all shall one day sink; of that eternity wherein the scorn and the contempt of man, and the melancholy of great, and the fretting of little minds, shall be at rest for ever.' Would it not be well for all, of kindred disquietude of spirit, who are now walking by the solemn shore

Of the vast ocean they must sail so soon,'

to ponder well upon these words of Sir WALTER SCOTT: There is no royal road and no poetical path to contentment and heart's-ease: that by which they are attained is open to all classes of mankind, and lies within the most limited range of intellect. To narrow our wishes and desires within the scope of our powers of attainment; to consider our misfortunes, however peculiar in their character, as our inevitable share in the patrimony of ADAM; to bridle those irritable feelings which ungoverned are sure to become governors; to shun all galling and self-wounding reflections; to stoop, in short, to the realities of life; repent if we have offended, and pardon if we have been trespassed against; to look on the world less as our foe than as a doubtful and capricious friend, whose applause we ought as far as possible to deserve, but neither to court nor contemn; such seems the most obvious and certain means of keeping or regaining mental tranquillity.'

GOSSIP WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. We have indulged, during the month, in a pleasant trip to Saratoga, Lake George, Ticonderoga, etc.; and you must permit us, reader, to mingle with our usual salmagundi a few 'incidents of travel,' which, as they gave pleasure to us, we may hope will not altogether fail to find favor in your eyes. THE telegraph, rail-roads and ocean-steamers have done away with all the 'Poetry of News.' We used to sit down of a morning, with one of the slow-and-easy 'good old-fashioned' newspapers before us, containing intelligence One month later from the continent of Europe' and news Eighteen days from New-Orleans,' and from other places, near or far, in like proportion. Then 'news was news.' Then we could enjoy our murders of a morning; nor was a personal rencontre between two blackguards, or an abduction, or rape, matters to be lightly appreciated. Now, to adopt a common but rather over-figurative parliamentary phrase, when we take our eye and throw it over the country' represented by the journals of the day, what do we encounter? In a circular radius, swept by lightning, of some two or three thousand miles, we gather up riots, executions, wholesale butcheries, awful casualties, ' DEATH's doings' over a whole continent, and a condensed account of national crime the day before, throughout the whole length and breadth of the land. Stabbing thus becomes familiar, and murder comes to be considered one of the fine arts; an indulgence in which, with due reference to 'tooling,' grouping, etc., brings notoriety, and in too many instances, nothing else.' Still, homicide, in its collateral effects, is we believe yet generally regarded as somewhat dangerous. People reason in this way: Once commit a murder, and you don't know where you are going to stop. You may perhaps go on until you reach profane swearing, Sabbathbreaking, and finally fall into prevarication, procrastination, and other the like heinous offences against 'law and order.' WILEY, publisher, Broadway, has issued the second number of DICKENS' new story of The Personal History and Experience of David Copperfield the Younger. It fully sustains the promise of the first part. The cuts are admirable. By-the-by, is there any body who excels DICKENS

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in the brief authentic strokes by which he paints a scene, and especially in his finelyillustrative similes? We know of no one. His observation is keen and incessant. Do you remember his description of the small cactus putting forth claws 'like a green lobster?' The following, depicting an old maid who has come to live with a newlymarried brother, prepared to kick up a muss generally,' is equally felicitous: 'On the very first morning after her arrival she was up and ringing her bell at cock-crow. When my mother came down to breakfast, and was going to make the tea, Miss MURDSTONE gave her a kind of peck on the cheek, which was her nearest approach to a kiss.' It would be difficult to give a more forcible exemplification of a cold dry 'salutation of the lips' than this: 'a kind of peck on the cheek!' . . . ASIDE from the ease and polish of the verse, there are excellent good sense and timely advice in the subjoined lines upon The Cholera,' for which we are indebted to an old and always welcome metropolitan correspondent:

THIS modern têrror of the human race

Rules in the boundless air, pervades all space;
No biding slaughter-house it calls its home,
No land so favored where it doth not roam;
From Northern climes, 'midst endless ice and snow,
To southern lands, where pleasant rivers flow;
From mountains where the mists of morning rest,
To the deep valleys of the boundless West;
From Europe's culture, taught through many an age,
To Afric's plains, where sweeping whirlwinds rage,
The foe to man, enveloped in his pall

Of murky clouds and vapors, rules o'er all;

No safe retreat from dire disease is found,

Its baneful influence rests on all around:

A change of life shall not avert alarm,

Nor abstinence constrained its power disarm;
E'en Croton's stream unmixed no cure shall be,
And starving is a silly remedy.

But there are weapons for the stout of heart,

To meet the spoiler, and repel his dart:

Flannel and cleanliness, and cheerful mind,

With temperate use of food for man designed;
The garden's gifts, by genial suns matured,

And savory meats, fresh, or with judgment cured.
By rules like these, and a physician nigh,
You may escape, and the foul fiend' defy;
But there are dangers, when the tainted air
Engenders cholera, of which beware!
Lobsters and fish, long tenants of the car,
And fruit unripe, and lettuce from afar ;
Things out of season, feculent and stale,
Foul tenements, which impure airs exhale;
These, with inebriating drafts, in vain

Shall plead exemption from the tyrant's reign.

FEAR is unquestionably one of the most powerful predisposing causes of cholera. Those therefore who watch with trembling anxiety the appearance of the daily reports of the Board of Health; who fear to walk in the street, but choose rather to shut themselves up in close apartments of their dwellings; who see in visions of the night upon their beds an 'Ozone' night-mare careering through the air, scattering fire-brands, arrows and death; such persons should heed the wise suggestions of our correspondent. And to those who, on the very first sign of the approach of the disease toward their own immediate quarter of the town, hasten at once to the country, we would say, in the words of a Spanish poet :

'SINCE no place there is

From DEATH's keen eye concealed,
Hence 't is an easy thing to see

That one who from his dart would flee

Is by his flight itself revealed.'

THERE is a pleasant anecdote of MACREADY, the tragedian, just now extant in

private circles, which has created not a little amusement among those who have had the pleasure of his personal acquaintance. It has often been remarked of Mr. MACREADY, that in conversation he rarely finishes a sentence; and the anecdote in question rather ludicrously illustrates this personal characteristic. One day at a prominent metropolitan hotel he was sitting after dinner with some friends, over his wine and almonds, when a boy was admitted, who presented him a note. While reading it his countenance gradually assumed a tragic expression; and at length, holding out the letter, he said, partly to the lad, partly to himself: 'No-o! I-I-will ah-not! Most extro'dnary! A person-a-a woman, whom I never saw!-I can ah-NOT Do it! Sends me here Tell her the request is ah-absurd-preposterous! No ah-acquaintance with the person- -never beheld her in all me life! Most extrod❜nary! No; ah-I will ah-NOT DO IT! Know neth-ing of her-neth-ing!' I did, indeed, ah-once suck one or two of her- No, me lad,' he 'concluded,'' ah-tell her I ah-CAN NOT ah-Do it!!' The lad evanished; when it presently transpired that Mrs. JARVIS had sent to MACREADY, as she does to every person of any eminence, for his testimony in favor of the manifold virtues of her 'Cold Candy!' . . BEEN

sitting in dreamful ease for more than an hour, gossipping indolently with agreeable friends, on the cool piazza which runs around the inner court of that magnificent house, The United States' Hotel, Saratoga. 'House,' quotha! Why, it is of itself a village, mainly under one roof, and almost constituting one edifice. Observe the colonnade before us; there are some fifteen hundred feet of it, altogether, including the façades of the 'cottages,' which you perceive are in perfect 'keeping.' What the United States' was before the erection of the new hall, our readers are already aware. The addition has the dignity of space' magnificently developed. It is a little short of an hundred and fifty feet in length, and of appropriate comparative width. On the first floor are the bar-room and seven dining-rooms and parlors; on the second, the ball-room, one hundred and two feet by forty in length, and twenty feet high, the largest and finest hall of its kind in the Union, with twenty-one windows, eighteen feet high, opening on all sides upon spacious promenading-piazzas. The hall is also flanked at the entrance-end by three large reception and waiting-rooms for ladies and gentlemen, leaving nothing to be desired. On the third floor are sleeping-rooms, large and airy, commanding the most delightful views, looking either off upon the distant landscape or down into the umbrageous court-yard below. Some idea of the extent of the establishment may be inferred from the fact that it embraces four hundred and eighty rooms; encloses five acres; and comprises, within a trifle, two thousand feet of piazza! Associate with these attractions, if you please, the kitchen, the heart of the house,' as a friend termed it, in which there is not a convenience' nor an 'improvement' of any kind wanting; a chef-de-cuisine of unrivalled skill and imagination; (we saw him walking slowly through the grounds in his robe-dechambre, with his finger on his lip, in an attitude of study, for he was 'composing;) a larder that would put to shame that of Bolton Abbey; a wine-cellar replete with the richest treasures of the Rhine; and, over and above all, as the 'creöwnin' glory of the United❜n States'n,' that noble park, with its trees of varied foliage, its gravelled walks, its rolled and quilted turf, upon which, through the heavy umbrage, the sunlight shimmers down in flecks of gold; associate, we say, these features in your mind, reader, and place our genial friend the JUDGE' and the younger brother of the house in the fore-ground, to make you feel the force of the warm welcome of an inn;' do all this, and you have before you the United States' Hotel at Saratoga.

WE

clipped from a country journal the other day at the publication-office, where it appeared without any indication of its source, a capital parody upon LONGFELLOW's 'Psalm of Life.' We have a faint recollection of having first read it some months ago in that lively and independent sheet, the Boston Chronotype.' As the original was written for the KNICKERBOCKER, we subjoin a few verses of the parody, which is 'intituled' 'Psalm of the Smoker,' by Professor LONGNINE:

'TELL me not, in mournful ditty,
Smoking is a habit vile;
For it makes the dull tongue witty,
Helps the liver store its bile.

'Pipes are long, and pipes are brittle;
But only buy them by the score;
Cheap as dirt will be the spittle

That perfumes your mottled floor.

'In the world's broad field of puffing,

Would you have your pleasures ripe,
Be not simply up to snuff'-ing,
Be a hero of the pipe!

'Lives of smokers all remind us
We may make our lives a glory;
And, departing, leave behind us
'Puffs' that shall roll
up in story.'

"THE POOR,' said ONE' who spake as never man spake,' 'the poor ye have always with you.' A new contributor, who feels, in the spirit of the REDEEMER, that the poor need the sympathy and care of those who in a worldly point of view are more blessed, has in the leading paper of the present number put forth and sustained certain propositions which we deem to be worthy of heedful consideration. GLANCING

this evening over some old letters, addressed by the late WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK to his friend DAVID GRAHAM, Esq., of this city, we remarked among many other noteworthy passages the following observations touching the cholera, then (August, 1832,) widely prevalent in Philadelphia: 'My good fellow, the cholera is making dreadful ravages here. The report to-day is one hundred and fifty-four cases aud fifty-eight deaths! How the sublimity of thought, the aspirations of a heaven-lit spirit panting after immortal renown, and ranging through the long vistas of memory, and the glittering empire of imagination, are dependent upon the coats of the stomach and the arrangement of the abdominal viscera? Isn't it astonishing! What are we? What our pride, our ambition, our uplifted fancies, our hates, or loves? Baubles of an hour; glittering motes in the sunbeam of health, that the breath of miasma or the cloud of the evening may smite into non-existence! I tell you what, DAVID, it makes a man think ; but most of all, it makes him regular. Thank God, I always was so, and so are you; but it seems to me that if we desire the boon of life- and oh, what a gift it is! (for a living dog is better than a dead lion,) we must crucify the fleshly appetite; whereupon I have ceased to chew olives, which have been my passion, and betaken myself to rice, bread and port wine.' At this season, when the chances and changes of this mortal life' are deemed by many persons more than usually to abound, we have thought it not amiss to quote what has seemed to us to be timely reflections upon the 'pestilence that walketh in darkness and wasteth at noon-day.' One other passage we venture to present, as indicative of the strong affection which, in common with ourselves, the writer entertained for our common vocation: I can imagine precisely how you felt when you arrived at home and resumed the duties of your profession. If any one should ask me where I had the most enjoyment, I should say instantly, 'In my office, devising editorials, peering over the papers, and in the afternoon, cheek-by-jowl among the books in my apartments in Fourth-street; now and then, when the spell is on me, making a piece of metre for BULWER'S 'New Monthly,' writing letters to cherished friends like yourself, and so forth. So, I am sure, is it also with you. Society is a good thing, but I weary of its formal routine; not that I do not have pleasure at H's, Madame C- - l's, B. -'s, etc.; but after all, my vocation is the most

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intoxicating and yet quiet enjoyment of my life. There is much of the otium cum dignitate about it, which one can only appreciate by experience.' Of perhaps a thousand familiar letters from the writer of the foregoing, we have not opened one since his death. We have had a 'sober second thought' upon the wisdom of this course; and if we depart from it, it will be that what may afford pain to us will give pleasure to our readers. A CORRESPONDENT, a much cleverer man, we suspect, than he assumes to be, sends us some original verses, which we are afraid cannot quite 'pass muster,' lacking, as they seem to us to do, concentration and polish. Their claim to originality, however, is indisputably well founded. Among the lot' is a' Parody on Byron's Alpine Storm,' which is faithful to the original, in sound if not in sense. It was written in a country 'grocery,' a sort of variety-store' which should be seen to be appreciated' by the metropolitan reader:

and so forth. Who has ever seen a more outrageously maudlin attempt to dignify beastly intoxication by poetical description? The writer says, in a note to the EDITOR: Do forgive my levity and familiarity. I mean no harm by it; but I am naturally a fool, and it requires all my exertions to disguise it.' As PLACIDE says in 'RORY O'MORE,'' W 'at a fon-ny fellow !' In a late number of this Magazine we announced, and described somewhat at large, a new imperial-quarto work by ROBERT DALE OWEN, Esq., entitled 'Hints on Public Architecture,' then passing through the press of PUTNAM, in Broadway. The work now lies before us; and in its completed state justifies to the fullest extent the praise which we awarded it in advance, after an examination of a portion of the engravings, its paper, typographical execution, etc. The plan and scope of the volume we have already presented; and we have now only to add, that without exception it is in all its departments one of the most beautifully-executed volumes ever published in the United States; such a work, in short, as we may be proud to send abroad as a specimen of American bookmaking and printing. There are fifteen imperial-quarto plate illustrations, embracing different views of the Smithsonian Institution,' (a very picturesque and graceful pile, to our humble conception, from all its different points of observation,) views of the more prominent churches in this city, of the General Post Office, at Washington, etc. Of wood-cuts, large and small, including almost every needful illustration of architectural effects, as a whole or in detached parts, there are ninety-nine, and all executed in the highest style of the art of celature, by BOBBETT AND EDMONDS, Ro