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casting a wink of recognition to my driver. 'I have but one room left. Lieschen, see to the gentleman's trunk.'

A good-looking, black-eyed girl appeared, and shouldering my baggage, led me through a long, low-arched passage, across a court-yard, into the most singular-looking apartment I had seen for many a day. On three sides of the room boxes of cigars were evenly piled, so that not an inch of wall and but one window was visible. On the fourth or door-side stood a heavy little table, with two intensely-polished, black-brown oaken chairs, as supporters. Their high backs were formed like shields, in whose midst was the inscription, I. v B. ANNO RDмPT. 1540; an immensely high Flemish beer-tankard, its top surmounted by two affectionate angels, and its sides encrusted with all manner of Low-Country ornaments and hieroglyphs, stood upon the table, with three coffee-cups and as many gilt liqueur-glasses kneeling in adoration at its feet. Add to this a very German bed, with an ordinary mirror, and some highly-colored devotional prints hung against the wall, and you have my long-sought room.

With some little difficulty, I found my way into the large speise saale, or eating-room of the establishment, in which at a long table sat a party of solid-looking Bürgers, with their glasses and pipes. I assumed a chair among them, and began, as the Germans say, to orientiren,' or conjecture the character of my new neighbors. They were all men of nearly the same caste Frankforters and citizens. A fresh-looking, elderly gentleman, with purple cap and long gray locks, who was frequently addressed as Herr Professor, seemed to be the don of the party. But my researches were quickly stopped by a lively What would the gentleman be pleased to have?' from the landlord.

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'Beef-steak, potato-salad, a bottle of Forster, Traminer, and hold a cigar. Don't say you have n't any, for I know the contrary.'

This allusion to my room called forth roars of laughter from the company, and a thousand apologies from the landlord, with a promise of speedy removal to a better.

6

Ei, was!' cried my vis-à-vis. The landlord, it seems to me, most honorable Sir, has paid you a high compliment in thus embalming you, like a noble and costly vanilla bean, in his tobacco-box, as we call the room.'

This was evidently an old joke of the establishment, but I had been a Turk not to laugh.

'Permit me to wish you a very good appetite,' said my neighbors, bowing politely, as the supper and wine appeared.

The steak was good; the wine superb.

'Permit me to wish you a very good digestion,' exclaimed my friends, bowing as before, when Lieschen disappeared with the fragments.

This intensity of politeness served as oil to the wheels of conversation, which now revolved with wonderful celerity. The assembly was too gloriously and genially German to render a cigar advisable. Ordering another flask of Traminer, I hauled forth a mighty meerschaum, and in a few minutes was running high tides with the rest. Gluck, gurgle and puff. New supplies of beer, wine, and tobacco continually made their appearance, while the increasing rattle of conversation, and an occasional couplet sung in no sober tones, clearly indicated their influence. Hurra!

hurra! juchei! juvivallerala!' shouted one who seemed to have attained the very acme of excitement of which a German is capable. Meine Herren, ich bin -bin-besoffen! Gentlemen, I confess intoxication; but let Herr Johann take his guitar, and strike up!' The landlord bowed, and taking down an old instrument from the wall, burst into a Low-Dutch camp-song, with which, however, the whole party seemed familiar, roaring out the refrain, and banging and clattering upon the table with their pipes and glasses, as if breakage was of no consequence. The song was as follows:

WEL, ANNE MARIELSEN, waer gaet gy naer toe-toe?

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Wel, ANNE MARIELSEN, waer gaet gy naer toe?

Ik gane naer buiten al by de soldaten.

Hopsasa, falhala- ANNE MARIE.

Wel, ANNE MARIELSEN, wat gaet gy daer doen - doen?
Wel, ANNE MARIELSEN, wat gaet gy daer doen?

- Haspen en spinnen soldatjes beminnen.

Hopsasa, falhala - ANNE MARIE!

Wel, ANNE MARIELSEN, hebt gy er geen man-man?
Wel, ANNE MARIELSEN, hebt gy er geen man?

Heb ik geen man! ik kryge geen slagen.

Hopsasa, falhala- ANNE MARIE !

Wel, ANNE MARIELSEN, hebt gy er geen kind - kind?
Wel, ANNE MARIELSEN, hebt gy er geen kind?
-Heb ik geen kind! ik moete niet zorgen.
Hopsasa, falhala-ANNE MARIE!

ENGLISH.

AND where are you going to, ANNE MARIE-RIE,
And where are you going to, ANNE MARIE?
-I'm off on the tramp to where soldiers encamp.
Hopsasa, falhala —
-ANNE MARIE.

And what will you do there, my ANNE MARIE-RIE?
And what will you do there, my ANNE MARIE?
-I'll knit and I'll spin, a lover I'll win!
Hopsasa, falhala-ANNE MARIE!

And seek you a husband, my ANNE MARIE-RIE?
And seek you a husband, my ANNE MARIE?

Husband! oh, no! he might give me a blow.

Hopsasa, falhala -ANNE MARIE!

Well, have you an infant, sweet ANNE MARIE-RIE?
Well, have you an infant, my ANNE MARIE?

- Infant I've none-I'm better alone.

Hopsasa, falhala - ANNE MARIE!

Ending the song with a loud hei hurrah, the worshipful company clasped hands and danced madly around the landlord, who continued to beat his guitar and roar out the hopsasa falhala chorus. Staggering to their chairs, they resumed their places, calling loudly on a certain Herr Becker for the soldier's funeral oration!

Herr Becker, a quizzical-looking genius of forty, with his broad-brimmed hat cocked keenly down over his left eye, intimated his acquiescence by taking the head of the table; a proceeding greeted by such a thunderstorm of approval, that I feared lest my ears might give way. Nor was it until the ceremonies had fairy begun that I ascertained their reason. On a distant settee lay one of the reverend signors, very decidedly dead - drunk, and the survivors were now about to honor his memory with a funeral.

Captain Becker- for the funeral was to be done en militaire-with the largest carving-knife the house afforded, held sword-wise in his hand,

now gave the word of march. Rat-tat-too, rat-tat-too, the feet of the companions beat a death-march under the table, rapping meanwhile upon it with their fists. The Herr Professor trumpeted through his closed hand, while the Wirth performed something like military music upon his guitar. Not a smile was to be seen; all was done with an earnest and most German gravity.

'Halt!' roared the captain. 'Make ready, present, fire!' With the first word the company were silent; with the second all their chairs were tilted back on the hind-legs; and with fire, all came smacking together on the floor, with a crash which afforded no bad imitation of a discharge of musketry.

'Aller Teufel! Who 's that firing out of time?' roared the captain, as one of the privates toppled heavily backward, and went down, chair and all, with a thump which shook the house to its foundations.

'Potz donner wetter und sapperment!' roared the recumbent; 'out of time! why, my gun 's burst, and I'm maimed for life. Help, all good Christians-help!'

For the worthy man, wishing to produce an extra report, had indeed overloaded his piece by leaning too far backward. But he was speedily righted, and his wounds healed with a fearful draught of beer.

Then the captain, who had in his time made two sessions at Heidelberg as a student of economie, arose, and with great dignity harangued his company:

Silence there, gentlemen and fellow-sinners! In dulci jubilo, I cry aloud; let the sight of yonder corpse stimulate you, if not to decency, at least to silence.'

Here the worthy man made a false step and had nearly fallen; recovering himself, he cried:

'Gressus meos dirige-oh direct my foot-steps! Let us not go astray, as yonder sinner went. Parce servo tuo. But a few hours since and he sat here sound as a sausage! Ach, du lieber Gott, der war aber ein kreutz fideler Kerl! (but he was a glorious fellow !) and now — er ist nicht mehr (he is or eats no more) and drinks no more!'

Here the captain evidently became bewildered, and lost himself in a perfect chaos of slang and blasphemy, bursting at last into scraps of song, in the vain hope of starting a new train of ideas:

"Vinum bonum et suave,
Bonis bonum, pravis prave,
Cunctis dulcis sapor, ave,
Mundana lætitia. "

Wohl auf ihr gesellen in die tavern!
Aurora luce rutilat,

Ach lieben gesellen, ich trink so gern
Sicut cervus desiderat."

Understood by no one in the room save myself and the professor, who continually hammered the most frantic approbation on the table.

'Deus in adjutorium meum intende―e,

Spoke a pretty little nun-oh, she was fair to see:
Inclinate capita vestra!

It happened in the carnival-flectamus genua !'

With these words he dashed a quart of beer over the face of the defunct, who thereupon sprung to his feet in a tremendous rage. A terrible

confusion ensued, and the climax of all noise seemed to be attained. Not caring to see more, and in truth slightly apprehensive that the same obsequies might, if I remained, be ere long performed over me, I seized a candle and departed to my cigar-walled room.

LINES:

CONTAINING A GLANCE AT THE PAST, THE PRESENT, AND THE FUTURE.

BY A NEW CONTRIBUTOR.

I.

TWELVE Summer's flowers have bloomed and faded,
Since thou in all thy youthful beauty's pride
With one, the chosen of thy heart, beside thee,
Before the altar stood- -a blushing bride :
What pen could paint thy young heart's fond emotion,
As thy sweet lips breathed out all tremblingly
The holy vows, which, registered in heaven,

Bind heart to heart with Love's most sacred tie!
Clasped in the fond embrace of thy heart's chosen,
No higher rapture could thy soul attain;

Thy cup of bliss was full to overflowing,

For thou didst love - and thou wert loved again!

II.

Twelve summer's flowers have bloomed and faded,
Yet each returning summer's sun hath brought
New joys to thee, whose bloom is still unfading,
And life for thee with happiness is fraught:

Twelve summer suns have shone since thou wert wedded,
And thou a matron art, in life's bright prime;
And as a rose is clustered, bloom around thee
Sweet buds of love- - sweet images of thine!
These lovely flowers, in beauty now unfolding,

May sorrow's blasts ne'er blight, nor gloomy cares;
And may their future promise be the brightest
A mother's heart can hope-a mother's prayers!

III.

Dear HETTY!' may the opening Future

Be bright to thee as all the Past hath been;
And though old TIME may in his train bring changes,

Yet be his steps by thee unheard, unseen!

May Hope and Love e'er wait upon thy foot-steps,
And cull for thee their choicest, fairest, flowers;

And should thy heart, dear one! know aught of sadness,
May it but make more sweet thy happy hours:
So may'st thou live, that when life's day is over,
And evening's gloom around thy path doth lie,
Thy happy spirit from this earth may sever,
To seek a blissful home beyond the sky!

New-York, February, 1851.

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THE world has recently been delighted with a new history of ancient Greece, but nothing is more surprising to literary novices than the enlargement of minute detail which history acquires as it advances from the period of the recorded occurrences. Such novices innocently suppose that a modern historian can accomplish no more than to collect diligently the narratives of the original actors and their contemporaries; but this is as great a mistake as it would be to suppose that Milton could narrate nothing of Paradise but what he found in the Bible. Any historian is permitted to dilate to the extent of his imagination, provided he says nothing that contradicts authenticated records or established characters; just as a man who purchases a mummy at Cairo may exhibit it at Boston as a priestess of ancient Thebes, or as the wife of Potiphar; but should the mummy prove to have been fabricated, or, even if genuine, prove to be the remains of a man, the exhibition will over-step the license of genius, and be condemned as an imposition. When Psalmanazar, some century ago, pretended to be the native of a hitherto unknown country, whose history and language he invented and published, he was, on detection, stigmatized as a cheat; though the same nonsense, had he published it without a false personation, might have descended admiringly to posterity, with the adventures of Robinson Crusoe or the travels of Gulliver. The man Ireland, who pretended to have found some unpublished plays of Shakspeare, lost by the fraud all the merit of having written dramas which were mistaken for Shakspeare's, and was known only as a detected liar. We commend the conjuror who admits that his tricks are sleightof-hand, while we imprison the fortune-teller who performs kindred tricks as veritable necromancy. Still, a man who employs a fiction as a sort of intellectual condiment, is not compelled to announce its imaginative origin, any more than 'Snug the joiner' was bound to assure his audience that he was not a real lion. But the partition is not always obvious between the tweedle-dum that is allowable and the tweedle-dee that is disreputable; and a rule by which the boundaries between them can be clearly defined is yet a desideratum in literature.

Happily, our tale needs no such demarcation, for its verity will be sufficiently apparent to judicious readers, and such are all who read the KNICKERBOCKER. We shall therefore only premise farther, that the Oneida Indians were quite numerous at the commencement of the present century. Their play-ground was called the Oneida Castle, but why called a castle we know not, for no castle existed at the era of our narrative. The place was situated some twenty miles west from Utica, and to visit it constituted one of the prime recreations of the early inhabitants of the Central City, and one of the curiosities to which they always hospitably invited their visitors from Connecticut and other old settlements; not omitting to

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