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our estimation as a careful and comprehensive
resume of the world’s intellectual progress. It
has exhibited somewh it less vitality of late than
we expected of its advancing age and position.
In the bibliographical department it has already
been surpassed by Norton's Literary Gazette, a
monthly compend of Books and Belles Lettres
highly serviceable to the reading public.
To-Day and Bizarre comes to us—the one j
from Boston and the other from Philadelphia.
They are mote alike in their external than in
their interior characters. To-Day is dilettante,
well made up, always readable, always provoca
tive of thought, and productive of pleasure. Bi
zarre, true to its name, is a melange, in which
“black spirits and white, blue spirits and grey—
mingle, mingle.”
It is less elaborate than its Eastern cousin, and
deals more with the common places of life. It is
the more likely, however, to please the majority
of readers.
Os the multitudinous weeklies which come to
us, the Waverly Magazine is the most sentimen
tal ; Athur’s IJonu Gazette, the most sensible ;
the Home Journal, the most fashionable ; the i
Spirit of the Times, the most mirthful; Glea
son's Drawing Boom Companion, the most like a
truant school boy’s back— full of cuts ! —the
Lantern, the most melancholy—example of de
feated ambition ; and—but we forbear to swell
the catalogue. There are others upon our table ;
not unworthy to be named with the best, but our
space is exhausted. We are reluctant to say—to ‘
them all —w hat nevertheless must be said— Adieu
The Southern Literary Messenger, for Dec ,
1852. [Richmond, Va.: J. R. Thompson, Edi
tor and Proprietor.] We have received No. 12
of this able and interesting monthly. It has al
ways been one of our particular favourites. No
trash ever defiles its pages, and no journal in
America is so free from cant of any description.
The present number contains a clever criticism
and confutation of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, with other
articles of real interest and value. The book
notices by the Editor display the usual taste and
critical ability by which they have always been
distinguished.
SOiioriqi JBlrebilies.
The scenting matter called musk is found in a
small bag under the belly of a species of deer in
habiting a mountainous region of the east of Asia.
* * The palace of the Tuilleries, in Paris,
takes its name from a tile work once situated on
the spot. * * Handel was blind for eight
years before his death. * * All the editions
of Tacitus are copies of a single manuscript dis
covered in a monastery of Westphalia. * *
When you buy a horse avoid those having flat
feet and low heels. * * In South America
alone there are sixty-four different species of rats
and mice. * * In England, they bring a man
before the Police Court who attempts to get upon
a railway train while it is in motion, and impose
upon him a fine and costs. * * The scholar
who pronounced the Euphrates short instead of
SOUTHERN LITERARY GAZETTE.
long, was wittily said to have ‘abridged the liver.’
* * Cleopatra’s Needle is to be transported
from Egypt to adorn the new Crystal Palace, near
London. * * In two years from last October,
a direct hue of rail-road communication between
St. Petersburg and Marseilles will be completed.
* * Switzerland. —An order of the State of
Ticino, dated 19th ultimo, suppresses the order of
Capuchins in that Canton. * * All of Pres
cott’s historical works are published in London in
six shilling volumes. * * Ole Bull gave a
conceit at St. Louis on the Bth inst. * * There
were 174 deaths in New-Orleans last week, of
which 20 were from cholera, and 9 yellow fever.
* * The income of the Bishop of London, for
the last seven years, has averaged eighty-five
thousand dollars a year, according to his own re
turns. * * Philosophers say that shutting the
eyes makes the sense of hearing more acute. A
wag suggests that this accounts for the many
closed eyes that are seen in our churches on Sun
days. * * Dempster is giving concerts at pre
sent in Albany, and is drawing full houses. * *
The new fashioned bonnets are pronounced a bare
faced invention. * * Under the new Empire
the court costumes are to be recognized. Ladies
will no longer be received at the imperial court but
with dresses bearing the traditional train. * *
Sir T. B. Head’s “Fortnight in Ireland” is selling
rapidly in London. * * New-York has one
horse to seven persons; Ohio, one to four; and
the whole Union about one to every five
or a little over four millions in all. Os neat cattle,
the number in 1850 was 18,355,287. * * An
Arrival from TenerifTe, mentions that the dispute
on some points of official etiquette continued be
tween the recently appointed Spanish Governor
and the Consuls of America, Britain and other
uations. * * “Mankind only commences at the
rank of Baron,” once observed an Austrian field
marshal. * * There are no concerts at St.
Petersburg, except during Lent, when there are of
ten half a dozen given in one day. * * A city
j paper informs us that there are in New-York eight
hundred places where lottery tickets can be sold.
j PIERRE OR THE AMBIGUITIES.
* * From this romance we copy the following
j extraordinary description of the simple music of
the guitar. Melville has cerrainly gone crazy,
and is, we presume, by ibis time in some lunatic
asylum. Think of seeing sounds in the shape of
ol icicles! Think of hearing lightning! What
ridiculousness and senselessness and unintelli
i gibleness!
Entranced, lost, as one wandering, be
dazzled and amazed among innumerable
dancing lights, Pierre had motionlessly
listened to this abundant-haired and large
eyed girl of mystery.
“Bring me the guitar.”
Starting from his enchantment, Pierre
gazed around the room, and saw the in
strument leaning against a corner. Si
lently he brought it to the girl, and si
lently sat down again.
•f D
“ Now listen to the guitar, and the
guitar shall sing to thee, the sequel of
my story, for not in words can it be spo
ken. So listen to the guitar.
Instantly the room was populous with
sounds of melodiousness and wonderful
ness ; the room swarmed with the unin
telligible but delicious sounds. The
sounds seemed waltzing in the room ; the
sounds hung pendulous like glittering
icicles from the corners of the room, and
fell upon him with a ringing silvery
ness; and were drawn up again to the
ceiling, and hung pendulous again and
dropt down upon him again with the
ringing silveryness. Fire-flies seemed
buzzing in the sounds; summer light
nings seemed vividly, yet softly audible
in the sounds.
And still the wild girl played on the
guitar ; and her long dark shower of curls
fell over it and vailed it; and still out
from the vail came the charming sweet
ness, and the utter unintelligibleness, but
the infinite significancies of the sound
of the guitar.
“Girl of all-bewildering mystery,”
cried Pierre —“Speak to me, sister, if
thou indeed canst be a thing that’s mor
tal —speak to me if thou be Isabel !”
“Mystery, mystery,
Mystery of Isabel !
Mystery, mystery !
Isabel and Mystery!”
Among the waltzings, and the drop
pings, and the swarmings of the sounds,
Pierre now heard the tones above deftly
stealing and winding among the myriad
serpentinings of the other melody—deft
ly stealing and winding, as respected the
instrumental sounds, but in themselves
wonderfully and abandonedly free and
bold—bounding and rebounding as from
multitudinous reciprocal walls; while
with every syllable the hair-shrouded
form of Isabel, swayed to and fro with a
like abandonment and suddenness and
wantonness: —then it seemed not like
any song ; seemed not issuing from any
mouth ; but it came forth from beneath
the same veil concealing the guitar.
Now a strange wild heat burned upon
his brow ; he put his hand upon it. In
stantly the music changed ; and drooped
and changed ; and changed and changed ;
and lingeringly retreated as it changed ;
and at last was wholly gone.
Pierre was the first to break the silence.
“Isabel thou has filled me with such
wonderings; I am so distraught with thee
0 7 O
that the particular things l had to tell to
thee, when I hither came, those things I
cannot now recall to speak them to thee:
I feel that something is still unsaid by
thee, which at some other time thou wilt
reveal. But now I can stay no longer
with thee. Know me eternally as thy
loving, revering and most marveling bro
ther, who will never desert thee, Isabel.
Now let me kiss thee and depart, till to
morrow night, when I shall open to thee
all my mind, and all my plans concern-
‘[December 25 }
