the age of forty-five, beyond which no man is obliged to train; and it was with him a jubilee; inward, to be sure, but nevertheless quite real. The next election was a severely contested one, and they came after him as usual to go and vote. But no! He resisted all importunity and disregarded every threat. Both sides came for him, but all in vain. He had the same answer for both: 'Clear from training — clear from voting!' Poor BROMMY! He lived to threescore-and-ten, but he never voted again. MR. CUTHBERT SOUTHEY, speaking of ROBERT SOUTHEY, toward the end of his life, says: For a considerable time after he had ceased to compose, he took pleasure in reading; and the habit continued long after the power of comprehension was gone. His dearly-prized books were a pleasure to him almost to the end; and he would walk slowly round his library, looking at them, and taking them down mechanically.' This imparts additional interest to his touching lines To my Library,' written a short time before his last illness:

'My days among the dead are passed;
Around me I behold,
Where'er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old:
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse, day by day.

"With them I take delight in weal,
And seek relief in woe;
And while I understand and feel
How much to them I owe,

My cheeks have often been bedewed
With tears of thougthful gratitude.

'My thoughts are with the dead; with them
I live in long-past years;

Their virtues love, their faults condemn,
Partake their hopes and fears,

And from their lessons seek and find
Instruction with an humble mind.

'My hopes are with the dead; anon
My place with them will be,
And I with them shall travel on
Through all futurity;

Yet leaving here a name, I trust,
That shall not perish in the dust.'

MANY readers will remember Mrs. KIRKLAND'S anecdote, in her 'New Home,' of the Michigan stage-driver, who 'drew rein' in a violent autumn-storm at the gate of one of the far-scattered cabins of a western forest, into which he ran, leaving his passengers, a burly Englishman and two querulous, 'stuck-up' daughters, to follow him, as best they might. The doughty JOHN BULL came in after him, leading his daughters, with rueful faces and sadly-bedraggled skirts, all three looking grouty and glum enough. I say,' said the Englishman to the driver, who had ensconced himself in a warm and cozy seat by the fire, 'I say, that luggage ought to be brought in, ye kno'. 'Wal, I should think so, tew. If 't was mine, I should bring it in, any how. T may get sp'ilet.' 'Well, fellow, why don't you bring it in?' Why don't I bring it in?' said the other slowly, and with an unmistakable sneer; 'why, I aint your servant, be I? Guess not: that's a berry that don't grow on the bushes about these diggin's. I drive you, Square, and I don't do nothin' else!' This incident came to mind a few moments ago, on hearing a friend relate the following anecdote. He said, that soon after the revolutionary war, a brave Yankee officer, a former captain in the service, happened to be at St. Petersburg, in Russia, and while there was invited to dine at the table of a distinguished merchant. There was a large number of guests at the table, and among the rest an English lady, who was anxious to appear as one of the knowing ones.' On understanding that an American was sitting near her, she expressed to one of her friends a determination to quiz him. She fastened upon him like a tigress, making numerous inquiries touching our habits, customs, dress, manners, modes of life, education, amusements, etc. To all these queries the officer gave courteous answers, which seemed to satisfy all the company with the exception of the lady herself. She was determined not to be satisfied, and went on: Have the rich people in your country any carriages?-for I suppose there are some who call themselves rich.' 'My residence,' replied the captain, ‘is in a small town upon an island, where there are but few carriages kept; but in the larger towns and cities on the main land there are quite a number maintained, suited to our

republican manners.' 'Indeed?!' replied his fair questioner, in a tone that was both interrogative and exclamatory; 'I can't fancy where you find coachmen: I shouldn't think the Americans knew how to drive a coach.' 'We find no difficulty on that account, Madam, calmly rejoined the captain; 'we can have plenty of drivers by sending to England for them.' 'To England!' exclaimed the lady, speaking very quickly; 'I think the Americans ought to drive the English, instead of the English driving the Americans' We did, Madam, in the late war,' rejoined the officer; 'but since the peace, we have permitted the English to drive us!' There was no more ' quizzing' of our American during the dinner. He waited in vain, like SAM WELLER in BarDELL 98. PICKWICK,' for the next question. . . . The Scalpel, a Journal of Health, adapted to popular and professional reading, and the exposure of quackery, continues its onward way. It has reached the fourth number of its third volume; yet it is the Damascus-blade wielded by its editor, EDWARD H. DIXON, M. D., as bright and keen as ever. He wakes up the profession' all round. 'NATURE is ever

new;' love is natural; ergo, love is always new; 'leastways,' so we thought, early walking home by the light of the moon' the other evening, from a most agreeable metropolitan 'party,' for we 'heard the loud bassoon' and other musical instruments, at the door of a merchant-prince, who had that night given away his daughter in marriage. Some of the wedding-guests were departing, and two pleasant-spoken young men, walking in the moon-light before us, were discussing the wedding, the beauty of the bride, etc., and one of them, with a very fine voice, would ever and anon 'break forth into singing;' snatches from popular operas, a bit of a song of JENNY LIND's, etc. Presently he struck up Black-Eyed SUSAN, as if in some way suggested by the scene they had just left. We don't know that we ever felt so forcibly before the charm of these verses, from that most beautiful and artistic of all nautical songs:

No wonder, when each sail its 'swelling bosom spread,' and his boat 'unwilling rowed to land,' bearing the 'lovely SUE,' that WILLIAM 'hung his head' from grief. Who could blame him? . . . It is well and forcibly put, in a late number of the 'Edinburgh Review,' in an article upon the true policy of a popular government, that 'cheapness may be bought too dear;' that undue retrenchment may be as unwise as lavish expenditure; and we could not but think, while reading the article in question, of the case of the 'Saint Lawrence' government vessel, and its officers, to which allusion was made in our last number. 'In public affairs, as in private,' says the reviewer, 'there is a true and a false, a genuine and a counterfeit, a short-sighted and a comprehensive economy. There is a spirit of shallow, niggard, and ungenerous parsimony, which looks only at the cost of the public service, and not at the mode in which that service is performed; which would risk or sacrifice great objects in order to save a small expense; which is narrowly mercantile, instead of being broadly patriotic; which would cripple departments that, to be respected and honored, should be managed with a liberal hand.' Now all this may be out of our line.' but it

strikes us that the argument is a very correct one, nevertheless.

WHAT

think you,' writes a western correspondent, of my being waked up one morning by a note from a young lady-friend, containing her 'compliments, and a request that I would loan her 'Scorr's novels,' as she felt like reading something,' and had heard that they were very good?' My gallantry is unquestionable; so I replied by sending her round the Boston edition of twenty-seven volumes on a wheel-barrow at once! This was exactly at eight in the morning. They were returned in good order and well conditioned' at five in the afternoon of the same day. I have rubbed up my arithmetic, and find that, making allowance for the 'out' and 'home' trips, the rate of perusal was one volume every nineteen minutes; a 'pace' hardly equalled as yet in the annals of literature. It entirely 'shades' the composition of the self-same works. I look now with envy and wonder at that young woman. How she would astonish the head-librarian of the Bodleian, if she should take up a fancy to patronize that book-stall! What food there is here for G. P. R. JAMES's hopes to feed on!' . . OUR friend and correspondent SAXE, of Vermont, thus hits off the Glorious Fourth, whose advent is now close upon us :

LET the bold skeptic who denies our worth,
Just hear it proved on any Glorious Fourth;'
When patriot-tongues the thrilling tale rehearse
In grand orations, or resounding verse;
When poor JoHN BULL beholds his navies sink
Before the blast, in swelling floods of ink,
And vents his wrath, till all around is blue,
To see his armies yearly flogged anew;

While honest Dutchmen, round the speaker's stand,
Forget, for once, their dearer father-land;

And thrifty Caledonians bless the fate

That gives them freedom at so cheap a rate,

And a clear right to celebrate the day,

And not a baubee for the boon to pay:
And Gallia's children prudently relieve

Their bursting bosoms with as loud a vive

For l'Amérique' as when their voices swell
With equal glory for la bagatelle;'
And ardent sons of Erin's blessed isle -
Grow patriotic in the Celtic style,

And, all for friendship, bruise each other's eyes,
As when St. PATRICK claims the sacrifice:
While througing Yankees, all-intent to hear,

As if the speaker were an auctioneer,

Swell with the theme, till every mother's son
Feels all his country's magnitude his own!'

JUNE, (to touch upon 'the weather' topic,) has been a cold month. Nevertheless the people have patronized amusements warmly. On or about the Glorious Fourth' most of our city theatres will close; and then how welcome will be MARETZEK'S opera troupe at Castle-Garden! The event of the month has been the HAMBLIN festivala testimonial to industry, integrity and indomitable perseverance, at once worthy of the recipient and the donors. Among the 'stars' expected from the eastern world, we may name Mrs. WARNER, Mr. HUDSON and ANNA THILLON, CATHERINE HAYES, the renowned singer, and last, not least, ALFRED BUNN, of Drury-Lane, who it is said will visit this country and give his entertainment illustrative of SHAKSPEARE'S life and times, with anecdotes dramatic, running thence down to the present hour. Thus much of foreign affairs.' Among the notabilities of the city may now permanently be classed that excellently managed and delightful place of amusement, BROUGHAM'S LYCEUM. Conducted as it is by a man of taste, spirit and liberality, it has jumped at once into public favor, where it is certain to remain, if the same system be continued. The Lyceum now commands the most elegant and fashionable audiences in the city; the reason of which is obvious: nothing inimical to delicacy,

or at all subversive of good taste, is ever to be seen or heard on those boards, and CORBYN's arrangements before the curtain are perfect. The company is carefully selected, and comprises artists of acknowledged talent: the manager's brain is unceasingly taxed for those light, pleasing, and sometimes brilliant productions, which the passing time suggests. We need only point to 'The World's Fair,' which has been staple' for the entire season; 'FAUSTUS,' a most amusing burlesque upon the spectacle; A Row at the Lyceum,' a capital piece of original fun; DAVID COPPERFIELD,' the very best rendering of DICKENS's novel; DOMBEY and Son,' a household matter now; all of his own writing, with others which have have escaped our memory. Notwithstanding his own exertions in authorship, Mr. BROUGHAM has received and remunerated with liberality the plays of others; for instance, 'The Fortune of War,' by LESTER; 'The Home-Book of Beauty,' etc.; and as we go to press, still another local peculiarity is announced, from the manager's prolific pen, founded, as the bills say, 'on recent sumptuary innovations'-meaning, of course, the new pantaloonery among the feminines - which is to be produced immediately. That excellent actress, Miss JULIA BENNETT, has been playing at the Lyceum with the greatest éclat, having made an extraordinary sensation in a new and successful drama, called 'The Ladies' Battle.' If the play had been produced early in the season, it would have had a run of months. Is not the experience so exquisitely and

so touchingly recorded in the lines below common to many a bereaved heart? We remember to have heard a twin-spirit, long since 'gone hence to be here no more,' repeat them with a fervor which rolled the 'cadent tears' adown his faded cheeks. The stanzas, we believe, are from the pen of WOLFE, author of the Burial of Sir JOHN MOORE." They were written soon after the death of a beloved wife:

"If I had thought thou could'st have died, I might not weep for thee;

But I forgot, when by thy side,

That thou could'st mortal be:

It never through my mind had past,
The time would e'er be o'er
That I on thee should look my last,
And thou should'st smile no more!

And still upon that face I look,

And think, "T will smile again;'
And still the thought I cannot brook
That I must look in vain:

But when I speak, thou dost not say
What thou ne'erleft'st unsaid;
And then I feel, as well I may,
Dear MARY! thou art dead!

"If thou could'st stay, e'en as thou art,
All cold and all serene,

I still might press thy silent heart,
And where thy smiles have been:
While e'en thy chill, bleak corse I lave,
Thou seemest still mine own;
But as I lay thee in the grave,
I feel I am alone!

'I do not think, where'er thou art,
Thou hast forgotten me;
And I, perhaps, may soothe this heart
In thinking, too, of thee:

Yet there was round thee such a dawn
Of light ne'er seen before,

As fancy never could have drawn,
And never can restore!'

We cannot refrain quoting, in this connection, the following passage from a note just received from an esteemed friend and correspondent, who lost a little boy, an only child, nearly a twelve-month since: Your inquiry, Why I have sent you nothing lately? went like a dagger to my heart. I don't know how like bereavements affect other people, nor how soon they learn to forget; but the death of my little boy still clings to me like a perpetual horrid night-mare, and will not let me do any thing but attend to the ordinary routine of business. Every heart knoweth its own bitterness,' and I am thankful that there is none other that knows mine. It is a great effort for me to write even this brief note on the subject, which perhaps you will appreciate, when I tell you that this is the first time that I have put pen to paper (for any other purpose than an ordinary business-letter) since the advent of my great sorrow. They say that TIME is a great healer of wounds, and consoler of grief God grant it may be so; but as yet my wound seems fresh and sore, and my anguish as great as at first. All the day long it is as a mill-stone about my neck

and in the still watches of the night it forgets me not. 'Spare me, O God! for the waters are come in even into my soul!' Think of this, reader, and with devout and fervent gratitude, while your 'friends are yet with you, and your children are about you.' . . . 'You have never seen,' writes a Kentucky friend, the an Undistinguished Private,' kept during the march from Vera 'Halls?' Of course you haven't! the three-decker of KENDALL'S is never be released from her stocks.

Note book of Cruz to the It's a private affair, entirely; and now, since launched, the taut little yacht will probably Here's half a page, though:

'Huzza, NED! we have met the enemy and they are ours!'

'Huzza!' shouted in return the Undistinguished Private,' and 'bang!' went his musket, as a salute in honor of the glorious news.

"Corporal of the Guard, Number Seven!' roared through the murky night-air of the Mexican platte, and in a few moments, like an echo to the call, came the corporal of the guard.

"The volunteer system occasionally made corporals of men who were admirably adapted to break the charge of the lancers, or storm a redoubt, but whose 'bringing-up' happened to be in parts of the country where the school-master was not 'abroad.'

Who fired that musket off?' asked the corporal, in discharge of his duty.

'The Undistinguished Private' bowed acknowledgment, and saluted his commanding officer 'What was it fur?'

'Patriotic ebullition of nationality!'

"What?' asked a sergeant.

'Oh, cuss the fellow! he's a furriner, and can't speak 'Merican,' interrupted the corporal ; 'but I say, you Sir, you mus'n't do so any more, or (very loud and with strong gesticulation,) guard-house! Eh? You understand?'

'Yaw!'' replied the Undistinghished Private, and the corporal posse returned to their tent. 'The U. P. whistled a long, very long note, rammed down another cartridge, and after trying to write a sonnet on a fly-leaf of a pocket-edition of the Iliad, resumed his sentinel duty, while his heart was away off, keeping watch over his 'young barbarians all at play.

WE have glanced over, in the pages of an esteemed Southern contemporary, the first portion of a ‘native drama,' by the voluminous Georgia 'novelist,' or 'nouvellette'-ist, Mr. WILLIAM G. SIMMS, entitled 'Norman Maurice, or the Man of the People' The subjoined is a random sample of the colloquial part of the play:

There is really something in this that reminds us of the carricature of WORDSWORTH'S Peter Bell,' in the Rejected Addresses?'

He was in the autumn of his life,

And wore a drab great-coat, on whose

Pearl-buttons gleamed the beauty of the morning:

As we walked, I could not choose but ask

His age assured that he was seventy-five

At least; and, though he didn't own it,
I'm convinced he was!'

A good play, however, is a difficult thing to write, especially an acting play; and the most palpable failures in this kind have often been made. It requires not only genius, but a knowledge of stage-effect, to succeed as a dramatist. . . A MO