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THESE lines,' writes a fair correspondent, in a delicate crow-quill hand, and on an aromabreathing sheet, were written the other day in my album, by a dear friend of mine; a school-girl of sixteen. Are they not pretty? I think they are worth publishing - don't you? Of course we answer, 'Yes,'

EDS, KNICKERBOCKER.

LITERARY NOTICES.

THE TOKEN AND ATLANTIC SOUVENIR. A CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR'S PRESENT. Edited by S. G. GOODRICH. pp. 312. Boston: American Stationers' Company. New-York: WILEY AND PUTNAM.

TALENT of a high order has been employed to enrich both the pictorial and literary departments of the 'Token' for the coming year; and, in our judgment, the work greatly exceeds in merit, as it certainly does in size, any of its predecessors. Let us first take a running glance at the embellishments. The presentation-plate, from a tasteful design by CHAPMAN, is engraved on wood by ADAMS; and in so masterly a manner is it executed, that it seems more like a fine steel engraving, than a cutting upon wood. The succeeding picture, 'The Expected Canoe,' painted by CHAPMAN, and engraved by ANDREWS and JEWETT, is very spirited in its conception, and finished in execution. The rising storm, the lightning, the anxious countenance of the Indian maiden, and the ease and grace of her position, are worthy of especial praise. There is something quite yankeeish in CHAPMAN's design of the frontispiece - a cupid leaning over a huge pumpkin to see another carve a 'token' upon the rind. We can say little for 'The Only Daughter,' although engraved by ANDREWS, from a painting by NEWTON. The subject is harsh and unpleasing. There is CHAPMAN'S old fault in the 'Indian Maiden at her Toilet,' or 'The Token.' There is not an Indian feature, nor the semblance of one, in the face of the girl. Otherwise, the picture is well conceived. One of the richest plates in the volume, is ' English Scenery,' engraved by SMILLIE, from a painting by BROWN. It is mellow and soft, in the ensemble, yet distinct in minute detail, and there is about it an almost living atmosphere. A very clever picture, too, is HEALY'S 'Young American on the Alps,' and it has received ample justice at the hands of the engraver, G. H. CUSHMAN. 'The Last of the Tribe,' painted by BROWN, and engraved by ELLIS, should have been called A Mountain Scene,' and the Indian figure omitted. He lacks the proper physiognomy, sadly. The scenery is well imagined. The Fairies in America,' like all attempts at depicting such nondescript creatures of air, strikes us as a failure. Leaving out all the figures, both the painting and engraving reflect credit upon the artists, CHAPMAN and SMILLIE. MARTHA WASHINGTON,' engraved by CHENEY and KELLOGG, is a good engraving of a far more beautiful female than we have been accustomed to consider the original, from the portraits we have hitherto seen. She is here depicted in her young and rosy years, 'plump as a partridge,' and most delectable to look upon. Thus much for the plates; and now a few words touching the literary contents.

'The Wonders of the Deep,' by PIERPONT, well deserves the place of honor which it occupies. It is a poem, without the form of verse; and its poetry is of a high order. We ask attention to the annexed paragraphs:

"What a wonder is the sea itself! How wide does it stretch out its arms, clasping islands and continents in its embrace! How mysterious are its depths!-still more mysterious its hoarded and hidden treasures! With what weight do its watery masses

roll onward to the shore, when not a breath of wind is moving over its surface! How wonderfully fearful is it, when its waves, in mid ocean, are foaming and tossing their heads in anger under the lash of the tempest! How wonderfully beautiful, when, like a melted and ever-moving mirror, it reflects the setting sun, or the crimson clouds, or the saffron heavens after the sun has set; or when its 'watery floor' breaks into myriads of fragments the image of the quiet moon that falls upon it from the skies!

"Wonderful, too, are those hills of ice that break off, in thunder, from the frozen barriers of the pole, and float toward the sun, their bristling pinnacles glistening in his beams, and slowly wasting away under his power, an object at once of wonder and of dread to the mariner, till they are lost in the embrace of more genial deeps. And that current is a wonder, which moves for ever onward from the southern seas, to the colder latitudes, bearing in its waters the influence of a tropical sun, and saying to the icebergs from the pole, 'Hitherto may ye come, but no farther.' And, if possible, still more wonderful are those springs of fresh water which, among the Indian Isles, gush up from the depths of a salt ocean, a source of refreshment and life to the seaman who is parching with thirst 'beneath a burning sky.' And is it not as wonderful, when, not a spring of fresh water, but a column of volcanic fire shoots up from 'the dark unfathomed caves of ocean,' and throws its red glare far over the astonished waves, that heave and tremble with the heaving and trembling earth below them! wonderful, when that pillar of fire vanishes, leaving a smoking volcano in its place! and wonderful, when that volcano, in its turn, sinks back, and is lost in the depths whence it rose !

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"Then there are other wonders in the living creatures of the deep, from the animalcule, that no eye can see,' and that scarcely glass can reach,' up to that Leviathan which God hath made to play therein. In this great and wide sea are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. Yet He, who hath made them all, even there openeth his hand and satisfieth the desires of all. Wonderful is it, that, of these creatures innumerable,' each one finds its food in some other, and in its turn, serves some other for food; and that this great work of destruction and reproduction goes on in an unbroken circle from age to age, in the deep silence of those still deeper waters where the power of man is neither felt nor feared!

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"What a wonder, too, is that line of phosphoric light, which, in the darkest night, streams along the way of a ship in the midst of the sea! What is it that gives out this fire, which, like that of love, many waters cannot quench, neither can the floods drown it? Theorists may speculate, naturalists may examine, chemists may analyze; but none of them can explain; and all agree in this, that it is a wonder, a mystery, a marvel. A light that only motion kindles! a fire that burns nothing! a fire, too, seen, not in a bush on Horeb, which is not burned, but in the deep waters of the ocean that cannot be! Is not this a wonder?

"And, if that path of light is a wonder, which streams back from the rudder of a ship, is not that ship itself a wonder? That a fabric so gigantic as a first rate ship, of traffic or of war, framed of ponderous timbers, compacted with bolts and bands of still more ponderous iron, holding in its bosom masses of merchandise, under whose weight strong cars have groaned, and paved streets trembled, or bearing on its decks hosts of armed men, with the thundering armament of a nation that a fabric thus framed and thus freighted, should float in a fluid, into which, if a man fall, he sinks and is lost, is in itself a wonder. But that such a fabric should traverse oceans, struggling on amid the strife of seas and storms, that it should hold on its way like a thing of life,' nay, like a thing of intellect, a being endued with courage, and stimulated by a high purpose, a traveller that has seen the end of his voyage from the beginning, that goes forth upon it without fear, and completes it as with the feeling of a triumph, is, as it seems to me, a greater wonder still. Let me ask you to stand, as you perhaps have stood, upon the deck of such a ship,

In the dead waist and middle of the night,'

now in the strong light of the moon, as it looks down upon you between the swelling sails, or now in the deep shadow that the sails throw over you. Hear the majestic thing that bears you, breasting and breaking through the waves that oppose themselves to her march! She is moving on alone, on the top of the world, and through the dread solitude of the sea. Nothing is heard, save, perhaps, the falling back of a wave, that has been showing its white crest to the moon, or, as your ship is plowing her way, the rushing of the water along her sides. Yet she seems to care for all that she contains, and to watch, while they sleep as sweetly in her bosom as in their own beds at home: and, though she sees no convoy to guard her, and no torch-bearer to guide her, she seems as conscious that she is safe, as she is confident that she is going right. Is not all this a wonder?"

'Peter Goldthwait's Treasure' is from the pen, and in the peculiar vein, of the author of Twice-Told Tales,' whose writings are well known, in every sense, to our readers. We think we are not in error in attributing the spirited sketch, Endicott and the Red Cross,' to the same source. 'The Shaker Bridal,' may be traced to a

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1837.]

Literary Notices.

449

kindred paternity not less unerringly by the table of contents, than by a certain style, which, although sui generis, partakes nevertheless of many of the simple graces of the fine old English prose writers. Of the merits of 'Our Village Post-Office,' by Miss SEDGWICK, our readers are enabled to judge; and our opinion of it is expressed 'where they may turn the leaf to read it.' There are pleasant love-stories for the ladies, and young lovers of both sexes, as 'The Love Marriage,' by Mrs. HALE, 'Sylph Etherege,' 'Xeri, or A Day in Batavia,' translated from the German, by NATHANIEL GREENE, Esq., 'Jaques De Laid,' etc. We could almost forgive the author of 'A Tale of Humble Life' for drawing so revolting, and we must add unnatural a portrait, as that of George Cavendish, in consideration of the following graphic description of the advent of a New-England festival:

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"It was the night before Thanksgiving; that season whose very name speaks of happiness; when the prosperous are called upon to remember whence their blessings come, and the wretched to observe that there is no such thing as unmitigated misery; the most forlorn having something in their lot for which they may thank God. Abundance walked with her cornucopia through the land, leaving no virtuous poor, starving amid unrewarded toils; the ties of kindred brought merry groups round many a blazing hearth, and friendship or hospitality threw open the domestic sanctuary, and admitted into the kindly circle those whom the chances of life had separated from their own homes and kindred.

"The lover of Jane had been compelled, by the death of his father in Vermont, to take a long journey at the approach of this festival; and business was to detain him yet a few days longer. It was not for him therefore that she sat listening in the corner of the roaring chimney, turning her head eagerly as the merry sleighs dashed jingling by. Half a dozen noisy youngsters about her threatened demolition to the old flagbottomed chairs in a game of blind-man's buff, while one rosy urchin sat in her lap, struggling against sleep, and whining in reply to her whispered admonitions, 'I don't want to go to bed till cousin George comes. At last a sleigh stopped at the door; the blindfold hero of the game tore the bandage from his eyes, the drowsy boy in the corner jumped up wide awake, and clapped his hands, and a young man, muffled in a cloak and seal-skin cap, sprung into the room, as one sure of a welcome. In an instant, the arms of Jane were round her only brother, and the redoubled clamors of the children brought the matron from the pantry, redolent of fresh-baked pies, and the old man from the celler, laden with a basket of apples worthy of the Hesperides. All was noise and confusion, and the young stranger was loudest and gayest of the throng."

'Night Sketches beneath an Umbrella,' and 'Martha Washington,' the latter by Mrs. SIGOURNEY, are the only prose articles which we have not named, and they are in all respects worthy the excellent company they keep.

The poetry is rather above than below the general ‘annual' standard. Among the contributors to this department, are Miss H. F. GOULD, O. W. HOLMES, GRENVILLE MELLEN, H. HASTINGS WELD, Rev. J. H. CLINCH, and others not unknown to fame; but our space obliges us to confine ourselves to these brief comments, and to forego extracts. And we must here conclude, by recommending the 'Token' to American readers, as a work every way worthy of general patronage.

CONFESSIONS OF A ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST. Edited by SAMUEL F. B. MORSE, A. M. New-York: JOHN S. TAYLOR.

THIS work is from the pen of a French gentleman, now in this country, and but lately a Roman Catholic priest. Portions of it, in the view of the editor, afford strong if not conclusive proofs of a systematic design in Europe to create a strong Popish party in this country. The personal narrative of the writer is replete with the interest of romance, especially those parts of it which describe the love-passages and trials of the priest, and his fair penitents of the confessional. The editor affirms that the author is known to be what he professes himself to be, and that his book is strictly true.

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EDITORS' TABLE.

HENRY RUSSELL. Would that every reader upon whom the portrait of RUSSELL in the present number may smile, could hear the 'voice of melody' roll from those lips which has gone to the hearts of so many in our Atlantic cities! Simplicity, tenderness, strength, and mellowness, are the agents by which Mr. RUSSELL produces his effects; and the result is always the same. It is not our purpose here to enter upon an analysis of his extraordinary musical powers; since we have on two or three occasions heretofore spoken of his voice and execution at some length. His style, so simple yet so effective, which 'catches a grace beyond the reach of art,' is lightly regarded, we believe, by certain of those who consider themselves as 'great shakes' in the musical world, simply because they can shake, and trill, and quaver, in that 'difficult' manner which it was once so much the mode to admire, but which, thanks to RUSSELL, and one or two other distinguished melodists, has had its little day. These demurring professors may find some countenance in their attempts to foist upon the public an unnatural taste for a species of music wholly unsuited to the genius of our people, but it will proceed from such as care more for the music of fashion than of the heart, and who have travelled abroad to import new ideas of the art, with not a little conceit, arrogance, and foppery. But the crowds who attend the concerts of Mr. RUSSELL, carry away with them 'remembered harmonies' which will not die, nor fade with the changes of time. Success to simple melody! Success to that music which can awaken human sympathies, and enliven and enlarge the affections!

'Mr. RUSSELL is a young man, having but recently completed his twenty-fourth year; yet he has acquired a reputation far beyond his years, and that too in the country which, youthful as it is, was the fosterer of the genius of MALIBRAN. He was born in England, and there imbibed his earliest lessons in the divine art of which he is so distinguished a professor. He went to Italy at an early age, after studying under KING, in London, for some time. Here he was a pupil of ROSSINI for three years, and thereafter he returned to England for the space of two more, during which time he was chorus-master of the Italian opera in London. Returning once more to Italy, he studied under GENERALE, MAYERBEER, and other masters, and received a gold medal from the hand of royalty, for the best composition at the conservatorio at Naples. He acquired the language, as well as the musical lore of that lovely country, during his sojourn there, so perfectly as not only to sing, but also to write and converse in Italian, with equal fluency and facility. Coming again to his native country, he married the accomplished daughter of an opulent and distinguished merchant, and soon after came to Canada, where he was invited by some gentlemen of Rochester, in this state, to settle in that thriving city. He accepted the invitation, and was appointed professor of music in an academy devoted to the cultivation of that science.'

It is a source of personal gratification to the editors of this Magazine, that they were the first, in this community and that of Philadelphia, to call public attention to the rare musical endowments of one who was himself too modest and retiring to present his claims to general patronage and regard, beyond the precincts of the public-spirited town where he had been generously taken by the hand, and his gifts properly appreciated. Since his first appearance here, however, Mr. RUSSELL'S course has been due on toward the goal of success; and we cannot doubt that he has yet even more signal triumphs to gain, in the production of extended operatic compositions. We shall see.

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