It is remarked by authors, who have spoken on the subject of juggling, that the very intensity with which a company eyes the juggler, facilitates his deceptions. He has but to give their eyes and their thoughts a slight misdirection, and then he may, for a moment, do almost any thing unobserved, in full view. A vague impression, growing out of the loose conversation in the fire-room, had prevailed among the attendants and others in the boat, that the gentleman was a foreigner, going to explore, if not to tap, the canal. With this view, they felt no doubt he would, on the return, land at Albany; a lookout was kept for him, and though he was unnoticed in the throng at the place of debarkation, it was ascribed to the throng that the gentleman was unnoticed. "I tell you, you'll hear mischief from 'that gentleman' yet," said the engineer, throwing off his steam.

He

What then was their astonishment, and even that of the captain and steward, to find the stranger was still in the cabin, and prepared to all appearance for a fourth trip. The captain felt he hardly knew how; we may call it queer. stifled, however, his uneasy emotions, and endeavored to bow respectfully to the stranger's usual remark, "I think I shall take the boat back." Aware of the busy speculation which had begun to express itself in the fire-room, he requested the steward not to let it be known, that "that gentleman" was going down again; and it remained a secret till the boat was under way. About half an hour after it had started, the gentleman left the cabin to take one of his walks on deck, and in passing along was seen at the same instant by the engineer and fireman. For a moment they looked at each other with an expression of displeasure and resolution strongly mingled. Not a word was said by either; but the fire-man dropped a huge stick of pine, which he was lifting into the furnace; and the engineer as promptly cut off the steam from the engine, and brought the wheels to a stand. The captain of course rushed forward, and inquired if the boiler had collapsed (the modern polite word for bursting), and met the desperate engineer coming

up to speak for himself. 'Captain," said he, with a kind of high-pressure movement of his arm, "I have kept up steam ever since there was such a thing as steam, on the river. Copper boiler or iron, high pressure or low; give me the packing of my own cylinder, and I'll knock under to no man. But if we are to have 'that gentleman' up and down, down and up, and up and down again, like a sixty horse piston, I know one that won't raise another inch of steam if he starve for it."

The unconscious subject of this tumult had already retreated to his post in the cabin, before the scene began, and was luckily ignorant of the trouble he was causing. The captain, who was a prudent man, spoke in a conciliating tone to the engineer; promised to ask the stranger roundly who he was, and what was his business, and if he found the least cause of dissatisfaction, to set him on shore at Newburgh. The mollified engineer returned to his department: the fireman shouldered a huge stick of pine into the furnace, the steam rushed hissing into the cylinder, and the boat was soon moving her twelye knots an hour on the river.

The captain, in the extremity of the moment, had promised what it was hard to perform; and now experienced a sensible palpitation, as he drew near to the stranger, to fulfil the obligation he had hastily assumed. The gentleman, however, had begun to surmise the true state of the case; he had noticed the distrustful looks of the crew, and the dubious expressions of the captain and steward. As the former approached him, he determined to relieve the embarrassment, under which, it was plain, he was going to address him; and said, "I perceive, sir, you are at a loss to account for my remaining on board the boat for so many successive trips, and, if I mistake not, your people view me with suspicious eyes. The truth is, captain, I believe I shall pass the summer with you."

The stranger paused to notice (somewhat wickedly) the effect of this intelligence on the captain, whose eyes began to grow round at the intimation; but in a moment pursued:-"You must know, captain, I am one of those persons,-fa

vored I will not say.-who being above the necessity of laboring for a subsistence, are obliged to resort to some extraordinary means to get through the year. I am a Carolinian, and pass my summers in travelling. I have been obliged to come by land, for the sake of seeing friends, and transacting business by the way. Did you ever, captain, travel by land from Charleston to Philadelphia ?"

66

The captain shook his head in the negative. You may thank Heaven for that. O captain, the crazy stages, the vile roads, the rivers to be forded, the sands to be ploughed through, the comfortless inns, the crowd, the noise, the heat; but I must not dwell on it. Suffice it to say, I have suffered every thing, both moving and stationary. I have been overturned, and had my shoulder dislocated in Virginia; I have been robbed between Baltimore and Havre de Grace. At Philadelphia, I have had my place in the mail coach taken up by a way passenger; I have been stowed by the side of a drunken sailor in New Jersey; I have been beguiled into a fashionable boarding-house in the crowded season, in New York. Once I have had to sit on a bag of turkeys, which was going to the stage proprietor, who was also keeper of a hotel; three rheumatic fevers have I caught, by riding in the night, against a window that would not close; near Elkton, I was

washed away in a gully, and three horses drowned; at Saratoga. I have been suffocated; at Montreal, eaten of fleas; in short, captain, in the pursuit of pleasure I have suffered the pains of purgatory. For the first time in my life, I have met with comfort, ease, and enjoyment, on board the Chancellor. I was following the multitude to the Springs. As I drew near to Albany, my heart sunk within me, as I thought of the little prison in which I should be shut up, at one of the fashionable hotels. In the very moment of landing, my courage failed me, and I returned to the comforts of another trip in your excellent boat. We went down to New York; I was about to step on shore, and saw a well-dressed gentleman run down by a swine, in my sight. I shrunk back again into your cabin, where I have found such accommodations as I have never before met away from home; and if you are not unwilling to have a season passenger, I intend to pass the ensuing three months on board your boat.”

The captain blushed and bowed; gratified and ashamed of his suspicions. He hurried up to put the engineer at ease, who was not less gratified at the high opinion the stranger had of the Chancellor; and as long as the boat continued to ply for the rest of the season, remarked, at least once a trip to the fireman, "that gentleman' knows what's what."

It is rather an annoying thing to see one's ideas appropriated by another and given to the world as his own, and the annoyance is perhaps greatest to those who are conscious of poverty in ideas. When a man knows that such a thing as a bright fancy very rarely comes into the chambers of his brain (which may be thronged with the great thoughts and well-dressed imaginings of other people's cerebral developments,) he experiences a sense of joy in welcoming a new visitor, far more vivid and pleasurable than is felt by him who greets every day a crowd of happy guests to be sent out, upon his introduction, to gladden the world beyond. The intellectual pauper is therefore inconsolable when he sees the poor little idea of which he was proud, after failing to receive the recognition he hoped for it, taken under another's patronage and presented to the public under auspices calculated to ensure for it a more gracious reception.

But while a writer may rightfully claim sympathy in cases where the notion of plagiarism cannot be excluded, he must always be gratified to find his ideas occurring to gifted men who are totally ignorant of their previous utterance and far too rich in striking and graceful images to need to play the borrower. It is a most agreeable thing to know that the same conceit which has imparted a delight to him in its birth, has been born anew in a mind of opulence and originality, and has there conferred such pleasure as to be thought worthy of expression for the benefit of the mass of readers. We have just been gratified in this way. Some years ago, the editor of the Messenger published in this magazine a litthe poem of which he could say with Touchstone, "a poor thing, sir, but mine own." In this poem occurred the following stanza, descriptive of a little girl on her regular morning walk

An hour or two, and forth she goes,
The school she brightly seeks-
She carries in her hand a rose
And two upon her cheeks.

The conceit was thought pretty by some of the editor's friends, and he was afterwards flattered by seeing it quoted, but he placed no undue estimate upon the lines or the poem in which they occurred, and it was therefore with a feeling of satisfied surprise that on turning to the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," in the August number of the Atlantic Monthly, (which so far anticipates the date of its stated publication, that we always receive it before our "Table" is made up.) to find that delightful humourist and true poet, Dr. Holmes, commencing in this way

"The schoolmistress came down with a rose in her hair,-a fresh June rose. She has been walking early; she has brought back two others, one on each cheek."

Here is a coincidence which is soothing to our poetic soul, for it shows that an idea of our own has become an idea of a real, genuine, regally-endowed poet, and been accepted by him as good. Of course our modest verses, which were published anonymously, never were seen by the Autocrat. Let us, in justice to Dr. Holmes, allow the reader to see how he has followed up the fancy and improved it. He continues,

"I told her so, in some such pretty phrase as I could muster for the occasion. Those two blush roses I just spoke of turned into a couple of damasks."

There, that is as exquisite as the perfume of the flower. We acknowledge the sway of the Autocrat gratefully, and wish we could turn over to him some other similitudes to be worked upon with equal felieity.

Apropos of the Atlantic Monthly, we observe that its usual bad political article gives place this month to a very flippant piece of ridicule directed against the recent 4th of July celebration at Boston, and the Hon. Rufus Choate. This gentleman was guilty of the offence of making a pat riotic speech on "Nationality," and, in the estimation of the "Atlantic Monthly," it

were indeed a grievous fault. And grievously has Rufus answered it, in the smart spitefulness of the nimble Arachne who spins his web of sophistries and nurses his venom in the concluding pages of the Boston magazine. Our purpose is not with Mr. Choate and his reviewer, Mr. Choate might crush the spider forever if he chose, but with the following query which is put forth with an air of sincerity, as if the querist would really like to be answered.

"But we would seriously ask Mr. Choate who the big ministers of the country are, if the Beechers, if Wayland, Park, Bushnell, Cheever, Furness, Parker, Hedge, Bellows, and Huntingdon are the little ones?"

We do not profess to be very intimately acquainted with the theological ability of the United States, but if we were asked to mention some of our "big ministers," we should probably name Plumer, Thornwell, Breckinridge, Bethune, Alexander, Stiles, Hawks, McIlvaine, Johns, Atkinson, Potter, Fuller, Manly, Soule, Smith, Pierce and Summers. The test of greatness with the Atlantic Monthly is vehement opposition to slavery, which fully accounts for its association of the names of the eccentric Ward Beecher and the respectable but not eminent Dr. Bellows, with the great Wayland, and Theodore Parker, who preaches a religion of his own, with Bushnell.

So far as we know, the subjoined extravaganza of poor Tom Hood has never been fully printed in America. It appears in no edition of his humourous poems that we have met with, and we are indebted for it to a friend who found it in an English journal. Some months ago an incomplete version of it was communicated to "Harper's Drawer" by one who had committed it to memory from the copy of our correspondent, but he fell into many mistakes, and the droll succession of puns, just as Hood conceived them, is now presented for the first time to the American reader

THE MEANING OF WORDS.

BY THOMAS HOOD.

We know the meaning of most words
By sound as well as sight;
They mean, although they have no mien,—
So mind and write them right.

For thus, in "eccentricity," One sees good many e's ; Also, in "hubbubbubberous," The b's are thick as bees.

There are no i's in English "eyes,”
But e's there are in "ease;"
A does want ye to make it aye,—
There's but one p in "peas."

Some judges judge the English tongue,
But kill it with a breath;

With wind and words they sentence some
Fine sentences to death.

A sea-horse is a sea-horse, when
You see him in the sea;
But when you see him in a bay,
A bay horse then is he,

Of course, a race-course isn't coarse,
A fine is far from fine;
It is a saddening sight to see
A noble pine tree pine.

If miners are all minors, then

Their guardians get their gains; All glaziers extra pains should take To put in extra panes.

A kitchen maid is often made

To burn her face, or broil it; A lady knows no labour, but To toil it at her toilet.

"How do you do?" said Sal to John; "So, so," replied he;

"How do you do?" said John to Sal; "Sometimes sew, sew," said she.

If one were ridden o'er a lot,

He might his lot bewail;
But 'twould be of no use to him
To rail against a rail.

A bat about a farmer's room,
Not long ago I knew
To fly. He caught a fly, and then
Flew up the chimney flue;-

But such a scene was never seen,
(I am quite sure of that,)
As when, with sticks, all hands essayed
To hit the bat a bat.

A vane is vain, one would suppose,
Because it wants a mind;
And furthermore, 'tis blown about
By every idle wind.

'Tis pun-ishment for me to pun; 'Tis trifling, void of worth; So let it pass unnoticed, like The dew that's due to earth.

The following sketch of the life and works of the late lamented Dr. Gilman, of South Carolina, has been prepared officially by Dr. Joseph Palmer of the "Association of the Alumni of Harvard University," and is published, by order of that society, in its Necrology for the past Academic year. We transfer it to our pages as a just and discriminating biography of one whom living we loved and whose memory we cherish with peculiar fondness.

"Rev. Samuel Gilman, of Charleston, S. C., died at the residence of his son-in-law, Rev. Charles J. Bowen, in Kingston, Mass', 9th February, 1858, aged 66. He was son of Frederick and Abigail H. (Somes) Gilman, and was born in Gloucester, Mass., 16th February, 1791. His father had been a very successful merchant in Gloucester, but died insolvent nearly sixty years ago, his insolvency having been caused by the capture of several of his vessels by the French, in the war of 1798. He left a youthful widow and four male children; and when Samuel was about seven years old, his mother took him to Atkinson, N. H., to be educated in the academy there, under the charge of Rev. Stephen Peabody. (H. U. 1769) whose quaint, primitive ways are described with inimitable humor in a biographical sketch by Dr. Gilman, published in the Christian Examiner in 1847. Not long subsequently, the family removed to Salem, Mass., and Samuel was for some time employed as a clerk in the old Essex Bank. He graduated with high honors in a class remarkable for eminent talent. A poem, which he delivered on his graduation, "On the pleasures and pains of the student," was replete with humor and elicited rapturous applause from a crowded audience. This poem he repeated on the evening of Commencement day in 1852, at the residence of Hon. Edward Everett in Boston, whither the Class had been invited to celebrate the forty-first anniversary of their graduation; and added a sequel in which he gave a retrospect of the time from their graduation to that period, paying a brief and beautiful tribute to the memory of those of the class who had deceased. The poem concluded with the following fine compliment to their host, the Hon. Mr. Everett:

Stay yet, dear friends; the Minstrel bids

you toast

In pure, bright water, our accomplished host;

Who gives, one need not say, our class its

name,

Tinged with the lustre of his well earned fame.

Health for his labors, for his cares relief, To him, our first and last unenvied chief!'

"These two poems were printed immediately afterwards, for distribution to the surviving members of the class.

"Among the various pursuits which of fered themselves to Dr. Gilman's choice, was that to which, by character and endowments, he was best adapted, and it was the profession which was the choice of his heart. He soon began the study of Theol ogy under the supervision of Drs. Ware and Kirkland, who then constituted the Theological Faculty. Fortunately for him, he was not hurried, like most young Americans, immediately and prematurely into professional life. He lingered long under the roof of his Alma Mater, maturing his mind, extending his knowledge, and laying up those intellectual and literary treasures which his future isolation rendered so important. In 1817 he was appointed Tutor in Mathematics at Harvard College, which office he held two years. Early in 1849 he went to Charleston, S. C., where he received a pastoral call as successor to the Rev. Anthony M. Foster, and after a few months of probationary service, he was ordained, 1st December, 1819, as pastor of the Unitarian or Second Independent Church in that city. The ordination sermon was preached by Rev. Joseph Tuckerman, D.D., of Chelsea, Mass. [H, U. 1798). Here he labored faithfully and acceptably until his last sickness. He was universally respected by the people of the city of his residence, and his influence extended far beyond the limits of the religious denomination with which he was connected. He was the life and soul of the New England Society of South Carolina, and was always hospitable to all visitors from the North. During his residence in Cambridge, he was a frequent contributor to the North American Review, in which periodical his papers are marked by their polished elegance of diction, the grace and felicity of their illustrations, and their racy humor. Among his contributions were a series of able papers on the Philosophical Lectures of Dr. Thomas Brown, and translations of several of the satires of Boileau. One of his most noted essays was on "The Influence of One National Literature upon Another." He also wrote a fine paper on "The Writings of Edward Everett," his classmate and