Miss Silsbee, of Salem, with a form of great symmetry, possesses a countenance not only beautiful, but entirely intellectual—the most so of any you have met with either here or elsewhere; it is of the Italian model; and should have basked beneath an Italian sky. She is very easy, graceful and modest in her deportment, and dresses 'rich not gaudy;' the cameo necklace that graced her person was only the foil that set off the diamond.
Miss Harper of Baltimore, with a fine face and form, is particularly unrivalled for a bust of unrivalled symmetry; it would furnish a model for a Canova; and reminds me of Greenough's Medora.
Miss M'Lane of this city, with many separate charms that could not fail of attraction, unites with them the finest of fine forms.
And last, not least, the younger Miss Cass possesses the most perfect Madonna countenance I have ever seen clothed in living lustre. It was one of the first that attracted my attention when I entered the saloon, and the last that received my parting glance when I retired; it seemed to be—
"While in, above the world;"
I am told it is entirely characteristic; that she is in heart and thought, what you behold in her countenance—happy, but not gay; serious but not sad; devout, yet not a devotee.
In the "Salem Gazette" of 1815 is the following curious information about Scott's novels, which shows how easy it is for people to be mistaken.
William Erſkine, Eſq. is ſaid to be the author of the new and intereſting Novel, "Guy Mannering."—Walter Scott had been pronounced the author.
Waverly.—It is not yet decided to whom this very intereſting novel belongs. It came into the world with all the advantage that the name of Walter Scott could give it; but Guy Mannering's appearance ſeems to have diſſolved that connection. An article in our first page attributes the work to Wm. Erſkine; but in the laſt North-American Review we read the following:—"An Engliſh Magazine ſays, the author of Waverly and Guy Mannering is a young gentleman of the name of Forbes, the ſon of a Scotch baronet." The Review remarks, that the extract in the title page of the latter, from the Lay of the Laſt Minſtrel, was a delicate way of informing the public that they were under a miſtake in attributing the former to Walter Scott.