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has seen the site of Mr. Riddle’s Glass Palace.
Many reports have been in circulation respecting
this edifice, but on arriving at Reservoir Place,
Diogenes, Jr., at once discovered that there was
no foundation for the stories, Mr. Riddle originally
proposed to build on the square ; but the plot
agreed upon by the Common Council being more
extensive, will enable him to take in the Industry
of ail Nations when erected ; the Riddle struc
ture will be a sac simile of Mr. Paxton’s, with
the exception of the nave. The panes used in the
Crystal Palace are to be taken by Mr. R. at half
price, so that the same glass will do for both spec
tacles.”
A Flower “Taken in.”
In the “Private History of the Palace of Glass,”
as recorded in the “Household Worlds,” the fol
lowing interesting paragraph occurs, descriptive
of the ruse, by which Mr. Paxton succeeded in
flowering at Chatsworth, Sir Robert Schomburgk’s
specimen of the Victoria lxegia :
“When the Victoria Regia was to be flowered,
Mr. Paxton determined to imitate Nature so
closely, as to make that innocent offspring of the
Great Mother, fancy itself, back again in the broad
waters, and under the burning heats of British
Guiana. He deceived the roots by imbedding
them in a hillock of burned loam and peat; he
deluded the great lubberly leaves by letting them
float in a tank, to which lie communicated, by
means of a little whirl, the gentle ripple of their
own tranquil river ; and he coaxed the flower into
bloom by manufacturing a Berbician climate in
a tiny South-America, under a glass case!”
That “glass case”—by the way—was the germ
of the “palace of glass,” which, shortly after
wards, rose by natural magic in the very heart of
London, and beneath which that magnificent
plant, (not mentioned in the Floras of any land,)
the lndustria Omnium Gentium, was forced into
a blossom of unparallelled size and beauty—the
fruit of which is still ripening—for the reward of
enterprize.
A Libellous Conundrum.
We find the following in some of our ex
changes:
“Why has Congress behaved in a most insult
ing manner to Kossuth l
“Because its first demonstration to receive him
was made with its foot. —(Foote.”)
Now we submit to the propounder of this atro
cious conundrum that it is not only insufferably
bad, but it is positively libellous ; for does not any
man of sense discover, that if Congress “ put its
best Foot forward !” to receive the great Hunga
rian Chief, it did him honour rather than insult!
By the by,Congress could have done no less than
extend an official reception to Kossuth, since from
the very first it had “ put its foot in it
The Genealogy of Snow.
The following geneological item, derved from
an old ballad, may not be without interest to our
readers, wdio have recently become pretty well
acquainted with the family to which it refers.
“My father is the Northern Wind,
My mother’s name is Water;
Old Parson Winter married them —
And I’m their hopeful daughter.’’
The Man of many Names.
The Wilmington Journal publishes half a
column about Kossuth, the burden of which is a
self-felicitation that “the proper name” of the Ex-
Governor is not once mentioned in the article!
This extraordinary feat of our contemporary re-
SOUTHERN LITERARY GAZETTE.
minds us of the exploit of the school-boy, who
being called upon by his master to spell coffee,
gave the following remarkable orthography—
“K-a-u-g-h-p-h-yand when asked for an ex
planation of his perverse spelling, answered that
he “wanted to do something out of the common
run.” Our Wilmington contemporary has ac
complished the same object.
The Lantern and Slavery.
If those who carry the Lantern have any de
sire to let its light be seen of men, in the South,
they will do well to avoid such references as that
in the second quatrain of the following
National Reasons For Non-Interference.
John Bull. “Standing Armies, Taxes, Tolls,
And Mother Church so dear ;
Would quickly pull me o’er the coals,
If l should interfere.”
Jonathan. “I guess the load of knavery.
That I’m obliged to bear —
Under the guise of slavery,
Won’t let me interfere.”
bYance. “A kite is in our Eagle’s nest,
And all our prospects drear ;
As soon as he is dispossest—
Brave France will interfere.”
If the young Diogenes must snarl at us, we beg
him to call things by their right names. If ho
thinks slavery and knavery are synonymous terms
as well as rhymes, he is the enemy of the South,
and we shall know how to receive him. We
have no objection to the establishment of a sa
tirical abolition journal, but we did not suppose
the Lantern to be of that order. We can excuse
and overlook the flings of Punch at American
Slavery, because they are consistent with the po
sition of that journal. If the Lantern is an An
ti-Siavery organ, then we shall not quarrel with
its witticisms at our expense. Let us only under
stand its true position. We have expressed an
interest in the success of such a paper—but let us
assure its conductors that even satire must not
bear “false witness against its neighbours,” nor is
wit excusable when it misleads the popular judge
ment. We might have made these reflections
upon the Lantern, in the manner of its own re
flections, but we preferred to put a serious extin
guisher upon its false “gleams.”
We ought, in justice, to say that the same
number of the Lantern, which contains the verse
in question, very cleverly retorts the slur of
Punch in his famous “pendant to the Greek
Slave,” by a statue of a native of the “Sister
Isle,” entitled
“The Greek Slave by (The) Powers.”
A Miss is as good as a Mile.
The Home Journal makes the following edito
rial memorandum. The italics are our own.
“The mothers of Kossuth and Jenny Lind died
on very nearly the same day.”
A little more, and there would have been “a
striking coincidence.”
“The Depot of Meen Fun.”
This sign is conspicuously placed over the door
of a house in Maiden-Lane, New-York. We
have often wondered what it meant, and in the
absence of authentic information, concluded that
it was the place where the little wits of Gotham
obtained their small jokes, atrocious conundrums,
&c. We do not attach any credit to the rumour,
that the oil for the “ Lantern ” of the younger
Diogenes, is supplied by the establishment in ques
tion. The story is decidedly fishy, “very like a
whale.”
A Young Musician.
We copy the following passage from one of
Mrs. Neal’s Charleston letters to the Philadelphia
Bulletin. As we see no reason why the name
of this accomplished young musician should be
withheld, we will inform our readers that she is
Miss Francesca Guttenberger, who, with her fa
ther, teaches music in the Macon Female College.
We had the pleasure of hearing her at some of
the musical reunions to which Mrs. Neal refers
and fuily endorse her estimate of her skill as a
pianist.
“I have heard the most difficult compositions of
Strakosch, Ilerz, and Thalberg, given admirably.
The past week several musical reunions have had
an added interest from the presence of a musical
prodigy, I had almost said, from Macon, Geor
gia. She is the daughter of a blind German mu
sician, and at nine years of age accompanied him
upon the violin with remarkable taste and execu
tion. She may be sixteen at present, certainly not
more, and has a most child-like face and figure.
For three years past she has been the dependence
of her family, and though giving lessons from early
morning until a late evening hour, she has found
time to acquire wonderful execution upon the
piano and harp, with no instructor but her father.
Her own variations upon a theme from Lucia,
were marked by deep feeling, as well as brilliancy
of execution, and the Prayer from Othello, ar
ranged by Strakosch for the left hand, was clearly
and delicately articulated. With the usual per
severance of her character, she will yet be widely
known and appreciated ; even now she has been
the wonder of many musical “critics.”
A Situation Wanted.
We would ask the attention of any parties who
may be desirous of securing an accomplished
Governess, to a card which appears in our adver
tising columns this week. The lady referred to
is in possession of the very highest testimonials to
her worth and attainments. We are fully justi
fied in saying that such teachers are exceedingly
rare, and we should heartily congratulate that
family which might be fortunate enough to secure
her services.
The Quarto Form.
The new form assumed by the Gazette, is pro
nounced by our exchanges everywhere “a great
improvement.” The Edgefield Advertiser thinks
that “it should be adopted by every purely litera
ry paper.” Many others express the opinion that
the value of the paper is greatly enhanced. Our
neighbours of the Standard say—
“We consider the present form and style of the
Gazette as securing its success. At least, if h
is not now sustained, the enterprising in this line j
may as well give up in despair.”
Our Second Supplement,
With this number of our journal we send also
our second Supplement, the whole of which is oc
cupied with the attractive novellette of “The Gol
den Christmas.” It is not our intention, generally, |
to fill the supplements with a single work, but to
present some variety in each. We have concluded,
however, to complete that story without interrup
tion, and the conclusion will be found in the third
Supplement, due on the 10th of February.
[ Jan . 24,