stuffed with ears; another swaggered about with the finger of a little child in his hat.' THE annexed clever parody upon a popular poem of LONGFELLOW's, sets forth the cosmopolitan character of an accidental crowd, such as would be arrested in five minutes by a dam across Broadway on any day in the week, and which would afford examples of nearly all that is extant in the human species. The successive speakers are a New-Yorker, Frenchman, Negro, Italian, Scotchman, English cockney, Welshman, German, Scottish-Highlander, Yankee, and Irishman:

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We are struck with the following' touch of nature,' which we take from a travelling sketch by THACKERAY, author of the Yellowplush Correspondence:''Little people were playing hide-and-seek round the deck, coquetting with the other children, and making friends of every soul on board. I love to see the kind eyes of women fondly watching them as they gambol about: a female face, be it never so plain, when occupied in regarding children, becomes celestial almost; and a man can hardly fail to be good and happy while he is looking at such sights. Ah! Sir,' says a great big man, whom you would not accuse of sentiment, I have a couple of those little things at home.' He is saying to himself, 'God bless my girls and their mother!'' THE paper referred to by our Mobile correspondent would better suit the pages of the 'Journal of the Franklin Institute' or SILLIMAN'S Journal of Science' than those of the KNICKERBOCKER. If he will send it to us, we will place it in the hands of a gentleman who, beside being an artist of various skill, and a most accomplished chemist, of wide repute, is one of the best consulting and practical engineers in the United States. His paper will be well understood and candidly considered by JAMES J. MAPES, Esq. I've always remarked,' says that profound observer, Mr. CHAWLS YELLOWPLUSH,'' that when you see a wife a-takin' on airs onto herself, a-scoldink, and internally a-talkin' about her dignity' and 'her branch,' that the husband is inwariably a spoon.' A friend of ours says that he was reminded of this sage remark the other night, in coming down the Hudson. A large, fat, pompous woman, who was ever and anon overlooking her husband, (a thin, lank personage, with a baby in his arms, who exhibited every mark of prolonged annoyance,) in reply to a meek complaint on his part of fatigue, and the expression of a wish that the nurse might get over her sea-sickness, said: 'I never saw a man conduct so before-never, on the face o' the globéd airth. If I'd ha' known that you was goin' to act in this way, I would n't ha' fetched you!' The gentleman straitway sang the 'Lay of the Henpecked' to the crying baby, and was thenceforth as mum as an oyster. In looking over an Address delivered before the C. P. and L. Society, of Centre College, (what is the name and where the place?) by DAVID C. TANDY, we were struck with the crowded composition' of the annexed picture of the march of ages:

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6

'LET us imagine a stage, and make their shadows to pass before us, as themselves have through the lapse of centuries; it will be a grand show. Behold! they pass now: Babylon! robed in the glory of Eastern purple, jeweled with treasure plundered of GOD; in her hand, the old sceptre of fallen Ninevah; her eye upturned, wrapt in the mystery of the stars; and, as she passes, Prophecy utters darkly her awful doom. Now, the Sovereignty of Medes and Persians, a gray old tyrant, comes; and proudly bearing, passes on to gather his robes about him, and die sternly, with priest and Magi weeping around him, and a shout, faint in the distance, as of slaves with their shackles struck off, to mock him in his agonies. Macedon is before us now; the lust of dominion burning in her eye; and dreaming wildly of the world as one empire. This is Rome, reeling beneath the weight of her iron crown! Now across the stage is the rushing of a wild horde, with long hair streaming, and ODIN for their fierce god! Now gloomy castles frown from the scene; and suddenly a proud array of Barons in their power are before us, and with the glittering of burnished armor, and streaming heraldric banners, and the cross uplifted, and curses of the infidel on their lips, pass on in gorgeous pilgrimage to the tomb of GOD, and are seen no more. Now come, in slow procession, a brotherhood of crowned Monarchies, with glances of jealous eyes, and Hatred eating away their bosoms; and recking not that their sceptre-grasp is growing weaker in their fierce passion. These have passed on, and now the stage is covered with broken sceptres, and crowns with their jewels scattered; and Royalty is weeping over them; and gray Eld, in ivy-woven vesture, on his moss-grown throne, broods sullenly, with none to venerate! And lastly, with acclamation of the earth, passes one in her youth, coming from her battling with kings, glorying in her triumph; and around her a vast concourse, for which we know no name but The New. It is over now: they have all passed.'

The Quarterlies and Magazines across the water are busy in reviewing authentic works upon French cookery; such as the 'Phisiologie du Goût,'' Le Nouveau et Parfait Cusinier,' etc. The work of the great CAREME seems to bear away the palm. The American in Paris,' it will be remembered, gives an elaborate account of this distinguished chef de cuisine. He holds a high gentlemanly rank, and lives in an enviable condition of opulence and splendor. He keeps his carriage, takes his airing of an evening, has his country-seat, and his box at the opera. The number of officers attached to his staff is greater than those of any general of the realm. His assistant roaster, we are told, has a larger salary than

the President of the United States. He is an hereditary artist. He had an ancestor who was 'chef de cuisine' of the Vatican, and invented a soup maigre for his Holiness; and another who was cook to the Autocratix of all the Russias. He himself invented a sauce piquante when quite a young man. 'How talents do run in some families! The truth is, that a great cook is as rare a miracle as a great poet. It is well known that CLAUDE LORRAINE could not succeed in pastry, with all his genius!' SANDERSON gives us an excellent sketch of a distinguished French cook, in his picture of VERY'S: Beside the usual officers and attendants, you will see here a little man, grave, distrait, and meditative. Do not disturb him; he is perhaps busy about the projet of some new sauce. He will start off abruptly sometimes, and leave you in the middle of a phrase: it is not incivility; he has just conceived a dish, and is going to execute it, or write it upon his tablets. Never ask for him in the mornings before one: Il compose.' He is composing! As an illustration of the dignity of the profession, and the self-complacency of its more eminent members, we subjoin a few 'Orphic Sayings' of the kitchen, which proceed from the great CAREME; "The every-day routine cook is without courage. His life flows away in mediocrity. Delivering myself up entirely to cookery, I promised myself that I would reform an infinity of old usages, although practised by the greatest masters of the art. When I became chief of the kitchen of the Emperor ALEXANDER, I commenced this great reform.' 'I think that a cook can never make too many sacrifices to accelerate the progress of his art. I have not only made great sacrifices in money, but every day have meditated some new thing. How perfectly French is the style of the following direction: A pheasant should be suspended by the tail, and eaten when he detaches himself from that incumbrance. It was thus that a pheasant hung on Shrove Tuesday was susceptible of being spitted on Easter-day!' Think of an artist like this, with such ideas of his profession, serving an exquisite dish to a face that expresses no rapture; to one who shows no flashes of desire, no radiant ecstacy of countenance! It is not enough, therefore, as has been well said, that a table be loaded with dishes; there must be science, to call them by their names, and taste to discriminate their uses. What is sauce for a goose is not always sauce for a gander, at a Parisian restaurant. Think then of the shock which a distinguished' chef de cuisine' must have undergone, on hearing a couple of unhewn Yankée-Doodels' from the Far West (the story is authentic) exclaim to a polite attendant at VERY'S, the NAPOLEON of gastronomy: 'D- -n your eyes! why don't you bring in the dinner?-and take away that broth, and your black bottle? Who the devil wants your vinegar, and your dish-water, and your bibs too? And bring us, if you can, a whole chicken's leg at once, and not at seven different times.' Hunger was better to them than a French cook. They had run all over Paris for a beef-steak, and when they had got it, it was a horse's rump!' Our American' tells us that the best artists will serve you up your grandfather's head in a capital soup. An English wag goes farther, and says that fossil remains would be abundant matériel for a Parisian 'chef.' He would furnish an 'Icthyosaurus jelly,' a nutricious and palatable preparation, extracted by an elaborate chemical process from the bones of the Icthyosaurus; a Paté de Mastodonte; a pot-pourri, consisting of a judicious mélange of the most recherché fossil remains, both vegetable and animal; Potage Megatherium, a unique article, concocted from the nutritious principle still existing in the osseous relics of that extinct gigantic animal, the Megatherium!' . . ALLUSIONS are frequently made in our private correspondence, as well as in communications for our work, to the article on American Poets and Poetry,' in a late number of the Foreign Quarterly Review; and the name of DICKENS or FOSTER is always associated with its paternity. We have it, however, on the best authority, that neither of them ever wrote a line of it. How much excellent abuse' has been wasted upon these gentlemen! We have spoken elsewhere of the musical but meaningless verse which one encounters so frequently now-a-days. As a contrast to this species of 'composition,' let us ask the reader's attention to the following beautiful lines of BRYANT, in the present number of GRAHAM's Magazine. Observe that it is not the moon waning to the west-an impression that at first created a little confusion in our mind - but

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the moon waning to a crescent, of which the poet speaks. How condensed are the thoughts; how choice the language; how felicitous the whole:

'My First Play' is most welcome. We shall always be happy to hear from the writer.' We can assume, without risk, that he need never fear rejection. By the by, the difference between sitting as the spectator of one's own or of another's play, is the difference between 'sitting at one's table as a guest or as a meat,' as LAMB remarked of his friend who was going to the Cannibal Islands. One of the SMITHS tells an amusing story of a play-writer who, in order to imbibe unbiased opinions of his new piece, stationed himself in the gallery of the theatre; a short-sighted expedient, for the people there were raging with disappointment and vexation. The author was a fool; they only wished they had him there; might the devil take them, if they would n't throw him over into the pit! Alarmed for his personal safety, he steals out of the populous pandemonium, and goes round to the stagedoor. Afraid to face the pity of the actors in the green-room, he wanders amid the scenery at the back of the stage, among a motley assemblage of baronial castles, woods, cascades, and Chinese pagodas; but still the howls and hisses ring in his ears. While standing here, like Orestes tortured by the Furies, two scene-shifters recognize him; but kindly affecting not to know him, one of them says: "I'll bet you a pot of beer that this play looks up in the last act, after all!' The poor play-wright's dramatic career ended with being pitied by a scene-shifter!... WHERE is Professor ESPY, who applied some time since to the Legislature of Pennsylvania to be paid by the State for an experiment of making water by playing with fire? - or in other words, of producing a shower by burning a large tract of woodland somewhere in the interior? The Fourth-of-July is near at hand; and if there be any truth in the Professor's theory, the smokes of the wide resounding ordnance,' tributary to patriotism on that day, will create copious showers soon after, all over the United States. Therefore, watch and remember.... THERE was a man named ESTABROOK, arrested and committed to prison in this city some weeks since, for publishing a little folio-journal called The Unexpected Letter,' and obtaining postage upon the same, through the aid of the juvenile carriers. He was soon liberated however, it being evident that he was walking in darkness.' He dropped in upon us soon after his discharge, and 'more in sorrow than in anger' spoke meekly of his unjust incarceration: he then handed us a copy of his handsome Letter,' and retired. We glanced over it; and among the first pas

sages that arrested our attention was the following: Life, you know, is tumultuous; at least, I know it. Half-wrecked already! I am an invalid, and seeking through the racestubble around me, sympathy! Forasmuch as my departure to the Great Homestead draweth near, I am panting for those pure vestments of mortality which shall grace its heavenwide halls. Thus far, how hard to discover! All my methods are thread-bare and fruitless. But sympathy is a law of the Universe; plentifully abounding; and without its strengthening influences, this world were an ungladdened waste.' We know not how these yearnings of a clouded spirit may strike the reader, but to us they seem imbued with pathos and deep feeling. IT is a little curious what consolation may be derived from mere contrast. Fancy,' says CARLYLE somewhere, that thou deservest to be hanged, (as is most likely,) and thou wilt feel it happiness only to be shot: fancy that thou deservest to be hanged in a hair-halter, and it will be a luxury to die in hemp. The fraction of life may be increased in value not so much by increasing your numerator as by lessening your denominator.' Respectability, station in life, 'gentility,' each is a matter of simple contrast. You would think little now, may be, of the 'profession' of a man whose daily task it is to go about picking up soiled rags in the public thoroughfares; yet regard a picture of a chiffonier in the French capital, drawn by the graphic pen of our lamented friend SANDERSON; and observe too the gentleman in a lower walk of life' above whom he stalks in social preeminence. The first moves about, we are told, with a cat-like walk at all hours, with a hook in the end of a stick, stirring up the rubbish of every nook and gutter of the street; picking up bits of rags, which are subsequently cleansed and made into paper. The beau, by his pains, peruses once again his dicky or cravat of a morning, in the 'Magazin des Modes,' while the politician has his breeches reproduced in the 'Journal des Debats;' and many a fine lady pours out her soul upon a billet-doux that once was a dishclout.' The gratteur is a grade below the chiffonier;' being an artist who scratches the live-long day between the stones of the pavement for old nails from horses' shoes, and other bits of iron; always in hopes of a bit of silver, or even of a bit of gold; and more happy perhaps in this hope, than a hundred others in the possession. He maintains a family like another man; one or two of his sons he brings up to scratch for a living, and the other he sends to college. His rank however is inferior to the 'chiffonier,' who will not give him his daughter in marriage, and do n't ask him to his soirées! "The Key Found' is the felicitous title of an excellent paper in the last 'Columbian,' describing the manner in which a humane keeper of a state's-prison found the key' to the heart of a convict who had been pronounced and long considered utterly obdurate and incorrigible The officer was a man who had the sagacity to perceive and the heart to feel that even in the most perverse nature there might be a germ of good still subsisting, which needed only gentle and wise culture to quicken and expand. As apropos to this theme, run your eye, reader, over the annexed eloquent paragraph from the New-Brunswick (New-Jersey)' Fredonian' newspaper of a recent date:

"THERE were nine hundred and seventy-nine persons in Sing-Sing prison last week, of whom seventy-six were females. So it is stated in the newspapers. Such paragraphs are too often read with a 'Well what of it? air and feeling. But there are some who pause in sad thoughtfulness at such a statement. Every one of those nine hundred wretched persons was once an infant, and smiled in its vague dream of joy as it fed itself asleep on its mother's bosom. Every one of them awakened love in some less or larger circle of related hearts, and was cared for, toiled for, cherished. Perhaps some one might have been found that would have died for it, nay that did die for it. For that the mother perished; or the manly father, pitted unequally against poverty and misfortune, broke the o'erstrained heart-string. Take the sternest, hardest in that multitude, and somewhere in his bosom are wrapped up household memories, souvenirs of love, gleams and glimpses of innocence, and miniature plans and picturings of hope. Seventy-six of these are women. There have been then, to say the least of it, some rudimental elements of that creature who in society performs the office of sister, wife, mother, friend; sheds grace, softness and a beautiful glory over this life, and charms it with sweet amenities and a divine charity. Seventy-six women! - and among them all was there never a feminine love stronger than death, stranger than fiction; no woman's tenderness and tears and inspirations? But they are in Sing-Sing. Ay, there's the rub' to our faith and charity. Sing-Sing is not a boudoir, a lady's chamber, a drawing-room, a parlor, a ball-room. It is a prison; and grace, virtue of any sort or degree, does not abide in prisons, but in good society and free and decorated quarters. Alas! alas! let us hope a little otherwise. There is a charity, not forbidden, which hopeth all things,