Chapter TWENTY-SEVEN (2)

THE LITERARY REMAINS OF THE LATE WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK: including the
'OLLAPODIANA' papers, 'The Spirit of Life,' and a choice Selection
from his Miscellaneous Prose and Poetical Writings. With a Memoir of
the Author. Edited by LEWIS GAYLORD CLARK. Complete in five Numbers of
ninety-six pages each. New-York: BURGESS, STRINGER AND COMPANY.

It does not become us, perhaps, to enlarge upon the merits of this work, the character of which is known to many of our readers. As there are _other_ many of them, however, who may not be conversant with much of the prose which makes up a large portion of its contents--having become subscribers to this Magazine since the 'Ollapodiana' papers and the other prose miscellanies appeared in its pages--we shall venture to present a few extracts, and to preface them with the following remarks of the able Editor of the _United States Gazette_, of Philadelphia, upon the writer's merits; praise, we may add, which has been confirmed by the kindred commendation of almost every journal in the Union: 'Messrs. BURGESS, STRINGER AND COMPANY, of New-York, have commenced the publication, in a series of numbers, of the Literary Remains of WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK. The first number has been for some days upon our table, and after a biographical notice of the author, contains a portion of the '_Ollapodiana_,' those admirable papers furnished for the KNICKERBOCKER. Almost every body, who read five years ago, knows the _beauties_ of CLARK'S composition. They are permanent beauties; beauties that always are to be found by those who ever had taste to admire them. They are not dependant upon a jingle of words for temporary popularity; they appeal from the heart to the heart, in language that knows no variation of time. They express sentiments that are permanent, feelings common to mankind; and those who would profit by a delicate delineation of the affections of the human heart, will love the poetry of CLARK. Those who would have a broader seal set upon manners, and the peculiarities of the mind set forth in pleasant grotesqueness, will smile at the 'Ollapodiana.' But all will profit by _all_; and we regard it as a literary obligation conferred upon the age, and carrying with it a moral obligation also, to multiply the copies of such writings as CLARK prepared. We express not our feelings, when we write of CLARK as an author. There are some of us who knew his heart better than he did, and who have never forgotten his worth. These monuments, that are erected to his fame from his own works, like the trophies of victory, moulded to a triumphal pillar, denote public respect. Individual feeling loves a silent flow, that is constant and hearty.'

If the reader has had the fortune to travel in a canal-packet, in the summer solstice, he will readily recognize the faithfulness of the following picture:

'At first, when you embark, all seems fair; the eleemosynary
negro, who vexes his clarionet, and governs its tuneful ventiges,
to pay for his passage, seems a very Apollo to your ear; the
appointments of the boat appear ample; a populous town slowly
glides from your view, and you feel quite comfortable and
contented. As yet, you have not gone below. 'Things above' attract
your attention--some pretty point of landscape, or distant
steeple, shining among the summer trees. Anon, the scenery becomes
tame, and you descend. A feeling comes over you as you draw your
first breath in the cabin, which impels to the holding of your
nose. The cabin is full; you have hit your head twice against the
ceiling thereof, and stumbled sundry times against the seats at
the side. Babies, vociferous babies, are playing with their
mothers' noses, or squalling in appalling concert. If you stir,
your foot treads heavily upon the bulbous toes of some recumbent
passenger; if you essay to sleep, the gabble of those around you,
or the noisy gurgle of a lock, arouses you to consciousness; and
then, if you are of that large class of persons in whom the old
Adam is not entirely crucified, then you _swear_. Have you any
desire for literary entertainment? Approach the table. There shall
you find sundry tracts; a copy of the Temperance Recorder;
Goldsmith's Animated Nature, and Plutarch's Lives. By and by
dinner approaches: and oh! how _awful_ the suspense between the
hours of preparation and realization! Slowly, and one by one, the
dishes appear. At long intervals, or spaces of separation from
each other--say five for the whole length of the boat--you behold
tumblers arranged, with two forlorn radishes in each. The butter
lies like gravy in the plate; the malodorous passengers of the
masculine gender draw nigh to the scanty board; the captain comes
near, to act _his_ oft-repeated part, as President of the day. Oh,
gracious! 'tis a scene of enormous cry and scanty wool. It
mendicants description. · · · But the grand charm and scene of
a canal packet is in the evening. You go below, and there you
behold a hot and motley assemblage. A kind of stillness begins to
reign around. It seems as if a protracted meeting were about to
commence. Clergymen, capitalists, long-sided merchants, who have
come from far, green-horns, taking their first experience of the
wonders of the deep on the _canawl_, all these are huddled
together in wild and inexplicable confusion. By and by the captain
takes his seat, and the roll of berths is called. Then, what
confusion! Layer upon layer of humanity is suddenly shelved for
the night; and in the preparation, what a world of bustle is
required! Boots are released from a hundred feet, and their owners
deposit them wherever they can. There was one man, OLLAPOD beheld
him, who pulled off the boots of another person, thinking the
while--mistaken individual!--that he was disrobing his own
shrunken legs of their leathern integuments, so thick were the
limbs and feet that steamed and moved round about. Another
tourist, fat, oily and round who had bribed the steward for two
chairs placed by the side of his berth, whereon to rest his
abdomen, amused the assembly by calling out; 'Here, waiter! bring
me another pillow! I have got the ear-ache, and have put the first
one into my ear!' Thus wore the hours away. Sleep, you cannot.
Feeble moschetoes, residents in the boat, whose health suffers
from the noisome airs they are nightly compelled to breathe, do
their worst to annoy you; and then, Phoebus Apollo! how the
sleepers snore! There is every variety of this music, from the low
wheeze of the asthmatic, to the stentorian grunt of the corpulent
and profound. Nose after nose lifts up its tuneful oratory, until
the place is vocal. Some communicative free-thinkers talk in their
sleep, and altogether, they make a concerto and a diapason equal
to that which Milton speaks of, when through the sonorous organ
'from many a row of pipes, the sound-board breathes.' At last,
morning dawns; you ascend into pure air, with hair unkempt, body
and spirit unrefreshed, and show yourself to the people of some
populous town into which you are entering, as you wash your face
in canal water on deck, from a hand basin! It is a scene, I say
again, take it for all in all, that throws description upon the
parish, and makes you a pauper in words. '_Ohe jam satis!_'

Let the old bachelor, who 'longs but fears to marry,' perpend the annexed invitation to matrimony:

'Some of my contemporaries have supposed that the estate of a
Benedict forbiddeth the resident therein to disport himself as
aforetime, in the flowery fields of fancy, and to ambulate at
random through the remembered groves of the academy, or the rich
gardens of imaginative delight. Verily this is not so. To the
right-minded man, all these enjoyments are increased; the ties
that bind him to earth are strengthened and multiplied: he
anticipates new affections and pleasures, which your cold
individual, careering _solus_ through a vale of tears, with no one
to share with him his gouts of optical salt water, wots not of. As
a beloved friend once said unto me: 'When a good man weds, as when
he dies, angels lead his spirit into a quiet land, full of
holiness and peace; full of all pleasant sights, and 'beautiful
exceedingly.' One's dreams may not all be realized, for _dreams_
never are; but the reality will differ from, and be a thousand
fold sweeter, than any dreams; those shadowy and impalpable though
gorgeous entities, that flit over the twilight of the soul, after
the sun of judgment has set. I never hear of a friend having
accomplished hymenization, without sending after him a world of
good wishes and honest prayers. Amid the ambition, the
selfishness, the heartless jostlinq with the world, which every
son of Adam is obliged more or less to encounter, it is no common
blessing to retire therefrom into the calm recesses of domestic
existence, and to feel around your temples the airs that are
wafted from fragrant wings of the Spirit of Peace, soft as the
breath which curled the crystal light

----'of Zion's fountains,
When love, and hope, and joy were hers,
And beautiful upon her mountains,
The feet of angel messengers.'

No common boon is it--we speak in the rich sentence of a German
writer--to enjoy 'a look into a pure loving eye; a word without
falseness, from a bride without guile; and close beside you in the
still watches of the night, a soft-breathing breast, in which
there is nothing but paradise, a sermon, and a midnight prayer!'

Here is a specimen of 'the show-man's trick,' which, as old MATTHEWS used to say, 'made a great laugh at the time:'

'It is diverting in the extreme to observe the pompous
grandiloquence in the advertisements of the amusement-furnishing
public, about Christmas and New-Year. Sublimity glares from the
theatrical hand-bill, and the menagerie _affiche_. Curiosities,
then, have a 'most magnanimous value.' I remember, not long ago,
that I desired a lovely lady, a French countess, to accompany me
to a Zoological Institute, to behold _an American Eagle_. I was
pleased at the expressed wish which led me to make the invitation,
and proud of the prospect of showing a living emblem of our
country's insignia to one who felt an interest in the subject. The
bills of the institute set forth, that 'the grand Columbia's Eagle
was the monarch of its tribe, measuring an unprecedented length
from the tip of one wing to the other, in full plumage and vigor.'
The countess had never seen but one eagle, in the _Jardin des
Plantes_ at Paris, and that was a small one, and ungrown; so that
her anticipations of novelty were as great as mine. We went, and
with interesting expectancy, asked of the president of the
institute, who was engaged in the noble pursuit of feeding a sick
baboon with little slips of cold pork, to discover to us
'Columbia's eagle.' He marshalled us to the other end of the
institute, past the cages of lions, bears, libbards, and other
animals--among which was a singular _quadruped_, with six legs--to
the cage of the eagle. 'There,' he exclaimed, with professional
monotony, 'there _is_ the proud bird _of_ our country, that _was_
caught _in_ the West, and _has_ been thought to have killed many
animals _in_ his life-time. He _was_ five hours and twenty-three
minutes _in_ being put into the cage, _so_ strong _was_ his wings.
Look at him _clus_. He'll bear inspection. Jist obsarve the keen
_irish_ of his eye.'

'An involuntary and hearty laugh from us both, followed the sight,
and the announcement. It was a dismal looking bird, about the size
of a goodly owl, with a crest-fallen aspect, the feathers of the
tail and wings dwindled to a few ragged quills; and the shivering
fowl, standing on one leg, looked with a vacant, spectral eye at
his visitors. Nothing could be so perfectly burlesque, and we
enjoyed it deeply and long. I shall never be deceived by
show-bills again.'

The following must close our quotations. We venture to say that it describes a scene which many a reader has more than once witnessed:

'Talking of a man's making a hero of himself, reminds me of an old
friend of mine, who is fond of telling long stories about fights
and quarrels that he has had in his day, and who always makes his
hearer his opponent for the time, so as to give effect to what he
is saying. Not long ago I met him on 'Change, at a business hour,
when all the commercing multitudes of the city were together, and
you could scarcely turn, for the people. The old fellow fixed his
eye on me; there was a fatal fascination in it. Getting off
without recognition, would have been unpardonable disrespect. In a
moment, his finger was in my button-hole, and his rheumy optics
glittering with the satisfaction of your true _bore_, when he has
met with an unresisting subject. I listened to his common-places
with the utmost apparent satisfaction. Directly, he began to speak
of an altercation which he once had with an officer in the navy.
He was relating the _particulars_. 'Some words,' said he,
'occurred between _him_ and _me_. Now you know that he is a much
younger man than I am; in fact, about _your_ age. Well, he '_made
use of an expression_' which I did not exactly like. Says I to
him, says I, 'What do you mean by that?' 'Why,' says he to me,
says he, 'I mean just what I say.' Then I began to burn. There was
an impromptu elevation of my personal dandriff, which was
unaccountable. I didn't waste words on him; I just took him in
this way,' (here the old _spooney_ suited the action to the word,
by seizing the collar of my coat, before the assemblage,) 'and
says I to him, says I, 'You infernal scoundrel, I will punish you
for your insolence on the spot!' and the manner in which I shook
him (just in _this_ way) was really a warning to a person
similarly situated.'

'I felt myself at this moment in a beautiful predicament; in the
midst of a large congregation of business people; an old
gray-headed man hanging, with an indignant look, at my
coat-collar; and a host of persons looking on. The old fellow's
face grew redder every minute; but perceiving that he was
observed, he lowered his voice in the _detail_, while he lifted it
in the worst places of his colloquy. 'You infernal scoundrel, and
caitiff, and villain,' says I, 'what do you mean, to insult an
elderly person like myself, in a public place like this?' and
then, said he, lowering his malapropos voice, 'then I shook him,
_so_.'

'Here he pushed me to and fro, with his septuagenarian gripe on my
collar, as if instead of a patient much bored _friend_, I was his
deadly enemy. When he let go, I found myself in a _ring_ of
spectators. 'Shame, shame! to insult an old man like him!' was the
general cry. 'Young puppy!' said an elderly merchant, whose good
opinion was my heart's desire, 'what excuse have you for your
conduct?'

'Thus was I made a martyr to my good feelings. I have never
recovered from the stigma of that interview. I have been pointed
at in the street by persons who have said as I passed them,
'That's the young chap that insulted old General ----, at the
Exchange!'

We should not omit to state that the publishers have done ample justice to the work. It is beautifully stereotyped and printed upon new type and fine white paper, and the numbers are enclosed in very neat and tasteful covers. The work we are glad to say meets with a liberal and constant sale.

ITALY AND THE ITALIANS. In a Series of Letters. By J. T. HEADLEY. In
one volume, pp. 64. New-York: I. S. PLATT.

Mr. PLATT has commenced a series of publications, at a moderate price, which should secure a liberal share of the public favor. These 'Letters,' which form the initial number, are replete with interest. Many of them appeared in the original foreign correspondence of the '_Tribune_' daily journal, where they excited the admiration of the press, and 'the people' whom the press represents; but a large portion now see the light for the first time. Mr. HEADLEY has not given us, in tiresome detail, minute descriptions of galleries of art and public edifices; although his description of St. Peter's at Rome, (a 'nice building, with a dome handsomely scooped out,') is the most vivid picture of that world-renowned structure that we ever perused. He has wisely chosen rather to illustrate the people and country by things perhaps trifling in themselves, but which give to the reader a constant succession of 'sketches from Nature,' which are not only very pleasant to read, but which it is quite evident are exceedingly faithful. 'The condition of the people,' in short, 'occupies more space than the condition of art, simply because the latter is well known, while the former is almost wholly neglected.' Briefly, for 'brief must we be,' the book affords what Mrs. RAMSBOTTOM would call 'a supreme _cow-dyle_' (coup d'oeil) of 'Italy and the Italians,' and is presented in a dress worthy of its internal merits.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

OUR old friend and correspondent 'HARRY FRANCO' cometh late, but he can never arrive too late to be welcome. Let us hope only that he will not object to being placed as it were 'below the salt,' instead of being seated with his peers at the more conspicuous board of the 'regulars.' He has deftly touched a fruitful theme, at which we have more than once hinted in this department of the KNICKERBOCKER.

THE IMPUDENCE OF THE FRENCH.

KEEP your tempers, Messieurs; we shall not quarrel. There is a difference between Impudence and Impertinence. The two words are often used synonymously by the vulgar, but they are no more alike than any other two words that begin with an I. 'When we behold an angel, not to fear is to be IMPUDENT,' says DRYDEN: 'We should avoid the IMPERTINENCE of pedants,' says SWIFT. These two great masters of the English tongue have well defined the difference between the two words. There is always an air of confident greatness about impudence that wins respect, and not infrequently success. ALEXANDER was assuredly the most impudent man of his time; so was CÆSAR; so was LUTHER. Even now, when half the human race has grown impudent, we cannot but wonder at the impudence of that obscure monk. GALILEO, too, was a very impudent fellow until the well-bred 'Rev. and dear Sirs' of his time taught him modesty. And CROMWELL! what an Arch-Impudence was he! And NAPOLEON! he put Impudence itself to the blush. And have there been no Impudences among us? It cannot be denied that our Fourth-of-July-men made a very impudent declaration, to say the least of it. But these were all individual instances. The French are impudent as a nation. They have no sense of modesty. They insist that all the world shall eat French, drink French, talk French, dance French, and dress French. Did ever any traveller visit a city or town in any quarter of the globe in which a Frenchman had not set up a restaurant? FANNY ELLSLER was astonished when she landed at the American Hotel, to find that her dinner had been prepared by a Parisian cook; and yet she had come over here to show us her French steps. Simple Fanny! How did she think we could live without French cookery, if we could not live without French dancing? What traveller has ever visited a remote village that a French _modiste_ had not visited before him? Is it possible to dine any where, without having a French bill of fare thrust into your hand, and some dish with an _à la_ under your nose? Is there a living being in any part of the world willing to make oath to having visited a ball-room or a church without encountering a French dress or a French bonnet? The Quakers cannot; they would as soon wear scarlet ribbons as any other than French gloves and French muslins.

Untravelled New-Yorkers as they walk through Broadway, and see the names of Madame Grand-this and Mons. Grand-that '_from Paris_,' over every other shop-door, and see the French shoes, the French gloves, the French chocolate, the French clocks, the _liqueurs_, the _bon-bons,_ the _bijouterie_, the _meringues_, the _pâtes-de-foi-gras,_ in the windows, may think that the Gauls have marked us for their 'own peculiar;' but it is so in St. Petersburgh, 'tis so in Constantinople, 'tis so in Lima, in the Banda Orientale, in Rio, in Mexico, in Montreal, in London, in Vienna, in Boston, in Philadelphia, in Grand Cairo--'tis so all over the earth. The Sorbonne and the Louvre rule the world. Can any body be tired, or weary, or dumpish? No. We must be _ennuyeèd_, or _blazè_, or _fatiguè_, or something else ending in _è_. Does any lady ever give an evening party? No. Nothing but a _soirée_. Are there any more gatherings of friends? No; only _reünions_. Is it possible to dance a cotillion in English? Is there any body in New-York with sufficient moral courage to sleep upon any thing short of a French bed-stead? Is there a chamber-maid who will lie upon any thing less than a _paliastre_? Are there any more fat, or plump, or round, or full people? No. Even Falstaff would be inclined to _embonpoint_ if he were alive, in these days of Gallic supremacy. Well might VICTOR COUSIN and the rest of them declare that the French were not defeated at Waterloo. The allied armies entered Paris it is true, but they made their Exodus in slavery. The English, Germans and Russians went home from France manacled with French fashions, and not a soul of them has dared to assert his independence since.

We are by no means sure that French cookery has not done more to preserve the peace of Europe, during the last twenty years, than all other causes put together. It is impossible to think of a war with France. The mind staggers under the supposititious case of the nations of the earth deprived of French _bon-bons_. Imagine the commerce with France suspended! Who would perfume us? who feast us? who dress us? Where would our gloves come from? what should we do for slippers? how should we be off for soap? Would there be any more ribbons? any more brandy fruits? any more meringues? any more chocolate? Where should we look for another BLANCARD, another FAUVEL-GOURAUD? Would there be any more dancing? any more fashions? any more any thing? The true _Mystéres de Paris_ nobody knows any thing about but the Parisians themselves, and they are too cunning to pronounce their open sesame loud enough to be heard by the rest of the world. How like gudgeons we all snapped at the bait of EUGENE SUE! But the Mysteries of Paris are written in a kind of Parisian Coptic, which none but the Parisian can read.

The English eat, or at least a portion of them do, and they cook, but who ever heard of an English eating-house, or of an English cook? We have heard of DOLLY'S chop-house, but its reputation was gained by the quality of its guests rather than the merit of its cooks. For aught the world knows to the contrary, there is not an eating-house in any of the European capitals beside Paris. But every body knows the names, the situation, and even the _carte du jour_ of at least a dozen restaurants in the French capital without ever having been there. The 'Rocher' is as well known as the Rock of Gibraltar, and Very and Châtelain have reputations as extended as those of Guizot and Theirs. Vatel is more famous than Vattel, and the cook will doubtless be remembered when the philosopher is forgotten: he will never die, at least, while the memory of Sevignè lives.

Not long since we saw on a sign-board, stuck up at the entrance of a cellar on the corner of Reade-street and Broadway, '_Au Rocher de Cancale_,' painted in very soup-maigreish looking letters, with an attempt at the representation of an oyster-shell. Now look at the impudence of the thing; at the Frenchiness of it! Here we are with our Prince's Bays, our York-rivers, our Mill-ponders, our Shrewsburys, and Blue pointers, a shilling's worth of either worth all the shell-fish that ever grew on the French coast; and this Parisian sets up his sign in the midst of these marine riches, with a 'ROCHER DE CANCALE!' No other nation could have been guilty of such arrogance. No Englishman has ever had the temerity to insult us with an allusion to his dirty 'natives.'

What would be thought of an American who should have the presumption to open a House of Refreshment in the Rue St. Jacques or the Palais Royale, and announce to the Parisians that he would serve up for them Prince's Bay oysters, fried, stewed, roasted or in the shell; clam soup, pumpkin-pies, waffles, hoe-cakes and slap-jacks, or mush-and-milk and buck-wheats? Would the most inquisitive or most vulgar man in France venture within the doors of a house where such barbarisms were perpetrated? But why not, Monsieur? Why not, as well as for us to crowd the _salons_ of the Messieurs who tempt us with their equally outlandish _carte à manger_, or who exclaim to us when we enter:

'MON salon est toujours gami,
Et mon buffet bien assorti,
Ou vante mon chablis,
Mes huitres, mes radis,
Ainsi que raes salmis
De perdrix:

Mes godiveaux au ris;
Mes tourtes, mes hachis;
Fameux pâlis, gros et petits;
Boeuf au naturel, au coulis;
Papillotes,
Gibelotes,
Matelotes,
Fines compotes,' etc., etc.

Why should not we send over some of our JENNINGSES and STETSONS, our BERGALEWS and DOWNINGS, to repay our French friends for their many favors, and instruct them in the art of making pumpkin-pies and eating canvass-back ducks? The French at present know little more about us than that Doctor FRANKLIN made lightning-rods, and that COOPER writes Indian novels. They eat nothing that we raise, they wear nothing that we make, they adopt none of our fashions, they use none of our phrases. You would look in vain in the _carte_ of any restaurateur in Paris for such delicacies as apple-dumplings or corn-bread, and you might call in a Parisian café until you were hoarse, for a 'cobbler' or a julep, without getting either. Yet our uppish people will eat nothing, drink nothing, wear nothing that is not French. We have been told of certain brokers in Wall-street who import even their _desserts_ from Paris; not their _deserts_, my friend, for the guillotine is the only French thing which we don't imitate or import. No wine is fit for our tables without the prefix of a _chateau_ something; every thing that is composed of wool is something _de laine_, and all our clothes are made of _drap de_ this or _drap de_ that.

But let us not paint our Gallic friends a shade darker than they deserve. They have taught us the use of napkins and silver forks; they give us the best perfumery in the world, and make the best gravies for our meats. What is the privilege of writing the songs of a nation, compared with the privilege of setting its fashions? The supremacy of the French in all matters of taste is not the effect of accident. Why do they rule the world by their elegancies? There is a philosophy in these things, as well as in every thing else, which is worthy of grave consideration.

The secret of French authority lies in the simple truth that they count every thing worthy of being well done which is worth doing at all. We have grades of usefulness. Not so with them. Whether they make a pâté or build a palace, it is a grave matter; and the consequence is, that their pâtés as well as their palaces excel those of the other kingdoms of Europe. The Louvre is as much superior to Buckingham Palace as a Charlotte-Russe is to a Yorkshire pudding. Cookery and Architecture are the first arts practised by mankind, and the last in which they arrive at perfection. The French excel all other nations in both. The condition of one art might be ascertained with precision by examining the state of the other in any part of the world, or in any age. When cooks served up pastry with peacocks' tails sticking out of the top crust, architects built gothic churches and campanile towers. Penault and Vatel ornamented the same age. One built a palace and the other cooked a dinner, and they are both immortal. It would be no difficult matter to guess at the extravagance and unhealthiness of our kitchens, from a glance at our Exchange and Custom House. The ponderous marble and granite boulders in these senseless structures have their correspondents in many a lump of indigestible food; and the bizarreterie of the new Trinity Church have their correspondents in many a temple composed of macaronis and cocoanut candies.

We have grades of usefulness, but it is no easy matter to discover the principles upon which our scale of respect is graduated: money is not always the test of merit; it matters how you get it. If you earn it yourself, it will not entitle you to half the respect it would if your father or grandfather earned it for you. Any occupation which soils the hands or the clothes, is looked upon with disfavor by the upper classes. A broker who never does any thing that is either useful or ornamental, grows nothing, invents nothing, imagines nothing; who instructs nobody, amuses nobody, enriches nobody; who leaves the world in the same condition that he found it, may be called a gentleman, visit in the first circles, have those mysterious letters, E.S.Q., written after his name, and if he is rich, will be elected a member of more societies than will be agreeable to him. But a wig-maker who has invented a new spring for a toupée, or a new dye for the hair, and thereby really done mankind a service, could no more get into the first circles with us than he could go to heaven, like Mahomet, on the back of an ass. Shoemakers' wives and bakers' daughters are people of whose acquaintance nobody ever speaks boastingly. I once knew the nephew of a barber who always blushed when his uncle was named in his hearing. But an attorney's lady, or a banker's daughter, are often paraded in an ostentatious manner before one by their friends, and I have never known the nephew of a soldier-officer, whose business is to take people's lives, blush at the profession of his relative. It cannot be expected that men will labor in callings that gain them only the contempt of their neighbors; and therefore while it is accounted disgraceful among us to do any thing that is useful, we must be content to remain dependent upon any people who have more sense in regard to this matter than ourselves.

We are very well aware that shoemakers and pastry-cooks are not the kind of people who compose the French court; but there can be no denial of the fact that certain kinds of artisans are treated by the French people with a greater degree of respect than they are with us. Very different from the dogged surliness of an Englishman, or the who-cares-for-_you_ manner of our own countrymen, is the air of conscious self-respect of certain classes of French tradesmen. In the present condition of our society, we hold it to be among the impossible things to make a decent pastry-cook out of an American citizen, or a decent citizen out of a pastry-cook. But is there any good reason why we should not? Do not pastry-cooks contribute as much toward human happiness as sugar-refiners or importers of molasses? Should you not feel as well disposed toward the individual who had made a meringue to your liking, as toward him who had imported the materials of which it was composed? The King of the French seats artists at his dinner-table, bestows the 'legion of honor' upon them; pays them liberally for their works, and settles pensions upon them. Artists with us, as artists, do not often find their way into our upper circles; if they are respectable in their habits and associates, they are rather countenanced for their respectability than noticed for their genius. We know a whiskey-distiller who refused his daughter to a portrait-painter, unless he would abandon his profession; simply because it was a low calling.

It is very common with us to call the French triflers; but it is one of the many bad habits which we have inherited from the English, and the sooner we free ourselves from it, the better will it be for us. We shall never be ambitious to excel a people whom we pretend to despise. If doing small things well be trifling, then the French are triflers. But what must we call them for their great works? There is no art, no science, no department of learning in which the English excel them. They are the best architects in Europe; the best physicians; the best chemists, the best astronomers. They have cut off the head of one king and banished another; what more have the English done? But they can afford to be called any thing: they set the fashions of the whole world. Queen VICTORIA is as much a subject of LOUIS PHILLIPE in her dress as any lady in France. With all her immense territory, her great authority, she cannot change the fashion of a bonnet.

The difference between French and English art is as great as the difference between the Louvre and the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square; and about the same relative difference prevails with regard to us. At the last exhibition of the Louvre there were four thousand paintings offered; at the last exhibition of the National Academy there were about four hundred. This is not a very correct method of judging of the artistic excellence of a nation, but it is not far from correct in this case.

H. F.

A PICTURE BY MURILLO.--The time has yet to arrive when the march of empire _westward_ will bring in its train our portion of those chef d'oeuvres of painting and sculpture which adorn the princely palaces of Europe, and confer distinction upon the possessors of wealth and taste in humbler abodes. To us, who have never visited those miracles of art, the sight of one of them is too gratifying to be passed over without imparting a share of the pleasure to our less fortunate readers. For the first time in our lives, we have enjoyed the delight of seeing at the house of a friend one of the grand pictures of MURILLO, which was obtained by a distinguished connoisseur at Lima, in 1828, from the cloister of an old convent, where it had hung for countless years in ignoble seclusion. It had probably been brought from Spain during the life-time of the painter, as it is not described by any of his biographers, who have carefully enumerated the works of his pencil. This idea is strengthened by the fact of his having inscribed his name upon the picture, which is not to be found upon any of his master-pieces at Madrid and Seville. Although it has not escaped the injuries of time and ignorance, it appears to have had the rare good fortune never to have passed through the hands of a restorer or scourer: the whole effect of its magical colouring remains unobscured, except a few touches of the brush of some dauber, who has tried the experiment of adding freshness to the rose.

The subject of it is the Holy Family, of life-size. Saint Joseph is seen in the background, with the infant SAVIOUR in his arms, presenting him to his mother, who is kneeling with extended hands to receive the precious burden of love. Like most of his great scriptural pictures, the composition is simple and natural, exhibiting a familiar scene in domestic life, elevated by expression, and ennobled by beauty. The Saint's face, which is of the true Andalusian type, is fraught with benignity, as he graciously inclines toward the mother, with the infant resting tenderly in his hands as if supported by a bed of down. Nothing can surpass the graceful figure and attitude of the mother, whose features are literally overflowing with maternal affection, while she caressingly holds out her hands to receive her son. But the charm of the picture is the infant DEITY himself, upon whom the painter has lavished his art, and poured forth the inspiration of his genius. His position forms the centre of the group, and instantly arrests the attention and commands the admiration of the spectator. He looks as if just awakened from a deep slumber; his eye-lids are tinged with red, and the motion of his limbs betokens the sudden consciousness of suspended existence; his playful smiling features are radiant with joy at recognizing his mother, toward whom his hands are invitingly opened. His figure is foreshortened, and to such a degree that his legs are out of the canvass, instinct with life and motion. His flesh has the plumpness and transparency of perfect health, flushed with roseate tints; his appearance denotes a child of nine or ten months old, but without that expression of premature intelligence by which the infant SAVIOUR is distinguished in the pictures of RAPHAEL. He is, in short, just one of those angelic creatures fresh from the hands of the CREATOR, oftener found in the cradles of peasants than of princes. The hands and feet of all the figures are painted with warmth, and with such sun-light transparency, that the ruddy current seems actually coursing beneath the skin. Indeed the whole tone of the picture is so life-like, that for the moment we cease believing it to be an illusion of lights and shadows reflected upon canvass. All the draperies are large and flowing, and broadly touched: that of the infant is a luminous white; the saint's is sombre; the mother's is of that violet tint, said to be peculiar to MURILLO, styled by the French, _lie de vin_.

In the grand compositions of RAPHAEL, we often see the actors grouped into a pyramidal form. In this of MURILLO, they present a diagonal line; extending from the head of the Saint to that of the mother, and down to a pannier in the corner of the picture, which contains her needle-work attached to a cushion in the Spanish fashion. At her feet a small dog is seated, of the Mexican race, which appears alive. Saint Joseph is painted in shadow, and forms the second plan of the picture. Behind him are suspended some of the implements of his humble trade.

The fame of MURILLO out of his native country, has risen within these last ten or fifteen years to the highest rank, and his historical pictures are now classed with those of the greatest masters of the Italian school: as a colorist he is admitted to stand without a rival. This sudden extension of his merits is in some degree owing to the cheap acquisition of eight of his finest works by Marshal SOULT, when he was NAPOLEON'S governor of Andalusia. These pictures have been seen and admired by all the world in Paris. Two of them, the Return of the Prodigal Son, and Abraham Receiving the Angels, have passed from the gallery of the illustrious Marshal to that of the Duke of Sutherland, for a _consideration_. The fine collection of pictures of the Spanish schools, purchased by Baron Taylor for LOUIS PHILIPPE, and now exhibited in the LOUVRE, has contributed to the same effect. It contains MURILLO'S Virgin de la Faxa, a perfect master-piece of coloring, which cost one hundred and thirty thousand francs.

None of his great compositions are taken from profane history or mythology. He was in a manner interdicted from using subjects derived from those copious sources, by a decree of the Holy Inquisition of Andalusia, which prohibited painters and sculptors, under the penalties of fine and excommunication, from displaying in their works any lascivious or naked images. His landscapes and flower-girls are painted in the highest style of beauty; and his beggars have never been excelled in all the loathsome attributes of misery and disease. The fact of his never having been out of his native country, disposed critics to believe that his works must be deficient in that highest order of merit which exclusively belongs to the classic schools of Italy: they would not admit that species of excellence which knew how to adapt the highest subjects of art to the unlearned. Yet such was MURILLO'S influence over the human heart, that his genius enabled him to embellish truth, and to present it with all its graces and attractions to the understandings of all those who are endowed with an innate love of the beautiful. His pictures, like Gray's Elegy in a Country Church-yard, may with equal truth be said 'to abound in images which find a mirror in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo.'

It is true that there is nothing academic to be found in his groups; no mysterious allegory; no theatrical display of the passions; very little of what is more talked of than understood, the beau-ideal. Nevertheless, he is always original, and never vulgar; his drawing is nearly faultless; his compositions are instantly felt and understood by all who have read the Scriptures, because they convey to the mind more of the evangelical character and attributes of Christianity than those of any other painter. On this subject some very characteristic remarks are made by the late Sir David Wilkie, in his letters from Jerusalem.[2]

[2] SEE letter to WILLIAM COLLINS, ESQ., Vol. 3., p. 424: ALLEN
CUNNINGHAM'S Life of Sir DAVID WILKIE.

'His Madonnas, his saints, and even his Saviours, have the Spanish cast; all his figures are probably portraits, and all his forms have a national peculiarity of air, habit, and countenance; and although he often adopts a beautiful expression of nature, there is generally a peasant-like simplicity in his ideas. He gives occasional instances of great sublimity of expression, but it is a sublimity which neither forces nor enlarges nature: truth and simplicity are never out of sight. It is what the painter sees, not what he conceives, which is presented to you. Herein he is distinguished from his preceptor VELASQUEZ. That great master, by his courtly habits of intercourse, contracted a more proud and swelling character, to which the simple and chaste pencil of MURILLO never sought to aspire. A plain and pensive cast, sweetly attempered by humility and benevolence, marks his canvass; and on other occasions, where he is necessarily impassioned or inflamed, it is the zeal of devotion, the influx of pious inspiration, and never the guilty passions which he exhibits. In short, from what he sees, he separates from what he feels, and has within himself the counter-types of almost every object he describes.'

If it be true, (says his biographer, BERMUDEZ,) that painters put their own portraits in their works, that is to say, that they exhibit their own genius, their propensities, affections, and the dispositions of their minds in them, the pictures of MURILLO bear a great analogy to his virtues, and the gentleness of his character. He was distinguished above all others of his profession by the mildness with which he instructed his pupils; by the urbanity with which he treated his rivals; by the humility with which he excused himself from becoming the painter of the Camara to CHARLES the Second, which was offered to him by the court; and for the charity with which he distributed the most liberal alms to the poor, who afterward deplored his death. But those who were most affected by it were his beloved scholars, who, overwhelmed with grief and anguish, could find no consolation for the loss of a father who loved them most dearly; of a master who instructed them with the utmost kindness, and of a protector who encouraged them by giving to each such portions of employment as enabled them to maintain themselves. This affectionate tribute to the character of MURILLO, must recall to the minds of our readers that beautiful passage in the letter of BALDASSARE CASTÍGLIONE to his brother, which is said to express the feelings of all the artists in Rome upon the death of his friend RAPHAEL: 'Ma non mi pare esser a Roma, perchè non vi è piu il mio poveretto RAFFAELLO.'

MURILLO was born at Magdalena, near Seville, on the first day of January, 1618, and died on the third of April, 1682. He was buried in the church of Santa Cruz at Seville. The immediate cause of his death, although he had long been worn out by the anguish of his infirmities, was a fall from a scaffold while he was painting the Marriage of Saint Catharine for the Convent of Capuchins at Cadiz. Notwithstanding the many pictures which he painted, he died possessed of only a few rials, and some property which he had acquired by his wife.

GOSSIP WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.--We would respectfully ask the reader's attention to the advertisement of the '_Knickerbocker Library_,' on the second page of the cover of the present number. 'Our best exertions shall not be wanting' to make the series all that the publishers hope for it. That the _matériel_ is good, our readers, we think, need not be informed. The plan has been cordially welcomed by the press, with a single exception; and in that, the _quo animo_ was so apparent as to neutralize the slur intended by the writer. We shall be enabled to secure the earliest literary rarities on both sides of the water for the 'Knickerbocker Library,' and the style in which they will be presented will be unsurpassed. · · · WE lament in the recent death of WILLIS GAYLORD, the loss of a beloved relative, who was our elder companion in childhood and youth, and our faithful friend and correspondent, to the close of his useful and honored life. Mr. GAYLORD died at his beautiful residence of Limerock Farm, Onondaga county, on the 27th ultimo, after a brief illness. 'Few men,' says the _Albany Argus_, 'were better known throughout the agricultural community than Mr. GAYLORD. He was for many years one of the editors of 'The Genesee Farmer,' and since the death of Judge Buel, has been the senior editor of 'The Cultivator.' As an agricultural writer, it is not too much to say, that his equal is not left to mourn his loss. He was also favorably known by his contributions to our literary and scientific journals. He was distinguished as a warm-hearted philanthropist, and few men have more largely benefitted the community by their labors. His social virtues endeared him warmly to all by whom he was known. In the pathetic language of one by whom the intelligence of his death is communicated, he was truly 'the friend of the farmer--the friend of humanity.' We have the proceedings of a meeting of the New-York Agricultural Society, held in the State-House at Albany, on receiving the intelligence of the death of Mr. GAYLORD. The President, JOHN P. BEEKMAN, Esq., of Columbia county, passed a high and deserved eulogium upon the character of the deceased. 'The judgment of every intelligent farmer in the State,' he observed, 'will respond to the assertion that to no man whatever, excepting perhaps Judge BUEL, is the agriculture of the State more indebted than to Mr. GAYLORD. For myself, I can declare in all sincerity that there is no man whose writings caused within me a greater desire to be honored with a personal acquaintance. The character of WILLIS GAYLORD was in all respects what might be expected from his writings; benevolent, enlightened, elevated; yet plain, practical, unassuming. Every day of his useful life was marked, not merely by the exercise of his versatile talents on the multifarious subjects embraced by agriculture and the domestic arts, but by the acquisition and promulgation of knowledge in the wide range of science.' He was cordially esteemed by all who knew him; he had not an enemy in the world. Hon. CALVIN HUBBARD, of the Legislature, offered resolutions in testimony of the deep regret which the death of Mr. GAYLORD had created in the public mind, copies of which were ordered to be transmitted to the relatives of the deceased; after which, as a token of respect to his memory, the meeting was adjourned. 'A scholar, a gentleman, a christian, a friend of man, Mr. GAYLORD lived universally beloved, and died universally lamented.' · · · IT has been assumed lately by certain of the political and financial enemies of the late NICHOLAS BIDDLE, Esq.,--an accomplished gentleman and scholar, whose pen has often entertained and instructed the readers of this Magazine--that he had little power of style, and that his intellectual rôle was a limited one. Nothing could be farther from the truth. That point however we are not now to discuss. We merely wish to ask the reader's attention to the subjoined remarks of Mr. BIDDLE upon the besetting sin of our American style, oral as well as written: 'A crude abundance is the disease of our American style. On the commonest topic of business, a speech swells into a declamation--an official statement grows to a dissertation. A discourse about anything must contain every thing. We will take nothing for granted. We must commence at the very commencement. An ejectment for ten acres reproduces the whole discovery of America; a discussion about a tariff or a turnpike, summons from their remotest caves the adverse blasts of windy rhetoric; and on those great Serbonian bogs, known in political geography as constitutional questions, our ambitious fluency often begins with the general deluge, and ends with its own. It is thus that even the good sense and reason of some become wearisome, while the undisciplined fancy of others wanders into all the extravagances and the gaudy phraseology which distinguish our western orientalism.' A specimen of this 'orientalism' we gave in our last number. Here is another example of a somewhat kindred character. A western orator recently delivered himself of it from the summit of a sugar-maple stump at a political barbacue:

'Whar, I say _whar_, is the individual who would give up the first
foot, the first outside shadow of a foot of the great Oregon!
There aint no such individual. Talk about treaty occupations to a
country over which the great American eagle has flew! I scorn
treaty occupation; d--n treaty occupation! Who wants a parcel of
low-flung, 'outside barbarians,' to go in cahoot with us, and
share alike a piece of land that always was and always will be
ours? Nobody. Some people talk as though they were afeard of
England. _Who's_ afeard? Haven't we licked her twice, and can't we
lick her again? Lick her! Yes! just as easy as a bear can slip
down a fresh-peeled sapling! Some skeery folks talk about the navy
of England; but who the h-ll cares for the navy? Others say that
she is the _mistress_ of the ocean. Supposin' she is? aint we the
_masters_ of it? Can't we cut a canal from the Mississippi to the
Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, turn all the water into it, and dry up
the d----d ocean in three weeks? Whar then would be the navy? It
would be _no whar_! There never would _have been_ any Atlantic
ocean if it hadn't been for the Mississippi, nor never will be,
after we've turned the waters of that big drink into the Mammoth
Cave! When that's done, you'll see all their steam-ships and their
sail-ships they splurge so much about, lying high and dry,
floundering like so many turtles left ashore at low tide. That's
the way we'll fix 'em. _Who's afeard!_'

* * * * *

WE have often thought, that if the various _similes_ employed in the Scriptures were thoroughly understood, that their appositeness and beauty would be themes of increased admiration. Observe how the latent meanings of the following passage reveal themselves to the heart:

THE REFINER.

BY MONTGOMERY.

'HE is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap. And
he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he
shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and
silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in
righteousness.'--MALACHI iii. 2, 3.