Fables and Fabulists. By F. C. WOODWORTH,421 Lines to a Picture. By Dr. DICKSON of Lon-

Memories of Summer. By a Countryman,...36 The Thousand Islands: with a Glance at Some-
May-Day Revels. From a Bachelor's Diary,.150

THE KNICKERBOCKER.

VOL. XXXV. JANUARY, 1850.

No. 1.

THE THOUSAND ISLANDS.'

WITH A GLANCE AT SOMETHING ELSE.

In these unchivalrous, matter-of-fact days, it would seem to border on the audacious to offer any remarks suggestive of a more liberal use of life, since the spirit of the age seems unsatisfied unless one toils, droops and dies, with harness on his back.

We cannot now divine what may come from the nib of our pen, but as we do not belong to the regular army of 'litterateurs,' we may be excused if we should load, aim and fire in the most promiscuous and unsportsmanlike manner, taking now and then a feather from the game that may rise on our path. We may, however, avow thus much: we shall not avoid applying the language of censure to those who find no exhilarating, soul-improving influence in the ministrations of Nature, or who are inclined to deride or cheapen the motives of those who advocate the necessity of manly exercise.

When we revert to the scenes that with no slight rapidity have succeeded each other during the season that is now closing, we feel much like the boy who, on his first visit to a museum, is so dazzled by the variety and extent of the objects he encounters that he can calmly contemplate none. He may possibly retain a dreary recollection of the hippopotamus, the big turtle, and Tom Thumb; and in like manner we can only recall such things as are chiefly rememberable from their size or insignificance.

As a substitute for the forgotten, we may indulge in some general remarks, saying less of woman than man; and with the aid of our flyrod, bring an occasional fish into the upper air for the relief of the reader's eye.

He who should take a view of the actual condition of his fellow-man might be surprised to find how large a portion of them are shut out or prevented from participating in the beauties and uses of the outward world; the positive requirements of daily life demanding the fulfilment

But his sur

of duties through which existence can only be sustained. prise would be increased in contemplating another and higher class; such as possessing the requisite leisure and means to interrogate and report on the manifold objects of interest that are so profusely scattered over the Empire State, but with no will to do it. Such as these may be justly termed infidels to all beauty, culprits at the bar of Nature, and exposed to the severest sentence of her court: indifferent and apathetic; criminally at fault; exhibiting few aspirations beyond the confines of their own domicils, and fearful that the functions of life would stop if they could not hear the rattle of an omnibus, or the news-boy cry 'Herald, Tribune and Mirror;' singing hosannahs to sixpences, while the sweet minstrelsy of Nature appeals to them all in vain. Tell us, ye exclusives of city and suburb! if it is not an unfortunate state of mind that finds more pleasure and repose in silver dinner-sets, splendid mirrors, Sevres porcelain and Turkey carpets, than it does in the heavens and the earth? Not that there is folly in manifesting an attachment to such adornings, but the folly there is in being mastered by them. Devotion to the true interests of humanity may be preserved without idolatry; neither is the race of life expected to be run on a mile-course and repeat. We would not be understood as undervaluing the necessity and efficacy of employment, which is the Magna Charta of our well-being, but we do maintain that the conflicting cares of life, its wear and tear, would be better met and borne, and probably diminished, if a more equitable division was established between work and play. An indiscriminate attachment to what is usually termed 'the requisition of duty' has contracted more souls than it ever enlarged; and, what perhaps is worse, it is apt to foster an uncharitable spirit, which pours out its bitterness without stint on many a devoted head; now frowning on any thing implying a genial impulse of the heart, and now rebuking any inspiration that the imagination may evoke in the presence of inanimate objects; in short, it is humanity half lighted up, and worshipping one idea. One of the shrewdest observers, and the most successful author of our age, has remarked: 'I have never remarked any one, be he soldier, divine, or lawyer, that was exclusively attached to the narrow habits of his own profession, but what such person became a great twaddler in good society.' Who does not know, or has not felt, the cold withering denunciations of your exclusively worldly man, when he assumes the censor's cap, endeavoring to suppress all local affection for the sake of gain; denying as delusive whatever cannot be crammed into one's pocket or put into a bank; dwelling with emphasis and severity on whatever allures from traffic; and prophesying defeat and disaster to him whose soul rejects being melted in his crucible and discounted! Such a man, rather than bind himself to Nature's chariot-wheels,' would go to the stake if he was sure the fuel were bank-notes; his conscience owning no fellowship but with 'tare and tret.' This is no fiction; a day's reality transcends a century of fiction. The lives of some people are passed in the contemplation of prospective benefits, keeping them idle on one spot, and subjecting themselves to a jail-like penance. They have an uncle or an aunt or grandfather on whom this day's sun may set for the last time, and believing that their moneyed salvation de

pends in being in at the death, if they do not die by overwatching, they at best only survive, throwing nothing but their shadow on Time, and Time in his turn consigning them to a well-earned oblivion.

Who has not witnessed or heard of family commotions heaving with oceanic fury, and which the smoothing oil of time is often insufficient to allay, and to whom the harmonizing idea of distinct like the billows, but one like the sea,' was as much regarded as a rope of sand, in connection with the welfare of the paternal ark? There are few more potent allies in training the affections, disciplining the temper, and promoting tranquillity, than a familiarity with the sublimer scenes of Nature, and the habit at stated intervals of communing with what the ALMIGHTY FATHER has reared in his magnificent solitudes as fitting shrines for the worship and solace of his creature, man.

Sir Walter Scott says somewhere in his Journal: 'I was commanded to Windsor.' Not long since a similar court-like message came to us from a noble friend, not to repair to a palace, but to a spot ever rememberable for its picturesque beauty and its lovely and remarkable combination of land and water. 'Come,' said he, 'prepared for shooting, fishing and slaying; but mind you come!' Our accomplished Nimrod knew well enough the distinction between a command and an invitation, and rightly anticipated the effect of its reception. The distance of the proposed place where we were to unjoint our rods, free our reels, throw the fly, wing the fowl and kill the deer, vanished into thin air when on examining our equipment we found it all right, and seemingly anxious for distinction. So here we are, careering through the Mohawk Valley, teeming with all the beauty and luxuriance of vegetable life, which belong to the first days of Autumn; now passing with a provoking speed some graceful bend of the river; now stretching our neck after a too-fleeting landscape; and now listening to the rapturous exclamation of a young tourist: 'I could travel for sixteen years if it was all like this!'

New measures of delight spring up as we advance, never wearying with the yet unwrinkled face of Nature, and the soul that beats in unison with our own. We pass Rome, but see no capitol; Canastota, but no Indian chief; Syracuse, but no Dromios; but at the latter place we did see the very beau-ideal of a host, in the person of one RUST, who is worthy of a more shining name. We hope that the saline properties for which this region is so celebrated may exert on him a conservative, life-lengthening influence.

We must pass rapidly by Salina, Liverpool and Geddesburgh, if we would escape evaporation, for their people are exceedingly well ininstructed and exercised in that process. As we approach one of our inland seas, of one hundred and eighty miles in length, and bid goodby to that thriving, mill-speeding town, Oswego, with its button-wood tree, thirty-five and a half feet in circumference; the Worden' Garden, with its fine fruit; its ill-kept hotels and dilapidated forts, our fancy becomes quickened and excited by both the present and the remote; for we are now pressing the soft carpets in the saloon of the Steamer 'Cataract,' and passing and repassing joyful faces and mirthful hearts. Forty miles are accomplished, and Hounslow Bay, with Sackett's Harbor for its