'She's dressed so neatly for the ball,
In truth, she's scarcely dressed at all;
A fact to Yankees quite distressing,
It leaves so little room for guessing!'

'Oh! go 'long, you p'ison critter, you! What d'you mean?' * * * We should have published the lines entitled 'What is our Life?' but for some forty lines, the thoughts of which are 'conveyed' entire from Carlyle. Looking down upon the wilderness of London, the thoughtful Teufelsdröckh exclaims: 'There in that old city was a live ember of culinary fire put down, say only two thousand years ago; and there, burning more or less triumphantly, with such fuel as the region yielded, it has burnt, and still burns, and thou thyself seest the very smoke thereof. Ah! and the far more mysterious live ember of Vital Fire was then also put down there, and still miraculously burns and spreads.' * * * The Drama is once more in the ascendant. The Park Theatre, our 'Old Drury,' is a personification of 'The Deformed Transformed.' Externally, it has assumed the aspect of a fine granite temple, in the Doric style of architecture, with a noble statue of Shakspeare lording it over the pile; while internally, from pit to ceiling; boxes, walls, proscenium, stage; every thing, in short, is new and beautiful. Mr. Barry deserves the highest praise for the good taste, the liberality, and the untiring industry which he has brought to bear upon our favorite place of theatrical resort. The house opened with Wallack; Wallack, that 'love of a man,' who can never grow old, and who has lost no whit of his power to delight his auditors. He opened in his inimitable 'Rolla' and 'Dashall,' to a house crowded from proscenium to dome with the élite of the metropolis; and he has since gone through his round of characters, including that most touching of modern plays, 'The Rent-Day,' with undiminished popularity. Apropos of this latter play: a good story is told of its first production in London. The celebrated Farren declined a part in it; remarking, that if the piece ran beyond a single night, he would eat an old hat for every time it was played. The play rose to immediate and almost unprecedented popularity. On arriving at the theatre one evening, Mr. Farren was informed by the call-boy that Mr. Wallack had left something on a side-table for him, covered with a large white sheet. 'Hum!' grunted Farren, 'what is it?' The boy lifted the covering; and behold, ranged in the most exact order, were thirty-six of the dirtiest, shabbiest, 'shocking bad hats' in London! Farren started, and turned angrily to the lad. 'Please, Sir,' said the boy, 'Mr. Wallack says as how you said, when you refused the part of Crumbs in 'The Rent-Day,' that if the piece ran beyond a single night, you would eat an old hat; so as it has now been played thirty-seven times, he thinks it right to give you something to eat, afore the meal becomes too large for your digestion!' Farren said it 'was all right—and left.' * * * Well pleased are we to remark the opening of Messrs. Coudert and Porter's English and Classical Lyceum, at Number ninety-five Eighth-street, near Tompkins's-Square. The principals have no superiors; their assistants are of their careful selection, and have their approval. On these points, therefore, 'enough said.' The situation is delightful, and the terms consistent with the times. Let these gentlemen be patronized. Ah! that is not the term; but we have no good synonyme for it. We have always detested the word; and especially since we encountered Dr. Johnson's comment upon it, in a letter to Lord Chesterfield, soon after finishing his immortal Dictionary: 'I entertain, Sir, a very strong prejudice against relying on patrons. Seven years, my Lord, have now passed since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing on my work, through difficulties of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it at last to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favor. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before.' * * * Our friend who writes us from Florence (his excellent article is filed for our next) is quite right in his ideas of 'Letters of Introduction.' There is much and exaggerated abuse of this courtesy, emanating from this country. His own case, we can assure him, is by no means a solitary one. We like the frank reply given by a distinguished American to a young, conceited whipster, who sought, through the claims of his father's friendship, to obtain letters to persons of distinction abroad: 'I want,' said he, 'to get letters to Scott, to Moore, to Southey, and to Jeffrey. Father would like to have me see them.' 'So should I,' replied the expected donor, 'but I don't wish them to see you. If that objection could be removed, perhaps your wish might be gratified.' It 'was stated at the time' that our young gentleman 'left the presence.' * * * We are struck with this remark of Count Rostoptchin, in his sententious memoirs, in preceding pages: 'I had an involuntary veneration for the sun, and his setting always made me sad.' How often, with kindred emotion, have we stood and gazed at sunset-clouds, with one who now sleeps in his early grave! Saying little, but thinking much, and feeling more; and as the day-god sank below the horizon, reflecting upon the period when all the living world that saw him then, should roll in unconscious dust around him. Oh! the mystery of nature!—the mystery of life!... 'The Puritans vs. The Quakers' is at hand and on hand, and will be for some time, we cal'late. Couldn't 'approve' the sentiments of our Plymouth correspondent, 'any way 'at he can fix it.' We segregate a joke, however, which is worth pickling. 'Why are the Quakers always well-to-do in the world?' asks a Friend of one of the 'world's people.' 'They are chargeable to no man, and yet are always thrifty.' ''Zactly!' was the rejoinder; 'and I'll tell you why. The Quakers are rich, that's sartain; and the way of it at first was this: When our Saviour was took up onto the top of an exceeding high mounting, the Old Gentleman offered him all the riches of the world, if he'd fall down and worship him. 'Twouldn't do: the Saviour said 'No;' but a Quaker who was standing by, took the Old Knick up: 'Friend Beelzebub,' says he, 'I'll take thy offer!' He did so; and there's been no scursity of money among your folks sence that time!' * * * 'Honors are easy' with sundry of our correspondents. We perceive that, among others, the 'Mail-Robber' was elected a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Cambridge University, at the late 'commencement' of that institution. 'Served him right;' he deserved it. We have 'known things of him' that would have brought this visitation upon him before, had we chosen to mention them. 'Justice, though slow, always overtakes,' etc. The proverb is something musty. * * * We must be permitted to doubt whether 'bally-ragging,' as poor Power used to term scolding, is the 'eftest way' for our New-Haven friend, to whose favor we recently alluded. 'Many men of many minds.' A spoonful of molasses will catch more flies than a quart of vinegar; and 'an inch of laugh is worth an ell of moan, in any state of the market.' 'The vices of the times, the vices of society, the vices of literature, require rigid scrutiny and fearless censors.' Very likely; therefore 'Pay away at them!' say we; but excuse us from monopolizing our pages with gloom, groutiness, and grumbling. * * * We have omitted to notice the superb annual engraving for the subscribers of the 'Apollo Association,' recently put forth by that popular institution. The subject is Vanderlyn's celebrated picture of 'Caius Marius on the ruins of Carthage.' The engraving is in line, by S. A. Schoff, a native artist, and forms one of the finest specimens of art in its kind ever produced in this country. * * * Mr. Prentice, the well-known Louisville Journalist, is 'down upon' a 'gentleman of some smartness who rejoices in the euphonious name of Poe,' (a correspondent of ours spells it 'Poh!') for terming Carlyle, in one of his thousand-and-one Mac-Grawler critiques, 'an ass.' The Kentucky poet and politician thus rejoins: 'We have no more doubt that Mr. Edgar A. Poe is a very good judge of an ass, than we have that he is a very poor judge of such a man as Thomas Carlyle. He has no sympathies with the great and wonderful operations of Carlyle's mind, and is therefore unable to appreciate him. A blind man can describe a rainbow as accurately as Mr. Poe can Carlyle's mind. What Mr. Poe lacks in Carlyleism he makes up in jackassism. It is very likely that Mr. Carlyle's disciples are as poor judges of an ass as Mr. Poe is of Carlyle. Let them not abuse each other, or strive to overcome obstacles which are utterly irremovable. That Mr. Poe has all the native tendencies necessary to qualify him to be a judge of asses, he has given repeated evidences to the public.' 'Nervous, but inelegant!' as Mr. Aspen remarks in 'The Nervous Man.' * * * Can any native citizen of 'The Empire State' peruse the forceful paper under this title, in preceding pages, without a feeling of natural and just pride? For ourselves, born, bred, and educated upon the soil of New-York, we cannot read it without a thrill of gratification, that our 'lines have been cast in pleasant places,' and that we have so 'goodly an heritage.' * * * We do not know when we have been more 'horrified' than on reading the following in a London journal: 'Two natives of the cannibal islands of Marquesas have been carried to France. The story runs, that on the voyage one of their fellow-passengers asked them which they liked best, the French or the English? 'The English!' answered the man, smacking his lips; 'they are the fattest.' 'And a great deal more tender,' chimed in the woman, with a grin that exhibited two rows of pointed teeth as sharp as a crocodile's!' * * * 'The Exile's Song,' with the note which accompanied it, came too late for insertion in the present number. It will appear in our next. * * * The story of 'The Tobacco-Quid' is as old as the seven hills. What a silly thing it is, to give new names and a new locale to an 'ancient Miller,' and at the same time vouch for its entire authenticity and originality! 'O git eöut!' * * * Reader, did you ever see a small puppy bark at an elephant in a menagerie, whereat the dignified beast didn't even deign to flap his leather-apron ears? Did you ever see a stump-tailed ape sporting a Roman toga? And have you seen the 'Annihilation of Daniel Webster' by Crazy Neal, in a recent newspaper piece of his? Mr. Neal thinks the great orator and statesman a humbug! He is a judge of the article. * * * If the 'Stanzas to Mary' are a 'little after the style of Wordsworth,' we can only say that the Wordsworth school is not a grammar-school:

——'Upon my brow
Glooms gathers fast and thick,'

is not unlike 'Cats eats mice,' or 'Shads is come!' * * * Several communications, among them 'Chronicles of the Past,' Number Two; 'Evening Hymn;' 'The Deity,' etc., will receive attention in our next.

Thomson's Abridgement of Day's Algebra for the use of Schools.—Day's Algebra has sustained a high reputation during a period of fourteen years; a fact sufficiently evinced by the sale of more than forty large editions. In appropriateness of arrangement, perspicuity of expression, and adaptation to the purposes of instruction, whether public or private, it stands, we believe, unrivalled. The highest praise which can be bestowed on a school-book is, that 'it is its own teacher.' By commencing with points so simple that any child of ordinary ability can comprehend them, and advancing step by step, removing every obstacle when it first presents itself, and conducting the student gradually into the more intricate parts of the science, the author makes him master of the subject while he is yet scarcely aware of its difficulties. The exactness of definition and clearness of illustration which characterize Mr. Thomson's 'Abridgement' together with the exclusion of the answers to the problems, (a course indispensable to an independent scholar,) are especially commendable. The method also of completing the square by multiplying the equation by four times the coëfficient of the higher power of the unknown quantity, and adding to both members the square of the coëfficient of the lower power, avoids the introduction of fractional terms, and strikes us as an improvement. The most weighty objection to Day's Algebra has been its paucity of examples. This defect is remedied in the 'Abridgement,' the number of examples being nearly twice as great as in the original work.

[LITERARY RECORD.]

'Prayers for the Use of Families.'—Here is a volume of some three hundred pages, containing upward of seventy prayers, designed to meet all conditions of mankind, and all the wants of humanity. The author, Rev. William Jay, of England, has aimed to be very plain and simple in his diction, since prayer admits of no brilliance, and rejects studied ornament. He has not substituted finery for elegance, nor the affectation of art for the eloquence of feeling; but has wisely avoided a strained, inflated style, unintelligible to the ignorant, lamented by the pious, and contemned by the wise. This is as it should be. It is remarkable that in the Bible no prayer is recorded, in which the figure employed is not as familiar as the literal expression. An appendix is added, containing a number of select and original prayers for particular occasions; short addresses, applicable to certain events and circumstances, and which the reader may insert in their proper place in the main prayer, or use at the end of it. A work like this, from a competent pen, may supply with many families an important desideratum. The volume is published by Mr. M. W. Dodd, Brick Church Chapel, opposite the Park.