BERTS, HALL, and other eminent wood-engravers. By the by, speaking of architecture, it is gratifying to know, and daily to see, that the Architecture of Private Dwellings has arrived to so high a point of perfection in our metropolis, and in portions of the region round about. The initial and progressive steps toward this consummation were taken and continued by Mr. GEORGE PLATT; who from the most tasteful and beautiful interior decorations of several of our most distinguished mansions, in which he has been emulated, but seldom approached and never surpassed, by other and kindred artists, has arrived at an eminence as an architect of town-houses and private country-seats, of which he has good reason to be proud. The noble edifice of Mrs. LANGDON, at HydePark, not to speak of others both in town and country, attest Mr. PLATT's taste and skill in this kind to a degree which must insure him farther honors and farther orders. The late editor of the Manchester (Eng.) 'Times,' daily journal, in his American Tour,' recently published in London, says: In the enjoyment of New-York hospitality, I have seen the interiors of some of its best mansions, and their elegance, if equalled, is certainly not surpassed by any I have seen any where in Great Britain.' We have heard similar remarks made in metropolitan drawing-rooms, by travelled English persons, and other foreigners of taste and intelligence. THE simpering old maid, whom OLLAPOD met on a canal-packet, and who, in answer to a question whether she had seen the Falls of Niagara, replied that she had not, but she had heard them very highly spoken of,' may rise up to confront us, perhaps, in the mind of a correspondent who sends us an elaborate paper on 'Lord Bacon;' may rise up to confront us, we repeat, when we avow, that we really know very little of Lord BACON, but have 'heard him very highly spoken of.' Then again also we hav n't. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES whom we would follow into a library, and call, after him, for the books which he had named, with as much certainty of being 'gratified, satisfied' as if we were 'improving' by the elegant taste of JOHN WATERS in the selection of viands or wines at DELMONICO's, or his own matchless table- OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, he says, that

--

...

'ROGER BACON was a bore,
And FRANCIS BACON gammon.'

Our friend FREEMAN HUNT, of that excellent work, The Merchants' Magazine,' or the editor perhaps of The Law Journal,' will be open to the propositions and 'stipulations' of our correspondent. AN inexperienced correspondent, in an interior

county town as pleasant a place as could be got up without rivers or mountains,' whence nevertheless can be seen hills that neighbor Pennsylvania, and where are fragrant clover-fields, delicious bobolink-ian musicians, and as good rainy days as they have any where'-sends us the following simple sonnet :

I LOVE in summer time a rainy day,
When steadily and slowly patters down
Upon the sun-parched fields and dusty town
The welcome burden of the cloudlets gray.
With book in hand I take my silent way

Unto my chamber, where the pleasant sound
Of rain upon the roof can soothe and drown
My soul in dreamy thoughts-nor sad, nor gay.

I wake to read, and read to sleep again;

My dreams are filled with fancies from my book,
Till, tired of too much ease, I wake in pain,

And sighing it away, on Nature look;

'Tis sunshine after storm. Who can complain,

When greener are the groves and faster flows the brook?

J. H. B.

WE deeply lament, in common with all who knew him, the untimely death, by

fever at New-Orleans, of GEORGE PORTER, Esq., for several years associate-editor of 'The Picayune' daily journal. We knew him well; a young man of great simplicity and quiet grace of manners; a very vigorous and ready intellect; and, in all worthy things, a genial spirit: in the words of one who knew and loved him well, he was 'a kind, considerate, honorable gentleman, a man of energy and talent, whom none knew but to love and praise.' He was a younger brother of the editor of The Spirit of the Times' literary and sporting journal, to whom, with his other brothers and relatives, we tender our unfeigned sympathy in their bereavement, so doubly poignant from its awful suddenness. PAID a visit to-day to Congress-Hall, Saratoga,

an old and popular house; spacious, replete with comfort and elegance; a walk along whose superb colonnades, and through the grounds, would well repay a trip from New-York; and after 'somedele converse' with Mr. BROWN, the proprietor, (a longtime Boston reader and friend hereof,) who sets a table for APICIUS every day, and 'bids defiance to the universe' in the matter of nice bed-rooms, we set out with an old and true friend to visit The Saratoga Rural Cemetery. Passing through the beautiful grounds of the Pavilion' spring, the birds all the while making melody over our heads, we entered a solemn grove of pines, in which mournfully, O! mournfully' the day-breeze was sighing, and came at length to the cemetery, a delectable spot, amidst musical pines and trees of rare verdure. Almost every occupied grave lot was literally a bed of flowers; of daisies, violets, forget-me-nots, blue-bells, and the like, filling the whole air with sweet odors. Here we stood by a square tapering marble shaft, commemorating the death of an old friend-with whom how many agreeable hours we have passed! -on which was inscribed:

THE GRAVE OF

William Leete Stone,

WHO DIED AT SARATOGA SPRINGS,

AUGUST 15, 1844, AGED 52.

'I shall be satisfied when I arise in Thy likeness.'

A more fitting or poetical resting-place for the dead could nowhere be found. The zephyrs were whispering like angel-voices in the young pines over our heads; waves of shadow were rolled by the fitful breezes over rich adjacent fields of grain; and far away to the east, through the wavering summer-rays of the noon-day sun, rose in faint relief against the horizon the pale-blue summits of the Green Mountains of Vermont. There rests our friend the friend of 'OLLAPOD'— whom he has joined in the better land:'.

·

AT noon the wild bee hummeth
About the cold white stone,
At midnight the moon cometh,
And looketh down alone :'

but there in cold obstruction' rests his dust, 'till God shall bid it rise.' A little farther on is the monument to COLEMAN, (the inventor of the 'molian attachment' to pianos, a decided failure, by common consent of musicians and others,) of which, while it was yet in New-York, we gave a description in these pages. The passage from the Bible quoted in the inscription is appropriate: The singers also, as well as they that play upon stringed instruments, shall be there.' But we have had our hour of 'meditation among the tombs.' 'Black Eyes or Blue Eyes,' which do

you prefer, bachelor or maiden reader? We have heard many discussions thereanent in our time, but they never came to any settled conclusion. A Massachusetts correspondent has obligingly favored us with the translation of a few lines from the Italian on this theme, which seem to us to 'place the whole subject in its proper light:'

'A CONTEST of beauty may sometimes arise
Like this, not of beauty of form, but of eyes;
The black eyes are challenged at first by the blue:
Your black eyes are mute, although fiery too;'
'And eyes that are blue insincerity bear;'
The sable is mournful; too much so to wear;'
'The azure is change; it is fickleness even;'
'But we are the thoughts and the spirits of heaven;'
'And we we are lightnings that flash on the even ;'
But PALLAS and JUNO have eyes that are blue;'
'And VENUS has eyes that are black and yet true.'
And more they'd have said, for the contest grew warm,
But Love with her mildness averted the storm;
Thus ending the strife by a precept of Truth,
Engraved in a code by a teacher of youth:

Nor this one nor that the first prize shall obtain,
If only the credit of color it gain;

Those eyes do in truth the most beauty impart

Which show forth the best the true state of THE HEART!''

WHOSO journeyeth on the plank-road from Fort Edward through the pleasant villages of Sandy-Hill and Glen's-Falls, shall surely find small cause to regret the same. On the way to the first named village, after leaving the Fort,' we were shown, by the side of the road, the memorable and now venerable tree under which Miss MCCREA, (whose kindred fate is as well known to school-children as that of 'BENJAMIN GROUT and HILKIAH GAFFIELD hoeing corn in a field,' etc.,) was cruelly murdered by the Indians. It was an authentic object of interest, full of stirring associations. At the village,' a pleasant rus in urbe, we saw the Washington and Warren Bank'-ing house, now a charming private residence, with the marks of refinement and taste in the proprietor prominently visible. There was no press about the door of the mansion as aforetime, nor heard we the slow jingling of 'desperate' small change in the apartments thereof. Presently we moved onward to Glen's-Falls. . . . "The Husking-Frolic' is filed for insertion in the autumn, when its appearance will be seasonable. We rather suspect we have attended husking-frolics! At this moment, closing our eyes, we are at one in UNCLE BEN's barn. The 'heap' has vanished; the floor is swept clear, save in one corner a huge pile of golden ears vari-sprinkled with red and brindled' ones; when

'HARK! there is music yea, flowing of music, of milk and of cider,
Dancing and drinking, the young and the old, the spectators and actors,
Never not actors the young, and the old not alway spectators.'

6

There were times' in those days; innocent times too, look you, as well as pleasant. But it's a good while ago, now.' ONE of the very best books of foreign travel that has been published since The American in Paris,' is Mrs. Kirkland's Holidays Abroad.' It is lively, spirited, graphic, full of information, and that kind of information which is interesting. Good books sometimes disappear mysteriously from the sanctum; and this blessed twentieth day of June is the first time we have seen Mrs. KIRKLAND'S work since we read it, some six weeks ago. Step in, reader, at Messrs. BAKER AND SCRIBNER's, near our publication-office, and secure an honest perusal of the work.... The First Gray Hair' has just been pulled out of the editorial head' by a lovingly-mischievous little girl, who has stolen into the sanctum, her custom always of an afternoon,' to wake us from an after-dinner siesta. 'Did it hurt, fà-ver?' was

6

the question, accompanied by a bubbling-up musical laugh that brought us back from the land of dreams; did it hurt you? It's all white, like gran'ma's.' 'Ah! no, dear child, there was no 'hurt,' but it 'doos hurt our feelings' a little to think, that like the first leaf from the autumnal tree, that single white hair shall in coming time find many and rapid successors. Well, let 'em come! They can't deprive us of the consciousness that we've seen the time when we were as good as ever we were!' Meanwhile, let us say, in the words of an esteemed friend with whom this day week we 'parted on the strand,' and who is now tossing on the are innumerable creeping things, both small and great

6

*LAMENT who will, in fruitless tears,

The speed with which our moments fly,
I sigh not ever vanished years,
But let them hasten by.

See how they come! -a mingled crowd
Of bright and dark but rapid days;
Beneath them, like a summer cloud,
The wide world changes as I gaze.

-

great and wide sea, wherein beasts'- let us say with him:

'Oh, leave me still the rapid flight
That makes the changing seasons gay,
The grateful speed that brings the night,
The swift and glad return of day.

"The months that touch with added grace
This little prattler at my knee,
In whose arch eye and speaking face
New meaning every hour I see.'

'This merely personal twaddling must be very edifying to your readers!!' Thus has written a familiar friend, (a little too familiar, sometimes, if the truth must be spoken,) on the 'copy' slip upon which this is penned, and under the lines above quoted, what time we were 'fetching a walk' with the little people down by the river-side.' He may be right, however; and if he hadn't put those two satirical exclamation-points ('marks of wonder and surprise,' as 'oh! the folly of sinners!" or editors!) at the end of his commentary, we might have suppressed the sub-section. But now, 'what is written remains.' GLEN'S FALLS' should be more widely known than we have reason to believe it to be. We left the coach and hastened down to see the transparent-brown Hudson pour over the huge rocks, and dash under the long bridge; a sight well worth a journey to see. In impetuosity, in the variety of its rapids and cataracts, and in picturesqueness, Glen's Falls, to our conception, far surpass those of Trenton. The scene, too, is full of romantic association; a fact of which every reader (and that means every body) of COOPER'S 'Last of the Mohicians' need not be informed. There is a street-sign also of an oyster-stand and some runaway-cars at Glen's Falls, that is well worth seeing. We have examined many fine works of art in our time, but nothing that could compare with that! We would advise the artist to send it to our Art-Union, but we candidly believe they would n't dare to hang it on their walls. It would n't contrast well with the other pictures already purchased. We know of no one man so well qualified to write the history of The Border Warfare of New-York during the Revolution' as our friend, Hon. WILLIAM W. CAMPBELL. We have ourselves stood with him, at the home of his childhood, upon ground made forever memorable by the bloody events of Indian warfare, and have heard him relate, on the very spot where they occurred, the incidents connected with the capture and abduction, by the savages, of his own grandmother. Indeed, of the sanguinary border warfare of Tryon county, our author's family may well say, Most of it we saw, part of it we were.' We welcome, therefore, we need scarcely say, the volume entitled as above, now lying before us, from the press of Messrs. BAKER AND SCRIBNER, and commend it cordially to a wide public acceptance. • A NEW (would-be) correspondent sends us some Lines while indisposed at Rome.' It was Rome, Oneida county, reader, not the Eternal City! And his illness- what 'xpect it was?' Sea-sickness on the canal! - and his poetry is in keeping with this fact! As Captain ED'ARD CUTTLE would say, 'What a brain,

WILL our friend R. H., of Belleville, Illinois, per

6

what a mind he must have!" mit us cordially to thank him for his kind exertions in behalf of this Magazine? Would that we had a thousand such disinterested friends! The truth is, that nearly every one of our subscribers could add another one to our list, if he would try. WILL you try, gentlemen, friends, for the sake of one who, melting with fervent heat, 'invades the night-watches' with this little 'hint? So shall the KNICKERBOCKER be made more abundantly worthy of your acceptance. As Mr. ELLIS' pleasant post-coach approaches on the plank-road the mountain - 'notch,' through which you are to 'debouch' upon Lake George, you do agnize a prompt alacrity,' a kind of juicy feeling about the heart, which it is quite impossible to describe, and which you would not willingly part withal. The cool bracing mountain air; the distant view of the Adirondacks, so admirably daguerreotyped by HEADLEY; the far-off Green Mountains, and the tumbling highlands in the blue distance before you, which you feel must surround Lake George; these are the secret of your emotions; when lo! by a single reverse of the kaleidoscopic-glass, a single turn in the mountain road, the scene is before you; the crystal waters of the lake-O beautiful Lake Horicon! the mountains resting in the blue distance upon its bosom, as if so many up-rolling smothered smoke-volumes in a great conflagration had suddenly been congealed while their intermingled folds were in motion; the white Lake House' gleaming among the trees where it nestles in comfort and beauty; and beyond it the little village church, county edifices, and dwellings of the few villagers. But we have alighted, and are now luxuriously bestowed at SHERRILL'S, of whom, and whose, more anon.' THE HARPERS have published, from the pen of a brother of THOMAS CARLYLE, a prose translation of Dante's Inferno,' side by side with the original text, collated from the best editions. The translator claims to have given the real meaning of DANTE as literally and briefly as possible; 'no single particle having been wittingly left unpresented in it for which any equivalent could be discovered.' It is doubtless a close and warm' version of a hot poem, the principal scene of which is laid in a very hot place. The portrait of DANTE which fronts the title-page is a very fine one. Examine it:

'SEE from that counterfeit of him

Whom Arno shall remember long,
How stern of lineament, how grim
The father was of Tuscan song.'

SOME of our readers will remember a capital French story, from the pen of ar esteemed friend, which appeared three or four years since in these pages, entitled 'Ganguernez, the Capital Joker. Some such a wag it was who startled every body on the deck of the 'JOHN MASON' steamer the other day, on her way from Albany to Troy, with the inquiry, in a loud nasal tone: Hear of that dreadful accident to-day aboard the Greenbush hoss-boat?' 'No exclaimed half a dozen by-standers at once; 'no! —what was it?' 'Wal, they was tellin' of it down to the dee-pot; and nigh as I can cal❜late, the hoss-boat had got within abeout two rod of the wharf, when the larboard-hoss bu'st a flue; carryin' away her stern, unshippin' her rudder, and scaldin' more 'n a dozen passengers! I don't know as there is any truth into it; praps 't aint so; but any way, that's the story? The narrator was less successful, according to his own account, with a rather practical joke which he undertook to play upon a Yankee townsman of his, a week or two before, in New-York. He never liked me much, 'xpect,' said he, 'nor I did n't him, nuther. And I was a-walkin' along Pearl