Chapter M: E. H (3)

THE '_Tribune_' daily journal finds the October number of the KNICKERBOCKER 'well filled with readable and pleasant papers, upon a gratifying variety of topics;' its 'Literary Notices extended and interesting;' and 'its Editor's Table admirably filled, as usual, with whatever is light, graceful, and pleasing.' We hold ourselves bound to be duly grateful for praise so much beyond our deserts; but we cannot permit the young associate-editor of that print, howsoever prompted, to misrepresent us, as he has done, in the notice from which we derive the encomiastic tributes we have quoted. We are accused of 'going out of our way' to attack the writings and the fame (Heaven save the mark!) of the author of '_Puffer Hopkins_;' and of being actuated in this by a spirit of malevolence and personal pique. We choose, for the nonce, to occupy space which we could much better employ, in opposing a _point-blank denial_ to this charge. Such a course is not the wont of the KNICKERBOCKER; a fact no better known to our readers themselves than to the absent senior editor of the 'Tribune,' with whom for ten years and upward we have walked hand-in-hand in the support and encouragement of such native literature as was worthy of the name. Were this Magazine accustomed to be swayed in its judgments by private pique, its adverse opinions would need no corrective; its 'sneers' would be impotent; its 'satire' unavailing. No; our sin consists in exposing, without fear, favor, or hope of reward, the literary pretensions of one who has no claim to be regarded as an 'American author;' who has foisted upon the community such works as we have elsewhere considered; and whose efforts to establish a literary reputation are of a kind to heighten rather than to lessen the effect of his uniform failures. We are gravely told, that this writer has 'just conceptions of what an American literature _ought_ to be; of _the mission_ of the American writer,' and so forth. We have had and have nothing to say of his 'conceptions' of what our literature should be, nor of his ideas of literary 'missions;' but we _have_ had something to say of his _performances_, and of the manner in which they have been presented to and received by the public; and for this reason, and this alone, are we accused of being actuated by private prejudice. But so it has always been. 'Tell these small-beer littérateurs,' says CHRISTOPHER NORTH, 'that they are calves, and sucking calves too, and they low against you with voices corroborative of the truth they deny.' We should like to know whether _all_ who hold our own opinions touching 'Puffer Hopkins' and the other 'writings' of its author are _also_ actuated by 'personal pique.' If so, there is a goodly number of us! ''Fore Heaven,' as DOGBERRY says, 'we are all in a case;' for we can truly say, that we never heard an individual speak of these productions, who did not agree with us _entirely_ in the estimate we had formed of them. 'Personal pique!' Was it this which led the kindly 'Boston Post' to pronounce 'Puffer Hopkins' 'about as flat an affair as it ever tried to wade through?' and the 'Poem on Man' a 'mere pile of words,' in which even poetical thoughts were 'completely spoiled by verbiage?' Was it this which prompted our own lively 'Mercury' to say that Mr. MATHEWS had 'no more humor than a crying crocodile,' and that his short-lived _Arcturus_ 'died of a lingering 'Puffer Hopkins?'' Was it this which caused a monthly metropolitan contemporary to declare, that his writings were 'characterized by an air of pretension, and an eternal succession of futile attempts at humor, which at once disposed the reader to dislike him and his works?' Was it 'malevolence' which prompted the publishers of 'Behemoth,' (over whom the writer had 'come the evil eye,') when they saw his proposals for a '_new_ edition,' to advertise _their's_--'four years old and complete'--at half the money? Was it 'personal pique' which caused the house whose name appears as publishers on the title-page of his last work, to complain that it had previously been used by him without their consent, and to object to its being again employed?--on the ground, too, that they did not desire their names to appear upon any of his productions? Was it 'malevolence' which suggested a new title-page, at the publisher's expense, from which their names might be omitted? As well might 'the disaffected' upon whom a humorous 'work' of the author had been inflicted abroad, be accused of acting from 'personal pique' in deciding that for them at least 'one such fun, it was enough!' ÆSOP is dead, but his frog is still extant; and if we were not at the end of our tether, we could 'illustrate this position' to the satisfaction of every body save Mr. MATHEWS himself. As it is, we take our leave of him, with no fear that he will write less creditably, and no hope that he will print less frequently, than heretofore; for such is his _cacoëthes scribendi_, that we verily believe he would be an author, if he were the only reader in the world. Indeed, we even hear of _another_ edition of his writings, 'at the risk of the owner,' to be sent forth from his stereotype-plates, by our friends the HARPERS! We had intended a word or two touching Mr. MATHEWS'S position in the 'Copy-right Club'--for we hear there are two sides to _that_ matter--but we wish well to a cause of which this Magazine was the earliest, and has been a constant advocate, and to Mr. MATHEWS'S efforts in it; and if he _is_ to prepare an address to the public, we earnestly hope that it may be clear, simple, and direct, as becomes the plain truths it should present; and that 'giants, elephants, '_tiger-mothers_,' and curricles, angels, frigates, baronial castles, and fish-ponds,' will be carefully excluded from its arguments and its expostulations. By the by: this reminds us that we have an error to correct, alike unintentional and immaterial. It was at the Society Library, _not_ the Tabernacle, that Mr. MATHEWS'S great lecture on copy-right was delivered. On this point, the following passage from an editorial paragraph in the 'New World' may be deemed pertinent by many readers, and _impertinent_, perhaps, by one or two: 'The 'Tribune' accuses the KNICKERBOCKER of mistaking the Tabernacle for the Society Library, as the place where Mr. MATHEWS delivered his lecture on copy-right to a beggarly account of empty benches, last winter, after placarding the town with the fact that 'the author of '_Puffer Hopkins_' was to be heard and seen at that place. But is the _fact_ altered by this trifling error? Was there not a 'capacious edifice' almost empty, and tickets numbered as high as twelve hundred, and not fifty persons in the room?--and half of those 'dead heads?'--as dead as the lecturer's? If _this_ is denied, it can easily be _proved_.' * * * WE are obliged for the kind wishes and intentions of our friend and correspondent 'F.;' but he must allow us to say, that his '_Sketch of Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell_' embodies many anecdotes of that learned and eccentric person, which are already familiar to the public. The story of the semi-black man is 'as old as the hills.' The following, however, which we segregate, is quite new, at least to us: 'JARVIS, celebrated no less as an artist than as a pleasant social companion, walking one sultry summer morning with a friend down Murray-street, encountered the Doctor, with a pound of fresh butter upon a cabbage-leaf. 'I'll lay you a small wager,' said he to his companion, 'that I'll cross over on the sunny side, and engage the doctor in conversation, until his butter has melted completely away!' No sooner said than done. JARVIS entertained him with _inquiries_ upon abstruse themes, which Dr. MITCHELL took great delight in answering in detail, as well as the objections which JARVIS occasionally urged against the correctness of his conclusions. Meanwhile, the butter dripped slowly away upon the walk, until it was utterly wasted. The waggish painter then took leave of the Doctor, who now for the first time glanced at his cabbage-leaf, exclaiming: 'You've almost made me forget my errand, JARVIS; I started to get some fresh butter from WASHINGTON-market!' * * * WE shall venture to hope that in declining the '_Stanzas to my Boy in Heaven_' we shall give no pain to the bereaved author. The _feeling_ of the lines is itself eloquent poetry; but their _execution_ is in certain portions marked by deficiences in rythm and melody. Will the writer permit another to express for her the very emotions which she evidently depicts with her 'heart swelling continually to her eyes?'

'THE nursery shows thy pictured wall.
Thy bat, thy bow,
Thy cloak and bonnet, club and ball;
But where art thou?
A corner holds thy empty chair.
Thy playthings idly scattered there
But speak to us of our despair.

'Even to the last thy every word,
To glad, to grieve,
Was sweet as sweetest song of bird
On summer's eve;
In outward beauty undecayed.
Death o'er thy spirit cast no shade.
And like the rainbow thou didst fade.

'We mourn for thee, when blind blank night
The chamber fills;
We pine for thee, when morn's first light
Reddens the hills:
The sun, the moon, the stars, the sea,
All, to the wall-flower and wild pea,
Are changed--we saw the world through thee!

'And though, perchance, a smile may gleam
Of casual mirth,
It doth not own, whate'er may seem.
An inward birth;
We miss thy small step on the stair;
We miss thee at thine evening prayer;
All day we miss thee, every where.

'Yet 'tis sweet balm to our despair.
Fond, fairest boy!
That heaven is GOD'S, and thou art there.
With Him in joy;
There past are death and all its woes;
There beauty's stream for ever flows;
And pleasure's day no sunset knows.

'Farewell, then--for a while farewell--
Pride of my heart!
It cannot be that long we dwell,
Thus torn apart;
Time's shadows like the shuttle flee;
And, dark howe'er life's night may be,
Beyond the grave I'll meet with thee.'

THE '_Lines to Niagara Falls_' are very far from being worth double-postage from Buffalo. They are termed '_descriptive_;' but they afford about as much of an idea of the Great Cataract as the 'magnificent model' of the Falls which was 'got up at an enormous expense' at the American Museum last winter. _That_ was a sublime spectacle! We saw it, it is true, under very favorable circumstances. The whole hogshead of water had just been 'let on,' and the wheezing machine that represented the 'sound of many waters' was in excellent wind. Indeed, so abundant was the supply of cataract, (as we were afterward informed,) that a portion of the American fall, to the amount of several quarts, leaked down into the barber's-shop below. A lisping young lady present was quite carried away with the exhibition. Some one inquired if she had ever seen 'the _real_ falls, the great original?' She had not, she said, 'but she _had heard them very highly thpoken of_!' They _are_ clever, certainly; and if their real friends would occasionally 'say a good word for them,' they would doubtless soon become very 'popular!' * * * WE were struck (and so we recorded it at the time) with the felicitous remarks of Mr. Consul GRATTAN, on 'Saint PATRICK'S Day in the' evening. He said he could not help wondering sometimes how the dear old country looked in her new temperance dress; remembering as he did how becoming to her was the flush of conviviality and good fellowship. 'When I picture to myself,' said he, 'the Irishman of the present day seeking for his inspiration at the handle of a pump, I cannot help thinking of the Irishman I once knew, who couldn't bear cold water at all, unless the half of it was whisky; without which they considered it as a very depreciated currency; a sort of liquid _skin-plaster_, in comparison with the healthful circulating medium of grog and punch.' This is both lively and witty; and we do not wish to derogate from either quality; but if the reader will permit us, we will ask him to glance at the following passage from CHARLES LAMB'S '_Confessions of a Drunkard_:'

'THE waters have gone over me. But out of the black depths,
could I be heard, I would cry out to all those who have but set
a foot in the perilous flood. Could the youth to whom the flavor
of his first wine is delicious as the opening scenes of life,
or the entering upon some newly-discovered paradise, look into
my desolation, and be made to understand what a dreary thing it
is when a man shall feel himself going down a precipice with
open eyes and a passive will; to see his destruction, and have
no power to stop it, and yet to feel it all the way emanating
from himself; to perceive all goodness emptied out of him, and
yet not be able to forget a time when it was otherwise; to bear
about the piteous spectacle of his own self-ruin; could he
see my fevered eye, feverish with last night's drinking, and
feverishly looking for this night's repetition of the folly;
could he feel the body of the death out of which I cry hourly
with feebler and feebler outcry to be delivered; it were enough
to make him dash the sparkling beverage to the earth in all the
pride of its mantling temptation; to make him clasp his teeth,

----'and not undo 'em
To suffer WET DAMNATION to run through 'em.'

'Oh! if a wish could transport me back to those days of youth,
when a draught from the next clear spring could slake the heats
which summer suns and youthful exercise had power to stir up in
the blood, how gladly would I return to thee, pure element, the
drink of children, and of child-like holy hermit! In my dreams I
can sometimes fancy thy cool refreshment purling over my burning
tongue. But my waking stomach rejects it. That which refreshes
innocence, only makes me sick and faint.'

How many thousands in Great Britain, whose experience is here described as with a pencil of light, has FATHER MATTHEW rescued from 'slippery places,' and placed once more within the charmed circle of sobriety and virtue! * * * THE grammatical blunder recorded by 'S. T.,' and 'suggested by the sixth _claw_ of the constitution,' reminds us of a clever anecdote which we derive from Mr. ROBERT TYLER. The old negro who receives and ushers visitors at the President's mansion is always very precise in his announcements. On one occasion a gentleman named FOOT, with a daughter on each arm, was shown into the drawing-room with this introduction: 'Mr. FOOT and _the two Miss Feet_!" * * * 'CRY you mercy!' gentlemen of the long robe and of the bar; we have neither 'abused the law' nor yet 'the lawyers,' though by your wincing you would seem to say so; at least some score of law-students would, if we may judge from the communications which have thickened upon us since our last. Saving the sordid and obscure tricksters of abused law; such, for example, as may be seen any day in the week, holding their sanhedrim of babble around or within the miscalled 'Halls of Justice;' and the undignified personal bickerings of the members of the bar; nothing of a _local_ character, in a legal point of view, deserves the whip and the branding-iron. The latter matter, too, is generally understood, we believe, by the public. A pair of lawyers, like a pair of legs, may thoroughly bespatter each other, and yet remain the best of friends and brothers. Our allusion to courts implied no reflection upon _Judges_. We hold in proper respect and reverence these sacred depositories of the people's rights. 'The criminal, and the judge who is to award his punishment, form a solemn sight. They are both men; both the 'children of an Universal FATHER, and sons of immortality;' the one so sunken in his state as to be disowned by man; the other as far removed by excellence from the majority of mankind.' _No_ function can be more honorable, more sacred, or more beneficial, than that of an upright judge. With his own passions and prejudices subdued; attentive to the principles of justice by which alone the happiness of the world can be promoted, and by the rectitude of his decisions affording precedent and example to future generations; he presents a character that must command the reverence and love of the human race. * * * THE 'London Charivarri,' or 'Punch,' maintains its repute--for which it is partly indebted to the high indorsement of the 'Quarterly Review,' 'Examiner,' 'Spectator,' etc.,--undiminished. It really _overflows_ with genuine humor, not unmixed, certainly, with many failures. We condense from it a few items of metropolitan intelligence, commencing with an office-seeker's 'begging letter' to Lord LYNDHURST: 'MY LORD: I am an Irishman, in the direst distress. To say that I am an Irishman, is I know a passport to the innermost recesses of your soul. I want something of about three hundred pounds per annum; I will not refuse four hundred. At present, however, I am destitute, and terribly out of sorts. You will have some idea of my condition, when I tell you that I have not tasted food these six weeks, and that I am so disastrously off for clothing, that the elbows of my shirt are hanging out of the knees of my breeches! P. S. Don't mind the hole in the bearer's trowsers; he is trustworthy.' To this missive the 'noble lord' replied: 'SIR: That you are an Irishman, is a sufficient passport to my fire-side, my purse, my heart. Come; never mind the shirt. With or without that conventional ornament, you will be equally well received by your devoted LYNDHURST.' The writer 'went very often to the house of his lordship, but as often as he went, just so often was his lordship not at home!' Curious, wasn't it? The plan of the '_Joke Loan Society_' reminds us of SANDERSON'S joke-company for the _Opera-Comique_ in Paris, several members of which, with due economy, managed to live for an entire quarter upon the 'eighth of a joke' which they had furnished to the management! 'The object of the institution is, to supply those with jokes who may be temporarily distressed for the want of them. The directors invite the attention of barristers to a very extensive stock of legal jokes, applicable to every occasion. The society has also purchased the entire stock of a retired punster, at a rate so low that the jokes--among which are a few that have never been used--can be let out on very moderate terms. Damaged jokes repaired, and old ones taken in exchange. Dramatic authors supplied on easy terms, and a liberal allowance on taking a quantity. Puns prepared at an hour's notice for large or small parties!' Under the 'Infantry Intelligence' head we find the following: 'The Twelfth Light Pop-guns acquitted themselves very creditably, and discharged several rounds of pellets with great effect and precision. The First Life Squirts also highly distinguished themselves, and kept up a smart fire of ditch-water for upward of a quarter of an hour; and the Hop-Scotch Grays went through their evolutions in admirable order.' A 'commercial problem' must close our excerpts: 'How can a junior partner be taken into a house over the senior partner's head? By the senior partner sitting in the shop, and the junior partner being taken in at the first-floor window!' * * * THE eulogy entitled '_Mr. Webster's Noble Speech at Rochester_' is from the pen of an Englishman, or we have for the first time in our life mistaken the 'hand-write' of JOHN BULL, Esq. The _spirit_ of the paper is not in the main unjust to this country; yet it touches with severity upon those culprit States of our Republic, that abroad are considered remarkable for their 'swaggering beginnings that could not be carried through; grand enterprises begun dashingly, and ending in shabby compromises or downright ruin;' and for their treasuries, filled with evidences of 'futile expectations, fatal deficit, wind, and debts.' Cruel words, certes; but are they wholly groundless? 'Guess not!' But Sir Englishman, pr'ithee, don't despond--don't be scared! Look at the progress of our western States, as evinced in the growth of their towns. Louisville, in three years, has gained eight thousand additional inhabitants; Saint Louis twelve thousand; Pittsburgh nearly the same amount; Cincinnati has erected within that period nearly three thousand houses, and gained seventeen thousand inhabitants. Four western cities have added to them nearly fifty thousand inhabitants in three years; and the adjacent country has kept pace with the towns. And the like progress is visible elsewhere. Truly, this _is_ 'a great country!'

----'WHO shall place
A limit to the giant's unchained strength.
Or curb his swiftness in the forward race?
Far, like the comet's way through infinite space,
Stretches the long untravelled path of light
Into the depths of ages: we may trace.
Distant, the brightening glory of its flight
Till the receding rays are lost to human sight.

* * * * *

----'seas and stormy air
Are the wide barrier of thy borders, where,
Among thy gallant sons that guard thee well,
Thou laugh'st at enemies; who shall then declare
The date of thy deep-founded strength, or tell
How happy, in thy lap, the sons of men shall dwell?'

We sometimes wish that we had been born fifty years later than it pleased Providence to send us into the world, that we might behold the ever-increasing glory of our native land. * * * The reader will be struck, we think, with the paper upon '_Mind in Animals_,' elsewhere in the present number. The writer 'has firm faith in every conclusion he has drawn. He has considered the ultimate tendencies of his doctrine in many different points; and the result is, an additional confidence in the correctness of his conviction, that one principle of intelligence is bestowed upon all created beings; modified, like their physical structure, to adapt them to different spheres.' Time is an abstract term; and as touching the faculty of abstraction in animals, the writer has a curious calendar which he kept of the time of the crowing of the roosters in his neighborhood. Having observed that they gave their midnight signal at about the same hour for several nights in succession, the following record was preserved:

AUG. 30, 11.25 P. M. Pleasant.

" 31, 11.22 " "

SEPT. 1, 11. 7½ " Cloudy.

" 3, 11.27 " Pleasant.

" 4, 12.24 " Moonlight.

" 6, 11.30 " Rainy.

" 7, 11.29 " Cloudy.

" 9, 11.20 " Moonlight.

As a new style of _crow-nometer_, this is a curiosity; but we cannot perceive that it proves any thing very conclusively. If it were in our power, however, to watch the operations of animals as carefully as our own, one could very soon place the whole question above controversy. * * * THACKERAY, the exceedingly entertaining author of '_The Yellowplush Correspondence_,' has in a late number of 'FRAZER'S Magazine' some judicious advice in relation to the _modus operandi_ of novel-reading. 'Always look,' says he, 'at the end of a romance to see what becomes of the personages before you venture upon the whole work, and become interested in the characters described in it. Why interest one's self in a personage whom one knows must at the end of the second volume die a miserable death? What is the use of making one's self unhappy needlessly, watching the symptoms of LEONORA, pale, pious, pulmonary, and crossed in love, as they manifest themselves, or tracing ANTONIO to his inevitable assassination? No: it is much better to look at the end of a novel; and when I read: 'There is a fresh green mound in the church-yard of B----, and a humble stone, on which is inscribed the name of ANNA-MARIA,' or a sentence to that effect, I shut the book at once, declining to agitate my feelings needlessly. If you had the gift of prophecy, and people proposed to introduce you to a man who you knew would borrow money of you, or would be inevitably hanged, or would subject you to some other annoyance, would you not decline the proposed introduction? So with novels. The book of fate of the heroes and heroines is to be found at the end of the second volume: one has but to turn to it to know whether one shall make their acquaintance or not. I heartily pardon the man who brought CORDELIA to life. I would have the stomach-pump brought for ROMEO at the fifth act; for Mrs. MACBETH I am not in the least sorry; but as for the General, I would have him destroy that swaggering MACDUFF, or if not, cut him in pieces, disarm him, pink him, certainly; and then I would have Mrs. MACDUFF and all her little ones come in from the slips, stating that the account of their murder was a shameful fabrication of the newspapers, and that they were all of them perfectly well and hearty.' * * * IT has pleased some late English writer to laud the conduct of Sir HUDSON LOWE, at Saint Helena, while NAPOLEON was under his 'treatment,' and as BYRON says, 'stood unbowed beneath the ills upon him piled.' The least said on _that_ point, the better. 'He was England's greatest enemy, and _mine_, but I forgive him!' said that notorious military martinet, when informed that his renowned captive was no more. This is rather rich; and almost justifies the remark of NAPOLEON, in exhibiting to an English visitor, in a copy of ÆSOP'S Fables (which Sir HUDSON had sent him, among other English books) the fable of the sick lion, which, after submitting with fortitude to the insults of the many animals who came to exult over his fallen greatness, at length received a kick in the face from an ass. 'I could have borne every thing but this!' said NAPOLEON; and pointing to the wood-cut, he added: 'It is me and your governor!' A friend of ours once informed us, that at a _table d'hôte_ at which he was seated in a German inn, soon after BONAPARTE'S death, Sir HUDSON LOWE was announced; when nearly every person arose from the table, and 'left him alone in his glory.' * * * IT is somewhat remarkable that so little attention is paid to the _clearness_ of expression. Every body remembers the geographer who, in describing ancient Albany, represented it as having 'two thousand houses, and ten thousand inhabitants, _all standing with their gable-ends to the street_!' A similar error was made not long since by a western journalist, who in publishing a clever poem, remarked that it 'was written by an esteemed friend, who had lain in the grave many years, _merely for his own amusement_!' A scarcely less ludicrous _misstatement_ occurred very lately in one of our popular daily journals. In describing the explosion of a brig, near the Narrows, and certain accidents which resulted from the disaster, the editor, among other items, had the ensuing: 'The only passengers were T. B. NATHAN, who owned three thousand dollars' worth of the cargo, _and the captain's wife_!' * * * BRYANT, our most eminent American poet, has entirely 'satisfied the sentiment' of our correspondent 'SENEX'S' stanzas on '_Old Age_,' in his fine lines commencing, 'Lament who will, with fruitless tears,' etc. A modern English poet, too, has recently reëxhausted the theme, in an extended string of six-line verses, from which the subjoined are derived:

'To dark oblivion I bequeath
The ruddy cheek, brown hair, white teeth,
And eyes that brightly twinkle;
Crow's feet may plough with furrows deep
My features, if I can but keep
My heart without a wrinkle.

'A youthful cheer sustains us old.
As arrows best their course uphold
Winged by a lightsome feather
Happy the young old man who thus
Bears, like a human arbutus,
Life's flowers and fruit together.'

* * * * *

WE should be bound to dissent from the conclusions of 'T. R.' on the Hudson, were we to give his paper a place (which we _shall_ do, with his permission,) in the KNICKERBOCKER. His _pecuniary_ conclusions are right, no doubt; but his _natural_ deductions are, in our poor judgment, decidedly wrong. 'Oh! mad world!' exclaims one who knows it well; 'oh! incomprehensible, blind world! Look at the rich! In what are they happy? In what do they excel the poor? Not in their greater store of wealth, which is but a source of vice, disease, and death; but in a little superiority of knowledge; a trifling advance toward truth.' * * * WE do not know who drew the following 'picture in little' of fashion's changes, (changes alike of person and apparel,) but to our mind it has the 'veritable touch and tint:' 'There is something awful in the bed-room of a respectable old couple, of sixty-five. Think of the old feathers, turbans, bugles, petticoats, pomatum-pots, spencers, white satin shoes, false fronts, the old flaccid, boneless stays, tied up in faded riband, the dusky fans, the forty-years' old baby-linen; FREDERICK'S first little breeches, and a newspaper containing the account of his distinguishing himself in the field; all these lie somewhere damp and squeezed down into glum old presses and wardrobes.' * * * WE have observed going the rounds of the press a paragraph which speaks of 'excitements' of all kinds as prejudicial to longevity; and citing, among other examples, the constant whirl of the stage, as a reason why theatrical persons are generally so short-lived. But the _premises_ in this particular instance are _wrong_. As a class, actors attain to more than common longevity. Call to mind those who in our own era have nourished in England and in this country, in proof of the correctness of this position. And it was thus in a previous age. Look at MACKLIN. He performed the part of 'Sir Pertinax MacSychophant' in his own Comedy of 'The Man of the World,' consisting of thirty-six 'lengths' or nearly sixteen hundred lines, including 'cues,' with a vigor and spirit that astonished every beholder, when he was in his one hundredth year! How old was GARRICK when he was seen for the last time as Macbeth, marching at the head of his troops (in a modern court-suit, and a well-powdered peruke!) across the blasted heath? We do not exactly remember his age, but he was 'no chicken.' * * * THERE is great beauty as well as truth in the annexed brief synopsis of the characteristics of the author of 'The Spectator.' ADDISON, says the writer, seemed at the same moment to be taken by the hand by Pathos and by Wit, while Fiction enrobed him with her own beautiful garments which Truth confined with her cestus, and Imagination put her crown upon his head, and Religion and all her band of Virtues beckoned him along the path to immortality, both in the life of the genius and the life of the soul. All the lineaments of beauty wake into splendor in his prose. It is in his essays that his muse beams out upon the reader, and calls forth all the sleeping wonders of her face. His true tragic energy is exhibited in his earnest panegyric of virtue; his true comedy is contained in the history of Sir ROGER DE COVERLY, and his true fancy in the 'VISION OF MIRZA.' He was an essayist, a tale-writer, a traveller, a critic. He touched every subject, and adorned every subject that he touched.' Do we seek for the opinions of a man of letters upon the aspect and the antiquities of the most famous country in Europe? We have his 'Remarks on Italy.' Are we fond of examining the aids which history derives from some of the obscurer stores of antiquity? We can turn to his 'Dialogues on Medals.' Are we charmed with the stateliness of Eastern fiction and the melancholy grandeur of Eastern allegory? We find it in all the allegories and visions of this charming writer. Or do we seek to be withdrawn from the cares of our maturer life into the thoughtless sports and pleasures of our youth? Who so good a guide as ADDISON, in those papers which unlock all the gentler and purer emotions of the heart? * * * AMONG the pleasant papers of the late ROBERT C. SANDS, which we intended to have included in our late series of his 'Early and Unpublished Writings,' was the following extract from a burlesque imitation of the literary-antiquarian 'researches,' so common some years ago. The poem was 'edited' by a celebrated cook in London, and was 'intituled '_Kynge Arthour, his Puden_.' It purported to have been derived from the MS. which 'contained the original Welsh, as well as the version.' It throws great light on the gastrology of the olden time:

'Ys KYNGE for Sonday mornenge bade
Hys cooke withoute delaie
To have a greate bagge-puden made,
For to dyne upon yt daie.

'Ye cooke yn tooke hys biggeste potte,
Yt 90 Hhds. helde,
And soon he made ye water hotte
Wyth which yt potte was fyllede.

'Hys knedynge-troughe was 50 yds
In lengthe, and 20 wide;
And 80 kytchen wenches stode
In ordere bye its side.

'Full 60 sakes of wheaten floure
They emptyed in a tryse,
And 15 Bbls. of melases,
& 7 casks of Ryse!'

This really seems somewhat common-place, just at this period; but twenty-five years ago it was a 'gem of one of the old English school of metrical writers!' * * * WITH perhaps as strong sympathies in behalf of the great philanthropic moments of the age as most of our readers possess, we are nevertheless sometimes inclined to wish that the liberal patrons of the great benevolent societies could now and then have a glance behind the curtains at the chief actors there. In many of these institutions true Christian principle is doubtless paramount, and the managers men of exalted piety and worth; but there are _others_ of them which, while the _names_ of good men are paraded upon the 'Boards' to inspire confidence, are really directed by a set of individuals who would have done honor to the Spanish Inquisition in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Some facts have recently come to our knowledge in regard to the doings of the directors of a _soi-disant_ charitable institution, which operates in this city and State for the ostensible benefit of a transatlantic colony, which, were they known to the public, as without doubt they soon will be, would pretty effectually set the seal of condemnation upon all their efforts toward collecting moneys from the benevolent, for many years to come. A friend and correspondent of ours, whose character stands above reproach, fell by chance into the hands of some half a dozen of these directors, who, among a body of thirty for the most part honorable men, usually form the quorums and do the business; and the treatment he received (these same half-a-dozen sheltering themselves the while under the sanctity of their religious body) would have disgraced a band of King PHILIP'S warriors in the old Pequot war. We are no Abolitionists, technically so called, as our readers well know; nor do we take sides with either of the two great societies whose professed object is the benefit of the colored race; so that we cannot be charged with speaking from prejudice. But we _do_ go for justice, for truth, for fair-dealing, and Christian principle; and when any body of men, whatever may be their standing or professions, outrage these; and worse than all, when they commit this outrage under the garb of pharisaical sanctity, we know of no reason why they should be screened from public rebuke. * * * SOME kind-hearted and affectionate female correspondent, an integral portion of the girlery of New-York, on the strength of some remarks in our last upon the universality of the tender passion, has sent us a love-tale, with this motto:

----'ALL things seem
So happy when they love; the gentle birds
Have far more gay a note when they unite
To build their simple nest; and when at length
The 'anxious mother' watches o'er her young.
Her mate is near, to recompense her care
With his sweet song.'

Our fair correspondent has exalted the attractions of her heroine 'to a degree,' as the English cockney novelists have it: 'Every look of her beaming eyes penetrated to the heart; every motion of her moist coral lips gave ecstasy; and every variation of her features discovered new and ineffable beauties!' Good 'eavens!--how 'THEODORE' _must_ have felt, as he 'gradually recovered from the hurt of his fall,' (_was_ his 'limb' amputated?) and found that angel 'lifting his head from his pillow, and touching his eye-lids with awakening light!' * * * THANKS to the kind '_Incognita_,' to whom we are indebted for a beautiful worsted butterfly, destined to a 'literaneous' sort of destiny! Verily, it is a beautiful fabric; so vivid and life-like in its brilliant colors, that it seems, while hanging by the thin ear of our iron gray-hound, as if about to rise and float a living blossom of the air. How deftly the Ettrick Shepherd ('the d--d HOGG!' as BALLANTYNE called him,) has limned its counterpart: 'Perhaps a bit bonny butterfly is resting wi' folded wings on a gowan, not a yard from your cheek; and now, awakening out of a summer-dream, floats away in its wavering beauty; but as if unwilling to leave the place of its mid-day sleep, comin' back and back, and round and round, on this side and that side, and settling in its capricious happiness to fasten again on some brighter floweret, till the same breath o' wind that lifts up your hair sae refreshingly catches the airy voyager, and wafts her away into some other nook of her ephemeral paradise!' Answer us, all ye that ever _saw_ a summer butterfly in the country, is not that a _perfect_ picture? * * * WE have a prospectus of a new series of the '_New Mirror_,' which can now be obtained in _complete_ sets, weekly, or in monthly parts, 'with four steel-plates, and sixty-four pages of reading matter.' When we add, that the MIRROR has many of its old corps of writers, with several new ones, and that General MORRIS and N. P. WILLIS are also diligently laboring at the oars, we have said all that is necessary, to indicate the claims of the work. Success to ye, gentlemen! By the by: the first number of the new series had a full-length portrait, by _the_ JOHNSTON, of the eminent and deeply-lamented painter-poet, WASHINGTON ALLSTON. If it is at all like the original, we can well believe the statement of an indignant writer in the 'Boston Post,' who avers that 'the engraving from BRACKETT'S beautiful bust of Mr. ALLSTON, in the last 'Democratic Review,' bears no resemblance whatever to the bust itself, and might as well be called a likeness of one of the numerous JOHN SMITHS, as a portrait of the great artist.' Speaking of likenesses: we would venture to ask, what is the thing at the end of the right arm of a figure in one of the Philadelphia 'pictorial' monthlys intended to represent? Is it a hand, (no, _that_ it isn't!) or the end of a tri-pronged beet or radish? It is 'a copy' from the end of _some_ diverse-forked vegetable, _that_ is quite clear. * * * IT is a very interesting work, the History of ELIZABETH of England, recently published by Messrs. LEA AND BLANCHARD, Philadelphia. Proud, powerful, and haughty as that imperial potentate finally became, her infancy was distinguished by the want of even comfortable clothing. An uncommon intellect she certainly possessed, and she had her wrongs, no doubt; but who can think of her without at once reverting to poor MARY of Scotland? After an imprisonment of nineteen years, that unhappy Queen was left alone, without counsel and without friends; betrayed by those in whom she had trusted, and confronted by the representatives of the power and majesty of England. 'But she evinced in the last sad scene of her mournful life the spirit of the daughter of a long line of kings, and exposed to the wondering world the spectacle of a helpless woman, enfeebled by long confinement, 'gray in her prime,' and broken down by sickness and sorrow, contending single-handed against the sovereign of a mighty realm, who sought her blood, and had predetermined her death.' * * * OUR entertaining correspondent, the '_American Antiquary_,' has given elsewhere some account of the stalwart citizens of a portion of New-Hampshire. They _are_ 'good men,' no doubt, and 'honest as the skin atween their brows;' but 'where two men ride a horse, one must go before.' Our friend should see a specimen or two of our western and southwestern noblemen of nature. We should like to place his hand in that of ALBERT PIKE, for example, the Arkansas poet, politician, and lawyer. His first impression would be, that in his BLACKWOOD 'Hymn to the Gods' he had been lauding his own kith and kin. We consider it a great pleasure to have encountered so fine an illustration of the '_mens sana incorpore sano_.' Having seen him once, one could not soon forget him. We should know him now, if we were to 'come across his hide in a tan-yard!' * * * OUR Salem (Mass.) friend, who complains that we 'are leagued with the Quakers against the memory of the pious Puritans,' is 'hereby respectfully invited to attend' to the following hit at old COTTON MATHER and his fellow-persecutors of that era, from the pen of a true 'Son of New-England:' 'We can laugh now at the Doctor and his demons: but little matter of laughter was it to the victims on Salem hill; to the prisoners in the jails; to poor GILES COREY, tortured with planks upon his breast, which forced the tongue from his mouth, and his life from his old palsied body; to bereaved and quaking families; to a whole community priest-ridden and spectre-smitten; gasping in the sick dream of a spiritual night-mare, and given over to believe a lie. We may laugh, for the grotesque is blended with the horrible, but we must also pity and shudder. GOD be thanked that the delusion has measurably vanished; and they who confronted that delusion in its own age, disenchanting with strong, clear sense, and sharp ridicule, their spell-bound generation, deserve high honors as the benefactors of their race. They were indeed branded through life as infidels and 'damnable Sadducees,' by a corrupt priesthood, who ministered to a credulity which could be so well turned to their advantage; but the truth which they uttered lived after them, and wrought out its appointed work, for it had a divine commission and GOD-speed.' * * * TO 'X. L.' of Hudson we say, 'By no means!' He is _another_ 'rusty, fusty, musty old bachelor,' who lacks that 'company' which Misery is said to love. 'If love,' he commences, 'were not _beneath_ a man, he couldn't '_fall_ into it,' as he is so often said to do. Borrowed, dear Sir, 'to begin with!' Learn wisdom of one of your aged fraternity, whom we have the pleasure to know, who was married within a twelvemonth, in the fiftieth year of his age. He has lately been heard to observe: 'If I had known as much about matrimony twelve years ago as I do now, I should just as lieve have been married then as not!' * * * WHEREVER you are, reader, if you have an opportunity to see MACREADY in BYRON'S 'Werner,' fail not to enjoy that rich intellectual repast. It is a matchless piece of acting. A friend of ours, whose experience in dramatic excellence embraces all the great standards usually referred to, tells us that EDMUND KEAN'S 'Othello,' JOHN KEMBLE'S 'Coriolanus,' TALMA'S 'Britanicus,' and MACREADY'S 'Werner,' in their several styles of merit, are the most admirable performances he ever beheld. * * * A CORRESPONDENT inquires if there is 'any more of such charming scenes' as the one we quoted from the '_Mysteries of Paris_,' in our last number. 'It was very beautiful,' she adds. Yes; there is an account of a joyous country excursion made by RODOLPHE and 'FLEUR-DE-MARIE' in the Autumn, from which we take a short passage:

'OH! I am very happy, it is such a long time since I have been
out of Paris! When I saw the country before, it was spring; but
now, although we are almost into winter, it gives me just as
much pleasure. What a fine sunny day! Only look at those little
rosy clouds, there--there! And that hill! with its pretty white
houses gleaming among the trees. How many leaves remain! It is
astonishing, in the month of November, is it not, Monsieur? But
in Paris the leaves fall so soon. * * * _And down there--that
flight of pigeons! Look! look! they are settling down on the
roof of the mill!_ In the country, one is never tired of
looking; every thing is attractive.'

'It is a pleasure, FLEUR-DE-MARIE,' said RODOLPHE, 'to see you
so delighted with these nothings which make the charm of the
country.' The young girl, contemplated the peaceful and smiling
landscape which was spread out before her, and once more her
face assumed its soft, pensive expression.'

'There!' she exclaimed; 'that fire from the stubble in those
fields; see how _the beautiful white smoke ascends to heaven_!
And this cart, with its two fat grays! If I were a man, how
I should love to be a farmer!--to be in the midst of a large
field, _following the plough, and seeing at a great distance
immense woods_. Just such a day as to-day, for instance! Enough
to make one sing songs, melancholy songs, to bring tears into
the eyes, like 'Genevieve de Brabant.'

There is in this artless description a fine love and perception of the beautiful in nature. * * * '_Absence of Mind_' is too _scrappy_. Its 'examples' seem collated from sundry files of old newspapers, of various dates. The man however who, in his hurry (at a late hour on a rainy day) to pay a note, took up in place of an umbrella an _old broom_, and rushed through Wall-street to the bank, with the besom over his head, reminds us of the 'absent' clergyman, who started one winter-Sunday for his church; and having nearly reached it, the wind blew his cloak open; upon which he turned about, that it might be blown close around him again: forgetting this fact, however, he continued to travel in the direction which he faced, until he arrived at his own door. Here he inquired for himself; and being told by a waggish servant that he was _not in_, he departed, with the remark that he should 'call again soon!' * * * '_The Exile's Song_,' in the present number, was enclosed in a letter from its author, A. M'CRAW, of Scotland, to the late lamented Dr. TIMOTHY UPHAM of Waterford, by whose wish it is now published. It was written in this country, several years since; and was occasioned by the statement that two persons had been found in a cave in a forest on the bank of the Kennebeck river, who had sought seclusion and safety in that wild retreat. Dr. UPHAM was a gentleman of a highly distinguished family in New-Hampshire, whose mind led him to appreciate talent whenever and wherever he encountered it. Scientific and literary honors were tendered him from high sources, previous to his demise; but it pleased GOD to summon him to that heaven which is constantly enriching itself with the spoils of earth:

'Quis desiderio sit pudor, aut modus
Tam cari capitis.'