J. T. F.
The appearance on our table of an exquisitely beautiful card of invitation to the great Dinner at Faneuil Hall on the Seventeenth of June (a kindness of the 'Committee of Arrangements,' for which, although unfortunately adscititious, we desire to render our cordial acknowledgments) reminds us to speak of another species of card, from the same press, which we must believe is little known, but which only requires to be known, to be found in the possession of every tasteful lover of the Beautiful. Mr. Dickinson, of Boston, has recently completed a variety of ornamental cards, of various sizes, large, medium, and petite, one use of which we desire to indicate to our metropolitan readers; not without the hope also that the information will not come amiss to our readers every where; for the cards are 'awaiting' as well as 'under orders.' As frames for medium and small engravings, we certainly know of nothing so tasteful and so appropriate. In color various; of tints inconceivably delicate; and with borderings of the most chaste yet elaborate and distinct bas-relief; they are 'just the thing' for the purpose we have indicated. We shall be happy to afford 'the ocular proof' to any one who may doubt the justice, or impugn the good taste, which we conceive to characterize as well the cards as our encomiums! These admirable specimens of American taste and skill may be found at the establishment of the Messrs. Woodworth's (late Bonfanti's) and at Nesbitt's in this city. * * * The interest still excited by the slightest object connected with the name of Napoleon has recently been curiously illustrated by the opening of a 'Napoleon Museum' in London, consisting of a vast collection of mementos of the great hero and his associates, from the day of his birth to the time of his burial. Among them is a morceau of his penmanship in his latter days, on the back of a card, the ominous nine of diamonds, which has caused a good deal of merriment to the cockneys, although it strikes us they should 'laugh on the wrong side of the mouth.' The imperial prisoner appears to have been making an attempt to commit some English words to memory, and to have noted down the difference between hungry and angry—words which must have sounded marvellously similar in his ears, from the mouths of his English visitors: 'Are you 'ungry?—are you angry?' We do not wonder at his perplexity. His memorandum runs thus upon the card: 'Are you 'ungry?'—'Avez vous faim?' 'Are you angry?—'Etes vous en colere?' * * * 'Polemics' is an article catholic and cogent in spirit and argument, but it is TOO LONG for an essay. (We wish we could impress upon our didactic correspondents the necessity of at least comparative brevity!) Rev. Theodore Parker, in the following, has expressed every fact and argument which our correspondent has expanded over eight letter-sheet pages! Indeed, himself shall be the judge:
'Who shall tell us that another age will not smile at our doctrines, disputes, and unchristian quarrels about Christianity? Who shall tell us they will not weep at the folly of all such as fancied Truth shone only in the contracted nook of their school, or sect, or coterie? Men of other times may look down equally on the heresy-hunters and men hunted for heresy, and wonder at both. The men of all ages before us were quite as confident as we, that their opinion was truth; that their notion was Christianity, and the whole thereof. The men who lit the fires of persecution, from the first martyr to Christian bigotry down to the last-murder of the innocents, had no doubt their opinion was divine. No doubt an age shall come, in which ours shall be reckoned a period of darkness, like the sixth century, when men groped for the wall, but stumbled and fell, because they trusted a transient notion, not an eternal truth. But while this change goes on; while one generation of opinions passes away and another rises up; Christianity itself, that pure religion, which exists eternal in the constitution of the soul and the mind of God, is always the same.'
'Fancy's Vision,' says a correspondent, in a running commentary upon the poetry of our May number, 'is very well done for a Scotch song; although I think Burns and others have too well occupied that field, for foreign imitators to expect to glean much. It seems a little unnatural for Americans to compose in the Scottish dialect, however simple and well-adapted to love-lyrics that English-Doric may be thought. Some Scotticisms, such as 'bonnie,' 'burnie,' 'wimplin,' etc., are very sweet; but others, in my view, such as 'hame,' 'drap,' etc., are inferior to the English. Perhaps, however, the writer is a Caledonian.' To be sure she is; and 'that makes a difference;' yet we do not disagree in the main with our correspondent. By the by, speaking of Scottish poetry, here is a specimen of the true thing. It is from the pen of an esteemed friend and contributor, and has been widely circulated, and as widely admired, both at home and abroad:
THE WEE VOYAGER.
WRITTEN ON SEEING IN A GLASGOW NEWSPAPER THAT THE CREW OF A VESSEL DISCOVERED A HARE FLOATING IN THE FRITH OF FORTH UPON A SHEET OF ICE TO THE OCEAN.
BY JAMES LAWSON.
An' where are ye gaun ye wee voyager,
Wi' look sae fleyed or blate?
An' where are ye gaun ye wee voyager,
On sic an unco gate?
Ye're sailin' awa in a cauld cauld bark,
An' nae a frien' beside ye;
Ye're sailin' awa in a frail frail bark,
Without ane helm to guide ye.
Ye hae nae a mast, ye hae nae a sail,
Nae bield frae win' to hide ye;
An' the lift cours' down wi' a threatenin' glow'r
Sae ill maun sure betide ye.