of T. L.,' against which he had so forcibly but vainly protested, we 'respectfully declined' to continue the barren controversy. In this proper decision we were confirmed by the unanimous voice of the press, as well as by the verdict of a great majority of our other readers, including several of Mr. Lewis's personal friends. The 'Professor' asserts, in his last missive, or missile, that the upright and gentlemanly publisher' of this Magazine was in favor of admitting him again to its pages. We are authorized and requested by the publisher distinctly to state, and we do it in his precise words, that There is not only not one syllable of truth in this assertion, but there was never even a possibility of inferring that it could be true, from any thing that I have ever said.' And now, Good morning,' Mr. LEWIS! If you should ever come within ten miles of us, do us the favor to-stop!' PERHAPS there is not in the entire metropolis a more strikingly patriotic locale than the Washington Market. Even the condiments which abound in that vast repository of all that is rich and rare in the way of edibles, partake of this character. Did you ever partake, O tasteful town-reader! of 'Post and Lemon's Manhattan Fresh Milled Effulgent Horse-Radish Sauce?' — bearing' in all its ample folds' the star-spangled banner upon the bottle, and over it these spirit-stirring words: 'Rough and Ready' our motto; Our Country, Horse-Radish and Liberty! This patriotic sauce may be obtained in quantities at the Laboratory,' (!) Washington-Market. . . . MUCH obliged to our Virginia friend for his slab' of sweet-scented Cavendish; but it is quite thrown away upon us. We do not imbibe the weed' in that form. Except the little white paper-pellets of the brain,' which we propel about the editorial chair when very busy a-gossiping, we chew not; neither do we snuff; nor yet smoke, save once a year a long pipe, when we meet the Sons of Saint NICHOLAS' in council. But the flavor of mild cigars regaleth our nostrils, and we love to see our friends enjoy them, what time the sanctum becomes as murky as a smithy with the warm and odorous reek. Doubtless we had learned to affect smoking, but for the long dank American cigar, ('nine inches long and nine for a cent,') with which, when a lad, we took the initial of that soothing accomplishment. It made us deadly ill then; and ''t is ever thus since childhood's hour.' . . . HERE is a long-neglected election anecdote, which we received from an obliging correspondent down-east:' 'In the town of C there had never been a whig vote polled till the year 1838, when a solitary one was thrown for Ex-Governor K The selectmen having sorted and counted the votes for the democratic candidate, announced them as amounting to forty-three; when the moderator discovered the one that stood solitary and alone.' 'Hello! fellow-citizens,' he exclaimed, here's a fed'ral vote! Who, threw a fed’ral vote? Who threw this vote? Does any body father this vote?' There was no answer. Well, as nobody fathers this vote, we shall have to throw it out. Fortythree for P- fellow citizens, and none ag'in him!' He was a 'select' man! 'Honey! Our money, We find in the end Both relation and friend; "T is a help-mate for better for worse; Nor sister, nor brother, Nor dozens Of cousins, Nor uncle, nor aunt, When Fate looks a scaunt, Are like to a friend in the purse.' Very true; yet who envies those rich men whose lives are at a stand; whose meals are insipid, and whose time tedious? Their fortune has placed them above care, while their loss of taste has reduced them below diversion.' . . . THE narrative sketch entitled 'Some Passages in the Life of a Coquette' is instructive in incident, but its style is infelicitous. The whole history of the writer, supposing the record to be veritable, is illustrative of the truth of the warning given by old JOHN LILLY, in his 'Love's Metamorphoses: Let all ladies beware to offend those in spight that love them in honour; for when the crow shall set his foote in their eye, and the blacke oxe tread on their foote, they shall find their misfortunes to be equall with their deformities, and men both to loathe and laugh at them.' Coquettes! tremble fearfully hereat! A vermillion hint. Respect this.' . . . THERE is a bit of dry satire in this little episode in the weekly life of DICKEN'S Captain CUTTLE: 'On Sunday nights the captain always read for himself, before going to bed, a certain Divine Sermon once delivered on a Mount; and although he was accustomed to quote the text without book, after his own manner, he appeared to read it with as reverent an understanding of its heavenly spirit as if he had got it all by heart in Greek, and had been able to write any number of fierce theological disquisitions on its every phrase. . . . WE perceive by a paragraph in an Alabama newspaper that an officer of a volunteer corps was followed to New-Orleans by his young wife, who implored him to permit her to share the privations and perils which he would be called upon to endure. He might have addressed her in the language of the ballad of Fair ROSAMOND :' 'CONTENT thyself, my dearest love, In England's sweet and pleasant isle, Fair ladies brooke not bloudy warres; 'My ROSE shall safely here abide, With musicke passe the daye; My ROSE shall shine in pearle and golde We have borrowed a copy of LONGFELLOW's last work, ' Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie,' (our friends the publishers having quite forgotten us,) and have read it through. Let us say in brief, that the story is simple, poetical, and replete with charming natural pictures, as we hope to exemplify hereafter. But the hexameter stanza in which it is written seems to our ear and comprehension neither more nor less than a species of Ossianic prose, in inverted, transposed, but most carefully-measured sentences. 'We may be wrong, but that is our opinion;' and in justification of our impressions, we give below an extract or two, verbatim from the original, save in mere form: 'SWIFTLY they hurried away to the forge of BASIL the blacksmith. There at the door they stood with wondering eyes to behold him take in his leathern lap the hoof of the horse as a play thing, nailing the shoe in its place; while near him the tire of the cart-wheel lay like a fiery snake, coiled round in a circle of cinders. Oft on autumnal eves, when without in the gathering darkness bursting with light seemed the smithy, through every cranny and crevice, warm by the forge within they watched the laboring bellows, and as its panting ceased, and the sparks expired in the ashes, merrily laughed, and said they were nuns going into the chapel. Oft on sledges in winter, as swift as the swoop of the eagle, down the hill-side bounding, they glided away o'er the meadow. Oft in the barns they climbed to the populous nests on the rafters, seeking with eager eyes that wondrous stone, which the swallow brings from the shore of the sea to restore the sight of it fledglings; lucky was he whe found that stone in the nest of the swallow! 6 The incidental picture of BASIL's shop was not less felicitously given, we think, by Mr. LONGFELLOW in The Village Blacksmith,' written for these pages. We annex another passage, a scene in autumn; quaint, and full of natural description: 'DAY with its burden and heat had departed, and twilight descending brought back the evening star to the sky, and the herds to the homestead. Pawing the ground they came, and resting their necks on each other, and with their nostrils distended inhaling the freshness of evening. Foremost, bearing the bell, EVANGELINE's beautiful heifer, proud of her snow-white hide, and the ribbon that 72 VOL. XXX. waved from her collar, quietly paced and slow, as if conscious of human affection. Then came the shepherd back with his bleating flocks from the sea-side, where was their favorite pasture. Behind them followed the watch dog, patient, full of importance, and grand in the pride of his instinct, walk ing from side to side with a lordly air, and superbly waving his bushy tail, and urging forward the stragglers; regent of flocks was he when the shepherd slept; their protector, when from the forest at night, through the starry silence, the wolves howled. Late, with the rising moon, returned the wains from the marshes, laden with briny hay, that filled the air with its odor. Cheerily neighed the steeds, with dew on their manes and their fetlocks, while aloft on their shoulders the wooden and ponderous saddles, painted with brilliant dyes, and adorned with tassels of crimson, nodded in bright array, like hollyhocks heavy with blossoms. Patiently stood the cows meanwhile, and yielded their udders unto the milk maid's hand; whilst loud and in regular cadence into the sounding pail the foaming streamlets descended.' 6 Pending the preparation of a more elaborate notice of Evangeline,' accompanied by extracts, with the author's own division into lines, we give these two passages in plain prose, as illustrative of our first impressions' of the hexameter stanza, as here developed. . . . THE 'Boston Morning Post,' one of the liveliest and pleasantest journals of the country, thus hits the nail on the head' in a notice of Mr. SIMMS' pen-and-ink 'Views and Reviews of American Literature: 'If we understand Mr. SIMMS and his colleagues,' (Puffer-Hopkins'-MATHEWS and the rest,) it is necessary that our writers should choose American subjects, in order that their productions, however good, should constitute a real American literature;' and that they should fill their books with a certain mysterious American spirit,' very difficult to describe and exceedingly hard to imagine. Hence SHAKSPEARE'S Romeo and Juliet' is scarcely English literature, because its subject and its spirit are Italian. At least, this is all we can make of the argument of Mr. SIMMS and his brethren. It is a pity that some one of these gentlemen should not produce a work which would serve to show what this singular' American literature' really is. One look at such a model would be more convincing than the perusal of scores of essays.' It was thought for some time that we could have no 'American literature' unless our writers infused a large proportion of Indian character into all their works; so that we came to have aboriginal ingredients in all our indigenous intellectual food; Indian bread, Indian hoe-cake, Indian Johnny-cake, Indian Hasty-pudding, (very hasty, much of it,) and Indian bakedpudding, by half-baked' authorlings, until the public became utterly surfeited with these 'made-dishes.' . . . YOUTHFUL and ardent lover! if your fair inamorata replies to your fervent wooing that she is 'ower young to marry yet,' quote to her these lines of rare BEN JONSON.' They will set her a-thinking: DEARE, doe not your faire beautie wronge, 'Your cherry lipp, redde, softe and sweete, PROFESSOR INGRAHAM,' who has within the last ten years written more immoral works than any other of the many penny-a-line scribblers to whom the 'cheap and nasty' school of ephemeral publications have given birth, has taken to the Church for a living!' 'We do n't know,' says the lively and clever Sunday Dispatch,' 'whether to sympathise with the Public, the Church, or the Professor himself. We resign the man who wrote The Cigar-Girl of Broadway' and 'The Dancing Feather,' thankful that he has escaped from the thick smoke of sin and emerged into a purer atmosphere. We will send you others as fast as we can. WILLIS may be prevailed upon to wear black and take to divinity. He was once hopefully pious, but that was before he went to Italy. MATHEWS-would you like to receive him? He wears spectacles already! MORRIS may enlist when he has served his time out . in the militia,' etc. THE following sketch of the great FISHER AMES proceeds from one who knew him, and who heard him on the occasion referred to: When Mr. AMES rose to speak, he was so feeble as to be hardly able to stand, and supported himself by leaning upon his desk. As from the first faint tones he rose to the impassioned outpourings of high sentiment and patriotic zeal, his physical energies increased till the powers of his body seemed equal to those of his mind. At the close, he sank down weak and exhausted; his mind agitated like the ocean after a storm, and his nerves like the shrouds of a ship torn by the tempest.' Such were the men who, when our courtry's peace, happiness and prosperity were at hazard; when our national honor was tottering, and in immediate danger of being sacrificed; when discord, anarchy and war with all their horrors were entering upon the peaceful borders of America; stepped forward and saved her. Honored be their great names for ever! ... WE spoke the other day of resemblances of thought between two authors, which, although striking, could imply nothing like plagiarism. In The Cittie Night-Cup,' by Robert Davenport, an old English author, are these lines: 'THOU may'st hold an elephant with a thread, eat fire And not be burnt, or catch birds with desire; Quench flame with oil, cut diamonds with glass, Pierce steel with feathers; this thou may'st bring to pass, Sir WALTER SCOTT, in The Lady of the Lake,' says: Sir SAMUEL TUKE, joined couplet in his 'FOR he that stops a stream with sand, Or fetters flame with flaxen band, who wrote in the reign of CHARLES the Second, has the sub- THE man I love is forced to fly my sight, Thus also PRIOR, in a somewhat more elaborate version of the same thought: 'So when the Parthian turned his steed, He backward sent the fatal reed, 6 Apropos of TUKE: that is a felicitous illustration which he gives of 'Platonic Love,' as distinguished from the 'dividual desire' of the sexes, (' Like the sun and moon, which have courted for many thousand years, and yet have never touched,') is it not? WE grieve to be obliged to record the death of our friend and kinsman, GEORGE H. COLTON, Esq., Editor of the American Whig Review,' at the early age of twenty-nine years. His disease originally was a malignant typhus fever, which was followed by congestion of the brain. Mr. COLTON was a young man of genius, of an enterprising spirit, and good principles. His Tecumseh,' an elaborate poem, will remain as a monument of his fine poetical feeling, his deep love of nature, his graphic descriptive powers, and his remarkable facility of versification. As editor of the Review which he published, (and which is to be continued under the best auspices,) he succeeded in winning the approbation of a great political party, and in a literary point of view also the favor of the public. But he has gone. From all the labor which he labored to do' he rests, by the side of his elder and gifted brother; and with him is reunited to a sainted mother, gone before them to Paradise. Thus are we all passing away! In a moment, when we think not, the fire that is not blown consumes us,' and we vanish out of our place! It is such occasions as the one from which we have but just returned, that bring home to us the reality of the dying hour; the hour when man lieth down and riseth not; the hour when the world has done all for him that it ever will; the hour when human affection, devoted as it is, has done all for him that it can; the hour when the meeting with GOD, which has so long seemed distant, is fearfully near; the hour when the poor helpless mortal sits in the shadow of death, and feels the chillness of the tomb! . It would be worth any citizen's while, if he should chance to be passing the corner of Vesey and Church-streets, to step into the beautiful enginehouse of 'The Columbian,' Number Fourteen, and look at their new and superb engine, from Philadelphia. The paintings upon the pannels, in drawing, coloring and finish, reflect the highest credit upon the gifted young artist who executed them, and the liberal-spirited company who gave him the commission. Every part of the engine is of the most admirable finish; it is in all respects an honor to the city. . . . THE author of 'Kiar's Journey' has given himself unnecessary trouble in indifferently versifying a prose sketch from the KNICKER BOCKER. We have abundant matériel for our pages without reprinting unamended matter. . . . THEY lye that say the business of the citie are hinderances and impediments to studie and meditation; for a studious and working mind will draw conclusions out of everie thing in everie place. Wheresoever I am, I am always at leisure; whether in the countrie or in the citie, it is all one time; I am the same man wheresoever I am.' Sensible old worthy! Dead, for a couple hundred of years, or so; but you must have been a good man,' in your day, and honest as the skin atween your brows,' for this is plain speaking of plain truth. OUR readers will be struck with the touching simplicity and tenderness of the heart-felt lines in ensuing pages, entitled The Return after Holidays.' How many will feel the truth of that vivid picture! The water is standing in 'Young KNICK.'s' eyes at this moment, (the late reflex of other and bitterer tears, bewept by parental hearts,) at the news of the death of little EUGENE; unknown to you, reader, but a warm friend to the little JUNIOR,' and friend of all who knew him. Pleasant it is, and yet melancholy, to hear the child before us call up in brief review the uniform kindness of the little boy gone hence to heaven. He loved me, father; he would let me ride his philosopher;' (velocipede' was meant, but the mistake was philosophical,) he used to help me to fly my kite; he was a good boy; he lent me his sled; he was 'most the last little boy I saw when we came up in the boat. Father, is he dead and buried up in the ground?' And to-day we have been looking at the daguerreotype of little DICKEY,' as he was called; bright, intelligent, manly, affectionate; a favorite of the neighborhood, and the idol of his parents. He too is gone. He has been taken from the evil to come, and is safe in the arms of everlasting love. In reply to the query in our last number, 'Who wrote Mary's Dream?' our friend Dempster writes us as follows: ́ ́ MARY'S Dream' is the composition of JOHN LOWE, and is all that connects his name with the poetry of Scotland. It first appeared about the year 1770. Aside from the beauty of the poetry, it possesses a species of superstitious charm; for it is said to embody the fate of a youth by the name of MILLER, who was beloved of one MARY MCGIE, of Gallowayshire. Her lover's fate was first revealed to her in a dream, in a vision of the night on her bed.' Since the lines first appeared, one or two alterations have been made-I think you will say, for the better. The first line originally stood thus: |