and the squalid poverty of the poorer classes, 'lank scare-crows, prowling, hungerstricken, through the streets,' present too strong contrasts. The wronged are aroused to a sense of their condition; a tide is rising, that no man can roll back. And this truth is beginning to be felt. Observe the cringing, sycophantic tone of the London Quarterly Review, in its notice of ' Ernest, or Political Regeneration,' a recent Chartist epic poem. How the author is entreated and bepraised! The rulers who ride the people never think of coaxing or patting, till they have worn out the lashes of their whips, and broken the rowels of their spurs; and this softened manner of the Quarterly, the organ of tory aristocracy, is ominous of compulsory good to the producing classes.

Of the tendency of Mr. CARLYLE's writing, his benevolent spirit, and far-reaching sympathy with common humanity, we think we have afforded sufficient evidence. We now proceed, in this connexion, still farther to illustrate his style, by a brief reference to that remarkable work, the 'History of the French Revolution.' It is throughout, to our conception, a kind of moving panorama. We stand by the author, while he points out, with unerring finger, the scenes as they pass in review before him. These limnings are not suggested to the mind or the fancy; they are literally painted. And herein is the hiding of CARLYLE's power. His pictures, it is true, are sometimes over-crowded with accessories, but even by these, the effect is scarcely marred. The reader sees and hears. Listen to the roar of the multitude, the 'universal acclamation from smouldering bosoms giving vent;' to the Parisian populace, 'a living foam-sea, chafed by all the winds,' while they storm the Bastile. 'Paris wholly has got to the acme of its phrenzy; whirled all ways by panic madness. At every street-barricade there whirls, simmering, a minor whirlpool; and all minor whirlpools play distractedly into that grand maëlstrom which is lashing round the Bastile.', All this while, observe how old LAUNNAY sits with lighted taper within arm's length of the powder magazine, like old Roman Senator or bronze lamp-holder, ready to blow the Bastile, 'long-lasting, grim with a thousand years,' to atoms! Look down into the crowded thoroughfares, and mark how the outline-sketch of the author is filled up: 'Dig trenches, unpave the streets, ye populace assiduous, man and maid; cram the earth into barrel-barricades, at each of them a volunteer sentry; pile the whinstones in window-sills and upper rooms. Have scalding pitch and boiling water ready, ye weak old women, to pour it and dash it on Royal Allemande, with your old skinny arms; your shrill curses along with it will not be wanting the steeples, meanwhile, with their 'metal storm-voice,' booming out the stern alarum of a metropolis given up to anarchy and rude commotion. The panorama moves slowly on, and what do we behold? Carts go along through the streets, full of stripped corpses, thrown pell-mell; limbs sticking up: seest thou that cold hand sticking up, through the heaped embrace of brother corpses, in its yellow paleness, in its cold rigor; the palm opened toward Heaven, as if in dumb prayer, in expostulation de profundis, 'Take pity on the Sons of Men!' But observe the distance of this picture of our author-artist: 'O evening sun of July! how at this hour thy beams fall slant on And reapers amid peaceful woody fields; on ships far out on the silent main! not unlike this sublime and changeful view, is the transition annexed: 'On green field and steepled city the May sun shines out, the May evening fades; and men ply their useful or useless business, as if no Louis lay in danger:' But

'Death is now clutching at his heart-strings; unlooked for, inexorable! Yes, poor Louis! Death has found thee. No palace walls or life-guards, gorgeous tapestries, or gilt buckram of stiffest ceremonial, could keep him out; but he is here, here at thy very life breath, and will extinguish it. Thou, whose whole existence, hitherto, was a chimera and a scenic show, at length becomest a reality: sumptuous Versailles burst asunder, like a dream, into void Immensity. Time is done, and all the scaffolding of Time falls, wrecked with hideous clangor, round thy soul: the pale kingdoms yawn open; there must thou enter, naked, all uuking'd, and await what is appointed thee! Unhappy man! there as thou turnest, in dull agony, on thy bed of weariness, what a thought is thine!'

Such is the style of THOMAS CARLYLE, but not that of his feeble imitators; and with the permission of 'C. F.,' we will leave the reader to decide whether writings like these should be rigidly exterminated, root and branch, from our literature,' or cherished for their superabundance of internal good over all external blemishes.

INTERNATIONAL COPY-RIGHT LAW: MR. DICKENS. - We must believe that the present Congress will not adjourn, without passing the International Copy-right Law, so imperiously demanded, on every ground of justice and common sense. The necessity of this measure was first advocated in the KNICKERBOCKER, and it has been urged by us in these pages, and elsewhere, with such ability as we could command, up to the present moment. It is within our personal knowledge, that many of the most distinguished members of the American Congress, including Mr. WEBSTER and Mr. CLAY, will enforce the passage of the bill, with all the strength of their eminent talents. We cannot forbear illustrating this matter with a passage from a recent letter to the Editor, from Mr. DICKENS: Commend me heartily,' he writes, 'to Mr. WASHINGTON IRVING, who I am rejoiced to see, by the KNICKERBOCKER, has lent his powerful aid to the international copy-right question. It is one of immense importance to me; for at this moment, I have never received from the American editions of my works, fifty pounds. It is of immense importance to the Americans likewise, if they desire (and if they do not, what people on earth should?) ever to have a literature of their own.' Passing the question of justice to our own writers, let us look at the foregoing fact. Here is an author, whose delightful productions entertain and amuse millions of readers in this country; for his works are perused in every state and territory, and doubtless in every county and town, in the whole Union; along the coasts of two oceans; by the borders of all our western seas; and wherever the vast inland is pierced by our kingly rivers, and their hundred broad tributaries, or seamed by rail-roads and thoroughfares, from the Bay of Fundy to the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific: and yet for this wide diffusion of the liveliest enjoyment, what does our literary benefactor receive? Nothing-literally, NOTHING! It has been well said, that if an Englishman writes an original work, he is entitled to his property, whether it be used in his own country or in ours. It is his property, and if it be worth any thing, he ought to be as secure in the avails of its value, as the native citizen. We have no more right to appropriate the private property of a foreigner, than we have to filch the goods of him who was born among us. The only objection that has ever been urged against the copy-right law, is one which is too absurd to be reasoned upon for a moment. Every man feels it is contemptible, when he hears it stated, and so does every man while he is stating it. We hope in our next number to be enabled to register the passage of this act of simple justice to native and foreign authors.

DEATH OF AN ACTOR ON THE STAGE.-A kind correspondent, who will accept our cordial thanks, has favored us with the subjoined very interesting communication. The 'paragraph in the public journals,' to which it refers, has lately been widely circulated in the newspapers of the Union:

'TO THE EDITOR OF THE KNICKERBOCKER.

'DEAR SIR: I have observed a paragraph in the public journals, containing a striking account of the recent death of an English actor, named PALMER, while performing upon the stage, at one of the London theatres.' The story is but a revival of a melancholy circumstance which occurred at the Liverpool Theatre, many years before you, Sir, were born, and of which the father of the present writer, then in that town, was an eye-witness. I have often heard him give the details of the occurrence, which were substantially as follow. One evening, I think in July, 1798, he accompanied a friend to the principal theatre in Liverpool, to enjoy the play of The Stranger,' the prominent character of which was to be sustained by a Mr. PALMER, an actor of distinguished talents and celebrity, In the first two acts, he personated the character of the 'Stranger' with excellent judgment and effect. Among the audience was the Right Hon. GEORGE CANNING, with his young and lovely wife, to whom he had but just been married, and whose grace and beauty my father was for a moment admiring, when a friend touched his arm, and called his attention to the Stranger's' spirited and almost terrific description of his false friends. Suddenly the actor's voice seemed to crack; and at the end of his speech, he struck his head with great force, and then crossed the stage. The two short speeches which succeed, he pronounced rather faintly, but not more so than appeared natural, under the circumstances, to the character. After the question by Baron Steinfort,' Why did you not keep your children? - they might have amused you in many a dreary hour?' Mr. PALMER turned to reply, and for a prolonged space, paused, as if waiting for the prompter to give him the word, and then reached out his hand, as if to seize that of 'Steinfort;' but it dropped

powerless at his side, and the next instant he fell, not headlong, but crouchingly, so that his head .. The audience supdid not strike the stage with violence. He never breathed again. posed, for a moment, that his fall was nothing more than a studied addition to the part, and they began to applaud the effective execution of the scene; but on seeing him carried off, ghastly and in deadly stiffness, the utmost astonishment and terror sat on every countenance. The corpse was conveyed from the stage into the green-room; and after every means of resuscitation had been exhausted in vain, his death was announced by the manager, who was so overcome with grief as scarcely to be capable of uttering a sentence. The piercing shrieks of the women, and the heavy sighs of the men, which succeeded the sad intelligence, were mournful in the extreme. The house was immediately vacated in solemn silence, and the audience, forming themselves into parties, contemplated the fatal occurrence in the open square upon which the theatre was situated, until a late hour the next morning. Mr. PALMER had been called, but a little while before, if I remember rightly, to mourn the loss of a lovely wife and a favorite son; and from that time forth, he suffered the deepest dejection. He had even once or twice expressed to a friend a presentiment that his afflictions would very shortly bring him to the grave; and it was the opinion of two eminent physicians, who endeavored to restore him to consciousness, that he died, without a physical pang, of a broken heart. Such Mr. EDITOR, are the facts in relation to this remarkable occur

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rence, upon which your readers may place the most implicit reliance. My father was present at the funeral of Mr. PALMER, which was conducted with imposing solemnities. The body was followed to its last resting place, at a village two or three miles distant from Liverpool, by a vast concourse of people, and deposited in a very deep grave, dug in a solid rock. A stone was soon after placed at its head, with the following line the last words ever uttered by the unhappy actor-inscribed upon it, from The Stranger:'

THERE IS ANOTHER AND A BETTER WORLD!' 'Bond-street, May 18, 1840.

L. M. N.'

'THE PLAGIARISMS OF S. T. COLERIDGE.' - The opening paper in a late number of BLACKWOOD'S Magazine, is devoted to an exposition of the very large and unacknowledged appropriations from the writings of SCHELLING, a young German philosopher, which are contained in COLERIDGE's 'Biographia Literaria,' one of his principal prose works. The writer traces these plagiarisms to their true sources, and fixes their precise amount, at least so far as one German author is concerned, and considers the whole matter on broad moral and literary grounds. He shows, conclusively, as we think, that COLERIDGE founded the greater part of his metaphysical reputation upon verbatim plagiarisms, page after page, from works published by a German youth, when little more than twenty years of age. The reference to MAASZ, another German writer, from whom the 'great English philosopher' is proved to have 'stolen bodily' all the learning and information put forth in one of his much-vaunted chapters, would seem to indicate that COLERIDGE carried the war into other quarters, and pillaged at random from the best intellectual store-houses of the misty nation; 'weaving a crown for his own head, with laurels filched from the wide (and thick) forest of German literature.' But it is not, after all, the metaphysical portions of COLERIDGE's writings that will longest survive him. His exquisite delineations of nature, his simpler records of the affections, and the clear pictures of his wonderful imagination, will live, and be gratefully cherished, when those 'airy nothings,' like the rainbow-bubbles of children, that glittered in the eyes of his admirers, shall have dissolved and vanished forever. The reader may remember the reply of LAMB, one of COLERIDGE's warmest admirers, and most cordial friends, when the latter, alluding to his having once been a clergyman, inquired: 'CHARLES, did you ever hear me preach?' 'I never heard you do any thing else! answered LAMB. And in this piquant rejoinder, which owed its origin to a candor and frankness that many of COLERIDGE's personal admirers and enthusiastic eulogists would have done well to emulate, we see the real character of those 'long metaphysical talkings,' (thoughts, like the gossamer, stretching out strange filaments, clinging to every casual object, entangled without end, and glittering only in the broken rays of an incoherent fancy,) with which COLERIDGE was wont to entertain his hearers, and to the effect of which, in certain instances, upon writers not less eminent than himself, we have heretofore adverted. These 'utterances' have occasionally been satirized, and sometimes by authors of high distinction. The following, which accompanies the 'Pschylogical Curiosity,' by S. T. COLERIDGE, in 'Warreniana,' is among the most characteristic and felicitous of these imitations. We can imagine an auditor quite willing to confess that the speaker

was 'an unequalled conversationist.' The theme, it will be observed, is an appropriate one, the theory of dreams: 'To an unidead reading public,' says he, 'the fact may appear incredible; but minds of imaginative temperament are ever most active during the intervals of repose, as my late poem, entitled 'The Pains of Sleep,' will sufficiently attest. Dreams in fact are to be estimated solely in proportion to their wildness; and hence a friend of mine, who is a most magnificent dreamer, imagined but the other night that he invited a flock of sheep to a musical party. Such a flocci, nauci, nihili absurdity will, I am afraid, puzzle even our transcendental philosophers to explain; although Kant, in his treatise on the Phenomena of Dreams, is of opinion that the lens or focus of intestinal light, ascending the oesophagus at right angles, a juxtaposition of properties takes place, so that the nucleus of the diaphragm, reflecting on the cerebellum the prismatic visions of the pilorus, is made to produce that marvellous operation of mind upon matter, better known by the name of dreaming.' To such simple and satisfactory teasoning, what answer could be made!

DAVIS'S TRAVELS. 'There is a man in our town,' GIL. DAVIS is he hight, whose cognomen and presence are the sure synonymes of agreeable cheer and entertaining gossip, wherever encountered. Now this pleasant purveyor of good things for the palate and the fancy, is but recently, as it were, from his travels in foreign parts; where, being an acute observer and a graphic describer, he did well to keep a copious diary of all that was curious and interesting to an American; and he has done still better, as our readers shall testify hereafter, by placing his amusing Ms. in our hands, for the occasional entertainment of the public. As the summer solstice is upon us, a draught of HOCK WINE, or rather a draft upon our traveller's description of the varieties of this fluid, will not be deemed untimely :

All the fine Hock estates are included within a space of some thirty miles, on the left bank, ascending the Rhine, called the Rhinegan, which commences some fifteen miles above Coblentz, and ends about the same distance below Mayence. The Rhine, from Mayence to Coblentz, runs nearly a north-northwest course, making the left side of the river almost north; thus giving a fine sunny exposure to the vineyards. The shores are mountainous, and the mountains are nearly all culti vated to their very summits, by means of walls and terraces. Schloss Johannisberg,' the property of Prince METTERNICH, and Steinberg,' the property of the Duke of Nassau, produce the most costly of all the Rhine wines. One cask of ‘Steinberger Cabinet' was not long since sold to a Prince of Hesse, for six hundred florins; equal to six dollars per bottle, or twenty-eight dollars the gallon! The next in order and value, are 'Rudisheim-berg' and Marcobrunner;' 'Rothenberg,' and 'Hockheimer,' next; then Erbach,' Hattenheim,' Laubenheim,' and Niersteim,' and many other small estates, such as 'Leib-frau-mitch,' which may be translated 'Lovely Woman's Milk.' This is not in the Rhinegan, but just outside the walls of Worms; and the old church of Leibfran stands in the centre of the vineyard. A capital red hock is made below Bingen, called Assmanshausen,' which stands high in favor with many German drinkers. It is said to have been ordered from Burgundy by CHARLEMAGNE, as well as the white grape from Orleans. The vintage formerly was collected in October, but recently they permit the grape to remain upon the vine until November, when it becomes perfectly, or over-ripe; and so particular are the owners of some of the estates, that all the best and most delicions branches are carefully selected in baskets, and placed in tubs, or small vats, where they remain until the grape bursts open, and the juice runs out of itself. They will not suffer it to be pressed, for fear of forcing some of the bitter from the seeds or skin of the grape. Hock wines are different from all other kinds: they require much care and attention, for they will effervesce, or work,' from ten to twelve times during five or six years; which is the period required for hock wines before they become perfectly clear, and in good condition for bottling. Formerly it was not fashionable to drink hock of less age than twenty up to three hundred years. This folly has beca wisely exploded; and hock is now justly considered as never better than when from seven to nine years old. I obtained last summer, from the Duke of Nassau, sixty bottles, which were put up by order of the great-grandfather of the late duke, in 1706. It is very dry, however, so much so, indeed, that uone but a real Blue-nose' will even sip it. The acid of hock, however, is not a vinegar but a tartaric acid.. Some of the Moselle wines are truly delightful. Their aroma will perfume the whole room where a bottle is opened. But few of the various orders, or estates, however, possess this delicious flavor. No wines are more wholesome than hock and claret in small quantities.'

Mr. DAVIS possesses abundant proofs of the correctness of these vinous descriptions; and stands ready at all times to submit them to public scrutiny, 'for a consideration.'

'MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.'-Messrs. LEA AND BLANCHARD, Philadelphia, have issued two numbers of this new work of Mr. DICKENS; and it is apparent already, that a field of entertainment is opened by this charming writer, which for variety and interest has scarcely been excelled by any of his former productions. Master Humphrey' from his clock-side in the chimney-corner, narrating his own experiences; the tales and sketches from the clock-case; and the 'correspondence' of diverse specimens of humanity; all evince, that our author's plans have been well chosen, and that he will carry them out triumphantly; now melting the heart with irresistible pathos; now revelling in the richest humor; and anon dissolving pompous gentlemen with successful ridicule, and cutting up, with trenchant satire, the vices and follies of the time. As a specimen of the style, we select the annexed opening confession by Master Humphrey, that he is 'a misshapen, deformed, old man.' But he adds:

'I have never been made a misanthrope by this cause. I have never been stung by any insult, nor wounded by any jest upon my crooked figure. As a child I was melancholy and timid, but that was because the gentle consideration paid to my misfortunes sunk deep into my spirit, and made me sad, even in those early days. I was but a very young creature when my poor mother died, and yet I remember that often when I hung around her neck, and oftener still when I played about the room before her, she would catch me to her bosom, and bursting into tears, soothe me with every term of fondness and affection. God knows I was a happy child at those times-happy to nestle in her breast happy to weep when she did happy in not knowing why.

These occasions are so strongly impressed upon my memory, that they seem to have occupied whole years. I had numbered very few when they ceased for ever, but before then their meaning had been revealed to me.

I do not know whether all children are imbued with a quick perception of childish grace and beauty, and a strong love for it, but I was. I had no thought, that I remember, either that I possessed it myself, or that I lacked it, but I admired it with an intensity I cannot describe. A little knot of playmates- they must have been beautiful, for I see them now-were clustered one day round my mother's knee, in eager admiration of some picture representing a group of infant angels, which she held in her hand. Whose the picture was, whether it was familiar to me or otherwise, or how all the children came to be there, I forget; I have some dim thought it was my birth-day, but the beginning of my recollection is, that we were all together in a garden, and it was summer weather; I am sure of that, for one of the little girls had roses in her sash. There were many lovely angels in this picture, and I remember the fancy coming upon me to point out which of them represented each child there, and that when I had gone through all my companious, I stopped and hesitated, wondering which was most like me. I remember the children looking at each other, and my turning red and hot, and their crowding round to kiss me, saying that they loved me all the same; and then, when the old sorrow came into my dear mother's mild and tender look, the truth broke upon ine for the first time, and I knew, while watching my awkward and ungainly sports, how keenly she had felt for her poor crippled boy,

I used frequently to dream of it afterward, and now my heart aches for that child as if I had never been he, when I think how often he awoke from some fairy change to his own old form, and sobbed himself to sleep again. Well, well-all these sorrows are past.'

on

Very Boz'-like is the epistle of a Marquis-of-Waterford personage, 'unrivalled in point of gentlemanliness,' who desires admission to Master Humphrey's club, on the ground that he has 'seconded a great many prize-fighters, and once fought an amateur match himself; driven several mails, broken at different periods all the lamps or the right-hand side of Oxford-street, and six times carried away every bell-handle in Bloomsbury Square, beside turning off the gas in various thoroughfares.' But the incoherent letter of the love-lorn 'Belinda,' with her crushed affections and pecuniary remembrances in close juxtaposition, is worthy of STEELE. She had seen, in the picture which accompanied the letter of the above 'uncommonly gentlemanly fellow,' in the first number, the portrait of a faithless lover:

'Let me be calm. That portrait-smiling as once he smiled on me that cane, dangling as I have seen it dangle from his hand I know not how oft-those legs that have glided through my nightly dreams and never stopped to speak the perfectly gentlemanly, though false original; oan I be mistaken? oh, no no!

Let me be calmer yet; I would be calm as coffins. You have published a letter from one whose likeness is engraved, but whose name (and wherefore ?) is suppressed. Shall I breathe that name! Is it - but why ask, when my heart tells me too truly that it is!

'I would not upbraid him with his treachery, I would not remind him of these times when he plighted the most eloquent of vows, and procured from me a small pecuniary accommodation; and yet I would see him—see him did I say — him — alas! such is woman's nature. For as the poet beautifully says but you will already have anticipated the sentiment. Is it not sweet? ob, yes! It was in this city, (hallowed by the recollection,) that I met him first, and assuredly if mortal happiness be recorded any where, then these rubbers, with their three-and-sixpenny points, are scored on tablets of celestial brass. He always held an honor-generally two. On that eventful