"There, with the riches I possess "And when I die, I would be laid Upon a stone to mark my grave, Her griefs are o'er, her soul has sought She went; and overcharged with grief, They placed her where she wished to lie, And when the bridge was finished, few CHIT-CHAT OF NEW-YORK. FROM THE CORRESPONDENCE OF THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER. New-York, January 18. THERE is more room in the city-for General Tom Thumb is departed. His littleness sailed this morning for England "or so they say." His "last levee" yesterday was attended by three thousand two hundred people! I observe from my window, however, that his house still stands upon the high pole in front of the Museum-so that, possibly, Mr. Barnum has "a contrary wind" in reserve, and he may be "unavoidably detained" another week. From Carrara the statues were sent, when finished, to Copenhagen, their ultimate destination, and Thorwalsden, on his subsequent visit to his native country, saw them for the first time. The cost of delivering Clevenger's statue from the womb of the mountain impregnated by his genius will be about one thousand dollars-a round fee for the accouchement of the stony mother of "a North American Indian!" Whoever does the literary criticism of the Intelligencer does it so well that I carefully avoid trenching upon his ground by anything but local or anecdotical mention of new books. Burns's Letters to Clarinda will naturally fall un der his notice. Many people are disappointed in themexpecting, naturally, to find a poet's love-letters better written than another man's. I think the contrary would naturally be true. Fine writing is an arm's-length dexterity, and the heart works only at close quarters. I should suspect the sincerity of a poet's love-letter if it were not far within his habitual tact and grace. Besides, in strong emotion, the heart flies from the much-used channels of language, and tries for something newer to its own ear, and, while an ordinary man would find this novelty in poetical language, a poet would seek to roughen and simplify and break up the habitual art and melody of his periods. By the way, the name of Burns reminds me of a little anecdote I heard told with some humour by Campbell, at a dinner-party in London. Count D'Orsay and Barry Cornwall were present, and they were drawing out the veteran bard as to his recollections of the great men who were setting stars when he was rising. "I was dining one day with Burns," said Campbell, "who, like Dr. Johnson and other celebrities, had his Bozzy worshipper, a friend who was always in his company. I have forgotten his name. Burns left the room for a moment, and, passing the bottle to his friend, I proposed to drink the health of Mr. Burns. He gave me a look of annihilation. Sir,' said he, you will always be known as Mr. Campbell, but posterity will talk of Burns.'" Such an anecdote makes one look round in alarm, to see if there are not some unre. cognized mononoms in our time, whom we are profaning, unaware, with our Mister-y. 6 It rains in Broadway-as it has often done before, it is true; but it seems to me a particularly wet rain, for there is an old black beggar standing in front of St. Paul's, holding out his hat for what must be, at any rate, a diluted charity. At a fair calculation (and I have watched him while writing, for the last two hours) every tenth passenger puts something into his hat. His gray wool must hold more water than his leaky hat, and, at least, it acts like a sponge-on the passersby. Begging, as yet, is a good trade in America, and I think that New-York, particularly, is a place where money has little adhesiveness-easily made and readily given away. A few gentlemen (Mr. Philip Hone apparently the mover of the project) have combined to raise a subscription for the purchase of Clevenger's Statue of a North American Indian. The circular addresses the business men of the city, and the statue, if purchased, will be presented to the Mercantile Library Association. Three thousand dollars is the sum fixed upon, five hundred of which are to be appropriated to the immediate relief of Mrs. Clevenger and her children. It would strike, perhaps, even some of the subscribers to this fund with surprise to tell them that the statue they are to purchase is possibly still lying unquarried in the mountains of Carrara. Clevenger is dead, but his genius stands pointing its finger to a rude block of marble, in which lies, unseen, a complete and immortal statue, waiting only for Palmo's new opera house in Chambers-street is nearly the chisel of the mechanical workmen to remove the rough completed, and the Cassandra of promise is, for once, fully stone that encumbers it. That finger is seen and obeyed credited. Every body seems to believe that opera and balthree thousand miles away, (by the committee with Mr.let will always be fashionably and fully supported in NewPhilip Hone at its head,) and the reluctant money will be forthcoming and on its way to Italy in a month, and the sta tue will be found and finished, imported and exhibited at Clinton Hall! (Plain matter-of-fact, all this, and yet it sounds very like poetry!) I was told by Thorwalsden, when at Rome, that there were several of his statues he had never seen. They were finished, as far as he was concerned, when they were moulded in clay. They were then cast in plaster by the mechanics who make a trade of it, and the plaster models were sent to Carrara, where there is a large village of copyists in marble living near the marble quarries. York. Palmo is a man of judgment and energy, and the want of these amusements will draw the supply of artistes, musical and balletesque. Castellan persists in going to Europe at this crisis, I am sorry to say. I heard Signora Borghese at a private musical party the other evening, and should think her a "good card"-her personal attractions and her talent at giving expression to her music by action and play of feature compensating somewhat for the want of finish in her voice and execution. I understand that Palmo is to give a private rehearsal and supper to the cognoscenti before the opening of his opera. THE MIRROR LIBRARY. We have long wished to have, for our own library, a uniform edition of our favourite authors. In this gregarious world, ten thousand may have together what one cannot have alone, and we wish our readers to join and give us our coveted library by having one like it themselves. By this combination we can have it cheap-(that is to say a book of poems which costs a dollar here and two dollars in London, we can have for a shilling)—and instead of a higgledy. piggledy shelf of books, one short and one tall, one fat and one thin, we may have them of one symmetrical shape, beautifully printed, and bound to our and your liking. You will trust our taste to select the books, and we will throw you in, in a preface, what we know of the author, and what we think of his works; and for our trouble in proof-reading, publishing, packing and forwarding, we will pay ourselves out of that little un-missed and fecund shilling. There are now ready, therefore, the following, each for one shilling : SACRED POEMS, by N. P. WILLIS. POEMS OF PASSION, do. LADY JANE and HUMOROUS POEMS, do. The LITTLE FRENCHMAN AND HIS WATER-LOTS, by G. P. Our first selection, to follow these, is BARRY CORNWALLhis SONGS and ODES-which will be ready in a few days. We think this book as well worth having as anything in con. temporary literature. We have written a great deal about Barry Cornwall at different times, and we love his poetry We have insensibly arrived at this idea by very blind steps. We tried in vain for years, to find a publisher who would undertake a new edition of our poems-though they were completely out of print, and though (it seemed to us) there was a demand for them which might justify the edition. Against advice, we thought we might at least furnish our friends copies to read, by publishing them in an extra of the Mirror, for a price that would just pay the expense of printing and circulating. To our no small astonishment the orders for them came in so rapidly while they were in press, that we published a very large edition, which is still selling freely, and it then occurred to us very naturally, that one of two things must be true :-either the publishers were perfect cormorants as to the profits they expected from books, or else they were not always infallible judges as to what works would sell. The next thought was an easy one. Could we not, out of our own better judgment and smaller expectations as to profit, publish as handsome and cheap editions of other authors, whose works were not, now, easi ly come at? "Let us try!" said Enterprise. Before arriving at this idea of the MIRROR LIBRARY, how-replace. We can venture to promise, that, (leaving our with a zest untiring. He is a warm, sweet, true and natu ral poet of the affections, and everybody who cares for poetry should possess his book. The latest London edition is in three parts, and will make two extras, one of which will be immediately ready. On the cover will be given our ac. count of a breakfast with him in London (from "Pencillings") and the criticisms we have since written upon his poetry. We have four or five gems to follow this, which we are sure will equally delight and surprise our readers and the public generally. We will not name them now. One or two of them are books we almost made a secret of possess ing-they were so rare, so invaluable, and so impossible to own works aside,) no series of uniform literature in the lanever, we had made arrangements to republish in the same cheap form, other works of our own that were as much call-guage will be choicer, or better worth possessing at any price-let alone a shilling! ed for as the Poems-in short all the PROSE WORKS of N. P. WILLIS―(your humble servant of this present writing, dear reader!) Our dear ally, General Morris, had also extra. duced his popular SONGS and BALLADS, which have sold with To our subscribers we wish to say that we shall publish in our Library series nothing which will again appear in the New Mirror. The New Mirror itself, we are confi the same electric rapidity as the others. Our "LETTERS dent, will be a valuable portion of the Library—of the same size and shape, and containing, of course, the best fugitive FROM UNDER A BRIDGE"* will be ready in a day or two, and literature that we can choose or procure. The New Mirror PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY are in preparation and will be is our pride. We shall spare no labour upon it, and it shall issued in a week or two. The advertisements will duly be worthy of the constellation to which it is the leader-if announce all these. We would say, en passant, of "Penwe know how to make it so. And now, dear reader, let us cillings," that only one third of them have ever been repub-commend to your purchase and preservation the MIRROR lished, either here or in England. The first English edition LIBRARY-for, by shillings thus expended without any feel(the fifth edition is now selling well in London) was printed ing of sacrifice, you will gradually create a Paradise of defrom a broken set of the old Mirror, which had found its way licious reading, into which you can retreat when you would out there, and the author being absent in France, even that imperfect copy was much reduced by the proof-readers. The American edition (long ago out of print) was a literal The "Letters from Under a Bridge" were written in a secluded glen of the Valley of the Susquehannah. The author, after several years residence and travel abroad, made there, as he hoped, an altar of life-time tranquillity for his household gods. Most of the letters were written in the full belief that he should pass there the remainder of his days. Inevitable necessity drove him again into active metropolitan life, and the remembrance of that enchanting interval of repose and rural pleasure, seems to him now like little but a dream. As picturing truly the colour of his own mind and the natural flow of his thoughts during a brief enjoyment of the kind of life alone best suited to his disposition as well as to his better nature, the book is interesting to himself and to those who love him. As picturing faithfully the charm of nature and seclusion after years of intoxicated life in the gayest circles of the gayest cities of the world, it may be curious to the reader. be rid of care or weariness. "J. H. C." writes us a very sensible letter, and we were particularly struck with the truth of the following remark:I have long been of opinion that even moderate abilities should be more encouraged. Though we may not produce a Byron or a Scott, we yet have many a Hunt or Lockhart." It is the peculiarity of our country-perhaps of a new country that we admire nothing but extremes have no scale or standard for other than the highest degree of any thing. The poetry enclosed in our correspondent's letter has splendid lines in it, but wants finish sadly. It is too vaguepowerful talent as it shows,-and we shall not publish it. "Yes, dearest Gaity, you shall go home, but not t To-morrow, dearest, I will come for you." glass. w II u j0yiuI wavཙ VI HI༦ wIསད སས་ས པ ད Edith now flew to the door. It yielded not. She knocked; again and again, and shook the latch convulsively. No an. swer was given, but she could hear the sobs and prayers of "To-night, to-night," interrupted Gaity, "O let me Gaity, beseeching some one to unbar the door. The sturdy night. Do not leave me again," she cried, clinging t Jacques, however, waited for no permission, but, seizing a around her. "O, no, let us go-now-this moment!" PAYABLE IN ADVANCE. |