little Dutch cow, she was in our bush-pasture, and it was a very dry summer.' The several members guessed, some twenty-five pounds,' some thirty pounds,' etc. During the guessing the little Dutchman sat whistling, apparently very little interested in the result. At length Gov. CLINTON, who was present, inquired: 'Well, Mr. SNYDER, how much did it weigh a quarter?' 'Well, I don't know exactly; I did not weigh it; but I guess not much, for you see, it was a very mean poor Dutch calf, not fit to eat.'

THE stanzas entitled Thoughts on reading NICOL's Architecture of the Heavens'' most certainly do not do justice to their theme. The twelve lines that commence the second manuscript page, to our humble comprehension, seem devoid of meaning. It is a sublime description which NICOL gives of the approach of a comet toward the sun, with its flow of particles from the mass of the nucleus attracted by our luminary, toward which, for a long and well-defined distance, it stretched its sublime course, until at length it wavered, as if on the verge of a hostile or repulsive territory; assumed a curious motion or vibration; then turned, a vast wandering thing, to undergo its fates in the august spaces where it 'sweeps its awful cycle!' Dim though it is, without a mountain, without an ocean, without a morn or eve, encompassed by strange ethers, yet doubtless in its journey it rejoices in the Universal Life, and like all visible things, is preparing for another form of being. 'After all,' says the author of 'Vathek,' 'ours is a miserable atom of creation, we and all our solar system, amidst the many that dot and sparkle along the infinity of space. How few of these magnificent worlds will glasses ever enable man to see? What sort of people inhabit them? is life there? death? original corruption? Ah! we do not live half long enough to acquire the horn-book of the studies that life opens to us!'

in many a distant region of the great and mighty west, where yet populous towns shall rise and the hum of busy industry resound in crowded thoroughfares! We sometimes lament that our ingress into this breathing world and this glorious land had not been postponed for fifty years or thereabout:

correct.

'WHAT spacious cities with their spires shall gleam,
Where now the panther laps a lonely stream!'

of which we shall now probably know little, if not less.' We cannot, however, quite go with our St. Louis correspondent, in his 'Dream of the Future;' although it must be admitted that all prophecy, even the wildest, has hitherto done injustice to our national progress. Our friend's prediction as to the inventions in the womb of time' may possibly turn out When we find a yankee 'cal'lating' a machine for taking the disagreeable noise out o' thunder,' there is nothing left to wonder at in the way of native ingenuity.・ ・ ・ WE have received, but quite at the eleventh hour,' the first number of a series, entitled 'Oneóta, or the Red Race of America;' being a record of their history, traditions, customs, poetry, picture-writing, etc.; in extracts from notes, journals, and other unpublished writings. No man in the United States can have had better opportunities to collect the matériel for a work like this, than the author, HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT, Esq.; nor do we know of any one so capable as himself of understanding and arranging them, for the entertainment of the public. THE BERKSHIRE JUBILEE,' so eloquently heralded by N. S. D.' in our last number, 'came off' triumphantly at the time appointed; and as we perused in the Tribune the animated description of the proceedings, we more than ever regretted the hard necessity which compelled us to decline the cordial invitation of the Berkshires' to be present on the joyful occasion. Our readers shall hear more of the festival hereafter. Among the speakers and guests were MARK HOPKINS, Miss SEDGWICK, Rev. WILLIAM ALLEN, Mr. BRYANT, Rev. ORVILLE DEWEY, Judge BACON, Mr. MACREADY, Dr. O. W. HOLMES, etc. Mr. BACON, Mrs. SIGOURNEY, WILLIAM PITT PALMER, Mrs. E. P. DODGE, and Dr. HOLMES, assisted in furnishing forth the poetical repasts. We make an extract

...

from the characteristic poem of the last-named gentleman; a passage which will explain itself to be a part of an earnest invitation to the errant Berkshires' to come up to the festival:

'COME you, of the Law, who can talk if you please,

Till the man in the moon will allow it's a cheese,
And leave the old lady, that never tells lies,'
To sleep with her handkerchief over her eyes.

Ye Healers of men, for a moment decline
Your feats in the rhubarb and ipecac. line;

While you shut up your turnpike, your neighbors can go,
The old roundabout road, to the regions below.

You Clerk, on whose ears are a couple of pens,
And whose head is an ant-hill of units and tens;
Though Plato denies you, we welcome you still
As a featherless biped, in spite of your quill.

Poor drudge of the City! how happy he feels
With the burrs on his legs, and the grass at his heels;
No dodger behind, his bandannas to share,

No constable grumbling, 'You must n't walk there.'

In yonder green meadow, to Memory dear,

He slaps a musketoe, and brushes a tear;

The dew-drops hang round him, on blossoms and shoots,
He breathes but one sigh- for his youth and his boots.

There stands the old school-house, hard by the old church:
That tree at its side had the flavor of birch.

Oh sweet were the days of his juvenile tricks,

Though the prairie of youth had so many 'big licks.'

By the side of yon river he weeps and he slumps,
The boots filled with water, as if they were pumps:

Till sated with rapture, he steals to his bed
With a glow in his heart and a cold in his head.'

'Tis past he is dreaming-I see him again;
His ledger returns as by Legerdemain;
His neck-cloth is damp, with an Easterly flaw,
And he holds in his fingers an omnibus straw.

He dreams the shrill gust is a blossomy gale,
That the straw is a rose from his dear native vale;
And murmurs, unconscious of space and of time,
'A1: Extra-super: ah, isn't it PRIME!'

Rev. MARK HOPKINS, it would seem, spoke glowingly of the observances which form 'the poetry of religion, without which liberty and religion would be overlaid and crushed by that which ought to nourish and protect them.' Mr. HOPKINS had not taken counsel, we infer, of the bigotted polemic, who in a late New-Englander' Calvinistic journal deprecates the extension of the religious sentiment,' which is only 'lofty in sensibility and noble in aspiration,' but is not real religion.' The man may feel it in the depths of his heart, but it is not worth cherishing. We read the writings of CHANNING, so justly esteemed for his pure and lofty sentiments; of GREENWOOD and DEWEY, so tasteful and elevated; and of WARE, so honest-hearted and devotional; and their religion seems to us sentimentalism rather than holiness.' The writer admits that 'none exhibit the social virtues and the kindlier charities of life more than themselves and many who may be found in their congregations; but then there must be holiness, as a grand constituent of character;' 'love to GOD as a holy Being;' joy in the law of duty,' and so forth. In other words, those persons who, as DOGBERRY expresses it, are full of piety' of the right sort, must be able to tell the precise moment when they got religion' or were born again;' otherwise, their ultimate doom is sealed. Happily, sentiments and opinions like these are

confined, even in New-England, to a few sour ascetics, who are as impotent as they are Pharisaical and uncharitable. But to come back: Mr. MACREADY, whose good taste is never at fault, in answer to a call of the meeting, spoke as follows: Mr. President, and Gentlemen- I cannot say brethren; and yet my heart beats as warmly at seeing such a spectacle, as any American could desire. I confess, Sir, that I am taken wholly unawares, for I came here only to witness the spirit with which you enter into this Jubilee. I cannot make a speech. Believe me, I wish I could, that I might banish from the minds of those who hear me every suspicion that England is opposed to the prosperity of this country. But I will not attempt to make a speech. Instead of that, I will recite to you a short poem expressing that spirit of love to man which ought to characterize the nations and people of the earth. Mr. MACREADY then recited the following Eastern fable, which he gave with all that grace and energy which have given him such celebrity:

'AEON BEN ADHEM (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich and lily-like in bloom,

An ANGEL writing in a book of gold.

Exceeding peace had made BEN ADHEM bold,

And to the Presence in the room he said:

'What writest thou? The Vision raised his head,

And, in a voice made all of sweet accord,

Answered, 'The names of those who love the LORD!"
And is mine one?' said ADHEM. Nay, not so,'
Replied the ANGEL. ABON spoke more low,

But cheerly still: I pray thee, then,

Write me as one who loves his fellow-men.'

The Angel wrote and vanished. The next night

He came again, with a great wakening light,

And showed the names whom love of GOD had blest;

And lo! BEN ADHEM's name led all the rest!'

THE 'True Sun' daily journal has some very just remarks upon the character of the 'fashionable periodicals,' of immense pretensions, which so often appear and disappear in this gullible country: For a while, perhaps, the speculation succeeds, but by and by the picture-plates become shabby, the articles are common-place, the editor's material runs out, and the public discontinue their subscriptions, to patronise perhaps some new affair of still greater pretensions. The puffing which they have had from the newspapers only makes the collapse more decided and hopeless, as a bladder stretched beyond its capacity is the most certain of a fatal rupture.' We have seen no less than twenty-five periodicals, such as are here depicted, 'go by the board' within the last twelve years. Mr. DOWNING, who has done so much good in towing' the public taste toward a more refined style of country-edifices, has a new and improved edition of his 'Cottage-Architecture' printed and ready for the publishers, Messrs. WILEY AND PUTNAM. We shall soon lose sight of the monotonous Grecian temples, with great columns of pine boards before every window, which have so long'specked' the verdant banks of the Hudson; and in their places will arise cottages, after various and tasteful orders of architecture. By the way: it would not be amiss, if a little of this variety could be transferred to the metropolis. The American town-houses,' says an accomplished traveller, 'are built, as the ladies are dressed, all one way. There is a pair of rival parlors, and corresponding chambers above, to the third or fourth story; an entry runs alongside a mile or two without stopping, at the farthest end of which is the kitchen; so that one always stands upon the marble front of the door until Kitty has travelled this distance to let one in. How many dinners have been frozen in their own sauces, how many lovers chilled, by this refrigeratory process!' The unvarying sameness of our dwellings is an utter enemy to the picturesqueness of the metropolis; although, if SANDERSON's picture of Paris be true, which is termed one of the most picturesque of capitols, we do not know that uniformity is so much to be lamented, after all: 'Paris is a wilderness of tall, scraggy, and dingy houses, of irregular heights and sizes, staring out impudently into the street, or retiring modestly and without symmetry: a

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palace often the counterpart of a pig-sty, and a cathedral next door to a hen-roost. The streets are zig-zag, and abut against each other, as if they did not know which way to run.'... Mountains: written at Kaatskill,' does not favorably impress us, a sa whole. The truth is, we must have something on that theme that bites,' or else it is naught. We always loved mountain scenery, and have but recently re-kindled the fire of our affection among the giant hills of the north: and could well exclaim, with J. B.,' an old and favorite correspondent of this Magazine:

'MOUNTAINS! I dwell not with you now,

To climb ye, and rejoice,

And round me boometh as I write,

A crowded city's voice:

But oft in watches of the night,
When sleep the turmoil stills,
My spirit seems to walk abroad
Among the mighty hills!'

Apropos of these lines: is their accomplished author so busy with his editorials in the 'True Sun' daily journal, that he cannot let us hear from him, as aforetime, 'every now and then, or oftener?' WE may claim the credit, perhaps, of making Dow, Jr.,' the quaint and queer lay-sermonizer of the Sunday Mercury,' better known to the public than he otherwise would have been, through the extracts from his discourses' which we have occasionally given in these pages. We do not remember, however, to have met, in any of his moral etchings, a more pleasing composition' than the annexed; which is an invitation to man, pained with the world's noisy stir, and half-crazed with its maddening tumults,' to turn into the peaceful woods and listen to the thrilling music of the forest-birds :'

'How rich the varied choir! Here the restless finch fills the distant hollows with his constant calls, and the wren utters her sweet, mellow plaint to the breeze; the thrush sits musically mimicking the plough-boy's whistle, where the kalmia hangs its crimson-spotted cups, or chirps half hid among the dogwood's snowy flowers; and the blue-jay, with his checkered pinions, flits by from tree to tree, scolding prettily as he flies. I love all this. It operates as an anodyne to every worldly pain; soothes, for the time, every earthly sorrow, and tells me to sing and be merry to-day, leaving the imaginary ills of to-morrow to perish in embryo. My friends: Nature's pets are to be found at all seasons of the year. There is always something in the fields, groves and woodlands to interest us, and dissuade us from brooding over and fostering those juvenile cut-throat cares that lie cradled in every human breast. With the welcome airs of Spring, the robin comes and sings a sweet, simple song of sorrow, as she sits beside her last year's dilapidated nest; and when, at the dull evening hour, she takes her perch upon the red-stemmed hazel, how beautifully she tunes her notes to the rivulet's melancholy murmur! Yes; and as twilight falls, how delightfully the frogs play upon their unseen pipes in the neighboring pools and marshes! It seems to me like music that has lain frozen up all winter, now just thawed out, and playing, as it were, for its own amusement, with all the ease and freedom of a pocket-organ. My hearers: in the summer season you have a full orchestra of feathered musicians; and the way they pour out the melody is most gladdening to the soul. Now and then, however, we find a bird whose harp was never tuned to harmony. Far up some creek's still course, whose current mines the forest's blackened roots, and whose green margin is seldom trod by human foot, the lonely heron stands, and harshly breaks the Sabbath of the wilderness; or you may find him by some reedy pool, or meditating gloomily on the time-stained rock that wets its bottom with the waters of some misty lake. This grey watcher of the waters sings no joyous song, as he looks after his supper by keeping an eye on the shining fishes as they pass; and yet there is mysterious music in that strange, startling call of his, like the wild scream of one whose life is perishing at sea! There is sacred music, my friends, in the lone whippoor-will's fitful hymn, when heard in the drowsy watches of the night; when all the village lights are out; when the day-winds are hushed, and the very ears of Earth seem to be open and listening. O, it is heart-softening to hear him chant his hollow dirge, like some recluse who takes his lodgings in the wilderness of the woods, and sends up his anthem while all the world is still! Oh! how I used to love, when a boy, (ah! my GOD! when I was a boy!) to have this little minstrel leave his hidden home to sit upon my windowsill and sing me to sleep, when the blue-bird and robin were at rest, and the twittering swallows had folded up their wings for the night! Let the GOD of Nature be thanked for sending such a welcome nocturnal visiter to sing lullabies at the couch of care; to sweeten the slumbers of us, wretched mortals; and make us dream perchance of joy, of happiness and heaven!'

WE have (for the first and last time, we cal'late,) a rhyming correspondent who sends us from The Jumping-off Place in Maine' what he calls an effusion,' which he would like, he says, to see 'printed into the KERNICKERBOCKER.' He mentions that, from his

northern position, he considers himself an American Skald.' He may be; but we are not going to burn our fingers with him. We cannot help thinking, that

'Round the shore where loud Lufoden
Whirls to death the roaring whale,
Round the hall where Runic ODIN
Howls his war-song to the gale;'

there are better materials for the poetic fire, if not more remarkable 'Skalds,' than any to be found on the outer borders of the American Norway.' OUR readers will be glad to learn, as we do by late and direct advices from Mr. WASHINGTON IRVING, that the temporary malady with which he was for some time afflicted has entirely left him, and that his health is completely restored. It may not be generally known to our readers that Madrid, which is situated on a plateau elevated more than eighteen hundred feet above the level of the sea, is in the most irritating atmosphere of all Spain. The wind which blows here, during almost the whole year, from the mountains of Guadarrama, and the fatal effect of which have given rise to so many proverbs, penetrates with an insupportable cold which would affect the strongest lungs, if they were not protected by the skirt of the cloak thrown over the shoulder, as well as adds to the influence of the climate in producing the most painful cholics in a great number of foreigners. It is this wind, blowing so frequently, and sometimes so violently, which incessantly raising in the air columns of nitrous powder, irritates the eyes of a population tainted with scrofulous and various affections, and gives rise to those ophthalmias which, from the reflection of the sun and the coldness of the nights, are sure in no long time to terminate fatally.' We do not affect either the tone or the manner of the paper entitled A Reminiscence.' We trust, for the writer's sake, that what he represents as a veritable occurrence' is not true; but if it were true, it would not prove the writer's deductions to be correct. We hold with SOUTHEY:

THEY sin, who tell us love can die;
With life all other passions fly,
All others are but vanity:

But love is indestructible:

WE regard THACKERAY as one of the very best magazine-writers in England. He does not strain after effects, nor affect strained language, like persons who are not accustomed to write from a full mind. We like very much a recent essay of his upon dinners; suggested by the remark of a man, who was sitting down before a huge reeking joint of meat, from which he was cutting great red smoking collops, to the effect, namely, that he was a plain man, and despised all gormandizing and French kickshaws.' 'What I complain of,' adds the modern LAMB, is, not that the man should enjoy his great meal of steaming beef; let him be happy over that as much as the beef he is devouring was in life happy over oilcakes or mangel-wurzel; but I hate the fellow's brutal self-complacency, and his scorn of other people who have different tastes from his. A man who brags regarding himself, that whatever he swallows is the same to him, and that his coarse palate recognises no difference between venison and turtle, pudding, or mutton-broth, as his indifferent jaws close over them, brags about a personal defect, the wretch! - and not about a virtue. It is like a man boasting that he has no ear for music, or no eye for color, or that his nose cannot scent the difference between a rose and a cabbage.' He goes on to contend, that 'good dinners have been the greatest vehicles of benevolence since man began to eat;' and that 'a taste for good living is praiseworthy in moderation.' A good dinner is the centre of the circle of social sympathies, and one of the causes of domesticity. The brain is a terrible secret. I believe some chemist will arise anon, who will know how to doctor the brain as they do

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