Ours is a noble language, a beautiful language; and we hold fully with
SOUTHEY, who somewhere remarks that he can tolerate a Germanism, for
family sake; but he adds: 'He who uses a Latin or a French phrase where a
pure old English word does as well, ought to be hung, drawn and quartered,
for high treason against his mother-tongue.' . . . '_The Song of the New
Year_, by Mrs. NICHOLS, in a late number,' writes a Boston correspondent,
'is an excellent production, and a fair specimen of the improved style of
our occasional American verse. Suppose a book-worm should light on poetry
of equal merit among FLATMAN'S, FALCONER'S, PRIOR'S, or PARSELL'S
collections? Would it not shine forth, think you? Indeed our lady-writers
are wresting the plume from our male pen mongers unco fast.' 'That's a
fact.' Mrs. NICHOLS has a sister-poet at Louisville, Kentucky, who has a
very charming style and a delicious fancy. A late verse of hers in some
'_Lines to a Rainbow_,' signed 'AMELIA,' which we encountered at a
reading-room the other day, have haunted our memory ever since:

'There are moments, I think, when the spirit receives
Whole volumes of thought on its unwritten leaves;
When the folds of the heart in a moment unclose,
Like the innermost leaves from the heart of a rose.'

MOORE never conceived a more beautiful simile than this. . . . NUMBER TWO
of the '_Reminiscences of a Dartmoor Prisoner_' will appear in our next
issue. We have received from the writer a very interesting and amusing
manuscript-volume, filled with patriotic poetry, containing vivid pictures
of scenes and events in the daily routine of the prison, as well as
sketches of Melville Island Prison, and reminiscences of striking events
in the lives of sundry of the prisoners, in the progress of the American
war. We shall refer more particularly to this entertaining collection in
an ensuing number. . . . THE Lines on '_Niagara Falls at Night_' are
entirely too terrific for our pages. They are almost as 'love-lily
dreadful' as the great scene itself. 'M.' _must_ 'try again,' that is
quite certain; and we are afraid, _more_ than once. . . . TU DOCES!
Doubtless many of our young readers, especially in the country, have often
pondered over the zig-zag hieroglyphics which covered the tea-chests at
the village-store, and marvelled what 'HOWQUA,' which was inseparable from
these inscriptions, could mean. It was the name of the great Hong
merchant, 'the friend of Americans