EDITOR'S TABLE.

We have just finished the perusal in manuscript of a volume of poems by an old contributor to the KNICKERBOCKER, and from which we are permitted to make a few extracts in advance of their publication. The originality with which subjects already trite are treated, and the passionate as well as poetical power displayed in others will recommend them to the reader. Take the following for example:

'GIVE me your tender cares, your dear caresses,

Your bright approving smile, frank as a brother;
Give me your mind, whose graceful wisdom blesses:
But ah! your love, give that unto another.

'So my heart argues in its tranquil moments,
Laved in the dream-like bliss you have inspired;
Then comes a pain, filling my soul in torrents,
Like some green hill to a Vesuvius fired

'In its most verdant hour. Oh! scathing lava!
Oh! cruel, pelting hail! oh! torture hideous!
As to some laboring ship the ruthless 'Ha! ha!'
Of the weird Storm-King, in his reign malicious.

"Tell me, ye powers of Heaven, whose loved control,
Like the sweet south-breeze on a wind-harp playing,
Wakes soothing music, tell me of a goal,

A tranquil haven, where the billows swaying,

'My wearied soul, riven, tempest-tossed, forlorn,
May sink to ripples as of moon-lit streams,
And keep the peering sun-beams of the morn
In cooling shadows veiled; for in soft dreams,

'Lulled by the ebbing tide, my hope would wander!
And let kind angels dimly at the helm

Be visible; oh! let their watch be fonder
Than a young mother's; let their sway o'erwhelm

All power of retrospect, all future longing:
Swathed like a captive warrior let the sinews
Of my imperious soul be bound; and dawning
O'er the cleft furrows of my path, 'mid dews

'Which soften where they fall, let cheerful star-light
Keep the mild moon sweet company; so, haply,
Some constant beam from out my heavy night,

Cleaving the dark, may light my life-path calmly.'

The following short description of a rain-bow, from a piece entitled, ‘A Summer Afternoon,' we think possesses great beauty:

The following will find a response in our own

in many a heart. In refutation of the supposition (which the bard has sung') that the soul watches and waits for a particular loye:

"THE wild bud yields its sweetness to the bee;
The sun woos not his votive flower in vain;

The breeze is welcomed by each waving tree,
'The bard has sung,' but oh! how false a strain !

'Ask of the night, whose silence lends an ear
To the wild 'plaining of the nightingale;
Ask of the listening woods, where, low and clear,
Murmurs the river down yon darkling vale;

'Ask of the little brook, whose bosom pure
Mirrors the loving branches, drooping low
To woo its freshness; ask the skies, which lure
The trembling vapors from the melting snow;

'Ask of the fresh, young heart in girlhood's morn,
Where, slumbering like the music in a shell,
Love's echoes lie. No light-winged hope the dawn
Has yet betrayed of love's unconscious spell.

'Ask all that's beautiful, and pure, and sweet,
If to the voice of any genial air,

Let but the note be love, which comes to meet,
Soft and insidious, the music there,

'Some deep responsive chord will not be stirred
To gushing rapture at the thrilling tone,
The latent frown awaked, its torrent poured
In wild exuberance toward the radiant throne

'Where sits the beckoning CUPID. What if all
Love's maddening ecstasy in one glad thrill
Should live and perish, and the spirit fall

Back to the common level, can it chill

"The fresh, bright, blooming Hope which that dear dream
Sweetly unfolded? The white dove may pine
To find the sparkling water's luring gleam

Upon the fountain's brim, her destined shrine,

'Has waked a quenchless thirst; but lo! she droops
Her willing wings, nor knows but she has quaffed
Love's fountain dry. She falters not, nor stoops
To other springs, and seeks no other draught.'

Is there not a new idea conveyed in the following lines on Solitude?

'THE mind at ease may find a charm

In solitude's repose and calm;

The stolid soul, from fancy free,
May brook its insipidity.

'Here Fashion's sated votary
May find a joy, an ecstasy,

In throwing off the cumbrous dress
Which swathes her spirit's artlessness.

'And Science, Learning, Grief, and Love
May deem its sweets all sweets above:
Ambition here may dream its dream;
Chagrin here find a Lethe stream;

'Here Hope may spread her glowing wings,
Philosophy here find the springs
Of all the joys the bosom throng,
Which Solitude's rapt shades prolong.

'But, Solitude! thy deep control

Binds not all powers that sway the soul;
Thou canst not aid, and ne'er restrained,
Love's longing for the unattained!'

THE DUSSELDORF GALLERY. — A recent visit to this admirable collection of paintings has afforded us so much pleasure, that we desire to call the attention of our readers to it again. The room formerly occupied by the American Art Union is now filled with these fine pictures, which no one should fail to see.

GOSSIP WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. -We have bent on a new snapper this month, gentle reader. Our friend and publisher, Mr. SAMUEL HUESTON, who has been 'cavorting' among the mountains of Lake George, and eating lake trout to repletion, at SHERRILL's famous Lake-House, brings with him such abundant health and spirits, that we gladly resign the editorial chair to him for the nonce. So now we can pack up our carpet-bag for the West-razors, brushes, six shirts, two white waistcoats, half-a-gallon of bay-rum, one portable boot-jack, (to fold up,) thirty-two pairs of stockings, one pound of sealing-wax, the family breast-pin, one cravat and a half, ditto trowsers, one thousand segars, eleven tooth-brushes, one small mosquitonet, and the Editor's Table.'

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Gentlemen and ladies, editorially we make you acquainted with Mr. HUES

TON.

(HUESTON speaks.) The reader will no doubt be gratified to learn that since the beginning of our new volume, the circulation of the KNICKERBOCKER has increased ten

That will never do, HUESTON. Try again; dip into the easy, button-holding, colloquial, L. G. C. style.

(HUESTON speaks.)

The sun was just gilding the spires of Hoboken, when a jaded pair of horses might have been seen rapidly approaching the Albany steamboat.'

Never do, sir. G. P. R. J. Once more.

(HUESTON speaks) There is nothing in America that exercises a more delightful spell over my imagination than the power of a great steamboat, as it leaves the crowded wharf, and glides majestically upon the broad bosom of the Hudson.'

No go, Mr. HUESTON. W. I. Try again.

(HUESTON speaks.) There was the old steamboat lying at the wharf: the old steamboat, with its old rotten timbers, its mysterious machinery, with, here and there, an iron limb bound up in cloths, as if it had been in some battle, where every body had come off second best. There were the wretched passengers on the upper-deck, and the wretched emigrants on the lowerdeck; there were the wretched news-boys, darting about like blue-bottle flies; there were the wretched firemen, and the wretched orange-women; there was the dark, slimy water below, suggestive of suicides, and the white plume of steam above, suggestive of an unlimited number of coroner's inquests. Then the old steamboat pawed the water, and struggled to get free; and then she relapsed again, and gave it up. Then the wretched captain said, 'Let go;' and with a shriek, a gasp, and a snort, her wheels revolved, the hawser splashed in the dock, and the old steamboat sluggishly cut the slimy waters, and struggled up the river.'

C. D., Mr. HUESTON; and in his worst style. Try once more.

(HUESTON speaks.) 'We laughed 'somedele' at our friend and publisher, Mr. HUESTON, yesterday, 'we did.' Being a man of 'weak nerves,' he took it into his head to evacuate the city on the glorious Fourth of July, by taking a 'passage' on the 'Rip Van Winkle.' To be sure of a 'good berth,'

he engaged his state-room on board the 'Rip Van Winkle' two days beforehand. The polite clerk promised to select a good cool one, so as to let Mr. II. enjoy a comfortable night's rest, so that he could wake up ‘aw ri' in Albany the next morning. On taking possession of his room, number eighteen, our friend and publisher found the window opened upon an interesting little machine used on these boats to blow the fire; and instead of sleeping, he had the uninterrupted pleasure of enjoying its music all night. He says he never was so well 'blown up' in his life; but next time he wants to know before he pays in 'advance' for a state-room, whether it is a state-room 'simply,' or a state-room with an 'Eolian attachment.''

That will do. Go on, HUESTON; you hit it there. That's L. G. C.! (HUESTON speaks.) Lines on Leaving the City,' by G. W. A., is respectfully declined. Did G. W. A. ever read the following? or is the striking resemblance of his lines merely 'accidental?'

To one who has been long in city pent,

'Tis very sweet to look into the fair'

And open face of heaven-to breathe a prayer

Full in the smile of the blue firmament.

Who is more happy, when with heart's content,
Fatigued, he sinks into some pleasant lair
Of wavy grass, and reads a debonair
And gentle tale of love and languishment?'

Who is more happy?

That was a capital reply of the Rev. SIDNEY SMITH to a lady who wanted a 'motto' to engrave on the collar of her poodle. He at once suggested a quotation from SHAKESPEARE: Out, damned Spot!' which the lady did not think sentimental enough, although thoroughly SHAKESPEREAN. We 'opine' the Rev. SIDNEY SMITH did not 'cotton to' poodles more than we do. We 'plead guilty' to the 'soft impeachment' of loving a good story. Two gentlemen, not long since, visited our 'sanctum,' and in the whole course of the evening we managed to pick out one, that had the merit of being 'new.' It is no doubt good, from the mirth it excited in the relator himself; and we jot it down 'verbatim et cachinnatum.' 'Tell that story,' said the gentleman with the pink cravat. 'What story?' said the one with the brown striped tie. "That one about the dog.' BROWN STRIPED TIE, suddenly catching his face in both hands, and exploding: 'Oh! yes-ho! ho! ho! ho! You see, we were walking up Broadway-ho! ho! ho!-and met a dog-oh! ho! ha! ha!-a dog-ha! ha ho! ho! (stamping his foot ;) and in front of him was a Frenchman oh! ho! ho! ho! a little Frenchman-ho! ho! ha! ha! he! oh! my! in a gingham coat-ho! ho! ho!-and the dog a little way behind — ho! ho! ho! ha!' PINK CRAVAT joins in 'ha! ha! ha! ha!' and for the rest of the time makes a sound as if he were jingling a watch-chain in his windpipe. BROWN TIE: 'Says I, JOHN, I'll bet you that dog belongs to that Frenchman-oh! ho! ho! ho!' Says he: 'That's what I want to bet’oh ho! ho! ha! hi! So we watched 'em-ha! ha! ha! ha! - to the next corner-ho! ho! ha! (hysterical tears in the eyes of BROWN TIE) — to the corner-oh! ho! ha! ha! and there the little Frenchman turned down-oh! ho! ho! ho! (increased jingle of chain in the windpipe of

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