so still. In this respect, it has been a good deal disparaged-apropos of Words worth, especially. But it is right in the main. For, after all, poetry is not a thing of wildness, novelty, or extravagance, but a thing of the common feelings, passions, and expressions of our nature. Poetry is the flower of common sense; and addresses itself to the common perceptions of us all. That is the idea of the Edinburgh Review, apparently. In the article we speak of, it quotes Bacon and Aristotle on poetry, and agrees with the last. Bacon talks of it as "the pleasure of a lie." The Greek says it is "the pleasure of nature." The latter is the true criticism; and Bacon, who is the representative of his country's intellect, is utterly wrong. He had no poetry in his nature; and this quashes the theory somebody is now supporting that he wrote some of Shakespeare's plays! The Review goes on the principle of Aristotle, and is, we think, perfectly just to those callow children of Cantor Apollo. It comes out against the spasmodic and intensifying style, and vindicates the real innate power of these young men, against the extravagant inspiration that runs away with their judgments. It is amusing enough to see that it is a young Irish poet whom it considers the most judicious and poetic of the whole of them-that is, William Allingham. One would have thought the Celt would have been the wildest and most passion-tearing. It is a good thing to see poetry brought to the test of nature and common sense. It has been too long a matter of imitation, classic or otherwisesave as regards the songs and lyrics, which are generally truest to true feeling. poetry of these young men, though exhibiting much power, is vitiated by their imitation of Shelley, Tennyson, Festus Bailey, and others. The flush of youth is now in their favor; when that goes, we fear some of them will become mere monomaniacs of the muse, tiresome and repetitionary. None of them seems to improve. Gerald Massey, in his Craigcrook Castle, only shows himself a redundant imitator of Tennyson. The turgid, wild-worded and indistinct lexis of these young bards is far more harassing than poetically touching to the reader, who, when he perceives a fine sentiment or a true feeling, is shocked and repulsed by the dreadful,

The

twisted English in which they are expressed. All this shows too much literature, and too little life. It is from life poetry growe, not from the belles lettres. When the life of a nation is sound and worthy, its poetry will be sound and worthy; not otherwise, we imagine.

-In Daniel Webster's writings. lately published, we have Jefferson giving an account of Patrick Henry, such as would not lead us to think much of the latter, if we had not already known the history of his genius and eloquence. Henry, it would seem, was the opposite of that other great orator, Edmund Burke. The speeches of the latter flew over the heads of his audience and wearied them in a great degree; so that those who had heard him often said they never appreciated him till they saw his orations in print. Henry, on the contrary, like Lord Chatham, and all orators of the first rank, produced his finest effects in the rostrum, so to speak. Jefferson says his eloquence was impressive and sublime, and seemed directly to the point: but that, after the harangue was over, he (Jefferson) had often asked himself— "What the devil has he said?" without being able to tell. He says the pronunciation of Henry was vulgar and vicious. Jefferson was not a man of glowing sentiment, and could not, perhaps, appreciate the bold style of the forest-born Demosthenes, though he could recognize its excellent effects, and acknowledge them. He tells us that Henry was a man without knowledge, who never cared to read books, and could not get through a volume of Hume's Essays; that he liked low society, and enjoyed it as often as possible, living out in forest camps, and changing his shirt or his clothes only at long intervals. In all this, Jefferson is setting forth the modes and propensities of genius, which always delights in everything that brings it closer to the simplicity of nature. Burns loved the company of what were called "blackguards,” and said so; and Shakespeare loved the enjoyments of the ale-house-not to speak of Ben Jonson and a hundred others. Henry was one in whom the high impulses of the mind generally grow strongest-for they grow naturally. Jefferson thought his want of a reading taste was a defect. In that lay his strength. He never dissipated his mind nor allowed it to be distracted or

cowed by any of the canons of style or the thoughts of others. He could not write, Jefferson says; be had no dexterity with the pen. So much the better, perhaps. Henry, such as he was, was a genuine character; his genius grew from life, not from literature; and this was the secret of his greatness.

-Major Sears has been constructing a diving-machine, which he calls a Nautilus (we are famous for our flowery-poetical and fairy names of things; though we think hippopotamus would be a more sizable and fitting appellation for it), and has been making experiments in the bay of New York. It lies like a big buoy on the water, and need not be suspended to anything it goes down and comes up, motu proprio— of itself. It has certain chambers of air and water, by which its specific gravity can be modified, and a raising or lowering motion given to it. The force thus produced enables it to remove great weights at the bottom, or bring them up. The operators walk along the lower ground and do their business. In this way men can fish for pearls, coral, sponges, gold, and so forth-mining and delving under water with much ease, and by a kind of light which is better than daylight for all submarine purposes. These are deadlights in the top of the machine; and people get in by a little hatchway, after which they let in water and go down. Those who have gone down talk of a heavy sort of sensation at first, and a pressure acting on the ear; but this wears off. The working of the Nautilus will be an interesting speculation. Sunken ships can be raised by means of it, and treasures discovered that have long lain in the oozy bed of the sea. The Major can go to a submarine California and become a miner. "Full many a gem of purest ray serene, the dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear," and it is likely he will be able to get at some of these things in the line of industry he can so conveniently follow, down among the dead men, and in and out of the rocks, with the mermen.

- One of the popular English reviews is very severe on Douglas Jerrold, for the republication of Mrs. Caudle's Lectures. This seems rather severe on what made us all laugh so pleasantly, a few years ago, and which may still make others laugh, to whom they will be new. Joe Miller still

amuses. But the critic objects to the quality of the facetiousness; and, though he speaks of Jerrold, glances, doubtless, at the Punch school of wit, and the elaborateness of the satire and fun cultivated for some time in England-most of it being to real wit, what farce is to comedy. But we feel ourselves somewhat brought up here, with respect to the nature of witabout which definitions differ so much. Without stopping to go into that question, we have a general impression that our prevalent fashion of wit is something that leans to frank absurdity and a kind of jargonism. Think of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza-of Sir John Falstaff-of the Tale of a Tub-the Advice to Servants, and the good things of Sydney Smithand then think of Thackeray's Jeames, and the funny spelling and the grotesque slang of our later jokers. Compare the old wit with the tremendous modern work of making the history of England or of Rome comic, and making law itself and Blackstone comic! The history of literature has nothing to show so violently grotesque and extravagant as this last. It will be argued, it is not so much wit as fun, and is so meant. There is, no doubt, a certain quality of fun in it; but, even coming to that lower estimate, it still shows too much effort for the genuine laughter-compelling facetiousness, which takes with everybody. If you continue to inhale the odor of a rose, you lose it. It is the same with true pleasantry; it cannot be kept too long on the stretch and worked at too steadily, without palling on the perceptions. But it is not easy to express the general feeling in this respect; only that any one who sets out to tell funny things with a broad grin and goes on, laughing violently, will very soon damp the jocoseness of his hearers. History and law are bad subjects for fun; the slang phonetics of Jeames are far better. Indeed, these last are good fun-provokers, and are not to be sneezed at; but they take with most people, and that is a good test. With respect to the republication of old pleasantry, we think it hazardous, unless it has something to sustain it beyond the mere fun. Old fun is apt to grow stale and lose its charm. But old wit keeps like old wine. Douglas Jerrold has no wit, and his style in general is too clumsy to convey pleasantries agreeably.

Mrs. Caudle read very well, at first, in weekly installments. Taken altogether, it will be apt to tire the reader. There is nothing very witty, after all, in that incessant growl, growl, growling, of a silly little woman into a man's ear after he has got into bed. The fun is too fogyish.

-It is very interesting to turn aside from the somewhat threadbare amenities of light literature to the considerations of science, severer, apparently, but, certainly, not less striking to the fancy when properly meditated. The wonderful science is now, as of old, that of chemistry. It demonstrates for us some of the grand problems of ages, and reveals the secrets of nature lying about our feet, and in our daily ways. It shows that the air we breathe is metallic-the source of all the solidity we stand on and see-and this seems curiously to justify the Mosaic saying, that the earth came out of nothing, and the opinion of the old Greek philosophers, that all things grew from ether. Those early notions and beliefs of the world were not so shallow as some have imagined. But we meant to speak of the science, as it familiarly affects our lives and doings. It is curious to perceive how backward we are in making use of what it teaches. We know that copper, and zinc, and an acid, make a power called electro-magnetism; but we have not yet employed that power, except in some slight ways and the swift work of the telegraph. Then there is the fiery principle of hydrogen; that, also, lies almost dormant, and so does the antagonism of hot and cold, which is another strong motor. These lie imperfect or idle. Again, we know the virtue of the chlorides and hot air in removing malaria; but half the ships go without them, and carry sickness and pestilence all about the world. Hos pitals and houses are but imperfectly benefited by these things. This comes of our ignorance of the air we breathe. We think it a light matter, whereas, it is the life and solidity of the world. At the same time, we have much skill in finding out the component parts of things; but we have none in newly arranging those parts. That is, we know the acids, alkalis, gluten, and so forth, composing, say a potato, a cherry, a grain of wheat, or a bit of leather; but we have no notion of producing a potato and the rest, except in the old, roundabout way

of letting mother nature coddle them in the dark for six months or so. We can take to pieces, but we cannot put together Our chemistry has not helped us to a Dew food, or more of the old. It does better (that is, worse) with the drinks. The time will probably come, when men will feed and sustain themselves by some other means than those of nature. In process of time, the earth, being enormously peopled, must (should it escape the comets) cease to feed its millions on the vegetating principle; and then science must draw nutriment directly from the elements. Fire will come from water, and food from chemical factories—that is, so much phosphoric acid, lignin, gelatine, sodium, some hydrogen, some oxygen, some carbonic acid, and what-not, conveyed in bottles, every housekeeper knowing, of course, how to mix them, in order to have the various foods and drinks constituting their daily aliment. Chemistry is a vast field, and men are only scratching it up with their nails at present.

-It has been said a thousand times, that the costumes of the present day-those of the men, especially-are very ungraceful and ugly. From this opinion we would except the ladies, in a great measure. Thu flowing nature of their dress is favorable to our ideas of ornament and gracefulness. It is a positive pleasure to look at an elegantly-dressed woman sometimes; and we really think the female costume, saving that mean covering for the head, was never more graceful than at present. But the masculine dress is very bad, making the man a stiff, padded, tightened, and cramped being, from head to heel. The daguerreotypes show this remarkably. Portraitpainting has an eye to effect; but the former give the plain, rigid truth ; they show how the sister art flatters the human proportions. The coat and trowsers are disfiguring to the human shape in these true "types;" they murder all symmetry of person and limb. Nothing, we think, is more disagreeable and incongruous than to look at a fine head and face-such as would do honor to any Greek or Roman shoulders that ever existed-and then see the way the coat comes in, and the whole figure ends. The man looks as if he was cut off somewhere: the trowsers, with its ironlooking legs, seems to hide a pair of short or crippled limbs. Never does the dress we wear look more miserable and ridicu

lous than in these pictures. They should never give more than the bust. As for the costume, it is useless, we suppose, to cry out about it. It is utilitarian; it is the best for people that wish to dress in a harry, and do business in offices, stores, and so forth. It is wonderful that fashion does not do something in the way of variety and the picturesque effects, if it were only for a gay extravagance. But fashion is the stupidest, dreariest, and least original thing amongst us. It makes its dull uniforms, and puts us all into them; and so we go, all dressed and cropped alike, like people in a penitentiary.

-The London Saturday Review, we perceive, has been criticizing the style of the Jupiter Tonans of the press, apropos of some sarcastic advice how to write "leading articles." It imitates pretty well the style of the new hand that now writes the general leaders of the Times. We forget the particular allusions it makes, but have before us an article which illustrates its criticism. The Times writer has the habit of making, first, a generalizing sweep, and gathering up, in a free-and-easy way, a number of historic or literary facts, or passages, bearing, nearly or remotely, on the matter in hand, which, after all, comes in more like one more instance of the proposition, than an independent theme. Here, in a leader on Walker and his men, in Nicaragua, he begins with Robin Hood,

sweeps on to Aristotle, then touches on two kings of Prussia, after which, bringing in Blanco White and St. Augustine, he comes, over the path of two Latin quotations, to the Emperor Nero and that wild wish of his. Then we are carried to the Hindoo Nirwana and the general millennium, from which we skip to the Crimea, and jump to the Crusades, and so come lightly in to the gist of the matter-the fillibuster, Lieutenant Jennings Estelle. The rest of the article is matter-of-fact, such as the common run of editors would produce. The Saturday Review laughs at such a style. But, after all, that is the style which takes. It shows learning, and a certain scope of mind which accompanies power. These are not such bad things. It is evident the Times man is a young fellow, out of one of the colleges, flush of classic, historic, and literary knowledge; a full man, athletic from discipline. Such are the men who have given the Times its peculiar character, and that mere fact shows they are not to be despised. That pointed, illustrative style has long distinguished the chief London weekly journals; and the Times is wealthy enough to afford it as the everyday aliment of its readers. The most ignorant people prefer the stylish and the striking, to the mean, hard, slip-slop matter-of-fact, in whatever they read. The Times' writers are the best to be had; and the Times paper is at the head of the press.

THE WORLD

THE summer, this year has been loth to leave us. She has lingered with us, seeming still about to go, but ever looking backward with reluctant smiles, cheering the chill November, ay, and the bleak December, too, with dreamy memories of June. But she has flown at last, and the cordial northern winter comes, when we must find our summer in-doors, and make up for the silence of the streams, and of the trees, and for the fading out of color from the earth and sky, with happy voices in our homes, and smiles in the faces of those we love.

The necessities of winter life, in a city, try men's tempers sharply, and show us

what we are, perhaps, more fairly than the summer can, in pleasant places among the hills, or by the sea, where it is luxury enough to breathe, and no merit for us to be easy in mind as we are in body.

For, in the closer circle which the winter draws about us, we are called upon to contribute ourselves more freely to our friends; and upon the manner of our response to this call it depends whether the winter shall be the most genial or the most odious season of all the year. A loveless, frivolous spirit seems to others and to itself a hundred times more detestable, and is a hundred times more unhappy

when it is continually brought into contact with others, and falsifying all the fine chemistry of nature, generates gossip for sympathy, and silly selfishness for sentiment, and impertinence for interest, and folly for gaiety.

Let us hope that all of our readers may bear the test of the winter so bravely that it will be a superfluous thing in us to wish them a "Happy New Year." Yet, superfluous as we trust it may be, we must utter the wish; for good wishes are, after all, only the voice of good-will, as prayer is the voice of faith, and you never wish "good morning" half so heartily to any one as to the one person whose presence has already made the morning good.

A happy New Year to all our friends! We need no fast-driving, much-scolded coachman to carry us from house to house of all these smiling thousands; the obedient steam takes us upon the round of

our

"New Year's visits ;" and we are not compelled to make our bow and 'go, just as soon as we have come and made our bow, but can spend the whole day, ay, and the pleasant evening, too, with each and every one of our friends, though our cheerful day's walk follows the circuit of the sun from Maine to California.

And, wherever we go, we shall stop just long enough to hint to our beloved hosts how good a thing it would be for them to adopt, in all their separate homes, the good old Gothamite custom which our tour represents.

New Year's Day in New York is one of the best days of our western year. It is an Independence day on which we rejoice to acknowledge our mutual dependence on one another-a sort of universal birthday, and everybody's fête, on which the dropped threads of social life may be caught up, and the smouldering ashes of contention quite smothered, and a moment's Interchange of smiles and courteous words may make an easy atonement for the conscious or the unconscious omissions of the past, and become the "Future's pledge and band." It is a wise and kindly institution, and all the follies grafted on its goodly stock cannot make that stock less goodly in our philosophic eyes. No doubt it is a pity that people should turn this graceful festival of good-will into an opportunity of ridiculous display, and outrage its simple significance as they

do God's blessed sunlight, when they shut, out the day, and make a premature night of glittering gas within their homes. But you would not level the church-wall with the street, because silly and senseless people improve the occasion of a quiet hour in their pews, for the exhibition of their best toilets, to other silly and senseless people, who, having no ears to hear the service, have nothing to do but to employ their eyes on their neighbors. The reality of anything in this world lies not in its possible abuses but in its possible uses, and it is in these that we must look for the justification of our visiting on "New Year's Day." The custom has, at once, a flavor of classic antiquity, and a grace of modern Christianity. You may think yourself engaged in no very lofty pursuit, when you array yourself, after an early breakfast, in the full dress of the latest evening, and draw on your spotless gloves, and sally forth, unabashed, into the sunlight, and flit, with the speed of a swallow, from house to house, all over the city, resting at each no longer than the swallow might, and chirping out sweet platitudes as monotonous as the swallow's twitter. It may seem to you rather ridiculous when you recall its events. this long day of short calls, throughout which you have been speaking at so many people, and speaking with so few. And when you come home at night, and throw your overcoat in one direction and your hat in another, and cast yourself down wearily on your sofa, you may feel disposed to pronounce the whole matter a sad humbug, and yourself a sorry simpleton for the pains you have been at to do this nothing so diligently. But if this is your thought at midnight, it will be changed with the morning. You will see then how full even this familiar custom is of meaning, and how impossible it would be for us now to dispense with such a symbol of social cordiality in our life of city isolation and intensely personal pursuits. Do away with this custom and what would the New Year's Day become? A day in which fa. milies, already separated enough from the world, and from each other, would feel more absolutely drawn within themselves -a day for the settling of accounts with your personal creditors, and the presentation of gifts to your personal friends alone.