quently amazing power of his modestly and quietly-delivered discourse, in which the sweep of his thoughts suffered none of the paralyzing influence of a mechanical expression. The admirable classical training of his earlier years, the discursive but methodical reading of his ripening youth, and the severer discipline of his professional studies, had invested him with a singular mastery of the resources of language, and the distributive and cumulative forces of formal logic, and when, thus all-accomplished, he suffered his genius to lead and vindicate herself with his learning, the effect was sometimes a calm and delightful wonder, such as one feels in a dream, as if the faculties were suddenly offered a larger and sublimer comprehension, without the shock and weariness of initiative and preparative effort.

The variety of his intelligence was as remarkable as its profoundness and brilliancy. In the presence of strangers he was apt to seem reserved and even shy, announcing his opinions as they were solicited, and with brevity and an air of indecision; but in a familiar and sympathizing auditory, he appeared in conscious strength, though with a deference which was a compliment to those whom he addressed; and, heard under such circumstances, in an assembly of mathematicians, it might have been believed that the long-hopedfor secret of the transmission of mental riches, by inheritance or testament, had been discovered, and that he had fallen heir to the learned talents of an EULER or a LAPLACE. Those who entered with him into discussions of metaphysics, were astonished that a life-time of thoughtful study should have made him so familiar with the abstruse speculations of the great sects from PLATO to COMTE. In a senate of jurists it could scarcely have been doubted that his years were far more numerous than they seemed, and that they all had been devoted to the investigation of that noble system of equity, in which human reason had its bravest triumphs, at Rome, before the Divinity condescended to add to it those principles which were beyond the suggestion while not beyond the acceptance of created intellect. The awful mysteries of religion he approached with the deepest humility, but it was easy to perceive that his simple faith had been strengthened though not grounded upon the most exhaustive study of conflicting opinions. In the same way, the ex actness and particularity of his historical and literary erudition were a continual surprise. As he led the way among confused and opposing authorities, they took their places in order, and yielded up the credentials of their value; and if he talked of a great writer, critics surmised that his habits of seclusion would be accounted for by an edition of that writer's works, in which his intimate knowledge and sagacity would be displayed in doubtending annotations.

Would he had lived more perfectly to justify the reverent admiration of his friends! but

Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,

Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer.

There is no real nobility in human nature that had not illustration in his life, which, if ever this were true of any life, was unstained to its close by an immorality of intellect or passion; and whatever the relation in which these essays on Art-' fragments found in his port-folio' after his death-and Literary Criticisms, many of which were written before he was twenty

years

of age,

would have borne to the productions of his later life, it will not be doubted by appreciative readers that they embrace some of the finest specimens of literature that America has yet given to the world, or that our language will convey to other generations.

MR. SPONGE'S SPORTING TOUR. 'Fish and Fishing,' etc., etc.

Edited by FRANK FORESTER, Author of 'Field Sports,' With Illustrations by JOHN LEECH. In One Volume: pp. 425. New-York: STRINGER AND TOWNSEND.

This book is as full of fun as an egg of meat. It may possibly strike the reader, at first, as a little too colloquial, too dialoguey; but he will soon see that a series of laughter-moving pictures are in this way presented to him, which could not be half so well conveyed in any other manner. Mr. HERBERT (FRANK FORESTER') has well described the character of the work in his brief and well-written introduction: In the first place, it is not, as it does not profess to be, either a veritable description and chronicle of sports and sporting adventures in the field, combined with the natural history and habits of the animals of chase, whether pursuers or pursued, and conveying information to the reader as well as maxims to the sportsman or yet a fictitious story, embracing the same features, aspiring to convey the same sort of information, and at the same time to enlist something of the feelings of the reader, by introducing an incidental romantic interest, as of real life, somewhat analogous to that of the modern novel of society. Nothing of this sort is 'Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour;' nor at any of these objects does it aim. It is rather a series of caste pictures, of the most graphic kind, of character-paintings so droll and ludicrous that, but for their inimitable verisimilitude, their perfect naturalness and the breadth of their details and force of their colorings, they might be almost called caricatures, than a connected story, with hero, heroine, regular plot, and regular denouement. The sporting parts of the work, though perfect in their accuracy, vividness of description, keenness of observation, and minuteness of detail, intimating the complete acquaintance of the author with his subject, are entirely subordinate to the general effect and point of the book, and aim at amusing rather than at instructing, at presenting pictures and portraits than at inculcating precepts. And both the pictures and portraits will be found equally true and life-like as they are telling and entertaining, and in both respects equally appreciable by the fair city-lady and her ladylike exquisite, and by the DIE-VERNON Amazon, and the veriest NIMROD of the day. The ball-room and the club-room of the fashionable wateringplace, the manoeuvring mammas and the husband-hunting mademoiselles, are as presentably put on the canvas, and far more frequently, and I dare to say as humorously as the kennel and the coverside, the jolly English yeoman, and the scoundrelly English horse-dealer, the blossom-nosed, foxhunting parson, and the rude, roaring, roystering, fox-hunting peer, the fieldhuntsman and the fancy huntsman, the seedy screw and the spendthrift

baronet with his crew of third-rate ragamuffin swells dramatic, or lastly as the matchless 'SPONGE' himself; for whom, in spite of his sponging and his screwing, his soaping of amphytrions with whom one may dine to-day, his circumventing of snobs and flats off whom one may hope to dine to-morrow, and his attempts at surrounding heiresses, with whom one may hope to wed some day or other, we cannot but confess a sneaking liking. And more we think than a sneaking liking almost he deserves, for his dauntless pluck, his matchless horsemanship, his great native hunting qualities, his warfare against flats, screws, and snobs of all kinds, the daring impudence by which he gets out of all scrapes as fast as he gets into them, and lastly, for his possession of that 'one touch of nature' which is so truly said to 'make the whole world kin,' and which leads him, as the end of his adventures, sporting and matrimonial, to espouse the lovely and loving LUCY GLITTERS, though he well knows that she has not a sixpence in the world, and that he has no visible means of supporting her, only because she is such a pretty girl, such a trump, and such a rare hand to show a whole hunting field the way over a park paling. From Mr. WAFFLES of Laverick Wells, to Mr. BUCKRAM of the snug little hindependence of his hown, from the am-a-azin' specimen of a pop'lar man, Mr. PUFFINGTON, to my Lord SCAMPERDALE blubbering over the untimely parted corpse of JACK SPRAGGON, because he may never hope to find again 'so fine a natural bb-blackguard,' from JAWLEYFORD of Jawleyford Court, to FACEY ROMFORD and Farmer SPRINGWHEAT, from the fashionable fair of the pump-rooms and ball-rooms of Laverick Wells, to my Lady SCATTERCASH, née Miss SPANGLE, MISS HARRIET HOWARD alias JANE BROWN, and beautiful, brave LucY GLITTERS, with whom a better fellow than our friend SOAPEY SPONGE might have wedded without derogation, the reader, whoever he or she may be, will not find one character, high or low, good or bad, but is painted to the very life, as, at some time, and in some place or other with the sole exception, perhaps, of Mr. JOGGLEBURY CROWDEY-I myself can avouch, that I have seen them. There is some low life, but there are no low thoughts; nothing offensive or hurtful to the feelings, much less prejudicial or seductive to the minds of the purest and most refined. If there be not much wisdom, I will be content to bear the blame if there be not found much wit, much keen comprehension of the world, and much scathing satire of all that is low, mean, dirty, and degrading, in the Sporting Tour of Mr. SOAPEY SPONGE.' We can say of the engravings, which are well colored, that although in one or two instances they are in our copy a little faint in execution, they are capital in design. Look at 'Mr. SPONGE at Jawleyford Court,' and see if we have not 'said sooth.' Our friends the publishers of this attractive book, have wisely given up all issues of papercovered literature. They have risen to distinction in 'the trade,' and will henceforth issue none but first-class works, and in the best style of paper, typography, and binding. Such is the public taste: and how, we ask, can any publisher more clearly indicate his own poor appreciation of a book, than by bringing it out in a shabby, flimsy, ill-looking dress? Messrs. STRINGER AND TOWNSEND's catalogue of new works and editions in press, to which we shall hereafter advert, is especially rich and attractive.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

ANOTHER LEAF FROM THE LAKE SHORE.'- Right glad are we again to welcome to our pages our lively and gifted DIE VERNON. She is as beautiful as she is accomplished; and what is better than all, you never would think she was at all aware of it.

'Another Leaf from the Lake Shore.

'If you have ever been over the road, reader, from Lake GEORGE to Ticonderoga, you must know JOEL HOLCOMB, the stage proprietor, and if you have not, let me advise you to take the trip next summer for the sake of making his acquaintance.

'A first-rate fellow is JOEL; a decided character, and one that needs only the opportunity to make his mark in the world: open-hearted and open-handed, never forgets a kindness, will take any amount of trouble to serve a friend, and considerable pains to annoy a foe. He is the best driver that ever handled the ribbons, and the best judge of men, women, and horses I ever met. JOEL and I are great friends, and I am indebted to him for many a pleasant drive and many a droll story to enliven the way: he knew of old my fancy for driving four horses, and handed me the reins as soon as we left the landing, and the way I put those horses up hill and down, rather startled some of the inside passengers, and there was a succession of terrific screeches from the feminine portion as soon as they discovered that there was a lady driving!

'As I have no sympathy with, nor compassion for screaming women, I only drove the faster, and JOEL sat with his arms folded, laughing silently and enjoying it in his own quiet way. At this dashing rate we soon arrived in sight of the Old Fort, or rather the place where the fort used to be, for there are but few traces of it left now: here I drew rein, and JOEL informed the passengers that they might alight if they chose to inspect the ruins, and there was a general clearing-out from the inside, but whether they were influenced by a desire of antiquarian research, or a desire to escape from what they evidently considered a perilous situation, remains a doubt in my mind to this day.

'No transition could have been more disagreeable, than from the clear and sparkling Lake GEORGE, to the dark, mud-colored waters of Lake Champlain, and no contrast could have been greater than that between SHERRILL'S well-regulated, wellkept 'Lake-House,' where every attention was paid to guests, and every reasonable wish could be gratified, and which for true comfort exceeds any summer resort I 6

VOL. XLVIII.

ever visited, and the noisy, ill-conducted house at Fort Ticonderoga, where every thing is in disorder and confusion, and the landlord goes about in his faded linen coat, striped cotton pantaloons, no vest, and a huge shirt-collar, that looks like the sail of a North-River sloop. He wears heavy shoes, with thick soles and big heels, and when you ask for a glass of brandy-and-water, takes you into a closet, locks the door, and gives you bad rum to drink, because it is after the Fourth of July, and he is a timid man: when you ask for matches, he takes a bunch of keys and goes up-stairs, is gone a long while, and brings you down one match! The food is bad, the cooking worse, the rooms are small, the bedsteads large, and you have your choice between a feather-bed and one made of corn-husks, with now and then a corn-cob left in by way of variety!

'I have travelled pretty extensively in Europe and America, had experience in German inns and French lodging-houses. I have lived in log cabins and 'camped out,' but never was it my ill lot to encounter such a congregation of miseries as were collected in the Fort-House at Ticonderoga in the month of July, 1855!

'Under such circumstances, you will readily imagine that we were not very well pleased at being detained there by stormy weather two days and two nights. The morning of the third was bright and beautiful, but it happened to be Sunday, so of course, there were no steam-boats or stages, and we should have been obliged to pass another day there, if my friend JOEL had not come to our rescue by suggesting that we might cross the Lake in the ferry-boat and drive to Middlebury, Vermont, offering to furnish us with wagon, horses, and driver. Never was an offer more readily accepted, and by ten o'clock we were all ready to start. JOEL accompanied us to the lake shore, and amused himself in gathering a bunch of flowers for me from the garden of a farm-house, while we were waiting for the boatmen on the other side of the Lake to notice a signal that an old woman was making with a little piece of white rag. Our patience was nearly exhausted, when JOEL rushed into the house and seized a sheet, or a table-cloth, or some other garment, and fastening it to a stick, soon attracted the attention of the ferry-men, who began hoisting the sail to their antiquated and unwieldy vessel, and in a shorter time than might have been anticipated from such a dull, heavy-looking craft, they backed up to the shore near us, and called out that they were ready to receive us on board. It took considerable persuasion from JOEL to get the horses to trust themselves to that mysterious-looking machine, and then the united efforts of half-a-dozen stout fellows to get the clumsy old thing from the shore. I verily believed it to be the identical boat in which ETHAN ALLEN crossed with his 'Green-Mountain Boys,' to take Old Fort Ti.; but I suppose the proverb which says we should 'Speak well of the bridge which carries us safe over' applies also to boats; therefore I must not abuse the old scow any more, but advise all those who are fond of variety to take a trip across Lake Champlain in it next summer, and let me know how they like it. 'A couple of hours after we landed on the Vermont side, we were seated at a cozy little dinner in the 'Addison House,' at Middlebury. We found a neat house and a gentlemanly landlord; quite a treat after our recent experience at Ticonderoga; and so we decided to spend a week or two there: and so it chanced that some of the warmest weather last July found me still in that same spot One afternoon, perfectly exhausted with the heat, I lay upon the sofa in my parlor, panting for breath. The room felt like an oven. The scorching rays of the mid-summer sun poured down upon the white houses opposite, and sent a dazzling glare into my windows. The fields were dry and parched, and the poor trees looked hot and