and he can be pardoned for it too. It reminded me of words in Sidney's Arcadia: His fair auburn hair, which he wore in great length, gave him at that time a most delightful show.' His forehead, a phrenologist would say (especially if he knew his character beforehand) indicates a clear and beautiful intellect, in which the organs of perception, mirthfulness, ideality and comparison, predominate. I should think his nose had once been almost determined to be Roman, but hesitated just long enough to settle into the classic Grecian outline.

"But the charm of his person is in his full, soft, beaming eyes, which catch an expression from every passing object; and you can always see wit half sleeping in ambush around them, when it is not shooting its wonted fires. Dickens has almost made us feel that

Wit is the pupil of the soul's clear eye,

And in man's world the only shining star.'

And yet I think his conversation, except in perfect abandon among his friends, presents but few striking exhibitions of wit. Still there is a rich vein of humor and good feeling in all he says. I passed two hours at his house, and when I left was more impressed than ever with the goodness of his heart. I should mention that during my visit I handed him Campbell's letter: it produced not the slightest change in his manner. I expressed, on leaving, the hope that little Nelly (in whose fate I confessed I felt a deeper interest than in that of most real characters) might, after all her wanderings, find a quiet and happy home. The same hope,' he replied, has been expressed to me by others; and I hardly know what to do. But if you ever hear of her death in a future number of the Clock, you shall say that she died as she lived.'

"Mr. Dickens is certainly one of the most lovely men I ever saw; and I wish that they who have formed the mistaken idea that his works are destitute of high moral sentiment, and written merely to amuse the vulgar, would only look into Oliver Twist or Nicholas Nickleby."

Mr. LESTER Seems in writing of the Shame of England' to have been actuated by honest and good motives; but we think also that he must have been a little influenced by the idea hinted at in his preface, that he was describing 'a nation with whom at no distant day we may be brought into collision;' an event which for the well-being of both countries we say may God forbid! England has her deeds of shame, no doubt; as witness her career in India, and her late invasion of China; yet we must hope, if not believe—since there are many somewhat too remarkable incidents and coincidences in these volumes-that our author has been influenced by national predilections and private prejudices to dash in the shadows of his limnings with a rich brush.

THE POETS OF AMERICA: ILLUSTRATED BY ONE OF HER PAINTERS. Edited by JOHN KEESE. In one volume. pp. 320. New-York: SAMUEL COLMAN.

THIS beautiful volume will be an appropriate one for the benevolent designs of those who intend to 'practice kind deeds in ambush' during the forthcoming holidays. One could scarcely surprise a young friend with a prettier present. Mr. KEESE deserves great credit for continuing his series of American poets with so much discrimination; and the publisher should share the honors, since his own part is performed with kindred taste and abundant liberality. There are thirtyfour illustrations, all well engraved and appropriate in design. Many of these are of such beauty as to demand especial admiration; but as we lack room to notice them in detail, we shall content ourselves with simply commending them to the reader's enjoyment. One hundred and twelve American writers, including among them the best of our poets, are represented in the volume, and for the most part well represented, by poems which have received the meed of public approval, and bear the stamp of the United States' Literary Mint, which pronounces them true gold. We are surprised to find that at least one half of the matter here gathered together has been penned by various writers for our own pages. The work, we may add, justifies in all respects the promise of its popular predecessor, and cannot fail to insure an increased demand for the third annual volume of the series.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

BOSTON AND ITS ENVIRONS.-We have not forgotten a remark which fell from the lips of J. FENIMORE COOPER, Esq., in a morning stroll upon the Battery not many months since. We had been speaking of American writers, scenery, manners, etc., in a desultory conversation, in the course of which the observant author of 'The Pioneers' took occasion, in substance, to say: 'We are in this country, Mr. C, entirely too provincial; by which I mean, that in most of our Atlantic cities the great mass of society revolves in a circle. Every thing that is unlike the customs of their native city, or the metropolis in which they live, is with too many considered as out of the proper order; it is not the thing;' and how trifling soever the matter in which comparisons are instituted, this predetermined preference of one's own over his neighbor's situation or advantages often results in coldness and estrangement, not of individuals only but of communities.' There is far too much truth in these observations. In our own Commercial Emporium,' one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, scarcely excepting London, it has been said, both by our own citizens and by foreigners, that there is less of this spirit, owing to the heterogeneous character of our population, than in any other American metropolis. We are not so sure of this. At any rate we are confident that very many among us have been accustomed for example to regard Philadelphia, Boston, etc., as rather so many contributary towns, calculated rather to enhance the importance and prosperity of the City of the Empire State,' than as any thing very remarkable in themselves. These 'provincial' denizens of our goodly cities should exchange places oftener. They would find their mutual conceit lessened, their brotherly love enlarged, and their love of our common country greatly expanded.

These hastily-recorded thoughts have been suggested by a recent visit to the noble capital of Massachusetts. Led by partial encomiasts, we once accompanied a friend on a bleak and stormy March afternoon across the Sound and over the Boston and Providence rail-road, to the former city; arriving late in the morning, and departing homeward the same afternoon. It was on that memorable day that we learned to appreciate the definition of a sirocco, as given subsequently by Mr. COOPER; namely, a Boston east-wind boiled!' We had it raw; and what a saturating, soul-pervading element it was! And as we sat shivering down by the side of the three or four courses of granite that then slightly elevated the Bunker-Hill monument above the brow of the eminence on which it stands, and saw the cold mist sifting in from seaward in long, opaque, perpendicular streaks, hiding the city of hills from our sight, and shutting in the leaden waters that surrounded it, we

'wowed a wow,' as Herr Hernholz has it, that we would trust no man's praises of his native city again. But in the language of that self-marrying German, we have 'broked our swore,' and rejoice that we have done so. We came again.' It was a mild autumnal morning, almost before day-dawn, when the cars swept over the long causeway that conducts the western traveller to the American Athens. Lurid fires from a cluster of iron-furnaces on the left flashed fitful flames against the gray morning sky as we entered the silent city, and took conveyance to the timehonored TREMONT. A gentleman with a thoughtful countenance, with beard severe, of solemn cut,' whom our companions termed 'THE DEACON'— he had however left the Church and taken to the Bar-received us with great courtesy, and waving his hand, we were straightway marshalled to our apartments.

Breakfast at the Tremont; a pleasant toilette; and an Indian-summer morning in the streets of Boston! There was nothing to detract from all these luxuries but the great Sun himself, who on a former occasion obstinately came up in the north and went down in the south; but who was now by way of variety doing us the honors of the city after quite another fashion. He had come up in the west and was making the best of his way to the east. But though 'aweary of the sun' and annoyed by his ridiculous behavior, we were not prevented from our invariable, aimless, hap-hazard ramble, when in a strange town. One moment saw us standing in State-street, (very like our own Wall-street,) gazing at the quaint and dusky old City-Hall, with its mystic telegraphic signals, and gay flags flouting the air, which arrests its farther progress; the next beheld us scanning the ponderous columns and huge granite-blocks of the new Custom-House, or strolling by the superb Market and Quincy Hall, and entering OLD FUNNEL,' with which latter it is connected by another funnel, or vast cylinder of lattice-work. What our reflections were in the old Cradle of Liberty, (the key is in No. 1,) it is n't best to mention;' though than that we would sooner have missed all else we encountered. To cross Charlestown bridge and ascend Bunker's Hill and the Monument was a natural transition from Fanueil Hall.

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Behold us on our winding way' to the unfinished top of this immense column. Standing there, in the amber light of an Indian-summer day, what can surpass the grandeur, the beauty of the prospect? We have never seen its equal. Boston at your feet, sitting like Rome on its hills, and sending up its towers, domes, steeples, and turrets toward heaven; 'making a long arm' in all directions, and helping itself to villages almost as big as itself; the great ocean in the distance; the bay and harbor, with its gently-rounded islands; and far around, even to the verge of an almost limitless horizon, a noble amphitheatre of hills, with villages nestling at their feet, and white church-steeples gleaming through the smoky light; and beyond all, old Monadnock blending its pale blue summit with the sky! Such is the coup d'ail from the top of Bunker-Hill Monument.

TheLiterary Emporium' it is conceded may challenge comparison with any American metropolis for the quiet taste of its opulent citizens; for their love of literature and the arts; the patronage which they bestow upon books, pictures, statuary, etc., instead of those mere external ostentations which are only for the eye. But above all, Boston must claim the superiority over all her sister cities for the beauty of her environs. Surely nothing need exceed their attractions. In company with an attentive friend, who had himself a fine eye for the beautiful in nature, and who could pardon our enthusiasm, we passed one of the finest days of our most charming season in a ride among the rich and varied scenery that encircles the city for miles around and in nearly every direction. We pass for the present Cam

1

bridge, that charming rus in urbe, with its pretty white mansions, its gothic churches, and college buildings 'gray with a young antiquity;' and Mount Auburn, that matchless cemetery, which would require pages to do it justice. Ascending by a smooth road at a gradual elevation, and passing numerous country-seats, each upon its own gently-swelling eminence, and surrounded by ornamental forest-trees, we reached the estate and mansion of Mr. C, of Watertown, which we propose to make the especial theme of a few remarks in a subsequent number; simply observing here, that the establishment of this gentlemen, in scope and in detail, is the only example which can be found in this country of that class of residences and their appurtenances which make the glory of an English nobleman's countryseat. From this Delectable Mountain' and this House Beautiful' we proceeded by fine gravel roads over a succession of similar hills, that now cradled a clear lake and now lifted amid the more garish foliage of broad-leafed forest trees a crest of solemn pines against the sky; each rounded eminence and swelling upland dotted with delightful country-seats; with ever and anon a 'pleasant vale scooped out, and villages between.'

How greatly

But we are travelling over too much ground and must call a halt.' we enjoyed a morning call with our friend at the fine mansion of Mr. B-, with its marble statuary, Julius Cæsar, Nebuchadnezzar, and the rest of the Apostles,' 'standing out' as at Blarney Castle all naked in the could frosty air;' how we took our way townward through the beautiful suburban village of R- -; how we wandered on that night, with the full autumn moon riding high in heaven, among the sinuous and time-worn streets and alleys of the North End;' here pausing to note a revolutionary cannon-ball imbedded in an old church, and there gazing at an antiquated edifice, like a half dozen ancient cocked-hats perched one upon the other, and towering upward; how we stood at midnight in the very midst of the grave-yard at Copp's Hill, where the stalwart Englishers' placed their deadly batteries, and saw the column that commemorates the day rising over the still water, with the silver moonlight sleeping upon its side; and how we were well nigh overcome with the solemnity, the historical holiness of the scene; all these things, as the Chinese have it,' are on record;' and 'uniting these circumstances,' we may perhaps be warranted hereafter in troubling the reader with a prepared report.' Decidedly these are the intentions.

AN AMERICAN NEWBURY ESTABLISHMENT.'-GEOFFREY CRAYON tells us that among the early objects of interest which attracted his attention in his first wanderings about London, was the shop of the good Mr. NEWBURY, whose story-books for children had so often delighted him when a boy in his native country. Very similar we may suppose will be the emotions of our own country lads and lasses when they shall visit this great metropolis, and pause with eager curiosity by the windows of Messrs. APPLETON AND COMPANY, in Broadway, from whose teeming mart so many delightful little books have gone forth through the length and breadth of the land. We have at this moment before us a goodly number of these Tales for the People and their Children,' which are destined to take captive the hearts of thousands of our young friends, not less by the attraction of their varied contents than by the many pretty engravings with which they abound, and the neat and tasteful style of their external embellishments. Here we have three Tokens,' one of Remembrance,' another of Affection,' and a third of Friendship,' each containing short and well selected pieces of poetry of the heart and the affections, by good writers, numerous and various; 'Paul and Virginia,' so long beloved of juveniles ; 'Mignionette, or the Graces of the Mind,' devoted to tales and poetry of a high moral and religious order; The Old Oak Tree,' a story of interest not only to the young but even to children of a larger growth' who are willing to be taught; Autumn and Winter, or Walks in the Country,' overflowing with engravings; and Pure Gold from the Rivers of Wisdom,' from the twentieth London edition. Such books for such readers were rare in our boyhood. Happy juveniles! - favored generation!

OUR YOUNG PAINTERS.- We have examined since our last, two or three small pictures by young American artists, to which we cannot resist the inclination briefly to advert. Mr. JOHN CARLIN, a young deaf and dumb person, educated at the Asylum in Philadelphia, and recently returned from a prolonged stay at Paris, where he has been assiduously engaged in studying his profession, has shown us several of his productions, which bespeak talent of a high order. His pen-and-ink drawings, illustrating MILTON, the Pilgrim's Progress,' and the Sketch-Book' of Mr. IRVING, are conceived in the true spirit, and have won the approbation of the best judges of art in the city, who have examined them, including the President of the Academy of Design, Mr. MORSE. Although it is no part of our object to make the KNICKERBOCKER dependent upon pictures for its attraction or popularity, yet it is not impossible that we may in a short time afford our readers an engraved transfer of one of Mr. CARLIN's paintings, which cannot fail to win their warm admiration. It is a scene from GEOFFREY CRAYON's story of Dolph Heyliger,' and represents DOLPH's father introducing him into the awful sanctum of Dr. KARL VON KNIPPERHAUSEN. The scene is well chosen, and most effectively depicted; and if our subscribers are just to themselves and to us, they shall set eyes on it.' Otherwise, otherwise, perhaps.

Mr. LEWIS BRADLEY, of Utica, a young and retiring artist, need not shun publicity, if two sketches from his hand, now before us, may be taken as fair examples of his talent. One, in water-colors, represents the Frost-Rime on the Mohawk,' a beautiful scene, requiring a true artist to do it justice, in its delicate details; and the other a view, in pencil, on the Bernese Alps. Both are exceedingly spirited; but the latter partakes of that vague and shadowy vastness which constitutes the 'sublime and beautiful.' To both these young artists we say, 'Macte virtute!'

THE DECORATIVE ART, as applied to dwellings, is beginning to be understood and appreciated in our city. It is only remarkable, that with the wealth which abounds with so many in this metropolis, there should have been until within three or four years a comparative neglect of those rich and substantial embellishments of spacious apartments, which to an American eye are so often objects of admiration in England and France. It is not generally known perhaps that we have in New-York, in the establishment of Mr. GEORGE PLATT, at No. 12 Spruce-street, a dépôt for every description of internal decoration, and in the proprietor one of the most skilful and accomplished decorative artists in America, who with his father before him has embellished some of the most gorgeous houses and splendid palaces in Europe. In fact his establishment is altogether unique. We were surprised and delighted with the various styles with which his apartments are lined; here the oaken carving and tracery of the Elizabethan age; there the elaborate and florid manner of the era of Louis XIV. and Louis XVI. of France; on one side, the gorgeously painted wainscotting of gathered cerulean silk; and on another the more simple yet not less tasteful styles of a later day; the whole surrounded by fragments of the minor accessories of decoration, of exquisite matériel and workmanship. These embellishments will survive the lapse of years and generations, without losing either their fashion or their beauty. They are for all time,' like the higher orders of architecture; and it is the province of Mr. PLATT, when introducing them into the dwellings of our citizens, to make them harmonize with every thing around them: and what is an important consideration, moreover, we observed during a short call at his establishment that he possesses the faculty of being able to embody the designs of individual taste, which are often so peculiar as to be difficult of reduction to form. We hope to hear that many gloomy and naked-looking apartments in otherwise rich and handsome dwellings among us, (and elsewhere, since orders from a distance may be easily filled,) will be made to brighten under the plastic hand of our artist, who has already made himself most favorably known, not only by his decorative skill in the highest branches, but by the beautiful transparent muslin window-shades which he was here the first we believe to introduce to the public.