DIARY OF TOWN TRIFLES.

(KEPT REGULARLY FOR THE NEW MIRROR.)

"If trifles engage and if trifles make us happy, the true reflection suggested by the experiment is upon the tendency of nature to gratification and enjoyment."-Paley.

the week were the property of six privileged ladies by right of first seizure. Such pretenders to "society" as did not visit the week through in this established succession were as" damned" as Touchstone's friend the uncourtly shepherd. This was a vexatious invention, for, in the stereotyped innumerableness of fashionable houses, a man might blissfully visit nowhere and yet go undetected for a culprit "not in society." Heaven be praised, however, for the "safety in numbers," and especially for the imitative gregariousness of our country. There are now five hundred

To the invariable question of "What's the news?" the invariable answer is, "Nothing at all!"-yet he who answers delivers his budget in the same breath-a death and a marriage perhaps the least of his announcements. I (the diarist) have no news-none! I could "swear the gods into agues" that I have none ! Yet to entertain a visiter-families who "receive!" Not quite, as yet, in inextricable to divert a country cousin-to bridge over an awful pausewhat would one naturally say? I ask for information.

The Park theatre is open-(very open-being nearly empty!)—Mitchell's, on the contrary, is very close-being nightly full. But I do not know that any one cares about theatricals-to have them written or talked about, that is to say. Critics, both of the drama and of literature I think, have, of late, been shoved aside. The public are tired of interpreters to their taste, and express their opinions, now, by acclamation, not by one man's pen. Who cares now (as the Aurora said a day or two ago) for a column of criticism on a personation of Hamlet? If there is to be a play, or a concert, it is pretty fairly understood, in the Bowery as in Broadway, in Hyperborean Chelsea as in the tropics of the Battery, what will be the quality of the goer's money's worth. And three lines in the morning paper, when it is over, is all that is needful or advisable to be written on the performance. So God-speed the decline of criticism! Apropos, Miss Turnbull, the danseuse, has now become one of the regular Povey-dom of the Park-engaged "since the memory of the oldest inhabitant."

The cutaneous epidemic of the season has attacked the MUSEUM with great violence-a breaking out of its inside humours covering at present the entire surface. In plainer phrase, Mr. Barnum has completely covered the prominent and spacious fronts of the American Museum with oval paintings of the beasts, birds, fishes and Indians " on show" within, and a more holiday-looking castle of curiosity could scarcely be invented. The "Kentucky Minstrels" are the allure just now, and the pictures of the four ebon bards, large as life, over the balcony, and the remainder of the bewindowed and be-pictured building, with its indefatigable flags, its lantern steeple-high, and its lofty windmill of Punch and Judy, must all fall very gaily, to say the least, on the sober eye of a Johnny Newcome.

The funny little hat, small as Mercury's, which was laughed at upon the bagmen's heads six months ago, has fairly prevailed and is the mode, nem. con. Truly "every time serves for the matter (of hat) that is born in it." The eye can be argued with, and convinced. It was stoutly maintained three months ago, by one who is well known as " the complete varnish of a man," that this fashion of hat was but a porringer thing, and would never thrive in Broadway. And now nothing but that scant porringer looks tip-top and jaunty! Orlando Fish, (who, as tiler number one, is a man of more potent function, for my politics, than Tyler the first,) is making money out of the blocks which my facetious dandy friend recommended him rather to make tops of than tops on. Well-fashion goes by "jerks of invention," and as Holofernes says, "the gift is good in those in

whom it is acute."

RECEPTION is raging up town. All ladies may be said to be" in a parlous state" who have not a specified morning to" receive." Six months ago the six profane mornings of

confusion, however. A man of a generalizing mind may still comprehend his morning's work, and with fast horses and invariable French leave, may still refresh all necessary memories as to his existence. There is the Monday set, and the Tuesday set, and the Wednesday set, and so on through the week-crystallized according to neighbourhood, with one or two supercilious and recusant exceptions. The engravers are in full cry, however, and every week brings out new cards, "at home on Monday," "at home on Tuesday," etc. etc., and we shall soon be

'Blissfully havened both from joy in pain,"

by a general acknowledgment of the fact that nobody is more intensely at home than before, and everybody who has a house is simply "at home" whenever those who wish to see them can find leisure to ring the bell.

I don't know, by the way, that the compliment has been the more virtuous wild-fowl, esteemed for their gregarious. paid our country by foreign naturalists, of ranking us with ness. The Rev. Sidney Smith shows his lack of zoological learning in not modifying his abuse of us by remembering that "no birds of prey are gregarious." "Of wild-fowl," says Grew," those which are the most useful fly not singly birds of prey and rapacious animals," says Ray, “it is reas other birds, but are commonly gregarious." "Then for markable what Aristotle observes, that they are solitary and go not in flocks." Long live our multitudinous hotels, our animated extinguishment of distinction by imitation, our altogetherness of lordship and ladyship! The danger is in the stiffening of this fluidity of rank and condition before the scoria are recognized and before the mould of aristoladies or their catamounts tantamounts (bother! which is cracy can be dexterously handled. We shall have lords and the word ?) a few days at least before the millenium. This big orchard of green fruit is too large not to be destined to ripe and rot, reasonably and seasonably.

Apropos-I observe a spot advertised for sale that I have always looked upon as the most beautiful and aristocratic and in itself the best cradle nature could possibly form for property in this country-an island cradled by the Niagara, the family of a luxurious exclusive. It is about eleven miles above the Falls, an arrow-shot from the American shore, (with Grand Island between it and the Canadas,) and contains a hundred acres of land, charmingly wooded and varied, which have been turned into a Paradise by one of the most refined gentlemen of this country. A beautiful villa crowns it, and baths, hot-houses and all appliances to luxury are there, and all fenced in by the bright water about to rush over Niagara. The island is called Tonawanda, a delicious word for the name of a home. The advertiser refers to No. 533 Houston-street, New-York. One sighs to think that a little money could buy such a Paradise for one's own.

I observe a new fashion of cap, which gives the ladies an air

"As pert as bird, as straight as bolt,
As fresh as flower in May,"-

a cap that would fit a child's double fist, worn perched upon us and solve the question, "Where is Sealsfield?" and abthe summit of the organ of self-esteem, looking like an ap-solve our country from the shame of ignoring an author, ple-blossom on the top-knot of a French chicken. It is one who has been crowned with the laurels of transatlantic critiof those fashions whose worth depends upon the wearer- cism. We trust that the subject may seem as important to very telling upon a pretty coquette, and very ludicrous, top- the public as to ourselves, and that if, as seems probable, ping dignity or sentiment. some publisher who lives by stealing the brains of foreign authors has added to his crimes by incarcerating in the dungeons of Cliff-street, or Ann-street, or Water-street, this hero of our literature, let that public or the 'American Copy-right Club' have him disinterred immediately."

HITE, the miniature painter, has returned from Baltimore and Washington, having painted many pictures, and he is a man to make each picture better than the last. He has pried | patiently into the best secrets of this difficult art, and once master of the "trick" of it, he has the taste and genius to spiritualize and generalize, and achieve the portrait painter's great triumph of compounding the sitter's dozen of best looks on one ivory. He is the first miniature painter of this country, beyond a doubt. His rooms are at the corner of Broadway and Murray. Go to him, 'sweethearts and wives!'

The probability is that better information than I can give will be brought out by this "call upon the public," but meantime I will record, that this great American author, Sealsfield, is a German, who has resided in this country for some years, returned to Germany a few years since, and could probably be heard of in the neighbourhood of his intrepid reviewer and nomenclator. He probably "furnished the facts" for the review himself. He is ("to give the devil his due") a good writer, and while in this country contributed some excellent articles to the old Mirror.

Original literature in the lump is sadly at a discount in this country. MISS SEDGWICK, in the plenitude of her intellectual power, has taken to school-keeping. Another authoress, very superiour to MISS SEDGWICK in the qualities neces- Leaving to other people my share of curiosity as to the sary to saleable writing, MRS. MARY CLAVERS, is employed source of the Niger, I should like to know the author of in the same ill-suited drudgery. COOPER, I understand, now and then a joke that goes the round of the newspapers. makes nothing by his American editions, and thinks of pub. Genius is the most promiscuous of animals, and is found in lishing only in England and importing a few copies at Eng- all sorts of disreputable places, dress and company-in quack lish prices. American literature has nearly ceased, or it is advertisements and negro wit, as often as in patented invenscattered in such small rills of periodical-writing that it will tions and publications of gilt edge. There is a kind of unmake no mark upon the time. PRESCOTT is an exception, it is labelled genius which is wholly incapable of being turned true, but Prescott is a man of fortune and writes for fame, to any profit, but which now and then starts out from an not bread and butter. Why should not a subscription be unsuspected quarter and takes Probability by the beard with raised by the patriotic to give fair play and studious leisure a delicious intrepidity. This morning's paper has an into the original and poetic genius of MRS. CHILD-wasted || stance-a three line story of a Yankee who bought a bushel now on ephemera for newspapers! Money left for such of shoe-pegs, and finding they were made of rotten wood, uses, or given by the living, would better embalm the me. sharpened the other ends and sold them for oats! Quite mory of the giver than many a common charity. What is || aside from the fun of that, it is worth analyzing as an abto be the effect on the national character of the present surdity of the most brilliant audacity of invention. Will hiatus of original American literature, and how long is it to || the respectable author oblige me with his autograph? last? For how long are we to take our mental wardrobe second-hand from England, and read to the world as all wearers of unfitting garments seem-out of harmony with our shape and model from nature!

It has been inquired with some point what Gray and Goldsmith did with all their bad poetry. Mr. Bryant is the one poet of this category among us-the only American poet whose crystalline fame will anneal and cool without blemish or flaw. The pure taste that governs the Home Library has chosen Bryant's poems for the first of a series of American poetry, and there could be nothing purer or more finished. Shame that purity and finish should sell for a shilling!

Epes Sargent, too, has descended from copyright Olympus to within a shilling's length of profane purchase, and he is a sweet and true poet. I do not wish him ill, but may the un

It is stated in the Boston Daily Advertiser, (in an article || headed "THE GREATEST AMERICAN AUTHOR,") that, in a work of no small authority and importance in Germany, a continuation of Frederick Schlegel's "History of Literature," a writer by the name of SEALSFIELD is put at the head of American literature, and defined as "the great national painter of the characteristics of his native land, who has unfolded the poetry of American life and its various relations yet better than Cooper and Irving." The editor of the Ad-worthy shillings rain on him like the easy showers of April! vertiser remarks that the critical opinion of this work will be taken implicitly on this subject by half Europe, and no American authority at least will be able to gainsay it. He continues:-"We have, therefore, taking shame to ourselves for past ignorance, made all reasonable inquiries in this matter. We have applied at the principal bookstores and libraries in the neighbourhood, but to our surprise neither books or author have as yet been heard of. The Athenæum, Burnham, Little and Brown, and Redding and Co. are all in ignorance. We have applied to all literary circles to which the humble conductors of diurnal publications have the entrée, but a hearty laugh has been the only answer to our anxious queries.

"We are yet unwilling to let this sin of ingratitude rest upon American readers. We call upon the public to assist

THE BREVIARY.

HERE is some of the needful bread-and-water of poetry often-felt feelings expressed in often-used words; and if not so highly flavoured as truffles and olives, better at least for the heart's every-day hunger. We have never had much poetry committed to memory, but we have repeated this without the book, before now:

"Forget thee?"-If to dream by night, and muse on thee by day;

If prayers in absence, breathed for thee to Heaven's pro-
If all the worship deep and wild a poet's heart can pay ;
tecting power;

If busy Fancy blending thee with all my future lot;
If winged thoughts that flit to thee-a thousand in an hour;

If this thou call'st "forgetting," thou, indeed, shalt be forgot!

Forget each old familiar face, each long remember'd spot; When these things are forgot by thee, then thou shalt be forgot!

Keep, if thou wilt, thy maiden peace, still calm and fancyfree;

For, God forbid! thy gladsome heart should grow less glad
for me;

Yet, while that heart is still unwon, oh! bid not mine to rove,
But let it nurse its humble faith, and uncomplaining love;
If these, preserved for patient years, at last avail me not,
Forget me then;-but ne'er believe that thou canst be forgot!
And here is another plain, straight-forward and adorable
love-argument (well known) by adorable Mrs. Norton:-

I do not love thee !-no! I do not love thee!
And yet when thou art absent I am sad,

And envy even the bright blue sky above thee, Whose quiet stars may see thee and be glad.

I do not love thee!-yet I know not why, Whate'er thou dost seems still well done, to meAnd often in my solitude I sigh

That those I do love are not more like thee!

I do not love thee !-yet, when thou art gone,
I hate the sound (though those who speak be dear)
Which breaks the lingering echo of the tone
Thy voice of music leaves upon my ear.

I do not love thee!-yet thy speaking eyes,
With their deep, bright, and most expressive blue-
Between me and the midnight Heaven arise,
Oftener than any eyes I ever knew.

I know I do not love thee !-yet alas!
Others will scarcely trust my candid heart!
And oft I catch them smiling as they pass,
Because they see me gazing where thou art.

A beautiful woman, dying in her prime, is thus beautifully chanted in requiem by a poet who keeps a hymn harmony in his brain while writing. It sounds like an articu. late voluntary on the organ:

Weep not for her! Her span was like the sky,

Whose thousand stars shine beautiful and bright,
Like flowers that know not what it is to die,

Like long link'd shadeless months of polar light,
Like music floating o'er a waveless lake,
While echo answers from the flowery brake,
Weep not for her!

Weep not for her! She died in early youth,
Ere hope had lost its rich romantic hues,
When human bosoms seem'd the homes of truth,
And earth still gleam'd with beauty's radiant dews.
Her summer prime waned not to days that freeze,
Her wine of life was not run to the fees:

Weep not for her! There is no cause of woe,
But rather nerve the spirit that it walk
Unshrinking o'er the thorny path below,

And from earth's low defilements keep thee back,
So when a few fleet swerving years have flown,
She'll meet at Heaven's gate, and lead thee, on;
Weep not for her!

Alaric Watts writes sweet poetry sometimes. This is his
-from a volume of poems printed for private circulation:-
"Tis said she once was beautiful;-and still
(For 'tis not years that can have wrought her ill)
Deep rays of loveliness around her form
Beam, as the rainbow that succeeds the storm
Brightens a glorious ruin. In her face,
Though something touch'd by sorrow, you may trace
The all she was, when first in life's young spring,
Like the gay bee-bird on delighted wing,
She stoop'd to cull the honey from each flower
That bares its breast in joy's luxuriant bower!
O'er her pure forehead, pale as moonlit snow,
Her ebon locks are parted-and her brow
Stands forth like morning from the shades of night,
Serene, though clouds hang over it. The bright
And searching glance of her Ithuriel eye,
Might even the sternest hypocrite defy
To meet it unappall'd;-'twould almost seem,
As though, epitomised in one deep beam,
Her full collected soul upon the heart,
Whate'er its mask, she strove at once to dart :-
And few may brave the talisman that's hid
'Neath the dark fringes of her drooping lid.!

Patient in suffering, she has learned the art
To bleed in silence and conceal the smart,
And thence, though quick of feeling, hath been deem'd
Almost as cold and loveless as she seem'd;
Because to fools she never would reveal

Wounds they would probe without the power to heal.
No,-whatso'er the visions that disturb

The fountain of her thoughts, she knows to curb
Each outward sign of sorrow, and suppress-

Even to a sigh-all tokens of distress.

Yet some, perhaps, with keener vision than
The crowd, that pass her by unnoted, can,
Through well-dissembled smiles, at times, discern
A settled anguish that would seem to burn
The very brain it feeds upon; and when
This mood of pain is on her, then, oh! then,
A more than wonted paleness of the cheek,-
And, it may be, a flitting hectic streak,-
A tremulous motion of the lip or eye,
Are all that anxious friendship may descry.

Reserve and womanly pride are in her look,
Though temper'd into meekness; she can brook
Unkindness and neglect from those she loves,
Because she feels it undeserved-which proves
That firm and conscious rectitude hath power
To blunt Fate's darts in sorrow's darkest hour.
Ay, unprovoked injustice she can bear
Without a sigh-almost without a tear,
Save such as hearts internally will weep,
And they ne'er rise the burning lids to steep;
But to those petty wrongs which half defy
Human forbearance, she can make reply
With a proud lip and a contemptuous eye.

There is a speaking sadness in her air,
A tinge of languor o'er her features fair,
Born of no common grief-as though despair
Had wrestled with her spirit-been o'erthrown-
And these the trophies of the strife alone:-
A resignation of the will, a calm,

Derived from pure religion, (that sweet balm
For wounded breasts,) is seated on her brow,
And ever to the tempest bends she now,
Even as a drooping lily, which the wind
Sways as it lists. The sweet affections bind
Her sympathies to earth; her peaceful soul
Has long aspired to that immortal goal,
Where pain and anguish cease to be our lot,
And the world's cares and frailties are forgot!
The older we grow the more we love other people's poe-
try. Any body who writes any thing good has a com-
mendation to our heart, and we wish to lend him our
"sweet voice" in the way of swelling his praises. Some-
body says of talking, in one of the plays of Beaumont and
Fletcher, what we hope to live to say of reading poetry :-
"I am old,

And talking to an old man is like a stomacher,
It keeps his blood warm."

LOVERS CHANGE.

A FEW days since, the loiterers about the waiting-room at the Jersey City ferry had an opportunity to feast their eyes with a specimen of loveliness, rare even in that omnium gatherum of female beauty. Southern travellers have long been aware of the daily sights to be seen in this spot, and no man regrets being half an hour too early for the Philadel. phia train. The morning of which we write presented the accustomed spectacle of crowds of characters, all bent on travelling, and about to radiate to their different destinations from this common centre. It was a bright, sunshiny morning, one of the laziest of the spring-time; and the expectant passengers, in waiting for the nine o'clock train, were taking things deliberately and coolly. On the adjacent wharves and walks were the accustomed quantity of green crates, with their tin-ticket-venders, the usual crowd of friends and acquaintances looking on, and the usual quantity of vociferous news-boys and officious porters were in attendance, while the consequent screaming and shout. ing were duly performed. In the room itself there might have been some twenty individuals of both sexes, all bent on travelling. Not a few of the ladies among them would have attracted no inconsiderable attention on the sunny side of Broadway at high-tide, (three o'clock,) but they were unnoticed this morning in the presence of the rare beauty, who became the target of all eyes, as soon as she entered, and who is to enact the part of heroine in this short and true story.

his pale and attenuated fingers, betrayed at once the depth of his purse and the shallowness of his intellect; and, as a whole, he was no bad impersonation of wealthy city dissipation. He was constantly and nervously attentive to the lady, trembling with the ardour and publicity of his attentions as violently as an omnibus-window in a race, and kept buzzing about her like a little bee about a magnificent flower, displaying his own insignificance, and rendering the tall and majestic lady only the more conspicuous by his attendance.

They twain were capital texts for a waiting passenger, of an imaginative turn of mind. How easy to spin out a moving story of beauty and innocence sacrificed to wealth, of rare and almost miraculous loveliness offered up at the shrine of mammon. How many tears must have been shed, how many violent entreaties made before that unhappy consummation? And now that it was apparently verging to its conclusion, what a world of sympathy might be wasted on the oft-told tale of love, sacrificed to gold. The young man, however, whatever might be his prospects, had evidently as yet no legal claims to the lady; his attentions were far too studied and continued for that; and, however certain he might be of ultimate conquest, he was evidently nervously anxious to appear before her eyes in as favourable light as possible, and do credit to the apparent unworthiness of his destiny. There were many minor evidences, hard to put upon paper, but evident to the close observer, which convinced the staring spectators that their acquaintance was of no very remote date.

She was above the common height, apparently some two The waiting passengers, one and all, as if by common conand twenty years old, in the full flush of womanhood, and of most majestic but symmetrical proportions; habited sent, watched this couple, and whiled away the unexpired in a black coat-dress, which fitted easily to the form, half-time of uniting in different speculations of their character concealed by a rather scant cape, from which a dark and destiny. Among others might have been seen, standsilk long-shawl hung in coquettish negligence half-way to ing near one end of the room, a man of more than ordinary the ground. She wore a closely-fitting bonnet, of dark vel-attractive personal appearance, wrapped in a closely-buttoned overcoat, which displayed his broad chest and square vet, trimmed with velvet ribbon of a similar shade, with a slight black lace-veil, so thin that it only heightened instead shoulders to great advantage, who kept his gaze riveted to the lady. Balancing himself on his heels, with his feet apart, of hiding the loveliness of her face. Her features were irresistibly attractive, and, being coupled with a form of and the knob of his ivory-headed cane pressed to his lips, he matchless excellence, the gazer would find himself staring looked intently at the lady, only dropping his eyes when hers in admiring wonder, ere his sense of propriety could make encountered them, and not then until one rapid and earnest him aware of his indecorum. Her face was of that rare glance had made the lady feel and remember the look. and appreciable beauty, which, when casually encountered The particular schedule of this gentleman's personal appearby the eyes of the veriest woman-hater in the world, would||ance can be found at page two hundred and fifty of the last inevitably detain them for a second look. A complexion volume of the Mirror, for it was none other than Tom clear and brilliant as the morning, and eyes of that watery Tucker-a name there immortalized. By reference, it will and lustrous blackness, as rare as beautiful. The mellow be seen that Tom was a man of great personal beauty, of redness of her lips, and the faultless and varying tinge of matchless impudence, and of marvellous assurance, which her cheeks, were in perfect harmony, while they contrasted expanded with its necessities, and made him equal to any richly with the dazzling whiteness of her teeth. Her smile and every undertaking which he once entered upon. He was a man, too, fond of and ripe for adventures, and every was miraculously beautiful, and many a heart envied her way qualified for the success which almost invariably attendcompanion his happiness, in being their object. There was something so lady-like and faultlessly proper in her whole ed them. It boded no good to the intimacy of the first decarriage and demeanour, so graceful and dignified in walk-scribed gentleman, that Tom's gaze at the lady should be so ing, so majestic and elaborate in repose, that he must have been a close observer or a bold man who could think of her as other than a lady of the highest ton-one of the very upper crust of the élite.

Her companion was a slender and sickly-looking youth, apparently some two or three years her junior, of a pale and cadaverous countenance, with an unassuming gray eye; having nothing in his physical appearance to warrant his being cavalier to so fair a dame. He was elaborately dressed, however, and wore a profusion of costly jewelry. The abundance of gold chains about his neck, a diamond breast. pin, as large as a moderate oyster, on his narrow and contracted chest, and half a dozen glittering diamond rings on

ardent and continued.

Tom drew his conclusions rapidly; and, it may be as well to say, that, from the mental inventory of the circumstances, he had made up his mind, (and after events proved him not to be mistaken,) that the gentleman and lady were at the best but recent acquaintances, and that there was little true love wasted on either side. From this conclusion, it was a natural and easy consequence that Tom should be satisfied he might, by bold and judicious management, supplant the gentleman, and secure the lady's attentions to himself, and, nothing loth, plans were rapidly made for the accomplishment of this object.

They had not been in the room to exceed ten minutes,

The air and manner of the lady attracted Mr. Smith's attention for a moment, as she passed the door, but he presently turned to his paper; probably thinking it somewhat remarkable, however, that there should be two such figures crossing his vision the same day. He read his paper for a few moments, but apparently without much attention, for it soon dropped from his hand, while his eyes were bent intensely on the floor and he seemed lost in thought. What his reflections were are known only to himself, but they seemed to make him uncomfortable. He began to grow uneasy in his chair, took up and laid down the paper a dozen times, and, finally throwing it upon the table, with a Tom followed the gentleman to the register, and looked blow that made every sitter in the room look off from his over his shoulder as he wrote his name:" J. Smith and|| reading, he started hurriedly through the hall, and clearing Lady, New-York." If there were any lingering doubts in || three stairs at every bound, was soon tapping at the door of