already not talked of as up-town, and if the ground spoken of be not immediately purchased for the purpose we advocate, in ten years it will be covered with houses, and our pulse-beat be more clogged a thousand fold than now. We look upon the enlargement of the Battery, despite details of troublesome adjustment of dock and harbor privileges, as a fixed fact. Its consumma Commissioners as to some of the objects | centre of this metropolis. Union Park is which may be admitted to the Exhibition under section three, viz., 'hats' and 'garments' and under section four, models' in any kind of material, (the conditions being that they shall exhibit increased usefulness or improved forms,' 'beauty of design,' and 'such degree of taste as to come under the denomination of fine art,') to exhibit at the approaching most favorable opportunity such forms as may afford a series of transition may be delayed, but no municipal tional changes (to which the public already authority would willingly incur the responevince a decided tendency) from the present sibility of defeating a measure fraught with fashion to a style consistent with the fore- benefits so inestimable to the community." going views and the advanced tastes of the age." Whether it is that our bad show in an Art-way, in the palace of London, has quickened our American sense of need, I do not know ;-but there is talk now in our city, of what will breed better a sense of what is beautiful than all the Exhibitions of all the American Institutes to the end of time. I mean a PARK. Join your gratulations with ours, my dear fellow, at the mere hint of such a measure of grace from the city council. What it is to be or where, I am not well posted about; -if you can make any thing of this paragraph from a contemporary, however, it is very much at your service : The good ladies of the short-dresses must excuse me but if they were to help forward this motion toward breathing places, where they might drive, walk, or saunter away a blue-faced summer day-they would-me judice-be helping on their color and their embonpoint as thriftily as with the shortest of their skirts. THE BOOK WORLD. What on earth shall I tell you of books, in this tepid atmosphere of a city afternoon! Enough are lying around me to craze a man to madness, and yet no single one is cooling enough to put me in critical humor, or to sum up either its merits or demerits. A new start has been made in the way of an Illustrated Paper: but there are strong doubts about its success. It is edited daintily enough; but the designers and wood cutters are either behind the time, or else they are not spurred with enough of pay. The bulletin of the Philadelphia Art-Union is by me, and its talk of pictures and art is grateful in the heat. Philadel phia boasts, and justly, in its population, some of the noblest and most liberal appreciators of art in this country; and their artunion reporter is a fair earnest of the worthiness and taste of their general feeling. "New Lungs for the City.-Ventilation, on a large scale, is what, just now, we very much want, for crowding brick and mortar stoppers-up of open lots are shutting up every avenue whence the breezy air from our surrounding hills and beautiful waters can blow. Shortly will be returning from the World's Fair, thousands of fellow-citizens, who, freshly glowing with remembrance of Hyde and Regent's Parks, the Champs Elysées, and other noble people-estates aristocratic Europe more liberally provides than democratic Yankee-land, will seek (if it have not been already done) to lay out similar openings here. But ere this infusion of fresh blood be poured into our corporate I have also at hand a prospectus for the body, let us see whether we cannot of ourselves secure this most desirable of objects. publication of an Indian Poem by Mrs. The Committee on Lands and Places have GREENE—favorably known to the public by reported in favor of the proposed new Park, occasional pieces, and by most honorable embracing Jones's woods and the Schemer-mention at the hands of Dr. GRISWOLD. horn estate, between Sixty-sixth and Seventy-fifth streets, and running from the Third Avenue to the East River. The Park will extend over an area of a hundred and fifty acres, is bountifully wooded, has a noble water frontage far more grand than that of the artificial waters in the Parks of London, and the situation is beautiful. This noble lung will in six years be the breathing vent of a neighborhood that ere long will be the Nothing of special novelty is in the publishers' lists, except a new novel from the pen of the author of the Lady Alice. The piquancy and picturesqueness of Mr. HUNTINGTON's first book (whatever people may say of its theology and morality) cannot fail to insure to his second a wide and eager company of readers. THE present interest felt in the London Exhibition, and in all that appertains to the great metropolis, has induced us to procure for our readers views of many of the noteworthy objects which arrest the visitor's attention in the great metropolis. The stranger in London is curious to see, among the wonders, the residences of the most prominent British statesmen; we have therefore opened our gallery with a view of Apsley House, the town home of the Duke of Wellington. Being in the immediate neighborhood of the Fair, it necessarily passes before the eye of nearly every VOL. II-25 visitor. It is not remarkable for its architecture, but is massive, and conveys an idea of English comfort. Many works of art of high importance decorate this mansion in the various apartments, the principal of which is a magnificent saloon, occupying the entire western side. On the walls are hung many of the finest pictures; and it is in this room the grand annual banquet is given by his Grace, on June 18, the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo, to the principal officers of the army who fought on the occasion. In the inner hall stands the colossal statue The residence of the late Sir Robert | gallery of paintings. It is situated near Peel will prove attractive to the stranger, not only for its associations, but for its choice the river, and in the immediate neighborhood of the Houses of Parliament. This magnificent house is the residence of among the largest and most valuable of the Duke of Sutherland. Its gallery is London. A grand staircase occupies a large part of the central mass of the building, and rises to the top, receiving light from a range of lantern windows, divided by colossal caryatides which support the ceiling. Whatever wealth could obtain of skill and art to achieve the most magnificent coup-d'œil in the metropolis, has been here lavished with consummate skill. The complete surface of the floor and staircase is covered with scarlet cloth; the balustrades of the hand-railing are of a graceful, complicated pattern, richly gilt. On the first landing is placed the marble statue of a sibyl, by Rinaldi. From this landing two flights of steps diverge upwards to a gallery, which passes round three sides of the hall, and decorated with marble columns and balustrades. Copies, by Lorenzi, of several of Paul Veronese's colossal pictures fill various compartments. From the base to the ceiling of this grand architectural feature, sculpture, carving, gilding, and every ornament that could aid its magnificence, have been employed to complete it. From "Eliza Cook's Journal." WHERE THERE'S A WILL THERE'S A WAY. SOME years since, there lived in Paris a very intelligent book-fancier, who, however, possessing more brains than cash, was constantly forced to restrain his ardent longings for the gorgeous editions of both new and standard works, which constantly tempted him on M. Gosselin's counter. Lounging one morning, as usual, into these charmed precincts he saw displayed two splendid copies of Victor Hugo's Orientales, the illustrations being all printed on tinted India paper. Almost every morning he returned to gaze with wistful eyes at these beauteous books: he opened them, turned over the pages, looked and longed, but he did not purchase. The price of each copy was fifty crowns, and our amateur could as easily have given the mines of Potosi as such a sum. One day, while he stood, according to custom, admiring Les Orientales, a young lady, followed by an attendant, entered Gosselin's shop. She was very simply dressed, but had an unmistakable air of elegance and high birth. "I wish," she said, "to purchase some new and handsomely illustrated work." M. Gosselin happened at the moment to be engaged in giving directions to one of his clerks, and the book-fancier boldly answered in his place. "Here, madame, is a beautiful publication, which cannot fail to please you." "What is it?" "A new work, by M. Victor Hugo,-Les Orientales; I need not praise it; its beauties speak for themselves." "It is indeed a handsome book," said the young lady, after having turned over the pages. "What is its price?' "One hundred crowns." "I will take it: have the kindness to give it to my servant." And, taking out her purse, she laid the sum demanded on the counter, and bowing gracefully to the master of the establish ment and his impromptu assistant, went away. This lady was the Princess Marie of Orleans, whose youth and loveliness were, alas! so soon destined to wither in the grave. "Really, my good friend;" said M. Gosselin, you are a capital man of business! You would make your fortune as a bookseller! How coolly you demanded and received double the right price for the book!” "Ma foi! my dear fellow," replied the amateur, "your two copies were worth a hundred crowns. Here is the money, I have sold one, and will now take home the other." This he did in triumph; and the second splendid copy of Les Orientales still adorns his library. THERE is no sympathy in England so universally felt, so largely expressed, as for a person who is likely to catch cold. very last place where he goes to look for it WHEN a person loses his reputation, the is the place where he has lost it. No gift so fatal as that of singing. The principal question asked, upon insuring a man's life, should be, "Do you sing a good song?" MANY of us are led by our vices, but a great many more of us follow them without any leading at all. |