JOHN A. GRAY, 16 & 18 JACOB STREET.

1859.

ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1359, by JOHN A. GRAY, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New-York.

6

ANNOUNCEMENT FOR 1860.

In order to increase the already large circulation of the KNICKERBOCKER, we publish this month a splendid line engraving of FRITH'S picture of Merry-Making in the Olden Time,' which we shall present exclusively to the $3 subscribers to the Magazine for 1860, whether old or new. The subject represents the pastimes of our ancestors, and is eminently of a genial, domestic character. The plate, engraved in England at an expense of $2000, is entirely new, measures twenty-five by nineteen and a half inches in size, contains thirty-nine figures, and is beyond comparison the finest work of the kind ever offered as a premium in this country. The engravings are richly worth $3 a piece, and will be sent to our subscribers for 1860 in the exact numerical order in which their $3 subscriptions are received at the office of publication, the first impressions always being the best. As we give $6 in return for $3, our mail subscribers must inclose twelve cents extra in stamps, to pre-pay postage on the engraving, which will be sent them in strong paste-board tubes. We refer to the following description of the engraving, kindly furnished for our use by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, Esq.

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'THE engraving of FRITH'S picture of Merry-Making in the Older Time, represents the humors of an English holiday in the country in those good old times when the men wore cocked-hats and knee-breeches, and the women stays and hoops tume not essentially differing from the corset and crinoline of the present day. Almost in the centre of the picture and a little in the back-ground is a country dance on the green, with a hard-featured fiddler perched on a high seat, and another musician in a tie-wig standing by him, playing with all their might. On the right, two bouncing girls are gaily pulling toward the dance a gray-haired man, who seems vainly to remonstrate that his dancing days are over,' while a waggish little chit pushes him forward from behind, greatly to the amusement of his spouse, who is still sitting at the tea-table, from which he has been dragged. On the left, under a magnificent spreading oak, sit the 'squire and his wife, whom a countryman with his hat off is respectfully inviting to take part in the dance. To the left of the 'squire is a young couple on the grass, to whom a gipsy with an infant on her shoulder is telling their fortune. Over the shoulders of this couple is seen a group engaged in quoit-playing, and back of the whole is a landscape of gentle slopes and copses. The picture has the expression of gaiety throughout, and the engraving is splendidly executed. It is fresh from the burin of HOLL, not having yet been published in England.' [Vide Editor's Table, p. 666.]

INDEX.

.885
497
465