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LITERATURE.

ditional 51. per cent., and a little more for a reasonable profit to the retailer, to know what we actually ought to pay for our tea. For example; HIGH LIFE IN NEW YORK. By Jonathan Slick, the finest quality of congou or souchong (which Esq., 2 vols. (How.)—This is an exceedingly naare of the same value) costs 2s. 6d., and this is tional production, both in incident and expression, brought up, by these additions-allowing 10 per though but for the glossary appended, it would to cent. to the shopkeepers-to about 5s. 2d. per our fair readers at least, be very frequently unintellipound. If, therefore, you are charged only 5s.gible. When, however, this difficulty is got over, for these teas, you are now aware that it cannot be the reader has little to do but laugh from the quite the finest quality you get; while, if you are commencement of the book to its close, unless, charged more than 5s. 6d., you are now aware indeed, the tears forced by the exertion once or that you pay a great deal too much. This calcu- twice become natural; and there are a few pas lation, however, it is hardly necessary to add, sages that, without any apparent intention on the refers only to ready money transactions; for those author's part of their being pathetic, are irrewho take credit have other considerations to study; sistibly so. still, a grocer's credit does not, in ordinary cases, extend beyond a month, which ought to come into the category of ready money business.

We would just add, before concluding, that although we have supposed the poorer classes to pay 2s. 6d. for their tea, it hardly ever happens, in reality, that they pay less than 4s.; and this latter sum we have no doubt whatever, they pay for the most inferior articles in the list. It is impossible, otherwise, to account for the vast quantities of the common sorts, which we can assure our readers are constantly sold in the wholesale tea market from 5d. to 1s. a pound. Thus a poor family, in addition to paying four or five hundred per cent. to Government on the tea they drink, put into the till of the shopkeeper who supplies them, in all probability, from a shilling to fifteen-pence a pound beyond a fair and honest profit.

BY

GIVE ME THE PAST.

AUGUSTUS

PECQUEUR, ESQ.

What is that time, which hath the power
To bring both joy and grief-
Which gives to some the budding flower,
To some the faded leaf?
It is the Present, so replete

With hopes and joys amass'd:
Whate'er it be, 'tis nought to me;
I better love the Past.
Expectant hearts and sanguine minds
The Present never know;
The dreary future always blinds

Their thoughts to care or woe.
But be it sad, or be it clad

In Pleasure's best array,
Its gilded name will ne'er reclaim
The Past-to me so gay.

I love the Past, endear'd to me
By joys long past away:
The future must the present be-

Mr. Slick arrives at New York, very strong in Connecticut prejudices, and immediately

sets off to discover his cousin John Beebe,

who "kept store away down Pearl-street, eenamost to the battery.""It seems that John has gone into partnership with a Mr. Co.," observes Jonathan in his first letter to his par, "for that feller's name is on the sign arter his'n as large as life: I knew that he and John Wheeler went into company together, but I suppose they wanted more chink than either on 'em could raise, and so engaged this Mr. Co. to help them." Cousin Beebe is not at the store, but "there was a chap standing by one of the desks, with the edge of his dickey turned over his stock, like an oldfashioned baby's bib, put on wrong side afore, and with his hair curled aud frizzled like a gals," with whom in the absence of his cousin, Mr. Slick felt inclined to "scrape acquaintance." "Tough times with you now, aint they?' sez I, a looking over the top of the paper.' 'Very, sez he,' a mending his pen; its as much as we can do to make both eends meet afore the banks shut up days. Mr. Beebes out a shinning now.' 'A what?' sez I. 'A shinning,' says he, borrowing money to take up his own notes with, and if he don't get it, I don't know what we shall du.' 'Oh!' sez I to myself, this is the new partner, Mr. Co.; he must have a good chance of money in the consarn, or he wouldn't feel so oneasy." We was doing a beautiful bisiness,' sez he, shaking his head, 'till the Philadelphia banks stopped specie payments. I wish they'd a been sunk. No,' sez I, that aint fair; but its human natur, I s'pose to give banks, as well as people a helping kick, when they're going down hill. I don't understand much of these things, Mr. Co.' 'My name isn't Co.' sez he, a staring, its Smith.' 'What,' sez I,

have they got another in the company?'No, sez he, kinder coloring up, I'm the assistant book-keeper.' I couldn't but jest keep from giving a long whistle right out. The stuck-up varmint! 'Wal,' sez I, arter a minit, Mr. Smith, let me give you one piece of advice, don't be so ready to say we, and to talk over your em ployer's business with strangers next time. Such things do no good any way, but they may do a good deal of harm. Its the duty of a clark among us to attend to that he's paid for; and if he attends to much else, we purty generally find out that he Society develops the mind, but it is contempla- aint good for much in the long run,' tion alone that forms the genius.

The Past will ne'er decay.
Give me the Past: I'll ne'er erase
From memory its name-
Give me the Past, its happy days,
More dear than wealth or fame.

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is as good in London as in New York.

this advice

Jonathan appears to hold blacks in particular abhorrence. Upon calling at cousin Beebe's house, wherehe is invited to dine, he is annoyed by finding one waiting in the hail, and upon entering the dining room, "there stood that etarnal nigger close by the table, as large as life. I didn't know what to make on it, but sez I to myself, If cousin John's got to be an abolitionist, and expects me to eat with nigger, he'll find himself mistaken, I'll be darned to daruation if he don't!' But I need'nt a got so wrathy, the critter didn't offer to set down, he only stood there to get any thing that we wanted. 'Do you take verminsilly, Mr. Slick?' says Miss Beebe, biting off her words, as if she was afraid they'd burn her. With that she took the kiver off one of the dishes, and begun to ladle out some soup with a great silver dipper, as bright as a new fifty cent piece. No, thank you,' sez I, 'but I'll take some of that are soup instead, if you've no objection.' The critter was jest beginning to pucker up her mouth again, as if she'd found something to poke fun at, but cousin John looked at her so etarnal cross, that she was glad to choke in. She meant verminsilly soup, cousin Slick. Let her help you to some, I'm sartin you'll like it.' 'Wal,' sez I, ‘I don't care if I do;' so I took up a queer looking spoon that lay by my plate, and tried to eat; but all that I could du, the soup would keep a running through the spoon into the dish again. I tried and tried to get one good mouthful, but I might as well have determined to dip up Connecticut river with a sieve, and the most that I could get was two or three sprangles of little white things, that I stirred up from the bottom of the plate, that didn't taste bad; but to save my life, I couldn't make out what they were made of. Arter I'd been a fishing aud a diving ever so long, a trying to git one good spoonful so that I could tell what it was, I looked up, and there was the nigger showing his teeth, and rolling about his eyes like a black cat in the dark. It made me wrathy, for I surmized he was a larfin to see me a working to git a mouthful of something to eat."

The description of cousin Beebe's soirée is full of broad humour, and his own toilette exquisitely ludicrous. "I rather guess you could'nt have found a better looking chap of my size anywhere about than I was, when I put on my yaller gloves, and fixed my new red silk hankercher in my coat pocket, so as to let one eend hang out a leetle, arter I'd put a few of the peppermint drops on it;" a perfume that he invariably patronizes. He, however, shows excellent discernment in more important matters, and there is a refinement of heart about him, that more than counterbalances for the occasional coarseness of his mode of expression. Before he has been any time introduced to "High Life in New York,' he recognizes by instinct "a rale genuine lady," from "your stickup, finefied, humbug critters;" and his notions of female dress, however opposed to fashion, appear to us in good taste. "The girl's furbelows did'nt look so bad considering she was so young, yet it always seems to me as if heaps of jimcracks and finery piled on to a purty young critter looked kinder unnatural, Wimmen are a

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good deal like flowers, to my notion; and the harnsomest posies that grow in the woods never have but one colour besides their leaves. I've seen gals in the country with nothing but pink sun bonnets, and calico frocks on, that looked as fresh and sweet as full-blown roses-gals that could pull an even yoke with any of your York tippies in the way of beauty, and arter all, if I ever get a wife, I don't think I shall search for her among brick houses, and stun side-walks.'"

By Jonathan's account, the sewing girls of New York are very much in the condition of our own, and there is much truth and feeling in his observations with regard to them. "I never see one of them barnsome young critters going along home, arter working hard all day, to arn something to live on, and mebby to feed their pars and mars with, but I get to thinking how much a genuine chap ought to prize them for keeping honest, and industrious, and vartuous, when they aint much to encourage them to do right, and generally have a great deal to tempt them to do wrong, instead of turning up their noses at em afore folks, or a trying to tempt them into sin and wickedness behind people's backs."

There is not only truth, but philosophy in many of Jonathan's remarks; his heart is evidently in the right place, and one rises up from the perusal of his letters, not only the merrier, but the wiser for it.

THE BLIND MAN AND HIS GUIDE. By the Editor of the Grandfather. 3 vols. (Newby.)The first thing that strikes us, upon opening these volumes, is the suppression of the author's name; a circumstance the more remarkable, as Miss Youatt is neither an unknown nor unappreciated writer; her numerous periodical contributions, many of them replete with beauty of a high order, and all of them feminine and graceful (independent of her winning story, the "Price of Fame"), must surely have created for her a superior interest to any she can have gained from editing Miss Pickering's posthumous work, "The Grandfather," of which it is but justice to observe, en passant, that the greater part was supplied by our author. "The Blind Man and his Guide" is a story of much interest, told with Miss Youatt's usual tenderness and power of picturesque delineation. She has chosen for its groundwork the period of the insurrection and separation of Switzerland from the yoke of Austria, and has interwoven with the actors and events of the time a love story, pure and beautiful, as all her creations invariably are. Jacqueline is a perfect embodyment of womanly faith, affection, and that strength of mind joined to lightness of spirit, that is found in many a living prototype. Liese too, in her spiritualité and feebleness, is a purely feminine conception, and contrasts well with her firmer and more strongly depicted companion. Then we have a variety of historical personages, that, however often we may have met with them before, assume freshness from the manner of their description. The legitimate hero of the story (for the prominent character of John of Swabia, frequently struggles for the superior interest) is Arnold Ander Halden, of Metchthat, one of the three founders of Swiss

freedom; then we have Tell and Gessler, Albert and the Empress Elizabeth, Prince Leopold, the fierce Conrad de Tegerfeld, the beautiful Countess of Steinburg, Von Warth, the other conspirators Eschenbach and Rudolph de Balm, with a host of subordinate characters who either figured in the real events of the period, or serve to develop while they increase the interest of the story. As may be expected from the associations connected with the above names, scenes of great interest are scattered through the work, and they are constantly shifting from the valleys of the Cantons to the city and court of Vienna, so that incident succeeds incident, and we are imperceptibly led on from chapter to chapter, till the three volumes are completed; and a very short three volumes they appear to be.

There is a scene between the empress and her husband that may afford some idea of the author's style.

"It was evening, and Albert had retired to his favourite apartment, gladly relinquishing for a few hours the cares of government for the enjoyment of domestic privacy. His eyes, at all times weak, and of late more than usually troublesome, were carefully shaded from the soft and subdued light which a small silver lamp cast over his still unwrinkled brow, and his head rested gloomily upon his hands. Beside him, at the same table, sat the empress Elizabeth, busily employed in turning over the contents of a small richly inlaid and jewelled casket. It has been beautifully said, that the eye of a woman advanced in age is like the epitaph on a tombstone, painfully reminding the passer by of what has been,' only that we would leave out the word 'painfully.' Those of Elizabeth told their own bright tale of past loveliness; joy, long since quenched in tears-passion subdued or at least controlled, and the pride of the queen merged into the gentleness of the woman. Her forehead was pale and thoughtful, and her hair slightly silvered by age; but her white and exquisitely shaped hands and arms still retained all that roundness and symmetry which had been so praised years ago. It may be that she was a little proud of them; for women, and even queens, have been known to be guilty of a similar weakness; and so she wore her dark velvet robe of regal purple, with sleeves reaching only to the elbow, where they were terminated by ruffles of the finest lace, through which those beautiful arms gleamed out like snow wreaths.

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Her task was at length completed, and the casket entirely emptied of its miscellaneous contents; it was a splendid piece of workmanship, and the inscription engraved on the lid showing it to have been the gift of his father, gave it additional value. Elizabeth's glance, however, wandered with a woman's quickness, from the writing to a small emerald knob, which to a casual observer might only have appeared to be one of the numerous ornaments that adorned it, but which led her to suspect the existence of some secret recess, and the event proved her right, for on pressing it lightly with her finger, a portion of the inside gave way, and discovered a small drawer, apparently filled

with letters, on the top of which lay a long tress of black shining hair.

"Whose silken ringlet is this treasured so carefully?' asked the empress with some quick.

ness.

"Yours, I suppose,' replied Albert, abstractedly, and without looking up. Elizabeth_smiled sadly as she placed it beside her pale and silvery tresses,

"No, no,' said she, this is black as the raven's wing.'

"Albert took the curl with a slight start, but his face was still averted and shaded by his hands, and she saw not the momentary agitation which passed over the countenance of the monarch as he gazed on this memorial of his best and earliest affections. His present marriage, like most of the alliances of royalty, had been entirely one of policy, and arranged without consulting the wishes or happiness of either; but still he had never had cause to regret it; and now, as the mother of his children, the empress possessed a dearer claim on his heart. Her conduct had been uniformly gentle and conciliating, and for that reason, perhaps, more in unison with his feelings, and better calculated to ensure the peace of both, than a deeper or more passionate attachment would have been, which demanding some return, and some sacrifice of his selfish abstraction, would have been perpetually incurring and inflicting annoyance and disappoint ment. Whether the disposition of Elizabeth was not naturally of a warmer temperament, or had been early subdued by circumstances, and all its best energies destroyed, we have no means of as certaining; but certain it is that the habitual coldness of her character saved her from many mortifications which would have weighed heavily on one of keener sensibility. The discovery of Albert's prior attachment to some unknown rival, or the knowledge that his first love with all its purity and freshness had never been hers, but gave her little uneasiness, except by awakening a long slumber ing echo in her own heart which she had thought was at rest for ever. And with a view of diverting her thoughts from straying into such forbidden and dangerous ground, she endeavoured to gratify her woman's curiosity by following up the discovery she had made.

Was she handsome?' asked the empress abruptly. Albert looked up like one awakened from a dream, and inquired of whom she spoke. Elizabeth smiled, and pointed to the bright curl which he still continued unconsciously twisting around his fingers.

"She was most beautiful!' said the emperor, with momentary enthusiasm. "And you loved her?'

"I did. But this is no tale for the ears of my wife.'

666

'Nay,' replied Elizabeth with some bitterness, I am not authorized to call you to account for what happened before we met.' The event, however, to which she referred, was of more recent date. 'Our affections can never be under our own control, although, by severe discipline, our actions may be rendered so. But tell me about this lady, and why you did not marry her?'

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"I dared not,' replied the emperor gloomily, at least not legally. But I deceived her by a false union, and thus gained a whole year of pleasure, on which to dream throughout the rest of my life!'

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"You were happy then?' said Elizabeth sadly. "Most blest!' replied her husband, forgetting in the excitement of the moment who was his auditor. And I gladly abandoned the turmoils and intrigues of a court life for the luxury of loving and being beloved as few men I believe ever were. Mina was a creature of passion and enthusiasm, all confidence and trusting affection; but she had a spirit, from the violence of which, when anything offended her, I have seen even men shrink back appalled: it could not bear the slightest reproach, uttered ever so mildly, except indeed from me; and the consciousness of deserving, by her credulity, the shame and scorn that pursued her to the grave, destroyed her.'

"She is dead, then!' said the empress, breathing more freely than she had done during his passionate eulogy.'

"Years ago,' replied Albert mournfully. Her reason gave way first, and then the broken heart, and wrecked brain, found shelter in the grave!' "Poor girl!' said the empress compassionately. And those are all her letters; may I

read them?'

"No,' said Albert quickly, taking them from her hand, and casting them, together with the lock of hair, into the flames. Your feelings have been already sufficiently outraged; let the past be forgotten and forgiven.'

"Elizabeth placed her hand in his, with a cold but gentle smile, and together they sat and watched the papers as they slowly consumed away."

will come, when the innocence of her conduct and the pure and high motives that led to it will be recognized and rewarded. We cannot close these volumes without extracting the portrait of the parricide John, as he was called after the assassination of the emperor, whose injustice in withholding from him his paternal inheritance, and cruelty in making his diminutive size, and other personal peculiarities, the subject of coarse remark and unfeeling satire, doubtlessly goaded the miserable youth to a desire for vengeance, and made him the more readily enter into the plans of the disaffected noblemen, for ridding themselves of Albert. The emperor is on his way to join the empress at Rheinfelden, and pauses to dine at the castle of Baden. Duke John of Swabia, and the rest of the conspirators, are amongst his suite, and the last spark of reluctance in the breast of the duke is extinguished, by not only the refusal of his claims, but the mockery of them, in the presence of the whole court; the duke, maddened by the ill-timed insult, retires to his apartment and waits the coming of those noblemen who have sworn to assist him in the destruction of the emperor.

"How long they tarry,' continued John again. "Surely they will come! They who witnessed my shame and degradation cannot fear that I shall now shrink.' He opened the door, and strode impatiently up and down the long marble corridor, pausing at intervals to listen, but no sound reached his ear. They have deserted me!' he exclaimed at length, returning once again to his apartment, and burying his face in the silken pillows of the couch. It was ever thus with me-curses on them all!' And as he sat thus with his slight and splendidly attired figure, his delicately chiselled features, and high, polished brow, over which the dark curls fell, according to the fashion of the times, in wild luxuriance; as the eye wandered from all this to the womanly beauty of the small, white, and jewelled hands, that hung down listlessly by his side, the fearful deed which he was even then contemplating seemed most strange and unnatural."

But we cannot follow this scene to its close; every one knows its termination, and the fearful vengeance exacted for it by the children of the murdered emperor. A thousand victims are said to have expiated with their lives a crime of which they were perfectly innocent; and it is remarkable that, with the exception of Wart, who did not raise his hand against him, all the murderers escaped. In conclusion, we refer our readers to the work itself for a full enjoyment of its interest, assuring them that the "shreds and patches" we have stolen from it are but imperfect specimens of its merit or its beauty.

But Mina is not dead; by a fearful retribution she is made to take the place of the peasant girl of history, and on her lap the murdered emperor breathes forth his last. There is a very stirring description of the midnight meeting of the confederates at Grütli or Rütli, that far-famed meadow, the Runnymede of Switzerland, that is said, even now, to be conspicuous among the surrounding woods for the intense brightness of its verdure. The Duke John, of Swabia, is the occasion of a series of misconceptions between Von Melchthal and Jacqueline, which for a time bid fair to destroy the affection that has from childhood subsisted between them, or if not the affection, a happy completion of it. In the mean time, while ploughing his field near Schild, Arnold is interrupted by a messenger sent from the bailiff Sandenberg to seize his yoke of oxen. Enraged by the insolence of the servant, and the injustice of the demand, he not only refuses to submit to it, but in his anger strikes the messenger; and then, fearing the vengeance of the tyrant, escapes over SONGS AND BALLADS. By J. E. Carpenter. the mountains into Uri. But the revenge of Be-(Clarke & Co.)-We find this little volume as renger Von Sanderberg is not thus to be defeated, deserving of praise as it is modest in its pretenand he retorts the breaking of his servant's finger sions. Of the hundred and eighty-four songs and by putting out the eyes of the elder Halden. Then ballads it contains, the greater number have been it is that Jacqueline, in the hope of winning back set to music by composers of acknowledged talent, the affections of Arnold, and proving the truth of and in an individual form have become not only her own, attaches herself to the blind old man, familiar, but especial favourites of ours, and of and waits with patience the time, that she feels every lover of music, blended with sweet words.

elixir himself. This is the substance of the prologue; but the first chapter of the tale opens in 1830, when one who promises to be the same youth makes his reappearance, after an interval of 230

Many, indeed, of the songs in the collection are poems in humble guise; take, for instance, the "Song of the blind," and many others, replete with all the materials for a higher style of poetry. We transcribe one, not in proof of this assertion-years! It will thus be seen that there is much albeit it may bear us out-but because its length is better adapted for our purpose than a more elaborate composition :

"THE CONSCRIPT DRUM. "Hark! it is the conscript drum!

Yet how sad and slow they come.
Where are all the young and brave
Who rush'd to meet them?-ask the grave!
Where are the bravest in the land?-
Ask that battle wasted band-
Ask the wreck of Moscow's fire-
Ask the northern storm-king's ire!
Few may greet them now they come,
With their solemn conscript drum.
"Fathers' curses-mothers' tears,
Hearths and altars wreck'd for years,
Not a young man at the plough-
These the scenes that greet them now;
Yet the tide of blood must flow,
All their strength and nerve must go-
The last drop of the land be spilt
To garnish, or to crown her guilt.
Harbingers of death they come,
With their solemn conscript drum."

promise of romantic and mystical interest in the work; and certainly the author has never been more eloquent in description than in the portion now before us, or more successful in acting upon the imagination of his readers.

THE NEW PHANTASUS. By Henry Morley. (Sherwood.) A choice little budget of prose and verse. "Lisette" is a fairy tale of no ordinary merit, which illustrates an unhackneyed though admirable moral. The poems are also far above the average of unpretending effusions.

THE ART OF MAKING VALENCIENNES LACE. Edited by Madame de Conde. (Parker.)—This is an instructive and interesting little book, written in a clear and comprehensive manner, on a new accomplishment which has lately made its appear ance in the fashionable world. The accomplished editress, who gave lessons in the art of which she treats all last season, brings to bear much experience in this not only fascinating art, but very economical employment, since we find ladies are enabled to manufacture, for amusement, beautiful lace at a very trifling expense.

METROPOLITAN DRAPERS'

ASSOCIATION.

What may be called a monster meeting was convened at Exeter Hall, on the 9th of October, by this association. This assemblage of upwards of four thousand individuals consisted of persons of both sexes, and we believe of all ages and degrees; and we candidly confess we do not envy any one who could have remained an unmoved listener and spectator, on such an occasion. The subject, however, of the misery and injustice of the late-hour system has been brought forward in these pages more than once, and we can but remind our readers of the facts with which they are already

AINSWORTH'S REVELATIONS OF LONDON.—It is not our business to notice other periodicals; but Mr. Ainsworth's works of fiction are too remarkable to be trammelled by the ordinary rules of editorship, and the magazine which bears his name must, in the present case, receive the honours of a library book. It is true, the "Revelations of London" only commenced in last number, and must continue to be published piecemeal to the end; but it is easy to predicate, even from a few pages, the character of a work, by an author of such standing and experience. Already the "Revelations" fascinate our attention, while we can have only a dreamy guess of the nature of the communication; and we feel ourselves, without know-familiar, namely, that this association, assisted and ing how or why, to be under the same mystic thrall in which the wedding guest was held by the Ancient Mariner.

promoted by clergymen, members of parliament, and a large body of the most respectable employers, is formed chiefly by the most energetic and The work commences with a prologue, dated deserving of the body of Metropolitan Drapers' 1599, in which Dr. Lamb, the alchymist, is pre- Assistants-a body amounting to no smaller a sented in his study, engaged in labours well worthy number than twenty thousand-with the view of of the popular reputation he enjoyed. Here the procuring, solely through the power of moral hero appears wounded apparently to death; and influence and public opinion, the amelioration in while lying half-fainting on the ground, has an op- their condition which would result from the earlier portunity of observing the philosopher engaged in closing of shops. Not the least interesting part of the final part of a chemical process which is about their exertions is, that they desire to include in to result in the production of the elixir of long these benefits that, if possible, yet more afflicted life. The change in the forms of the strange class, the sempstresses and dress-makers, as well things that fill the apartment, as they seem to un- as the servants connected with other trades; for to dulate in the many-coloured lights of the fires, at all the evil clings, the evil of inordinate toil, which first strike him with horror; but when he learns, is proved beyond dispute to be the fruitful cause from the exclamations of the alchymist, that the of early death, and those lingering diseases which great work is accomplished, the natural daring of embitter the life they may yet spare for a few his character reawakens, and on pretence of as-years. Nor is this all, for with the cruelly jaded sisting Dr. Lamb, who is seized with mortal body, the mind must rust and corrupt; in short, spasms when about to drink, he drains off the this vast body of our youth are calling for an act

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