miserable wreck. He pauses before the dwelling whence proceeds the lights that reveals his ruined state; and even amid the stupefaction of his intellect, remembers that it was once his own. He howls forth an execration, and rushes madly onward.

Again a change appears. A wretched hovel is presented, standing alone upon a waste and desolate moor. Within it, cowering over a hearth on which a few small fragments of wood are burning, sits a female-young but of sickly aspect, Her look and attitude beand more sorrowful than sickly. token misery and despair; and beside her, stretched upon a little heap of rags, lies the attenuated form of a dead childdead, its fleshless limbs and haggard features tell, of cold and hunger.

Without, the moor lies bleak and covered with snowthe keen wind sweeps over it unchecked by tree or housethe brilliant stars of winter are glittering above-and but a few yards from the door, already half buried in the snowdrift, lies the stiffening body of the drunkard. He had reel. ed and staggered almost to the presence of the wife whom he had reduced from affluence to destitution, and there, fall- || ing in his intoxication, passed from sleep to death, alone, unaided and unseen.

Again the surface of the cloud was blank; and as Belial descended from the platform, one universal roar of triumph and of applause burst from the myriads of evil spirits, and the judgment of his peers that he had most perfectly exhibited the folly of mankind, was pealed forth in such a voice of thunder that its echoes reached even hell's remotest borders. Yet Lucifer sat silent on his throne; nor by word or look avowed his concurrence in the popular decision. He rolled his glowing eyes around from face to face, with a look of expectation, as if he derived a fiendish pleasure from the efforts of his chiefs, and would have the prize still contended for by other aspirants. Silence meanwhile was restored, and the glance of Satan fell at length upon his greatest follower, the potent and daring Beelzebub,

"Than whom,

With grave
Satan except, none higher sat.
Aspect he rose, and in his rising seemed
A pillar of state. Deep on his front engraved
Deliberation sat, and public care,

And princely council in his face yet shone,
Majestic though in ruin; sage he stood
With Atlantean shoulders fit to bear

The weight of mightiest monarchies. His look
Drew audience and attention still as night,
Or summer's noontide air."

His step, as he approached the platform, was grave and
stately, and his expression serious yet resolved-as though
he felt the hazard of some great enterprise, yet blenched
All eyes were intently fixed upon
not from its encounter.
him, as he stood beside the altar, and, pausing there, for a
brief space, gazed earnestly upon his monarch. For a mo-
ment there was a shade of indecision in his look-it might
be of anxiety or alarm-but with a visible effort it passed
away, and stretching forth his hand toward the cloud, Beel-
zebub resolutely fastened his gaze upon the scene which be-
gan already to appear upon its surface.

13

exhibition of human folly-but suddenly the surface of the
cloud was agitated, broken and convulsed; the arena with its
figures disappeared; the myraids of lights that blazed in the
hall were in a moment extinguished, and pitchy darkness
fell like a monstrous pall upon the multitudes convened
within it. Then, from the bosom of the cloud, blazed forth
the Cross, now glowing as if wrought of celestial fire-peal
on peal of thunder bellowed through the vast expanse, and
multitudinous lightnings flashed terrour to the hearts of the
Headlong they fled and howling, their
assembled legions.
mightiest among the first, nor paused until the lowest deeps
of hell were sought as refuge from the wrath they had pro-
voked, and which too late they found could reach them even
in the very citadel of their accursed empire.

THE BREVIARY.

EVERY reader of the Mirror is a lover of roses, and apropos of the season, just now near by, when they are most loved and plucked, we will give some learned lore on the subject of this Queen of Flowers. It is from a choice book, a favourite of ours, written in the epistolary fashion:

In the mirror of truth, prithee say, is it shown?
Or is it but guess'd by your fancy alone,
That pleasure, true pleasure, can only be known
Sub Rosa? Mrs. Spencer.

MY DEAR ANNE-The Rose, as you are aware, is not only the flower of Love, and the emblem of Beauty, but is also considered the symbol of Secrecy. A kiss is often taken and allowed" under the Rose." A belief that two young "under the Rose." The certainty of arrangements for an companions have become lovers, is a suspicion whispered intended marriage often transpires "under the Rose;" and, whenever I greet the full-blown impression of your exquisitely engraven seal, with its appropriate motto-" Sub Rosa," I always anticipate beneath it, if not a poetical kiss or a lover's secret, yet expressions of kindness, and feelings of friendship, which are sacred and inviolate; and for which these letters on the importance of the Rose must be my feeble return.

It appears to have been with reference to this attribute of secrecy that the Rose was adopted not only as a part of the blazon on the arms, but likewise as a cognomical designation of the fraternity of the Rosycrucians, a sect of philosophers which appeared in Germany about 1614, and presently spread themselves through most of the countries of Europe, and out of which has sprung the present system of Freemasonry. The opinion that the Rose was assumed as the symbol of secrecy, and the cross to represent the solemnity of the oath by which the vow of secrecy was ratified, is defended by a writer of authority on the subject. Against this presumption, however, it is argued that the armorial bearings of the family of John Valentine Andrea, a cele. brated theologian of Wirtemberg, were a St. Andrew's cross and four Roses; which Andrea is suspected of having fabri cated the legend of Father Rosycross, out of which originated this celebrated order. I ought to apologize for such a seemingly unfeminine digression; but I wish you to know, That scene was the arena of an amphitheatre, such as were employed for gladiatorial exhibitions in the palmy days my fair friend, that these were the men so long famed for of Rome. At one side was the statue of a heathen divinity their occult studies in the pursuit of some imagined univer-the Jove Omnipotens of classic paganism-and at the sal panacea-or elixir vita; and also of that wonderful transmuter of all inferiour metals into gold-the philosoother a lofty upright cross: and midway between them stood a group of figures, the principal of which was an aged man pher's stone. These foolish pursuits, which in the sixteenth meanly habited and with chains upon his limbs. Those century made such a noise, even in England, are now exaround him seemed from their garb to be priests and warriors ploded: and no doubt many individuals, whose gold by the -most of them wearing helmets and martial trappings, and processes of alchemy had been turned into dross in the cruthe others fillets upon their heads, with flowing vestments cible, would derive much consolation from the doctrine of descending to the ground. At the foot of the statue knelt the following paragraph from one of the writers of the sect: one bearing in his hands vessels of gold, jewelled collars"It is a very childish objection that the brotherhood have and various other treasures, which he seemed proffering to promised so much and performed so little. With them, as the aged prisoner; and near the cross stood a grim and sav- elsewhere, many are called but few chosen; the masters of age figure, exhibiting instruments of torture. The priests the order hold out the Rose [the secret] as a remote prize, were gathered round the captive, and by their looks and but they impose the cross [the labour] on those who are engestures might be deemed persuading him to approach and tering." Among other curious notions, they held that the worship the idol-statue; but he, with head averted and looks principle which determined the shape of animals and vegedirected upward, stretched forth his hands as to embrace tables when they became organized was incipient in certain the cross, and seemed to spurn the bribe thus offered for his salts, to be obtained from the ashes of similar bodies! Sir Kenelm Digby has left a recipe for producing cray-fish after apostacy. this fashion; and the celebrated Kircher is said to have exhibited in his museum a phial, hermetically sealed, contain

The eyes of Satan and all his host, were riveted upon this scene of what the bold Beelzebub dared to offer as an

My next flower is from the garden of Sir John Davies, who, in 1592, dedicated his poem on the "Immortality of the Soul" to Queen Elizabeth: but the following is from a series of twenty-six compositions, entitled," Hymns of Astrea;" all of which exhibit, in their initial letters of each line, ELISA-BETHA REGINA; this acrostical flower, therefore, you must reverence as a royal Rose.

TO THE ROSE.

Eye of the garden, queen of flowers,
Love's cup wherein lie nec'trous powers,
I ngender'd first of nectar,

Sweet nurse-child of the Spring's young hours,
And beauty's fair character.

B less'd jewel that the earth doth wear,
E 'en when the brave young sun draws near
To her, hot love pretending;

Himself likewise like form doth bear,
At rising and descending.

Rose, of the queen of love belov'd;
England's great kings, divinely mov'd,
Gave Roses in their banner;
It show'd that beauty's Rose indeed
Now in this age should them succeed,
And reign in more sweet manner.

ing a Rose, the product of such a lixivium. Besides its identification in all ages and countries with Love and Beauty, the Rose was celebrated in the Catholic church in connection with religion. Dr. Lindley, in his "Rosarum Monographia," the best scientific work on the genus Rosa in our language, says, "Marullus tells a story of a holy virgin, named Dorothea, who suffered martyrdom in Cæsarea, under the government of Fabricius, and who converted to Christianity a scribe named Theophilus, by sending him some Roses, in the winter time, out of Paradise. A golden Rose was considered so honourable a present that none but crowned heads were thought worthy either to give or receive it. Roses of this kind were sometimes consecrated by the Pope on Good Friday, and given to such potentates as it was their particular interest or wish to load with favours; the flower itself being an emblem of the mortality of the body, and the gold, of which it was composed, of the "immortality of the soul." The following remarks are from the article Rosa in the elaborate and valuable" Arboretum et Fruticetum" of Mr. Loudon, a gentleman who has laid this country under lasting obligation, by his works on arboriculture, gardening, and practical botany in all its branches. He tells us that, in an old mosaic, in the church of St. Lusan, at Rome, Charlemagne is represented kneeling, and receiving from St. Peter a standard covered with Roses. The custom Thomas Carew was an elegant poet who lived in the reign of blessing the Rose is still preserved in Rome, and the day of Charles I., to whose fortunes he adhered; he was one of on which the ceremony is performed is called Dominica in the first in whom we find gallantry and the graces united. Rosa. The Rose was always considered as a mystical emHis poems, chiefly short pieces, were highly valued by his blem by the Catholic church; and, as Schlegel observes, it contemporaries: his longest production is "Calum Britanenters into the composition of all the ornaments of Gothic nicum," a masque, performed in the banqueting-house at churches, in combination with the cross. The seal of Lu-Whitehall: and you may perhaps be surprised to learn that ther was a Rose. In the middle ages, the knights at a tournament wore a Rose embroidered on their sleeves, as an emblem that gentleness should accompany courage, and that beauty was the reward of valour. About that period the Rose was considered so precious in France that, in several parts of the country, none but the rich and powerful were allowed to cultivate it: but in later times we find it mentioned, among the ancient rights of manors, that their owners were empowered to levy a tax or tribute on their tenants, of so many bushels of Roses, which were used not only for making rose-water, but for covering the tables with, instead of napkins. The French parliament had formerly a day of ceremony, called Baillée de Roses, because great quantities of Roses were then distributed.

****

Thus having told you how the bridegroom Thame was drest, I'll show you how the bride fair Isis they invest; Sitting to be attired under a bower of state, Which scorns a meaner sort than fits a princely rate; In anadems for whom they curiously dispose The red, the dainty white, the goodly damask Rose, For the rich ruby, pearl, and amethyst, men place In king's imperial crowns, the circle that embrace. Drayton's Polly Olbion I now present you with a bouquet of poetical Roses, culled from the works of the earlier British poets, chiefly those who flourished from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries inclusive. As you may not be familiar with the names alluded to, I shall introduce the composition of each with a brief notice of its author: and these remarks you may consider, my dear friend, either as the foliage, or the stems of the Roses which they accompany.

Whitney, a poet who, in 1586, published a volume of curious "Emblemes," with cuts, has the following quaint sonnet, entitled

POST AMARA DULCIA.

Sharpe prickes preserve the Rose, on everie parte,
That who in haste to pull the same intendes
Is like to pricke his fingers, till they smarte;
But, being gotte, it makes him straight amendes;
It is so freshe and pleasant to the smell,

Though he was pricked, he thinks he ventured well.
And he that faine would get the gallant Rose,
And will not reach fore feare his fingers bleede;
A nettlee is more fitter for his nose,

Or hemlocke meete his appetite to feed.

None merites sweete who tasted not the sower,
Who fears to climbe desuerves nor fruicte nor flower.
Which showes we should not faint for any paine
For to atchieve the fruites of our decire:
But still proceede, and hope at length to gaine
The things we wishe, and crave with hearts entire,
Which all our toile, and labour, shall requite,
For after paine comes pleasure and delighte.

the masquers on this occasion were the King's Majesty,
one duke, four earls, one viscount, and eleven lords, besides
several noblemen's sons! He was an admirer of our fa-
vourite flower, as witness this posy of

RED AND WHITE ROSES.
Read in these Roses the sad story
Of my hard fate and your own glory.
In the white you may discover
The paleness of a fainting lover;
In the red, the flames still feeding
On my heart with fresh wounds bleeding.
The white will tell you how I languish;
And the red express my anguish;
The white my innocence displaying,
The red my martyrdom betraying.
The frowns that on your brow resided
Have those Roses thus divided;

Oh! let your smiles but clear the weather,
And they both shall grow together.

You may think the conceits forced enough in the above, but what do you think of the affection and hyperbole of the following lines from the same author?

ON A DAMASK ROSE, STICKING UPON A LADY'S BREAST.
Let pride grow big, my Rose, and let the clear
And damask colour of thy leaves appear;
Let scent and looks be sweet, and bless that hand
That did transplant thee to that sacred land.
O happy thou, that in that garden rests;
That paradise between that lady's breasts:
There's an eternal spring; there shalt thou lie,
Betwixt two lily mounts, and never die :
There shalt thou spring among the fertile vallies,
By buds like thee, that grow in 'midst of allies:
There none dare pluck thee, for that place is such
That but a god divine there's none dare touch;
If any but approach, straight doth arise
A blushing lightning flash, and blights his eyes.
There, 'stead of rain, shall living fountains flow;
For wind, her fragrant breath for ever blow.
Nor now, as erst, one sun shall on thee shine,
But those two glorious suns, her eyes divine.
O then, what monarch would not think't a grace,
To leave his regal throne to have thy place?
Myself, to gain thy blessed seat, do vow,
Would be transformed into a Rose as thou.

William Drummond, a Scotch poet, generally called Drummond of Hawthornden, was of gentle extraction, and, like Carew, involved in the fortunes of the unfortunate Charles, whose execution is said to have hastened the end of our poet. He is a very pleasing writer, and not only in his "Flowers of Zion," and "Divine Poems," but in his "miscellaneous pieces, he is freer from indelicate allusions

than many others of his age. He has this madrigal on the

Rose:

Sweet Rose, whence is this hue

Which doth all hues excell?

Whence this most fragrant smell?

And whence this form and gracing grace in you?

In fair Pæstana's fields perhaps you grew,

Or Hybla's hills you bred,

Or odoriferous Enna's plains you fed,

Or Imolus, or where boar young Adon slew;

Or hath the queen of love you dyed of new

In that dear blood which makes you look so red? No, none of those, but cause more nigh you bliss'd; My lady's breast you bore, her lips you kiss'd. From the same:

THE ROSE.

Flower, which of Adon's blood
Sprang, when of that clear flood

Which Venus wept another white was born,
The sweet Cynarean youth thou lively shows;
But this sharp-pointed thorn,

So proud about thy crimson fold that grows,
What doth it represent?

Boar's teeth, perhaps, his milk-white flank which rent.
O show in one of unesteemed worth,

That both the kill'd and killer setteth forth.

These lines have an allusion to the first Idyllium of Bion, "on the death of Adonis:" from whose blood that sweet singer of Sicily represents the Rose to have sprangFawkes's translation of the passage runs thus :

As many drops of blood as from the wound
Of fair Adonis trickled on the ground,

So many tears she [Venus] shed in copious showers;
Both tears and drops of blood were turn'd to flowers;
From these in crimson beauty sprung the Rose,
Cerulean-bright anemonies from those.

Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, says that anemonies, and not
Roses, sprung from the blood of Adonis.

William Habington was born in 1605, and, like the pre-
ceding, was a poet and a lover. His amatory effusions are
tender and elegant, and still freer from indelicacies than the
productions of the previously mentioned bards. His poems,
in three parts, are entitled "Castara," by which epithet
he designates the lady of his love, who was daughter to
Lord Powis, and grand-daughter to Henry Percy, eighth
earl of Northumberland. He addresses the following verses
TO ROSES IN THE BOSOME OF CASTARA.
Ye blushing virgins happie are

In the chaste nunn'ry of her breasts,
For hee'd prophane so chaste a faire

Who ere shall call them Cupid's nests.
Transplanted thus, how bright yee grow;
How rich a perfume doe yee yield!
In some close garden, cowslips so
Are sweeter than i' th' open field.
In those white cloysters live secure
From the rude blasts of wanton breath,
Each houre more innocent and pure,
Till you shall wither into death.
Then that which living gave you roome,
Your glorious sepulcher shall be;

There wants no marble for a tomb,

Whose breast hath marble beene to me.

A modern edition of the Castara has been distinguished by Mr. Elton, who gives, in a note, the following elegant verses, from Bernard:

Nurs'd by the zephyr's balmy sighs,
And cherish'd by the tears of morn,
O Queen of flowers! awake! arise!
O haste, delicious Rose, be born!
Unheeding wish! no, yet awhile,

Be yet awhile thy dawn delay'd;
Since the same hour that sees thee smile
In orient bloom, shall see thee fade.
Themira thus, an op'ning flower,

Must withering droop at fate's decree;
Like, her, thou bloom'st thy little hour,
And she, alas! must fade like thee.
Yet go, and on her bosom die,

At once, blest Rose, thy throne and tomb;
While envious heaves my secret sigh,

To share with thee so sweet a doom.

Love shall thy graceful bent advise,
Thy blushing, trem'lous leaves reveal;

Go, bright, yet hurtless, charm her eyes;
Go, deck her bosom, not conceal.

Should some bold hand invade thee there,
From Love's asylum rudely torn;
Oh, Rose! a lover's vengeance bear,
And let my rival feel thy thorn.

The "divine Herbert," as he is called, in his collection
of poems entitled "The Temple," has the following lines,
which are very characteristic of his general style:
Brave Rose, alas, whose art thou? In thy chair,
Where thou didst lately so triumph and shine,

A worm doth sit, whose many feet and hair
Are the more foul the more thou art divine.
This, this hath done it, this did bite the root

And bottom of the leaves; which, when the wind

Did once perceive, it blew them under foot,
Where rude unhallow'd steps do crush and grind

Their beauteous glories. Only shreads of thee
And those all bitten, in thy chair I see.

Milton, whose partiality to this flower was no doubt eonsiderable, frequently mentions it, not only in "Paradise Lost," but also in the smaller pieces. In that fragment entitled "Arcades," he makes the Genius of the Wood address the nymphs thus:

And ye, the breathing roses of the wood,

Fair silver buskin'd nymphs, as great and good;
I know this quest of yours, and free intent,
Was all in honour and devotion meant

To the great mistress of yon princely shrine,
Whom, with low rev'rence, I adore as mine, &c.

And, in the most exquisite pastoral monody ever written,
he does not neglect to name the "Muskrose," in the cata-
logue of flowers which he invokes the vales to contribute,

To strew the laureate herse where Lycid lies.
The following very pretty song is from "the tuneful
Waller," as he has generally been called, and who lived
during the reigns of James I., Charles I., Cromwell, and
Charles II. Gaiety and elegance of thought, united with
harmony of versification, characterizes his poetry :
Go, lovely Rose !

Tell her that wastes her time and me
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.

Tell her that's young,

And shuns to have her graces spied,
That, hadst thou sprung

In deserts, where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.

Small is the worth

Of beauty from the light retir'd:
Bid her come forth,

Suffer herself to be desir'd,
And not blush so to be admir'd.

Then die! that she

The common fate of all things rare

May read in thee;

How small a part of time they share

That are so wondrous sweet and fair!

Carew, whom I have before mentioned, selects the fuga. ciousness of the Rose to enforce a similar exhortation:

The faded Rose each Spring receives
A fresh red tincture on her leaves;
But, if your beauties once decay,
You never know a second May.

O then be wise, and whilst your season
Afford you days for sport, do reason;
Spend not in vain your life's short hour,
But crop in time your beauty's flower,
Which will away, and doth together

Both bud and fade, both blow and wither.

I shall conclude this letter with a short quotation from Dryden's "Palamon and Arcite," and which exhibits the only distinct allusion to the Rose which I can recollect, from the numerous works of this vigorous poet.

At every turn she made a little stand
And thrust among the thorns her lily hand,
To draw the Rose; and every Rose she drew,
She shook the stalk, and brush'd away the dew;
Then party-colour'd flowers of white and red
She wove, to make a garland for her head.

I remain yours, &c.

THINGS WE HAD TO SAY

ON OPENING A NEW VOLUME.

THE etymology of April lies in dispute between aperire, the Latin word for open, (because at this time the earth is preparing to open and enrich us with its gifts,) and Aphrodite, one of the names of the Goddess of Love, to whom the month is especially consecrated. By either derivation it is the month of promise, and like the trees, we feel the juices lovingly ascending to our top, and we can venture to enter upon that " promising" which is the very "air o' the

time," without fearing that "performance" will be "the duller for the act." And, by the way, while we think of it, we have been beset by a friendly letter to cut short the present year, and commence a new volume with January 1, 1845. We must be excused for preferring, altogether, a commencement in April, accident and convenience quite aside. There is a fitness in commencing (putting out our first leaves) with nature. After nature's example we may venture, with our first issue, to promise a prodigal summer of flowers and a harvest of fruits, though there we trust the parallel will stop, for we do not propose with nature to "take our leaves" in October and fall presently to decay No, sir! Let us commence our primrose-coloured series in primrose-time. Our hopes are April-ish, as looks our cover. We hope to swell, not dwindle, from April into May-to give out our products more lavishly in June, and have a "harvest home" of prosperity in August. What says old Drayton of the order of such matters:

"The primrose placing first, because that in the Spring It is the first appears, then sweetly flourishing, The azure harebell, next, with them they neatly mix'd; T'allay whose luscious smell they woodbine plac'd betwixt; And 'mong those things of scent there prick'd they in the lily." —a fair picture of the art we mean to make manifest in our medley of literary flowers. There are some productions whose "luscious smell" requires the "allaying" of common sense; and, now and then, a lily of plain truth and simplicity," pricked in" between high-wrought prose and gorgeous poetry, makes charming harmony. The periodical writers of all times have practised this trick of diversity. "If a magaziner be dull" (says Goldsmith) "upon the Spanish war, he soon has us up again with the ghost in Cock-lane."

A writer,

from the usage of the old country, if the inevitable changes, which there creep in, should not be conformable to American taste, customs, climate or scenery. We would not further, but we certainly would not hinder, the having a language of our own, for we think one language little enough for a republic of fifteen or twenty millions. But, dependence upon England apart, the language of a country is a garden that requires looking after, and it needs grafting and transplanting as much as weeding and pruning. Who is to be the gardener? One man? One Mr. King of the

American? No-but fifty men, if there be fifty popular writers. There are no trustees of the language appointed by Congress. There is no penalty for the launching of words new and unfreightworthy. Professors of colleges (unless accidentally men of genius like Longfellow) have no power over the uses or abuses of language. With whom lies the responsibility? we ask again-for, upon its language, much of the repute and credit of the commonwealth is inevitably adrift. And we say again, with American popular writers lies the burthen of it. Mr. Irving's administration of his trust in the country's language is worth to us any two common years of Washington legislation, and will tell with more favourable weight upon our history than any two sessions of our late Congresses. We claim to have our small share of this same responsibility, and our small privilege of suggestion and appropriation. The language bas owed much to exotic introduction in other days, and it may still be lawfully enriched by the same process; and if we in our reading, or in our travel, have stumbled on more compact vehicles for meaning, and can bring them effectively into common use at home, we shall venture to claim praise for it. Indeed, we have long had half a mind to devote a corner of the Mirror to a record of the births and disinterments of the words new and prematurely buried! Whom would that horrify, besides Mr. King? Why, for example, should not the beautiful old English word summer-sunstead (descriptive of the season of the sun's stay or stead in summer) be restored to poetry-its relapse into Latin by the word summer-solstice being wholly unavailable from its technical inelegance? This is rather a forced instance, no other occurring to us at the moment; but our readers will remember pausing with regret, as we have, over the sweet passages which are the graves of lost words.

We have commenced two series in this number, which (" But nameless he, for blameless He shall be,") we shall carry out with more or less force as we find them complains of us for taking liberties with the Queen's Eng- popular. The Tales (of which the one which commences lish. He does not specify his instances. Mr. King of the on the first page is a specimen) will be as amusing as we American (we were not aware before that he was the procan make them, but will have an aim beyond-viz. that of prietor of the "King's English!") makes an outcry like showing the distinctions of society. The barriers which Milton's stall-reader,* at the title of "Rococo." If Mr. exist abroad, between those whom nature would not have King will give us one of his newspaper words that conveys, separated, are fast forming in our country, and all light like the single word Rococo, the entire periphrasis of "in-thrown upon the tendencies of our national character while trinsically valuable and beautiful, but accidentally and unjustly obsolete," we will send the offensive word back to France, where we got it. Meantime, as Costard said of his new word "remuneration," we "will not buy nor sell out of it." But, withal, we confess to great responsibility, in the adoption of new words and the restoration of old, We have made a small beginning also of a "Diary of and we do not spare, upon every instance, careful consider-Town Trifles," in which we shall record such matters as ation. It is due to the literature of our country that those who write for popular prints should sanction no corruptions of the country's language, but it is also due to the dignity of America, since she has come of age, that her popular writers should claim her share of improving and embellishing her inherited language, and even the right of departing

"Cries the stall-reader, bless me what a word on
A title page is this!"
Milton to Sir Harry Vans.

in progress of formation will be even more useful than amusing. Chance has given us the opportunity to observe these differences to some extent, and we shall embody them as skilfully as we can under the head of "Dashes at Life with a Free Pencil."

come under our daily notice in New-York-such matters, in short, as would form the topics of a city correspondence with friends in the country. There is a great deal passing constantly under our eye-wound about us, indeed, like tow around the waist of a rope-maker-which we shall weave into the continuous twine of a Diary, letting nothing escape that would twist naturally into a string of curiosity

or amusement.