wonder and a marvel.

Approach it as I did, in summer, and on Sun

day. To its various portals, as did the strangers to old Rome,

'Cast round thine eye, and see
What conflux issuing forth, or entering in ;
On embassies from regions far remote,
In various habits, on the Appian road,
Or on the Emilian.'

THE whole of the Genessee country is but a tame, yet it is a beautiful, prelude to those splendid pictures in that magnificent scenery of the West, of which Buffalo forms the opening view.

Tell me,' said I to my Jehu, 'what is the population of this ' which we are approaching?'

6

city,'

It is nigh to twenty thousand, friend! ejaculated the dispenser of impulses to the cattle before him, with an evident feeling of pleasure that he was showing wonders; and what's more, stranger, we shall soon be at the Eagle. Jest let me ask you, 'Square, did you ever see any think like that 'are?'

I turned to the direction of his whip, to the south-west, where a bay of Erie bent into the woodlands, stretching for miles.

'What is that?' I inquired.

'Why, it's Buffalo! You see the streets of the outskirts, marked out in the edges of the woods, several miles off; you see the white buildings among the green trees, where the stumps is n't yet grubbed up; and where they do say, that sheep and deer is enclosed in the cellars of houses, built to nearly the second story and yet they say and I believe it that there is n't a house in all Buffalo, fur and nigh, outskirts and in-skirts, that has n't more tenants than can be disposed of.' I continued to gaze in the direction he had pointed; and truly the sight was beyond the blazon of tongue or pen. It seemed to my eye as if more than half of the city of Buffalo had been but yesterday redeemed from the wilderness. A town of brick, large, stately, and imposing in itself, was encompassed on all sides by extending tenements of white, sufficient in number to form a dozen country villages; in the middle of the town were country seats, surrounded with parks, through which the deer bounded, as in those early days - not long ago when the shores of Erie were forests, and the lake was crossed only by the adventurous canoe of the daring Indian; when if a young Pale Face came to tempt them, he was admonished by the Red Skins to forbear: Son of the stranger! wouldst thou take O'er yon blue hills thy lonely way,

VOL. VIII.

To reach the still and shining fake,

Along whose banks the west winds play?

Let no vain dreams thy heart beguile

Oh, seek not thou the Fountain Isle.

Bright, bright, in many a rocky urn,
The waters of our deserts lie
Yet at their source, the lip shall burn,
Parched with the fever's agony;
From the blue mountains to the main,
Our thousand floods may roll in vain.

46

Even there our hunters came of yore,
Back from their long and weary quest;
Had they not seen the untrodden shore,
And could they midst our wilds find rest?
The lightning of their glance was fled,
They dwelt among us as the dead!

They lay beside the glittering rills,
With visions in their darkened eye;
Their joy was not amidst the hills,

Where elk and deer before them fly;
Their spears upon the cedar hung,
Their javelins to the winds were flung.

They bent no more the forest bow,
They armed not with the warrior-band,
The moon waved o'er them, dim and slow-
They left us, for the Spirit Land!
Beneath our pines, yon green-sward heap
Shows where the restless found their sleep.

FOR the rest, wherein is narrated the visit of Ollapod to the Great Cataract, and to those divers points of interest which are to be found by the way, as the returning traveler journeys toward the Atlantic seaboard, is it not all recorded in the diary, of which the foregoing is but a little part? Of a verity, dear reader, Providence permitting, thou shalt hear again, anon, from 'the man of many wanderings.'

OLLAPOD.

LITERARY NOTICES.

THE GIFT: A CHRISTMAS AND NEW-YEAR'S PRESENT, for 1837. Edited by Miss LESLIE. Philadelphia: E. L. CAREY AND A. HART.

WE have somewhat to say, by way of objection, in regard to this beautiful annual not yet generally published - and we may as well commence a brief notice of the work with fault-finding. In the first place, then, we enter our protest, as we have once or twice done before, against the employment of embellishments in American annuals, which are drawn from old pictures, the products of foreign artists, copies of which have been for a long time on sale by all our print-venders. Why should not American publishers encourage native artists, when there are not a few able and willing to do honor to themselves and their art in this country? What good reason is there, that in otherwise creditable specimens of our annual literature, the public should have served up to them copies of such well-known pictures as 'Uncle Toby and the Widow,' Time and Tide wait for no Man,' 'Hawking,' etc.? There is there can be none; and we hope our countrymen, in bestowing their patronage upon that class of ornamental literature which we are considering, will be just to those who have nearest at heart the reputation of 'the land we live in.' To be eternally borrowing what we do not want, is worse than buying what we have no occasion for a folly which Dr. Franklin has well exposed.

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'The Sisters,' fronting the title-page, is very prettily designed, but it appears to us to lack both ease and animation. The title-page itself is modest and tasteful. Many of the subsequent engravings of The Gift' are worthy of high praise. The Village Mill' is one of the finest in the volume. There is great merit in the disposition of its parts, and withal a softness and an atmosphere about it, which render it truly a charming picture. 'Dorothea,' engraved by CHENEY, from a painting by MIDDLETON, is a clever performance. It possesses a pleasing repose, and has been finished with much care. Why is it, by the way, that the motto to the stanzas which accompany it, speaks of a lad washing his feet in the stream, while the print represents a lovely girl as engaged in the pedal ablution? The Love-Letter,' by CHENEY, from a drawing by SULLY, is worthy the reputation of both painter and engraver. It belongs, however, to a deeply-shadowed class, which we do not overmuch admire. 'The Fisherman' is a good picture - but it strikes us as defective in some respects. Witness, for example, the drawing of the lad's right leg, above the top of his hob-nailed shoe. The Fisherman's Landing' looks well at the first glance, but a more minute inspection shows it to be dim and indistinct—particularly the figures.

Time was, and that not a great while ago, when the yearly souvenir was considered, by most persons, as little more than an apt vehicle for circulating inflated fancies or bastard sentimentalities. The degradation of this species of literature arose from the mistaken idea, that inasmuch as annuals were mainly intended as presents for girls, and young ladies, the matter should be chiefly composed of love-stories, and 'pretty pieces of poetry' — so that at last it came to be seen, that almost every body was an indifferent good hand at annual writing. This error was borrowed from the

early English specimens, which were poor enough. It must be confessed, however, that for a time many indigenous writers for these yearly offerings added dullness to the faults of their originals—a not unnatural result, in the case of copyists. But there has been a gradual and constant improvement in the American annuals; and we now find the greater part of their matériel highly creditable to native contributors, and all of it above a respectable mediocrity.

As we hope to be able to advert to The Gift' again hereafter, we shall, for the present, glance but cursorily at a portion of its contents. The first article, 'A Midsummer's Night Watch,' is a very clever sea-story, well described, without startling improbabilities- -a too common fault of tales of the ocean; the wedding-scene, especially, is managed with fine dramatic effect. 'Jocassée,' a story of the old-time Cherokee,' is in the best vein of its author, Mr. Simms, and is marked by that quick perception of poetical adaptation which the writer has frequently evinced. 'The Burial of the Emigrant's Babe' - suggested by a paragraph in the Commercial Advertiser, the simple pathos of which impressed us forcibly on its first perusal - we annex. It requires no recommendation beyond that which it carries with it.

BURIAL OF THE EMIGRANT'S BABE.

BY MRS. SIGOURNEY.

"NEAR the Catholic cemetery, about three miles from the city of New-York, I met one of the most singular and affecting funeral processions which it has ever been my fortune to witness. It was a lone mother, with her little boy by her side, and the coffin containing the body of her dead infant in her arms. She was a German, and could speak but few words of English. She presented a paper, which contained the regular order necessary for every interment in the public vault of the Roman Catholic cemetery. But had she been ever so skilled in our language, it was evident that she had that grief within which does not speak. Her eyes filled, and sobs choked her utterance, as she said, 'I lost meine baby — four week.'" COL. WILLIAM L. STONE.

'The Count and the Cousin' is a covert satire upon the apings of foreign follies and vices which are obtaining ground in our cities. The theme is a prolific one, and to our taste. Would that we possessed the power of Molière, to touch up this species of Précieuses Ridicules! Like the bad actor, who, when told that he limped, lisped, stuttered, and had an envious mountain on his back,' claimed popular histrionic models for all his defects, this class of imitators glory in their shame, and exult in the thought that they are the monkeys of a numerous band of fashionables in London, Paris, and on the continent. But we are losing sight of the story:

THE COUNT AND THE COUSIN.

BY MRS. EMMA C. EMBURY.

"WHO is that beautiful girl to whom you bowed so familiarly?' said Charles Winstanley to Horace Grenville, as they proceeded down the steps of the City Hotel. "That was Adelaide Walsingham, your cousin and mine, Charles,' said Horace ; 'really you must have left your memory among the beauties of Paris, if you cannot recognise your nearest of kin.'

"You forget, Horace, that when I last saw Adelaide, she was a lively little hoyden, scarce ten years old; the lapse of seven years makes a wondrous difference in a lady, whatever it may do with a gentleman.'

"Nay, if you begin to discuss Time's changes, Charles, I must confess you cannot congratulate yourself upon having escaped a touch of his finger. Who, in that bronzed complexion and hirsute visage, could discover any traces of the smooth-cheeked boy whom I last saw on the deck of a French packet-ship, some seven years ago. But tell me, why did you not write that you were coming home?'

"Because I did not know my own mind, Horace; I really was not quite certain about it until I had been a week at sea. The odd pronunciation of my German valet having caused my name to be placed on the list of passengers as Mr. Stanley, it occurred to me that the mistake would enable me to return incognito, and I thought I would humor the joke, if but to see how many of my old friends would recognise me. I arrived late last evening, and should now be a perfect stranger in my native city, had I not accidentally met you this morning; and even you, Horace, did not at first know me.'

"Know you, Charles! who the deuce could even see you behind that immense growth of brush-wood upon your lip and cheek? Do you really mean to wear those enormous whiskers and moustaches?'

"Certainly not longer than suits my present purposes, Horace. When I was in Germany I learned to wear moustaches for the same reason that I learned to smoke the meerschaum- because every body else did it. In Paris I reduced them a little, but did not entirely banish them, because there also I found them the fashion. A lively little French lady, a passenger in our ship, wagered a pair of Paris gloves that I would not wear them a week in America; I accepted the bet, and for one week you will see me 'bearded like the pard."

"Nay, if you like them,' said Horace, laughing, 'you need not seek an excuse for wearing them; they are quite the fashion, and ladies now estimate a man, not as they once did, by his altitude, but by the length of his whiskers.'

"I have no desire to win ladies' favor by wearing an unshaven face,' answered Charles; but pray, Horace, tell me something more about our pretty cousin.'

"She is as lovely in character, Charles, as she is in person, but she has one great fault; like the most of our fashionable belles, she has a mania for every thing foreign. Her manners, her dress, her servants, all come from abroad, and she has declared to me repeatedly her resolution never to marry an American.'

"What is it that my fair countrywomen so much admire in their foreign lovers?' asked Charles.

"Oh, they say there is a polish and elegance of manner belonging to foreigners which Americans never possess. Two of Adelaide's intimate friends have recently married scions of some antediluvian German family, and our lovely cousin is ambitious of forming an equally splendid alliance.'

"If she were to marry a western farmer,' said Charles, with a smile, 'she would reign over a principality quite as large, and perhaps more flourishing, than usually belongs to these emigrant nobles.'

"Adelaide is a noble-hearted girl,' replied Horace, 'and I wish she could be cured of her folly.'

"If she is really a sensible girl, Horace, and that is her only fault, I think she might be cured.'

Horace shook his head.