NOTABILIA.

ORIGIN OF QUARRELS.

THE sweetest, the most clinging affection is often shaken by the slightest breath of unkindness, as the delicate rings and tendrils of the vine are agitated by the faintest air | that blooms in summer. An unkind word

from one beloved often draws blood from many a heart which would defy the battleaxe of hatred, or the keenest edge of vindictive satire. Nay, the shade, the gloom of the face familiar and dear awakens grief and pain. These, in the elegant words of the preacher Seed, are the little thorns which, though men of rougher form may make their way through them without feeling much, extremely incommode persons of a more refined turn in their journey through life, and make their travelling irksome and unpleasant. Oh, how careful ought we to be not to darken over and mutilate the sweet images of hope, and joy, and peace, that might gild the current of our own, and of our companion's life, by suffering these spots to mingle with them, these shadows of upas leaves to be reflected in the stream! Of all cruel words and deeds, the word or the deed that would darken hope is the most cruel. Upon old Latin models we see Hope delineated in the act of drawing back her garment, that her footsteps may not be impeded; and it is also worth remarking, that she is always drawn in the attitude of mo

tion, she is always advancing. Sweet traveller! who would have the heart to stop thee, albeit, in this world thou wilt never find the garden to which thou art journeying! Go on, with thy flower in thy hand, and may the blessing of God go with thee! Fraser's Magazine.

STEAMBOAT BUILDING IN THE UNITED STATES.

The annual report of commerce and navigation gives the following aggregate of the number of steamboats built in the United States since 1824, twenty-five years, in periods of five years each :-From 1824 to 1829, 194; from 1829 to 1834, 304; from 1834 to 1839, 504; from 1839 to 1844, 522; from 1844 to 1849, 969; total, 2492. Two thirds of these are built in the West, one-sixth of them in Ohio. The largest number of steamers built at one place are built in Pittsburg and its neighborhoodNew-York Paper.

To decline all advice, unless the example of the giver confirms his precepts, would be about as sapient as if a traveller were to refuse to follow the directions of a fingerpost, unless it drew its one leg out of the ground, or, rather, hopped after its own finger.

By reading we enjoy the dead, by conversation the living, and by contemplation ourselves.

CHRONICLE OF THE WEEK.

THE week of anniversaries and of Jenny | cold of a northern winter, moreover, the has come in. The streets are-on such country lady finds little opportunity for spring days, as are vouchsafed us-filled such promenades, as the swept trottoirs of with the prettiest of the townspeople, and a city will furnish; riding, too-if it were the rubicund faces of country growth. as satisfactory on the score of health-can hardly be practised in such snow as tramples into a two-months' sleighing. The result is, that May-day is very apt to find the smalltown beauty of America as pale and balllooking as the most intrepid adventuress upon city gas-lights.

It is an odd fact, by the way, and worthy of more serious mention than we can give to it now, that the old superiority of country ladies to those of cities, on the score of bloom and health, is fast going by. Thin slippers have found their way, it would seem, to country towns, and accord with infinitely less propriety with the mud of a provincial march than with the dampness of one upon Broadway. Through all the

How this matter will mend itself,-or if we have not been, by the very mention, treading unwittingly on the dainty toes (may Heaven bless their owners!) of some coun

try lass-we know not. That there is room for mending we must say, and-on this topic-it is all we set out to say.

now-a-days, when a trip to London is so much in the way.

While speaking of British habits, it may be worth while to quote what has been said of Americans and their manners by a certain Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley, who not long since travelled through this country. We are a curiously sensitive people, and there is nothing, the public (whom it is our aim to please) are so eager to know, as what is said of them.

We give besides the extract, a period or two of comment by Mr. WILLIS :

New York is fast growing into that kind of Gutta-Percha capacity, which has so long distinguished London. There seems no filling it; setting aside the Fair-which is a novel experience. London seems never in need of depletion; at least there seems room enough if not work enough. Railways disgorge their thousands, and boats their thousands more, and coaches and ships their tens of thousands each day, and these all find-bed, board, and lodging. May festivities are making a country rush toward New York, and yet where are the new-ly, or else the criticisms on them have been comers? They are swallowed up in the man of the town;-they are nourished for a week on the syllabub of concerts, and the strong meat of anniversaries, and then ejected, without so much as one spasmodic throe-a thousand miles inland!

We say New York is growing in this respect to be like London: for its hotels are multiplying in all the side streets and outlying nooks of the town. We are having not alone the great caravanseries which have hitherto been almost peculiar to American cities, but lesser houses, where quiet people slip through their week of visitation, in a quiet way, without eating with a thousand, or seeing their names in the journals.

An American stranger in one of the larger British cities would remark very early on his visit the absence of those huge hotels which characterize American cities; and it would be only after some weeks' acquaintance that he would discover the multitude of lesser houses—as prim and grave-looking as a private mansion-which make the inns of Great Britain.

The British are not fond of congregation, and no little of their home taste is carried with them to their town-hotel. For they are sure of privacy, and of such, and so few associates, as they desire.

So, it comes about that even the hotels have their special customers, kindred in taste and pursuit. Sporting men club together in a common coffee-room; clergymen by themselves; farmers discuss prices of grain, over a common table and a visitor can find his country friend, by calling at the haunts of those possessed of kindred tastes. This talk hardly seems out of the way

"I like the Americans more and more: either they have improved wonderfully late

As

cruelly exaggerated. They are particularly
courteous and obliging; and seem I think
amiably anxious that foreigners should carry
away a favorable impression of them.
for me, let other travellers say what they
please of them, I am determined not to be
prejudiced, but to judge of them exactly as
I find them; and I shall most pertinacious-
ly continue to praise them, (if I see no good
cause to alter my present humble opinion,)
and most especially for their obliging ci-
vility and hospitable attention to strangers,
of which I have already seen several in-

stances.

"I have witnessed but very few isolated cases, as yet, of the unrefined habits so usually ascribed to them; and those cases decidedly were not among the higher orders of people; for there seems just as much difference in America as anywhere else in some respects. The superior classes here have almost always excellent manners, and a great deal of real and natural, as well as acquired refinement, and are often besides (which perhaps will not be believed in fastidious England) extremely distinof the steamboats appear a remarkably genguished looking. By-the-way, the captains tlemanlike race of men in general, particularly courteous in their deportment, and very considerate and obliging to the passengers."

"Lady Emmeline's own perfectly simple and unaffected manners won very much upon the liking and respect of those she came in contact with, and, indeed, we fancy it is as true of America as of every other counof them, do but mirror the manners of the try, that politeness and courtesy, or the lack traveller. Another reason might be truly given, perhaps, for the shape which Ameri can manners took, under the eye of Lady Emmeline. Being, herself, singularly sincere and free from flattery, she fell in with a reaction in the public taste, which has been very strong within a year or two past. We refer to the universal disgust

tion correct, that the Golden Gates were once closed up, and that there was an immense bay with its outlet at Monterey. He had himself found, on the top of the limestone ridges near Vallejo, quantities of shark's teeth, embedded in the stone and nearly perfect.

that is now felt for what is commonly call- | S. continued,) to believe the Indian tradied soft-soldering, and which has been pressed into the service of trade and politics, and otherwise very much overdone in our country. A stranger who did not try this worn-out method of pleasing, but who was at the same time genial, gentle, and natural, was a charming exception, that was very sure to inspire nothing but the strongest wish to please. The distinguished traveller kept her heart open to kindly sympathy on her way, and, by some exceedingly beautiful lines which she wrote upon the death of two lovely infants, (children of a friend who hospitably entertained her, Mrs. Le Vert, of Mobile,) it is easy to see that her feelings and imagination were freshly alive to impression. We shall look with great interest for the appearance of the mouvle."

Since our last notice of the growing empire upon the Pacific there have been numerous arrivals, all bringing their quota of what has made California a nation-in a year. And among the good reports, and what looks toward civilization, is that of lectures occasionally delivered in the capital of the State by scientific men. We remark particularly one by Prof. Shepherd, of N. Carolina, well known as an eminent geologist, and chemist. We take from an abstract of this lecture a few facts which will, we dare say, be new to our readers :

"He considered that there was a galvanic action constantly going on in the earth, by which metals were segregated or deposited; and he referred to several very interesting facts in support of his theory. For instance. any one may take acetate of lead and by surrounding it with a galvanic circuit, in two hours obtain pure lead.

"He had no doubt that silver, lead, and iron abounded in California. A friend of his had found silver nearly pure on the rocks near the South Pass. The best burrs for millstones were to be found in our hills. He had, however, found no indications of any large coal beds; although north of Sonoma, he had seen some coal on the surface, which was of good quality, though not in any quantity. In the same neighborhood were hot springs, nearly of blood heat. A remarkable feature of the soil near Sonoma was the high temperature. Beginning at Vallejo and going toward Sonoma, the water of the springs rises in temperature from 70 degrees to 169 degrees. At one of the hottest some Indians had scalded a pig. Near Napa, two feet below the surface the temperature was 129 degrees, too hot for the naked hand. The appearances of the bay around San Francisco, led him, (Prof.

"Four days' journey northwest from Napa, is a chasm over one thousand feet deep. Looking over into the chasm you find every appearance of an immense manufacturing town; orifices discharging steam, and steam and water, at 212 degrees or boiling heat, accompanied by a tremendous hissing noise. Descending to the foot of the chasm, (said Prof. S,) we found ourselves in a perfect Tartarus, bristling with caves and miniature volcanoes, with boiling hot springs roaring inside, and other hot springs boiling under your feet and visible through nued, and crystals lay about, enough to fill a merous fissures. Traces of sulphur aboundwheelbarrow. He was told of piles of sulphur a few miles distant. There were sulphur springs, magnesia and chaly beate springs of every temperature from icy cold to boiling heat. With all this there were no volcanic appearances of any kind.”

But while they are listening to scientific lectures, our Pacific neighbors have not yet so organized their penal code as to allow any thing like cold-blooded justice. We read of one poor fellow, who upon a quiet Sunday afternoon, was arraigned, tried, condemned, and himself kicked down the stool which kept him from the Californian

execution.

Again, we have something exceedingly typical of judicial matters on the Pacific coast, in this racy letter from a Placer Times correspondent, who dates from the town ELIZA. Where Eliza may be situated, we do not know, and if we should venture into those regions we should avoid a very intimate acquaintance with Eliza But we will tell our correspondent's story.

"The day next after my arrival here I went to the Bute Mountains, when we whipped two men fifty lashes each, with a fivetail cat, for horse-stealing. After the whipping, they had twenty-four hours to leave the country in. One of them left, the other went to his hut and had some unnecessary talk; next night we went to his hut to hang him, but he had the wisdom to leave before we got there. In two or three days after that I witnessed another interesting scene: they caught one of the accomplices of the last-mentioned hombre, and took him to the bank of the river to hang

THE BOOK WORLD.

We notice that the recently issued book of Mr. WILLIS, entitled Hurrygraphs, has passed, within a week of its publication, to a second edition.

ty's Theatre was so decided a triumph, pre- first Mima in Italy, and therefore in the sents in the story of her life a curious and world." touching chapter of that strange history, the Trials of Genius, For, to the rare attribute of true genius, and that of the highest order, Madlle. Monti has an incontestible claim. She is an artist in the widest sense of the word. Endowed by nature with a deep and passionate sense of the beautiful, she has cultivated its development not in one narrow sphere only, but wherever she has been able to command the instruments of creative art. Sculpture and painting, studied with a close application, have enabled her to base on the highest principles that feeling for the Ideal of Grace, and that gift of expression, which seem intuitive in her organization. Neapolitan by birththe daughter of a sculptor of eminence Madlle. Monti was surrounded from earliest youth by impressions of all that was most beautiful in form and color. Her years of childhood were scarcely past when the

- An American Book of Heraldry with emblazoned devices of a dozen or two of American families, has made its appearance, under the editorial care of Mr. MAPLESON. It is rich in coloring, delicate in execution, and, we presume, sufficiently correct in detail to preclude any violent discussion. The book is evidence of a new step, and of a new appetite upon this side of the water; and we have not a doubt but that the Heralds'

College can feed the appetite most satisfactorily-for a consideration.

Apropos to this, we may remark that American agriculturalists have hitherto entered their fine cattle upon the roll of the British Herd-book. We would respectfully suggest that it is full time for a change, and that there is no reason in the world why there should not be a start given to an American Herd-book.

heaviest misfortune that can overtake the children of art fell on her father and so on herself. The successful sculptor lost his sight. His future was darkened for ever. Failure, poverty, despair frowned on the household. The energy and genius of the artist's daughter alone saved him. Young as she was, her utmost industry could not be expected at once to command very solid returns either in the profession so mournfully lost to her father, or in painting, to which her own natural talent strongly pointed. But the young Monti felt that she had another tal-first is illustrated with views of the Novelty ent, and one of a kind which had sometimes led almost at a bound to greatness. They were now settled at Milan, and at the mag

nificent Scala she had watched the ballets d'action, and had said to herself when some noted professor of mute eloquence drew down the thunders of the house, Ed ancor

Io son Mima.' She obtained a subaltern engagement, sorely against the wish of the old sculptor, to whom the pursuit of such an art seemed a derogation for his child. Scarcely more than half a year had passed in apprenticeship to her difficult vocation, when one of those opportunities offered itself, which Providence seems sometimes to

place specially as stepping stones for true genius on its hard road to fame. Masaniello was to be played. The Fenella-the celebrity of that day-taken suddenly ill, was utterly unable to appear. The manager was in despair, the audience impatient. The young Monti, with a just self-confidence, declared her conviction that she could take the part. But just fifteen, with but six months' study in the most difficult of professions, such a début was a bold venture, but it won a full success. The new Fenella took the house by storm. The bound was made, the highest pinnacle reached at once, and thenceforward the young Monti was famous as the

Harpers' and the International Mag azines have made their appearance.

The

Works, and the last principally with portraits. It might be worth while to inquire how long the roll of American celebrities would hold out against such a severe call upon it as-three a month!

A Boston publisher, Mr. GLEASON, has, we perceive, undertaken a pictorial sheet similar in many respects to the Pictorial Times of London. He has succeeded thus far very creditably; but he has formidable rivals to contend with in the artists of London and Paris. We have comparatively few designers in wood in this country, who possess the education of an artist. Mere wood cutting, however deftly done, will not carry tame and spiritless designs into popularity.

The Courier des Etats Unis, the sprightly and well-edited French journal of this city, is about to become a daily issue. Its full and spirited Paris correspondence, its well-balanced criticism, and its sober and thoughtful remarks upon the topics of the day combine to make it a paper worthy of American translation.