of the negro
song “As I was a gwyin down Shinbone alley.”
Horn, who adapted it to a pathetic song by Morris,
took his hint from the pathos with which a black boy
at Natchez sang one of the songs peculiar to his race
and region. “The Northern Refrain,” another very
popular song by Morris and Horn, is based upon the
carol of the sweeps in New York city. Mr. Horn
says that “God save the King” was taken from an air
sung about the streets of London, and that “Di tanti
palpiti” was suggested to Rossini by hearing a fish-woman
sing it in the market while attending her stall.
“The Marseillaise” had an origin equally obscure.
The first attempt to dislocate these airs from their
ludicrous words creates a smile, of course, but it is
surprising how quickly the better clothing of music
throws its long-worn beggar-rag into forgetfulness.
Horn relates in one of his prefaces, that when Mrs.
Horn commenced singing before an audience, “Long
time ago,” with a serious air, there was a general
smile; but when the song was ended she left her auditors
with tears in their eyes. There is no end to
tracing back to their origin airs that are afloat among
a people, and if Moore's melodies are built upon
“Irish airs,” without going back to Milesian imagination,
these negro melodies may be called American,
without giving credit to Guinea or Timbuctoo. I
should think it worth a composer's while to travel leisurely
in the south, and bring away all the melodies
that inhabit the banjo of the slave, and better still
worth Morris's while to devote his singular tact and
delicacy of taste and ear to the clothing them with
appropriate poetry. He has been so successful in the
attempts he has already made, that the warrant is
good.

A German gentleman, residing at the Astor house,
has translated for me an account of a visit to Frederika
Bremer, by the Countess Von Hahn-Hahn, and a few
of its more personal particulars will not be uninteresting.
The countess is a celebrated person in the fashionable
world, and has just published her travels in
Sweden. She found Miss Bremer at a small country
estate near Stockholm, where she resides with her
mother and a younger sister. She says: “I had
formed some idea about her person from her books. I
figured to myself a quiet, serious person, with some
humoristic touches. I found her indeed thus in
reality, with an addition of an extraordinary degree
of sweetness in all her bearing.” — “I was offered a
promenade. I preferred to remain in the house,
though passionately fond of nature, open air, walking.
All the attraction for me was within — everything so
pleasant, so comfortable! I could comprehend how
`Home' here could be made so attractive. I desired
Miss Frederika to show me her own room. It was
arranged with the greatest simplicity — almost a cell.
It would not do for me at all. Besides, it was a corner-room,
with windows on two sides, consequently a
double supply of light. There were three square
tables, covered with books, papers, and writing-mate
rials; a sofa in a severe style (I mean one that coolly
and merely invites you to sit down without lolling,
which is my favorite position). On the walls there
were several pictures. `This is a genuine Teniers,
but I know you will not like it,' she said, laughing,
pointing to a beautiful little picture of a countryman
filling his pipe. I answered honestly, `no!' and in
general I found that I said `no' when she said `yes.'
Such a difference of opinion is only disagreeable when
you have a dislike to a person. I tried to persuade
her to make a voyage to Italy. We would go together.
But she would not. She does not like travelling.
She thinks that one may soon become overpowered,
carried away, get confused — and what to do
with all these foreign impressions! I said, `You will
soon conquer them — that is just the pleasantest thing,
I think.' She still took a lively interest in all I told
her of foreign countries, what I had seen, and what I
had written about them. I was naturally well-pleased
at this. Our conversation was carried on in French
and German. She expressed herself with great simplicity
and decision. She has beautiful, thinking
eyes; a clear, firm, I may almost say, a solid forehead,
under which the strongly-delineated eyebrows move
very much when she speaks. This becomes her very
much, particularly when an idea labors to shape itself
into words. She has a light and small figure, and was
dressed in black silk. In the parlor there were two
large bookcases. Miss Bremer paints beautifully in
miniature, and she has a collection of heads, done by
herself, to which was added mine. I generally get
sleepy when sitting to artists; therefore I do not like
to have my picture taken, as it hurts my vanity that
all my portraits look so immensely sheepish! This
time, however, the sitting went better off, for the
Countess Rosen was singing the whole time, with her
fine voice, some beautiful Swedish songs.”

By this extract the Countess Hahn-Hahn herself
seems a nice, natural creature enough.

I have been pleased to find that I rather under than
over-colored my slight description of Mr. Weir's picture
for the rotunda. The Bostonians have received
it with a full measure of enthusiasm; and Mr. Weir
has himself returned to West Point, laden not merely
with bountiful commendations, but with employment
for years in commissions for pictures. He will, probably,
realize a small fortune from the exhibition, alone,
of his great painting in the different cities; and altogether,
this is the best exemplification that has
occurred in my time of the policy (to say no more)
of a faithful discharge of a commission, which,
because intrusted literally to conscience and honor,
may be slighted with impunity. Mr. Weir, I understand,
has not yet drawn the price of his picture from
the treasury, intending to lay it by as an investment
for his children, unconscious, probably, how much
they will value the father's glory invested in the picture.
On it the painter has flung his soul prostrate;
and there is a circumstance connected with its working
upon his mind while painting it, which we do not
feel quite at liberty to mention here, but which will be
a thread of the purest gold to weave into the mingled
woof of his posthumous biography. By the first of
October, I understand, we are to have a view of the
“Embarkation” in New York.

I was among the liquesced victims of the buffalo-hunt
at Hoboken, and gathered little to compensate
me for “larding the lean earth” of the Messrs.
Stevens, except a strong impression of the peculiar
good-nature of a republican crowd. As our down-laden

ferry-boat reached the shore, another one, heavily
overfreighted, was starting to return. Some one
on our wheelhouse inquired in a stentorian voice,
“How did you like it?” and was answered by the five
hundred disappointed and roasted dupes with a general
shout of good-natured laughter. The Courier estimates
the crowd at twenty or thirty thousand, and certainly
the whole Jersey side was black with people, all
feeling humbugged and laughing merrily. I thought
I would ride up to the ground to see the embroidery
of so many moving figures on the green meadows, and
this was a fine sight. The lasso-rider, in a fantastical
costume, was galloping hard after his shadow, and
tossing his long rope into the air; and one of the buffaloes
was quietly munching a hollyhock in the small
enclosure of an Irish cabin on the roadside. The rest
of the herd, I was told, had made their escape to the
woods, offering the proprietor a real hunt for a sham.
The morning papers give accounts of some serious
accidents during the day.

The copyright club is organized with a most active
and efficient secretary in Mr. Mathews, and there has
been a general summoning of aid and counsel. Bryant,
the high-priest of American poetry, is very properly
chosen president. In addition to the fact which
I mentioned in my last as one that should be “kept
before the people,” viz., that the increase of price on
new publications would be very trifling and go to the
author — in addition to this, I say, another should be
mentioned. The worthless edition that is bought for
a shilling, and read with straining eyes from its bad
print, is perused and thrown away. Would it not be
as well to subscribe to a reading-club, and get the
book well-printed for less money, and return it at the
end of the week? The hint is worth considering —
and this is the way that reading is managed cheaply
in England.

Macready is to be here in October, and will be accompanied
by Miss Phillips (formerly of the National),
and Mr. Ryder — a unicorn team of his own breaking.
They both know the leader's paces. Conti Damoreau
follows later — but there is nothing very spicy on record
with regard to this prima donna; and the popular
telescope of expectation is fixed exclusively on the
charming Mrs. Nesbitt. Before I have had time to
be bribed by my share of the spell of this enchantress,
I may as well give you an honest inventory of her
attractions and professional merits. She is, imprimis,
a widow; that is to say, if she be not married within
a year or two, as is said, to the famous Mr. Feargus
O'Conner, keeping her previous name for theatrical
eclat. Mr. Nesbitt was a dashing guardsman (son of
Lady Nesbitt, well known in the gay world), who
broke his neck driving tandem, and left his widow the
idol of the dandies. She is rather above the middle
size, with blue eyes, meant to pass for black, black
hair, Greek nose, upper lip half scornful, half playful,
and a mouth made by none of the Graces' journeymen.
This last article is indeed delicious, as seen
from any part of the theatre, though, like Madame
George Sands, the owner smokes! But her charm lies
mainly in “the way she has with her.” Nobody that
sees her cares whether she plays well or ill. She
ministers at another door. Hang your head — she
plays to your heart! And it is one of her ways to
play very unevenly; and when she thinks you have
pouted long enough at her carelessness, to burst suddenly
upon you with a bewitching rally, and “bring the
house down,” as they alarmingly phrase it. A great
actress she probably is not — an enchanting woman she
certainly is. It is to be hoped that she will bring over
the pieces that have been written expressly for her, as
her every peculiarity of look, tone, and gesture, has
been most accurately measured and fitted by the dramatic
tailors of London.

The world looks disagreeable to us to-day. We are
“under the weather;” and, for to-day at least (and it
is odd how rare the wish is), we may say, we wish
ourselves fairly above the weather — that is, in heaven;
in heaven, where there are no Saturdays, and of
course, no expectations of New Mirrors.

For you forgive the dinner's not forthcoming, if the
cook be ill. And your washerwoman has her little
indulgences — hand scalded, or child sick. And you
forego your drive if your horse be ailing or off his
feed. What have we done, we should be pleased to
know, to be treated less kindly than the other three of
your quadruple necessities? We should like very
much to drop our head into our hand, and mope. But
you wouldn't like it.

No — you want us to chatter. You say as the child
says, when the story is done: “Tell us some more.”
And if we must, we must! But we're sick and savage,
and we'll rake up something that we can gnaw as
we tell it — some old resentment or other — and if we
don't feel better after it, we'll go to bed.

One of the morning papers, a week ago or more,
told a fib about us. In an article on American authors,
it is said that we (one of “we”) made more money by
our writings than any other American author, and
were fast growing rich! And out of that, a Boston
paper picks the reason that we “write so jauntily!”
As if a man were not always gayer as his pockets were
lighter, and as if our good humor were drawn with a
check — bankable!

Now we are not willing to submit to the odium of
prosperity. That we have made some thousands of
unnameables by two or three weeks' work, as this
writer asserts, we freely own — but it was not in this
country. We have sold, for a large price, in England,
books for which we tried in vain to find a publisher in
America. We can not now find a publisher in America
who will give us anything for a work, though we
have been looking for one these three years; and we
never found but one publisher who would give us, for
half-a-dozen works in a lump, money worth shutting
thumb and finger upon; and he gave it in notes, payable
by ourself — after the little privilege of a discount.
We don't complain of this — oh no! The worth of a
thing is, no doubt, what it will bring. But we are not
going to be lifted between human envy and the sun,
and be hated for throwing a shadow when we have no
substance! Not “we!”

That three meals a day come punctually round to
us, we consider no more a marvel than the arrangements
for the keeping in motion of any other “heavenly
body.” For that much we have safely trusted
hitherto, and we shall trust hereafter the crank, whatever
it may be, that turns our mortal orrery. We are
fed, and we don't care who envies us for it — for we
think we do work enough to earn it — but the possession,
at any time, for any considerable portion of an
hour, of one unbespoken dollar, we indignantly deny!
We are poor enough (either of us “we”) to please
the most fastidious, on the contrary. And so, fellow-paupers,
take us back to your affections!

But we have hopes (as who has not?) of living to
be “rich and envied!” We shall be less loved. That
is the tariff, and we are busy laying up love to pay it.
But we should like to know how it feels to be rich, and
whether for more love, one ever sighs to be poor
again! Please Heaven, we will know, some day — if
the Mirror keep prospering.

Two Sisters of the West. — I have done, almost
unawares, within the last twenty-four hours, what I
would not willingly have undertaken to do, viz., the
reading of two hundred and fifty pages of new poetry.
It was a book which came to my hand in the livery
of a début — cream-colored binding, most daintily lettered
— and when I opened it my anticipations extended
very little beyond the pleasure of rubbing my
thumb and finger on the seductive smoothness of the
cover. It is entitled, “The Wife of Leon, and other
Poems, by Two Sisters of the West,” written, as the
preface states, to “while away time and gratify a taste
for poetry,” and published “to gratify a parent to
whom they could refuse nothing.” With much of
the book I think you would be delighted. It seems
to me a careless exercise of very uncommon powers
— a kind of loitering into dream-land with no particular
errand, and here and there plucking a phantom
forth to the light as would be done by a concentrated
mind gone thither with disciplined determination for
the purpose. I speak, of course, now only of the
purely imaginative parts of the book. The affections
are, with women, no phantoms, and can scarcely be
written upon, except well, by any woman of talent;
and in this book the touches of feeling are exquisitely
true and well expressed. But in verse, which is here
and there very incompact and wordy, you will find
some bold conceptions, partially done justice to, which
show in these sisters a very unusual walk of fancy.
A piece called the “Death of the Master Spirit,”
seems to me particularly strong and unsuggested.
And in some lines beginning —

there is a most refreshing novelty and meaningness.
On the whole, I look upon this as rather a memorable
advent in poetry-world, and I hope we shall soon find
out who the “Sisters” are.

Percival has put forth a new volume, after a very
long silence as a poet. If poetry were nothing but an
exercise of imagination, Percival would doubtless be
the first of American poets. In the art of poetry,
probably he is — the art, I mean, as exemplified in this
very volume, in which there are no less than “one
hundred and fifty modifications of stanza.” But Percival's
poetry is singularly deficient in the very mundane
quality flesh and blood. His veins seem filled
with ether, and his Pegasus uses his wings always,
his legs never. I mention it less as a fault than a peculiarity,
for there may be a school of this quality
of poetry, and perfect in its way — but it is a peculiarity
which accounts fully for the inadequate effect
it has produced. Nothing of Percival's is popularly
known, except one or two pieces, which will
live for ever by the very flesh and blood pathos which
he has touched by chance, and which he probably
thinks beneath him. The poem beginning,

the mournful plaint of a deserted wife, is one of these,
and a most exquisite effusion of feeling. But here is
his idea of the harness with which a poet must go into
the arena, in a passage of his preface to his new
books: —

— “An art [poetry] which requires the mastery of
the riches and niceties of a language; a full knowledge
of the science of versification, not only in its own
peculiar principles of rhythm and melody, but in its
relations to elocution and music, with that delicate
natural perception and that facile execution which
render the composition of verse hardly less easy than
that of prose; a deep and quick insight into the na
ture of man, in all his varied faculties, intellectual and
emotive; a clear and full perception of the power and
beauty of nature, and of all its various harmonies with
our own thoughts and feelings; and, to gain a high
rank in the present age, wide and exact attainments
in literature and art in general. Nor is the possession
of such faculties and attainments all that is necessary;
but such a sustained and self-collected state of
mind as gives one the mastery of his genius, and at
the same time presents to him the ideal as an immediate
reality, not as a remote conception.”

Now, acknowledged, as Percival must be, to possess
these high requirements, I have no doubt that
the book I have spoken of above will be more read
than his own — though, probably, the alarm with which
“The Two Sisters” would have looked on this formidable
statement of requisites for poetry, presented
to them before they had so unconsciously achieved
the task, would have quite equalled the surprise of
the gentleman who found that he had all his life been
talking grammar without learning it. Percival's is a
great mind, however, wonderfully stored with learning,
and his poetry is a rich treat to the scholar and
the purely imaginative reader.

The Public Fountains. — The largest audiences
we see in the city, assemble on the advertised nights
of the illumination of the Bowling Green fountain.
The lower part of the city is rendered completely impassable
by the packed assemblages. With the aid
of the many-colored fires burned around it, it is certainly
a splendid fountain; but it would be beautiful
by day, and alone, as well as much more beautiful by
night, if the same volume of water sprang from some
ornamental structure instead of a huge heap of rocks.
In all countries but this, an artist would have been
employed to make a design for so costly and public a
fountain — a man whom peculiar genius and study had
qualified for the task. But the designer of this is an
engineer, and the designer of the Park fountain, if it
had one, was probably a well-digger or a mason. By
the way, as the Park is the most frequented part of
the city, and much used by persons wishing to get out
of the street for a moment's conversation, the plan of
the fountain of Lerna, at Corinth, would be a good
one. It was encircled by a beautiful portico, under
which were seats for the public to sit upon during
the extreme heats of summer, to enjoy the cool air
from the falling waters. The Park jet would be superb
seen between the marble columns of a portico
like this, and the seats would be certainly a great luxury,
situated as the Park is. For want of an original
idea of our own for a smaller fountain, Michael Augelo's
conception were a good one to copy — a sturdy
woman wringing a bundle of clothes, whence the
water issues that supplies the basin.

First Night of the Season. — The all-a-gogery
of the city on the reopening of the Park theatre,
drew me in from the country, contrary to my Monday's
wont, and as I am bound to ride to your eye on
the top wave of the morning talk, I must jot you down
the memorabilia of the first night. The wooden
Shakspere, by the way, has been hoisted to its niche
in the façade of the house, and shows well among the
very composite order of the new architectural embellishments.
A traveller, aiming simply at the graphic,
would probably describe our principal theatre as one
long shed put on top of another, with a figure of
Shakspere standing in the door of the uppermost.
The new paint makes it all right, however. I can not
think Mr. Simpson farmed out Mr. Wallack to the

best advantage, for the first night of the new embellishments
would have filled the house without Wallack.
And very sufficient attraction it were too — for
the interior is most tasteful and elegant; except that
the seats in the boxes are calculated for dwarfs and
children, and the grown-up people sit between the
knees of the person behind. I see no objection that
can be made to the interior of the house. The new
drop curtain is admirably painted, and represents
Shakspere and two or three of the muses, tributary to
the glory of Macready, who sits with a volume in his
hand, the most dignified and conspicuous figure of
the group. The design, I understand, is taken from
a piece of plate presented to the actor in England, and
the use it is put to in the Park fairly out-Barnums
Barnum. The house was crammed, and the band
opened with “Hail Columbia” — (immense applause)
— followed by “Yankee Doodle” — (immense applause).
The gas was let on — (immense applause) —
the curtain was drawn up, and discovered Mrs. Sloman
(disinterred after many years of respected histrionic
sepulture) in the character of Elvira — (immense
applause). Sombody came on as Valverde — (immense
applause). Mr. Barry came on as Pizarro —
(immense applause). Mrs. Hunt came on looking
very handsome — (immense applause). The curtain
dropped on the first act and rose again — (two immense
applauses). Mr. Wallack came on as Rolla
— (immense applause). The high-priest of the Sun
sung his hymn — (immense applause) — and so the play
went on, and, wherever the actors left pauses, there
were immense applauses. And all the actors and supernumeraries
got as much applause as Mr. Wallack.
All charmingly levelling and republican. It was quite
evident, indeed, that the pleasure and interest in the
new lining and reopening of the house was, by much,
the predominant sentiment of the evening, and, as I said
before, Simpson might well have shelved Wallack till
he was more wanted. There were quite enough of
his special admirers present to have “brought the
house down,” it is true; but it was “down” all the
time, and nothing but an outbreak of pipes and French
horns could have emphasized the acclamations any
where in the course of the play. And if Wallack's
attraction depended at all on opportuneness, the majority
of his fashionable friends are out of the city. So
that, altogether, we shall hardly have a fair test of
his success till his second engagement, after Macready.
Meantime, he is barred from all the parts in which
the latter is to appear (“Benedict,” among others, in
which Wallack is far better than Macready), and
driven into the melodrame and farce, in which his
versatility makes him almost as “good a card.” His
“Rolla” was superbly played, and in “Dick Dashall”
it is well known he is unsurpassed. A plan was struck
out by a clever friend of mine, in conversation, of
combining the management of a New York and London
theatre, and of transferring the “gettings-up” in
the way of dresses and the more extensive stage properties.
The splendors of costume and scenery with
which Macready has represented plays within the last
year or two in England, could never be produced here
except by some such transfer, and the communication
by steam is now so rapid and punctual, that it might
be done with economy and convenience. By some
such combination we may stand a chance of renewing
the splendors of theatres in Rome in Nero's time,
though, I fear, the perfuming of the lobbies with
“Sicilian saffron,” and the leading of wine and water
all over the house, by pipes concealed within the
walls, are luxuries gone irrevocably over Lethe's
wharf.

We wish some of our friends knew how much
easier it is to go to the ship-chandler for a cable than
to find a new cobweb in a much-swept upper-story.
“Waste time upon trifles,” quotha! We do waste
time upon them, indeed, if they are not more acceptable
to our readers than twice the bulk of disinterred
“information.” We thought this was settled long
ago, and that the “cap and bells” in which we industriously
labor at folly were considered a part of our
working livery — the least enviable and the most meritorious.
Few things are easier or more stupid than
to be wise — on paper. Nothing is easier, and few
tasks sooner done, than to cram, on any subject, and
astonish the world with “reading” — astonish without
delighting it, that is to say. Give us nothing to do
but to be wise, oh, “approved good masters,” and we
have leisure enough at once for some additional vocation
— clerk in a bank, or principal in a female seminary
— (the two trustworthy offices, we beg leave to
record, which have been thought suitable to our abilities).
Why, there is information enough on any conceivable
subject, and all within ten minutes walk of
where we sit and write, to stupify Minerva; and it is
as easy to unshelf, pick out, and embroider it upon
an editorial, as it is to buy grapes at Bininger's. It is
a very great mistake to suppose that anybody but a
donkey makes a packhorse of his memory, carrying
about the rubbish intended only for a storehouse of
reference. Let who likes

we do not believe he would sell to the newsboys —
which is our noble ambition. So, if you please (or if
you don't please), most worthy critic, we shall go on
“wasting our time upon trifles.” And, by way of a
Parthian fling, let us toss under your nose what Addison
says on this subject: “Notwithstanding pedants
of a pretended depth and solidity are apt to decry the
writings of a polite author as flash and froth, they all
of them show, upon occasion, that they would spare
no pains to arrive at the character of those whom they
seem to despise.” And (Parthian arrow No. 2) what
that esteemed model Lord Foppington says: “To
mind the inside of a book is to entertain one's self
with the forced product of another man's brain. Now
I think a man of quality and breeding may be much
amused with the natural sprouts of his own.” And if
that is not a brace of quotations pungent and apt, we
know as little about quoting as our rebukers aver.

But we have been more specifically snubbed by a
morning paper, and we must say a word specifically
in reply — for the notice, done by no means in an
unfriendly spirit, was wind in our sail, for which
we are grateful, now and always. The writer objects
to our mentioning the nearest thing to woman —
apropos, as the allusion was, of a late change in the
fashion of it. He calls this frivolous! We are not
prepared to go the philosopher's length, that “there
is no such thing as a trifle in the world” — but we put
it point blank to issue, in any man's judgment, if this
be a trifle! Now we are called an unread ignoramus,
but we have read Ovid and Juvenal, and we well remember
blushing over the epithet “linen-wearing,”
applied frequently to the high-priests in the Egyptian
ceremonies — no poor precedent for the like of us, let
us modestly say, and the worthier the precedent the
more you disparage us. Sacred from the earliest
ages was held “cloth of flax,” and sacred in any deferential
mind is, to this day, the mention of linen.
But, history and precedent apart, how have we become
so consecrated, that anything, the least, which appeartains
to woman, is too “frivolous” to be wrapt up in
our rhetoric? The particular aim of the peccant allusion
was to diffuse the knowledge of a new embellishment

for the sex — to give our poor aid to a worthier
clothing of beauty, which, after religion, is quite
the divinest vouchsafe from our Maker. If this be a
trifle, show us your importances! It is no trifle to
devote half a column of a newspaper to a new dahlia
— no trifle to bring to bear a fine-art criticism on a
satin skirt in a painting — no trifle to write for months
about the jet of a fountain. Yet what are these and
a thousand similar topics — what in worthiness and elevation
— even to the outlined shadow of a woman, if
(as it can not) that sweet shadow could be improved?
No! no! — We are not to be driven from our many-years'
worship by such unconsidered taking of exceptions.
We write not, besides, to please any critic —
(male). The New Mirror shall be masculine enough,
but all-tributary to the ladies — God bless them! We
are their slave — bound to bring to their use and knowledge
all that can please, and especially all that can
embellish them. We are here
and “if any man take exception, let him turn the
buckle of his girdle.”

Saunders, the excellent miniature-painter, went
home in the Great Western. He was in this country
about three years, and, though his prices were
much higher than any of our own painters, he had full
occupation from first to last. His delicious miniatures
(some of which you will have seen at Washington)
are scattered through our principal cities, and the
“fleeting show” of some beauty and much worth and
talent is preserved in them. He is a very observing
man, and he made a remark that interested me. He
said that the motive for sitting for a picture in this
country was almost always affection — in England it
was almost always pride. Though among his sitters
were a few of the loveliest women he had ever seen,
the majority were invalids, or old persons who might
soon die, or persons about going on far journeys —
those, in short, who were loved and might soon be
lost. In England, the subject of a miniature is usually
good-looking. It is a young girl the year she
comes out, or a beautiful child before his curls are
shorn to send him to a public school, or a young man,
in his first uniform after entering the army. Pride
appears somewhere in the reason for the doing of the
picture. And Mr. Saunders's remark confirms a previous
impression of my own — that personal beauty is
vastly more valued in countries over the water.

Some years since, Mr. Saunders was appointed
miniature-painter to the king of Hanover, and resided
some time at the royal palace, painting the different
members of the family. I met him subsequently in
Italy (ten years ago), where several noble ladies of
England were sitting to him. His success in this
country should be a stimulus to our own artists, for
he has proved that, spite of the depression of the
times, there is patronage enough for the high degrees
of art. He thought very highly, by-the-way, of Mr.
Hite, the miniature-painter, of this city, who is doubtless
the legitimate heir to his mantle.

Apropos of high prices for the arts, Mr. Catherwood
has opened a subscription, which appeals only
to the rich and liberal; and he is very likely to succeed
in his enterprise, I think. His splendid drawings
in seppia of the ruins of Central America are to
be engraved of the size of the originals, and the price
of one copy is to be a hundred dollars. I saw one
subscription-paper with several names upon it. But
a book of drawings by Catherwood at a hundred dollars,
and a novel of Bulwer's at a shilling, and both
successful, leave at least a wide field of betweenity.
Catherwood is an unsurpassed artist in his line, and I
trust we shall show our appreciation of his genius
while he honors us by residing among us.

The city is somewhat closer packed by the addition
to its contents of Thomas Thumb, jun., Esq., who
has returned from the south in time to escape the
“fell moscheto.” He occupies the American Museum
as before. Mr. Barnum, who is unsurpassed for
felicity of trap, has hit upon an amusing mode of
drawing attention to Mr. Thumb, and giving a “realizing
sense” of his diminutive proportions. On a
pole outside the Museum is placed a well-appointed
mansion, two feet square, with “T. Thumb, jun.” on
the brass-plate of the door. A pair of leather breeches,
about the size of a double opera-glass, hang outside
to dry; a pair of white-topboots of the same proportions
on another nail, and Mr. T.'s hat and coat on
another. The fun lies in all these articles being well-worn.
They are a little shabby indeed; and, in the
boots, the leather is represented as worn a little red
by the straps of his trousers! Whoever got them up
is an artist. Fit as Tommy is to be a “tiger” to
Queen Mab, his boots and breeches would require
stretching.

There is no end to the rivalry of hotels. Cozzens,
of the “American,” is making the attractive show of
Broadway tributary to his house. The former smoking-room
and reading-room on the corner of the second
story are being converted into a superb ladies'
parlor, with a charming look-out over the park and
the new fountain; while the ground floor, formerly a
tailor's shop, is to be devoted to the loungers who
wish to sit in their chairs and see Broadway without
the trouble of walking. As a hotel, from which to
see what is going on to the best advantage, the “American”
will now be the best in the city; and, as mine
host is famous for his table, he may soon gather his
“plum.”

I see by the report of a late trial that an editor, in
the eyes of a counsellor-at-law, is considered “a mechanic
who carries on a newspaper” — the plea being
that a man in this condition of life should be taxed
with but small alimony for a divorced wife. It would
be convenient to some of the tribe to come down to
this classification, though most editors will probably
resist it, as ambitious boys sometimes object to being
let into a show for half-price. I wish the counsellor
had defined the luxuries proper to gentlemen that are
not proper for “mechanics.”

The races between the “Empire” and the other
boats on the Hudson occupy the city talk. I trust
they will have done their uttermost before anybody I
am very fond of has occasion to embark in them — for
I presume it is like the proving of guns. If the
boilers stand this, they will stand anything. The Empire
beats, but not by so much as was anticipated.
She is unmatched for comfort and beauty, however,
and a trip to Albany in her, a month hence, will be a
treat worth looking forward to. She runs as a day-boat
hereafter.

One of the papers announces Count D'Orsay as
already arrived in New York. It is a mistake; and

so, I believe, is the announcement that he is coming
at all. He resisted strong inducements to come out
in the suite of his intimate friend, Lord Durham
(late governor of Canada), and if he had ever contemplated
a visit to America, he would have availed
himself of that opportunity.

Brough, the vocalist, had a concert recently of
renaissance, well-attended and rapturously applauded.
He sung better than ever. Mr. Frank Brown assisted
him — a very promising young singer, who is about
trying his musical fortune in Italy. He has a handsome
person and good talents, as well as an excellent
quality of voice, and will be heard of favorably hereafter,
I have little doubt.

Previous to the last six months, New York has
only been to me a place of transit, and for the benefit
of transitory travellers, it is perhaps worth while to
mention what I have missed till I became a resident.
Like the new Sunday-school pupil who was surprised
with the sight of “A,” of which he had often heard,
though he had never seen it before, I am quite full of
raptures about Hoboken — new to me till a day or two
since. Its extent, beauty, and particularly its nearness
to Broadway, were all surprises. With the exception
of the ferry, it lies at the foot of Barclay
street, which you know runs down from the Astor,
and if the proprietors of that hotel chose to advertise
the proximity of the “Elysian fields” as an attraction
to their establishment, the only objection would lie in
the dread of alarming the apoplectic. The stile over
which you step into these grounds is at the ferry-landing,
and you are immediately under the shade of
avenues leading to covert and winding walks, and to
a park which covers the beautiful promontory of Hobroken,
and which can not be surpassed in the world
for union of glade and distant view. Who keeps
these walks so smooth and trim, who laid them out
and gave them to the public, and who lives in the enviable
residence adjoining them, I do not know. But
the New-Yorkers may be satisfied that they have at
their service, and close at hand, grounds which equal
those of any nobleman in England. On week-days
they seem little frequented, too; though on Sundays,
I am told, the avenues are thronged.

I observed a new fashion in ladies' boots, which
would take, I should think, among the Orientals. The
Arabs, as you know, judge of aristocracy by the test
of a hollow under the instep — that if water will run
under the naked foot when standing on marble, the
ancestors of the owner could not have borne burdens.
Mr. Dick, ladies' bootmaker in Broadway, inserts a
steel spring into the sole to keep it snug under the
instep, supporting the foot very comfortably in walking,
and adding very much to its beauty. The amalgamationists
will probably oppose the fashion, as the
negro foot is entirely excluded from its advantages.

I think there was what is commonly called “an
opening” for a fashionable summer-theatre up town.
Gayety in private circles ceases very much by the first of
May; strangers, travelling for pleasure, and inclined to
bestow themselves for the evenings in the resorts of “silk
attire,” begin to arrive; few leave the city for touring
till August, and the great majority of the better classes
do not leave it at all except for country-seats in
the neighborhood, or for short periods; the other theatres
are shut; and the patrician complexion given to
a place by inducements like the foregoing, is the best
trap for what the manager would call “miscellaneous
patronage;” or, to express it by a maxim of theatrical
economy, white gloves in the first circle will insure
dirty hands in the third.

Mr. Niblo has cleverly stepped into this opening.
His pretty theatre is newly done up in gilding and
blue maroon[1] (an ill-omened stuff for theatrical lining);
it is brilliantly lighted; the scenery is peculiar and
new, and he begins with addressing his entertainment
solely to those who have either aired their manners
with travel, or “fed of the dainties that are bred in a
book.” The French company might as well deliver
themselves in pantomime as sing in French to most
of the ordinary frequenters of our theatres, but the
boxes understand; and it is worth the gallery's time
and money to have a three hours' perusal of the unbonneted
attractions of the boxes — the opera aside.

An “Admirable Crichton” of music, equally wonderful
on the piano-forte and the violin, has appeared
among us, in the person of Mr. Wm. Vincent Wallace,
Director of the Dublin Anacreontic Society.
Those who have heard Paganini and Thalberg, pronounce
decidedly that he is unsurpassed even by those
hitherto unequalled maestros! He performs upon the
piano a grand introduction and variations on the theme
of the Cracovienne, composed by himself. The instrument
becomes a full orchestra, under his hands,
which seems multiplied into a dozen; while, in the
rapid passages, his fingers are invisible as the spokes
of a locomotive-wheel in full career. He has no left
hand, but two right ones, equally independent of each
other. The brilliancy and power of his execution
set off admirably the delicate morceaux of melody interspersed,
and all unite to produce an effect before
unknown to us. But his performance on the violin
surpasses, if possible, that upon the piano. He executes
on this the Carnival of Venice, and the Witches'
Dance of Benevento, and several other difficult compositions,
as originally performed by Paganini, and never
before heard in this country; and the effect is most
startling and thrilling. In his hands, the violin does
more than speak — it sings, shrieks, supplicates, reproaches,
dies, revives, and realizes the fancy of Balzac,
that a soul is imprisoned within it. With his
bow he scatters a bright shower of melody through
the air, and rasps diamond-sparkles from the strings.
Our language may seem extravagant, but it falls far
short of the reality. Musicians are in raptures with
the fulness and purity of his tones, the decision and
accuracy of his stopping, his left-handed pizzicato,
and his double notes on the fourth string. We rejoice
that such an artist bears an English name, and
proves that wonderful musical genius is not confined
to foreign nations.

At the London Opera, no gentleman is admitted
who is not in full dress. Ladies go there jewelled,
decolletées, and unbonneted of course. It is dress-place.

Ladies must have a place to “dress.”

The New York ladies have ceased to dress gayly
in the street.

Private parties are not a sufficient vent for the passion
of dress among ladies.

Now, Mr. Niblo, do you see your way?

The above is a literal copy of a memorandum we
made for an article, while sitting out the expectant
half hour before the rising of the curtain, a night or
two ago, at the French Opera. We pitch it at you
head foremost, dear reader, because you are sometimes
willing to take us in the lump, or seriatim, as it
is convenient for us to deliver ourselves — but more
particularly because the printer is clamorous for copy,
and, hurried or not hurried, copied we like to be.

But, to our text. A dress-opera is happily entailed
upon us by the change of the sumptuary character
of Broadway. Ladies now (and very likely we are

telling our country-friends a bit of news) are under
the necessity of having two bonnets. There must be
a plain straw with a green veil, to soften down and
properize any appearance in the street, on foot and
unattended. There must be a dress-bonnet for morning
calls, matinées, breakfast-parties, wedding-visits,
and, generally, for all daylight departures from home,
on errands of ceremony or pleasure. This dress-bonnet
requires other concomitants in keeping — lace,
feathers, flowers — whatever is required for a full parure.
And a full parure requires a carriage, of course.
And a carriage requires a fortune. And as all this is
the fashion, nobody can be fashionable who is not
rich. And so comes in the dynasty of the aristocracy
of money!

Now we like all this — offensive as it seems, at the
first blush, to a republican eye. Part the extremes —
widen the distance between wealth and poverty — and
you make room for a middle class, which is not yet
recognised in our country — everybody who is not
absolutely poor, striving to seem absolutely rich. Of
this middle class, literary men are a natural part and
parcel. So are many of the worthiest and most intelligent
people of this country — people who are now
occupying a station in life like Mohammed's coffin,
neither on the earth of poverty nor in the heaven of
riches, and in sad lack of a resting-place between.
Once recognise that station in society — once make it
respectable to set aside certain extravagances in dress
and living as not proper for a condition in life which
is still far above poverty — and you set at ease thousands
of families that are now subjected to endless
uncertainties and mortifications. It requires, now,
both judgment and vigilance for many ladies not to
dress far above their condition in life — yet what more
distasteful than to have seen the husband in his place
of business, careworn and distressed, and the next
minute to meet his wife in Broadway, dressed out of all
keeping with his gains, and of course with no sympathy
for his troubles! We believe that, in fact, the ladies
are of our way of thinking in this matter. It is uncomfortable
for pride to be always “treading water,”
as the swimmers say. Better sink, and sink, and
sink, till you come to your true level — anybody will
say.

Of course we follow nature, however, and of course
we except beauty from all homely precepts and economies.
The peacock and the butterfly pay no penalty
that we know of for their extra-furnishings from
the shop of Rainbow & Co. Their business on earth
is to delight the eye; and that, we religiously believe,
is the errand of human beauty as well. No! Let
there be no “condition in life” for beautiful women!
Nature's princesses they are by the instinctive consent
of human nature; and the homage we can not but pay,
let us be bold enough to acknowledge. As to beauty's
being, “when unadorned, adorned the most,” it
is true of nothing but a statue. In real life, we think
flowers and gems are the natural belongings and ornaments
of personal loveliness. All beauty should be
so furnished — even if ugliness be compelled to “service
dure” to procure them.

But to return to the opera. Ladies should be reminded
that nothing adds more to the cheerfulness of
the scene, and its consequent attraction, than light
and bright colors. A dark dress has no business at
the opera, though indeed the dress itself may be
anything, so that the bust and head, which are alone
seen, are dressed gayly. No bonnets, and least of all,
veils! Let us have a dress place of amusement. Let
there be a resort in the long and vacant hours after
business, where we can seem to enter a brighter chamber
of this dingy world, and be compelled (we men)
to dress ourselves, and feel in a more holyday and liberal
atmosphere.

In the window of a Broadway shop we noticed, the
other day, a China dinner-set, otherwise magnificent,
but deformed by a representation on each plate of
“The great fire in New York.” Thus, on every festive
occasion, the guests would have their gayety
dampened by the suggestion of that scene of loss,
danger, and suffering. Such bad taste is too frequent.
It would be equally easy to impress devices calculated
to arouse cheerful and enlivening associations;
but, as a people, we are too careless of such matters.
Trifles in themselves they may be; but such little
items of enjoyment — such grains of pleasure — make
up in time quite a mountain of happiness.

Theodore Hook. — Good dinners will not make a
man immortal. The prince of diners-out is dead. It
would seem as if “good living” meant long living
too — for who ever thought Theodore Hook could
die! — “a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent
fancy.” “Where be your gibes now? your gambols?
your songs? your flashes of merriment that were wont
to set the table in a roar? Not one now, to mock
your own grinning!” We have carried out the quotation
somewhat with a feeling of bitterness — not
against the dead, but for him. We could have begun
the passage with Hamlet — “Alas, poor Yorick! — I
knew him, Horatio!” Everybody knew Theodore
Hook, who has been “summered and wintered” in
London, and we knew him as others did, with that
far-reaching and half-pitying admiration which is
given to a wit of all work — a joker never out of harness
— a “funny man” by profession, as the children
thought Mathews. We have seen Theodore Hook
make excellent hits, and we have seen him make desperate
failures — many failures to one hit, indeed. But
so it must be, as every one knows who has thought
twice on wit as a “good continuer.”

Hook was the editor of the “John Bull” newspaper,
and his portrait would have served for its imprint.
He was the personification of John Bull, as the French
fancy him, and as he is represented on the stage.
Above the middle height, he looked short, from being
corpulent and short-necked. His person was “stocky”
altogether — thick legs, high chest, short arms, and
bluff, rubicund, and rather defying features. We have
not heard of what he died; but, we presume, of apoplexy,
for he looked of that habit, and lived in a way
to produce and feed it. Over his brows, however,
there seemed to be a region, like the sun above clouds
on a mountain-side, brighter than that below. His
forehead was ample and white, his head smoothly bald,
and, if the observer had seen but that portion of Theodore
Hook, he would have formed of him a far higher
opinion than in following him downward. To that
tablet of intellect his works of imagination, we believe,
never did justice. His novels are third-rate,
while his native powers were first-rate, and against
those two unattained steps on the ladder of immortality,
Hook's poor offset was his very mortal celebrity as
a table-wit — the diner-out, par excellence, of his day.

We believe in omens. In the days of Charlemagne
large possessions were transferred, not with wax and
paper, but with a ring. A ring has been given us by
a well-wishing stranger, and we here signify our belief
that, in it is transferred to us the prosperity of
the former proprietor — dead two thousand years ago
at the very least, but undeniably a most prosperous
gentleman. Let us look a little at the evidence.

It is generally supposed, we believe, that the mummies
preserved to this day are, in all human probability,

from two to three thousand years old. Some time
before the advent of our Savior, Egypt had become a
Roman province, and the more costly usages of the
Egyptians had been done away — the embalming of
the bodies of the rich and great being among the
most costly. Those which have defied time and corruption,
through two thousand years, of course were
such as were embalmed with the most cost and care,
and the poor, the antiquarians tell us, were merely
dried by salt and laid away in the catacombs. The
rings and other ornaments of the mummied great
were wrapped up with them.

The ring that was given us three days ago is of
silver, holding a stone covered with Arabic characters,
and was taken from the finger of a mummy,
bought at a great price for exhibition, and partly
opened. It is of rude work, and if Egypt's jewellers
did their best upon it, we can but say that our friend
Tenney, of Broadway, was only born too late to astonish
the Pharaohs. We have not yet found an Arabic
scholar to decipher it, but, if we had not known it to
be Arabic (or Coptic), we should have said it was a
device of three stars, a wrench, and two streaks of lightning
— very properly expressive of our three selves
(the editors and publisher), our manner of work, and
the way the Mirror is to go. And, on the whole, we
shall let it rest at that — without further translation.

We are not sure that, if the former proprietor of
this silver ring could wake, he would think his finger-ornament
handed down in the same line of life. The
classifications of society under the Ptolemies would
have put us down low (priests, soldiers, shepherds,
swineherds, mechanics, interpreters, and fishermen —
the literary profession being the last but one), yet,
after all, there is a resemblance between us, and I am
happy to say (no offence to the mummy) that it is not
in our personal appearance! It was necessary, to
embalm this gentleman, that his brains should first be
extracted through his nostrils. We trust to be embalmed
by letting ours ooze from our fingers' ends —
and, on the whole, we may say, we prefer our way of
doing it. But that is all. We see no other resemblance.
The Egyptian was circumcised. He was
gloomy and superstitious. He increased his poultry
by artificially hatching eggs. The husband had the
charge of the domestic concerns; the wife of buying
and selling, and all affairs that were not of a domestic
character. He hated songs and dances. He
was a stranger to gayety, and he drank nothing
stronger than barley-beer. We trust that it is no
vanity on our part to congratulate his ring on conversance
for the future with a more pleasant state of
things — aristocratic comparisons apart.

Prosperous the Mirror is to be — thanks to the liberal
giver of the ring that foreshadows it! But (to
“out with a secret”) we should feel easier if the envious
would begin to manifest their displeasure. We
have a dread of “the primrose way to the everlasting
bonfire,” and should feel safer in a thornier path than
we tread now. This pushing all of one side makes
us fancy we topple. We would try our friends at opposition.
Feathers that go down with one wind
mount with a counter-current. We “cotton” to old
King Osymandyas, who caused to be graven on his
Colossus: “I am King Osymandyas — if any man will
know my greatness let him destroy one of my works.”
And of that jolly old monarch, the first owner of our
ring was possibly a subject — conjunctive omen of our
road to prosperity.

Beards in New York. — It is odd how a fashion
creeps from one country to another, unaware. Has
it occurred to you what a bearded nation we have become
within the last year or two — imitating La Jeune
France in that and other accompanying particulars?
My attention was called to it yesterday by a friend just
returned from a long residence in Europe. He was
expressing very emphatically his annoyance at the
loss of his mustache. On coming in sight of land
he had gone below and sacrificed it, as a thing “most
tolerable and not to be endured,” among the sober
friends to whom he was returning; when lo! on landing
— every second man in a full suit of beard! His
mustache and imperial chanced to be very becoming
to him, and his mortification, at being compelled to
put them again into nascent stubble, was unbounded.

Two schools of dress have prevailed in France for
the last six or seven years — the classic and the romantic;
the former with the Brutus head, short hair
and apparel of severe simplicity, and the other with
flowing locks, fanciful beard, and great sumptuousness
of cravat and waistcoat. The “romantic” is the
only one which has “come over,” and it prevails at
present in New York, with (to use the popular phrase)
“a perfect looseness.” Almost every man below forty
has tried his beard on, and most of the young men
about town show their fancy in something beyond the
mere toothbrush-whisker of the military. The latter,
by-the-way, is the only beard “let out” by the London
men whom the packets bring over, and in England
the synonyme is rigorous between “mustache”
and “adventurer.” It seems to me, however, that the
principles of taste which should affect the fashion of
a beard are but little regarded among us, and I rather
wonder that some ambitious barber has not set himself
up as an authority — to decide their shape by private
consultation, according to feature and complexion.
Perhaps I may feed a want of the era by putting
down what I have gathered on the subject of
beards by reading and travel.

In a country where all the hair which nature has
planted on the face is permitted to grow, a shaved
man certainly looks very silly. After a short passage
from Asia Minor to Malta, the clean-shaved English
officers struck me as a very denuded and inexpressive-looking
race, though much more athletic and handsome
than the Orientals I had left. The beards of
old men, particularly, are great embellishments, covering
as they do, the mouth, which most shows age
and weakness, by loss of teeth and feebleness of
muscle. When the mouth is covered, the whole expression
of the face is concentrated in the eyes, and
it is surprising how much the eyes gain in character
and brilliancy by a full mustache. A luxuriant and
silky beard on a young and clear skin is certainly very
beautiful, though, according to medical observation,
the faculties are much better matured when the beard
comes late. In bearded countries, the character is
very much judged of by the beard. There is an old
Irish proverb which says: —

In irritable persons, the beard grows thin and dry.
In those of milder temper it is thick and slightly
curling. The beard is affected very sensibly by the
nature of a man's nourishment; and this explains
why they know an aristocrat in the East by the luxuriance
of this appendage — poor food deteriorating its
quality. Diplomatists should always wear the mustache,
as it is much easier to control the expression
of the eye than of the mouth — useful to card-players
and stock-brokers, for the same reason. Shaving
among the ancients was a mark of mourning — though
at the era when beards were out of fashion, they were
let grow, by those who had lost friends. When a
man's mouth is beautiful and expressive, the beard
which covers it is a disadvantage, and we may guess
that Scipio Africanus (the first Roman who shaved
every day) wore on his lips the tenderness and magnanimity
which he displayed toward the bride of the
captive Allucius. The first shaving barber was one
Ticinius Mænas, who came from Sicily to Rome
about three hundred years before Christ, and then
commenced an era of smooth chins, interrupted, for a
short while only, by the emperor Adrian, who wore his
beard to conceal warts on his chin. With most nations
the beard has been considered an ornament. Moses
commanded the Jews not to shave, and the ancient
Germans, and the Asiatics of a later day, have considered
no insult so mortal as the cutting off of one man's
beard by another. In France, shaving came into
fashion during the reigns of Louis XIII. and XIV.,
both of these monarchs having ascended the throne
when beardless, and their subjects imitating them, of
course. And as France gave the law of fashion to all
Europe, the sacrifice of part of the beard grew to be
common, though it is only since the beginning of the
last century that the shaving of the whole beard became
universal.

I have noticed, in New York, that men, who had formerly
no pretensions to good looks, have become very
handsome by the wearing of mustache and imperial,
and I have seen handsome men disfigured by adopting
the same fashion. The effect of a mustache and full
beard is to make the face more masculine, graver, and
coarser, and this is, of course, an improvement to one
whose features are over-delicate, or whose expression
is too frivolous. On a dapper man, it is quite out of
place, and he should wear a clipped whisker, if any
beard at all. The beard, I think, gives a middle-aged
look, and makes a man of twenty look older, and a
man of forty younger. The ladies like a beard — naturally
thinking faces effeminate which are as smooth
as their own, and not objecting to the distinctions
which nature has made between the sexes. When
the beard is but partially worn, some artistical knowledge
should be called in, as a short face may be made
longer, and a broad face narrower, a gay face graver,
and an undecided chin put in domino. But of all
abominations in this way, I think, the goat's beard,
growing under the chin only, is the most brutal and
disgusting, though just now, in New York, rather the
prevailing fashion. The mistake in taste is very common,
of continuing to wear a high shirt collar and
cravat, with a beard on the cheek and throat — the
beauty of a curling beard depending very much on its
freedom and natural adaptation to the mould of the
face. There are more people than Beatrice, of course,
who are willing to let a man's beard be “of the color
that God pleases,” but there are others who have
aversions to red beards and yellow, and there is great
trade in cirages and gums for the improvement of color
and texture. Most of the beards you meet in Broadway
glitter in the sun like steel filings. Altogether, I
think the fashion of wearing the beard a desirable one,
and I particularly wish it would prevail among old
men. A bearded senate would make a wiser and more
reverend show in congress, and anything which conceals
the decrepitude of age and moves respect (as
beards certainly do, both), is most desirable.

Macready's first Night. — Macready had a full,
not an overflowing house, to witness his debut last
night, and there were more of his own profession
among the audience than I ever before saw together
— (partly, perhaps, from curiosity to hear the “readings”
of Shakspere which the drop curtain represents
Macready as giving to the Muses). The play was
Macbeth, and Mr. Ryder, who accompanies Mr. Macready,
came on first as Macduff, and was very warmly
received — applauded, indeed, throughout the play, as
his playing deserved. He is a very correct actor, and
a “fine figure of a man.” Macready's appearance
brought the house “down” of course. He went at his
interview with the witches most artistically, and the
witches did their bedevilments more artistically than
we have seen them done before, and so of all the trick
and machinery of the play — for Macready is master
of “stage business,” and the scenery and supernumeraries
had been effectually cleared of cobwebs. The
play went on — with a beautiful procession of effects,
particularly by Macready in his exits and entrances,
his salutations and surprises — and to the theatre-going
people present it was an exhibition of drama-panorama
curiously managed, and all as clean and neat as
machinery — and just as moving. The attention was
close, but the applause grew less and less. I never
saw so cold a house. The most stormy and passionate
outbreaks of Macbeth's mingled ambition and remorse
were received like the catastrophes in a puppet-show
— with an unexcited smile of surprise. Each
“point” the actor made was looked at like the wheel
of a clock shown piecemeal. There was no passion
in the audience, no illusion, no general interest in the
progress of the story of the play — in short, no feeling.

My own sensations during the evening were those
of pain and annoyance. Mr. Macready is so accomplished
an artificer in his profession — everything he
does is so admirably “studied up” —

that a cold reception of so much pains seems most
ungracious. When he came in and knelt to the king
— when he entered Duncan's chamber to murder him
— when he received the first suggestions of crime from
Lady Macbeth — I could have shouted myself hoarse
with admiration of the artist — it was all done so differently
from another man, and so skilfully in a high
and finished conception of the character. Every step
he took on the stage was a separate study. Every
look, gesture, movement, was consummate. As pantomime
it would have been absolutely faultless. Yet,
strange to say, he walks the stage like a transparent
man — showing all his anatomy. He wants clothing
with natural flesh and blood. His voice wants nature.
It sounds like the breaking of crockery in a dry well.
He feels no passion and he moves none. What a pity
that scholarship, study, labor, patience, and taste,
should fall short, in their result, of the most unlabored
off-throwing of genius!

Italian Opera. — I saw only the first act of “Lucia
de Lammermoor,” and found little to admire except
the performance of the orchestra. Signor Antognini
certainly did not come up to his reputation as
a tenor, and he is the great star of the company. He
is a curious-looking man to play the lover. The muscles
of his face pull, every one, upon his nostrils, like
“taut halliards,” and with eyebrows pointing fiercely
at the bridge of his nose, and the mouth like an angry
dash of a pen under an emphasized word, he looks as
Mephistophilish as one of Retzch's drawings. Madame
Majocchi, the prima donna, is a fat woman with
a fat voice. She has a good contralto footing in her
throat, but her soprano notes are painfully tiptoe, and
you are glad when she is comfortably at the bottom
of her cadenza. The company appears pretty well
drilled, but they want a prima donna, and if they could
find a prima donna in want of them (Castellan, for instance)
we might have good opera. They say that
Antognini's voice is only grass-grown from neglect,
and that he would do brilliantly after a little practice.
Considering the certain fortune that waits upon a fine
tenor, it is surprising that there should continue to be
so few aspirants for the honors of the Rubini; for it
can not be that there are only half a dozen (if so
many) of human voices possessing his capabilities of
tone and cultivation. There is probably “full many

a” postillion of Lonjumeau “born to” “waste his
sweetness on the desert air,” and it would be a good
speculation to look them up and buy a life-interest in
their thoracic capabilities.

Dr. Howe. — It will be a curious piece of news to
you that our countryman, Dr. Howe (lately married
and gone abroad) has been stopped on the borders of
Prussia by a cabinet order, and of course is shut out
from so much of the Rhine as lies (if my geography
serves me) between Coblentz and Cologne. This
special edict on the part of a king with a standing
army of two hundred thousand men is no small compliment
to Dr. Howe's consequence; but perhaps it
would interest you to be made acquainted with the
cetera intus.

About ten years ago I had the honor (and as such
I shall always treasure the memory) of sharing Dr.
Howe's lodgings at Paris for some months. He was
then employed in learning that system of instruction
for the blind upon which he has since grafted improvements
that have made him a separate fame
among philanthropists. Philanthropy seems to be
his engrossing and only mission in life, however; for,
though giving the most of his day to the objects of
his special errand, he found time to make himself the
most serviceable man in France to the cause of Poland.
The disasters of Warsaw had filled Paris with
destitute refugees, and distinguished men who had
shared in that desperate battle were literally houseless
in the streets. Our common breakfast-room was
thronged with these unfortunate patriots, and, with
noble liberality, Dr.Howe kept open table for all who
came to him — many of them, to my knowledge, getting
no food elsewhere, and, among others, Lelewel,
the distinguished poet and patriot, coming in one
morning to ask a breakfast, as I well recollect, after
having slept out a winter's night in the street. Lafayette
was at that time at the head of the Polish
committee, and Fenimore Cooper (whose generosity
to the Poles should be chronicled, as well as the devotion
of his time and talents to the cause) shared
with Dr. Howe the counsel and most efficient agency
of the benevolent old man. At this time a sum of
money was raised to be sent, with some important and
secret despatches, to the Poles who had fled into
Prussia, and Dr. Howe offered to be the bearer. I
went with him to the Mesagerie and saw him off in
the diligence, very little suspecting the dangerous
character of his errand. He arrived at Berlin, and,
after passing the evening abroad, returned to his
hotel, and found a couple of gens-d'armes in his
room. They informed him that he must accompany
them to the police. The doctor understood his position
in a moment. By a sudden effort he succeeded
in pitching both the soldiers out of the room and closing
the door, for it was all-important that he should
gain time to destroy papers that he had about him.
The gens-d'armes commenced a parley with him
through the bolted door, which resulted in a compact
that he should be let alone till morning, on condition
of his agreeing to go with them peaceably at daylight
— they keeping sentry outside. He had no light,
but he passed the night in tearing into the smallest
possible fragments the important papers, and soaking
them in water. Among his papers, however, were
two or three letters from Lafayette to himself which
he wished to preserve, and after examining the room
he secreted these in the hollow of a plaster cast of the
king which chanced to be there, and so saved them;
for, though the minute fragments were picked out
and put together again (as he subsequently discovered),
he wrote to a friend at Berlin, six months after, who
went to the hotel and found the secreted letters safe
in the plaster king's keeping!

At dawn Dr. Howe opened his door, and was
marched immediately to prison. By chance, on the
evening of his arrival, he had met an American in the
entry of the hotel, who had recognised him, and the
next day came to call. From the mysterious manner
in which the people of the house denied all knowledge
of what had become of him, this gentleman suspected
an arrest, and wrote to Mr. Rives, our then minister
to France, stating his suspicion. Mr. Rives immediately
demanded him of the Prussian government, and
was assured, in reply, that they knew nothing of the
person in question. Mr. Rives applied a second time.
Dr. Howe had now been six weeks in solitary confinement,
and at the end of this period he was taken
out in silence and put into a carriage with closed windows.
They drove off, and it was his own terrible
belief for the first day that he was on his way to Siberia.
By the light through the covering of the carriage,
however, he discovered that he was going westward.

The sudden transition from close confinement to
the raw air, threw him into a fever, and on the third
day of his silent journey he begged to be allowed to
stop and consult a physician. They refused. On
the next morning, while changing horses, a physician
was brought to the carriage-door, who, after seeing
the prisoner, wrote a certificate that he was able to
proceed, and they again drove on. That day they
crossed a corner of the Hanoverian dominions, and,
while stopping for a moment in a village, Dr. Howe
saw the red coats of some officers, and by a bold attempt
escaped from his guards and threw himself on
their protection. They quietly restored him to the
Prussians, and the carriage drove on once more — his
guard finally setting him down at Metz, on the borders
of Prussia, with orders never to enter again the
Prussian dominions. At present he is at Baden-Baden,
and Mr. Everett is engaged in a negotiation,
through the Prussian minister at London (Chevalier
Bunsen), for the revocation of the cabinet order, and
permission for a simple citizen of the United States
to show his bride the Rhine! Mr. Greene, our consul
at Rome, who is now in New York, informs me
that Dr. Howe is also on the black list of the king
of Naples — of course as a general champion of liberty.

Dr. Howe's first reputation, as is well known, was
made as a Philhellene in the Greek revolution. He
left this country entirely without means, having just
completed his studies in surgery, and worked his passage
to Greece. He entered the service as surgeon,
and soon gained the highest promotion — serving part
of the time on board the armed steamer commanded
by Hastings — the only fault found with him being (as
a Hanoverian comrade of his told me at Paris) that he
would be in the fight, and was only a surgeon when
the battle was over. His whole career in Greece was
one of gallant acts of bravery, generosity, and self-sacrifice,
as represented by his companions there — and
if he could ever be made to overcome the unwillingness
with which he speaks of himself, his history of
personal adventure would, without doubt, be one of
the most curiously-interesting naratives in the world.
Dr. Howe's slight person, delicate and beautiful features,
and soft voice, would give one the impression
that he was more at home in his patient labor of winding
light through the labyrinth of the sense-imprisoned
Laura Bridgman; but a more fiery spirit, and one
more reluctant to submit to the details of quiet life,
does not exist, and the most trying service he has ever
done in the cause of philanthropy, I sincerely believe,
is this discipline of his tumultuous energies to the
patient teaching of the blind. He is still a young
man — not yet forty, I believe. I could not trust my
admiration and affection to say more of his character
than the giving of this simple statement of facts.

The New York American, after quoting from what
the editor calls “the agreeably gossiping New York correspondent
of the National Intelligencer,” remarks that
“this correspondence is not, to be sure, very reliable for
matters of fact” — which is very like disparaging a hasty
pudding for not being a rump-steak. This style of
criticising things by telling what they are not, suits the
“American” in the two respects, that it is both easy
and oracular. But I should prefer to be tried rather
by what I undertake to do, which is certainly not to
send you simply “matters of fact.” To wait for the
winnowing of error and exaggeration from truth, would
be to send you a correspondence as stale as some of
the columns in which I am found fault with. I profess
nothing of the kind. I send you the novelty and
gossip of the hour, and you, and all others (except
those who are “nothing if not critical,” and must find
a fault) take it as they take what they hear in their
day's walk — as material for conversation and speculation,
which may be mere rumor, may be truth. I am
happy to amuse a New York editor, but I do not write
for one so near my sources of information. I write
with only such of your subscribers in my eye as are
not resident in New York — who want a gay daguerreotype
of the floating news and chit-chat of the hour,
such as they would have gathered by observation and
conversation, if they had passed in New York the day
on which I write. Loose as is all this ministry to the
love of news, however, I will lay any bet which I could
have the conscience to take from that editor, that,
comparing paragraph by paragraph with his own paper,
for twenty columns, I will find more misstatements
in his than in my own — though you would
think by his criticism that he never committed an
error in his life.

And apropos of my sins of correspondence, I find
that propriety begins to require that all words signifying
exhilarating drinks must henceforth be decently
disembowelled — that cobblers must be written c — s,
and julaps j — s, slings s — s, and punches p — s.
I have had three letters and one poetic appeal addressed
to me, remonstrative against my shameless
mention of these iniquitous beverages in so exemplary
a paper as the Intelligencer. I consider this an exponent
of the leading enthusiasm of the era, and willingly
give way. One of my rebukers attacked me
more particularly for what he considered a slighting
allusion to the coming of Father Mathew to America.
To this, in intention at least, I plead not guilty. I
revere the character of that great reformer, and I consider
his mission sacred and salutary. My submission
shall be more emphatic, if necessary.

Macready draws well, and the town is fully occupied
in discussing why he only astonishes and never moves
the feelings of his audience. He is a most accomplished
player, and in these days, when theatrical
criticism can neither help nor harm an actor, he can
pursue the even tenor of his style with little interruption.

Longfellow, a poet who combines genius and workmanlike
finish, is in New York, under the care of
Elliot, the oculist. I trust he will keep an undamaged
pair of eyes, though the loss of sight would turn a
great deal of new light inward upon his mind — as it
did upon Milton's — and be a gain to the glory of his
country.

I am ministered to while writing to-day by the most
deliciously-tempered autumn air that ever intoxicated
the heart of a ripening grape. I only lament that the
distinct pleasure I feel in every pore and fibre will not
be channelled into the nib of my pen and flow to you
in rhetoric. The wind is a little northerly, however,
and it may bring you a sample.

To the Ladies. — We have nothing to write about
this morning, ladies! — quite nothing. We presume
you know that the crocus yellow and the blue of your
own eyes are the fashionable colors; that Middleton
cuts his slippers low behind for such ladies as know
what is becoming to the foot; that the late strain after
economy is yielding to a rebound of extravagance
(consequently, this winter you can wear nothing too
gorgeously sumptuous); that ruinous bracelets are utterly
indispensable to wrists with a swan's neck in them,
and that the New Mirror (pardon us!) is of the fashionable
crocus teint without, and as “blue” within as is
bearable by the copyrighted and intoxicating benightedness
of beauty. If you had sent for us to your
boudoir and ordered our memory spread out upon a
silk cushion, we could tell you no more.

If you are interested at all in us — we are having,
this morning, our little private mope, with no possible
flight of fancy beyond the ends of our fingers. We
have been sitting here two hours making caryatides to
hold up some spilt ink on our blotting-paper — (rather
nicely drawn, one of them, and looks like a Greek girl
we saw at Egina). Then we have had a revery on political
economy — musing, that is to say, whether we
should wear a ring on our right hand (which belongs
to the working-classes) or on the left, which is purely
an ornamental idler, born but to be gloved and kept
gentlemanly. Now, what do you think on that subject!
Here is this most virtuous and attached right
hand of ours, an exemplary and indefatigable provider
for himself and the other members of our family, who
has never failed to bring bread to our mouths since we
placed our dependance on him, and why should he
not be ornamented and made trim and respectable,
first and foremost. He is not defiled by his work. He
is clean when he is washed. He is made on the same
model as the idle dangler opposite, and though he
could do very well without that same Mr. Sinister
Digits, there would be no “living” for Mr. Sinister
Digits without him! Most meritorious worky! Put
the ring on his forefinger!

Um! it does not look so well on that hand! There
is a dingy groove on the inside of the second finger
(which you would not remark, perhaps, but for the
conspicuousness of the jewel) — a nasty soil of an
ill-effaced ink-spot, made by a quill. Faith! it calls
attention to “the shop,” and would do so in good
company! He must work in gloves if he is to be observed!
And the ring is not so becomingly carried as
by that other plumper and more taper gentleman,
whose joints, with less dexterity, look supple, and,
truth to own, more suitable!

No — no! “Take back the ring!” The bee works
hard enough to have his pick of wings, but he would
only be cumbered with the butterfly's. Indulgence
for ever to the ornamentals! Money to the ladies
whether you have it or no! Credit to the dandies!
And, befitting brown bread and plain blessings for the
labor-stained right hands of society — our own among
the worky-most and least complaining!

We have been ring-mad since the mummy's ring
(mentioned on a previous page) was slipped upon our
finger, and we have pulled out from our store of relics
a huge emerald (in whose light is locked up a history)
and it was of the wearing of it that we mused in this
morning's mope of idleness. The world is set in a
solid emerald, says the Mohammedan — “the emerald
stone Sakhral, the agitations of whose light cause
earthquakes.” We would make a pilgrimage (if our

“travels” would sell) to see the great “mother of emeralds”
worshipped by the Peruvians in the valley of
Manta — big as a gourd and luminous at murk midnight
(or so they say). Excuse us, when we meet
you, if we proffer our left hand for courtesy, for, on
the forefinger of that sits our agitated emerald — the
right hand kept, unrewarded by your touch, to serve
you only. Adieu — till they are dead who are to die
(one a minute) ere another Saturday — for, at the close
of our overflowings into your cup, this sad thought
runs over! And if, in the midst of our trifling, Providence
ministers such thoughts to us, they can scarce
be unseasonable, passed on, in the same company, to
you.

Mrs. Flimson. — Few women had more gifts than
Mrs. Flimson. She was born of clever parents, and
was ladylike and good-looking. Her education was
that of a female Crichton, careful and universal; and
while she had more than a smattering of most languages
and sciences, she was up to any flight of fashion,
and down to every secret of notable housewifery.
She piqued herself, indeed, most upon her plain accomplishments
(thinking, perhaps, that her more uncommon
ones would speak for themselves); and it
was a greater triumph, to her apprehension, that she
could direct the country butcher to the sweet-bread
in slaughtering his veal, and show a country-girl how
to send it to table with the proper complexion of a riz
de veau, than that she could entertain any manner of
foreigner in his own language, and see order in the
stars and diamonds in backlogs. Like most female
prodigies, whose friends expect them to be matched
as well as praised, Mrs. Flimson lost the pick of the
market, and married a man very much her inferior.
The pis aller, Mr. Flimson, was a person of excellent
family (after the fashion of a hill of potatoes —
the best part of it under ground), and possessed of a
moderate income. Near the meridian sun of a metropolis,
so small a star would of course be extinguished;
and as it was necessary to Mrs. Flimson's
existence that she should be the cynosure of something,
she induced her husband to remove to the
sparser field of a distant country-town, where, with
her diplomatic abilities, she hoped to build him up
into a member of congress. And here shone forth
the genius of Mrs. Flimson. To make herself perfectly
au fait of country habits, usages, prejudices,
and opinions, was but the work of a month or two of
stealthy observation. At the end of this short period,
she had mastered a manner of rustic frankness (to be
put on at will); she had learned the secret of all rural
economies; she had found out what degree of gentility
would inspire respect without offending, or exciting
envy, and she had made a near estimate of the
influence, consequence, and worth-trouble-ness of
every family within visiting distance.

With this ammunition, Mrs. Flimson opened the
campaign. She joined all the sewing-circles of the
village, refusing steadily the invidious honor of manager,
pattern-cutter, and treasurer; she selected one
or two talkative objects for her charity, and was studiously
secret in her manner of conveying her benefactions.
She talked with farmers, quoting Mr. Flimson
for her facts. She discoursed with the parson,
quoting Mr. Flimson for her theology. She was
intelligent and witty, and distributed plentiful scraps
of information, always quoting Mr. Flimson. She
managed the farm and the household, and kept all the
accounts — Mr. Flimson was so overwhelmed with
other business! She talked politics, admitting that
she was less of a republican than Mr. Flimson. She
produced excellent plans for charitable associations,
town improvements, and the education of children —
all the result of Mr. Flimson's hours of relaxation.
She was — and was only — Mr. Flimson's humble vicegerent
and poor representative. And everything would
seem so much better devised if he could have expressed
it in person!

But Mr. Flimson was never nominated for congress,
and Mrs. Flimson was very well understood
from the first by her country neighbors. There was
a flaw in the high polish of her education — an error
inseparable from too much consciousness of porcelain
in this crockery world. To raise themselves sufficiently
above the common level, the family of Mrs.
Flimson habitually underrated vulgar human nature,
and the accomplished daughter, good at everything
else, never knew where to find it. She thinks herself
in a cloud, floating far out of the reach of those
around her, when they are reading her at arm's length
like a book. She calculates her condescension for
“forty fathom deep,” when the object of it sits beside
her. She comes down graciously to people's capacity,
and her simplicity is set down for trap. And still
wondering that Mr. Flimson is allowed by his country
to remain in obscurity, and that stupid rustics will not
fuse and be moulded by her well-studied congenialities,
she begins to turn her attention to things more
on her own level, and on Sundays looks like a saint
distressed to be out of heaven. But for that one
thread of contempt woven into the woof of her education,
Mrs. Flimson might have shone as a star in
the world where she glimmers like a taper.

I think that a walk in New York to-day, if you had
been absent a year, would impress you very strongly
with the outbreak of showiness in costume. Whatever
spirit it is that presides over the fashions we take
so implicitly from France, he (this spirit of woof and
color) has well suited the last and newest invoice to a
moment of reaction from economy. Or (what may
better define the present era, perhaps) the moment
after prosperity has almost universally changed hands.
The stuffs in the shop-windows of Broadway are of a
splendor that would scarce be ventured upon (in the
street at least) by the severity of last year's aristocratic
taste; but the eruption has spread from the shop-windows
over the sidewalk, and the ladies are verily rainbow
clad! The prevailing colors are yellow and blue;
the most of the dresses put all the prismatic colors
under contribution, and the wearers would make Chinese
figures for Gobelin tapestry. It would be a fine
speculation in upholstery, indeed, to buy the cast-off
dresses of this period, and lay them up to sell for
window-curtains to the next generation. But the
ladies have it by no means to themselves. They are
only bolder and more consistent in their “bravery of
suits.” The waistcoats and cravats have taken a long
stride into splendor, leaving the coats and trousers in
their accustomed sobriety of hue. Jennings's great
emporium, opposite the Park, might furnish the
knights and courtiers for a new “field of cloth of
gold,” so effulgent are the velvets and satins; though
the bold youths who have ventured to put forth into
Broadway with their glittering waistcoats look like
butterflies half-born, the dull broadcloth worm still
adhering. For one, I should like the age of gauds
and such matters to come round again, for I do not
see why the lords of nature should leave all the ornament
to the birds and flowers, and servants in livery;
but let it be consistent, and entire, and when it is that,
it will be time to compound a gentleman of “a man,
a sword, and an equipage,” and to settle the sixty degrees
of precedence which are established in the
court of England. But as this will not all be in my
time, I think I shall not venture on the more luminous
stratum, to say the least, of Jennings's waistcoats.
The Americanism of the matter is the much more

violent array of these gorgeous stuffs in Chatham
street and the Bowery. The small tailors' shops in
these Alsatian quarters are quite in a glow with the
display of cravats and waistcoats, and their catering
for the taste of their customers is, of course, careful
and well-considered. The age is, perhaps, for ever gone
by, when a privileged class could monopolize finery of
garb; and, of all the civilized nations, it were least possible
in ours. I have seen already a dozen at least of
cheap-booted apprentices wearing velvet waistcoats
which, a few years ago, would have delighted D'Orsay.
This last lustrum of our history, by-the-way, corresponds
somewhat, as to sumptuary matters, with the
year 1759, and after, of French history. The nine
months' ministry of Silhouette (whose immortality
rests on the accident of giving his name to profiles)
was a temporary suspension of French extravagance,
somewhat similar to ours of the last year or two,
during which coats were worn without folds, snuff-boxes
made of plain wood, and painting portraits were
discarded for outlines in profile; every fashion, in
short, giving way to extreme parsimony. This period
was succeeded, as our economical days seem promising
to be, by a powerful reflux of the suspended extravagance.
The parallel must end here, thank
Heaven!

Brooklyn is as much a part of New York, for all
purposes of residence and communication, as “the
Borough” is of London. The steam ferry-boats cross
the half-mile between it and New York every five
minutes; and in less time than it usually takes to
thread the press of vehicles on London Bridge, the
elegant equipages of the wealthy cross to Long Island
for the afternoon drive; morning visits are interchanged
between the residents in both places — and, indeed, the
East river is now hardly more of a separation than the
same distance in a street. Brooklyn is the shire-town
of King's county, and is second in population only to
New York. It has become the fashion for businessmen
of New York to build and live on the fine and
healthy heights above the river, where they are nearer
their business, and much better situated than in the
outskirts of this city itself. Brooklyn is built on the
summit and sides of an elevation springing directly
from the bank of the river, and commanding some of
the finest views in America. The prospect embraces
a large part of East river, crowded with shipping, and
tracked by an endless variety of steamers, flying
through the channel in quick succession; of the city
of New York, extending, as far as the eye can see, in
closely-piled masses of architecture; of the Hudson,
and the shore of Jersey, beyond; of the bay and its
bright islands; and of a considerable part of Long
and Staten islands, and the Highlands of Neversink.

This is “sodgering week,” ladies, and the general
has gone to the wars. Provided there be no Banquo
to sit in his leather-bottomed chair, I am quite alone,
and of course, immeasurably more than usual at your
service. Walk in, and make no ceremony — that is to
say, draw your foot under you, and sit on your heel.
Leave the general's chair unoccupied, if you please.
It will remind us that “WE” are out, and that I am at
home. Sit on that ream of paper, and let's be private
and personal.

A little scandal would be appetizing, this cloudy
morning. Suppose we put the general on the gridiron
and “do him brown!” Poets are so much better
for toasting! — (reason why: the first lyre was made
by the toasting of the sun — the tortoise-shell, found
by Hermes on the Nile, drawn tight by the contracted
tendons — or “so they say”). His health in a glass of
Elsinore cherry! And now, general, come over the
coals!

What has he to do (a poor various author, tucked
away in the “appendix” of the “Poetry of America”) —
I say, what has he to do with a lodging in the brain
and memory of every man, and in the heart and music-making
of every woman in the country! What has a
“various author” to do with as much popularity as a
baker's dozen of the big-bugs with their biographies.
What business has a “various author” to get his own
price for every scrap of a song, and be the only poet-father
in the country whose poetical daughters are run
after to be married to music! There is more of him
abroad “by heart,” than of anybody else! He is more
quoted, more sung, more trolled, more parodied, more
plucked at on his pedestal, than anybody else! He
uses his brevet as if he were full poet! If it weren't
for the “damnable iteration” of a cockatoo critic or
two, the world would never suspect — never — that
Morris is not a song-writer — the song-writer — and the
most sung and the best one of all the “Poets and
Poetry of America.” And, la! — to be sure! — what
a mistaken world we live in — that never knows what it
likes till it is told in a book!

It is something to be universal, as a poet — something
to get that far — it must be confessed. The
worth of a thing is (partly, at least) what it will bring —
particularly in the way of a long-winded popularity.
There is some bedevilment or other about Morris's
poetry that makes it stick in people's minds, and
answer people's want, in the way of an expression of
their poetical feelings — something that music jumps
to, and women remember and love him for — something
that satisfies the nine hundred and ninety-nine,
and displeases the nil admirari thousandth.

Let's try this varlet of a popularity-thief — you judge
and jury, and I the aggrieved plaintiff — one of the
robbed. Hand me up that big book, on the floor by
you, and let's see the law. He's a lyric poet if there's
any truth in the definition of that commodity: —

“Lyric poetry is that species of poetry by which
the poet directly expresses his emotions. It is necessary
that the feeling represented should be itself poetical,
and not only worthy to be preserved, but accompanied
by a variety of ideas, beauty of imagery, and a
musical flow of language. One distinct feeling should
predominate, giving tone to the whole; the feeling
must be worthy of the subject which caused it, corresponding
to the same both in degree and kind, and
must be so exhibited as to give a living picture of the
poet's mind; while at the same time, what is merely
individual and accidental must be excluded, so that
the poet shall be truly the representative of his race,
and awaken the sympathy of all. But this requires
genius of a high order.”

Quash the suit and turn the plaintiff out of court! —
there never was a more literal inventory of goods than
this of the peculiarities of Morris's poetry! Lyrist he
is, if that describe lyric poetry, and he has come honestly
by his popularity, and the world is right, that
said so before the trial. Court's adjourned.

We have sat down once or twice to criticise Weir's
picture of the Embarkation — but a criticism of it
would be but a recapitulation of its beauties, and as
these are quite apparent, and everybody will see the
picture, we think it not worth while. We have already
described the feeling with which it is seen for the first
time, and as we have seen it a dozen times with the
same glow, and as that description has been quoted, as
just, by many of the critics who have since seen the
picture, we can well stop where we are — recording
only the present thronging to the exhibition-room in
New York, and the universal delight the picture gives

to the public. Weir may well be a proud and happy
man.

We should be very happy to polish “M.'s” verses,
but as we have seldom seen a penknife that was sharp
after it was sharpened, so we never saw verses that
were good after being bettered — by anybody but the
original maker. Beside, it is not our vocation to
mend poets — though we might make one — Heaven
help us!

A “friend who knew us when a boy” (as if anything
but the crust of us be adult-erated), wishes us
to “write something for posterity.” Tut! — posterity
is welcome to all we write — though, if posterity will
pay us, or if anybody will “down with the dust,” as
posterity's “paying-teller,” we will write something
which posterity can publish as “entirely original.”
For the present we do not hold with the Apotactitæ,
that “property, wine, meat, and matrimony, are
things to be renounced” — and though the three last
seem to be the only ones to which our destiny has a
free copyhold, we are digging away at prose and poetry,
and would peddle pins or pottery to compass the
other.

One of the most curious and amusing resorts for a
man of taste, idle in New York, is the ANTIQUARIAN
BOOK-SHOP[2] of Bartlett & Welford, under the Astor.
The catalogue of rare and valuable books for sale at
this repository, numbers nearly four thousand, and
most of these are such works as are found only in
choice libraries, or in the possession of scholars.
Far from being interesting to antiquarians exclusively,
the curiosities of this choice shop would amuse the
most general reader, and a lounge at the well-stocked
counter of B. & W. is no indifferent relief to the
fatiguing idleness of a man stranded on the beach of
a hotel between the far-apart tides of breakfast and
dinner. Most courteous bibliopoles are these two
gentlemen, by-the-way, and happy to gratify the curiosity
of visiters.

Villanous editions, villanous cheap, are the fruits
of our present law of copyright, and if we had an
American language all to ourselves, we should have
no such thing as beauty in a book. Fortunately,
England has the same brick from Babel, and we can
corrupt, mutilate, defile, and misprint works of genius,
and still import, from our more liberal and appreciative
fatherland, a purer and worthier copy. Still it seems
to me surprising, that, of the publishers who have
grown rich with pirating in this country, no one has
felt inclined to distinguish himself by a school of fine
editions.[3] One would think that the example of Aldus,
who made himself as famous as the authors he
printed, would be stuff for emulation; and there are
some men, probably, even among publishers, who
agree with Charles Edwards, that “it is the devil to
be growing old as a person of no peculiarity.” Aldus's
press lasted eminent for near a hundred years,
and it is recorded in history that his ink was excellent,
his types beautiful, his paper invariably strong and
white, and above all, that his press was next to infallible
for correctness. Celebrity among BOOKBINDERS
probably sprung from this renown of a printer, and in
England there were famous names in this trade also.
Roger Payne received from twenty to thirty guineas
for binding a single volume, and he is much better remembered
than any lord-mayor of his time. There
has been a mania in bookbinding, however, and the
world is too poetical for such matters now. Jeffrey,
a London bookseller, had Fox's History bound in fox
skin; and an eccentric bibliomaniast named (descriptively)
Askew, had a book bound in a human skin.
In the library at Konigsberg there are twenty books
bound in silver. Very far short of all this, however,
there is in this country an unreached point of excellence
in binding, and great opening for an ambitious
bookbinder to distinguish himself. Sat Verbum sapienti.

Rarity in books is such a difficult thing to define
that a taste for it easily degenerates into absurdity.
The mania is very common, but there is a mania for
books according to their rare value to read, and a
mania for books valuable by accidental circumstances
— such as coming from a particular press, being made
of singular materials, having once belonged to a celebrated
library, or being the only ones of their kind.
In Italy they used to print valuable books on blue paper;
in France on rose-colored paper, and in Germany
on yellow or green; and copies of these are much
sought after now. Bibliomaniacs value those printed
on large paper with wide margin. In the advertisement
of rare books, you often see the phrase, “a tall
copy.” Longman had a single copy printed of
“Strutt's Dictionary of Engravers,” illustrated and
embellished at the cost of ten thousand dollars! The
copy sold, I do not know to what book-madman — but
his name should be linked in history to that of the
priest in Spain, who murdered three men to get possession
of their libraries!

By a turn of fortune not worth describing, Mr.
Goggins, a shipchandler, became suddenly a millionaire.
His half-score of grown-up children spread
themselves at once to their new dimensions, and after
a preliminary flourish at home, the whole family embarked
for foreign travel. They remained but a fortnight
in England — none in that land walking often invisible.
Germany seemed to the shipchandler a
“rubbishy” country, and Italy “very small beer,” and,
after a short residence in Paris, that gay capital was
pronounced the Paradise of money's worth, and there
the Gogginses took up their abode. To the apprehension
of most of their acquaintance, Mr. Goggins
was now in a speedy and fair way to return to his
blocks and oakum, poorer for his fortune. No stint
seemed put upon the extravagance of sons or daughters,
and in dress and equipage their separate displays
and establishments became the marvel of Paris. In
Goggins himself there was for awhile no great change
of exterior. His constitutional hardness of character
seemed in no way disturbed or embellished by the
splendors he controlled. He gave way to usages and
etiquette with patient facility, bowed through the receptions
at his first parties with imperturbable propriety,
and was voted stolid and wooden by the gay
world flaunting at his expense.

In the second year of his Parisian life, however,
Goggins took the reins gradually into his own hands.
He dismissed his sharp French butler, who had made
hitherto all the household bargains, and, promoting
to the servile part of his office an inferior domestic,
dull and zealous, he took the accounts into his own
hands, and exacted, of all the tradespeople he patronized,
schedules of their wares in English, and their
bills made equally comprehensible. Pocketing thus
the butler's perquisite, he reduced the charges of that
department one half, beside considerably improving
the quality of the articles purchased. Rejecting,

then, the intermediate offices of lease-agents and
hommes d'affaires, he advertised in Galignani, in good
plain English, for the most luxurious house in a certain
fashionable quarter, conducted the bargain by a
correspondence in English, and finally procured it at
a large abatement, at least, from prices paid by millionaires.
He advertised in the same way for proposals
to furnish his house on the most sumptuous
scale, and in the prevailing fashion, and by dint of sitting
quietly in his office and compelling everything to
reach him through the medium of English manuscript,
he created a palace fit for an emperor, by fair
competition among the tradesmen and upholsterers,
and at a cost by no means ruinous. He advertised in
the same way for a competent man of taste to oversee
the embellishments in progress, and, when complete,
the “Hotel Goggins” was quite the best thing of its
kind in Paris, and was looked upon as the “folly” of
the ruined lessee. With this groundwork for display,
Mr. Goggins turned his attention to the ways and
means of balls and dinners, concerts and breakfast,
and having acquired a name for large expenditure, he
profited considerably by the emulation of cooks and
purveyors for the material, and privately made use of
the savoir faire of a reduced count or two who, for a
“trifling consideration,” willingly undertook the manner
of the entertainments. He applied the same sagacious
system of commissariat to the supplying of
the multifarious wants of his children, economizing
at the same time that he enhanced the luxury of their
indulgences, and the Gogginses soon began to excite
other feelings than contempt. Their equipages (the
production of the united taste of ruined spendthrifts)
outshone the most sumptuous of the embassies; their
balls were of unexceptionable magnificence, their dinners
more recherché than profuse. How they should
come by their elegance was a mystery that did not lessen
their consequence, and so the Gogginses mounted
to the difficult eminence of Parisian fashion — the
plain business-tact of a shipchandler their mysterious
stepping-stone.

Perhaps we should give more credit to this faculty
in Goggins. It is possibly not far removed from the
genius of a great financier or eminent state-treasurer.
It is the power of coming directly at values and ridding
them of their “riders” — of getting for less, what
others, from want of penetration, get for more. I am
inclined to think Goggins would have been quite as
successful in any other field of calculation, and one
instance of a very different application of his reasoning
powers would go to favor the belief.

While in Italy, he employed a celebrated but improvident
artist to paint a picture, the subject of
which was a certain event of rather an humble character,
in which he had been an actor. The picture
was to be finished at a certain time, and at the urgent
plea of the artist, the money was advanced. The
time expired and the picture was not sent home, and
the forfeited bond of the artist was accordingly put in
suit. The delinquent, who had not thought twice of
the subject, addressed one or two notes of remonstrance
to his summary employer, and receiving no
reply, and the law crowding very closely upon his
heels, he called upon Goggins and appealed, among
other arguments, to the difference in their circumstances,
and the indulgent pity due from rich to poor.

“Where do you dine to day?” asked Goggins.

“To-day — let me see — Monday — I dine with Lady
— .”

(The artist, as Goggins knew, was a favorite in the
best society in Florence.)

“And where did you dine yesterday?”

“Yesterday — hum — yesterday I dined with Sir
George — . No! I breakfasted with Sir George,
and dined with the grand chamberlain. Excuse me!
I have so many engagements — ”

“Ah! — and you are never at a loss for a dinner or
a breakfast!”

The artist smiled. “No!”

“Are you well lodged?”

“Yes — on the Arno.”

“And well clad, I see.”

(The painter was rather a dandy, withal.)

“Well, sir!” said Goggins, folding up his arms, and
looking sterner than before, “you have, as far as I
can understand it, every luxury and comfort which a
fortune could procure you, and none of the care and
trouble of a fortune, and you enjoy these advantages
by a claim which is not liable to bankruptcy, nor to
be squandered, nor burnt — without the slightest anxiety,
in short.”

The artist assented.

“So far, there is no important difference in our
worldly condition, except that I have this anxiety and
trouble, and am liable to these very casualties.”

Goggins paused, and the painter nodded again.

“And now, sir, over and above this, what would
you take to exchange with me the esteem in which
we are severally held — you to become the rich, uneducated,
and plain Simon Goggins, and I to possess
your genius, your elevated tastes, and the praise and
fame which these procure you?”

The artist turned uneasily on his heels.

“No, sir!” continued Goggins, “you are not a man
to be pitied, and least of all by me. And I don't pity
you, sir. And what's more, you shall paint that picture,
sir, or go to prison. Good morning, sir!”

And the result was a painting, finished in three
days, and one of the master-pieces of that accomplished
painter, for he embodied, in the figure and
face of Goggins, the character which he had struck
out so unexpectedly — retaining the millionaire's friendship
and patronage, though never again venturing to
trifle with his engagements.

Music seems to be the passion of the hour in New-York.
Wallack had a house that would hardly pay
expenses last night — even the Ravels have somewhat
fallen off as they were going off — while Damoreau,
Wallace, and the “Hutchinson family,” draw well.
The latter are four children of a New Hampshire
patriarch — (four out of fiteen, as they say in an autobiographical
medley which they sing) — and having
been born with a singular natural talent for music,
they are turning it to account in a musical tour.
There are three brothers under twenty years of age,
and a very young sister. Their voices are good (particularly
the girl's, who is about fourteen), and they
confine themselves to simple melody, such as would
suit the least practised ear, while it can not fail, from
the truth and expression with which they sing, to
please the most fastidious. Their concerts are exceedingly
enjoyable.

Mrs. Sutton, well known everywhere as a most
charming singer, is about to perform a short engagement
as a prima donna to the Italian company at Niblo's.
I wish the success of the experiment might
bring Castellan and Cinti Damoreau upon the stage.
The latter, by the way, is the daughter of a French
door-porter, and might easily have been “the grave
of her deserving,” but for her perseverance and ambition.
Maroncelli is preparing a memoir of her, under
her own direction.

There is a particular season of the year (this is it)
when, as most people know, the law forbids the killing
and vending of certain game — the zest of illegality, of
course, giving great flavor to the birds, and, of course,
more than nullifying the law. Not the least in connexion

with this remark — I was very much astonished
a day or two since, dining with a friend at a neighboring
hotel, to find fairly printed in the bill of fare,
“Second Course — Roast Owls.” On the succeeding
day, at another table, I was startled with the enrolment
of a dish called “Just Try Me” — which, on experiment,
I found to be a bird — (with an egg-shaped
breast, and a very long bill thrust through it) — decently
laid on its back, and covered with a pork apron! The
latter name seemed very much to the point, and explained
the bird's errand. The former I was puzzled
with — but knowing the landlord of that hotel to be
very much ultra crepidam, I was induced to look into
ornithology for his meaning. I find that the peculiarity
of the owl is “an external toe which can be turned
behind at pleasure” — symbolical of the perverted beak
of the woodcock (as well as the making of false tracks
to evade the law), and serving in the same manner to
prepare an orifice for the sauce of lemon-juice and
cayenne. When this man cozens, you see, he cozens
with edifying knowledge and discretion.

Appleton is publishing a very neat and handsome
edition of valuable religious books. Among them is
the Disce Vivere of Sutton, prebend of Westminster,
in 1626 — one of the choicest specimens of rich and
pregnant English that I have lately seen. Two sentences
from his preface will give you an idea of his
style, in which every word seems to drive a nail: —

“If to live were for no other but to draw in and to
breathe out the soft air, as the wise man speaketh, a
needless labor were it, good Christian reader, to lay
down any instructions to the world of `learning to
live;' for this is done naturally, both of men and
beasts, without any teaching or learning.

“If to live were no other but to cast about for
the favor and riches of the world, as some men are
wont to call it, the way to live, then would it soon follow,
the greater Machiavellians, the better livers.
Somewhat more than is required to live Christianly
than so, and that all shall one day find, than either
drawing in and breathing out the soft air, or the plotting
to compass the pleasures and profits of the world.”

A cold-water procession is going under my window
at this moment, in a very propitious shower of rain.
From my elevated look-out, the long line of umbrellas,
two and two, gives the street the dress look of a
fashionable Taglioni coat, with two rows of big buttons
down the middle. I noticed yesterday, by the
way, a most stalwart and gallant-looking company of
firemen, in an undress military uniform, marching out
for exercise at the target. Everything about them
was all right, except that their guests of honor were
placed before instead of behind — making of it a prisoner's
guard instead of a military escort.

I see criticised, in one or two papers, a poem which
was sent to me some time since as “printed, not published,”
called “Donna Florida,” by Mr. Simms, the
author of Southern Passages, &c. It is in the stanza,
and intended as an imitation of “Don Juan.” The
author says, in his preface, that he fancied “he might
imitate the grace and exceeding felicity of expression
in that unhappy performance — its playfulness, and
possibly its wit — without falling into its licentiousness
of utterance and malignity of mood. How he
has succeeded in this object, it would not be becoming
in him to inquire.” One of the easiest things fancied
possible, and one of the most difficult to do, is an
imitation of the qualities of that same poem of Don
Juan — and Mr. Simms, who has talent enough when
he stumbles on his right vein, has made a woful mistake
as to his capabilities for this. Two extracts will
show his idea of the slap-dash-ery vein: —

And, speaking of woman again: —

We should have disclaimed, in giving the portrai
of the most ornate man of modern times, all approbation
of dandyism — (as yet) — on this side the water.
Dandyism, in the abstract, we delight in, glorify, and
rejoice over. But it has its scenery and its appertainages.
A dandy, in place, is the foreground to a picture
— the forward star of a troop untelescoped by the
vulgar — the embroidered flower on the veil before a
life of mystery. His superior elegance is like the
gold edge of a cloud unfathomable; or (to come to
earth) like the soldier's uniform — tinsel but for its
association with force and glory. What were the
dandies of the firmament, for example — (comets) —
without those uninterpretable tails!

But — to alight in Broadway.

A dandy indigenous to New York has no background
— no untelescoped associations or connexions
— no power and glory — and no uninterpretable tail.
He is like a docked comet. He is like Tom Fool in
a uniform bought at the pawnbroker's. He is a label
on an empty bottle. Count D'Orsay drives by you in
the park, and a long ancestry of titled soldiers and
courtiers, and a present life of impenetrable scenery
and luxury untold, arise up for background to his cab
and tiger. Mr. James Jessamy drives by you in
Broadway, and you know at what trade his glory was
manufactured, and you know “what he does of an
evening,” and you know his “mechanical rogues” of
relations, the tailor who made him, the hatter who
thatched him, and the baker who sold him gingerbread
when a boy. You admire, or envy, D'Orsay, as you
happen to be constituted — but you laugh, you scarce
know why, at Mr. Jessamy. The latter, perhaps, has
the better right to his toggery and turn-out; but still
you laugh!

Very far short of dandyism, however, lies the point
of dressing judiciously — dressing, that is to say, so as
to make the most of your personal advantages. The
favor of women is of course the first of lifetime ambitions,
and the dear tyrants have a weakness for the exterior.
“Tu as du remarquer,” says Balzac; “si
toutefois tu es capable d'observer un fait moral, que la
femme aime le fat. Sais tu pourquoi la femme aime le
fat? Mon ami! les fats sont les seuls hommes qui
aient soin d'eux mêmes!” And there are ladies, even
on this plain side of the water, who adore a dandy, and
of course there are cases where the dread laugh (mentioned
at the close of the preceding paragraph) must
be braved to aid a particular magnetism. If your
dandy be a sensible man, and past the moulting age,
depend upon it he is ticketed for some two eyes only,
and can afford, for a consideration he has, to let “the
spirits of the wise sit in the clouds,” &c. Had Count
D'Orsay been born in Common-Council-dom and
gone home, sometimes by the Waverley line, sometimes
by the Knickerbocker, he never would have
been a dandy — (except, at least, for a motive paramount

to ridicule) — though, with his superb person,
he could hardly have dressed cleanly without being
called a fop by the shallow. D'Orsay is a man of
sense, and knows too much to open the public oyster
with his private razor. So don't come to America,
dear D'Orsay! Stay among your belongings — your

Stay where

Yet, if you should take the whim to come over the
water, count, I need scarce suggest to your good
sense that you had best come with a consignment of
buttons from Brummagem!

A gentleman in Saco has taken upon himself some
pains and postage to ask “our” two portraits served
up in two plates. We don't think the public would
stand it. That bold man, Mr. Graham, is to show an
outline of one of us in his February number, and then
anybody can have us, tale and all, for two shillings — a
cheap article, we must say! But we are surprised to
get this petition from Saco! We “come from” close-by-there,
and it strikes us our likeness would go east
with the welcome of coals to Newcastle. Doubtless
there are more like us in the same soil. We remember
hanging over a bridge in Saco half one moonlight
night (somewhere in our fourteenth year), and if rivers
have any memory or gratitude for admiration, our
likeness will be found in the water where we left it.

We wish our contributors would do us the favor
to baptize their own bantlings. Their delegation of
godfathership costs us sometimes a five minutes'
thought over a proofsheet while the press is waiting,
and time is “tin.” But, by the way, be particular in
naming your articles! Old Burton, in his Anatomy
of Melancholy, gives, by way of satire, what we think
an excellent rule (“experto crede Roberto”), and we
will lend it you for your uses: “It is a kind of policy
in these days to prefix a fantastical title to a book
which is to be sold; for, as larks come down to a daynet,
many vain readers will stand gazing like silly passengers
at an antic picture in a painter's shop, that will
not look at a judicious piece.”

I observe, looking from my window, that the Park
theatre hangs out a large American flag with a tricolor
banner appended to each of the two lower corners
(looking altogether very much like a pair of oriental
trousers), symbolical, probably, of the two arrivals
from France which made yesterday memorable.
The more interesting of these twin events, of course,
was General Bertrand's advent by the Boston boat at
seven; but the one which excited the more interest was
the opening of the winter fashions at “Madame Law
son's, in Park place,” at eight. The latter ceremonial
had been duly heralded for some days previous
by notes addressed to the leaders of fashion, and (as
far as can be known) the secrets of the Graces' unopened
cases had been impartially and unexceptionably
kept. Having “a friend at court,” I had been for
some days invited to witness the effulguration, but
was privately advised that there would be a rush, and
that six in the morning would not be too early to take
a stand upon the steps of the grand milliner in Park
place. Some unfinished business in dream-land obliged
me to waive to the sun the privilege of rising first,
however, and to my misfortune I did not arrive at Park
place till the premices de la mode had been ravished by
the most intrepid first-comers. The street was lined
with carriages, and the house was thronged. On the
staircase we met two or three ladies descending, flushed
with excitement, and murmuring millinery; and on
arriving at the landing on the second floor, the sharp
soprano of the hum within betrayed how even the
sweetest instruments may outrun modulation, played
on with a crescendo troppo furioso. The two saloons of
the second floor were crowded with the ladies of fashion,
and the walls lined all around with a single shelf
covered with snowy damask, on which stood the white
rods supporting the (as yet) brainless, though already
fashionable bonnets. And (begging pardon of Greenwich
and William streets) they were unapproachably
exquisite! There were some forced marriages of
colors among them — some juxtapositions Heaven
would not have ventured upon in bird-millinery — but
the results were happy. The bonnets are small, and
would probably divide, for the nose, a perpendicular
rain-drop; and the shape of the front edge would be
defined by the shadow on the wall of an egg truncated
at the smaller end — the choice of colors riotously
uncontrollable. Feathers, ruinous feathers, are absolutely
indispensable. No fashion this winter in a bonnet
without feathers — dyed feathers harmonious with
the satin. The plush bonnets were the first seized
on. Drab satin with very gay fineries, was the color
most complimented. The prices varied from twenty-two
dollars to fifty. It was very charming to see so
many pretty women trying on so many pretty bonnets,
and I feared that the two or three venturesome gentlemen
present might be seized upon as intruders
upon vestal mysteries; but, thanks to the “vestalis
maxima,” Miss Lawson, we escaped with credit.

I have seen General Bertrand several times. He is
of a very noble presence, though, like Napoleon, below
the middle height. His features express honesty,
firmness, and rapid intelligence — the latter expression
aided by eyes of unusual brilliancy. His hair is
quite white. He is a man of few words, very collected,
but withal very courteous. These, at least, are
my impressions of him.

It is curious to remark, how the burning of our fingers
with Dickens makes us hold back from the fire
of enthusiastic receptions. If the general had been
ante instead of post-Dickens, he would have been
overwhelmed with popular acclamation. As it is, the
dues of honor are only paid à rigeur. One or two
brigades of artillery are ordered out to-morrow to escort
the general on his rounds to visit the objects of
curiosity, and the different staffs accompany him to
the theatre in the evening. This morning he is visiting
the fair of the Institute. The beautiful company
of the Life Guards made him a guest of honor at
their dinner last evening. Mr. Stetson, of the Astor
(who gave the dinner on his appointment as an officer
in the corps), complimented General Bertrand very
felicitously in his speech, and the applause was rapturous.
Stetson is naturally an “orator, as Brutus

is,” and has acquitted himself on several such occasions
with great credit.

I visited, the other evening, the beautiful rooms of
the Mercantile Library Association, and was exceedingly
interested in the history of its foundation and
progress. An advertisement expressing “a call for a
meeting of clerks” was the first germ. The paper
containing this was preserved and presented to the association
by William Wood, of Canandaigua, a very
zealous benefactor of the institute. It has at present
a library of nearly twenty thousand volumes, and it
has four thousand members. The late report of the
librarian shows that eight times the number of volumes
is annually taken from the library — an activity of use
for a library almost unparalleled. It is, without doubt,
one of the most useful institutions of the country, and
donations to it of books or money would be admirably
well bestowed.

Dr. Lardner has grown very much on the public
esteem in his last visit to New York. His clear, simple,
graphic talent, making abstruse science easy and
comprehensible, has never been equalled by another
lecturer.

Much honor and glory to the Boston publishers for
the beauty of their editions, and the credit (not small)
which that brings to this country. The most exquisite
edition of the exquisite songs of inspired Barry
Cornwall, published by Ticknor, should be between
every four walls where resides the relish for poetry or
taste in a book. It is a gem of poetry set in a gem
of printing, and most fit for a loving man's gift to a
sensible woman.

I find that “doctors differ” about Macready; and
the graphic and gay correspondent of the Providence
Journal, more particularly, gives as his great excelfence,
that you forget the man in the character he
plays — just what I do not think. Heaven, it seems to
me, has done so little, and Macready so much, in
making himself the actor he is, that he deserves infinite
credit, and, as a piece of mechanism, his playing
is a fine thing to me, though more curious than overcoming.
Young Wheatley has turned over quite a
golden leaf of opinion with his personation of Ulric,
a very fine part in Byron's play of Werner.

I saw yesterday, among the daguerreotypes of
Chilton & Edwards, a most perfect one of Dr. Linn,
whose death was mentioned in a late paper. The value
of these things struck me forcibly — for to any one
who had ever seen the fine countenance of Dr. Linn,
this is a perfect remembrancer. They color them
skilfully now, and the gentlemen I speak of particularly
(Chilton & Edwards, who are to have a room in
the Capitol this winter), are daily making improvements
in the art. Some witty man corrupts the word
into derogatory-types, but they are derogatory no
longer.

We are likely to know something of Mexico between
the three authors who are about publishing
books on the subject, and the charming book of Madame
Calderon. Mr. Prescott's Mexico will of course
be a classic. Brantz Mayer and Kendall are up to
their elbows in proofsheets — both producing works
on Mexico, and both excellent writers.

I never saw, in New York, an audience of better
quality, for so large a quantity, than was assembled to
welcome the perfected Cinti. I presume there were
few “ears polite” anywhere else. At a dollar the
pair (long and short alike), Madame must have de
lighted these fastidious organs to the amount of five
thousand francs, to be diminished only by the expense
of room-light and accompaniment — a transmutation
of “evening wind,” that throws Bryant's coinage of
that commodity quite into the shade.

Mr. Timm (as is wise and usual) played the audience
into tune with an overture, and then the screen
gave up its prima donna — Madame Cinti Damoreau
in pink satin — three large roses on her breast — the
dress, air, and graces of 'teens, the composure, plen-titude,
and, alas! the parenthesized smile of 'ties.
Madame Cinti has been a good animal resemblance
of the beautiful Mrs. Norton. The general mould
of the face, and the low forehead, the dark hair, and
the unfathomable dark eyes, are like in each to the
other.

With a trepidation which lasted only through the
first bar, she commenced the aria of “Fatal Goffredo”
(from Donisette's opera of Torquato Tasso), and
sang it to the breathless delight of the audience. No
such finished music has ever been breathed before
upon American air, I am persuaded. With not a
fourth of the power and volume of Castellan, and
none of the passion-lava of Malibran, she reaches a
finer fibre of the ear than either. The quality of her
voice is exceedingly sweet, and the mingled liquidness
and truth of her chromatics could never have
been exceeded. The ladder of harmony seemed
built a round or two nearer to heaven by her delicious
music.

Madame Damoreau, in the beginning of her career,
was hissed from the French stage for singing false — a
lesson in study and perseverance which I wish could
be laid softly into the memory of Castellan. The latter
wonderfully-organized creature, with anything like
the same skill, would be the world's queen of song.
The New Orleans people, by-the-way, who are Parisians
in their nice appreciation of operatic talent,
consider Castellan a remarkable actress; and so great
was the enthusiasm for her there, that the necessary
sum to engage her was made up by private subscription.
It is several thousand pities, at least, that, in
the first capital of the country, there is not operatic
enthusiasm enough to bring this dormant genius upon
the stage.

Monsieur Artot, who accompanies Madame Damoreau
in her tour, alternated performances with her.
He is a very gentlemanly-looking young man, with a
figure that would make a very good case for his own
violin — a very long neck and a very small waist — and
he plays with execution enough for all practical purposes,
but with taste unsurpassed. Wallace knows
several heavens of the violin to which Monsieur Artot
has not yet ascended, but the latter knows enough to
give all the pleasure which that instrument can give
to ordinary listeners. The audience applauded Monsieur
Artot very long and loudly. I think, by-the-way,
that a series of musical contentions between
Wallace and Castellan “on the first part,” and Artot
and Cinti “on the second,” would be a most charming
and exciting tournament.

Madame Damoreau had the good sense not to desire
a musical contention with a performance on the
paving-stones by cabs and omnibuses, and the street
in front of Washington Hall was coated with tan.

There seems to be a kind of appendix-dawn of literature
in Italy. Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella
is about being published at Florence in the Italian
translation. Sparks's Life of Washington, translated
by a young Neapolitan, is also nearly ready. A society
has been formed at Florence, called Societa Editrice
Florentina, for the publication of translations of
the best foreign works, including those of American

literature. The Marquis Gino Capponi, one of the
most preminent names in Florentine history, has put
our country under obligation by his enthusiasm for
our literature, and his aid to the publication of the
works I have just mentioned. He is himself a remarkable
scholar. Our consul at Rome, Mr. George
Greene, has had a large agency in the same cause.
Mr. Greene, by-the-way, has devoted a labor of some
years to a history of Italy, which is still in progress.
He, as is known very well, is a credit to the talent
and scholarship of our country. The Marquis Capponi
has furnished Mr. Prescott with materials for
his history of Philip II.

Weir's picture of the “Embarcation” is now exhibiting
to throngs of admirers at the Society Library.
Its wonderful ingenuity and beauty of grouping,
and the variety and individuality of the faces of the
pilgrim company, are the excellences most dwelt upon.
I really must venture to record an opinion expressed
of this picture by Inman — who (as the artist of a rival-panel
in the Rotunda, and hindered in his work
by ill-health and other obstacles) is in a position to
speak invidiously, if he were capable of envy. Inman
was asked what he thought of it. “It is a glorious
picture,” he replied, “and its faults, if it has
them, are comparatively so trifling, that it would be
ungenerous to mention them.” And if that speech
did not come from a noble heart, I have read of such
things with slender profit to my judgment.

Mr. “Newbegin” must excuse us. We like grammar
even in a pun. His night-ride in the omnibus is
pretty fair, but it wont do to jolt pronouns out of
place. That

would shock our friend Wright into a new edition of
“Exercises.”

There is but one good couplet in “Tiskins's” communication:
—

but his rhythm grounds at the overslaugh. He must
throw over his ballast of consonants, before his metre-craft
will swim buoyant enough to pass.

One of the Sunday critics (we hope he “got to
press” soon enough to have leisure for confession)
sneers at “one of us” for “quoting nothing” of Morris's
in our critique of his songs. As if it were necessary
in a periodical where Morris makes, of everything
he writes, a Corinthian capital for a column!
Truly the public are not likely to die in ignorance of
songs which stand on every piano-rack in the country,
and are sung in every concert-room and theatre, and
are being endlessly copied. Besides, we believe we
can tell “what manner of thing is your crocodile,”
without bringing the monster bodily in. How the
folks find fault with us! We shall really have to proclaim
ourselves an “object,” and

or, better still, we shall be driven to get up a crusade
against the whip-poor-willises, and “bring up those
that shall try what mettle there is in orange-tawny.”

To the kind old lady who “knit us a pair of stockings
after reading some poetry” of ours, but “was
afraid to send them, and gave them to a beggar,” we
must say, in the words of the old ballad,

So, thanks for the good will, dear madam, and pray
knit us a pair of mittens against we make our fortune
and turn farmer.

“Aunt Charity” wishes us to write an article on
the “love of the intellect, and the possibility of a tender
affection for the old.” We will tell you a little
story out of an old book: “It is reported of Magdalen,
queen of France, that walking forth, an evening,
with her ladies, she spied Monsieur Alanus, one of
the king's chaplains, an old hard-favored man, fast
asleep in a bower, and kissed him sweetly. When
the ladies laughed at her for it, she replied that it was
not his person she did embrace, but, with a Platonic
love, the divine beauty of his soul.”

The up-town door-plates and bell-handles are shining
once more, and open shutters, clean windows,
and parted curtains, acknowledge, at last, the reluctant
truth, that the fashionables have returned from
travel, and are open to pasteboard and personal call.
The ice has been broken with a “jam,” echoed by
one musical soirée, and now — vogue la galêre till the
ice melts again! There is a talk that this is to be
more an intellectual winter than the last — more recitations,
more tableaux vivants, more conversaziones,
more finding and producing of new lions in the lamb-kingdom
of poetry. There is also a murmur — a
“shadow cast before” — of the “coming out” of a
very extraordinary beauty, whose name and educational
cocoon are wrapt in profound mystery. As the
rumor started about a week since, and as “pretty
moths” are but twenty days in their chrysalis, we may
expect the emergence of her bright wings to light in
about a fortnight. She is said to be moulded after
the (supposed) lost type of the seven belles of Philadelphia,
whose culmination occurred under the autocracy
of Jackson — eyes furnished by Juno, mouth
by Hebe, and teeth and feet by the smaller fairies.
No corresponding Hyperion that I can hear of.

There is great fluttering and dismay among the
Bowery girls and the less alert followers of the fashions.
The remarkable splendor of the “spring goods,”
and the really beautiful and becoming style of the
new fabrics, left no doubt in most minds that these
were to be “the mode.” The autumn pin-moneys
of all the moderately “established” ladies and their
daughters “went the way of all” earnings accordingly,
and Broadway grew as splendid as a tulip-bed, bright
as the bazar of Smyrna. The exclusives were at
their invisible period meanwhile, but, from their carriages,
they probably saw “what was worn.” Down
dropped the mercury of the mode-ometer to extreme
simplicity! The few ladies who appeared, crossing
the pavement from their equipages to the shops, were
dressed in quiet silks, costly and neat, and the nameless
and the “unnamed,” at the same moment, seemed
to flaunt by in the choicest and gayest of the new
patterns. Studied simplicity, out of doors at least, is
high fashion now, and those who can not afford to
convert their new purchases into chair-covers and
bed-curtains, are left stranded, as it were, on a petrified
rainbow.

Ten thousand copies of the “Mysteries of Paris”
have been poured into our caldron of morals by a
single press in this city, and probably fifty thousand
will be circulated altogether. It is a very exciting
book, and at this moment making a great noise. The
translators are busily at work on other saleables of
French literature, and there will soon be little left unknown
of the arcana of vice. Eugene Sue, the author
of the “Mysteries of Paris,” is a connoisseur of
pleasure; and when I saw him, ten years ago, was an
elegant voluptuary of the first water. He was just
then creeping through the crust of the Chaussée
d'Antin into the more exclusive sphere of the Fau
bourg St. Germain — fat, good-looking, and thirty-two.
He is, by this time, “sloped” from his meridian, and
apparently turning his experiences into commodity.
I observe that he borrows my name for a wicked Florida
planter, who misuses a lady of color — a reproach
which I trust will not stick to “us.”

The publishers hang back from American fictions
now-a-days, possibly finding the attention of the reading-public
occupied with the more highly-spiced productions
of the class just alluded to, and it is impossible
to induce them to give anything for — hardly, indeed
to look at — an indigenous manuscript. Accident
threw into my hands, a few days ago, a novel
which had lain for some time unread in a publisher's
drawer, and after reading a few chapters I became
convinced that it was far above the average of modern
English novels, and every way worthy of publication.
It was entitled “The Domine's Daughter,” by Adam
Mundiver, Esq., and would have lain forgotten and
unexamined till doomsday, but for a friendly Orpheus
who made it his Eurydice and went to Lethe after it.
Such a book should surely represent money in a
country where literature is acknowledged.

I very seldom can find it in my backbone to sit out
a five-act play, but I saw Macready's “Richelieu,”
and I have seen Forrest's, throughout. Forrest began
rather ineffectively, probably disturbed by the defence
he was obliged to make against an aspersion,
before the play commenced. He soon warmed into it,
however, and, to my thinking, played the character
far better than Macready. The details — the imitation
of decrepitude — the posturing and walking the
stage — were better done by Macready; but the passion
of the play, the expression, the transfusion of
actor to character, the illusion, the effect — these were
all vastly better achieved by Forrest. A line drawn
across the tops of Macready's “points” would leave
Forrest below in all matters of detail, but it would
only cut the base of the latter's pyramids of passion.
Forrest runs sometimes into the melo-dramatic, seduced
by the “way it takes,” but he has fine genius,
and if he played only to audiences of “good discretion,”
he would (or could) satisfy the most fastidious.

Wallack's friends, myself among the number, have
been annoyed at the many contretemps which have
conspired to make his latter engagement at the Park
so unsatisfactory. In genteel comedy, of which he
is the master-player now on the stage, he was unable
to do anything, from the lack of materials in that
stock-company for a cast; and, indeed, he played always
at the disadvantage of the one free horse in a
slow team. Mr. and Mrs. Brougham (both first-rate
players of high comedy, and the latter a very beautiful
and effective woman, into the bargain) might have
been engaged at the Park for the winter with great
ease, and then we might have seen (what is the most
agreeable kind of theatricals) comedies well cast and
played. I hope there will be some combination
among the actors to give us a “go,” with a wheel
with more than one spoke in it, and then we might
have Wallack as he should be — a dramatic gem in
proper setting.

I am not sure that I shall be able to make out a letter
this morning, or, if I do, it will be in spite of an
accompaniment of military music. My friend General
Morris has his battalions in arms for review, and
my pen “marks time,” as if its forked nib were under
the General's orders — (and as, perhaps, it should be,
coming from a very military bird, whose father's feathers
have seen service under him).

Apropos of procession, by-the-way, I have had a

moderate laugh at the effect of a typographical blunder
in Dr. Julius's German edition of his travels in
this country. The doctor is giving an account of an
abolition procession in Cincinnati, and he records in
English the inscriptions on the banners. One, he
says, had the reproachful and pathetic sentiment:
“Although our shins are black our souls are white.”
For “shins” read skins.

The sultan of the Comoro islands has addressed a
letter to a gentleman in Wall street, a translation of
which by a very accomplished and self-taught linguist
(Mr. Cotheal), may be amusing to your readers.
The Comoro isles, as you know, lie in the Indian
ocean, off the north end of Madagascar, and are inhabited
by a very friendly race of Mohammedan
Arabs. The king resides in Johanna, the largest of
the islands, and (in London slang) he is a slap-up old
trader, getting ivory and gold-dust from Madagascar,
and swapping these and his cows, pigs, and poultry,
for Lowell factory-stuffs, or any other freight of
American vessels. He writes a very worshipful letter:
—

“To the American city of New York: For the heloved
sheikh Aaron H. Palmer, No. 49 Wall street.
May Allah be his guide! Amen! Badooh!

“By the grace of the Most High:

“To the dearest, the most glorious, the most genererous
sheikh Aaron H. Palmer, the honored, the exalted,
the magnificent, the contented. May Allah,
the Most High, be his guide! Amen!

“Now, after offering thee honor and protection from
the Henzooanee city (Johanna) and its inhabitants,
this is what I tell thee. Thy noble letter arrived and
we read it. Thy friend understood its contents. May
Allah reward thee well! Thou sayest in thy letter
that thou desirest selling and buying in our land, and
that thou wishest friendship with us. Thou art welcome.
We thank thee, and accept thy offer. Thou
didst tell us that we should advise thee of anything that
we should need from thee. Again we thank thee,
and inform thee that thou mayest send to us a person
on thy part that shall dwell in the Henzooanee country.
In order that thy business may be complete, a
shop of the merchants, and everything that there is
in the country, shall be made ready, on our part, if it
please God. Whatever shall be wanted in these regions
shall be paid for on delivery.

“I and all my Henzooanee tribes request that thou
unite us with the American tribes in friendship and
good-fellowship, like as we are united with the English,
and we will serve you all as we serve them.
Now, we have conceived here a great desire for the
American tribes. Tell them to send us their letters,
or a man-of-war-ship[1] on their part, and we will bind
ourselves by a binding treaty. Now, the thing we
need and want from thee are sealed letters of advice
for our assurance; and in order that thou mayest
know that this letter is from us, we stamp it with our
seal. We request that thou send us all kinds of linen
goods and cottons, both white, and brown, and fine
stripes, and all kinds of woollen cloths; and ten bed-steads
and sixty chairs; all kinds of glass; lamps,
large and small, and some for placing on the table;
and fine silk handkerchiefs. This is what we tell
thee. Now salutation and prosperity be with thee for
ever!

“Dated the 10th of the month of Dool Heggeh,
1252 (corresponding to about the 16th of March,
1837).

“From thy friend the sooltan the sublime, son of
the sooltan, Abd-Allah the sublime, Shirazy.”

As a long lesson of civilization, I have advised my
friend Palmer, “the magnificent, the contented,” to
send out to his friend, the sultan of the Comoros, a
youth accomplished in compounding the following
drinks (copied from the bill of fare of a new restaurant
in Boston): —

“Plain mint-julep, fancy do., mixed do., peach do.,
orange do., pineapple do., claret do., capped do.,
strawberry do., arrack do., racehorse do. Sherry-cobbler,
rochelle do., arrack do., peach do., claret do.,
Tip-and-Ty, fiscal agent, veto, I. O. U., Tippe-Na-Pecco,
moral suasion, vox-populi, ne-plus-ultra,
Shambro, pig-and-whistle, citronella jam, egg-nog,
Sargent, silver-top, poor-man's punch, arrack-punch,
iced punch, spiced punch, epicure's punch, milk-punch,
peach-punch, Jewett's fancy, deacon, exchange,
stone-wall, Virginia fancy, Knickerbocker,
smasher, floater, sifter, soda-punch, soda, mead, mulled
wines of all descriptions.”

After this array of compounds, I think the vexed
question of the ingredients of Falstaff's sack must
sink into insignificance. I understand that a shop is
opened in the Strand, London, for the sale of these
potations — one instance, at least, of a vice of civilization
going eastward. We must wear it for our feather
— since our drinks are the only feature of our country
for which Dickens gives us unqualified praise.

The “life-preserving coffin,” lately exhibited at the
fair of the Institute, is so constructed as to fly open
with the least stir of the occupant, and made as comfortable
within as if intended for a temporary lodging.
The proprietor recommends (which, indeed, it would
be useless without) a corresponding facility of exit
from the vault, and arrangements for privacy, light,
and fresh air — in short, all that would be agreeable to
the revenant on first waking. Not being, myself, a
person wholly incapable of changing my mind, I felt,
for the first time in my life, some little alarm as to the
frequency of trance or suspended animation, and seeing
a coffin-shop near Niblo's, I ventured to call on
the proprietor (Mr. D — , a most respectable undertaker)
and make a few inquiries. Mr. D. buries from
one to three persons a day, averaging from six to eight
hundred annually. He has never been called upon to
inter the same gentleman twice, in a professional
practice of many years. He has seen a great number
of coffins reopened, and never a sign of the person's
having moved, except by sliding in bringing down
stairs. I mentioned to him an instance that came to
my own knowledge, of a young lady, who was found
turned upon her face — disinterred the day after her
burial, to be shown to a relative. But even this, he
thought, was the result of rude handling of the coffin.
Mr. D. seemed incredulous as to any modern instance
of burial alive. He had spent much time and money,
however, in experiments to keep people dead. He
thought that in an exhausted receiver, made of an iron
cylinder, to resist the pressure of the air, the body
could be kept unchanged for fifty years, and that, immersed
in spirits and enclosed in lead, the face would
be recognisable after twenty years. (The process
seems both undesirable and contradictory, by-the-way,
for the posthumous drowning of a man makes his
death sure, and he is kept in spirits to prevent his vegetating
— as he would naturally after decay.)

Incidentally, Mr. D. informed me that a respectable
funeral in New York costs from two hundred to eight
hundred dollars, being rather more expensively done
in New York and Boston than in any other city except
New Orleans (where they say a man may afford to live
who can not afford to die). In Philadelphia they
make the coffin with a sloping roof, which, he remarked,
is inconvenient for packing in vaults, though

it seems accommodated to the one epitaph of the
Romans — sit illi terra leris. They line their coffins
more expensively in Philadelphia than elsewhere —
with satin or velvet instead of flannel — and bury the
dead in silk stockings and white gloves. We have
not yet arrived at the ceremony of hired mourners, as
in England, nor of plumes to the hearse and horses.

Notwithstanding the incredulity of my friend the
undertaker, however, asphyxia, or a suspension of life,
with all the appearance of death, is certified to in
many instances, and carefully provided for in some
countries. In Frankfort, Germany, the dead man is
laid in a well-aired room, and his hand fastened for
three days to a bell-pull. The Romans cut off one
of the fingers before burning the corpse, or otherwise
bestowing it out of sight. The Egyptians made sure
by embalming, and other nations by frequent washing
and anointing. Medical books say we should wait at
least three days in winter and two in summer, before
interring the dead. It has been suggested that there
should be a public officer who should carefully examine
the body and give a certificate, without which
the burial should be illegal.

The embellishment of burial-grounds is one of the
most beautiful and commendable features of our time
and country. There always seemed to me far too
much horror connected with the common idea of
death and burial. The Moravians make flower-gardens
of their graveyards, and inscribe upon the stone
at the head of the buried man the “day he came
hither and the day he went home” — his birthday and
time of death. This is clothing with the proper aspect
an event which is only an unlinking of a chain,
no part of which can decay — the spirit to return to its
fountain and the body to be reproduced in other
forms of life — and it is a curious thing that most
Christians represent death as a frightful skeleton,
while the Greeks, who had no happiness in their hereafter,
painted him as a sleeping child or a beautiful
youth. Death in the East was formerly attributed to
the attachment of a particular deity, who took his
favorite to a better world: to the love of Aurora, if
the death happened in the morning; of Selene, if it
happened at night: of the water-nymphs, if drowned;
of Jupiter, if killed by lightning. The caverns where
the marryrs were laid were called “chambers of repose.”
And this, surely, is the better impression to
give of death to those whose minds are forming.
Query — whether a society for the purpose of embellishing
cemeteries and brightening all the common
surroundings of death and burial would not be worthy
the attention of some philanthropic enthusiast? The
solemnities connected with a future life need not make
the gate to it always so dreadful; and, for one, I
should be content to put the separation of soul and
body on a level with the unlinking of a friendship or
a change of opinion — erecting a cenotaph for either
of the three changes, as the Pythagoreans did to the
memory of those who left their sect. But this is
more an essay than an epistle.

A beautiful printed copy of a “Translation of ten
cantos of Dante's Inferno,” has been sent me. The
translator is Mr. Parsons, of Boston. It is done with
a great deal of scholarship and labor, and an uncommon
felicity of language — all of which, expended on an
original poem, might, with his talent, have produced
something as good as his translation, though not as
good as Dante's Inferno. It strikes me that any
transfer of a work of genius from one language to another
— professing more than a simple rendering of the
meaning and yet giving a deteriorated copy — is a loss
of time and an injury to the original author. Mr.
Parsons has done his translation in double rhyme,
depriving Dante of the beauty of the terza rima, and
at the same time weakening the literalness of the
translation by the fetters of rhyme, and this seems to
me ill-advised. There is no medium, I think, between
a translation of absolute fidelity, and a refusion and
recasting of the subject-matter by a genius almost
equal to the original author; and, after the comparative
failure of Byron at this, Mr. Parsons might hesitate.
I hope he will try something of his own.

A gentleman in New Jersey has sent us some
“Lines on the death of a young lady,” and they express
very natural feelings; but with neither novelty
nor force enough to entitle them to print. He should
be aware, that while grief is new, the most commonplace
expression of it seems forcible to the sufferer.
The ear to which

has the gladness in itself, as the wounded heart has in
its wound the eloquence of an old monotone of grief.
If he is disposed to sooth his sorrow by an exercise of
the imagination, however, he should brood upon such
pictures as Shelley draws in the Witch of Atlas: —

“T.,” a Virginian, has one good touch in his “Reminiscence.”

that is to say, if he meant to express the beauty of a
bright eye set in a dusky eyelid — a thing we exceedingly
admire. But the remainder is of a quality
inferior to what he sent us before, and we “put on the
break,” rather than let him go down hill.

“A friend” wishes us to “do our part” toward putting
down the abuses and perversions of criticism.
La! man! you can't reform the age! Besides, criticism
has killed itself by overdoing the matter. Who
judges of a book by a criticism upon it! The best
way is to keep overdoing it — to knock down the bull
the way he is going, not to keep him on his legs by
ineffectual opposition. Nobody is hurt by criticism
now — nobody mended. And what Utopia could
make it better? Coleridge was over-sensitive on the
subject, though he laments the degradation of authors
very eloquently. “In times of old,” he says, “books
were as religious oracles; as literature advanced, they
next became venerable preceptors; they then descended
to the rank of instructive friends; and, as
their numbers increased, they sunk still lower to that
of entertaining companions; and, at present, they
seem degraded into culprits, who hold up their hands
at the bar of every self-elected judge who chooses to
write from humor or interest, enmity or arrogance.”

That our leaf

we have long known and often lamented. There was
a good horse-jockey spoiled, in the making a poet of
us, and we took to the swing of an axe like a tadpole
to swimming. But we were not aware that we were
appreciated. Some man, who sees through our poetic
visor, writes thus to the “Ohio Statesman”: —

“The Rev. Mr. Maffit is in town, exhorting sinners
to repentance. N. P. Willis has taken up his quarters
at the Astor house for the winter, I suppose. I think
Willis would do better in the backwoods than at the
Astor, for he is a stout, ablebodied man, and could
mall his hundred rails a day like a knife. I have no
notion of these overgrown, lazy fellows, laying around
the flash hotels, idling away their precious time.”

First correcting this gentleman's facts and cacology
(as we do not “lay” either eggs or wagers, and
are not “overgrown,” being six feet high to a hair) —
we entirely agree with him as to our original destination.
We are a crack chopster, and for several winters
have fulfilled our destiny with delight — chopping
an avenue through some woods that we thought
belonged to us (which avenue we finished, for somebody
else, before we discovered our mistake), and
never so happy as when up to the knees in snow, and
letting it into the hickories with a woodman's emphasis
and discretion! No steam-boiler ever rejoiced in
its escape-valve, no hawser in the captain's “let go!”
as we have done in swinging our heart round and banging
it into a tree — for the axe was but a vicar and a
vent! “Woodman, spare that tree!” was the bitterest
veto ever laid upon our pleasures.

But we didn't make money at it. We saved almost
three shilling a day (as to a “penny saved” being
“equal to a penny got,” we scorn the improbability),
and the principal profit was the willingness it gave us
to sit still in our chair and scribble. No! we loved
our axe with a passion. We feared it might somehow
turn out to be a sinful indulgence, it was so tempting
and pleasurable — but alas! we make more with a quill —

and while that is the case, the “correspondent of the
Ohio Statesman” must pity, not blame, our exile from
the woods to the Astor. Set us up — give us a clean
deed of Glenmary and its woods, a horse and saddle,
and our old axe — and never boy watched the darkening
of his beard with the delight with which we shall see
thicken again the vanished calluses in our palm! Fie
on a life with neither resistance nor antagonism — with
close air, pent lungs, arms aching, and muscles manacled
and numb! Horses to break and trees to chop
down are Paradise to it — we chance to know — but our
axe is rusty and our quill is busy. Invicem cedunt
dolor et voluptas.

Drums are beating in the Park, and the time and
finery of the industrial classes, who form the industrious
“forces” of New York, are under contribution
to glorify the killer of Tecumseh. Of those who see
the show, probably few will turn over a thought which
the ghost of the old warrior would not consider complimentary
to himself, and so perhaps it is one of those
cases in which two birds are killed with one stone — as
the drum, covered with Zisca's skin, both incited to
battle and commemorated Zisca. Tecumseh, though
a brigadier-general in the British service, should figure
as an honored American ghost, and doubtless will be
so appropriated in poetry, especially should there be
written a poem on moral courage, of which his running
away in his first fight, and being indomitable ever
after, shows, I think, a very natural and striking example.
There is another poetical feature in his history
— his being persuaded, against his will, to marry a
beautiful girl, after mature age, and making so good a
husband. Altogether he is a fine hero for an epic,
and a great deal more glorious for not surviving to engage
in a political campaign.

One of the most approvable novelties that I have seen
of late is a library of six volumes, upon Needlework.
It is a set of miniature hand-books for the use of
schools and families, most neatly printed and illustrated,
and letting the reader into all the mysteries of
“baby-linen, plain and fancy needlework, embroidery,
knitting, netting, and tatting, millinery, and dress-making,”
and all very cheap and portable. Redfield,
of Clinton Hall, is the publisher, and the admirers of
the notable in woman-worth should be the purchasers.

Mr. Riker has issued the first of his series of annuals
called “The Opal,” of which Mr. Willis is to be
the editor. The present volume, which contains some
fine gems of literature, and is beautifully illustrated by
Chapman, was prepared by Mr. Griswold, though contributed
to and prefaced by the editor subsequently
employed for the series. The character of the work
is religious, and the preface states truly, that “the
mirth and the playful elegancies of poetry and descriptive
writing are as truly within the paths of religious
reading as anything else which shows the fulness and
variety of the provision made for our happiness when at
peace with ourselves. Nothing gay, if innocent (the
preface continues), is out of place in an annual intended
to be used as a tribute of affection by the good;
and in this annual, hereafter, that view will be kept
before the eye. Its contents will be opal-hued — reflecting
all the bright lights and colors which the prodigality
of God's open hand has poured upon the pathway
of life.”

Edward S. Gould, one of the most distinguished of
the merchant-author class so honorable to our country,
has put forth an abridgment of “Alison's History of
Europe.” In a terse and strongly-written preface, he
gives a résumer of the whole work, with a pungent
criticism on its faults and injustices, showing that he
(Gould) has not done his work “like a horse in a bark-mill,”
but with a proper spirit and with a clear insight.
Of Alison's chapter on the American war he says, very
justly, that “it is destined to a most unenviable notoriety
as a tissue of misrepresentation. As it has no
legitimate connexion with the history of Europe, it
is a gratuitous libel on the people and institutions of
the United States, and as it could not be admitted into
an American book without alterations contradictory to
the title-page of this volume, it has been wholly
omitted.” Mr. Gould is the son of the eminent jurist,
Judge Gould, of Connecticut, and is happy in having
the energy (in addition to his business pursuits) to
turn to account his fine natural powers and good education.
He is one of the best of our translators, also,
and the author of the new and humorous work, “The
Sleep-Rider in the omnibus.”

A great deal of fun, and as much genius and private
worth, have just left the city in the person of
Harry Placide, bound to New Orleans for a winter
engagement. The people of the cis-Atlantic Paris
are to be congratulated with all emphasis thereupon.
It is equal to a day's allowance of sunshine to see him
play at night. He knows humor, from elegant high
comedy to irresistible farce — from a hair-line delineation
of the ridiculous to a charcoal sketch — and fails
in nothing he undertakes. With the exception of
Farren, who is only his equal, Placide is unrivalled on
the English or American stage. I wish him well, and
well back again. God bless him!

I see copied into the “Literary Gazette and Quarterly
Advertiser” an article on “Macauley's Miscellanies,”
which appeared some time since in a Boston

periodical, and struck me at the time as somewhat remarkable.
A lecture on the habits and characters of
literary men, which was quoted from in the Boston
papers, has also attracted great attention by its brilliancy
and originality of view, and both these are by a
very young business-man in Boston, Mr. E. P. Whipple.
His mind is of the cast and calibre of the writers
for the English magazines of ten years ago, and I
consider him a mine to be worked with great profit by
the proprietors of the reviews. His kind is rare.

I see that Jules Janin “fobs off” another annual
upon us under the name of “The American in Paris.”
It is written in his sparkling vein, and translated, as
sparkle always is translated, with a loss. The truth
is, that an American gentleman of New York fell into
Janin's company in Paris, and showed him some notes
he had made of his Parisian amusements; that the
idea struck the great feuilletoniste of making this small
diary the cover for a more detailed description of Paris
than would otherwise seem “knowing,” and the first
having taken and sold, the second of a series has now
appeared. Between Eugene Sue's real “Mysteries
of Paris,” and Janin's presentable drawing-room pictures
of it, we may get a very fair idea of the gay
capital. Janin's preface is written with the intention
of being believed. He says: “Our American appears
before you once more. Last year, at the same period,
he described to you, in the best way he could, Parisian
life during the brilliant months of winter. He had
then arrived at the great city at the very moment when
the closing days of autumn were disappearing beneath
the yellow leaves. A traveller without affectation, he
asked nothing more than to take his part in the sweet
joys, lively emotions, and noisy pleasures of this world
of the powerful and the rich; he endured as well as
he could the intoxications and the delirium of the
masked ball — the thousand cross-fires of Parisian conversation
— the paradoxes, the slanders, and even the
innocent calumnies that he saw around him — he entered
into all; he wished to see everything, and he
fulfilled his wish. Not that he advanced very far into
the mysteries of the good city; but he stood, as one
may say, on the edge of the wood, and thence he
threw his curious and attentive look upon those gay
and quickly-changing lights and shades. For a fellow-countryman
of Franklin, our Yankee is certainly
somewhat of an acute observer. What he did not see
he guessed; not sometimes without a certain discrimination
and pertinence. That which we specially admire
in him, and which will not displease the reader,
is a great fund of benevolence, a happy good-humor
which has nothing affected about it, and an indiscribable
entraîn and rapture, which the greater part of
the time keeps the reader awake. This is all that we
can say in his favor, for we are not of the number of
those tiresome editors who are always saying, `Come
and see a masterpiece; come and salute a great man;
the great man and the masterpiece were both invented
by me.' We hope never to fall into this enthusiasm,
which is very unbecoming in him who is its object.
All our duty as editor we have faithfully fulfilled, and
now it is for the book to defend itself. If by chance
it is a good book, depend upon it the public will receive
it with favor. All our ambition is, that after
having thoroughly admired the embellishments of
Lami, you will read a few of those pages in which the
translator has endeavored to reproduce somewhat of
the grace, the vivacity, and the interest of the original
book.” I have made a long extract from the preface,
but I thought it would amuse you to see how the celebrated
critic can talk about himself, with a transparent
mask over his face.

A club bowling-alley has been established in Broadway,
near Franklin street, most luxurious in all its appointments
— carpets, ottomans, dressing-rooms, &c.
The families subscribing are of the most fashionable
cliques, and no male foot is suffered to enter this gynesian
gymnasium — the pins being set up by girls, and
the attendance exclusively feminine. The luxuries
remaining to our sex, up to the present time, are
fencing and boxing — the usurpation of which is
probably under consideration. The fashion, you
would suppose, would scarcely gain by masculimifying,
but the ladies are wearing broadcloth cloaks — for
a beginning. There is another article of male attire
which they have long been said to wear occasionally,
but I am incredulous. Seeing would be believing.

Mr. Kendall, the popular and adventurous editor of
the Picayune, has been “Lucy-Long”-ing it somewhat
over his eagerly-expected book on Mexico, but
has lately discovered that his celebrity would stand
any halt in the trumpeting. He purchased recently a
copy of Captain Marryat's new book, “Monsieur Violet,”
to go to bed with of a rainy afternoon, and had
the pleasure of lying on his back and reading his own
adventures amplified in the best style by the author
of Peter Simple. Kendall's letters in the Picayune
were, of course, the basis of the extended and illustrated
work he has in press, and this basis, Captain
Marryat (who is a subscriber to the Picayune) has taken
bodily, and thereupon built his romance with but
a small outlay of his own clapboards and shingles. An
action of replevin for half the price of the captain's
copyright would “lie,” I should think — at least in the
court of equity. Mr. Kendall, I had nearly forgotten
to say, is spoken ill of in one portion of the captain's
book, and his rejoinder has appeared in the Courier.

I have been looking through the new publication
called “Etiquette, by Count D'Orsay.” That D'Orsay
revised the book and lent it his name “for a consideration,”
I think very possible, but there is, to my
thinking, internal evidence in its style that he did
not write it. There is an acquaintance with vulgarity,
and a facility of “hitting it on the raw,” which could
only have been acquired by a conversance of fellowship
with vulgar people, and D'Orsay knows as much of
such matters as the thistle-down while afloat knows
of the mud it floats over. Besides, the vulgarities are
dwelt upon with a kind of unction totally foreign to
D'Orsay's nature. He is a most kindly, as well as
delicate and fastidious man, and his mind would instinctively
avoid the knowledge of such matters, let
alone the qualifying himself to describe them graphically.
From one or two little anecdotes told in the
book, I trace its authority to a Mr. Abraham Hayward,
a frequenter of many different strata of London
society, and probably the best judge in England of
what is “genteel,” by knowing better than anybody
in England what is vulgar. It is undoubtedly an invaluable
book, and circulated in one of these mammoth
editions at the shilling price, it will prepare
Americans of all classes, if they sin against good manners
at all, to sin with knowledge — taking away at
least the ridicule of the matter.

Dear pastoral-minded, centrifugally-bent, and moderately-well-off
Reader, I address you “with all the
honors,” to be quite sure that my letter be not misapplied.
We, the parties in this correspondence, are
neither rich nor poor — as they express it elegantly in

the mother-country, “neither nob nor snob.” I would
the critics had not the trick of calling the having one's
own way “affectation;” else would I (simple though
I am), coin for my own use, since the language is deficient
in them, some of those epithets, descriptive of
a class, which are at the same time so crisp, definite,
and expressive. For instance: were I to address a
letter to a young man of a certain style (a very prevalent
style indeed), and wish to convey from the first
word my appreciation of the character at which I
aimed, I should be compelled to use the following circumlocution:
My dear universally-benevolent — i. e. —
spending-all-the-money-you-can-get-and-making-love-to-all-the-women-you-see,
young man. Now, the French
have a gracious and modest dissyllable for all this.
The word expansif expresses it all. How much
briefer, and more courteous, in the case just supposed,
could I commence in English with, My dear expansive!
Again: in English we should say, Oh, you-all-things-to-all-men
— who-say-you-have-no-prejudices — but-are-understood-by-your-friends-to-mean-no-principles!
but
in German they phrase it, quite short, Oh, many-sided!
Understand me not as leaning at all to Carlyle's system
of personification and word-linking. Two and
three are five is better than Two and Three died when
Five was born, though this is but a moderate illustration
of Carlylism. I would introduce no new epithet
that is not the essence of a phrase, no new-linked
words that are not the chord of a circumlocutory arc.

Touching my trade: —

In the matter of pen-craft, I confess to a miserly
disposition, yearly increasing. It is natural, I suppose,
to tuck up close the skirts of those habits in
which we run for our lives (or livings), and it is not inconsistent,
I would fain hope, with prodigality of other
belongings. In my college days, ere I discovered that
a bore in my brains would produce any better metal
than brass (bored since for “tin”), I had a most
spendthrift passion for correspondence. Now — paid
duly for my blotted sheet — I think with penitential
avarice of the words I have run through!

People are apt to fancy it is a natural amusement —
laborum dulce lenimen — for an author to write letters,
epitaphs, &c. But there are two animals at least, who
might differ from that opinion — the author, and the
baker's horse, out on a Sunday's excursion, in the baker's
pleasure-wagon. The truth is, that the tax on
authors, in this particular, is a disease in the literary
system, and since it is not likely to be cured while the
human race want autographs, epitaphs, epithalamia,
and opinions on MSS., the solace seems to lie in the
expediency of fat Jack — we should “turn the disease
into commodity.” If every third epitaph in the grave-yards
of this country be not by the author of — ,
&c., &c., all I can say is, there must be a very considerable
number of gravestones; and I am only sorry
that I did not take out copyrights from the start, and
serve injunctions on plagiarizing stonecutters. Here
is a letter now from a gentleman in Arkansas (whose
grammar, by the way, is not very pellucid), informing
me that his wife is dead, and giving me an inventory of
her virtues; and I am requested to write the lady's
epitaph, and send it on in time for the expectant marble.
Of course I am extremely sorry the lady is dead,
and since she was “such a pagoda of perfection,” as
Mrs. Ramsbottom would say, very sorry I had not the
pleasure of her acquaintance; but my “head” is not
“waters” (nor am I teetotaller enough to wish it
were), and I can not weep for all the nice women who
die, though grieved to think this particular style of
person should diminish. Ours is a most romantic
nation, for it would seem that there are few who do
not think their private sorrows worthy of poetry, and
the distinction between meum and tuum (as to authors)
having long ago been broken down by our copyright
robberies, the time and brains of poets are considered
common property. People, accustomed to call for
poetry when they want it, look upon the poet, quoad
hoc, as they do upon the town-pump, and would be as
much surprised at a charge for poetry as for water.
Possibly it is one of the features of a new country. I
have lived in a neighborhood where the stopping of a
man who should be taking what fruit he wanted from
your garden, or what fuel he wanted from your
woods, would surprise him as much as stopping his
nostrils with corks, till he was off your premises;
and with fruit and fuel, perhaps, time and brains may
assume a value. At present (it may as well be recorded
among the statistics of the country), poets,
lumber, and watermelons, are among the “inalienable
rights of freemen.”

One of the lesser evils of this appetite for sympathy
in rhyme, is the very natural forgetfulness of a
man absorbed in grief, touching the trifle of postage.
Reading a death in the newspaper affects me, now,
like seeing myself charged with eighteen and three
quarters cents at the grocer's. If I were writing from
the “palace of truth,” to one of my “bereaved husbands,”
I should still stoutly assure him of my sympathy,
having lost one and sixpence by the same melancholy
event. My bill of mortality (postage, they
call it) would frank me for boiled oysters at Florence's,
the year round, and, begging pardon of the
survivors (not the oyster-shells), I should like it in
that shape quite as well.

Hereafter, I shall make an effort to transfer the cipher
to the other side of the unit. If called upon to
mourn (in black and white) for people I never before
heard of, I propose to send my effusion as “commodity,”
to the first “enterprising publisher” who pays.
Honor bright as to by-gones — let them be by-gones!
Indeed, they are mostly too personal to interest the
public, one of the most felicitous of my elegies turning
(by request) on the deceased's “fascinating and
love-inspiring lisps.” But in all composed, after this
date, I shall contrive so to generalize on the virtues
and accomplishments commemorated, that the eulogy
will apply promiscuously to all overrated relatives —
of course, forming, for a literary magazine, an attraction
which comes home to everybody's business and
bosom. I may premise, by the way, that my advertisement
to this effect would be addressed only to
mourners of my own sex, and that ladies, as is hardly
necessary to mention, are supplied with epitaphs on
their husbands, without publicity or charge; though
it is a curious fact that my customers, in the epitaph
line, have hitherto been widowers only! Whether
widows choose usually some other vehicle for the
expression of their grief, preferring that it should be
recorded on tablets less durable than marble (pardon
me! more durable!) I have no data for deciding. I
merely contribute this fact also to statistics.

“Pray, how does that face deserve framing and glazing?”
asked a visiter, to-day. The question had
been asked before. It is a copy from a head in some
old picture — one of a series of studies from the ancient
masters, lithographed in France. It represents a peasant
of the campagna, and certainly, in Broadway, she
would pass for a coarse woman, and not beautiful for
a coarse one. I have been brought to think the head
coarse and plain, however, by being often called on to
defend it. I did not think so when I bought it in a
print-shop in London. I do not now, unless under
catechism.

To me, the whole climate of Italy is expressed in
the face of that Contadina. It is a large, cubical-edged,
massy style of feature, which, born in Scotland,
would have been singularly harsh and inflexible.
There is no refinement in it now, and, to be sure, little

mobility or thought — but it is a face in which there
is no resistance. That is its peculiarity. The heavy
eyelid droops in indolent animal repose. The lips are
drowsily sweet. The nostrils seem never to have
been distended nor contracted. The muscles of the
lips and cheeks have never tingled nor parched. It is
a face on which a harsh wind never blew. If the
woman be forty, those features have been forty years
sleeping in balm — enjoying only — resisting, enduring,
never. No one could look on it and fancy it had ever
suffered or been uncomfortable, or dreaded wind or
sun, summer or winter. A picture of St. Peter's — a
mosaic of Pæstum — a print of Vesuvius or the Campanile
— none of the common souvenirs of travel would
be to me half so redolent of Italy.

By special favor I got a sight, while in Boston, of
Crawford's statue of Orpheus, not yet open for public
exhibition. As I stated in a former letter, the Athenœum
has, most appreciatively, erected a new building
expressly for this work of art, and nothing remains to
be done but the finishing of the walls of the interior.
It is a lofty room, and the statue is placed on a pedestal
of masonry (rather oddly I thought) in the corner.
It was, unfortunately, badly packed at Florence, and
when taken from the box, in Boston, the legs were
found to be both broken off. Mr. Dexter, a young
sculptor of singular mechanical dexterity, as well as
promising genius (the author of the admirable bust of
Dickens), was employed to restore it, and has done it
wonderfully. It requires close examination to perceive
the fracture, and the discoloration might easily
be taken, even then, for stains in the marble, so evidently
are the statuary lines preserved as the artist
designed them.

The statue is of the size of life — nude, with the
exception of a short mantle, and sandals upon the
feet. Orpheus is represented as just emerging from
hell, and passing Cerberus, whom he has put to sleep
with his music. The three-headed dog is “nid, nid,
nodding” with his three heads, and either has two
tails (which was not down in my mythology) or his
unicaud is carefully combed away, madonna-wise, into
two parts. The figure is bent over, like a man emerging
from a cavern, and the right hand is held over
the eyes as if to protect them from the sudden blaze
of daylight, while the mantle is lifted from the back
by the current of air rushing in, leaving the body and
limbs, by this natural and poetical contrivance, nude
for sculpture. The face of Orpheus, like the action
and feeling of the limbs, expresses intent, but soft and
subdued earnestness. It is an exquisitely beautiful
youth, on the verge of manhood — slight, graceful, and
bloomingly filled out; and I thought the body one of
the most life-like and perfect representations of nature
I had ever seen in marble. I presume the artist
intended to represent Orpheus at the moment before
he sends his wife back to hell by looking prematurely
after her. (Query — moral?) He holds the lyre, with
which he has just charmed the infernals, upon his left
hip, and the eager action, expressing the instant preceding
the completion of a desperate undertaking, is
finely conceived, and breathed into sculpture. The
only objection I could make to the statue was one
that is simply a difference of conception, and, to his
own, the artist is quite entitled. I expected a less
effeminate person and countenance. Orpheus was an
“old married man,” and a reformer and lawgiver before
Eurydice's fatal flirtation with Aristæus; and his character,
both in fact and fable, in tradition and in Virgil's
verse, was one of the most masculine and self-denying
energy. He was a Grahamite, too (the only man of
that age who would not eat flesh and eggs), and was
finally torn in pieces by the women because he was an
incorrigible widower — both which evince rather harsh
qualities, and are not expressed in the Cupidon figure
of Crawford's Orpheus. I am glad I have such trouble
to find a fault, however, and I rejoice in the work altogether,
as a most triumphant effort of American
genius.

I saw another fine piece of art in Boston — Harding's
full-length portrait of Governor Seward. It carries
conviction, at a first glance, that it is true to the life,
and, indeed, a finer piece of work than the head can
not be found in the portrait-painting of this country.
It is breathing with character and individuality, and an
absolute likeness, besides being faultless in color. The
figure is correctly done, no doubt, but Jupiter himself
in black coat and trousers would be unpicturesque,
and Harding has done his possible, redeeming the horrors
of modern costume a little by an ingenious and
graceful disposition of the cloak. Beside this picture
stood the most capital portrait of the country, I
think — Harding's Allston. This “other self” of the
departed poet-artist is about to be engraved in the best
style of the art, I am happy to hear.

Speaking of Allston, I was told in Boston that his
funeral was by torch-light, after nine in the evening,
and one of the most impressive and befitting ceremonies
ever witnessed. He was laid on the bier, simply
wrapt in his shroud and covered with a pall, and was
borne on men's shoulders to the tomb, and there coffined.
These differences from ordinary burial were of
his own directing some time before death. The wish
to be excepted from the commonplace horrors of
burial would be very natural to a mind like Allston's.

The lecturing system, which the Evening Post
thinks is dying by surfeit in New York, is in full vigor
in Boston, and it was thought that Macready would
have made more money at it than by theatricals. I
think myself that lecturers should be rather differently
chosen, and that the object should be rather to
come amusingly at the anatomy of society, than to
hear the preaching-and-water of which the lectures
are now delivered. Why not specify the subjects and
choose the lecturer accordingly. If Sprague the
cashier would lecture on the pathos of discount and
the anxieties of investment; if the head-clerk in a
retail dry-goods shop would unfold the inveiglements
used for cheapening and getting credit (life across the
counter, that is to say); if a fireman would give us the
pros and cons of excitement and combination, esprit
de corps, and what stimulant there would be in putting
out fires for charity were other stimulants to fail; if
any intelligent business-man or mechanic would lecture
simply on the threads of society and common life
which he lives by pulling — why, then, it seems to me,
lectures would be entertaining, and in no danger of
being thinly attended. The greatest mysteries of life
are the common linings of common brains, and since
people are tired of the “turning out to the sun” of
the satin and velvet of refinement and education, it
would be well to come to the plainer stuffs without
ceremony. A lecturer hired to pick each trade and
profession of its mysteries, by diligent inquiry, and to
embody these mysteries in presentable elocution,
might do a thriving business.

I was talking of pictures just now. A Boston merchant
told me that he had made a considerable speculation
lately by sending fifty “copies of the old masters”
(imported Italian pictures) to California! He
chanced to be passing a shop where they were to be
put up at auction, and bought the lot, fifty paintings,
at ten dollars each, frame and all. They sold to the

Californikers at a great profit. But the original faith
in the speculation is the miracle of the business.

The influenza is raging in Boston, everybody talking
thick through the nose. I never saw such universality
of grippe. The air in New York is as pitiless and
penetrating as a search-warrant, but it seems to have
the wholesomeness of the “Etesian breezes,” and a
bad cold I started with from Boston left me somewhere
in the Sound, for I arrived without it. Perhaps, like
Eurydice, it turned back at Hellgate.

The pulse of Broadway is accelerated to fever-beat.
There is good sleighing in the white margins of that
long page of black-letter, and the astonished coal and
smoke at weathercock level is doubtless agitated violently
with the change from the contralto monotone of
wheels to the “frightful tintamarre” of bell-metal.
Sidewalks wet and slippery.

A very short absence from a great city unhinges
one's metropolitan habitude, and on returning, one
looks at the placards on the walls as one does at the
features of a long-absent friend, doubtful of what degree
of change these superficial lines may be the exponents.
None but your diurnal cit reads playbills
with indifference and incredulity! The writing on
the walls just now is, more than usual, flowery in its
promises of amusement, and though “promising is the
very air o' the time,” and “performance is ever the duller
for his act,” I wanted last night a Mephistophilian
ubiquity — the temptations were so many. Niblo's
equestrian pageants are glowingly advertised, and said
to be very splendid. New dancing-girls at the Chatham
— new fun at Mitchell's Olympic — concerts in all
directions — lectures more than plenty — fortune-tellers
and jugglers, dwarfs and fat children, new oyster palaces,
and all manner of balls, bewilder the eye of the
street passenger with their rhetoric of placard.

Macready was playing Werner at the Park last
night, and I looked in for a few moments. The house
was about half full. As I entered he was commencing
the long passage of reproach to Ulric, which he utters
throughout at the tip-toe agony scream. A smart
friction of the tympanum of the ear with a nutmeggrater
would be an emollient in comparison. Why
should this accomplished actor aggravate his defects
so painfully! That pipe of his would have been a
disqualification for any viva-voce vocation to the mind
of a less persevering man, but it seems to me that its
dissonance might be abated by the degree of discipline
he is willing to practise on other capabilities. He
was well supported, by the way, by Miss Cushman.
Mrs. Sloman has given place to this lady and returned
to the shades of the past generation. Her Orpheus,
Mr. Simpson, will not go after her again, it is to be
hoped.

A sudden impulse, as I came out of the theatre, led
me to the discovery of a new milliners'-land in New
York, the existence of which, “minion of the lamps”
as I have been, I had not suspected. I jumped into
an omnibus that was passing, with a mere curiosity to
see how far into the orient the brilliant shops of East
Broadway extended. We passed by the terra cognita
of Catharine street and Chatham, and their picturesque
sellers of chestnuts by torch-light, and kept up
the well-lighted avenue of the Bowery, when (to my
momentary disappointment) the omnibus turned
suddenly to the right, down Grand street. As the
brilliancy of the lamps and shop-windows did not
diminish, however, I kept my seat, and, to my sur
prise, rode on through a new Broadway which seemed
to me interminable. I got out at last to walk back
and look at it more leisurely. The shops on the
south side were nearly all those of milliners and fancy-article
dealers, differing from those of Greenwich
street, on the other side of the city, in being smaller,
brighter-colored in the array of goods (as if ministering
to a gaudier taste), and more in the style of street
stalls, such as are common in small Italian towns.
There was another primitive peculiarity in the apparent
custom in that region, for the whole family to
wait behind the counter. In one very crowded and
low-raftered shop, the sign of which was “Cheap
Jemmy,” the mother and half a dozen stout daughters
were all busy waiting on customers, while a child
in arms was dandled by a little girl sitting by the stove.
Everything about the shop was of the strictest school
of the thrifty primitive. Seeing a pretty and intelligent-looking
milliner with her hands crossed over the glass
case on her counter, a few doors from “Cheap Jemmy,”
I went in and bought a pair of gloves, for the
sake of asking a question or two. She said rents
were much cheaper in Grand street than in the other
shopping streets of the city, and goods proportionably
cheaper. The colored people do their shopping principally
there. She was not acquainted at all in Grand
street. When she wanted to go out she got into an
omnibus and went down town. Altogether, the Grand
street shops are unlike the other parts of the city —
gayer and more picturesque — and life seems to be
centralized and crowded together there, as if it were a
suburb across a river. I must give you some notion
of the geography of this quarter. Imagine Manhattan
to be a man-with-a-hat-on (Union square the hat),
lying on his back, with Castle Garden for a bunnion
on his great toe, Broadway would be his spine and
intestinal canal, Chelsea and Greenwich his right arm,
Grand street his outstretched left arm, the Tabernacle
and Tombs, City Hall and Park, his rotund corporation,
spleen, liver, &c. In ancient times the resemblance
would have been seized upon at once for a
deification.

A chef d'œuvre of daguerreotype is in preparation.
The senate-chamber is to be engraved after photographs
in the best style of Apollo, Chilton, and
Edwards! These gentlemen (the god of light not the
least enterprising and efficient of the three) have in
preparation a magnificent engraving of the senators in
appropriate positions, after the manner of some of the
finest English prints. This is a bold and beautiful
undertaking, and from the known skill and enterprise
of these gentlemen, will doubtless be successfully
accomplished. Whether an adequate recompense
can be realized in this country remains to be seen.
Most of the miniatures for this engraving were obtained
at the daguerreotype gallery of these gentlemen,
and theirs is an art particularly suited to the
transfer of the strong lineaments of senatorial faces.
The engraving will be a curiosity. A celebrated
artist is to be employed for the grouping.

Late last night, the Norwegian, Olé Bull (pronounced
Olay Bull), did the magnanimous, and yielded
the use of one of the world's entire evenings to
his rival, Vieux-temps, whose concert comes off, therefore,
as announced, this evening. I shall go to hear
him, and will tell you all I can fathom in what I hear.

I do not believe that the leaven of cognoscenti,
which “leavens the whole lump” into rapture with
these performers, amounts to more than three people
in an audience of three thousand, and I think that
even those three would be puzzled to distinguish between

Wallace, Olé Bull, and Vieux-temps, if they
played the same pieces behind a screen. (I do not
mention Artot, because he plays to the heart exclusively.)

Nobody with nerves can sit out a concert, it is true,
without having the keys of tears occasionally swept
over, as a child, thrumming a piano, will occasionally
produce a sweet or mournful combination of sounds
by accident. But because our eyes are once or twice
moistened, and because we occasionally feel that the
corner of the veil is twitched which separates us from
the chainless articulation we ache after, it is no sign
that we at all comprehend the drift of the player's
meaning, or see into the world of complex harmony
whither he gropes but confusedly himself. I have
not heard the violin of Olé Bull, but I have talked with
him for an hour or two, and I think he is one of the
most inspired creatures (and I should have thought
so if I had met him as a savage in the woods) whose
conversation I have ever listened to. He talks a
braided language of French, Italian, and English,
plucking expression to himself with a clutch; and
though he moulds every idea with a powerful originality,
he evidently does not give birth to more than a
fraction of what is writhing in his brain. If there
were a volcano missing in Norway, I should fancy we
had encountered it on its travels — the crater not provided
for in its human metempsychosis. Probably
Olé Bull finds his violin a much more copious vent
than language, for his imprisoned lava — but to coin
that lava into language as he pours it out in tangled
chromatics, would be to comprehend his music, and
that, I say again, is not done by more than three in
three thousand, if done at ALL! I told him I should
like to hear him play a l'improvista, after he had seen
Niagara, and upon that he gave me a description of
wild Norwegian scenery, describing how he had tried
to utter in music the effect it had produced upon
him — gave it me with a “fine phrensy,” that pulled
hard (and I should like to know the philosophy of
that) upon the roots of my hair. There is something
weird and supernatural about the man.

Mechanical dexterity on the violin has as much to
do with music, I believe, as drawing a bank-check has
to do with credit at the bank — a very necessary part
of the matter, but owing its value entirely to what
has gone before. Music is mind expressed in one of
the half-dozen languages we possess — and as capable
of logic and transfer into words, as painting or poetry,
or expression of feature and gesture. Olé Bull, when
playing, has (or ought to have) an explainable argument
in his mind, and the bridge wanting between
him and his audience is a translation of his musical
argument into language — given before or after the
performance. This he could easily do. At present,
it is, to the audience, like a most eloquent oration in
an unknown tongue — comprehensible only to the orator.

I have elsewhere mentioned, that while at Vienna,
I saw a self-educated philosopher at the institute,
who was discovering the link between music and geometry.
He took a pane of glass and covered it
sparsely with dry sand, and then, by drawing a particular
note upon the edge with a fiddle-bow, he
drove the sand by the vibration into a well-defined
circle, or triangle, or square — whichever we chose of
half-a-dozen geometrical figures. I have looked ever
since, to hear of an advancement in this phase of daguerreotype.
Once reduced to a grammar, music
would be as articulate as oratory, and we should be
able to distinguish its sense from its gibberish.

In person, Olé Bull is a massive, gladiator-like
creature, rather uncouth, passionately impulsive in
his manners, and with a confused face, which only
becomes legible with extreme animation. Wideawake,
he is often handsome — fast-asleep, he is doubt
less as plain as a Norwegian boulder-stone. If he
ever work his musical logic up to his musical impulse
and execution, he will hang the first lamp in the darkest
chamber of human comprehension.

I have two more steps to announce to you in the
advance of the gynocracy. There is a gymnasium
in the upper part of Broadway, where the LADIES don
the Turkish costume, and ARE TAUGHT SPARRING and
CLIMBING in jackets and loose trousers. Greatcoats
with a snug fit to the back are superseding cloaks for
ladies' out-of-door wear. “Merciful heavings!” as
Dick Swiveller would say.

I have been looking over a file of English papers,
published at Canton, China, in which I find that the
interpreter to the French consulate has obtained a
copy of the famous Chinese dictionary, which is an
encyclopedia of the history, sciences, arts, habits, and
usages of the Chinese, composed at the commencement
of the eighteenth century by order of the emperor
Ram-hi. A very small number of these was
printed, for the emperor and principal functionaries
of the empire only. It is to be reprinted immediately,
with a French and English translation. Mr. Cushing
goes there in a good time for finding the material he
will want for researches, literary and political.

It is curious how much may be born of “a scrape”
between catgut and horsehair! We have had two
nights of violin-phrensy, and applause, for a trick
with a fiddle-bow, that would have embalmed the
heart of Demosthenes within him. The beau monde
has given a fair hearing to the rival elbows, and, by acclamation,
at least, Olé Bull has it. As it is the rage,
and, as even sages take interest in rages, perhaps I
had better “make a clean breast,” and tell you all I
know about it — albeit, like barley-water, if the fever
were cured, it would be unpalatable slop.

The conversation of the town, of course, is largely
embroidered with the concernings of these fiddle-monsters,
and news, as you know, is stripped, like
corn, of much of its picturesque outer husk and silken
lining before it is ground into paragraph-cakes sent
to be devoured at a distance. Olé Bull is not simply
Olé Bull, but a star with four satellites — his grim
keeper, his handsome secretary, his messenger, and
his lacquey. The door of his parlor at the Astor is
beset, antechamber-fashion, from morning till night,
with orchestra-people, people from the music-shops,
and all the tribe who get fat upon the droppings of
enthusiasm. What he says is made into anecdotes,
and wherever he goes follows the digito monstrari.
There is an aristocracy of catgut, however, and Artot
and Vieux-temps look upon Olé Bull as the house
of lords look upon O'Connell, and greet him as the
rocks do the rising tide. Artot has been a king's
page, and Vieux-temps is, I believe, a chevalier decoré,
and both of them have the porcelain air. The French
population of New York make a “white-and-red-rose”
business of it; and it was remarked last night
that there was not a Frenchman to be seen at Olé
Bull's concert. Artot is quite a minion of popularity
with the fashionables — his expressive eyes and sentimental
elegance probably the raison pourquoi.

Vieux-temps's first concert on Monday night was a
very stylish jam. He is a small, pony-built man, with
gold rings in his ears, and a face of genteel ugliness,
but touchingly lugubrious in its expression. With
his violin at his shoulder, he has the air of a husband
undergoing the nocturnal penance of walking the
room with “the child” — and performing it, too, with
unaffected pity. He plays with the purest and cold

est perfection of art, and is doubtless more learned on
the violin than either of the rival performers, but
there is a vitreous clearness and precision in his notes
that would make them more germaine to the humor
of before breakfast than to the warm abandon of vesper-tide.
His sister travels with him (a pretty blonde,
very unlike him), and accompanies him on the piano.

Olé Bull's concert was deferred till last evening,
and the immense capacity of the Tabernacle was filled
to suffocation. He appeared after the usual appetiser
of an overture, and was received with a tumult. Verily,
he is made for a “tribune of the people!” The
angel who “makes men politic” never moulded a
creature more native to the central plane of popularity.
A splendid animal — herculean and graceful — a
faculty of looking, at the same time, overpowered and
self-possessed — an unlimited suavity full of reserve —
calm lips and wild eyes — cool dexterity and desperate
abandonment to his theme — he would have done as
well at anything else as at music. He is what Mrs.
Ramsbottom would call a “natural pagoda.”

It is presumptuous in a layman of the religion of
music to attempt a critical distinction between these
two or three first violinists of the world. Anybody
can see differences in their playing, but only a musician
can define the degrees in which they differ.
Olé Bull's violin seems to have been made where
horses and cats were of a wilder breed. He gets out
of it a peculiar quality of note, not at first quite satisfactory
to the ear, but approaching articulate language
as it departs from the glassy melody drawn from the
instrument by others. I have no doubt that, to himself,
the instrument is as good as articulate. He expects
it to talk intelligibly to others; and it would,
possibly, to those who knew music and heard him
often. I proposed to him in conversation, what I
think would test the expression of his music very
fairly — the transfer of Collins's Ode on the Passions
to the violin. The audience could then follow him,
as they do an opera by a translated libretto.

Wallace is about to enter the field against the violinists,
many of the musical people here being quite
persuaded that he plays as well as any of them. He
is certainly the greatest pianist we ever had in America,
and he is really embarrassed between the two instruments
— the very highest degree of excellence requiring
complete devotion to one only. He and Olé
Bull met one evening at the duke of Devonshire's in
London, but without hearing each other play, and
they have run together, here, like drops of water —
similar in quality and degree of genius, as well as in
impulsive and poetical disposition. They met in
Bull's room an evening or two since and played duets
on the piano and violin, solos, &c., till morning.
Wallace likes New York so well that he has determined
to make it his residence, publishing his exquisite
musical compositions here, &c. He is a great accession
to the musical world, as he is a large essential
drop added to the soul resident in this great mass
of human life. I offer him one man's welcome.

I understand the piano rage is the next thing to
come off, and that Lizst and Thalberg are positively
coming over. Taking musical accomplishment in
such large slices as we do, our vast country is likely
to become the main body-corporate of the music of
the world. It pays better than any other field of musical
enterprise now.

Happy New-year! — Shake hands! Exchange
congratulations! Be merry! Be happy! Another
year is gone! It is poetry to regret the past — only
poetry. Rejoice that the incumbrance of another
year is thrust behind — that another gate onward is
flung open — that though this youth is passing or past,
you are by so much nearer to a new youth beyond —
and better and brighter, as well as beyond. There is
no instinct of regret for the past. Spite of Death
brought nearer, and the shroud unfolded to receive
us — spite of Decrepitude and Neglect and Pain rising
up like phantoms in the way — we are happy to grow
old. The soul rejoices. New-year! New-year!
Death closer, but something the soul yearns after
coming at his heels! Who, upon impulse, would retard
time! Who would — instinct only consulted —
go back! Eternal progress is the thirst of life, as it
is of the whole eternity of which life is a part. The
world says so by acclamation. The old year's death
is the festival of universal instinct. Visit your friends!
Brighten the links between you! Forgive slights,
neglects, injuries! Go laughing through the gate of
the new year!

The Hebrew Benevolent Society had a very brilliant
dinner on Thursday, I understand, and drew a
large contribution for its excellent objects from the
present possessors of the “diving-rod” — the violinists.
Olé Bull, whose heart is as prodigal as his genius,
and who gives money to street-beggars by the
handful, gave a hundred dollars, and Vieux-temps and
Wallace agreed to combine in a charity-concert. The
other contributions, I understand, were correspondingly
liberal.

One of the essays, the most ad rem that I have
lately seen, is an address on the “Prevention of Pauperism,”
by a relative of the late Dr. Channing. The
preface has a certain bold resignation about it which
is very idosyncratic. Mr. Channing says that he
was desired to read a discourse before a society for
the prevention of pauperism, and agreed to try to do
so — but he did not know to what he had pledged himself.
He then defines very philosophically what he
found, upon reflection, was to be his task, and goes on
to say: —

“I went to work. That which might, in the reading,
be endured forty minutes, grew to twice that allotted
time, or more; and when the day came for the
anniversary, I found I could not read the half I had
set down. The auditory was very small; and the
few, at first, were less before the forty minutes were
up. The contribution-boxes came to the church-altar
with little weight of metal, and few bills — say
about twenty-seven dollars and twenty-three cents, all
told. Thus was my work accounted little and paid
harmoniously. But some, a very few, have asked me
to print my writing. From so small a company a
large request could hardly come. I have done what
those few friends have asked me to.”

The address is very philosophic, though tinctured
with peculiar views of the social system. The leading
propositions, which are very eloquently illustrated,
are worthy the room they will take in these columns,
if it were only as a skeleton map of the subject
carefully laid out, and available for the guidance
of inquirers: —

“1st. That every social institution, or custom,
which separates man from man — which produces distinct
classes in the community, having distinct privileges
— which is daily occupied to build higher and
stronger the partition-walls between men — such institution,
or custom, I say, produces and continues poverty.

“2d. That the political institutions of society, or
their administration, frequently become causes of the
extremest and widest national poverty.

“3d. That the spirit of party, so widely and deeply
cherished as it is by society, does, by its exclusiveness,

its selfishness, and its intolerance, minister directly to
the production and continuance of poverty.

“4th. That such employment of capital by society,
as in its products ministers only to the most debasing
habits, does directly produce and continue crime and
poverty.

“5th. The sudden reduction of wages, extended
to large numbers, is not only directly injurious to
wide interests, but produces pauperism.

“6th. That in a country like ours, in which the
law of entail does not exist to make property a permanent
possession in families, a system of education
which has regard only to simple mental culture, and
which leaves the physical powers uncultivated — in
which manual labor, a practical knowledge of farming,
or the mechanic arts, forms no part — I say that
such a system of early education favors the production
of pauperism.”

Apropos of beggars — the system of ingenious beggary,
so curiously described in Grant's “Great Metropolis,”
is beginning to be tried on in New York.
There is one young lady (of very correct habits, I
believe, in point of fact) who maks a living by means
that wear a somewhat questionable complexion, out of
“distinguished strangers.” A member of congress,
or a diplomatist in transit, for example, receives a
note, the day after his arrival is advertised, in a handwriting
of singular beauty. In the most graceful language,
and with the daintiest use of French phrases,
he is informed that a young lady who has long watched
his career with the deepest interest — who has a
feeling for him which is a mystery to herself — who
met him accidentally in a place she will recall to his
memory, should she be so fortunate as to see him
again — who is an unhappy creature of impulse, all too
fondly tender for this harsh world and its constructions
— would like to see him on a certain sidewalk
between eight and nine. By holding his hand across
his left breast, he will be accosted at that time and
place. The ladylikeness and good taste of the note,
so different from the usual tentatives of that description,
breed a second thought of curiosity, and the
victim is punctual. After a turn or two on the appointed
sidewalk, he encounters a tall young lady,
deeply veiled, who addresses him by name, takes his
arm, and discourses to him at first on his own ambitious
history, contriving to say the true and flattering
thing, for which she has duly informed herself.
She skilfully evades his attempts to make her talk of
things more particular, and regretting feelingly that
she can only see him on the sidewalk, appeals to his
“well-known generosity” for ten dollars to keep her
and her dear mother from being turned out of doors.
She takes it with tremulous pathos, demands of his
honor that he will not follow her, and slips round the
corner to meet another “distinguished stranger” with
whom she has appointed an interview fifteen minutes
later in the next street! I was in a company of strangers
at a hotel not long ago, when one of these dainty
notes was produced, and it so happened that every
man present had one in his pocket from the same
hand! Among the party there were four appointments
proposed by the same lady, to come off on the
four sides of a certain square, for that evening! She
is probably doing a good business.

There has been a certain most eligible shop, with a
most impracticable rent (3 Astor house, rent $1,000),
for a long time vacant. Yesterday the broad doors
were thrown open, and an effulgent placard announced
it as the depot of the Columbian Magazine. The
new periodical lay upon the counter in a most Chapman-esque
cover, lettered gorgeously in vermillion
and azure, with a device of Columbus on his pedestal,
John Inman, editor, in the blue of the scroll, and Israel
Post, publisher, in the vermilion of the supporting
tablet. (This arrangement is wrong, if there be any
meaning in colors, for the ingredients of vermilion are
sulphur and quicksilver — stuff of better prophecy for
an editor than a publisher.) I understand that the
foundations of this new magazine are thirty thousand
dollars deep, and as there is great store of experience
in both publisher and editor, it is likely to crowd Graham
and Godey — though it will require almost an
“avatar of Vishnu” to crush those giants of monthly
literature. We are to see whether magazine-popularity
is like the oil from the glass tomb of Belus —
which, once exhausted, never could be refilled.

The history of the monthlies, for the last few years,
forms a chapter by itself of American progress. It is
but a very short time since the “dollar-a-page” of the
North American Review was magnificent pay, and
considered quite sufficient for articles by Edward Everett!
The old New York Mirror paid five hundred
dollars a year for the original “Pencillings by the
Way” — the republication of which has paid the author
five thousand. Nathaniel Greene, of the Boston
Statesman, was the only man I could hear of, in 1827,
who paid regularly for poetry, and I have heard that
Percival was kept from starving in New York by selling
his splendid poem on the plague for five dollars!
I lost some of the intermediate steps of literary valuation,
but I think the burst on author-land of Graham's
and Godey's liberal prices was like a sunrise
without a dawn. They commenced at once paying
their principal contributors at the rate of twelve dollars
a page — nearly three times the amount paid by
English magazines to the best writers, and paying it,
too, on the receipt of the manuscript, and not, as in
London, on the publication of the article. We owe
to these two gentlemen the bringing out of a host of
periodical talent, which, but for their generous and
prompt pay, would have remained dormant, or employed
in other channels; and they should be recorded
as the true and liberal pioneers of progress in this
branch of literature. They have done very much the
same thing with regard to engraving and the encouragement
of the arts, and I believe the effect they have
produced on the refinement of the country has been
worthy of note — their beautiful books having been
sent into its remotest corners by their unprecedented
circulation.

The prices paid now to acceptable magazine-writers
are very high, though the number of writers has
increased so much that there are thousands who can
get no article accepted. There are so many people,
too, who, like the Ancient Mariner, are under the dire
compulsion to tell their tale — paid or not paid — that
any periodical, with a good furbisher and mender,
may fill its pages, for nothing, with very excellent
reading. A well-known editor once told me that he
could make a very good living by the sums people
were willing to pay to see themselves in print. The
cacoethes scribendi would doubtless support — does
doubtless support — a good many periodicals.

Olé Bull played to another crammed audience at
the Park last night, but the angel or demon imprisoned
in this violin was not tractable. If it had been
his first appearance, he would have made a losing trip
to America. There was a tone in the applause which
showed very clearly that his music was turned back
at the inner vestibule of the ear. He will probably
redeem himself to-night at the Tabernacle — his closing
concert.

I hear great complaints that the canvass-back ducks
are not of as good flavor as usual this year. Will

you tell us the pourquoi — or whether it is that the
wild-celery is not in perfection this season? My own
experience goes the other way — for such delicious
ducks, so deliciously dressed, I never saw, as lately at
“Guy's Monument house,” in Baltimore. He is a
fit cook for Apicius, it is true, and perhaps his sauce
deceived me. But the canvass-back is part of our
national honor, and the causes of falling off should
be looked after.

I am delighted to see that our great comedian,
Harry Placide, is up to the lips in success and popularity
in New Orleans. God bless those southern
people — they know a good thing when they see it!
The theatres there are a kind of last appeal — confirming
just appreciation, and reversing very often the cold
injustice of the north. Wallack is gone there now,
and he will come away with warm pockets. Burton,
the comedian, is also in migration — a man of genius
with his pen, and a most attractive actor. I wish we
could have a good rollicking season of good acting at
the Park, and go in deep for old-fashioned close criticism.

I sent you a paragraph yesterday which I am anxious
to overtake with another — though the paragraph-chase,
especially if the pursuer be a correction of an
error, is much more desperate than the shadow's hope
of overtaking the substance. Olé Bull, to my thinking
(corroborated since by the opinions of some musical
people), played without his inspiration the last
night he played at the Park, and so I stated. At the
Tabernacle on Tuesday night, his violin-fiend (or angel)
was at home, and so completely did he search
every chamber of my sense of musical delight, and so
triumphantly drive out all unbelief, and fill me with
passionate admiration and wonder at his skill and
power, that I feel a certain compunctious reproach
for ever having qualified my homage. One of his
themes was a rhapsody of religious music, composed
by himself, and, without irreverence, it seemed to me
that St. John, in the Apocalyptic vision, could scarcely
have been within the compass of music more rapt and
unearthly. More than four thousand people held
their breath in ravished ecstacy with this performance,
and the only drawback to my own rapture was the
conviction that, transparent and articulate as was the
meaning of every note, to translate it into language
the poet must first be himself translated — to the sphere
and capabilities of an angel. You will think that I,
too, am “bit by the dipsas” — but I, at least, gave up
my soul to this Olé Bull madness with some reluctance.
Genius-like, the Norse magician is journalier,
as the French say; but I pray that when he shall play
at Washington he may “give a rise” to the embodied
intellect of the capital which will show them a heaven
above politics.

The Hibernia has brought me a gossiping letter
or two from England; and, by way of letting you
down softly from the balloon-flight of the paragraph
foregoing, I will quote you a passage from the clever
hand of our friend S — , the artist, now resident in
London, and fully employed in transferring aristocratic
beauty to ivory. Buckwheat and molasses, it
should be premised, are undiscovered luxuries to the
Londoners, and it is pleasant and apposite, at this particular
season, when these friandises are in conjunctive
culmination, to see how they loom in the traveller's
memory. Says our friend: —

“So you have taken up your abode at the Astor.
You have done well. There are many good things
at the Astor; above all, the buckwheats; and I can
fancy you at this moment, while I am breaking my
fast upon a flabby `French roll' (so called because no
bread of the kind was ever seen in France), with a
pile of them smoking before you, and pouring over
them, with a liberal hand, copious libations of that
exquisite, delicate, transparent molasses which the Astor
alone provides, and which has always reminded me
of the wine of the veiled prophet —

A letter from a literary friend in London informs
me that Lady Blessington is suffering from a lethargy
from which she finds it next to impossible to arouse
herself for literary labor. The society she lives in
draws very exhaustingly upon her powers of attention,
and she has been all her life one of those who
“crowd a year's life into a day.” My friend adds: —

“You had some expectation of seeing D'Orsay in
America, but he never had any intention of going out.
He has been a prisoner for the last two years in Lady
Blessington's house, at Kensington. There is an
acre or two of garden, as you know, in the rear, shut
in with a wall high enough to keep out creditors, and
here D'Orsay takes his exercise on horseback. He
devotes himself entirely to painting, making portraits
of his friends and receiving money for them — in short,
making a profession of it. Every Saturday night, at
twelve o'clock, precisely, his cab is at the door, and
he drives to his club, and on Sundays he is to be seen
in the park, driving with Lady Blessington and her
two exquisitely beautiful nieces (the Misses Power) —
taking care to be home again, like Cinderella, before
twelve o'clock at night. Not long ago, a meeting of
his friends took place, and an effort was made to relieve
him. They subscribed twenty thousand pounds,
which would have given his creditors four shillings in
the pound. The proposal was made, and the creditors
refused to accept. The subscription was consequently
abandoned.”

There is an article afloat upon the raft of fugitive
literature (“a stick of timber among the flood ( — )
trash,” as they say on the Susquehannah) which is
worth hauling ashore and preserving — Parke Godwin's
Essay on Shelley, in the Democratic Review. It
comes from a mind of the finest powers of analysis
and the warmest glow of poetical appreciation, and if
we had in our country the class of well-patronized
sober magazines which they have in England, this
writer's pen and Whipple's would be the two best
worth paying in the country, for that kind of article.

Ticknor & Co. have republished a volume of devotional
poetry by Dr. Bowring, called Matins and Vespers.
It is pure, even, moderately-inspired, and scholar-like
poetry — of the best quality for family reading.
The doctor's pursuits are all on a lofty level — philanthropy,
patriotism, emancipation, and religion — and if
his other faculties (all of which are of more than respectable
calibre) were as largely developed as his
veneration, he would be the moral Washington of his
era. The last time I saw him he was in a great rage
with a certain Yankee, who, upon very cool acquaintance,
had drawn at sight upon his hospitality, by having
himself and his baggage set down in the doctor's
entry, and sending in the servant to borrow money to
pay his coach-fare from Liverpool! With the exception

of this private-life “repudiator,” however, he
is a great admirer of America and Americans.

The Langleys have got up a most presentable and
elegant edition of the poems of Eliza Cook — the most
fireside and home-like of modern poets. There is a
great deal in this volume that will touch the “business
and bosoms” of the many. Mrs. Osgood (herself
a poetess of the affections, and wanting nothing
but a little earth in her mixture) gives a sketch of
Miss Cook in the preface, which is as good as a personal
introduction.

When the “last page” morning arrives, dear reader,
we, for the first time in the week, pull the “stop
politic” in our many-keyed organ of livelihood-making,
and muse a little on expediency while the ink
dries upon our pen. This morning — this particular
morning — we chance to have “belayed,” as the sailors
say, “a loose halliard” in our rigging, and in casting
an eye “a-low and aloft,” to see how it draws
upon the canvass, we have determined to alter a little
our trim and ballast. You are our passenger, dear
reader, and our object is to make the voyage agreeable
to you, and the query is, therefore, how much you
would be interested in these same details of trim, ballast,
and rigging. Our coffee stands untasted (for we
write and breakfast, as an idle man breakfasts and
dawdles, all along through the up-hill of the morning),
and our omelet must cool while we amputate one
horn of this dilemma.

We have never explained (have we?) that as an artist
needs a “lay-figure” whereon to adjust drapery
and prepare effects, an editor in the fancy line (our
line) requires a personification, from the mouth of
which he may speak with the definite identity of an
individual. There are a thousand little whims and
scraps of opinion kicking about the floor of commonplace,
which, like bits of cloth and riband, might be
pinned on to a drapery with effect, though worthless
if simply presented to you in a bundle. A periodical
needs to be an individual — with a physiognomy that
is called up to the mind of the subscriber, and imagined
as speaking, while he reads. An apple given
to you by a friend at table is not like an apple taken
from the shelf of a huckster. An article on the leading
topic of the day, in a paper you are not accustomed
to, is not read as the same article would be in your
favorite periodical. The friend's choice alters the
taste and value of the apple, as the individual editor's
selection or approbation gives weight and value to the
article. The more you are acquainted with your
editor — even though, in that acquaintance, you find
out his faults — the more interest you feel in his
weekly visit, and the more curiosity you feel in what
he offers you to read. What made the fortune of
Blackwood but “Christopher North's” splendid egotism!
A magazine without a distinct physiognomy
visible through the type of every page, has no more
hold on its circulation than an orchard on the eaters
of apple-tarts. And if the making of this physiognomy
visible be egotism, then is egotism in an apothecary's
sign, or in the maker's name in your boot-leg.

There is, of course, a nice line to be drawn between
the saying that of editorial self which every reader
would like to know, and the incurring the deserved
charge of egotism; and it was by that line exactly
that we were trying to navigate in the dilemma with
which we started. Should we — or should we not —
bother the reader's brain with what was bothering ourselves?
To a limited and bearable degree, then, we will.

We determined to live by periodical literature, and
we came to New York prepared, of course, to unship
the wings of our Pegasus and let him trot — if trotting
is “the go” — quite sure that if he is worth keeping,
his legs are as sound as his feathers. It is one thing
to be “willing to come to the scratch,” however, and
another thing to find out definitely where the scratch
is. We were prepared to turn owl and armadillo — to
be indefatigable in our cage, and abroad only by night
— to live on one meal a day — to be editor, proof-reader,
foreman, and publisher, and as many other things as
we could get out of life, limb, and twenty-four hours
— prepared for any toil and self-denial — in short, to
quash debt and keep up the Mirror. Excellent virtue
entirely thrown away! The Mirror rose as easy
as the moon, went on its way rejoicing, and is now out
of the reach of kites, rockets, and steeples! Which way
lay — then — the dragons to vanquish? This brings us
to the head and front of our dilemma. Personal slander
is the only obstacle in American literature.

So BE IT! We do not complain of it. We have
not the presumption to be above our country. America
demands of her literary children that they should
submit to calumny — demands it in the most emphatic
of all voices, by her support of the presses which inflict
it. We agree. We can not make shoes, though
to that trade there is no such penalty. We should
throw away our apprenticeship, if we attempted to
live, now, by any but the one trade whose household
gods are outlawed. We honor our country. We will
live by American literature, with its American drawback.
We can suffer as much as another man. We
are no coward. We will step into the arena, and let
the country, that looks on, decide upon the weapons
and terms of combat. Yet still there is a dilemma.

We have tried for fifteen years the silent system —
the living down slanders, as the watchman wakes
down the stars that rise again in twelve hours. The
only exception to our rule occurred in England,
where an English pen assumed a few American misstatements
— and being “among the Romans,” we did
as they do in such cases — got the necessary retraction
through the “law of honor.” Lately, as perhaps the
reader knows, we have taken a fancy to see whether
there was any difference between public opinion and
the law, as to the protection of literary men against
slander. The author of a particular set of slanders
we chanced to light upon for the experiment, is, we
understand, a clergyman and an abolitionist, and,
though we have literally proved that he published
seven or eight direct lies against our private character,
we are condemned by many of the press for
what they call “Coopering an editor,” and one paper
in Philadelphia attacks our defence of our own character
as a shallow piece of ostentation, got up for
effect! We humbly ask which is most agreeable to
the public? Do they like it submitted to silently, or
do they prefer it defended, by dragging our private
life with all its details into the street? We will accommodate
them — for we must live in the country we
were born in, and live by literature!

One of the most beautiful sights I have lately seen
was the SPREAD for the New England dinner in the
large dining-room of the Astor. It would have given,
even to a “picked man of countries,” a heightened
standard of sumptuousness in banquet — in fact (and
republicans may as well know it), royal entertainments
in Europe beat it by nothing but the intrinsic value of
the table service. Galleries were erected for ladies
behind the columns at either end of the hall, and “all
went merry as a marriage bell.”

It struck me that the “old Plymouth rock” was a
little too much hammered upon, and, indeed, I thought,
during the dinner, that the fragment of it (which was
set upon the table) had better be used for the weight
and countenance it could give to objects worthy of
the pilgrim spirit, than as an anvil for self-glorification.

There are interests constantly arising of a philanthropic
character general enough for all parties to
partake in, and to the sluggish movement of which
the steam of local patriotism might worthily be applied.
Without the bugbear of a contribution at the
time, a fine orator and philanthropist like Horace
Mann might have been invited by the committee to
delight and instruct the picked audience with eloquence
on one of his apostolic schemes of benevolence.
As it was, the predominance of one political party
made it a whig dinner instead of a New England dinner.
Admiring Mr. Webster as I do, and willing as I
am to do more to see the other remaining Titan of
our country (Mr. Clay) in the presidential chair than
for any other object not personal to myself, I wished
that he had replied to the “common-school” toast
instead of the one he selected, and kept to the spirit
of New England exclusively in the determination of
his “thunder.” Mr. Bellows took up this just-mentioned
topic, and compared the red school-houses
(more graphically than felicitously) to an eruption on
the face of New England! He is a great pulpit orator,
but a man who is accustomed to steer by the sober
rudder of a pen runs adrift in trusting himself to extemporaneous
impulse. The best-judged and most
nicely-turned speech of the evening, I thought, was
by Mr. Colden — and quite the most applauded.

The overflow of the city's fountain of curiosity
pours just now into the fancy-stores and curiosity-shops
— the stockings of Santaclaus gaping wide for
“gratifications.” The new bazar, with the negroes
in cocked hats for “sticks in waiting,” is thronged
like a levee, and, truly, the variety of new nonsenses
is marvellous and bewildering. Tiffany's carries the
palm, and you would think, to walk around that museum
of elegancies, that the fine arts had turned their
whole force and ingenuity into the invention of trifles.
It would be curious to trace back the genius that invents
these things to its home and condition in life.

One of the new books that will most interest you
and the members of congress is “Simcoe's Military
Journal; a history of the operations of a partisan corps
called the Queen's Rangers, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel
Simcoe, during the war of the Revolution,
illustrated by engraved plans of action,” &c. Bartlett
& Welford, the great bibliologists of New York, found
a copy of the work in their researches in foreign libraries,
and Mr. Bartlett, who is a scholar, thus prefaces
the American republication: —

“The military journal of Lieutenant-Colonel Simcoe,
now first published, was privately printed by the author
in 1787 for distribution among a few of his personal
friends. The production has hitherto, it would seem,
entirely escaped the attention of those who are curious in
the history of our revolutionary war. As a record of
some interesting particulars and local occurrences of
that memorable struggle, and as a well-written documentary
illustration of the times and the circumstances
of the American rebellion, it deserves circulation
and favor. The fortunate procurement of a copy of
the work in London enables the publishers to present
it in an edition securing its preservation, and facilitating
a general knowledge of its contents. A memoir
of so much of the author's life as is not exhibited in
his journal, it is thought, will interest the reader and
increase the permanent value of the volume. Accordingly,
such a memoir has been prepared from available
and authentic materials, and, by the way of introduction,
may serve to fill out the history of the commander
of the Queen's Rangers, presenting also a few facts
concerning the corps, not otherwise appearing. Not
to extend that portion of the publication too far, however,
various relevant quotations from different sources,
interesting essentially and expletive in their character,
are thrown into the appendix, in addition to what the
journalist has given in that form himself.”

There is a very well-conducted paper in New York
called the “Mirror of Fashion,” the avowed object
of which is to furnish plates and descriptions of gentlemen's
fashions in dress — this feature taking the place,
in a sheet of general interest, which politics or religion
take in others. One sentence of the advertisement
runs thus: —

“I shall strive my utmost to make the Mirror of
Fashion reflect all the important changes in styles of
dress, whether in cut, color, or make, that may from
month to month be adopted in this metropolis, always
eschewing the freaks and follies of foreign fancy. I
shall, as I ever have done, recommend only that
which is strictly consonant with American feelings
and predilections.”

The motto of the paper, very properly, is taken from
Carlyle's, “Sartor Resartus.” Thus, in the one pregnant
subject of clothes, rightly understood, is included
all that men have thought, dreamed, done, or been;
the whole external universe, and what it holds, is but
clothing; and the essence of all science lies in the
philosophy of clothes. There is evidently a man of
reading and talent at the head of this paper, and the
subject touches men's “business and bosom” so closely
and widely that it may well be considered a quatrième
etat, and have its organ to represent it.

If May be the season for “the raging calenture of
love,” this is the calenture of the social affections —
the fever-crisis of the year, when the heat that is in
the system comes to the surface. Most quiet men
go to a ball or two in the holydays — dance a quadrille
or two to show the old year that they are not of its
party in going out — pay a compliment or two more
flowery than their wont; in short, put on the outer
seeming which would befit them in a Utopia. I have
tried on, like others, for the last week or two, this holyday
humor; and, though I shall be accused of “keeping
a sharp eye to business,” I must jot down for you
a thought or two that has occurred to me, critical and
comparative, or the present condition of New York
society.

It strikes me that there is no provision in the gay
society of New York for people of middle age. A
man between thirty-five and forty is invited to a large
party. He goes too early if he arrives before eleven.
He finds the two principal rooms stripped of carpets
and of most of the sitting-down furniture, and the reception-room
entirely lined with the mammas and
chaperons of the young ladies on the floor. However
he might be a “dancing man” in Europe, where
people dance till their knees fail them, he knows that
in this haste-to-grow-old country it would be commented
harshly upon, especially if he has a wife, for
whom it is expected his overflow of spirits should be
reserved. As he don't dance, he would like to converse.
The old ladies talk of nothing but their daughters,
and the daughters, if not dancing, think it would
repel a probable partner to seem much occupied in
conversation. He looks around for a sofa and a lady
who don't dance. Sofa there is none, and in a chair
in the corner perhaps there is one lady who is neither
young nor old — rara avis! He approaches her, and,
well nigh jammed against the wall, undertakes a conversation
not audible (he standing and she sitting) unless

kept up at a scream. After a half hour of this,
the lady, if she be discreet, remembers that “it looks
particular” to be engrossed more than half an hour by
one gentleman, and looks or says so. The middle-aged
man slides along the wall, gets back into the
crowded reception-room, talks a little to the chaperons,
comes back and looks on at the waltz, and so passes
the three hours till supper — on his legs. The ladies
take an hour to sup, and, about three o'clock, he gets
a corner for some oysters and champagne, and between
that and four o'clock gets home to bed. He is a business
man and rises at eight, and by three o'clock the
next day he looks and feels as a man naturally would
who had burnt his candle at both ends — for nothing!

It is not wonderful that there are no conveniences
for conversation in society, for there really is no conversation
to provide for. The want would create the
supply. It is one of the most peculiar of our country's
features that conversation is not cultivated as a pleasure.
When American women leave off dancing they think
they have done with society till they reappear to bring
out their daughters. All the agreeableness of their
middle life — the most attractive and delightful portion
of like too, perhaps — is expended on an appreciative
husband who wants and uses it all! Not at all as a
disparagement to this state of things, perhaps you will
allow me to mention a case, that may be somewhat parallel,
which has turned up in my zoological reading:
“These little insects (the coccus, of the family galinsecta)
are remarkable for manyu peculiarities in their
habits and conformation. The males have long large
wings! The females have no wings, but at a certain
period of their life attach themselves to the plant or
tree which they inhabit, and remain thereon immoveable
during the rest of their existence. As soon as
the eggs are produced, they pass immediately under
the female parent, whose body becomes their stationary
covering and guard. By degrees her body dries up
and flattens, and forms a sort of a shell, and, when life
is quite extinct, the young insects leave their hiding-place.”
Whether society has not some claim on them
— whether their minds would not be kept from narrowing
by conversation with agreeable men — whether the
one exclusive errand of the loveliest portion of humanity
is to rear children, are questions which in this
country must be handled very gingerly — at least in
print. I may be permitted to go on and say “how
they do in Spain,” however.

A middle-aged man in London may or may not be
a dancer. There is no comment either way — but he
must be something — dancer or good conversationist, or
he is dropped as “lumbering up the party.” Few
men can afford to be seen by the mistress of the house
to be unamused and unamusting. A cultivated man,
then, who don't dance, gets an hour or two of pleasant
society in the early part of the evening at the
opera. If there is a small party afterward he prefers
it to a ball; but if he goes to the ball he finds that the
pleasantest people there are the married women.
They do not sit together without room for a gentleman
between them, but every lady is bodily approachable,
and with a little management he can get a comfortable
seat beside any one whom he may know and
prefer. If he find her interesting, and talk to her the
whole evening, there is no scandal, unless there are
other corroborating circumstances; indeed, the openness
of the attention would rather discredit any unfavorable
comment. If there is a new lion present, or
any attraction peculiar to one person, a small circle is
formed in a corner, or a group stand around and let
the conversation be managed by the persons most
interested, like listening to music. You could seldom
go to a party in London without hearing something
worth telling to a person not there, and society (not the
newspapers) has the first use and enjoyment of all
news and novelties of every description. Newspapers
are stale to a man actively conversant in the best
society of London. People collect news, and see
sights, and invent theories, and study and think — to
have material for being brilliant in society, and for no
other purpose. A habitué of the best houses grows
well-informed by absorption only — if he keep his ears
open. And this entire stage of society is wanting in
New York.

An intelligent gentleman remarked lately upon the
absurdity of copying English hours for gayety, without
copying the compensating English hours for repose.
It is the aim of aristocracy to have such habits as to
distinguish aristocrats from the working-classes, and
lords and ladies please themselves with going home to
sleep when the clowns are getting up to toil. Until we can afford to lie abed like a lord, till noon, we are
fools to lose the clown's slumber, and a fashionable
lady would deserve well of her country who would
tacitly acknowledge her husband to be a man of business,
by giving her party at hours when he and his
merchant-friends could attend without loss of needful
sleep. Who would not be glad to go to a ball at seven
instead of eleven? This change, and the introduction
of comforts and accommodations for conversible wall-flowers,
would, in my opinion, improve even the
charming circles of grown-up children who now constitute
New York society.

I see no very marked differences in the dress or
usages of the ball-room. Rather more waltzing and
less quadrilling, if anything — but still “marvellous
few” tolerable waltzers. Could most of the waltzing
men in New York “see themselves as others see
them,” they would practise the difficult ease of this
accomplishment elsewhere for a while. The lower
classes of Germans have balls in their peculiar haunts
which it would be good practice to attend.

How to make a paradise in the country. —
The back of the winter is broke, dear reader, and it is
down-hill to spring. Those who have not our brick
and mortar destiny, are chatting, over their evening
table, of gardens and fruit-trees, crops and embellishments,
and longing the snow off their lawns and fields,
and the frost out of their furrows. We have been
passing a leisure (not an idle) hour in reading our
friend Downing's elegant and tempting book on rural
architecture — a book which, with others by the same
scholarlike and tasteful pen, we commend to your possession
— and it brings to our mind a long letter we
wrote during our last year's residence on the Susquehannah,
on the subject of economical and comeatable
paradise-making in the country. For a change — let
us turn over for you this leaf of our common-sense
book. Thus runs the body of it: —

Landscape-gardening is a pleasant subject to expand
into an imaginative article, and I am not surprised that
men, sitting amid hot editorials in a city (the month
of July), find a certain facility in creating woods and
walks, planting hedges and building conservatories.
So may the brain be refreshed, I well know, even with
the smell of printing-ink in the nostrils. But landscape-gardening,
as within the reach of the small
farmer people, is quite another thing, and to be managed
(as brain-gardening need not be, to be sure) with
economy and moderation. Tell us in the quarterlies,
if you will, what a man may do with a thousand acres
and plenty of money; but we will endeavor to show
what may be done with fifty acres and a spare hour in
the evening — by the tasteful farmer, or the tradesman
retired on small means. These own their fifty acres
(more or less), up to the sky and down to the bottom
of their “diggings,” and as nature lets the tree grow
and the flower expand for a man, without reference to
his account at the bank, they have it in their power to

embellish, and most commonly, they have also the
inclination. Beginners, however, at this as at most
other things, are at the mercy of injudicious counsel,
and few books can be more expensively misapplied
than the treatises on landscape-gardening.

The most intense and sincere lovers of the country
are citizens who have fled to rural life in middle age,
and old travellers who are weary, heart and foot, and
long for shelter and rest. Both these classes of men
are ornamental in their tastes — the first because the
country is his passion, heightened by abstinence; and
the latter because he remembers the secluded and
sweet spots he has crossed in travel, and yearns for
something that resembles them, of his own. To begin
at the beginning, I will suppose such a man as either
of these in search of land to purchase and build upon.
His means are moderate.

Leaving the climate and productiveness of soil
out of the question, the main things to find united are
shade, water, and inequality of surface. With these
three features given by nature, any spot may be made
beautiful, and at very little cost; and, fortunately for
purchasers in this country, most land is valued and
sold with little or no reference to these or other capabilities
for embellishment. Water, in a country so
laced with rivers, is easily found. Yet there are hints
worth giving, perhaps, obvious as they seem, even in the
selection of water. A small and rapid river is preferable
to a large river or lake. The Hudson, for instance,
is too broad to bridge, and beautiful as the
sites are upon its banks, the residents have but one
egress and one drive — the country behind them. If
they could cross to the other side, and radiate in every
direction in their evening drives, the villas on that
noble river would be trebled in value. One soon tires
of riding up and down one bank of a river, and without
a taste for boating, the beautiful expanse of water
soon becomes an irksome barrier. Very much the
same remark is true of the borders of lakes, with the
additional objection, that there is no variety to the
view. A small, bright stream, such as hundreds of
nameless ones in these beautiful northern states,
spanned by bridges, at every half mile, followed always
by the roads which naturally seek the level, and winding
into picturesque surprises, appearing and disappearing,
continually, is, in itself, an ever-renewing
poem, crowded with changeable pictures, and every
day tempting you to follow or trace back its bright
current. Small rivers, again, insure to a degree the
other two requisites — shade and inequality of surface —
the interval being proportionately narrow, and backed
by slopes and alluvial soil, usually producing the
various nut and maple trees, which, for their fruit and
sap, have been spared by the inexorable axes of the
first settlers. If there is any land in the country, the
price of which is raised from the supposed desirableness
of the site, it is upon the lakes and larger rivers,
leaving the smaller rivers, fortunately, still within the
scale of the people's means.

One more word as to the selection of a spot. The
rivers in the United States, more than those of older
countries, are variable in their quantity of water. The
banks of many of the most picturesque, present, at
the season of the year when we most wish it otherwise
(in the sultry heats of August and September),
bared rocks or beds of ooze, while the stream runs
sluggishly and uninvitingly between. Those which
are fed principally by springs, however, are less liable
to the effects of drought than those which are the
outlets of large bodies of water; and indeed, there is
great difference in rivers in this respect, depending on
the degree in which their courses are shaded, and
other causes. It will be safest, consequently, to select
a site in August, when the water is at the lowest, preferring,
of course, a bold and high bank as a protection
against freshets and flood-wood. The remotest
chance of a war with water, damming against wash
and flood, fills an old settler with economical alarm.

It was doubtless a “small chore” for the deluge to
heave up a mound or slope a bank, but with one spade
at a dollar a day, the moving of earth is a discouraging
job, and in selecting a place to live it is well to
be apprized what diggings may become necessary, and
how your hay and water, wood, visiters, and lumber
generally, are to come and go. A man's first fancy
is commonly to build on a hill; but as he lives on,
year after year, he would like his house lower and
lower, till, if the fairies had done it for him at each
succeeding wish, he would trouble them at last to dig
his cellar at the bottom. It is hard mounting a hill
daily, with tired horses, and it is dangerous driving
down with full-bellied ones from the stable-door, and
your friends deduct from the pleasure of seeing you,
the inconvenience of ascending and descending. The
view, for which you build high, you soon discover is
not daily bread, but an occasional treat, more worth, as
well as better liked for the walk to get it, and (you
have selected your site, of course, with a southern
exposure) a good stiff hill at your back, nine months
in the year, saves several degrees of the thermometer,
and sundry chimney-tops, barn-roofs, and other furniture
peripatetic in a tempest. Then your hill-road
washes with the rains, and needs continual mending,
and the dweller on the hill needs one more horse and
two more oxen than the dweller in the valley. One
thing more. There rises a night-mist (never unwholesome
from running water), which protects fruittress
from frost to a certain level above the river, at
certain critical seasons, and so end the reasons for
building low.

I am supposing all along, dear reader, that you have
had no experience of country-life, but that, sick of a
number in a brick block, or (if a traveller) weary of
“the perpetual flow of people,” you want a patch of
the globe's surface to yourself, and room enough to
scream, let off champagne-corks, or throw stones,
without disturbance to your neighbor. The intense
yearning for this degree of liberty has led some seekers
after the pastoral rather farther into the wilderness
than was necessary; and while writing on the subject
of a selection of rural sites, it is worth while, perhaps,
to specify the desirable degree of neighborhood.

In your own person, probably, you do not combine
blacksmith, carpenter, tinman, grocer, apothecary,
wet-nurse, dry-nurse, washerwoman, and doctor.
Shoes and clothes can wait your convenience for
mending; but the little necessities supplied by the
above list of vocations are rather imperative, and they
can only be ministered to in any degree of comfortable
perfection, by a village of at least a thousand inhabitants.
Two or three miles is far enough to send your
horse to be shod, and far enough to send for doctor or
washerwoman, and half the distance would be better,
if there were no prospect of the extension of the village
limits. But the common diameter of idle boys'
rambles is a mile out of the village, and to be just
beyond that is very necessary, if you care for your
plums and apples. The church-bell should be within
hearing, and it is mellowed deliciously by a mile or
two of hill and dale, and your wife will probably
belong to a “sewing-circle,” to which it is very much
for her health to walk, especially if the horse is wanted
for ploughing. This suggests to me another point
which I had nearly overlooked.

The farmer pretends to no “gentility;” I may be
permitted to say, therefore, that neighbors are a luxury,
both expensive and inconvenient. The necessity
you feel for society, of course, will modify very much
the just-stated considerations on the subject of vicinage.
He who has lived only in towns, or passed his
life (as travellers do) only as a receiver of hospitality,
is little aware of the difference between a country and

city call, or between receiving a visit and paying one.
In town, “not at home,” in any of its shapes, is a
great preserver of personal liberty, and gives no
offence. In the country you are “at home,” will-you,
nill-you. As a stranger paying a visit, you choose the
time most convenient to yourself, and abridge the call
at pleasure. In your own house, the visiter may find
you at a very inconvenient hour, stay a very inconvenient
time, and as you have no liberty to deny yourself
at your country door, it may (or may not, I say,
according to your taste) be a considerable evil. This
point should be well settled, however, before you determine
your distance from a closely-settled neighborhood,
for many a man would rather send his horse
two miles farther to be shod than live within the convenience
of “sociable neighbors.” A resident in a
city, by-the-way (and it is a point which should be
kept in mind by the retiring metropolitan) has, properly
speaking, no neighbors. He has friends, chosen
or made by similarity of pursuit, congeniality of taste,
or accident, which might have been left unimproved.
His literal neighbors he knows by name — if they keep
a brass plate, but they are contented to know as little
of him, and the acquaintance ends, without offence,
in the perusal of the name and number on the door.
In the city you pick your friends. In the country
you “take them in the lump.”

True, country neighbors are almost always desirable
acquaintances — simple in their habits, and pure in
their morals and conversation. But this letter is addressed
to men retiring from the world, who look forward
to the undisturbed enjoyment of trees and fields,
who expect life to be filled up with the enjoyment of
dew at morn, shade at noon, and the glory of sunset
and starlight, and who consider the complete repose
of the articulating organs, and release from oppressive
and unmeaning social observances, as the fruition of
Paradise. To men who have experience or philosophy
enough to have reduced life to this, I should recommend
a distance of five miles from any village or any
family with grown-up daughters. In my character of
dollar, I may be forgiven for remarking, also, that this
degree of seclusion doubles an income (by enabling a
man to live on half of it), and so, freeing the mind
from the care of peif, removes the very gravest of the
obstacles to happiness. I refer to no saving which infringes
on comfort. The housekeeper who caters for
her own family in an unvisited seclusion, and the
housekeeper who provides for her family with an eye
to the possible or probable interruption of acquaintances
not friends, live at very different rates; and the
latter adds one dish to the bounty of the table, perhaps,
but two to its vanity. Still more in the comfort
and expensiveness of dress. The natural and most
blissful costume of man in summer, all told, is shirt,
slippers, and pantaloons. The compulsory articles of
coat, suspenders, waistcoat, and cravat (gloves would
be ridiculous), are a tribute paid to the chance of visiters,
as is also, probably, some dollars' difference in
the quality of the hat.

I say nothing of the comfort of a bad hat (one you
can sit upon, or water your horse from, or bide the
storm in, without remorse), nor of the luxury of having
half a dozen, which you do when they are cheap,
and so saving the mental burthen of retaining the
geography of an article so easily mislaid. A man is
a slave to anything on his person he is afraid to spoil
— a slave (if he is not rich, as we are not, dear reader!)
to any costly habiliment whatever. The trees nod no
less graciously (it is a pleasure to be able to say), because
one's trousers are of a rational volume over the
portion most tried by a sedentary man, nor because
one's hat is of an equivocal shape — having served as
a non-conductor between a wet log and its proprietor;
but ladies do — especially country ladies; and even if
they did not, there is enough of the leaven of youth,
even in philosophers, to make them unwilling to appear
to positive disadvantage, and unless you are quite
at your ease as to even the ridiculous shabbiness of
your outer man, there is no liberty — no economical
liberty, I mean — in rural life. Do not mislead yourself,
dear reader! I am perfectly aware that a Spanish
sombrero, a pair of large French trousers plaited
over the hips, a well made English shoe, and a handsome
checked shirt, form as easy a costume for the
country as philosopher could desire. But I write for
men who must attain the same comfort in a shirt of a
perfectly independent description, trousers, oftenest,
that have seen service as tights, and show a fresher
dye in the seams, a hat, price twenty-five cents (by the
dozen), and shoes of a remediless capriciousness of
outline.

I acknowledge that such a costume is a liberty with
daylight, which should only be taken within one's own
fence, and that it is a misfortune to be surprised in it
by a stranger, even there. But I wish to impress upon
those to whom this letter is addressed, the obligations
of country neighborhood as to dress and table, and the
expediency of securing the degree of liberty which
may be desired, by a barrier of distance. Sociable
country neighbors, as I said before, are a luxury, but
they are certainly an expensive one. Judging by data
within my reach, I should say that a man who could
live for fifteen hundred dollars a year, within a mile of
a sociable village, could have the same personal comforts
at ten miles distance for half the money. He
numbers, say fifteen families, in his acquaintance, and
of course pays at the rate of fifty dollars a family for
their gratification. Now it is a question whether you
would not rather have the money in board fence or
Berkshire hogs. You may like society, and yet not
like it at such a high price. Or (but this would lead
me to another subject) you may prefer society in a
lump; and with a house full of friends in the months
of June and July, live in contemplative and economical
solitude the remainder of the year. And this latter
plan I take the liberty to recommend more particularly,
to students and authors.

Touching “grounds.” The first impulses of taste
are dangerous to follow, no less from their blindness to
unforessen combinations, than from their expensiveness.
In placing your house as far from the public
road as possible (and a considerable distance from dust
and intrusion, seems at first a sine qua non) you entail
upon yourself a very costly appendage in the shape of
a private road, which of course must be nicely gravelled
and nicely kept. A walk or drive, within your
gate, which is not hard and free from weeds, is as
objectionable as an untidy white dress upon a lady,
and as she would be better clad in russet, your road
were better covered with grass. I may as well say
that a hundred yards of gravel-walk, properly “scored,”
weeded, and rolled, will cost five dollars a month — a
man's labor reckoned at the present usage. Now no
person for whom this letter is written can afford to
keep more than one man servant for “chores.” A
hundred yards of gravel-walk, therefore, employing
half his time, you can easily calculate the distribution
of the remainder, upon the flower-garden, kitchen-garden,
wood-shed, stable, and piggery. (The female
“help” should milk, if I died for it!) My own opinion
is, that fifty yards from the road is far enough, and
twenty a more prudent distance, though, in the latter
case, an impervious screen of shrubbery along your
outer fence is indispensable.

The matter of gravel-walks embraces several points
of rural comfort, and, to do without them, you must
have no young ladies in your acquaintance, and,
especially, no young gentlemen from the cities. It
may not have occurred to you in your sidewalk life,
that the dew falls in the country with tolerable regularity;
and that, from sundown to ten in the forenoon,

you are as much insulated in a cottage surrounded
with high grass, as on a rock surrounded with forty
fathom water — shod a la mode, I mean. People talk
of being “pent up in a city” with perhaps twenty
miles of flagged sidewalk extending from their door-stone!
They are apt to draw a contrast, favorable to
the liberty of cities, however, if they come thinly shod
to the country, and must either wade in the grass or
stumble through the ruts of a dusty road. If you
wish to see bodies acted on by an “exhausted receiver”
(giving out their “airs” of course), shut up your
young city friends in a country cottage, by the compulsion
of wet grass and muddy highways. Better
gravel your whole farm, you say. But having reduced
you to this point of horror, you are prepared to listen
without contempt, while I suggest two humble succedanea.

First: On receiving intimation of a probable visit
from a city friend, write by return of post for the size
of her foot (or his). Provide immediately a pair of
India-rubber shoes of the corresponding number, and
on the morning after your friend's arrival, be ready
with them at the first horrified withdrawal of the damp
foot from the grass. Your shoes may cost you a
dollar a pair, but if your visiters are not more than
ten or twelve in the season, it is a saving of fifty per
cent., at least in gravelling and weeding.

Or, Second: Enclose the two or three acres immediately
about your house with a ring fence, and pasture
within it a small flock of sheep. They are clean and
picturesque (your dog should be taught to keep them
from the doors and porticoes), and by feeding down the
grass to a continual greensward, they give the dew a
chance to dry off early and enlarge your cottage
“liberties” to the extent of their browsings.

I may as well add, by the way, that a walk with the
sod simply taken off, is, in this climate, dry enough,
except for an hour or two after a heavy rain; and besides
the original saving in gravel, it is kept clean with
a quarter of the trouble. A weed imbedded in stones
is a much more obstinate customer than a score of
them sliced from the smooth ground. At any rate,
out with them! A neglected walk indicates that
worst of country diseases, a mind grown slovenly and
slip-slop! Your house may go unpainted, and your
dress (with one exception) submit to the course of
events — but be scrupulous in the whiteness of your
linen, tenacious of the neatness of your gravel-walks;
and, while these points hold, you are at a redeemable
remove from the lapse (fatally prone and easy), into
barbarianism and misanthropy.

Before I enter upon the cultivation of grounds, let
me lay before the reader my favorite idea of a cottage
— not a cottage ornée but a cottage insoucieuse, if I may
coin a phrase. In the valley of Sweet Waters, on the
banks of the Barbyses, there stands a small pleasure
palace of the sultan, which looks as if it was dropped
into the green lap of nature, like a jewel-case on a
birth-day, with neither preparation on the part of the
bestower, nor disturbance on the part of the receiver.
From the balcony's foot on every side extends an unbroken
sod to the horizon. Gigantic trees shadow
the grass here and there, and an enormous marble
vase, carved in imitation of a sea-shell, turns the silver
Barbyses in a curious cascade over its lip; but else,
it is all Nature's lap, with its bauble resting in velvet
— no gardens, no fences, no walls, no shrubberies — a
beautiful valley with the sky resting on its rim, and
nothing in it save one fairy palace. The simplicity
of the thing enchanted me, and, in all my yearnings
after rural seclusion, this vision of old travel has, more
or less, colored my fancy. You see what I mean,
with half an eye. Gardens are beautiful, shrubberies
ornamental, summer-houses and alleys, and gravelled
paths, all delightful — but they are, each and all, taxes
— heavy taxes on mind, time, and “dollar.” Perhaps
you like them. Perhaps you want the occupation.
But some men, of small means, like a contemplative
idleness in the country. Some men's time never
hangs heavily under a tree. Some men like to lock
their doors (or to be at liberty to do so), and be gone
for a month, without dread of gardens plundered,
flowers trod down, shrubs browsed off by cattle. Some
men like nothing out of doors but that which can take
care of itself — the side of a house or a forest-tree, or
an old horse in a pasture. These men, too, like that
which is beautiful, and for such I draw this picture
of the cottage insoucieuse. What more simply elegant
than a pretty structure in the lap of a green dell!
What more convenient! What so economical!
Sheep (we may “return to muttons”) are cheaper
“help” than men, and if they do not keep your green-sward
so brightly mown, they crop it faithfully and
turn the crop to better account. The only rule of
perfect independence in the country is to make no
“improvement” which requires more attention than
the making. So — you are at liberty to take your wife
to the springs. So — you can join a coterie at Niagara
at a letter's warning. So — you can spend a winter in
Italy without leaving half your income to servants who
keep house at home. So — you can sleep without
dread of hail-storms on your graperies or green-houses,
without blunderbuss for depredators of fruit, without
distress at slugs, cut-worms, drought, or breachy cattle.
Nature is prodigal of flowers, grapes are cheaper bought
than raised, fruit idem, butter idem (though you mayn't
think so), and as for amusement — the man who can
not find it between driving, fishing, shooting, strolling,
and reading (to say nothing of less selfish pleasures),
has no business in the country. He should go back
to town.

We have a pleasant and welcome corresponded
who signs himself “R. H. D.,” and we have a treasured
and admired friend known to the world as Richard H.
Dana — and they are two different persons. We must
beg our friend of the three disembodied initials to give
way to the embodied three of the poet, though, as we
well know, the three first letters of a man's name may
be as momentous, to him as the three legs to the
“moving tripods” seen in the Indian temples by Apollonius.
His miracle may be in them! We ourself
have been un-phœnixed of late (we thought there was
but one of our kind!) by the discovery that there was
another N. P. Willis — (not a quill-pincher, we are
pleased to understand).

“Florian” wishes us to “draw the portrait of a man
fitted by nature to be an editor.” A model editor
would be very difficult to describe, but among other
things, he should answer to the description given in
the sporting books of the dunghill cock: “The best
cocks should be close hitters, deadly heelers, steady
fighters, good mouthers, and come to every point.”

The poem sent us without a signature, “on a lady
with a sweet breath,” implies rather too close quarters
for print. Poetry for these days must be at arms' lenght.
The new epithet “pimento breath” ought not to be
lost, however — quite the spiciest new word that has
lately been rolled under our tongue. It never occurred
to us before that there was one word to express
cinnamon, nutmegs, and cloves. We wish we could
manufacture more of these single triplicates. Does
our nameless correspondent know, by the way, that
bad breath in Prussia is good ground for divorce?
We recommend him to write a parody on “Knowst
thou the land,” &c.

The Boston papers are glorifying (as was to be expected)
the new volume of poems by Russell Lowell.
We wish for a sight of it, for we are his self-elected
trumpeter, and haste to know the key for a new blast.
By the way, we have taken the liberty (as the immortality
he is bound for is a long race) to drop the encumbrance
of James from his musical name, and hereafter
we shall economize breath, type, and harmony,
by calling him Russell Lowell.

An editor is not supposed (as the world and subcribers
to newspapers know) to require or possess the
luxury of sleep. We sleep with one eye open — we
scorn to deny. We see all that is going on about us,
daylight or dark, and Washington being the fountain
of law, order, and information, we duly give the alarm
— like the geese who saved the capitol. Our readers
have, from week to week, read our lucubrations in
this wise, and here are are some more of them. We
send them forth as daguerreotypes of the present —
sent as records of matters as they fly. We think
they are worth preserving bodily — and we so preserve
them.

The first day of '44 came in like a specimen number
of a magazine, and the open doors of New York
had at least one unexpected visiter in a veritable October
sun. The day was mild enough to make overcoats
uncomfortable in walking — the pavement was dry
and summery — and all the male world seemed abroad.
The household gods of Manhattan were probably unanimous
in their happiness — as all the ladies were “at
home,” and all the ladies' lords were bound to be
“out.” This morning the weather is still softer —
October, possibly, like other popular persons, not finding
one day to suffice for its visits.

I have a headache on the top of my pen, and can
not venture any further description of new-year's day
than the above facts, though yesterday I thought I
could make you a tip-top gossipy letter out of the
day's hilarities. The hosts of the Astor wound up the
excitement for their guests by a superb dinner at candlelight,
with champagne and sweetmeats “à discretion,”
and altogether, I think January one must be
marked with a white stone.

You have read, of course, and loved (much more,
of course) Leigh Hunt's poem of The Rimini. Ticknor
& Co., of Boston, have republished it in one of
their beautiful boudoir editions, and along with it, in
the same neat volume, the half dozen other poems,
most famed, of Hunt's prolific pen. The story (of the
lady who married one brother and loved the other) is
told with a sort of entire new-ness of style and language,
as if it were the one admirable work of a natural
but unpractised poet, and it sticks to the memory
after it is read like Moore's rose-scent to the vase.
Leigh Hunt is a born poet, but one of the most unhappy
citizens of the world that the world holds.
With all the mental capabilities (the wit, the delicacy,
the imagination, and the desire) to be the carpet-poet
of aristocracy that Moore is, he has a most wo-begone
person, and a most marvellous lack of tact and reliability.
He never can stay acquainted with the only
people who, by refinement and talent, are alone capable
of making friendship comfortable to him; and he
has quarrelled with most other of his great contemporaries,
as he did with Byron. And, by the way, he is
dead — by epigram! Moore's felicitously-witty verses
on Hunt's Life of Byron killed him quite out of contemporary
respect. The ludicrous image of the puppy-dog
desecrating the body of the dead lion follows
him into every drawing-room and walks behind him
in every street. He will never recover from that epigram.
Indeed, he has never been like himself since
it was written. It is the most signal extinction of a
great genius by ridicule that I know of on record—
more enduring, from the fact that the English, among
their other conservative peculiarities, have none of our
marvellous alacrity at public forgetting. Had Leigh
Hunt been born with a little thicker skin, somewhat
a cooler head, and the inestimable power of catching
the snowballs of ridicule in his bosom, and keeping
them there till they could be thrown back hardened
into ice, he might have been something between Fonblanque
and Moore, Thiers and Janin, and equal at
least to either of these powerful “penditti.” As it is,
he is uncomfortably poor, and more uncomfortably
un-complacent. With two lines, very Leigh-Huntish,
I cut my paragraph short. He is describing
Apollo's revery while resolving upon the Feast of the
Poets: —

A very superb book of drawings is being subscribed
for in New York — “Forty Atmospheric Views of
American Scenery,” from water-color drawings by
George Harvey. The engravings ere to be in aqua-tint,
and to be beautifuly and artistically colored, so as
closely to resemble the original designs. The views
consist of different atmospheric effects at different
times of day, beginning at daybreak and ending at
midnight — each view a complete landscape, and the
subjects emblematic of the progress of civilization,
from the log-cabin to the highest achievement in architecture.
Mr. Harvey is one of the leading artists
of the new water-color school, and this will probably
be the most superb work of its kind ever published.
A letter from Washington Allston to Mr. Harvey
says: —

“I am unwilling that you should leave Boston without
knowing how much I have been gratified by your
beautiful drawings of American scenery. To me it
appears that you have not only been successful in giving
the character of our scenery, but remarkably
happy in clothing it with an American atmosphere,
which you have expressed with great truth and variety.”

By the thermometer, the winter has commenced
this day, the 5th of January. People pass under my
window with their backs shrugged up to their bump
of philoprogenitiveness, and even the coats of the hardworking
omnibus horses “stare” — as the jockeys say.
I wish the physiologists would explain why horses'
coats do not lie closer when it is cold, and why men,
with the same sensation, raise their arms instinctively
from their sides. Cats and dogs seem to economize
their bodily heat better — lying down when cold in
such an attitude as to expose as little surface to the
air as possible.

Our thoughts are entirely occupied this morning
with two poets. It must be a pleasant book that we
take for company the first hour after waking, and to-day,
with his new volume of poems open on our dressing-table,
we dressed and read Lowell. Thence he
went with us to a tête-à-tête breakfast (for we chanced
else, to be breakfasting alone), and we were reading
him with a cup of coffee in one hand and his book in
the other, when the letters came in from the post —
and one letter was from a poet new-plumaged, of
whom we had never heard, and who had probably
never heard of himself (as a poet), but still indubitably

a poet — albeit “an apprentice-boy in a printing
office” in a small village in Pennsylvania. We read
his timid letter and two sweet pieces of poetry enclosed
within it, marked the poetry “good” for the Mirror,
and then reverted to our breakfast and book. But,
so early in the morning, a little reading is enough for
a brainful of thought, and from pondering on Lowell's
“Shepherd King of Admetus,” we fell to thinking
over the probable position and destiny of these two
poets.

Lowell is the best-launched poet of his time, and
the defect of his poetry is an advantage to his go-along-ery.
He is stern and strong enough to “take
the wall” of Envy and Misfortune, but not yielding
and soft enough to bend to the unconscious and impulsive
abandonments of love. Love with him is sound
sense, not beautiful madness. He is too bold and abstract
for the

and, if he knows, he has a contempt for, the

The way Lowell handles the word love makes one
start like seeing Rolla pick up Cora's baby with one
hand. The fact is, he is a strong-minded, tough-sinewed,
defying poet, fit to be a martyr to opinion or a
partisan soldier, and if his love be not an excellent
lamp not yet lighted (which is possible), he has never
experienced its first timidity, nor is he likely to know
its ultimate phrensy and prodigality. He has drawn
his own portrait, however, in a “Sonnet written on
his Twenty-fourth Birthday,” and let us read his
character from it: —

What should you think would naturally follow this
“if,” dear reader? He is twenty-four — in the full
tide of blood and youth, and “Love's sun has filled
his soul with splendor.” In building up a climax of
his feelings at this impetuous and passionate age,
what should you fancy would rush up to crown it like
flame to a volcano? What would his “heart break”
for at passionate twenty-four?
In another poem on “Love,” he describes “true
love” as
This is a cold description of “true love,” and it is
not half so warm as the “love” which Lowell exhibits
to his preface, for his friend William Page. Compare
the above description, in poetry, of true love for
a woman, with the following confession, in prose, of
love for a man: —

“My dear friend: The love between us, which can
now look back upon happy years of still enlarging confidence,
and forward with a sure trust in its own prophecy
of yet deeper and tenderer sympathies, as long as
life shall remain to us, stands in no need, I am well
aware, of so poor a voucher as an Epistle Dedicatory.
True, it is one of love's chiefest charms that it must
still take special pains to be superfluous in seeking
out ways to declare itself — but for these it demands no
publicity and wishes no acknowledgment. But the
admiration which one soul feels for another loses
half its worth, if it slip any opportunity of making
itself heard and felt,” etc.

Lowell is one kind of poet, and it is the worst manner
of criticism to tell what a poet is not, except more
clearly to define what he is. Though his sexual heart
never swims in his inkstand, he is warm enough in his
enthusiasm for all generous sentiments, and both daring
and delicate enough in his powers of imagination.
Truth, good sense, and fancy, were seldem more
evenly braided together than in his poem of “The
Heritage,” and Rosaline (though it never could have
been conceived by a man who had passionately loved)
is the very finest cobweb of fancy. Nobody could
help loving the truth, honesty, fearlessness, and energy,
stamped on all his poetry, and, as we said before,
he has the “vim” to carve out for himself any destiny
he pleases. He has determined to live by literature,
but we do not believe he will long remain a poet only.
He will wish to take the world by the beard in some
closer clutch than poetry gives room for, and his good
judgment as to the weight of heavy English words,
will try itself before long on more serious matter than
sonnets. At least, that is what we think while admiring
him over our breakfast.

As to the other poet, Bayard Taylor, we had a
great deal to say to him — sympathy, encouragement,
promise of watchfulness over his fame, etc., etc. But
he will need no special kindness yet awhile. Love is
plenty for new-found poets. Many people love little
chickens who are insensible to the merits of cocks
and hens, and we reserve our friendship till he is matured
and envied. Meantime, if he wants our opinion
that he is a poet, and can be, with toil and study — immortal
— he has it. His poetry is already worthy of
long preserving — apprentice-boy though he be.

I had quite a summery trip to Philadelphia on the
second day of the new year, sitting at the open window
of the railcar and snuffing the fragrance of the
soft, sun-warmed fields with as good comfort as I ever
found in April. But for the rudeness and incivility
of all the underlings employed upon the line (and I
am too old a traveller, and was in too sunny a humor,
to find fault unnecessarily), I should have given the
clerk of happiness credit for five hours “bankable”
satisfaction. It tells ill for the manners of the “Directors
of the Philadelphia and New York Railroad Line,”
that their servants are habitually insolent and profane —
servants being usually what their masters look on
without reproof.

Philadelphia makes an impression of great order,
comfort, and elegance, upon a stranger, and there is
no city in the country where I like better to “loiter
by the way.” Not feeling very “gregarious” the day
I was there, and having heard much mention of Sanderson's
restaurant — (moreover, having found a new
book at Lea & Blanchard's, a look into which promised
excellent dinner-company) — I left my hotel and
dined à la Française — I and my new book. I never
had a more capital dinner in France than this impromptu
one at Sanderson's, and I wish the book had

been American as well as the dinner — for the glory it
is to the country that produced it. It was to me
much more enchanting and captivating than a novel,
yet the subject was, “The Education of Mothers, or
the Civilization of Mankind” — a subject you would
naturally expect to find treated with somewhat trite
morality. This work, however (which gained the
prize offered by the French Academy), is written with
complete novelty and freshness, and — to define it in a
way that every thinking man will comprehend — it is a
most delightfully suggestive book — full of thoughts
and sentences that make you stop and close the volume
till you have fed awhile on what they convey to
you. If this book were properly presented to the appreciation
of the public, it would circulate widely on
the two levels of amusement and instruction, and be
as delightful in one field as it would be eminently useful
in the other. I commend it to every one who is
in want of enjoyable reading. The motto, by-the-way,
is that true sentiment from Rousseau: “Les
hommes seront toujours ce qu'il plaira aux femmes. Si
vous voulez qu'ils deviennent grands et vertueux, apprenez
aux femmes ce que c'est que grandeur et vertu.”

The New Mirror has published No. 3 of what a
morning paper calls “aristocratic shilling literature,”
an extra containing “The Lady Jane, and other Humorous
Poems,” by N. P. Willis. The Lady Jane
is a daguerreotype sketch of the London literary society
in which Moore, Bulwer, D'Israeli, Proctor, and
others of that class habitually live, and it is, at least,
done with the utmost labor limœ of the author. Byron,
in a manner, monopolized the Don Juan stanza
(in which this poem is written), and no one could now
attempt the stanza, however different the story and
style of thought, without being criticised inevitably
as an imitator. Still, it is the only stanza susceptible,
to any high degree, of mingled pathos and humor,
philosophy and fun, and it is likely to be used for such
purposes until the monopoly is lost sight of — a hundred
years hence. There is a great deal in “The
Lady Jane” which is truer and newer than most
sketches of society published in books of travel — a
great deal that could only be told in such a poem, or
in the rattle of familiar gossip.

I met just now, in the corridor of the Astor; Captain
Chadwick, of the London packet-ship Wellington,
just arrived in twenty-two days from England.
At this season of the year, and up-hill (as the sailors
call it, westerly winds always predominating on the
Atlantic), this is a remarkable passage, and could only
have been made by a fine ship, well sailed. I have
made two remarkably short passages across the water
with Captain Chadwick, and a more agreeable companion,
or a better “skipper,” I believe, never tightened
a halliard. He is one of those happy men famous
for “good luck,” which commonly means, “taking
good care.” This is the ship on board of which
the duke of Wellington made a speech (at a breakfast
given to him by the captain) very complimentary
to America and Americans.

There is a considerable outbreak lately in the way
of equipages in New York. Several four-horse vehicles
have made their appearance, driven by the
young men who own them. I have noticed also a
new curricle in beautiful taste (driven with a steel bar
over the horses' backs), and a tilbury with two servants
in livery, one on the seat with his master, and
another on horseback, following as an outrider. We
are to have a masked ball this evening, and a steeple-chase
is to come off on the twentieth (Viscount Bertrand
one of the riders, and each competitor entering
a thousand-dollar stake for the winner). I shall be at
the ball, not at the steeple-chase — for a horse must
have iron legs to run over frozen ploughed fields, and
a man must have less use for his life than I, who
would risk a fall upon a surface like broken stones.
The viscount has won several steeple-chases in England,
and has had some rough riding after the Arabs
in Algiers — so I would bet on him, unless there happened
to be a fox-hunting Irishman among the competitors.
There are six riders, I understand, and one
of them will win six thousand dollars, of course, and
probably six horses will be ruined, and one or two
necks broken. Fortunately, there is a superfluity of
horses and young men.

The story goes that “there is a skeleton in every
man's closet,” and there is, of course (in a country
as independent as ours is of les prestiges), a phantom
following every man who is conspicuous, and pointing
at his drawback. The drawback to any elaborate
novelty of luxury is at once read legibly in Broadway.
Seeing a new and very costly equipage in England,
you merely know that the owner had money enough
to buy it. The contrivance of it, the fitting of the
harness, the matching and breaking in of the horses,
are matters attended to by those who make these details
their profession. The turn-out is brought perfect
to the owner's door, and he pays, simply, money
for it. In this country, on the contrary, the purchaser
and driver of such a vehicle pays for it money, contrivance,
constant thought, and almost his entire attention.
The classes are yet wanting who purvey for luxuries
out of the ordinary course. There is no head-groom
whose business it is to save his master from all
thought and trouble as to his turn-out. The New
York “Glaucus” must go every day for a month to
the coachmaker's, to superintend the finishing of his
new “drag.” He must hurry his breakfast to go to
the stable to look after his irresponsible grooms. He
spends hours at the harness-maker's. He racks his
thought to contrive compact working-room for his
wheelers, and get the right pull on his leaders. He
becomes learned in harness-blacking and wheel-grease,
horse-shoes and horse-physic, and, in short, entirely
occupies what philosophers are pleased to call “an immortal
mind” in the one matter of a vehicle to drive.
(He could be conveyed, of course, the same distance
each day in an omnibus for sixpence — but he does not
believe the old satire of “aliquis in omnibus, nihil in
singulis.” Quite the contrary!) A man who is not
content, in this country, to be provided for with the
masses, and like the masses, becomes his own provider
— like a man who, to have a coat different from other
people, should make it himself, and, of course, he little
except an amateur tailor. We shall have these
supplementary links of society in time. There will
be, doubtless, the class of thought-savers. But, until
then, the same amount of thought that would serve a
constituency in Congress, will be employed in keeping
a “slap-up turn-out,” and rich young men will
at least have the credit of choosing between stable
knowledge and legislative ambition.

I had thought that the revenue which foreign theatres
derive from selling to young men, at large prices,
keys for the season to the behind-scenes, and the society
of the goddesses of the ballet while off the
stage, was not yet discovered in this country. The
following paragraph, from the True Sun, would seem
to show that the coulisses are visited for their society,
at least, and might be made “to pay:” —

“Among the cases which are set down for trial next
term, is one which will lift the curtain which conceals
the affairs of a certain cheap theatre in this city, and
give the public a bird's-eye view of what has been recently
going on behind the scenes. The developments,
if not prevented by an amicable arrangement,
will be rich and rare — showing the procedure by
which a luminary of the law has run out of his orbit,
displacing, in his new and erratic course, a luminary
of literature!”

The fine writing of this paragraph, by-the-way, is
rather piquant.

The belle of the Olympic, pretty Miss Taylor,
could scarce have a better advertisement for attraction
than a paragraph which announces that she “has
been robbed of six hundred dollars worth of jewelry,”
and that “MANY heavy articles of plate, rich dresses,
&c., were LEFT UNDISTURBED!” I am inclined to
think that this is a covert puff from Mitchell's genius
— for he is a genius, and quite capable of knowing
that everybody will go to have a look at an actress
who had “six hundred dollars' worth of jewelry and
many heavy articles of plate left undisturbed!” People,
like pictures, are made to “stand out” by a
well-contrived background! Ah, you bright fellow,
Mitchell!

The event ahead which has the most rose-colored
promise, just now, is the Annual Ball of the City
Guard — to be given at Niblo's on the twenty-fourth.
Niblo's finely-proportioned hall has been, for some
time, undergoing a transformation into a model of the
ancient Alhambra for the purpose, and Smith, the excellent
scene-painter of the Park, and a troop of decoraters
and upholsterers under his direction, are doing
all that taste and money can do to conjure up a
scene of enchantment “for one night only.” The
supper is to make the gods hungry and envious on
Olympus — so sumptuous, they say, are the preparations.
The City Guard, as you may know, is what
the English army-men call the “crack corps” of New
York. The probability is, that its members represent
more spirit, style, and character, than belong to
any other combination of young men in the state.
They have a great deal of fashion, as well as esprit du
corps, and, what with their superb uniform, uppish
carriage, superior discipline, and high-spirited union
of purpose, they constitute a power of no little weight
and consideration. Their ball will probably be the
most showy festivity of the season.

The masked ball which comes off to-night is, I am
told, got up by a party of literary ladies, to promote
ease in conversation! I can hardly fancy anything
more easy than the “freedoms of the press,” and, I
am told, most of the gentlemen of the press are invited,
myself among the number. A man is a block,
of course, who is not open to improvement.

I went to the masked ball without any very clear
idea of who were its purposers, or what were its
purposes. I found to my surprise that it was the
celebration of the opening of the Ladies' Club in
the upper part of Broadway. A fine house has been
taken and furnished, and the reading-room goes immediately
into operation, I understand. Like the
forlic they gave (in some country of which I have
read and desire to know more) to the nuns before
taking the irrevocable veil, the carpets were taken up
and music and men introduced to make the gynocrastic
seclusion hereafter more marked and positive.
Being “an early man,” I stayed but an hour, listening
to the band and looking on; but I saw beauty
there which might make one almost envy the newspapers
that are to be perused by a “club” of such,
and a general air enjoué more lovely than literary.
The masks were few, and the fun of them was quite
destroyed by the fact that every one seemed to know
who they were. Indeed, the pleasure of reputable
masking lies in the momentary breaking down of barriers
that in this country do not exist — in giving low
degree and high degree a chance to converse freely,
that is to say — and till we have unapproachable lords
and princes, and ladies weary of the thin upper air of
exclusiveness, masquerading will be dull work to us.
At present the mask makes rather than removes an obstacle
to intercourse. Anybody who is there in a
mask, would be just as glad to see you tête-à-tête by
daylight, the next morning in her parlor, as to chat
with you through pasteboard and black crape. Most
of the ladies at this literary ball were in fancy dresses,
however, and doubtless with their pastoral attractions
displayed to the best advantage; and this part of it
was commendable. If women knew what was attractive,
I think they would make every ball a “fancy
ball.” “Medora” jackets and “Sultana” trousers are
choses entrainantes.

I think you would agree with me, after reading it,
that Brantz Mayer's work on Mexico, recently
published, is as agreeably spiced with wit, humor, and
other pleasant metal pimento, as any book of travels
written within new-book memory. I have run through
it within a day or two with some suspense, as well as
great amusement — for so racy and sketchy a power
of description should be in the corps of professed,
not amateur authors. His descriptions of the outer
features of Mexican life, of Mexican character, Mexican
women, beggars, priests, and gamblers, are admirably
spirited and entertaining. There is also a
good deal of statistical matter industriously and carefully
got together, and the publisher has done justice
to it all in the printing and getting up. There will
be elaborate reviews of it elsewhere; but meantime I
express my pleasurable surprise and admiration in a
paragraph — commending it for the purchase of readers.

The fourth extra of the New Mirror has appeared,
embodying Morris's popular songs and melodies,
which have heretofore only been published with music,
or in a very expensive embellished edition of his
works. The hundred thousand lovers of married poetry
(music the wife, or husband, I don't know which)
will be glad to get these “winged words” in a lump
for a shilling. Morris's popularity will send this extra
to every corner of the land.

The betting upon the riders in the proposed hurdle-race
(not steeple-chase, as I mentioned before) goes
on vigorously. I rather doubt, however, whether it
will ultimately come off. There was a steeple-chase
got up on Long Island, last year, in which an Irishman
and an Englishman, whose fames had followed
them, as great hunters, were the competitors, and
after getting over two fences by pushing them down
with their horses' breasts, they got imprisoned in a
clover-lot, from which they were extricated with great
difficulty by the owner's letting down the bars and
leading the horses over! There is a compact, jockey-built
American among the competitors, who has great
skill as a horseman, and should there be snow on the
ground, his light weight and superior practice will

win the race for him without a doubt. The Viscount
Bertrand, though doubtless the boldest of riders, is
over six feet high, and a heavy man.

The Statistics of Puffing. — We have been induced
lately to look a little into the meum and tuum
of puffing — partly from having been untruly (qu. prematurely?)
accused of “receiving consideration for
the same,” but more to see whether the consideration
were worth the having, in case conscience (“John Tetzel,
vender of indulgences,” being dead) could be
brought to countenance it. We pique ourselves on
looking things in the face, and having and allowing
as few concealments as possible — so, first, for a clean
breast on the subject — say up to January 1, 1844.

We are not particular, as “Mrs. Grundy” knows,
as to the subject we write upon, nor the harness in
which we are put to work, nor the style, rhythm, or
rhyme, we are called upon to write in. We go altogether
for metallic magnetism. It is our duty (on
our way to Heaven) to try for a “plum” — in other
words, to be “diligent in business.” We write what
in our judgment is best calculated to sell. But, in
the course of this policy, it falls in our way to speak
of things to eat, and things to wear — very capable
topics, both, as to piquancy and interest. We have
had occasion to describe glowingly Florence's crustaceous
cave, and the ice-cream Alhamra, and to
pronounce Carpenter the ne plus ultra of coat-builders,
and Jennings's the emporium of “bang-up”
toggery, and for these and similar serviceable “first-rate
notices,” we have, in no shape,[2] received “con-sid-e-ra-tion.”
The gentlemen who have said so
(“the hawks” who would “pick out hawks' een”)
will please make an early meal of their little fictions.

As to literary puffs, we would as soon sell our tears
for lemon-drops, as to defile one of God's truthful
adjectives with a price for the using it. We never
asked for a literary puff in our life, nor made interest
for it in any shape, nor would we sell one for the
great emerald Sakhral. But if we love a man (as we
do many, thank God, whom we are called upon to
criticise), we pick out the gold that is inlaid in his
book, and leave to his enemies to find the brass and
tinsel. And if that's not fair, we don't very much care
— for we scorn to be impartial.

But let us hop off this high horse, and come down
to the trade part of it once more.

In England, all influences that aid business are
priced and paid. The puffs of new books in the
newspapers are invariably sent, ready-written, by the
publishers, and paid for at a much higher price than
avowed advertisements. The continued effect of this
abuse of the public ear is based upon the phlegmatic
dulness of perception in the English public, and their
consequent chronic humbuggability. It could never
“answer” in our country after being once fairly exposed.
It is, to a certain degree, practised, however
— as is pay for concert-puffing, music-puffing, theatrical-puffing,
etc.

Having confessed that we are willing to admit an
entering wedge of iniquity in this line — in other
words, that we are willing to know whether it be honest
to serve a man and contemplate his thanks in
lucre — let us “run the line,” as the surveyors say,
and see how our new territory of tribute may be virtuously
bounded.

Authors have “the freedom” of us, of course.
They are welcome to all we can do for them — if they
publish on their own account. Actors, singers, and
painters, are “chartered libertines” for whom we have
a weakness; and, besides, we can not feed on the
wages of pleasure-makers. All other pursuits, trades,
professions, we are half inclined to admit, will be at
liberty to make us such acknowledgments as they
choose for any furtherance to their merchandise (in
bales or brains) which may come legitimately in our
way. We shall, in any case, preserve the value of
our commendation by keeping it honest, and we shall
never commend any farther than is entertaining and
readable — but there is a choice between subjects to
write about, and a preference as to giving attention to
things about town, and it is for this choice and preference
that we may make up our mind to be susceptible
of corruption. We write this in the cool of the
morning. We don't know what we shall think in the
more impulsive hours. Meantime — send it to the
printer, and see what the governor says of it in the
proof-sheet.

A few gentlemen (Mr. Philip Hone apparently the
mover of the project) have combined to raise a subscription
for the purchase of Clevenger's statue of a
North American Indian. The circular addresses the
business-men of the city, and the statue, if purchased,
will be presented to the Mercantile Library Association.
Three thousand dollars is the sum fixed upon,
five hundred of which are to be appropriated to the
immediate relief of Mrs. Clevenger and her children.
It would strike, perhaps, even some of the subscribers
to this fund with surprise to tell them that the statue
they are to purchase is possibly still lying unquarried
in the mountains of Carrara. Clevenger is dead, but
his genius stands pointing its finger to a rude block of
marble, in which lies, unseen, a complete and immortal
statue, waiting only for the chisel of mechanical
workmen to remove the rough stone that encumbers
it. That finger is seen and obeyed three thousand
miles away (by the committee with Mr. Philip Hone
at its head), and the reluctant money will be forthcoming
and on its way to Italy in a month, and the
statue will be found and finished, imported, and exhibited
at Clinton Hall! (Plain matter-of-fact, all
this, and yet it sounds very like poetry!) I was told
by Thorwalsden, when at Rome, that there were several
of his statues he had never seen. They were finished,
as far as he was concerned, when they were
moulded in clay. They were then cast in plaster by
the mechanics who make a trade of it, and the plaster
models were sent to Carrara, where there is a large
village of copyists in marble living near the marble
quarries. From Carrara the statues were sent, when
finished, to Copenhagen, their ultimate destination,
and Thorwalsden, on his subsequent visit to his native
country, saw them for the first time. The cost of delivering
Clevenger's statue from the womb of the
mountain impregnated by his genius will be about one
thousand dollars — a round fee for the accouchement of
the stony mother of “a North American Indian!”

Burns's Letters to Clarinda have disappointed many
people, who expected, naturally, to find a poet's love-letters
better written than another man's. I think the
contrary would naturally be true. Fine writing is an
arm's-length dexterity, and the heart works only at
close quarters. I should suspect the sincerity of a
poet's love-letter if it were not far within his habitual
tact and grace. Besides, in strong emotion, the heart
flies from the much-used channels of language, and
tries for something newer to its own ear, and, while an
ordinary man would find this novelty in poetical language,
a poet would seek to roughen, and simplify,

and break up the habitual art and melody of his periods.
By-the-way, the name of Burns reminds me
of a little anecdote I heard told with some humor by
Campbell, at a dinner-party in London. Count
D'Orsay and Barry Cornwall were present, and they
were drawing out the veteran bard as to his recollections
of the great men who were setting stars when he
was rising. “I was dining one day with Burns,” said
Campbell, “who, like Dr. Johnson and other celebrities,
had his Bozzy worshipper, a friend who was
always in his company. I have forgotten his name.
Burns left the room for a moment, and passing the
bottle to his friend, I proposed to drink the health
of Mr. Burns. He gave me a look of annihilation.
`Sir,' said he, `you will always be known as Mr.
Campbell, but posterity will talk of Burns!”' Such
an anecdote makes one look around in alarm, to see if
there are not some unrecognised mononoms in our time,
whom we are profaning, unaware, with our Mister-y.

It rains in Broadway — as it has often done before, it
is true; but it seems to me a particularly wet rain, for
there is an old black beggar standing in front of St.
Paul's, holding out his hat for what must be, at any
rate, a diluted charity. At a fair calculation (and I
have watched him while writing, for the last two
hours), every tenth passenger put something into his
hat. His gray wool must hold more water than his
leaky hat, and, at least, it acts like a sponge — on the
passers-by. Begging, as yet, is a good trade in
America, and I think that New York, particularly, is
a place where money has little adhesiveness — easily
made and readily given away.

I have noticed in history and real life that reformers,
great enthusiasts, and great philosophers, produce
effects quite commensurate with their ambitions, but
seldom by success in the exact line they had marked
out. Providence does not allow “steam” to be wasted.
In the search after the “elixir of life,” and the “philosopher's
stone,” for example, the alchymists have
stumbled over some of the most important discoveries
of chymistry. This is rather an essayish beginning to
a hasty-pudding letter, but I have been looking over
Brisbane's book on Fourierism, while eating my breakfast,
and it struck me how poorly the direct objects of
“socialism” succeeded, while combination, to produce
great and small results, seems to me to be the most
prominent novelty in the features of the time. Mercantile
houses are establishing partners in all the principal
capitals — new publications are circulated almost
wholly by a lately-arranged system of combined agencies
— information, formerly got by individual reading,
is now fed out to large societies; and the rumor just
now is, of a grand experiment of combining all the qualities
of half a dozen newspapers in one — establishing
something like the London Times, for instance, in
which the subscriber would be sure to find “everything
that is going.”

I went on Wednesday evening to the temperance
tea-party, at Washington Hall, given in honor of the
birthday of Franklin. Here was combination again —
tea-party, prayer-meeting, lecture, concert, promenade,
and tableau vivant (a printing-press worked in the
room), all given in one entertainment. There were
seven or eight long tables, with alleys between, and from
a thousand to twelve hundred ladies and gentlemen
seated “at tea,” and listening to the singing, praying,
instrumental music, and speech-making, with a great
appearance of comfort. I did not stay for the “promenade
all round,” but I am told that it was very
agreeable, and that the party did not separate till two
in the morning! The temperance combination has
been a great lesson as to the power of numbers united
for one end; though I fear the action of it has been
somewhat like the momentary sweeping dry of a
river's channel by a whirlwind, so strikingly seems
intemperance, of late, to have resumed its prevalence
in the streets.

I find that, by my hasty observations on New York
society in a late letter, I have given voice to a feeling
that has been for some time in petto publico, and I
have heard since a great deal of discussion of the
quality of New York gayety. It seems to be the
opinion of good observers, that the best elements of
society are not organized. The intellect and refinement
of the population (of which there is quite
enough for a fair proportion) lies “around in spots,”
it is thought, waiting only for some female Napoleon
to concentrate and combine them. Exclusively literary
parties would be as unattractive as exclusively
dancing or juvenile parties, and indeed variety is the
spice of agreeable social intercourse. In London,
beauty is, with great pains, dug out from the mine of
unfashionable regions, and made to shine in an aristocratic
setting; and talent of all kinds, colloquial, literary,
artistical, theatrical, is sought out, and mingled
with rank, wealth, and elegance, in the most perfect
society of Europe. Any sudden attempt to discredit
fashionable parties, and run an opposition with a
“blue” line, would be covered with ridicule. But I
think enough has been said, in a community as mercurial
and sympathetic of news as is the population of
New York, to induce the Amphytrions of gayety to
look a little into their social mixtures, and supply the
sweets or acids that are wanting. At the most fashionable
party lately given, Madame Castellan was the
guest of honor, and not called upon to sing — and this
is somewhat more Londonish than usual. It is one
of the newnesses of our country that we have no
grades in our admiration, and can only see the merits
of extreme lions. Second, third, and fourth-rate celebrities,
for whom in Europe there is attention justly
measured, pass wholly unnoticed through our cities.
It must be a full-blooded nobleman, or the first singer
or danseuse of the world, or the most popular author,
or the very first actor, or the miraculous musician, if
there is to be any degree whatever of appreciation or
enthusiasm. This lack of a scale of tribute to merit is
one reason why we so ridiculously overdo our welcomes
to great comets, as in the case of Dickens —
leaving very respectable stars, like Emerson, Longfellow,
Cooper, Sully, and all our own and some foreign
men of genius, to pass through the city, or remain
here for weeks, unsought by party-givers, and unwelcomed
except by their personal friends. To point
this out, fortunately, is almost to correct it, so ready
are we to learn; but I think, by the shadow cast
before, that the avatar of some goddess of fashion may
be soon looked for, who will shut her doors upon stupidity
and inelegance, rich or poor, and create a gayety
that will be enjoyable, not barely endurable

I am very sorry to see by the English papers that
Dickens has been “within the rules of the Queen's
bench” — realizing the prophecy of pecuniary ruin
which has, for some time, been whispered about for
him. His splendid genius did not need the melancholy
proof of improvidence, and he has had wealth
so completely within his grasp that there seems a particular
and unhappy needlessness in his ruin. The
most of his misfortune is, he has lived so closely at
the edge of his flood-tide of prosperity, that the ebb
leaves him at high-water mark, and not in the contented

ooze of supplied necessity where it first took
him up. And by-the-way, it was in that same low-water
period of his life — just before he became celebrated
— that I first saw Dickens; and I will record
this phase of his chrysalis (“the tomb of the caterpillar
and the cradle of the butterfly,” as Linnæus
calls it), upon the chance of its being as interesting to
future ages as such a picture would now be of the
anle-butterflivity of Shakspere. I was following a
favorite amusement of mine one rainy day, in the
Strand, London — strolling toward the more crowded
thoroughfares with cloak and umbrella, and looking at
people and shop-windows. I heard my name called
from a passenger in a street-cab. From out the
smoke of the wet straw peered the head of my publisher,
Mr. Macrone (a most liberal and noble-hearted
fellow, since dead). After a little catechism as to my
damp destiny for that morning, he informed me that
he was going to visit Newgate, and asked me to join
him. I willingly agreed, never having seen this famous
prison, and after I was seated in the cab, he said he
was going to pick up, on the way, a young paragraphist
for the Morning Chronicle, who wished to write a
description of it. In the most crowded part of Holborn,
within a door or two of the “Bull and Mouth”
inn (the great starting and stopping-place of the stage-coaches),
we pulled up at the entrance of a large
building used for lawyers' chambers. Not to leave
me sitting in the rain, Macrone asked me to dismount
with him. I followed by long flights of stairs to an
upper story, and was ushered into an uncarpeted
and bleak-lookíng room, with a deal table and two
or three chairs and a few books, a small boy and
Mr. Dickens — for the contents. I was only struck at
first with one thing (and I made a memorandum of it
that evening, as the strongest instance I had seen of
English obsequiousness to employers) — the degree to
which the poor author was overpowered with the
honor of his publisher's visit! I remember saying to
myself, as I sat down on a rickety chair, “My good
fellow, if you were in America, with that fine face and
your ready quill, you would have no need to be condescended
to by a publisher!” Dickens was dressed
very much as he has since described “Dick Swiveller”
— minus the “swell” look. His hair was cropped
close to his head, his clothes scant, though jauntily
cut, and after changing a ragged office-coat for a
shabby blue, he stood by the door, collarless and buttoned
up, the very personification, I thought, of a
close sailer to the wind. We went down and crowded
into the cab (one passenger more than the law allowed,
and Dickens partly in my lap and partly in Macrone's)
and drove on to Newgate. In his works, if you remember,
there is a description of the prison, drawn
from this day's observation. We were there an hour
or two, and were shown some of the celebrated murderers
confined for life, and one young soldier waiting
for execution; and in one of the passages we chanced
to meet Mrs. Fry, on her usual errand of benevolence.
Though interested in Dickens's face, I forgot him
naturally enough after we entered the prison, and I do
not think I heard him speak during the two hours. I
parted from him at the door of the prison, and continued
my stroll into the city.

Not long after this, Macrone sent me the “sheets
of Sketches by Boz,” with a note saying that they
were by the gentleman who went with us to Newgate.
I read the book with amazement at the genius displayed
in it, and in my note of reply assured Macrone that
I thought his fortune was made as a publisher if he
could monopolize the author.

Two or three years afterward, I was in London, and
present at the complimentary dinner given to Macready.
Samuel Lover, who sat next me, pointed out
Dickens. I looked up and down the table, but was
wholly unable to single him out without getting my
friend to number the people who sat above him. He
was no more like the same man I had seen than a tree
in June is like the same tree in February. He sat
leaning his head on his hand while Bulwer was speaking,
and with his very long hair, his very flash waistcoat,
his chains and rings, and withal a much paler
face than of old, he was totally unrecognisable. The
comparison was very interesting to me, and I looked
at him a long time. He was then in his culmination
of popularity, and seemed jaded to stupefaction. Remembering
the glorious works he had written since I
had seen him, I longed to pay him my homage, but
had no opportunity, and I did not see him again till
he came over to reap his harvest and upset his hay-cart
in America. When all the ephemera of his imprudences
and improvidences shall have passed away
— say twenty years hence — I should like to see him
again, renowned as he will be for the most original and
remarkable works of his time.

A friend lent me yesterday a late file of “The
Straits Messenger,” an English newspaper published
at Singapore. The leader of one number commences
with, “We have always had a hatred for republicanism,
and holding it to be the fosterer of every rascality
in public life, and every roguery in private, we are not
at all surprised when instances turn up to prove our
theory true.” This is apropos of some news of
“repudiation.” The advertisements in this paper
amused me somewhat, and this consist principally of
dissolutions of native partnership. Here are three of
them: —

“Notice. The interest and responsibility of Kim
Joo Ho in our firm ceased from the 8th January.
(Signed) Yep Hun Ho.”

“Notice. The interest and responsibility of the
undersigned in the firm of Chop Tyho ceased from
this date. (Signed) Chee Ong Seang, Chee Jin
Seo.”

“Notice. The interest and responsibility of Mr.
See Eng San in our firm ceased from the 5th January.
(Signed Boonteeong & Co.”

In the old English of Gower's “Confessio Amantis”
there is wrapped up a little germ of wisdom which
you would hardly look for in the metaphysics of love,
but which contains the hand-over-hand, boiling-pot
principle of most of the make-money-ries of our
country: —

In England nobody gets ahead but by shoving on
all those who are before him, but a hundred instances
will occur to you of leap-frog experiment in our country,
by which all kinds of success in business is superseded.
The most signal and successful jump that I
have noticed lately is that of the periodical agents, over
the heads of the old publishers — (the trick, indeed,
which has hocus-pocused the old pirates into changing
their views on the subject of copyright!) Three
years ago the great apparatus for the circulation of
books, was entirely a secret in the hands of the trade,
and a man might as well have attempted to run a rail-car
across the fields by hand as an author to have attempted
to circulate his own book without the consent
of publishers. The names and terms of book-selling
correspondents, the means of transportation of
books, and the amount of profits on them, were matters
of inaccessible knowledge. The publisher kept the

gate of the public eye, and demanded his own toll —
two thirds of the commodity, if not all! The first
“little pin” that “bored through this castle wall,”
was the establishment of the mammoth newspaper, by
Day and Wilson, and the publication of entire novels
in one sheet; and, upon their agencies for the circulation
of these, is now built a scheme of periodical
agency totally separate from publishers, and comparing
with these as the expresses of Hale and Harnden and
Pomeroy do with the general post-office — cheaper,
more expeditious and open to competition.

It is, perhaps, not generally known, that any author,
now, can publish his own book, and get all the profits!
Any printer will tell him how to get it printed and
bound in paper covers — for which he pays simply what
publishers do. Stored up in his own room or a warehouse,
he has only to furnish it to the periodical agents,
who will take of him, at their wholesale price, all that
will sell — (bringing the risk directly on the proper
shoulders, those of the author) — and returning to him
very promptly the money or the unsaleable copies.
There are no “six months publishers' notes” in the
business; no cringing or making interest. The author
is on a blessed level with the gingerbread bakers and
blacking sellers he has often envied — salesman of his
own commodity, if saleable it be, and made aware, to
a certainty, in a very brief time, whether he has mistaken
his vocation. Let but congress give us a law
which shall prevent English books from coming, not
into the market, but into the publishers' hands, for
nothing, and the only remaining obstacle to a worldwide
competition will be gloriously removed. And,
books will be no dearer than at present — as the memorials
to congress sufficiently show.

There are some delicious works of art now exhibiting
opposite the hospital, in Broadway — Harvey's
Atmospheric Effects of American Scenery. Those
who have not been observers in other countries are
scarcely aware how peculiar our country is in its atmospheric
phenomena — how much bolder, brighter,
and more picturesque. There is scarce a scene pictured
in this beautiful gallery which could be at all true
of any other country; but to the American eye they
are enchantingly faithful and beautiful. The artist
gives in his prospectus for engraving these works the
following interesting bit of autobiography: —

“In 1827 I entered upon the line of portrait-painting
in miniature; I pursued it for nine years with an
assiduity that impaired my health. Country air and
exercise being recommended me, I purchased a tract
of land on the majestic Hudson; built a cottage after
my own plan; amused myself by laying out grounds,
and gained health and strength by the employment.
These exercises in the open air led me more and more
to notice and study the ever-varying atmospheric effects
of this beautiful climate. I undertook to illustrate
them by my pencil, and thus almost accidentally,
commenced a set of atmospheric landscapes. The
number had reached twenty-two, and as yet I had no
thought of publication when business called me to
Europe. I carried them with me, and, while in London,
occasionally attended the Conversazione of Artists.
At one of these I accidentally heard a gentleman, on
leaving a little knot of connoisseurs assembled round
my portfolio, pass a most flattering eulogium on its
contents. I felt the more elated by his praise on
learning that he was Professor Farrady, the able successor
of Sir Humphrey Davy. At Paris, while partaking
of the courteous hospitality of the American
minister, Governor Cass, my portfolio was sent for and
received the approbation of that gentleman and his
guests. Governor Cass retained my drawings for a
week; on returning them to me he recommended
that I should have them engraved, and suggested that
it might be done at once, while I was in Paris. I was
too diffident, however, of their popular merit, to risk
so extensive an undertaking. On my return to New
York my personal friends encouraged me in the project,
and at last I made up my mind to lay the original
drawings before the Boston public; conceiving that I
owed it to that city, where I had received liberal encouragement
in my previous pursuits to give to them
the opportunity of originating the work of publication.”

Mr. Harvey went afterward to London to find print-colorists
who could execute the work to his satisfaction,
and, while there, Mr. Murray, who was formerly
in this country, and is now attached to her majesty's
household, showed to the queen the first number.
The royal subscription was immediately given to the
work at a munificent price. It is worth every one's
while to see this delicious work of art, and every person
of easy means should subscribe for a copy of the
engravings.

The SLEIGHS flying very briskly up and down Broadway
this morning remind me that Miss Howitt, in her
late preface to one of Miss Bremer's works, mentions,
among other phrases, our use of the words “sleighs,
sleds, and sleighing, for sledges and sledging,” — calling
them “Americanisms which all well-educated persons
will be careful not to introduce into their families.”
Miss Howitt might allow, to a continent of the size
of ours, the privilege of coining a word without the
tariff of her contempt; but she forgets that sled is a
good English word, and derived from the very language
of the book she has translated — from the Swedish
word slœda. Thomson says in his Seasons: —

And Fletcher says, in a fine passage of his Eclogue: —

The cold weather of the last week has justified
another Americanism, for it has been literally “a cold
spell” — dimming parlor lights, and arresting the flow
of thought. The gas-lights burn dim because water
freezes in the gasometers, and “whole stacks of new
publications” (as a periodical agent told me yesterday)
are “books and stationary,” from the interrupted navigation.

Palmo's new opera has been voted fashionable,
nem. con. (as I have been fashionably assured), and
the long ellipse of other theatricals will give it a flowing
launch. It is a small and beautiful edifice, and is
to be brilliantly lighted, and made every way conformable
to the exactions of white kid and cashmere. Its
situation is admirable — far enough up Chamber street
to be away from the noises of Broadway, and accessible
easily from all parts of the city. This evening
comes off the preparatory rehearsal, to which the
connoisseurs and gentlemen of the press are invited as
guests. The printed invitation by the way, makes
Mr. Palmo out to be (very properly) a fellow-citizen
of the Muses, and is altogether an amusing production.
A copy of it, filled up with the name of a friend of
ours, lies by me, running thus: “The honor of the
company of N. P. W — , Grand Scribe, are respectfully
invited to attend the first public rehearsal of the
Italian Opera, on Friday evening. The house will
be brilliantly illuminated, and the connoisseur in music

will have an opportunity of beholding an edifice erected
and dedicated to the Muses, by their fellow-citizen,
F. Palmo.”

This making “fellow-citizens” of the Muses reminds
me of a police report in the “True Sun,”
announcing that a namesake of the great Roman
emperor who was “Amor et deliciœ generis humani”
— a Mr. Titus — was “arrested and committed for
stealing a door-mat!” How a man with so great a
name could steal so little, is a psychological marvel.

In looking over a western paper, a day or two since,
my eye fell on an advertisement in very comical verse.
Here are a couple of stanzas — to the tune of “the
cork leg:” —

I think there should be a committee sent out to invite
Mr. Kibbe to become a poet.

“The Rococo” is the quaint, but, in fact, most
descriptive name of one of the “extras of the New
Mirror.” Those of our readers who have been lately
in France will be familiar with the word. The etymology
of rococo has been matter of no little fruitless
inquiry. It came into use about four or five years ago,
when it was the rage to look up costly and old-fashioned
articles of jewelry and furniture. A valuable stone,
for example, in a beautiful but antique setting, was
rococo. A beauty, who had the kind of face oftenest
painted in the old pictures, was rococo. A chair, or a
table, of carved wood, costly once, but unfashionable
for many a day, was rococo. Articles of vertu were
looked up and offered for sale with a view to the prevailing
taste for rococo. Highly carved picture-frames,
old but elaborately-made trinkets, rich brocades, etc.,
etc. — things intrinsically beautiful and valuable, in
short, but unmeritedly obsolete, were rococo. The
extra published by the proprietors of the New Mirror
answers this description exactly. It comprises the
three most exquisite and absolute creations of pure
imagination (in my opinion) that have been produced
since Shakspere: “Lillian” by Praed, “The Culprit
Fay” by Drake, and “St. Agnes' Eve” by Keats — all
three of which have been overlaid and in a measure
lost sight of in the torrent of new literature — but all
three now to be had altogether in fair type, price one
shilling! The man who could read these poems
without feeling the chamber of his brain filled with
incense — without feeling his heart warm, his blood
moved, and his inmost craving of novelty and melody
deliciously ministered to, does not love poetry enough
to “possess a rose-teint for his russet cares.” I declare
I think it is worth the outlay of a fever to get
(by seclusion and depletion) the delicacy of nerve and
perception to devour and relish with intellectual nicety,
these three subtly-compounded feasts of the imagination.

We are indebted for many beautiful things not so
much to accident as to the quickness of genius to appreciate
and appropriate accident. I was pleased with
an instance that came to my knowledge last night.
Wallace (the omni-dexterous) was playing the piano
in my room, and, among others of his own inimitable
waltzes, he played one called the Midnight Waltz, in
which twelve strokes of the clock recur constantly
with the aria. In answer to an inquiry of mine, he
told me he was playing, one night, to some ladies in
Lima, when a loud silvery-toned clock in the room
struck twelve. He insensibly stopped, and beat the
twelve strokes on an accordant note on the piano,
and in repeating the passage, stopped at the same
place and beat twelve again. The effect was particularly
impressive and sweet, and he afterward composed
a waltz expressly to introduce it — one of the most
charming compositions I ever heard. Wallace is the
most prodigal of geniuses, and most prodigally endowed.
He has lived a life of adventure in the East Indies,
South America, New South Wales, and Europe,
that would fill satisfactorily the life-cups of a dozen
men, and how he has found time to be what he probably
is, as great a violinist and as great a pianist as the
greatest masters on those instruments, is certainly a
wonder. But this is not all. He was rehearsing for
a concert not long since in New York, when the clarionet-player,
in reply to some correction, said that
“if Mr. Wallace wished it played better he might
play it himself.” Wallace took the clarionet from
the hand of the refractory musician, and played the
passage so exquisitely as quite to electrify the orchestra.
He is the most modest of men, and how many
more instruments he is master of (beside the human
voice, which he plays on in conversation very attractively),
it would be wild to guess.[3] By the way, it
would be worth the while of a music-publisher to
send for the music he has literally sown the world with
— for he has written over three hundred waltzes, of
most of which he has no copy, though they have been
published and left in the cities he has visited. He
composes many hours every day. I think Wallace
one of the most remarkable men I ever knew.

On Saturday night I was at the opening of the new
opera — the beginning, as I think, of a regular supply
of a great luxury. The bright, festal look of Palmo's
exquisite little theatre struck every one with surprise
on entering, and the cozy, sympathy-sized construction,
and pleasant arrangement of seats, etc., seemed
to leave nothing to be wished for. With a kindly fostering
for a while, on the part of the press and the
public, Palmo's theatre may become the most enjoyable
and refined resort of the city.

The new prima donna made a brilliant hit. New
York is, at this moment, in love with Signorina Borghese.
She dresses a-merveille, has a very intellectual
and attractive want of beauty, is graceful, vivid, a capital
actress, and sings with a bird-like abandon, that
enchants you even with her defects. Nature has given
her quite her share of attractiveness, and she uses
it all.

The opera was “I puritani” — Bellini's last, and
the one that was playing, for only the third time, the
night he died — (at the age of twenty-seven). It was
well selected for the opening opera — being full of intelligible
and expressive melody, and not compelling
the musically uninitiated to get on tiptoe to comprehend
it. These same uninitiateds, however, are the
class to cater for, in any country, and especially in
ours. It is a great mistake to fancy that, in the appreciation
of an opera, criticism goes before. On the
contrary, feeling goes before and criticism follows
very slowly. The commonest lover of music feels,
for instance, that Bellini's operas are marked by simplicity
and sameness — but, after having felt that, the

the critic comes in and follows up the idea like an
ink-fish, expressing that plain fact in cloudy technicalities
this-wise: “Bellini rather multiplies the repetitions
of the chord than gives distinct business to
the several components of the score!” Who cares
to know, when in tears at Rossini's exquisite harmony,
that it is produced by a “profuse use of the diminished
seventh,” or that one of his most electrical effects
is done by “an harmonic atrocity of consecutive
fifths.” To have one's tear shed on a piece of paper,
and thus analyzed, may be curious, once, but not very
necessary always, and I wish, with all my heart, that
the humbug of technicalities in this, as in many other
things, might be exposed. It would be a capital subject
for a popular lecture. I lend the suggestion to
Mr. Emerson — the man best capable of using it.

Supper is a natural sequence to music, and I must
mention a pair of canvass-backs that were sent me by
a Baltimore friend, and feasted on last night after “I
Puritani” — for the sake of giving you and “your public”
some valuable and toothsome directions for the
cooking of these birds, contained in a passage of my
friend's letter: “I have some anxiety,” he says, “about
the cooking of these ducks. Pray don't put them in
the power of a Frenchman! Get hold of a good English
or American cook, knowing in roasts. Let this
cook erect a strong, blazing fire, before which he (or
she) must tend the birds for about twenty-five or
thirty minutes. To determine if they are done, have
them held up by the feet, and if the gravy runs out of
the necks, of a proper color, they don't require another
turn. Serve them up with their own gravy. 'Tis
safer than a chafing-dish and made gravy. Eat them
with hommony patties, between which and the ducks
there is a delicate affinity. Beware, I conjure you
once more, of a Frenchman — except in the shape of
a glass of Chablis. May they prove luscious as those
we ate together at Guy's.”

Here is an epigram on the turning of Grenough's
Washington out of the capitol: —

Young Poets. — An old man with no friend but
his money — a fair child holding the hand of a Magdalen
— a delicate bride given over to a coarse-minded
bridegroom — were sights to be troubled at seeing. We
should bleed at heart to see either of them. But
there is something even more touching to us than
these — something, too, which is the subject of heartless
and habitual mockery by critics — the first timid
offerings to fame of the youthful and sanguine poet.
We declare that we never open a letter from one of
his class, never read a preface to the first book of one
of them, never arrest our critical eye upon a blemish
in the immature page, without having the sensation of
a tear coined in our heart — never without a passionate
though inarticulate “God help you!” We know
so well the rasping world in which they are to jostle,
with their “fibre of sarcenet!” We know so well the
injustices, the rebuffs, the sneers, the insensibilities,
from without, the impatiences, the resentments, the
choked impulses and smothered heart-boundings within.
And yet it is not these outward penances, and
inward scorpions, that cause us the most regret in the
fate of the poet. Out of these is born the inspired expression
of his anguish — like the plaint of the singing
bird from the heated needle which blinds him. We
mourn more over his fatuous imperviousness to counsel
— over his haste to print, his slowness to correct — over
his belief that the airy bridges he builds over the
chasms in his logic and rhythm are passable, by avoirdupois
on foot, as well as by Poesy on Pegasus. That
the world is not as much enchanted — (that we ourselves
are not as much touched and delighted) — with
the halting flights of new poets as with the broken
and short venturings in air of new-fledged birds —
proves over again that the world we live in were a
good enough Eden if human nature were as loveable
as the rest. We wish it were not so. We wish it
were natural to admire anything human-made, that
has not cost pain and trial. But, since we do not, and
can not, it is a pity, we say again, that beginners in
poetry are offended with kind counsel. Of the great
many books and manuscript poems we receive, there
is never one from a young poet, which we do not
long, in all kindness, to send back to him to be restudied,
rewritten, and made, in finish, more worthy
of the conception. To praise it in print only puts
his industry to sleep, and makes him dream he has
achieved what is yet far beyond him. We ask the young
poets who read this, where would be the kindness in
such a case?

A young lady in Brooklyn who signs herself “Short
and Sweet,” writes to us to say that she is very tired
of her name, and seeing no prospect of getting another
(with an owner to it), wishes to know whether
she may lawfully abandon the unsentimental prenomen
inflicted on her at baptism, and adopt one of her
own more tasteful selection. By an understanding
with all the people likely to put her name in their
wills, we should think she might. Names are a modern
luxury, and if she chose to be rococo, she might
do without one, or be known as the ancients were, by
some word descriptive of her personal peculiarities.
(So came into use the names of Brown, Long, Broadhead,
etc.) “Short and Sweet” would not be a bad
name. Or — if the lady chooses to follow the Arabian
custom, the (supposing her father's name to be a
well-sounding one — say Tiskins) would be called
“Tiskins's Short and Sweet daughter” — people in
Arabia being only designated as brown or fair, short
or tall, children of such and such parents. There
was a Roman fashion, too, that might help her out —
that of adding to the name any quality or exploit for
which the bearer was remarkable — Miss Short and
Sweet Hearbreaker, for example, or Miss “Noli-me-Tangere,”
or (after the favorite flower of the Irish),
Miss “Jump-up-and-kiss me.” (The Irish designate
Tom Moore by this pretty prenomen.) Our compliments
to the lady, and we are sorry she should want
a name — sorry she has a want we can not supply. It
happens to be the one thing we are out of.

The opera gets more crowded, more dressy, and
more fashionable, nightly. Some malicious person
started a rumor that the building was unsafe, and
many stayed away till it was tested. There are many,
too, who wait for the stamp of other people's approbation
before they venture upon even a new amusement.
The doubtfuls have now gone over, however,
and the opera is “in the full tide,” etc., etc. Some
of the first families have taken season-tickets in the
opera-boxes (there are but two private boxes, and
those very inconvenient and undesirable), and the best
seats in the pit are sold out, like the stalls at the
Italian opera in London, to bachelors in the market.
The prima donna, Borghese, improves with every
repetition, and what with dressing, singing, and acting
— all exceedingly well — she is a very enjoyable
rechauffée of Grisi, whose style she follows.

This is a day of such sunshine and air that those

must be in love with the sunny sidewalk of Broadway.
And this recalls to my mind a little book of poems,
better described by their title than any book whose
name I ever knew — “Droppings from the Heart,” by
Thomas Mackellar, lately published in Philadelphia.
Everybody must love the man who reads his book,
though its simplicity would sometimes make you
smile. He thus apostrophizes the city of New York: —

The credulity of this stanza is not weak-mindedness,
by any means — as the strength of expression and
beauty of poetry in the other parts of the book sufficiently
prove. The writer's only vent seems to be the
expression of affection. He loves everything. He
believes good of everything and everybody. I do not
know that, in my life, I ever saw a more complete picture
than this book of a heart overrunning with tenderness.
The lines to his “Sleeping Wife,” are as
beautiful as anything of Barry Cornwall's. The piece
called “The Heart-Longings,” too, is finely expressed.
A little infusion of distrust, bitterness, and contempt,
would make Mackellar a poet of the kind most admired
by critics, and most read and sympathized with
by the world. He is, I understand, a printer in Philadelphia,
and enjoys the kindly friendship of Mr.
Chandler, of the United States Gazette, to whom is
addressed one of the sonnets in his book. For family
reading, among people of simple lives and pure tastes,
the “Droppings from the Heart” is the best-adapted
book of poetry I have lately seen.

One of the most charming resuscitations from the
trance of oblivion that have come about lately, is the
republication (in the “Mirror Library”) of Pinckney's
Poems. Mr. Pinckney, your readers will perhaps
know, was the son of the Hon. William Pinckney, our
minister in 1802 at the court of St. James, and was
born in London during the diplomatic residence there
of his father. He was partly educated at college,
entered the navy, gave it up for the law, and, after
much disappointment and suffering, died at twenty-five.
With discipline and study, he might, I think,
have written as well as Moore. What poetry would
be in a world where Toil were not the Siamesed twin
of Excellence (in other words, where man had not
fallen), “is a curious question, coz!” The wild horse
runs very well in the prairie, but we give a preference
of admiration to the “good-continuer” by toilsome
training. Whether the fainéant angels who “sit in the
clouds,” admire more the objectless careerings of the
wild steed, or the “wind and bottom” of the winner
of the sweepstakes — whether fragmentary poetry,
dashed off while the inspiration is on, and thrown
aside ill-finished, when the whim evaporates, be more
celestial than the smooth and complete product of
painful toil and disciplined concentration — I have had
my luxurious doubts. Pinckney's genius, as evidenced
on paper, has all the impulsive abandonment which
marks his biography. He was a born poet — with all
needful imagination, discrimination, perception, and
sensibility; and he had, besides, the flesh-and-bloodfulness
necessary to keep poetry on terra-firina. Sev
eral of his productions have become common air —
known and enjoyed by everybody, but without a name.
The song beginning —

— this, and two or three others of Pinckney's “entire
and perfect chrysolites,” should be regraven with his
name, for the world owes his memory a debt for them.
The small volume of his poetry from which the Mirror
Library edition is copied, was printed in 1825, and
has been long lost sight of. It contains — not the stuff
for a classic — but a delicious bundle of heart-reaching
passages, fresh and peculiar, and invaluable especially
to lovers, whose sweetest and best interpreter Pinckney
was. Every man or woman who has occasion to embroider
a love-letter with the very essence-flowers of
passionate verse, should pay a shilling for Pinckney's
poems.

The chair and pen of an editor should be assumed
with as binding vows and as solemn ceremony as were
the sword and war-horse of knighthood — for the editor,
like the armed and mounted knight, is an aggregation
of more power than nature properly allots to the
individual. Indeed, it is because the power has not
been well considered by law and by public opinion,
that the penalties of maleficent pen and ink are not
more formidable than those of fist and dagger. Take
the consideration of this thought for a wile-time in
your next omnibus-ride, dear reader, and if you
chance to be young and have a lust for POWER, write
down EDITORSHIP for your second choice — the
CHURCH, of course, number one, and POLITICS, possibly,
number three.

The temptation to the abuse of pen-power is greater
as the mind of the editor is more little. It is so easy
to do brilliant tilting in the editorial lists, by slashing
alike at the offending and unoffending! Abuse is the
easiest, as courtesy is the most difficult kind of writing
to make readable, and as it is a relief for the
smooth-faced card-player to vent, before he sleeps, his
pent-up malice upon his wife, so a heart naturally
ill-willed makes a purulent bile-spigot of a pen —
relieved, so the venom is spent, no matter upon what.
There is so seldom good cause to be ill-natured in
print, that it would be safe, always, when reading an
ill-natured criticism, to “smell the rat” of a bad heart
near by.

If perversion of pen and ink be very blameable, forbearance
should be laudable, and we claim credit for
much pains-taking in this latter way. The reputations,
ready-spitted, that are sent us for roasting,
would alone (did we publish them) sell our paper to
the ten thousand malicious, who may be counted on
as a separate stratum of patronage to periodicals.
This is some temptation. Then we are often attacked,
and we could demolish the assailant very amusingly,
and we resist this temptation, though, if his pin be not
winced at, puny impunity will prick again. There is
much that is ludicrous, much that is pervertible to
sport, in new books and new candidates to fame; and
by fault-finding only, or by abusing the author instead
of his book (easy and savory), the review is made readable
without labor in writing — and this tempts both
malice and idleness. No man can live, elbow to
elbow, with competitors in love, life, and literature,
without his piques and his resentments, and to
“turn” these pleasantly “to commodity,” with a laugh
that outstabs a dagger, is very tempting — very — to
those who can do it dexterously.

Now that you have read the three foregoing paragraphs,
dear reader, you are prepared to know the
value of your acquittal, if you acquit the Mirror of
ill-nature, of which it has been accused. We do not

remember that, in its pages, we have ever, intentionally,
wounded feelings or trenched upon delicacy.

The Rococo No. 1, is ready for your shilling, dear
reader — one shilling for the three purest gems ever
crystallized into poetry — three narrative fairy-tales in
verse, exquisitely full of genius. The book, too, is
beautifully printed, as are all the works of the Mirror
Library — suitable for company at a lavender-fingured
breakfast, or for the drawing-room table of your lady
fair.

Rococo No. 2, is also ready, containing Pinckney's
long-neglected and delicious poems, and you should
pay a shilling if it were only to know what the country
has to be proud of among its poetical dead. The
author of

had a smoothness in his touch of a thought like the
glide of a cloud-edge just under a star. For quaint
and sweet couplets of love-makery there are few books
like it. Witness this verse: —

The following Bryant-like, finished, and high-thoughted
poetry was written by a young lady of
seventeen, and her first published production. She is
the daughter of one of our oldest and best families,
resident on the Hudson. If the noon be like the
promise of the dawn of this pure intellect, we have
here the beginning of a brilliant fame: —

February 14. — This is the day, says the calendar,
“for choosing special loving friends” — as if there
were room for choice in a world where

The Lupercalian custom of keeping Valentine's
day (putting the names of all the marriageable girls
in the community into a box, and making the bachelors
draw lots for wives) would make a droll imbroglio
of “New York society.” By-the-way, if you know
a working poet out of employ, recommend to his no
tice the literature of valentines. Never till this year
have the copies of amatory verses, for sale in the fancy
shops, been comparably so well embellished, and the
prices of single valentines have ranged from two shillings
to two dollars — fine prices to build a trade upon!
The shops, for two or three evenings last past, have
been crowded with young men purchasing these, and
probably a little better poetry would turn the choice
in favor of any particular manufacture of such lovers'
wares. The favorite device seems to be stolen from
Mercury's detention of Mars and Venus — a paper net,
which, when raised, discloses a tableau of avowal.

Editorial skirmishing strikes a light into the people's
tinder sometimes, and there is a paragraph this morning
which explains the difference between paid puffs
and literary notices. The True Sun says: “The
man who edits the Hagerstown News can not, it
seems, distinguish between an editorial article and an
advertisement. He mistakes the long advertisement
of Verplanck's Shakspere, which appears in our
paper, for the production of the editors of the True
Sun, and declines inserting it in the News for less
than forty-five dollars. What does the man mean?
It is only surprising than an editor should be ignorant
that puffs paid are set in minion type, and puffs of volition
are set in brevier — a distinction not `plain' (as
yet) `to the commonest understanding.' ” The London
papers print the word “advertisement” over all
their puffs paid for, and, by using different type, the
True Sun has taken one step toward making the volunteer
distinguishable.

Mr. Verplanck's project, by-the-way, is a very noticeable
one. We have never had (to my knowledge)
an American annotator upon Shakspere, and Shakspere
is as much ours as England's. Very many of
the Shaksperian words are obsolete in England, but in
use here, and put down as Americanisms by travellers.
I do not know whether Mr. Verplanck promises to
show any new readings of Shakspere, but he is a man
of much higher education, and more cultivated and
scholarlike pursuits than Mr. Knight (whose edition
of Shakspere has lately been so popular in England),
beside being a man of productive original genius,
which Mr. Knight has no claim to be. The commentaries
upon works of genius by different men of genius
can never be repetitions, and are always interesting —
so I look with some interest for Mr. Verplanck's preface
and first number. As he is a man of large fortune
and entire leisure, there is no obstacle to his
doing it well.

The discovery of a gem in a dark mine is a poetical
matter, but (to my present thinking) it is even
a prosaic similitude for the sudden finding out of
a work of genius progressing in one of the houses of
a brick block. I had often passed Durand's house
in one of the retired close-built streets of New York,
without suspecting that it contained anything but the
domestic problem of felicity and three meals a day;
but a chance errand lately led me to knock at his
door. My business over, he placed upon the easel (in
a charming studio built in the rear of his house) a
large landscape to which he had just given the finishing
touch. I sat down before it, and (to use a good
word that is staled and blunted from overusing) it
absorbed me. My soul went into it. I was, it is true,
in good pictorial appetite. It was my studious time
of day, and I had seen no pictures out of my own
rooms for a week; but it seemed to me as if that landscape
alone would be a retreat, a seclusion, a world by
itself to retreat into from care or sad thoughts — so
mellow and deep was the distance, so true to nature

the coloring and drawing, so sweetly poetical the composition,
and so single-thoughted the conception of
the effect. The roofs of a comfortable farmhouse and
outbuildings were the subordinate life of the picture,
seen over a knoll on the right. The centre of the
foreground, and the brightest spot in the picture, was a
high grass-bank on which glanced a golden beam of
the setting sun. On it was a group of cattle in well-fed
repose, and over it stood the finest oak-tree I ever
saw painted. Twenty miles of landscape lay below,
enveloped in the veil of coming twilight, and a river
wound gracefully away from the eye and was lost in
the distance. It was indeed a glorious picture, and I
stake my judgment upon the opinion that no living
artist could surpass it. Durand, as you probably
know, has turned painter, after having long been the
first engraver of our country. He is patient of labor,
and has approached landscape-painting by a peculiar
education of hand and eye, and the probability is, that
if he live twenty years, he will have no equal in this
department of the arts. If you remember, I mentioned
my great surprise at the excellence of two of
his landscapes in the last exhibition of the academy
here. To see pictures with an appetite in the eye, one
should see them singly, however, and but two or three,
at farthest, in a day. Artists who would be deliberately
appreciated, should make their houses morning-resorts,
as they are, and very fashionable ones, in
France and Italy. There are people (and those, too,
who can afford to buy pictures) who yawn for some
such round of occupation during the summer mornings
of the travelling season.

The want of an excuse to put on bonnet, and go
out somewhere in the evening with father, husband,
brother, or lover, is doubtless the secret of most audiences,
whether in church or lecture-room. I arrived
at this conclusion sitting and watching the coming
in of an audience at a popular lecture a night or
two ago. The subject was of a character that would
only draw listeners (one would think) from the more
intellectual and cultivated classes — dry and of remote
interest — and one, too, that could be “read up,” to
perfect mental satisfaction, by sending a shilling to a
library, or buying a bit of the cheap literature of the
day. It was a cold, raw night, the lecturer was no
orator, and the benches of the lecture-room had no
cushions. With these premises, you would look to
see anything but a pleasure-loving and youthful audience.
Yet this was just the quality of the comers-in
till the room was crowded. There was scarce an unappropriated-looking
damsel among them, and not one
bald head or “adust” visage. That the young men
would have been there without the ladies, I do not
believe — nor that the ladies came there with any special
desire to know more of the subject of the lecture.

On this necessity for ladies to go somewhere of an
evening is based, of course, most of the popular enthusiams
of the day — for they are never got up by
individual reading, and would fail entirely, but for the
opportunity to give, in one moment, one thought to
many people. This fact seems to me to indicate in
what way the inducements should be heightened
when audiences fall off; and, instead of cheapening
tickets, or spending more money in placards, I think
it would be better to treat the ladies to an interlude
of coffee and conversation, or to minister in some way
directly to the tastes of those in whom resides the
primum mobile of attendance.

I presume there are thousands of families in New
York that are not linked with any particular round of
acquaintance — very worthy and knowledge-loving people,
who can afford only a few friends, and shun acquaintances
as expensive. People in this rank are too
moderate-minded to be theatre-goers; but the wife
and daughters of the family must go somewhere of an
evening. Parties are costly, public balls both costly
and unadvisable, and there are eight months in the
year when it is too cold for icecream-gardens and
walks on the Battery. Lecture-tickets for a family
are cheap, the company there is good, the room is
warm, and so well lighted as to show comeliness or
dress to advantage, and the apparent object of being
there is creditable and reputable. I say again, that to
add to the social inducements of this attraction, would
be to make of the lecture system a great gate to the
public heart. I add this gratutious mite of speculation
to the unused data that have been long waiting
for a compiler of the statistics of metropolitan momenta.

We have had a week of spring-weather, and the
upper part of New York (all above the pavements, ca
va dire) has been truly enjoyable. Most persons who
do not wear their beards for a protection to the glands
of the throat, have got the mumps — on dit. Writing
in a warm room with the throat pressed down upon a
thick cravat, and going into the open air with the
head raised and the throat of course suddenly left exposed
— is one of those provoking risks that “stand to
reason.” By the elaborate inventions to keep the
feet dry, there seems to be a “realizing sense” of the
danger of wet feet also.[4] Mr. Lorin Brooks's invention
for expeditiously throwing an iron bridge over
every small puddle — (that is to say, of making boots
with a curved metallic shank under the hollow of the
foot) — has the advantage of adding to the beauty as
well as the protection of the exposed extremities.

Signor Palmo continues to pay his way and his
prima donna, and not much more — for the upper gallery
is so constructed that, though you can see the
stage from every part of it, you can only see the dress-circle
from the front row; and people go to plays a
little to see and hear, and a great deal to be seen and
heard of. The price of places being the same all over
the house, few will take tickets except for the lower
tier. The best evidence that the opera is growing on
the public liking is the degree to which the piques
and tracasseries of the company are talked about in
society. Quite a Guelph and Ghibelline excitement
was raised, a few nights ago, by the basso's undertaking
indignantly to sing as the critics advised him —
with more moderation. Signor Valtellina is a great
favorite, and has a famous voice, ben martellato. He
is a very impassioned singer, and when excited, loses
his flessibilita, and grows harsh and indistinct — (as
he himself does not think). By way of pleasing the
carpers for once, he sang one of the warmest passages
of the opera with a moping lamentivole that brought
out a hiss from the knowing ones. His friends, who
were in the secret, applauded. Valtellina laid his
hand on his heart and retired — but came back, as the
millers say, “with a head on,” and sang once more
passionately and triumphantly. Excuse the fop's alley
slang with which I have told this momentous
matter — quite equal in importance (as a subject of
conversation) to any couple of events eligible by
Niles's Register.

Our Library Parish. — Our heart is more spread
and fed than our pocket, dear reader, with the new

possession of this magic long arm by which we are
handing you, one after another, the books we have
long cherished. Almost the first manifestation of the
poet's love, is the sending of his favorite books to his
mistress, and no commerce of tenderness is more like
the conversance of angels (probably), than the sympathies
exchanged through the loopholes of starry
thoughts — (so like windows twixt soul and soul are
the love-expressing conceptions of poetry!) The
difference between an hour passed with friends and an
hour passed with strangers, will be some guide to you
in forming an estimate of the difference between writing
for our readers without, and writing for them with
the sympathy of books in common. The Mirror becomes,
in a manner, our literary parish — we the indulged
literary vicar, with whose tastes out of the
pulpit you are as familiar as with his sermons of criticism
when in; and you, dear reader, become our
loved parishioner, for whom we cater, at fountains of
knowledge and fancy to which you have not our facility
of access, and whose face, turned to us on Saturday,
inspires us like the countenance of a familiar
friend. This charming literary parish (now rising of
eleven thousand) we would not exchange for a bishopric,
nor for the constituency of a congress-member;
and we hold our responsibility to be as great as the
bishop's, and our chair better worth having than “a
seat” in the Capitol. Few things gratify us more
than the calls we occasionally get from subscribers
who have a wish to see us after reading our paper for
a while — and this feeling of friendly and personal acquaintance
is what we most aim at producing between
ourselves and our readers. We shall seldom be more
pleased hereafter than in taking one of our parish by
the hand — relying more upon the sympathy between
us, by common thoughts, than upon any possible ceremony
of introduction.

Let us beg our readers to have the different numbers
of the Rococo bound with blank letter-paper between
the leaves, and to read always with a pencil in
hand. There are such chambers within chambers of
comprehension and relish in repeated readings of such
sweet creations, and the thoughts they suggest are so
noteworthy and so delightful to recal! We have sent
a poem to the printer this morning (to be published
in the same shilling number with The Rimini), which
we do not believe ten of our readers ever saw — (a poem
never reprinted in this country, and apparently
quite lost sight of in England) — but which exercised
upon our imagination, when in college, an influence
tincturing years of feeling and revery. An English
copy was given us by an old man curious in books,
and it was soon so covered with pencil-marks that we
were obliged to rebind it with alternate leaves of white
paper, and we carried it with us for a travelling companion
through Europe, and re-read it (once again,
we well remember) sitting on the ruins of the church
of Sardis in Asia. It is a narrative-poem of inexpressible
richness and melody, and of the loftiest walk
of inventive imagination. It is so sweet a story, too,
that it would entertain a child like a fairy-tale. We
could go on writing about it for hours — for it brings
back to us days spent with it in the woods, green
banks where we have lain and mused over it, lovely
listeners who have held their breaths to hear it, and
oh, a long, long chain of associations steeped in love,
indolence, and sunshine! And this it is to have a favorite
author — to have a choice and small library of
favorite authors. It makes a wreath wherein to weave
for memory the chance flowers of a lifetime! It gives
Memory a sweet companion. It enables you to withdraw
yourself at any time from the world, or from
care, and recover the dreams built over these books
in the rare hours dream-visited. More valuable
still, it gives you — when you begin to love, and want
the words and thoughts that have fled affrighted away
— a thread to draw back the truants, and an instant
and eloquent language to a heart otherwise dumb.

“Sybilla” wants a poetical color given to the “transition
state” from the “uncertain age” to the “sad
certainty of youth gone by.” We can only give her
a verse from a piece of poetry written to a delightful
and fascinating old maid whom we once had a passion
for: —

Spring is close behind us, dear reader. What think
you of this bit of poetry, touching spring flowers? —

A country subscriber writes to know who “Mrs.
Grundy” is. She is the lady who lives next door,
madam — the lady at whose funeral there will be but
one mourner — the last man! We are not sorry that
we know her, but very sorry that she must needs know
us, and have her “say” about us.

February should be called the month of hope, for it
is invariably more enjoyable than the first nominal
fruition — more spring-like than the first month of
spring. This is a morning that makes the hand open
and the fingers spread — a morning that should be consecrated
to sacred idleness. I should like to exchange
work with any out-of-doors man — even with a driver
of an omnibus — specially with the farmer tinkering
his fences. Cities are convenient places of refuge
from winter and bad weather, but one long to get out
into the country, like a sheep from a shed, with the
first warm gleam of sunshine.

I see that Moore has virtually turned to come down
from his long ladder of fame — his publishers, Longmans,
having made a final collection of his works
in an elaborate edition, and prefixed thereto a picture
of an old man — Tom Moore as he is! It is melancholy
to see this portrait. The sparse hair, made-the-most-of
— the muscles of the face retreating from the
habitual expression — the lamp within still unconscious
of losing brightness, yet the glass over it stained
and cracked. Moore should never have been painted
after thirty. This picture is like a decrepit cupid —
wholly out of character. His poetry is all youth, its
very faults requiring youthful feeling for an apology;
and to know that he has grown old — that he is bald

wrinkled, venerable — is like some unnatural hocus-pocus
— some hideous metamorphosis we would rather
not have seen even in melodrame. Moore has not
sobered away, twilight-wise, as he might have done.
His wit and song have kept admiration so warm around
him, that he has forgotten his sun was setting — that
it was time the shadows of his face grew longer — time
that his pen leaned toward life's downward horizon.
The expression on this face of frisky sixty, is of a
flogged-up hilarity that is afraid to relax. Moore will
look facetious and dining-out-ish in his coffin.

I see that Wallack has added lecturing, as a new
branch, to his profession, and is very successful. Mr.
Barry, the stage-manager of the Park, is to try on the
same experiment to-night at the Society Library.
“Two strings to your bow” is a good economy in any
profession, and there are sundry professions, the duties
of which do not interfere, for instance, with authorship.
A man who should read two hours before
going to bed, and write for the first two hours after
sunrise, would give time and attention enough to any
literary pursuit, while the business part of the day,
and a good part of the evening, would be still left unoccupied.
Actors particularly (so capricious is fortune
with them) should have a brace of vocations,
and a poet, with an honest trade besides, is more likely
to have his “lines fall in pleasant places.”

It appears by the English papers that Madame Catalani
indignantly denies being dead! She is still living,
and capable of enjoying “good living,” at her
villa, near Florence. The American story, which
went the rounds of the papers some time since, of a
man whose capacious throat had “swallowed a plantation
and fifty negroes,” finds its counterpart in the
villa and its dependants, which have come out of the
throat of Madame Catalani. I was fortunate enough
to enjoy much of her hospitality when in Italy, and
there are few establishments that I have seen where
the honors were done with a more princely liberality
and good taste. She was then, as she is probably
still, a well-preserved and handsome woman, of majestic
mien, and most affable manners, and at her own
little parties she sang, whenever asked, as well as ever
she had done in public. She seemed to me never to
have been intoxicated with her brilliant successes, and
to have had no besoin of applause left like a thirst in
her ears — as is the case with popular favorites too often.
Her husband, M. Valabreque, was a courteous
man and a fond husband, and their children were on
an equal footing of social position with the young nobility
of Florence. Most strangers who see anything
of the society of that delightful city, come away with
charming remembrances of Madame Catalani.

Washington's Birthday is growing into a temperance
anniversary, probably much to the pleasure,
and a little to the surprise of the distinguished ghost.
There was a grand temperance celebration at the Tabernacle
last evening, at which the eloquent author of
the Airs of Palestine, Rev. John Pierpont, delivered
an address. By-the-way, it is an overlooked feather
in the cap of temperance, that we owe to it the pleasant
invention of KISSING. In the course of my reading
I have fallen in with the historical fact, that, when
wine was prohibited by law to the women of ancient
Rome, male relatives had the right of ascertaining,
by tasting the lips of their sisters and cousins, whether
the forbidden liquor had passed in. The investi
gations of this lip-police, it is said, were pushed with
a rigor and vigilance highly creditable to the zeal
of the republic, and for a time intemperance was
fairly kissed away. Subsequently, female intoxication
became fashionable again (temperance kisses notwithstanding),
and Seneca (in his Epistolæe) is thus
severe upon the Roman ladies: “Their manners have
altogether changed, though their faces are as captivating
as ever. They make a boast of their exploits
in drinking.[5] They will sit through the night
with the glass in their hands, challenging the men,
and often outdoing them.” Now, by restoring the
much-abused and perverted KISS to its original mission,
and making of it the sacred apostle of inquiry
that it was originally designed for, it strikes me that
the temperance-committees would have many more
“active members,” and the cause would assuredly
grow on public favor. I submit the hint to that admirable
enthusiast, Mrs. Child.

There are two establishments in the city of New
York which should be visited by those who require
stretchers to their comprehension of luxury — Meek's
furniture-warehouse, behind the Astor, and Tiffany's
bijou-shop, at the corner of Warren street and Broadway.
In a search I have lately made for a bookcase
of a particular fancy, I have made the round of furniture-warehouses,
and, as a grand epitome of all of
them — a seven-story building, crammed with furniture
on every floor — I should recommend the mere
idle sight-seer to spend a morning at Meeks's for his
amusement. Upon the simple act of sitting down
has been expended as much thought (in quantity) as
would produce another Paradise Lost. Some of the
chairs, indeed, are poems — the beautiful conception
and finish of them, taken into the mind with the same
sensation, at least, and the same glow of luxury.
The fancies of every age and country are represented,
those of the Elizabethan era and the ornate fashion
of Louis XIV predominant, though tables and sofas
on Egyptian models are more sumptuous. At so
much cost, they ought to put the mind at ease as well
as the body. And, by-the-way, the combining of
couch and chair in one (now so fashionable) would
have pleased the Roman dames, whose husbands kept
chairs for women and mourners — a man's sitting upon
a chair (in preference to a couch) being considered a
received sign of deep mourning or poverty. Few
people can trust their taste to go into such an immense
warehouse as Meeks's and select (in one style,
and that style suitable to their house, condition, and
manner of living) the furniture for an establishment.
It would be a good vocation for a reduced gentleman
to keep taste to let, holding himself ready to take orders,
and execute them at discretion, according to the
suitabilities of the employer.

Tiffany's is a fashionable pleasure-lounge already,
his broad glass doors and tempting windows being at
one of the most thronged corners of Broadway. It
is better than a museum, in being quite as well stocked
with surprises, and these all ministering to present
and fashionable wants. Where resides the prodigious
ingenuity expended on these superb elegances and
costly trifles, it would be hard to discover. And the
seductive part of it is, that there are articles for all
prices, and you may spend a dollar, or five hundred,
in the same dainty line of commodity!

The times are “easy,” if we can judge by the articles
that find plenty of buyers. I heard yesterday

that a shopkeeper in Broadway had imported several
ladies' dresses, priced at one thousand dollars each,
and had no difficulty in selling them. Mr. Meeks informed
me that, of a certain kind of very costly chair,
he could not keep one unsold. It was certainly a superb
article, made of carved rosewood and purple velvet;
price (for a single chair) one hundred and fifty
dollars! We have not yet adopted, in this country,
the French custom of ornamenting dinner-tables very
expensively with silver vases and artificial flowers, nor
has the old Roman custom ever been resumed. I
think, of placing the “household gods” upon the table.
The aspect of a supper-table in Cicero's time,
indeed, must have been beyond the show even of
Bourbon sybarites; the guests in white and scarlet
robes, with chaplets of roses, myrtle, or ivy on their
heads, lying by threes on couches covered with purple
or embroidered with gold and silver — a crowd of
slaves, chosen for their beauty, waiting within the
square formed by the tables, and dressed in tunics of
the brightest colors — over all a canopy of purple cloth,
giving the room the appearance of a superb tent —
the courses brought in with a regular procession
marching to music — last (not least heightening to the
effect), the custom, borrowed of the Egyptians, of
bringing in a skeleton, in the midst of the feast, to
furnish a foil to the enjoyment. All these were common
features of Roman luxury at the time when
Rome had the treasures of the earth at her disposal,
and probably will never be reproduced in the same
splendor, unless we rebarbarize and make war upon
Europe under a military chieftain.

The February rehearsal of spring is over — the popular
play of April having been well represented by
the reigning stars and that pleasant company of players,
the Breezes. The drop-curtain has fallen, representing
a winter-scene, principally clouds and snow,
and the beauties of the dress-circle have retired (from
Broadway) discontented only with the beauty of the
piece. By-the-way, the acting was so true to nature,
that several trees in Broadway were affected to — budding!

So says Leigh Hunt.

The Land of Intermezzo. — If spring be cognate
to one poetical subject more than all others, it is to
the single dreamy fable upon which are founded three
immortal poems — one by Thomas Moore, one by
Lord Byron, and the third (quite as beautiful as either)
by the Rev. George Croly. The last — “The Angel
of the World,” by Crody, and the first, “The
Loves of the Angels,” by Moore, are issued in extras
of the Mirror. The other, Byron's “Heaven
and Earth” (so universal are the works of the noble
bard), we took for granted was already within the
reach of every reader. Apart from the excessive
beauty of these poems, it is curious to peruse them
with a view to comparison — to read first the short and
simple story of “Haruth and Maruth,” and then study
the different shapes into which it is cast by the kaleidoscope
imaginations of three of the master-minstrels
of the time.

[Stay — do you live in the country, dear reader?
Have you a nook near by — (natural) — or can you go
to one in imagination, or will you come to ours —
where our spirit is likely to be — that is to say, while
scribbling this page, this glorious morning? For
spring makes a madhouse of a city's brick walls, and
we must think in the country to-day — live, bodily,
where we will.]

Here we are, then, in a deep down dell — the apparent
horizon scarce forty feet from us — nothing visible
that has been altered since God made it — and a column
of clear space upward, topped by the zenith,
like a cover to a well — this dell the bottom of it.
(The zenith off, we should see heaven, of course!)
In my pocket are the three poems abovementioned, and
a few editorial memoranda — but we will bind ourselves
to nothing — not even to talk about these poems unless
we like, nor to remember the memoranda. Idleness
was part of Paradise, and with the weather of
Paradise it comes over us, irresistibly.

To bring heaven and earth together — to make heaven
half earth, and earth half heaven — is the doomed
labor and thirst of poetry; and of these three poems,
the desire for this pleasant intermezzo is the exclusive
under-tow, the unexpressed, yet predominating stimulus.
To Byron (with his earthly mind unmodified),
complete heaven would doubtless have been as unpalatable
as were evidently the mere realities of earth.
He, and Moore, and Croly, have seized upon the eastern
fable, of angels made half human and mortals
half divine, to give voice to the dumb ache of their
imaginations — an ache as native to the bosoms of the
“Mirror parish,” as to these three immortal subjects
of mortal Victoria. (She ought, by-the-way, to wear
a separate crown for her loyal immortals — the undying
men of genius who are her subjects exclusively,
and whose fame is, at least, usque-millenial and a
thousand years over.) Each of these has pulled
down angels to the love of flesh and blood — (the happiness
each would least like to lose, probably, in becoming
an angel) — but there are differences in the
other particulars of their half-and-half Paradise, most
characteristic of the qualities of the different poets,
and pleasant stuff for your idle hour's unravelling, oh
reader, rich in leisure!

But this land of Intermezzo — this kingdom of Middlings
— this beatific, and poet-loved half and half!
Let us talk of it some more!

We are inclined to think that HALF WAY, in most
things, is where happiness dwells. We say so timidly,
for we live in a country famous for extremes. It must
be Heaven “No. 1,” to tempt the Yankee! Paradise,
which lies between earth and heaven, would be poor
stock in Wall street! The best — only the best and
most exciting, in the way of pleasure, for this market
— Rags, or the best broadcloth, the only wear: — Sullen
privation or sudden luxury, the only living: — Stars,
or no actors: — Millions, or hand-to-month: — Perfectly
obscure, or highly fashionable! Medium — intermezzo
— there is (quasi) none in America!

In this sweet land of Intermezzo we find ourself,
of latter years, laying up treasure. Quiet lives there.
Revery is native there. Content dwells nowhere else.
Modesty retires there when she would escape envy,
for there envy never sets foot. St. Paul saw that land
when he said — “Give me neither poverty nor riches.”
“Something I must like and love,” says old Feltham,
“but nothing so violently as to undo myself with
wanting it.” Travel where you will, up to middle
age (says a certain Truth-angel, who sometimes stoops
to our ear), but abide, ever after, in the land of Intermezzo!

But, in the land of Intermezzo does not live FAME!
It is a land with an atmosphere of sober gray, and
fame is the shadow of one living in the sun. If we
may preach to the poets among our flock of parishioners,
we should say, forego this shadow! Think of it
as it is — only a shadow. Value it as you do the
shadow of your friend — nothing, but for the substance
that goes before. Live in the land of Intermezzo,

and let fame find you — taking for it no more care than
for your shadow when you walk abroad. Write — for
the voice the soul wants — the utterance without which
the heart seems over-full — but be not eager for the
world's listening! Fame is sweet when it comes unbeckoned.
The world gives, more willingly than it
pays on demand. In the quiet fields of Intermezzo,
pluck flowers, to dry unseen in your bosom, and if,
by chance, years after, they are unloaded in the sun,
they will be thrice fragrant for their shaded keeping.
Amen!

When books were scarcer and scholars given to
longer incubation, a pocket companion called a Go-WITH-ME,
was the fashion — (Vade-mecum, it you like
it better in Latin). It was commonly a favorite author,
sometimes a volume of maxims, oftener yet a book of
devotion. The monks profess to entertain themselves
in all odd hours and quiet places with their pocket
BREVIARY — the concentrated and vital essence of
missal and prayer-book. We liked better, in our
youth (Heaven assoil us!) a self-compiled breviary
of beloved poetry — a book half scrap, half manuscript,
picked from newspapers and copied from readings —
and, in a protracted youth (enriched with a most
plentiful lack of anything-to-do), we struck together,
with pin and paste, sundry consecutive volumes which
had their consecutive day. Various were their uses!
There have occurred deserts, in our travels though
most of our loves and friendships, which could only
be pleasantly crossed in the company of such caravans
of poetry. There have been thoughts born without
words to them, aptly fitted to a vehicle by this varied
repository. We have been fed through many a famine
of hope, supplied through many a drought of tears
and memory, by these timely resources. We have
them yet. The longer poems we are giving to our
friends in the numbers of the Rococo. The shorter
ones we purpose giving in the Mirror, or possibly in a
sort of mosaic extra — imparting thus, piece-meal, the
whole of our Breviary of Idleness. Here and
there, it is possible, we may give something you have
seen before, but that will not happen often — for we
have frequented most the least known shelves of
libraries, and loved most the least-famed authors.
Here is a stray passage upon roses; — (but we don't
give you the best first!)

What we like about that is the well-contrived entanglements
compelling you to stop and re-read it,
and so find a new beauty — like the wheel of your carriage
coming off amid scenery you are travelling
through too rapidly.

The Vesuvius of new books has naturally its Pompeii,
in which merit, among other things, is buried
quietly under the cinders and remains long trodden
over and forgotten. Upon the excavations and disinterments
in this city of literary oblivion is founded, in a
great measure, the New Mirror project of a library
of favorite authors, and perhaps the most interesting
of its restorations to light, as yet, is the delicious
poem by Croly, “The Angel of the World.”
I hardly think there are ten people in the United
States who know this sweet book, though it is founded
on the same eastern fable as Moore's “Loves of the
Angels,” and, to my thinking, a finer expansion of
that splendid story. Byron's “Heaven and Earth,”
and the two poems just named are all founded on this
same tradition, and it is curious to read them with a
view to comparison, and see of what varieties of combination
the kaleidoscope of genius is capable. Byron
makes his the vehicle of his audacious defiance toward
sacred things, while Moore's is all love and
flowers, perfume and gems. Croly's is more a poem
of strong human passion and character, and comes
home more to the human “business and bosom.” It
is written (the latter) with wonderful splendor of diction
and imagery. Few poetical works will be more
popular in this country, I think — profoundly as it has
slept in Lethe for the last twenty years. Croly is a
clergyman (the Rev. George), and, having a fat living
from the church of England, his Pegasus has never
been in hack harness, and, I think, shows the ease of
pasture-gambol in his verse.

Tammany Hall is graced to-day with a showy transparency
representing a huge owl sitting in a Gothic
window, and a Latin motto beneath, declaring that
“the countenance is the index of the mind.” I can
not see, by the morning papers, any explanation of
the objects of the club whose celebration comes off
under these ominous auspices; but if it be a physiognomical
society, as the motto would purport, they have
chosen well. It were a good symbol also for a club
of “minions of the moon,” if they were less fond of a
lark — better still for a society of poets, if poets were
ever (which is doubtful) fond of poetical society. It
is the poet's cue to look wise and say little, to get his
victual by night, to differ altogether in his habit, as
owls do, from birds of other feather. Virgil, indeed,
makes the owl a poet: —

Professor Bronson, whose lectures are “going on”
and still “come off,” draws a very attractive picture
in his advertised prospectus. “The lectures, he
says, “will be comparatively free, an admission of
twenty-five cents only being required.” For this,
among many other things, he promises that “a key
shall be given to the connexion of natural and spiritual
things by which all mysteries may be explained?”
“The true source of our ideas on the sublime and
beautiful will be explained, together with the true
principles of taste and criticism.” — “The French
baquet, or grand mesmeric reservoir, will be exhibited,
and minerals, vegetables, animals, and several persons
at a time magnetized; the German rotary magnetic
machine for similar purposes; also three or four hundred
engravings pertaining to physiology, &c., and
each auditor furnished with them gratuitously, with the
evening programme; also several hundred paintings
(many expressly imported from London), to illustrate
the subjects of mineralogy, botany, natural history,
and astronomy. A common rose will be shown, as
developing from the bud to full bloom, appearing four
or five feet high, in all its glory; a butterfly in the
same manner several feet square, passing through
three stages of development; and all the phenomena
of the natural heavens, to wit, the sun, moon, and
stars.” As a list of articles to be had for twenty-five
cents, I think you will allow the professor's advertisement
to be worthy of statistical preservation.

The girdle put around the earth by the English is,
to my mind, less powerfully figured forth in their
drum-beat (so finally alluded to by Webster) than
in the small colonial-looking newspaper — the same
article, whether it come from the pagodas of India or
the snows of Canada, the sheep-hills of New South
Wales, or the plantations of the Bermudas. By the
kindness of my friend Aaron Palmer, Esq. (who
does business with arms as long as the world's axis,
and has correspondences and exchanges newspapers
with every corner of the globe), I have by me, at this
moment a file of English papers published at the seat
of the Great Mogul, Delhi, and another published at
Bermuda. You would think them all edited by the
same man and supplied by the same contributors.
They are filled principally, of course, with old English
news, but the Delhi paper (only ninety days from the
heart of Hindostan!) has some strictures on Lady
Sale and her book, which show she is not to be a
heroine without the usual penalty of envy and malice.
An officer-contributor to the Gazette says: —

“We were nearly as much on the tiptoe of expectation
for Lady Sale's book as the good folks of England,
though the secret of its origin was here better
known. It would be amusing to print, in parallel
columns, the opinions on her production given by the
press of India and England; c'est a dire, of those who
know what they are writing about and those who do
not. I am safe in asserting that, for every eulogium
her ladyship has received in England, she has got at
least one set down in India.”

The same writer says, in another part of his letter: —

“We look forward to the notice of our Scinde
doings in England. Let not the profit of the acquisition
blind you to the iniquity. Our late dealings with
that country commenced in perfidy, and went on in
blood and rapine. May they not end in retribution!”

We have commonly two sweet hours of idleness in
the afternoon — two hours that are the juice of our
much-squeezed twenty-four hours — two hours that
(to borrow a simile from the more homely and toothsome
days of authorship) are “as sweet as a pot of
lambative electuary with a stick of licorice.” At
four o'clock,

“Taking our hat in our hand, a remarkably requisite practice,”
we button our coat over our resignation (synonym for
dinner), and with some pleasant errand that has been
laid aside for such opportunity, stroll forth. It is
sometimes to an artist's room, sometimes to a print-shop,
sometimes to an unexplored street, sometimes
to look off upon the bay, or take a ride in an omnibus
— now and then to refresh our covetous desires at
Tiffany's. We have lately been the subject of a passion
for pawnbrokery, and taken the precaution to
leave our little pocket-money at home, we have tampered
with exploring and price-asking in these melancholy
museums of heart-ache.

“Twiddling” our pen, this morning (as Leigh
Hunt represents Apollo doing with a sunbeam), we
fell to speculating on what it was that made us think,
whether we would or no, of the pyramids! This is
last-page-day, and we had forty things to write about,
but there! — there! (“in my mind's eye, Horatio!”)
stands the “wedge sublime” of a pyramid! Doubtless
the ghost of some word, deed, or similitude of the
day before — but why such pertinacity of apparition?
We did, nor noted, nothing pyramidal yesterday. We
watched the general; hanging up, in his new-garnished
office, Dick's fine print of Sir Walter's monument,
and that, it is true, is a pyramid in Gothic. We
bought yesterday, in our pawnbroking researches, a
bust of a man of genius whom we admired because he
found leisure to be a gentleman — the accomplished
victim of circumstances, just dead at Andalusia — and
a pyramid, truncated by a thunderbolt near the summit,
were an emblem of his career that may well have
occurred to us. We were talking and thinking much
yesterday of Moore's confessed completion of his literary
lifetime; and what is his toil, just finished, but
the building of an imperishable pyramid for the memory
of his finished thoughts.

Stay! — an anecdote of Moore occurs to us. He is
dead, “by brevet,” having seen to (and got the money
for), his own “last words;” and when, by the sythe
of the relentless mower, Tom Moore shall be no more,
to know more of his more personal qualities (what an
echo there is to the man's name!) will add spices to
his embalming. An old lady in Dublin, who was one
of Moore's indigenous friends (he was only aristocratic
as an exotic, perhaps you know), told us the story.
It is not likely to get into print except by our telling
for it records a virtue; and Moore is a man to have
selected his biographer with a special caveat against
all contributions to his “life” from its grocery source
— his respectable father, the Dublin grocer, probably
caring little for his “brilliant successes,” and only
cherishing in his brown-paper memory the small
parcel of his virtues. But — to the story — (which
Moore told the old lady, by the way, on one of his
reluctant Irish visits).

Moore had just returned from his government-office
in the West Indies, a defaulter for eight thousand
pounds. Great sympathy was felt for him among his
friends, and three propositions were made to him to
cancel the debt. Lord Lansdowne offered simply to
pay it. Longman and Murray offered to advance it
on his future works, and the noblemen at White's
offered the sum to him in a subscription. This was
at the time subscriptions were on foot for getting
Sheridan out of his troubles; and while Moore was
considering the three propositions just named, he
chanced to be walking down St. James street with two
noblemen when they met Sheridan. Sheridan bowed
to them with a familiar “how are you?” — “D — n the
fellow,” said one of the noblemen, “he might have
touched his hat! I subscribed a hundred pounds for
him last night!” — “Thank God! you dare make no
such criticism on a bow from me!” said Moore to
himself. The lesson sank deep. He rejected all the
offers made to relieve him — went to Passy, and lived
in complete obscurity, in that little suburb of Paris,
till he had written himself out of debt. Under the
spur of that chance remark were written some of the
works by which Moore will be best known to posterity.

This reminds us (and if we don't nab it now, it may
never again be nabable), of a laugh at Moore's expense
in a company of very celebrated authors. They were
talking him over, and one of the company quoted
Leigh Hunt's simile for him — “a young Bacchus
snuffing up the vine.” “Bah!” said another, “don't
quite deify the little worldling! He is more like a
cross between a toad and a cupid!”

We have got hold of a string and we may as well
pull away to see what will come of it. We had long
forgotten two or three trifles tied together, of which this
last paragraph is one, and we remember now, another
anecdote told by the caustic person whose comparison
we have just quoted. He said that Byron would never
have gone to Greece but for a tailor in Genoa. The
noble bard, he went on to say, was very economical,
as was well known, in small matters. He had hired a
villa at Genoa and furnished it, with the intention of
making it a permanent residence. Lord and Lady
Blessington and a large society of English people of
good style were residing there at the time. In the
fullest enjoyment of his house and his mode of life,
Byron wanted a new coat; and, having some English
cloth, he left it with his measure in the hands of a

Genoese tailor, with no particular instructions as to
the making. The tailor, overcome with the honor of
making a coat for an Eccellenza Inglese, embroidered
it from collar to tail, and sent it home with a bill as
thickly embroidered as the coat! Byron kept the
coat for fear of its being sold, as his, to an actor of
English parts on the stage, but resolutely refused to
pay for more than the making of a plain and plebeian
garment. The tailor threatened an attachment, and
Byron assigned over his furniture to his banker, and
finally quitted Genoa in disgust — ready of course, as
he would not otherwise have been, for a new project.
From indignation at an embroidered coat-tail the
transition to “liberty or death,” “wo to the Moslem!”
or any other vent for his accumulated bile, was easy
and natural! He embarked in the Greek cause soon
after, and the embroidered coat was not (as it should
have been) “flung to the breeze at Salamis” — the
banner of inspired heroism!

So was the tale told. So tell we it to you, dear
reader. It is no damage to the gods or demigods to
unpedestal them sometimes. The old Saturnalia,
when masters and slaves changed places for a while,
was founded on the principle in nature that all high-strung-itudes
are better for occasional relaxing.

We have not done what we sat down to do — which
was to run a pretty parallel between a fame and a
pyramid — apropos of some trifles bought of a pear-shaped
pawnbroker. Pity that ideas once touched are
like uncorked claret — good for one draught only!
We shall never dare to take up the figure again, so
we may as well hand you the gold thread we meant to
have woven into it — a little figurative consolation to
the unappreciated poet. To him who is building a
pyramid of poetical fame, a premature celebrity is like
the top-stone laid on his back and carried till he has
built up to it. We wish those of our contributors
whom we neither publish nor praise, would apply this
“parmeceti” to their “inward bruise.”

We take the vital centre of New York to be a certain
lamp-post from which radiate five crossings — one
pointing to the Astor, one to the American Museum,
one up Broadway, one up the Bowery, and the fifth
(dead east) to the office of the New Mirror — the
which office is clearly visible from the palm of the
spread hand upholding this medio-metropolitan lamp-post.
Having conceived — (you have — have you not,
dear reader?) — the laudable purpose of subscribing
for the Mirror's second year (now on the eve of commencing),
your first inquiry is the geography of
“Ann street,” — upon which money-welcoming spot
shines nightly this central lamp of the municipality.
You arrive safely at the Astor. You glide past its
substratum of apothecaries, perfumers, goldsmiths,
and hatters, and arrest your footsteps at the triple corner
studded with three of the notable structures of
Manhattan — the imperial Astor, the goodly St Paul's,
and the marvellous museum with the “fifty thousand
curiosities.” You now face due southward. Helm
down (coat-skirt down Vesey street, that is to say),
and you head east southeast, laying your course exactly.
Before you lies a crossing of flags by which
you may safely reach the islanded palm of the spread
hand (holding two granite posts guarding a lamp-post),
and, once there, you luff a little to the right, and
follow the pointed forefinger of that same hand to
the opening lips of Ann street. Cross over, keep
down a few doors to the right, and “there you are” —
(there we are!) — walk in!

And now, dear sir! (besides your receipt and the
benign smile of the Brigadier) what will you have?
Our visibilities to the naked eye are small, but there
be caves and storehouses of our primrose-colored
wares, and if we affect the Turkish fashion of a specimen
shop, with room only for one purchaser at a
time, it is for another reason besides saving the rent,
Philosophic, like us, is the French Amphytrion, who
does not show to his delicate guest the pieces de resistance.
The roasted joints stand upon a side-table
removed from view, and if slices are handed you over
your shoulder, it is with an apposite commendation
which the sight of the whole dish would fatally
smother. Small as the shop is, however (parva, sed
apta mihi!) the welcome is spacious! All who come
there, come with a parishioner's regard, self-chosen
to our literary flock, and none turn the latch without
unlocking our heart with the same door-handle.
(“Qualis rex, talis grex!” Having found comfort in
loving ourselves, we venture the more easily to love
those who are like us.)

Touching this shop (of which we have now given
you the pictorial chart), we shall have more to say
hereafter. It has its history. Our landlord is a
“picked man of countries,” and has written his pleasant
book. Around us “volcanoes belch their fires”
of prodigal literature, and opposite us there is a deep-door
by which the modest wits about town descend to
Windust's, for news and things more succulent.
There sometimes dives the brigadier, to lunch with
needful celerity on the busy Saturday, and thence
emerge daily and shiny-ly (after their pot of ale) refreshed,
the manufacturers of public opinion. Oh, from
our modest window, we see sights! But, enough for
now!

I had a half-hour's interview with the TALKING
MACHINE this morning, and found him a more entertaining
android than most of my wooden acquaintances
— (the man who thinks for him being a very superior
person). I must first give you a tableau of the
room. A German woman takes your half dollar
the door, and points you to a semi-boxed-up Turk
(query: Why are all automata dressed in turbans?)
— a Turk seated in a kind of low pulpit, with a green
shirt, a good complexion, a very fine beard, and a
pearl breastpin. Out from under his shoulder issues
a bunch of wooden sticks, arranged like a gamut
pump-handles, and behind this, ready to play on his
Turk, sits Mr. Faber, the contriver. (I immediately
suggested to Mr. F., by the way, that the costume
and figure had better have been female, as the bustle
would have given a well-placed and ample concealment
for all the machinery now disenchantingly
placed outside — the performer sitting down naturally
behind, and playing on her like a piano.[7] ) The
Turk was talking to several ladies and gentlemen
when I entered, and my name being mentioned by
one of the party, he said, “How do you do, Mr.
— ?” with perfect distinctness. There was a small
musical organ in the room, and one of the visiters
played “Hail Columbia!” the automaton singing the
words “like a man.” There was no slighting or
slurring of diphthong or vowel, sybillate or aspirate.
Duty was done by every letter with a legitimate claim
to be sounded — the only fault being a strong German
accent (which of course will wear off with travel) and
a few German peculiarities, such as pronouncing v's
like w's, gargling the gutturals, &c., &c.

I understood Mr. Faber to say that he was seven
years contriving the utterance of the vowel e. Mr. F.
has a head and countenance fit for a speech-maker
(maker of the gift of speech, I mean) — a head of the

finest model, and a mouth strongly marked with intelligence
and feeling. He is simple, naif, and enthusiastic
in his manners. The rude musical organ in the
room was his own handiwork, and at the request of
one of the ladies he sat down to it and played a beautiful
waltz of his own composing. He may well be
completely absorbed, as he seems to be, in his androides.
It says anything, in any language. It can
not cough — not being liable to bronchitis; nor laugh
— being a Turk. But it can sing, and has a sweet
breath and well-governed tongue. In short, it is what
would pass in the world for “a very fine man.” Besides
those whom God has made (Boyle, the philosopher,
calls the world “an automaton of God's making”),
I know of but one or two attempts before this
to make a talking-machine — the famous one by Von
Kempelen, and the celebrated brazen head constructed
by Friar Bacon. What could be uttered by this unthinking
brass has not come down to us. The statue
of Memnon could utter musical sounds, and Maelzel's
chess-player could say “echec.” A much more useful
automaton than any of these, Mr. Faber's included,
was one invented by one of the brothers Droz —
“a child, sitting at a desk, who dipped his pen in the
ink and wrote in French whatever was dictated to
him” (the inventor, of course, somewhere concealed).
It struck me as a great pity, indeed, that the admirable
ingenuity and perseverance of Mr. Faber
should have been wasted on a superfluity — (for there
is more talking than enough). Albertus Magnus invented,
with thirty years' labor, an automaton servant,
who would open the door when any one knocked, and
salute the visiter — capable, of course, of being able to
say “not at home,” and so saving the conscience of
the domestic; and this was, perhaps, worth the labor.
Less meritorious, again, was the automaton fly made
of iron by Regiomontanus, in the 14th century, which
would make the circuit of the room with a buz, and
return to its master. Something in the Pygmalion
line has been attempted within a few years by a Swiss
mechanician, Maillardet, who constructed a female
with a “bosom that would heave for an hour,” once
wound up. She would also play forty tunes on the
piano with her fingers, and look languishingly by casting
her eyes down — almost enough for one woman to
do! I think these are facts enough for a very speculative
essay on the value of such offices as may be
performed by the body without the aid of brains.

I have been prevented, of late, from going about as
much as my wont, and have hardly seen or heard
more of the city doings than the country readers of
your paper. This will account, if not apologize, for
some lack of variety in my letters. I broke through
my fireside habits last night, and went to the Methodist
chapel in Madison street, to hear the Rev. Mr.
Maffit's diatribe against “Boz” — admittance twenty-five
cents. My surprise on being called on for money
at the door was pleasurable, for I rejoice in an injustice
turned by its victims “to commodity.” Two
hundred people were well amused, and religion (per
one of its ministers) was profited fifty dollars in pocket.
Except in this light, however, I should call the
using of “Boz” for a pulpit text a decided case of le
jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle. (The church gas-lights
seemed to be of that opinion, for they suddenly paled
their fires ten minutes before the conclusion of the
lecture!)

While I think of it — Dickens has contradicted the
report, published in the London papers, touching his
durance for debt. I am glad it was not true. Mistakes
of positive assertion and of this personal character
are so rare in the respectable English papers, that
I mentioned it in my letter to you with no suspicion
of its being an error — the assertion supported, moreover,
by the rumors, rife to the same purport, when I
was last in London. The reports, doubtless, were
born of the coupling of two well-known facts — the decrease
of the prices paid for his books by publishers,
and the increase of his “pledges,” with no corresponding
reductions apparent in his style of living.
The statement having once appeared in the papers of
his own country, an expression of sympathy (as far
off as the other shoulder of the world) was but complimentary
to Mr. Dickens.

Mr. Maffit's discourse was more of an event to me
than to most of his audience, probably; for his eloquence
made a great impression upon me when I was
a boy between ten and twelve years of age, and I had
not seen him since. He preached at that time in the
Bromfield chapel, Boston (in the next street to the
one in which I lived), and was then a “new light” in
the methodist church, and drew crowds after him. I
left my play eagerly to hear him, and I have often
since wished for an opportunity to analyze the peculiar
delight he gave me — for it was all pleasure, without
the slightest effect in the way of religious impression.
I could fill my letter with what came to me
upon the turned-back leaf of seeing Mr. Maffit in the
pulpit again, but the comparison between the effects
of oratory upon tastes mature and immature, though
interesting elsewhere, would be out of place here.
He was not so much changed as I anticipated. Macready
has always reminded me of him, and they are
still alike. Mr. Maffit did not use to shave his temples,
and from this peculiar tonsure, his forehead looks
higher and his hair less Hyperian and more oratorical
than formerly.

He commenced with some general remarks as to
the charm of variety in customs and manners, and the
common English weakness of condemning pitilessly
every departure from the cockney standards and peculiarities,
trying, by this test only, every country under
the sun. This part of the oration was written in lambent
and oily-hinged periods, and delivered — really, in
music absolute! I felt the spell over again. It is in
the voice and accent of Mr. Maffit that the philtre
lies hid. So sweet a tone no other man has, in my
knowledge. His inflexions, so long as he remains
unexcited, are managed with the skill of the subtlest
rhetorician. He hides the meaning of his sentences
under the velvet words that are sweetest to linger
upon, and to press with emphasis, and in this department
of oratory he seems to me unsurpassed. He
soon broke the spell, however. As he left generalizing,
and got from poetry to analysis, he began to
show bad taste and clumsy discrimination, and fell
into a kind of grimalkin sputter of sarcasm, that let
down his dignity sadly. The audience began to applaud,
and, with their applause, he grew inflated, both
in matter and manner, and for the last half hour of his
discourse was entirely off his feet — trashy, inconsequent,
and absurd — most applauded, however, when
most incomprehensible. (And this ill-bestowed applause
may easily have been the reverend orator's Delilah.)
I remember little of what he said after the
first fifteen minutes. There was a good deal of illustration
to show that the “Yankees could whip the
British,” and much more of such clap-trap, and Dickens
and Mrs. Trollope were each served out with as
much pulpit-pounding and bitter epithet as is commonly
given the devil, at a dose. One comparative
testimony given by the orator is valuable, as he speaks
on both sides with authority. He assured us that the
society in every part of this country, “from the
Aroostook to the Sabine,” is as refined and delightful
as any society whatever, except that of heaven. He
did not mention how long he had resided in the latter
country, but he had been a travelling guest of American
families for the twenty years since he left Ireland,

and had been treated everywhere as a son and brother,
and spoke advisedly. I could wish this Irish and
celestial evidence in our favor might be put (for smoking)
into the pipe of the London Quarterly.

I have discovered lately that the household-gods
have a vocabulary of their own. Search after a trifling
invention led me to Windle's furnishing-shop in
Maiden lane, and after spending an hour in marvelling
at the mind that has been expended upon the invention
of household conveniences, I asked for a catalogue
of the shop's wares. A pamphlet of twenty-one
pages was handed me, and I give you, for your
despair, a few of the names of the necessary utensils
by which your comfort is ministered to: “Pope's
heads and eyes,” “Shakers' swifts,” “beefsteak pounders,”
“faucets and bungstarts,” “bootjacks and legresters,”
“salt and spit-boxes,” “Chinese swings,”
“Chinese punk in boxes,” “sillabub-sticks,” “ovenpeels,”
“allblaze-pans,” “ice-cream pagodas,” “paste-jaggers
and cutters,” “crimping and goffering machines,”
“sugar-nippers and larding-pins,” “bread-rasps
and sausage-stuffers,” etc., etc., etc. This is vernacular,
of course, to the ladies, but Greek to us.

Apropos of words — there should be a replevin (by
poetry upon vulgar usage) to restore the word diaper
to its original meaning. Ford says in one of his plays
(The Sun's Darling): —

Diaper means literally, to embroider with raised
work — after a stuff which was formerly called d'Ipre,
from the town of Ipre in Flanders, where it was manufactured.
There is such a load of descriptiveness
in the word that it is a shame it should be lost to
poetry.

Moore's carefully revised and corrected edition of
his works is republished in this country at the price
of three dollars and a half. Half of it, at least, is
uninteresting to the general reader, consisting of his
satires (with names left in unexplained blanks), local
poetry, translations from the classics, and a mass of
labored notes. The popular portions, consisting of
“The Loves of the Angels,” “The Irish Melodies
and Sacred Songs,” and the “National Airs, Ballads,
and Miscellaneous Poems,” have been published in
three extras of the Mirror — five shillings for all of
them. This will form as beautiful an edition of the
enjoyable part of Moore's poetry as could be wished,
and as cheap as beautiful.

Charles Dibdin, “The Bard of Poor Jack,” as
he is commonly called, is one of those authors less
known than his works, particularly in this country,
where his songs are familiar to every lip, and his name
hardly recognised. General Morris has made a collection
of all the songs of Dibdin that are universal
in their popularity, and has added others which from
their bold and graphic excellence have been commonly
attributed to him. This shilling extra of the
Mirror will become, I think, the sailor's classic, embodying,
as it does, all their most remarkable songs.

Montgomery's “World before the Flood,” one of
the sweetest poems in the English language, is also in
press for the “Mirror Library.” On looking over the
biography of this good man and true poet, I find, by-the-way,
the following passage, referring, I believe, to
the father of one of the editors of the Intelligencer:
“Mr. Montgomery removed to Sheffield (England) in
1792, and engaged himself with Mr. Gales, the publisher
of a very popular newspaper, at that time known
by the title of the Sheffield Register. Mr. Mont
gomery became a useful correspondent to this paper,
and gained so far the good opinion and affection of
Mr. Gales and his family, that they vied with each
other in demonstrating their respect and regard for
him. In 1794, when Mr. Gales left England to avoid
a political prosecution, Montgomery, with the assistance
of another gentleman, became the editor of the
Register.” Critics have unanimously agreed that
“The World before the Flood” is the best production
of Montgomery's muse, and it certainly is a noble and
pure structure of elevated imagination. Among the
sacred classics, Montgomery, I think, will rank first.

Sorrow's Reluctant Gate. — This last-turned
leaf, dear reader, seems to us always like a door shut
behind us, with the world outside. We have expressed
this thought before, when it was a prelude to
being gayer than in the preceding pages. With the
closed door, now, we would throw off restraint, but it
is to be sadder than before. It is so with yourself,
doubtless. You sometimes break into singing on entering
your chamber and finding yourself alone —
sometimes you burst into tears.

There is nothing for which the similitudes of poetry
seem to us so false and poor, as for affliction by the
death of those we love. The news of such a calamity
is not “a blow.” It is not like “a thunderbolt,”
or “a piercing arrow;” it does not “crush and overwhelm”
us. We hear it, at first, with a kind of mournful
incredulity, and the second feeling is, perhaps, a
wonder at ourselves — that we are so little moved.
The pulse beats on as tranquilly — the momentary tear
dries from the eye. We go on, about the errand in
which we were interrupted. We eat, sleep, at our
usual time, and are nourished and refreshed; and if a
friend meet us and provoke a smile, we easily and forgetfully
smile. Nature does not seem to be conscious
of the event, or she does not recognise it as a calamity.

But little of what is taken away by death is taken
from the happiness of one hour, or one day. We
live, absent from beloved relatives, without pain. Days
pass without our seeing them — months — years. They
would be no more absent in body if they were dead.
But, suddenly, in the midst of our common occupations,
we hear that they are one remove farther from
us — in the grave. The mind acknowledges it true.
The imagination makes a brief and painful visit to the
scene of the last agony, the death-chamber, the
burial — and returns weary and dispirited, to repose.
For that hour perhaps we should not have thought of
the departed, if they were living — nor for the next.
The routine we had relied upon to fill up those hours
comes round. We give it our cheerful attention.
The beloved dead are displaced from our memory, and
perhaps we start suddenly, with a kind of reproachful
surprise, that we can have been so forgetful — that the
world, with its wheels of minutes and trifles, can thus
untroubled go round, and that dear friend gone
from it.

But the day glides on, and night comes. We lie
down, and unconsciously, as we turn upon our pillow,
commence a recapitulation that was once a habit of
prayer — silently naming over the friends whom we
should commend to God — did we pray — as those most
dear to us. Suddenly the heart stops — the breath
hushes — the tears spring hot to the eyelids. We miss
the dead! From that chain of sweet thoughts a link
is broken, and for the first time we feel that we are
bereaved. It was in the casket of that last hour before
sleeping — embalmed in the tranquillity of that hour's
unnamed and unreckoned happiness — that the memory
of the dead lay hid. For that friend, now, we
can no longer pray! Among the living — among our
blessings — among our hopes — that sweet friend is

nameable no more! We realize it now. The list of
those who love us — whom we love — is made briefer.
With face turned upon our pillow — with anguish and
fears — we blot out the beloved name, and begin the
slow and nightly task of unlearning the oft-told syllables
from our lips.

And this is the slow-opening gate by which sorrow
enters in! We wake on the morrow and remember
our tears of the past night; and as the cheerful sunshine
streams in at our window, we think of the kind
face and embracing arms, the soft eyes and beloved
lips, lying dark and cold, in a place — oh how pitiless
in its coldness and darkness! We choke with a suffused
sob, we heave the heavy thought from our bosom
with a painful sigh, and hasten abroad — for relief in
forgetfulness!

But we had not anticipated that this dear friend
would die, and we have marked out years to come
with hopes in which the dead was to have been a
sharer. Thoughts, and promises, and meetings, and
gifts, and pleasures, of which hers was the brighter
half, are wound like a wreath of flowers around the
chain of the future, and as we come to them — to the
places where these looked for flowers lie in ashes upon
the inevitable link — oh, God! with what agonizing
vividness they suddenly return! — with what grief, made
intenser by realizing, made more aching by prolonged
absence, we call up those features beloved, and remember
where they lie, uncaressed and unvisited!
Years must pass — and other affections must “sweep,
and garnish, and enter in” to the void chambers of the
heart — and consolation and natural forgetfulness must
do their slow work of erasure — and meantime grief
visits us, in unexpected times and places, its paroxysms
imperceptibly lessening in poignancy and tenacity,
but life in its main current, flowing, from the
death to the forgetting of it, unchanged on!

And now, what is like to this, in nature (for even the
slight sympathy in dumb similitudes is sweet)? It is
not like the rose's perishing — for that robs only the
hour in which it dies. It were more like the removal
from earth of that whole race of flowers, for we should
not miss the first day's roses, hardly the first season's,
and should mourn most when the impoverished spring
came one more round without them. It were like
stilling the music of a brook for ever, or making all
singing-birds dumb, or hushing the wind-murmur in
the trees, or drawing out from nature any one of her
threads of priceless repetition. We should not mourn
for the first day's silence in the brook, or in the trees —
nor for the first morning's hush after the birds were
made voiceless. The recurrent dawns, or twilights, or
summer noons, robbed of their accustomed music,
would bring the sense of its loss — the value of what
was taken away increasing with its recurrent season.
But these are weak similitudes — as they must needs
be, drawn from a world in which death — the lot alike
of all living creatures that inhabit it — is only a calamity
to man!

Spring is here, and, with its earliest sunshine,
Broadway puts out its first flowers in bright colors
and gay drapery. It is a lounge we should love were
we idle. We do not write for Autolycus, nor for
Timon. (Thieves and misanthropes do not commonly
take the papers.) And as all other classes of mankind
yield to the gregarious instincts of our race, we
feel free to discourse of Broadway as a place beloved.
Beloved it is — by the philanthropist, interested in the
peccant varieties of his fellow-creatures; by the old,
who love to look upon the young; and by the young,
who love to look upon each other; (ah! the celestial
quality of youth!) — by the serious, for whom there
would seem to be resorts less thronged with sinners
(if need were), and by sinners, who are at least spared
the sin of hypocrisy, for, with little disguise, they
“love one another.” Now, if beautiful women are
not laudable objects of contemplation and curiosity,
as St. Anthony avers (and he is welcome to let them
alone), we are not warned against beautiful children,
nor beautiful horses, nor the bright sunshine, nor the
gay product of the silkworm, nor the “stuffs from
Colchis and Trebizond.”

Very handsome — isn't she? And apparently in a
very great hurry, and apparently very much disgusted
at being seen in the street at all! You would think,
now, that that lady's coachman was ill and that she
was, for this once in her life, walking alone to her
mother's. But she is more amused at this moment
than she will be again to-day — and to-morrow she will
take the same walk to be happy again. She has a
husband, however, and a beautiful house, and not a
wish (that money can gratify) ungratified. And her
drawing-rooms are full of exquisite objects of art.
She might stay contentedly at home, you think? No!
She was a belle, pampered with admiration when she
married, and she married a cynical and cold-blooded
parsnip, who sits like a snarling ogre among his statues
and pictures — a spot on his own ottoman — a blemish
in the elegance of his own house. She married him
for an establishment, but forgot he was a part of it —
dazzled with the frame, she overlooked the hideousness
of the picture. And he knows this — and likes
her, with his statues, as his property — and is pleased
to have her seen as his wife — though she is the wife
to but one part of him, his vanity! She finds it hard
to feel beautiful at breakfast, with her husband on the
other side of the table, and he finds it hard to be very
bland with a wife who looks at his acrid physiognomy
with a shudder.

A superb house with him in it, is like a fine tulip
with an adder in it. But she is a woman, and whether
she has a heart or no, she has a well-cultivated vanity,
and unluckily, the parents who taught her to secure
luxury in wedlock, taught her no foresight as to her
more needful supply of admiration. Love, she would
like very well — but admired she must be! And too
cold and worldly to be imprudent, and too proud to be
willing to seem pleased with the gaze of Broadway
idlers, she still thirsts after this very stare which is
given to her beauty by the passers-by, and has very
little happiness beyond her daily hurried walk on the
crowded pavé. She'll make a match of sentiment if
she gets another chance, or, at any rate, will marry
for some love and less money.

Heaven help her through with her present chrysalis!

“How are you?”

“How are you?”

What would a new-dropped angel think of these
two unanswered questions? Indeed, what would an
angel think of that smiling fellow who exchanged this
nonsense with me. He is one of a thousand in the
city who, “like the prodigal, squeezed through a
horn,” are happy from having got through the tightest
place of this mortal life. Though his dimensions are
immeasurably smaller than they were not long ago, they
are so much easier than they grew to be after, that
he feels as if, like Uncle Toby's fly, there was room
enough in the world for him now. He is easy with the
rebound after being broke with overstraining. He was
a merchant, reputed to have made money enough.
Sensitive and punctilious in all the relations of life,
he was particularly soignè of his commercial honor.
Never a breath sullied that clear escutcheon! For
this he was supposed to be over-careful — for this he
was inflexible where his heart would have prompted
him to be indulgent — for this, it was soberly believed,
he would sacrifice his life. His wife was (and has
since proved herself by trial) an admirable woman,
and with fine children and good looks of his own, he
was one of those fallacious contradictions of the equal

distribution of mortal happiness. Well — his star began
to descend from its apogee, and he courageously
lugged out his philosophy and retrenched his expenditure.
And then began an agony of mind which
could be increased, even hereafter, by the increased
capacity of the mind — for, short of reason overturned,
he could suffer no more. A thousand years of a common
tenor of life would seem shorter than those six
terrible months of sinking into bankruptcy. But now
comes the curious part of it! He suddenly took the
benefit of the bankrupt law. And instead of lying
still prostrate upon the ground, crushed and humiliated
— instead of hiding his head, as he longed to do while
he still promised to pay, degraded, spiritless, lost, to
the enjoyment of life — instead of still seeming an object
of pity to the most ruthless sufferer by his fall —
up, like a snapped spring, he bounds to the empyrean!
He could not be gayer with his debts paid and his
fortune in his hands again! He walks the street,
smiling, and with a light step. He is a little smarter
than he used to be in this dress. He eats well, and
the wrinkles have retreated, and his eyes have thrown
open their windows, and (as you saw when he passed)
there is not a merrier or more fortunate-looking idler
in this merry Broadway! Now, quere? — Is there a
provision in nature for honor to cast its skin? Becomes
it new, scarless and white, after a certain wear,
tear, and suffering? Does a man remember, till, with
the anguish of remembering, he forgets? Has God,
in our construction, provided a recuperative, to guard
us against over self infliction? Can we use up our
sense of shame with over-working it, and do we come
then to a stratum of self-approval and self-glorification?
Enfin — is this inward whitewashing confined
only to money-spots, and is nature hereby provided
with a corrective check to our implacabilities of
pocket?

TO OUR ONE WITHDRAWING SUBSCRIBER.

Sir: A French writer wittily turns the paradox:
“Il faut de l'argent même pour se passer d'argent” —
(is it necessary to have money to be able to do without
it) — and we please ourselves with suspecting that it is
only amid the forgetful ease of possession that you can
have made up your mind to forego us. If so, and
your first se'ennight of unmirrored solitude prove
heavier to bear than the aching three dollar void
balanced against it — so! The pathos of this parting
will have been superfluous.

Our connexion, sir, though born of a “promise to
pay,” has been a matter of friendship; and in dissolving
a friendship, it is desirable, on both sides, to have back
again the secrets safe only in a friend's keeping. It
is common and easy, as you well know, for one man
to “give” another “a piece of his mind,” and we ask
that piece of yours upon which we have stitched the
lining of ours. For the goods and chattels we have
sent you, that are yours, of course. Such third-person
matters as stories and poesies, pictures, drolleries,
gossipries and novelties — the visible contents of our
primrose cover — are — like the three dollars paid for
them — like the ear of rye up a schoolboy's sleeve — irrevertible!
They are yours. The money is (was)
ours. We would not willingly change back! But
other values have passed to your keeping, that are not
strictly commodities of barter. We have vent-pegs,
that are, as it may chance to turn out, largesses or
weaknesses. We are known, favorably or unfavorably,
for an incontinence of ourself — a certain need to expand
upon our neighbor. If we are happy it runs
over the brim — if we are sad, prodigal, too, with our
tears. Withal, we have a natural incredulity of breakings-off
— walking upright upon all manner of eternities
till we have tumbled over the end. Do you see how
subject we were to improvident confidences?

To fix upon the wares we would have back, you
have only to ask what a stranger could buy of us, and
subtract it from what you know of us. Could you
stop us in the street, for example, and buy the fulness
of our heart from us — such as has overflowed upon
our last page often and unaware — for six pence? Could
you send to us for a thought that has sailed out of our
bosom upon our private tear, and enclose a shilling for
two copies through the village postmaster? Could
you point us out to a dirty newsboy, and tell him
“that gentleman had last week some pangs and some
pleasures, and I will give you sixpence to see them in
a Mirror, with their expressed gall or honey?” Could
you touch us upon the shoulder in Broadway and say,
“Sir, I should like to have sent to me, weekly, the
thoughts which are stirred by all you enjoy or suffer,
expressed in choice rhetoric and printed on fine paper;
and you may throw me in a fine steel plate, a new
story or two, all the gossip of the week, some criticisms
and any fine poetry that has come to your hand — for
which I will pay you sixpence per weekly copy?”
Oh, there is much that you have bought of us with
which you have no business, ceasing to be our friend!
And when you have sent that part back, your money's-worth
will still stretch its long legs comfortably under
the covering blanket of the remainder!

Well, sir, adieu! There is some machinery, of
one kind and another, that will now cease to labor,
at sixpence per week, for your gratification — sundry
male printers and engravers, sundry female folders and
stitehers, our post-office boy and wheelbarrow, such
trifling rail-roads and steamers as have been built to
convey the Mirror to you — these and we, with our
best brains and contributors, we are sorry to say, will
now cease to minister to you — but you will have, instead,
weekly, an unspent sixpence! Of this sixpence,
much foregone for, we wish you joy in the overbalancing
value of possession! And so, sir, drawing back
our complicated machinery that you may lift this
small silver bridge from between us, we bid you once
more, over the chasm of removed equivalent, a respectful
adieu!

TO OUR PUNCTUAL FIRMAMENT OF FIXED STARS.

Ladies and gentlemen: In the eleven thousand
shining sixpences which duly rise and dispense their
silver light upon our way, we see of course the
“Heaven of eternal change” toward whose “patines
of bright gold” we have been long stretching with
tiptoe expectation. We trust that, like the unpocketable
troop whose indefatigable punctuality you emulate,
there are still comers to your number unarrived,
and that the “Lost Pleiad” (the single heavenly body
upon whose discontinuance to rise we indited the
foregoing epistle), will come round again in his erratic
orbit, and take his place in the constellation he has
deserted. We give notice here, however, that, at
eleven thousand, we shall, like the nuns of St. Ursula,
stop numbering. There have been virgins since the
shelving of the bones of the “eleven thousand virgins
of Cologne,” yet the oft-told number is still told,
without increase, in the holy tradition. We believe
with the sainted sisterhood that human credence can
go no farther — that 'twixt millions and billions of
virgins the disciple's mind would not be likely to discriminate.
You will still permit us, therefore, to cast
our horoscope upon this nominal number. As other
starry sixpences fall into the chinks of boundless space,
the perceptible increase of our brightness will alone
tell the tale — but they will be marked and welcomed
in the careful astronomy of our leger.

You are ours, oh pleasant eleven thousand! The
vain astronomer casts over the sky his net of parallels
and meridians and calls the caught heavens his own,
but the stars he numbers are not, like ours, convertible
to things to eat. We will envy Herschel when he
can change sixteen of his entrapped stars for a dollar
— when he can dabble with their shining faces as we
with our constellated “fips” You are ours, and
therefore we will care for you.

It occurred to me in an omnibus to-day, that it
would be curious to know with what eyes angels watch
us. My opinion as to the importance of “every hair
of our head” had been somewhat modified within the
previous half-hour by a look at one or two of my own
(hairs) through a solar microscope, and the thought
naturally suggested itself, that if the eyes of our spiritual
guardians were microscopic (as they may easily
be), there was no so great marvel in the care they
take of us. It was a warm, pleasant morning, and I
was letting myself ramble and look into windows. An
exhibition of a solar microscope came in my way, and I
went in. The wall of a large room was apparently
swarming with rats and mud-turtles when I opened
the door, and this was some of the dust from a fig,
held on the point of a pin, and magnified five million
times. I had seen many of these experiments in college,
of course, but one hears so many wonderful
things, when one is growing, that I do not remember
being much astonished in those days. It was different
now, for I really never was more amused and
amazed then at the snakes in the drop of vinegar, and
the formidable apparatus of a certain un-nameable little
customer, whose like I had occasion to slay in
great numbers in the poetical Orient. To bring the
thing home to my own business and bosom, however
(the microscope, not the pediculus!) I begged the
exhibitor to show me, magnified, one or two of my
own hairs. I plucked one from my bump of imagination
and another from my bump of acquisitiveness,
and gave them both to him, with some curiosity
to know if the roots would show the difference in the
soil. Somewhat to my surprise there was a difference.
He placed them carefully on his instrument,
and the root of the imaginative hair was shaped like a
claret bottle (and about its size), while that of the acquisitive
hair was like a short fat porter bottle — the
hairs themselves being, to the roots, in about the proportions
of the necks to the bottles. I must say I was
truly delighted at the discovery of this analogy, and
seldom have bought so good a fact for twelve and a
half cents. As I said before, “the hairs of our heads”
being “all numbered,” my guardian angel knows how
many dozen I have remaining of my imaginative claret,
and how my acquisitive porter improves by age, and
he looks after it all like one of Bininger's clerks, letting
none “fall to the ground” without careful putting
down. The exhibitor asked me to try another, but a
man thinks twice of plucking out a hair, impressed with
the idea that it will leave a hole in his head as big as
a claret-bottle! I declined.

But if every hair of my head be as big (to a microscopic
eye) as a bottle of porter with a neck a mile
long, and my body in proportion, at what a very moderate
charge (thought I, as I rode down) am I carried
a mile in the unmagnified omnibus! What would have
become of us if God had inflicted upon us a Babel of
the eye instead of the ear, making different men see
things through different lenses, diminishing and microscopic!
What work for the lawyers! I was beginning
to turn my mind to the quantity of magnified
body that one unmagnified soul could properly inhabit
(as a house may easily be expanded till one tenant
is an absurdity), when the omnibus stopped. It is
a very good subject for an extravaganza in Thomas
Hood's vein.

There is a certain curiosity to know “how the thing
went off,” even though the show in question was a
bore to the spectator. Perked up people think that
only such curiosity as would sit well upon George
Washington should be catered for in print, but I incline
to think that almost any matter which would be
talked about by any two people together would be entertaining
to one man reading by himself. So I think
I may put down what I saw at a show that was advertised
as an “Exhibition of Laughing Gas.”

My younger readers may perhaps require to be
told that nitrate of ammonia, like himself, has a soul
that fire will burn out of it. When the lamp over
which it is held gets too hot “to be stood” any longer,
up rises a little whitish cloud which has most of
the properties of common air, but which has a sweet
taste and an agreeable odor, and will pass into any human
soul's body upon very slight invitation. Once
in, however, it abuses the hospitality extended to it,
by immediately usurping all the functions of the body,
and behaves, in short, extremely like another more
notorious enemy, who, “when admitted into your
mouth steals away your brains.” The stimulus of
this intoxicating gas to the nervous system is very surprising.
Sir Humphrey Davy administered it to
Southey the poet, whose feelings are thus described:
“He could not distinguish between the first effects
and a certain apprehension, of which he was unable
to divest himself. His first definite sensations were a
fulness and dizziness in the head, such as to induce
the fear of falling. This was succeeded by a laugh
which was involuntary, but highly pleasurable, accompanied
by a peculiar thrilling in the extremities —
a sensation perfectly new and delightful. For many
hours after this experiment, he imagined that his
taste and smell were more acute, and is certain that
he felt unusually strong and cheerful. In a second
experiment he felt pleasure still superior, and has
since poetically remarked, that he supposes the atmosphere
of the highest of all possible heavens to be composed
of this gas!”

There were between three and four thousand people
assembled in the Tabernacle. A platform in the
centre was hemmed in with benches, and it was advertised
that “twelve strong men” would be there to prevent
injury to the spectators. It was mentioned in the
advertisement, also, that the gallery would be reserved
for ladies, though I thought that the inviting of ladies
to be present at the removal of all restraint from
men's tongues and actions, was a strong mark of confidence
in the uppermost qualities of our sex. After
some impatience on the part of the audience, the professor
appeared with his specimen of “the highest
possible heaven” in an India-rubber bag. The candidates
for a taste of it were many and urgent, crowding
up from below like the applicants to St. Peter,
and the professor seemed somewhat embarrassed as to
a selection. A thick-necked and bony youth got possession
of the bag, however, and applied his mouth to
the stopper. After inhaling its contents for a minute
or two, he squared away and commenced pummelling
the professor in the most approved butcher-boy style
— which was possibly his idea of the “highest possible
heaven.” The “twelve strong men” rushed
to the rescue, the audience applauded vociferously,
and the lad returned to his senses, having been
out of them perhaps three minutes. A dozen others
took their turn, and were variously affected. I was
only very much delighted with one young man, who
coolly undertook a promenade over the the close-packed
heads of the audience. The impertinence of
the idea seemed to me in the highest degree brilliant

and delightful. There was one corsair-looking man
who rushed up and down the stage, believing himself
on the deck of some vessel in pursuit of another, and
that was perhaps the best bit of acting. One silly
youth went to and fro, smirking and bowing, and another
did a scene in “Richard the Third,” and a tall,
good-looking young man laughed heartily, and suddenly
stopped and demanded of the audience, in indignant
rage, what they were laughing at! There
was nothing else worth even putting down among trifles,
and I was glad when it was over. The only imaginable
entertainment in such an exhibition would
be to watch the effect of self-abandonment on those
whose characters we know when under restraint.
Among acquaintances it would be charming — particularly
if the subjects were ladies. I should recommend
to the professor to advertise himself as open to
invitations to administer his “highest possible heaven”
to small and select parties. It would be better
than a masquerade and not so unlawful.

The etymology of April lies in dispute between
aperire, the Latin word for open (because at this time
the earth is preparing to open and enrich us with its
gifts), and Aphrodite, one of the names of the goddess
of love, to whom the month is especially
consecrated. By either derivation, it is the month
of promise, and like the trees, we feel the juices
lovingly ascending to our top, and we can venture to
enter upon that “promising” which is the very “air
o' the time,” without fearing that “performance” will
be “the duller for the act.” And, by-the-way, while
we think of it, we have been beset by a friendly letter
to cut short the present year, and commence a
new volume with January 1, 1845. We must be excused
for preferring, altogether, a commencement in
April, accident and convenience quite aside. There
is a fitness in commencing (putting out our first
leaves) with nature. After nature's example, we may
venture, with our first issue, to promise a prodigal
summer of flowers and a harvest of fruits, though
there we trust the parallel will stop, for we do not propose
with nature to “take our leaves” in October and
fall presently to decay! No, sir! Let us commence
our primrose-colored series in primrose-time.
Our hopes are April-ish, as looks our cover. We
hope to swell, not dwindle, from April into May — to
give out our products more lavishly in June, and
have a “harvest home” of prosperity in August.
What says old Drayton of the order of such matters? —

— a fair picture of the art we mean to make manifest
in our medley of literary flowers. There are some
productions whose “luscious smell” requires the “allaying”
of common sense; and, now and then, a lily
of plain truth and simplicity, “pricked in” between
high-wrought prose and gorgeous poetry, makes
charming harmony. The periodical-writers of all
times have practised this trick of diversity. “If a
magaziner be dull” (says Goldsmith) “upon the Spanish
war, he soon has us up again with the ghost in
Cock-lane.”

A writer

complains of us for taking liberties with the queen's
English. He does not specify his instances. Mr.
King, of the American (we were not aware before
that he was the proprietor of the “King's English!”)
makes an outcry like Milton's stall-reader,[8] at the
title of the “Rococo.” If Mr. King will give us one
of his newspaper-words that conveys, like the single
word Rococo, the entire periphrasis of “intrinsically
valuable and beautiful, but accidentally and unjustly
obsolete,” we will send the offensive word back to
France, where we got it. Meantime, as Costard said
of his new word “remuneration,” we “will not buy
nor sell out of it.” But, withal, we confess to great
responsibility, in the adoption of new words and the
restoration of old, and we do not spare, upon every
instance, careful consideration. It is due to the literature
of our country, that those who write for popular
prints should sanction no corruptions of the country's
language; but it is also due to the dignity of
America, since she has come of age, that her popular
writers should claim her share of improving and embellishing
her inherited language, and even the right
of departing from the usage of the old country, if the
inevitable changes, which there creep in, should not
be conformable to American taste, customs, climate,
or scenery. We would not further, but we certainly
would not hinder, the having a language of our own,
for we think one language little enough for a republic
of fifteen or twenty millions. But, dependance
upon England apart, the language of a country is a
garden that requires looking after, and it needs grafting
and transplanting as much as weeding and pruning.
Who is to be the gardener? One man? One
Mr. King of the American? No — but fifty men, if
there be fifty popular writers. There are no trustees
of the language appointed by congress. There is no
penalty for the launching of words new and unfreightworthy.
Professors of colleges (unless accidentally
men of genius like Longfellow) have no power over
the uses or abuses of language. With whom lies the
responsibility? we ask again — for, upon its language,
much of the repute and credit of the commonwealth
is inevitably adrift. And we say again, with American
popular writers lies the burden of it. Mr. Irving's
administration of his trust in the country's language
is worth to us any two common years of Washington
legislation, and will tell with more favorable weight
upon our history than any two sessions of our late
congresses. We claim to have our small share of
this same responsibility, and our small privilege of
suggestion and appropriation. The language has
owed much to exotic introduction in other days, and
it may still be lawfully enriched by the same process;
and if we, in our reading, or in our travel, have stumbled
on more compact vehicles for meaning, and can
bring them effectively into common use at home, we
shall venture to claim praise for it. Indeed, we have
long had half a mind to devote a corner of the Mirror
to a record of the births and disinterments of the
words new and prematurely buried. Whom would
that horrify, besides Mr. King? Why, for example,
should not the beautiful old English word summer-sunstead
(descriptive of the season of the sun's stay
or stead in summer) be restored to poetry — its relapse
into Latin by the word summer-solstice being wholly
unavailable from its technical inelegance? This is
rather a forced instance, no other occurring to us at
the moment; but our readers will remember pausing
with regret, as we have, over the sweet passages
which are the graves of lost words.

To the invariable question of “What's the news?”
the invariable answer is, “Nothing at all!” — yet he
who answers delivers his budget in the same breath —
a death and a marriage perhaps the least of his

announcements. I (the diarist) have no news — none!
I could “swear the gods into agues” that I have none!
Yet to entertain a visiter — to divert a country-cousin
— to bridge over an awful pause — what would one naturally
say? I ask for information.

The Park theatre is open — (very open — being nearly
empty!) — Mitchell's, on the contrary, is very close
— being nightly full. But I do not know that any one
cares about theatricals — to have them written or
talked about, that is to say. Critics, both of the
drama and of literature, I think, have, of late, been
shoved aside. The public are tired of interpreters to
their taste, and express their opinions, now, by acclamation,
not by one man's pen. Who cares now (as
the Aurora said a day or two ago) for a column of
criticism on a personation of Hamlet? If there is to
be a play, or a concert, it is pretty fairly understood,
in the Bowery as in Broadway, in Hyperborean Chelsea
as in the tropics of the Battery, what will be the
quality of the goer's money's-worth. And three lines
in the morning-paper, when it is over, is all that
is needful or advisable to be written on the performance.
So, God speed the decline of criticism! Apropos,
Miss Turnbull, the danseuse, has now become
one of the regular Povey-dom of the Park — engaged
“since the memory of the oldest inhabitant.”

The cutaneous epidemic of the season has attacked
the museum with great violence — a breaking out of
its inside humors covering at present the entire surface.
In plainer phrase, Mr. Barnum has completely
covered the prominent and spacious fronts of the
American museum with oval paintings of the beasts,
birds, fishes, and Indians “on show” within, and a
more holyday-looking castle of curiosity could scarcely
be invented. The “Kentucky Minstrels” are the
allure just now, and the pictures of the four ebonbards,
large as life, over the balcony, and the remainder
of the be-windowed and be-pictured building,
with its indefatigable flags, its lantern steeple-high,
and its lofty windmill of Punch and Judy, must all
fall very gayly, to say the least, on the sober eye of
a Johnny Newcome.

The funny little hat, small as Mercury's, which was
laughed at upon the bagmen's heads six months ago,
has fairly prevailed, and is the mode, nem. con. Truly,
“every time serves for the matter (of hat) that is born
in it.” The eye can be argued with, and convinced.
It was stoutly maintained, three months ago, by one
who is well known as “the complete varnish of a
man,” that this fashion of hat was but a porringer
thing, and would never thrive in Broadway. And
now nothing but that scant porringer looks tip-top and
jaunty! Orlando Fish (who, as tiler number one, is a
man of more potent function, for my politics, than
Tyler the first) is making money out of the blocks
which my facetious dandy friend recommended him
rather to make tops of than tops on. Well — fashion
goes by “jerks of invention,” and as Holofernes says,
“the gift is good in those in whom it is acute.”

Reception is raging up town. All ladies may be
said to be “in a parlous state,” who have not a specified
morning to “receive.” Six months ago, the six
profane mornings of the week were the property of
six privileged ladies by right of first seizure. Such
pretenders to “society” as did not visit the week
through in this established succession were as “damned”
as Touchstone's friend, the uncourtly shepherd.
This was a vexatious invention, for, in the stereotyped
innumerableness of fashionable houses, a man might
blissfully visit nowhere, and yet go undetected for a
culprit “not in society.” Heaven be praised, however,
for the “safety in numbers,” and especially for
the imitative gregariousness of our country. There
are now five hundred families who “receive!” Not
quite, as yet, in inextricable confusion, however. A
man of a generalizing mind may still comprehend his
morning's work, and with fast horses and invariable
French leave, may still refresh all necessary memories
as to its existence. There is the Monday set,
and the Tuesday set, and the Wednesday set, and so
on through the week — crystallized according to neighborhood,
with one or two supercilious and recusant
exceptions. The engravers are in full cry, however,
and every week brings out new cards, “at home on
Monday,” “at home on Tuesday,” etc., etc., and we
shall soon be

by a general acknowledgment of the fact that nobody
is more intensely at home than before, and everybody
who has a house is simply “at home” whenever those
who wish to see them can find leisure to ring the bell.

I don't know, by-the-way, that the compliment has
been paid our country by foreign naturalists, of ranking
us with the more virtuous wild-fowl, esteemed for
their gregariousness. The Rev. Sydney Smith shows
his lack of zoological learning in not modifying his
abuse of us by remembering that “no birds of prey
are gregarious.” — “Of wild-fowl,” says Grew, “those
which are the most useful fly not singly as other
birds, but are commonly gregarious.” — “Then for
birds of prey and rapacious animals,” says Ray, “it
is remarkable what Aristotle observes, that they are
solitary and go not in flocks.” Long live our multitudinous
hotels, our animated extinguishment of distinction
by imitation, our altogetherness of lordship
and ladyship! The danger is in the stiffening of this
fluidity of rank and condition before the scoria are
recognised, and before the mould of aristocracy can be
dexterously handled. We shall have lords and ladies
or their catamounts tantamounts (brother! which is
the word?) a few days, at least, before the millenium.
This big orchard of green fruit is too large not to be
destined to ripe and rot, reasonably and seasonably.

Apropos — I observe a spot advertised for sale that I
have always looked upon as the most beautiful and
aristocratic property in this country — an island cradled
by the Niagara, and in itself the best cradle nature
could possibly form for the family of a luxurious
exclusive. It is about eleven miles above the falls,
an arrow-shot from the American shore (with Grand
island between it and the Canadas), and contains a
hundred acres of land, charmingly wooded and varied,
which have been turned into a paradise by one
of the most refined gentlemen of this country. A
beautiful villa crowns it, and baths, hot-houses, and
all appliances to luxury, are there, and all fenced in
by the bright water about to rush over Niagara. The
island is called Tonawanda — a delicious word for the
name of a home. One sighs to think that a little
money could buy such a paradise for one's own.

I observe a new fashion of cap, which gives the ladies
an air

a cap that would fit a child's double-fist, worn perched
upon the summit of the organ of self-esteem, looking
like an apple-blossom on the top-knot of a French
chicken. It is one of those fashions whose worth depends
upon the wearer — very telling upon a pretty
coquette, and very ludicrous, topping dignity or sentiment.

Original literature in the lump is sadly at a discount
in this country. Miss Sedgwick, in the plenitude of
her intellectual power, has taken to school-keeping.
Another authoress, very superior to Miss Sedgwick in
the qualities necessary to saleable writing, Mrs. Mary
Clavers, is employed in the same ill-suited drudgery.
Cooper, I understand, makes nothing by his American
editions, and thinks of publishing only in England
and importing a few copies at English prices. American
literature has nearly ceased, or it is scattered in
such small rills of periodical-writing that it will make
no mark upon the time. Prescott is an exception,
it is true, but Prescott is a man of fortune, and writes
for fame, not bread and butter. Why should not a
subscription be raised by the patriotic to give fair play
and studious leisure to the original and poetic genius
of Mrs. Child — wasted now on ephemera for newspapers!
Money left for such uses, or given by the
living, would better embalm the memory of the giver
than many a common charity. What is to be the
effect on the national character of the present hiatus
of original American literature, and how long is it to
last? For how long are we to take our mental wardrobe
second-hand from England, and read to the
world as all wearers of unfitting garments seem — out of
harmony with our shape and model from nature?

It is stated in the Boston Daily Advertiser (in an
article headed “The greatest American author”),
that, in a work of no small authority and importance
in Germany, a continuation of Frederick Schlegel's
“History of Literature,” a writer by the name of
Sealsfield is put at the head of American literature,
and defined as “the great national painter of the characteristics
of his native land, who has unfolded the
poetry of American life and its various relations yet
better than Cooper and Irving.” The editor of the
Advertiser remarks that the critical opinion of this
work will be taken implicitly on this subject by half
Europe, and no American authority, at least, will be
able to gainsay it. He continues: “We have, therefore,
taking shame to ourselves for past ignorance,
made all reasonable inquiries in this matter. We have
applied at the principal bookstores and libraries in the
neighborhood, but to our surprise neither books or
author have as yet been heard of. The Athenæum,
Burnham, Little and Brown, and Redding and Co.,
are all in ignorance. We have applied to all literary
circles to which the humble conductors of diurnal
publications have the entrée, but a hearty laugh has
been the only answer to our anxious queries.

“We are yet unwilling to let this sin of ingratitude
rest upon American readers. We call upon the public
to assist us and solve the question, `Where is
Sealsfield?' and absolve our country from the shame
of ignoring an author, who has been crowned with
the laurels of trans-Atlantic criticism. We trust the
subject may seem as important to the public as to ourselves,
and that if, as seems probable, some publisher
who lives by stealing the brains of foreign authors,
has added to his crimes by incarcerating in the dungeons
of Cliff street, or Ann street, or Water street,
this hero of our literature, let that public, or the
`American copyright club' have him disinterred immediately.”

The probability is that better information than I can
give will be brought out by this “call upon the public,”
but meantime I will record, that this great American
author, Sealsfield, is a German, who has resided
in this country for some years, returned to Germany a
few years since, and could probably be heard of in
the neighborhood of his intrepid reviewer and nomenclator.
He probably “furnished the facts” for the
review himself. He is (“to give the devil his due”)
a good writer, and while in this country contributed
some excellent articles to the old Mirror.

Leaving to other people my share of curiosity as to
the source of the Niger, I should like to know the
author of now and then a joke that goes the round of
the newspapers. Genius is the most promiscuous of
animals, and is found in all sorts of disreputable places,
dress, and company — in quack advertisements and
negro wit, as often as in patented inventions and publications
of gilt-edge. There is a kind of unlabelled
genius, which is wholly incapable of being turned to
any profit, but which how and then starts out from an
unsuspected quarter and takes probability by the beard
with a delicious intrepidity. This morning's paper
has an instance — a three-line story of a Yankee who
bought a bushel of shoe-pegs, and finding they were
made of rotten wood, sharpened the other ends and
sold them for oats! Quite aside from the fun of that,
it is worth analyzing as an absurdity of the most brilliant
audacity of invention. Will the respectable
author oblige me with his autograph?

Confab in the Cloister. — Not a small part of
our brain-twisting, dear reader, is the exercise of an
office that, at Roman feasts, was delegated to a particular
servant called the NOMENCLATOR. His business
was to inform the guests of the names and ingredients
of the dishes set before them. Simple as it seems when
well done, there are few things more difficult to do
well. It is to describe a book, or a series of books, in
the compass of a phrase, and that phrase attractive to
eye and ear, piquant, novel, and provocative of curiosity!
Try your hand at expressing the contents of a
charcoal-cart in the compass of a diamond!

It would amuse the reader to be present sometimes
when No. 4, Ann street, is resolved into a committee
of two for the finding of a good name. (Witlings,
avaunt!) The firm is called together by a significant
motion of the forefinger of the brigadier founder of
the concern — called into THE CLOISTER, that is to say,
a room of the proportions of a lady's shoe, extending
to our (No. 4's) immediate rear. The door being
closed, and the window-curtain dropped to exclude
the uninspiring view of the clothes-lines of No. 4,
up-stairs — the one chair having become occupied by
his Serenity, and the remainder of the committee
being seated upon the upright end of a ream of paper,
the business in hand is forthwith put. Let no one
imagine, because he may have assisted at naming a
friend's child, that he has any, the most vague, idea of
the embarrassments that ensue! We have a passably
fertile invention. We have whiled away the dull
transit of what is commonly called “a liberal education”
by a diligent search after such knowledge as was
above being “turned to account.” We have been a
profligate of verbal intemperance, we mean to say, and
are likely to know the bin where lies in cobweb your
old word, toothsome and tasteable. But for all this, it
is no easier. Like the search after happiness, ten to
one the thing sought lies near home — overstepped at
starting! But let us particularize.

The Brigadier. — My dear boy (a facetious way he
has of addressing the rest of the committee!) — my
dear boy, stop looking out of that back window, and
give your mind to business! Cast your eye over
these four incomparable tales! Irving's “Wife” —

Committee. — You don't say he's married, general!

Brigadier. — Tales, my dear boy, I speak of tales —
a new series of tales that want a good name! Come,
think of it, now!

Committee. — Describe me the article, brigadier!
What is the purpose, plot, character? Is it one book
or a series? “Open up,” as Bulwer says, and let us
know definitively what is wanted!

Brigadier. — You know how many men of genius
there are who are only capable of brief inspirations —

Committee. — Inspired to the length of a short tale.
Well!

Brigadier. — You know that long tales are now out
of fashion. People are tired of them.

Committee. — Indeed? Well!

Brigadier. — You know that such men as Brougham,
Canning, Macauley — statesmen who are scholars and
men of genius, and might have been authors — have
occasionally given vent to their pent-up imaginations
by a tale for the magazines.

Committee. — I do — witness Brougham's magnificent
story of the “man in the bell.” Well!

Brigadier. — We know what is good, that goes by
with the flood, don't we?

Committee. — We are professed tasters. Yes.

Brigadier. — For experiment, then, I have put together,
in one number, four tales that delighted me —
in more than one enchanted perusal. You shall select
the next. It will go, my dear boy! — people will give
their couple of shillings, if it were only for the rescue
we make, for them, of things they remember and have
lost sight of. There are g — l — o — rious things hit off,
here and there, at a heat, by periodical writers — one
hit in a thousand failures, it is true, but still enough
of them for a brilliant collection — and these we want
to gather into our beautiful library, and embalm
from perishing. See here! “Judith, or the Opera
Box, by Eugene Scribe” — (great, my boy, great!) —
“The Beggar-Girl of the Pont des Arts,” by a
German man, Hauff (ah! what a rich bit to read over
and over!) — “The Picnic Party,” by Horace Smith
(you know all about that?) — and “The Wife,” by
Irving — a worthy companion for them; and now, what
shall we call the series?

Committee. — Hm — m — m. How do you like “fannoms
and fopperies?”

Brigadier. — Bah!

Committee. — “Diapasms?”

Brigadier. — Poh!

Committee. — The “pomander-chain?”

Brigadier. — My dear boy, let it be English and
honest! You distress me with these affectations!
What have cataplasms and pomatum-chains to do
with a course of light reading? Don't waste time!

Committee. — A diapasm, my charming brigadier,
was a bunch of aromatic herbs made into a ball with
sweet water, and, in Ben Johnson's time, worn in a
lady's pocket. Gallants wore these scented balls strung
in a necklace under the shirt, and so worn, it was
called a pomander-chain. Pardon me, but these
would be good names, for want of better!

Brigadier. — Mr. King would be down upon us, and
the definition would never get through his hair! No,
my dear boy! We must be ostriches, and feel the
ground while we fly. Keep out of the clouds till
you're “sent for!” I like

and so does my regiment — I mean the public. Imagine
a good name, now, that would suit a plain man!

Committee. — Faith, it takes imagination to come at
that, sure enough! Hark! I have it!

Brigadier. — Come to my arms! What is it? Speak
quick, or it'll die in delivery!

Committee. — Did you ever hear of a river in Asia
called Pactolus?

Brigadier. — To be sure. An ass dipped his head
into it to be able to stop making money.

Committee. — That's the fable. And ever since there
have been gold sands in the river — “or so they say.”

Brigadier. — And that you think is like fugitive
literature?

Committee. — I do. I was there ten years ago, and
the gold sands were as scarce as good things in the
magazines.

Brigadier. — You'll swear to that?

Committee. — With a reservation, I will. I went to
the Pactolus one moonlight night, and filled my pockets
with sand to look at in the morning. I was travelling
with a caravan, and we were off before day, but
there was no gold in my pocket, come daylight — sifted
out, most likely!

Brigadier. — Shouldn't be surprised! “Sands of
Gold,” then, you think would be a good name.

Committee. — Sands of Gold, sifted from the flood
of fugitive literature.

Brigadier. — Good! passable good! Let the committee
rise.

You see how it is done, dear reader, and you will the
better comprehend, from this specimen, how we came
upon another — a name for a series of sacred poetry, of
which we are about to issue the first number. We
have called this series “The Sacred Rosary” — a
musical word that, in old English, meant a plantation
of roses, but which was afterward used to define the
verses of a church-psalter, strung together with beads
for an aid to memory. In either signification, it
figures forth what we enrol beneath it — for a more
beautiful collection of hallowed verse was never collected
than this we have to offer. We have always
especially loved poetry on sacred themes, and have
garnered up specimens of it, and let us assure the
reader that in this field of poetry there is a rich harvest
ungathered. Let him look at this first number
for a specimen of the mind and taste scattered abroad
in these stray leaves of poetry.

It will cut up for a fact, when you have done using
it as a pun, that “the first sign of spring in the city is
the prevalence of spring-carts.” (I borrow this of
the author, and lend him, in return, an analogy of my
own discovering — between sidewalks and green pastures
— the simultaneous outbreak of dandy-lions with
the first warm weather.) Oh, the moving! But it
should be remembered by those who groan over the
universal exposure of household gods and shabby furniture
on May-day, that when it ceases, our now mobile
republic will harden into a monarchy. The
“moss” of aristocracy is not “gathered” by the “rolling
stone.” People must live long in one place to
establish superiority for themselves or to allow it in
others. Mrs. Splitfig, the grocer's wife, is but just
beginning to submit patiently to the airs of Mrs. Ingulphus,
the banker's wife, when May-day comes
round, and away she goes with her tin and crockery
on a spring-cart, to start fair again with some other
pretender, in some other neighborhood. “Old families”
are of little use without old neighbors to keep
the record. The subduing of neighborhoods is (at
present) the battle of pretension with a hydra — one
set of heads sliced off, a new set is ready to come on.
So, long live our acquaintance with the shabby sides
of easy-chairs, and the humilities of bedding and
crockery. Some fifty May-days hence, we shall be
ready to stop shaking the sugar-bowl, satisfied that the
big lumps are all at the top.

The most courted value in New York at the present
time is unquestionably the “nimble sixpence.”
The new omnibuses that have been put upon the different
lines within a week or two, are of a costliness
and splendor that would have done for a sovereign's

carriage in the golden age. Claret bodies, silver-plated
hubs, and yellow wheels, cut-velvet linings and
cushions, and all to tempt the once-unconsidered SIXPENCE
to get up and ride! (Query — as to the superiority
of the “mirror held up to nature,” over the
New Mirror held up to sixpence?)

The racing of omnibuses seems to be agreeable to
inside passengers, since it might always be prevented
by pulling the checkstring — but to those who have
the temerity or the dangerous necessity to cross
Broadway, it is become a frightful evil. King Sixpence
could regulate it very easily, if he had his wits
about him. As was said before, the checkstring is
always obeyed. Terrified ladies, who chance to have
no fancy for riding races in Broadway, should be
reminded of this leather preservative.

Those who have the bold wish to tamper with their
standard of human nature can now be gratified, as
there are giants at one museum and a dwarf at the
other. Mr. and Mrs. Anak, at the American museum,
are certainly two very tall people — more tall than
comely. The flat-chested and gaunt lady looks as if
she had been lengthened with a rolling-pin — her length
entirely at the expense of her intermediate belongings.
Not so the husband, who is a thick-lipped, big-eyed,
double-fisted, knoll-backed, and thick-tongued overgrowth.
For one, I do not like to have my notions
of human stature unsettled, and I abhor giants. Six
feet stature is undervalued by familiarity with seven —
as diamonds would be ruined by the discovery of a
few as large as potatoes. I am happy to console the
eclipsed six-footers and under, by the information that
this large vessel of human nature does not seem
intended to hold more soul. He looks like as “regular
a spoon” as could be wished by those who are compelled
to look up to him — his wife, apparently, of the
same utensil capacity.

The dwarf at Peale's museum, Rado Scauf (that he
should ever have been thought worth baptizing!) is a
sweet-faced minion, with feet in boots looking like
two cockroaches with heels to them. A two-fingered
lady's glove would make him an ample pair of trousers,
and his walking-stick is a sizeable toothpick. He
has fine eyes, and would look like a nice lad, through
a magnifying-glass. If such bijous were plenty,
ladies would carry them in their pockets — portable
garter-claspers and glove-buttoners. Fancy the luxury!
It were worth a Yankee's while to send a venture
to Lilliput, to import them.

The Cloister. — Four o'clock and the Pomeridian
of an April day. The brigadier's audiences are suspended
to make room for a session of the committe,
and the door is closed — printers, poets, engravers,
stitchers and folders (these female), advertisers, carriers,
agents, stereotypers, ruthlessly excluded. Truly,
as Shakspere says, “every man hath business and desire”
(for the brigadier's society), “such as it is.”
Long last his “suaviter in modo,” his “fortiter in re!”

Brigadier. — To business, my boy! What lies in
that fourth pucker of your eyelid? Smile and let it
drop away easy!

Committee. — Thirteen letters by to-day's mail, containing
propositions to publish immortal works by
living and mortal American authors, most of them
never before heard of — postage nine and sixpence, of
which please make a memorandum in my favor.

Brigadier. — Fifty-nine cents each to the cause of
unbaptized literature! Are we not involuntary martyrs;
my boy! Why the mischief don't you last-page the
fact that we publish exclusively for the trans-Atlantics
and the trans-Styxians! — never for those who can
cross the water to “settle!”

Committee. — It shall be done, but there is one applicant
who deserves a hearing. One of the most
gifted women now living has employed her leisure in
compiling a book to be used as a round game played
with forfeits, or as a parlor fortune-teller. The book
is to be called “Oracles from the Poets.” Questions
are proposed, and by the choice of a number the
inquirer is referred to an answer, in a passage selected
from the poets. The selections are made with great
taste, so as not only to convey apposite answers, but
to make the reader familiar with the most beautiful
passages of poetry. What say to that?

Brigadier. — Worth lots of money to Riker or Appleton,
my boy, but we are in the rapid line, and that
sort of work takes time. Besides (and here the
Brigadier looked modestly at his nails), we couldn't
bring our minds to make money out of the sex, my
boy! Fancy a lovely woman calling on us to fork out,
as her publisher! Odious word, “publisher!” It has
been too long a synonym for “pirate,” and “Philistine.”
A few of us immortal bards have washed and donned
the gaberdine of late, but we must let it air, my boy,
we must let it air, before wearing it abroad — at least
into a lady's presence! Think of the maid's asking
you to “step into the back room,” if you called on a
lady and sent up your name as her “publisher!”

Committee. — Ah! my illustrious friend and song-builder,
dignity is a Minerva that needs no nurse. It
jumps out of your head and walks alone. I would not
only publish, but peddle from two tin boxes, if my
wants would not bear diminishing, and if only this
would supply them! We're earthy ants, not chartered
butterflies!

Brigadier. — Ha! ha! my boy! my dear boy!

Who else wants to gild a gold leaf in the Mirror
Library?

Committee. — Seven and two are nine — seven poetesses
and two he bardlings — pleading for print! We are

— will you write the declinatures, dear brigadier?

Brigadier. — Make a regret-circular, my boy! Say
that we are are a partnership of posterity. They must
die, to qualify. The “Home Library,” and the “Parlor
Library,” and the “Drawing-Room Library,” and
the “Knickerbocker Library,” and many more — (for
whose names, see puffs and advertisements) — these
publish for the equivocal immortals now living. We
publish only for the immortal dead, or for the buried
alive, disinterred with our own pick and shovel. Write
that out, and I'll have it lithographed to save time.
What next?

Committee. — We want a new head.

Brigadier. — Speak for yourself, my boy!

Committee. — A new caption, then (if you will be
critical) in the Mirror. Where can I praise things,
now? There's Headley's new book on Italy, worth
the best laurel-sprig of my picking. There's “Amelia,”
of the Lousiville Journal, who has written some
poetry about hearing a sermon, that traverses your
back-bone like electricity, and where to praise that!
George Flagg has painted a delicious sketch of my
Glenmary-born Imogen, and I will praise him! I want
a place to praise —

Brigadier. — Hire a pew!

Committee. — Will you give me a column?

Brigadier. — To your memory, I will.

Committee. — Well, my memory wants a column, to
record the good things I should not forget to praise.

Brigadier. — Take it — take it — but for Heaven's
sake be pert and pithy, crisp and critical! Nothing

so dull as praise to everybody but the praisee. Anything
more?

Committee. — Yes —

as I to inform you of the approaching delivery, from
the press, of “Pencillings by the Way.” My travels
have seemed interminable.

Brigadier. — Well, as I assisted at their birth once
before, I can certify now to their being “born again.”
Is that what you want?

Committee. — No — for, half the book was never a
book before, not having been published except in the
old Mirror. I want you to make it trip

that I may hurry into “calf” all I have written up to
last year, and start fresh from my meridian with
“Dashes at Life,” and gossips in the cloister. For,
as says old Wotton in the “Reliquiœ,” “Though I
am a cloistered man in the condition of my present
life, yet, having spent so much of mine age among
noise abroad, there still doth hang upon me, I know
not how, a certain concupiscence of novelty.”

Brigadier. — Verbum sap. sat. Shall the committee
rise — by getting down off the table?

Committee. — Yes! — one minute! Have you read
the proof-sheets of that glorious — GLORIOUS — say
“glorious!” —

Brigadier. — Glorious.

Committee. — Hood's “Midsummer Fairies” — the
most delicious “Rococo” conceivable? Yes? Be off!

From the window in which I spin my cobweb, I
look directly on the most frequented portion in Broadway
— the sidewalk in front of St. Paul's. You walk
over it every day. Familiarity with most things alters
their aspect, however. Let me, after a long acquaintance
with this bit of sidewalk, sketch how it looks to
me at the various hours of the day. I may jot down,
also, one or two trifles I have observed while looking
into the street in the intervals of writing.

Eight in the morning. — The sidewalk is comparatively
deserted. The early clerks have gone by, and
the bookkeepers and younger partners not being abroad,
the current sets no particular way. A vigorous female
exerciser or two may be seen returning from a smart
walk to the Battery, and the orange-women are getting
their tables ready at the corners. There is to be a
funeral in the course of the day in St. Paul's churchyard,
and one or two boys are on the coping of the
iron fence, watching the grave-digger. Seamstresses
and schoolmistresses, with veils down, in impenetrable
incognito, hurry by with a step which says unmistakeably,
“don't look at me in this dress!” The return
omnibuses come from Wall street empty, on a
walk.

Nine and after. — A rapid throng of well-dressed
men, all walking smartly, and all bound Mammonward.
Glanced at vaguely, the sidewalk seems like a
floor with a swarm of black beetles running races
across it. The single pedestrians who are struggling
up stream, keep close to the curbstone or get rudely
jostled. The omnibuses all stop opposite St. Paul's
at this hour, letting out passengers, who invariably
start on a trot down Ann street or Fulton. The
museum people are on the top of the building drawing
their flags across Broadway and Ann by pulleys fastened
to trees and chimneys. Burgess and Stringer hanging
out their literary placards with a listless delibera
tion, as if nobody was abroad yet who had leisure to
read them. The “brigadier” dismounting from an
up-town 'bus with a roll of manuscripts sticking from
his pocket, and hands and handkerchiefs waved to him
from the omnibus windows.

Twelve and after. — Discount-seekers crowding into
the Chemical Bank with hats over their eyes. Flower-merchants
setting their pots of roses and geraniums
along the iron fence. The blind beggar arrived, and
set with his back against the church gate by an old
woman. And now the streaks, drawn across my side
vision by the passers under, glide at a more leisurely
pace, and are of gayer hues. The street full of sunshine.
Omnibuses going slowly, both ways. Female
exclusives gliding to and fro in studiously plain dresses
and with very occupied air — (never in Broadway without
“the carriage” of course, except to shop). Strangers
sprinkled in couples, exhausting their strength
and spirits by promenading before the show hour.
The grave dug in St. Paul's, and the grave-digger
gone home to dinner. Woman run over at the Fulton
crossing. Boys out of school. Tombs' bell ringing
fire in the third district.

One and after. — The ornamentals are abroad. A
crowd on St. Paul's sidewalk watching the accomplished
canary-bird whose cage hangs on the fence.
He draws his seed and water up an inclined plane in
a rail-car, and does his complicated feeding to the
great approbation of his audience. The price is high
— his value being in proportion (aristocracy-wise) to
his wants! It is the smoothest and broadest sidewalk
in Broadway — the frontage of St. Paul's — and the
ladies and dandies walk most at their ease just here,
loitering a little, perhaps, to glance at the flowers for
sale. My window, commanding this pavé, is a particularly
good place, therefore, to study street habits,
and I have noted a trifle or so, that, if not new, may
be newly put down. I observe that a very well-dressed
woman is noticed by none so much as by the women
themselves. This is the week for the first spring
dresses, and, to-day, there is a specimen or two of
Miss Lawson's April avatar, taking its first sun on the
promenade. A lady passed, just now, with a charming
straw hat and primrose shawl — not a very pretty
woman, but, dress and all, a fresh and sweet object to
look at — like a new-blown cowslip, that stops you in
your walk though it is not a violet. Not a male eye
observed her, from curb-stone in Vesey to curb-stone
in Fulton, but every woman turned to look after her!
Query, is this the notice of envy or admiration, and,
if the former, is it desirable or worth the pains and
money of toilet? Query, again — the men's notice
being admiration (not envy) what will attract it, and
is that (whatever it is) worth while? I query what I
should, myself, like to know.

Half past three. — The sidewalk is in shade. The
orange-man sits on a lemon-box, with his legs and
arms all crossed together in his lap, listening to the
band who have just commenced playing in the museum
balcony. The principal listeners, who have
stopped for nothing but to listen, are three negro-boys
(one sitting on the Croton hydrant, and the other two
leaning on his back), and to them this gratuitous music
seems a charming dispensation. (Tune, “Ole
Dan Tucker.”) The omnibus-horses prick up their
ears in going under the trumpets, but evidently feel
that to show fright would be a luxury beyond their
means. Saddle-horse, tied at the bank, breaks bridle
and runs away. Three is universal dinner-time for
bosses — (what other word expresses the head men of
all trades and professions?) — and probably not a single
portly man will pass under my window in this
hour.

Four to five. — Sidewalk more crowded. Hotel
boarders lounging along with toothpicks. Stout men
going down toward Wall street with coats unbuttoned.

Hearse stopped at St. Paul's, and the museum band
playing “Take your time, Miss Lucy,” while the
mourners are getting out. A gentleman, separated
from two ladies by the passing of the coffin across the
sidewalk, rejoins them, apparently with some funny
remark. Bell tolls. No one in the crowd is interested
to inquire the age or sex of the person breaking
the current of Broadway to pass to the grave. Hearse
drives off on a trot.

Five and after. — Broadway one gay procession.
Few ladies accompanied by gentlemen — fewer than
in the promenades of any other country. Men in
couples and women in couples. Dandies strolling
and stealing an occasional look at their loose demisaison
pantaloons, and gaiter-shoes, newly sported with
the sudden advent of warm weather. No private carriage
passing except those bound to the ferries for a
drive into the country. The crowd is unlike the
morning crowd. There is as much or more beauty,
but the fashionable ladies are not out. You would
be puzzled to discover who these lovely women are.
Their toilets are unexceptionable, their style is a very
near approach to comme il faut. They look perfectly
satisfied with their position and with themselves, and
they do (what fashionable women do not) — meet the
eye of the promenader with a coquettish confidence he
will misinterpret — if he be green or a puppy. Among
these ladies are accidents of feature, form, and manner
— charms of which the possessor is unconscious —
that, if transplanted into a high-bred sphere of society
abroad, would be bowed to as the stamp of lovely aristocracy.
Possibly — probably, indeed — the very woman
who is a marked instance of this is not called pretty
by her friends. She is only spoken to by those whose
taste is common-place and unrefined. She walks
Broadway, and has a vague suspicion that the men of
fashion look at her more admiringly than could be
accounted for by any credit she has for beauty at
home. Yet she is not likely to be enlightened as to
the secret of it. When tired of her promenade, she
disappears by some side street leading away from the
great thoroughfares, and there is no clue to her unless
by inquiries that would be properly resented as
impertinence. I see at least twenty pass daily under
my window who would be ornaments of any society,
yet who, I know (by the men I see occasionally with
them), are unacknowledgable by the aristocrats up
town. What a field for a Columbus! How charming
to go on a voyage of discovery and search for these unprized
pearls among the unconscious pebbles! How
delightful to see these rare plants without hedges
about them — exquisite women without fashionable
affectations, fashionable hinderances, penalties, exactions,
pretensions, and all the wearying nonsenses
that embarrass and stupefy the society of most of our
female pretenders to exclusiveness!

Half-past six and after. — The flower-seller loading
up his pots into a fragrant wagon-load. Twilight's
rosy mist falling into the street. Gas-lamps alight
here and there. The museum band increased by two
instruments, to play more noisily for the night-custom.
The magic wheel lit up, and ground rather
capriciously by the tired boy inside. The gaudy
transparencies one by one illuminated. Great difference
now in the paces at which people walk. Business-men
bound home, apprentices and shop-boys carrying
parcels, ladies belated — are among the hurrying
ones. Gentlemen strolling for amusement take it
very leisurely, and with a careless gait that is more
graceful and becoming than their mien of circumspect
daylight. And now thicken the flaunting dresses of
the unfortunate outlaws of charity and pity. Some
among them (not many) have a remainder of ladylikeness
in their gait, as if, but for the need there is to
attract attention, they could seem modest — but the
most of them are promoted to fine dress from sculle
ries and low life, and show their shameless vulgarity
through silk and feathers. They are not at all to be
pitied. The gentleman cit passes them by like the rails
in St. Paul's fence — wholly unnoticed. If he is vicious,
it is not those in the street who could attract him.
The “loafers” return their bold looks, and the boys
pull their dresses as they go along, and now and then
a greenish youth, well-dressed, shows signs of being
attracted. Sailors, rowdies, country-people, and
strangers who have dined freely, are those whose steps
are arrested by them. It is dark now. The omnibuses,
that were heavily-laden through the twilight,
now go more noisily because lighter. Carriages make
their way toward the Park theatre. My window shows
but the two lines of lamps and the glittering shops,
and all else vaguely.

I have repeatedly taken five minutes, at a time, to
pick out a well-dressed man, and see if he would walk
from Fulton street to Vesey without getting a look at
his boots. You might safely bet against it. If he is
an idle man, and out only for a walk, two to one he
would glance downward to his feet three or four times
in that distance. Men betray their subterfuges of
toilet — women never. Once in the street, women
are armed at all points against undesirable observation
— men have an ostrich's obtusity, being wholly
unconscious even of that battery of critics, a passing
omnibus! How many substitutes and secrets of dress
a woman carries about her, the angels know! — but
she looks defiance to suspicion on that subject. Sit
in my window, on the contrary, and you can pick out
every false shirt-bosom that passes, and every pair of
false wristbands, and the dandy's economical half-boots,
gaiter-cut trousers notwithstanding.

Indeed, while it is always difficult, sometimes impossible,
to distinguish female genuine from the imitation,
nothing is easier than to know at sight the
“glossed (male) worsted from the patrician sarsnet.”
The “fashion” of women, above a certain guide, can
seldom be guessed at in the street street except by the
men who are with them.

You should sit in a window like mine, to know how
few men walk with even passable grace. Nothing
so corrupts the gait as business — (a fact that would be
offensive to mention in a purely business country, if it
were not that the “unmannerly haste” of parcel-bearing
and money-seeking, may be laid aside with low-heeled
boots and sample cards.) The bent-kneed celerity,
learned in dodging clerks and jumping over
boxes in Cedar and Pearl, betrays its trick in the
gait, as the face shows the pucker of calculation and
the suavity of sale. I observe that the man used
to hurry, relies principally on his heel, and keeps his
foot at right angles. The ornamental man drops his
toe slightly downward in taking a step, and uses, for
elasticity, the spring of his instep. Nature has provided
muscles of grace which are only incorporated
into the gait by habitually walking with leisure. All
women walk with comparative grace who are not
cramped with tight shoes, but there are many degrees
of gracefulness in women, and oh, what a charm is
the highest degree of it! How pleasurable even to
see from my window a woman walking like a queen!

The magnetic threads of Saratoga begin to pull upon
the calculating bumps of foreseeing papas, and many a
hair whitens in these spring months that would have taken
another lease of youth but for the trip to Saratoga.
Ah, the contrivance! Ah, the calculation! Ah, the saving,
upon things undreamed of! — for extravagance is
like the lengthening of the Indian's blanket — the piece

cut from one end that is sewed on to the other! But,
out on monotony, and hey for Saratoga! If there be
an approach to a gayety-paradise on earth — if there be
a place where the mortifications of neighborhood are
forgotten, and “people's natural advantages” are prominent
and undisputed — if there be, this side Heaven,
a place where it is worth while to dress, worth while
to be pretty, worth while to walk, talk, and particularly
and generally outdo
it is sandy Saratoga — Marvin's United States Hotel!
Take your papa there, “for his health,” my dear
belle! “And tell him, too,” that it was the well-expressed
opinion of the philosopher Bacon, that
“money, like manure, is offensive if not spread.”
Tell your mamma to tell him how pale he is when he
wakes in the morning! Tell the doctor to prescribe
Congress water without the taste of the cork! Tell
him, if he does not, and you are not let go with a
chaperon, you will do something you shudder to
think of — bolt, slope, elope, with the first base
to which you are the heiress! For it is credibly and
currently reported “in high circles,” that the coming
season at Saratoga is to be of a crowded uncomfortableness
of splendor that was reserved for the making
fashionable, by Mr. Van Buren, of the “United
States” and its dependant colonies.

Among the alleviations to passing a summer in
town (misericordia pro nobis!) is the completion of
Mr. Stevens's Gothic cottage at the lip of the Elysian
Hoboken, where are to be had many good things, of
course, but where (I venture to suggest) it would be a
bliss ineffable to be able to get a good breakfast! What
a pleasure to cross the ferry, and, after a morning
ramble in that delicious park, to sit down in the fresh
air volant through the galleries of that sweet cottage,
and eat (if nothing more) a nice roll with a good cup
of French coffee! A restaurateur there would make
a fortune, I do think. Bring it about, Mr. “Person
Concerned,” and you shall lack neither our company
nor a zealous trumpeter.