de lettres whom they have sent us in Willis. Quinctilian has laid it down, as a sure indication of proficiency in mental cultivation, a rattling regard for Cicero: "Ille se profecisse sciat cui Cicero valde placebit." An unbounded admiration of the chronicles of Turpin, we tell brother Jonathan, ought to suffice in his case; and our respect for his intellectual attainments will be inseparable from and commensurate with his due appreciation of "Rookwood, a Romance."

We are fully prepared to hear ill-natured individuals volunteering an explanation of this decided partiality shown to Mr. Ainsworth's narrative on the other side of the Atlantic, and attempting to account for its popularity among the original settlers. Any one initiated into the secrets of the book-trade must be aware, that copies of the Newgate Calendar are in constant and steady request throughout President Jackson's dominions; most families being anxious to possess that work from motives connected with heraldry and genealogical science. It is the same pardonable weakness that secures among us the sale of Mr. Burke's Peerage and Commoners. We all wish, naturally enough, to see the names of our relatives in print, and be acquainted with our remote kinsmen in the various ramifications of consanguinity. The connexions of Turpin may have been many; his history would naturally be expected, by our transatlantic countrymen, to throw some light on the motives which led a number of his contemporaries to depart for the land of the brave and the free.* Hence, the ill-natured persons of whom we speak have ascribed to similar causes the furious demand for copies of Rookwood, in the back settlements, on the ridge of the Alleghanies, down the Missouri, up the O. I. O., and on the banks of the I. O. U.; a river which, if it be not in the map of the States, among the other kaya pɛɛ0pa of Yankeedom, is well known to be the real Pactolus of the colony. Their Lycurgus is one "Lynch."

There were many brave fellows in Greece long before the birth of Agamemnon, but, owing to the art of writing not having been yet invented, they all died intestate, if not unsung. There were, doubtless, also, from time immemorial, many capital highwaymen

* Constable's Miscellany was, for a time, in brisk request, from a mistaken notion as to the nature of its contents.

in and about the Peloponnesus; but, as Tom Moore, in his comic song on 'Wellington's name," says of the Irish rogues and rapparees,*

"Undistinguished they fell in the bye-paths of fame."

This state of things continued till the arrival from Egypt of Hermes Trismegistus, a nephew of Mount Atlas, according to Horace, who describes him as

"Callidum quidquid placuit jocoso
Condere furto."

Since then we have pretty accurate accounts of thieves and banditti in Magna Græcia, from Busiris and Procustes, down to Cardinal Ruffo and Fra Diavolo. But the personage known under the name of Hermes to the Greeks (to the Latins, as Mercury) is decidedly the most wonderful character of all antiquity. That the first inventor of written characters should also be the original patron of robbery would seem inexplicable, were we not aware that the Hebrew shepherd, Moses, was unquestionably the prototype of all that has been recorded of Hermes (including that very remarkable implement the symbolic caduceus), and that to the Egyptians the abstraction of their sacred vessels was a sore subject of reminiscence. The Latins, oddly enough, were in the habit of connecting literary allusions with the practice of thievery; thus, homo trium litterarum, i. e. FUR; litteram longam facere, i. e. to form an I, or to "dance," as our author has it, "to the tune of a hearty choke with caper-sauce." The same association of ideas probably suggested to Dr. Johnson the remark, that he who could make a pun would pick a pocket. All these matters could be enlarged upon, were we in a discursive humor; but we merely meant to state, that no class of persons appear to be such favorite subjects for historical or poetical narrative as corsairs and robbers, in their vast variety of impersonation. Schiller and Byron have, in truth, much to answer for, notwithstanding the latter poet's so

*The best etymology yet offered for this word is that supplied by our author, in one of those songs that have made the first edition go off so triumphantly: "Kase they left not a rap in the country,

"T was thence they were called rapparees."

phistry concerning the effects of the Beggar's Opera;* Scott's Rob Roy and Robin Hood are of evil example; Moore's Captain Rock will, we fear, outlast his History of Ireland; Paul Clifford and Eugene Aram will be, unfortunately for the public morals, more durably popular than a hundred Last Days and Last Tribunes; and it will greatly surprise us if Mr. Ainsworth's forthcoming book, on the Admirable Crichton, shall cause the tale of Turpin to be forgotten.

This republication of Rookwood comes recommended by the addition of many novel and interesting features, calculated to heighten and enhance its previous attractions. Among them, we suppose it were needless to invite attention to the features of the handsome author himself, delineated by the magic pencil of Maclise and engraved by the potent burin of Edwards. That face (with figure to correspond) sold five hundred extra copies of our Mag. two years ago. The illustrations by George Cruikshank are worthy of his well-earned celebrity. Far be it from us to institute an invidious comparison between him and our own Croquis; the world is wide enough, and can accommodate Uncle Toby without any necessity for excluding the blue-bottle fly (vide Sterne, in loco). George is in the full zenith of his ascendant star, while the fame of our Alfred is silently growing to certain maturity.

Were we not equally anxious to avoid the imputation of indulging in what is called the "puff collateral," we would advert to certain other illustrations and vignettes, with which the aforesaid Alfred has just now enriched a work in which we feel an uncommon interest; but haply we have acquired a habit of self-restraint and self-denial, so we resist our inclination, and turn aside from the tempting topic.

"Be those bright gems unseen, unknown—
They must, or we shall rue it:

*"Aye - but Macheath's example? Psha! no more!

It formed no thieves- the thief was formed before."

BYRON, Hints from Horace.

"Beggar's

We have a volume of our own

Ah! why should we review it?-
Should life be dull, and spirits low,
And dunces' books provoke us,

Let earth have something yet to show

PROUT, with Vignettes by CROQUIS."

When first the romance of Rookwood burst on an admiring world, and claimed for its author a place in the foremost rank of contemporary novel-writers, the lyrical poetry with which the work abounded challenged for him a name among the most distinguished modern votaries of the muse. The songs formed a leading and substantive merit of the book, and were found to be so successful, that Mr. Ainsworth, awaking one day, recognised in himself a poet. He has shown a due appreciation of the public's approval. More than a dozen additional ballads and odes adorn the pages of this new edition; and we must say that they decidedly are of the right sort, full of glowing enthusiasm, and redolent of inspiration. We know not whether he has yet determined what school of poetry he intends to patronize—whether the lake or leg of mutton school; should he consult us, we think that he has a decided vocation for the "sepulchral:" his immortal ballad of "the Sexton," which still haunts our imagination, revealed in him the existence of a power akin to that of Ezekiel, and was in sooth, as glorious a vision of dry bones as we can recollect just now. Southey has chosen a domicile on the margin of his favorite lakes, to enact the genius loci; it is not without reason that Ainsworth has latterly selected a rural residence close by the grand necropolis on the Harrow Road: if "the cemetery company's directors" have any brains, they will vote him 500l. a-year, and create him laureate of the grave-yard, with the grass of the enclosed grounds in fee-simple to his Pegasus for ever.

And so we bid thee good night, Dick Turpin. Keep thy powder dry, my lad; let all thy movements be regular; but let not thy intellect get rusty by too much rustication. The world is impatiently awaiting thy next appearance in the character of "the Admirable Crichton." From what we know of thy handicraft we anticipate a tale as skilfully put together and as well wound up "As the best time-piece made by HARRISON." (Juan, i. 17.)

SABBATH JOY.

HURRAH! hurrah! the earth and sky
Interchange their glances free,
And every sweet face that passes by
Looks bright with Liberty!
The generous front and elastic air

Of hearty, hopeful man,

Are glad as though life, never stirred with care,

To the eternal ocean ran.

"This, this is the day the Lord hath made,

Be glad, and rejoice therein !"

Let no care perplex, no doubt degrade,
The soul now bright within!

What slave shall dare to cross the path
Of our joyous or pensive way?

Let him dread the flash of a freeman's wrath,
For this is the freeman's day!

Look up lone mourner, thy youth hath fled,
Thy vigorous manhood's gone

The hopes of thy life lie cold and dead,
And thy heart is left alone!
Look up, one free-breathing day is thine,
One snatched from the sorrowing seven;

Then open thy soul to the ray divine,

For the light is a "light from heaven!"

'Tis a light to gladden both young and old
Whose foot-way the hell-hounds track,
With a thirst to be quenched by naught but gold,
And a hate that will never slack.

Blessed, oh, blest be the Sabbath morn,
When the devils must hide their claws,
When a respite is found by the heart forlorn,
And misery knows a pause.