when you return.' The ward-room servants, who occupied the adjoining apartment, had evidently followed our example in circulating the Saturday evening glass.

Presently, the rough, weather-beaten pilot appeared at the table, and turning his huge mustaches right and left, to open a way for the glass, he soon made up in speed what he lacked in time; and readily overtook us in the convivial race; nor did he fail to confirm the sailing-master's opinion of his mirth-moving powers. Little did he dream of the transition his feelings were soon to undergo. But I anticipate.

It is very common on board war-vessels, on pleasant evenings, for officers to stand within listening distance of the men about the forecastle, to over-hear, as it were unobserved, the songs and jests of the jolly sons of Neptune. In like manner, the noise from the servants' room had drawn the purser from the table to listen to their sport. After a time, he returned to the company, with an expression of countenance that betokened astonishment at something he had overheard. 'Gentlemen,' said he, in a low tone, one of our servants is a pirate!'

'Pirate!' exclaimed several of the company.

'Yes,' answered the purser, a Baratarian pirate, who was convicted, and subsequently pardoned by President Munroe; and he is now giving an account of his atrocities to the other servants.'

'By Saint Nevski!' exclaimed the Russian pilot, dat is no vay de Emperor treats de pirates. He vould send dem to Siberia, to be knouted and den hunged!'

'Let us,' resumed the purser, 'have the rascal out here, and make him describe some of his piracies.'

To this proposition all agreed; and John Smith, for such was his name, real or fictitious, was called forth, to entertain us with a story from real life. All eyes were arrested by the expression of his countenance, as he approached the table, and each one would have been slow to suspect him of piracy, so demure and innocent were his looks.

The first lieutenant began his interrogatories in a calm and serious manner, and grave tone of voice, remarking that he wished to know some of the particulars of the piracies committed by him and others, for which he was tried and condemned. With a look of astonishment at our knowing any thing of his career, John hesitated to utter a word in reply.

'Go on!' said the lieutenant, go on!' we know you have been pardoned, and therefore you have nothing to fear from us. Let us hear the whole story.'

John began, as might be supposed, with a disclaimer of his own guilt, in the outset; alleging his ignorance of the designs of the band with whom he enlisted, until it was too late to extricate himself. He then recounted several of their piratical adventures, some of which were detected, and led to their capture and trial. By this time he had become easy and communicative, and desirous to gratify our excited curiosity and interest in his stories. But there was one act,' continued he, that never came to light, which was worse than all the rest.'

'Let us have it, John,' rejoined all the company; out with it!' Well,' continued John, 'it so happened we fell in with a Russian ship, bound to Mexico, and boarded her. The captain, who was a brave fellow, resisted our search for money. We thereupon knocked out his brains with a handspike, and (oh, it makes me shudder to think of it!) we then killed every man on board; and after plundering all we could carry away, we scuttled the ship, and set fire to her.'

Vot Russian ship vas dat?" interrupted the pilot, impatient to learn whether he had ever any knowledge of her, or her commander. It was, Sir,' replied John, the ship Orloff, Captain Nicholas Potowsky.'

Mine Got!' exclaimed the pilot, with clenched hands, and a quivering lip, it vas my brodder! Villain! murderer! — it vas my brodder Nicholas! You shall be put in irons, and hunged, ven dis ship arrives at Cronstadt! I vill see de captain dis very night. O Nicholas! You vas not drownded den, ship and all, as ve always supposed!'

The pilot now rose from the table to seek the captain, but was unable to pass the sentinel stationed at the cabin door. Meantime, John Smith was hurried down into the coal-pit, in a dark corner of the vessel, and was there confined out of sight, during the pilot's stay on board, which however was short, as we soon landed at Cronstadt. It was reported that he applied to the authorities there to take John out of the ship, but was told that the Guerriere, being a national armed vessel, nothing of the kind could be done. John therefore escaped due punishment, till we arrived at the next port, which was in Sicily, where, expecting another trial for his life, he immediately deserted, and was never more heard of.

The striking incidents of this narrative, the reader will perceive, are the perpetration of a murder in the Gulf of Mexico, and its first disclosure in the Gulf of Finland, nearly on the opposite side of the globe; and then to the brother of the victim, by the murderer himself. The whole savors so much of fiction, that the writer thinks it well to state that he was surgeon of the ship at the time, and knows the material facts to be as he has here related them.

LIFE'S MYSTERIES:

Utica, Oct., 1840.

HOPE AND FEAR.

LINKED, as Mezentius linked the dead and living,
Twin motives stir and sway the human soul.

Elastic hope, redeeming deepest dole,

Fear, haunting highest bliss with faint misgiving:
Like the sky's glowing arch, pale tints receiving,
Where from th' empyrean it stoops to earth,

Hope brightly soars tow'rd Heaven, its place of birth,
Dimmed, in this lower sphere, by tears and grieving.
Like the sky's midnight arch, whose earthward gloom
Scarce the starred zenith leaves in dubious sight,

Fear flings its shadow over things of light,
Even to the radiant life beyond the tomb.
Death, bringing wo or joy, the tie shall sever,
Bid one immortal live, one die for ever.

A. R. M.

LITERARY NOTICES.

THE CLOCKMAKER: OR, THE SAYINGS AND DOINGS OF SAMUEL SLICK, of Slickville. Third Series. Philadelphia: LEA AND BLANCHARD.

་

THERE is naturally much that is coarse in this volume; for Mr. SLICK's style is proverbial for being 'nervous, but inelegant;' yet there abound the redeeming features of plain-speaking in behalf of the right and in condemnation of the wrong, and satire of follies and abuses, political, religious, and social, for which our author is so distinguished, and which go far to redeem the faults of occasional exaggeration and grossness. Having, in our notices of the two volumes which preceded the present, taken occasion to remark somewhat at length upon the characteristics of Mr. SLICK, we shall infer that our readers are not unacquainted with his 'domestic manners,' and proceed to select a few passages from the volume before us; commencing, as applicable to this legislative period, Mr. SLICK's first speech in the legislature, upon the poll-tax :

'Sol ups and says, Mr. Speaker says I, (Lord how thick my tongue felt; it seemed to grow too thick for my mouth, like the clapper of an old horse,) let me propound this resolution, sir, said I; all men are free and equal. No one doubts it, Mr. Slick, said an old member; no one denies that; it's a truism. I did'u somehow expect that interruption; it kinder put me out, and I never got a-goin' altogether right again arterwards, for I lost my temper; and when a man ain't cool, be might as well hang up his fiddie, that's a fact. Have 1 freedom of speech, sir, said I, or have I not; or is that last rag of liberty torn from the mast of the constitution too? I stand stock still a-waitin' for your answer, sir. Oh, Sartain, said he, sartain; you may talk for ever, if you like: go on, sir; only no man doubts your proposition. It's a lie, sir, said I, it's a lie writ-. Order! order! - chair! chair! says some. Knock him down! - turn him out!-where did you larn manners? says others. Hear me out, says I, will you? and do n't be so everlastin' fast: what's the use of jumpin' afore you come to the fence. It's a lie written on the face of the constitution. Oh, oh! says they, is that it? Yes, says I, it is, and contradict it if you darst. We are not free, we are slaves: one half of us is tyrants-unremorseless, onfeelin', overbearin' tyrants, and vile usurpers; and the other balf slaves-abject, miserable, degraded slaves. The first argument I advance, sir, is this — and the cold in my nose bagan to tickle, tickle, tickle, till I could n't hold in no longer, and I let go a sneeze that almost broke the winders out. Oh, Lord, what a haw! haw! they sot up. The first argument is this, sir: and off went both barrels of my nose agin like thunder: it fairly raised the dust from the floor in a cloud, like a young whirlwind in the street afore raiu. It made all spin agin. Why, he is a very ring-tail roarer, says the members; a regular sneezer; and they shouted and roared like any thing. I thought I should a-died for shame one minit, and the next I felt so coonish I had half a mind to fly at the Speaker and knock him down. I did n't jist cleverly know what to do, but at last I went on. Did the best blood of the land flow for forty shillings? Was Bunker Hill fought out to loosen British chains, merely to rivet American ones? Was it for this the people died covered with gore and glory, on the bed of honor? Was it the forty shillings alone that fought the revolution, or the Polls? I am for the Polls. Taxation and representation should go hand in hand, and freedom and equality likewise also. How dare you tax the Polls without their consent! Suppose they was to go for to tax you without your consent, why who would be right or who wrong then? Can two wrongs make a right? It is much of a muchness, sir-six of one, and half a dozen of the other.

What's that feller talkin' about? says a member. A vote to help the Poles agin' Russia, says the other: what a cussed fool he is! It put me quite out, that, and joggled me so, I couldn't make another line straight. I could n't see the Speaker no longer, for my eyes watered as if I had been a stringin' iuious for a week, and I had to keep blowin' my nose the whole blessed time, for the cold in it corked it up as tight as a bottle. Who calls them fools? says I: who dares insult free citizens because they are not forty shillingers? You could n't treat them wus if they was nasty, dirty, dispisable niggars; and yet you boast your glorious constitution. Will any member answer me this? Have they blood in their veins and if they have, it must be free blood; and if free, it must boil. (Tickle, tickle, goes my boscis agin, and I had to stop to sarch for my nose-rag.) The honorable gentleman, says some feller or another, for most on 'em were strangers to me, means a blood puddin', I suppose. Ah! I thought I should have gone ravin' distracted mad. I knew I was talkin' nonsense; that I had run off the tracks with all steam on, and was a-ploughin thro' the mud in the fields like any thing. Says I, I'll have your blood, you scoundrel, if you dare to say that

agin', see if I do n't, so there now. Oh dear, such shoutin', and roarin,' and clappin' of hands I never heerd: my head run round like a spinnin' wheel; it was all burr, burr, burr, buzz, buzz, buzz. I bit in my breath to keep cool; I felt I was on the edge of a wharf, and only one step more was over head and ears chewallop in the water. Sam, says I to myself, be a man; be cool-take it easy: so I got off agin, but I was so confused I got into my other speech on agricultur' that I had larned by heart, and mixed the two together all in a ravel. Thistles, says I, is the bane of all good husbandry. Extirpate them from the land; they are usurpin' the places of grain, and all Slickville will be filled with Polls. If they have no voice in this assembly, how can you expect them to obey the laws they never made. Compel folks to cut them down in the full of the moon, and they'll all die; I have tried it myself with universal suffrage and the ballot.

Well, artillery is nothin' but a popgun to the noise the members now made it was an airthquake tipped with thunder and lightning. I never heard nothing like it. I felt I was crazy; I wished I was dead a'most, or could sink through the floor into the middle of the sea, or any where but where I was. At last cousin Woodberry took pity on me, and came over to where I was, and said, Sam, said he, set down, that's a good feller; you do n't know what you are a-doin of? you are makin' an ass of yourself. But I did n't hear him. Confound you! said he, you look mean enough to put the sun into eclipse, and he laid hold of the skirts of my coat, and tried to pull me down; but instead of that he pulled 'em right off, and made an awful show of me. That sot me off agin, quite ravin' as bad as ever. I won't be put down, says 1, Mr. Speaker; I fight for liberty and the Polls; I stand agin' the forty shillingers. Unhaud me, you slave! said 1, touch ine not, or I'll sacrifice you on the altar of my country; and with that I ups fist and knocks Woodberry over as flat as a pancake, and bolts right out of the hall.

But I was so blinded with the cold in my head and rage together, I could n't see no more than a bat, and I pitched into several members in the way out, and 'most broke their necks, and my own too. It was the first and the last of my speech-making. I went by the name, for years arterwards, in our town, of Free-and-equal Slick.' I wish I could wipe out that page of my follies from my memory, I tell you; but it's a caution to them that navigate in politics, that's a fact.'

It is 'associations' like this, which led a friend of ours to remark, that he had had three events of honor in his life; he had seen his name in print in the list of letters at the post-office; had seen it signed to a call for a political meeting, to 'put down bribery and corruption,' without his consent; and went once to the legislature, as a member from the city!

The 'soft sawder,' or flattery, for which Mr. SLICK was so famous, having been exposed in a previous volume, he complains to Judge HALIBURTON that he has taken away his occupation:

'I did n't think you would go right away and publish; but you did, and it put people on their guard, so there was no doin' nothin' with them for some time hardly; and if I went to say a civil thing, people looked shy at me, and called out, 'Soft sawder.' Well, what does I do? Instead of goin' about mopin' and complainin' that I was too knowin' by half,' I sot myself about repairiu' damage, and gitten up something new; so I took to phrenology. Soft sawder' by itself requires a knowledge of paintin', of light and shade, and drawin' too. You must know character. Some people will take a coat put on by a white-wash brush as thick as porridge; others won't stand it if it ain't laid on thin, like copal, and that takes twenty coats to look complete; and others, agin, are more delicater still, so that you must lay it on like gold leaf, and that you have to take up with a camel's hair brush, with a little pomatum on the tip of it, and hold your breath while you are a-spreadin' of it out, or the leastest grain of air from your nose will blow it away. But still, whether laid on thick or thin, a cute person can tell what you are at; though it tickles him so while you are a-doin' of it, he can't help showin' how pleased he is. But your books played the divil with me; folks wouldn't let me do it at all arter they came out, at no rate; first civil word always brought out the same answer. Ah! now, that's your soft sawder;' that won't do.''

Mr. SLICK seems to have no great reverence for delegations, political or otherwise. His allusion to that wooden-headed and disorganizing Scotch coward, M'KENZIE, is equally just and felicitous :

'Delegations are considerable nice jobs for them who want a ride across the Atlantic at the public expense, for nothin'; for demagogues, place-hunters, and humbugs that want to make the natives stare when they get back, by telling how big they talked, and what great things they did, to the great people and to the big-wigs to home. I did this-I did that- and so on. That's what Mackenzie did when he told bis folks to Canada, when he returned from delegatiu', that he seed the King, who was very civil to him, and took a glass of grog with him; and told him he was sorry he couldn't ask him to dine with him that day, for the Queen was very busy, as it was hite-washin' day to the palace, and they was all in hubbub. For, Mac., said he, (smilin' like a rael salt water sailor,) these leetle things, you know, must be done for kings as well as subjects, and women is women, whether their petticoats are made of silk or cotton, and the dear critters will have their own way eh, Mac.! Our washin' we put out, but house cleanin' must be done in the house or not done at all, and there is no two ways about it: you understand one, Mac.? Tell my people, when you return, if my governors don't behave better, d―n 'em, I'll hang one or two of them as an example! Good bye, Mac. And some on 'em was fools enough to believe the goney and his everlastin' lockrums, that's a fact.'

The 'Clock maker' will afford both entertainment and instruction, if rightly appreciated, and will well repay perusal.

VOL. XVI.

70

MERCEDES OF CASTILE: OR THE VOYAGE TO CATHAY. By the Author of 'The Bravo,' The Last of the Mohicans,' etc. In two volumes, 12mo. pp. 492. Philadelphia: LEA AND BLANCHARD. New-York: WILEY AND PUTNAM.

We receive these volumes while the sheets of this department of the KNICKERBOCKER are passing through the press; and find leisure to give them but a hurried perusal, and space only to record briefly our first impressions of their character. But we have read them with sufficient attention to be enabled with pleasure to declare, that Mr. COOPER has at least renounced his recent track; and that, taking the voyages and discoveries of COLUMBUS as his ground-work, he has with some skill combined with their poetical and exciting matériel the elements of a tale, which awakens the curiosity of the reader as to the result of the work. The picture of Columbus struggling with adverse circumstances and overcoming them, and his bearing, alike on the voyage and when its mighty ends were accomplished, is less felicitous than the descriptions of sea-scenery, in which Mr. COOPER stands unrivalled. We shall endeavor, in a subsequent number, to embody a sketch of the under-plot and accessories of the narrative, and to acquaint our readers with some of the more prominent personages of the work.

AROUND THE WORLD: A NARRATIVE OF A VOYAGE IN THE EAST INDIA SQUADRON, under Coм. C. READ. By an OFFICER OF THE UNITED STATES' NAVY. In two volumes. pp. 680. New-York: C. S. FRANCIS.

We have had latterly no lack of works kindred in character with the volume before us; but there is so much of nature and life in the descriptions of our young author, and so little ambition of literary display, beyond an entertaining record of interesting facts and amusing incidents, that, could we be sure of a continuation of such works as 'Around the World,' we should be glad to welcome the threatened 'increase of books of the sea,' which has been feared by some of our contemporaries. Aside from the lively pictures of China and the Chinese, just now themes of so much interest, to which the latter portion of the second volume is devoted, we are treated to pleasant descriptions of life at sea, as well as piquant sketches of rambles on shore, at the various points touched at by the Peacock and Enterprise, in the expedition under the command of Com. KENNEDY. We regret our inability, in this all-devouring number of a closing volume, to present several interesting extracts which we had pencilled for insertion; including a sketch of Sabbath schools at sea; a sunset in the Levant; an excursion around and within the walls of Canton, etc. To these portions, as well as to the entire work, we invite the attention of our readers. They will find the volumes, or we greatly mistake, among the most entertaining publications of the season.

FIRST PRINCIPLES OF CHEMISTRY: For the use of Schools, Academies, and the Lower Classes of Colleges. By JAMES RENWICK, LL. D., Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy and Chemistry in Columbia College. HARPER AND BROTHERS. THIS treatise deserves a higher rank among works on the science of chemistry, than its modest title would lead the reader to suppose. It possesses a clearness of arrangement and perspicuity of style, unsurpassed by any volume on the subject; while the numerous practical and familiar illustrations, accompanied by numerous engravings on wood, render the subject matter perfectly clear to the scholar: and thus is obviated one great difficulty encountered in entering upon the study of this science. For these reasons, it seems well calculated for a text-book for colleges and schools, and we have no doubt of its general adoption as such. It has added much to the high reputation of the author, as a scholar and man of science; while the neatness of its execution does equal honor to the enterprising publishers.