'Apt,' for a metaphysician. * * * We call attention to the advertisement elsewhere of 'The Cosmopolitan Art-Journal. It has succeeded in securing the liberal favor of the public, having reached a circulation of nearly forty thousand copies. 'The Falstaff,' which it furnishes as a premium picture, is an excellent work of art, and cannot fail of a very wide diffusion. * * * The Editorial Correspondence of The Knickerbocker,' extending through a period of over twenty years, will be commenced in our next. Having to gain nearly a month's time in the advance preparation of the present number, we have not found the requisite leisure to do justice to the opening paper.
Fifty-Seventh Volume of the Knickerbocker.
KNICKERBOCKER PREMIUMS.
We offer, as will be seen by our Prospectus, to each subscriber to the Knickerbocker for 1861, as a premium, the choice of the two very fine Steel-plate Engravings, 'Robert Burns in his Cottage composing the Cotter's Saturday Night,' and the 'Merry-Making in the Olden Time.' The first of these pictures—Burns—has been engraved by the distinguished American artist, John C. McRae, after the celebrated painting by Sir William Allan: and represents Burns in his humble home, clad in the homely garb in which he was wont to tread the fields, his dog at his feet and his pen in his hand, musing seriously over those immortal utterances that found vent in the exquisite lyric above named. The portrait is perfect, and the picture executed in the highest style of art. Its size is sixteen by twenty-one inches; and its publication price is two dollars.
The other engraving we offer as a premium, the 'Merry-Making,' is a perfect copy of Frith's celebrated picture, and was engraved at an expense of two thousand dollars. It measures twenty-five by nineteen and a half inches in size, contains thirty-nine figures, and is, beyond comparison, the finest work of the kind ever offered as a premium in this country. The following description of it is furnished us by William Cullen Bryant, Esq.:
'Almost in the centre of the picture and a little in the back-ground, is a country-dance on the green, with a hard-featured fiddler perched on a high seat, and another musician in a tie-wig standing by him, playing with all their might. On the right, two bouncing girls are gaily pulling toward the dance a gray-haired man, who seems vainly to remonstrate that his 'dancing days are over,' while a waggish little chit pushes him forward from behind, greatly to the amusement of his spouse, who is still sitting at the tea-table, from which he has been dragged. On the left, under a magnificent spreading oak, sit the 'Squire and his wife, whom a countryman with his hat off is respectfully inviting to take part in the dance. To the left of the 'Squire is a young couple on the grass, to whom a gipsy, with an infant on her shoulder, is telling their fortune. Over the shoulders of this couple is seen a group engaged in quoit-playing, and back of the whole is a landscape of gentle slopes and copses.'
No similar opportunity will be presented the public for obtaining these very fine engravings.
Publisher's Notice.