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Cheap Books in England.
The English publishers are now carrying the
issue of cheap editions to an extent not yet at
tained in this country. The chief element in the
cost of English books is the copyright. Reprints
of American works, and English books, the co
pyrights of which have expired, are issued at ex
ceedingly low prices. The works of Cooper,
Irving, Simms, and others, have been published in
London at one shilling a volume. An edition of
Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield, with thirty il
lustrations, is now announced “for a song of
sixpence,” and Sterne’s Sentimental Journey, with
the same number of engravings, for/ourpence, or
eight cents. These are to be followed by other
popular books at similar prices.
Taking it Coolv.
“Good morning, good morning, I hope you will
excuse me for not asking you in,” said u waggish
friend of ours, the other morning, as we stood
gazing upon his dwelling, half consumed in a
conflagration then scarcely subdued. We were
strongly tempted to reply that he had never
seemed better prepared to give us a warm recep
tion—but, upon second thought, we concluded
that the joke would be, like himself, out of place.
Punch’s Report of the Funny Market.
We regret that we could not lind room for this
lively report in full. It opens with a statement
of the gloom thrown over the Funny Market by
the French news, and records some small failures.
Wagg & Cos. had undertaken to supply, at 2-f, an
order for five thousand conundrums, as good as
the following sample, [if not better /]
“Why is a man who does not bet as bad as a
man who does ?”
“Because lie’s no better !”
The following is a sample of a lot of conun
drums, which Punch says “could not be answered
on their being oflered for that purpose.”
“Why will there be no reason to make a Tun
nel in the neighbourhood of Islington ?
The following desperate attempt to answer
this was made :
“Because there’s a Holloway there already !”
It is not surprising that the holders of the pre
cious lot should have been compelled to suspend
payment, and wind up their concern amid the
public indignation.
A Spiritual Conundrum.
Among other clever conundrums proposed, of
late, in the home “circle,” of which we are a seg
ment —there was one that struck us as both new
and good, and we, therefore, record it for the
amusement of our readers.
“Why is a very hard riddle like a ghost ?
Because every one will have to “give it up !”
“It is the cause, my Lord.”
It is said that the best brands of Champagne
have recently advanced in the wholesale, mar
kets : —“The cause” is, undoubtedly, the partial
failure of the apple-crop of New-Jersey !
A Considerate Critic.
According to the International, a German re
viewer thus despatches a volume of Poems, by a
nephew of the illustrious Goethe. “The reve
rence which we bear for the name of the uncle,
forbids any allusion to the book in question.”
SOUTHERN LITERARY GAZETTE.
Our Supplements.
In reply to a query from a “subscriber,” we
answer publicly that the twenty-four Supplements
will be sent to every subscriber as a part of their
annual subscription. They will each receive se
venty-six numbers of sixteen pages, during the
year.
An Alliterative Trio of Topic.
Under this title, Harper's Magazine, for the
present month, gives us “Congress, Kossuth and
Christmas,” and says, with some little affectation,
but with equal truth, “we hardly know whereto
find the handle of a single, other moving hammer
of gossip.”
Fictitious Tales.
The communication of Count Castelnau, to the
Geographical Society of Paris, concerning the
existence of a race of men called Niam Niams,
dwelling in the interior of Africa, and having
tales from twelve to fifteen inches long, receives
considerable attention, solely, it would seem, on
account of the distinguished reputation of that ac
complished savant. There can be little doubt,
we fancy, that these tales are fictitious.
Lola Montes.
When Lola married, all her slips to cover,
The case a rare anomaly reveal’d,
The husband proved no better than a lover,
Eor ’tvvas her name, and not her fame, was llcald.
The Austrian Nobles.
From a graphic sketch in one of the British
Magazines for December, entitled “A Black Ea
gle in a bad way,” and having reference to the
present condition of Austria, we quote the follow
ing striking passage concerning those drones of
the Empire—the nobles.
The position of the nobles is ridiculous. They
swarm over the land ; increase and multiply, and
starve. Not more than a few dozen of them can
live honestly without employment; while not one
of the noble millions may exercise a trade for
bread ; may practice law or medicine, or sink
down into authorship. The Austrian patrician
can not feed himself by marriage with a merchant’s
daughter; if he do his household will not be ac
knowledged by his noble friends. The he-noble
must marry the she-noble, and they must, make a
miserable,mean, hungry, noble pair.
What it is to be born!
From the source alluded to in the previous item,
we derive also the following anecdote, of the
Austrian nobility :
A celebrated Viennese Professor dined one day
in England with a learned Lord. “Pray, how is
Baron Dash !” inquired a guest—said Baron Dash,
being at that time an Austrian Minister.
“He is quite well,” said the Professor.
“And his wife !” pursued the other. “I remem
ber meeting iter at Rome ; they were just married,
and she was a most deligntful person. She crea
ted a sensation, no doubt, when she was received
at your court!”
“She was not received at all,” said the Profes
sor.
“How was that?” asked many voices.
“Because she is not born.”
“Not born,” is the customary mode of ignoring
(if I may use a slang word of this time,) the ex
istence of the vulgar, among the noble Viennese.
Our City Agent.
Mr. R. S. Purse has undertaken the city agency
for this journal, and all the publications of Messrs.
Walker, Richards & Cos. We bespeak for him
the cordial support and favour of our citizens, to
most of whom he is well known.
Oqir £ool(
Dream-Like: A Fable of the Seasons. From the press of
Scribner, New-York.
The name of “Ik Marvel,” on the title-page of
this beautiful volume, immediately recalls the plea
sant “Reveries of a Bachelor,” and makes the
reader of that favourite book, eager to dip into its
pages. Fairly in, he recognizes at once the dreamy
atmosphere in which the Reveries floated so fan
tastically, and he gives himself up—nothing loth—
to the gentle influences whic.h pervade the book.
We have frequently expressed our admiration of
the style of Mr. Mitchell, blending as it does the
qualities of grace and elegance, without being
destitute of vitality. 13is “Dreams” are full of
beauty, and fill our thoughts with sunlight, check
ered here and there by soft shadows, from the
clouds which now and then float through them.
We have dreams of Boyhood, of Youth, of Man
hood, and of Age ; which are, after all, only a
delicate and transparent mask, for the phases of
actual life—the real shadowed forth in a poetical
ideal. llow charming is the following touch of
spring-life:
“I love the gentle thaws that you can trace,
day by day, by the stained snow-banks, shrinking
from the grass ; and by the gentle drip of the cot
tage eaves. I love to search out the sunny slopes
by a southern wall, when the reflected sun does
double duty to the earth, and where the frail ane
mone, or the faint blush of the arbutus, in the
midst of the bleak March atmosphere, will touch
your hearts like a hope of Heaven in a field of
graves! Later, come those soft, smoky days,
when the patches of winter grain show green un
der the skeleton of lifeless woods, and the last
snow-drifts, reduced to shrink in skeletons of ice,
lie upon the slope of northern hills, leaking away
their life.
“Then the grass at your door grows into the
colour of the sprouting grain, and the buds upon
the lilacs swell and burst. The peaches bloom
upon the wall, and the plums wear bodices of
white. The sparkling oriole picks string for its
hammock on the sycamore, and the sparrows
twitter in pairs. The old elrns throw down their
dingy flowers, and colour their sprays with green ;
and the brooks where you throw your worm, or
the minnow, float down whole fleets of the crim
som blossoms of the maple. Finally, the oaks
step into the opening quadrille of Spring, with
greyish tufts of a modest verdure, which, by and
by, will be long and glossy leaves. The dog
wood pitches his broad white tent, on the edge of
the forest; the dandelions lie along the hillocks
like stars in a sky of green ; and the wild cherry,
growing in all the hedge-rows, without other cul
ture than God’s, lifts up to him thankfully its tre
mulous white fingers.”
Here is a passage in a different vein—less joy
ous, like its theme—for it has reference to old
age, of which grey-beard Winter, and not the
maiden spring, is the type.
“The strength and pride of manhood are gone ;
your heart and soul have stamped their deepest
dye ; the time of power is past, yonr manliness
has told its tale, henceforth your career is down;
hitherto you have journeyed up. You look back
upon a decade, as you once looked upon a half
score ot months ; a year has become to your*
slackened memory, and to your dull perceptions,
like -i week of childhood. Suddenly and swiftly,
come past you great whirls of gone-by thought,
and wrecks ot labour eddying upon the stream
that rushes to the grave. The sweeping outlines
ol life, that lay once before the vision, rolling into
wide billows of years, like easy lifts of a broad
\Jan. 3,