"Ay, but the prejudices of society.” "True, prejudices and usages are all to be weighed. Look to what you gain, as well as what you lose, by running counter to them, and whatever they are, and whether well or ill founded, act accordingly. That is the part of the wise man. But enough; will you think better of this? Will you not try to recover that woman?" "I dare not. We should be miserable. Hereafter, were we thrown abroad into society, every little neglect, every trifle, which, if her history were untainted, would be laughed at, or pitied or overlooked, would be to her peace and to mine like the bite of a rattlesnake." "Very true, but still, still, my friend-" Why do you urge me? Even you yourself, were you in my case, would not be able to throw off the prejudice you complain of." "We shall see. Do you give her up?" "I do." "You will not marry her?" "Never." 66 Then, by Heaven, I will!" 66 "You!" said I, with what I meant for a most withering sneer, though, to tell the truth, I could not help thinking of her praises, and of that summer afternoon at the bedside of her boy-the little wretch, he is alive nowwhen she dropped upon her knees, and wept upon his great ugly three-decker of a hand. "At least," cried he, "I will offer myself to her before I sleep; and if she refuses me-" "If!" said I. 66 I will make her independent for life." I congratulate her," said I. "Her wealth may hereafter make her a desirable match." He growled, and I-I cut and run. Postscript. He kept his word. He offered himself, and the great steam-engine of a fellow is now the husband of the fair widow. I often see him lumbering along to church with the beautiful Mary Roberts-I never mean to call her Mary Ware while I breathe-dangling at his elbow, like a-like a-like a rose on a patch of thistle and furze-adrift. ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG LADY, AND thou with girlish glee wilt go The idlers who around thee press, Those charms which my affections won, The form I still could gaze upon Till life itself were o'er; Each winning look, each winning smile Or charm a heartless throng. E'en thee may tempt to taste, When strangers will, with circling arms, Profane thy slender waist. And thou wilt fill a sunny void In fashion's brilliant bowers, Which still I may not meet? For though no outward signs reveal Yet silently within I feel My life-springs ebb away. And still thou 'It move where'er are met And soon my memory forget, Or should a thought of me intrude, 'T will hardly check a mirthful mood, But I, though bright the lot should be, LINE OF AMERICAN STEAMERS. New York, Aug. 10, 1839. THERE is now some prospect that we shall have a line of American steamers between this and Liverpool before long. Some of our capitalists have had a meeting upon the subject during the week, and have determined to commence building vessels early in the fall. The construction of the boats will be entirely different from the English steamers, and more upon the plan of the western boats. Those upon the Mississippi are very light, airy and convenient, but would not answer for a sea voyage. Those contemplated will be upon the western plan adapted to ocean navigation. It is time we had our line, and the company should receive every encouragement to go on at once. I cannot imagine why there should be the least delay. The trial has been fairly made and proved successful; nothing now remains but for us to come in and share the profits with our English friends. I was speaking on this subject with a lady, yesterday-a native of London, who married an American, and has resided in this country for several years past. She has contemplated a visit "home," for some time, and when I asked when she would go, she replied, "when I can go in a Yankee steamer, with a Yankee captain." The formation of an American company would be of great advantage to us. The passage money would be laid out here, the vessels would be built here, and as we can out-sail the world, we should always obtain a fair share of passengers and freight. There is but one obstacle in the way-the moment one line is established a dozen will be formed, and as we are rather venturesome, accidents might happen which would injure the reputation of the American boats. We do not think much of a blow up on the Missouri or Ohio, but an explosion on the Atlantic is too serious an affair. From the character of the gentlemen who are engaged in the present enterprise, I am confident the company will move forward and complete vessels of the first class, unequalled for speed and elegance. John Bull has shown us what he can do it is now our place to let him know that Brother Jonathan has as long a head as ever, and can turn out as good work and as splendid decorations as the White Cliff Island. We have all the timber at our doors, and can finish our vessels at less cost than England. We can make them as well, and make the trip sooner. I confidently expect, should I live ten years longer, to cross the ocean in a week. The time was—and not many years ago that you would go around and bid all your friends farewell, if you were only going to Pittsburgh. It will not be long before you may almost make a voyage round the world without saying good bye, and return before your friends have ascertained that you have been absent at all. In less than five years, the voyage to Canton and home will be made in the time that it now requires simply to go out. From an American Paper. A LIFE BOAT. وو WHAT with India Rubber belts and Life Boats the occupation of "The Humane Society must soon be gone; so far at least as resuscitating half drowned persons is concerned. Francis, who in this country at least, has never been approached, even if he have a rival in Europe, for his inventions, has just completed a Life Boat upon a new plan, which is something beyond any thing that has been yet effected even by him. Her qualities have been tested as follows: 1st, The bottom was opened and every exertion made to upset her without effect, in deep water. 2dly, She was pulled near the shore, with the bottom still open, and her crew by getting out and standing in the shallow water succeeded in turning her upside down. They then let go their hold, and the boat, of her own accord, instantly came back to her upright position. This we believe, is the first time a boat upset ever came right side up, without the action of either winds or waves, or human aid, but solely of her own accord, in this country or any other. The other improvements are a brass screw box, four inches in diameter, and four scuttles, thirteen inches by five, instead of the greater number of small holes to let the water out in the life boat built by Francis for the U. S. Revenue Cutter Hamilton, which recently saved so many lives in Boston Harbour. This new life boat is valued at three hundred and fifty dollars, and we understand from Mr. Francis that he intends in a few days to offer her as a reward to any person or number of persons who, in deep water, will either put her upside down one second, or fill her by standing inside and bailing into her; or fill her by using a fire engine, or any other apparatus, or, as he expresses it, "swamp her by human power in storm or calm." This must be the ne plus ultra of Life Boats. The first boat built by Francis seemed pretty near perfection, but his improvements are not merely nominal, made to gull the public. They have been achieved at much expense and labour. He has rather hung back too in making his sales until he could render the Life Boat as perfect as possible. Still the orders from Government, the European packets, and our coasting steamers, have amounted in eighteen months to nearly as many thousand dollars, which proves, we think, that Francis must ultimately reap the fruits of his ingenious patent and most valuable labours. MARRYAT'S DIARY IN AMERICA. [Extracted from "the Corsair," a New York literary paper, by N. P. Willis and T. O. Porter, designed to collect the spirit not only of English, but of French and German belles lettres, as the piratical law of copyright secures to them, free of expense, the labours of Bulwer and Boz, Scribe and Balzac."] WE have been exceedingly surprised in the perusal of this clever off-hand work, which proves to be of a very different character from what most readers had expected, and from what many will still expect to find it, after reading the following passage of the introduction "If I admit that after the usage they had received, the Americans are justified in not again tendering their hospitality to the English, I cannot, at the same time, but express my opinion as to their conduct to me personally. They had no right to insult and annoy me in the manner they did from nearly one end of the Union to the other, either because my predecessors had expressed an unfavourable opinion of them before my arrival, or because they expected that I would do the same upon my return to my own country. I remark upon this conduct not from any feeling of ill-will or desire of retaliation, but to compel the Americans to admit that I am under no obligations to them; that I received from them much more of insult and outrage than of kindness; and consequently that the charge of ingratitude cannot be laid to my door, however offensive to them some of the remarks in this work may happen to be." Here we have a strong issue joined between the author of Jacob Faithful and the American people. The case we thought looked pretty bad for the defendants for the plaintiff was both pleader and judge in his own cause. Alack! thought we, that the United States of North America should ever have got itself in such a hobble! Will none of the Powers of Europe interfere? Will France, our ally, —will Prussia, our powerful friend, look calmly on, and see our young and promising empire struggling in the jaws of this devouring Briton? Is there no refuge, no resource from the wrath of this islander, who thus thinks himself warranted in bolting a whole nation at a meal for their misdoings toward him? Rash and unthinking people! what blind fury, what mad self-confidence could have impelled you to so unequal a contest! Your only safety now lies in the clemency of your antagonist, who, happily for the destinies of the Republic, turns out not to be wanting in the quality of mercy. In a word, the worthy captain has let us off very handsomely, at least for a season; for two more volumes of his work are to succeed the present one. To be sure, he hammers away at Democracy like a true Tory, but his flings are rarely ill-natured, he eschews all personalities, and though the serpent of malice may now and then peep from beneath the flowers of his wit, it is but with a momentary and furtive glance-so slight or so sly that one doubts whether there be really any serpent there at all. The occasional exaggerations and extravagancies in the Diary are always amusing, and and there is much of shrewd observation and just remark to compensate for less than the ordinary English leaven of prejudice and misconception. The most often repeated charge which the worthy Captain brings against us is that of drinking to excess, and we are continually pained throughout the book to find how often his anti-convivial habits are offended by the flowing goblets that are pressed upon him. He tells us that they sit too long at table in Boston, and throughout the Union Americans get so tipsy that the whole Republic reels, and staggers from morn till night. He would fain make his readers believe that it would kill him to drink half as much as the most moderate of our wine bibbers, and as for juleps and gin cocktails, if all that are drank in one day were collected in one great reservoir, our little navy might swim in it. Ah, Captain, Captain, was it well of you to play thus into the hands of the Tee-totallers and cold water people-you who know so well how much wit and humour lurk in the bottom of the bowl when once you have emptied it— you who by frequent diving have brought up more bright thoughts from its ruby depths than were ever pearls collected from the flashing brine-you for whom the mint has sprouted by many a gurgling runnel-the ice congealed upon many a transparent poolyou for whom the Indian spirit imprisoned in the sugar cane, and the water of life that dwelleth in the crushed peach, have so often mingled their delights in many a nectareous draught was it well of you, Captain, to abuse the tide upon which you so loved to float your shallop when amongst us? This is the only really unkind cut in your whole book! But we forgive and pardon you. The good things of yours we have heard repeated as they were collected at a thousand symposia, are still too fresh in recollection for us to think of present offences; though we should as soon have expected some cocktail ghost or giant julep phantom to call out to us from the place of departed spirits, as to hear you lift the voice of objurgation upon this score. JOTTINGS DOWN IN LONDON, 1839. By N. P. WILLIS, Author of "Pencillings by the Way." No. I. To begin where I left off in my letter of yesterday, would be to talk to you on the much ridiculed pleasures of travellers' meals-yet after a sea-voyage it should be admissible, I think, to speak with enthusiasm of asparagus and cauliflowers. I should like to make a modest record, besides, of the civility of the maid of the inn, but though it was a pleasure to be waited on with a smile and curtsey once more, that too, brings down the whip of the virtuous critic. Leaving Cicely and the breakfast without an historian therefore, I must present myself to you as one of the "insides" of the Regulator-a gay, blue coach with purple wheels, picked out with red, for well-groomed bob tails, and " V. R., The Regulator," printed in gold letters on the pannel. Whether it was meant for a plain Cockney assertion, or simply "by the authority of Victoria Regina," has probably been matter of grave discussion at the White Horse Cellar in Piccadilly. The first few miles out of Portsmouth form one long alley of ornamented cottages-woodbine creeping and roses flowering over them all. If there were but two between Portsmouth and London, two even of the meanest we saw a traveller from any other land would think it worth his while to describe them minutely. As there are two thousand, (more or less,) they must pass with a bare mention. Yet I became conscious of a new feeling in seeing these rural paradises, and I record it as the first point in which I find myself worse for having become a "dweller in the shade." I was envious. Formerly, in passing a tasteful retreat, or a fine manor, I could say "what a bright lawn! What a trim and fragrant hedge! What luxuriant creepers! I congratulate their fortunate owner!" Now it is "how I wish I had that hedge at Glenmary! How I envy these people their shrubs, trellises, and flowers!" I wonder not a little how the English emigrant can make a home among our unsightly stumps that can ever breed a forgetfulness of all these refined ruralities. After the first few miles, I discovered that the two windows of the coach were very limited frames for the rapid succession of pictures presented to my eye, and changing places with William, who was on the top of the coach, I found myself between two Tory politicians, setting forth to each other most eloquently the mal-administrations of the Whigs, and the Queen's mismanagement. As I was two months behind the English news, I listened with some interest. They made out to their own satisfaction that the Queen was a silly girl, that she had been caught in a decided fib about Sir Robert Peel's exactions with respect to the household, and one of the Jeremiahs who seemed to be a sturdy grazier, said "that in 'igh life the Queen Dowager's 'ealth was now received uniwersally with three times three, while Victoria's was drank in solemn silence." Her Majesty received no better treatment at the hands of a Whig on the other end of the seat, and as we whirled under the long park fence of Claremont, the country palace of Leopold and the Princess Charlotte, he took the pension of the Belgian King for the burden of his lamentation, and, between Whig and Tory, England certainly seemed to be in a bad way. This Claremont, it will be remembered by the readers of D'Israeli's novels, is the original of the picture of the luxurious maison de plaisance, drawn in the Young Duke. We got glimpses of the old palace at Esher, of Hampton Court, of Pitt's country seat at Putney, and of Jane Porter's cottage at Esher, and in the seventh hour from leaving Portsmouth (74 miles) we found the vehicles thickening, the omnibuses passing, the blue-coated policemen occurring at short intervals, and the roads delightfully watered-symptoms of suburban London. We skirted the privileged paling of Hyde Park, and I could see, over the rails, the flying and gay-coloured equipages, the dandy horsemen, the pedestrian ladies followed by footmen with their gold sticks, the fashionable throng in short, which, separated by an iron barrier from all contact with unsightliness and vulgarity, struts its hour in this green cage of aristocracy. Around the triumphal arch opposite the Duke of Wellington's, was assembled a large crowd of carriages and horsemen. The Queen was coming from Buckingham Palace through the Green Park, and they were waiting for a glimpse of her Majesty on horseback. The Regulator whirled mercilessly on, but far down, through the long avenues of trees, I could see a movement of select liveries, and a party coming rapidly towards us on horseback. We missed the Queen by a couple of minutes. It was just the hour when all London is abroad, and Piccadilly was one long cavalcade of splendid equipages on their way to the Park. I remembered many a face, and many a crest, but either the faces had beautified in my memory, or three years had done Time's pitiless work on them all. Near Devonshire House I saw, fretting behind the slow-moving press of vehicles, a pair of magnificent and fiery blood horses, drawing a coach, which, though quite new, was of a colour and picked out with a peculiar stripe that was familiar to my eye. The next glance convinced me that the livery was that of Lady Blessington; but, for the light chariot in which she used to drive, here was a stately coach-for the one tall footman, two-for the plain but elegant harness, a sumptuous and superb caparison-the whole turn-out on a scale of splendour unequalled by any thing around us. Another moment decided the doubt-for as we came against the carriage, following, ourselves, an embarrassed press of vehicles, her Ladyship appeared, leaning back in the corner with her wrists crossed, the same in the grace of her attitude and the elegance of her toilette, but stouter, more energetic, and graver in the expression of her face than I ever remembered to have seen her. From the top of the stage coach I looked, unseen, directly down upon her, and probably got, by chance, a daylight and more correct view of her face and countenance as Time has left them, than I should obtain in a year of opera and drawing-room observation. We passed her and in two minutes were at Hatchett's, where we were to be set downbut in those two minutes I had read myself a most contemplative homily on the impartial and resistless change, and records of Time and Pleasure. Tired and dusty, we were turned from Hotel to Hotel, all full and overflowing, and finding at last a corner at Raggett's in Doverstreet, we dressed, dined, and posted to Woolwich. Unexpected and mournful news closed our first day in England with tears. Publishers in Paternoster Row. If you could imagine a paper-mine, with a very deep-cut shaft laid open to the surface of the earth, you might get some idea of Ivy Lane. Öne walks along through its dim subterranean light, with no idea of breathing the proper atmosphere of day and open air. A strong smell of new books in the nostrils, and one long stripe of blue sky much farther off than usual, are the predominant impressions. I stopped at a window near the old chop-house, celebrated by the visits of Johnson and Goldsmith, in Ivy Lane, and seeing my own name on the title page of a very smart-looking book, I stepped in and asked to look at it. "Pencillings by the Way," with four flourishing embellishments! The Gipsy of Sardis by Weigall stood for the frontispiece, representing my old friend as just appearing through the curtains of her mother's tent, the ruins of Sardis in the back-ground, &c., &c.-very beautifully drawn and engraved, but, oh Maimuna! what would you have said to such a caricature of your Asiatic and beautiful features? A very clever picture of the Pasha's tithe-gatherers, (whom I met in a stroll on the shore near Abydos,) a drawing of the masquerade in the time of the cholera at Paris, and my German friend at Vienna, eating ham after a daylight parting with her lover, were the remaining subjects. The book was very well printed in one volume, and (the bibliopole said) sold well. Now see the effect of our robberies of English authors. This new edition, but for our defective law of copyright, would have been precisely £300 in my pocket. I would thank Congress to pay me my losses while they take time to consider whether a man's property is his own! From the dens of the publishers, I wormed my way through the crowds of Cheapside and the Strand, toward that part of London which, as Horace Smith says, is "open at the top." Something in the way of a ship's fender, to save the hips and elbows, would sell well I should think to pedestrians in London. What crowds, to be sure! On a Sunday in New York, when all the churches are pouring forth their congregations at the same moment, you have seen a faint image of the Strand. The style of the hack cabriolets is very much changed since I was in London. The passenger sits about as high up from the ground as he would in a common chair-the body of the vehicle is suspended from the axle instead of being placed upon it, and the wheels very high. The driver's seat would suit a sailor, for it answers to the ship's tiller, well astern. He whips over the passenger's head. one or two private vehicles built on this principle, certainly one of safety, though they have something the beauty of a prize hog. I saw The new National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, not finished when I left England, opened upon me as I entered Charing Cross, Fine with what I could not but feel was a very fine effect, though critically its "pepper-boxity is not very creditable to the architect. old Northumberland House, with its stern lion a-top on one side, the beautiful Club House on the other, St. Martin's noble church and the Gallery, with such a fine opening in the very cor cordium of London, could not fail of producing a noble Metropolitan view. those I remember. The street in front of the Gallery was crowded with carriages, shewing a throng of visiters within, and mounting the imposing steps (the loftiness of the vestibule dropping plump as I paid my shilling entrance,) I found myself in a hall whose extending lines of pillars ran through the entire length of the building, offering to the eye a truly noble perspective. Off from this capital hall to the right and left lay the galleries of antique and modern paintings, and the latter were crowded with the fair and fashionable mistresses of the equipages without. You will not care to be bothered with criticism on pictures, and mine was a cursory glance-but a delicious, full length portrait of a noble lady by Grant, whose talent is now making some noise in London, a glorious painting of Van Amburgh among his lions by Edwin Landseer, and a portrait of Miss Pardoe in a Turkish costume, with her pretty feet coiled under her on a Persian carpet, by Pickersgill, are among I found a great many acquaintances in the Gallery, and I was sitting upon a bench with a lady who pointed out to me a portrait of Lord Lyndhurst in his chancellor's wig and robes, a very fine picture for a man of sixty or thereabouts. Directly between me and it, as I looked, sidled a person with his back to me, cutting off my view very provokingly. "When this dandy gets out of the way with his eye-glass,” said I, “ I shall be able to see the picture." My friend smiled. "Whom do you take the dandy to be?" It was a well-formed man, dressed in the top of the fashion, with a very straight back, curling brown hair, and the look of perhaps thirty years of age. As he passed on and I caught his profile, I saw it was Lord Lyndhurst himself! A new wife, a new brown wig, and a very youthful hat and neckcloth had been to him the well of Canathos. youth was renewed. On his arm leaned the former Miss Goldsmith, now Lady Lyndhurst, a small pale woman, dressed very gaudily; and without flattery, the most noble couple would have passed for a comedian from the Surrey Theatre pleasuring with the tragic heroine. His I think Lady Stepney had more talent and distinction crowded into her pretty rooms, last night, than I ever before saw in such small compass. It is a bijou of a house, full of gems of statuary and painting, but all its capacity for company lies in a small drawing |