Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

delivered an inflammatory discourse beneath the folds of the “ red” flag, and to the huge ( delight of all the mobocracy. On Monday evening, a large meeting of the friends of Mr. Van Buren and Free Soil came of! in the Park. Mr. John Van Buren and other speakers addressed the assembly. Fire-works and music enlivened the occasion, and added to the “great commotion—motion— motion” of the hour. But I am exceedingly tired of scribbling, and my fire has long since stept out. So, good night. FLIT. (Eclectic of tDit. POEMS, BY A POOR GENTLEMAN, There, in a lonely rcom, from bailiffs mug, The Muse found Screggins stretched beneath a rug. Goldsmith. Poetry and poverty begin with the same letter, and, in more respects than one, are “as like each other as two P’s.” Nine tailors are the making of a man, but not so the nine Muses. Their votaries are notoriously only water-drinkers, eating mutton cold, and dwel ling in attics. Look at the miserable lives and deaths recorded of the poets. “ Butler,” says Mr. D’lsraeli, “lived in a cellar, and Goldsmith in a deserted village. Savage ran wild —Chatterton was carried on St Augus tine’s back like a young gipsy ; and his half starved Rowley always said heigho, when he heard of gammon and spinach. Gray’s days were ode-ious, and Gay’s gaiety was fabu lous. Falconer was shipwrecked. Homer was a blind beggar, and Pope raised a sub scription for him, and went snacks. Crabbe found himself in the poor-house, Spenser couldn’t afford a great-coat, and Milton was led up and down by his daughters, to save the expense of a dog.” It seems all but impossible to be a poet, in easy circumstances. Pope has shown how verses are written by Ladies of Quality—and what execrable rhymes Sir Richard Black more composed in his chariot! In a hay cart he might have sung like a Burns. As the editors of magazines and annuals (save one) well know, the truly poetical con tributions which can be inserted, are not those which come post free, on rose-colored tinted paper, scented with musk, and sealed with fancy wax. The real article arrives by post, unpaid, sealed with rosin, or possibly with a dab of pitch or cobbler’s wax, bearing the impression of a half-penny, or more fre quently of a button—the paper is dingy and scant —the hand-writing has evidently come to the author by nature —there are trips in the spelling, and Priscian is a little scratched or so —but a rill of the true Castalian runs through the whole composition, though its fountain-head was a broken tea-cup, instead of a silver standish. A few years ago, I used to be favored with numerous poems for insertion, which bore the signature of Fitz- Norman; the crest on the seal had probably descended from the Conquest, and the pack ets were invariably delivered by a Patago nian footman in green and gold. The author was evidently rich, and the verses were as palpably poor; they were declined, with the usual answer to correspondents who do not answer, and the communications ceased —as I thought for ever, hut I was deceived; a few days back one of the dirtiest and ragged est of street urchins delivered a soiled whity brown packet, closed with a wafer, which bore the impress of a thimble. The paper had more the odour of tobacco than of rose leaves, and the writing appeared to have been perpetrated with a skewer dipped in coffee grounds; but the old signature of Fitz-Nor man had the honor to be my “very humble servant,” at the foot of the letter. It was too certain that he had fallen from affluence to indigence, but the adversity which had wrought such a change upon the writing im plements, had, as usual, improved his poetry. The neat crow-quill never traced on the super fine Bath paper any thing so unaffected as the following:— STANZAS. WRITTEN under the fear of bailiffs. Alas ! of all the noxious things That wait upon the poor, Most cruel is that Felon-Fear That haunts the “ Debtor’s Door!” Saint Sepulchre’s begins to toll, The Sheriffs seek the cell; So I expect their officers, And tremble at the bell! I look for beer, and yet I quake With fright at every tap ; And dread a double-knock, for oh! I’ve not a single rap ! IL 2¥&IE A& ¥ ®ABg ¥¥ 1. SONNET, WRITTEN IN A WORK-HOUSE. Oh, blessed ease! no more of heaven I ask: The overseer is gone—that vandal elf— And hemp, unpick’d, may go and hang itself, While I, untask’d, except with Cowper’s Task, In blessed literary leisure bask, And lose the workhouse, saving in the works Of Goldsmiths, Johnsons, Sheridans, and Burkes; Eat prose and drink of the Castalian flask ; The themes of Locke, the anecdotes of Spence, The humorous of Gay, the Grave of Blair — Unlearned toil, unletter’d labors hence! But, hark ! I hear the master on the stair And Thomson’s Castle, that of Indolence, Must be to me a castle in the air. SONNET. A SOMNAMBULIST. ” A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.”—Byron. Methought—for Fancy is the strangest gadder When sleep all homely mundane ties hath riven; Methought that I ascended Jacob’s ladder, With heartfelt hope of getting up to Heaven : Some bell, I knew not whence, was sounding seven, When I set foot upon that long one-pair; And still I climbed when it had chimed eleven, Nor yet of landing-place became aware ; Step after step in endless flight seem’d there; But on, with steadfast hope, I struggled still, To gain that blessed haven from all care, Where tears are wiped, and hearts forget their ill, When, lo! I wakened on a sadder stair — Tramp—tramp—tramp—tramp—upon the Brixton Mill! Hood's Own. ©nr Bowl of JjJundj. JOHN BULL’S LAST BARGAIN PRICE 1,100,000! We may treat ourselves to a tremendous flourish of the trump of glory. We have added another sprig of laurel to our planta tion ; a sprig cut by British sword from the Bush. We have—let the world ring with the glad tidings!—we have beaten the Kaffirs. But you cannot break even such miserable bits of human pottery without gold and sil ver. They can only be hammered to bits by £s. and. There is still the bill to pay for the damages. The head of the interesting person that dec orates these triumphant lines is the faithful portrait (see Doctor Pritchard,) of a Kaffir biped. There is no doubt that such an in dividual —though not exactly the person we would invite to share with us our muffin and a hand at whist—is of touching interest at Exeter Hall. Nevertheless, we fear that the uncultivated reader will hold that any num ber of such heads (with even the most liber al allowance for taking a quantity,) must he dear at the price of one million, one hundred thousand pounds! Nevertheless, such is the sum to be paid by John Bull for thrashing the Kaffirs; for making them promise to he loyal subjects to Queen Victoria, until they shall deem it profitable again to rebel! We wound up the late Session of Parliament with an increased debt of two millions ; and more than half the money is thrown away upon powder and shot wherewith to kill and subdue a horde of sav ages. Let it not be forgotten that henceforth we pay an annual interest of thirty-seven thousand pounds for the chains of the Kaffirs. Thirty-seven thousand pounds a year! The schoolmaster, says the proverb, is a broad. Well, then, Punch proposes to set him the following sum :—“ If it takes thirty seven thousand a-vear to kill and conquer a certain number of Kaffirs, how much less than the same sum will educate the like num ber of destitute British children Surely one little English boy at school, is worth twenty Kaffirs in the Bush. 1 i A REPUBLICAN MYTH. We take the following from the French newspapers:— “ A young purang-outang has lately been brought to the Garden of Plants, and is the object of almost universal curiosity. The animal is only six months old, but has all the appearance of a child aged three years, of a grave and reflecting character. He is at the same time very affectionate, shaking hands kindly, but with a certain Arabian solemnity, with the keepers. He feeds delicately, tak ing roast meat, wine, chocolate, and even li queurs. Being very susceptible of the cold, he sleeps between a large cat and a rough coated dog , and wraps them both, as well as himself, in a blanket. Jn the daytime he is dressed in a red-coloured blouse and white pan taloons.” The above is a very fair specimen of the political satire of our neighbours. It is, how ever, so delicate that without the aid of Punch—- the hasty reader may fail to see the deep meaning enshrined in it. Punch will endeavor to pluck out the heart of the mys- tery. The ourang-outang then—it cannot be doubted —is Louis-Napoleon :heis a very young republican, scarcely six months old; but has the “appearance” of a “grave re flecting ” politician of maturer time. He is “ very affectionate, shaking hands kindly ” with the Communists. “He feeds delicate ly ” and takes wine. His cupboard and cel lar, when he sailed to invade Boulogne, leave no doubt of the circumstance. Being sus ceptible of cold, he seeks for a warm place between a cat and a dog. In other words, Louis-Napolf.on, for a snug berth, is willing to avail himself of extreme parties. The red coloured blouse is, of course, a significant compliment to the Republique Rouge. &£U)sp})cr Analects. HIGHLY INTERESTING.. Friend Fitzgerald: The following epistle or letter of Publius Lentullus, was stated to have been taken from the public records at Rome, by Buonaparte, at the time he rifled that city of many valuable manuscripts. The publication of it will, it is presumed, be grat ifying to most, if not to all of your readers, and perhaps may be new to some, as it is several years since it first appeared in the newspapers of this country. It is the testi mony of a heathen, a bitter enemy to the Christian religion, who gives a laconic and beautiful account of the most extraordinary personage ever recorded in sacred or profane history. It was written at the lime and on the spot where Jesus Christ commenced his public ministry and the author was himself an actor on that theatre, where the Son of God was pleased to authenticate his divine mission, by an awful display of his miracu lous power, in raising the dead and healing all manner of diseases. It also furnishes an awful memento, to modern infidels, that out of their own mouths shall unbelievers be judged; while the humblest penitent may re joice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, at the overwhelming mass of evidence, which is accumulating from age to age, that heath ens are compelled to testify to the authentici ty of sacred writ and that the outpouring of the spirit of God, in these our days, sheds a lustre on his word, astonishing to the friends and confounding to the enemies of the Cross. The poisoned arrows, with which the ene mies of Christianity have hitherto pursued her, grow blunt in the impious warfare, and the arm of the infidel, upraised for her exter mination, is unstrung amid the hosannas and pceans of joy, sung by the thousands pressing into the kingdom of Heaven, in the four quar ters of the globe. O! that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for His won derful works to the children of men, “An extract from the Roman Senate—lt being the usual custom of the Roman Govern ours to advise the senate and people of such material things, as happened in their respec tive provinces, Publius Lentullus, being Pres ident, in the days of Tiberias Caesar, the Em peror, wrote the following epistle to the Sen ate, concerning the description of the person of Jesus Christ : “Conscript Farlhers—There appeared in these our days, a man of great virtue, named Jesus Christ, who is yet living among us, and of the Gentiles is accepted for a prophet of truth : but his own disciples, call him, the Son of God. He raiseth the dead and cureth all manner of diseases, a man of stature some what tall and comely, with a very reverend countenance, such as the beholders may both love and fear; his hair of the color ©f a fil bert, fully ripe, plain to his ears, whence downward it is more orient of color, some what curling and waving about his shoulders; in the midst of his head is a seam or partition of his hair, after the manner of the Nazarites; his forehead plain and delicate, his face with out spot or wrinkle, beautified with a come ly red; his nose and mouth exactly formed, his beard thick, the color of his hair, not of any great length, but forked—in reproving, terrible—in admonishing, courteous, in speak ing, very modest and wise—in proportion of body, well shaped. None have seen him laugh ; hut many have seen him weep—a man for his singular beauty, surpassing the ■ children of men.”— City Item. LOLA MONTEZ. This bold, handsome, and adventurous dan seuse, in whose history there is so much of romantic incident, is again the subject of newspaper paragraphs. We are told : “She has for several months past been oc cupying the chateau at Pregny, on the north shore of the Lake of Geneva, known as the chateau de L’Emperatrice, from having been the residence of the Empress Josephine, and subsequently also of Queen Hortense—and where she is duly awaiting the arrival of the ex-King of Bavaria. She has fitted up the chateau with exquisite taste, and now passes her days in quiet and contrast with the strange scenes of her eventful life. Much of her time is spent upon the lake, and in command of heT little yacht, ‘ Le Corsair,’ manned by a crew of youthful volunteers from some of the best families in Geneva. She takes great pleasure in showing hospitality to those among her fiiends who find out her retreat, but far more—and to her credit be it said —in the ex ercise of almost unbounded charity to the poor in her neighborhood, by whom she is much beloved.” THE FICTITIOUS AND THE REAL. It is certain that the constant simulation of infirmities on the stage sometimes leads to real sufferings of the same kind, and even to death. Moliere, the comedian, died in Paris, in 1673, while acting the character of a sick man in La Malade Imaginaire; the same part also proved fatal to the actor who succeeded him. Mr. Bond, the translator of Buchanan’s histo ry, so yielded himself up to the force and im petuosity of his imagination, when acting the character of Lusignan in the tragedy of Zara, that on the discovery of his daughter, he fainted away, and soon closed his eves in death. Plinv relates a story of an actor who imi tated tne gout so naturally as at length to bring that disorder upon him; and Madame Clarion, the celebrated French actress, ac counted for her prematurely growing old in appearance by the influences of the grief and distresses with which she had been constant ly overwhelmed on the stage. This cele brated woman had her life protracted far be yond the usual period of existence, and in the eighty-first year of her age she delighted John Kemble, who paid her a complimentary visit, with a most energetic recitation of one of the scenes of “ Phcedra.” CRITICISM* The following scrap of satire is from the Boston Post. We recommend it to the atten tion of some of our contemporaries, and we shall, in all humility, strive to profit by it our selves : “A small crowd gathered before a window recently to admire the figure of a cat, which was there as if for public inspection. Nearly every one was delighted with its likeness to life. ‘ But still,’ said Augustus, ‘there are faults in it; it is far from perfect; observe the defect in the foreshortening of the paw, now; and the expression of the eye, too, is bad; besides, the mouth is too far down under the chin, while the whiskers look as if they were coming out of her ears. It is too short, too’ —but, as if to obviate this defect, the figure stretched itself and rolled over in the sun. ‘ltis a cat, I vow,’ said a bystander. 4 It is alive,’ shouted an urchin, clapping his hands. 4 Why, it’s only a cat, arter all,’ said Mrs. Partington, as she surveyed it through her specs: but Augustus moved on, disap pointed that nature had fallen so far short of his idea of perfection in the manufacture of cats.” “ I’LL SIGN THE PLEDGE.” The following beautiful and touching story was related by Dr. Schnebly, of Maryland, at a recent meeting held in New York to hear the experience of twenty reformed drunkards A drunkard, who had run through his pro perty, returned one night to his unfurnished home. He entered his empty hall—anguish was gnawing at his heart-strings, and lan guage is inadequate to express his agony as he entered his wife’s apartment, and there be held the victims of his appetite, his lovely wife and darling child. Morose and sullen, he seated himself without a word; he could not speak, he could not look upon them. — The mother said to the little angel by her side, 4 Come, my child, it is time to go to bed;’ and that little babe, as she was wont, knelt by her mother’s lap, and gazing wistfully into the face of her suffering parent, like a piece of chiselled statuary, slowly repeating her nightly orison; and when she had finished, the child, (but four years of age,) said to her mother, ‘Dear ma, may I not offer up one more prayer V 4 Yes, yes, my sweet pet, pray.’ And she lifted up her tiny hands, closed her eyes, and prayed: ‘O God! spare, oh spare my dear papa!’ That prayer was wafted with electric rapidity to the throne of God. It was heard on high —it was heard on earth. The responsive ‘Amen’ burst from the father’s lips, and his heart of stone be came a heart of flesh. Wife and child were both clasped to his bosom, and in penitence he said, 4 My child, you have saved your fa ther from the grave of a drunkard. I*ll sign the pledge.’ 189