To my old friend, Seba Smith, editor of the ROVER, 162 Nassau street, New York.

DOWNINGVILLE, away down east, in the State of Maine, January 10, 1844.

MY DEAR OLD FRIEND: I've follered your advice, that you give me in your last letter, and opened a litera tured cepohere-Ibelieve that is what they call emto sell all sorts of literature here, especially the cheap kind. Uncle Joshua has let me have a room jining the post-office, and I think I shall do a good smashing business, for the Downingville folks have took to reading amazingly since the cheap books have got agoin. I want you to be my agent in New York, and send me a copy of every cheap book that comes out, the moment it sees day-light. We'll chaw em up here at a great rate, I tell ye. Tell the Yorkers to keep their steam-presses agoin as tight as they can spring; we'll swaller it as fast as they can give it us. I'm agoin to take all the magazines at my deepo, and most all the papers, and all the books there is agoin.

This wont hender my writing to you every little while, for I've got my neffu Zebbedee, he that was named for his grandfather, to tend for me. Zeb is an all-fired smart boy for one of his age. He's worked in a brick-yard three summers, and he's been so used to tossing bricks, two at a time, that he can throw off five hundred an hour all day long, day in and day out, and not hardly feel it. And I'm sure he can throw as many books in a day over the counter, as he could bricks into a cart; and at that rate I take it he'll be able to wait upon the bigger part of my customers, and leave me near about half of my time to write to you, and carry on cheap literature myself. So tell the Harpers, and Winchester, and all hands of em, to go it as tight as they please; we'll keep the heap clear; we'll throw it back and tread down the mow as fast as they can pitch it on. And to prevent all danger of getting smothered, or overrun, I've taken the caution to hire uncle Joshua's ten acre sheep pasture, jining the postoffice, to stow away and pile up any day, when we get too much on hand.

"There," said the deacon, "that very picture you are lookin at now, at the beginning of the first chapter of genesis. Dont you see that Adam hasn't got any great coat on; and that there's horses running about there without any blankets on; and that there's a deer standing by the side of the water there, with his hinder parts right toward us?"

"Marcy on us," said Mrs. Snow, and she put her hand right over the picter, and would n't let the children look at it afterward.

And this isn't the worst of it neither. The deacon didn't stop here; he went round the next day, and called a meeting of the Parish, men and women and all hands. Deacon Snow was called to the chair, or rather he took the chair, and he read the protest to the meeting, and said he parfectly agreed with them ministers, that it was a very undecent book; and called upon the meeting to express their minds freely about it. As no one seemed to be ready to speak, he turned to Miss Rider, the schoolmarm, who is a middle aged lady, and has a good deal of larning, and they say has uncommon taste about sich matters, and asked her to express her opinion about the undecentness of the picters.

Miss Rider said, for her part, she thought them horrid great elephants that was going into the ark ought to have blankets over em. And besides, one of the picters had a baby in it that wasn't dressed, which she thought was highly improper.

This brought aunt Keziah up. She said, for her part she didn't think it was any worse to look at them elephants, than it was to look at the cows in the cowyard. And as for the baby, she had seen babies without clothes on before to-day, and she guessed there wasn't many in the meeting but what had. But still, she had an objection to that bible, and a great objection; and she felt it her duty to state it.

"Certainly," said deacon Snow, "it is the duty of every one to bring up their objections now, so that the thing can be stopped in the bud."

"

Well, my objection," said aunt Keziah, "is, that it is going to ruin all the children and all the young folks, by keeping em reading the bible so much that they'll never have time to do any thing else.

"Yes," said Mrs. Shaw, "that it is; my Sally let a whole oven full of pies burn up yesterday, because she was reading that picter bible, and forgot :1 about em." "Yes, I agree to that," said Mr. Jones; "it is going to be the ruination of our children. I've had to chop the wood to keep my fire agoing a week past, because the boys have been so busy reading that picter bible, they couldn't get time to cut a stick."

Finally, after a number more speeches and arguments about the matter, the meeting voted to send on a protest to the Harpers against printing any more of em, not so much on account of the picters, but bccause it's agoing to make every body spend too much time in reading the bible. So you may jest tell the Harpers they better hang up their fiddle, and let picter bibles alone.

You shall hear from me again soon, and I remain your old beloved friend, MAJOR JACK DOWNING.

(Boston Correspondence of the Rover.)

OLD AND NEW.

How transitory are all sublunary things! I arrived at this very original conclusion the other day, while standing at the north-west corner of Washington and Winter streets. Here, thought I, a few years ago the careless rambler, the busy merchant or mechanic, the idle, ragged urchin, and the school-boy with his satchel, stopped to gaze upon a newly carved head of Saint Luke, placed over the door of an apothecary's shop at the opposite corner of the street. The freshly painted face of the Saint glistened in the sunshine then; and the two very red roses on his cheeks seemed to have budded and bloomed from the deeply chiseled wrinkles beneath. Day after day that image looked down into the face of the loitering passenger; but at last it ceased to be a marvel, and the time came when no wandering eye, save the casual glance of the stranger, was raised to contemplate the weather-beaten Saint. The | two wrinkles in his cheeks became the channels for the rain to carry off the bright vermilion; the sun shriveled his skin, raised very uncomfortable looking blisters over his face, and more than once the winter's freezing sleet suspended a very ludicrous looking icicle to the end of his nose. But the image of Saint Luke no longer braves the summer's heat or winter's storin. Perchance it lies mouldering in some cellar, or collecting dust in a garret. The shop, at the door of which it stood, has been torn down, and another with large bow windows, and all the other paraphernalia of a fashionable drug store, stands in its place.

Nor is this all. The post-office, that has for years occupied the hall of the old state-house, the scene of many a harangue by Hancock and Adams, has been removed to the new Exchange. This movement has caused a great deal of dissatisfaction among the majority of the citizens, and has been loudly advocated by the strong minority, i. e., the few wealthy merchants whose places of business are situated in the vicinity of the Exchange. The Tremont theatre has been metamorphosed into a Free-will Baptist chapel, where two sermons a day and a lecture at night are delivered against the evils of amusements. During the week days and evenings the hall is devoted to anti-slavery fairs, and tea parties.

It is said that a certain wealthy minister of this city, on the first of the year, threw open his doors for the reception of presents. I understand from good authority that he received many articles of value, from barrels of flour down to a tooth-pick. This, you must acknowledge, was very considerate in his parishoners; a tooth-pick being naturally requisite after mastication of eatables. "Who give to the poor," &c.—you know the rest.

Our city for the last two months has been beseiged by books; but the citizens have come off the conquer

ers, and some of the beseigers have been taken. Among the invaders fastened upon by the people, may be mentioned number one of Brackett's works-the Rose of Sharon, and that new monthly, the Columbian Magazine. There are many others that keep popping away at the public, scattering their harmless shot from the mouths of the smaller guns that are fired off daily; but their value being about equal to their power of annoyance, they are permitted to fret out their little existance, and pass by self annihilation away. The Rose of Sharon is edited by Miss S. C. Edgarton, a young lady of admirable literary ability, who, by the way, writes beautiful poetry. An exceedingly charming trait in her character is, that with her literary acquirements she retains all of that feminine delicacy and simplicity of heart and manner, so admirable in woman. She has collected and edited the poetical remains of Mrs. Julia H. Scott. These poems are characterized by fine fancies mingled with deep pathos. For sale by A. Tompkins, 39 Cornhill. BOSTON ROVER.

THE ROVER BOOK-TABLE.

J. WINCHESTER, New World press, 30 Ann street, is still bringing out his new publications in rapid succession. We have half a dozen or more now before us. First comes "The Female Bluebeard," from the French of Eugene Sue. The singularity of the title and the popularity of the author will ensure it readers.

Then we have "The Salamander," a naval romance by Eugene Sue, translated by Henry William Herbert. Another taking title, and said to be a very taking work. The translator says, "As a work of fiction the Salamander has little similarity either to Matilda, or the Mysteries of Paris; to neither of which except in talent, can it be well compared, so different are the style and subject." It is full of incident and abounds in magnificent and poetical description.

Thirdly, "Therese Dunoyer, a novel by Eugene Sue. And, fourthly, "Colonel de Surville," a Tale of the Empire, 1810, from the French of Eugene Sue, translated by Thomas Pooley. This Eugene Sue has surely taken the reading world by storm, within a few months past. His first great gun, the Mysteries of Paris, did the work for his popularity on this side of the water, and every thing from his pen must now be read.

From the same publisher, Winchester, we have "The Philosopher's Stone," a novel by de Balzac, translated from the French by a lady. Also "Modern Chivalry," or a new Orlando Furioso, by W. Harrison Ainsworth; and "Liebig's familiar letters on Chemistry," edited by John Gardner. This last work ranks high among the useful works of the season.