'A CHAPTER ON CATS.'-Some six years ago, there appeared in this Magazine an article thus entitled, from the pen of a contributor since more widely known as the author of the desultory papers under the head of 'Ollapodiana.' It was a story of true love, wrought into a 'course' any thing but smooth, by reason that the author-lover killed his mistress' favorite cat, one mid-summer night, in a moment of intense excitement. As we have some thousands more of readers now than when the 'Chapter on Cats' first appeared in these pages, we shall make no apology for quoting a description of the murder in question. The narrator, a young Philadelphia lawyer, who has lost a cause during the day, tosses in 'restless ecstacy' upon his bed, until late at night, thinking alternately of his mistress and his misfortune. At length he falls asleep :

'I could not have slumberd over ten minutes, before I was awakened by the most outrageous caterwauling that ever stung the human ear. I arose in a fury, and looked out of the window. All was still. The cause for outcry appeared to have ceased. Now and then there was a low, guttural wail, between a suppressed grunt and squeal; but it was so faint that nothing could have lived 'twixt that and silence. After a listening probation of a few minutes, I slunk back into my

sheets.

'I had scarcely dozed a quarter of an hour, when the obnoxious vociferations arose again. They were fierce, ill-natured, and shrill. I arose again, vexed beyond endurance. All was quiet in a moment. I am not given to profanity; I deem it foolish and wicked; but on this occasion, after stretching my body, like a sheeted ghost, half out of the window, and gazing into the shadows of the garden to discover the object of my annoyance, I exclaimed, in a loud and spiteful voice, which expressed my concentrated hate: D-n that cat"

Young gentleman,' said a passing guardian of the night, from the street, you had better pop your head in, and stop your noise. If you don't, you will rue it; mind-1-tell-ye.'

"Look here, old Charley,' said I, in return, don't be impertinent. It is your business to preserve the peace, and to obviate every evil that looks disgracious in the city's eye. You guard the slumbers of her citizens; and if you expect a dollar from me at Christmas, for the poetry in your next annual address, you will perform what I now request, and what it is your solemn and boundes duty to do. Spring your rattle; comprehend that vagrom cat, and take her to the watch-house. I will appear as plaintiff against the quadruped, before the mayor, in the morning. Her character is bad her habits are scandalous.'

Our object in making these extracts, is to point the small end of an insinuation, that good Sir CHRISTOPHER NORTH, of 'Blackwood's Magazine,' when he conceived his 'Cursory Cogitations Concerning Cats,' in the last number of our Edinburgh contemporary, had the whole story in his mind's eye. His own sketch is in his most felicitous vein. In visiting a worthy aunt in the country, CHRISTOPHER encounters an ancient acquaintance, in the person of 'old Thomas, the Tortoise-shelly,' who rubs his sleek sides against his right leg, and purrs him a most hospitable welcome. The professor falls into a reminiscential mood, and traces his feline friend's history, from earliest kittenhood, upward, including all the tricks which were played him by the juveniles, such as sealing back his ears, shoeing him with walnut-shells, etc. Taking the praises of the cat species, by SCOTT and SOUTHEY, as well-deserved, CHRISTOPHER avows his intention of one day 'setting up a Grimalkin' (as one would set up a carriage,) himself. He seems, indeed, to be of MONTAIGNE, his opinion, touching the intelligence of this much-abused animal, who says: 'When my cat and I entertain each other with mutual apish tricks, as playing with a garter, who knows but that I make my cat more sport than she makes me? Shall I conclude her to be simple, that has her time to begin or to refuse to play, as freely as myself have? Nay, who knows but that it is a defect of my not understanding her language, (for doubtless cats talk and reason with one another,) that we agree no better; and who knows but that she pities me for being no wiser than to play with her, and laughs and censures my folly in making sport for her when we two play together?'

But proceed we to our quotations. And here we must ask the reader whether it has not been a long time since he encountered any thing in the mock-heroic vein half so well executed as the subjoined:

'Well, thank goodness, here we are at home; and not before it is high time, either; for there speak the tongues, of which Time has as many as Rumor, though he finds but a far more scanty audience. One, two, three! Twelve o'clock, by all that 's horological! Alas for twelve o'clock! No longer is it the very witching time of night' that it was wont to be; no longer, at its pealing summons, the spiritual world sends forth its denizens to frighten us fools of nature' out of what few senses we possess. Church-yards groan no more; and though, indeed, the graves do still 'give up their dead,' it is only to the hands of the body-snatcher. In our modern midnights, stair-cases creak, and candles burn blue, in vain. Does a door fly suddenly open? - we only confound the wind, and slam it to again. Is a mysterious scratching heard? - we do but anathematize a rat, and turn over to the next page of our book. Armed in the strength of mind of the nineteenth century, we can smile at the 'airy tongues' and echoing footfalls, the hollow moans and clanking chains, which terrified our grand-mothers. There! that very sound that rose half a second ago, and has hardly yet died away, would, under the reign of Anne Radcliffe, have thrown a whole boardingschool into hysterics. Again! It might almost be taken for the voice of some indignant ghost, bemoaning himself on his farewell ramble, and pouring forth a melancholy Vale to his once constant occupation, so rapidly falling away before the cock-crow of that mental chanticleer, the Schoolmaster Abroad. Once more! Then must we risk a cold, and look out into the moonlight. Pshaw! that our usually accurate ears should have been puzzled by old Biddy Skinflint's tom cat, on the opposite house-top! The old rascal has just emerged for his midnight ramble, and is merely giving notice to the feline neighborhood that he would be glad of a companion. And lo! obedient to the summous, from the adjoining gutter, peereth forth the head of the velvet-garbed Tib, prime favorite of the venerable Griselda Pennilove, whom boys irreverent do denominate Grizel: and now, along the very verge of the parapet paceth the daring heroine, greeting, with many a loving tone, the ear of the expectant Tom; and now she scales, at one bound, the opposing tiles, and stands by his side on the summit: they purr- they wave backward and forward their gentle tails - they rub together their loving sides and affectionate noses- entranced in an ecstacy of happiness too deep for caterwauling.

'But see where, urged on by the green-eyed monster' Jealousy, stealeth toward the pair the unseen Bob, Lord Paramount in the affections of the chaste Susannah Witherspoon! Proudly arches his indignant back, and far flashes his passion-glaring eye! With one mighty leap he alights full in front of the astonished Tom, who, startled yet undismayed, contemptuously spitting in the face of the foe, collecteth all his force for the inevitable struggle; while, not far removed, the affrighted Tib, (a feline Dejanira,) awaiteth in piteous suspense the issue of the tremendous conflict, sending forth, ever and anon, her sad mewings for the danger of her favored champion. Him, regardless of her wo, seizeth with tenacious talon the infuriated Bob, not unresisted by tooth and claw on the part of the assailed: and now more shrilly soundeth the plaintive voice of her, 'teterrima belli causa;' more loudly peal the yells of the maddened rivals, as, locked in an inextricable embrace, they wage the unrelenting warfare, nobly emulous of those traditionary warriors of the tribe, who erst, in fair Kilkenny, swallowed each other, in the intensity of their rage, leaving behind them not a wreck, save the tip of a single tail, to point out the scene of cannibalism. And now from many an attic window protrudeth many a night-capped head, disturbed from its peaceful pillow by the fury of the strife; and rise to many a tongue curses not loud but deep' upon cats in general, and the unconscious combatants in particular. In vain; fast and far, along the echoing roofs, speed to the scene the partisaus of either chief, to mingle in the gathering melee. Not otherwise, when in

that classic region where seven distinct dials proclaim the progress of time, some daring youth of Munster, with heart-cutting words, hath aroused the indignation of Connaught's hardy son, from every quarter of the surrounding territory pour forth the children of potato-bearing Ierne, rejoicing in the anticipation of battle, regardless of the cause, in aid of either disputant: till, plunged into the thickest of the fray, and undiscerning friend from foe, in the excess of their excitement, they deal forth their blows indiscriminately on all around them, to the great glory of the Emerald Isle, and the exceeding terror of the new police. Positively the scene is growing exciting! The combat deepens! On, ye brave, who rush to glory or→→ Hah! yonder old gentleman in the attic, provoked beyond forbearance, is growing desperate; he is about to purchase a night's quiet at an awful sacrifice of crockery! We see him nervously grasping his water-jug in his better hand, evidently balancing in his mind the wrath of his landlady against his own personal comforts; he longs, yet lingers; now he raises, as if resolved, the dreadful missile; and now again imagination conjures up the morning's frowns and chidings, and he wavers in his bold design. To the rescue! ho! A reinforcement of no less than three sturdy Toms rushing to the fray catches his eye. He hesitates no longer. He elevates the death-fraught engine; he whirls it forward. Bah! a bad shot, but effectual: crash goes the jug upon the tiles, into ten thousand fragments! Bursts forth one loud, short, simultaneous screech, followed by a sound as of much spitting! Five-and-twenty tails stream and whirl aloft for a moment, like meteors, and

Have they melted in earth, or vanished in air?
We see not, we know not but nothing is there.'

'SPEAKING of cats,' did you ever meet, good reader, with a newly invented musical instrument, termed, if we remember aright, The Category?' It is much in the form of a piano-forte; but where the twanging wires and little hammers should be, there stand, each in his narrow stall, a row of feline quadrupeds, in regular gradation, from the hoarse, surly Tom, down to the wee thing just verging upon blooming kittenhood. Closing the top, you observe in front, in place of ivory keys, the tails of the imprisoned inmates protruding from small holes, corresponding with the musical scale. The friend who invented this animated musical-box, desired us to essay an air upon it; but knowing no touch of it, we modestly declined. 'Look you,' said he, 'these are the stops;' and thereupon, governing the ventiges, he proceeded to favor us with 'Bid me Discourse,' which he performed with great delicacy of 'touch,' and tasteful 'fingering;' introducing occasional shakes and flourishes, which upon a piano would have been of dif ficult execution, but upon the 'Category' were given with great ease; as, by a long and a strong pull upon any given note, the tone could be prolonged and varied, with delicate shades of sound, at the pleasure of the performer. A true master of the instrument, running his hand lightly over the tail-keys, may cause it to discourse most eloquent music; and it is only when new beginners are 'practising' upon it, that it becomes somewhat wearisome and disagreeable. Indeed, to be listeners, upon compulsion, to the lessons of raw pupils, is what is meant by being 'in a category.' It is painful to reflect, that the increasing repute of this instrument bids fair to employ a large portion of the feline population, whose more legitimate business it should be, to guard the community from the depredations of 'rats, and mice, and such small deer.' There is reason to fear, also, on another account, that the demand for cats and kittens will soon greatly exceed the supply. Awaiting, recently, 'half a dozen on a chafing-dish,' (oysters, not kittens,) at one of our thousand eating-houses, a young man came in, took the unoccupied chair by our side, and called for an 'Irish stew,' a savory Salmagundi sort of dish, much desiderated by many hurried 'relish'-eaters. The order was repeated by the proprietor, but the 'stew' came not. 'Come, make haste with that!' cried the hungry customer; but still there was no sign of a 'stew,' save the one into which he was evidently working himself at the delay. At this moment, amidst the hiss of frying sausages, and the splutter of omelets, there arose from the adjoining kitchen a piercing cat-shriek, ending in a subdued, dying growl. Up jumped the impatient customer, and jerking his hat down upon his head, with decided emphasis, he exclaimed: 'Look o' here, now!- if you're killin' them cats, I can't wait! I thought you said the stew was ready! — and away he popped. All these are alarming portents. Who knows that there enter not largely into other dishes the same ingredients? Doubtless, were he to speak the truth, our restaurateur would say, with his London prototype: 'It's the seasonin' as does it; they are all made o' them noble animals. I seasons 'em for beef-steak, weal, or kidney, 'cor

ding to the demand; and I can make a weal a beef-steak, or a beef-steak a kidney, or any on ’em a mutton, at a minute's notice, just as the market changes, and appetites warys!' OLLAPOD's story of the wag who insinuated to a western sausage-dealer,' Where you see many o' them sassengers, you don't never see no dogs!' was sometime a paradox; but the times give it proof.

DECEMBER. — Time! thou relentless mower of earth's fresh and withered flowers ; thou that extinguishest, unsparing and unpitying, alike the pale blue violets, that peep out in early spring, from among ephemeral snow-banks, like soft blue eyes from beneath the white and polished brow of woman; the tender apple-blossoms that render the breath of May a fragrance; the blushing roses, that make the path of June a triumph ; and the unnumbered sun-lit, gorgeous flowers, that summer receives, like Semele's golden shower, from the warm embraces of the sun; now hast thou come to gather, in the stern, resistless sweep of thy earth-compelling scythe, thy last pale victims; the sere and yellow leaf, the unfragrant, withered grass, the sallow, sickly flower -- all that remains of earth's departed glory- to entwine in the varied wreath of triumph on thy brow! As thou goest forth unwearied to this thy final task, behold the mountains, thy mute chroniclers, imploring thee to spare; while round their tops, the clouds that till now, unconscious of thy fatal aim, frolicked and gambolled in the pure blue depths of heaven, weeping briefly for joy, and building there, for thy summer progress, bright palaces, gorgeous fanes, and triumphal arches, that, midway between earth and heaven, belong to neither, yet partake of both, as best beseems thy demi-god-like nature, now crowd together in dense and frowning masses, weeping incessantly among the howling winds. Ay, and when they find that thou relentest not, but art resolved to lay waste the land, they restrain their unavailing tears, and in pity gently cast a snowy mantle over thy work of desolation on the earth. December is the stern minister of wrath, in thy duodecimal cabinet. He it is that holdeth in his right hand the fierce winds that engulf argoeies, and strand navies. He it is that walketh over the plains, shaking from his white beard the blighting frost, and stretching forth his hand to enchain the mighty rivers. The enduring year, that with firmness, if not without a murmur, had seen his spring flowers, his summer glories, and his autumn treasures, fade, decay, and waste away before thine other instruments of destruction, yieldeth up his suffering spirit, dying in December's frosty, ruthless arms. Oh, bear thy victim gently to his rest, and with him the vast load of human cares that pressed upon his bosom; and when thou renewest his youth within him, and biddest him live again, oh, let not Memory, ever too ready to make him 'fardels bear,' accumulate too much of the old abandoned burthen upon his youthful shoulders! Farewell, then, to the dying year! And when old Time goeth forth again to mow, may I be there to turn a winnow for him, and inhale the fragrance of the crushed and fading flowers that he streweth around him in his giant march!'

Thus far wrote one whose heart is full of all good impulses, an old friend and a true, amid the sorrowing rains of a December day; and setting our dog on the ms., -(and many a rich literary treasure has that inanimate quadruped laid his iron paw upon, in his time,) — he forthwith vacated the sanctum. Gladly have we appropriated the affluent fragment; although we must take it with a protestando as to the lament for the perished Aowers. We hold the rather, with the poetical wife of the poetical SOUTHEY, who says, very beautifully:

How happily, how happily the pale flowers die away!
Oh! could we but return to earth as easily as they ;
Just live a life of sunshine, of innocence, and bloom,
Then drop without decrepitude or pain into the tomb.
" The happy, careless creatures ! of time they take no heed,
Nor weary of hia creeping, nor tremble at his speed;
Nor sigh with sick impatience, and wish the light away,
Nor when 't is done, cry dolefully, Would God that it were day!"
* And when their lives are over, they drop away to rest,
Unconscious of the penal doom, on holy Nature's breast;
Oh I could we but return to earth as easily as they

73

VOL. XIV.

"The WIND EUROCLYDON, THE STORM-WIND! -A Southern correspondent comes timely up to the defence of Professor LONGFELLOW, against the insinuation, thrown out in our last number, by an ardent admirer of his fine genius, that in the wild 'Midnight Mass for the Dying Year,' he employed the term 'Euroclydon' in a 'constructive sense.' Our correspondent says : 'What makes your friend imagine that this wind blows only in the Mediterranean? Because it was first called Euroclydon in those regions ? The same may be said of Boreas and Sirocco. No; the word indicates a north-east wind, coming over the sea. Look into any good Greek lexicon, and you will find some such definition. The only place in which I have ever seen the word used before, is in Paul's shipwreck, in the Acts. Just consult ‘Robinson's Greek and English Lexicon of the New Testament: 'Eupoklúdwv, Euroclydon ; a tempestuous wind: Acts 27 : 14; from Eūpos, Eurus, east-wind, and klúdwv, a wave.' Passow, a great authority, defines it'a violent storm-wind, which throws up the waves of the sea. I could give you some dozen authorities, were it necessary. You may rely upon it, Professor LongFELLOW knew what he was saying, when he used the word.' Conclusive ! Our querulous friend at the west will see at once that he did but stumble upon a horse-eyrie, or mare's-nest.'

a

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THE 'DAGUERREOTYPE.' — We have seen the views taken in Paris by the 'DAGUERREOTYPE,' and have no hesitation in avowing, that they are the most remarkable objects of curiosity and admiration, in the arts, that we ever beheld. Their exquisite perfection almost transcends the bounds of sober belief. Let us endeavor to convey to the reader an impression of their character. Let him suppose himself standing in the middle of Broadway, with a looking-glass held perpendicularly in his hand, in which is reflected the street, with all that therein is, for two or three miles, taking in the haziest distance. Then let him take the glass into the house, and find the impression of the entire view, in the softest light and shade, vividly retained upon its surface. This is the DAGUERREOTYPE! The views themselves are from the most interesting points of the French metropolis. We shall speak of several of them at random, as the impression of each arises in the mind, and not in the order in which they stand in the exhibition. Take, first, the Vue du Pont Notre Dame, and Palais du Justice. Mark the minute light and shade; the perfect clearness of every object; the extreme softness of the distance. Observe the dim, hazy aspect of the picture representing the towers of Notre Dame, with Saint Jacques la Boucherie in the distance. It was taken in a violent storm of rain; and how admirably is even that feature of the view preserved in the tout ensemble! Look, again, at the view of the Statue of Henry the Fourth and the Tuilleries, the Pont des Arts, Pont du Carousel, Pont Royal, and the Heights of Challot in the distance. There is not a shadow in the whole, that is not nature itself ; there is not an object, even the most minute, embraced in that wide scope, which was not in the original; and it is im. possible that one should have been omitted. Think of that! So, too, of the Tuilleries, the Champs Elysées, the Quay de la Morgue – in short, of all and every view in the whole superb collection. The shade of a shadow is frequently reflected in the river, and the very trees are taken with the shimmer created by the breeze, imaged in the water! Look where you will, Paris itself is before you. Here, by the silent statue of the great Henry, how often has Despair come at midnight, to plunge into eternity! By the Quay de la Morgue, remark the array of washing-boats, and the 'Ladies of the Suds' hanging out their clothes, which almost wave in the breeze. It was but a little below this point, that our entertaining ‘American in Paris,' doubtful of the purity of the Seine water, bought a filter of charcoal, 'to intercept the petticoats, and other such articles,' as he might previously have swallowed. There is a view, now, which Mr. Irving has helped to render famous. It was across that very Pont Neuf, if we have not forgotten the story, one awful night in the tempestuous times of the French revolution, when the