The 'Lines to Niagara Falls' are very far from being worth double-postage from Buffalo. They are termed 'descriptive;' but they afford about as much of an idea of the Great Cataract as the 'magnificent model' of the Falls which was 'got up at an enormous expense' at the American Museum last winter. That was a sublime spectacle! We saw it, it is true, under very favorable circumstances. The whole hogshead of water had just been 'let on,' and the wheezing machine that represented the 'sound of many waters' was in excellent wind. Indeed, so abundant was the supply of cataract, (as we were afterward informed,) that a portion of the American fall, to the amount of several quarts, leaked down into the barber's-shop below. A lisping young lady present was quite carried away with the exhibition. Some one inquired if she had ever seen 'the real falls, the great original?' She had not, she said, 'but she had heard them very highly thpoken of!' They are clever, certainly; and if their real friends would occasionally 'say a good word for them,' they would doubtless soon become very 'popular!' * * * We were struck (and so we recorded it at the time) with the felicitous remarks of Mr. Consul Grattan, on 'Saint Patrick's Day in the' evening. He said he could not help wondering sometimes how the dear old country looked in her new temperance dress; remembering as he did how becoming to her was the flush of conviviality and good fellowship. 'When I picture to myself,' said he, 'the Irishman of the present day seeking for his inspiration at the handle of a pump, I cannot help thinking of the Irishman I once knew, who couldn't bear cold water at all, unless the half of it was whisky; without which they considered it as a very depreciated currency; a sort of liquid skin-plaster, in comparison with the healthful circulating medium of grog and punch.' This is both lively and witty; and we do not wish to derogate from either quality; but if the reader will permit us, we will ask him to glance at the following passage from Charles Lamb's 'Confessions of a Drunkard:'

'The waters have gone over me. But out of the black depths, could I be heard, I would cry out to all those who have but set a foot in the perilous flood. Could the youth to whom the flavor of his first wine is delicious as the opening scenes of life, or the entering upon some newly-discovered paradise, look into my desolation, and be made to understand what a dreary thing it is when a man shall feel himself going down a precipice with open eyes and a passive will; to see his destruction, and have no power to stop it, and yet to feel it all the way emanating from himself; to perceive all goodness emptied out of him, and yet not be able to forget a time when it was otherwise; to bear about the piteous spectacle of his own self-ruin; could he see my fevered eye, feverish with last night's drinking, and feverishly looking for this night's repetition of the folly; could he feel the body of the death out of which I cry hourly with feebler and feebler outcry to be delivered; it were enough to make him dash the sparkling beverage to the earth in all the pride of its mantling temptation; to make him clasp his teeth,

——'and not undo 'em
To suffer WET DAMNATION to run through 'em.'

'Oh! if a wish could transport me back to those days of youth, when a draught from the next clear spring could slake the heats which summer suns and youthful exercise had power to stir up in the blood, how gladly would I return to thee, pure element, the drink of children, and of child-like holy hermit! In my dreams I can sometimes fancy thy cool refreshment purling over my burning tongue. But my waking stomach rejects it. That which refreshes innocence, only makes me sick and faint.'

How many thousands in Great Britain, whose experience is here described as with a pencil of light, has Father Matthew rescued from 'slippery places,' and placed once more within the charmed circle of sobriety and virtue! * * * The grammatical blunder recorded by 'S. T.,' and 'suggested by the sixth claw of the constitution,' reminds us of a clever anecdote which we derive from Mr. Robert Tyler. The old negro who receives and ushers visitors at the President's mansion is always very precise in his announcements. On one occasion a gentleman named Foot, with a daughter on each arm, was shown into the drawing-room with this introduction: 'Mr. Foot and the two Miss Feet!" * * * 'Cry you mercy!' gentlemen of the long robe and of the bar; we have neither 'abused the law' nor yet 'the lawyers,' though by your wincing you would seem to say so; at least some score of law-students would, if we may judge from the communications which have thickened upon us since our last. Saving the sordid and obscure tricksters of abused law; such, for example, as may be seen any day in the week, holding their sanhedrim of babble around or within the miscalled 'Halls of Justice;' and the undignified personal bickerings of the members of the bar; nothing of a local character, in a legal point of view, deserves the whip and the branding-iron. The latter matter, too, is generally understood, we believe, by the public. A pair of lawyers, like a pair of legs, may thoroughly bespatter each other, and yet remain the best of friends and brothers. Our allusion to courts implied no reflection upon Judges. We hold in proper respect and reverence these sacred depositories of the people's rights. 'The criminal, and the judge who is to award his punishment, form a solemn sight. They are both men; both the 'children of an Universal Father, and sons of immortality;' the one so sunken in his state as to be disowned by man; the other as far removed by excellence from the majority of mankind.' No function can be more honorable, more sacred, or more beneficial, than that of an upright judge. With his own passions and prejudices subdued; attentive to the principles of justice by which alone the happiness of the world can be promoted, and by the rectitude of his decisions affording precedent and example to future generations; he presents a character that must command the reverence and love of the human race. * * * The 'London Charivarri,' or 'Punch,' maintains its repute—for which it is partly indebted to the high indorsement of the 'Quarterly Review,' 'Examiner,' 'Spectator,' etc.,—undiminished. It really overflows with genuine humor, not unmixed, certainly, with many failures. We condense from it a few items of metropolitan intelligence, commencing with an office-seeker's 'begging letter' to Lord Lyndhurst: 'My Lord: I am an Irishman, in the direst distress. To say that I am an Irishman, is I know a passport to the innermost recesses of your soul. I want something of about three hundred pounds per annum; I will not refuse four hundred. At present, however, I am destitute, and terribly out of sorts. You will have some idea of my condition, when I tell you that I have not tasted food these six weeks, and that I am so disastrously off for clothing, that the elbows of my shirt are hanging out of the knees of my breeches! P. S. Don't mind the hole in the bearer's trowsers; he is trustworthy.' To this missive the 'noble lord' replied: 'Sir: That you are an Irishman, is a sufficient passport to my fire-side, my purse, my heart. Come; never mind the shirt. With or without that conventional ornament, you will be equally well received by your devoted Lyndhurst.' The writer 'went very often to the house of his lordship, but as often as he went, just so often was his lordship not at home!' Curious, wasn't it? The plan of the 'Joke Loan Society' reminds us of Sanderson's joke-company for the Opera-Comique in Paris, several members of which, with due economy, managed to live for an entire quarter upon the 'eighth of a joke' which they had furnished to the management! 'The object of the institution is, to supply those with jokes who may be temporarily distressed for the want of them. The directors invite the attention of barristers to a very extensive stock of legal jokes, applicable to every occasion. The society has also purchased the entire stock of a retired punster, at a rate so low that the jokes—among which are a few that have never been used—can be let out on very moderate terms. Damaged jokes repaired, and old ones taken in exchange. Dramatic authors supplied on easy terms, and a liberal allowance on taking a quantity. Puns prepared at an hour's notice for large or small parties!' Under the 'Infantry Intelligence' head we find the following: 'The Twelfth Light Pop-guns acquitted themselves very creditably, and discharged several rounds of pellets with great effect and precision. The First Life Squirts also highly distinguished themselves, and kept up a smart fire of ditch-water for upward of a quarter of an hour; and the Hop-Scotch Grays went through their evolutions in admirable order.' A 'commercial problem' must close our excerpts: 'How can a junior partner be taken into a house over the senior partner's head? By the senior partner sitting in the shop, and the junior partner being taken in at the first-floor window!' * * * The eulogy entitled 'Mr. Webster's Noble Speech at Rochester' is from the pen of an Englishman, or we have for the first time in our life mistaken the 'hand-write' of John Bull, Esq. The spirit of the paper is not in the main unjust to this country; yet it touches with severity upon those culprit States of our Republic, that abroad are considered remarkable for their 'swaggering beginnings that could not be carried through; grand enterprises begun dashingly, and ending in shabby compromises or downright ruin;' and for their treasuries, filled with evidences of 'futile expectations, fatal deficit, wind, and debts.' Cruel words, certes; but are they wholly groundless? 'Guess not!' But Sir Englishman, pr'ithee, don't despond—don't be scared! Look at the progress of our western States, as evinced in the growth of their towns. Louisville, in three years, has gained eight thousand additional inhabitants; Saint Louis twelve thousand; Pittsburgh nearly the same amount; Cincinnati has erected within that period nearly three thousand houses, and gained seventeen thousand inhabitants. Four western cities have added to them nearly fifty thousand inhabitants in three years; and the adjacent country has kept pace with the towns. And the like progress is visible elsewhere. Truly, this is 'a great country!'

——'Who shall place
A limit to the giant's unchained strength.
Or curb his swiftness in the forward race?
Far, like the comet's way through infinite space,
Stretches the long untravelled path of light
Into the depths of ages: we may trace.
Distant, the brightening glory of its flight
Till the receding rays are lost to human sight.

——'seas and stormy air
Are the wide barrier of thy borders, where,
Among thy gallant sons that guard thee well,
Thou laugh'st at enemies; who shall then declare
The date of thy deep-founded strength, or tell
How happy, in thy lap, the sons of men shall dwell?'

We sometimes wish that we had been born fifty years later than it pleased Providence to send us into the world, that we might behold the ever-increasing glory of our native land. * * * The reader will be struck, we think, with the paper upon 'Mind in Animals,' elsewhere in the present number. The writer 'has firm faith in every conclusion he has drawn. He has considered the ultimate tendencies of his doctrine in many different points; and the result is, an additional confidence in the correctness of his conviction, that one principle of intelligence is bestowed upon all created beings; modified, like their physical structure, to adapt them to different spheres.' Time is an abstract term; and as touching the faculty of abstraction in animals, the writer has a curious calendar which he kept of the time of the crowing of the roosters in his neighborhood. Having observed that they gave their midnight signal at about the same hour for several nights in succession, the following record was preserved:

Aug. 30,11.25P. M.Pleasant.
" 31,11.22""
Sept. 1,11.7½"Cloudy.
" 3,11.27"Pleasant.
" 4,12.24"Moonlight.
" 6,11.30"Rainy.
" 7,11.29"Cloudy.
" 9,11.20"Moonlight.

As a new style of crow-nometer, this is a curiosity; but we cannot perceive that it proves any thing very conclusively. If it were in our power, however, to watch the operations of animals as carefully as our own, one could very soon place the whole question above controversy. * * * Thackeray, the exceedingly entertaining author of 'The Yellowplush Correspondence,' has in a late number of 'Frazer's Magazine' some judicious advice in relation to the modus operandi of novel-reading. 'Always look,' says he, 'at the end of a romance to see what becomes of the personages before you venture upon the whole work, and become interested in the characters described in it. Why interest one's self in a personage whom one knows must at the end of the second volume die a miserable death? What is the use of making one's self unhappy needlessly, watching the symptoms of Leonora, pale, pious, pulmonary, and crossed in love, as they manifest themselves, or tracing Antonio to his inevitable assassination? No: it is much better to look at the end of a novel; and when I read: 'There is a fresh green mound in the church-yard of B——, and a humble stone, on which is inscribed the name of Anna-Maria,' or a sentence to that effect, I shut the book at once, declining to agitate my feelings needlessly. If you had the gift of prophecy, and people proposed to introduce you to a man who you knew would borrow money of you, or would be inevitably hanged, or would subject you to some other annoyance, would you not decline the proposed introduction? So with novels. The book of fate of the heroes and heroines is to be found at the end of the second volume: one has but to turn to it to know whether one shall make their acquaintance or not. I heartily pardon the man who brought Cordelia to life. I would have the stomach-pump brought for Romeo at the fifth act; for Mrs. Macbeth I am not in the least sorry; but as for the General, I would have him destroy that swaggering Macduff, or if not, cut him in pieces, disarm him, pink him, certainly; and then I would have Mrs. Macduff and all her little ones come in from the slips, stating that the account of their murder was a shameful fabrication of the newspapers, and that they were all of them perfectly well and hearty.' * * * It has pleased some late English writer to laud the conduct of Sir Hudson Lowe, at Saint Helena, while Napoleon was under his 'treatment,' and as Byron says, 'stood unbowed beneath the ills upon him piled.' The least said on that point, the better. 'He was England's greatest enemy, and mine, but I forgive him!' said that notorious military martinet, when informed that his renowned captive was no more. This is rather rich; and almost justifies the remark of Napoleon, in exhibiting to an English visitor, in a copy of Æsop's Fables (which Sir Hudson had sent him, among other English books) the fable of the sick lion, which, after submitting with fortitude to the insults of the many animals who came to exult over his fallen greatness, at length received a kick in the face from an ass. 'I could have borne every thing but this!' said Napoleon; and pointing to the wood-cut, he added: 'It is me and your governor!' A friend of ours once informed us, that at a table d'hôte at which he was seated in a German inn, soon after Bonaparte's death, Sir Hudson Lowe was announced; when nearly every person arose from the table, and 'left him alone in his glory.' * * * It is somewhat remarkable that so little attention is paid to the clearness of expression. Every body remembers the geographer who, in describing ancient Albany, represented it as having 'two thousand houses, and ten thousand inhabitants, all standing with their gable-ends to the street!' A similar error was made not long since by a western journalist, who in publishing a clever poem, remarked that it 'was written by an esteemed friend, who had lain in the grave many years, merely for his own amusement!' A scarcely less ludicrous misstatement occurred very lately in one of our popular daily journals. In describing the explosion of a brig, near the Narrows, and certain accidents which resulted from the disaster, the editor, among other items, had the ensuing: 'The only passengers were T. B. Nathan, who owned three thousand dollars' worth of the cargo, and the captain's wife!' * * * Bryant, our most eminent American poet, has entirely 'satisfied the sentiment' of our correspondent 'Senex's' stanzas on 'Old Age,' in his fine lines commencing, 'Lament who will, with fruitless tears,' etc. A modern English poet, too, has recently reëxhausted the theme, in an extended string of six-line verses, from which the subjoined are derived: