of Yankees were in earnest confab, a shingle and jack-knife in the hands of each, and the subjects of their discourse varying from the 'right of search' to the probability of 'diskiverin' the hole, upon which the celebrated Professor SYMMES claimed the honor of theorizing. In the back-ground, troops of flower-girls were lightly footing the graceful minuet with the lads of the mountain,' to the music of the tinkling guitar and the clattering castanets; the tambourine of the mottled mountebank rung its tum-tum, tingle-ting through the vast assemblage, while the aged, and those who preferred looking on to participation, were seated in the box-tier.

But I suppose the reader would like to know how a theatre is rigged into a ball-room; and being one of the most accommodating fellows in existence, I will state the case' briefly. As I said before, El Teatro de Tacon' is one of the largest and richest theatres in the world. During the carnival season the large parquette is floored over to an equal height with, and joined to, the stage; which is thrown entirely open, the scenery removed, and every part save the boxes cleared up as neatly as a man-o'-war's decks on a Sunday morning, when she 's off soundings. This is done to give sea-room for the dancers; and there is plenty of space for four thousand people to veer and haul in this theatre, when thus prepared. A part of the second tier of boxes was reserved for the musicband, the rest of the second and lower tiers being filled with inactive spectators. The lofty, carved and gilded walls, were hung with silken banners and festoons of flowers, the whole being lighted with an immense chandelier, which hung from the centre of the dome, and twenty-four smaller ones, which were suspended from the beaks of gilded eagles, at regular distances around the building.

My friends and myself were soon gliding about, enjoying the wit and mystery of the various characters; first whispering a word in this one's ear and then in another's, each seemingly seeking to impart to the other the joy which overrun his own breast. I had just entered into an animated flirtation with some high-born damsel, in the guise of a merry peasant-girl, when a low, thrilling burst of music fell upon my ear, half suspending my breath as I drank in its rich melody.

Madre de Dios! es un angel! whispered my companion, as she glided toward the unseen musician. Slowly I worked my way through the dense breathless throng which had gathered around her. Oh! such music as then rose above the hum of admiration! At first, it was low, plaintive, and sweet as the tremulous sighings of an Æolian harp, heard from afar over zephyr-fanned waters; then, as if nearer borne on airy pinions, till the souls of the entranced hearers thrilled with its melody; again slowly, softly sinking away, reminding one of the last lingering sigh of true love, as it leaves the inanimate, freezing clay, and wings its way to heaven. I could no longer master my feelings. Right and left, with more force than politeness, I pushed through the mass of bodies that veiled the songstress from my sight.

I have ever been an ardent admirer of beauty and music; it was not strange therefore that my feelings should have approached adoration, when I found them both combined to a degree almost exceeding perfection, in the stranger before me. I reached the spot where I had before observed

6

the Turk reclining on his cushion. He no longer sat the slave of apathy; his chiboque lay broken at his feet; he had torn the mask from his face, and seemed fully as far gone as myself. With one knee resting on the deserted cushion, a guitar in her hand, her long ebon lashes, like a fringe of glossy silk, veiling her half-closed eyes, was the enchantress whose music's spell' had fallen on all around. On her lips trembled the last sad notes of a Lamentacione Española.' 'Mournful, oh! mournful' was her tone and mien as she sang the decline of her nation in the beautiful words of De Vega. Tears glistened in many an eye, around her; sighs echoed from the rough breasts of hardy men, as well as tender women; all felt the full force of music's power, when wielded by that peerless girl. At last, she paused; looked around in evident surprise at the effect her song had produced; and then, changing her theme, commenced a lively prelude on her instrument. Her eyes caught mine; one thrilling look went to my heart; and then she commenced a song of love and chivalry, in tones even more ravishing than before.

The end of the song found me, unconscious of time, place, or the thousand gleaming eyes bent toward me, upon my knees at her side; and as the last note trembled on the chords of her instrument, my rough voice crashed upon its sweetness: Who, and what are you? An angel from heaven?'

6

With her bird-like voice, and a merry laugh, she cried: Que romantico!' sprang from me, and disappeared in the crowd, leaving the guitar, which had borne such sweet cadence to her voice, in my hands.

'Well, you'll pass, Ned!' said Don Mattias, slapping me on my shoulder. 'I've been watching your manoeuvres this half hour. You've been backing and filling till you 're got yourself aground on the shoals of love, eh?

'Do you know her?' said I, slowly recovering from the stupor into which her sudden flight had thrown me.

'Certainly I do; she's a cousin of mine; and if you'll collect your scattered senses, do the agreeable, and take a turn or two with the girls, we 'll go and serenade her by and by, with her own guitar, which I see you've captured.'

The band struck up, and soon the lovely Isabella and myself were whirling around in the voluptuous waltz; but my charmer was no longer to be seen. She had decamped, bearing with her my heart, an article. that hitherto had stood the test of bright eyes and love-darts, without material harm, although it was of a rather susceptible nature. Mechanically I passed through the evening's amusements, and rejoiced when the hour to return had at last arrived.

Reader, you must pardon me for not giving you a more full description of the ball; but about this time I was taken too suddenly ill to take notes. My disease was of that universally fatal and undoctorable species, called love, and of course it made me blind to every thing but her; so forgive me for this one neglect, and I'll tell you all about it another

time.

We (Don Mattias and myself) soon deposited the young ladies at home; then, donning our cloaks and rapiers, we started for the serenade. Doña SEHERINA, for that was my lady-love's name, resided outside the city

walls, in the pallacio of her aunt, the Comtesa Escudero; and thither we rode as fast as our horses would carry us. We soon arrived in sight of the building, which contained the purloiner of my heart, and a cold dreary-looking pile it was. The windows were nearly at the top of the high, gray walls, and as is usual in Spanish countries, barred, by way of caging the pretty birds within, I suppose. We fastened our horses in the rear of the building; and now for the first time I perceived a light shining from a solitary window, which opened out upon a small iron-balustraded balcony.

'How are we to get over this confounded wall?' said I, gazing dubiously on a high stone wall, surmounted with a quantity of broken glassbottles, which shone savagely' in the clear moon-light.

I'll show you directly,' said my comrade, flinging the cords of his cloak over the out-reaching limb of an agricarte tree, that jutted over the wall. The next instant he hauled himself up, and passing him the guitar, I followed suit. We dropped noiselessly into the garden beneath, and cautiously stole along amidst orange-trees and flower-beds, until we stood beneath the lighted window. With something or other playing a 'double-quick tattoo' against my breast-bone, I took the guitar, and with a trembling hand, by way of prelude to awaken the lady, struck up that appropriate pouching air, "T is my delight of a shiny night,' etc.; but a shadow, as the breath of a dying infant, threw itself upon a bed of flowers in front of the window. I knew it was her; my hand grew firm and steady; boldly and freely it swept the dulcet chords obedient to my will; my voice grew clear, and swelled into my favorite song with an eloquence it never knew before. I was singing to win a wife.

I ceased; the shadow left the flower-bed, disappeared for a moment, then returned; a hand whiter than the moon's ray which kissed it, was extended; a packet dropped from the unclosed fingers.

'Ned, you are a lucky dog!' cried Mattias; here's a bouquet of orange-flowers with a pink in the centre, bound round with blue ribbon. You are an accepted lover!'

Thank God!' I exclaimed, as I gazed on the precious tell-tales.

'Amen!' fell from the balcony, like an angel's response from heaven, in the same tone which had bound my heart a life-prisoner at the ball. We returned home

READER, I was about to conclude my yarn; but there is a little witch looking over my shoulder, who bothers me so that I cannot write. I'll describe her. As all of the witching kind does, she appears in the shape of a woman. In the first place, she's between eighteen and twenty years of age; tall -no she is not tall, nor is she short; but she is just a VENUSIAN height; her figure like unto that which Nature modelled, and then in anger broke the mould which formed it, because it excelled herself.

'Confound it, Madam! - good LORD! Mrs. Buntline !— let me alone!' There, reader, she has capsized the inkstand and pulled my ears. My tale must close: there! she has blown out the light. Good night! GOD bless the ladies.

Cincinnati, (Ohio.)

N. B.

THE BURIAL OF CHATTERTON.

BY JOHN ROSS DIX.

THOMAS CHATTERTON, the author of the celebrated RowLEY poems, committed suicide in London, at the age of seventeen years. Such was his poverty, that for two days prior to his death he subsisted on a penny-tart and some water. He was buried at night in a work-house burial-ground.

I.

THERE was heard a measured tread

Through the streets in the deep midnight,
No beam from the waning moon was shed,
And the stars withdrew their light!
Dark were the heavens above,

Dark was the earth beneath;

Dark, as the latest hour of him

Who forced the gates of Death!

Hurriedly and carelessly they bore him to his rest,

And laid the wearied child of song on Earth's maternal breast.

II.

No prayers were breathed, no tears
Bedewed his pauper-grave,

No mother wept in anguish there
For him, she might not save.
But stranger-hands consigned
To earth's sepulchral clod,

The poet's mortal flesh, to wait
The trumpet call of GOD:

As meteor-fires which flash on high, and then are lost in gloom,
His genius only blazed to light a pathway to the tomb.

III.

Where that young minstrel sleeps
Not e'en the rank grass grows,

No cold recording marble tells

The place of his repose:

Among the poor he lived,

Among the poor he died,

And with them in the charnel-house

Lay down the Suicide!

But oh! what need of epitaph or quaintly-sculptured stone
As monument for CHATTERTON? He proudly built his own!

IV.

His daring hand unstrung

His own majestic lyre;

But deathless are its melodies

And quenchless is its fire:

Its wondrous music long

Shall loving hearts entrance,

And for his early doom shall mourn

The genius of Romance!

Shrined within Thought's solemn cell his image long shall be,
Whose life, whose death, whose nameless grave, are each a mystery.

Philadelphia, November, 1844.

LITERARY NOTICES.

VEGETABLE CHEMISTRY: A TREATISE ON THE FORCES WHICH PRODUCE THE ORGANIZATION OF PLANTS: with an Appendix, containing several Memoirs on Capillary Attraction, Electricity, and the Chemical Action of Light. By J. W. DRAPER, M. D., Professor of Chemistry in the University of New-York: HARPER And Brothers.

THE rapidity with which the science of chemistry is advancing, is surprising to those who only now and then have occasion to look into the new books. We well remember, for it is only a few years since, that a treatise on chemistry was considered complete when it gave some account of heat, light, and electricity, a little about oxygen gas and several metals, and wound up by administering a long chapter on the salts, by way of a final dose. But things have changed; and in the midst of so many new sciences, chemistry has advanced with a steady and rapid step. It has long ago ceased to be a simple amusement for druggists, or a trifle to entertain the young ladies of seminaries. When we look at the recent works, for example the one now before us, we are at once struck with the great advance which has been made. The pages, as we turn them over, have acquired a mathematical appearance; there are symbols, and equations, and tables, and all that betokens exact knowledge. On the title-page we find it styled A Treatise on the Forces which produce the Organization of Plants;' that is, a book showing how plants grow, and what they come from. This is very different from the old chemistry. It is only three or four years ago that this science came to be applied to explain the physiology of plants and animals. One of the earliest treatises by LIEBIG is well known in the United States, for it is said that more than one hundred thousand copies were sold here. This has been followed from time to time by the works of DUMAS and BOUSSINGAULT in France, and JOHNSTON in England. Public attention has been fully awakened to the importance of these new applications, and scientific men are every where adding improvements. Sir HUMPHREY DAVY, himself a great chemist, used to say that of all sciences chemistry was by far the noblest. There is indeed something about it which extorts our admiration. It embraces equally objects the most minute, and the most extensive; and whether it be giving the analysis of a stone, or developing the various functions of the human system, it is equally enchanting. Since it has been applied to the phenomena of life, it has become something more than a merely interesting study. The mysteries of Life, many of which are now on the point of being explained by it, are regarded by all men with a feeling of awe: We are fearfully and wonderfully made!'

If the applications of chemistry to animal physiology are of such great interest, its applications to vegetable physiology are scarcely less so. Plants are, as it were, the links between minerals and animals, and in them are carried on many wonderful actions. It is the felicity with which science explains these processes, that has so forcibly attracted the public attention. Dr. DRAPER's book, which by the way is an excellent specimen of the manner, in which our friends the HARPERS can publish valuable works, appears in an unusual form for an American book. It is printed with large types, on fine paper, and in