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8 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,