in a rude and undigested mass. The writer treats, under nineteen divisions, of Man as child, father, teacher, citizen, farmer, mechanic, merchant, soldier, statesman, etc.; and from some of these we propose to select a few examples of Mr. MATHEWS's thoughts and style poetical. The following stanza is taken from the advice given to 'the father' of an infant:

'A soul distinct and sphered, its own true star,
Shining and axled for a separate way.'

An 'axled soul' is good, as POLONIUS would say; but it is not much better than one or two equally original expressions which ensue :

'Be thou a Heaven of truth and cheerful hope,
Clear as the clear round midnight at its full;
And he, the Earth beneath that elder cope --

And each 'gainst each for highest mastery pull:

The child and father, each shall fitly be

Hope in the evening vanward paling down,
The one-the other younger Hope upspringing,

With the glancing morning for its crown.'

The writer counsels the citizen' not to overstalk' his brother, but to show in his mien 'each motion forthright, calm, and free;' and he farther advises in the words following, to wit:

'FEEL Well with the poised ballot in thy hand,

Thine unmatched sovereignty of right and wrong:

'Tis thine to bless or blast the waiting land,

To shorten up its life or make it long.'

In the annexed stanza there is an assortment of similes, the like of which one seldom encounters in so brief a compass. The lines are addressed to the farmer;' and we are acquainted with several excellent persons among that indispensable class of the community, to whom we should like to hear Mr. MATHEWS read them! It would be a 'rich treat' to hear their opinion of such pellucid poetry:

'WHEN cloud-like whirling through the stormy State
Fierce Revolutions rush in wild-orbed haste,
On the still highway stay their darkling course,
And soothe with gentle airs their fiery breast;
Slaking the anger of their chariot-wheels

In the cool flowings of the mountain brook,
While from the cloud the heavenward prophet casts
His mantle's peace, and shines his better look."

Cloud-like revolutions stopping on the highway to slake their chariot-wheels in a mountain-brook! If that is n't'original poetry' we know not what is. Now the opening of the piece from which the above stanza is taken we have no doubt is considered by the writer quite inferior to it; but to our conception, the nature and simplicity which it preserves for a moment are worth all the striking figures to which we have alluded. 'The mechanic,' whose business is to 'shape and finish forth iron and wood,' comes in for his share of rythmical counsel:

'LET consecrate, whate'er it strikes, each blow,
From the small whisper of the tinkling smith,
Up to the big-voiced sledge that heaving slow
Roars 'gainst the massy bar, and tears

Its entrail, glowing, as with angry teeth

Anchors that hold a world should thus-wise grow.'

Observe the felicitousness of the foregoing poetical terms. The tinkling smith,' and the 'big-voiced sledge' roaring against an iron bar, and tearing out its entrails with angry teeth! Could appropriateness and power of metaphor reach much beyond this? 'Not good,' we suspect. We thought to have given our friends,' the merchants,' a lift with Mr. MATHEWS's moral instruction; but we can only remind them, with his assistance, that

'Undimmed the man should through the trader shine,
And show the soul unbabied by his craft.'

'Next comes the soldier,' to whom Mr. MATHEWS thus addresses himself:

'Marbled sea' is good; as good as 'the mobled queen.' It might perhaps assist the effect a little, if the reader knew what it meant. Possibly the writer knows; yet we doubt it. The next stanza presents a cloudy vision of the sublime obscure :

THOUGH sleeps the war-blade in the amorous sheath,

And the dumb cannon stretches at his leisure-
When strikes the shore a hostile foot-out-breathe

Ye grim, loud guns-ye fierce swords work your pleasure!
And sternly, in your stubborn socket set,

For life or death-your hilt upon the stedfast land,

Your glance upon the foe, thou sure-set bayonet,

Firm 'gainst a world's shock in your fastness stand!'

'The statesman' is not less felicitously 'touched off' than the soldier:

'DEEPER to feel, than quickly to express,

And then alone in the consummate act;
Reaps not the ocean, nor the free air tills,

But keeps within his own peculiar tract:
Confirms the State in all its needful right,

Nor strives to draw within its general bound;

For gain or loss, for glory or distress,

The rich man's hoard, the poor man's patchy ground.'

'Hold, enough!' doubtless exclaims the reader. Yet could we go on to the end of the volume with just such 'poetry' as this. We must ask the farther attention of the curious' to be directed to the work itself, while we proceed to glance for a moment at the production last cited at the head of this notice.

The swelling prelude to 'The Career of Puffer Hopkins' is kindred in assumption and manner with the preface to the 'Comedy,' to which we have already adverted. 'CERVANTES, SMOLLET, FIELDING, and Scorr, to say nothing of more recent examples,' are modestly invoked, to show that the author cannot justly be charged with caricaturing. We yield the point, without the examples. A caricature always bears some resemblance to an original; but Mr. MATHEWS's characters have no originals. They are in no respect vraisemblant. Take his whole catalogue of names, (in themselves so 'funny!') his Hobbleshank,' 'Piddleton Bloater,' Mr. Gallipot,'' Mr. Blinker,'' Mr. Fishblaat,' 'Attorney Pudlin,'' Mr. Fyler Close,' 'Alderman Punchwind,'' Mr. Shirks,' 'Counsellor Blast,'' Dr. Mash,'' Mr. Bust,'' Mr. Flabby,' etc.; analyze them, if possible, and tell us if any one of them ever had any thing like a counterpart in the heavens above, in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth?' Are they any more distinctive, internally, than the pie-faced man,' or the man with features like a dried codfish suddenly animated,' externally? Not a jot, not a jot,' will be the reply of every one who attentively scans them. The death of Fob' partakes in a good degree of the pathetic, and justifies the counsel which we gave the writer in our notice of The Motley Book.' It is however as evidently suggested by kindred scenes in the writings of DICKENS, as is the writer's raven and coffin-maker's apprentice. We have not the space, had we either the leisure or the inclination, to attempt a notice in detail of Puffer Hopkins.' We say 'attempt,' because it defies criticism. It has neither plot nor counterplot; neither head nor tail. Memory, it has been well said, is the best of critics; but we doubt if there be a scene or part of a scene, in the entire work, that could be segregated and recalled by the recollection of the reader. Aimless grotesqueness; the most laborious yet futile endeavors after wit; and a constant unsuccessful straining for effect; are its prominent characteristics. Take up the book, reader, open it any where, and peruse two pages; and if you do not acquit us entirely of undue depreciation in this verdict, place no faith hereafter in our literary judgment. Let us open it at random for an illustrative passage or two. In the following, Puffer (after receiving a lecture on political speech-making, in

which among other things he is told to 'roll his eye-balls back under the lid, and smell of the chandelier, though the odor is n't pleasant!') is thus farther instructed :

Ir's best to rise gradually with your hearers; and, if you can have a private understanding with one of the waiters, to fix a chair conveniently, a wooden-bottomed Windsor, mind, and none of your rushers; for it's decidedly funny and destroys the effect, to hear a gentleman declaiming about a sinking fund, or a penal code, or the abolition of imprisonment for debt, up to his belly in a broken chair-frame. As the passion grows upon you, plant your right leg on one of the rounds, then on the bottom, and finally, when you feel yourself at red-heat, spring into the chair, waive your hat, and call upon the audience to die for their country, their families and their firesides; or any other convenient reason. As Hobbleshank advanced in his discourse, he had illustrated its various topics by actual accompaniments; mounting first on his legs, then the bench, and ended by leaping upon the table, where he stood brandishing his broken hat, and shouting vociferously for more oysters.'

There are other suggestions; such as having 'immense telescopes constructed, and planted where they could command the interior of every domicil in the ward, and tell what was in every man's pot for dinner six days in a week;' together with a 'great ledger, with leaves to open like doors, on which should be a full-length likeness of each voter, drawn and colored to the life,' even 'down to his vest-buttons, and a mote in his eye!' Who shall say that this is n't 'genuine humor?' Here too is 'a touch of nature,' such as Mr. MATHEWS delights in. An electioneerer or scourer' of the wards visits a theatrical 'lightning-maker,' (a highly probable character,) at his laboratory, where the following witty dialogue ensues :

poor work

This profession of yours,' said Puffer- he dared not call it a trade, although the man was up to his eyes in vile yellow paste and charcoal-dust-'this profession, Sir, must give you many patriotic feelings of a high cast, Sir.'

'It does, Sir, answered the lightning-maker, slightly mistaking his meaning; 'I've told the manager more than fifty times that lightning such as mine is worth ninepence a bottle, but he never would pay more than fourpence ha'penny: except in volcanoes; them's always two-quarters' I mean, Sir,' continued the scourer, that when you see the vivid fires blazing on Lake Erie; when Perry's working his ship about like a velocipede, and the guns are bursting off, and the enemy is paddling away like ducks; is not your soul then stirred, Sir? Do you not feel impelled to achieve some great, some glorious act? What do you do, what can you do, in such a moment of intense, overwhelming excitement?'

I generally,' answered the lightning-maker, with an emphasis upon the personal pronoun, as if some difference of practice might possibly prevail, 'I generally takes a glass of beer, with the

froth on.'

But, Sir, when you see the dwelling-house roof, kindled by your bomb-shells, all a-blaze with the midnight conflagration: the rafters melting away, I may say, with the intense heat, and the engines working their pumps in vain; don't you think then, Sir, of some peaceful family, living in some secluded valley, broken in upon by the heartless incendiary with his demon-matches, and burning down their cottage with all its outhouses??

In such cases,' answered the lightning-maker, I thinks of my two babies at home, with their poor lame mother; and I makes it a point, if my feelings is very much wrought up, as the prompter says, to run home between the acts to see that all 's safe, and put a bucket of water by the hearth. Is n't that the thing??

I think it is; and I'm glad to hear you talk so feelingly,' answered Puffer Hopkins; our next mayor's a very domestic-minded man; just such a man as you are; only I do n't believe he'd be so prudent and active about the bucket on the hearth.'

At this, the lightning-maker smiled pleasantly to himself, and unconsciously thrust a large roll of brimstone in his cheek."

Oh, for a modern schepen, to laugh himself to death at this fine 'burst' of nature and of wit! Holding both his sides, how would he guffaw at that brimstone mistake! How can you make me laugh so, when I am so sick?' Well, well; it is funny, certainly; but wait until you read this fragment of 'burning satire' upon the political press :

'AN Extra Puncheon,' pretending to give late news from the Capitol, but containing, in reality, Flabby's long-expected reply. 'Capital! capital!' cried Mr. Fishblaat, as he hurried on; Flabby called Busts a drunken vagabond, in the Puncheon of Wednesday week; Busts called Flabby a hoary reprobate, in Monday's Bladder, and now Flabby calls Busts a keg of Geneva bitters; says the bung's knocked out and the staves well coopered Capital! This alludes to a threshing, in front of the Exchange, in which Busts had his eye blacked and a couple of ribs beaten in.'

But we must draw our notice of Mr. MATHEWS's writings' to a close. We cannot do so, however, without again inviting the attention of our readers to the works' themselves, if they are desirous to partake in a yet larger degree of the kindling effect of his unique wit and humor, and to render full justice to the American Boz!'

THE POETS OF CONNECTICUT; WITH BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. Edited by Rev. CHARLES W. EVEREST. In one volume. pp. 468. Hartford: CASE, TIFFANY, AND BURNHAM. NewYork: KNICKERBOCKER Publication Office.

HONOR to Connecticut for the 'bright names in song' to which she has given birth; and honor to Mr. EVEREST for the faithfulness and good judgment with which he has discharged his editorial function, in the large and exceedingly beautiful volume before us. Few of our readers can be aware of the number and high character of the poets of America who first drew breath in the Land of Steady Habits.' The catalogue 'deflours us of our chiefest treasures' in poetry; numbering as it does, HALLECK, BRAINARD, PERCIVAL, PIERPONT, PRENTICE, HILLHOUSE, HILL, SIGOURNEY, ROCKWELL, and others scarcely less known to fame, and whose effusions are endenizen'd in the national heart. The volume presents a brief historical account of the poetical literature of Connecticut, from its commencement to the present period. The writers are arranged in the order of birth, as being less invidious, and as better comporting with the design of the editor. In the department of biography, the sketches have been made as complete as possible, in the case of deceased writers, while in those of the living, the principal facts of personal history are carefully preserved. The editor has judiciously confined his critical duties to the mere pointing out of a few characteristic traits of each author's verse, refraining from especial eulogy or censure. The volume is in all respects a valuable contribution to our national literature, and deserves, what we cannot doubt it will receive, a circulation commensurate with its merits. It is beautifully printed, upon large, clear types, and embellished with a fine vignette-engraving of the city of Hartford and Connecticut river.

ABBOTTSFORD EDITION OF THE WAVERLEY NOVELS. Edinburgh: ROBERT CADELL. London: HOULSTON AND STONEMAN. New-York: WILEY AND PUTNAM.

WE have already twice spoken of this most perfect edition of the works of the immortal SCOTT; but as the numbers reach us in succession from abroad, and the fine taste and profuse liberality of the publisher are more and more revealed, we are continually tempted to descant upon merits and beauties which we could wish our readers throughout the Union and the Canadas could personally appreciate. We have before us at this moment the series complete to the thirty-second issue; and how many illustrations does the reader suppose are included in these numbers? No less than five hundred and fifty; varying, in each number, from sixteen and eighteen to twenty-four. These illustrations, too, are in the very finest style of the art of engraving, whether on steel or wood. There is nothing omitted that can be illustrated, in any of the great Northern Magician's' works. The first painters in England are employed to paint from nature the originals of all the principal scenes; these are transferred to steel by the most eminent engravers in Europe; and the same faithfulness is apparent in all the principal portraits, which are so numerous and authentic, as to leave nothing to be desired in this department of the work. Add to this the fact, that every thing to which any especial interest attaches in the novels is pictorially presented, with a kindred care and correctness; and that the fine texture and dazzling whiteness of the paper and beauty of the printing are unsurpassed; and the reader will have some idea of the comparative cheapness of a work like this, when informed that each number costs but two shillings and sixpence sterling! The edition will contain, when completed, more than two thousand engravings, on steel and wood, and of the highest order of excellence. Indeed, the landscape engravings on steel will of themselves form a splendid series of an hundred views, illustrative of the novels.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

THE LATE WILLIAM ABBOTT HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL JOURNAL. In briefly noticing, some months since, the decease of WILLIAM ABBOTT, Esq., late of the Park Theatre, we promised again to advert to his career in England and this country; and the perusal with which we have recently been favored of an exceedingly entertaining autobiography of this excellent actor and accomplished gentleman, has 'whetted our almost blunted purpose.' We learn from a brief obituary in the London 'Gentleman's Magazine,' that Mr. ABBOTT was born at Bath, England, in 1788, and began his theatrical career in that city, whence his varied talent caused his being transported to CoventGarden Theatre, at the age of twenty-four. He remained there twelve years, continuing all the time to grow in reputation. In social life, his house at Knightsbridge, near London, was long the scene of meetings in which good taste and refinement increased their attraction, by being blended with less ceremonious pastimes, and the constant flow of fanciful recreations. Thus he traversed a flowery time until 1824, when ambition tempted him to become the lessee of the Dublin Theatre. He lost money by the speculation; and his next move was to Paris, where with an English company he entertained the Parisian public with éclat for two years. In the French capital his enjoyment of society was of a very gratifying kind; and he spoke the language with so much purity as to escape all the usual inconveniences attendant upon foreign disclosure. In 1828 he returned to Covent-Garden to enable Miss FANNY KEMBLE to appear as JULIET with an adequate RoMEO. Subsequently, untoward events of a pecuniary nature, connected with the management of one of the minor theatres of the metropolis, induced him to try his fortunes in America. The professional and social qualities which had won for him reputation and friends in his own country, gained him both in this, in an equal degree; while the same experience as a manager attended him here that was 'his destiny' abroad. The Charleston (S. C.) Theatre, the management of which he assumed, proved worse than valueless to his interests; and at the time of his death he had resumed his place upon the boards of the Park Theatre, where he had always given ample satisfaction to the public. He was the author of several successful dramatic productions in England, and was known on both sides of the Atlantic as a gentleman of fine literary taste and acquirements. He was a person of the most gentleman-like manners, cheerful disposition, ready wit in the play of conversation, and possessed a kindly and liberal heart. Few men were more welcome to society, or more entertaining within its bounds. He was full of anecdote; and the humorous stories of the stage found in him a most amusing reciter. He had also the song, the jest, or the repartee, which never failed to add mirth to the festive board. Above all, shone the unclouded cheerfulness of his nature, over which even his own misfortunes apparently never suffered a shadow to pass; and that good-will toward others which defied the taint of envy, (either in private life or in an envious profession,) which was happy in contributing to happiness, and would not tread