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offence with his life. And the whole nation trembled, and were full of dismay and fear; yet every one smoked as before!' SHU has a remarkable tact at converting a defeat into a victory, or explaining it away, in the warlike events which ensued. At Tshusan a' fleet of red soldiers and black robbers demanded the island to be delivered up to them. The Admiral, who had the command in those waters, was not to be easily affrighted, and would certainly have given a good account of the invaders, had not all his men and sailors gone elsewhere, and he himself been wounded. As it was, the entire of this important group of islands fell under the grasp of these miscreants. At Hiamen (Amoy,) however, matters took a different turn. One of their vessels had been sent thither, for the purpose of delivering a letter from the barbarian minister. The commander of the place was highly exasperated, and sent a ball through the ship; in spite of this, the wretches converted the fort into a heap of ruins, and then made off.' But the commander was sent into exile for not defending the fort; and old peace-loving ILIPOo was set in his place, and ordered by the Emperor to build ships of the line as large as the English. He, on his part, sent orders accordingly to the Inspector of War; but the poor man being unable to execute them, in fact, he had never seen any ship larger than a junk in all his days, cut his throat.' The next negotiator' was more successful in sending the red-bristling foreign ships' back again over the top of the ocean.' KISHEN, the new ambassador, made them a present of horned cattle, seeing them to be quite attenuated with hunger and disease; and he gave them his word that a cessation of hostilities should be observed during the continuance of the negociations. By such means as these he sent the fleet away from us. At no foregone period had so large a host of barbarians crossed the waters to our shores. The Emperor was overjoyed that he had got rid of them, though KISHEN had them in his power, and might have destroyed every man among them.' They would not have got our forts into their claws, had not our men gone away home. We had collected a host of peasantry and soldiers, militia men, and all other sorts of fighting people; but it was a lamentable sight to see, while one party were shooting at the guns, another marched off elsewhere, so that, in the end, scarce a hand was left to load them! It was nothing but the loss of these forts which prevented our arms from being crowned with victory; without this, we must have conquered.' There was another effort made to root out the red-haired free-booters,' which is worthy of mention: We had prepared a host of fire-boats, and built a mighty ship, like a swimming battery; if we could have succeeded in making it move in the water it would have sufficed to make a quick end of the whole rebel squadron. Brave ITHAN one night sent this ocean of fire suddenly forth against the barbarians; but wo for us! it set fire to the houses near it; the flaming beams floated down the river, and the fire-boats exploded, to the great terror of the rebels.' What followed? Why this:

'NEXT there came down an awful command from the Son of Heaven, to exterminate every soul of them instantly, and not allow a single ship to make her escape. KISHEN put himself upon the defensive; but they chose the offensive, and laid violent hands on the forts next the Tiger's mouth. It was a notable spectacle; the hills were covered with dense masses of men, who speedily vanished like smoke, forgetting they had received orders to fight until the last man of them was no more. This affair brought down upon KISHEN stripes from the Son of Heaven; it was his duty to have driven the barbarians back again, a task which he might have executed with the greatest ease, if he had only sunk their ships. The dreadful YUKIEN now gave out that a violent tempest had destroyed all their ships and drowned every one on board. But how indescribable was my astonishment when tidings were brought that Amoy had been captured! Who could have imagined that this miserable crew could have conquered a fortress which had cost us such a world of labor and money to construct, with walls three ells in thickness and several li in circuit? Alas! it was too true; for the rebels had gone cunningly to work; instead of bravely facing the guns, they had crept by stealth along the sides of the walls, and came by surprise upon our brave soldiers, and hunted them from the batteries. The pirates were of a truth far too crafty for us; they would never fight as they ought to have fought, but cared not by what trick they could get the better of us. The terror-striking YUKIEN now proclaimed, that he was about to drive out the barbarians at the head of an hundred thousand men. I was amazed at this intelligence, as I knew that he had scareely ten thousand with him, including many militia. Upon the approach of the barbarians he issued orders to his men not to fire until they were close upon them, in order that they might be annihilated at one blow. The plan was admirably conceived; but when the red thieves drew near, it was found that the troops marched off, and many took to the water. The most remarkable occurrence of all was, however, that YUKIEN himself, a commander of experienced bravery, and accustomed to victory, was the very first to abandon his post: his patriotism

could not be doubted; it was his resolve to devote his life to the future extirpation of the barbarians. His men would have stood firm, and died in their intrenchments, had not the enemy assailed them with a storm of balls and shells, against which they really could not make head. YUKIEN afterward took the affair so much to heart that he made attempts to drown himself, but he was always rescued from a watery grave.'

Was ever battle in such manner waged? was ever battle in such manner won, in any other country than China? ... THE Reminiscences of a Dartmoor Prisoner' are brought to a close in the present number. They have excited a good deal of attention, and their statements may be implicitly relied upon. We allude to the series here, because the author has placed in our hands a manuscript volume, composed and copied by the American prisoners at Dartmoor, from which we shall, under the direction of the court' to which all our appeals lie, segregate a few passages. The volume, which is illustrated with several coarse patriotic drawings, is thumbed and tattered almost to extinction; and the pages which are especially bitter against the bloody Englishmen,' are so dingy from hard usage as scarcely to be legible. A very long poem, entitled Amusements at Dartmoor,' gives a faithful and amusing account of the internal police of the prison. There is a rude but cutting satire, entitled HULL the Traitor and HULL the Victor;' and here and there a trenchant thrust in the way of epigram. One of these latter intimates that the 'sea-boys of Briton' were fond enough of grog, and never tired of Yankee rum; but they did n't like our Porter, and had all they wanted of Yankee Perry.' There is an exceedingly graphic description of MELVILLE's Island Prison,' and all the paraphernalia of its military discipline. The ensuing flogging-scene will afford an idea of its style:

'THE cat is brought; he's stripped and bound,
And a great crowd is gathered round;

His naked back receives the lashes,

He groans, he screams, he kicks and thrashes;

His mutilated body shows

Red streams, that follow cutting blows:

Their sport being done, they straight unbind him,

He runs, nor dares to look behind him.'

The best thing by far in the collection, however, is The Battle of Lake Erie,' which although crude, is full of picturesqueness and fire. Take a stanza or two, for example:

"T WAS peppering work; fire, fury and smoke,
And groans from the wounded in spite of them broke;
The water grew red round our ship, as she lay

The like ne'er was known till that bloody day.

The lads fell around me like spars in a gale,

The shot made a sieve of each rag of a sail;

Out of all our bold crew scarce a dozen remained,

Yet the brave gallant tars still the battle maintained."

The prison-poet goes on to describe the manner in which PERRY left his 'well-peppered ship,' to bring up the vessels that were lagging behind, waiting for a wind; going in an open yawl 'right through their whole fleet,' in defiance of the cannon which were spreading

'A death-shade round the ships,

Like the hurricane-eclipse of the sun.'

The poet, it would seem, was the coxswain on the occasion, unless we are to suppose him indulging in poetic license, a supposition not very probable:

VOL. XXIV.

'I STEERED her, and d-n me! if every inch

Of these timbers of mine at each crack did n't flinch;
But our brave little commodore, cool and serene,
To stir ne'er a muscle by any was seen.

'Whole volleys of muskets were levelled at him,
But the devil a ball ever grazed any limb;
Though he stood up abaft, in the stern of the boat,
Till the crew pulled him down by the tail of his coat.

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'At last, through God's mercy, we reached t' other ship,
And the wind springing up, we gave her the whip;

And run down their line, boys, through thick and through thin,
And astonished their crews with a terrible din!

"Then starboard and larboard, and this way and that,

We bang'd them, and raked them, and laid their masts flat;
Till one after another had hauled down their flags,

And an end put for that time to JOHNNY BULL'S brags.'

...

We don't know exactly how such reminiscences as these may 'meet the views' of others, but they strike us as well worthy of perpetuation. OUR friend the Lawyer has elsewhere alluded to the shield which the law interposes for the protection of the humblest member of the community. We have a pleasant example of this, which we derive from a legal friend, formerly a resident of Albany, where the following bit of sharp practice took place I had been a student at law some months, when one morning, during the absence of my principal, I was favored with a professional call from a slender and delicately-framed woman, attended by her little boy, about six years old. His head was extensively covered with a long-napped fur hat, which rested on his ears, and had evidently been purchased with a view to his future growth. His coat of 'pressed-cloth' had a very long skirt, and had once composed a part of a gown for his economical mother. The widow and orphan comprised the family. They had come some twenty-five miles to market, in a waggon drawn by one horse, and had brought with them all the products of a summer's industry which they could spare from their scanty harvest. The sum-total, after the sale of stocking-yarn, woollen mittens, socks, chickens, etc., had been calculated upon to a cent, before leaving home; so that any fall in the market, or loss by misfortune or knavery, was calculated to impair her finances, and destroy her hopes. I desired her to sit down, and she then commenced her story. Soon after taking her stand in the street in the morning, among the many inquiries made of her as to the price of her commodities, was one by Deacon S -, a very pious and reputable member of one of our churches. He wished to know what she asked for a pair of her chickens. The woman answered, two shillings. To this the deacon demurred, but offered eighteen pence. The widow replied that she had but little to bring to market, and had calculated on receiving a certain sum of money for it; she knew her chickens were worth the price charged, and she could not sell them for less than two shillings a pair. Hereupon the deacon left; but soon after, he saw the woman go into a store near by, when he returned to the waggon, and said to the boy that he would take the chickens; and he laid down a 'pistareen,' took the fowls, and left. The mother soon returned, and missed her chickens; and when informed what had been paid for them, and in what manner they had been taken, she determined at once either to 'get her price or have her chickens.' She saw the deacon moving off in 'rather of a hurry,' but she pursued, overtook, and confronted him. She recognized her chickens, and demanded her price. The deacon was indignant; said he had bought them of the boy, and that unless she left him and ceased her complaints, he would put the law in force against her; and thus got off for the moment. I advised the widow to replevy the chickens; and as the office to which she had been directed to get advice was in high repute, she at once acquiesced in the course I advised. I issued the writ, obtained for the widow the neces sary bail, and at the usual dinner hour for the old deacon, the sheriff was at the door with the writ of replevin. After making known his business, the deacon expressed, as well he might, much surprise; said the chickens could not be restored; they were cooked; he had friends to dinner; the fowls were ready to be served up, and so forth. The faithful officer however knew his duty, and all the circumstances of the case. He was incorrigible, and demanded the chickens, which in the mean time had been placed on the table before him. The deacon was advised by the sheriff to see the lawyer and settle the matter; in the interim, he would take charge of the chickens, and await the deacon's return. The pious old gentleman' came foaming to the office, to effect an amicable settlement of the suit;

and as an item in the bill of his hardships, he said that his dinner was in the hands of the sheriff, and his family and friends waiting his return. I proceeded to make up the bill of costs, and stated them at thirteen dollars and fifty cents, which the deacon paid over, and took a receipt, together with directions to the officer to suffer the dinner to proceed!' Such 'even-handed justice' as this is certainly a fair set-off to the abuses of the law' of which so many complaints are made... SINCE our last number, the portrait of WORDSWORTH, by Mr. HENRY INMAN, which was alluded to in that issue, has arrived in this country. In looking at it, one cannot but feel that it is the man, as he is; an impression which is confirmed by several of our friends, who have had the happiness to enjoy the society of the eminent original. We may observe, in passing, that the reader will find on a preceding page some lines from the pen of WORDSWORTH, which, like those by MONTGOMERY upon the same theme, in a late number of the KNICKERBOCKER, have never before appeared in print. HAVE you encountered a thin but handsome volume, entitled 'A Chaunt of Life, and other Poems ?' The little book contains the first of six Parts,' which are to embrace the poems, sketches, and essays of its author, Rev. RALPH HOYT. Of the poems contained in the present part,' Mr. Hoyt says, 'They are but the overflowings of emotions which yearn for sympathy, though too unambitious to contend for fame.' We have read them with pleasure. The author has fancy, feeling, and a correct ear for the melody of rhythm; moreover, he is an accurate observer of nature. The poem entitled 'Snow' is a painting. Have n't you often, on awaking of a winter's morning in the country, and finding that all night the soft snow-shower had been falling without echo to the whitening ground,' seen just such a prospect as that described below? We have:

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The wood-pile too is playing hide;
The axe-the log:

The kennel of that friend so tried,
(The old watch-dog,)

The grindstone standing by its side,
All now incog.

The bustling cock looks out aghast
From his high shed;

No spot to scratch him a repast,
Up curves his head,
Starts the dull hamlet with a blast,
And back to bed.'

The volume is well printed, and embellished with a good engraving, illustrating a brief poem upon The Bible.' DOES Our Shelbyville correspondent do well to be angry?' Is he unwilling to admit that there are defects of order and conduct in the denomination to which he belongs? Whether SYDNEY SMITH 'misrepresented things' or not, in relation to 'the English brethren,' has nothing to do with what our censor denies, and merely denies. We have before us the last Home Missionary;' and in one of the letters of a wandering minister, this mention is made of a community holding the religious tenets of our correspondent: They drew after them great congregations, not however so much from an approbation of their proceedings, as from a desire to gratify curiosity. The great effort of the preachers was to excite what they called the 'power.' Individuals would lose their strength, or profess to do so, and fall down; some would tear round,' throw over the benches, etc. It was positively affirmed that one individual became so bewildered with this 'power,' that he actually attempted to climb the stove-pipe! This was in Illinois. The vagaries of another denomination in Kentucky are thus set forth: This whole region has hitherto been overrun with Campbellism. Some fifteen months ago, they immersed about one hundred and fifteen or one hundred and twenty in this place; and as a fair specimen of the work, take the following fact: One being at work, threw down his tools and his apron, and said, 'Well, they 're all joining the church,' and swore that he would 'go and be baptized too,' and accordingly did so, and in less than half an hour afterward was 'buried in the liquid wave.' Such scenes as these, being undeniable, we cannot see how

we are amenable to the charge brought against us.

A LINE of steamers to Palestine, and a projected rail-road through the Holy Land, has suggested to PuNCH' a variety of curious questions and commands from the passengers, destined to the different stopping places:

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-EASE her, stop her!

Any gentleman for Joppa?

'Mascus, 'Mascus ? Ticket, please, Sir.'
Tyre or Sidon?' 'Stop her, ease her!'
Jerusalem, 'lem! 'lem! Shur! Shur!
Do you go on to Egypt, Sir?'

Captain, is this the laud of Pharaoh?"

Now look alive there! Who's for Cairo?'
Back her! 'Stand clear, I say, old file!'

What gent or lady's for the Nile,

Or Pyramids? Thebes! Thebes! Sir! 'Steady!'
Now, where's that party for Engedi?'

They are laying the rails, PUNCH adds, for a road from Dan to Beersheba! . WE
are not, as a general fact, a believer in ghosts; but the following circumstances, which we
derive from the friend who relates the admirable 'Chicken Law-Suit,' on a preceding page,
will we think stagger the incredulous reader, as we confess it staggered us. The relator,
when a boy, lived in the country. While somewhere in his early 'teens, he was sent by his
father, on a dim half-moonshiny November evening, to accompany a young girl, the daugh-
ter of a distant neighbor, to her home. The road in one place led along the side of a
stone wall, which surrounded a grave-yard in a sparse grove, on a breezy eminence, about
half way to their place of destination. Having company, he thought little of the grave-
yard, until he arrived opposite to it, on his return alone. He was a brave lad; but his
heart beat thick and fast when his progress was suddenly arrested by a prolonged groan,
proceeding from the place of graves.' His first thought was to run; the next, that his
father's old negro-man 'JAKE,' who was up to all sorts of practical jokes, had got into the
grave-yard, on purpose to frighten him, as he came along back. This idea put him upon
his mettle. He picked up three or four 'rocks,' as they say at the South, and clambered up
on the wall. Looking down upon the field of irregular tomb-stones, some rising high in the
faint moonlight, and others shrinking away in shadow, he called out: You can't come it,
JAKE! I know you! And if you do that again, I'll fix your black flint for you! I've got
some stones here, and I'll make you feel 'em, you blasted nigger! But there was no re-
sponse; only a deep groan. He forthwith despatched a 'rock' in the direction whence the
sound proceeded. Nothing moved —not a sound was heard. Now be done, JAKE!' ex-
claimed the now slightly terrified boy, or I'll throw again: these stones will kill you in a
minute, if they hit you! The answer to this threat was an agonizing sound, something
between a groan and a long subdued howl; the unearthly voice ending in a trembling
cadence, as though there had a

'A gust of wind sterte up behind,
And whistled through the bones'

of some poor ghost, shaking with the cold of a November night; but there was no other reply. On looking more closely, however, the trembling lad distinctly saw a body, all in white, lying between two graves, not far off, and beckoning to him with long, attenuate arms, and occasional groaning in spirit, as a spirit would naturally do. Well, who's afraid?' reasoned the lad; if it is a ghost, it can't hurt me; if it an't a ghost, blast the eritter! I can hurt him-and I will! He now jumped down from the wall, and advanced to the spot; and there he found, sprawling on her back, between two grave-hillocks, her head twisted round against the inner-side of one of the marble head-stones, his father's old white mare! She had met with a sad accident while wandering among the tombs, and cropping the fall-growth of timothy and clover which grew thereby.' She had fallen, rolled over upon her back between two graves, and was unable to rise. The secret was now out. He had often heard the distressing groans of a horse in pain, and saw how easily

t