“ Oh!"

Flat on your backs in jerking berths you scarce could keep your place in,
You'd moan an Amboean sad-quick, steward! quick! a basin !
(Queen's counsel most delectable, I still seem hearing thee
Sing Cameriere through the rain along the Bieler sea.)
How

easy 'tis to tyrannize over Taste's hapless lieges !
The
poor

Achivi still are plucked quidquid delirant reges ;
If Hamlet says he sees a whale, Polonius must follow,
And what A swears is beautiful, all down to Z will swallow;
None dares confess he cannot see what great Flapdoddle spies,
And, like potatoes, fools are bred from one another's eyes ;
Dear Nyncombe, what sharp agonies I've seen you going through with
Before a statue which your soul had naught on earth to do with,
And what could e'er be finer than your awed, assenting
When I suggested that deep thought in the Apollo's toe?
Don't come to Rome for nothing, man, with some likeminded crony,
Go valiantly and eat a steak down at the Gabione;
'Tis in this way that men are made to say they like the sea,
Flam says he does, and all the rest will be as good as he.
I heard a great man once declare that he had never found
A sailor, yet, who loved the fate to which his life was bound,
And when I asked our brown first-mate, a seaman good and brave,
On shore as helpless as a fish, a viking on the wave,
What life would please him most? he sighed, looked at his tattooed arm,
Studied its hieroglyphs awhile, and said-an inland farm.
And he was right; I cannot, for example, see the least
Pleasure in walking on a deck that's drunk as any beast,
A wet plank, scarcely larger than a white bear's sloppy pen,
That tips you here and slips you there, and trips you back again;
That cheats you with a moment's lull, and, when you think you feel
Quite sure of the companionway, half breaks you on the wheel,
Then slants until you need both hands to keep your hold on that,
And pins you helpless while the wind blows off your second hat.
The steed that throws his rider would be nearer to the fact:
To me it gives no pleasure to be swashed and washed and racked ;
To have a three weeks' tipsiness on cold saltwater merely,
With legs that seem like some one's else, they bother you so queerly
Taking you here when you mean there, -no, no, it has no charm,
Although the loveliest cousin may be hanging on your arm.
Of course, I am not seasick, for although that epidemic
(Hic) prostrates all my friends, yet (hic) I only pity them (hic).
Indeed, in this life's pilgrimage, I found this maxim true:
There are four common weaknesses no mortal ever knew,
A headache that was caused by wine, drowsiness late at night,
Seasickness, and a corn that came from wearing boots too tight.
A seasick man I never saw; Our Own leans o'er the rail,
Muses awhile, and then comes back with features doughy pale ;
But he had only wandered aft, a Parthian glance to take
At those strange coils of moony fire that mark the writhing wake.
With ghastly calm he takes a pipe; in minutes five (or less) hence,
He'll feel again that ecstasy produced by phosphorescence.

Conceive of an existence in which the great events Are breakfast, luncheon, dinner, tea, in which, when Fate relents, She sends a string of porpoises, perhaps a grampus, too, Who blunders up beneath the stern, and gives a poo-oo-ooh ! While we immortal souls crowd aft and crush each other's toes To see this stupid creature blow what he esteems a nose; Why, I blew thrice my moral and accountable proboscis, But found no fish so blasé that it ever came across his Waterlogged brain that it was worth his while to turn and come anon, Lest he should miss the witnessing of that sublime phenomenon; Nor would it, though your nose were like fray John's, or even had you a Verissimo fazzoletto of Saint Antony of Padua, The Apostle who in Finland had a cure of souls, and sent

Conviction to his hearers that 'twas good to fry in Lent. VOL 1.-44

There are some goodish things at sea ; for instance, one can feel
A grandeur in the silent man for ever at the wheel,
That bit of two-legged intellect, that particle of drill,
Who the huge floundering hulk inspires with reason, brain and will,
And makes the ship, though skies are black and headwinds whistle loud,
Obey her conscience there which feels the loadstar through the cloud ;
And when by lusty western gales the full-sailed barque is hurled
Toward the great moon which, sitting on the silent underworld,
Rounds luridly up to look on ours, and shoots a broadening line,
Of palpitant light from crest to crest across the ridgy brine,
Then from the bows look back and feel a thrill that never stales
In that full-bosomed, swan-white pomp of onward-yearning sails ;
Ah, when dear cousin Bull laments that you can't make a poem,
Take him aboard a clipper-ship, young Jonathan, and show him
A work of art that in its grace and grandeur may compare
With any thing that any race has fashioned any where;
'Tis not a statue, grumbles John; nay, if you come to that,
We think of Hyde Park corner, and concede you beat us flat
With your equestrian statue to a Nose and a Cocked-hat;
But 'tis not a cathedral; well, e'en that we will allow,
Both statues and cathedrals are anachronistic now;
Your minsters, coz, the monuments of inen who conquered you,
You'd sell a bargain, if we'd take the deans and chapters too;
No; mortal men build now-a-days, as always heretofore,
Good temples to the gods which they in very truth adore ;
The shepherds of this Broker Age, with all their willing flocks,
Although they bow to stones no more, do bend the knee to stocks,
And churches can't be beautiful though crowded, floor and gallery,
If people worship preacher, and if preacher worship salary ;
Tis well to look things in the face, the god o' the modern universe,
Hermes, cares naught for halls of art and libraries of puny verse,
If they don't sell, he notes them thus upon his ledger-say, per
Contra to loss of so much stone, best Russia duck and paper;
And, after all, about this Art men talk a deal of fudge,
Each nation has its path marked out, from which it must not budge;
The Romans had as little art as Noah in his ark,
Yet somehow on this globe contrived to make an epic mark;
Religion, painting, sculpture, song--for these they ran up jolly ticks
With Greece and Egypt, but they were great artists in their politics,
And if we make no minsters, John, nor epics, yet the Fates
Are not entirely deaf to men who can build ships and states;
(I waive the literary point, contented with observing
That I like Hawthorne, Longfellow, Emerson, Bryant, Irving.)
The arts are never pioneers, but men have strength and health
Who, called on suddenly, can improvise a commonwealth,
Nay, can more easily go on and frame them by the dozen,
Than you can make a dinner-speech, dear sympathizing cousin :
And, though our restless Jonathan have not your graver bent, sure he
Does represent this hand-to-mouth, pert, rapid, nineteenth century;
This is the Age of Scramble; men move faster than they did
When they pried up the imperial Past's deep-dusted coffin-lid,
Searching for scrolls of precedent; the wire-tamed lightning now
Replaces hos-men don't leave the steamer for the scow;
What hero, were they new to-day, would ever stop to read
The Iliad, the Shanàrneh, or the Nibelungenlied ?
Their public's gone, the artist Greek, the lettered Shah, the hairy Graf-
Folio and plesiosaur sleep well; we weary o’er a paragraph ;
The mind inoves planet-like no more, it fizzes, cracks, and bustles;
From end to end with journals dry the land o'ershadowed rustles,
As with dead leaves a winter-beech, and, with their breath-roused jars
Amused, we care not if they hide the eternal skies and stars;
Down to the general level of the Board of Brokers sinking,
The Age takes in the newspapers, or, to say sooth unshrinking;
The newspapers take in the Age, and Stocks do all the thinking.

To be Continued.

EDITORIAL NOTES.

LITERATURE

modern German professor, who reads all AMERICAN.- Prismatics, by RICHARD night with his legs in cold water, to keep HAYWARDE, is a unique and delightful him from going to sleep, would look with book, delicately illustrated by Hicks, admiration upon some of these old worDarley, Kensett, Rossiter and Elliott, and thics of Cambridge, Oxford and Westhandsomely published by the Appletons. minster,--Bishop Andrews, for instance, It is a collection of desultory sketches or Reynolds, or Sir Henry Saville. The and poems, full of genial humor and ten truth is, of some of them, we suspect, as der pathos, revealing in Mr. Haywarde a Robert Hall said of Dr. Kippis, that they rare and quaint taste for old English had so many books on their heads, that literature, and the most sensitive appre their brains couldn't move. We are very ciation of its finest characteristics. Es- glad, therefore, that our more superficial say, tale, ballad and elegy, are clustered age, and far more useful one, does not retogether; they follow in graceful se quire such a mass of learning from quence, each betraying the cunning touch its scholars. With "little Latin and less of an artist, and the inspiration of a Greek” now, one may contrive to make dainty taste, which is evinced also in the a highly respectable appearance even at “getting up” of the work. Prismatics a College commencement. Indeed, we strikes us as a series of studies-not imi know an eminent Professor of the Hutations-in various admirable styles. It is manities, at a learned institution, somenot only an indication of the artist's na where this side of the Mississippi, who tive power, but an exquisite remembrance cannot read Longinus in the original, and of the great .galleries of literature in prefers Quinctilian in a good translation. which he has wandered and mused.

-Mrs. ELLETT'S " Summer Rambles --We had thought the Captain Kidd in the West” have mostly appeared in mystery long since laid, but Judge CAMP print, as letters to a popular newspaper, BELL has revived it in a small volume, and are therefore pretty well known to which he calls, “ An Historical Sketch the reading public. The writer travelled of Robin Hood and Captain Kidd," over the Lake Superior region, and the romantic themes, both of them. It is country about the upper waters of the wonderful with what an interest you in Mississippi, and has carefully collected vest a man when you proclaim him the and described the experiences of her wilbiggest scoundrel in the world. Here is derness life. Her book will be a pleasant Hood, for instance, a notorious outlaw companion to many a reader, we doubt and highwayman, and Kidd, the rabidest not, in the summer rambles that he or mad pirate that was ever hung, -and yet she may have in the immediate prospect : they keep possession of literature with a Mrs. Ellet is a keen observer, and writes sort of permanent bloom! Wordsworth with unusual vigor and spirit.

-All the excitements of the day, fail" A famous man was Robin Hood,"

ing to attract the attention which the actand every body remembers "ye lament

ors in them may fancy they deserve, are able ballad and ye true historie,” which

revenged upon the innocent public in

books. How different the case now from begins, “My name was Captain Kidd, when I sailed, when I sailed,” and con

what it was formerly, when a book was

the result of a ten years' gestation, and tinues

an author was a man who really had “I murdered William Moore, as I sailed, as I sailed, I murdered William Moore, ils I sailed;

something to say. But in these times I murdered William Moore, and left himn in his every transient spasm produces its spawn

of books. The Jenny Lind rage, the Kos. Not many leagues from shore, as I sailed,"

suth fever, and now the Spirit rappingsand so on, through several hundred all have a literature of their own. - bisivverses, more or less. But it was reserved ries, polemics, essays and poeries. As to for a dignified functionary of a Court of the last flurry, the Rappers, our table is Law to do them final justice.

covered with publications about them, some 66 The Translators Rerired” is a going to show that it is a new revelawork by A. W. McClure, which gives tion, others that it is a simple natural fact, an historical account of the forty-seven others, again, that it is an outrageous learned clerks who translated the Bible humbug, and others, still further, that it into English, at the order of King James. is a touch of each or a combination of all. All the facts known of them are diligent Mr. Ballou and Mr. CHARLES HAMMOXD ly collated, with the object of showing treat these manifestations as entirely spirithow learned they were, and consequently ual: Dr. Rogers, of Boston, as natural phefitted for their important task. Even a nomena; the Rev. Dr. MATTISon, as an ar

has sung

gore,

more.

done, and by taking for granted often brated Swedish writer, Emily CARLEN, is what it was incumbent on him to prove, a touching story, well told. The title lays himself open to the most damaging alone, we should think, will attract every replies.

female novel reader in the nation, but we -" Coral Reefs and Islands” have cannot say that they will be equally furnished JAMES D. DANA materials for pleased with the ascetic“ one year” which a brief but instructive scientific work, ad the hero and heroine passed. mirable for its arrangement, and of great -The collected writings of Prof. B. B. worth as a contribution to knowledge, EDWARDS, are the records of the life and especially the part which relates to the activity of an accomplished scholar and Changes of Level in the Pacific Ocean. Christian. He was an acute critic as well Mr. Dana was the geologist to the Wilkes as a man of cultivated thought, deeply inexploring expedition.

terested in all those pursuits which enrich –Now that every body goes to Europe, and embellish life, with poetic sensibility the little "Handbook for American Tra no less than practical energy. His Essays vellers,” by Dr. RosWELL PARK, will be on Hebrew Poetry, on Female Education, found a most faithful, judicious, and, we on Slavery in Ancient Greece and Rome, should think, indispensable guide. It is and on the Poetry of Wordsworth, are succinct and methodical, touching on al vigorous in their tone and polished in most every point of interest to the voya style. The Memoir prefixed to the volger.

umes, which Professor Park makes the – The “ Standard Speaker," of Mr. memorial of long years of affectionate inEPES SARGENT appears to have achieved a tercourse and study, is a touching tribute notable success among the school-books to the virtues of his friend. of the day. Although it has not been a -Professor Boyd's annotated edition year before the public, it has reached a of Cowper's principal poems, similar to seventh edition, and the cry is still for his edition of Milton and Young, though

It has been widely introduced into not of a kind to endure a severe critical our colleges and schools. The editor ap examination, is yet a service rendered the pears to have bestowed great pains to ren popular reader. der the work the most thorough of its —The reader may remember the lecclass. In the number, variety, and ap tures on the Hebrew Commonwealth, depropriateness of its exercises, it is proba livered in our principal cities, a few winbly unexcelled.

ters since, by E. C. Wines, and will be -An unusual number of new publica- pleased to hear that they are now gathertions are in press, and will be out, proba ed into a book with the name of “ Combly, before this notice reaches the reader, mentaries on the Laws of the Ancient among the rest, splendid standard editions Hebrews." This is a faithful attempt to of the old English writers, Chaucer, develop systematically the civil polity of SPENSER, Ben Jonson, DRYDEN, ADDISON, the Hebrew lawgiver, preceded by a chapter GIBBON, JUNIUS, and Pope,-all from the on civil society and government, explanpress of the Appletons. Two important atory of the general principles of political geological works by Sir CHARLES LYELL, philosophy. Mr. Wines finds that Moses are also forthcoming, with the long prom was the true originator of the doctrine of ised “ Thirty Years in the Senate of the self-government, and that the commonUnited States," by the Nestor of that wealth he established was a genuine Rebody, COLONEL Benton.

public, and the first on record. This - An excellent translation is Mr. M. point is made out with much research and B. Field's, from the French of the Com argument, and a great many striking intesse D'Arbouville, consisting of " Three cidental illustrations of the spirit of the Tales," beautifully conceived and exe Hebrew leader. What struck us as especuted.

cially worthy of note were the remarks --Mr. Carey's new work on the Slave on the agrarian legislation of Moses, which Trade, Domestic and Foreign" is a most we commend to our more conservative elaborate and able discussion of the whole thinkers. The jurisprudence of the Hesubject of slavery, in the light of his pe brews is reserved for a second volume by culiar notions of Political Economy. the author.

-A great deal of pleasant reading is to -A bulky volume is Mr. Spooner's be had in Mr. CHARLES L. BRACE's new " Biographical and Critical Dictionary book about “ The Home Life of the Ger of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors, and mans" which is not made up from the Architects,” but it is none the less valuguide book, but his own personal adven able. Its title explains its object, and we ture. It is a kind of companion book to need only say of the execution of it, that his interesting sketches of Hungary. it does credit to the intelligence and in

-“ One Year of Weillock" by a cele dustry of the editor. It is a matter, of