Chapter XXII (3)

But we must travel more rapidly onward. In the noon of the Roman empire, Spain and Gaul were the West, the _terra occidentalis_. Soon Britain and Ireland take the place and name. It was to the same quarters, too, on the breaking up of this immense Roman mass, that the main element of its strength moved onward, although the mere shadow of empire remained in the slow decaying East. And now for centuries the march seemed impeded by the great ocean barrier, until the same original impulse, gathering strength by long delay, at length achieved the discovery of what, more emphatically than all other lands, has been called _The Western World_. Every one knows how rapid has been the same movement since. Scarcely had the eastern shores been visited, when hardy adventurers brought news of a _western_ coast, and of a _Western Ocean_, still beyond. This remoter sea becomes the mythical terminus in the grants and charters of the first English settlements, as though in anticipation of the future greatness of the empire of which they were to form the constituent parts. Since then how swift has been the same march across the new discovered continent! Rapid as must be our sketch, it is hardly more so than the reality it represents. Even within the memory of persons not yet past the meridian of life, a portion of our own State was called the _West_. The name was given to the land of the Mohawks and the Six Nations; but like Hesperia of old, it was always flying in the van of advancing cultivation. Soon Ohio becomes the _West_, along with Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky. Then Michigan is the _West_. In a few years Wisconsin assumes the appellation; then Iowa; then Minnesota; while, in another quarter, Missouri and Arkansas successively carry on the steady march toward the setting sun. It is true, there seemed to be a pause in sight of the obstacles presented by the barren plains of Texas and New Mexico, but it was only to burst over them with a more powerful impetus. And California is now the _West_--the land of gold and golden hope. It is now, to the present age, what Canaan was to the Hebrews (we mean, of course, geographically), or as the isles of the sea to the sons of Javan and Tarshish, or as Italy to the Trojan exiles. But is the movement there to find its termination? The next step mingles it with the remains of the old Eastern civilization. China and India must yet feel its revivifying power, and then the rotation will have been complete. Ophir has been already reached, and soon the long journeying of restless humanity will come round again to the plain of Shinar, or the region in which commenced the original dispersion of the race.

Some most serious reflections crowd upon the mind in connection with such a thought. What, during all this period, has been the real progress of humanity? In certain aspects of the question the answer is most prompt and easy. In the supply of physical wants, and in facilities for physical communication, the advance gained has been immense. But are men--the mass of men--really wiser in respect to their truest good? Or are they yet infatuated with that old folly of building a tower, whose top should reach unto heaven? In other words, are they still seeking to get above the earth by earthly means, and fancying that through science, or philosophy, or "liberal institutions," or any other magic name, they may obtain a self-elevating power, which shall lift them above _physical_ and moral evil. Will the long and toilsome march be followed by that true _gnothi seauton_, that real self-knowledge, which is cheaply obtained even at such a price, or will it be only succeeded by another varied exhibition of the selfish principle, the more malignant in proportion as it is more refined, another Babel of opinions, another confusion of speech, another proof of the feebleness and everlasting unrest of humanity while vainly seeking to be independent of Heaven?

* * * * *

Marriage has ever been closely allied to religion. It has had its altar, its offering, its rites, its invocation, its shrine, its mysteries, its mystical significance. "It is _honorable_," says the Apostle. "_Precious_," some commentators tell us, the epithet should be rendered--of _great value_, of _highest price_. In either sense, it would well denote what may be called, by way of eminence, the conservative institution of human society, the channel for the transmission of its purest life, and for this very reason, the object ever of the first and fiercest attacks of every scheme of disorganizing radical philosophy. In harmony with this idea there was a deep significance in some of the Greek marriage ceremonies; and among these none possessed a profounder import than the custom of carrying a torch, or torches, in the bridal procession. Especially was this the mother's delightful office. It was hers, in a peculiar manner, to bear aloft the blazing symbol before the daughter, or the daughter-in-law, and there was no act of her life to which the heart of a Grecian mother looked forward with a more lively interest. It was, on the other hand, a ground of the most passionate grief, when an early death, or some still sadder calamity, cut off the fond anticipation. Thus Medea--

I go an exile to a foreign land,
Ere blest in you, or having seen you blessed.
That rapturous office never shall be mine,
To adorn the bride, and with a mother's hand,
Lift high the nuptial torch.

Like many other classical expressions, it has passed into common use, and become a mere conventional phraseology. This is the case with much of our poetical and rhetorical dialect. Metaphors, which, in their early usage, presented the most vivid conceptions, and were connected with the profoundest significance, have passed away into dead formulas. They keep the flow of the rhythm, they produce a graceful effect in rounding a period, they have about them a faint odor of classicality, but the life has long since departed. As far as any impressive meaning is concerned, a blank space would have answered almost as well. The "altar of Hymen," the "nuptial torch," suggest either nothing at all, or a cold civil engagement, with no higher sanctions than a justice's register, or the business-like dispatch of what, in many cases, is a most unpoetical, as well as a most secular transaction.

The nuptial torch was significant of marriage, as the divinely appointed means through which the lamp of life is sent down from generation to generation. It was the symbol of the true vitality of the race, as preserved in the single streams of the "isolated household," instead of being utterly lost in the universal conflagration of unregulated passion. It was the kindling of a new fire from the ever-burning hearth of Vesta. It was the institution of a new domestic altar. The torch was carried by the mother in procession before the daughter, or the daughter-in-law, and then given to the latter to perform the same office, with the same charge, to children, and children's children, down through all succeeding generations. Such a custom, and such a symbol, never could have originated where polygamy prevailed, nor have been ever preserved in sympathy with such a perversion of the primitive idea. Neither could it maintain itself where marriage is mainly regarded as a civil contract, having no other sanction for its commencement, and, of course, no other for its dissolution, than the consent of the parties. Have we not reason to suppose that some such conception is already gaining ground among us. It would seem to come from that wretched individualism, the source of so many social errors, which would regard marriage as a transaction for the convenience of the parties, and subject to their spontaneity, rather than in reference to society or the race. The feeling which lends its aid to such a sophism, is promoted by the prevailing philosophy in respect to what are called "woman's rights." We allude not now to its more extravagant forms, but to that less offensive, and more plausible influence, which, in the name of humanity and of protection to the defenseless, is in danger of sapping the foundation of a most vital institution. We can not be too zealous in guarding the person or property of the wife against the intemperate or improvident husband; but it should be done, and it can be done, without marring that sacred oneness which is the vitality of the domestic commonwealth. In applying the sharp knife of reform in this direction, it should be seen to, that we do not cut into the very life of the _idea_--to use a favorite phrase of the modern reformer. No evil against which legislation attempts to guard, can be compared with the damage which might come from such a wound. No hurt might be more incurable than one that would result from families of children growing up every where with the familiar thought of divided legal interests in the joint source whence they derived their birth. There must be something holy in that which the apostle selected as the most fitting comparison of the relation between Christ and his Church; and there have been far worse superstitions (if it be a superstition) than the belief which would regard marriage as a sacrament. Be this, however, as it may, it is the other error of which we have now the most reason to be afraid. There is a process going forward on the pages of the statute book, in judicial proceedings respecting divorce, and in the general tendency of certain opinions, which is insensibly undermining an idea, the most soundly conservative in the best sense of the term, the most sacred in its religious associations, as well as the most important in its bearings upon the highest earthly good of the human race.

The opposing philosophy sometimes comes in the most plausible and insidious shape. It, too, has its religionism. It talks loftily of the "holy marriage of hearts," and of the sacredness of the _affection_; but in all this would only depreciate the sacredness of the outward relation. It affects to be conservative, moreover. It would preserve and exalt the essence in distinction from the form. It has much to say of "legalized adulteries." The affection, it affirms, is holier than any outward bond. But let it be remembered that the first is human and changeable, the second is divine and permanent. It is the high consideration, too, of the one that, more than any earthly means, would tend to preserve the purity of the other. The relation is the regulator of the affection, the mould through which it endures, the constraining form in which alone it acquires the unity, and steadiness, and consistency of the idea, in distinction from the capricious spontaneity of the individual passion. Let no proud claim, then, of inward freedom, assuming to be holier than the outward bond, pretend to sever what God has joined together. At no time, perhaps, in the history of the world, and of the church, has there been more need of caution against such a sophism than in this age so boastful of its lawless subjectivity, or in other words, its higher rule of action, transcending the outward and positive ordinance.

* * * * *

Charity is love--Liberality is often only another name for indifference. The bare presentation of the terms in their true relation, is enough to show the immense opposition between them. _Charity_ is _tenderness_. "It suffereth long and is kind." But the same authority tells us, likewise, that "it rejoiceth in the truth." Except as connected with a fervent interest in principles we hold most dear, the word loses all significance, and the idea all vitality. Even when it assumes the phase of intolerance, it is a nobler and more precious thing than the liberality which often usurps its name. In this aspect, however, it is ever the sign of an unsettled and a doubting faith. He who is well established in his own religious convictions can best afford to be charitable. He has no fear and no hatred of the heretic lest he should take from him his own insecure foundation. His feet upon a rock, he can have no other than feelings of tenderness for the perishing ones whom he regards as struggling in the wild waters below him. How can he be uncharitable, or unkind, to those of his companions in the perilous voyage, who, in their blindness, or their weakness, or it may be in the perverse madness of their depravity, can not, or will not lay hold of the plank which he offers for their escape because it is the one on which he fondly hopes he himself has rode out the storm. They may call his warm zeal bigotry and uncharitableness; but then, what name shall be given to that greater madness, that fiercer intolerance, which would not only reject the offered aid, but exercise vindictive feelings toward the hand that would draw them out of the overwhelming billows?

One of the richest illustrations of the view here presented is to be found in the writings of that _durus pater_, Saint Augustine. We find nothing upon our editorial table more precious--nothing that we would send forth on the wings of our widely circulated Magazine, with a more fervent desire that it might, not only meet the eye, but penetrate the heart of every reader "How can I be angry with you," says this noble father, in his controversy with the Manichaeans, "how can I be angry with you when I remember my own experience? Let him be angry with you who knows not with what difficulty error is shunned and truth is gained. Let him be angry with you, who knows not with what pain the spiritual light finds admission into the dark and diseased eye. Let him be angry with you, who knows not with what tears and groans the true knowledge of God and divine things is received into the bewildered human soul."

Editor's Easy Chair.

Since we last chatted with our readers, a month ago, old Autumn has fairly taken the year upon his shoulders, and is bearing him in his parti-colored jacket, toward the ice-pits of Winter. The soft advance of Indian Summer, with its harvest moons round and red, and its sunsets deep-dyed with blood and gold, is stealing smokily across the horizon, and witching us to a last smile of warmth, and to a farewell summer joyousness.

The town has changed, too, like the season: and the streets are all of them in the hey-day of the Autumn flush. The country merchants are gone home, and the Southern loiterers are creeping lazily southward--preaching the best of Union discourses--with their geniality and their frankness. The old Broadway hours of promenade are coming again; and you can see blithe new-married couples, and wishful lovers, at morning and evening, lighting up the _trottoir_ with their sunshine. The wishful single ones too, are wearing new fronts of hope, as the town-men settle again into their winter beat, and feel, in their bachelor chambers, the lack of that stir of sociality, which enlivens the summer of the springs.

Old married people too--not so joyous as once--forget all the disputes of the old winter, in the pleasant approaches of a new one; and try hard to counterfeit a content which they esteem and desire.

But with all its gayety, theatre-running, concert-going, and shopping, the town wears underneath a look of sad sourness. Merchants that were as chatty as the most loquacious magpies only a five-month gone, are suddenly grown as gruff and dumb as the Norwegian bears. The tightness of Wall-street has an uncommon "effect upon facial muscles;" and men that would have been set down by the "Medical Examiners" as good for a ten years' lease of life, are now wearing a visage that augurs any thing but healthy action of the liver.

Even our old friends that we parted from in May, as round and dimpled as country wenches, have met us the week past with a rueful look, and have said us as short a welcome as if we were their creditors. We pity sadly the poor fellow, who, with a firm reliance on the steady friendship of his old companion, goes to him in these times for a loan of a "few thousands." Friendship has a hard chance for a livelihood nowadays in Wall-street; and the man that would give us an easy shake of the hand when we met him on 'Change in the spring, will avoid us now as if he feared contagion from our very look.

The fat old gentlemen who used to loll into our office in May-time, to read the journals, and crack stale jokes, and quietly puff out one or two of our choice Regalias, have utterly vanished. We find no invitations to dine upon our table--no supper cards for a "sit-down" to fried oysters and Burgundy "punctually at nine."

Wall-street is the bugbear that frights New York men out of all their valor; and, as is natural enough, Wall-street, and specie, and heavy imports; and a new tariff, and the coming crop of cotton are just now at the top of the talk of the town.

Let our good readers then, allow for this incubus, in tracing the jottings down, this month, of our usually gossiping pen. Let them remember in all charity that two per cent. a month, for paper good as the bank, makes a very poor stimulant for such pastime as literary gossip. When our men of business replace their Burgundy and Lafitte of 1841, with merely merchantable Medoc, readers surely will be content with a plain boiled dish, trimmed off with a few carrots, in place of the rich _ragouts_, with which, at some future time, we shall surely tickle their appetite.

* * * * *

The Northern Expedition under the lead of Lieutenant De Haven, has given no little current to the chit-chat of the autumn hours; and people have naturally been curious to see some of the brave fellows who wintered it among the crevices of the Polar ice, and who braved a night of some three months' darkness. It is just one of those experiences which must be passed through to be realized; nor can we form any very adequate conceptions (and Heaven forbid that experience should ever improve our conceptions!) of a night which lasts over weeks of sleeping, and waking, and watching--of a night which knows neither warmth, nor daybreak--a night which counts by cheerless months, and has no sounds to relieve its darkness, but the fearful crashing of ice bergs, and the low growl of stalking bears.

What a waste of resolution and of energy has been suffered in those northern seas! And yet it is no waste; energy is never wasted when its action is in the sight of the world. It tells on new development, and quickens impulse for action, wherever the story of it goes.

It is, to be sure, sad enough that the poor Lady Franklin must go on mourning; but she has the satisfaction of knowing that sympathy with her woes has enlisted thousands of brave beating hearts, and has led them fearlessly into the very bosom of those icy perils, which now, and we fear must forever, shroud the fate of her noble husband. Nor is that grief and devotion of the Lady Franklin without its teaching of beneficence. Its story adds to the dignity of humanity, and quickens the ardor of a thousand hearts, who watch it as a beacon of that earnest and undying affection, which belongs to a true heart-life, but which rarely shows such brilliant tokens of its strength.

* * * * *

Perhaps it is fortunate that at a time when commerce is shaking with an ague, that makes pallid cheeks about town, there should be such a flush as now in the histrionic life of the city. Scarce a theatre or concert-room but has its stars; and if music and comedy have any great work of goodness to do in this world, it may surely be in relieving despondency and lightening the burdens of misfortune.

Miss Catharine Hays is a very good chit-chat topic for any breakfast-room of the town; and although she has not excited that excess of furor which was kindled by the Swedish singer, she has still gained a reputation whose merits are spoken with enthusiasm, and will be remembered with affection. Poor, suffering Ireland can not send to such a sympathetic nation as this, a pretty, graceful, pure-minded songstress--whatever might be her qualities--without enlisting a fervor that would shower her path with gold, and testify its strength with flowers and huzzas.

Madame THILLON is pointing much of the after-dinner talk with story of her beauty; and connoiseurs in cheeks and color are having amiable quarrels about her age and eyes. Mrs. WARNER is drawing somewhat of the worn-out Shakspearean taste to a new rendering of Elizabethan comedy. In short the town is bent on driving away the stupor of dull trade with the cheer of art and song.

* * * * *

Speaking of art, reminds us of the new picture which is just now gracing the halls of the Academy of Design. It is precisely one of those Art-wonders which, with its great stock of portraits to be discussed, makes the easiest imaginable hinge of talk. It is Healy's great picture of Daniel Webster in his place in the Senate Chamber, replying to General Hayne of South Carolina. The work has been a long time under Mr. Healy's thought and hand, and is perfected, if not with elaborateness, at least with an artistic finish and arrangement that will make the picture one of the great Western pictures. We could wish indeed--although we hazard the opinion with our _easy_ diffidence--that Mr. Healy had thrown a little more of the Demosthenic _action_ into the figure, and bearing of the orator; yet, with all its quietude, it shows the port of a strong man. Indeed, in contrast with the boy-like presentment of General Hayne, it almost appears that the fire of the speaker is wasting on trifles; yet, if we may believe contemporaneous history, Hayne was by no means a weak man, and if the fates had not thrust him upon such Titan conflict too early, there might well have been renowned deeds to record of the polished Southron. The initiate lookers-on will see good distance-views of Mrs. Webster, of Mrs. George P. Marsh, and of sundry other ladies, who were by no means so matronly at the date of the "Union" Speech as Mr. Healy's complimentary anachronism would imply.

* * * * *

The Art Union is coming in for its share of the autumn love of warm tints and glowing colors; and if we might trust a hasty look-in on our way to office duties, we should say there was a scalding brightness about some of the coloring which needs an autumn haze to subdue it to a healthy tone. For all this there are gems scattered up and down, which will woo the eye to a repeated study, and, if we may judge from the flocking crowds, educate the public taste to an increasing love of whatever is lovable in Art.

Leutze's great picture of Washington, will, before this shall have reached the eye of our readers, have won new honors to the name of the painter of the Puritan iconoclasts; and we count it a most healthful augury for American art, that the great painting should have created in advance such glowing expectations.

* * * * *

We wish to touch with our pen nib--as the observant reader has before this seen--whatever is hanging upon the lip of the town; and with this wish lighting us, we can not of a surety pass by that new burst of exultation, which is just now fanning our clipper vessels, of all rig and build, into an ocean triumph.

Nine hundred and ninety odd miles of ocean way within three days' time, is not a speed to be passed over with mere newspaper mention; and it promises--if our steam-men do not look to their oars--a return to the old and wholesome service of wind and sail. We are chronicling here no imaginary run of a "Flying Dutchman," but the actual performance of the A Number One, clipper-built, and copper-fastened ship, FLYING CLOUD--Cressy, commander! And if the clipper-men can give us a line, Atlantic-wise, which will bowl us over the ocean toward the Lizard, at a fourteen-knot pace, and not too much spray to the quarter deck--they will give even the Collins' monsters a scramble for a triumph. There is a quiet exultation after all, in bounding over the heaving blue wave-backs, with no impelling power, but the swift breath of the god of winds, which steam-driven decks can never give. It is taking nature in the fulness of her bounty, and not cramping her gifts into boiling water-pots; it is a trust to the god of storms, that makes the breezes our helpers, and every gale to touch the cheek with the wanton and the welcome of an aiding brother!

* * * * *

Leaving now the matters of gossip around us, we propose to luxuriate in that atmosphere of gossip, which pervades the Paris world, and which comes wafted to us on the gauze _feuilletons_ of such as Jules Janin, and of Eugene Guinot. They tell us that the city world of France has withdrawn lazily and longingly from the baths of Aix-la-Chapelle and the beaches of Dieppe and Boulogne; and that the freshened beauties of the metropolis, are taking their first autumn-ing upon the shaded asphalte of the Champs Elysees. A little fraction of the _beau monde_ has just now taken its usual turn to the sporting ground of Dauphiny and Bretagne; but it is only for carrying out in retired quarters the series of flirtations, which the watering places have set on foot. The French have none of that relish for covers and moor shooting, which enters so largely into the English habit; and a French lady in a land-locked chateau--without a lover in the case--would be the sorriest Nekayah imaginable.

But, says Guinot, the country recluses are just now acquiring a taste for the races and for horsemanship; and he signalizes, in his way, a fairly-run match of ladies, well-known in the salons of Paris, which came off not long since in the grounds of some old country chateau. Among the other whim-whams, which this veteran wonder-teller sets down, is the story of an old Hollander, who every year makes his appearance at the springs of Ems, and devotes himself to _rouge et noir_ with the greatest assiduity, until he has won from the bank the sum of twenty-five thousand francs, when he gathers up his gold and disappears for another season. No run of good luck will induce him to increase his earnings, and no bad fortune in the early part of his visit will break down his purpose, until he has won his usual quota. The managers have even proposed to buy him off for half his usual earnings in advance, but he accepts of no compromise; and stolidly taking his seat at the table, with a bag of _rouleaux_ at his side, he stakes his money, and records upon a card the run of the colors--nor quits his place, until his bag is exhausted, or the rooms closed for the night.

As is usual with these tit-bits of French talk, no name is given to the Hollander, and he may live, for aught we know, only in the pestilent brain of the easy paragraphist.

* * * * *

Again, we render grace to French fertility of invention for this _petit histoire_, to which we ourselves venture to add a point or two, for the humor of this-side appetite.

Borrel, a great man in the kitchen, kept the famous Rocher de Cancale. Who has not heard of the Rocher de Cancale? Who has not dreamed of it when--six hours after a slim breakfast of rolls and coffee--he has tugged at his weary brain--as we do now--for the handle of a dainty period?

Borrel had a wife, prettier than she was wise--(which can be said of many wives--not Borrel's). Borrel was undersold by neighbor restaurateurs, and found all the world flocking to the Palais Royal caterers. Borrel's wife spent more than Borrel earned (which again is true of other wives). So that, finally, the Rocher de Cancale was ended: Borrel retired to private life with a bare subsistence; and, Borrel's wife, playing him false in his disgrace, ran away with a vagrant Russian.

Borrel languished in retirement: but his friends found him; and having fairly put him on his feet, thronged for a season his new Salon of Frascati. But directly came the upturn of February, and poor Borrel was again broken in business, and thrice broken in spirit. He took a miserable house without the Boulevard, in the quarter of the Batignolles, and only crept back to the neighborhood of his old princely quarters, like the vagrant starveling that he was, at dusk. Years hung heavily on him, and his domestic sorrows only aggravated his losses and his weakness.

But, in process of time, a Russian came to Paris, who had known the city in the days of the Rocher de Cancale. He came with his appetite sharpened for the luxurious dinners of the Rue Montorgueil. But, alas, for him--the famous Restaurant had disappeared, and in its place, was only a paltry show-window of _calecons_ and of _chemisettes_.

He inquired anxiously after the famous Borrel: some shook their heads, and had never heard the name: others, who had known the man, believed him dead. In despair he visited all the Restaurants of Paris, but, for a long time, in vain. At length, an old white-haired garcon of the Cafe de Paris, to whom he told his wishes, informed him of the miserable fate of the old Prince of suppers.

The Russian traced him to his humble quarters, supplied him with money and clothes--engaged him as his cook, took him away from his ungrateful city, and installed him, finally, as first Restaurateur of St. Petersburg.

His patron was passably old, but still a wealthy and prosperous merchant of the northern empire; and his influence won a reputation and a fortune for the reviving head of the house of Borrel. The strangest part (omitted by Lecomte), is yet to come.

Borrel had often visited his patron, but knew nothing of his history, or family: nor was it until after a year or two of the new life, that the poor Restaurateur discovered in the deft-handed housekeeper of his patron, his former wife of the Rue Montorgueil!

The discovery seemed a sad one for all concerned. Borrel could not but make a show for his wounded honor. His patron had no wish to lose an old servant; and the lady herself, now that the hey-day of her youth was gone, had learned a wholesome dread of notoriety. Wisely enough, each determined to sacrifice a little: Borrel was re-married to his wife; his patron found a new mistress of his household; and madame promised to live discreetly, and guard carefully the profits of the Russian Rocher de Cancale.

If this is not a good French story, we should like to know what it is?

* * * * *

Again we shift our vision to a _belle maison_ (pretty house) in a back quarter of London--newly furnished--a little cockneyish in taste, and with all the new books of the day, piled helter-skelter upon the library-table. The owner is a tall, laughing-faced, good natured, not over-bred man, who has traveled to Constantinople and Egypt--to say nothing of an adventurous trip to the top of Mont Blanc.

His history is written by the letter-writers in this way: Poor, and clever, he wrote verses, and essays, and sold them for what he could get; and some say filled and extracted teeth, to "make the ends meet." It is certain that he once walked the Hospitals of Paris, and that he knows the habits of the grisettes of the Quarter by the Pantheon.

A certain Lord happening upon him, and fancying his laughter-loving look, and waggish eye, cultivated his acquaintance, and proposed to him a trip to the East as his friend, courier, and what-not. Our hero assented--went with him as far as Trieste--quarreled with My Lord--parted from him--pushed his way by "hook and by crook" as far as Cheops--and returned to London with not a penny in his pocket.

Writing brought dull pay (as it always does), and the traveler thought of _talking_ instead. He advertised to tell his story in a lecture-room, with songs, and mimicry thrown in to enliven it. The people went slowly at first: finally, they talked of the talking traveler, and all the world went; and the adventurer found his purse filling, and his fortune made.

He bought the _belle maison_ we spoke of; and this summer past set off for Mont Blanc, and ascended it--not for the fun of the thing, but for the fun of telling it.

We suppose our readers will have recognized the man we have in our eye: to wit--ALBERT SMITH.

And that--says Lecomte--is the way they do things in England!

Editor's Drawer.

It was THOMAS HOOD, if we remember rightly ("poor Tom's a-cold" now)! whose "Bridge of Sighs," and "Song of the Shirt," both of them the very perfection of pathos, will be remembered when his lighter productions are forgotten, or have ceased to charm--it was TOM HOOD, we repeat, who described, in a characteristic poetical sketch, the miseries of an Englishman in the French capital, who was ignorant of the language of that self-styled "metropolis of the world." He drew a very amusing picture of the _desagremens_ such as one would be sure to encounter; and among others, the following

"Never go to France,
Unless you know the lingo,
If you _do_, like me,
You'll repent, by Jingo!

"Signs I had to make,
For every little notion;
Arms all the while a-going,
Like a telegraph in motion.

"If I wanted a horse,
How d'you think I got it?
I got astride my cane,
And made-believe to trot it!"

There was something very ridiculous, he went on to say, we remember, about the half-English meaning of some of the words, and the utter contradiction of the ordinary meaning in others. "They call," said he,

"They call their mothers _mares_,
And all their daughters _fillies_!"

and he cited several other words not less ludicrous. The celebrated Mrs. RAMSBOTTOM, and her accomplished daughter LAVINIA, the cockney continental travelers, those clever burlesques of "JOHN BULL," were the first, some thirty years ago, to take notice of this discrepancy, and to illustrate it in their correspondence. The old lady, writing from Paris to friends in her peculiar circle in London, tells them that she has been to see all the curious things about the French capital; and she especially extols the bridges, with their architectural and other adornments. "I went yesterday afternoon," she wrote, "to see the statute of Lewis Quinzy, standing close to the end of one of the _ponts_, as they call their bridges here. I was told by a man there, that Lewis Quinzy was buried there. Quinzy wasn't his real name, but he died of a quinzy sore-throat, and just as they do things here, they called him after the complaint he died of! The statute is a more superior one than the one of Henry Carter (Henri Quatre), which I also see, with my daughter Lavinia. I wonder if he was a relation of the Carters of Portsmouth, because if he is, his posteriors have greatly degenerated in size and figure. He is a noble-looking man, in stone." The same old ignoramus wrote letters from Italy, which were equally satirical upon the class of would-be "traveled" persons, to which she was assumed to belong.

Speaking of Rome, and certain of its wonderful and ancient structures, she says: "I have been all through the _Vacuum_, where the Pope keeps his bulls. Every once in a while they say he lets one out, and they occasion the greatest excitement, being more obstinater, if any thing, than an Irish one. I have been, too, to see the great church that was built by Saint PETER, and is called after him. Folks was a-looking and talking about a _knave_ that had got into it, but I didn't see no suspicionary person. I heard a _tedium_ sung while I was there, but it wasn't any great things, to _my_ taste. I'd rather hear Lavinia play the 'Battle of Prag.' It was very long and tiresome." Not a little unlike "Mrs. RAMSBOTTOM," is a foreign correspondent of the late Major NOAH'S paper, the "Times and Messenger," who writes under the _nom de plume_ of "A Disbanded Volunteer," from Paris. He complains that the French language is very "onhandy to articklate;" that the words wont "fit his mouth at all" and that he has to "bite off the ends of 'em," and even then they are cripples. "The grammer," he says, "is orful, specially the genders, and oncommon inconsistent. A pie is a _he_, and yet they call it PATTY, and a loaf is a _he_, too, but if you cut a slice off it, _that's_ a _she_! The pen I'm a-driving is a _she_, but the paper I'm a-writing on is a _he_! A thief," he goes on to say, "is masculine, but the halter that hangs him is feminine;" but he rather likes that, he adds, there being something consoling in being drawn up by a female noose! _F-e-m-m-e_, he contends, "_ought_ to spell _femmy_--but I'm blowed if they don't pronounce it _fam_!"

Like the English cockney travelers, he was pleased with the public monuments, particularly one in the "Plaster La Concord," built by LOUIS QUARTZ, so called, in consequence of the kind of stone used in its erection. The "Basalisk of Looksir," and the "Jargon da Plant," also greatly excited his admiration. No one who has ever studied French, but will be reminded by the "Disbanded Volunteer's" experience of the difficulty encountered in mastering the classification of French genders.

* * * * *

We find, on a scrap in our "Drawer," this passage from a learned lecture by a German adventurer in London, one "Baron VONDULLBRAINZ." He is illustrating the great glory of _Mechanics_, as a science: "De t'ing dat is _made_ is more superior dan de _maker_. I shall show you how in some t'ings. Suppose I make de round wheel of de coach? Ver' well; dat wheel roll five hundred mile!--and I can not roll one, myself! Suppose I am de cooper, what you call, and I make de big tub to hold de wine? He hold t'ons and gallons; and _I can not hold more as fives bottel_!! So you see dat de t'ing dat is made is more superior dan de maker!"

* * * * *

The following domestic medicines and recipes may be relied upon. They are handed down from a very ancient period; and, "no cure, no pay:"

"A stick of brimstone wore in the pocket is good for them as has cramps.

"A loadstone put on the place where the pain is, is beautiful in the rheumatiz.

"A basin of water-gruel, with half a quart of old rum in it, or a quart, if partic'lar bad, with lots o' brown sugar, going to bed, is good for a cold in the 'ead.

"If you've got the hiccups, pinch one o' your wrists, and hold your breath while you count sixty, or--_get somebody to scare you, and make you jump_!

"_The Ear-Ache_: Put an inyun in your ear, after it is well roasted!"

* * * * *

How old Dr. Johnson did hate Scotland! His severity of sarcasm upon that country is unexampled by his comments upon any thing else, however annoying. On his return from the Hebrides, he was asked by a Scottish gentleman, at an evening party in London, how he liked Scotland. "Scotland, sir?" replied Johnson, with a lowering brow, and savage expression generally, "Scotland? Scotland, sir, is a miserable country--a _contemptible_ country, sir!" "You can not do the ALMIGHTY the great wrong to say _that_, Dr. Johnson," answered the other, deeply nettled at so harsh a judgment: "GOD made Scotland, sir." "Yes, sir," was the cutting rejoinder: "GOD _did_ make Scotland, but He _made it for Scotchmen_! GOD made _hell_ also, sir!" On another occasion, when asked how he liked certain views of scenery in that country, he replied: "The finest and most satisfactory view in Scotland, sir, is the view looking _from_ it, on the high-road to London!" The same spirit was manifested in his reply to a friend, who was consoling him for the loss of a favorite cane with which he had traveled in the north of Scotland. "You can easily replace it, Dr. JOHNSON," said his friend. "_Replace_ it, sir! Consider, where I'm to find the _timber_ for such a purpose in this barren country!" It strikes us that a lack of trees or shrubbery could not be more forcibly exemplified than by this sarcastic reply.

* * * * *

Somebody, in one of the newspapers, has been telling a story of a schoolmistress, who had a hopeful boy-pupil, whose intelligence was scarcely "fair to middling," if one may judge from one of his "exercises" in spelling. "I got him," said the schoolmarm, "clean through the alphabet, and he would point out any letter, and call it by its right name. One bright Monday morning I put him, when he was sufficiently advanced, into words of two syllables; but I was obliged to tell him some fifty times what was the _nature_ of a syllable; and after all, his brain was opaque as a rock. In order to interest him, however, I said to him:

"Do you love pies?"

"Yes, marm, I guess I _do_!"

"Well, then, 'apple' and 'pie,' when put together, spell 'apple-pie,' don't they?"

"Yes, marm."

"By the same rule, 'la' and 'dy,' spell 'lady?' You understand _that_, don't you?"

"Very well. Now, what do 'mince' and 'pie' spell?"

"_I_ know!--_Mince_-Pie!"

"That's right: well, now what do 'pumpkin' and 'pie' spell? Speak up."

"I know _that_: that's _pumpkin_-pie!"

"That's correct. Now, what does 'la' and 'dy' spell?"

"CUSTARD-PIE!" exclaimed the urchin, with great exultation at his success.

Now, this is very good, and very possibly it may have occurred, precisely as narrated; but we have a suspicion--perhaps not a "_shrewd_ suspicion"--that the whole thing was borrowed from the following dialogue, which is indubitably an actual occurrence:

"James," said a schoolmaster to a dull pupil, after the morning chapter had been read in the school, "James, we have read this morning that Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth; now, James, will you tell us who was the _father_ of Shem, Ham, and Japheth?"

"_Sir?_" said James, inquiringly.

"Why, James," answered his colloquist, "you have seen that Noah had three sons, and that their names were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. These were Noah's _sons_, James. Now, who was the FATHER of Shem, Ham, and Japheth?"

"SIR?" said James, dubiously pondering the full extent of the query.

"Why, James," said the preceptor, "don't you _know_ who the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth was, after I've told you so much?"

"No, sir--I d' know!"

"You are very dull, James--_very_! You know Mr. Smith, don't you, that lives next to your house?"

"Sartain!--Bill and Jo Smith and I play together. Bill took my cross-gun, and owes me--"

"Very well: Mr. Smith has three boys, William, Joseph, and Henry. Who is the father of William, Joseph, and Henry Smith?"

"Mr. Smith!" exclaimed James, instantly; "Mr. _Smith_: guess I know _that_!"

"Certainly, James. Very _well_, then. Now, this is exactly the same thing. You see, as we have been reading, that _Noah_ had three sons, like Mr. Smith; but _their_ names were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Now, who was the father of _Noah's_ three sons?"

James hesitated a minute, with his finger in his mouth; and then, as if the difficult question had been suddenly solved in his mind, he exclaimed:

"_I_ know now: MR. SMITH!"

* * * * *

Perhaps some of our readers have heard of that rare compound of all that was quaint, curious, and ridiculous, Lord Timothy Dexter, of Newburyport, Massachusetts. He was an ignorant, eccentric old fellow, who, having made himself a rich man, conceived the original idea of setting up for a lord. Accordingly he proclaimed himself "_Lord Timothy Dexter_," bought a magnificent mansion, and set up an equipage in splendid style. Every thing that he did and every thing he had about him was original. He sent a ship-load of warming-pans to the East Indies; he filled his gardens with sprawling wooden statues; his dress was a mixture of the Roman senator and a Yankee militia-captain; the ornaments of his mansion were of the most unique stamp; and his literary compositions were more original than all the rest put together. He wrote in the most heroic disregard and defiance of the common laws of etymology and syntax. Here is a specimen of his style, and an illustration of his powers as a philosopher: "How great the SOUL is! Don't you all wonder and admire to see and behold and hear? Can you all believe half the truth, and admire to hear the wonders how great the soul is?--that if a man is drowned in the water, a great bubble comes up out of the top of the water--the last of the man dying in the water; this is _mind_--the SOUL, that is the last to ascend out of the deep to glory. Only behold!--past finding out! The bubble is the soul! When a man dies in his bed in a house, you can't see his soul go up, but when he is drowned, _then_ you can see his soul go up like a kite or a rocket!"

* * * * *

There is a very amusing story told of a curious fowl called "_The Adjutant_," in the East Indies. They are as solemn-faced a creature as the owl, the "Bird of Minerva." Sometimes they become great favorites with the soldiers and officers of the army stationed there, and numerous, and not unfrequently ridiculous, were the tricks which the wicked wags played upon them. Sometimes the soldiers would take a couple of half-picked beef-bones, tie them strongly together, at each end of a stout cord, and then throw both where some two or three "Adjutants" would be sure to try to rival each other in the first possession of the desiderated luxury; the consequence of which competition would be, that two of the ravenous birds would attack the treasure at one and the same time: the one would swallow one (for they have most capacious maws) and the other the other. Then there was trouble! Each saw before him a divided "duty," the "line" of which, while it was sufficiently defined (and _con_-fined) was very far from being convenient to follow, so far as the _practice_ was concerned. But each, in the consequent struggle, rose into the air; a pair of aerial Siamese-twins, with no power of severing their common ligament; so that very soon down they came, an easy prey to their ingenious tormentors. But the funniest trick was this: A soldier would take a similar unconsumed beef-bone; carefully scoop out a long cavity in it, establish therein a cartridge and fusee, with a long leader, lighted, and then throw it out for the especial benefit of the feathered victim. It was of course swallowed at once, and then, like a snake with a big frog in its belly, the uncouth bird would mount upon some post, or other similar eminence, and with one leg crossed like a figure-four, over the other, it would stand, in digestive mood, and with solemn visage, until suddenly the secret mine would explode, and the unsuspicious "Adjutant" would be "reduced to the ranks" of birds "lost upon earth."

* * * * *

He was a right sensible man who wrote as follows; and his theory and advice will apply as well in Gotham as elsewhere: "As to extensive dinner-giving, we can be but hungry, eat, and be happy. I would have a great deal more hospitality practiced among us than is at all common; more _hospitality_, I mean, and less _show_. Properly considered, 'the quality of dinner,' like that of mercy, 'is twice blessed--it blesses him that gives, and him that takes.' A dinner with friendliness is the best of all friendly meetings; a pompous entertainment, where 'no love is,' is the least satisfactory.

"I own myself to being no worse nor better than my neighbors, in giving foolish and expensive dinners. I rush off to the confectioner's for sweets, et cetera; hire sham butlers and attendants; have a fellow going round the table with 'still' and 'dry' champagne, just as if I _knew his name_, and it was my custom to drink those wines every day of my life. Now if we receive great men or ladies at our house, I will lay a wager that they will select mutton and gooseberry-tart for their dinner; forsaking altogether the '_entrees_' which the men in white gloves are handing round in the plated dishes. Asking those who have great establishments of their own to French dinners and delicacies, is like inviting a grocer to a meal of figs, or a pastry-cook to a banquet of raspberry tarts. They have had enough of them. Great folks, if they like you, take no account of your feasts, and grand preparations. No; they eat mutton, like men."

As to giving _large_ dinners, morever, Mr. BROWN reasons like a philosopher. In the right way of giving a dinner, he contends, "every man who now gives _one_ dinner might give two, and take in a host of friends and relations," who are now excluded from his forced hospitality. "Our custom," he says "is not hospitality nor pleasure, but to be able to cut off a certain number of our really best acquaintances from our dining-list." Again, these large, ostentatious dinners are scarcely ever pleasant, so far as regards society: "You may chance to get near a pleasant neighbor and neighboress, when your corner of the table is possibly comfortable. But there can be no general conversation. Twenty people around one board can not engage together in talk. You want even a speaking-trumpet to communicate from your place with the lady of the house." The sensible conclusion of the whole matter is: "I would recommend, with all my power, that if we give dinners they should be more simple, more frequent, and contain fewer persons. A man and woman may look as if they were really glad to see _ten_ people; but in a 'great dinner,' an ostentatious dinner, they abdicate their position as host and hostess, and are mere creatures in the hands of the sham butlers, sham footmen, and tall confectioner's emissaries who crowd the room, and are guests at their own table, where they are helped last, and of which they occupy the top and bottom. I have marked many a lady watching with timid glances the large artificial major-domo who officiates 'for that night only,' and thought to myself, 'Ah, my dear madam, how much happier might we all be, if there were but half the splendor, half the made-dishes, and half the company assembled!'"

* * * * *

To our conception there is something rather tickling to the fancy in the following sage advice as to how to conduct one's self in case of fire: "Whatever may be the heat of the moment, keep cool. Let nothing put you out, but find something to put out the fire. Keep yourself collected, and then collect your family. After putting on your shoes and stockings, call out for pumps and hose to the fireman. Don't think about saving your watch and rings, for while you stand wringing your hands, you may be neglecting the turn-cock, who is a jewel of the first water at such a moment. Bid him with all your might turn on the main!"

* * * * *

Punch once drew an admirable picture of a London "Peter Funk," a sort of character not altogether unknown in the metropolis of the western world:

"The amount that prodigal man must spend every year would drive ROTHSCHILD into the work-house. Nothing is too good or too common, too expensive or too cheap, for him. One moment he will buy a silver candelabra, the next a silver thimble. In the morning he will add a hundred-guinea dressing-case to his enormous property, and in the afternoon amuse himself by bidding a shilling for a little trumpery pen-knife. Why he must have somewhere about fifty thousand pen-knives already.