Very beautiful, to our conception, is this picture of Cayuga Lake, the first big water' that ever reflected back the sunlight to our boyhood's eyes:

'SWEET sylvan lake! in memory's gold

Is set the time when first my eye
From thy green shore beheld thee hold
Thy mirror to the sunset sky!
No ripple brushed its delicate air,
Rich silken tints alone were there;
The far opposing shore displayed,
Mingling its hues, a tender shade;
A sail scarce seeming to the sight
To move, spread there its pinion white,
Like some pure spirit stealing on
Down from its realm, by beauty won.
Oh, who could view the scene, nor feel
Its gentle peace within him steal,
Nor in his inmost bosom bless
Its pure and radiant loveliness!
My heart bent down its willing knee
Before the glorious DEITY;
Beauty led up my heart to HIM,
Beauty, though cold and poor and dim
Before His radiance, beauty still
That made my bosom deeply thrill;
To higher life my being wrought
And purified my every thought,
Crept like soft music through my mind,
Each feeling of my soul refined,
And lifted me that lovely even
One precious moment up to heaven.

'Then, contrast wild, I saw the cloud
The next day rear its sable crest,
And heard with awe the thunder loud
Come crashing o'er thy blackening breast.
Down swooped the Eagle of the blast,

One mass of foam was tossing high,
Whilst the red lightnings, fierce and fast,
Shot from the wild and scowling sky,
And burst in dark and mighty train

A tumbling cataract, the rain.

I saw within the driving mist

Dim writhing stooping shapes-the trees
That the last eve so softly kissed,

And birds so filled with melodies.
Still swept the wind with keener shriek,
The tossing waters higher rolled,
Still fiercer flashed the lightning's streak,
Still gloomier frowned the tempest's fold.

'Ah! such, ah! such is Life! I sighed,
That lovely yester-eve and this!
Now it reflects the radiant pride

Of youth and hope and promised bliss,
Earth's future track and Eden seems
Brighter than e'en our brightest dreams.
Again the tempest rushes o'er,

The sky's blue smile is seen no more,
The placid deep to foam is tossed,
All trace of beauty, peace, is lost,
Despair is hovering, dark and wild,
Ah what can save earth's stricken child!

'Sweet sylvan lake! beside thee now

Villages point their spires to heaven,
Rich meadows wave, broad grain-fields bow,
The axe resounds, the plough is driven;
Down verdant points come herds to drink,
Flocks strew, like spots of snow, thy brink;
The frequent farm-house meets the sight,
Mid falling harvests scythes are bright,
The watch-dog's bark comes faint from far,
Shakes on the ear the saw-mill's jar,
The steamer like a darting bird

Parts the rich emerald of thy wave,
And the gay song and laugh are heard,
But all is o'er the Indian's grave.'

But we must pause; having left to us only space again to commend the beautiful volume from which the foregoing extracts are taken to the cordial acceptance of our readers.

THE OLD WORLD, or Scenes and Cities in Foreign Lands. By WILLIAM FURNISS. New-York: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

A RAPID but very agreeable series of sketches, from the pen of one who observes well and who describes well; of one, moreover, who has that in his style which makes even a journey with him over a somewhat beaten road very pleasant travelling. The writer gives us, as he himself observes, no egotistical prologue about his necessities, virtues, or occasions. He wrote simply because he liked to, and among the retrospects of travel found repose and consolation after the toils of daily professional labor. We shall endeavor hereafter to accomplish that which neither our limits nor our leisure will at present permit ; namely, to set forth, by extracts, some of the fruits of our author's wanderings from England and across the continent, by way of the Danube to Stamboul and Alexandria; including descriptions of much that was worth seeing in England, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Holland, Denmark, and 'manie other londs and contrees' which Sir IOHN MAUNDEVILLE also speaks of, even unto Turkey, Egypte, and the londes that be thereby.' The volume before us is beautifully printed, possesses a good map, and several very clever illustrations, from the pencil of the au

thor.

THE HORSE-SHOE: A POEM. Spoken before the Phi Beta Kappa Society in Cambridge, July 19, 1849. By JOHN BROOKS FELTON. Cambridge: JOHN BARTLETT.

THERE is an unusual degree of spirit, and a graceful ease of versification, visible in this unpretending but very clever poem. We had never before heard the name of this young writer mentioned; but we think it does not admit of much question that we shall hear of it hereafter, if his more advanced years shall fulfil the promise of his spring. For reasons elsewhere mentioned, involving a tyranny of space, the difficulties of which we could scarce hope to make the reader understand, our present notice of The Horse-Shoe' will rather indicate than set forth the merits of the poem, regarded in its entirety. It opens in this natural manner:

'JUST over the way, with its front to the street,
Up one flight of stairs, is a room snug and neat.
The prospect MARK TAPLEY right jolly would call;
Three churches, one grave-yard, one bulging brick wall,
Where, raven-like, Science gloats over her wealth,
And the skeleton grins at the lectures on health.
The tree by the window has twice hailed the spring
Since we circled its trunk our last chorus to sing;

Maidens laughed at our shouts, they knew better than we,
And the world clanked its chains as we cried, 'We are free!'

'Oft as twilight confuses day's sharply-drawn line,
Its branches seem harps to the wind's Auld Lang Syne,'
And the dance of its shadows the quick springing tread
Of the many all scattered, the one that is dead.

'On the wall hangs a Horse-Shoe I found in the street;
'Tis the shoe that to-day sets in motion my feet;
Though its charms are all vanished this many a year,
And not even my 'goody' regards it with fear,
'Tis a comfort, while Europe, to freedom awoke,
Is chirping like chickens just free from their yolk,
To think pope and monarch their kingdoms may lose;
Yet I hang my subject wherever I choose.'

Small as the writer's subject may appear, he manages to make it the nucleus of much that will attract the regard and win the admiration of his readers. We invite attention to the ensuing lines, as a very beautiful tribute to Sleep, calm relative of Death:'

'WHEN cares that swarm in glare of day are o'er,
And on the world Sleep shuts his filmy door,
How glad the mind its prison quits awhile,
And leaves on murmuring lips a parting smile!
Through joys that flash in quick succession by,
Through glories born in transient hues to die,
Passive it floats; nor marring wonder chills,
As wizard dream each day-mocked hope fulfils;
Calls from the past the love unchanged to rise,
The eye to sparkle in the dust that lies;
Memory forgets, as bursts the enchanting view,
And Reason yields, nor asks if this be true.

'How oft by day, from thoughts that bid it weep,
The eye seeks refuge in the mimic sleep,

And soars the mind, and, soaring, strives to deem
Its dreams the real, the sun-lit world a dream!
How blest, when Night's miscalled gloom draws nigh

To light the soul's, but dim the body's eye,

Could thoughts thus wander, rescued from annoy,

Were Eve sure usher to advancing joy!

Oft on its wing the kindly dream to find,

Home to the body stoops the cowering mind;
Convulsive strifes, as elfish forms appal,

To heave the limb unyielding to its call,

Struggles in dread, though conscious they but seem,
Shudders, yet whispers, These are all a dream.''

We need not, we conceive, quote other lines to prove that Mr. FELTON is not lightly endowed with the vision and the faculty divine;' indeed we have space but for a round dozen of lines more, but in quality they are a

baker's dozen :'

'Go, when the shades with noiseless feet advance,
And say what see you in the broad expanse;
Worlds' age-kept secrets all by Science shown,
Each distance measured, every orbit known?
No; still Orion's sword the gods defies,
Still for their sister watch the Pleiads' eyes.
O'er this vast temple bends the pictured dome,
Where Hero Virtue found eternal home;

Where gods who could not save, enshrined above,

In frames of darkness set, their mortal Love.

So soars the mind along the starry gleams,

Back to the night that teemed with glorious dreams.'

We shall see no future production of the author of The Horse-Shoe' announced without a pleasant remembrance of what he has accomplished, and a lively anticipation of coming enjoyment.

MAKATAIMESHEKIAKIAK, OR BLACK-HAWK, AND SCENES IN THE WEST. A National Poem in Six Cantos. By ELBERT H. SMITH. New-York: Printed for SMITH and published by SMITH. THIS is a tremendous poem. It is too great a poem to be written by a man with so common a cognomen as SMITH. If we had written it, we should want to change our name, whatever it was. SMITH says that big as his poem is, he might have made it five times bigger, such is his facility in composing. He could easily have written the whole in rhyme, too, he adds, if he had been so dispoged,' but he was partial to blank verse, and originally intended to compose the whole in that style, but the constant tendency to rhyme continually furnished him, as he went along, with beautiful couplets, some of which he retained among the blank verse as the base!' At other times he has reduced whole portions of the work entirely to rhyme, portions which were at first intended for blank verse, so that he has in such a variety of styles something that will suit all tastes and classes of readers.' We propose to do SMITH the justice to let our readers hear from him in two or three of his several 'styles,' beginning with the style following, which is developed in a description of the mining region of Lake Superior:

'MEANWHILE, at Copper Harbor, there arrived
Steamers with many immigrants on board,
Who seemed to have a copper fever on them.
Come from all parts, elated with high hopes
Of soon becoming wealthy in their prime,
By snatching up the treasures here dispensed;
E'en mining Cornwall disembogues her sons.
Of these, one long engaged in British mines
Seemed much astonished, and quite bewildered,
That Yankees, unexperienced in the art,
And for the business never educated,
Should understand, and carry it on so well.

"To which our traveller answered promptly thus:
Think you the Yankees are such dunderheads?
Did they not whip king GEORGE and all his legions?
His seventeen thousand Hessian hirelings, too?
And JOHNNY BULL discomfit on the sea,

And terminate all wars with victory?

And do not their inventions head the world?
Why, Sir! a Yankee, with his natural 'cuteness,
Wisconsin mountains could look through with ease,

If he but thought that mineral there was hid.

'Meanwhile, more vessels constantly arrive,
With loads of miners, speculators, diggers,
And amateurs, of various minds and figures,
In search of wealth, of El Dorado, north.
A glorious prospect, those of Copper Falls;
For there, not only copper rock is found,
But silver, too, in quantities obtained.
And if the stories that we hear, be true,
Of all the wonders lately here disclosed,
Copper and silver will be dregs in market.
Each person, here, entitled to respect,
Sports a tremendous ring, well hammered out,
Of native silver; and enclosing in it
An agate, from Superior's mining shore.
Many locations, excellent, are made

By numerous companies, on the Eagle, Dead,
And Mining rivers- Portage, Lake La Belle :
HOUGHTON, geologist of Michigan,

Immortal wight, was sent, this coast to scan.'

'What to the wonder of the world, he found
His geological surveys amidst,

On the Ontonagon, a copper rock.
He finished his surveys, and left the place;
After eight years had fled, again returning,
His hatchet lying on the rock still found.'

Here ensues a specimen of SMITH's rhyming style. The passage is 'of and con

cerning' an Indian girl :

'ELIJAH was by ravens fed,
And she a life as pious led;
For he had passions, various wit,
Like ours; we leave to holy writ.
What marvel, then, if she should be,
In such a like extremity,

Fed thus, or otherwise preserved,
By sovereign mercy, whom she served?
She turned her eye- her guide was gone:
But, looking forward, o'er a lawn,
Again she saw it settling there,
Yet still suspended high in air,
Above a spacious opening glade,
Which herding buffalo had made,

In ancient day, their stamping-ground,
Though now the place did not resound

With their loud low, grown scarce and gone.

Here, grazing on this beauteous lawn,
Amidst this fair deserted ground,
A female buffalo she found.
Attended by its young it fed;
As she approached, it raised its head,
And cast on her complacent eyes;
Not with that feeling of surprise
Such creatures fain are wont to show,
When first the human form they know;
Fast scampering off like fleetest hind,
That almost leaves the wind behind;
But, inly feeling there no harm,
Was held by some celestial charm-
Made conscious of its course by heaven,
At once submitted to be driven

Quite home, and udders drained, became
Domesticated, kind and tame.'

SMITH, from very incontinence of rhyme, bursts often from the bonds of blank verse into little bits of song, which are extremely unique. Thus after a description in long lines, of the hunter 'seeking to find the fatted 'coon,' we are favored with the annexed brace of verses in quite another'style'

'BUT, should there come a snow so deep,

The nimble deer can't run,

Then, girding on his snowy shoe,

The huntsman with his gun,

Walks all unsinking careless on

The summits of the heaps,

And overtakes, and shoots him down,
While struggling in the deeps.'

We take our present leave of SMITH and his poem, with this parting advice: 'Don't for mercy's sake write any more such stuff as that of which your big book is made up-don't! You have not the first idea of poetry; nor is there a single line in the whole compass of your book that rises above the dead level of your own com. mon-place, the commonest kind of common-place that we ever encountered. Take up the trade of a tinker or a cobbler; do any thing, in short, except stealing, for a living; but don't write another line of what you call' poetry.' Now SMITH, DON'T YOU do it!

EDITOR'S TABLE.

'POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC.'-We give the ensuing notice of a new enterprise by Mr. DOGGETT, Jr., proprietor of the well-known 'City Directory;' and need only add to its expositions the remark, that we have seen several of the illustrations, which for delicacy and clearness we have never seen surpassed. The head of FRANKLIN, the house where he was born, and the Old South Church,' Boston, in an especial manner will command general admiration. We have been permitted to examine some of the old copies of Poor RICHARD's Almanac,' which Mr. DOGGETT obtained at such cost and labor, and enjoyed their perusal not a little. So quaint is the style of the homely common-sense maxims and advice, and so curiously are these interwoven in the interstices, as it were, of the calendar-pages, that we are not at all surprised that the 'Almanac' should have acquired so great a popularity; and we have no doubt that in its republished form it will command a sale larger than it enjoyed on its first appearance before the American people.

ED. KNICKERBOCKER.

'THE present is doubtless the only complete edition of the 'POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC' of Dr. FRANKLIN now in existence. The collection is the result of nearly four years' research among the libraries of public institutions and private collections in the States of New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New-York, New-Jersey and Pennsylvania; and several of the numbers were only procurable at great cost, and even some were purchased with the proviso that they were to be returned, should the publisher be successful in obtaining duplicates. A complete copy of the Almanac had been pronounced by our indefatigable historian, JARED SPARKS, as of doubtful existence, and the publisher is therefore most agreeably disappointed in being able to lay successively before the American public the entire numbers of this invaluable series, accompanied by an appropriate modern calendar, prepared under the di.. rection of Professor PIERCE, of Harvard University.

"The present number contains the editorial matter of FRANKLIN for the first three years, 1733, 1734 and 1735, and the commencement of an autobiography of the DOCTOR, which, with the edi. torials and advice of POOR RICHARD, will be continued from year to year, until both are completed. The execution, typographical and illustrative, it is believed will meet the cordial approbation of the public.

'Perhaps no work in any degree similar to 'POOR RICHARD'S Almanac' ever met with such universal popularity as that work. It was continued by FRANKLIN twenty-six years, from 1733 to 1758, inclusive, with a constantly enhanced circulation. It combined, in a most remarkable manner, entertainment and useful information. It was so generally read, that there was scarcely a neighborhood in the whole province whose inhabitants permitted themselves to be unsupplied with it: it was perused by the common people; and its terse and concentrated wisdom, its various learning and telling wit, obviated with such the necessity of having many other books. All the little spaces that occurred between the remarkable days in the calendar were filled with proverbial sentences, chiefly such as inculcated industry and frugality as the means