Emporium.' It hits to a nicety the style of one who has probably written more 'works' (unmistakeably his own) than he has ever read of other authors: I HAVE been very much lauded by the public, but not half so highly as I deserve. My 'L-itte,' my Captain K-dd,' my 'Burt-n,' are the finest things ever written, except the following. I am willing to stake my reputation upon the thrilling, exciting, magnificent, sublime, glorious pages of the 'Phantom Clam-Sloop.' "T was a horrible night; wild shrieked the storm-spirit above the mad waves; the foam was white; the wild lightning leaped from the abyssmal vaults of Heaven; and the tempest howled like a tiger stung by a spider. Heaven! is that a vessel upon the gloomy waste of waters! CHAPTER II. 'Ho! brace the helm, there! Let go the main-sheet! Furl up the clue buntlines: Ha! ha! we'll yet baffle the storm!' These words proceeded from the mouth of one who stood upon the main-truck of the 'Phantom Clam-Sloop.' Dark was his complexion. but clear; his eye keen and flashing; his teeth white and well-set; his smile was the smile of an angel, and his glance the glance of a fiend! These peculiarities were revealed by the lurid gleam of the lightning. CHAPTER III. FAR in the distance could be seen a frigate approaching rapidly. 'Ha!' said Eugenio de la Oysterelyo, think they thus totake the Phantom Clam-Sloop! Ho! clap on all sail, till the spars bend to the strain!' He was obeyed! CHAPTER IV. THE chase now became exciting; the frigate gained rapidly upon the little vessel of Eugenio, which was now approaching a ledge of rocks. These rocks stretched entirely across the straits through which the vessels were hurrying; their tops could just be seen above the black waters. Fast came the frigate; nearer drew the Phantom Clam-Sloop to the rocks. Oysterelyo called his crew, and in a few words informed them of, and prepared them for, his project. They were almost upon the rocks, and the frigate was almost upon them. 'Now shouted the buccaneer, and at the word the men darted from the prow to the stern; thus raising her bows entirely out of the water; at the same moment a wave seized the vessel and uplifted her. Now shouted Eugenio again; and the men sped back to the bow; and by this manœuvre, and the strength of the wave, the vessel leaped clear over the ledge of rocks. 'Ah ha!' said the deep voice of Oysterelyo. The frigate struck upon the reef, and all were lost! High above their shriek of death. pealed the exulting shout of the buccaneers : Vive la Phantom Clam-Sloop!" END OF VOLUME FIRST. VOLUME II. CHAPTER I. 'SWEET Iolliadelliana,' said de la Oysterelyo, 'I love thee with an overwhelming passion. The frantic tigress, bounding from her lair, not so loves her cubs. The soaring eagle bears less affection for its young!' 'Ah,' she murmured, 'I am sad-sad, sad. Eugenio! 'Why art thou sad, my soul?' he asked. When I think of my home, from which thou has lured me; my father-ah, Heaven!' and she struck her white forehead passionately. 'O Oysterelyo! my brother is a captain in the navy. If ye should meet —' 'Nay, chase away thy gloom, sweet love, with the hunting-hounds of song:' And she sang: SONG. 'My life is like a withered rose, And sad, ay, sad, O very sad. This trembling heart of mine; Great Heaven! Olet me not go mad! A gun sounded. 'Ha!' said Eugenio, 'that calls us to the sea! Come, Iolliadelliana, let us embark!' CHAPTER II. SCARCE had they left the shore, when they saw a man-of-war-which first fired a broadside and then gave chase. I know her screamed lolliadelliana; 'tis the Scorpion of the Seas! 't is my brother's ship!' Whereupon she immediately fainted! 'Ha!' said Eugenio, 'bear her to the cabin, and run up the black flag!' The vessels met. In a moment they were locked yard-arm and yard-arm. And face to face stood Eugenio de la Oysterelyo and the brother of Jolliadelliana. Turn thee, ravisher!' yelled the captain. Ah! ha!' shouted Eugenio, and their swords met; but in the midst of the battle, the fair girl rushed from the cabin, flung her arms round the neck of the buccaneer, and exclaimed: 'Hold! hold, Plantagenet, I love him yet;' but at this moment the sword of the brother pierced the pirate's side-and at the same moment, the sailors gained possession of the sloop. 'I will baffle ye yet!' shouted Eugenio; and clasping Iolliadelliana, he sprang upon the maintruck. One moment the form of the pirate was revealed by the lightning; he dashed his matted hair from his forehead, clenched his teeth, shook his fist, and jumped overboard. CHAPTER III. THE next day he was found far out at sea, upon a raft, with nothing on him but a flannel-shirt, sitting on a tea-box, playing the flute. Upon the tea-box was written the words-'PHANTOM CLAMSLOOP! This was all that remained of that ill-fated vessel! WE lament, in common with all who knew either the departed or his writings, the untimely death of the late MATTHEW C. FIELD, Esq., co-editor with his brother JOSEPH, of the St. Louis Reveillé.' PHAZMA' was always a favorite of ours, although we never saw his face. He wrote prose and verse with equal facility. His poetry was remarkable for its melody of versification and the deep feeling which pervaded it; and such of his prose-sketches as we have encountered were characterised by great faithfulness of description and picturesqueness of scene. We are not surprised to learn, from those who knew him most intimately, that he was a kind and gentle spirit: all his writings indicate the fact. The Sea his body but Heaven his spirit holds.' Our sympathy is with his surviving friends... OUR Hartford correspondent, in his sketch of The Yankee in 'York,' tells us, in a very graphic manner, how he was 'done' one pleasant morning in October last, at a mock-auction ‘saloon' in Chatham-street, and again in the afternoon at the Beaconcourse, Hoboken,' by a very pleasant-spoken man, who had a great many persons about him, while he was rolling something around on his knee! Verdant individual! He was victimized of 'an X.,' by one of those professional gentleman, who with three thimbles and a pea on a propped-up leg, astonish the by-standers with: 'Here's the sort o' game; three thimbles and vun little pea; vith a vun, two, three, and a two, three, vun; catch him who can; look on, keep your eyes open, and never say die! Never mind the change and the expense: all fair and above board; them as do n't play can't win, and luck attend the daring sportsman. Bet any gen'l'man any sum of money, from ten dollars up to a quarter, that he does n't name the thimble as kivers the little joker.' Here some green-horn whispers his friend that he distinctly saw the pea roll under the middle thimble ; an impression which is immediately confirmed by a gentleman standing by, and who in a low tone regrets his own inability to bet, in consequence of having unfortunately left his purse at home, but strongly urges the stranger not to neglect such a golden opportunity. The plant' is successful; the bet is made; the stranger of course loses; and the gentlemen with the thimbles consoles him, as he pockets the money, with the assurance that 'it's all the fortin o' war: this time I vin, next time you vin: never mind the loss; do it up in a small parcel, and break out in a fresh place. Here's the sort o' game, gen'l'men; three thimbles and vun little pea; with a vun, two, three, and a two, three, vun; catch him who can,' and so-forth. WE are struck with the following remarks of LONGINUS in his Ninth Section on The Sublime.' "We ought to spare no pains to educate our souls to grandeur, and impregnate them with generous and enlarged ideas. But how, it will be asked, can this be done? Why, I have hinted in another place, that the sublime is an image reflected from the inward greatness of the soul. Hence it comes to pass that a naked thought without words challenges admiration, and strikes by its grandeur. Such is the silence of AJAX in the Odyssey, which is abundantly noble, and far above expression. To arrive at excellence like this, we must needs suppose that which is the cause of it; I mean that an orator of the true genius must have no mean and ungenerous way of thinking; for it is impossible for those who have grovelling and servile ideas, or are engaged in the sordid pursuits of life, to produce any thing worthy of admiration, and the perusal of all posterity. Grand and sublime expressions must flow from them and them alone whose conceptions are stored and big with greatness. And hence it is that the greatest thoughts are always uttered by the greatest souls. When PARMENIO cried, I would accept these proposals, (viz.: those made by DARIUS of his own daughter and half his kingdom to purchase peace,) if I was ALEXANDER. ALEXANDER made this reply: 'And so would I, if I was PARMENIO.' His answer showed the greatness of his mind.'... 'SPEAKING of the sublime,' as OLLAPOD / would say, we have reached the highest pitch of exaltation in company of some cockney tourists. The London and Westminster Review, speaking in a late number on the charity of Mr. COOPER for not retorting in his Gleanings' upon Mrs. TROLLOPE and other writers of her class, brings to light the following gems, selected from many others, not on account of their peculiar claims to merit, but because the authors had the astounding impudence publicly thereunto to affix their names.' The first is written at Chamouni: 'BEHOLD those towering mounts of snow, And the glaciers high and low! Looking like a frozen sea Who can scan the mountain's height? 'Who indeed?' quoth the Review. criticism, bears the signature of one (Great Phabus!) This brilliant composition, far beyond the reach of SCOTT.' There is another, from the pen of a sporting baronet, written at Airolo, in the Val Bedretto, who draws the attention of the public to a little affaire du cœur : 'IF chance denies us e'er to meet again In this tormenting world of constant pain, . These tenderly-solemn verses must have been inspired on Mount Parnassus rather than in the Val Bedretto. WE are gratified to perceive the exertions that are making to alleviate the condition of all prisoners and captives' in our penitentiaries, as well as to provide an asylum and employment for those who are at length liberated from confinement. Not unfrequently the unhappy wretches are set at large by Death, opening the prisondoors to them that are bound.' We read but recently in a morning journal of a barrel being accidentally sent to a cooper's shop, in some obscure street of the metropolis, which on being opened was found to contain the emaciated body of a man, clad in the state's-prison garb, who had been compressed into the cask, and despatched to a relative in this city for burial. Poor shell of humanity! Confinement, toil, privation, hope deferred-all have done their worst. Thoughts of childhood, of days of innocence, of affection and love, shall torture him no more. Nothing can touch him further!' WE have glanced with a good degree of interest through the pages of a pleasant, gossiping poem by JAMES C. RICHMOND, entitled The Country Schoolmaster in Love,' or Life in New-England, a college poem. It is published at a very low price by Messrs. BURGESS, STRINGER AND COMPANY, and will well repay perusal. The notes are especially amusing. The writer gives the reply of a fellow-student to a question of a college president, whether he was ever in love: Why yes, Doctor, I've experienced a kind of puppy-love, or what the Yankees call a 'sneaking notion,' but nothing more.' Our school-master's services must have been required in the place where he was first engaged, if we may judge from the answer of one of the examining committee, when asked, "How many people are there in your town?' 'Why, we are not very popular; about three hundred, I guess.' The children were on a par with their parents in that region. A great girl, over twenty years of age, in reading the distribution of college honors, spoke of the degree of Forenoon' (A. M.) being conferred upon a graduating gentleman! THERE is nothing,' says some modern English essayist, (and where we have quite forgotten,) 'there is nothing so associate as sound. There are tones which our heart in its youth has heard, that never leave it; that lie hushed from the wild tumult of the world we live in, until some sister-sound bids it start to life, and with it recalls not only the time but the feelings we enjoyed or suffered when first we heard its music.' Now it is quite impossible for us to designate what it is in the performances of OLE BULL that sometimes quite takes the heart captive; but we will wager a ducat that there is scarcely a man of common sensibility in town who can listen to the Niagara,' theSolitude of the Prairie,' or the 'Psalm of DAVID,' without often feeling the moisture stealing into his eyes. There are notes of such exquisite plaintiveness, such lingering sadness,' that they waken a sort of internal sobbing. It is the soul transfused into sound. One receives, in listening to OLE BULL'S instrumental strains, much the same impression that is conveyed by the great maestro while engaged in animated conversation with you; the unmistakeable heart gleaming from the eye, flashing in the countenance, and wreaking itself upon selected words from a sparse but forceful vocabulary. There are some persons, however, to whom even OLE BULL'S music is 'caviare.' The other evening, at his crowded concert at the Tabernacle, in the instant hush that heralded the storm of applause which followed the Solitude of the Prairie,' a sensitive 'human' sitting near us remarked, with evident feeling, 'Well, there's a deal o' fidlin' into that piece-t, any how!' He 'was n't a common-sewer in music much,' he said: adding: but d -n my sister's cat! if I ha n't heerd as good playin' as that 'fore yet! Such ignorance as this, it strikes us, is not bliss. If a lack of feeling betokens wisdom, however, we admit that it is 'folly to be wise.' LOVERS of the Fine Arts, in passing down Broadway, would find much enjoyment in stepping into the establishment of Mr. EDWARD DECHAUX, Artist's Colorman,' near the north-east corner of Duane-street. The best materials of every description, for the use of artists of all kinds, are here to be found; and what is of more interest to the general public, the rarest pictures, prints, and articles of taste and vertu, which are received as fast as they appear in the capitals of France and England. We know of no place where an hour can be passed so pleasantly; and we fancy that courteous attention, and the sight of beauty in all forms of art, result usually in profit to the proprietor. It certainly should not be otherwise. DID it ever happen to you, reader, at an otherwise plea sant dinner-party, to be placed by your host next to a man who had not a spark of wit, huor conversation, and yet who would keep pouring into the porches of your ears a 'steady stream of talk?' mor, ... 'Good cheer Such hardship cannot soften; To listen to the self-same dunce, So says HORACE SMITH; and all who have suffered in this kind, we are sure will readily agree with him. His advice, and example on occasions of this sort, are worthy of especial attention: 'SHUN sitting next the wight whose drone With flat colloquial pressure; 'He who can only talk with one, Should stay at home and talk with none At all events to strangers; Like village epitaphs of yore, He ought to cry, 'Long time I bore,' To warn them of their dangers. There are whose kind inquiries scan Son, brother, cousin joining; Who swung last week for coining. When joined to such a son of prate, And thus my lee-way fetch up: 'Sir, all my relatives, I vow, THE country friend who essays to discuss 'White vs. Black Neckcloths' is wasting powder. There is very little variety of opinion on the subject in metropolitan circles.' We have had occasion to observe, at the most fashionable and crowded houses during the entire opera-season, that not more than one or two persons in the house, in any one audience, sported a white neck-cloth; and in these cases, complexion, etc., rendered the change a fitting one. It is quite the same thing in the general society of the best circles. WE have received several communications, touching the remarks which we ventured to offer in recent numbers of the KNICKERBOCKER upon 'Legal Nomenclature and Tautology.' We wait however to hear from our courteous correspondent, to whose previous communication we readily gave place. Boz has somewhere pleasantly illustrated a branch of our subject in one of his parish-sketches: Under a half-obsolete statue of one of the EDWARDS, the court were empowered to punish a person who should be proved guilty of the crime of 'brawling' in any church, or vestry attached thereunto. It appeared that on a certain night, at a certain vestry-meeting, in a certain parish hereinafter more particularly set forth, the party of the second part had made use of and applied to the party of the second part the words, 'You be blowed;' and that on the said party of the first part remonstrating with the said party of the second part, on the impropriety of his conduct, the said party of the second part repeated the aforesaid expression, or words, You be blowed;' and furthermore desired and requested to know whether the said party of the first part 'wanted any thing for himself,' or words to that effect; adding, that if the said party of the first part did want any thing for himself, he, the said party of the second part, was 'the man to give it to him;' at the same time making use of other heinous expressions, all of which came within the intent and meaning of the act! Apropos of legal lore, and its sinuosities: We would like some gentleman learned in the law' to expound the following case, which a friend has handed us at this present sitting: JIM SWIPES took a mortgage for one thousand dollars on a house and lot worth two thousand, dated January first, 1844, which he neglected to place on record. On the tenth of the same month, JOHN SMITH, (an old and highly-esseemed citizen,) obtained a judgment of one thousand dollars, which was docketed, and became a lien on the same house and lot. On the fifteenth of the same month Jo BOWERS took a mortgage on the same lot for one thousand dollars, and put it on record. As the value of this property will admit of the payment of but two of these claims, which has the preference? That's the question.' To those not acquainted with legal matters, it may be necessary to state, that the first mortgage, not having been put on record, was superseded, 'in preference,' by the second mortgage, which was placed on record; while the judgment, being older in date than the last mortgage, was entitled to preference over it. How is the affair to be settled? Ay, marry, tell us that, and unyoke.' WHEREVER You are, reader, and observe the concerts of our friend DEMPSTER announced, fail not to go and hear him sing 'The May-Queen,' by TENNYSON. It was from a suggestion one night in our sanctum, that he subsequently set that noble performance to noble music; and we venture 24 VOL. XXV. |