we has the best on't.

We don't say somethin' else fur water; we says WATER at once,

and not nothin' else at all—and has done with it.'

I don't see exactly where this anecdote 'fits on' to the story of the Lady and the Manuscript, but for my life and soul I never could separate them. They are sword and sheath to me. In the great land of Chesarasara, which lieth beyond Carthage and the realm of Cambolu, there walks my lady-writer, the spirit-bride of the butcher.

'In Xanadu.'

CHAPTER III.

It was fearfully juicy. Canardic weather. It rained.

We took refuge beneath an awning which awned propitiously across the pavement around a corner-grocery.

There came along a stranger wearing a pre-tubular neck-tie cravat · —a lofty, antique structure, such as were borne in ancient days by the Crovats or Croats, from whom they took name, and by whom, and the Poles, they were worn as life-preservers in case a man should happen to be hung in a hurry. Croatus vel Serbus fur et latro et Polus non aliter. Ad secretas Poli curas extendere noli, as the learned SWOBODEUS KRKZRCHSKIUS writes in his 'Annals of the Horse-Fairs of Lithuania,' printed at Venice by DEMETRIO KRASEVICZONINI an excellent work, but mostly stolen from KOJALOVIC. 'There is something in the dealing with horses,' says LYTTON BULWER, in his ‘Night and Morning,' which relaxes the moral principle

['I stop here,' as DAN RICE says, 'by particular request of several highly respectable families.']

After the cravated and clerical stranger came a carman. Rejoice, O reader! that he was not followed by carmen and a string of Latin puns. Feliciter evasit. Both were on their way to a steam-boat.

The car was loaded with a strange assortment. There was the big trunk, little trunk, band-box and basket, rendered memorable by HANNAH ADAMS' absence of mind. But this was only the first seed planted in the acre of luggage. There was a bag and a canary-bird caged, a box, a hand-organ, and a valise, a rat-trap, and many other traps; such a mixture compositum as one sees rarely.

The Cravated paused beneath the awning. So did the carman.

From the grocery came a genial Coccæius, or squinting Borachio, 'gay as a Merlin.' He paused before the cart. He inspected its contents. He tapped the barrel of the hand-organ with his cane, and winked ‘a pun!' expressively at me. Then he spoke to the Cravat.

'You have n't such er thing as er second-hand coffin among your trunks, my friend?'

'No,' was the sad reply; 'I have not. But I have a bran-new Cough In my chest, if that will do.'

Deep and awful was the respect with which the genial customer gazed upon his master. It was the lesser wizard suddenly recognizing the fearful Hermes of the Burning Girdle, his lord in the magic art. Then, bowing deeply, he laid at the feet of the Cravat his old hat, and turned to fly.

us.

'Stay! oh! stay!' I cried; 'dark is the night, the rain is falling.'

He drew from his large pocket a bottle, and flourished it Bacchantically at us.

'Have n't we got er Bourbon among Us?' he cried; ‘guess we have. It'll protect Adoo !'

And he rushed forth into the night.

This interesting series of personal reminiscences will be continued — in case they should be republished (with due credit) in the North-American Review; or be read aloud from Brother BEECHER'S pulpit; or be republished with a strong puff in JOHN FORSYTH'S Mobile Register, or in the Advertiser, or New-Orleans Crescent; or be quoted in most of the speeches in the coming Congress; or be cited in the President's next speech; or serve in any other way to exalt me and bring humiliation on my enemies.

(1.) 'THE reader.' It has been erroneously supposed that readers existed in all ages. I believe this is an error. The Fables of SOTHUS (or SETH) are said by the Rosicrucians to have been the first book, after which appeared a folio by ZOROASTER; a pamphlet by MENU;' The Monnikins,' by HERMES TRISMEGISTES; and 'Sohar, or The Book of Light,' by myself. But there is intrinsic evidence that these works never had any readers. In fact, nobody could have read them. Readers first appeared about the fifth Olympiad, in India, when the Pariahs began to devote themselves to light literature and quiz the established church.

(2.) 'Some years ago it was summer-time.' A cryptic pun. Lydgate and Gower have somertime,' meaning somewhere time, a time wherein somewhat or sum'mat may have occurred.

(3.) The Philadelphia punsters were famous in all ages. CLEMENS, of Alexandria, speaking of their contempt for the oracle of APOLLO, reports that One of Them said in the club: We may be great lovers of our brothers, but we are certainly not Phila-Delphians.' The original Greek is as follows: Wir sind wahrhaftig Philadelphianer aber unter uns sind nicht viele Delphianer. This was elegantly and felicitously imitated by MICHEL CHEVALIER in his 'Tour through the United States in 1834,' where, in speaking of the ladies, he remarks: L'oracle Grecque d'autrefois était une fille Delphienne. Une Philadelphienne d'aujourdhui nest pas une oracle mais toujours enchantresse.'

Will it be believed that NAPOLEON the First saw in this harmless jest, an allusion to the secret so ciety of the Philadelphians, and promptly ordered the execution of the author, who was beheaded in the court-yard of the Sorbonne, on the eighth Brumaire? No wonder that PARKE GODWIN exclaimed on hearing of it: 'If this be imperial magnanimity give me Liberty or give me Death!'

My distinguished friend, the author of 'Solids for the Salutary,' believed that he had discovered a trace of this pun in the darkness of the middle ages. In the Lombard Chronicon of DEvilwolfius, Bishop of Damborgo, he finds: 'In hoc loco (Damborgo) fuit quondam castellus, nomen cujus erat Villa D'Elfi, ut michi narrathur, stirpe inclyta et illustrissima derivathur; progenetrix cujus erat unus Elvus aut spirithus succubus feminæi sexus quæ amavit unum militem et seduxit eum cujus amplexu filius natus erat, patherfamilias Delforum, homo audax et ferox, seneschallus et truchsessus magni ducis HOELLENBRANDII Von Teufelsblut, quis erat proavus meus.'

In this place, Damburg, stood formerly a castle, the Villa d'Elfi, the name of which, as I learned, was derived from a distinguished and illustrious family, the ancestress of which was an Elf, or lewd female spirit, who, loving a soldier, seduced him. From this embrace was born a son, the father of the Delfi, a daring and fierce man, seneschal of the great Duke HELLBRAND of Devilsblood, my greatgrandfather.'

HIGHLY commendable is the design of The Philobiblion:' a Monthly Catalogue and Literary Journal, with its handsome engraving of DESIDERIUS ERASMUS of Rotterdam, and this motto from one of his epistles: Statimque ut pecuniam accepero, Græcos primum auctores, deinde vestes emam.' A motto that many

a poor devil, since the days of the great scholar, has made all his own, in the midst of his need of clothes and his love for books. But to the design of the periodical. It is to combine a priced Monthly Catalogue of a choice selection of

standard works, with a series of Literary Essays and Critical Notices of rare, curious and valuable Books. In addition, a number of pages are set apart to Notes and Queries, in the hope of thereby rendering 'it an highly useful medium of voluntary communication between the students and literary men scattered throughout the country, on all topics of general interest connected with literature, and in which liberal freedom of discussion will be permitted and encouraged.' The December and January numbers contain the notes written by HORACE WALPOLE in his copy of BAYLE'S 'Historical and Critical Dictionary,' a curious collection of characteristic comments. These notes are now for the first time printed in this journal. — The December number, also, has an article on 'Les Libres Precheurs,' a discourse upon and estimate of the 'Burlesque Preachers' of the middle ages. A contrast, column by the side of column follows, of DISRAELI'S Curiosities of Literature,' article, 'Bentley's Milton,' with the Republic of Letters,' January, 1732, article, 'Bentley's Milton.' The coïncidences brought to light are 'striking,' it must be admitted! Then comes a short paper on 'Le Cosmopolite,' 'from which BYRON selected the lugubrious motto prefixed to Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.' Titles of Books from ZELOTES HOSMER'S Library, and the prices they brought, show that the bibliophiles are not all of them on the other side of the pond.' This is followed by Miscellaneous Items, Notes and Queries, and the Publisher's Priced Catalogue of his own Books. In all, some thirty-six pages.—The second and third numbers keep the promise of the first. Let all Lovers of Good Books procure this spirited and unique Periodical, for it will rejoice their hearts. And if so be they have 'good things' about rare and choice Old Books, and if so be they are willing to 'communicate,' why, let them not fail to do so, but straightway send their witty and wise comments, their pertinent queries, unto PHILES, and he will file them for publication in 'The Philobiblion.' — Printed on India paper, at two dollars a year. GEORGE P. PHILES, 51 Nassau-street, New-York.

In a hollow of one of those mountain ranges which branch off from the Kaatskill, lived the Dolebear family; and from the sterile nature of the soil, and a disinclination to improve it, they had few resources to rely upon, saving their sagacity.

What old Dolebear would have done in cases of extremity, had it not been for his half-fledged son Moses, is a matter that cannot at this late day be known, and if it were, would scarcely be material to any one beyond his own family.

The season for trapping was past, and all the merchantable peltries had been compressed into a small bundle, and Moses dispatched to the great city of Manhattan for a market. This was the first time he had been sent upon so important an errand important it was, for upon its product the family was to 'subsist through a dreary winter, in a region covered with snow more than half the year, and where storms seem to gather and rage, more, one would think, for the sport of elves than any good purpose.

It was now late in December, and old Dolebear and his family were gathered around a fire-place, occupying nearly a third of the cabin, in which his children were all born, and over whom dame Dolebear presided creditably to herself, until they were old enough to set up for themselves. On such occasions, their dissent to her commands, when peremptorily given, signified itself by a defiant leer or a grin of disapprobation. The old dame had seen enough of the world to know that these family revolutions will occur, as well as in larger communities, and that it is the part of wisdom to permit cheerfully what can't be prevented.

The cabin had in its sides many chinks and crevices, through which the winds whistled in winter, and whispered in summer; the music they made partook of the character of the mood the elder members of the family happened to be in at the time. If the old man was merry, then they seemed to blow a jig; if he was sullen or morose, as he too often was, then they changed their 27

VOL. LIX.

notes, and a funeral-dirge was given, so solemn, that the very trees appeared to be in mourning; if, however, in a meditative state, as sometimes he was, a psalm would be gone through with, and continue until some disruption broke out among the children; then, ten to one, he broke the charm by an oath, when it would change into wailing and melancholy sighs.

He was in the latter mood - for Moses had been gone a long time—and was thinking what he would give for a hank of tobacco, and how much comfort a bladder of snuff would afford his wife. Poor Suky, too, was in need of a calico frock, for the one of last year had been torn in many places by brambles she was compelled to wade through; beside, the natural wear and tear of a year told its tale.

She, too, very naturally was moody and heart-sick with delay. The rest of the children chimed in, thus presenting an array of moodiness, increasing in intensity until the winds howled through the crevices, and bellowed in the chimney. 'W-h-e-w!' at length exclaimed Dolebear. 'Blow, blow! I say, blow him into the valley! blow him to the '

Before he had time to utter the anathema against his son, which he had intended, the old dame finished the sentence by saying: 'I wish it would blow him home.'

And it did blow him home; for the words were scarcely out of her mouth, when the door was pushed open, and in came Moses, white with snow; his hair was filled with it; indeed he was so covered up, that he himself was an inconsiderable part of what he seemed to be. Rolled up as he was in this wintry winding-sheet, he had made his way into the mountains in a manner little understood by those whose necessities never skilled them in threading ravines, scaling mighty cliffs, or fording torrents.

But he was accustomed to them, and had been all his life. He had more than once made his bed in a snow-drift found in the wake of a cliff, or fallen tree, scooped out by the winds, ready for an occupant, and not half so cold either as charity in better lodgings.

Not a word was spoken by any member of the family while he was engaged in disincumbering himself of his cold blanket, but were all looking with straining eyes after the forthcoming luxuries he was to have brought home in exchange for his merchandise. He took a seat beside the fire equally silent, looking steadily at the blaze and the smoke, as they struggled upward. His father becoming impatient, addressed his son thus: 'Moses, you dog'— he was accustomed to thus abbreviate him—'pony up! give us the thingums, 'baccy first, and so on!

He made no reply to his father, but continued gazing at the fire, seemingly revolving something in his mind that he was dissatisfied with, signifying that he did not wish to be disturbed. The more intensely his mind was engaged, the faster he chewed the quid he had supplied himself with, and the less he seemed conscious of the demands his family had upon him.

Poor Suky fastened imploringly her great black eyes upon him, expecting momentarily that at least there would be something for her, and that that something would be nothing less than a dress of some beautiful description: