'A turkey,' once remarked a huge feeder in our presence, 'is a very inconvenient bird, in p'int of comin' over a man's pocket, and satisfying his stomach. You see, it's too much for one, and not enough for two!' This is exactly our quandary in relation to the excellent story of our Mississippi correspondent. It makes 'too much for one, and not enough for two' numbers of the Knickerbocker. Beside which, it has 'scene undividable, colloquy unlimited.' We may try hereafter to insert it entire, after the printer shall have 'taken its measure.' If we do print it, however, we shall take the liberty to erase such words as e'er, ne'er, o'er, etc., which have no business in prose. Ellipses like these are for poetry only, and not always felicitously employed, even in verse. 'Clang,' moreover, ('the one only hope to which his heart clang,') is a compound fracture of Old Priscian's skull, which would lay his brain open to day-light, and us to an action for assault and battery. * * * Mrs. Kirkland ('Mary Clavers,') the well-known author of 'A New Home,' 'Forest Life,' etc., has opened a school for young ladies in this city, at 214 Thompson-street, near Fourth. Familiar with the languages of Europe; thoroughly conversant with all the branches of an accomplished English education; of varied experience in society and real life; and possessing, with great kindness of heart and amenity of manner, a rare instructive tact; we cannot doubt that our fair correspondent will attract many pupils to her 'new home,' and that more will 'follow.' * * * Our excellent friend, the historian of Tinnecum, has been passing a few pleasant days on the Hudson, and in the neighborhood of the city of that name; and from his gossipping epistle thence, we shall venture to select a characteristic Daguerreotype-passage, for the entertainment of our readers: 'The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats, and so are the rocks for the conies. Hills and goats, rocks and conies, are plenty with me, as you shall perceive. Cras donaberis hædo, if I can get him out to you. The Lancashire sheep, a long-fleeced breed, come and eat corn out of my hand. I kept my eye on the beautiful blue ranges of the Kaätskills as long as possible, and then delved into this lovely valley. Mountains shut it in on every side, and every night the sun lingers upon their summits, and crowns them with a diadem of fire. Yesterday the whole scene was white as Soracte. As I was going to the cider-mill to get a jug of the sweet juice, my guide stopped to show me the identical spot where a low-spirited man, oh! horrible! cut his own throat. 'What did he do it for?' said I. 'Oh, he was low'n spurruts, wery cidery and wery grunty. The devil was into him.' 'Bad business,' said I, 'this cutting of throats;' yet did you know that a hog always does it, when he swims across a stream, which is no doubt the derivation of suicide. The cider was delicious. The mill was in full operation, set in motion by an old blind horse. 'Look!' said my cicerone, with a mysterious whisper, as I was busy at the tub, at the same time directing my attention to the person who was attending at the mill; 'the son of the man who cut his throat!' I gazed in utter astonishment, and endeavored to obtain a 'realizing sense' of the fact. It was almost as good as 'the fork that belonged to the case-knife with which Beauchampe murdered Colonel Sharpe in Kentucky,' which proved such a rival attraction to a western museum-proprietor.' 'This morning I went into the woods to gather chestnuts, which the hogs having got before devoured them all up. It was the same old story as on the frequented chestnut-grounds about Tinnecum. 'There! I found one! There! I found another! Two! three! four! five! six! Oh! oh! aint they plenty!' Then, alas! no more were to be had far or near. I piled them on a little hillock, and calling the attention of a neighboring Berkshire to the pile, had the gratification to see him address himself to their mastication, with evident goût.' * * * Our correspondent who writes upon the 'Manifestation of Mind in Animals,' and those interested in his able papers upon this theme, will find in the following a very forcible illustration of the correctness of his positions:
'A gentleman receiving a present of some Florence oil, the flasks were set in his cellar, at the bottom of a shallow box; the oil not being wanted for use, they remained there for some time; when the owner, going one day by chance in the cellar, was surprised to find the wicker-work by which the flasks were stopped, gnawed from the greater part of them, and upon examination the oil sunk about two inches or two and a half from the neck of each flask. It soon occurred to him that it must be the work of some kind of vermin; and being a man of speculative turn, he resolved to satisfy the curiosity raised in his mind. He accordingly found means to watch, and actually detect three rats in the very act; the neck of the flasks were long and narrow; it therefore required some contrivance; one of these stood upon the edge of the box, while another mounting his back, dipped his tail into the neck of the flask, and presented it to a third to lick; they then changed places; the rat which stood uppermost descended, and was accommodated in the same manner with the tail of his companion, till it was his turn to act the porter, and he took his station at the bottom. In this manner the three alternately relieved each other, and banqueted upon the oil till they had sucked it beyond the length of their tails.'
Would that our esteemed friend 'Polygon' could really know how many times we have strenuously endeavoured to gain leisure, from avocations more than usually various and constant, to return, in such poor sort as we might, the gratification we have always derived from his personal correspondence! It is in vain, we fear, that we hope to be able to redeem the past; for 'by-gones,' he must let us talk with him, as we have done, in this desultory 'Gossip' of ours; for the future, Providence permitting, we shall aim to escape even the appearance of indifference or neglect. Will 'J. N. B.,' of W——, New-Hampshire, also bear with us a little?' We have his last missive filed among our 'Notes Payable;' for there were thoughts in it that touched us nearly. 'L. H. B.,' too, of B——, to whom we have been indebted for many favors, must not infer neglect or indifference from our compulsory silence. 'Say not the words, if you and me is to continual friends, for sech is not the case;' as quoth 'Mrs. Gamp.' We must hope, likewise, that 'W. G.,' of H——t Hill (how of the removal, and what of the old homestead?) and our kind Tinnecum friend, will also look upon the above explanatory card as apologetical (if not satisfactory) for 'short-comings' of which, under other circumstances, they might with good reason complain. * * * If you are 'i' the vein,' reader, suppose you follow us in a hop-skip-and-jump flitting through the pungent, pithy, punning paragraphs of Punch, the 'London Charivari,' late arrivals of which garnish our table. Among its 'complaints,' is one against the clock of St. Clement's church, which stands opposite its publication-office in the Strand: 'We are constantly troubled by parties coming into the office to inquire why all the four dials tell a different story, and why every one of them is always wrong. If the clock cannot keep going, let it turn off all its hands, wind up its affairs, and retire at once from public observation; but let it not continue to occupy a high and prominent position, if it is unable to fill it with credit to itself and profit to the community. We have put up with more from this clock than from any other public servant. We thought it might only want time to bring itself round; but finding it will not give us any hour, we will no longer give it any quarter. We expected a meeting of the hands the other day at twelve o'clock, but it did not occur, and things remain in the same uncertainty. We feel justified in calling on the clock for an account of its works; and, if no minutes have been kept, we shall leave the public to judge of the entire matter. Since writing the above, we have been told that it is the hour-hand which refuses to move in the affair, but that the minute-hand is quite ready to second any thing reasonable.' Could any thing be more felicitous than this application of 'suspended payment' terms to the disarrangements of a public time-piece? Punch himself had just returned from a trip to Paris. He describes a diligence as 'a post-chaise fastened to a stage-coach before, and a slice of omnibus attached behind, with a worn-out cab mounted aloft;' which we are told is a perfect portrait of this lumbering conveyance. Here is a solution of one 'cause why' the French wear so much hair on their faces: 'The inferiority of French cutlery, especially razors, renders shaving an elaborate process, for which reason it is generally abandoned; and in common with the usual treatment of most things springing from a poor soil, they pay more attention to dressing their crops than cutting them. In fact, they consider all attraction to be capillary.' Punch was greatly interested in the 'Egyptian obstacle' in the Place de la Guerre, 'supposed to be Cleopatra's Needle, covered with hieroglyphics, of which the thread is altogether lost!' Among the domestic intelligence, is an account of the raising of fragments of the brig Télémaque, by means of a diving-bell. There were found 'a bit of the binnacle; half a yard of yard-arm; a quarter of the quarter-deck; a hen-roost and a portion of the hatch-way; a part of the cat-head, and an old mouse-trap.' In his brief notices to correspondents, the readers of the 'Charivari' are informed that the editor does not know 'who built Bacon's Novum Organum,' nor whether the elephant at the Zoological Gardens has his name in brass-nails on his trunk or not! * * * In a late number of the Albany 'Northern Light' monthly journal, there is a very able paper by Willis Gaylord, Esq., based upon a paragraph in the report of the Geological Lectures of Dr. A. Smith, of this city, from which we take the subjoined extract:
'It is a well-ascertained fact derived from a known law of centrifugal motion, that were the earth to revolve on its axis once in eighty minutes, as it now does in twenty-four hours, all bodies would lose their weight at the equator; if the revolution was made in a still shorter time, all bodies would fly off, like the drops of water from a rapidly revolving grind-stone. A universal deluge of all the temperate and polar regions would be the result of a stoppage or retardation of the earth's motion. Indeed, the first result would be the deluge of the whole; as the waters of the ocean would obey the impulse already communicated, and sweep over the entire earth from west to east; although it is easy to see that when this first impulse was over, the waters must flow to, and accumulate around the poles. If there must be a philosophical solution given of the existing evidences of a general deluge, can there be one more simple, or which better fulfils all the conditions of such a catastrophe, than the one here alluded to? All solutions must exist more or less on suppositions, and we have only to suppose the earth checked in its orbit from some cause, to produce all the observed phenomena of the deluge.'
Apropos of the 'Northern Light;' it is a journal which we always open with avidity, and from which we seldom fail to derive instruction and pleasure. Mr. Street discharges his editorial function with ability, and his collaborateurs are men of mark in the scientific and literary world.... What has 'enured' to our esteemed friend and correspondent, the 'Georgia Lawyer?' There has been 'good exclamation on his Worship' from various quarters of the Union, accompanied by inquiries after his health, and the state of his 'Port-folio.' Quære: Has a Georgia lawyer a legal right to 'set himself up against the will of the people?' Has not the 'party of the second part' the power to set aside a literary nol. pros. of that sort? 'By the mass! but we think we may stay him' from keeping all his pleasant thoughts to himself.... We are glad to learn that our young artist-friend Mr. T. B. Read, formerly of Cincinnati, is meeting with deserved success in Boston, where he has set up his easel. His improvement is very marked. There is at this moment before us a little cabinet-gem of his, which really seems to light up our sanctum. It is the portrait of a young and lovely maiden, whose attention is suddenly arrested as she is about descending a stair:
'She is fresh and she is fair,
Glossy is her golden hair;
Like a blue spot in the sky
Is her clear and loving eye.'
The situation, the drawing, the coloring, all are beautiful, and bespeak alike taste, skill, and genius, in the artist.... Of the Oi Polloi, we fear, is the author of 'Nature, a Tribute.' He is a metropolitan, born and bred, we will wager a year's subscription to the 'Old Knick.;' a sort of amateur lover of the country, touching which he knows little, and we must infer, cares less. He regards it, we cannot help fancying, somewhat as old Chuzzlewit's cockney undertaker did, who greatly affected the 'sound of animated nature in the agricultural districts.' ... The 'Southern Literary Messenger' appears monthly, with its accustomed neatness of execution, and quantity and variety of literary matter, much of which is of a sterling character. The new editor, B. B. Minor, Esq., discharges his duties with spirit and ability. He appeals to the South for the support which his Magazine well deserves, and should not fail to receive. The Charleston 'Magnolia,' which ran a short race for popularity with the 'Messenger,' has retired from the field; leaving it the only kindred candidate for Southern patronage, if we except the excellent Georgia 'Orion.' Mr. Minor has 'a squint' at the 'enterprising editors in Philadelphia, who sell so many pictures every month;' a branch of 'literary' business which has experienced a sad falling off; yet not sufficient, it would seem, to prevent new 'enterprises' of a similar kind. Mr. Israel Post, long the agent in New-York for Graham's and Godey's Magazines, has issued, since the establishment of a new city agency for those periodicals, proposals for 'The Columbian Magazine', a work after the Philadelphia models, in pictures and price; to be edited by John Inman, Esq.; a sufficient guaranty that at least one department of the work will be well sustained. Success to ye all, gentlemen and lady contemporaries!... 'Who suffers?' You know the Didlerian term, reader; and here is an unintentional illustration of it: 'Poor woman!' said an apothecary, on returning from a patient to whom he had applied thirty leeches, at a quarter of a dollar each; 'poor woman! didn't she suffer!' It strikes us as rather possible that she might have 'suffered,' at least in one way.... We shall have two capital works from the American press in a few days. Kendall, the 'great American Captive,' who came near being lost to liberty, the 'Picayune,' and 'troops of friends,' is nearly out with his volumes; and that they will be rich and racy, few are sufficiently verdant to doubt. (Marryat approves of Kendall's writings, at all events; else why should he purloin them?) Brantz Mayer, Esq., also, whose letters in the 'New World' were so widely admired, has nearly ready for publication an elaborate work upon Mexico, profusely illustrated with engravings, and written in a very attractive style. It will create a decided sensation.... We cannot accept the excuse of 'M.' You must let us hear from you for the first or second number of our new volume. 'Arouse thee, mon!' Remember that 'to will is to do,' in more than a Mesmeric sense; and forget not, also, that 'sloth covers youthful ambition with the blue mould of morbidity.' ... Will our friends of 'The Cultivator' and 'Farmer's Museum' favor us with the prospectuses of both these excellent periodicals, when issued? We shall be glad to promote the circulation of publications of so great value, in many important ways, to the American farmer.... Read 'The Venus of Ille,' in preceding pages, translated by the friend who rendered into such attractive English the thrilling story of 'The Innocence of a Galley-Slave.' The present tale is scarcely less striking than its predecessor. What a sweeping convergence of natural incident there is toward the terrific dénouement!—and how admirably the minor accessories harmonize with the main design! Peruse it, and justify our enthusiastic admiration of the original, and this most faithful and spirited translation.... We instanced in our last 'Gossip' two or three amusing specimens of the lack of clearness of expression, arising from a species of unconscious inversion of language. Something akin to the examples cited, is a case mentioned by a London wag, who speaks of 'a hen belonging to a stone-mason that lays bricks!' ...
'If you love us,' good reader, and your other friends as well, tell them that our next issue begins a New Volume—the Twenty-Third! Have we ever deceived you, in our promises for the future? (A unanimous 'No!' from all parts of the Union and the Canadas, with scattering echoes from sundry portions of Europe.) Then believe us when we tell you, that although we have every year appeared before you—like the tree 'bearing twelve manner of fruits, and yielding its fruit every month'—we have never been able to announce a better volume than the one whose advent you shall hail with acclamations in January next. Let every true friend of the 'Old Knick.' therefore make one friend as happy as himself, and his friend the Editor as happy as 'the pair of ye's!' ... Let no one who wishes to select books, in any or every department of literature, fail to possess himself of Wiley and Putnam's late catalogue of English, French, and American works, in the various departments of knowledge; science, natural history, useful and fine arts; history, biography, and general literature; Greek and Latin classics, philology, etc.; and theological and medical literature, with appendices, etc.; the whole classified in subjects, and with prices affixed. The catalogue is full, yet concise as clear; and will be sent gratis to any address. Messrs. Bartlett and Welford, under the Astor-House, issued some time since, a similar catalogue, which proved of great convenience to the public, and was no doubt a source of ultimate profit to that well-known house.... The following articles are either filed for insertion, or awaiting 'hopeful' advisement: 'A Night on the Prairie;' 'A Piscatory Eclogue,' by Peter Von Geist; 'My Leg: a Sketch;' 'The Fratricide's Death,' by the 'American Opium-Eater;' 'The Death-Bed, a Stray Leaf from the Country Doctor;' 'The Painted Rock,' 'Mary May, the Newfoundland Indian;' 'The Spirit-Land;' Lines by 'G. H. H.;' 'Scene in a Studio;' 'Translation from Catullus,' by 'G. W. B.;' with many other papers heretofore alluded to, and more to which we have neither leisure nor space to advert, or even to name.