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with the reality of truth and the glow of nature. They are evidently no inventions, but transcripts. His scenes stretch away before you; his people move, look and walk, with an individuality and a force only to be produced by the hand of a master. Indeed, the opening pages are full of the delightfully graphic and pleasing delineations peculiar to the author, and worthy of the best parts of the Sketch Book. The want of nationality is balanced by the richness of historical associations; some of those will make the heart of the student beat, as he sits in his narrow and obscure chamber. Nothing can exceed the pleasure with which we accompany the author in his peregrinations. We are no half way admirer of the former writings of Crayon, Knickerbocker, and Jonathan Old Style. We have been led by the same warm and gentle heart, the same refined and cultivated mind, the same soft and melting, yet disciplined, imagination for many a year long gone by. We have been with him in the pit of our theatre, through the crooked lanes and antiquated Dutch houses of our town, along the windings of the blue Hudson, and among the luxuriant valleys and heaving hills, which deepen away and swell up from the emerald banks. We have followed, delighted observers, in the train of his Dutch heroes, on their sublime and warlike expeditions; and we have been ushered, by his welcome and potent rod, into many a rich and mellow and melancholy scene in "merry England;" by her ancient piles, her meandering rivers, her magnificent palaces, and gardens and now, indeed, it is pleasant to keep still onward with such a companion, over distant and more strange scenes, to the banks of the streams of Spain; by her mountains, topped with silver; to her old cities and romantic towers. We are there actually, while reading the Alhambra. We see the summit of the Sierra Nivada; we hear the rills and fountains playing through the palace; we behold the moon pouring floods of light upon every court and hall and ruined decoration; and we are surprised to perceive what strong impressions are made on us, and by how few words. We are charmed, completely, to follow him in his quiet observations through those lofty and dilapidated towers; and to be so well beguiled by the flowing fancies which

gleam along his pages; and by that continued and sweet play of all the most delicate and beautiful lights and shades of pathos and humor. He is as fresh as ever in his feelings. He looks upon the wonders around him with the enthusiastic ardor of a glowing boy. There is not a string in his soul but is tuned for the true harmony of poetry. It still vibrates responsive to every passing impression, to every moral or natural beauty. Indeed, his perceptions of nature and the world, which we were prepared to find blunted by travel and years, are yet alive in all their pristine vigor, and are exercised, with a grace and a discrimination peculiar to himself, upon every golden sunset-every dim mountain topevery light incident of real life. Who but he could have so wrought up the trifle of the pigeon. There is another remark to be made, en passant, on our author. One cannot help smiling at the right hearty enthu siasm with which he rouses himself to paint every pretty woman he meets. It is positively delightful to come suddenly, (as we continually do, by the way,) upon one of his " plump little black eyed Andalusian

damsels," with her "bright looks and cheerful dispositions;" or some other rosy cheeked maiden, with dark eyes, and round and pleasant form. When he lays hold of such an one, he does it with a downright sincerity, and an outbreaking of gladness and spirit, which actually do our heart good, and he never lets her loose without bestowing upon her such a list of sweet adjectives as refresh our ideas most wonderfully.

The reader must admire the works of Washington Irving as the perfection of refined and elegant writing. He will scarce detect a word out of place-a deficiency, or a superfluity. He will find imagination chastened by taste-humor purified by delicacy, and blended with pathos. In perusing them, many will have smiles on their lips and tears in their eyes; and in their hearts will be an increased pride, that our humble literature can quote such a writer as a sufficient comment on the baseness of vagabond and venal bookmakers, who at once slander our country and disgrace their own.

LETTER FROM A QUOTE R.

"GENTLEMEN--Your paper has lately contained many ironical allusions to the prevailing faults among writers, and you have taken it upon yourselves to be particularly witty on the practice of using quotations. My object in addressing you is to express my dissatisfaction with your remarks. I myself occasionally 'scrawl strange words with barbarous pen,' and am therefore more emboldened to 'commend the ingredients of the poisoned chalice to your own lips.' I dissent from you in toto, and, more meo, I shall be frank in uttering my sentiments, which are, that the rule you have so arrogantly laid down upon this subject, belongs to those' customs more honored in the breach than in the observance.' What! sirs, shall we, in a land 'consecrated to the genius of universal emancipation,'

'With freedom's soil beneath our feet,

And freedom's banner streaming o'er us,'

submit to two or three editors, who, one might imagine from their actions, are 'lords of the creation?'

'Come one, come all, this rock shall fly
From its firm base as soon as I.'

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No!

In my future compositions I shall no more consider your instructions than as the idle wind.' The best writers, those who have reached the round and top of greatness,' the 'master spirits of the age,' men 'with thoughts that breathe and words that burn,' all of them are in the habit of quoting; and so will those of the present generation be, by which you may see that you have' scotched the snake, not killed it.' If quotations are done when they are done, it were well they were done quickly;’ and you, in your late presumptuous attempts to steer 'from grave to gay, from lively to severe,' have let the wind out of your sails, and thereby shot your arrow o'er the house, and hurt your brother.' What! shall the poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling,' be told that all

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the gems which unfold their leaves in the pages of others, are fruits of that forbidden tree which must not be touched lest it turn to ashes on its lips?'

'Oh! colder than the wind that freezes

Founts, that but now in sunshine played,'

are such hypercritical observations.

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"I regret that necessity, which, at least in this instance, is not the tyrant's plea,' has compelled me to be so severe on you, for I am a constant reader' of your columns, and often discover there

'Truth severe, by fairy fiction dressed ;'

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but coming events cast their shadows before,' and if you go on in this style you will very soon be forced to hide your diminished heads,' although you may think yourselves now like the sun, sitting 'high in its meridian tower.' I am not prepared to deny that the Mirror is an excellent paper; for it not only teaches the young idea how to shoot,' but wakes laughter's peal,' and, by the aid of pathetic tales, bids the tear-drop roll,' and thus 'sends its readers weeping to their beds;' but that is no apology for your endeavors to laugh other people out of countenance, because they happen not to think as you do. If you are offended, I can only say, 'None but the brave deserve the fair;' and (I name no names) my maxim has always been,

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'Hated by fools and fools to hate,
Be this my motto and my fate.'

I fear nothing- Not fate itself can awe the soul of Ri-
chard.' I should dwell much longer on this subject,
but the iron tongue of time is tolling ten,' and I am
really overcome with 'tired nature's sweet restorer;' so
(as Falstaff says) yours by yea and no, which means, as
you use him,
RICHARD WIGGINS.
"P. S.-I fear the above is very ill natured, but you
remember the words of the poet,

'And understood not that a grateful mind
By owing, owes not, but still pays at once,
Indebted and discharged.'"

CHRISTMAS.

THE fine high spirited boy whom I mentioned sometime ago, as being under the malignant influence of a cross schoolmaster, burst into my room the other morning, and broke a dream that I had drawn a prize in the lottery, to wish me a merry christmas. All his little miniature sorrows are now forgotten. His eyes are as bright and his cheeks as rosy as if he had never been beaten for not knowing the difference between a copulative and a disjunctive conjunction, or for forgetting that the word which his tyrant called tisic commenced with a p. The young dog has hung up his stocking, and received such lavish gifts from the good St. Nicholas, that the overflowings of his delighted heart would no longer permit him to refrain from calling upon me, his trusty friend and ally, to participate in his joy. He has a magnificent humming top and a Chinese puzzle, several profound volumes of history and travels, enriched with wood cuts of various places on the globe, and their inhabitants, some admirable story books, and other fanciful gifts, to say nothing of liberal supplies of sugar plumbs and new year cakes, and, putting his arms around my neck, he whispered the important secret with every sign of exhiliration, that he was to have "holiday for a whole week."

I remember to have heard an anecdote of a boy, connected with this famous fashion of hanging up the stocking, which, though a mere trifle, will not be devoid of interest, at least to parents. It seems this little fellow had committed some wickedness in the catalogue of youthful crimes on the eve of the long wished for festival. He did not retire to rest, however, without having suspended his stocking, to solicit the bounty of the patron saint of infant New Yorkers, and arose the next morning to examine into the nature of his treasures. With exclamations of delight, his little brothers and sisters discovered their stockings abundantly supplied with every thing to gratify their fancy and make their

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