UNFORTUNATELY, typical mutations in published мss. have come down to the present day. Not many moons since, I was called upon by a small and humble-looking person, in green spectacles, behind which there rolled two enormous gray eyes. He said he was a man of many occupations, and sometimes dabbled in literature. He had thoughts of buying some western lands, if any one would credit him for six years, and in that way make his fortune. A friend in Texas had also assured him that he could get some lots there on the same terms. In these enterprises he wished me to join him. But first, and before showing me some poetry which had been spoilt in the publication, he wished me to loan him a shilling, and accept his note to that amount, with sixty days to run.' A humorous thought struck me, and I chose the latter, with the direction that he should try it for discount at the United States' Bank. The next day I received a carefully-written 'business letter' from him, which (after promising to call on me in an hour after I received it,) contained the ensuing : 'December 17.

'MY DEAR SIR: I have had an interview with Mr. BIDDLE, and truly lament my inability to communicate satisfactory results. I fear that until the resolution of the Senator from Ohio, in regard to the repeal of the Treasury order, is finally disposed of, the trading interests will materially suffer.

The Board of Directors, however, have some reason to indulge in the pleasing hope, that a small keg of ten-cent-pieces will arrive from Tinicum, some time during the ensuing week; in which case, the president has promised to exert his influence in my behalf on the next discount-day.

'If we should be successful in ultimately elevating the breeze (raising the wind) on my promissory note, we can proceed without delay to our contemplated acquisitions in Michilimackinac lands, and Texas scrip. Your obedient friend,

'ZEBEDEE Fussy.'

He was with me, almost before I had read his letter. Ah!' said he, 'reading my scroll, I see. Funny circumstance. But never mind. You make pieces sometimes for the Knickerbocker, don't you? — apt kind o' pieces, that come out of your head? I borrow that there periodical, sometimes, of a friend, and I seen a piece-t there about a man who was the Victim of a Proof-Reader.' I am one of that class. Two years ago I was in love. I was jilted. Hang details; the upshot is the main thing. Well, I had tried the young lady, and found her wanting; and I thought I would quote a line of Scripture onto her, as a motto for some bitter and reproachful verses.' So, holding a manuscript in one hand high up, and placing the other arm a-kimbo, he read as follows:

Broken by thee, to whom I bowed,

As bends the wind-flower to the breeze,
As bent the Chaldean, through the cloud,
To Orion and the Pleiades.

But thou art lost! and I no more

Must drink thy undeceiving glance;
Our thousand fondling spells are o'er-
Our raptured moments in the dance.
Vanished, like dew-drops from the spray,
Are moments which in beauty flew;
I cast life's brightest pearl away,
And, false one! breathe my last adieu!'

Here he stopped-his gray eyes rolling in a wild frenzy — and drew a newspaper from his breeches pocket. Sir,' said he, striking an attitude, I sent them verses for to be printed into the 'Literary Steam-boat and General Western Alligator.' It is a paper, Sir, with immense circulation. A column in it, to be read by the boatmen and raftsmen of the west, is immortality. I say nothing. Just see how my infusion was butchered. I can 't read it.'

I took the paper, a little yellow six-by-eight folio, and read thus :

6 TO ORE, FOUND WASHING.

'Mere, mere, treacle, O' Sartin!-SCULPture.

THOU hast no means, at once to slew
Thy beasts, and girdless tongues to tree;
Thou hast no l'argent, pure and true,
Nor feed, for one who knelt to thee:
Who knelt, and dreemed thy all his own,
Nor knew a drearer wish betidle,
Who maid his tumbling parsnips known,
And looked to arm thee for a bridle!

What is the row? what once I heard
From those brow-beating limps of thine?
Brokers! oh, brokers! one by one,

E'en while 1 worshipped at thy shine!
Broker by three! to whom I lowed,
As lends the wind-flaw to the tries;
As burst the chaldron thro' the clod,
To Onions, and the fleas as dies!

'But thou art lost! and I no more

Mus dirk thy undeceaving glance;
One thous & friendly squills are o'er,
Our ruptured moments in the dance!
Varnished, like dew-drops from the sprag,
Are moments which in business flew !
I cut life's brightest peal a-wag,

And false one, break my bust -- a dieu !'

On breaking into a loud laugh at the utter stupidity of this typical metamorphosis, I found that the stranger grew red in the face. He snatched the paper from my hand, and disappeared, making his bow as he retired.

And, beloved reader, having exceeded my boundaries, let me do the same.

Thine till doomsday,

OLLAPOD.

THERE is revel loud in the castle walls,
The noble have thronged to its festive halls:
Music floats out on the evening breeze,

As it sweeps through the old ancestral trees;
Flowers, in garland and gay festoon,

Glow in a light as the blaze of noon.

SHAKSPEARE.

With their 'broidered robes, with their rich gems crowned,

Meet chieftain and peer the full board around,

In the sculptured cup foams the blood-red wine,

The purple fruits from their gold vase shine:
Lord Rosselin sits by a ladye bright;'

There is not a shade on his soul this night;
He is watching the glance of her full dark eye,
For the softness of woman perchance too high;
Perchance on her brow is a gleam too proud,
As she speaks like a queen to the listening crowd.
The white rose wreathed in her braided hair,
With the glow on her cheek forms a contrast fair
A thin veil is shading that cheek's deep hue,
Like the blonden cloud that the moon shines through ;
The orient pearls on her bosom seen,

Well become her graceful and courtly mien;

On her snowy hand gleams a ring of gold

;

By that simple pledge is her whole life told:
From the titled and great at her feet that bowed,
She hath chosen Lord Rosselin, and deeply vowed;
In his bright flashing eye is a rapturous pride,
As they quaff to the health of his high-born bride.

THERE's a lowly and tranquil cottage home,
Through the dark trees seen from that pillared dome ;
On the vine-wreathed porch sits a maiden now,
With a settled grief on her pallid brow.

She watches the lights on the castle walls,
And the music that, mellowed in distance, falls;
She is singing a gentle and plaintive lay,

Of a knight that proved faithful though far away:
Her bosom heaved and her pale cheek burned,
As her eye just then on her bracelet turned,
But the blush has past:- she is kneeling low,
Claspt are her hands in prayer's deep flow.
Lord Rosselin had taught her that true-love song,
As together they watched the moonbeams long.
He had circled her arm with those jewels rare,

To her simple robe so unsuited there;

For a blessing now her white lips moved,
On the glorious bride that Lord Rosselin loved.

He had stolen her heart with vows of faith,

She had dreampt of change from nought save death!
What to him was she now on that proud day?

A rose-bud just gathered to fling away!

Those stars had shone on her joyous form,
Fresh with the hopes at her young heart warm;
They had looked on her oft as she sate alone,
Straining her ear for a step well known;

They were shining now o'er her soul's deep gloom
Soon, alas! shall they stream o'er her unwept tomb.
Elizabeth-town, (N. J.,) 1837.

H. L. B.

LITERARY NOTICES.

GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY, CONSIDERED WITH REFERENCE TO NATURAL THEOLOGY, By the Rev. WILLIAM BUCKLAND, D.D. In two volumes, 8vo. Philadelphia: CAREY, LEA AND BLANCHARD. New-York: WILEY AND PUTNAM, and G. AND C. CARVILL AND COMPANY.

THIS is one of the series commonly known as the Bridgewater Treatises, from the munificent bequest of the earl of that name, left by the testator to be paid to the person or persons selected by the President of the Royal Society, who should write a work upon the power, wisdom, and goodness of GOD, as manifested in the Creation. The subject being thought too vast and varied to admit of being treated successfully by any one individual, it was subdivided into eight parts, and that portion which gives the title to the work before us was assigned to the Rev. WILLIAM BUCKLAND, a gentleman already distinguished by his scientific researches, his lectures at Oxford, and his ingenious and original views with regard to the geological structure of the earth, and the causes of the many changes which it has undergone during the lapse of past ages. The work under notice is so voluminous, and the matters treated of so various, that our limits will scarcely allow of even an outline of it. As the importance of the subject, however, must be apparent to all, we will make the attempt.

Before entering upon the matters especially considered by Dr. Buckland, it may be well to explain to the reader the nebulous theory, as it is called, of La Place, which is the result of the labors of that great astronomer, and which the author seems to think the most resonable yet devised. At some very remote period of time, then, La Place supposes that the solar atmosphere extended beyond the orbit of the most distant planet. In this state, it resembled one of these rebulæ, described by Herschel, many of which may be faintly seen with the naked eye, in a clear night, composed of a bright nucleus, surrounded by nebulosity, which by gradual condensation becomes a star. Let us suppose such a condensation, which must be very gradual, to take place in the primitive solar atmosphere. The laws of dynamics show, that as the condensation proceeds, the sun's rotation will be accelerated, and the centrifugal force, at the verge of the atmosphere, increased, and the limits which depend upon the magnitude of this centrifugal force contracted.

'In this manner,' to quote the words of an ingenious writer, 'as the condensation proceeds, zones of vapor will be successfully abandoned, which, by their condensation, and the mutual attraction of their particles, will form so many concentric rings of vapor, circulating round the sun. But the regularity that this formation requires, in the arrangement of the particles of the zone, and in their cooling, must have made this phenomenon extremely rare. Accordingly, we see but one instance of it in the solar system that of the rings which circulate around Saturn. In most cases, each ring of vapors would divide into several masses, which would continue to circulate around the sun. Mechanical considerations show, that these masses would assume a spheroidal form, with a motion of rotation in the same direction as that of revolution. The formation of the planets being conceived to take place in this manner, we may

easily imagine that an ulterior condensation has produced, in a similar way, the satellites revolving round the planets.'

The above is La Place's theory of the formation of the solar system. Dr. Buckland begins where the French philosopher ends, and supposes the earth, when first it assumed a spheroidal form, to have been an incandescent mass, in a semi-fluid state, encircled with a dense atmosphere of vapor, consisting mostly of steam. In process of time, as the surface began to cool, from the radiation of heat into space, an external crust gradually formed, composed of oxydated metals and metalloids, constituting rocks of the granite series, around a nucleus of melted matter, such as now forms the compact lava. That crystallization can be produced by the agency of heat, we know, from the researches of Professor Kersten, who found crystals of felspar on the walls of a furnace where copper ore had been melted; which discovery proves the igneous origin of the crystalline rocks. By degrees, as the earth cooled, the surrounding vapor became condensed, and was converted into water, which seeking its own level, took the shape of oceans and seas. Thither the first detritus of the dry lands would naturally be carried, and would have formed immense beds of mud, sand, and gravel, at the bottom of the seas, had not other forces been employed to raise them into dry land. These forces must have been the expansive powers of steam, which caused the elevation of the primitive rocks to the tops of the highest mountains, and which are still exerted in producing the phenomena of volcanoes. These convulsions at the present day are very reasonably accounted for, by supposing fissures to have been made, during the process of cooling, in the external crust of the earth, which would let the waters of the ocean pass through and come in contact with the great mass of melted matter beneath. The immense force of the elastic vapor thus suddenly generated, would be sufficient to lift the bed of the ocean far above its surface, and change its lowest depths to the greatest elevations. This explains satisfactorily the phenomenon of marine shells on lofty mountains, and accounts for the various degrees of inclination of the strata of rocks, which give evidence of the great force of the internal power that has upheaved them from their primitive horizontal position. It is to the agency of this power, also, that we are to attribute the immense repositories of coal, which, in the form of dense, luxuriant forests, flourished on the earth, until, overwhelmed by masses of earth and rock, it was converted into a mine of wealth and comfort to man, to be discovered after the lapse of ages.

We have thus far confined ourselves to the changes which inorganic matter may be supposed to have undergone, since the formation of the earth. We now come to speak of the systems of organic life which are shown to have existed, by their fossil remains. When the earth had cooled sufficiently to permit the condensation of the surrounding vapor into water, and as soon as this became reduced in temperature to a tepid state, we can conceive of the existence of the Mollusca, which were the first organized beings of whose being we have any evidence. We find many and various forms of these, mixed with numerous remains of articulated and radiated animals, in the lowest and most ancient strata that contain any traces of organic life. This is in strict accordance with what might well be supposed, since animals of the lowest order, and simplest formation, would naturally precede those of a higher grade, and more complex structure. Next in order, are the fishes and the amphibious animals of the Saurian family, which made them their food.

During the ages which the author significantly terms the age of reptiles,' none of the more perfect Mammalia had begun to appear; but the most formidable inhabitants, both of land and water, were crocodiles and lizards, of various forms, and often of gigantic size-which are embraced under the general appellation of Saurians, fitted to endure the turbulence and continual convulsions of the troubled surface of our new world. VOL. IX.

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