Whose task on earth is done;

Of those that walked in beauty’s light

Thou wert the chosen one!

We should like to see in some appropriate journal a sketch of the Progress of Mechanics in the United States. Without any question, the Americans are, in respect of that branch of science, behind no nation or people on earth. And yet no longer ago than 1791, a clock-maker from London, after public advertisement of his arrival from England for that purpose, visited our scattered cities and towns to repair clocks! ‘Yankee ingenuity’ was not then as now synonymous with the accomplishment of any thing that can either be fabricated or ‘fixed’. ••• We have no remembrance of the communication referred to in a note from a correspondent at Albany, in which we find the following sentences: ‘If received, I hope it was not amenable to the censure in a late number of the Knickerbocker, of certain correspondence, for having been written ‘too carefully.’ Now I do flatter myself upon so writing, that compositors can have no excuse for blunders, though I am well aware that to be esteemed a Genious, one’s chirography should very nearly approach unintelligibility. If this be true, the patience and good nature of an Editor must be severely tried; but I incline to the opinion that a man of Genious need not model after Byron’s facsimile,’ and so forth. Our correspondent does write a good hand; so good indeed, that we lament, as we gaze at it, that he does not know how to spell. A man may certainly be a ‘Genious’ without being able to write a clerkly hand; but a man who is not a ‘Genious,’ ought at least to be able to spell the word. As to writing ‘too carefully,’ our censor has mistaken the letter for the spirit of our remarks. ••• The lines ‘To my Mother’ are replete with the poetry of feeling. Their literary execution however is marred by deficiencies, which although slight, require amending. Our correspondent we are sure has the true poetical vein; and we shall not despair of hearing from her again. ••• A very ‘inquiring’ correspondent desires to know ‘whether there is any thing below a quartette, in music?—a pintette or a gillette?’ He is also anxious, he says, to ‘ascertain whether Puffer Hopkins is any relation to the pious poet who was in partnership in the psalm and hymn way with old Uncle Sternhold, a great many years ago.’ Moreover, he considers it ‘a little curious’ that a black hen should lay a white egg; and states that he ‘would give something handsome to be certain whether or no Nebuchadnezzar’s hands, when he was out on grass, grew six-penny or ten-penny nails!’ His remaining queries are profane; indeed, the last one goes somewhat too near the edge. ••• ‘Ever anxious to please,’ as the advertisements have it, we have placed the original department of the Knickerbocker in a larger type; and it seems to us that we may ask with some confidence whether our readers ever saw a Magazine in a neater garniture than ‘this same?’ Only have the consideration to reciprocate our endeavors to please you, good Public, and you ‘shall see what you shall see.’ There are certain delinquents upon our books, to whom we would venture to insinuate, in the most delicate manner conceivable, that ‘it is high time somebody had a sight of somebody’s money.’ ••• A new style of frames for drawings, engravings, paintings, looking-glasses, etc., has recently been brought to great perfection, and into very general favor, by Mr. Weiser, at No. 43 Centre-street, near Pearl. They are composed externally of glass-veneerings, beautifully painted and shaded, so as to resemble different-tinted woods, tortoise-shell, or indeed any other colors that may be desired. These are painted on the inner side of the glass, which is so firmly cemented to the wood-frames as to be little liable to injury from jarring or even falling. With a gilt beading, they have a very beautiful appearance, by reason of the admirable lustre of the glass, which gives to them a polish finer than that of the most susceptible woods. They are, in short, exceedingly handsome, easily kept clean, always new and fresh, and what is worthy of mention, much cheaper than wood or gilt.

⁂ Will our readers have the kindness to exhibit the Advertisement of our Twenty-third Volume to their friends? It will be found on the second and third pages of the cover of the present number; and they can testify to the accuracy of its unexaggerated statements. Many articles in prose and verse await examination or insertion, and a more particular reference hereafter. Notices are in type of new publications from the presses of Messrs. Burgess and Stringer, M. W. Dodd, J. Winchester, the Langley’s, D. Appleton and Company, M. H. Newman, Wiley and Putnam, and of the ‘Columbian Magazine,’ which we are reluctantly compelled to defer to our February issue.

Footnotes

  1. [Return to text]Heures, prayers.
  2. [Return to text]Float.
  3. [Return to text]This allusion is to Byrant’s lines ‘To the Fringed Gentian,’ a poem so replete with truth and beauty, that we cannot resist the inclination to quote it here.
  4. Ed. Knickerbocker.
  5. Thou blossom bright with autumn dew,
  6. And coloured with the heaven’s own blue.
  7. That openest, when the quiet light
  8. Succeeds the keen and frosty night.
  9. Thou comest not when violets lean
  10. O’er wandering brooks and springs unseen,
  11. Or columbines, in purple dressed,
  12. Nod o’er the ground-bird’s hidden nest.
  13. Thou waitest late, and com’st alone,
  14. When woods are bare and birds are flown,
  15. And frosts and shortening days portend
  16. The aged year is near his end.
  17. Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye
  18. Look through its fringes to the sky,
  19. Blue—blue—as if that sky let fall
  20. A flower from its cerulean wall.
  21. I would that thus, when I shall see
  22. The hour of death draw near to me,
  23. Hope, blossoming within my heart,
  24. May look to heaven as I depart.
  25. [Return to text]By the word ‘columnæ,’ Horace (though Bentley knew it not) evidently meant the columns of the Roman newspapers.
  26. [Return to text]The name of Boston, in Lincolnshire, is said to be derived from St. Botolph—quasi Botolph’s town.
  27. [Return to text]At the late opening of the ‘Tremont Temple’ in Boston, the new proprietors chanted what they called a ‘Purification Hymn,’ of which we give one stanza:
  28. ‘Satan has here held empire long—
  29. A blighting curse, a cruel reign;
  30. By mimic scenes, and mirth and song
  31. Alluring souls to endless pain!’
  32. [Return to text]The Norwich company of players, to which he belonged.