EDITOR'S TABLE. 6 A HUNDRED YEARS FROM Now.' We are enabled, through the receipt of a copy of the London Times a Hundred Years Hence. -a perfect fac-simile, in every respect, of the present Thunderer' - to present our readers with a knowledge of the progress of the age' in which we have lived, far onward into that in which we have n't, as yet. Even in the advertisements, there are 'shots' from the leaden messengers which compose them, which, 'swifter than any bullet,' as the eloquent CHAPIN observed, at the great Booksellers' Festival, will 'hit the mark, though it be a hundred years ahead.' The parliamentary news is not of marked interest. WOMAN, it would seem, has established her 'rights,' if we may judge from the proceedings in the 'House of Peereses,' which are of a very stirring character, although not of especial interest at this 'late' day. An editorial column is devoted to important intelligence by the last balloon-mail from Egypt, including a graphic description by a correspondent of an entertainment given upon the top of the great Pyramid by Pasha Sir CLAUDIUS SMITH, to which the guests came by balloons, and other aërial conveyances, in great variety. Apropos of this: while Messrs. WISE, LA MOUNTAIN, and their 'pardners,' are getting ready their great Balloon for Crossing the Atlantic, let them enjoy a foretaste of the uses to which their airy science is to be put in the 'good time coming,' in the perusal of the following aerial advertisements: NOW OW OPEN.-The Ærial Suspension Terrace, from the Iron Gallery of the Monument to the Ball and Cross of St. Paul's Cathedral. This delightful promenade is open daily for the use of children and invalids, and is entirely free from the smoke of the railway trains passing through the City of London. For the accommodation of visitors, the Proprietor has made arrangements with the Erial Omnibus Company for one of their balloons to stop at either entrance of the Suspension Terrace every five minutes. Toll, Adults, 1d. Children and Servants, Half-price. MUN UNDANE ATTRACTION.-Now selling, A Map of the ether regions, carefully taken from actual survey, and pointing to ærial travellers, who clear the dangers of Mundane Attraction, the exact altitude at which they must halt, if they would wait till the globe brings Egypt directly under them. TUBES UBES and BARRELS for supplying Earth-Air to Balloonists and others, when beyond the atmosphere of terra firma. £1 if made to order. A few second-band ones at 15s. each. Gale and Ayr, Boreas Street, Windmill Hill, Gravesend. R AIN for PEAS.-Electrical Pocket Machines for Dissolving Clouds Instantaneously. Of immense utility and assistance to gardeners. To be seen in full operation in the parterre of Messrs. Field and Waters, Meadow Lane, Moorfields. Don't let us laugh nor sneer too soon. Things stranger to our friends' of a hundred years ago than these, have come to pass within the last century. 'Wait and see,' is safe advice, good even in this progressive age. The daily editors, it would seem, are still to be bothered with complaining correspondents in the time to come, as in times past and present. An indignant 'CITIZEN' writes to the Times as follows: Sir: It would be well, it appears to me, if some attention was paid to the misconduct at the aërial car-stands, at which many owners are in the constant habit of throwing out their grapnel-irons, and whisking off the hats of the pedestrians. I was myself most cruelly assaulted on Wednesday last by the cad to the car of the balloon which travels to Edinboro', and is stationed for the convenience of the public at the NELSON Column. A very valuable gossamer was jerked from my head, and many important papers contained in it scattered in all directions in the muddy foot-way. This was sufficient annoyance of itself to me; but the jeers and shouts of the mob almost drove me mad.' The burlesque satire of the subjoined advertisements will not be lost upon our readers. Walking rail-roads, as a surgeon walks the hospitals,' for 'subjects,' would n't be a bad speculation, even among us: A CARD. Dr. Emanuel Sawbones has the honor to announce that he con tinues his practice of walking the railways, and will be happy to receive a few select pupils to accompany him in his daily tour up the Eastern Counties. All expenses covered by an entrance fee of £100, except particular broken limbs, which must be paid for as found. Sawbone House, January 1, 1959. EL LEPHANT'S MILK.--Mr. Camel, of Dromedary College, has opened a depot for the cultivation of this most salubrious and life-giving medicine. Mr. Camel invites the public to inspect his depot in Trunkmaker's Row, where droves of elephants may be seen every morning stationed before his doors, and kept ready to be driven to the abodes of the opulent. M SS. SERMONS.-To be sold cheap, several hundred manuscript sermons, warranted unpreached, and in excellent condition. The texts are of the most orthodox and fashionable description, and wonderfully adapted for charitable occasions. Apply to the Dean, at the Twopenny Exhibition, St. Paul's Churchyard. A RARA AVIS.—A Pope's Bull and an Alderney Cow.-These curiosities will only remain on Exhibition during the week. Now Exhibiting at Drover's Yard, West-Smithfield. Admission-Adults, 2s. 6d. Children, Half-price. I NCREDIBLE-Boots and Shoes stamped at one blow out of a solid piece of leather, and made to fit to a nicety. Sold at less than one-fourth of the charge demanded by the craft of Boot and Shoemakers. Hall and Last, Leather Lane, Holborn. GREEK TAUGHT in ONE LESSON. Dr. Addlebrain begs to announce that, by his Improved Grammar and Lexicon, he now undertakes to make any gentleman of the most moderate abilities, a perfect classical scholar in one lesson, provided his fee is paid in advance. 9, College Street, Westminster. So much for the physical and intellectual 'improvement' which may be expected to characterize the year 1959! ་ · EDITORIAL NARRATIVE-HISTORY of the KnickeRBOCKER MAGAZINE: NUMBER SIX. In opening the present number of this gossipy and desultory narrative-history of our Magazine, we desire to pay a passing, well-deserved tribute to those who were, from the very first, instrumental in promoting that first appeal, which is to the eye,' of which our friend and correspondent, 'JOHN WAters,' (Henry CARY, Esq.,) made mention in a notelet which was published in our last. We speak here in type the name of WILLIAM OSBORN, for so many years the careful printer of the KNICKERBOCKER, with mingled emotions of gratitude and affection. Our long, long association with him was never interrupted by a single even unpleasant word or unkind thought. We always read with him the proof by copy, of every line which went into the Magazine. He was a quiet, grave, thoughtful, Christian man; methodical always, to a degree, and in the discharge of all his duties, as faithful as the sun. He was a man of feeling; and many and many a time, when we were reading proof together, have we seen his small light hazel eyes bedimmed, and his fresh-hued cheeks bedewed with the 'moisture of the heart:' he could laugh too, and did so freely, although 'furtively,' as Mr. COOPER would say, when we came across any thing in reading which was calculated to * start the risible machinery.' It is astonishing, as we run over the pages of our long-past volumes, how vividly his form and presence, and the expression of his features, are brought before us, by encountering here a touch of pathos, or there a side-splitting bit of wit, or anon a sly but trenchant passage of satire or humor, which aforetime we read together. It has always been our good fortune (let us close this opening digression by saying) to find all who have been engaged in producing the 'entyped' KNICKERBOCKER, interested in seeing that its mechanical execution was such as to do honor to the work. Foremen, who would do any thing to serve us; compositors, who have set up thousands of pages of our scribblings, always with care, and not unfrequently with 'patient trouble,' to gratify a whim, or satisfy a sentiment; pressmen, who have 'over-laid' or 'under-laid,' or darkened or lightened their 'forms,' at the suggestions of our caprice: ye KNICKERBOCKER 'boys,' widely severed, perhaps, we yet recall you, 'in form and feature as ye moved' and acted: and if it is a pleasure for you to know that you are emulated by those who have succeeded you, look at the execution of these pages, and 'possess yourselves in contentment:' rejoice that energetic, liberal publishers, good compositors, good proof-readers, good stereotypers, and good pressmen―ay, and kindly, obliging gentlemen too'still live.' • Hold up!' Yes, yes: that's all: but we could n't help saying so much, because it is true, every word of it: and because we are prompted to say it by grateful reminiscence and present appreciation, combined, which were not to be resisted. And here again we are irresistibly led to say, that it hardly seems to be right-it appears indeed to be short of simple justice — that we should dismiss 'OLLAPOD,' and his communications to the KNICKERBOCKER, with the dozen lines which we devoted to him in our July number. Now that we are running over numberless letters from him to his twin-brother-letters which have been carefully treasured, yet not one of which has been even glanced at, from the time of the death of the writer, until we began to pen this casual narrative we are more than ever reminded how much he did for our long-loved and lovingly-cherished literary 'PET;' and under what circumstances he performed this labor of brotherly love. The cares, not alone editorial, of a popular daily journal, were upon his shoulders: every day's sail was bringing his frail bark nearer to its last port: yet every letter from him to us, up to the very last, contained something to please our readers, or something to encourage and cheer us onward, amid many difficulties which beset us, arising from 'the times,' and which, with our sorely distraught partner, we were compelled to meet and to overcome. How can we choose but speak of this, when, in sending us the last broken-off numbers of the Ollapodiana Papers, he was compelled to say: 'Now LEWIS, I want to tell you one thing, and I don't want you to feel gloomy about it, or to have you deceived. I am doing all for my malady that I can; but my decline, with all I do and I follow all directions strictly-is constantly advancing upon me. You'll see when you come on, LEWIS and I want you to come quickly; for, LEWIS, we have not many more interviews in store for this world. My cares, my joys, my jokes, my tales and idle fancies, will not long be reciprocated with yours, below the sun. I am not misleading you: I am failing-failing: not slowly, but with strides which I can perceive, from one fortnight to another—so impressed am I by my symptoms. In the afternoon I can scarcely walk: I cannot breathe without a groan; and the weight of my dear little WILLIE on my arm, is more than I can sustain. To show you how I struggle and labor with my malady: A kind lady, the wife of a next-door neighbor, sent in this morning to know if Mr. CLARK would not accept of some syrup which she had, and which had done herself, since its prescription, great good: it was so distressing, she said, to hear me cough so, almost all the night through.' Now was n't that kind? Upon my word, (knowing how no long time it must be before I shall be beyond all human attentions,) it almost made me cry.' . . . '0 LEWIS! in these days all my old feelings come freshly up, and assure me that I am unchanged. I shall be the same always, until I go hence and am no more seen: and so do you be, LEWIS: 'Twinned both at a birth,' the only pledges of our parents' union, we should be all the world to each other: "WE are but two-a little band: Be faithful till we die : But to revert more especially to our particular theme, at present in hand. It will not be amiss, we think, while doing justice to those earlier writers in the KNICKERBOCKER, who entertained and amused its readers, to yield appropriate credit also to those whose writings engaged the interest, and attracted the emulation, not only of readers at large, but of other writers, whose tastes, studies, and reasearches were akin with theirs. We remember well the pleasant autumn morning when the late lamented JOHN L. STEPHENS (who died upon the Great Isthmus which is now the preeminent transit-point between two mighty oceans, and to the means of which, his energy, enterprise, and capital contributed so much) called upon us, and after a little chat, asked: 'Have you any objection, Mr. CLARK, to put me in communication with the writer of the articles in your late numbers (this was in the autumn of 1837) on the subject of 'American Antiquities' — the ruins and remains of Central America? I have become deeply interested in the subject: and really, I have half a notion to go upon that long-sleeping and deserted ground, and examine for myself.' Of course, we had no objection to refer Mr. STEPHENS, who was himself an occasional contributor to our pages, to the writer of the articles in question: and we only allude now to the otherwise unimportant circumstance above mentioned, to show that to this series of articles in our Magazine, the public were indebted, originally, for the visit of Mr. STEPHENS to the regions and the wonders described, and which the enthusiastic and accomplished traveller made productive of the two splendid volumes upon Central America,' which our friends the Brothers HARPER afterward gave to the world. The writer of the articles which had interested Mr. STEPHENS so much, and in the end, so effectively, were from the pen of Mr. CHAPIN, not professionally an author or a literary man, who was then resident in the metropolis, but was for merly a tradesman in Providence, Rhode-Island. The papers were illustrated by several well-executed wood-engravings from good drawings, and were remarkable for elaborate and lucid descriptions of the scenes, ruined temples, crania, etc., of which they treated. It was, all things considered, a sudden baring to the day, of wonderful antiquities, the most extraordinary of which had slept for three hundred years in Central America, among strangers from another (not a newer) world, as they had before slept for many thousands. They attracted, as we have said, much attention here, and in two of the literary and scientific journals of London, were favorably noticed: and they were unquestionably the precursors of kindred things, not then 'seen as yet.' · We take it that we have very few readers of our pages who have not had the pleasure to read entire, or to enjoy extracts from, The American in Paris,' by the late JOHN SANDERSON, of Philadelphia. As all know, who have read it, it is a series of familiar letters written from Paris some twenty years since, and literally 'running over' with humor, wit, the quaintest similes, the most grotesque pictures, and abounding in good-nature. We quoted Mr. WASHINGTON IRVING's brief commendation of this volume in this particular portion of our number for July. Through the instrumentality of our twin-brother, his services as a contributor to the KNICKERBOCKER were secured very soon after his return from Paris. Among his sketches was a series of amusing, gossipping 'Letters from London,' and 'Letters from our Village,' the scenes of the latter of which were laid in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, when it arose from its coal-bed, and, like a giant refreshed, had begun to run its race. We think it was from large and judicious purchases in this flourishing anthracite town, that Mr. SANDERSON accumulated the means of satisfying his elegant tastes in extended travel. He was a fine scholar, an excellent linguist: and to read his writings, no one would have supposed him to have reached one |