agitating scene, I must also leave to the fancy of those who are au fait

in such matters.

And now, courteous reader, if you have followed me through my wayward flight, you have unquestionably arrived at the conclusion, that "The Princess" is, as the author terms it, a "medley." It is every thing by turns but nothing long;" continually changing "from grave to gay, from lively to severe." Through the most serious and pathetic passages of the Poem there runs a vein of pleasantry, like a line of gold through rock in the most gay and graceful verses, there is an undercurrent of serious and earnest thought. As a Poem, the only object of which is to interest and please, it is in the main a successful one. Critics might find fault with its general plan, occasionally with its metrical structure, often with its subject-matter, but yet all, who read it carefully, will assuredly rise from its perusal with a feeling of satisfaction and pleasure. Nevertheless, it contains many passages which I could wish might be erased. They are quite unnecessary and not at all accordant with the refinement and delicacy of the present day.

Thus ends my reverie. It has been a long but a pleasant one, full of strange scenes and images, but I hope, reader, not entirely destitute of pleasure and profit to you. Would you enjoy such a quiet dream, such a free and careless reverie, you have but to follow my example. Lock your door against intruders; build up a cheerful fire; throw yourself back in your rocking chair; elevate your slippered feet to a level with your head; clasp a cigar between your teeth; and readTennyson's "PRINCESS."

SMOKING SONG.

AIR-"Sparkling and bright."

FLOATING away, like the fountain's spray,
Or the snow-white plume of a maiden,
The smoke-wreaths rise to the star-lit skies,
With blissful fragrance laden.

Then smoke away, till a golden ray
Lights up the dawn of the morrow,
For a cheerful cigar, like a shield, will bar
The blows of care and sorrow.

The leaf burns bright, like the gems of light
That flash in the braids of Beauty:
It nerves each heart for the hero's part
On the battle-plain of duty.

In the thoughtful gloom of his darkened room
Sits the child of song and story,

And his heart is light, for his pipe beams bright,
And his dreams are all of glory.

By the blazing fire sits the gray-haired sire,
And infant arms surround him;

And he smiles on all in that quaint old hall,
While the smoke-curls float around him.

In the forests grand of our native land,
When the savage conflict ended,

The "Pipe of Peace" brought a sweet release
From toil and terror blended.

The dark-eyed train of the maids of Spain
'Neath their arbor-shades trip lightly,
And a gleaming cigar, like a new-born star,
In the clasp of their lips burns brightly.

It warms the soul, like the blushing bowl
With its rose-red burden streaming,

And drowns it in bliss, like the first warm kiss
From the lips with love-buds teeming.

Floating away, like the moon's pale ray,
Or the bridal veil of a maiden,

The smoke-wreaths rise to the star-lit skies,
With glorious day-dreams laden.

NOTIONS AND NOTICINGS.

NO. II.

DEAR READER: again coming into thy presence, after a short interval, I confess I am somewhat at a loss how to begin my onesided confab, or, rather, confabulation, for I always make it a practice to choose the longest of two words. But let us have a fair understanding. I said onesided confabulation-it is so, apparently. But I plainly know, sir, and I here let the fact out to others-that while you glance over these trifles of mine, and pretend a gentle acquiescence, all the time you are keeping up a perfect running fire of words at this innocent page. An opinion upon which I pride myself is met on your part by a battery of opposing arguments. A gaunt specimen of attempted sarcasm is followed and traced and hunted down like a wolf. A silly conceit is popped over like a poor long-eared rabbit. And an odd sentiment is destroyed, like a horned frog, for its very oddity. Thus you see, sir, you and I are continually arguing a point, and, to use the language of Sir Roger de Coverly, " Much may be said on both sides." But a thought just comes into my head, and it comes in this shape: You talk, poor fellow, as though some one actually cared a fig for what you have written or may write as though any man would seriously take the trouble to question or approve your nonsense. The vanity of

writers!

But the preceding flourish, which we suppose Mr. Knickerbocker would rank under the general head of rigmarole, has prevented us from grasping our subject, which is-(what else should it be?)—the weather! This we do out of a feeling of gratitude. For, like Moses, we are rather slow of speech, and had it not been for the ever-present, ever-welcome topic of the weather "as it was and as it is," we fear we must frequently have experienced the lot of the unfortunate youth, who exclaimed, in the bitterness of his heart, "Pa, they've found out I am a fool and I never said a word." But this is neither here nor there-we have had very singular weather for the season thus far! Two violent snow-storms, and then an interval so beautifully mild and genial that we had begun to think that Old Winter had been summarily kicked out of his reign by the "fantastic toe" of Spring. But the old hero, it seems, like Homer, only nodded, and has since blustered about with compensating energy. But how happy the climes where early he spreads his glittering mantle over the muddy earth, (as young Water Raleigh did his for the queen of England,) and there lets it lie for many a month, inviting all to tramp it freely! Well do we recollect some incidents connected therewith, what time the merry bells rung out, and the trees and rail fences ran backward. Now for a mere sleigh-ride-a sleighride, per se, we have the most nose-up-turning contempt, as the German, we believe, has it. John Neal, if we are not mistaken, says his idea of a sleigh-ride is to sit at an open door, on the north side of the house, with your feet in a pail of water, and a boy near by to jingle a string of bells. We do not quite coincide with him, but we have no doubt his meaning is correct. But, however, nevertheless, &c., when the roads are fine, and there are half a dozen merry sleigh-loads ahead and as many behind, and you have a lively courser that wants no attention paid to him, and a lively hood without a veil by your side that must be attended to-why, really, there was a time when we had no invincible objection to such a sleigh-ride, thus modified.

Speaking of a lively courser we are reminded of an event which somehow we never have any difficulty in recalling when the very remotest reference is made either to horses or sleighing. We-no, it was I, reader-I had not long been a resident of a certain small village in the dignified character of a preparatory student, when I received an invitation with all the gentlemen of the place to attend a party at the distance of about eight miles. The first thing, of course, was to secure a damsel-it was done. Well do I recall, Mary!—but she's married, which cuts short my apostrophe. Thus far, matters went forward briskly, but with characteristic negligence I forgot all about the means of conveyance till some companion put it into my head. Without much difficulty I managed to procure a sleigh, but a decent animal was not to be found-the rogues had engaged them all before they kindly suggested to me the expediency of attending to the matter. Round and round the village I ran, like Richard, perfectly willing to give "my kingdom for a horse !" At last, a professed friend (my eye is still on

that man's course-I have no doubt he will come to some miserable end) informed me that he had a creature that was not first-rate, indeed, but was still quite ordinary, and I was welcome to him. The beast had not, at the first glance, the most promising appearance, but as there was no apparent prospect of better things, I took him. We started. As I was opposed to harsh beginnings, I let him take his own course, except as to direction, though that proved to be of little matter, for his movement was like that of some of the planets," scarcely perceptible to the naked eye." But soon, while making a careless remark, I managed to hit him a sly cut-no effect produced. "How do you like "At

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?"

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our village, Mr. Very much (another cut) indeed." first, it must be rather unpleasant"- It is (another cut) unpleasant"to come among strangers." "Yes, certainly," (another cut and a jerk at the reins-no effect produced.) "How long do you expect to stay with us?" "Oh! by all means!" (last cut, for the whiplash parts, and I begin to cultivate a resigned state of mind.)

How we succeeded in arriving at our place of destination, how happily the evening was spent, with the exception of horrid forebodings coming now and then into your servant's mind, I need not tell. As to our retrograde movements, it is sufficient to give you the statistical information that we were only four hours in getting home; and to assure you, after all, that the time passed delightfully to me, for the night was beautiful and the weather mild,

"So as we rode-we talked".

and we talked, not of

“Fixed fate, free will and foreknowledge absolute."

I often think that the best of us are very ignorant of all that is comprehended under the term Antiquity. So far are we removed from the ancients in time-so completely were their institutions, their customs, and their religion broken into fragments by the incomprehensible riot of the dark ages-so different and so powerful are the impulses with which we are moved and the motives which our age presents, that every thing belonging to their life, except the meagre memorial of their written works, seems buried in utter oblivion. There are doubtless your Niebuhrs and Heynes, (and perhaps, reader, the same remark may apply to Fritzsche and Schleiermacher, and more particularly to Mr. Schweighäuser-but it has been some time since I read these,) who, as their eyes run along the dead classic page, catch in their souls the very spirit and life of the ancient world, just as deaf old Beethoven heard divinest harmonies from his stringless piano. But such are not the privileges of the "common lot." The text we read, and turn it, perchance, into decent English; but the ideas which accompany our translation may be English, may be Latin and Greek, or may be Asiatic and barbarous. Much, indeed, depends upon the accuracy with which we have studied the language, but still more, I suspect, upon the native gift of a vivid but correct imagination. Whoever is not happily endowed in this latter respect, will either be entirely guided

in his imaginings by what his eyes and ears gather for him in the present, or, without any guide at all, will soar into clouds and nonsense. Hence it is apparent, classical, as well as metaphysical, students may be divided into two schools-the Idealists and the Realists.

Thus, a recently celebrated biographer of Napoleon is evidently a downright realist. For in one of his letters from classic grounds he thus rhapsodizes over a bronze eagle that had been carried at the head of the twenty-fourth Roman Legion: "Long, long ago, when Rome was in her glory, it had soared aloft amid the smoke of battle," &c. ;the smoke he refers to was, probably, that which followed the discharge of javelins and the report of-scouting parties.

The other class comprehends those who, forgetting that the ancients, like the moderns, were descended from Adam and had a full share of the frailties and foibles which we have known and of which we are a great part, and that this earth, with its storms, its fogs and its mud, has always been the same that it is now, fondly attribute every species of beauty and greatness and felicity to the "land of gods and godlike men.' Glorious world is antiquity to the wrapt idealist! Littleness and the common-place are as completely banished from its borders as sin from paradise. Whatever the world is now in want of, the ancients enjoyed in richest abundance. Tell him of the glories of the coming millennium! his eye is fixed on brighter ones already in the past. Majestic forms amid celestial scenery are passing before him. The neck of Demosthenes is clothed with thunder-Plato reclines entranced in the gardens of the Academy, listening to the music of the spheres, and Alexander mounted on a fiery steed instar montis, rides around the world, and "from his horrid hair shakes pestilence and war."

He doesn't reflect that Demosthenes, going to the assembly one morning, discovered a shocking rent in his toga, and had to turn back and have it mended, consuming an hour of his valuable time. He is unconscious of the fact, that the great Academician, during his meditations, was often so pestered with buzzing insects, that he gave way to some very undignified remarks. He is unmindful that Alexander became so engrossed in the pursuits of a campaign, that he neglected to wash his face, till he was gently reproved by one of his under offiBut were these things really so? As I said, it has been some time since I read the great German scholars mentioned in the parenthesis above, and it is possible I may have misstated some of the minor circumstances.

cers.

But you, my dear Realist, now tell me, do you not feel assured that Julius Cæsar wore at Pharsalia, high-topped boots, a cocked hat, a military coat covered with brass buttons, and faced with yellow? "Tis very natural. And Cato the Censor, was a cross-looking old fellow, was he not, with spectacles, carrying a bound folio under his arm, to be seen on a rainy day stumping about the streets of Rome with an umbrella? As I thought-happily no one can accuse you of a wan dering mind during study hours.

Observe the difference of the two when considering the same point. The Realist takes it for granted, that the Romans upon meet