nity of thanking you for the continued transmission of your Magazine, and of expressing my high appreciation of its well-sustained interest. You still contrive, I observe, notwithstanding the great merit of many of your original contributors, to keep the best of it for your own share, and force us to begin, as in a witch's prayer, at the end and read backward. None I suppose will deny that you have deserved well in the cause of common sense and right feeling, by some of the blows which you have occasionally dealt to the hypocritical pretences and quackeries of the day. Among others, old father antic, the Law,' seems to have most rightfully come in for his share of the castigation. I could not help thinking of you, therefore, when I read the following precious admission in one of our gravest authorities. After discussing at length the perplexities in which legal subtlety has as usual involved itself, in deciding upon the distribution of property where the intestate's domicil is in one country and the estate in another, and the laws of marriage different in both, the satisfactory result arrived at is, that 'The same person would, by the same court, and by this paradox in the law, be deemed legitimate as to the real estate and illegitimate as to the personal; legitimate as to the mill, illegitimate as to the machinery; born in lawful wedlock as to the barn, but a bastard as to the grain within it!' Does not this read like one of the irreverent impertinences of PUNCH? — and might not the epigrammatist well say, 'Nostrâ stultitiâ, Justiniane, sapis ?'

WHEN wintry thaws impel the wave
Beyond the channel's pebbled bounds,
And hoarse the red-gorged rivers rave,
To mine their arching icy mounds;
Though they rush against the shore,
Waves successive tumbling o'er;

While clouds like low-brow'd mountains lower,
And pour the chilling sleety shower;

Then let me by the torrent roam

At night, to watch the churning foam!'

So sings JOHN LEYDEN, and so say all of us,' friend 'P.' To explain: we have much in common with our town-correspondent, in his love of Nature in her stormy moods,' as many a solitary promenade in tempestuous weather along the battery-walks wet with sea-spray can bear us witness. 'The spirit's stride that treads the northern storm;' knotted rushes bending and twisting in their matted ranks by the roused lake's sounding shore; fringed snow-flakes, ('Dutch blankets' we used to call them,) sailing idly in the soft, yielding atmosphere, and weaving as they fall their 'frolic architecture;' eaves with pendant icicles, ribbed like the rattle-snake's beads; windows tinkling with dancing hail and sleet; all these came back upon us from the morning of life, as we read our correspondent's rhapsody. But the sketch is too long, and it came too late; moreover, the cacography is sad enough, and the paper broken out all over with something like a cutaneous eruption. Will our correspondents always send us their communications upon easily-written-on paper? 'A special request. Respect this.' THE statement made below should be taken we think cum grano salis. If it were not upon undoubted New-England authority, we should be inclined to doubt it altogether: A farmer near Lowell, to save expense, undertook to make a plough with his own hands. It looked so ugly when finished, that he deemed it prudent to chain it to an apple-tree; but it got loose during the night, and killed two of his calves! WE do no not affect the pinings of rejected suitors, in verse or prose. Ink is shed copiously for mittens' by many of our correspondents. The Lines to Kate' are lugubrious enough, being something below the pitch of STERNBOLD AND HOPKINS C.'s 'Stanzas for Her who will Understand them' are better; but they are

.

very poor.

at this moment.

cruel leisure.'

POTATOES are the public thing' on the other side of the water just Disease sits at the very hearts of the murphies' and 'gnaws at his PUNCH has a letter from A. TATUR,' describing a malady which is affecting the 'eyes' of himself and nearly all his acquaintances. These evils are set forth by the journals in prose and rhyme. The Lay of the Blighted Potato' indicates the general sympathy which is felt in this matter. We give a single affecting

stanza:

'ONE day I took a murphy out to peel it,
Casting the peeling carelessly away;
When (horrid fact! I shudder to reveal it!)
I found it blighted hastening to decay.
Vainly I strove the wholesome parts to cherish,
But nought remained of what is now so dear;
Only with life shall the remembrance perish,

How bad potatoes have turned out this year!'

OWING to one of those confoundedly unlucky accidents, known only, we must certainly believe, to printing-offices, several pages of 'Gossip,' including four or five subsections which it irks us beyond expression to omit; such as notices of the fine arts and American artists; four or five late publications; new journals in prospect ; ' confidences' with new correspondents, etc.; are as unavoidably as vexatiously laid over' until our next. Excellent papers in prose and verse, from favorite old and welcome new contributors, await insertion in our next.

THE DRAMA.-PARK-THEATRE: RICHARD 'REDIVIVUS.' — The past month may be regarded, and will no doubt be looked back to in years to come, as an era in theatrical matters on this side of the water. Splendid spectacles of the melo-dramatic grade; from the almost forgotten 'Cherry and Fair Star,' when the dashing Miss KELLY and the lovely and ever-to-be-regretted Miss JOHNSON were the bright particular stars,' down to the more recent American Sea-serpent, with PLACIDE for the hero; have amazed, dazzled and delighted the gaping groundlings, and the élégantes of the boxes, many a time and oft at our own Old Drury; spangled and bedecked with all the glare and glitter of patent-leather and gold foil; while the classic drama, the pure Castalian, has been suffered to array itself as it might, in the old stock hose and buskin of the property-room. Nous avons change tout cela; and now our old friend 'RICHARD,' shaking the dust of his ancient mantle from his hump, has come out in a new suit; not of gilt and spangles, like a melo-dramatic hero, but in cloth of gold, glittering with real gems, pure diamonds, without spot or flaw to blur their brilliancy or mar their immaculate purity. Thanks to Mr. CHARLES KEAN! thanks to Mrs. Charles Kean! thanks to Mr. EDMUND SIMPSON! thanks to Mr. THOMAS BARRY!-great things have been done! SHAKSPEARE'S face has been washed, and the most unmitigated of his villains stands before us in a clean shirt. There is no jest, but a pleasant truth in this matter, as the treasury of the Park can sufficiently testify. The most critical are satisfied (or rather dis-satisfied because they cannot find fault) with the perfection of every thing connected with the new scenery, new dresses, and all the novel splendid and characteristic accompaniments which compose the 'mise en scene' of the play of RICHARD the Third, as produced during this last engagement of the KEANS. Already the NewYork public are familiar with this gorgeous yet chaste and faithfully historical exhibition; and therefore we shall not make an inventory of its details of magnificent scenery, its rich dresses, its grand processions, the bustle of its action, and the complete fullness, if such a word may be used, of the entire spectacle, from first to last. To all connected with the 'getting up,' great praise is due; the pence they have got already; and whether the audiences which for sixteen successive nights, conjugating the verb 'to cram' through all its moods and tenses, congregated there to see the pageant, or the play, or both, it matters not to the treasury aforesaid.

Mr. KEAN'S acting of the Duke of Gloster is only respectable; it is not equal to his HAMLET nor his ROMEO. He is great only in 'points.' He does not sustain the character evenly throughout; it rises and falls. At times he is brilliant, vivid, and so true that one is startled with his power; again he is cloudy, dull and tame, and seems hurrying out words as if there was no meaning attached to them, and as if his great object were to discharge them as a patent detonator does bullets, in a given space of time. There is no play of SHAKSPEARE's more susceptible of trickery than this; and Mr. KEAN

condescends to avail himself rather too often perhaps of this doubtful advantage. We did not perceive any effort at originality in Mr. KEAN's reading; and he certainly evinced his good taste in giving the received conception of this well-known character. The little that Mrs. KEAN had to do as 'Queen ELIZABETH' made that part to our thinking the gem of the piece. There has never any thing been made of this character before, to come near her beautiful execution of it. The parting with the children in the tower was most truthfully affecting. It was the reflection of Nature herself, and met with such full response as might have flattered even the fair artiste herself, accustomed as she is to the general laudation of the most critical audiences. Mrs. ABBOT as the 'Lady ANNE' was quite effective in the courting scene. She looked the character extremely well, and her acting of it was better in every sense than any one of her predecessors now remembered. If she would throw aside a little of that 'mauvaise honte' which stands in her way, and take to herself the same quantity of fire and spirit in her performances, she would do herself justice, and place herself in that posiTHE tion as an actress which nothing but a sense of diffidence prevents her now from attaining.. admirers of the Ballet will in the new piece, 'La Giselle,' about to be produced at the Park, have an opportunity of testifying their approbation of all that is graceful in the dance, or expressive in pantomime, as displayed by the sylph-like AUGUSTA. This ballet created a perfect furore in Europe, and will no doubt out-rival here the far-famed Bayadére, for the production of which in this country, let it be remembered, we are indebted alone to the peerless AUGUSTA. The ballet of 'Giselle' has among its other attractions that ghostly interest, that unearthly and sepulchral tone, which gives a peculiar character to the alley scene' in 'Robert the Devil.' The music is particularly adapted to the sentiment, and the dresses, scenery, etc., so far as can be learned at the early hour at which we write, are brought forward with that disregard of expense which characterized the late magnificent representation of RICHARD the Third.

...

C.

LITERARY RECORD.-The North-American Review' for the January quarter is an excellent number of that time-honored and well-sustained journal. The articles are 'FINLAY's Greece under the Romans;' 'St. CHRYSOSTOм and his Style of Pulpit Eloquence;' 'The Punishment of Death;' The Pioneers of Kentucky;' 'MARGARET, a Tale of the Real and the Ideal;' 'JOHN FOSTER'S Essays;' Dr. ARNOLD'S Miscellaneous Writings;' 'WARE'S Life of HENRY WARE, Jr.;' 'The Oregon Question;' and seven brief 'Critical Notices.' Of these articles we have found leisure for the careful perusal of only four; that on the death punishment, a masterly paper, marked by equal courtesy and power; the admirable sketch of DANIEL BOON and his pioneer companions; the review of 'Margaret,' heretofore noticed with favor in this Magazine, and the by-no-means-flattering picture of Oregon, and its worth as a bone of national contention. These are articles which do honor to the Review. A hasty glance through one or two of the other papers in the number, enables us to pronounce the whole an excellent specimen of what an American Quarterly Review should be. Its neat and tasteful appearance reflects the highest credit upon the publishers, Messrs. OTIS BROADGREEERS AND COMPANY. Messrs. C. S. FRANCIS AND COMPANY are the New-York agents.... LEY AND M'ELRATH'S 'Farmers' Library and Monthly Journal of Agriculture' for January is filled with valuable matter. Knowing it to be a record, among other things, of all late improvements in breeds of domestic animals, we were somewhat startled to find at the head of one of its pages, in staring capitals, The Hydraulic Ram!' Our first impression was, that science had been making a wonderful discovery; but a glance at the text, and at the engravings of 'nuts,'' screws' and 'cocks' with pipes six hundred feet in length and one and a half inches bore, reässured us, and revealed an instrument for raising water to any desired height. An important discovery, to all owners of cows, is described in the opening of the 'Journal' department. It is no less than the ability, by external observation of the animal alone, to determine the milking properties of neat cattle, and to name The discoverer, a Frenchthe exact number of pints of milk that will be given by any one cow. man named GUENON, in forty-six cows, 'entire strangers' to him, named the exact number of pints given by each animal. Curious, isn't it?' . . . NUMBERS Six and Seven of 'Harpers' New Miscellany' contain the 'Life of PAUL JONES, by ALEXANDER SLIDELL Mackenzie, U. S. N.' It is an authentic and very interesting volume, compiled from works chiefly composed of original letters of JONES, which convey a distinct idea of his life and character. It is embellished by a portrait of its MESSES. PAINE AND BURGESS, John-street, subject, excellently engraved by PRUDHOMME. . . . have published, in two handsome volumes, The Greece of the Greeks,' by G. A. PERDICARIS, A. M., We receive these volumes at too late an hour adelate Consul of the United States at Athens. quately to consider their merits and attractions; but that they have merits and attractions, of a high order, our knowledge of the author, an accomplished scholar, a keen observer, and a felicitous writer, we can with confidence predict it. We shall take another occasion to do justice to the

work. . . .. MESSRS. WILEY AND PUTNAM have just issued a volume entitled 'A Sequel to the Vestiges of Creation,' a work of explanations of the author's former treatise, which created so considerable a sensation in the scientific world. The 'Vestiges' had been pretty severely handled by the Edinburgh and some other reviewers, and was regarded by them as tending to atheism. The author does not regard the origin of life as the result of a direct fiat of the ALMIGHTY, but of regular laws established from eternity. Under the operation of these laws, he considers that there has been a progressive development of organic existences, from the lowest orders up to the highest now observable on the earth. The astronomical and geological facts which he adduces to sustain this theory are truly astonishing, and must be admitted to go far toward proving it. As to its atheistic tendency, the author contends that there is nothing irreligious in the attempt to conceive creation, as well as reproduction, carried on by universal laws. The subject is certainly one of great interest, and we should be slow in condemning any philosophical speculations as atheistical because they contravene long-settled opinions, when we recollect that it was but a few years ago that geological theories, now proved to be correct, and admitted not to contradict the scriptural account of the earth, were universally regarded as atheistical, or at least deistical, in their tendency. Messrs. WILEY AND PUTNAM'S 'Library of Choice Reading' has been enriched by the addition to its volumes of FAIRFAX's translation of TASSO's' Jerusalem Delivered,' with an introductory essay by LEIGH HUNT, and the lives of the author and translator, by CHARLES KNIGHT. The present is the first American from the seventh London edition, and is reprinted from the original folio of 1600.... SPEAKING of 'Libraries,' we are reminded of the sixth volume of FRANCIS AND COMPANY'S excellent 'Cabinet Library of Choice Prose and Poetry,' which contains the Tragedies, Sonnets, and Verses of Talfourd,' a most acceptable addition to the truly choice reading' of the day. If the volume contained only 'Ion' alone, it would be worth twice the price at which it is sold, to any reader of pure and classic taste.... A VERY useful little work is Mr. MORITZ ERTHEILER'S Phrase-Book in English and German,' with a literal translation of the German into English, and a complete explanation of the sounds and the accentuation of the German. Mr. ERTHEILER is a popular teacher of the German language in this city, and his work is the result of his observation of the wants of learners. We commend it to a generous acceptance at the hands of all who would even know a little German, but especially to students of that now popular language. Dr. HENRY J. BIGELOW's Address before the Boylston Medical Society of Harvard University' does that gentleman much honor. If there is another young physician in Boston who could have written so clever a pamphlet, it is a most favorable augury for the continued reputation and success of the Boston School of Medicine. It is not merely clever; it is a learned and elaborate survey of the present state of medical progress. It displays great care, much reading, and an unusual degree of sound philosophical thought. The chief objection that can be urged to it, is the want of that decided authority that gray hairs alone can give. Few old physicians could have manifested a more profound acquaintance with the condition and requirements of their profession; we doubt if any could have shown so great a familiarity with its philosophy, as modified by recent discoveries. No one, either young or old, could with more ardor have examined modern systems; with more candor accepted new light; or with more confidence repudiated the fallacies and empericism of the day, than Doctor BIGELOW has done. Had the same words, or even less wise ones, fallen from his father, they would have been oracular. Not that one would so easily gather from the style or sentiments of the address that the author was a gray-beard; but knowing the fact, perhaps we are more inclined to be critical in reading it. In this humor we may object to a somewhat too abundant illustration of his theme by analogy. In the main he is certainly right; but now and then it strikes us a logician might discover a flaw. Doctor BIGELOW says: The great philosopher of the seventeenth century informs us that 'They have in Turkey a Drink called Coffa, made of a Berry of the same name, as black as Soot, and of a strong Sent; which they take, beaten into powder, in Water as hot as they can Drink it. This Drink comforteth the Brain and Heart, and helpeth Digestion.' Two centuries later, the civilized world breakfasts upon coffee, and drinks tea; because, says the great chemist of the nineteenth century, Theine and caffeine, their peculiar principles, are in all respects identical, and supply the human system with exactly as many atoms of nitrogen and carbon as it requires to manufacture taurine, the essential constituent of bile.' It is an obvious answer to this, (and though a superficial one, yet sufficient,) that nobody, not even LIEBIG himself, makes his breakfast upon coffee because chemistry has discovered its constituent proportions of nitrogen and carbon. But our 'plentiful lack' of room warns us to say Benedicite' to the pamphlet of our talented author.. We have from HOMANS AND ELLIS, Broadway, two useful little volumes; one, 'A Picture of New-York in 1846,' illustrated by numerous engravings, and an excellent guide to citizens and strangers; the other, Williams's Statistical Companion, and Pictorial Almanac for 1846,' with sixteen portraits, which by-the-by are a disgrace to the work, and to the engraver who executed them. In all other respects, the volume is an acceptable one.

LORD STAIR had commanded the British army in the successful battle of Dettingen; but certain dispositions which he considered necessary to secure the fruits of victory having been overruled by his sovereign, GEORGE II., who was also present in the action, the irritated nobleman had thought proper to throw up his command and withdraw from the theatre of war. It was his intention to retire from public life to his estates in the country; but, on his route thither, private business of an embarrassing nature had occurred to detain him for some time in London.

While here, he was surprised by a summons from some unknown person to a remote and obscure part of the city. In another temper of mind this call might have been treated by him as an impertinence, but the vexations which he had lately undergone had rendered him indifferent to merely ceremonious considerations. He proceeded therefore according to the instructions given, and having, with much fatigue and some difficulty, reached the place of appointment, found himself in a miserable chamber, attainable only by a flight of ruinous steps, and furnished in a manner perfectly answerable to the squalor and dreariness of the quarter in which it was situated. On a wretched couch reclined the only occupant of the room, a man apparently bowed beneath the weight of extreme age and destitution. This individual, having satisfied himself of the identity of his visitor, pointed him to the only seat, and addressed him in words to the following effect:

You see before you, my lord, not an applicant for your bounty or commiseration, but one who, wishing for no other accommodation but that which you see, was yet once possessed of domains as large, a name as high, a race as untainted as your own. Nay, why should

VOL. XXVII.

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