Chapter II (3)

It is singular, that so exact an authority as Wilson has proved himself to be, should fall into the strange error of speaking of this singular amorous sound as a call to a _single_ female; and elsewhere of the _Pheasant_, as he erroneously calls it, paining; when it is notorious to all who have closely observed the habits of this bird, that it is polygamous. Such, I believe, will be found the case with all those gallinaceous birds which have on especial summons, or peculiar display of attitudes, airs, and splendors by which to attract the females; as may be observed of the common Game-cock, the Turkey, the Peacock, and the European Pheasant; no one of which takes to himself an especial and chosen partner, but disports himself in his wanton seraglio.

On many occasions, during this particular season, I have stolen up to within a few yards of the log, whereon the Ruffed Grouse was so busily employed in summoning his dames and demoiselles around him, that he had no ears or eyes for my approach, which at any other period he would have discovered long before, and whirred away tumultuous on terrified and sounding pinions. I have lain concealed, for an hour at a time, watching with intense gratification the beautiful and animated gestures of the cock, now strutting and drumming on his log, proud as an eastern despot, now descending to caress and dally with his numerous Roxolanas, and then reascending to his post of pride, to send his resonant call far through the haunted echoes of the umbrageous pine-woods. On one such chance, I saw no less than seven hen birds gathered around a single male, all in turn expectant of his looked-for attentions, and all gratified by a share of his notice. If this be not Polygamy, I should like to receive the Grand Turk’s opinion on the subject, as I confess myself, if it be any thing less, in a state of absolute benightedness.

The Ruffed Grouse begins her nest very early in May, and lays from eight to fifteen brownish-white, unspotted eggs, nearly the size of those of a pullet. With the exact period of this bird’s incubation I am not acquainted; the young birds run the instant they clip the shell; obey the cluck of the mother, as chickens that of the hen; and are tended by her with extreme care and solicitude. In case of her being surprised with her young about her, she resorts to all the artifices practiced by the Quail, and even by the comparatively dull and stolid Woodcock, to draw away the intruder from the vicinity, feigning lameness and incapacity to fly, until she shall have lured away the pursuer far from the hiding-place of her fledglings. Then she shall whirr away on resonant and powerful pinions, up, up above the tops of the tall pines and hemlocks, and thence skate homeward noiseless on balanced wings, where she will find them close ensconced among the sheltering fern-tufts, or the matted winter-greens and whortleberry bushes, viewless to the most prying eye, and undiscoverable, save to the nose of the unerring spaniel. But once returned, you shall see them emerge, chirping feebly at the soft maternal cluck, and hurrying to enshroud them under the shelter of her guardian wing, and nestle, happy younglings, among the downy plumage of her maternal breast. Curses upon the sacrilegious hand that would interrupt that sweet and tender scene by the sharp click of the murderous trigger; yet there be brutes, in the guise of men, who scruple not to butcher the drumming cock, taken at fatal disadvantage, amid his admiring harem; scruple not to slaughter the brooding mother above her miserable younglings—but to such we cry avaunt! to such we deny the name of sportsmen, nay, but of Christians, or of men! Get ye behind us, murderous pot-hunters!

The young broods grow rapidly; and by the time they have reached the size of the Quail, fly well and strongly on the wing. By the middle, or latter end of August, they are three parts grown, and fully feathered, with the exception of the tail, which is not yet complete, and retains a pointed form. The blundering legislation of this country in general, on the subject of the game-laws, has, in this instance, to my ideas, exceeded itself; for during the months of September and October, when the broods are still united under the care of the mother, the birds lying well to the setter, and when flushed scattering themselves singly here and there among low undergrowth or bushes, and rarely or never taking to the tree, we are prohibited from shooting this bold, hardy, rambling, and shy bird; this, at a later season, wild hunter of inaccessible rock-ledges, impenetrable rhododendron brakes, and deep sequestered hemlock-swamps; this, the most uncomatable and self-protecting bird of all the varieties of American game; the only variety, perhaps, which never can by any means, fair or unfair, be exterminated from among us, so long us the rock-ribbed mountains tower toward the skies, and the forests clothe them with foliage never sere.

At this period they would afford rare sport, as at all other seasons they afford none; and are, moreover, in far the best condition for the table, as the old birds are apt to be dry, unless hung up for several weeks before being cooked, which can, of course, only be done in winter, when the coldness of the weather prevents their becoming tainted, without absolutely freezing them.

In my opinion, therefore, this, the only bird of American game, which might well exist apart from almost all protection, is now so protected as to be almost rendered impossible to the gun of the fair sportsman; while for others, the tamest, the most easily killed, and the most rapidly decreasing of all our winged tribes, as the Woodcock, for example, the mock protection afforded to them is but another word for the license to slaughter them half-fledged and half-grown, while the second brood is yet in the black-down, and unable to exist without the parent’s care.

I would myself desire to see the legitimate season for Ruffed Grouse-shooting made to commence with the first day of September, the young birds by that time, and in truth much earlier, being quite fit for the gun, and to cease on the fifteenth of December, or at Christmas at the latest, before the snows of winter admit of their being snared and trapped by thousands.

Toward the middle of October, the old hens drive off the broods, or the young birds now perfectly mature, stray from them of their own accord; and thenceforth they are found sometimes in little companies of two, three, or four, but far more often singly, in wild, difficult upland woods, through which they love to ramble deviously for miles, as they are led in search of their favorite food, or sometimes, as it would seem, by mere whim. On one occasion, many years since, when I was but a young sportsman on this side the Atlantic, I remember footing a small party of five birds, in a light snow, for above ten miles among the Wawayanda mountains, in Orange County, New York, without getting up to them; although it was easily seen by their hurried and agitated tracks that for a great part of the distance, they were within hearing of me, and were running from my pursuit. I had no dogs with me. Had I been out with setters, the Grouse would have trailed them for miles, and unquestionably risen at last out of shot. With spaniels, or curs, trained to run in upon them, and pursue, yelping loudly, as the mode is in the backwoods where men do not shoot but gun, they would have taken to the trees, and would have sat close to the trunk with their bodies erect, and their necks elongated, and might have been killed easily, the only difficulty being that of perceiving them, a difficulty far more considerable than would be imagined to an unpracticed eye. To shoot birds sitting, however, whether on trees or on the ground, is not sport for a sportsman; the only case where it is ever _allowable_, is to the woodsman on a tramp through the primitive and boundless forest, where his camp-kettle must be filled by the contents of his bag, and where to throw away a chance is, perhaps, in the end to go supperless to bed. In such a case, while canoeing it last Autumn “with a goodly companye” up the northern rivers that debouche into Lake Huron, we shot many, while portaging around cataracts or rapids on the Severn; and on one occasion a gentlemen of the party shot three birds, out of one small pine-tree, without any of them moving or appearing alarmed at the gun-shots. This has often been related as a constant and ordinary habit of the bird; and from that occurrence, I am induced to believe that when the bird is in its natural solitudes, unacquainted with man and his murderous weapons, such may be the case; in the settlements, however, it might have been when they were rare and sparse, this is the habit of the Ruffed Grouse no longer. I have never in my life, save in the instance mentioned, observed any thing of the kind; on the contrary, I have ever found them the wildest, the most wary, and, unless by some mere chance, the least approachable of all wild birds.

During the latter autumn, they eschew flat, bushy tracts, and even swamps with heavy thicket, their instinct probably telling them that in such covert they are liable to be taken napping. If, however, one have the fortune to find them in such tracts, he is likely to have sport over setters; and in no other sort of ground do I deem that possible, as the law now stands. Once, many years since, sporting in the heavy thorn-brakes around Pine Brook, in New Jersey, I found them with a friend in low underwood, and we had great sport, bagging eight brace of Ruffed Grouse over points, in addition to some eighteen or twenty brace of Quail.

In general, however, they frequent either open groves of tall, thrifty timber, with a carpet of wintergreens, cranberries and whortleberries, which constitute their favorite food; or the steep mountain-ledges, under the interlaced branches of tall evergreen trees, among brakes of mountain rhododendron, or, as it is commonly called, though erroneously, laurel. In both these species of ground, all being clear below, the birds can hear and see the sportsman long before he can approach them, and take wing, for the most part, entirely out of gun-shot range. If, however, they are surprised unawares, they have a singular tact of dodging behind the first bush, or massive trunk, and flying off in a right line, keeping the obstacle directly between the sportsman and themselves, so as to frustrate all his efforts to obtain a shot; this I have seen done so often as to satisfy me that it is the result, not of chance, but of a deliberate instinct.

The Ruffed Grouse rises, at first, when surprised, with a heavy whirring and laborious flutter, and if taken at that moment within range, is easily shot; he rises for the most part a little higher than the head of a tall man, and goes away swift and strong nearly in a horizontal line. If struck behind, he will carry away a heavy load of shot, and he has a trick of flying until his breath leaves him in the air, and then falls dead before he strikes the ground. Occasionally he towers up with the wind, and then setting his wings, skates down before it at a prodigious rate, without moving a feather; and if you get a shot at him, gentle reader, under such circumstances, crossing you at long range, be sure that you shoot two, or by ’r lady three feet ahead of him, or you may cut off his extreme tail-feathers, but of a surety kill him you shall not.

The Ruffed Grouse usually flies in a perfectly right line, so that if you flush one without getting a shot, and can preserve his line exactly, you may find him, if he have not treed, which it is ten to one he has; wherefore I advise you not to follow him. The exception to this right line of flight, is when the ground is broken into ridges with parallel ravines, in which case the bird, on crossing a ridge at right angles, will rarely cross the ravine also, but will dive up or down, as the covert may invite.

When birds lie in narrow ravines, filled with good covert, by throwing the guns forward on the brow of the ridges a hundred yards ahead of the dogs, which must be left behind with a person to hunt and restrain them, and letting the sportsmen carefully keep that distance in advance, going very gingerly and silently, sport may be had; and so I think only—especially over slow, mute, cocking spaniels, for as the birds, after running before the dogs, will be likely to take wing abreast of, or perhaps even behind the unexpected shooter, who has thus stolen a march on them, and as they rarely, if ever, cross the ridges, but fly straight along the gorge, they so afford fair shots.

For my own part, I do not consider it worth the while, as the law now stands, to go out in pursuit of Ruffed Grouse with dogs, where you expect to find no other species of game; for, in the first place, they ramble so widely, that there is no certainty of finding them within ten miles of the spot where you may have seen them daily for a month; and, secondly, if you do find them, there is no certainty of having sport with them, but rather a probability of reverse. As an adjunct to other kinds of shooting they are excellent, but as sole objects of pursuit, I think, worthless. I have often blundered on them by chance while hunting for other game; but when I have gone out expressly in pursuit of them, I have never had even tolerable sport.

If the law were altered, and September shooting permitted, the case would be altered also; and in many regions of our country, as the Kaatskill Mountains, and some parts of Columbia and Saratoga counties, in New York; the Pocono Mountains, and the Blue Ridge, generally, in Pennsylvania; and many districts of Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, rare sport might be had. For September shooting, No. 8 shot will be found sufficient; but after that, No. 7; and very late in the season, Eley’s wire cartridges will be found the most effective.

This widely extended bird is too well known to require any peculiar description; and I shall content myself with observing, in aid of my portraiture of the Ruffed Grouse, that the upper part of its head and hind neck are reddish-brown, the back rich chestnut, mottled with heart-shaped spots of white, edged with black. The tail is bright reddish-yellow, barred and speckled with black, and bordered by a broad, black belt between two narrow white bands, one at the extremity of the tail. The iris of the eye hazel, bill brown, feet brownish gray. Loral band cream color. Throat and fore neck, brownish-yellow. Upper ruff-feathers barred with brown. Wings brownish-red, streaked with black. Breast and abdomen cream colored, closely barred above, and laterally spotted below, with dark chocolate. Length 18 inches, spread of wings 2 feet. The Ruffed Grouse is a capital bird on the table. The breast white meat, back and thighs brown. It should be roasted quickly, eaten with bread sauce and fried crumbs, and washed down with sherry or red wine.

* * * * *

REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.

_Astræa; The Balance of Delusions. A Poem Delivered before the
Phi Beta Kappa Society of Yale College, Aug 14, 1850. By Oliver
Wendall Holmes. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 1 vol. 16mo._

Few college poems have attained, at the period of their delivery, so fluttering a fame as did this last product of Dr. Holmes’s forgetive and flashing brain; and it is now published “by request of the Society,” and demand of the public. Though it has not the geniality of “Urania,” nor its sustained sweetness and subtility of sentiment, it is the greatest of the author’s long poems in decision and depth both of feeling and satire, and exhibits, perhaps, more than his usual command of the powers and delicacies of expression. The verse is a study for all heroic rhymers, being fully equal to all the purposes of wit, fancy, imagination and passion, and combining the utmost finish in separate lines with a bounding movement in the whole. The poem is a succession of beautiful pictures, grave and mirthful, each of which symbolizes some powerful thought or tender feeling, and some of which are hardly matched in our poetry for brilliancy of effect. The satire is less frolicksome than usual; here and there, indeed, its sting draws blood; and the whole poem is conceived and executed in a sterner and more earnest spirit than is common with Dr. Holmes.

The opening paragraphs contain a most beautiful and delicate tribute to the author’s father, who was educated at Yale. The following lines refer, we suppose, to Dr. Stiles, the president of the college at the time the elder Holmes was a student, and contain an exquisite picture of the filial relations of master and pupil:

How the great MASTER, reverend, solemn, wise,
Fixed on his face those calm, majestic eyes,
Full of grave meaning, where a child might read
The Hebraist’s patience and the Pilgrim’s creed.
But warm with flashes of parental fire
That drew the stripling to his second sire;
How kindness ripened, till the youth might dare
Take the low seat beside his sacred chair,
While the gray scholar, bending o’er the young,
_Spelled the square types of Abraham’s ancient tongue_,
Or with mild rapture stooped devoutly o’er
His small coarse leaf, alive with curious lore;
Tales of grim judges, at whose awful beck
Flashed the broad blade across a royal neck,
Or learned dreams of Israel’s long lost child
Found in the wanderer of the western wild.

The revival of nature at the approach of spring has been often described by poets, but the following passage prints the scenes fresh and bright on the heart and imagination, as if it had never before found its painter. The reader cannot fail to notice the nice propriety of the descriptive epithets, and the combination of the naturalist’s minute observation with the poet’s suggestive imagination, in the whole representation:

Winter is past; the heart of Nature warms
Beneath the wrecks of unresisted storms;
_Doubtful at first, suspected more than seen_,
The southern slopes are fringed with tender green;
On sheltered banks, beneath the dripping eaves,
Spring’s earliest nurslings spread their glowing leaves,
Bright with the hues from wider pictures won,
White, azure, golden—drift, or sky, or sun;—
The snowdrop, bearing on her _patient breast_
The frozen trophy torn from winter’s crest;
The violet, gazing on the arch of blue
Till her own iris wears its deepened hue;
The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the mould
Naked and shivering with his cup of gold.
Swelled with new life, the darkening elm on high
Prints her thick buds against the spotted sky;
On all her boughs the stately chestnut cleaves
The gummy shroud that wraps her embryo leaves;
The house-fly, stealing from his narrow grave,
_Drugged with the opiate that November gave_,
From shaded chinks of lichen-crusted walls,
In languid curves, the gliding serpent crawls;
The bog’s green harper, thawing from his sleep,
Twangs a hoarse note and tries a shortened leap;
On floating rails that face the softening noons
_The still shy turtles range their dark platoons_,
Or toiling, aimless, o’er the mellowing fields,
Trail through the grass their tessellated shields.

_At last young April, ever frail and fair,_
_Wooed by her playmate with the golden hair,_
_Chased to the margin of receding floods_
_O’er the soft meadows starred with opening buds,_
_In tears and blushes sighs herself away,_
_And hides her cheek beneath the flowers of May._

Then the proud tulip lights her beacon blaze,
Her clustering curls the hyacinth displays,
O’er her tall blades the crested fleur-de-lis,
_Like blue-eyed Pallas_, towers erect and free;
With yellower flames the lengthened sunshine glows,
_And love lays bare the passion-breathing rose_;
Queen of the lake, along its reedy verge
The rival lily hastens to emerge,
Her snowy shoulders glistening as she strips
_Till morn is sultan of her parted lips_.

We have not space for what follows in celebration of the birds, though we cannot resist the temptation to extract four intoxicating couplets:

The thrush, poor wanderer, drooping meekly down,
Clad in his remnant of autumnal brown;
The oriole, drifting like a flake of fire
Rent by the whirlwind from a blazing spire.
The robin, jerking his spasmodic throat,
Repeats, _staccato_, his peremptory note;
The _crack-brained_ bobolink courts his crazy mate,
Poised on a bulrush _tipsy_ with his weight.

The satirical part of the poem is introduced with a few lines on the danger of meddling with popular delusions and foibles; and after speaking of the “earthquake of a nation’s hiss,” he concludes with this saucy salutation to the newspapers:

And oh, remember the indignant press;
Honey is bitter to its fond caress,
But the black venom that its hate lets fall
Would shame to sweetness the hyena’s gall.

The gem of this portion of the poem is the representation of the Moral Bully, a picture worthy of Pope or Young:

Yon whey-faced brother, who delights to wear
A weedy flux of ill-conditioned hair,
Seems of the sort that in a crowded place
One elbows freely into smallest space;
A timid creature, lax of knee and hip,
Whom small disturbance whitens round the lip;
One of those harmless, spectacled machines,
Ignored by waiters when they call for greens,
Whom schoolboys question it their walk transcends
The last advices of maternal friends,
_Whom John, obedient to his master’s sign_,
_Conduct laborious, up to ninety-nine_,
While Peter, glistening with luxurious scorn,
Husks his white ivories like an ear of corn;
Dark in the brow and bilious in the cheek,
Whose yellowish linen flowers but once a week,
Conspicuous, annual, in their threadbare suits,
And the laced high-lows which they call their boots.
Well may’st thou _shun_ that dingy front severe,
But him, O stranger, him thou canst not _fear_!

Be slow to judge, and slower to despise,
Man of broad shoulders and heroic size!
The tiger, writhing from the boa’s rings,
Drops at the fountain where the cobra stings.
In that lean phantom, whose extended glove
Points to the text of universal love,
Behold the master that can tame thee down
To crouch, the vassal of his Sunday frown;
His velvet throat against thy corded wrist,
His loosened tongue against thy doubled fist!

The MORAL BULLY, though he never swears,
Nor kicks intruders down his entry stairs,
Though meekness plants his backward sloping hat,
And non-resistance ties his white cravat,
Though his black broadcloath glories to be seen
In the same plight with Shylock’s gaberdine,
Hugs the same passion to his narrow breast,
That heaves the cuirass on the trooper’s chest.
—
Heaven keep us all! Is every rascal clown,
Whose arm is stronger, free to knock us down?
Has every scarecrow, whose cachetic soul
Seems fresh from Bedlam, airing on parole,
Who, though he carries but a doubtful trace
Of angel visits on his hungry face,
From lack of marrow or the coins to pay,
Has dodged some vices in a shabby way,
The right to stick us with his cut-throat terms,
_And bait his homilies with his brother worms_?

If generous fortune give me leave to choose
My saucy neighbors barefoot or in shoes,
I leave the hero blustering while he dares
On platforms furnished with posterior stairs,
Till prudence drives him to his “earnest” legs
With large bequest of disappointed eggs,
And take the brawler whose unstudied dress
Becomes him better, and protects him less;
Give me the bullying of the scoundrel crew,
If swaggering virtue wont insult me too!

Leaving, with this impersonation, “The noisy tribe in panta-loons or -lets,” the poet drives directly at the august cities of Boston and New York, and ruthlessly smashes all the literary crockery in those two emporiums of letters. Here is his gird at the modern Athens:

The pseudo-critic-editorial race
Owns no allegiance but the law of place;
Each to his region sticks through thick and thin,
Stiff as a beetle spiked upon a pin.
Plant him in Boston, and his sheet he fills
With all the slipslop of his threefold hills,
Talks as if nature kept her choicest smiles
Within his radius of a dozen miles,
And nations waited till his next Review
Had made it plain what Providence must do.
Would you believe him, water is not damp
Except in buckets with the Hingham stamp,
And Heaven should build the walls of Paradise
Of Quincy granite lined with Wenham ice.

Now this would give “wondrous great contentment” to the denizens of Manhattan, did not the satirist pounce down upon them with even more ironical fury. We have only space for the conclusion, and would particularly emphasize the hit at the scholars. It must be borne in mind that the poem was originally delivered at Yale College, the head-quarters of Websterism in spelling.

When our first Soldiers’ swords of honor gild
The stately mansions that her tradesmen build;
When our first Statesmen take the Broadway track,
Our first Historians following at their back;
When our first Painters, dying, leave behind
On her proud walls the shadows of their mind;
When our first Poets flock from farthest scenes
To take in hand her pictured Magazines;
_When our first Scholars are content to dwell_
_Where their own printers teach them how to spell_;
When world-known Science crowds toward her gates,
Then shall the children of our hundred States
Hail her a true METROPOLIS of men,
The nation’s centre. Then, and not till then!

No one can read this poem without wishing, with more earnestness than the wish originally came from the throat of Macbeth, that the author would throw “physic to the dogs,” and devote himself exclusively to literature. He is now but an “occasional” poet, though every piece he produces evidences that his mind is a Fortunatus’ purse, from which an endless succession of treasures might be drawn, with little effort on his own part, but with great delight to the public and great profit to his own reputation. His wit, whether expressed in prose or verse, is ever the pointed expression of sound sense, of accurate observation, of searching, subtle thought, and has, therefore, a permanent flavor, sharp and sweet, which improves rather than deteriorates with familiar acquaintance. Every thing he writes, whether he reasons, observes, or creates, is distinguished pre-eminently by vigor—a vigor which goes directly to its object, and always succeeds in mastering and expressing it. We wish he would not only write more poems, but that he would invade the domain of romance, and bring us back a novel. It would certainly be as original as any ever produced by an American, and would exhibit to great advantage his peculiar vein of sentiment—a vein as peculiar as that of Tennyson, and capable of being embodied in character with more perfection than he has yet succeeded in expressing it in couplets.

* * * * *

_Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution. By Benson J. Lossing.
New York: Harper & Brothers. No. 7._

We again call attention to this delightful serial work, containing illustrations, by pen and pencil, of the history, scenery, biography, relics, and traditions of the Revolution. It is elegantly and compactly printed, is full of exquisite wood engravings, and is well written. The author combines the habits of an antiquary with the brain of an enthusiast; and we are acquainted with no other work of American history which gives the same kind of information.

* * * * *

_Five Years of a Hunter’s Life in the Far Interior of South
Africa. By R. Gordon Cumming. New York: Harper & Brothers. 2
vols. 12mo._

A rare sportsman is Gordon Cumming—none of your followers of snipe and grouse, of fox or stag, but a Cæsar or Napoleon among hunters, a shooter of the giraffe and the rhinoceros, the lion and the elephant, and a great many other wild beasts, which your “even Christian” trembles to behold in their tamed and caged menagerie representatives. Seriously, this book is the most exciting production of the kind we have ever read, and though full of marvels, detailed in a style a little Mendez-Pintoish, is probably substantially true. The author is a kinsman of the Duke of Argyle, (to whom the volumes are dedicated,) is an English officer, and a “Person of Honor;” his statements, we suppose, must be taken as facts, as nobility, like figures, cannot lie, and as the author’s gentle blood did not come to him in a line of descent from William Longbow. Whether, however, Gordon Cumming has drawn a great deal from his imagination or not, his book is an interesting one, and proclaims him a cool, daring, invincible hunter—the greatest since Nimrod. Take away from him a hundred of the elephants he swears he shot, and he will have left enough to make a great reputation. In addition to the hunting scenes, the volumes contain no little information respecting the Hottentots and Bushmen, and some splendid descriptions of African scenery.

* * * * *

_Leaflets of Memory; an Illuminated Annual for 1851. Edited by
Reynell Coates, M. D. Philadelphia: E. H. Butler & Co._

The enterprising publishers of this most beautiful book, deserve the warmest thanks of the public for the exquisite taste displayed in all of their gift books for 1851; but especially for the wealth of elegance which marks the volume before us in all its appointments. To Butler & Co. justly belongs the credit of having rescued the Annuals of the country from that contempt to which they were fast sinking, and placing them side by side with the highest efforts of art in Europe. Nor has the editor failed to do his part nobly. The marks of the severe and elegant taste of Dr. Coates are visible on every page, and his fine mind sends forth its flashes like sparkles from a diamond in his own articles.

The illuminated plates by Sinclair are wonders of art, surpassing in delicacy of execution any that we have seen in this style; and Sartain, in his beautiful mezzotints, seems to have shared the inspiration largely of his co-laborers in this garden of beauty. We shall be amazed, if an immense sale of the Leaflets does not reward the prodigality of Mr. Butler.

* * * * *

_The Female Poets of America. Edited by Thomas Buchanan Read.
Philadelphia: E. H. Butler & Co._

This is a magnificent holyday gift, issued in a style of splendor that Butler alone can be chargeable with. Printed on superb paper, and filled with fine portraits of the leading American female writers, and gorgeous with illuminated plates by Sinclair. Mr. Read, the Editor, who is both poet and painter, has given us a token of remembrance in this fine volume that will live in many libraries and many hearts. It is just the volume to present to a lady of taste for a New Year’s Gift. No reader of “Graham” should fail to look at it.

* * * * *

_Proverbial Philosophy. By Martin Farquhar Tupper. With Sixteen
Illustrations. Philadelphia: E. H. Butler & Co._

Few readers of this Magazine are ignorant of these superior writings of Tupper; but very few, we will venture to say, have ever seen so superb an edition. The letter-press, the illustrations, and binding, are all of the very highest order, and the book is in every way entitled to a permanent place in the drawing-room of the educated and refined. In addition to its numerous superior engravings, the volume is graced by a fine likeness of Tupper, by Richie, which is of itself a treasure to his admirers.

* * * * *

_The Recent Progress of Astronomy; Especially in the United
States. By Elias Loomis. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol.
12mo._

The object of this volume is to exhibit, in a form as popular as the nature of the subject will allow, the most important astronomical discoveries of the last ten years. The chapter on the Discovery of the Planet Neptune, is the clearest account we have seen of that scientific event. The portions on the Recent Additions to our knowledge of Comets, Fixed Stars and Nebulæ, convey a great deal of information in a rigorously systematized form. There are a hundred pages devoted to the progress of Astronomy in the United States, which will be read with much interest, as they enable us to understand the grounds of a remark of the Astronomer Royal of Great Britain, that “the Americans, although late in the field of astronomical enterprise, have now taken up that science with their characteristic energy, and have already shown their ability to instruct their former masters.”

* * * * *

_Lives of Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of America. By
James Wynne, M. D. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 12 mo._

This volume contains lives of Franklin, Jonathan Edwards, Fulton, Marshall, Rittenhouse, and Whitney. They are altogether superior to the general run of such biographies, both in style and matter, and we have read with particular pleasure those of Franklin, Edwards, and Fulton. The life of the second of these is little known beyond the boundaries of his sect; and Dr. Wynne’s view of his character is the most correct we have ever seen. The author’s diction is admirably adapted for narrative.

* * * * *

_The Deerslayer: or the First War-Path. By J. Fenimore Cooper.
New York: George P. Putnam. 1 vol. 12mo._

This is the first volume of a reprint of Cooper’s Leather-Stocking Tales, the best works of their Author. It is uniform with the Putnam’s edition of “The Spy,” and “The Pilot.”

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_The Life of Silas Talbot, a Commodore in the Navy of the United
States. By Henry T. Tuckerman. New York: J. C. Riker. 1 vol.
16mo._

In this little volume, Mr. Tuckerman appears as the biographer of a revolutionary hero, as a describer of land fights and sea fights, and as a commentator on military and naval character. In this department of literature he seems as much at home as in writing genial essays on poets and social phenomena, and has made a charming book. In narrative, his style, without parting with any of its grace, has an increased energy and rapidity of movement. He lingers less over his matter. The subject of his biography is a grand one, and he has treated it finely, exhibiting judgment, research, and a marked descriptive power.

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LE FOLLET Boulevart S^{t}. Martin, 69. _Robes de M^{me}._ Verrier Richard, _r. Richelieu, 73—_ _Chapeaux de M^{lle}._ Grafeton, _r. de la Paix, 24_. _The styles of Goods here represented can be had of Mess^{rs}._ L. J. Levy & C^{o}. _Philadelphia_ _and at_ Stewart’s, _New York_. Graham’s Magazine, 134 Chestnut Street.]

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COME TOUCH THE HARP, MY GENTLE ONE.

BALLAD.

Composed, and Respectfully Dedicated

TO

MRS. A. A. T.

BY

E. K. EATON.

Published by permission of Edward L. Walker, 160 Chestnut Street.
_Publisher and Importer of Music and Musical Instruments._

Come touch the harp, my gentle one!
And let the notes be sad and low;
Such as may breathe in ev’ry tone—
The

soul, the soul of long ago!
That smile of thine is all too bright
For aching hearts and lonely years,
And dearly as I love its light,
To-day I would have tears.

SECOND VERSE

Yet weep not that, my gentle girl,
No smile of thine has lost its spell;
I so do love thy lightest curl,
Oh! more than fondly well.

Then touch the lyre, and let it wile
All thoughts of grief and gloom away;
While thou art by with smile and spell,
I will not weep to-day.

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EDITOR’S TABLE.

CATSKILL MOUNTAIN HOUSE.—The beautiful picture of Catskill Mountain House, and the surrounding scenery, which we give our readers in this number, was painted for the present publisher, in 1846, when we were, or thought we were, richer than we are now. A party of friends were with us on a visit to that delightful spot, in that summer; and among the guests at the house was the painter, Harvey, who, in his studious observation of nature, was filling up a week or two prior to his departure for Europe. Several pictures he had finished, of bits of scenery and nooks about the mountain, all of them marked by that wonderful fidelity to nature in her minute developments—each blade, and each shade of each blade of grass, and leaf elaborated with that patient skill, which distinguishes his pictures. The morning we left, we ordered the picture before the reader; and Smillie has just engraved it in his matchless style. To our own eye, it is one of the sweetest landscapes that we have ever placed before the readers of “Graham;” and we now apprise our friends that it is the first of a series of American views which that artist is now executing for this Magazine.

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DESCRIPTION OF FASHION PLATE.

WALKING DRESSES—_First Figure_.—Bonnet of pink taffeta, covered with puffings and plaits of clear white organdy; the right and the left side of the front are trimmed with three little feathers, fastened in lightly and gracefully.

Dress and _pardessus_ of taffeta, of any color or shade, according to fancy. The dress body is open before, and high in the neck behind. The sleeves are large, of the _pagoda_ style, wider at the lower part than at the top or arm-hole. The body is pointed before and behind. To give style to these bodies, a little strap of tape is fastened to the lower part of the waist, and this strap is attached to the lower part of the back of the corset, in order to make the back of the dress set well, and keep it from puckering.

The skirt is very full, and very long, training a little behind; it is trimmed with seven flounces, each flounce six _centimêtres_[1] wide; and these flounces are placed about five _centimêtres_ apart; the highest flounce is about twenty-five _centimêtres_ from the waist.

The _pardessus_ is sufficiently sloped at the seams to make it fit easily; it is a little pointed in front, and round behind.

The scallops of the flounces are first traced with close runnings of sewing silk, then embroidered in heavy button hole stitch.

The stomacher is of _tulle_: it opens square before, and is trimmed with a _tulle_ quilling, standing up around the neck, with insertion at the lower part of the quilling; the front is composed of five puffings, with insertion between the puffings. The sleeve has one large puffing, with a tight waistband and two ruffles.

_Second Figure._—Bonnet of black lace, bordered on the edge with a _ruche_ of the same, which _ruche_ continues all around the bonnet. This bonnet is trimmed with branches of roses. Mantilla, or little scarf shawl, is of light green taffeta, trimmed with broad silk lace, and embroidered in a rich design with narrow silk braid. This embroidery is worked in black on all light colors, or in a color a little deeper than the shade of the taffeta. Stomacher is made of lace, with insertion.

_Little Girl._—Dress of jaconet muslin, embroidered _à_ _l’Anglaise_. Mittens and stockings of open work silk. Sash _à la president_ around the waist, of taffeta ribbon of the width No. 60. Silk boots and straw hat, with a crown of roses.

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[1] _Centimêtre_, the one-hundredth part of a yard: there is no corresponding word in English. Six _centimêtres_, however, would be about two inches, five _centimêtres_ about an inch and a half, and twenty-five _centimêtres_ about a quarter of a yard.

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EDGAR A. POE.—By the decision of several discreet friends of the lamented Poe, we omit a number of letters and articles, which have been collected in relation to his life and writings. The wounds made by his criticisms are too fresh—the conflicting interests too many, to hope now to do that justice which time and the sober second thought of educated minds will accord to his memory. In the March number, we gave a short sketch of the poet, and hereafter the grateful duty may be more amply fulfilled—without making this Magazine, seemingly, the medium through which to gratify personal hostilities.

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THANKS TO OUR FRIENDS EDITORIAL.

FELLOW-LABORERS:—We address you at the close of the year 1850, with an involuntary wish struggling upward from the heart, for a happy New Year—a glorious baptism of good for 1851. We do this, too, with some misgivings lest we may presume upon your forbearance—but the cordial response you have given to our monthly labors—the encouraging and timely words spoken in our behalf at the outset of the somewhat perilous enterprise of carrying our shattered bark into harbor once more—with all its sails stripped and cordage gone, came over the dark waters cheeringly, stimulating our weak endeavors, and nerving our heart for the tempest or the calm.

With no money—a few friends, and a thousand discouragements thrust upon us by timid well-wishers—and half-hearted comforters—we undertook to carry Graham’s Magazine—with its harvest of money, received in December, January and February, the pick months of the year, scattered—we undertook, we say, to carry this book triumphantly—in the face of the fiercest competition the business has ever known—through the year 1850.

The American Press with a chivalry for a prostrate brother, such as has never been witnessed—with one accord, from the extreme North to the extreme South, raised its voice of encouragement—its cheer for our success—and we now close the volume with an addition of over 10,000 subscribers since July, and with the uttermost liberality in expenditure in the manufacture of Graham’s Magazine, _met_ by the tremendous resources which _you_, gentlemen, by the power of advertising, in liberal notices, have showered upon us. From our heart we thank you! Our experience in the press, daily, weekly, and monthly, for twelve years, has taught us how little the press itself knows of its own power—how few out of it know its giant resources—the wealth it carries on its wings to those who use it wisely. Judge, then, whether we, who have partaken so largely of its benefits from your generosity alone, knowing fully the vast service your kindness has done us, can do less than convey to you our sense of the obligation, with a hope that the day is dawning which will enable us to _attempt_ in some poor sort to repay you. We say _attempt_ to repay, for the reactionary benefit will be ten-fold upon ourself—so that we must by inevitable laws, remain forever your debtor.

GRAHAM.

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LE MONITEUR DE LA MODE. Journal du Monde Elégant. _Toilettes de la Maison_ Popelin Ducarre. _Modes de_ Mélanie Brun & C^{ie}., _5 rue de la Paix. Fleurs et_ _plumes de_ Perrot & C^{ie}. _Bijoux_ Gillion, _9, Boul^{t}. des Italiens._ _Mouchoirs de_ Chapron & Dubois, _rue de la Paix_. _The styles of goods here represented can be had of_ _Mess._ L. J. Levy & C^{o}., _PHILADELPHIA,_ _and at_ Stewart's, _NEW YORK_.]

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Transcriber’s Notes:

Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained as well as some spellings peculiar to Graham’s. Punctuation has been corrected without note. Other errors have been corrected as noted below. For illustrations, some caption text may be missing or incomplete due to condition of the originals used for preparation of the ebook.

page 330, in maratime states ==> in maritime states page 333, litterally by people ==> literally by people page 336, Save were the steel-shod ==> Save where the steel-shod page 338, strayed were the soft ==> strayed where the soft page 344, his hand in her’s ==> his hand in hers page 351, his anamolous position ==> his anomalous position page 351, large body of calvary ==> large body of cavalry page 352, Master of St. Jago ==> Maestro of St. Jago page 357, had began to civilize ==> had begun to civilize page 357, sur ves revolutions anciennes ==> sur les révolutions anciennes page 358, the Duke of Bourdeaux ==> the Duke of Bordeaux page 358, ownership of the _Murcure_, ==> ownership of the _Mercure_, page 363, having not forseen the ==> having not foreseen the page 365, prophecied your destiny ==> prophesied your destiny page 366, side thy stood now, ==> side they stood now, page 372, be got, hav n’t you ==> be got, haven’t you page 372, his grizzley moustache ==> his grizzly moustache page 373, falls of his horse ==> falls off his horse page 375, and cross questiong on ==> and cross questioning on page 381, the foot lights begin to burn ==> the footlights begin to burn page 381, by the abscence of ==> by the absence of page 381, in his posession some ==> in his possession some