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THE FINE ARTS: WINDOW SHADES. - Perhaps in no article of household furniture, has there been more important improvements, both on the score of beauty and utility, than in the inner shades, or painted muslin curtains, which now so universally adorn the best dwellings of the metropolis; and surely nothing imparts such an air of taste and elegance to a mansion, out of doors as well as within, and more especially the latter; since the quiet, softened light which they admit to the apartment, and the various hues reflected from the paintings upon surrounding objects, counteract the injurious effects of a too powerful light, and present a very novel and pleasing effect. Doubtless the most beautiful 'shades,' of this description, on sale in New-York, may be found at the extensive establishment of Mr. GEORGE PLATT, at Number 12, Spruce-street, near the Park. We have watched the progress of this young artist, with a good deal of interest; and are well pleased to find, that from small beginnings, in an apartment of the printing office of this Magazine, the demands of the public have led him to the occupancy of a spacious building, where he has as many orders' as any of the military noblesse or royal families of France or England. During a recent visit to the establishment in question, we examined a number of shades, the landscapes of which might almost be clipped from their rich borderings, and framed, as parlour pictures. Such, especially, are the views in Italy, convents, mountain passes, lake scenery, etc. The new range of dwellings in Bleecker-street, whose imposing fronts, ample dimensions, and spacious court-yards, have attracted general attention, are supplied from Mr. PLATT's manufactory; and if a view of the 'Temple of the Clitumnus, at Spoletto,' which we had the pleasure of seeing, be a fair representative of those which have been suspended, the whole will form, we venture to say, one of the most attractive features in the furniture of the fine houses they adorn. These shades are of various prices; and when soiled by long exposure, they may in a few moments be restored to their original beauty, and thus preserved for many years. Economy as well as good taste, therefore, may be consulted in the employment of these admirable fabrics.

GEOGRAPHICAL EXTREMES. We found at our desk, on one of the cold mornings of the past month, two letters, that afford a forcible example of the striking contrasts in climate and scenery, which this country presents. The first was from a correspondent in Maine, who, for the sake of adventure, had joined a band of crinigerous backwoods loggers, in one of their 'professional' excursions into an untracked wilderness, for the purpose of felling timber. Nothing can be more wintry than his picture of the solemn forests of pine and hemlock, their branches bending with snow, which the wild wind ever and anon dislodges, in masses, to descend 'like a great white sheet, let down from heaven;' the gleaming tent-fires, lighting up the silent arcades of the woods; the cold aurora-borealis,

That trembles in the northern sky,
And glares on midnight's startled eye,'

shimmering uncertainly high up the zenith; the tramp of deer in herds, the while, with the short, quick bark of the fox, and the long howl of the wolf, ringing in their ears. Look on that picture, and then on this, drawn by the hand of a favorite contributor to these pages, now sojourning at Jacksonville, Florida: 'Our spring has commenced; and while you are pitching Lehigh or black Newport into the glowing grate, I am listening to the notes of the mocking-hird, watching the flowers unfold, or marking the course of flocks of paroquets, that whiz by, like winged creatures, carved from rainbows. Every thing here is different from the north; man, soil, clime, and sky; wind, flower, herb, and tree. Here you see the raw material of manhood; the semi-barbarian, regardless of personal right, and the restraints of law; and there a son of southern chivalry, hospitable, generous, and brave. The sunshine is pleasant; the live oaks,

streaming with moss, are venerable; and winter reigns divested of terror; instead of frosty crown and icy sceptre, wearing a wreath of orange blossoms, and wielding in his effeminate hand a wand of sugar-cane. Among the wonders of this land of flowers, I have seen a live alligator. He was caught by a party of men, and drawn from his watery realm to a sandy bier on shore. The monster was fourteen feet in length, from snout to tail. A sense of horror crept over me, while scanning his vast proportions. His ponderous jaws, when distended, armed with short, stont teeth, revealed a red cavern that would have swallowed up a man of ordinary size. Some mischievous boys had thrust out his eyes with sticks, and the murdered king of the St. John was thereby rendered an object of pity as well as terror. It was a wanton act, and notwithstanding my horror of the reptile, engendered by reading tales of the crocodile of the Nile, to whose maws the mother consigns her babe, I could have seen the young devils devoured by him with great satisfaction. We left him dying; his coat of mail wrinkled with the agony of his death-throe; and ere this, the turkey-buzzards have croaked a harsh dirge over his remains, and marred the symmetry of his carcass with their black beaks. His head will no more emerge above the wave, and give a nod of authority to the fishes; nor will his oar-like feet part the white surges, while his caudal rudder wakes with its iron plash the slumbering echoes of the shore!'

THE 'SOUTHERN LITERARY JOURNAL,' of which we have heretofore spoken, in terms of praise, has ceased to exist. The editor, in a graceful valedictory, remarks, that since the experiment has twice failed, in 'the support which should have been rendered, both in a fiscal and literary way,' it will be the last attempt 'at reviving the dying energies of Southern literature.'* We can call to mind some five or six periodicals, both at the South and North, which have languished and died, in a similar way, within the last two years. The cause, too often, of these failures, may be traced to the reading public, who lend a temporary encouragement to periodicals which present no particular claims to support, and supply no desideratum in their class of publications. On the strength of half a dozen articles, from as many personal friends of the publisher or editor; who, although perhaps expressly confining their assistance, rendered merely on the score of friendship, to the first number, are nevertheless announced as 'regular contributors;' the new journal is ushered to the world, to take its chance with the numerous periodical machines, which are hung out, like wind mills, to catch the aura popularis; some, to grind sectarian, political, or ultra philanthropic and physical 'shorts,' for the several associations to which they belong, and to find their moving power, for a time, in some one of the various currents of society; and others temporarily to sluice off some portion of public 'patronage,' (a vile word, that has no respectable synonyme,) which would otherwise have afforded encouragement to old and faithful laborers in the field of literature, who would have returned therefor an intellectual quid pro quo, ample and of no uncertain tenure. Lest the motives of these remarks be misinterpreted, we may state, that we speak from no personal feeling in the matter. We disavow the slightest tincture of literary jealousy. We appeal to thirteen volumes of this Magazine, in proof of the fact, that we have at all times cordially entreated our contemporaries, and extended a warm and open hand, even to publications which were sometimes set down by the public as rivals. Let readers but 'hold fast to that which is good,' among our contemporaries, and we shall cry content; as, for our own abundant share of public favor, we do, with all heartiness and gratitude.

SINCE this paragraph was placed in type, the first number of a monthly magazine, entitled 'The Southerner,' printed at Tuscaloosa, Alabama, has reached us. Its purpose is to furnish the south-western states with a periodical of a similar order' with the 'Southern Literary Journal,' which it describes as 'in the full tide of successful experiment!'

LATEST FROM 'Boz."- We are indebted to a friend in London, for a chapter of 'Nicholas Nickleby,' which has not yet been published in America. It is richer, if possible, than any of its predecessors. The following extract will shadow forth a scene which ensued at the office of that old miser, Ralph Nickleby, whither Madame Mantalini had gone, to solicit advice touching the propriety of settling an allowance upon her extravagant husband, who had preceded her to the same place, to 'raise the wind' with some of her 'business paper.' He first affects to think the proposition of his wife 'a demd horrid dream;' but she persists:

'Demmit!' exclaimed Mr. Mantalini, 'it is a horrid reality! She is sitting there before me. There is the graceful outline of her form; it cannot be mistaken; there is nothing like it. The two countesses had no outline at all, and the dowager's was a demd outline. Why is she so excruciatingly beautiful, that I cannot be angry with her, even now?'

You have brought it upon yourself, Alfred,' returned Madame Mantilini, still reproachfully, but in a softened tone.

I am a demd villain cried Mr. Mantalini, smiting himself on the head. 'I will fill my pockets with change for a sovereign in half pence, and drown myself in the Thames; but I will not be angry with her even then; for I will put a note in the two-penny-post, as I go along, to tell her where the body is. She will be a lonely widow. I shall be a body. Some handsome women will cry; she will laugh demnebly.'

Alfred, you cruel, cruel, creature!' said Madame Mantalini, sobbing at the dreadful picture. 'She calls me cruc!! Me-me!- who for her sake will become a demd damp, moist, unpleasant body exclaimed Mr. Mantalini.

You know it almost breaks my heart, even to hear you talk of such a thing,' replied Madame Mantalini.

Can I live to be mistrusted?' cried her husband. 'Have I cut my heart into a deind extraordinary number of little pieces, and given them all away, one after another, to the same little engrossing demnition captivator, and can I live to be suspected by her! Demmit, no I can't!'

Ask Mr. Nickleby whether the sum I have mentioned is not a proper one,' resumed Madame Mantilini.

I don't want any sum,' replied her disconsolate husband; 'I shall require no demd allowance; I will be a body.'

'On this repetition of Mr. Mantalini's fatal threat, Madame Mantalini wrung her hands, and implored the interference of Ralph Nickleby; and after a great quantity of tears, and talking, and several attempts on the part of Mr. Mantalini to reach the door, preparatory to straightway committing violence upon himself, that gentleman was prevailed upon, with great difficulty, to promise that he would not be a body.'

We must find space for a scene between Ralph Nickleby and Mr. Squeers, who, after a month's plastering with vinegar and brown paper, to hide the bruises Nicholas had bestowed upon him, has come down to London on a recruiting service for Do-the-boys Hall, bringing with him, as a sign of 'the feed' at that establishment, his son Wackford, 'his pupil,' who, he boasts, 'has the fatness of twenty boys.' Newman Noggs explains the mystery: 'Ah he has the fatness of twenty?-more! He's got it all. God help the others! Ha! ha!' The pedagogical tyrant throws additional light upon the internal economy of the Hall, in explaining the manner in which he turned the boys' 'extras' for medical advice toward paying the doctor's bill he had incurred from his beating:

After my bill was received, we picked out five little boys (sons of small tradesmen, as was sure pay,) that had never had the scarlet fever, and we sent one to a cottage where they'd got it, and he took it; and then we put the four others to sleep with him, and they took it; and then the doctor came and attended 'em once all round, and we divided my total among 'em, and added it on their little bills, and the parents paid it. Ha! ha! ha!'

And a good plan, too,' said Ralph, eyeing the schoolmaster stealthily.

'I believe you!" rejoined Squeers. We always do it. Why, when Mrs. Squeers was brought to bed with little Wackford here, we ran the hooping-cough through half-a-dozen boys, and charged her expenses among 'em, monthly nurse included. Ha, ha, ha !!

Ralph never laughed, but on this occasion he produced the nearest approach to it that he could, and waiting until Mr. Squeers had enjoyed the professional joke to his heart's content, inquired what had brought him to town.

'Some bothering law business,' replied Squeers, scratching his head, 'connected with an action for what they call neglect of a boy. I don't know what they would have. He had as good grazing, that boy had, as there is about us.'

'Ralph looked as if he did not quite understand the observation.

'Grazing,' said Squeers, rasing his voice, under the impression that as Ralph failed to comprehend, he must be deaf. When a boy gets weak, and ill, and don't relish his meals, we give him change of diet; turn him out for an hour or so, every day, into a neighbor's turnip field, or sometimes, if it's a delicate case, a turnip field and a piece of carrots alternately, and let him eat as many as he likes. There an't better land in the country than this perwerse lad grazed on; and yet, he goes and catches cold, and indigestion, and what not, and then his friends bring a law-suit against me! Now, you'd hardly suppose,' added Squeers, moving in his chair with the impatience of an ill-used man, that people's ingratitude would carry them quite so far as that, would you !**

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'A hard case indeed,' observed Ralph.

'You don't say more than the truth, when you say that,' replied Squeers. I don't suppose there's a man going, as possesses the fondness for youth that I do. There's youth to the amount of eight hundred pound a-year at Do-the-boys Hall, at this present time. I'd take sixteen hundred pound worth, if I could get 'em, and be as fond of every individual twenty pound among 'ein, as nothing should equal it!

'Are you stopping at your old quarters?' asked Ralph.

'Yes, we are at the Saracen,' replied Squeers; and as it don't want very long to the end of the half-year, we shall continue to stop there, till I've collected the money, and some new boys too, I hope. I've brought little Wackford up, on purpose to show to parents and guardians. I shall put him in the advertisement this time. Look at that boy; himself a pupil; why he's a miracle of high feeding, that boy is.'

BURNING OF THE CAROLINE. A thin pamphlet has been laid before us, entitled 'An Address delivered at Niagara Falls, on the evening of the twenty-ninth of Decem ́ber, 1838, the anniversary of the burning of the Caroline. BY THOMAS L. NICHOLS.' There is a good deal of spirit and fire in this production; and it occasionally rises to vivid eloquence; as, for example, where a description is given of the scene which was presented, when the Caroline was cut loose, towed into the Niagara, and set on fire, and signal lights were seen on the British shore, to guide the loyal boats' crew on their return from the expedition. 'The scene,' says the writer, 'now became one of awful sublimity. The Caroline was in flames, and the resistless flood was bearing her on toward the cataract. As the fires curled about her, her engine began to work, by the heat of the burning vessel, and the pitchy flames threw a red glare on the wild scenery, around her. It showed the wintry forest, and glowed upon the waters; it revealed the rebel island, and the barracks of the British soldiers. Onward the burning vessel was borne, and nearer and nearer the mighty precipice. From one side she was viewed with exultation; from the other, with deep threats of vengeance; and as she neared the foaming gulf, the hell of waters, they tell of dark forms that were seen amid the flames, and of death shrieks, that rose shrill and piercing above the noise of the rushing waves. Still she rushed on, and still the scene increased in grandeur, until her burning timbers were extinguished in the flood, and a few blackened fragments, thrown upon he shore, were all that remained of the ill-fated Caroline.' All this is very picturesque, and may afford a fair criterion of the merely literary characteristics of the performance in question.

'VELASCO.' We are gratified, but by no means surprised, to find the praise which was awarded in these pages to this fine tragedy by EPES SARGENT, Esq., confirmed by so distinguished a poet and critic as SERGEANT TALFOURD. Acknowledging the receipt of the tragedy from our London publishers, the author of 'Ion' says: 'I have read it with great pleasure, and have finished it with a high sense of the taste and ability of the author. It is indeed very elegantly written. If you have an opportunity of communicating with Mr. SARGENT, I shall feel obliged if you will convey to him my best thanks for the copy of his play, and the unalloyed pleasure which a composition so chaste, graceful, and so finely adorned with poetical imagery, has afforded me in its perusal.'

CAPTAIN KYD.-Every body has heard of that distinguished buccanier, whose

'name was ROBERT KYD,
As he sailed.'

The author of 'Lafitte,' 'Burton,' etc., has made the pirate and his fortunes the nucleus around which to weave the thread of a very melodramatic romance, which we shall embrace another occasion to notice. We learn that its sale fully equals the anticipations of the publishers, the enterprising and indefatigable BROTHERS HARPER.

274

Editors' Table.

NATIONAL ENGRAVING: THE PAST AND PRESENT. - The fine national picture which embellishes the present number of the KNICKERBOCKER, we think the reader will agree with us in saying, reflects great credit upon the well-known artists from whom it proceeds. A correspondent, who is ever most welcome to our pages, has illustrated the picture, and the contrast it awakens, in the following lines, which carry with them their own recommendation:

JAMESTOWN.

SIRES of the olden time! How softly smile
The beams of morn around their sepulchres!
Brightening the mildewed marble, and the trees
Touching with pleasant light. Each mossy trunk
Their dust has nourished; and methinks yon ash
Might type their sturdy forms; the blooming vines
That weave rich garlands round its sheltering arms,
And fill its shade with beauty, I could deem
Sprang from the mouldering bosoms of their brides,
Meet emblems of their trustful constancy:
And you pale willow, bending in the sun,
Seems like a widow with her love in earth,
Cheered by a 'light from heaven!'

The house of God,

Within whose walls the exiles bowed in prayer,
Has crumbled to a fragment; a lone tower,

Solemnly rising in the solitude,

At once a beacon of those nameless graves,
And a memento of the holy hope

Which looked beyond them.

O'er the quiet stream
White sails are moving, mirror'd as they glide
In its unshadowed silver, while aloft,
Skimming the sunshine, from the cedar groves,
Where all night long they sat, with folded wings,
Dreaming of this sweet scene, the birds return,
To warble round the mansions of the dead
Their pastoral requiem. All is perfect peace;
The sepulchres, the trees, the moss-crowned tower,
The wandering sails, and the undimpled river,

By the soft sunlight spiritualized, appear

Fair as aerial scenes, that beautify

Our morning slumbers; and like them
I almost deem the picture will dissolve,
Even as I gaze.

Sires of the olden time!

How all unlike the sunshine and the calm
Of this green landscape, were your lives of storm?
Famine and Fear sat crouching by your hearths,
While Death walked with you in the wilderness:
And those your bosoms cherished, whose soft eyes
Mirror'd the homes of England, as ye looked
Into their depths, recalling far-off scenes
They once had brightened, these ye oft beheld
Stricken at noon, and ere the morrow's prime,
Their funeral hymu ascended. And ye too,

Your sons, and your sons' sons, and those whose cyes
To them were beacons, round this ruined church,
Where once ye worshipped, and beneath the sod,
O'er which each Sabbath morn ye sought its walls,
In dust commingle. Reverence to the dead!
Truly in danger, suffering, and in tears,
They sowed the seeds of empire!

There was one,

The noblest of them all, whose peerless deeds
Some abler hand, for manhood's sake, should wed

To an immortal lyric, sleeps not here.

Who knows him not, or knowing, values not

His high-souled daring, honorable truth,

And the bright host of virtues clustering round
The Christian hero, hath nor part nor lot
In this his cenotaph. 'T was he who bore
Desponding Freedom o'er the western flood,
Smoothed her torn plumage, pointed to the sky,
And loosed her crippled wings in purer air.
Long circling, half mistrustful of her powers,

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