uch doubt whether the dunces of this world are not the very
happiest people in it--Yes, Clara; leave to others the vain and empty
distinctions of literary renown, which is but a bubble, and be happy
in the homely path of obscure but virtuous duty!'

Happy Jack ceased. There was a pause. 'And now,' he said, 'having
provided for my family, I will go to sleep, with a clear conscience
and a tranquil mind.'

I said that I always distrusted this legend. I am happy to say, that
even as I write I have proof positive that it is purely a fiction. I
have just had a card put into my hand requesting my presence at a
private exhibition of the celebrated Bloomer Family, while an
accompanying private note from Jack himself informs me that the
'celebrated and charming Bloomer group--universally allowed to be the
most perfect and interesting representatives of the new _regime_ in
costume'--are no other than the Happy Jacks _redivivi_--Mrs J. and the
girls donning the transatlantic attire, and Happy Jack himself
delivering a lecture upon the vagaries of fashion and the
inconsistencies of dress, in a new garment invented by himself, and
combining the Roman toga with the Highland kilt.

THE DESERT HOME.[1]

Robinson Crusoe is the parent of a line of fictions, all more or less
entertaining; but those of our own day, as might be expected, share
largely in the practical spirit of the time, making amusement in some
degree the mere menstruum of information. Following the Swiss Family
Robinson, we have here an English Family Robinson, which might as well
be called an American Family Robinson; and although ostensibly meant
for the holiday recreation of youth, it proves to be a production
equally well suited for children of six feet and upwards. The author
is personally familiar with the scenes he describes, and is thus able
to give them a verisimilitude which in other circumstances can be
attained only by the rarest genius; and notwithstanding the
associations, of his last book, the _Scalp-hunters_, there is only one
bloody conflict in the present one fought by animals of the genus
Homo.

The local habitation of the lost family is a nook in the Great
American Desert--a nook in a desert twenty-five times the size of
England! But this wilderness of about a million square miles is not
all sand or all barren earth: it contains numerous other features of
interest besides mountains and oases; it includes the country of New
Mexico, with it