UNDER the head of 'Shakspeariana,' our old correspondent, Dr. R. SHELTON MACKENZIE, of the Philadelphia 'Daily Press,' has been giving some entertaining sketches. Speaking of the celebrated SHAKSPEARE Mulberry-Tree, he says:

'THE executor of his last will, Sir HUGH CLOPTON, sold New Place (SHAKSPEARE'S) to a clergyman named GASTRELL, a man of odd temper, who, disgusted with the authorities of Stratford for what he considered a demand for an excessive borough rate, and annoyed at the number of visitors to the place and the tree, pulled down the house, and cut down the famous mulberry. The Annual Register, for 1760, says that the trunk was sold to a silversmith, 'who made many odd things of it for the curious.' It is scarcely too much to say that there are (said to be) in existence as many portions of SHAKSPEARE'S famous mulberry as would suffice, in their unfragmental state, to build a man-of-war. We have seen them in England, Ireland and Scotland; in France, Belgium and Germany. In the recent BURTON sale, (at New-York, October, 1860,) there were two such relics: namely, two Goblets carved from the mulberry-tree. GARRICK'S cup, from the same material, sold for one hundred pounds sterling, and now belongs, we believe, to the GARRICK Club, London. Major SIRR, the police magistrate of Dublin, also had a mulberry goblet, which sold for seventeen pounds; and Mr. BRANDON, box-office keeper of Drury-Lane Theatre, possessed one, which brought ten pounds at auction. There is now a pretty large-sized block of SHAKSPEARE mulberry in the British Museum, presented to that institution by the Rev. THOMAS RACKET, one of GARRICK'S executors. The late Mr. BURTON possessed a smaller portion, said to have been lopped from the same block. It is stated, in DAVIES''Life of GARRICK,' that the Reverend Mr. GasTRELL cut down the mulberry-tree, 'because it overshadowed his window, and rendered the house, as he thought, subject to damps and moisture.' The people of Stratford were so offended that they threatened personal vengeance on the offender, who had to hide himself from their wrath, and finally to quit the town forever, the inhabitants vowing that they would never suffer any person of his name to live in Stratford.

'Mr. DAVIES records that a carpenter purchased the tree, and cut it into various shapes: such as small trunks, snuff-boxes, tea-caddies, standishes, tobacco-stoppers, etc. The Corporation of Stratford, in admiration of GARRICK, as a histrionic illustrator of SHAKSPEARE, presented him with the freedom of their borough, inclosed in a handsomely-carved box, made out of this sacred wood. Out of this compliment arose the famous SHAKSPEARE Jubilee in 1769, which set Stratford out of its wits with joy and enthusiasm. GARRICK, who had a keen eye to business, reproduced the Jubilee at Stratford upon the stage of Drury Lane Theatre, and the representation had a profitable run of one hundred nights.'

SPEAKING OF BURTON's specimens of the celebrated SHAKSPEARE mulberrytree always reminds us of the gentleman who brought to the 'Mulberry Festival,' on one occasion, some of the bark of the famous relic. 'Are you sure that this is authentic? asked the late JOHN KEESE, holding the fragment reverently in his hand. 'Sure of it? certainly, Sir.' 'Ah!' said JOHN: 'I did n't know that you might not have 'barked' up the wrong tree!' - - ON Rainsford Island, in Boston Harbor, is a State Hospital, where those who cannot help themselves through sickness are provided for by the Government. A little burial-yard is thick with unhonored dead; no stone, no written word to recall their memories. But one quaint and queer old fellow is 'noticed' by a friend, who has cut in the solid rock the following simple tale :

'IN a box,

By these gray rocks,
Lies PETER Cox,
Dead of small-pox.'

'A Picture of Life' has melody and merit, but we do not altogether like the sentiment: it is too gloomy, too down-hearted. The world, to be sure, is not all flowers and sunshine, yet it is a very good world, after all. The tone and manner of this sad, almost sobbing, effusion, may be gathered from the ensuing stanzas:

'Nor a ray of sunshine, stealing

O'er life's way,

Sheds its warm and genial healing
Through the day.

'Night and sleep bring only sorrow,
No sunbeams:

Living through the dark to-morrow,
In my dreams.

'Can it be, because I'm weary

That I weep?

Oh! this world has been so dreary,

Let me sleep!

"Hark! I hear sweet, gentle voices,
Strangely clear;

Hush my spirit now rejoices

They are near.'

There is, to our conception, a very beautiful thought embodied in the lines which we have italicised. 'The Little Birdie,' written by TENNYSON, for our friend Mr. DEMPSTER, the eminent Scottish vocalist, is one of those little gems of feeling and fancy, for which his graceful Muse is so remarkable: and when we add, that Mr. DEMPSTER has placed this gem in a musical 'setting' which is every way worthy of it, we have said all that need be said in its praise:

'WHAT does little birdie say
In her nest at peep of day?
Let me fly, says little birdie,
Mother, let me fly away.
Birdie, rest a little longer,

Till the little wings are stronger.
So she rests a little longer,
Then she flies away.

'What does little baby say,
In her bed at peep of day?
Baby says, like little birdie,
Let me rise and fly away.
Baby, sleep a little longer,
Till the little limbs are stronger.

If she rests a little longer,

Baby, too, shall fly away.'

Or all humbugs there are none greater than so-called Unanswerable Arguments. Whenever you hear a man allude to such logical fortresses, reader, as being under his command, depend upon it that they have never been attacked by a vigorous foe, and that they have been occupied by a very vain and vapory garrison. No old campaigner in the wars of Truth believes in the existence of Unanswerable Arguments.

Our Southern foes have always been celebrated for unanswerable arguments, and we have, like good-natured ninnies generally conceded all and every thing to them. For instance, we say, 'Yes; oh! certainly,' when told that slavery must always exist 'down-South,' because only the negro can work there. Only the negro can endure the climate, you know.' Now treat this specimen of the Unanswerable with a vigorous denial and see how it comes out. The experience of the whole world shows it to be a flat lie. You cannot point me out any thing within the whole range of human efforts which a negro can do but that a white man can do it better. Cotton can be better cultivated by white men than slaves; if a black only lives till thirty on a rice plantation, a white can labor there till thirty-five; or if Indo-Germanic lives be too expensive, the Cooley, who is a white man, may serve at a pinch. But this everlasting pestilential rice-field business has really nothing to do with the question. It is not Rice but Cotton for which Cuffy is kept; and cotton is just as susceptible of small farm culture as any other plant; witness the German cotton-farms of Texas. As for the intolerable heat, it is briefly an intolerable humbug. There are very few points in the South where there is as much suffering during the summer months from heat as in Philadelphia, or where the nights are not cooler from being relieved either by sea or mountain-breezes. Yet, there is probably more hard work done in Philadelphia and the vicinity during the summer than in any other city of the same population at the same time in the world. So much

for an Unanswerable Argument. Perhaps there are facts modifying my own rebutter. Yes, and perhaps again.' But the Argument is not Unanswerable.

Another of these precious Impregnable positions is the one so often advanced by my Secession friends in a modified form of What will he do with it? 'Sir,' exclaims a secessionist, (it is remarkable, by the way, that secessionists, like all Southerns, are given to what poor Winthrop happily described as wearing black clothes and saying Sir,) 'what do you propose to Do with the South, even granting that you can conquer her? Do you expect, Sir, to hold her as a conquered province. And if not—what then, Sir? Just at present this particular Unanswerable is in high favor with the Doughfaces, Compromisers, and all other varieties of that Moral Mulatto animal who flits bat-like between the contending armies of the Birds and Beasts. Suppose we conquer it, what shall we do with our South?

The

Before attacking this fresh Unanswerable, let us turn it well over. fact is, that the WAR, in all its relations, is as yet far from being understood. It takes longer to learn a war than to learn a language. Nay, to fully comprehend one, it is perhaps necessary to be born in a war and grow up to it. A war does not seriously paralyze manufactures, disorganize exchanges and reverse all the conditions of business when people are familiar with and comprehend it. The great wealthy towns of Europe which flourished along the old line of Oriental trade- Augsburg, Nuremberg, Bruges, Ghent and the rest, grew up in war. The weaver sat sword-girt at his loom, and the Fugger drew his little bill on London as he did his cross-bow on the enemy. They comprehended war.

Let us, then, to understand this war of ours, begin by observing that no people can be said to realize it, who intuitively avoid all consideration of extreme measures of hostility. To win, one must be prepared to go as far at least as the adversary. Moderately if we can, fiercely if we must, is the rule popularly formulised by the exhortation to some dallier of ancient days by the expression, 'Shoot, Luke, or give up the gun!' Here the South have an advantage over us; they know their guilt, and knowing dare more than we do. They have consequently had no scruple in adopting extremely severe measures from the beginning. They have struck twelve to begin with. The C. S. A. had scarcely entered on their bastard life ere Jefferson Davis promptly proclaimed the adoption of privateering. Privateering is in reality very nearly an anagram for a synonym. Call it Pirateering, and you have what it amounts to, in reality, since there was never yet a prize privateered in which some injury was not inflicted in some way on neutral parties. We, however, do not endure the sending of vessels to 'skin' the Southern coast and plunder the seaside plantations. We have not got so far yet as to retaliate. Full retaliation is as yet only a future possibility. Stick a pin there, reader, and remember that from the refusing to abide by the election in which they had taken chances, down to date, the Southrons have in every instance led in aggression, in impropriety, in dishonorable and irritating outrage.

Since long-time, Northern men have been frequently hung, robbed, tarred and feathered, or forcibly enlisted in the South. In a few perfectly authentic

treated

instances, women-ladies- have been imprisoned and most infamously both by Southern mobs and Southern magistrates, the offence in some cases being that of expressing Union sentiments, but more frequently the mere accident of Northern birth. Here with us secessionists flaunt about in society, act openly as spies, nay, as in Breckinridge's case, utter their insolent treason in Congress, and are paid by us for so doing without the slightest danger. Here also we have not got so far as the genial and fiery Southrons. They are again in this, decidedly ahead. Observe, reader, I find no fault with the North. I simply say that we have all these things as yet off our consciences. We have not swindled the South-millions of Southern dollars now lie in New-York banks we might 'nip' the foe in a thousand ways, were we as nippingly inclined as he.

Again, how proper has been our conduct as regards the negro? On this subject the Southern alarm-clock long since struck twelve in its loudest and most portentous tones. I have enjoyed the inestimable advantage of perusing in editorial sanctums a fair share of such Southern journals as have of late reached the North, and can testify that on this subject they have done their utmost to goad their readers to madness. The main object of the whole campaign, they say, is simply to excite black revolt, and urge them to make of the South another San Domingo! Our white troops have, they assert, been stimulated by official assurances of unlimited ravishing and plunder, among the first families, but the negro is to be the great agent in all this hell-work. 'Lying,' according to Napoleon I., 'is a power,' and it must be conceded that, from this point of view, our Southern cotemporaries are wonderfully powerful men. They have carried this tremendous and dangerous power to the extreme of extravagance. Now, how is it here in the North? The United States Government- very properly, of course — is nervously anxious not to offend any body concerned, by indorsing in any way negro emancipation. General Butler is even very generally and popularly praised, because he, with jurisprudent shrewdness, solves the difficulty by pronouncing the negro a contraband. As a contraband, Cuffy is allowed, in very limited numbers, to sweep up the camp, and is 'returned' to any negro-thief from over the border, who chooses to swear a custom-house oath as to the property. Great pains are taken to prevent the contraband from escaping North with Yankee regiments; every thing is done, in fact, to establish a delicate regard for pro-slavery feeling. 'Nothing is allowed in this exhibition to offend the feelings of the most fastidious!' So that it is not to be much wondered at, that John Bull, who has heard so much of the d-d Abolitionists, is amazed that since we have the name so thoroughly and completely, we have not the pluck to secure a little of the game. John don't understand us, of course! Meanwhile, our Christian forbearance is richly rewarded by the most stupendous, overwhelming, crushing and tearing slander, and lies conceivable. That is what we get for it.

So far so good. But the WAR is a terrible and stupendous truth, which must come to a head. Sooner or later it will get to extremes. It is a great pity, a very great pity, but extremes is the word. I am sorry to say it, but no man who has had his eyes open here among us since the war begun can doubt