The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844

 
‘Lord Howe he went out,
And Lord! how he came in!’
 

The third verse would do credit to Street, so graphic and poetical are the rural images introduced; but it runs into the fourth, a stanza ‘most tolerable, and not to be endured.’ Our young friend may be assured that we shall not ‘regard with indifference’ any thing from his pen that may fulfil the promise of the lines to which we allude. Na’theless, he must ‘squeeze out more of his whey.’ ••• The admirers of one of the most popular contributors that this Magazine ever enjoyed, will be glad to meet with the following announcement:

‘Burgess, Stringer and Company, corner of Broadway and Ann-street, New-York, have in press the Literary Remains of the late Willis Gaylord Clark, including the Ollapodiana Papers, with several other of his Prose Writings, not less esteemed by the public; including also his ‘Spirit of Life,’ a choice but comprehensive selection from his Poetical Contributions to the Literature of his Country; together with a Memoir: to be edited by his twin-brother, Lewis Gaylord Clark, Editor of the Knickerbocker Magazine. The publishers do not consider it necessary for them to enlarge upon the character of the writings which will compose the above volume. The series of papers under the title of Ollapodiana will be remembered with admiration and pleasure, by readers in every section of the United States. Their rich variety of subject; their alternate humor and pathos; the one natural, quiet, and irresistibly laughable; the other warm from the heart, and touching in its tenderness and beauty; won for them the cordial and unanimous praise of the press throughout the Union, and frequent laudatory notices from the English journals. Reminiscences of early days; expositions of the Ludicrous and the Burlesque, in amusing Anecdote; Limnings from Nature; and ‘Records of the Heart,’ were among their prominent characteristics. It is not too much to say of the other Prose Writings which the volume will contain, that although of a somewhat different character, they are in no respect inferior to the Ollapodiana, in their power to awaken and sustain interest. The Poetical Writings of Mr. Clark are too well known to require comment. They have long been thoroughly established in the national heart, and have secured for the writer an enviable reputation abroad.’

The work will be embraced in four numbers, of ninety-six~pages each, stereotyped upon new types in the best manner, and printed upon fine white paper; and the price will be but twenty-five cents for each number. Need we ask the interest of our friends, of the friends of the Departed, in behalf of the volume in question? ••• The Italian Opera, at Sig. Palmo’s new and beautiful temple in Chambers-street, has taken the town captive. I Puritani was first produced, and to overflowing houses at each representation. Belisario is now running a similar successful career. We shall have occasion in our next to advert more at large to this very popular establishment, and to notice in detail the artists (with and without the e) who compose its prominent attractions. ••• Since the direction given by an afflicted widow to some humane persons who had found the body of her husband in a mill-race, full of eels, ‘Take the eels up to the house, and set him again!’ we have seen nothing more affecting than an anecdote of a widower at St. Louis, who, on seeing the remains of his late wife lowered into the grave, exclaimed, with tears in his eyes: ‘Well, I’ve lost sheep, and I’ve lost cows, but I never had any thing to cut me up like this!’ As Carlyle says, ‘his right arm, and spoon, and necessary of life’ had been taken away, and he could not choose but weep. ••• The typographical error to which our Natchez friend alludes was corrected in some two or three thousand sheets; hence we dispense with his trifling errata. ‘I remember a clergyman in New-England,’ once wrote an accomplished contributor to us, ‘that when ‘the rains descended and the floods came and the winds blew,’ carried away in the pulpit in the height of his ardor the wrong house, and left that standing that was built upon the sand. After the service was over I ventured to observe to my uncle, Parson C–, (whose assistant had been preaching) that this seemed to be a new reading to the parable, and that I wondered when Mr. A– had discovered his error, as he did at the time of re-iteration, that he did not correct it. My uncle defended his curate, and observed that if he had then corrected himself, he would have carried away both houses, which was utterly in opposition to all Scripture. Part of the audience, said he, were asleep; and many of the rest so drowsy that, so long as one of the houses was taken off, the moral was enforced upon their perceptions as well by the one as the other. If he had made a thorough correction, he would have roused the attention of the whole parish, and nothing else would have been talked of for nine days. When a man has made an error he had better let other people make a discovery; and this truth, my lad, said he, you will understand better when you grow up.’ Let us conclude with an expression of great force and newness: ‘Comment is unnecessary.’ ••• ‘T.N.P.’s article, as he will perceive, is anticipated by the initial paper in the present number. How does he like the new definition of Transcendentalism: Incomprehensibilityosityivityalityationmentnessism?’ To us, it seems ‘as clear as mud!’ ••• The graceful ‘penciller’ of the ‘New Mirror’ weekly journal copies the beautiful ‘Lines to a Cloud’ from our January number, with the remark: ‘This Bryant-like, finished and high-thoughted (‘a vile phrase’) poetry was written by a young lady of seventeen, and is her first published production. She is the daughter of one of our oldest and best families, resident on the Hudson. If the noon be like the promise of the dawn of this pure intellect, we have here the beginning of a brilliant fame.’ We think ‘The two Pictures,’ from the same pen, in our February issue fully equal to the fair writer’s coup-d’essai. By the by, it would have been but simple courtesy, as it strikes us, to have given the Knickerbocker Magazine credit for the lines in question. ••• Numerous articles in prose and verse are on file for insertion, touching which we shall hope soon to have leisure to advise with the writers by letter.

‘America Well Defended’ would not be inappropriate as a true designation of a beautifully printed pamphlet before us, from the press of Mr. Benjamin H. Greene, Boston, containing a ‘Letter to a Lady in France on the supposed Failure of a National Bank, the supposed Delinquency of the National Government, the Debts of the several States, and Repudiation: with Answers to Inquiries concerning the Books of Capt. Marryat and Mr. Dickens.’ We have read this production with warm admiration of its calm and dignified style, the grouping and invariable pertinence of its facts and arguments; and the absence of every thing which savors of retaliatory spirit, in its animadversions upon the misrepresentations of the United States by the English press. Expositions are offered of the character of the old United States’ Bank, as contradistinguished from the ‘United States’ Bank of Pennsylvania;’ of the origin and nature of our public debts, national as well as of the separate States, etc. The themes of love of money, gravity of manners, of slavery, lynch-law, mobs, etc., are next considered; and the pamphlet concludes with some remarks upon the strength of our government, general results of our experiment, and our growing attachment to the Union. The author we understand to be Mr. Thomas G. Cary, a distinguished merchant, who has brought the observation and knowledge of a practical life in aid of his reasoning, throughout his pamphlet. It has passed, we are glad to learn, to a speedy second edition; and we cannot but hope that it may be re-published in England. It could not fail to produce great good, in the rectification of gross errors in relation to this country.

Parley’s Cabinet Library.—In this work Mr. Goodrich proposes to furnish the public with forty numbers, at twenty-five cents each, of biographical, historical and miscellaneous sketches, designed for the family circle, and especially for youth. The first two numbers consist of the lives of famous men of modern times; as Scott, Byron, Bonaparte, Burns, Burke, Goethe, Johnson, Milton, Shakspeare, Bacon, etc. The next two numbers are devoted to famous men of ancient times; as Cæsar, Hannibal, Cicero, Alexander, Plato, etc. The fifth and sixth numbers contain the ‘Curiosities of Human Nature,’ as Zera Colburn, Caspar Hauser, etc. The seventh and eighth contain the lives of benefactors: as Washington, Franklin, Howard, Fulton, Bowditch, etc. We notice also, in the biographical series, the lives of celebrated Indians and celebrated women. The historical sketches will present a series of striking pictures, illustrative of the history of the four quarters of the globe. The miscellaneous department will embrace arts, sciences, manners and customs of nations, a view of the world and its inhabitants, etc., etc. The intention of the author is to furnish a library of twenty volumes, devoted to the most interesting portions of human knowledge, with the design of rendering their subjects interesting and attractive to the general reader. Several of the numbers are now issued; and judging from these, we are happy to give the work our hearty approbation. The sketches will not be found to be mere sketches, drawn from cyclopedias: the author has evidently gone to the original sources, and culled with care the most interesting points on each subject. A contemporary expresses surprise that he has been able to say so much that is striking, just and new, in so brief a space; a praise in which we fully concur. The work entitled ‘Curiosities of Human Nature’ is one of the deepest interest, and is calculated to suggest profound reflections as to the capacities of the human mind. The two numbers devoted to the American Indians, as well as other volumes, present a good deal of new and curious matter. The life of Jetau, the Indian Voltaire, is very striking. The Benefactors will be read with gratification by every one who loves to dwell upon the actions of those who have been great in doing good. The moral tendency of these works is excellent, and they may be read with pleasure as well as profit by old and young. They are happily adapted to the family as well as the school-library; and we are glad to know that they have been adopted for the latter purpose in some of our principal cities. They will constitute a wholsome check upon, as well as an agreeable substitute for, most of the trashy and pernicious literature that is now so freely poured upon the public. Mr. John Allen, at the office of the Knickerbocker, is the agent for this city.

‘Wonders of the Heavens.’—A superb large quarto volume has recently been put forth by Messrs. Robert P. Bixby and Company, entitled, ‘The Wonders of the Heavens: being a Popular View of Astronomy, including a full Illustration of the Mechanism of the Heavens; embracing the Sun, Moon, and Stars, with descriptions of the planets, comets, fixed stars, double-stars, the constellations, the galaxy or milky way, the zodiacal light, aurora-borealis or northern-lights, meteors, clouds, falling-stars, aërolites, etc.; illustrated by numerous maps and engravings.’ We cannot too highly commend this volume to our readers. The author, Mr. Duncan Bradford, has kept constantly in view one object, viz: to make his subject plain and interesting to the people. Instead of mingling mathematics with his great theme, to such an extent as to alarm the neophyte at the very threshold of the temple of astronomy, he has with a wise judgment selected from the best works, including the latest, those parts that were least encumbered with the abstruse and the unintelligible; and the illustrations serve to make his sublime teachings still more clear.

Rogers’ Poems.—We have not seen a more beautiful volume for a twelvemonth than the new illustrated edition of ‘Poems by Samuel Rogers, with revisions and additions by the author,’ recently issued by Messrs. Lea and Blanchard, Philadelphia. It is indeed in all respects an exquisite work; being printed upon the finest drawing-paper, with a large clear type, and illustrated with ten engravings on steel, from paintings by the very first artists in England. The volume opens with the ‘Pleasures of Memory,’ and contains every thing from the author’s pen which his maturest consideration has deemed most worthy of preservation. We cordially commend this admirable work to the attention of every reader of the Knickerbocker to whom it may be accessible.