THE WALTZ. In all parts of Germany, the Waltz is a national pastime. It is not confined to circles of fashion, but it is a favorite amusement of the hamlet and the village. In this country, no art can thoroughly teach it; the most graceful woman, here, always loses something of her dignity in attempting it. It is in fact an exotic foreign to our fastidious manners. It never appears among us but as a tolerated thing of rather bad fame. For this and other reasons we participate in the feelings of satire which the authors of Salmagundi have bestowed upon it, and should be quite willing to see it banished from the land. Whoever would form a just notion of the Waltz, must turn aside from the awkward pantomimes, which he may witness at almost every fashionable party, and go to the valleys of the Tyrol. There the untaught peasant and the simple maiden, may be seen whirling away in the innocent and thoughtless inspiration of their own passionate love of music and motion. To waltz, and do it with grace and feeling, is there the spontaneous gift of nature. But here it is otherwise, and good taste would require us to leave this dance to its inventors. But we may be admirers of the music that is appropriated to it, for it is perhaps, of all musical compositions, the most piquant and lively. In offering a new Tyrolese Waltz to our fair readers, fresh from the German mint, therefore, we trust we may hope for their approbation, with out compromising our principles as to the dance itself. — ED. THE ALCHYMIST. THOUSANDS, with anxious care, have sought The key of Nature's wealth to find — Strange these deep searchers never thought The spell of power was in the MIND. Wouldst be an Alchymist? - Behold! The sun on yonder cloud has beamed! Mark the rich purple, crimson, goldAs seraph-robes o'er heaven had streamed. And dost thou gaze with raptured eye? Do angel fancies thrill thy breast, And joy, that God has decked the sky As 't were a mansion for the blest? Then scale some lofty mountain's height, And note the pleasant places round; There dwell thy brothers! Doth the sight Quicken thy pulse's joyous bound? Canst thou, with glad and grateful voice, Bless Him who makes man dwell secure, Nor covet aught thou seest? - Rejoice! Thou hast the golden secret sure! S. J. H. ORIENTAL MYSTICISM. THE following passage is translated from a German version of the Dschauhar Odsat, a Persian poem of the thirteenth century, and is here offered as a specimen of the mystic writings of the East, a single sprig brought to town, from a distant and unfrequented garden. These writings are characterized by wildness of fancy, a philosophy extremely abstruse, and especially by a deep spiritual life. They prove, as will be seen in the lines which follow, that the human mind has strong religious instincts; which, however, unless guided by a higher wisdom, are liable to great perversion.-Extravagant as the conception of the passage here selected must appear to us, it has still its foundation in truth. That the ideas of infinite and divine things, which slumber in the mind, are often violently awakened by external objects, is what every one has experienced. Says a modern poet, in prospect of clear, placid Leman,' 'It is a thing Which warns me, by its stillness, to forsake Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring.' And what is the story of Rudbari and Hassan, but an exhibition, a la mode orientale, of the same truth? L. W. In ancient days, as the old stories run, |