majestically along the pavement, whirl their dusky foam into the kennel, and disappear beneath iron grates. Thus did Arethusa sink. I love not my station here aloft, in the midst of the tumult which I am powerless to direct or quell, with the blue lightning wrinkling on my brow, and the thunder muttering its first awful syllables in my ear. I will descend. Yet let me give another glance to the sea, where the foam breaks out in long white lines upon a broad expanse of blackness, or boils up in far distant points, like snowy-mountain-tops in the eddies of a flood; and let me look once more at the green plain, and little hills of the country, over which the giant of the storm is riding in robes of mist, and at the town, whose obscured and desolate streets might beseem a city of the dead; and turning a single moment to the sky, now gloomy as an author's prospects, I prepare to resume my station on lower earth. But stay! A little speck of azure has widened in the western heavens; the sunbeams find a passage, and go rejoicing through the tempest; and on yonder darkest cloud, born, like hallowed hopes, of the glory of another world, and the trouble and tears of this, brightens forth the Rainbow! VANITY FAIR.1 Being naturally of a serious turn, my attention was directed to the solid advantages derivable from a residence here, rather than to the effervescent pleasures which are the grand object with too many visitants. The Christian reader, if he have had no accounts of the city later than Bunyan's time, will be surprised to hear that almost every street has its church, and that the reverend clergy are nowhere held in higher respect than at Vanity Fair. And well do they deserve such honorable estimation; for the maxims of wisdom and virtue which fall from their lips, come from as deep a spiritual source, and tend to as lofty a religious aim, as those of the sagest philosophers of old. In justification of this high praise, I need only mention the names of the Rev. Mr. Shallow-deep; the Rev. Mr. Stumble-at-Truth; that fine old clerical character, the Rev. Mr. This-to-day, who expects shortly to resign his pulpit to Rev. Mr. That-to-morrow; together with the Rev. Mr. Bewilderment; the Rev. Mr. Clog-the-spirit; and, last and greatest, the Rev. Dr. Wind-of-doctrine. There is a species of machine here for the wholesale manufacture of individual morality. This excellent result is effected by societies for all manner of virtuous purposes, with which a man has merely to connect himself, throwing, 1 This extract is taken from "The Celestial Rail-Road," in the first part of Mosses from an Old Manse, wherein the author describes his journey to the Celestial City. It is one of his very best productions, and, as a sequel to Bunyan, and a satire on a bad age, it is inimitable. as it were, his quota of virtue into the common stock, and the president and directors will take care that the aggregate amount be well applied. All these, and other wonderful improvements in ethics, religion, and literature, being made plain to my comprehension by the ingenious Mr. Smooth-it-away, inspired me with a vast admiration of Vanity Fair. It would fill a volume, in an age of pamphlets, were I to record all my observations in this great capital of human business and pleasure. There was an unlimited range of society-the powerful, the wise, the witty, and the famous in every walk of life-princes, presidents, poets, generals, artists, actors, and philanthropists, all making their own market at the Fair, and deeming no price too exorbitant for such commodities as hit their fancy. It was well worth one's while, even if he had no idea of buying or selling, to loiter through the bazaars, and observe the various sorts of traffic that were going forward. : Some of the purchasers, I thought, made very foolish bargains. For instance, a young man, having inherited a splendid fortune, laid out a considerable portion of it in the purchase of diseases, and finally spent all the rest for a heavy lot of repentance and a suit of rags. A very pretty girl bartered a heart as clear as crystal, and which seemed her most valuable possession, for another jewel of the same kind, but so worn and defaced as to be utterly worthless. In one shop there were a great many crowns of laurel and myrtle, which soldiers, authors, statesmen, and various other people, pressed eagerly to buy some purchased these paltry wreaths with their lives; others by a toilsome servitude of years; and many sacrificed whatever was most valuable, yet finally slunk away without the crown. There was a sort of stock or scrip, called Conscience, which seemed to be in great demand, and would purchase almost any thing. Indeed, few rich commodities were to be obtained without paying a heavy sum in this particular stock, and a man's business was seldom very lucrative, unless he knew precisely when and how to throw his hoard of Conscience into the market. Yet as this stock was the only thing of permanent value, whoever parted with it was sure to find himself a loser in the long run. Several of the speculations were of a questionable character. Occasionally a member of Congress recruited his pocket by the sale of his constituents; and I was assured that public officers have often sold their country at very moderate prices. Thousands sold their happiness for a whim. Gilded chains were in great demand, and purchased with almost any sacrifice. In truth, those who desired, according to the old adage, to sell any thing valuable for a song, might find customers all over the Fair; and there were innumerable messes of pottage, piping hot, for such as chose to buy them with their birthrights. A few articles, however, could not be found genuine at Vanity Fair. If a customer wished to renew his stock of youth, the dealers offered him a set of false teeth and an auburn wig; if he demanded peace of mind, they recommended opium or a brandy-bottle. Tracts of land and golden mansions, situate in the Celestial City, were often exchanged, at very disadvantageous rates, for a few years' lease of small, dismal, inconvenient tenements in Vanity Fair. Prince Beelzebub himself took great interest in this sort of traffic, and sometimes condescended to meddle with smaller matters. I once had the pleasure to see him bargaining with a miser for his soul, which, after much ingenious skirmishing on both sides, his Highness succeeded in obtaining at about the value of sixpence. The prince remarked, with a smile, that he was a loser by the transaction. CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN. CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN is the son of the late distinguished Judge Josiah Ogden Hoffman, of New York, and was born in that city in 1806. At the age of fifteen he entered Columbia College, after leaving which he studied law with Harmanus Bleeker, of Albany, was admitted to the bar at the age of twenty-one, and began to practise in New York. But his tastes for poetry and general literature were so strong that he soon gave up the law for what was more congenial. He became co-editor, with Mr. Charles King, of the "New York American," a very able daily journal, and published in it a number of brilliant papers under the signature of a star (*). Travelling in the West in 1833 for his health, he wrote for his paper a series of letters, which were afterwards published under the title of A Winter in the West, and became very popular. In 1837 appeared his Wild Scenes in the Forest and Prairie, and, shortly after, the romance of the Greyslaer, founded on the famous criminal trial of Beauchamp for the murder of Colonel Sharpe, the Solicitor-General of Kentucky. The "Knickerbocker Magazine" commenced in 1833, under the editorship of Mr. Hoffman, a magazine which has ever maintained a high literary character. Afterwards he became proprietor of the "American Monthly Magazine," and for one year edited the "New York Mirror." In 1843 appeared The Vigil of Faith, a Legend of the Adirondack Mountains, and other Poems; and a second volume of poetry, under the title of Borrowed Notes for Home Circulation, was published in 1844. In 1846 and 1847, Mr. Hoffman was for eighteen months the editor of the "Literary World," a paper of a high literary character, and conducted with great He gets the name of Fenno from his maternal grandfather, John Fenno, of Philadelphia, a political writer of the old Federal party in Washington's administration. ability. About this time a more complete collection of his lyrical compositions was published under the title of Love's Calendar. For many years Mr. Hoffman has written very little. His residence is in the city of New York. A MORNING HYMN. "LET THERE BE LIGHT!" The Eternal spoke; And from the abyss where darkness rode, And light around creation flow'd. "Let there be light!" O'er heaven and earth, And shed the gospel's light abroad. Then come, when in the orient first From God's bright throne of glory there. INDIAN SUMMER, 1828. Light as love's smiles, the silvery mist at morn And from the springy spray the squirrel's gayly leaping. I love thee, Autumn, for thy scenery ere The gorgeous hues that tinge each failing leaf, And wings his loitering flight to summer climes away. O, Nature! still I fondly turn to thee, With feelings fresh as e'er my childhood's were;- I still can, childlike, come as when in prayer And deem'd the world, like her, all truth and purity. WE PARTED IN SADNESS. We parted in sadness, but spoke not of parting; Long years have gone by, and the spring-time smiles ever, The note of each wild bird that carols toward heaven, SPARKLING AND BRIGHT. Sparkling and bright in liquid light With hue as red as the rosy bed Which a bee would choose to dream in. As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim, Oh! if Mirth might arrest the flight |