however, remain. New copies can be struck off, and sold at auction at twenty-five cents per tome, while the cost of them is but twelve and a half. Five hundred thousand are sent among the principal cities and towns, distributed in this way, and disposed of for the benefit of the publisher and author — generally of the former, who literally lives by eating and drinking out of the sculls of his bond-slaves; that is to say, his hackney scribblers. In this way, the vilest English re-publications, and the most stupid miscreations of American stupidity, are puffed and forced upon the American people. Is the book utterly worthless? no matter; the plates will strike off five hundred thousand copies before they are worn out, and that number must and will be sold. Is the book good, or bad?—no matter. Unless it be fortunate enough to reach a second edition, the result is precisely the same. Funds, sufficient to stereotype, and a bookselling correspondence, sufficiently extensive to force a sale, are all that are necessary. If the author have an established, though factitious, reputation, it is well; if he hath managed to fall in with a temporary current of popular prejudice, it is also well. Horseshoe Robinson and the Monikins are likely to have the same fate; though one is as good and the other as bad a book, of its kind, as can well be written. Stereotype, stereotype, and your book is sure to sell. Witness the latter absurdities of that conceit-monopolized, idea-exhausted Cooper, who imagines that the Holy Alliance are in a conspiracy against him, and that his advice is of consequence to his country-folk. Whose books sell better than his? Thus is the whole country flooded with a worthless literature, a disgrace to the land we live in, and likely to exercise a permanent evil influence upon after-generations. No matter; stereotype-stereotype! He does best who writes most, though worst; at least, he gets most money.

We are led to these remarks by the fact, that a new stereotype edition of the works of that literary incubus, Paulding, is being published in New-York, in the style of the Waverly and Pelham novels. The first two volumes are already out; and a more barefaced imposition was never practiced in any community. They contain Salmagundi,' which is really an excellent work. How the author has dared to present it as a specimen of his savoir faire, is more than we can conceive, since only a part of it is his, and that, we believe, is a very small part. Look into it, and if you find a good paper, be sure it is Washington Irving's; if you find a dull one, do not fail to ascribe it to Paulding. We are warranted in this assertion, by all his subsequent works. As a whole, Salmagundi' is an admirable production; as a part of the writings of Paulding, it is a downright cheat. We advise our readers to buy it, not as a part of a series, but as a separate work. As for the rest of the series, he will be wisest who has

least to do with it. We have not room to follow out the entire catalogue of Paulding's demerits, in detail; but we intend to do him more ample justice hereafter. We shall analyze his trash, piece by piece, as it comes out. A hack scribbler, whose abominations have been tolerated, puffed, and suffered to die, one after the other, for these twenty years, unwept, unhonored, and unsung, and whose corpses have only been preserved in existence by the stereotype system, has not the claim due to the first efforts of modest merit, or to the brotherhood of nationality. We say nothing against the man; we suppose he thinks he must eat; though, for our part, we see no necessity for it. But really, to encourage, or even to tolerate such nuisances as his poems and novels, would, it appears to us, be high-treason against our country's fame, and an injury to our truly meritorious writers, whose efforts he impedes, and whose market he injures. What signifies it, that a writer is personally a clever fellow? Must we therefore buy a bad book from him? Let him sharpen saws, or saw wood, for which his intellect qualifies him. It were the more honorable calling. Shall we subscribe to a periodical because the editress has children to support?* Let her betake herself to the washing-tub, or take in sewing; or let her ask that as an alms, which, as such, shall be freely bestowed, but which will be witheld as an encouragement to false pretensions, or as a salvo to vain pride, and an injury to the lawful claims of others. We are weary of the pitiful cant of the day this writer is an American, a good fellow, an unfortunate man, and therefore you ought to buy his book. Let the American- the good fellow, and the unfortunate person produce a really good work, and we will buy it, and pay for it twice over. He who avails himself of such pretences is, in our opinion, precisely on a footing with the genteel beggar, who seeks charity on the score of the respectability of his family, rather than betake himself to honest labor, or go to the almshouse.

'The value of a thing,' says keen-witted, honest Butler, 'is just the money it will bring.' So it is. A thing is worth just its market value, provided the article is well-known, and there is no fraud or force practiced in the sale. How stands the case with Paulding? His works are known and read by not one in twenty no, not one in a hundred who has bought them. They are imposed on the credulity of the ignorant, by the bought suffrage of a venal press.' Just so are the copper shop-bills forced into currency, as cents, by those who manufacture them by wholesale, while they are not worth half a cent. Rahab Marchael might just as well attempt to make the dead resume their vitality. and exercise their functions, in good earnest, as any printer to

* Vide John Neal's gentle comments, in the New-England Galaxy, headed 'Sumner Lincoln Fairfield.'

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give Paulding a permanent rank among American authors. One might as well go into a church-yard, and cry-Arise! ye dry bones! The dry bones might, indeed, be disinterred, and knife-handles might be made of them; but the vital current would never reinvigorate them and just so may Paulding's defunct works be resuscitated, to serve the temporary purposes of himself and booksellers; but live they never can. Let us try to remember as many of them as we can.

6

The first we can think of was, the Lay of the Scotch Fiddle,' which cannot be said to be forgotten, because it was never known. It was a vulgar, stupid parody upon one of Scott's early lyrical poems, and perished, we believe, by the agency of mildew, on the bookseller's shelves. The next was the Backwoodsman,' a prose poem, which was read and praised by Major Noah, and by few, if any, else. Then came John Bull in America,' an extravaganza, a burlesque upon certain English travelers in America, much in the manner of the popular ballad, Jim Crow,' and of about the same merit. ( The Dutchman's Fireside' had nothing Dutch in it but the name; was tame in incident, weak in conception, and anything but pleasing in style. The Lion of the West' was a play, particularly acceptable to the galleries of the minor theatres, which is making its eulogium in a word. A viler farce was never tolerated on any boards. Add to these, some stories and essays, in magazines and newspapers, and what else our author hath done or suffered, at present we wot not. We shall give due notice thereof, as the re-publication refresheth our

memory.

Whom want, hunger, or the devil driveth, must needs go on; and if our hero hath no other means of filling his stomach, and covering his back, let him continue to publish. But, if the care of his fame, and the dread of reproach, be of paramount importance, in his estimation, we implore him to give over for his own sake.

SMOKING.

I HAVE an affection for a habit not the piece of raiment so called, but a veritable custom, worn like a garment, indeed, 'from time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary,' and becoming so assimilated to the wearer, that, without it, he seems not himself. I have seen men, who were as free from habits as a comet.

They are no friends for me. Give me

a man on whom I can depend one who will feel to-morrow as he feels to-day-who does everything by habit, and nothing by impulse, and I can take him to my heart. But, your innovators I shun, as I would a viper.

When I contracted my most inveterate habit-smoking-I cannot determine. The earliest event of my life, of which I have any distinct recollection, is stealing my grandfather's segars. I was scarcely older than Mercury when he stole Appollo's cattle; and from that moment, I have been a consistent smoker. I am a devotee of no particular sect - I smoke a pipe or a segar, indiscriminately; though, with regard to my tobacco, I confess I belong to the anti-American party.' Speaking of the anties, since the formation of the anti tobacco society, they are my utter detestation, from anti-christ to antimasonry. What a wreck have they made of ancient customs! Many an old friend of mine, whose integrity I thought never could be shaken, has apostatized since the commencement of the unholy crusade against the intellectual luxury of smoking. Has it indeed come to this? cause we are virtuous,' and have joined the temperance society, are we to have 'no more cakes and ale'? Must we throw away our segars, and betake ourselves to chamomile-flowers? No, by Saint George!

Be

What a pity, that the old poets were unacquainted with tobacco. What an ode might we not have had, from Horace, or Anacreon, To my Pipe'! What a delightful smoker would have been Virgil! Not in vain would he then have sung

'Incipe Menalios mecum, mea tibia, versus.'

Or as old Davidson, with unaccustomed elegance, has translated it

-

'Begin with me, my pipe, Menalian strains.'

Plato, too, and Socrates! What accomplished and intellectual smokers had they been, sitting at their ease, inter sylvas Academi, looking even more profoundly wise, amid the dim cloud of enveloping smoke. And Cicero! how gracefully and slowly would he have exhaled the fragrant incense, in clouds as full and swelling as his own magnificent periods! Not so, Tacitus and Sallust. They could never have attained the skill of an artist. They would have consumed you a dozen Havanas, in as many fitful whiffs. It was ever their fault to strive to say too much in a sentence; and they would have smoked as they wrote-briefly and sentimentally.

But, the luxury of tobacco was reserved for a happier age. I can find no trace of anything like a segar, in the writings of the ancients. Horace, it is true, does say

Rectius Albanam fumo duraveris rivam ;'

but, the smoke, with which his wine was seasoned, was quite another affair; and Virgil's oaten pipe would have stood fire but poorly.

Of all systems of idolatry - supposing, what is impossible, that I could renounce my own religion—I should prefer the Persian. My segar should be my altar; and if its fire ever went out, my Promethean sun-glass should bring me down a fresh supply, from the fire-fountain in the sky. I fancy, sometimes, that a segar is more fragrant and delicious when lighted from the sun. It is a whim of mine, perhaps; but I procure my fire, as much as possible, from above.

There is an art in smoking, as in everything else; but it can never be acquired. The snuffer and chewer is made, but the smoker is born. I have never seen but one, beside myself. He was a raw mountaineer, who had had no advantages, and whose wildest visions of happiness never extended beyond an American segar. He was a wonderful illustration of the power of native genius. I met him in the woods of Vermont, where I chanced to be wandering, on a trouting excursion, and the grace and ease, with which he managed his dingy, oak-leaf segar, quite won my heart. I gave him a dozen of my best, for his skill. I shall never forget his raptures, as the wreathing smoke curled, like an incense, around his head. He would have followed me forever, as Caliban did Stephano. I have not heard from him since; but a genius like his can never be repressed. I have not a doubt, that he will become distinguished.

There is a foppery, too, in smoking; indeed, what department of art or science is free from it? My heart bleeds, daily, at sight of the thousand apish tricks of the thousand would-besmokers, who infest our public places of resort. I can bear fop

pery in dress foppery in manners foppery in conversation

or writing; but foppery, in smoking, is too much. Besides, smoking is a habit which should never be indulged in, at all, in public. Delightful amusement as it is, for a leisure hour, there are some, undoubtingly, who most unaffectedly detest it, in all its shapes. Common decency should deter us from outraging the feelings of such, by an unnecessary and wanton display of our independence, and contempt of public opinion. A gentleman should as soon be seen eating his dinner in the public streets, as smoking a segar. Both are proper in their places; and both may become, in some situations, worse than ridiculous. The true place for smoking, is in your own private apartment alone, if such is your mood; or, if you please, with a bosom friend; but, never with one to whom you are indifferent. Like the bread and salt of the Mahometan, a segar should be the emblem and the assurance of friendship. Sitting thus, half reclining, in what delightful reveries may you indulge ;- if alone, reading, perhaps,