Thus endeth ‘Fytte ye First.’ We learn from the preface that the ‘Rhime of the Manne whose Mothre did not Know he was Out,’ and ‘Ye Lodgemente of Maistre Fergisoune,’ are also in the editor’s possession, but owing to the imperfect state of the MSS., it is doubtful whether they will ever be published. They have however been submitted to the inspection of ‘The Percy Society!’ ••• We are well pleased to learn that Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer, the distinguished author, is soon to visit the United States. That he will be warmly welcomed and cordially received, we cannot doubt; but we have good reason to believe that in the present instance at least our admiration of true genius will be tempered by all proper self-respect. Mr. Bulwer has for many years entertained a desire to visit America. In one of his letters to the late Willis Gaylord Clark, now lying before us, he writes: ‘I have long felt a peculiar admiration for your great and rising country; and it gives me a pleasure far beyond that arising from a vulgar notoriety, to think that I am not unknown to its inhabitants. Some time or other I hope to visit you, and suffer my present prepossessions to be confirmed by actual experience.’ ••• We have received and perused with gratification the last report of the ‘New-York Asylum for Deaf Mutes.’ The institution is in the most flourishing condition, and its usefulness greatly increased. We are sorry to perceive, by the following ‘specimen of composition’ of a pupil in the eighth class, that the ‘Orphic Sayings’ of Mr. A. Bronson Alcott are taken as literary models by the deaf and dumb students. The ensuing is certainly much better, internally, than anything from the transcendental ‘seer;’ but the manner too nearly resembles his, for both to be original. There is the same didactic condensation, the same Orphic ‘oneness,’ which distinguishes all Alcottism proper. It is entitled ‘Story of Hog:’
‘I walked on the road. I stood near the water. I undressed my feet. I went in the water. I stood under the bridge. I sat on the log. I washed my feet with hands. I looked at large water came. I ran in the water. I ran out the water. The large water floated fast. I afraid. I wiped feet with stockings. I dressed my feet with stockings and shoes. I went on the ground. I stood on the ground. I seen at the hog ate grass. The hog seen at me. I went on the ground. I ran. The hog heard. The hog looked at me. It ran and jumped. The hog ran under the fence and got his head under the fence and want to ran out the fence! I caught ears its hog. The hog shout. I pulled the hog out the fence. I struck a hog with hand. I rided on the hog ran and jumped fast. The hog ran fell on near the water. I rided off a hog. I stood. I held one ear its hog. The hog slept lies on near the water. I waited. I leaved. I went from the hog. The hog awoke. It rose. It saw not me. It ran and jumped. The hog went from the water. The hog went in the mud and water. The hog wallowed in the mud and water became very dirty. It slept. I went. I went into the house.’
The Ekkalaeobion is the name given to an establishment opposite the Washington Hotel, in Broadway, where the formation of chickens, ab initio, is ‘practised to a great extent.’ And really, it is in some respects an awful exhibition, to a reflecting mind. It is as it were a visible exposition of the source of life. You see the pulse of existence throbbing in the yet unformed mass, which assumes, day after day, the image of its kind; until at length the little creature knocks for admittance into this breathing world; steps forth from the shell in which it had been so long ‘cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in;’ and straitway walks abroad, ‘regenerated, disenthralled,’ and ready for its ‘grub.’ By all means, reader, go and see this interesting and instructive exhibition. It is provocative of much reflection, aside from the mere contemplation of it as a matter of curiosity. ••• The correspondent who sends us the following, writes upon the envelope containing it: ‘I have endeavored to preserve the measure of the original, and at the same time to present a literal translation.’ It will be conceded, we think, that he has been successful in his endeavor. Perhaps in some lines (as in ‘Pertransivit gladius’) the translation is a little too literal:
STABAT MATER.
I.
Stabat mater dolorosa,
Juxta crucem lacrymosa,
Dum pendebat filius:
Cujus animam gementem,
Contristantem et dolentem,