the lesson of confederate independent sovereignties, whose sires were as free, long centuries before Magna Charta, as the English are now, and from whose line of republican princes Britain received the boon of religious toleration, a privilege the statesgeneral had recognised as a primary article of their government when first established; men of that stock, which, when offered their choice of favors from a grateful monarch, asked a University; men whose martyr-sires had baptized their land with their blood; men who had flooded it with ocean-waves rather than yield it to a bigot-tyrant; men, whose virtues were as sober as prose, but sublime as poetry-the men of Holland! Mingled with these, and still further on, were heroic Huguenots, their fortunes broken, but their spirit unbending to prelate or prelate-ridden king. There were others (and a dash of cavalier blood told well in battle-field and council);-but those were the spirits whom God made the moral substratum of our national character. Here, like Israel in the wilderness, and thousands of miles off from the land of bondage, they were educated for their high calling, until, in the fulness of times, our confederacy with its Constitution was founded. Already there had been a salutary mixture of blood, but not enough to impair the Anglo-Saxon ascendency. The nation grew morally strong from its original elements. The great work was delayed only by a just preparation. Now God is bringing hither the most vigorous scions from all the European stocks, to "make of them all one new MAN!" not the Saxon, not the German, not the Gaul, not the Helvetian, but the AMERICAN. Here they will unite as one brotherhood, will have one law, will share one interest. Spread over the vast region from the frigid to the torrid, from Eastern to Western ocean, every variety of climate giving them choice of pursuit and modification of temperament, the ballot-box fusing together all rivalries, they shall have one national will. What is wanting in one race will be supplied by the characteristic energies of the others; and what is excessive in either, checked by the counter-action of the rest. Nay, though for a time the newly come may retain their foreign vernacular, our tongue, so rich in ennobling literature, will be the tongue of the nation, the language of its laws, and the accent of its majesty. ETERNAL GOD! who seest the end with the beginning, thou alone canst tell the ultimate grandeur of this people!

EDWARD SANFORD,

A POET, essayist, and political writer, is the son of the late Nathan Sanford, Chancellor of the State, and was born in the city of New York in 1805. He was educated at Union College, where he was graduated in 1824. He then engaged in the study of the law in the office of Mr. Benjamin F. Butler, but his tastes were opposed to the profession, and he did not pursue it.

He began an editorial career as editor of a newspaper in Brooklyn; was next associated with the New York Standard; and when that paper was compelled to yield to the commercial embarrassments of the day, he became one of the editors of the New York Times. The difficulties in politics which occurred after the second year of the establishment of that paper led him to undertake an engagement at Washington with Mr. Blair as associate editor of the Globe newspaper, then the organ of the Van Buren administration. In this relation his pen was employed in the advocacy and development of the sub-treasury system, then

under discussion previous to its establishment as an integral portion of the financial policy of the country.

The illness of his father now withdrew him from Washington to the family residence at Flushing, Long Island. At this time he held the office, at New York, of Secretary to the Commission to return the duties on goods destroyed by the great fire of 1835. He was subsequently Assis

tant Naval Officer.

In 1843, he was elected to the Senate of the state of New York, and while there was an active and efficient, though quiet political manager and leader.

An anecdote of the Capitol exhibits his poetic talent. One day in the senate room he received a note from a correspondent on business; it was at the close of the session, and the whole house in the hurry and confusion which attend its last moments. He had a score or more measures to hurry through, and numerous others to aid in their passage, and thus pre-sed, answered the letter handed to him. A few days after he was surprised to learn that he had written this hasty reply in excellent verse.

Of the literary productions of Mr. Sanford, a few only have appeared with his name. Mr. Bryant included the quaint and poetical Address to Black Hawk in his collection of American poems, and Mr. Hoffinan presented this and the author's Address to a Mosquito, written in a similar vein, in the "New York Book of Poetry."

To the New York Mirror, the Knickerbocker Magazine, and the Spirit of the Times, Mr. Sanford has been a frequent and genial contributor. His poem, The Loves of the Shell Fishes, has been justly admired for its fancy and sentiment, in delicate flowing verse, as he sings

Not in the land where beauty loves to dwell,

And bards to sing that beauty dwelleth there:
Not in the land where rules th' enchanter's spell
And fashion's beings beautiful and rare;
Not in such land are laid the scenes I tell.
No odors float upon its sunny air;
No ruddy vintage, and no tinted flowers
Gladden its fields or bloom within its bowers.

Mine is a lowlier lay-the unquiet deep-
The world of waters; where man's puny skill
Has but along its surface dared to creep:
The quaking vassal of its wayward will,
Exultant only when its calm waves sleep,,

And its rough voice is noiseless all and still,
And trembling when its crested hosts arise,
Roused from their slumbers by the wind's wild eries.
None but the dead have visited its caves;

None but the dead pressed its untrampled floor. Eyes, but all sightless, glare beneath its waves,

And forms earth's worshippers might well adore, Lie in their low and ever freshened graves,

All cold and loveless far beneath its roar. The bright-eyed maiden and the fair-haired bride, And sire and son there slumber side by side.

Less vauntingly in pride of place or birth
Than aught that breathes upon our upper earth.
Of blighted hopes and confidence betrayed-

Of princely dames and wights of low degree-
The story of a high-born oyster maid

And her calm lover, of low family:

And how they met beneath their oft sought shade,
The spreading branches of a coral tree,
Attended by a periwinkle page,
Selected chiefly for his tender age,
Sing scaly music.

The best of Mr. Sanford's poetical effusions are of this airy, delicate mood, facile and elegant.

His occasional political squibs were quite in the Croaker vein, as in this parody at the expense of the Whigs in the Harrison log-cabin campaign.

A HARD-CIDER MELODY.
Air-Tis the last rose of summer.
'Tis the last of Whig loafers
Left singing alone,
All his pot-house companions
Are fuddled and gone.
No flower of his kindred,
No rum-blossom nigh,
With a song on his lips

And a drop in his eye.

I'll not leave thee, thou rose-bud,
To pine on the stem,
Since the others are snoring,
Go snore thou with them.

Thus kindly I lay

A soft plank 'neath thy head, Where thy mates of the cabin Lie, hard-cider dead.

So soon may I follow,

When the Whigs all decay,

And no cider is left us

To moisten our clay.

When the Whigs are all withered,
And hard-cider gone,
Oh who would inhabit

This sad world alone?

As an essayist, Mr. Sanford holds a very happy pen. His articles of this class, in the newspapers of the day, touch lightly and pleasantly on cheerful topics. A humorous description of a city celebrity, A Charcoal Sketch of Pot Pie Palmer, first published in the old Mirror, is a highly felicitous specimen of his powers in this line, and is quite as worthy in its way as a satire as the celebrated Memoir of P. P., Clerk of the Parish.

ADDRESS TO BLACKHAWK.

There's beauty on thy brow, old chief! the high
And manly beauty of the Roman mould,
And the keen flashing of thy full dark eye
Speaks of a heart that years have not made cold,
Of passions scathed not by the blight of time,
Ambition, that survives the battle rout.
The man within thee scorns to play the mime
To gaping crowds that compass thee about.
Thou walkest, with thy warriors by thy side,
Wrapped in fierce hate, and high unconquered pride.
Chief of a hundred warriors! dost thou yet-
Vanquished and captive-dost thou deem that
here-
The glowing day-star of thy glory set-

Dull night has closed upon thy bright career?

Old forest lion, caught and caged at last, Dost pant to roam again thy native wild To gloat upon the life-blood flowing fast

Of thy crushed victims; and to slay the child,
To dabble in the gore of wives and mothers,
And kill, old Turk! thy harmless pale-faced bro-
thers.

For it was cruel, Black Hawk, thus to flutter
The dove-cotes of the peaceful pioneers,
To let thy pride commit such fierce and utter
Slaughter among the folks of the frontiers.
Though thine be old, hereditary hate,

Begot in wrongs, and nursed in blood, until
It had become a madness, 'tis too late

To crush the hordes who have the power, and will, To rob thee of thy hunting grounds and fountains, And drive thee back to the Rocky Mountains. Spite of thy looks of cold indifference,

There's much thou'st seen that must excite thy wonder,

Wakes not upon thy quick and startled sense

The cannon's harsh and pealing voice of thunder? Our big canoes, with white and wide-spread wings, That sweep the waters, as birds sweep the sky;— Our steamboats, with their iron lungs, like things Of breathing life, that dash and hurry by? Or if thou scorn'st the wonders of the ocean, What think'st thou of our railroad locomotion? Thou'st seen our Museums, beheld the dummies That grin in darkness in their coffin cases; What think'st thou of the art of making mummies, So that the worms shrink from their dry embraces? Thou'st seen the mimic tyrants of the stage

Strutting, in paint and feathers, for an hour; Thou'st heard the bellowing of their tragic rage, Seen their eyes glisten and their dark brows lower.

Anon, thou'st seen them, when their wrath cooled down,

Pass in a moment from a king-to clown.

Thou seest these things unmoved, say'st so, old fellow?

Then tell us, have the white man's glowing daughters

Set thy cold blood in motion? Hast been mellow
By a sly cup or so, of our fire waters?
They are thy people's deadliest poison. They
First make them cowards, and then white men's
slaves.

And sloth, and penury, and passion's prey,

And lives of misery, and early graves.
For by their power, believe me, not a day goes,
But kills some Foxes, Sacs, and Winnebagoes.
Say, does thy wandering heart stray far away?
To the deep bosom of thy forest home,
The hillside, where thy young papooses play,

And ask, amid their sports, when wilt thou come? Come not the wailings of thy gentle squaws,

For their lost warrior, loud upon thine ear, Piercing athwart the thunder of huzzas,

That, yelled at every corner, meet thee here? The wife that made that shell-decked wampum belt, Thy rugged heart must think of her, and melt.

Chafes not thy heart, as chafes the panting breast
Of the caged bird against his prison bars,
That thou the crowned warrior of the west,
The victor of a hundred forest wars,
Should'st in thy age become a raree-show
Led like a walking bear about the town,
A new caught monster, who is all the go,

And stared at gratis, by the gaping clown?
Boils not thy blood, while thus thou'rt led about,
The sport and mockery of the rabble rout?

Whence came thy cold philosophy? whence came,
Thou tearless, stern, and uncomplaining one,
The power that taught thee thus to veil the flame
Of thy fierce passions? Thou despisest fun,
And thy proud spirit scorns the white men's glee,
Save thy fierce sport when at the funeral pile,
Of a bound warrior in his agony,

Who meets thy horrid laugh with dying smile, Thy face, in length reminds one of a Quaker's, Thy dances, too, are solemn as a Shaker's.

Proud scion of a noble stem! thy tree

Is blanched, and bare, and seared, and leafless

now.

I'll not insult its fallen majesty,

Nor drive with careless hand the ruthless plough Over its roots. Torn from its parent mould,

Rich, warm, and deep, its fresh, free, balmy air, No second verdure quickens in our cold,

New, barren earth; no life sustains it there. But even though prostrate, 'tis a noble thing, Though crownless, powerless, "every inch a king." Give us thy hand, old nobleman of nature,

Proud ruler of the forest aristocracy; The best of blood glows in thy every feature. And thy curled lip speaks scorn for our democracy, Thou wear'st thy titles on that godlike brow;

Let him who doubts them, meet thine eagle eye, He'll quail beneath its glance, and disavow

All questions of thy noble family;

For thou may'st here become, with strict propriety, A leader in our city good society.

TO A MOSQUITO.

His voice was very soft, gentle, and low.-King Lear.
Thou of the soft low voice.-Mrs. Hemans,

Thou sweet musician that around my bed,
Dost nightly come and wind thy little horn,
By what unseen and secret influence led,

Feed'st thou my ear with music till 'tis morn? The wind-harp's tones are not more soft than thine, The hum of falling waters not more sweet,

I own, indeed I own thy song divine,

And when next year's warm summer night we meet,

(Till then farewell!) I promise thee to be
A patient listener to thy minstrelsy.
Thou tiny minstrel, who bid thee discourse
Such eloquent music? was't thy tuneful sire?
Some old musician? or did'st take a course

Of lessons from some master of the lyre?
Who bid thee twang so sweetly thy small trump?
Did Norton form thy notes so clear and full?
Art a phrenologist, and is thy bump

Of song developed on thy little skull?

At Niblo's hast thou been when crowds stood mute,
Drinking the bird-like tones of Cuddy's flute?
Tell me the burden of thy ceaseless song-
Is it thy evening hymn of grateful prayer?
Or lay of love, thou pipest through the long
Still night? With song dost drive away dull care?
Art thou a vieux garçon, a gay deceiver,

A wandering blade, roaming in search of sweets, Pledging thy faith to every fond believer

Who thy advance with half-way shyness meets? Or art o' the softer sex, and sing'st in glee "In maiden meditation, fancy free."

Thou little Siren, when the nymphs of yore
Charmed with their songs till folks forgot to dine
And starved, though music fed, upon their shore,
Their voices breathed no softer lays than thine;
They sang but to entice, and thou dost sing
As if to lull our senses to repose,

That thou may'st use unharmed thy little sting
The very moment we begin to doze:
Thou worse than Syren, thirsty, fierce blood-sipper,
Thou living Vampire and thou Gallinipper.
Nature is full of music, sweetly sings

The bard (and thou sing'st sweetly too)
Through the wide circuit of created things,
Thou art the living proof the bard sings true.
Nature is full of thee: On every shore,

'Neath the hot sky of Congo's dusky child, From warm Peru to icy Labrador,

The world's free citizen thou roamest wild. Wherever "mountains rise or oceans roll," Thy voice is heard, from "Indus to the pole." The incarnation of Queen Mab art thou,

And "Fancy's midwife,"-thou dost nightly sip With amorous proboscis bending low,

The honey-dew from many a lady's lip(Though that they "straight on kisses dream" I doubt.)

On smiling faces and on eyes that weep,

Thou lightest, and oft with "sympathetic snout"
Ticklest men's noses as they lie asleep ;"

And sometimes dwellest, if I rightly scan, "On the forefinger of an alderman."

Yet thou canst glory in a noble birth,

As rose the sea-born Venus from the wave,
So didst thou rise to life; the teeming earth,
The living water, and the fresh air gave
A portion of their elements to create
Thy little form, though beauty dwells not there.
So lean and gaunt that economic fate

Meant thee to feed on music or on air.
Our veins' pure juices were not made for thee,
Thou living, singing, stinging atomy.

The hues of dying sunset are most fair,

And twilight's tints just fading into night, Most dusky soft; and so thy soft robes are

By far the sweetest when thou tak'st thy flight,
The swan's last note is sweetest, so is thine;
Sweet are the wind harp's tones at distance heard;
"Tis sweet in distance at the day's decline,

To hear the opening song of evening's bird.
But notes of harp or bird at distance float
Less sweetly on the ear than thy last note.
The autumn winds are wailing: 'tis thy dirge;
Its leaves are sear, prophetic of thy doom.
Soon the cold rain will whelm thee, as the surge
Whelms the tost mariner in its watery tomb.
Then soar and sing thy little life away:

Albeit thy voice is somewhat husky now. 'Tis well to end in music life's last day,

Of one so gleeful and so blithe as thou.
For thou wilt soon live through its joyous hours,
And pass away with autumn's dying flowers.

SONG IMITATED FROM THE FRENCH.

If Jove, when he made this beautiful world,
Had only consulted me,

An ocean of wine should flow in the place
Of the brackish and bitter sea.

Red wine should pour from the fruitful clouds
In place of the tasteless rain,

And the fountains should bubble in ruby rills
To brim the sparkling main.

No fruit should grow but the round, full grape,
No bowers but the shady vine,
And of all earth's flowers, the queenly rose
Should alone in her beauty shine;
I'd have a few lakes for the choicest juice,
Where it might grow mellow and old,
And my lips should serve as a sluice to drain
Those seas of liquid gold.

CHARCOAL SKETCH OF POT PIE PALMER.

The poets have told us that it is of little use to be a great man, without possessing also a chronicler of one's greatness. Brave and wise men-perhaps the bravest and wisest that ever lived-have died and been forgotten, and all for the want of a poet or an historian to immortalize their valor or their wisdom. Immortality is not to be gained by the might of one man alone. Though its claimant be strong and terrible as an army with banners, he can never succeed without a trumpeter. He may embody a thousand minds; he may have the strength of a thousand arms his enemies may quail before him as the degenerate Italians quailed before the ruthless sabaoth of the north; but without a chronicler of his deeds, he will pass by, like the rush of a whirlwind, with none to tell whence he cometh, or whither he goeth. A great man should always keep a literary friend in pay, for he may be assured that his greatness will never be so firmly established as to sustain itself without a prop. Achilles had his poet; and the anger of the nereid-born and Styx-dipped hero is as savage and bitter at this late day, as if he had just poured forth the vials of his wrath. The favorite son of the queen of love, albeit a pious and exemplary man, and free from most of the weaknesses of his erring but charming mother, might have travelled more than the wandering Jew, and, without the aid of a poet, the course of his voyage would now be as little known as the journal of a modern tourist, six months from the day of its publication. The fates decreed him a bard, and the world is not only intimate with every step of his wayfaring, but for hundreds of years it has been puzzling itself to discover his starting-place. There has lived but one man who has disdained the assistance of his fellow-mortals, and finished with his pen what he began with his sword. We refer to the author of Cæsar's Commentaries, the most accomplished gentleman, take him for all in all, that the world ever saw. Let us descend for a step or two in the scale of greatness, and see whence the lesser lights of immortality have derived their lustre. The Cretan Icarus took upon himself the office of a fowl, and was drowned for all his wings, yet floats in the flights of song, while the names of a thousand wiser and better men of his day passed away before their bodies had. scarcely rotted. A poorer devil than the late Samuel Patch never cumbered this fair earth; but he is already embalmed in verse, and by one whose name cannot soon die. A cunning pen has engrossed the record of his deeds, and perfected his judgment roll of fame. He is a coheir in glory with the boy of Crete-the one flew, and the other leaped, into immortality.

There is one name connected with the annals of our city, which should be snatched from oblivion. Would that a strong hand could be found to grasp it, for it is a feeble clutch that now seeks to drag it by the locks from the deep forgetfulness in which it is fast sinking. Scarcely ten years have passed, since the last bell of the last of the bellmen was rung, since the last joke of the joke-master general of our goodly metropolis was uttered, since the last song of our greatest street-minstrel was sung, and the last laugh of the very soul of laughter was pealed forth. Scarcely ten years have passed, and the public recollection of the man who made more noise in the world than any other of his time, is already dim and sha lowy and unsubstantial. A brief notice of this extraordinary man has found admittance into the ephemeral columns of a newspaper. We will en

deavor to enter his immortality of record in a place where future ages will be more likely to find it. As Dr Johnson would have said, "of Pot Pie Palmer, let us indulge the pleasing reminiscence."

The character of Pot Pie Palmer was a kindly mingling of the elements of good-nature, gentleness of spirit, quickness and delicacy of perception, an intuitive knowledge of mankind, and an ambition, strange and peculiar in its aspirations, but boundless. There were sundry odd veins and streaks which ran through and wrinkled this goodly compound, in the shape of quips and quirks and quiddities, which crossed each other at such strange angles, and turned round such short corners, that few were able to analyse the moral anatomy of the man. It is not strange then, that his character should have been generally misunderstood. He was a jester by profession, but he was no mime. Unlike a clown at a country fair, who grins for half-pence, he asked no compensation for his services in the cause of public mirth. He was a volunteer in the business of making men merry, for it was no part of his calling to put the world in good humor, and it has never been hinted that he received a shilling from the corporation for his extra services in the cause of happiness and contentment. He might have been as serious as his own cart-horse, without the slightest risk of losing his place. If he had preserved a becoming gravity, he might have aspired to a higher office than that of the chief of the corporation scavengers; for a long face has ever been a passport to preferment. But he disdained to leave his humble calling as long as he was sure he could remain at its head. He knew full well that there were few who could chime with him, and he would play second to no man's music. He was mirthful, partly from a spirit of philanthropy, and partly because he was so filled with gleeful and fantastic associations, that they overflowed in spite of him. He was not merely a passive instrument that required the cunning touch of a master to awaken its music, or like a wind-harp that is voiceless till the wind sweeps over it. He was a piece of mechanism that played of its own accord, and wa3 never mute, and his notes were as varied as those of a mock-bird. If there were those around him who could enjoy a joke, he offered them a fair share of it, and bade them partake of it and be thankful to the giver and if there was no one at hand with whom to divide it, he swallowed it himself-and with an appetite that would make a dyspeptic forget that he had a stomach.

He was the incarnation of a jest. His face was a broad piece of laughter, done in flesh and blood. His nose had a whimsical twist, as the nose of a humorist should have. His mouth had become elongated by frequent cachinnations; for his laugh was of most extraordinary dimensions, and required a wide portal to admit it into the free air, and his eyes twinkled and danced about in his head as if they were determined to have a full share in the fun that was going on. Time had seamed his brow, but had also endued it with a soft and mellow beauty; for the spirit of mirth was at his side when he roughened the old man's visage, and had planted a smile in every furrow.

Pot Pie Palmer, like many other great men, was indifferent to the duties of the toilet; but it was not for want of a well appointed wardrobe, for he seldom made his appearance twice in the same dress; and it is not an insignificant circumstance in his biography, that he was the last distinguished personage that appeared in public in a cocked hat. In dress, manners, and appearance, he stuck to the old school, and there was nothing new about him but his jokes. He would sometimes, in a moment of odd fancy, exhibit himself in a crownless hat and bootless feet, probably in honor of his ancestors, the Palmers of yore, who wore their sandal shoon and scallop shell. It may be well to remark, while on the subject of

his wardrobe, that there is not the slightest foundation for the rumor that Mr. Palmer wore red flannel

next to his person. This mistake has probably

arisen from the fact that he was seen dressed in scarlet at a fourth of July celebration. We are able to state, from the very best authority, that cotton and not wool was the raw material from which his dress on that occasion was fabricated, his outer garment having been a superb specimen of domestic calico; and that he assumed it for three especial reasons-firstly, in honor of the day-secondly, to encourage our infant manufactures, in the cause of which his exertions had always been active-and thirdly, because he had received a special invitation to dine with the common council.

Pot Pie Palmer was an autocrat within his own realms of humor. He had no peer in the joyous art. His whim-whams were his own, and he was the only professed wit that ever lived who was not addicted to plagiarism. He was a knight-errant in the cause of jollity. His worshipped ladye-love was an intellectual abstraction, the disembodied spirit of fun, and wo to the challenger who was bold enough to call her good qualities in question. It was rough tilting with the old but gallant knight. We have been witness to more than one tournament in which an essenced carpet knight cried craven, and left the ancient warrior in full possession of the field. But gentleness was the ordinary wont, as it was the nature of Pot Pie Palmer. He knew that to be the sad burden of his merry song, was a nine days' melancholy immortality even to the humblest, and it went to his heart to see a man laugh on the wrong side of his mouth. His humors were all in the spirit of kindness. He "carried no heart-stain away on his blade;" or if he incautiously inflicted a wound, he was ever ready to pour into it the oil and wine of a merry whim, so that its smart was scarcely felt before it was healed.

Pot Pie was a poet; for where humor is, poetry cannot be far off. They are akin to each other; and if their relationship be not sisterly, it is only so far removed as to make their union more thrillingly delightful. No one could tell where his songs came from, and it was a fair presumption that they were his own. He has been considered by many the only perfect specimen of an improvisatore that this country has ever produced. His lays were always an echo to the passing scenes around him. Like the last minstrel, he had songs for all ears. The sooty chimney-sweep who walked by, chanting his cheery song, was answered in notes that spoke gladness to his heart, and the poor fuliginous blackamoor passed on, piping away more merrily than ever. malous biped who drove a clam-cart, would needs stop a moment for a word of kindness from Pot Pie. and he would be sure to get it, for the Palmer was not a proud man. In the expansive character of his humor, he knew no distinctions. Even in his jokes with his brother bellmen, there was no assumption of superiority. He disdained to triumph over their dulness, and he rather sought to instil into their bosoms a portion of his own fire.

The ano

It was a part, nay the very essence of his calling, to receive from the tenants of the underground apartments of the houses where he had the honor to call, those superfluous vegetable particles which are discarded-especially in warm weather-from the alimentary preparations of well-regulated families. There was a smile resting on his cheek-a smile of benevolence-as the dusky lady of the lower cabinet transferred her odorous stores into his capacious cart; a graceful touch of his time-worn and dilapidated ram-beaver, and a loud compliment was roared forth in tones that made the passers-by prick

up their ears, and the dingy female would rush in evident confusion down the cellar-steps, seemingly abashed at the warmth of his flattery, while at the next moment there would peal up from the depths, a ringing laugh that told how the joyous spirit of the negress had been gladdened, and that the bellman had uttered the very sentiment that was nearest her heart. He had his delicate allusions when the buxom grisette or simpering chambermaid presented herself at the door, half coy and half longing for a word of kindness, or perchance of flattery, and they were sure never to go away unsatisfied. though there were tossing of pretty heads, and pert flings of well-rounded fo ms, and blushes which seemed to speak more of shame than of pleasure, you would be sure if you gave a glance the moment after at the upper casements, to see faces peering forth, glowing with laughter and delight.

For

Palmer's genius resembled that of Rabelais, for his humor was equally broad and equally uncontrollable. We have said that he was a poet, a streetminstrel of the very first rank. He threw a grace, beyond the reach of art, over the unwashed beauties of a scavenger's cart. It was to him a triumphal chariot, a car of honor: he needed no heralds to precede its march, no followers to swell its train; for he made music enough to trumpet the coming of a score of conquerors, and the boys followed him in crowds as closely as if they had been slaves chained to his chariot. He was to the lean and solemn beast that drew him on with the measured pace of an animal in authority, like the merry Sancho to his dappled ass. There never was a more practical antithesis than the horse and his master; and it must have been a dull beast that would not have caught a portion of the whim and spirit of such a companion. Unfortunately, the pedigree of Palmer's steed has been lost; and it will continue to be an unsettled point whether he came honestly by his dulness, or whether nature had made him dull in one of her pranksome moods. It is still more uncertain whether Palmer selected him out of compassion, or for the sake of making the stupidity of the animal a foil to his own merry humors.

Palmer carried us back to the latter part of the middle ages, when ladye love and minstrel rhyme were the ambition and the ruling passion of the bardwarriors of the time. The love of song was part of his nature; and he was enough of a modern to know that a song was worth little without a fitting accompaniment. With a boldness and originality that marked the character of the man, he selected an instrument devoted to any other purpose than that of music; and so great did his skill become, aided by an excellent ear and a perfect command of hand, that, had he possessed the advantages of admission into fashionable society, there is every reason to believe that the humble bell would soon have rivalled the ambitious violin. He was the Paganini of bellmen, the Apollo of street-music. He modulated the harmony of voice and hand with such peculiar skill, that the separate sounds flowed into each other as if they had been poured forth together from the same melodious fount. No harsh discord jarred upon the ear-no false note could be detected. His voice was naturally deficient in softness, and ill-adapted to express the tender emotions; but he had cultivated it so admirably, and managed its powers with such peculiar skill, that none could tell what might have been its original defects. He preferred the old and simple ballad style to the scientific quavering of more modern times. In his day, we had no Italian opera, and he was without a rival.

Palmer was a public man, and it is in his public character we speak of him. Little is known of his