make me sometimes to laugh aloud at my odd fancies: or perhaps he discourses of old times, and recalls to memory the jovial laugh, and the old faces of my youth. I think how

"The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has prest

In their bloom :' and I can but look upon him as a benefactor to mankind, when I think of the calm joy he has afforded to many who have long since finished their tragedy.

'I like to recall with him the days and the friends of old. There was Sarge, who always grasped MEERSCHAUM's small waist with a whole hand, and in his hearty embrace old MEERSCHAUM would laugh aloud, and amuse us by breathing forth large wreaths, which, empty as the wreaths of Ambition, faded when we touched them, and vanished in thin air. There was my old friend Tom, who held MEERSCHAUM delicately between two fingers; but this dainty dalliance was never liked; and MEERSCHAUM breathed his soul so gently away, that Tom would have to light him up about once a minute. Tom tasted only the bitterness of the breath of MEERSCHAUM'S nostrils, and his own ideas were often correspondingly acrid. Although he was the jolliest of cronies, Tom always spoke with a degree of bitterness of the world, and thought it empty. There was honest old Buch, in many respects a Dutchman, who never saw the point of a joke until the conversation had turned perhaps on a serious subject: then the previous joke would touch him; and perhaps as we would say, 'Poor FRED, he is gone from us l'Buch would come out with such a mad burst of laughter, as would make the room ring.

‘Dick said to me the other day, as we looked at each other in a small upper chamber, his apartments: ‘JOHN, write a paper of and about old times!'

"What to do with it?' I asked. 6. Print it,' he replied.

"Dic Senior bulla dignissime — Dick, old fellow, you are most worthy of a leather medal,' exclaimed JUVENAL and I. •Who would it interest but ourselves ? - and can we not recall them to each other?'

His remark suggested to me that a few pages of my life-book might bring somewhat of pleasure to those who wish that the voices of those who have accompanied us in our labors may not become sad echoes in the distance of our memories : and hence I shall some day relate things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.

But what has this to do with life's stage? It is merely a side-scene; and as we play our part to the outer world, do we not occasionally glance our eyes to our friends at the side-scenes? Yes, we do!' and there we often take the most pleasure.

'It may be a cloudy night; that is, our worldly affairs are dark : the house is empty, because our pockets are so. We see no friendly faces and applauding hands, because our prospects, like the night, are cloudy and dark. At such a time, it is pleasant to look upon the side-scenes, and see the merry old faces, and hear the applause of brighter days. Yes, as I have said, it is better to make a comedy of life: and when we have swaggered and laughed out our part, some friend shall say: 'Alas, poor YORICK!' Is this not better than to have him say: 'Happy follow ! - he is now at rest from the troubles of life, which so much disturbed him!'

'In order to make an amusing thing of life, one must be benevolent, and do all he can to make others happy. I recall one man I once made very happy : there are indeed many others; but this one I do especially remember : and I am sure he

6

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remembers me well: it was my tailor; who, when I knew him not, requested the privilege of making for me choice apparel. I did n't want the clothes, of course; but merely to gratify him, I permitted him to make them; and, to tell the truth, they were unpaid for when I left him : but I think of the happy hours that man enjoyed as he put in the stitches: then, too, the malicious pleasure he took in dunning me, until he tired of it. Oh! the ingratitude of man! Notwithstanding the pleasure I had given him, he tried to wound my feelings by a dun! But I was resolved to laugh and be merry; and so, in a merry way, I heaped coals of fire on his head by paying his bill when he least expected it!

'I look out upon the world from my attic, and chuckle at its nonsense. I laugh to see the toiling, moiling worldlings taking so much thought for the morrow, for I am five stories nearer heaven than they; and although I have n't a shilling in my pocket, nor a whole coat on my back, I can yet laugh, and might grow fat, under certain circumstances. It is well enough to say, 'Laugh and grow fat,' but I, who have laughed through my life's part, am as delicate as homeopathic soup.

"Those who praise the 'Attic Salt,' little know the bitterness of that attic salt which is not classical: and yet I can laugh and smoke my pipe, although I go dinnerless for my tobacco, and consider myself SOCRATIC; for while I drain the bitter cap, I can do it with a pleasant face; and were not all the world selfish, and therecore miserable, we might all have a coat with whole sleeves, and be happy; and in that Golden Age, a coat out at the elbows, like my own, should be unknown : then would napless hats and empty pockets be remembered as a dream when one awaketh.

'In that happy Golden Age, every man's pocket would be as one's own. Should you wish to buy a newspaper of the man who merely carries them for his own amusement, then put your hand into his pocket, and having drawn forth the re. quisite amount, place it in his hand. Do you desire a carriage ? Then call that man who drives merely to occupy his mind, and laugh at him when he holds out his hand for the fare : he, too, will laugh at his own wit in asking for pay.

'Let us, then, beseech MERCURY, the patron of thieves, to steal all the old hats and coats of the world, and put them carefully away, where they may be no more

When the Golden Age shall come, thieving and fraud shall flee away, and men will live a perpetual laugh : then there shall be no unhappy labor : I say unhappy labor; for consider the ant, who constantly toils so miserably for no other object than to make a place to die in. A little labor, now and then, is relished by the wisest men: let us labor as a pleasure, not as a task; and let those, like my. self, who always find it a task, merely live to laugh, and make others laugh: to grow fat, and make others grow fat. Finally: 'Let us all

, as far as we are able, 'work with a will' to make this Brazen Age look like a Golden ont, to put aside the absorbing thought of 'THE DOLLAR,' and laugh out our part as well as we can; then, when the scene ends, we shall recall the many we have made happy, and may be called before the curtain to receive the praises of our audience.' Good 'philosophy,' this. We laughed in bed last night at the second anecdote which ensueth.

Any way you can fix it,' it does not seem complimentary to the ‘learned counsel' engaged in the case : 'A resolution, in the winter of 1850–51, was introduced into the Ohio Senate, that from that time forward Members of the Legislature should receive but three dollars a day for the time of their actual attendance, and should be required to swear to their accounts. Of course it was opposed and defeated. One

seen,

:

Senator of much common-sense, but no more imagination than a horse, spoke against it, as inconsistent with the dignity and character of the State; and in his flight he exclaimed: "Here we have the spire of our Capitol ra-a-ising higher - and - higher; and'-(stopping hesitatingly and

. slowly, and scratching his head,) 'well, as high as any other spire 'reöund.' In the county of Pickaway, during the last term of the Court,' a suit was being tried on a contract for the purchase and delivery of hogs. One of the most able attorneys inquired of the witness on the stand: 'How many hogs had you ready for delivery at the time agreed upon ?' The witness replied, in a slow voice: 'I should think about seven hundred and fifty : but I can't tell to a hog (please understand that the witness was addressing the learned counsel') the exact number.'

Do n't skip the subjoined: you will like it:

a

:

A Christmas Ca rol.
FLYTTE YE FIRST.

* Each felt of the hanging stockings,

And shouted aloud bis joy, I PRAY thee, good Mother Fairy!

Of each one had thought their Mother, To give me the power to creep,

For each, Father had made some toy. With à noiseless step and wary,

Then sure of Santa Claus' coming, Where all are fast sleep;

Each back to his pillow crept,
To enter each quiet household,

And spite of waiting and watching,
And watch by the chimney hearth. Again the darlings slept.
Till the small fólks search their stockings,
With smothered sounds of mirth?

FLYTTE YE SECOND.

"Then a mansion grand I entered, So my Fairy gave permission,

Yet met a sorrowful sight; And, too, a bit of advice:

In the midst of costly trappings, • Pass not the door of the poor man! Ere you pause with the rich, look twice.' Leaning over an empty cradle,

Where riches lavished their

might, She wrapped her cloak invisible

There sat a woman, who wept, About my human form,

In comfortless, hopeless sorrow, To hide me from mortal eye-sight,

For her babe in the church-yard slept. And shield me from wintry storm. Her hand holds a little stocking,

But its wearer is far away, 'Ah! here is the poor man's blessing ! And bounds o'er the Fields of Heaven, I said, as I entered first

In an endless holiday !
A cottage, and stood by the chimney,
Where the sight upon me burst,

FLYTTE YE THIRD.
Of a dozen children's stockings,
Sized little, less, and least!

Away I flew to another
I cried, as I saw their contents,

Abode of the favored few, Content is as good as a feast !

And ever to leave this household,

Was as much as I could do!

For up in the gas-lit chamber, More faith I put in the proverb

On the loving parents' bed, As twelve struck the kitchen-clock,

Were gathered the dearest children,
And the children all awakened,

With their presents all out-spread.
With that and the crowing cock.
First started a little damsel,
And then her brothers all,

"One strided across the foot-board, Till uprose all but the babies,

And sounded his trumpet shrill; Swift answering to the call.

One perched upon the pillow,

And sang her Dolly still;

FLYTTE YE FIFTH.

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a

Till I entered the silent chamber

Then the swains said, 'What's the matter?' Of a little dying boy.

And declared, it was a shame He spoke in the gentlest whisper: Not to have the good of kissing, Dear Mother! Christ Jesus will come, Since

they had to bear the blame ! And take me to spend this Christmas, With HIMSELF in His own sweet Home!'

FLYTTE YE SEVENTH.
On I looked at merry dinners,

And joyed in the children's mirth,

But saw in one Christian household
.Then I flew across the Ocean,
To the land of minstrelsy,

The heavepliest sight on Earth.
And danced with the German children,

While gathered around the table,

In the midst of all the joy, Round and round their Christmas-tree.

The mother's heart was crying
I rejoiced with every nation,

For her errant eldest boy.
But came back to England in time
To hear from moss-grown turrets, • And I heard, at evening worship,
The melodious Christmas-chime.

The voice of the father stern
In Gloria in Excelsis,'

Falter the blessed story I joined 'neath cathedral domes,

Of the Prodigal's Return ! Or song of the shepherds watching :

I heard a sob in the doorway Old Sherborne' in cottage homes.

But the mother heard it first!

And, voiceless, clasped her first-born, FLYTTE YE SIXTH.

While I feared her heart would burst. 'In many a fine old mansion,

"I left them, praising JESUS, Hung the mystic mistletoe,

Who came, at such a cost, And 'neath it I kissed fair maidens, Almost two thousand years ago, Who blushed as they cried : 'No, no!' To seek and save the lost.' Parsonage, December, 1857.

1. Q. H. Shall we hear from ‘I. Q. H.' again ?

• Thomas CRAWFORD, the American sculptor.' This a brief sentence: but it is one which is written in all forms of dignity, grace, and beauty, in 'enduring marble.' The American journals, far and near, have recorded the fact of his so widely-lamented death, and the sad causes which led to the melancholy event. As we stood beside his sable coffin, in Saint John's Church, Hudson-square, we thought, while the beautiful anthem of the Church was swelling from the organ, and while listening to that sublimest of services, the ‘Burial of the Dead,' how that form, instinct with Genius, had struggled, labored, triumphed — triumphed with a world-wide renown. The faithful WIFE was there, who had followed and shared his varying fortunes, with the true devotion of a true Woman's heart. Mr. CHARLES SUMNER, who sat at the head of the pall-bearers, brought us from Rome, years ago, and presented to us in our sanctum, the engraving of his ORPHEUS, the first of his great works, which, general as was the praise bestowed upon it, was but the very beginning of his upward and onward career. Miss SEDGWICK, too, then in Rome, GEORGE WASHINGTON GREENE, Esq., then our “Roman consul,' and HENRY W. LONGFELLOW, and that other HENRY, TUCKERMAN, (whose beautiful and feeling poetical tribute to the deceased sculptor, from the 'Evening Post' daily journal, is copied and re-copied into almost every American journal which we open ;) all these, and hundreds of others, in Boston and New-York, were warmly and deeply interested in his success. And, as we have said, that success, that renown, he won. But there he lay: his eye, that had dwelt so lovingly upon the glorious trophies of the art he so much loved, was dead to sight :

ich had drank in the melting Misérére Saint PETER's, was lost to sound! He has gone: but his memory will not die. Let us hope that the completion of his unfinished commissions will proceed only from

6

his own studio. He leaves operative artists who understood his designs, which he had perfected in his models, and which they can fully carry out in marble. To do otherwise, were unjust to his reputation, as well as to the loved and loving family which he leaves behind him.

FOURTEEN sets of electrified stereotype-plates of the novel of which the annexed passage is a 'thrilling extract,' are now ready for the 'groaning presses' of a popular metropolitan publisher:

‘Night dawned upon the turbid stream of the pellucid Clam, whose swiftly-flowing waters slept placidly beneath the pale and brilliant light of the cloud-bidden moon. By its barren marge, where grew luxuriantly the tall and waving grass peculiar to that region - a grass of the bluest crimson - stood pensively in a sitting attitude, a maiden, fair and beautiful as ever poet dreamed or blind man saw. Leaning against the gigantic trunk of a stately mullen, and at the same time, gazing fixedly downward at the waving foliage, which drooped motionless from over-head, she exclaimed in a tone of voice so low as to be plainly inaudible: Why is it, o unpitying Fate! that while I am standing here, I am not somewhere else? Why is it that while I am living, I am not dead? Fortune, unpropitious Fortune, smile upon me with thy sad countenance, and bedew me with the crocodilean tears that emanate from thy laughing eyes! But no, 't is useless! The hour is come that I am momentarily expecting; therefore, ye swiftlyflowing waters of the Clam receive me in the motionless depths of thy shallow stream.'

With a frantic laugh, loud as that of a disappointed ja-hinney when he sees, invisible in the dim distance, the feathery flowers of the nutritious thistle, she sprang far out into the waters of the Clam, and sank, down, down, farther and farther, until the water reached the tops of her stockings.

Oh! must she perish? Is there no hand to save ? Ah! what is that which comes bounding over the bill with snail-like speed? On, on, it comes, faster and faster. It reaches the bank and plunges fearlessly into the stream. It is the gigantic poodle of the noble Count Alfonso, who follows close behind. He seizes — the dog, not the Count—in his teeth, the dress of the dripping maiden, and supports her above the raging waves, until his master arrives and draws them both to the shore. Ah ! then the scene that followed. The painter's pen, or the poet's brush, I needs must have to faithfully portray it. After about seventeen minutes of speechless silence, the Count exclaimed: O my dearest POLLYSERAPHINA ! it is thee. O HEAVENS! I thank thee. And thou, my noble dog, shalt have a golden collar, plated with brass and set with Jersey pearls, to commemorate the service thou hast this day rendered me. I swear it by the star's calm light.'

• Then spoke the maiden with checked utterance, as she had swallowed a pear too large for her beautiful throat: 'Alfonso! O Alfonso! why didst thou save me from a watery grave? Know that life has become hateful to me, and were I dead I scarcely think that I would ask for life.'

"Why speakest thou thus, my dearest POLLYSERAPHINA ? Am I, thy own ALFONSO, not by thy side? In the language of SMITA, the immortal bard :

•COME twine thy heart around me,

Like a bean-stalk round a pole.' Let us fly. Dost see that house on yonder hill ? let us thither. 'T is but a short distance, not more than three-score leagues. Within it dwells that patriot, Jones, the Alderman of the ‘Sanguinary Fiftieth,' who will tie for us the hymeneal knot. Within my purse I have two of those fragmentary parts of a dollar called "dimes,' the income of which, when properly invested, will be amply sufficient for our future support.'

"Would, my dearest Alfonso, that I could consent to wed with thee. Dost thou not know that I have sworn a solemn oath to my guardian HUGO DE Clam, upon an almanac's dread leaves, that I will never wed thee while he lives ?'

"While he lives? Ha! ha! then were he dead, as - as - as a 'rabbit,' wouldst thou marry me?'