press" are gentlemen. Osborne and Shipman of the Journal; Harney of the Democrat; and Haldeman of the Courier are, in ability and manners, above the average of the fraternity. Louisville is the home of Col. Preston, one of the noblest specimens, not only of Kentucky, but of our American humanity. It is rumored from Washington that the President intends to offer Mr. Preston the mission to Spain. I hope it is true. He is the right man for the place. Young, good-looking, eloquent, accomplished, "six feet and well proportioned," Preston's presence would add dignity and grace to any court in Christendom. The United States have been too often misrepresented abroad by coarse, vulgar, ignorant and illlooking men; and Mr. Buchanan will confer a special favor on every American citizen by making ministers of such men as Preston.

At a little after daylight this morning, a vigorous female cry of fire, in the hall of the Galt House, hurried us out of bed with the alarm that the hotel was on fire. On rushing to the window I found the building opposite-across a narrow street-in flames. It was a magnificent, though a fearful spectacle. The snow was falling rapidly; and the flakes of fire and the flakes of snow mingling in the atmosphere, like a shower of pearls and rubies, presented a

scene I will not attempt to describe. The burning building was occupied as a warehouse for alcohol, cologne, &c., and the exploding casks and the falling walls added the element of grandeur to the pyrotechnic exhibition. Just at this moment, Mr. Raine, the proprietor of the Galt House, who had been lying at the point of death for several days, took his departure for "that bourne from which no traveler returns." The excitement of the alarm snapt the attenuated thread of life; and the spirit mounted, through storm and fire, into the serener "Land of the Hereafter." The deceased is much lamented. All the servants and slaves mourn his loss. He was a single man; about fifty years of age; a native of Kentucky; and had, during his five years of proprietorship, given the Galt House a high and wide reputation. His disease was consumption, which had confined him to his room for three or four weeks. My gallant friend Coleman, of the Burnet House, who gave me a letter of introduction to Mr. Raine, spoke of him warmly as a "good fellow"-a common phrase of commendation, and yet one of the very best of epitaphs.

The poet Mackay, who is en route for your city, will deliver a lecture here to-night, and leave in the morning for St. Louis, where he proposes to take the

boat on Friday, due in New-Orleans on Tuesday or Wednesday. (Will our friends of the "overflowing St. Charles" make a note of this?) Before leaving Cincinnati, while under the inspiration of Longworth's nectar, Mackay's exuberant Muse descanted the following sweet song, of which the readers of the Pic will have the first smack:

CATAWBA.

I.

Ohio's green hill-tops
Glow bright in the sun,
And yield us more treasure
Than Rhine or Garonne ;

They give us Catawba,

The pure and the true,
As radiant as sunlight,
As soft as the dew,
And fragrant as gardens
When summer is new.
Of all the gold vintage,

The purest and best-
Catawba, the nectar

And balm of the West.

II.

Champagne is too often
A trickster malign,
That flows from the apple

And not from the vine.

But thou, my Catawba,
Art mild as a rose,
And sweet as the lips of

My love, when they close,

To give back the kisses
My passion bestows.
Thou'rt born of the vintage,

And fed on its breast,

Catawba, the nectar

And balm of the West.

III.

When pledging the lovely,
This sparkler we'll kiss ;
When drinking to true hearts,
We'll toast them in this-
For Catawba is like them,
Though tender, yet strong,
As pleasant as morning,
As soft as a song,
Whose delicate beauty
The echoes prolong ;-
Catawba Heart-warmer!
Soul-cheerer! life-zest!
Catawba, the nectar

And balm of the West.

This song, and Longfellow's poem, will cause such a run on Longworth's cellars, that I fear his "stock on hand," large as it is, will be exhausted before another vintage is ready for the market. Tip a wink to mine host of the St. Charles to get in a liberal supply of "Longworth's Still and Sparkling;" and to be sure and have a dozen or so well iced, on the arrival of, yours and theirs,

BELLE BRITTAN.

MY DEAR

LETTER No. XII.

:

ST. LOUIS AND SO FORTH,
February 7, 1858.

On

ST. LOUIS is destined to be a great city-the NewYork of the interior. The journey hither from Louisville is tedious, and not particularly interesting. But perhaps my "impressions by the way" are less favorable and less just in consequence of the mishaps that have attended us since leaving Cincinnati. leaving Louisville, we had not run a hundred rods from the depot before there was a jolt and a cry— "the engine is off the track!" The switches had been neglected, and the eyes of the engineer were not in the right place, and so we were stuck fast in the mud. Returning to the city, which we originally entered under a series of difficulties, I summoned to my aid all the patience and resignation at my command, and "laid over" at the Galt House until one o'clock at night, when we took a second start; and, with the exception of three mortal hours wearily wasted in waiting for the train at Seymour, (one of the most God-and-man-forsaken places I have ever seen, not even excepting Jeffersonville), we reached the great metropolis of the Mississippi at