Enraptured with the novel scene, I stood up, in order to enjoy more completely the superb prospect, when Mr. Reichhard, with great sang-froid, told me I must be seated, for that, owing to the great haste with which it had been constructed, the car was merely glued, and might therefore easily come asunder, unless we were careful. It may readily be supposed, that, after receiving this intimation, I remained perfectly quiet. We now commenced descending, and were several times obliged to throw out some of the ballast in order to rise again. In the mean time we dipped insensibly into the sea of clouds which enveloped us like a thick veil, and through which the sun appeared like the moon in Ossian. This illumination produced a singular effect, and continued for some time till the clouds separated, and we remained swimming about beneath the once more clear azure heavens.

"Shortly after we beheld, to our great astonishment, a species of "fata morgana" seated upon an immense mountain of clouds, the colossal picture of the balloon and ourselves surrounded by myriads of variegated rainbow tints. A full half-hour the spectral-reflected picture hovered constantly by our side. Each slender thread of the net-work appeared distended to the size of a ship's cable, and we ourselves like two tremendous giants enthroned on the clouds."

The voyageurs descended upon the top of a tall pine, in a wood near Berlin. The Prince, having lost, in his elevation, the capacity of measuring distance, mistook the tree for a shrub, and was only prevented from taking a trifling leap of an hundred feet, by the animated remonstrance of his more experienced companion.

The connoisseur of paintings, in the Vicar of Wakefield, assures his friend and protégé, that it is always safe in pronouncing on the merits of a picture, to say "that it would have been better, if the artist had taken more pains with it." We feel ourselves perfectly safe in passing the same judgment upon the book before us. Nevertheless, with all its defects, the reader will find it in many instances amusing and instructive.

THINGS AS THEY ARE: or Notes of a Traveller through some of the Middle and Northern States. Illustrated by several Engravings. 12mo. pp. 252. NewYork: HARPER AND BROTHERS.

AN entertaining volume, uniting a vast deal of useful and important information, with the reflections of a sound and cultivated mind. There is a variety about it that is quite charming. The writer places a town, or a bit of popular scenery before the mind's eye with a graphic distinctness of description; and the next moment he takes the reader along with him, in the consideration of some topic, which has suddenly suggested itself to him, or in the comparison of the new with the old world, which he has evidently visited, and not with an unobservant eye or idle pencil. The author of Waverley somewhere observes, that he never passed fifteen minutes conversation with the meanest hind, without acquiring information, which added to his power to gratify his readers. The author of "Notes of a Traveller" has not held himself aloof from any class-and from the extent and variety of intelligence contained in his book, we must conceive him to be, not only an acute and attentive observer, but to have been withal, something of a bore, to the many from whom such va

ried information must have been wormed. But his readers are the gainers; and few will complain that he has been thus industrious. His travels commence at Washington, which, with Mount Vernon, are described at some length. Baltimore and Philadelphia--especially the latter city -seem to us to have been passed rather lightly over. New-York is more liberally dealt with. The seventh chapter, embracing, among other topics, the Apparatus of Literature' and 'Conversations with Booksellers on public taste,' contains one or two admirably drawn sketches. The palpable hit, in the first above named, at the puffing expositions and blustering ignorance of a ci-devant Magazine proprietor, is to the life; and in the second, the Conversations' are so natural, that they will be recognized at once by all who know the public-spirited and worthy gentleman, who stands as senior at the head of the well-known firm, from whose press this volume proceeds. The remarks of the author throughout, upon books, literature in general, and education, are sensible and just, and worthy of especial heed. We are compelled to refer our readers to the volume itself for very interesting descriptions of the most prominent scenes and towns in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and New-York-well assured, that after perusing the ascent to Mount Washington, and the Catskills to the Mountain House, they will agree with us, that the writer has an eye and ear open to the loveliness and majesty of nature, and the ability to convey his impressions of both with uncommon force and beauty. The subjoined faithful picture of New-York will scarcely prove unacceptable to the citizen, or the stranger at a distance :

Two

"There is much that is ludicrous in the motley crowds rushing through Broadway at different hours; but when the city is seen in one view, the sight is a solemn one. If you are called to depart, or if you by any chance arrive, in the dead of night, the vacancy and silence of the streets are exceedingly impressive. hundred and forty thousand people obeying the laws of nature, at least in repose. The dead of night, strictly speaking, lasts but a very short time in the principal thoroughfares; for the termination of the play at about twelve, and of fashionable parties at one, keeps up a rumbling of carriages for an hour or two, until the most remote routes have been performed, and the horses are returned to their stables. After this is over, half hours and even hours of almost total silence sometimes intervene, while the watchman, in the dome of the City Hall, proclaims to the ears of the sick and the watchful that another day is approaching, whether desired or apprehended by them. A cannon is fired at break of day on Governor's Island; but before this the lines of milk, bread, and butchers' carts are in motion, and some come rattling down the island from above, while others are collecting at the ferries on the Long Island and Jersey shores, and all are soon dinning the streets. From the heights of Brooklyn you may hear their rattling, increasing from feeble beginnings, until, joined by the drays proceeding from the north to the south part of the city to their stands, it swells into an unintermitted roar, like the sound of Niagara at Queenston, to stop not till midnight. Some time after daylight, while the lamps at the steam-boat docks are still glimmering, and those in the streets which, by mistake, have had oil enough, the first smoke begins to rise from the houses of laborers in the upper wards. Some five or ten early risers are just putting sparks to wood or coal; and their example is so contagious, that fires are speedily blazing in every house and almost every chimney in the city. In the cold season this is a singular sight; and when the wind is from the south in the morning, the heavy cloud which generally overhangs the city is blown northward, leaving the Battery in the light of the sun, while many of the other parts are deeply obscured. Soon after sunrise, floods of daily emigrants from the up

per wards, meeting at Broadway and Canal-street, pour down to the wharves, the mechanics' shops, and the houses in building, many of them with convenient little tin-kettles, containing their dinners and preparations for heating them, all bound to their work. Then come the clerks of all degrees, the youngest generally first: and these, in an hour or thereabouts, give place to their masters, who flow down with more dignity, but scarcely less speed, to the counting-rooms of the commereial streets, hundreds of them, especially in unfavorable weather, in the omnibuses, which render the street so dangerous now and at three or four o'clock in the afternoon. Ere these crowds have disappeared, they become crossed and mingled with some of the fourteen thousand children who go to the public and primary schools at nine, and an unknown number who frequent the private schools of all sorts. Then are seen also the students of Columbia College and the University, the medicals in winter hurrying to Barclay-street, lawyers, clients, and witnesses gathering about the City Hall, and the Marine, and Ward Courts. ** A stranger would think that New-York was a city of idleness, gayety, and wealth. But let him turn down almost any street at the right or left, and enter some of the dwellings of the industrious poor, and he would find all were not rich or unoccupied; let him glance at the chambers of others, and he would be convinced that some are wretched, and in want of all things."

The annexed conversation, overheard by the author between a poor man and a shop-keeper, with whom he was bartering some neat products of his skill, well illustrates Yankee curiosity and perseverance:

"Did you ever see any of Reeves's Patent Water Colors? If you did, I suppose you don't know exactly how they are made. Now these are as much Reeves's Colors as them you've got in your case yonder, though I made them yesterday myself. You don't believe that, I s'pose; but I've worked for Reeves in London: I couldn't find out in this country how to make such fine paints; and went to England a-purpose to larn. I didn't see why I shouldn't help him supply this country, the demand has got to be so great now. Well, they let me go into the shop-they thought I didn't know nothing, and perhaps I didn't such a terrible deal. However, I know'd so much as this-I got so pretty soon that I could make the patent colors as well as anybody. But I wasn't quite ready to come off yet, mind you. There was the camel's hair-pencils; nobody knew how to make them in the United States-and I thought I might as well larn that tue while my hand was in. Well, I left Mr. Reeves's, and got in a pencil-shop; and the first thing I found out was, that they are made of nothing in the world but squirrels' tails.'

"Here was an exclamation of surprise and doubt.

"If they an't,' continued the narrator, perfectly unabashed, 'I hope I may never stir out of my tracks. I tell you they're squirrels' tails, brought from America; and if they can manufacture them cheap, sartingly we ought to undersell 'em. But then there's the putting the hairs together all exactly right, and getting them through the little end of a chicken's quill, and there gluing them fast. That's the rub-not exactly that either-but there's the sticking-place. I guess I worked long enough at that to find out how it was done, and then had to be told and look too before I could larn; and law, it's easy enough.' "Well, how is it?'

"Ah!' replied the artisan, with a shrewd, penetrating, and ironical look'that's tellin'.'"

6

The style of this traveller's Notes,' is in general terse and perspicuous though there are occasional marks of haste-as on page thirteen, where the writer, in effect, informs the reader that Washington's mansion, although old, exhibits marks of age. But these defects-abundantly counterbalanced by more prominent beauties—are very rare.

THE PAST AND PRESENT, a comparative view of Idolatry and Religion, as aids to Learning: a Poem, pronounced before the Athenian Society of Bristol College, Pennsylvania. By WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK. Published by order of the Society. College Press.

THE author of this Poem mentions, in the Preface which introduces it to the public, that it is published contrary to his original intention, through the urgent solicitation of the President of Bristol College, and a Committee from the Society before which it was delivered-and that, being produced at a brief notice, it lacks the lima labor usually bestowed upon similar efforts-inasmuch, as on the evening previous to its recital, only two thirds of the production were completed the remainder being written and copied afterwards, and not even read entirely through, before the whole was pronounced at Bristol. The annexed extractfor which alone we can find space-succeeds a description of the long night which hung over the nations:

"While Learning, with a spirit dim and cold,
Bow'd to the dark idolatries of old,"-

and false Mythology exercised its baneful influence:

"Of this dark worship, what remaineth now?— Ask the pale ruins upon Phyle's brow!

Or, turning to Italia's coast, behold

The veil of time from the dim Past unroll'd!
Lo! where the Eternal City's wreck appears,
Crushed by the weight of many a hundred years!
Where now the trophies of her ancient pride?
O'erwhelmed, and lost in Lethe's rolling tide!
Her moss-grown temples trembling in decay,
Through which the stranger takes his winding way,
O'er prostrate obelisks and tombs unknown,
Which rose in mystery, and whose names are gone.
Gaze where the blithe Pleistus' waters flow,
Or where Dodona's woods in Summer glow:
Where Delphi's thunder-stricken ruins spread.-
Her shrines defaced, her altar-fires unfed!
How changed the glory of those haunts sublime,
Once held as sacred from the touch of time!
Still, robed in gorgeous light, against the sky,
The stern Pagnesiads lift their forms on high;-
Still smile the sunny vales in peace around,
And flowers in multitudes, bestrew the ground:
Each stream renowned of old, is flashing still,
And the blue air hangs bright o'er every
hill:
But where the grandeur of the towering piles,
Once proudly beaming 'mid those high defiles?
There Blennius with his barb'rous legions stood,
And bristling spears were bathed in crimson blood:
There lay the gathered spoils of Marathon,
And there the Lydian tributes brightly shone:
There fell Castalian dews, in freshness down,
And o'er Hyampeia, hung Apollo's frown;
And there the will of Gods, in falsehood told,
Was bartered forth, for red and gleaming gold-
Till fraud, successful for a while, became
A magic halo, circling Delphi's name.

"Now what remains? In solitude apart,
Her dreary aspect chills the traveller's heart;
Each fane, renowned of yore, in ruin laid,
Glooms in the dusky ivy's mantling shade:
And on those mighty gates, where Sages wrought
The solemn records of their lofty thought-

Whose power resistless, o'er a nation hung,
When Pindar swept his lyre, and Homer sung;
On them, no more the words of counsel burn
No longer on triumphant hinge they turn;
But mists of age their mouldering site conceal,
Where drowsy bats on twilight pinions wheel.

"Yet when those broken shrines were in their prime,-
The brightest objects in the eye of Time,-

When wrapt in guile those ancient Cities lay,

And scenes of riot turned the night to day;

When Lust and Murder stalked uncheck'd abroad,

And Sin's wide current like a river flow'd,

Then rose that star above Judea's land,

And bade its lustre o'er the world expand:

Then struggling Paul in Athens stood, and cried

Against idolatry, and fraud, and pride:

He spake of ONE, whose smile could warm the grave,-
Who walked unshrinking on the midnight wave;
Whose love was boundless, and whose tender eye
Look'd down on men with kind benignity.

The GOD that made the World,' he praised aloud,
Till Felix quaked, and Dionysius bow'd:
At Cæsar's judgment seat, sublime he stood,
With words of eloquence, a glowing flood:
With hand extended, and persuasive tongue,-
In Royal ears, his melting accents rung;
Till tears around him, fell like morning dew,
And Justice whispered that HIS GOD was true!

"Since then, rejoicing Science on its way,
Hath moved, illumined by Religion's ray;
That dawn unbarred the gates of heavenly light,
And quenched the darkness of that gloomy night-
Through the dim wastes of centuries it spread,
And bade the monk in cloisters, 'cowl his head,'-
Till halls of learning felt its cheering soul,
And bade the genial radiance onward roll.
Through Europe's boundaries it swept along-
Inspired the preacher's heart-the poet's song-
Barbarian hordes to Virtue's path it won,
And walked in beauty like the golden sun;
Till half the world its kindling power confest,
And the glad spirit ran from breast to breast."

The mechanical execution of this little Poem is creditable to the press of the Institution from whence it emanates.

TWO OLD MEN'S TALES: The Deformed, and the Admiral's Daughter. In two vols. 12mo. New-York: HARPER AND BROTHERS.

THE authorship of these two stories has been variously attributed. The author of Pelham' has been named, among other prominent writers; but we venture a prediction, that they are by the author of The Diary of a London Physician;' and 'it will go nigh to be thought so shortly,' or we are greatly in error. Whoever may be the writer, however, he exercises a potent sway over the hearts of his readers. The language the incidents-the plot-all are excellent, and stirring. The only objection, that will strike the reader as worthy of notice, is the