It did n't take him long to do for NEWTON, according to his own idea. 'I have been very short in the matter,' he says in his preface, 'because I don't design to confound my readers by the ambiguity of a long discourse, as most authors use to do; and I shall always look upon an author who produces a long-winded discourse about whatever subject he writes upon, not to have known any thing of what he was about, or else to have designed to impose upon the world.' He intimates that had the ALMIGHTY, previous to making the world, called NEWTON into his council, that gentleman might have given HIM some hints which would have made his theory a little more reasonable; but that as long as nature' was as 't was,' his philosophy was a 'prodigious absurdity.' His own principle may be designated as the Fermentive System. The bowels of the earth, he tells us, are in constant fermentation, and so are the heavenly bodies. Let us have some talk with this learned Theban; especially let him inform us 'what is the cause of thunder;' in which he begs the question,' and a very foolish one, that he may the more easily demolish it:

IN respect to Thunder, we sce out-of-the-way Notions; for if the Noise which goes under that name did depend on the Clouds striking against one another, or on the escaping of the Air they include, there would be more Thunder in Winter than in Summer Time; for in the Winter, the Earth is not only surrounded by more Clouds than in the Summer, but we do likewise see them in a more violent Motion. Besides we never find spungy Bodies occasion any considerable Noise, however violent they are struck together; neither do we find by the Air-Gun, that the Air which escapes out of it occasions any considerable Noise, how then can it be supposed that such like Effects can occasion so terrible a Noise in the Clouds as that which is called Thunder. Whence I conclude that Effect to depend on the bursting of solid Bodies, which in Summer Time are most apt to be formed of the Exhalation of the Sun, and that of the Earth, which by their own Fermentation they are subject to take Fire and to dissolve, some with, and others without Noise; the latter of which I am satisfied of by an Eye Witness, and the more such like Bodies contain nitrous Humours, the more Noise they will produce in their Dissolution, and thereby occasion what we call Thunder. As to Lightning without Thunder, I look upon it to be nothing but a sudden Motion in the Air, occasioned by the Heat of the Sun.'

Mr. HATZFELD did n't like NEWTON overmuch personally; the moving why' whereof is perhaps easily explained: 'I went and showed him a draught relating to the Perpetual Motion, for to know his opinion about it; and I found him so far from seeing any light in it, that he pretended even the machines by which I proposed to move the wheel were uncapable to move themselves! How is it possible for arts and sciences to obtain their point of perfection, as long as they have the misfortune of depending on the discretion of such like men? And how is it possible the world shall be put into any thing of a true light as long as such short-sighted professors come to be the tutors of it?" He thus 'puts down' the theory of circular motion in nature: 'When through a hole we let the sun's light come into a darkened room, we see all the perceptible particles of matter continually move in a strait line, which is an evident demonstration that there is no such thing as a continual circular motion in nature. The principle of attraction and gravitation has no share in the motion of the planets.' This great philosopher, it would seem, annoyed NEWTON not a little; for he speaks of his getting into a 'towering passion' at his house, while he was endeavoring to 'set him right,' and ordering him to 'go his ways;' so that we may attribute to the infamy of his notions and the usage the author received of him' this very 'learned' treatise.... Is there not something touching and beautiful in the fact recorded in 'The Grave of the Twins,' which ensues? We have thought so in reading it:

'ONE winding sheet enveloped them,
One sunny grave was theirs;
One soft green plat of silken grass
Received their mother's tears;

And lightly did the night winds breathe
Their resting place above,

As if it feared to wake them from
Their deep repose of love.

'The rains came down, and forth there sprang One bright and early spring,

Two rose buds on a slender stalk,

And closely did they cling;

Yet never did they blossom there,
But all untimely shed

The young leaves on that holy grave,
Meet emblems of the dead.'

FROM a hasty note from a friend and correspondent, from whom our readers hear only too seldom, (froms' enough here?) we segregate this passage: 'Did you ever see the house in Union-Square which has a gallery supported by Cantharides ?' So I was asked by a young lady the other night. On cross-questioning her, they turned out to be colossal women, with their toes pointed, and a jet of gas from each toe; light-footed females. Perhaps she meant Caryatides.What is the English song, or glee, that begins Down among the dead men?' Is it bacchanalian or political? A cavalier ditty, is n't? If you can't tell me yourself, ask the correspondents in your notices.' We 'couldn't say, indeed.' We have heard our old friend BROUGH sing a bacchanalian song thus entitled, in which the 'dead men' were supposed to be represented by bottles which had survived their usefulness in society.' More than this 'cannot we now rehearse.' AN old odd-looking person joined the passengers on the New-York and Erie Rail-Road the other day at a distant western station. When he entered the spacious car, he looked round in utter amazement at its extent, and the comfort and elegance of its accommodations. And now he began to talk to himself, which he continued by the way' until the cars arrived at Piermont. Wal,' he commenced, 'this is what they call a 'car,' eh? Wal, it's the biggest b'ildin' I ever see on wheels! Thunder a-n-d light-nin'! how we du skit away! In this way he ran on, staring around, and talking at every body, but finding nobody to talk to. At length he saw his man. A solemu-visaged person, with a 'white choke' tied at that exact point where 'ornament is only not strangulation,' a strait collar'd coat, and a flat, broad-brimmed hat, sitting on a distant seat, 'caught the speaker's eye.' 'Hello, Dominie! be you there? Goin' down to 'York? How do they do down to L -? How's Mr. WILLIAMS gittin' on now? Pooty 'fore-handed, aint he? Where be you goin'? Goin' to preach in 'York? Aint goin' to Californy, be you? Did n't know but you might be; 'most every body seems to be goin' there now.' As soon as there was a sufficient pause in this avalanche of unanswered queries, the grave passenger replied: 'Yes, I am on my way to California.' 'LORD-à-massy, you aint though, be ye? You aint 'gin up preachin', hev ye? 'Pears to me I would n't. I was to camp-meetin' when you tell'd your 'xperience and strugglin'. You had the dreadfullest hard time gittin' 'ligiont 'at ever I see, in my life! Seems to me, a'ter so much trouble, I would n't give it up so. None o' my business, though, o'course. So, goin' to dig gold, eh?' As soon as the roars of laughter, which now filled the car, had subsided, the grave gentleman explained, that deeming California a fruitful field for missionary labor he had determined to go forth as a pioneer in the good work, and he was therefore to sail from New-York in three days for San Francisco. THE following capital Latin version of Oh! Susannah' was written a day or two after that of Dulcis Mae,' published in a late number, from the pen of another correspondent:

'HEUS SUSANNA!

'PASSIBUS haud pigris Alabama prata relinquo;
In genubus porto barbiton ipse meam :

Ludovicique peto gaudent quæ nomine terras :
Delicias venio rursus ut aspiciam.

Nocte pluit tota, hos fines quo tempore ventum est,

At nebulas prorsus pellit aprica dies;

Frigore me feriunt haud æqui spicula Solis.

Ne lacrymam ob casum, funde, SUSANNA, meum,

Casus, cara, meus ne sit tibi causa doloris :
Nam cithara huc domino venit amata suo.
Conscendo fulmen; rapior mox amne secundo;
In nosmet læsi numinis ira cadit.

Innumeros subitæ rapuerunt fulgura flammæ,
Et nigros homines nigrior mors perimit.
Machina dirupta est, sonipes volat inde caballus,
Acturusque animam (crede) mihi videor.
Quam retinere volens mea demum lumina clausi.
Ne lacrymam ob casum, funde, SUSANNA, meum !
Sopitum nuper dulcis me lusit imago;

(Nec vox per noctem, nec sonus ullus erat)
Obvia præcipiti decursu colle secundo

Visa est ante oculos nostra SUSANNA vehi.
Gutta vagabunda turbato stabat ocello,
Pendebat labris ægipyri popanum ;

Ecce, aio, properamus, et Austri linquimus arva
Ne lacrymam ob casum, funde, SUSANNA, meum !
Aurelios mox inde Novos Austrumque revisam,
Undique delicias quærere nempe meas,
Quam si non possim contingere lumine claro,
Huicce nigro infausto nil nisi fata manet;

Et quando in placida constratus morte quiescam
Ne lacrymam ob casum funde, SUSANNA, meum !
Casus, cara, meus ne sit tibi causa doloris !

Huc veniens, mecum barbiton, ecce ! fero.'

He was a man of sense who wrote the following; and if we knew who it was we shouldn't consider it confidential' exactly: A man strikes me with a sword and inflicts a wound. Suppose, instead of binding up the wound, I am showing it to every body; and after it has been bound up, I am taking off the bandage continually, and examining the depth of the wound, and making it to fester till my limb becomes greatly inflamed, and my general system is materially affected; is there a person in the world who would not call me a fool? Now such a fool is he, who, by dwelling upon little injuries or insults, or provocations, causes them to agitate or inflame the mind. How much better were it to put a bandage over the wound, and never look at it again.'... 'I Do not know a more universal, inexcusable, and unnecessary mistake among the younger practitioners in the clergy,' said, years ago, one of the most eminent of that profession,' than the use of what the women term hard words, and the better sort of vulgar' fine language.' I know not how it comes to pass that professors in most arts and sciences are generally the worst qualified to explain their meanings to those who are not of their tribe. A common farmer shall make you understand in three words that his foot is out of joint, or his collar-bone broken; whereas a surgeon, after a hundred terms of art, shall still leave you in the dark. It is the same case in law, and many of the meaner arts. A writer has nothing to say to the wisest of his readers that he might not express in a manner to be understood by the meanest of them. Nineteen in twenty of what are termed hard words' might be changed into easy ones, such as naturally first occur to ordinary men, and probably did so at first to the very writers who used them. Avoid also flat, unnecessary epithets, and old and thread-bare phrases. Think your own thoughts, and speak your own words.' True style consists of the disposition of proper words in proper places. When a writer's thoughts are clear, the properest words will generally offer themselves first, and his own judgment will direct him in what order to place them, so as they may be best understood. Simplicity, without which no human performance can arrive to any great perfection, is no where more eminently useful than in this.' Having said thus much, we wish to call public attention to the fact, herewith set down, namely: that a man went into Maryland for a doctor for his father, but the river Potomac being frozen, he did n't arrive in time to bring the physician to his father until his father was dead. 'The intense frigidity of the circumambient atmosphere had so congealed the pellucid aqueous fluid of the enormous river Potomac, that with the most superlative reluctance

I was constrained to procrastinate my premeditated egression into the palatinate province of Maryland, for the medical, chemical and Galenical coadjuvency and coöperation of a distinguished sanitive son of ESCULAPIUS, until the peccant deleterious matter of the Ethrites had pervaded the cranium, and ascended from the inferior pedestal major digit of my paternal relative, whereby his morbosity was so exorbitantly magnified as to exhibit absolute extinguishment of vivification!' Is n't that clear? . . . HERE is a very nice' antique :

'I KNOW the thing that's most uncommon;
(ENVY, be silent and attend,)

I know a reasonable woman,

Handsome and witty, yet a friend.

'Not warped by passion, awed by rumor,

Not grave through pride, or gay through folly,

An equal mixture of good humor,

And sensible soft melancholy.

'Has she not faults then,' ENVY says, Sir?'

Yes, she has one, I must aver;

When all the world conspires to praise her,
The woman's deaf, and does not hear.'

'SWIFT says: 'We should manage our thoughts in composing any work, as shepherds do their flowers in making a garland; first select the choicest and then dispose of them in the most proper places, where they give a lustre to each other.' Item, a rose for this anthology:

'EARTH has a joy unknown in heaven,

The new-born peace of sin forgiven.'

'I never knew any man,' says an old author, who could not bear another's misfortunes perfectly like a christian,' which reminds us of the old lady who thought ' every calamity that happened to herself a trial, and every one that happened to her friends a judgment!'... HOMESPUN criticism is sometimes grateful. Take the following as an instance: An old gentlemen was invited by an artist to look at a large landscape. There was a statue of AQUARIUS introduced in the fore-ground, with his urn and trident. After looking at it for some time, the old man turned round to the impressive countenance, and uttered these remarkable words: That is the most natural thing I ever saw.' 'I am glad you like it,' said the delighted painter. I thought the scenery might recall some recollections of ——— ' 'Pshaw!' broke in the old man; ''tis n't the scenery that strikes me; it's that fellow there with the pot and eel-spear! That's the most natural part of the pictur'.' Apropos of pictures; did you ever exactly 'realize' what a beautiful tableau that is in SHELLEY of an eagle and a serpent wreathed in fight:

artist with a very

'A SHAFT of light upon its wings descended,
And every golden feather gleamed therein;

Feather and scale inextricably blended.

The serpent's moiled and many-colored skin

Shone through the plumes; its coils were twined within,

By many a swollen and knotted fold, and high

And far, the neck receding lithe and thin,

Sustained a crested head, which warily

Shifted and glanced before the eagle's steadfast eye.'

How marvellously the crinkling scales live and move in the word 'inextricably !' By-the-by, 'speaking of SHELLEY,' did you ever know a little fellow by the name of NATHANIEL SHELLEY? - one of the crustacea? He was complaining that some one had insulted him by sending him a letter addressed 'NAT. SHELLEY.' 'Why' said a

friend, 'I do n't see any thing insulting in that: NAT.' is an abbreviation of NATHANIEL.' 'I know it,' said the little man, but curse his impudence! he spelt it with a G, - GNAT! That was taking liberties with a man's cognovit,' as Mrs. PARTINGTON would say. . . . WHO is H. MELVIL,' the eloquent divine, who in preaching from this text on Heaven, 'There shall be no Night there,' has the following admirable sentences? We would fain know more of him:

THERE shall be no night there:' children of affliction, hear ye this: pain cannot enter, grief cannot exist in the atmosphere of heaven; no tears are shed there, no graves opened, no friends removed; and never, for a lonely moment, does even a flitting cloud shadow the deep rapture of tranquillity. There shall be no night there:' children of calamity, hear ye this: no baffled plans there, no frustrated hopes, no sudden disappointments; but one rich tide of happiness shall roll through eternity, and deepen as it rolls. There shall be no night there :' ye who are struggling with a corrupt nature, hear ye this: the night is the season of crime; it throws its mantle over a thousand enormities which shun the face of day; but there shall be no temptation there, no sinful desires to resist, no evil heart to battle with. Oh, this mortal must have put on immortality, and this corruptible incorruption, ere we can know all the meaning and richness of the description which makes heaven a place without night! I behold even now man made equal with the angels, no longer the dwarfish thing which at the best he is, while confined to this narrow stage, but grown into mighty stature, so that he moves amid the highest, with capacities as vast and energies as unabating. I behold the page of universal truth spread before him, no obscurity on a single line, and the brightness not dazzling the vision. I behold the removal of all mistake, of all misconception; conjectures have given place to certainties, controversies are ended, difficulties are solved, prophecies are completed, parables are interpreted. I behold the hushing of every grief, the wiping away of every tear, the prevention of every sorrow, the communication of every joy!'

་

The sustained eloquence of this passage is seldom exceeded in modern pulpit discourses. Its characteristics are simplicity and perspicuity. . . . 'C.'s 'Pathetic Tale' is not genuine. We would wager, if we ever laid or accepted wagers of any kind, that the story recorded by 'C.' is the offspring of a 'pumped-up' feeling. If personally we knew him, perhaps we might say of him (hardly, though,) as a gentleman did of an affected clergyman, of whom a lady asked, coming out of church, Was not that a very moving discourse?' 'Yes,' replied the other, 'it was; and I am extremely sorry for it, for the man was my friend!' The fact is, that 'C.'s Pathetic Tale,' to the incidents of which he was an eye-witness,' was published in BLACKWOOD'S Magazine eighteen years ago! This little circumstance 'makes it bad' for the man who saw so long ago what 'C.' witnessed 'some five or six years since in one of the most lovely villages on the Saint Lawrence!' . . . A' DOWN-EAST' correspondent, from whom it will always be a pleasure to hear, tells a good story of a certain counsellor in his vicinage, who commenced practice in the Court of Common Pleas. The judge had a 'rule' that no action should be continued on motion of defendant, unless his counsel would state upon his honor that he verily believed there was a defence. and he was usually called upon to state the nature of that defence. Once upon a time' the counsellor wanted a continuance: the plaintiff's lawyer objecting, he was requested by the court to say whether there was a defence to the suit, and if so, to state what it was. I have, may it please the court,' was the reply,' four defences to this action: First, the note declared on is a forgery; secondly, my client was under age when he signed it; third, he has paid it; fourth, it is outlawed!" You may enter a con-tin-u-ance, Mr. CLARK,' said the judge.' Thank your honor; we have. The same legal wag was riding in the cars of a down-east rail-road the other day, when he fell into conversation with a Boston 'jobber.' Coming to a crossing, he pointed out to his neighbor a road which had just been opened, with the remark: That's a very important road to this part of the country-very important.' 'Ah,' said the other; there are a good many settlers in there, I suppose?" N-o; there were, before the road was made, but now they 're all moving out!... 'Is it likely' — we sometimes ask ourselves, after walking away from the immense front