Here is a pair of stanzas, sugar'd à la MOORE. The second verse is especially meliffluous:

'Dear girl! I love thee yet,
As in that joyful time,

Which I can ne'er forget,

While memory is mine.

Will you love day by day,

And bless the name of him
Whose love, when far away
From you, will never dim?'

In 'Musings upon the Sea,' 'with the never-ceasing billows all around,' we find the following. Its pathos will do, with an onion, but the measure is measureless :

'Long shall the widow watch each passing sail,
Her hair fluttering in the freshening breeze,
For grief is borne along on every gale,
And moans, he's lost upon the stormy seas.

Oft a dear child will lisp, a ship in sight,
And oft the mother fond, will strain her eyes,
But it is not thy sire's he sleeps in night,
To wake no more on earth, to morn's bright skies.'

Here ensues a fragment of our poet's prose, which is not cut up into irregular lines, as in the other parts of his book. There is a 'general oneness' of antecedent here, which would have gratified old PRISCIAN:

"The following lines, when first written, were not intended for the public eye; but a friend of the author obtained a copy of them, and they shortly after appeared in several of the papers. The island in reference here, lies in Boston harbor, and still belongs to the family. It was there that the author passed his happiest years, and imbibed probably his taste for poetry, and the beauties of nature, as it is a very charming spot. The late GARDINER REENE, who was one of many gentlemen who partook of the happiness of its possessor, called it Fairy Isle; others, that of Calypso; and more recently, St. Helena, since the author's father is buried there.'

Has such a writer as this any cause to envy the ass his redundance of ear? And does it not require a decided mediocre, with brass enough to set up a bell-foundry, to put forth, with all confidence, such crude and ungrammatical prose and verse as are found above and below:

'O'er earth and sea some love to roam
In search of wealth, forget their home:
But dead to feeling is the heart
That from the breast lets home depart:
Let other scenes charm as they will,
The thoughts of home is with me still!'

Among other fragments, equally shining, we find the subjoined, in a tribute to Captain PENOVER, SOON after the launch of the 'Neptune' steamer. We preserve the punctuation :

'Thou well known navigator of the main,
Will soon launch forth upon its waves again;
To brave the ocean god, skil'd in his art,
Thou nobly knowest how to act thy part,
And safely steering through the dang'rous tide
Thy gallant steamer, o'er the waters wide
Rides proudly onward, past each rock and shore,
The wat'ry graves of those whom friends deplore.
Thou canst well trace each danger from the chart,
Of every southern coast, to York's gay mart;
Then may thy skill and never-quailing soul,
Ensure for thee thy well-deserving goal.'

Now this may not be a very neat 'job,' in the way of saponaceous verse, but it is strong, as the old One said, when he mended his breeches with a rope.

We take our present leave of Mr. MARSH and his book, with a word of advice, which is given in all sincerity and kindness; namely, that if he has not fully made up his mind to remain gloriously useless, and devote himself to imbecility, he would do well to lay aside the pen for ever. His intellectual health is inadequate to the labors of poetical composition. His fancy has the epilepsy; his language the rickets; his rhythm the Saint Vitus's Dance; and his only 'fire of genius,' is a sort of Saint Anthony's Fire. If,

therefore, as is intimated, 'more remains behind ;' if we are, in reality, more indebted to the writer's forbearance than his bounty ; let us implore him not to dip his pen again in the fatal ink of publication. If he would not become in the literary field what Colonel Pluck was in the military, let him cease to cudgel his dull brains, and forego the excogitation of weak thoughts. He cannot too soon realize, that he missed his only chance of poetical immortality, by not being alive, and of some consequence, when the Dunciad' was written.

A Discourse ON THE LATEST Fonus of INFIDELITY. Delivered at the Association of

the Alumni of the Cambridge Theological School, in July. By ANDREWs Norton.

Our thanks are due to the publisher, Mr. Owen, of Cambridge, for a copy of this excellent Discourse. Its main object is, to expose the increasing error of those who confound the systems that have been substituted for it, with Christianity itself, and receive them in its stead, or in rejecting them, reject the faith altogether. The works of the German theologians, the writer contends, are most hostile to all that characterizes the Christian doctrine. 'Christianity is undermined by them, with the pretence of settling its foundations anew; phantoms are substituted for the realities of revelation.' Mr. NORTON Proceeds to consider the arguments of Spinoza, HUME, and others, against miracles. In illustration of the fallacious idea, vain as regards each individual, of an unchanging stability in the order of nature, the writer remarks: 'Whatever we may fancy respecting the unchangeableness of the present order of things, to us it is not permanent. If we are to exist as individuals after death, then we shall soon be called, not to behold, but to be the subjects of, a miracle, of unspeakable interest to us. Death will be to us an incontrovertible miracle. For us the present order of things will cease, and the unseen world, from which we may have held back our imagination, our feelings, and our belief, will be around us in all its reality.'

We have been impressed with the force and beauty of the subjoined observations upon the demand for certainty in relation to the truths of the gospel history, concerning which so much has been written at hozne and abroad :

"To the demand for certainty, let it come from whom it may, I answer, that I know of no absolute certainty, beyond the limit of momentary consciousness, a certainty that vanishes the instant it exists, and is lost in the region of metaphysical doubt. Beyond this limit, absolute certainty, so far as human reason may judge, cannot be the privilege of any finite being. When we talk of certainty, a wise man will remember what he is, and the narrow bounds of his wisdom and of his powers. A few years ago, he was not. A few years ago, he was an infant in his mother's arms, and could but express his wants, and move himself, and smile and cry. He has been introduced into a boundless universe, boundless to human thought, in extent and past duration. An eternity had preceded his existence. Whence came the minute particle of life that he now enjoys? Why is he here? Is he only with other beings like himself, that are continually rising up and sinking in the shoreless ocean of existence; or is there a Creator, Father, and Disposer of all? Is he to continue a conscious being after this life, and undergo new changes; or is death, which he sees every where around him, to be the real, as it is the apparent end of what would then seem to be a purposeless and incomprehensible existence? He feels happiness and misery; and would understand how he may avoid the one and secure the other. He is restlessly urged on in pursuit of one object after another; many of them hurtful; most of them such, as the changes of life, or possession itself, or disease, or age, will deprive of their power of gratifying; while, at the same time, if he be unenlightened by revelation, the darkness of the future is rapidly closing round him. What objects should he pursue? How, if that be possible, is happiness to be secured? A creature of a day, just endued with the capacity of thought, at first receiving all his opinions from those who have preceded him, entangled among numberless prejudices, confused by his passions, perceiving, if the eyes of his understanding are opened, that the sphere of his knowledge is hemmed in by an infinity of which he is ignorant, from which unknown region clouds are often passing over, and darkening what seemed clearest to his view; such a being cannot pretend to attain, by his unassisted powers, any assurance concerning the unseen and the eternal, the great objects of religion.

“There can be no intuition, no direct perception, of the truth of Christianity, no metaphysical certainty, But it would be folly, indeed, to reject the testimony of God concerning all our higher relations and interests, because we can have no assurance that he has spoken through Christ, except such as the condition of our nature adınits of.

"It is important for us to understand, that, in all things of practical import, in the exercise of all our affections, in the whole formation of our characters, we are acting, and must act, on probabilities alone. Certainty, in the metaphysical sense of the word, has nothing to do with the concerns of men, as respects this life or the future. We must discuss the subject of religion as we do all other subjects, when men talk with men about matters in which they are in earnest. It would be considered rather as insanity, than folly, were any one to introduce metaphysical skepticism, concerning causality, or identity, or the existence of the external world, or the foundation of human knowledge, into a discussion concerning the affairs of this life, the establishment of a manufactory, for example, or the building of a rail-road; or if he should bring it forward to shake our confidence in the facts, of which human testimony and our own experience assure us; or to invalidate the conclusions, so far as they relate to this world, which we found on those facts."

Notes are appended to the pamphlet, containing ‘some farther remarks on the characteristics of the modern German school of infidelity,' and on the objection to faith in Christianity, as resting on historical facts and critical learning.'

3

Morton's HOPE, OR THE MEMOIRS OF A PROVINCIAL. In two volumes. New York:

HARPER AND BROTHERS.

This is no common production. We have not the slightest cue to the writer's name or identity; but whoever he may be, or not,' he may certainly lay the flattering unction to his soul, of having written a work, in these days of stupid books and slip-shod abortions, foreign and domestic, called 'novels' by courtesy, which is eminently calculated for entertainment, and which reflects honor alike upon his talents and his tact; qualities that are very far from always going together. The style of our author is especially natural and unconstrained. His wit, a prominent characteristic of the volumes, is never forced upon the attention, but flashes upon the reader, precisely, he cannot doubt, as it rose to the mind of the writer. In illustration of the author's quiet, oblique humor, and as examples of his easy unaffected sketches, we would cite the domestic characters and scenes introduced and interwoven in the history of the infancy and childhood of the hero, including his life at college. His descriptions of external nature strike us as possessing equal felicitousness and force, throughout the whole work. The era chosen is one of interest to every American, and the 'keeping' which should serve to make it so, is seldom wanting. The heroine is a lovely creation, with an exquisite name, and in her whole career, remains a woman of earthly mould, instead of becoming angel, outright. This is a wise touch of policy on the part of our novelist; and although he may lay claim, perhaps, to little experience as an author, he has assuredly taught many of his predecessors a valuable lesson, in this regard, at least. Those who have caught the glimpses of life in German universities, which the accomplished author of 'Hyperion' has afforded us, in his recent delightful volumes, will find striking and elaborate pictures of similar scenes and characters, in the volumes before us. This portion of the work, in an especial manner, is written with the hand of a master; by one who observes closely, and depicts faithfully. It has been our purpose, in this necessarily brief notice, rather to call public attention to 'Morton's Hope,' than to present a detailed sketch of its character and merits. Once in the hands of the reader, the book will soon recommend itself to a warm acceptance. It has been published in England, where, as we observe, it is reputed to have been received with signal favor. We cannot doubt the fact, since the work could scarcely fail to command it, in any discriminating community.

EDITORS' TABLE.

GOSSIP FROM OUR NOTE-BOOK.

When, toward the close of a number of the KNICKERBOCKER, we become wearied with perusing new publications, and 'saying our say' of them; when it requires an effort to read the accumulating favors of new friends; the 'Table,' meanwhile, being arranged, and waiting for a few side-dishes; we have no resource, save in the original 'Note-Book,' from which, at irregular and distant intervals, we have ventured to quote; gathering up the scattered fragments, such as they are, that nothing be lost. A 'small lot' is herewith 'offered to our customers.'

а

An

his eyes: 'Farewell! messmate! You and I have weathered many a tough gale together, and now we must part. You have been a good friend to me; I shall never find such another!' The day after the battle, as we gather from a record preserved in the American Museum, the funeral obsequies of the American and British officers, who had fallen in the action, were performed in an appropriate and affecting manner. opening on the margin of the bay was selected for the interment of the bodies. The crews of both fleets attended. The weather was fine; the elements seemed to participate in the solemnities of the day, for every breeze was hushed, and not a wave ruffled the surface of the water. The procession of boats, the neat appearance of the officers and men; the music, with the slow and regular motion of the oars, striking in exact time with the notes of the solemn dirge; the mournful waving of the flags, and the sound of minute-guns from the different ships in the harbor; the wild and solitary aspect of the place, the stillness of nature, gave to the scene an air of melancholy grandeur, better felt than described. All acknowledged its influence; all were sensibly affected. What a contrast did it exhibit to the terrible conflict of the preceding day! Then, the people of the two squadrons were engaged in the deadly strise of arms :

.then, each gun,
From its adamantine lips,
Spread a death-shade round the ships,
Like the hurricane eclipse

Of the sun !!

Now, they associated like brothers, to pay the last sad tribute of respect to the dead of both nations.

READER, did you ever hear of old Mr. Ross, of Ross River, father of General Ross, who was killed at Baltimore? Here is a pleasant record of him, which an antiquarian friend of ours thought worthy of segregating from the general chit-chat of an after-dinner sitting. Old Mr. Ross was the great man of a small neighborhood, and patronized a protestant church in his vicinity. The congregation was small, as the lower classes of that part of Ireland were principally Catholics. Mr. Ross had the most important face, and was altogether the most important personage, in the church. The parson never commenced the service, until Mr. Ross made his appearance. Sometimes the latter would fall asleep, during the sermon; upon which the clergyman, out of respect to his patron, would pause awhile. Presently the old gentleman would wake up, rub his eyes, and exclaim, with a gentle wave of the hand, 'Go on Sir - go on! I am with you! Now where will one find such considerate politeness, in clergy men of kindred caliber, at the present day? We once knew 'a learned judge, an upright judge,' who always forgot, when at church, that he was not on the bench, and invariably fell asleep. He always sat out the service, however, except on one memorable occasion. It was a sultry summer afternoon, and he had already listened to a long hour of divinity, when, at a new branch of his discourse, the dominie split the residue of his text into twenty-four parts. Upon this, the judge opened his pew-door, (proh pudor !) and walked out of the church. In the porch, he encountered a neighbor, who, sitting near the door, had slipped out, to relieve, for a few moments, the tedium of compulsory devotion.' 'Why, what's the matter, Judge ?' said he; 'what has brought you out ? 'I'm going for my night-gown and slippers,' he replied ; 'for I find I must take up my quarters here to-night!

Here are some remarks, in pencil, upon the performance, long ago, by that Hood of America, Finn, of old Philip GARBois, in the play of 'An Hundred and Two. No one who has ever seen this admirable performer in this difficult character, but must remember the perfect representation which he gives of tottering decrepitude, and extreme old age; the pathos of which is relieved by the amusing scenes between him and his 'boys,'two promising, white-haired juveniles, of seventy-five and eighty years. We have lately been reminded of GarboIS, by hearing or reading of an old gray-headed man,

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VOL. XIV.