ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1359, by JOHN A. GRAY, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New-York. 6 ANNOUNCEMENT FOR 1860. In order to increase the already large circulation of the KNICKERBOCKER, we publish this month a splendid line engraving of FRITH'S picture of Merry-Making in the Olden Time,' which we shall present exclusively to the $3 subscribers to the Magazine for 1860, whether old or new. The subject represents the pastimes of our ancestors, and is eminently of a genial, domestic character. The plate, engraved in England at an expense of $2000, is entirely new, measures twenty-five by nineteen and a half inches in size, contains thirty-nine figures, and is beyond comparison the finest work of the kind ever offered as a premium in this country. The engravings are richly worth $3 a piece, and will be sent to our subscribers for 1860 in the exact numerical order in which their $3 subscriptions are received at the office of publication, the first impressions always being the best. As we give $6 in return for $3, our mail subscribers must inclose twelve cents extra in stamps, to pre-pay postage on the engraving, which will be sent them in strong paste-board tubes. We refer to the following description of the engraving, kindly furnished for our use by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, Esq. 'THE engraving of FRITH'S picture of Merry-Making in the Olden Time, represents the humors of an English holiday in the country in those good old times when the men wore cocked-hats and knee-breeches, and the women stays and hoops-a costume not essentially differing from the corset and crinoline of the present day. Almost in the centre of the picture and a little in the back-ground is a country dance on the green, with a hard-featured fiddler perched on a high seat, and another musician in a tie-wig standing by him, playing with all their might. On the right, two bouncing girls are gaily pulling toward the dance a gray-haired man, who seems vainly to remonstrate that his dancing days are over,' while a waggish little chit pushes him forward from behind, greatly to the amusement of his spouse, who is still sitting at the tea-table, from which he has been dragged. On the left, under a magnificent spreading oak, sit the 'squire and his wife, whom a countryman with his hat off is respectfully inviting to take part in the dance. To the left of the 'squire is a young couple on the grass, to whom a gipsy with an infant on her shoulder is telling their fortune. Over the shoulders of this couple is seen a group engaged in quoit-playing, and back of the whole is a landscape of gentle slopes and copses. The picture has the expression of gaiety throughout, and the engraving is splendidly executed. It is fresh from the burin of HOLL, not having yet been published in England.' [Vide Editor's Table, p. 666.] INDEX. PAGE A 27 L LARK, The. JOHN MCCHESNEY,. ...576 69 ALONE. Miss FLETCHER, MARBLE, ΜΑΝΤΟΝ .496 .....301 Exotic Tree, The. WM. PITT PALMER, EDITOR'S TABLE: Conjugal Love in the Abstract: Sir' BULWER and Mr. STUBBS,' 91; Editorial Narrative-History of the Knickerbocker Magazine, 94, 817, 424, 541; The LORD's Prayer Rendered into Verse, 108; Foster Hale, Inventor of Raised Letters for the Blind, 104; A Soul-Whisper from the Garden Pines, 202; The Prophetic Office of Christ: Verbal Inspiration of the Bible, 204; Literary Incubation: an Egg-sample to be Emulated, 205; Lines: The Old Domicile,' 207; A Hundred Years from Now,' 815; Townsend and Company's New Edition of Cooper's Works, 320. F .885 .497 .465 FRENCH Almanacs. C. DAWSON SHANLY,......521 French Invasion of England, E. L. GODKIN,....466 G GOSSIP with Readers and Correspondents, 106, 208, 821, 432, 549, 651. PAGE 56 295 Little Peddlington, otherwise called Bosville. C. T. CONGDON,.... LITERARY NOTICES: Works of Michael De Montaigne, 87; Acadia, or a Menth with the Blue Noses, 87; The Life of General H. Havelock, K.C B., 88; The Exploits and Triumphs, in Europe, of Paul Morphy, SS; Cosmos. By Alexander Humboldt, 198; Love (L'Amour :) by Michelet. Translated by Dr. Palmer, 199; Pasha Papers, 200; Idyls of the King. By Alfred Tennyson, 811; Counterparts, or the Cross of Love, 318; Popular Tales from the Norse. By J. W. DASENT, 314; National Series of Readers, 421; A Life for a Life, 422; The History of Herodotus, 423; Life, Travels, and Books of Hum. boldt, 538; British Novelists, and their Styles, 539; De Stael-Holstein's Germany, 539; Representative Men of the New Testament, 540; Almost a Heroine, 646; Book of the Chess Congress, 647; The Rectory of Moreland, or My Duty, 648; Jessie Allison, or the Transformation, 649; Rhymes of Twenty Years, 649; Germaine, 650. PAGE 266 Romance and Reality. PHOEBE CARY,... ..159 W. L. SYMOND,.... 18 Romance of a Poor Young Man, The. Con- 267, 386, 481. Rural Life in Ancient Greece. J.H.L. MILLARD, 449 THE Patron-Saint of New-York, 1; New-York PAGE St. Paul's Church, 184; All Souls' Church, GOD made the country, man made the city. Cain went out from the presence of the LORD and 'builded a city.' Nevertheless, we love cities. We love their bustle, their throbbing life, their mighty influences. To them we look for the development and practical application of great ideas. In them we find the best and the worst of humanity. Learning and ignorance, wealth and poverty, virtue and vice are there in strangest contrast. Yet cities would die out from the destructive agencies at work within them were they not replenished by an influx of life from the country. Civilization, like Antæus of old, is really strong and enduring only when it touches the earth. Its robust and manly virtues spring from the soil. The enervating vices of cities have done more to cover the earth with their ruins than pestilence and the sword of the conqueror. But cities are not our theme. Nor will we attempt to prove just now that the axis of the earth and the hub of the universe protrude through the island |