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140 LITERARY. WILLIAn W. MANN, Editor. The Southern Field and Fireside IS PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY. TEEMS—*2.OO a year, Invariably In advance. All Postmasters are authorized agents. BATUEDAY SEPTEMBER 17, 1559. TO CORRESPONDENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS We have to acknowledge the reception, du ring the week, of the following communications: An article in Prose, from W. H. P.; A Poem from same; Memory—a Sketch, by E. F. P.; The Fishing Scrape, by J. M. T.; The Girl with the Azure Eye, by Timotheus; I Dreamed of my Home, by same ; The Saxon Mayd, by Indamird ; A Description of the Aurora Borealis ; (The friend who communicated the last named paper, has forgotten to apprize us of the writer’s name.) We respectfully decline the following arti cles : Lines to J. L. K., by M. J. T.; Memory, a Poem, by W. D. S.; “ Down where the Mississippi's Waters ’’ ; To Virginia ; Lines to one I knew in former days; Song for the Montgomery True Blues ; Religion—the Beautifier ; The Drunkard's Wife; “ To Look and Feel, to Sigh and Weep” ; Lines in answer to ‘‘What is Poetry ?” To Italy, byC.E. G.; Lines addressed to Miss L. A. F.; Our Carrier's Address ; Verses, composed during a Storm. Won’t the writer of the lines commencing with “Eureka! Eureka! our wing is unfurled,” send another article to our address ? We think that we would be glad to give welcome to a second article from that pen. ty It is with much pleasure that we intro duce to our readers, with this number, two new prose contributors. We trust that the acquain tance will be productive of mutual pleasure. Mrs. Caroline Hentz Branch, author of the new novelette, “Saturday Night,” which we com mence to-day, on our second page, comes to us from Florida, with a prestige that can hardly fail to secure for her a most hearty welcome. She has a family title to the distinction of talent and popular favor, being the daughter of Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz, and the sister of our ac complished and talented contributor, the author of the prize poem, A Dream of Locust Dell, Mrs. Julia L. Keyes, of Montgomery, Ala. All our readers will, we are sure, peruse the opening chapters of Mrs. Branch’s story; and will look with interest for thoso which will follow, con taining its continuation and conclusion. Our second new contributor will be hailed with no less pleasure by all the friends of the Field and Fireside, and of Southern Literature. This, too, is a lady: and, we are happy to an nounce—so much we may say without violation of editonal discretion and faith—of our own State, and of our own city. We do hope that for our paper’s sake, our city’s, and her own, the writer of the Essay on our third page, “ Charles Lamb's Suppers, and Dr. Holmes' Breakfasts ,” will e’er long remove the injunction which now constrains us, and permit the disclosure of her name. THOMPSON’S “POESY.” We have desired, since its first appearance on our table, and have weekly intended to gratify the readers of the Southern Field & Fireside by reproducing, in part, a poem recently recited by Mr. John R. Thompson, of Richmond, Va., before the Literary Societies of Columbian Col lege, Washington, D. C., at the Smithsonian In stitute. We will defer, no longer, this gratifica tion to our readers, and this justice to one of our first literary men. Mr. Thompson is a special favorite of ours. We have long consid ered him one of the most—nay, why not speak out our thought at once?—we have long con sidered him the most graceful and elegant writer of the South. And to justify*this appre ciation of him, wo appeal confidently to the pages of the Southern Literary Messenger, of which Mr. T. has been for many years the Ed itor, to the editorial and critical articles, and to the occasional poetical compositions, w r ith which he has enriched and adorned the pages of that able monthly. This last production of his facile pen, which we are about to introduce to our readers, is quite worthy of his reputation. It comprises some three hundred and fifty lines of chaste, melodious, and classical composition, which the author has entitled “Poesy; An Es say in Rhyme." The publishers Bhould, with out his privity, have placed upon the title-page, Poesy; A Poetical Essay. The poem opens with an allusion to the litera ry festivals, celebrated at Athens, in ancient Greece, in honor of “ Learning,” when Greece was in her glory. The very marble of her no ble sanes has now crumbled into dust; and Athens owes the immortality she eDjoys, not to her bronzes and marbles, but to her poets and her orators. This thought is finely conveyed by Mr. Thompson, in the following graphic lines: “Two thousand changeful years have passed away, Os cruel havoc and of fell decay— The polished temples, ‘neath the brilliant sky Os old Athena now in ruin lie; And a deep pathos, a most tender pity Subdues the soul within the ancient city: The Erechtbeum—how each fragment shines! What desolate beauty in the broken lines! The Parthenon— alas, the summer breeze Kisses no more at morn the perfect frieze Which once revealed the glory and the Joy, Panathenaic, to the Grecian boy. But the great poems of the bards sublime Remain unwasted by the wreck of Time; Graceful and caltn, in symmetry severe, These wondrous temples of the mind appear; ABd light. In richer flood than that whlct* fills The smiling circuit of the Athenian hills, Streams upon shaft and portico and floor, “The light that never was on sea or shore !’ sacs soimmuß vxs&n sn sxjpbsxuk. It would be difficult to cite from the whole range of English literature a finer.burst of well sustained eulogy to the address of Poesy than is contained in the following passage from pages 9 and 10 of the pamphlet before us : *• Would'st know the value of a simple rhyme Sent down the widening, deepening stream of time ? Let memory seek, amidst the august scenes So recent—scarce a lustrum intervenes, The chamber where the dying Webster lay, And heard the elegiac melodies of Gray Mingling with ocean’s everlasting roar Borne through the casement from the neighb’ring shore, The deathless music of th’immortal mind With Nature’s grandest symphonies combined. Or note the contrast well afforded here And let the triumph of the bard appear. Two monumental tributes to the brave Mark one a famous, one a lonely grave— Earth's proudest city, gay with gilded spires And domes which kindle in the sunsets fires, Guards one, with marble muses looking down Where sleeps the dust that wore the Ciesars' crown: Contain the other—lt is everywhere, As far as mighty England's form of speech. Blown wide upon the winds of fame, can reach, Before the mental eye, its shape it rears Above a turf bedewed with grateful tears; And when Napoleon’s obsequies, with all Their georgeous pageantry of plumes and pall. Have faded quite away from man's esteem. Like the swift splendors of a passing dream ; When the proud chapel shall itself display A shattered monument of sad decay — And queenly Paris shall have shared the fate Os Tadmor overthrown and desolate; That plaintive Monody, whose numbers tell Os him that bravely at Corunna fell — IIU silent burial near the midnight camp. By the pole moonbeam and the glimmering lamp, Khali still the cruel uaste of years defy, Enduring cenotaph of I‘oeey ! And again, in the following harmonious lines : •‘But while the amaranth waits for kingly brows, Some laurel wreaths our grateful love allows To him whose sunny genius lifts to light The meanest objects of our daily sight. Who seeks to brighten still the links that bind In blest communion all of human kind; Or passion’s tempest In the breast would calm With some sweet, lowly, penitential psalm : Such poets sow the seeds of truth and beauty To blossom into holy faith and duty— And though the tares of selfishness and pride Spring up to choke them upon every side, And many a tender shoot the world erases From the hard pavements of its market-places, Some fall on friendly soil, warm hearts and true, Where, watered by affection’s kindliest dew, They stretch their hows into the upper air, And In due season richer fruitage bear Than fabled branches hung with globes of gold, Some thirty, fifty, some an hundred fold 1” There are many who contend —right glad are we that a strong instinct of our nature urges us to declare that yve are not of the number —there are many who contend that the days of Poetry, like the days of Chivalry, are gone. Steamers and Maury, say they, have driven her from Ocean ; Briarean Science, with her hammer and retort, her microscope, and telescope, and loga rithms, breaking, decomposing, scrutinizing, computing every thing, lias driven, or is rapidly driving her from Earth and Air, making the re mote regions of space, the lactea via itself, as humdrum, familiar and prosaic as your road to maruet. Here are thirty fine lines of our poet, in which he repels this unwelcome idea. We heartily sympathize with the indignation that moves him, though we would be unable to utter our in dignation in his own harmonious numbers : “We’ll not believe It. Shall the windy ocean Stop the careering of its rhythmic motion. Or’neath the moonlight, when the whirlwinds cease, No longer woo us to a dream of peace, Because a Maury, standing at the helm, Drives the proud bark of Science o’er its realm, Detects Its viewless currents in their courses. And brings to measurement its mighty forces ? Shall not the sun still seek the Jungfrau’s side To deck with diamonds his majestic bride — Shall not the glacier's beryl-tinted caves, Beneath the glittering waste of icy waves, Still shake with Hallelujahs, peal on peal, And all Chamouni’s templed valley reel, From brawling Arve to pinnacled Aiguille, Because a learned botanist uncloses The scarlet petals of the Alpine roses, And some pale student asks the frozen arch The secret of the glacier's onward march ? Ah, ‘ star-eyed Science!’ Fancy claims in thee A loving sister of the Wogld To Be — Admits each worthy, reverent son of thine As priest to worship at her radiant shrine, And comes with tenderest sorrow, in her turn, . To [dace a garland upon Humboldt's urn. All, all are poets on whom God confers The gift of Nature's true interpreters ; While the eternal hills their anthems raise And swelling oceans vocalize His praise.” We conclude our extracts from Mr. Thomp son’s poem with a reproach. It ill'becomes the poet who has himself attained so high a degree of Horatian grace to attack the famous- Horatian maxim so wrathfully and unjustly, as it seems to us lie has‘done. Unjustly, we insist upon it. We are not —’tis true, and pity 'tis, ’tis true— very fresh from our Latin grammar—and ’tis so long since we read the Be Arte Poetica that we ought to have forgiven and forgotten the tyrant that flogged us over it, (but we hav’nt)—yet we do timidly suggest that our poet is mistransla ting Horace. The famous hexameters run thus: “ Mediocribus esse poetis Non homines, non dii, non concessere columnce." Has not our poet-critic censured it as though it read minoribus instead of mediocribus 1 The poetas minores write such poems as Gray’s Elegy, Hoheulinden, The Burial of Sir John Moore, The Bridge of Sighs,—such lines as these we are now criticising, and which we are going to quote presently, Mr. Thompson. Horace did not mean to say that neither men, nor the gods, nor the shops could tolerate these. The poetce mediocres write such poems as encumber heavily our own editorial shelves —do they not your’s sometimes, Mr. Thompson ?—such sonnets as are written by Ah, there are now several proper names upon our very pen’s tip—but wo must not blow them off; and we must hasten to give the last extract promised from Mr. Thompson’s poem. Horace himself would read it with pleasure, notwithstanding the injustice done him—and we are sure our readers will. .The editor of the stately monthly gives, in the lines cited below, a very free translation of the Latin columnce, which, to the ears of us editors of weeklies, sounds almost like a sneer—but we’ll let that pass. Here are the lines : “And here the horrid old Horatian maxim, Which the poor rhymer's had so long to tax him, The bard remembers, and may fitly quote, (Though doubtless many have the line by rote) That neither gods nor men. in their distress, Nor yet the columns of the weekly press, Can view as other than a dreadful wrong The lowlier offerings of tuneful song— A line which means, as certain critics think. That smaller poetß should not deal in ink, And that until the mighty prophets come The port of I’oesy is to be dumb. Dishonoured ever be the narrow rule Which claims no reverence in kind Nature's school, Which neither Bummer's birds nor blooms obey In the glad minstrelsy of rising day. Your Mi Itons. Goethes, are an age apart. Meanwhile shall no one touch the world’s sad heart f The stately aloe's snowy bloom appears Butonce, we know, within a hundred years; Because, forsooth, the aloe is the glory Os Chatsworth’s notable conservatory, Shall not the modest daisy from the sod Turn its meek eyes in beauty up to God? In nature's daily prayer, when comes the dawn To tell its beads upon the dewy lawn, Shall the sweet matins of the rosy hours Miss the pure incense of the little flowers ? Oh gentle spirits, wheresoe'er you dwell, On breezy upland or in quiet dell, Whether you sing in solitude and shade. Or in the sullen, crowded haunts of trade, — Whose simple rhyming, in its artless grace, Has touched some hidden sorrow of the race. Or tahght the world one humble lesson more Os subtle beauty all unknown before. Or soothed one heart, just when its need was sorest, With harmonies of ocean and of forest, — To you be ever horn irable meed. In spite of captious Horace and his creed. While the great poets soar beyond the ken Os the worUTstoiling, hearing mass of men. Like the proud falcon quickly lost to view In the unde field of Heaven's o'erarching blue,— You linger round the dwellings of our lore. As birds that carol in the eates above, And fill forever a* the days increase. Our homes with music, and our hearts with peace." We had the pleasure of publishing, in a late number, a very graceful little poetic effusion from the pen of Mr. Thompson ; and we hope it will not be the last with which we shall be favored. In deed, a promise to that effect, not limited to the poetic department, might, we think, by a little searching, be discovered in our letter files.— Prose or Poetry, as his humor inclines, from the pen of this pleasant wyity. will ever find proper and (while we continue the Editor,) a welcome place in the Literary Department of The South ern Field and Fireside. — FROM OUR PARIS CORRESPONDENT. Paris, Sept. Ist, 1859. If ‘‘happy the people that has no history,” be a true saying, then are the French just now haviug rather a pleisant time of it—history being understood, ii. the old orthodox sense of the word, to bo mack up of wars, treaties, and “such high politics.” Now the wars are over and the very rumors of war are nearly. That large and mistaken c.ass of people, who always have in their wiseicro mouths, that straws show which way the wind blows, are not quite yet done prognosticating a new storm of “leaden rain and iron hail.” They forget that storms are not the surest indication of the great atmospheric currents, but are often whiffled about by little side eddies, and some times by the puffing of a fool's breath. An impertinent article in tho Constitutionel the other day, wherein the Belgi ans were told that the proposed enlargement and strengthening of tho fortifications of Ant werp either meant substantially an offensive alliance with England against France, or had no meaning, was an instance of the latter sort, which • for a moment excited the gaping attention of the weather-foolish, and the alarm of the imaginative ly timid. It was written by a member of the legislative body, and published in a government paper, they said, wagging their heads with a knowing or scared air. They forgot that M. do Cassagnac, has more vigor of style than depth of judgment, and that his so-called government journal is not an official organ of government. This sensation article was purely a voluntary performance, such as he has startled the public with from time to time before. The public has forgotten them, as it is now fast forgetting this, and will soon be quite ready to be startled afresh. If the pensive public would use on such occa sions, I won’t say its judgment, but even its memory, it would spare itself tho shock. The making of Lillo the head-quarters of one of the six military arrondissements in the new territo rial arrangement of the army, was also caught at as an indication of coming troubles; as though, since some new town must be chosen for the new head-quarters, one should present itself more naturally than Lille. But as I said, apprehensions of this sort are diminishing. Tho talk of war with England lulls away; of course it will revive again before six mouths are over—for that space of time can not pass without offering some text for diplo matic notes of extraordinary politeness, for bul lying in the London Times, and fanfaronade in the Paris press; and then the bickerings will die away again. A French war with England would be so insane; above all, an attempt at French invasion of Eng land would be such “ red rosed-madness,” that, I think, Louis Napoleon must become insane before he undertakes the enterprise. Now, in sanity is not likely to attack such a tempera ment ; he certainly has shown no signs of it of late years, except in the correspondence of the Manchester Guardian, and other equally ill-in formed journals. The first Napoleon, whom the nephew is more apt to follow in his general poli cy, than in its erroneous details, when he was preparing his formidable attack, (if, in his mind, it was ever intended for more than the formi dable appearance of attack,) upon England, re marked, that the going thither offered less diffi culties than the return. There are three peace preserving causes to be noticed; a commercial, a political aud a moral cause. England is the best customer of France. In the year 1850, France sold to England, of her own products, manufactur ed and agricultural, to the amount of 47,800,000 dollars, (not francs,)that is, 9,000,000 dollars more than to our country, her next best customer. But in 1850 commerce was just beginning to re cover from the depressing influences of 1848-49. I cannot put iny hand upon the official figures of last year; we all know they show a very large increase. Merchants’ notes and Bankers’ bills of exchange, unite the two countries far more ef fectually, than diplomatic paper. An attack upon Great Britain, would be an attack upon the looms of Lyons, and the river wine-stores of Bordeaux, and the shipping of Havre, and —what is even more serious, both commercially and politically —on the workshops of Paris. Turning now from this partial view, for it by no means covers the whole extent of the commercial, or financial cause, let us look a mo ment upon one phase only of the political cause. Louis Napoleon’s first ambition, nay his first ne cessity, as Emperor of the French, is to give and secure to the nation a formidable, if possible, a commanding position among European States. If an active English alliance is not necessary to this end, English enmity would surely be de structive to this end. Stronger, perhaps, than either of tho above, is what I name the moral cause. If your compos itor prints stranger, instead of stronger, at the head of this sentence, you may think the typo graphical error a rhetorical improvement. I could hardly blame him myself, yet he would be wrong. Stronger is probably the correct reading —let me try to tell you why. It is worth telling, though for the third, as for the two other pa cific causes, the narrow limits of a letter leaves room only for indication, not demonstration. I entered the field as your correspondent about the time the allied armies entered trium pliant into Milan, and partook somewhat of the warlike and exulting mood of those about me. Great events of the glaring and glorious sort followed on so fast as to crowd out mainly from the brief weekly record much notice of other contemporaneous facts, and left no space at all for remarks on the state of public opinion as to the war before its outbreak. And indeed, while the fighting was going on, furnishing to the strong French passions of vanity and patri otism their weekly rations of triumph and glory, in the weekly report Jof a new victory, the war was as popular as any war not waged for national independence. The popularity seemed, indeed, greater than it was. The vainly patriotic were noisily exultant; the wisely patriotic could not find it in their hearts, naturally somewhat touched by the con tagious enthusiasm, to damp their ardor; the discontented, it need not be said, could not find it" in their interest to give loud voice to their dis content. But if the rejoicings over victories were great, the rejoicings at the peace were greater. Whatever doubts were felt otherwheres, the first announcement of the armistice was seized upon with a sort of greediness, as it were, and instant ly and almost universally interpreted to be the necessary preliminary to an approaching peace. At the Bourse the public funds went up four per cent, in two days—an almost unexampled rise. When peace itself was announced, even sooner than was expected, (that the report of the favor able reception of the armistice at home had much to do with it, is highly probable,) the news was received throughout the city with universal ex pressions of gladness—people not only hung out gaily-colored flags from their windows in greater profusion than after the victory of Solferino, but they put smiles on their faces and gladness in the tone of theif voices. The few ignorant or embittered malcontents were too few to be noticed by any but the police. That then and since then, the terms of the Villa franca preliminaries met and meet with criticism that is anything but complimentary, is perfectly true. But excepting those individuals who were hoping to see the war become general and revo lutionary in its character, and through the fol lowing confusion saw their Temple of Liberty beyond—standing as usual on ruins—excepting this faction, whose political wisdom you know— the nation, in the proportion of ninety-nine to a hundred, without distinction of social class, nearly without distinction of political class, would not have had the war prolonged another day. And from that day to this, scarcely one has passed that has not brought to light new proof of popular sentiment in like kind, till their volume and weight force the conviction that this military people, however warlike, have grown sensible enough not to like war. To note one largo instance or class of in stances. The departmental Councils General hold their annual meetings at this season. The columns of the Moniteur for the past week have been largely taken up with their loyal addresses to the Emperor. Os course they are all highly complimentary to the successful general, but they are still more complimentary to tho peace maker, and join to their congratidations on the peace the declaration that “it had constantly been the desire and interest of France.” It is now openly confessed that tho war was unpop ular in advance. Presidents of Councils General and others most likely to know the Imperial purposes, his half-brother M. de Moray among the number, all preach and promise for the im mediate future large government encouragement to the practice of the works of peace. His Ma jesty preaches in the same strain. That the discourses of Napoleon and his sub ordinates are not always to be taken au pied de la lettre is, unhappily, quite true. Say, then, in American phrase, this talk of peace is “ all Bun combe.” Few men understand that sort of rhet oric and its value, better than his Majesty. The Buncombe hypothesis, then, rather strengthens my argument. When Col. Wapshot, pending an election, raises his eloquent voice from every stump in the district in favor, say, of reducing the pay of congressmen, we may be sure that whatever else the Colonel may really think about it, he thinks that his hoped for constituents are thinking very generally and favorably about it. Now I argue from the Colonel a fortiori to the Em peror. Col. W. wants to get a seat; L. N. B. wants to keep his seat. Apropos of Congress, the European one, the great probability of which I have always main tained, becomes more and more probable to pubhc opinion here. The obstacles in tho way of a settlement of the Italian Question by the Zurich conference, have been increased by the movement of events since its first meeting. The only point which the plenipotentiaries have decided as yet, if they have really decided upon anything, is tho annexation of Lombardy and the arrangement of the new frontier—the sim plest of all the points they had to discuss. The more difficult matter of allotting to Austria and Piedmont their respective shares of the Lom bard debt is supposed to bo still in debate. As for the far graver themes of restoring the runa way Dukes and constituting the Italian confed eration, they appear hardly to have approached them. It is evident they might as well let them alone. It is hard to see bow a European Con gress can give a permanent settlement to Italy ; it is very easy to see that this conference can not. Meantime the Italians themselves are working bravely toward a solution of the diffi culty. They had already surprised the world by their strength and calmness. If they can con tinue to hold on in this firm, wise course, mid way between revolution and reaction, what pow er would dare impose violence upon them ? Not Louis Napoleon for one. He has never bound himself to force back the old rulers updu the unwilling populations of the Duchies. In terest, stronger than words, binds him not to suffer Austria to re-impose those rulers by force. It was necessary to conciliate Francis Joseph and secure his signature to the Villafranca pre liminaries, that he should agree that they might be re-called ; doubtless, does recommend their recall in a serai or sub-diplomatic way ; does not, however, bear the slightest appearance of getting into a perspiration with the effort in that direction ; on the contrary, takes his bath very quietly at St. Sauveur, whence he will go to Biar ritz and thence to Compiegne, for the autumnal hunting in the forest there, to which he invited a number of officers with whom he dined at theTuileries last May, just bofore their going off to the war. His policy is that of a “ masterly inactivity"—letting events have their share, watching, and as opportunity serves, trying to guide, but not to stem their course. If he gets a Congress to share the responsibility of set tling Italy, he gets what lie wants: a sufficient excuse to throw on others the blame of what is bad, and keep to himself the credit of what is good in it. If ho do not, his position is still good. lie can well say to Austria, “ settle on my terms, or let it alone, just as you like; won’t have any more fighting just now in the Peninsula ; can’t help it if all the Tuscans and Modenese will unite themselves to Sardinia ; as for your relative, the Duko of Modena, must leave him to the tender mercies of Garibaldi— seen his letter, perhaps ?’’ These Ducal letters, first published a few days ago by a committee of'the Modenese government appointed to examine the Ducal archives aud edit such MSS. found there as were likely to tell against the Duke, are now going the rounds of the French press to the great amusement of most readers, the Emperor doubtless among the number. His Imperial Majesty is not much giv en to laughter, but the perusal of these extraor dinary specimens of epistolary literature must have provoked the broadest of grins at the ex pense of his Ex-ducal majesty. Victor Hugo could not have written more abusively, nor near ly as vulgarly of Louis Napoleon, as his little brother sovereign wrote of him. He styles him a “brigand,” ( quel lr\gznte). “Mister Bona parte” ( Signor Bonaparte) and “ soi-disant Em peror” ; he styles a journal that speaks decently of him, “ a nasty, stupid ” journal; he styles his partisans “ scamps ” and the “ Bonapartist gang.” The date of the most flowery of the letters is 1855. Pray read (and urge your readers) a very dif ferent sort of Italian “State paper;” the long memorandum addressed to Europe and the world by the provisional Tuscan government. For eloquence tempered by judgment, supported by logic based on truth, we need go back in the his tory of national documents to our own Declara tion of Independence to find its worthy peer.— I cannot refrain from quoting one brief passage: “ The question now at issue between Tuscany and the reigning dynasty reduces itself to these terms: whether the vanquished shall lay down the law to the victors—whetlier a civil ized people, who have given proof of all the civic virtues, shall be sacrificed to those who make no account of such virtues—whether the am bition and interests of one family shall prevail over the interests and wishes of two millions of men. Let Europe and the world’s conscience answer.” But here I am at the “ end of my worsted,” having spun this sombre colored political yarn to a most unconscionable length. If I give my word of honor that in my next, I will write of gayer themes, if not more gaily, will your read ers pardon and wait ? Os course if some regi cide bomb or pistol goes off in the interval, they will release me from my parole— Talking of lire arms, reminds me that there vnR be a chapter of accidents to record next week —so I will give the heading now, and leave it to you to fill up with wounded Frenchmen: I said last Thurs day everybody had gone out of town, leaving only about 1,100,000 humans in Paris; now every body else has gone for a “ day’s shooting in the country,” the hunting season having just commenced. The Parisians have a decided pas sion for fishing and hunting; they never catch anything, and next to never shoot anything but themselves, so it is their fault, not mine, if I make game of them. It ought to be very sad, but is, in fact, unaccountably funny to read, as we shall for the next month in the items column of the newspapers, how Monsieur Ganache shot himself in this part, and Monsieur Badaud shot himself in that part of his sportive body.— As I came from breakfast this morning, I met three of these cits with large game bags, and guns, and other accessories, riding out to a rail way station on their way to some place where they had hired a shooting privilege. I laughed at first, then I observed that they had a dbg with them, and grew melancholy, for I love dogs, and they will be sure to shoot that dog by mis take, and miss the rabbit. It is said that such men return to the bosoms of their families by way of the great central market, where they fill their bags with rabbits and partridges at reason able rates. — The Washington Monument. —Lieut. Ives, architect and engineer in charge of the Wash ington Monument, has made an official report to the Society, in which he says that when raised to the height of COO feet, the entiro weight of the shaft and foundation will be 70,000 tons. The weight of the structure, in its present condition, is 40,000 tons. lie has been unable to detect any appearance of settling or indications of in security. By scientific calculations he has ar rived at the conclusion that the weight alone of the monument, at its full height, would offer a resistance nearly eight times greater than the overturning efffct of the heaviest tempest to which it would probably ever be exposed. It was proposed to the Monument Society, many years ago, to surround the foot of the obelisk with a base of a Pantheon form, and an engra ving was made of the Monument as it would ap pear if completed in accordance with the plan. An impression has been in this way created throughout the country that the engraved de sign has been adopted, and cannot now be de viated from without tearing down what lips al ready been built. But as it has been the inten tion of the Society to accept the plan referred to, and as the error which exists seems to have an injurious effect, Lieut. Ives suggects the ex pediency of notifying the public officially that the obelisk is the only portion of the Monument the form of which is decided upon, and that the determination of the design for the base is still open for consideration. In this suggestion of Lieut. Ives the Society has concurred. The number of female donors to the “Museum of Comparative Zoology,” just established, is noteworthy, as it reveals the interest Fros. Agassiz has infused into the public mind in Bos ton on his favorite science, and also shows the public spirit of the opulent women of Boston. The subscriptions of this class ure as follows: Miss Mary Ann Wales, $100; Mrs. Abby L.- Wales, $100; Mrs. Robert G. Shaw, $300; Miss Ann Wigglesworth, $500; Mrs. G. H. Shaw, SSOO ; Miss Abby M. Loring, $500; Miss Mary Wigglesworth. $500; Miss Sara Greene, $500; Mrs. Elijah Loring, $500; Mrs. H. F. Sayles, $1,000; Miss Sarah Pratt, $1,000; Miss Brim mer, $1,000: Miss Mary Pratt, $1,000; Mrs. Abbot Lawrence, $2,000. Total from Boston women, $9,500. OBITUARY, Departed this life, on the'l2th August. 1859, at Stone Mountain, (la., Matilda Anna, wife of George W. Mor gan, and daughter of William and Martha Micou. In the death of this amiable, pious, Christian woman, this community, in which she was bom, and where her life was spent, partß with one. who, in all the relations of life that woman usually sustains, was a bright example to her sex. The Church, in which for more than a quarter of a cen tury, she had joined in 14 Sweet Communion’s solemn vows, Hymns of Love and Praise,” — mourns the loss of one whose unblemished life, uniform and consistent piety,commended its “heavenly ways,” to all who knew her. The poorpnlways with us,”) will miss in hor a gene rous friend, prompt to administer to their temporal and spiritual wants, and ever ready to excuse their many faults and foibles, knowing the peculiar temptations which surrounded them. In her friendship she was constant and sincere—faith ful and true. The faults that she In others saw, she sought not to conceal, but when deploring, always plead for them that charity, which believeth all things; bcareth all things; hopeth all things. A warm admirer of what is grand and beautiful in Na ture, or attractive in Art: all that contributed to expand the mind, elevate the thoughts, refine and purify the taste, was unceasingly dear to her heart. Affliction early claimed her for his own, and the he roism with which she struggled with her many physical infirmities, astonished, whilst it commanded the adrnira t.on of those who knew her best, nnd saw her most. Her last moments, though moments of intense bodily anguish, were spent in offering up prayers, the most de vout and earnest, for those nearest aud dearest the Moth er’s heart. Beautiful conclusion, to a life of patient suffering and self denial I Her children will rise up and call her blessed. Augusta, Ga, 12th September, 1859.