this subject: If to look often and adoringly through nature up to nature's God' be devotion, I am still devout. No sunset, no morning's beauty, no rich and sudden sight of loveliness in scenery, goes by without the renewal of that worship in my heart that was once religion. I praise God daily. Worldling as I am, and hardly as I dare claim any virtue as a Christian, there is that within me which sin and folly never reached or tainted. The unprompted and irresistible thoughts, upspringing in my mind in any scene of beauty, would seem prayers, and pure ones, to many a humble Christian.' Speaking of the 'elect and non-elect,' the saint and the worldling, he continues: The chasm between them in this world should be narrowed, for they have many sympathies. The bigot makes the separation unnaturally wide. Who is the one man mentioned in Scripture as 'loved' by the SAVIOUR? The young Ruler' who could not give up his great possessions' 'to inherit eternal life!' Is not this tender interest in one out of the fold' a lesson, a most unheeded lesson, to the strict sect? I talk feelingly of this, for I have an admiration of goodness and purity, that has never separated itself from my love of beauty. I love a simple and unobtrusive piety, and am drawn irresistibly toward the possessor. Yet this better part of my nature is excluded with the rest, when I am denied Christian sympathy.' A cheerful enjoyment of the 'religious sentiment,' as awakened by the works of a great and good BEING, is not a thing to be discouraged; and it was discouraged in the article to which we alluded. To a Christian,' says the eloquent LARNED, 'not only is cheerfulness (and he might have added charity) becoming, but the want of it is a suspicious symptom. I cannot abide that hollow-hearted Christianity which makes long prayers and wears long faces.' . . . THE Scenes at Saratoga, by a Lingerer,' are rather out of season, but we have placed them in our Accepted' port-folio. There is offence,' as we happen to know, however, in one sketch, and that we shall omit. Apropos to this theme, by the by, are the remarks of a most shrewd observer of men, women, and things: A man falls in love just as he falls down stairs. It is an accident — perhaps, and very probably a misfortune; something which he neither intended nor foresaw, nor apprehended. But when he runs in love it is as when he runs in debt; it is done knowingly and intentionally; and very often rashly and foolishly, even if not ridiculously, miserably, and ruinously. Marriages that are made up at watering-places are mostly of this running sort. But the man who is married for mere worldly motives, without a spark of affection on the woman's part, may nevertheless get, in every worldly sense of the word, a good wife; but when a woman is married for the sake of her fortune, the case is altered, and the chances are a hundred to one that she marries a villain, or at best a scoundrel. Watering-places might with equal propriety be called fishing-places, because they are frequented by female anglers, who are in quest of such prey -the elder for their daughters, and the younger for themselves. But it is a dangerous sport, for the fair piscatrix is not more likely to catch a prize than she is to be caught by a shark.' As for courting ladies,' we disagree entirely with our correspondent. We rather affect the proposition of a waggish writer in FRAZER'S London Magazine: Let us widowers and bachelors form an association to declare, for the next hundred years, that we will make love no longer. Let the young women come and make love to us; let them write us verses; let them ask us to dance, get us ices and cups of tea, and help us off with our cloaks at the hall-door, and if they are eligible, we may perhaps be induced to yield, and say: La! Miss HOPKINS!-I really never-I am so agitated!-ask papa!' THE instructive Letter from a Retired Business-Man' is not amiss, except for one thing; the writer has read and remembered a similar sketch, written some years since by THOMAS HOOD. The lesson which it teaches, however, a good one. That prince of hosts, the elder CRITTENDEN, of the Eagle' Inn at Albany, died of actual inanition, at the beautiful country-place to which he retired. The renowned hosts of our own City-Hotel redeemed themselves from a similar fate, by resuming their old occupations just in the nick of time. One of the quaintest of modern authors, in a miscellaneous work, like "That curious book of BUNYAN'S, All strung together like a bunch of onions,' has some observations which are germane to this point. It is neither so easy a thing,' he writes, nor so agreeable a one as men commonly expect, to dispose of leisure, when they retire from the business of the world. Their old occupations cling to them, even when they hope that they have emancipated themselves. Go to any sea-port town and you will see that the sea-captain who has retired upon his well-earned savings, sets up a weather-cock in full view from his windows, and watches the variations of the wind as duly as when he was at sea, though no longer with the same anxiety.. Every one knows the story of the tallow chandler, who, having amassed a fortune, disposed of his business, and taken a house in the country, not far from London, that he might enjoy himself, after a few months trial of a holiday life, requested permission of his successor to come into town, and assist him on melting days. I have heard of one who kept a retail spirit-shop, and having in like manner retired from trade, used to employ himself by having one puncheon filled with water, and measuring it off by pints into another. I have also heard of a butcher in a small country town, who, some little time after he had left off business, informed his old customers that he meant to kill a lamb once a week, just for his amusement.'. WE have had some delightful vocalism in New-York lately. First, Mr. M'MICHAEL, an accomplished gentleman, and a 'sweet singer of Ireland,' won at once upon the town, and attracted, night after night, large and gratified audiences, by the manner in which he rendered the charming melodies of his native country. We commend him warmly to the good graces of all our readers in the Atlantic cities, and wheresoever else he may temporarily sojourn in the course of his musical tour among us. Mr. DEMPSTER, in a style peculiarly his own, has been giving us a series of musical entertainments, which have lost nothing of their popularity with all classes. Mr. HENRY PHILLIPS, one of the very first vocalists in England, has also appeared at the Apollo Rooms. The high fame which had preceded him proved not to have been exaggerated. He has established himself firmly in the popular favor, and continues to attract large and delighted assemblies. Mr. PHILLIPS brings us letters from esteemed friends in England, from which we learn, that aside from his great professional eminence, he is a clever man of letters. His 'True Enjoyments of Angling' is pronounced to be a volume which takes rank with IZAAK WALTON'S.' We shall in our next endeavor to do that justice to Mr. PHILLIPS' admirable entertainments, which we are prevented by the lack of time and space, at so late a period, from rendering him in the present issue.... THAT passage in Mr. CHOATE's Anti-Annexation speech which touches upon the means of obtaining a majority vote, (images of foreign missions, and departments, and benches of justice' high bids, certainly,) reminded us of the remark of LENTULUS, who having escaped justice by means of large gifts to the judges, said: 'I have put my self to a needless expense in bribing one of the two judges who turned the scale in my favor, since a majority of one would have been sufficient.' We suppose it is difficult to graduate those things to a nicety; and it must be very vexatious to find we have given a foreign mission where a collectorship would have been sufficient, or a post-office where ‘a pair or two of cast pantaloons' would have answered the purpose. By-the-by, speaking of adscititious operations: one of the morning papers mentions a case which it calls 'accidental,' but which we think evidently suicidal. The deceased is stated to have been struck on the head by a brick, while engaged in mixing mortar and fracturing his skull.' The brick seems to have been altogether superfluous. THE remarks of our Philadelphia correspondent upon Clerical Oratory in the United States' have been anticipated in these pages. A series of papers under the head of 'Pulpit Eloquence,' from the pen of a distinguished professor of elocution, appeared in the KNICKERBOCKER five or six years since, and attracted very general attention. Several of the suggestions in the present paper do not impress us favorably. Two of the writer's directions, in the matter of gesture, would lead inevitably to an appearance of study or affectation-a thing utterly detestable in the manner of a dying man preaching to dying men.' NICHOLAS BRETON, one of the old ... English poetical worthies, has an idea of the sacred office, which we think would be a good substitute for, if it did not really constitute, clerical eloquence : 'I WOULD I were an excellent divine, That had the Bible at my fingers' ends, Then would I frame a kind of faithful prayer 'And I would read the rules of sacred life, 'Pray for the health of all that are diseased, And grace to all, that all may be amended.' WE have from Messrs. LEA AND BLANCHARD, Philadelphia, a new volume of Walpole's Correspondence with Sir Horace Mann.' In it is finally concluded the long series of letters which has been from time to time appearing before the public; and it is peculiarly interesting to the American reader, from the fact that it contains a running commentary on the events of the revolution, which occurred in this part of the correspondence, mingled with a history of the proceedings of the British Parliament in relation to the colonies in revolt. All this would be curious and attractive, had it occurred in the diary or letters of any one; but coming, as it does, from the pen of a man unsurpassed in this peculiar department, it gives to the present volume great attraction. Its typographical execution is altogether unexceptionable. WE had the great pleasure, in looking in upon Mr. CUMMINGS, our distinguished miniature-painter, the other day, to see two pictures, fresh from his pencil, which he has never surpassed, and one of which at least we have never seen surpassed by any American artist, in this department. The beautiful flesh-tints, the delicate shadows, the well-drawn and sweetly-colored hands, and what is a rare merit, the well-chosen and most tasteful accessories, are beyond all praise. The pictures we learn are soon to be sent abroad.... 'A Dream, written on board the Steamer Knickerbocker,' is neither bad nor good verse. The incidental tribute, however, to Captain SAINT JOHN and his second officer, Mr. H. H. HAUGHTON, is most just; for two more attentive and obliging gentlemen, or two persons better qualified for the arduous duties of the honorable stations which they occupy, (and fill,) cannot be found this side of sun-down.' And as for their noble steamer, it is a waste of words to enlarge upon it. It has never had its equal, in this country, and if it ever has its superior hereafter, we shall lose our guess.' WE are writing these sentences with the Maintaining Spring Pen,' manufactured by C. C. WRIGHT AND COMPANY, of this city. It is the thing. It has a spring upon the back, near the split, which gives it all the elasticity of a quill. The spoon-shaped back-spring pen,' of the same gentlemen, and their 'Croton pen,' are admirable substitutes for the quill-pen; and they are moreover the only good substitutes that we have yet encountered. They may be obtained at the manufacturers' in Broadway, below and near Cortland-street. MUCH GOSsipry, (including an elaborate review of The Drama, at the different theatres, sundry notices of contemporaries, and to correspondents,) although in type, is by an unlucky accident postponed to our next number. ART. I. THE POLYGON PAPERS: ORTHOGRAPHICAL CONFUSION, III. THE ANGEL OF THE TOMB. BY PAYNE KENYON KILBOURN, VII. LOVE'S ROMANCE, OR THE DAYS OF OLD, . VIII. OSCEOLA, OR THE SEMINOLE WAR-CHIEF. BY THOS. W. STORROW, X. LETTERS FROM CUBA. NUMBER ONE, XI. STANZAS: OMNIBUS DRIVERS, . XII. WHAT ARE BUBBLES? BY SUSAN PINDAR, XIII. REMINISCENCES OF A DARTMOOR PRISONER. WITH AN ENGRAVING, LITERARY NOTICES: 464 466 466 467 468 1. THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW FOR THE OCTOBER QUARTER, EDITOR'S TABLE: 1. WHITE LYING AND ITS VICTIMS: AN AWFUL WARNING,' 2. THE INDIAN AND THE 'PALE-FACE,' 3. WORKS OF THE REV. WILLIAM JAY, . 4. GOSSIP WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS, 1. REV. SYDNEY SMITH: PREACHING AND PREACHERS IN ENGLAND: THE TRUE BUTTERFLY VOYAGER. 4 INSERTION. 65. NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 470 472 473 474 |