ars. There is a deception here, which should
never be submitted to. Sagacity may be manifest in the nod of Burleigh's
head; but it does not follow that all who nod are Burleighs. He who
habitually says nothing, must be content if he be regarded as having
nothing to say, and it is only a lack of grace on his part which precludes
the confession. In this broad 'Vienna' of human effort, the mere
'looker-on' cannot be tolerated. It is part of our duty to be nonsensical
and ridiculous at times, for the entertainment of the rest of the world.
If we are never to open our mouths until the unsealing of the aperture is
to give evidence of a present Solomon, and to add something to the Book of
Proverbs, we must for the most part, stand like the statue of Harpocrates,
with 'Still your finger on your lips, I pray.' If we do speak, under such
restrictions, it cannot well be, as the world is constituted, more than
once or twice in the course of an existence, the rest of the sojourn upon
earth being devoted to a sublimation of our thought. But always wise,
sensible, sagacious, rational; always in wig and spectacles; always
algebraic and mathematical; doctrinal and didactic; ever to sit like
FRANKLIN'S portrait, with the index fixed upon 'causality;' one might as
well be a petrified 'professor,' or a WILLIAM PENN bronzed upon a
pedestal. There is nothing so good, either in itself or in its effects, as
good nonsense.' Upon reading the foregoing, we laid Mr. YELLOWPLUSH'S
'flattering function' to our soul, that after all, we need not greatly
distrust the reception of our monthly salmagundi, since one good producer
and critic may be held as in some sort an epitome of the public; and
especially, since any one subsection of our hurried Gossip, should it
chance to be dull, or void of interest, may be soon exhausted, or easily
skipped. . . . WE observed lately, in the pages of a monthly contemporary,
an elaborate notice of the poems of ALFRED TENNYSON, who has written many
somewhat affected and several very heartful and exquisite verses; and were
not a little surprised to find no reference to two of the most beautiful
poems in his collection; namely, the 'New-Year's Eve,' and its
'Conclusion.' The first embodies the reflections of a young maiden,
sinking gradually under that fell destroyer, CONSUMPTION. It is new-year's
eve, and she implores her mother to 'call her early,' that she may see the
sun rise upon the glad new year, the last that she sha