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never overtook, I was sitting with my feet on a line with my nose, 'my custom always in the afternoon,' when at the opened door a veritable client appeared. His inimitable hitch at the waist-band spoke at once his occupation on the briny deep. 'Do you ever write letters here?' was his first question. Sometimes,' said I, 'although I am not exactly a man of letters.' 'Well, then,' said he, looking round carefully to see that his communication was confidential, 'I want a first-rate one.' 'To whom, and on what subject?' I asked. To a gal in Kittery,' said he. 'She aint acting right, and I want to tell her so. She's been and gone to a singing-school with another chap sence I left. Now take a sheet of paper and give her my mind strong!' I did my best, and put down in our good vernacular some emphatic expressions of indignation, and some hard knocks against the interloper of the singingschool. 'Hold there!' says he, 'that is rather too much sail on that tack! Now put her off a few p'ints on another tack, and give her some soft biscuit, for I don't want to break off entirely; only to score her, so that she will mind her helm and steer straight.' So I eased off, and put in some 'saft sawder' and love-sick nonsense. I read it to him. That will do,' said he; 'but tell her, after all, it will be as she behaves!' So I qualified the honey with a little vinegar. That's all right,' said

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he; but I want you to put in some verses, to wind up the yarn.' said I. This:

My pen is poor, my ink is pale,
My love for you shall never fail.'

'Such as what?'

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'I wrote at his dictation until I came to the word 'pale.' 'That will never do, said I, for this ink is most particularly black'—and it was 'black as Erebus,' or 'the ace of spades.' This was a poser. He scratched his head in most amusing perplexity. I must have the poetry,' said he, 'at any rate; and what if it aint exactly true? Will that hurt it?' 'Not as poetry,' said I, refining, but as fact. It will be a false statement of a matter of fact, and the falsehood will be apparent on the face of the record, and falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, you know, JACK! How can BETSEY believe a word you say, with such a black falsehood staring her in the face?' (I was young, and fresh from BLACKSTONE, and talked learnedly.) What shall we do?' cried JACK; 'you must fix it somehow.' How will this answer, JACK?' I asked:

'MY

pen

is poor, my ink is black, My love for you shall never slack!'

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'First-rate!' exclaimed JACK; and so it went, and so ended my first and last attempt at poetry. I wish I had kept a copy of that letter.' "THE lines incorrectly quoted in the KNICKERBOCKER for August,' writes A Lover of Literature' from Boston, (who will accept our thanks,) are a translation of a passage in OVID:

Deteriora sequor.'

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In a translation of OVID 'by several eminent hands,' that particular Metamorphosis from which the above passage is extracted, is ‘Englished' by TATE and STORESTREET. The authentic lines in question stand as follows:

I SEE the Right, and I approve it too;

Condemn the Wrong, and yet the Wrong pursue.'

HERE, in such sort as we could give it, is a short string of theatrical items and on-dits, which we commend to the casual glance of all dramatically-inclined Gothamites. MARSHALL, of The Broadway,' is greatly enlarging and beautifying his magnificent theatre, and will soon open with the great American Tragedian, EDWIN FORREST. Distinguished actors, in various walks, with other novelties,' are to succeed. Mrs. MOWATT has had a successful engagement at the indefatigable

NIBLO'S, who is to continue open all winter, with stars' and lesser attractions. BURTON, as we hear, has engaged a talented' company, who are to be divided between the Chambers-street establishment and NIBLO'S. BROUGHAM has parted with some of his 'celebrités,' but is said to have engaged others of equal merit to take their place. Several European 'popularities' are about visiting us; among them, ANNA THILLON, a fascinating singer and actress, and SONTAG, the Countess RossI. ANDERSON, the sometime tragedian' hereabout, is locked up in prison in London, the victim of his own ridiculous ambition; but ANDERSON, the Wizard of the North,' is astonishing thousands at Tripler-Hall' by his incomprehensible feats in necromancy and natural magic. WE are gossipping just now at Mount Guilford, the hospitable residence of an old friend at the highlands of Piermont. It is the first moist day of August:

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"YON murky cloud is foul with rain,

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I see it driving o'er the plain:'

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yet here we sit, in the pleasantest of pleasant libraries, under the 'warning-voice' of a tall old clock that has ticked for a hundred years, and look off, now upon the misty Tappaan-Zee and its faintly-outlined eastern shore at Tarrytown, 'Sunnyside,' and the ancient Ferry of DOBB, and anon upon a picturesque vale, extending thirty or forty miles to the west and south, enclosed by mountains that bound the distant view. Beautiful! beautiful!—and the stormy voice of the north-east wind, and the sound and smell of the falling rain! Surely surely, we shall have reminiscences of this hereafter... A GOOD man and a true' met us not long since in Broadway, and congratulated us upon unmistakable good health,' for which, as daily, we thanked a kind POWER that it was so. We plastered the compliment back upon his burnished though corrugated cheeks, as IRVING says, like a Spitzenberg apple dried with the bloom on.' Well,' he said, (and he was right,) 'I feel as young as I ever did. I retain all my boyish weaknesses. When my friend SAMUEL JOYCE sends me home his best coat, I rub my hand across the surface of the fabric, and fond 'memory brings back the feeling' with which I welcomed my first swallow tail;’ nor am I now less vain than when I looked for the first time at a perfect fit' in the glass, now forty years ago. Nor, when I raise my best and most graceful 'GENIN' to a friend in the Fifth-avenue, am I less aware than of yore that the noblest part of man is nobly shielded from the elements. The truth is,' he added, ' after all, we 'men,' as we call ourselves, and perhaps are so considered, are only children of a larger growth." . . . MR. JOHN DANIEL, at Number 59 Fifth-street, continues to give instruction in music upon the piano, vocal, and otherwise. We have spoken before of this accomplished artist, and are well pleased, although not at all surprised, to learn, that he has met with ample patronage, and has elicited the warmest approbation of his numerous pupils. Himself a thorough musician, his instruction, both in theory and in practice, is of the very first order of excellence. He has achieved success simply because he had prepared himself by long study and elaborate practice to command it; and with genius, which was his first quality, he had nothing left that was to be desired. AN extended review of DANA's Prose Essays, and notices of MAGOON's 'Scenery and Mind,' Lectures on the LORD's Prayer,' and of three or four other new works, are postponed until our next. We have six or seven pages of these, with articles in prose and verse for the 'Table' an1'Gossip,' in type, awaiting immediate insertion. ... READER, pardon all 'short-comings.' Hot and sultry has been the weather; frequent our excursions into the 'ked'ntry;' and very ill there a tender nursling of the KNICKERBOCKER flock. Think on these things, and pity and forgive!' 'If spared,' we will try to do better next time.'

A ROMANCE OF THE HARTZ PRISON.

BY REV. FREDERICK WILLIAM SHELTON, M. A.,

OF HUNTINGTON, NEW-YORK.

A NEW AND REVISED EDITION.

With Illustrations. Just published, by SAMUEL HUESTON, 139 Nassau street, and GEORGE P. PUTNAM, 155 Broadway, New-York.

The above is an original and striking Allegory on the subject of Slander. It is very neatly got up, and is sold at Fifty Cents, and may be had of all Booksellers,

Cuba and the Cubans :

COMPRISING A HISTORY OF THE ISLAND OF CUBA, ITS PRESENT SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND
DOMESTIC CONDITION, AND ITS RELATION TO ENGLAND AND
THE UNITED STATES.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "LETTERS FROM CUBA." With an Appendix, containing important statistics, and a reply to Senor Saco on Annexation, translated from the Spanish. Also, a Map of the Island, and its relative situation to the other West India Islands, and different parts of the United States. One Vol., 12mo. Price 76 cents. SAMUEL HUESTON, 139 Nassau street.

The Illustrated Domestic Bible.

This beautiful and valuable edition of the Bible is now completed, and may be obtained in various styles of binding, from $7 to $10 50. In addition to the authorized version, this edition of the Bible contains seven hundred Illustrations, three steel Maps, very full References, Reflections, Notes, Questions, Dates for every day in the year, Family Record, Chronological Order, &c. Agents wanted in every town in the United States. Address, post paid,

S. HUESTON, 139 Nassau street.

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GLEASON'S PICTORIAL

DRAWING ROOM COMPANION,

A RECORD OF THE BEAUTIFUL AND USEFUL IN ART.

The object of this paper is to present, in the most elegant and available form, a weekly literary melange of notable events of the day. Its columns are devoted to original tales, sketches, and poems, by the

BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS,

and the cream of the domestic and foreign news; the whole well spiced with wit and humor. Each paper is

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One copy of the FLAG OF OUR UNION, and one copy of the DRAWING-ROOM COMPANION, one year, for $4.00 Though these two journals emanate from the same establishment, still not one line will appear in one that has been published in the other, thus affording to those persons who take both papers an immense variety.

The PICTORIAL DRAWING-ROOM COMPANION may be obtained at any of the periodical dépôts throughout the country, and of newsmen, at six cents per single copy.

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