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30 melody that is interwoven into all the wails of life. How often has lhat bird been my consolation when stretched on*an uneasy bed, and hay pillow! Often have I turned over to disten to him with both ears, that not a whisper of his notes should escape me and then came to the conclusion that that last ef fort was too soul-inspiring for repetition, he had exhausted himself there, nature could go no further; his physical powers surely would flag after that, it his mental ones did not: but no! he was apparently merely at the over ture—he was elaborating and'suggesting to you what was to come. But his time and measure were all his own, his song was a ro mance, his accents could not be writen (un like all other‘birds;) his notes were as uncer tain as an iEolian harp’s, his next might he grave, or gay, time only could tell. I have heard Rubini, with his head thrown far back, in a whispered falsetto note, when the house was still, sometimes approach the tim bre of this bird, but the effort was great — it lasted but for an instant: and I trembled for his arytenoids. I never had the like fears in the many hours I have listened to the solos of this favorite; he always seemed to he sing ging that he might afterwards have rest; his notes were rolled out in such lavish profu sion that they seemed struggling which should first have utterance. Mocking birds are found over all Florida in great numbers; I have observed, however, that they were always most abundant about the camp, or in the neighborhood of men.— They seem to like an open place in the woods, or some position where they can see every thing around them; and generally sing, seat ed on the topmost twig of a tree, or on the up per splinter of some pine or cypress that has been broken by the winds or lightning. — Here they will imitate every bird’s note that is going on within hearing, or that they have heard for the week preceding: and I have of ten interupted a merry fellow when in full glow in this position, with my imitation: he would stop instantly, turn round the side of his head towards the ground, and listen; but whether in astonishment or admiration I cannot sav ; he never would follow me, how ever. having evidently determined that all my notes were shams. How the Indians inspire birds with so much faith, and so effectually tame them, I cannot determine. A mocking bird will hop about an Indian lodge, or fly among the neighboring trees or through the encampment, and yet alight on its mistress’ shoulder or hand at her call; not a feather in its wing cut, and ig norant of that prison, a cage. It is the same with other birds; the crane, a wild distant bird, will skim over the ground, half flying half running, with the speed of a horse, af ter his master; there is some latent chord of congeniality between the two. R. S. H. St. Louis , Mo. onr Dark Corner. [The following ingenious riddle was pro posed to the House of Commons by the cele brated George Canning. We hope some rea der will furnish us with a solution in verse, in season for our next issue.— Ed.S. L.G. ] A noun there is of plural number, A foe to human peace and slumber; Now any noun you chance to take, By adding S you plural make ; But lo ! by adding S to this — How strange the metamorphosis!— Plural is plural now no more, And sweet, what bitter was before ! A LITERARY CHARACTER. I have long maintained a distinguished station in our modern days, but I cannot trace my origin to ancient times, though the learn ed have attempted it. After the revolution in 1688, I was chief physician to the king; at least in my absence he ever complained of sickness. Had I lived in ancient days so friendly was I to crowned heads, that Cleo patra would have got off with a sting; and her cold arm would have felt a reviving heat. I am rather a friend to sprightliness than to industry; I have often converted a neuter pronoun into a man of talent; I have often amused myself by reducing the provident ant to indigence; I never meet a post-horse with out giving him a blow; to some animals lam a friend, many a puppy has yelped for aid when I have deserted him. lam a patron of architecture, and can turn every thing into brick and mortar; and so honest withal, that whenever I can find a pair of stockings, I ask for their owner. Not even Lancaster has carried education so far as I have; I adopt always the system of interrogatories. I have already taught my hat to ask questions of fact; and my poultry questions of chronology. 3© u -J 1 11 is A ill MYS[B AIB Y ® A SUIT US ♦ With my trees I share the labours of my laundry, they scour my linen; and when I find a rent, ’tis I who make it entire. In short, such are my merits, that whatev er yours may be, you can never be more than half as good as I am. [answer next week.] (Column (CrcctCL) to -fun. ANECDOTE OF CURRAN. Curran, tells a story which no hermit, even telling his last beads, could avoid laughing at. Related by any one, it would have been good; but as told by Curran, with his powers of des cription and characteristic humor, was super excellent; and we had to thank Diver the wa ter-dog, for the highest zest of the whole eve ning. The fact was, that a little while previ ous to dinner-time, Curran, who had omitted his customary ablution in the morning, went to our allotted bedchamber to perform that ceremony, and having striped, had just begun to apply the sponge when Diver, strolling about his master’s premises to see if all was right, placed by chance his paw against the door, which not being fastened, it flew open; he en tered very unceremoniously, and observing what he conceived to be an extraordinary and suspicious figure, coucluded it was somebody with no very honest intention, and stopped to reconnoitre. Curran, unaccustomed to so strange a valet, retreated while Diver ad vanced, and very significantly showed an in tention to seize him by the naked throat; which operation, if performed by Diver, whose tusks were full an inch in length, would no doubt have admitted an inconvenient quanti ty of atmospheric air into his oesophagus.— He therefore crept as close into the corner as he could, and had the equivocal satisfaction of seeing his adversary advance and turn the meditated assault into a complete blockade; stretching himself out, and ‘maintaining his position’ with scarcely the slightest motion, till the counsellor was rescued and the siege rai sed. Curran had been in hopes that “when Diver had satisfied his curiosity he would re tire; and with this impression, spoke kindly to him, but was answered only by a growl. If Curran repeated his blandishments, Diver showed his long white tusks; if he moved his foot, the dog’s hind-legs were in motion.— Once or twice Curran raised his hand; but Di ver, considering that as a challenge, rose in stantly, and with a low growl looked signif icantly at Curran’s wind-pipe ; Curran there fore stood like a model, if not much like a marble divinity In truth, though somewhat less comely, his features were more expres sive than those of the Apollo Bellvidere.— Had the circumstances occurred at Athens to Demosthenes, or in the days of Phidias, it is probable my friend Curran and Diver would have been at this moment exhibited in virgin marble at Florence or in the Vatican; and lam quite sure the subject would have been better and more amusing than that of ‘the Dying Gladiator.’— Barrington's Personal Memoirs. PADDY AND THE ECHO. “ Patrick ! w here have you been this hour or more? You must not absent yourself without my permission.” “Och, niver more will I do the like, sir.” “Well, give an account of yourself, you seem out of breath.” “ Faith, the same I am; I niver rvas in such fear since I came to Ameriky. I’ll tell you ail about it, sir, w’hen I get breath onst agin.” “ I heard ye tilling the gintlemen of the won derful echo, sir, over in the w’oods behint the hig hill. I thocht by what ye said uv it, that it bate all the hechoes uv ould Ireland, sir, and so it does, by the powers! Well, I just run over to the place you wras speaking uv, to converse a bit with the wonderful creather. So said I ‘Hillo, hillo, hillo!’ and sure enough the hecho said, ‘ hillo, hillo, hillo, you noisy rascal!’ ” “I thocht that wras very quare, and said ‘hillo,’ again.” “Hillo, yourself,” said the echo, “you be gun it first.” “What the divil are you made uv ?” saidl. “ Shut your mouth,” said the echo. “So said I, ‘ye blatherin scoundrel, if ye was flesh and blood, like an honest man, that ye isn’t, I'd hammer ye till the mother of ye wouldn’t know’ her impedint son.’ ” “And what do yo think the hecho said to that, sir ? ‘ Scamper ye baste of a Paddy,’ said he, ‘or fait if 1 catch you I’ll break every bone in your uglv body.’ An’ it hit my head with a stone, sir, that was nigh knocking the poor brains out uv me. So I run as fast as iver l could : and praised the saints, 1 am here to tell you uv it, sir.” fiomc Comspcmlumtt. For the Southern Literary Gazette. NEW-YORK LETTERS-NO. IV. New York, May 27, 1848. Dear Sir: An unfortunate casualty, result ing in the loss of an eye, occurred lately to a gentleman, while promenading Broadway, be hind one of that numerous tribe of individuals given to the pleasant habit of carrying canes and umbrellas horizontally , under the arm. It is annoying enough to have the pave ob structed by unwieldy old women, and gaily plumed or ragged urchins; or with country gentlemen who swagger gracefully from one side of the walk to the other, as they read the signs over fifth story windows, or admire the lady on the top of the city hall, leaving you all the tune in a state of agonizing uncertain ty, whether you are to pass them on the right or the left; or it is terrible to have your lungs filled with the fumes of a nasty cigar between the lips of some dirty citizen, or the flavor of a sweet havanna, puffed by a jaunty Bowery boy, or a medical or theological student; or it is unpleasant to be brought to a halt by the progress of a Military company, an Odd Fel low's procession, or a line of the Sons of Tem perance ; or a litter, with a virulent case of small-pox; or to be hemmed in by a jam of omnibusses; or delayed half an hour at a ‘ crossing,’ by a procession of filthy dirt carts, a line of walking show-boards from Bar num’s; or the passage of a drove of cattle ; or to be run against by’ Jarge dogs reveling in the full enjoyment of the largest liberty ; or to stumble over a precious little poodle, with a blue neck ribband, while its dear mistress looks daggers at your faux pas ; or to be bu ried at mid-day in a cloud of dust, raised by some tardy house-maid on the steps of some aristocratic mansion; or to be drowned by an unseasonable Croton water-spout in its recoil from the third floor window of said mansion: each and all of these trifles might be very con veniently and pleasantly dispensed with: but this insufferable habit of obstructing the walk with long sticks must be corrected, nolus volus. as General Taydor has it. It gives the pas senger a very undue portion of the pave, since those who follow, instinctively recoil from the threatening projectile, as from a danger sub ject to no regular laws, and whose eccentric ities of movement, can in no manner be fore seen. Dixon 11. Lewis himself, with a great coat on, would be less of an obstruction : or even the Hon. Mr. Wentworth, propelled lengthwise ! Our city pas have as yet adopted none of the hundred proposed plans for relieving Broadway of the excessive amount of omni bus travel. Foot passengers are still terribly annoyed by the obstructions they encounter at every corner, from these lumbering carria ges of the million ; a practical plan of eject ment would be a desideratum. I was, while riding in one of these stages the other night, amused by a little incident resulting from the plan of season tickets. A holder of this priv ilege, in making his exit irom a full coach, sung out his pass-word—“ Caesar!” A wag, thinking he would try the same economical expedient, followed, as he gave the same sig nal with equal confidence, but ‘John’ not rec ognizing him as one ol the elect, and quite as funny as the economist, cried out, “seize him /” The passenger rinding his joke did not take, passed his six-pence, remarking to his fellow-travellers, that the ignorant dunce had evidently never read the classic proverb. “When in Rome , do as the Romans!” General Scott and General Thumb, the he roes of Mexico and the Museum, are now daily expected to arrive here. The former, who has landed and is now at his residence in New Jersey, is to be greeted with a grand military and civic procession; but the latter will in all probability, receive the greatest share of the public respects! Sam Weller’s paradoxical saying, that “little vons is always great vons,” has ever proved true here, in the experience of the redoubtable and gallant “Tom Ponce.” By’ the way, another of the Thumb family is exhibiting himself to our good people; but he is a Major General, as the genuine Tom is not, and so many inches taller too than our little General, that he wins no kisses from the fair visitors. A private letter, recently received from our distinguished historical painter Leutze, now in Dusseldorf, Germany', hints at the probability of his own return to the United States, and mentions the names of several of the most eminent German artists, who entertain serious thoughts of establishing themselves in New York ! Such an accession to the profession would create anew and great era in the his tory of American art. And it is not at all unlikely, not only that they may execute their project, but that the new order of things in the old world, may send us both its best artists, and its greatest patrons of all depart ments of the arts. There is very little doubt that this country will soon be the asylum of very many of the most distinguished and aris tocratic families of Europe, from haughty monarchs to theirhumblest courtiers. Wheth er the German painters come or not, we have just made an invaluable acquisition, in the opening here of a magnificent gallery of the Modern French School of Art. Messrs. Gou pil, Vibert & Cos., of Paris, celebrated as the publishers of the works of the most eminent artists of France, lately opened here a branch of their house, for the sale of fine French. En glish and German Engravings; and to this feature they have just added a permanent exhibition of original productions of the most celebrated artists of the French school. This splendid collection was exhibited privately to artists and others, on Monday last, and on Tuesday’ exposed to the public. It contains gems from De la Roche, Schceffer, Muller, Winterhalter, Bouchat and other distinguished names. It is the intention of Messrs. Goupil \ ibert & Cos., to engrave in Paris, the most remarkable ivories of the American School of Art. One such picure at least, will be pro duced every year, and distributed among the members or subscribers of the establishment. Five dollars annually will create a member, who will have free admission, at all times, to the Gallery', and a copy of the engraving of the year. For 1848, they are bringing out the beautiful and favorite picture of the “Power of Music,” painted by our inimitable artist, Wm. S. Mount, Esq. All who saw this admirable work in the exhibition of the Academy of Design last year, will desire to possess a copy. It is in every’ way, in com position, effect and character, one of the very happiest of Mr. Mount's works, and quite sufficient, of itself, to give the artist the dis tinguished reputation which he enjoys. Long may Mr. Mount live to paint such pictures, and Messrs. Goupil, Vibert & Cos , to engrave them. We anticipate with pleasure, the re sults of this effort of the painters of France to fraternize, as Mr. Schaus, the gentlemanly and amiable partner of the house conducting the American Branch, felicitously expresses it, in his circular. Vive la Rcpublique ! Speaking of fraternizing, reminds me of an incident which shook the cobwebs from my brain, at a recent assembly of a laughing club. One of the members proposed the health of a guest, whom we will name Brown, but he mistook Mr. Brown’s cognomen, and drank to “Mr. Smith.” He was immediately informed of his error, while a dozen different persons introduced him to Mr. Brown — “ Brown—Thompson! Thompson—Brown.” Whereupon the member rose and gravely pro posed to “amend his toast, by striking out the word ‘ Smith’ and inserting ‘ Brown’!” He then, with a spasmodic jerk, offered his right hand to Mr. Brown—after a hearty shake he pushed out his left hand—a second shake, and then came both hands—and lastly, he threw’ himself with a dying impulse of