A FELICITOUS thought has just struck us, and this it is: 'What should hinder occasional transcriptions for the KNICKERBOCKER from our various and ample foreign correspondence? That which so delights us in the perusal, can scarcely be indifferent to our readers; and preserving always a strict regard for confidential relations, and avoiding all improper or irrelevant matters, we will essay the experiment. There is an ease, a natural grace and peculiar freshness, in the unstudied comments and descriptions incident to correspondence, which are rarely found in elaborate books; and these are the very qualities to win the attention, and satisfy the cravings for variety, of the general reader. We have letters from Rome, Paris, London, Constantinople, and half-a-dozen other eminent European cities, with several from even a more distant region still. For the extracts with which, on the score of convenience, we shall open this series, we are indebted to a favorite female contributor to this Magazine, who is not only entertaining herself, but, as it would seem, abundantly capable of eliciting entertainment from others. Her correspondent is an American gentleman, and a near relation, who has resided so long in the Philippine Islands, that, owing, to enlarged mercantile cares, he almost despairs of ever becoming a resident Yankee republican again. I feel at times,' he writes, ' like a nun who has taken the veil, and listens calmly to the ceremony which is going on in the chapel below, to shut her out from the world for ever.' We are not without the hope of counting the writer among our liberal contributors ; for he avers that he has an ink-stand crammed full of the

funniest incidents that could be imagined,' and with which he 'could an' if he would' illuminate our benighted western hemisphere.' And this we think he will do for love,' though not 'for money;' since no pecuniary consideration' would repay the discomforts of correspondence, under circumstances mentioned by the writer. 'Do you think it,' says he, writing from Manilla, 'a trifling matter for a man to sit down to his 'midnight oil' with the thermometer at ninety-six, and endeavor to arrange and conjure up his wandering ideas for a dissertation upon manners, habits, and customs, with the perspiration pouring from him like a deluge; a monstrous mosquito nibbling and growling at the calf of either leg, like a hungry dog, and bringing blood therefrom, in spite of his Nankin mosquito-boots; a cockroach tugging and kicking to make his way down the back of his neck, malgré the shirt-buttons; a bicho frayle,' with a sting like a wasp, whizzing past and back again to the tip of your nose; three moths already in the lamp, and three thousand more aspiring to the same scorching preferment; rats fighting over head, dogs fighting in the Plaza; horses fighting, and biting, and squealing, in the yard, and the sentinel at the corner shouting Quien vive all night long.' Ca! a man must be paid for making a soup of himself, (as the Dons say, when in full perspiration,) or he smokes his 'contrabando' in peace, while his pen snoozes quietly in its bamboo stand upon the table.'

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he to do so, the mandarins would cut his head off;' but he said he would dye it another color, and then we might have it. I wished much to purchase it for you, and another piece of the same figure, white and very beautiful, for; but prayers, and entreaties, and money, (even money!) were of no avail; and so I threw myself upon it, my arms around it, embraced and kissed it! I suppose that the Houris' wear petticoats of just such stuff. And then the crapes-such crapes! the satins such satins! — the network-figured white silk over-dresses, for a ball! Santiago! there was never any thing seen like it before; and when you visit this shop, be sure you take with you ten coolies, each one with a bag of doubloons upon his shoulder. The day was very cold, and the shop-keeper had on his winter dress of heavy, rich-figured silk, wadded with cotton, and lined with costly furs, from the north of China. From this we proceeded to the weaver's, and thence to the dyer's, and so on to all the wonders of the place. One would hardly suppose that the costly fabrics which I have this day seen, are made in narrow, desolate cells, with mud floors, and upon rude bamboo looms; and the dexterity of the weavers was surprising. We next visited the coral-cutlers and workers, cornelian-grinders, ivory-workers, etc., and passed on to the celebrated Temple of Longevity. The gods of the temple are colossal figures of wood, painted and gilded. Bacchus was a jolly fellow, with a joutick burning before him, and the god of the kitchen amused me much; a little fellow, with a monstrous corporation,' upon his throne in the midst of the cooking apparatus.

The priests were extremely civil, and conducted us to every part of the building. We immortalized ourselves by cutting our names upon the wall, at the top of the temple, among a thousand others. One of the priests placed a mat in front of Bacchus, upon the floor, and asked me to bow down and knock-head to his godship. I gave him a dollar, and we parted the best of friends. I am thinking seriously of returning home (when I do!) by the way of the north of China, with the Russian trading caravan from Okholsk; and if you happen to be any where in Siberia, Chinese-Tartary, or Russia, some three years hence, we will stop in, on our way to Moscow, throw off our fur cloaks and caps, and partake of your breakfast with you. What lions we should be! my dear ; and you would present to your acquaintance your long absent -, just returned from the Philippine Islands, Kamtschatka, Siberia, Chinese-Tartary, and Russia!' 'La! how wonderful!' says Miss So-and-so. Pray, Mr., did you find it cold?' 'Oh, not at all, my dear Miss; we got along very comfortably, with seventeen bear skins during the day, and twenty-seven to sleep under at night!' 'Oh my! Mamma, do hear what he says!' and so forth. But I am quite serious. We are to buy a small vessel to take us to the trading town of St. Peter and St. Paul, in Kamtschatka, whence we cross the sea to Okholsk, where we join the caravan, and proceed, as before stated, to Moscow and St. Petersburgh, Paris, London, and the United States. This is the intended proceeding, but three years may make great changes in all our destinies.

'On Saturday next, I shall start in company with my friend Won a trip over the far blue mountain,' to get a peep at the Actaz, or

aborigines of Sinaloan Lampong. These are the wild men of the mountains, and none of the foreign residents of the island have ever been among them. They are quite in a state of nature; black as thunder, and savage as lightning. In one of my many expeditions into the interior, I once came within a day's march of them, but am now determined to 'out-Herod Herod,' and have a peep at the Douglas in his den.'

A very sensible maxim is pleasantly enforced by a native, in the subjoined anecdote, which the writer turns to monitory account with his correspondent:

'You laugh at the silly mistake which occurred in the publication of —, and ask who was the printer's grandfather?' The Indians here have a similar question, which they apply to a stupid person; for when a friend makes a ridiculous mistake, they ask him, 'Where did your head grow?' which is rather a stumper,' to one ignorant of the laws of nature. While we are upon the subject of ideas, I will give you another, of my old friend Chuy-dian,' a Chinese. A day or two ago, while I was writing to you, into the office marched friend 'Chuy-dian,' to inquire, 'What news to-day?' He saw that I was busy, and drawing a chair close to my desk, sleeked down his long, thin, Chinese mustaches, and looking very knowingly in my face, asked: What thing?' a true Chinese question, and general with

the sons of Han.

'What thing?' said he.

'Write letter-pigeon,' said I.

What thing-pretty gal?

'Yes,' replied I; number one pretty gal.'

Take care!' he added; mind what thing write. Nonsensepigeon more better for pretty gal, for no 'casion to open the heart every time you open your mouf.'

'So bear in mind, my dear, in your intercourse with the world, the saying of this wise man of the east, that it is not necessary to open your heart, every time you open your mouth.' The idea may be old, but I never heard it before; and as you may possibly be equally unfortunate, I send it to you, reeking from the celestial empire.'

Few who have ever sat down to compose, either in a literary or epistolary sense, but will enter feelingly into the species of grievance complained of in the subjoined passage, although the peculiar bores here cited, have not yet become indigenous among us, nor numerous or troublesome as exotics:

I had conceived no less

'The inspiration is vanished! than eight lines of poetry, surpassing every thing written, or to be written, by mortal or immortal bard, and was about to send it to you, when, Saz! the door was darkened by a long black friar, who drawled out his whining supplication for una pequena limosna'—a trifling alms for the hospital of San Juan de Dios. This particular species of the genus biped is the greatest bore we have in Manilla. No sooner do you bestow a few cuartos upon the collector for San Juan de Dios, than another enters from San Lazaro; exit San Lazaro, and enters San Francisco; exit San Francisco, and, tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, goes a little bell, when a little man, with a little black cross in his left, and a

little copper dish in his right hand, enters, and supplicates your sympathy, to the tune of half a rial, which you add to a little mountain of copper and silver already collected, which is to be given to the disinterested friars for chanting through purgatory the soul of an innocently-condemned rascal, who is to suffer death by the garrote' to-morrow, for the trivial crime of having ripped open the bowels of his wife and father! I added my mite for the benefit of San Juan de Dios, and sent the friar to the devil, whither my inspiration had already preceded him.'

One or two fragments of criticism and literary predilection, will bring us to the end of our tether; for we are brought up with a round turn,' by numerous and various matters demanded for our own department:

I look upon Byron as the Columbus of all poetical discoverers, whose greatest enemy has been his private character, which an unjust world has allowed to weigh too heavily against his fame as an author. Moore did the worst office to his departed friend, in publishing his profligate life; nevertheless, if people would but deal justly with his public character, his mighty genius as a poet, and judge him calmly, with a mind divested of all prejudices of a private nature, he would shine forth like the north star, or north pole, to all the Ross and Parry navigators in the regions of poetry. But it can never be. The base majority (in number) will never humble themselves to acknowledge that one man, and one alone, has outstripped them like the wind, leaving them plodding on in their rush-light darkness, while he shines upon them, in his heaven above, like the sun. What is there in ancient or modern poetry, to compare with 'The Prophecy of Dante,' Childe Harold's Pilgrimage,' 'Manfred,' and parts of Marino Faliero ?'

The Editor of the American Monthly,' I see, valiantly belabors N. P. WILLIS through a dozen pages, and then, by way of easing the infliction a little, quotes his 'Autumn,' as a redeeming feature in his writings, in which he suffers or passes over such lines Sun-beams laced through the tree tops,' like a variegated string through a lady's corset or her boots; and Fused in the alembic of the west,' which is rank nonsense. How, in the name of common sense, can you apply, with propriety, this idea of fusing in an alembic? To 'fuse,' is to liquefy, to melt,' and applies to solids, such as metals, and other hard substances, and is an operation performed by the agency of chemical fires,crucibles,and strong heats, such as are produced in smelting furnaces; and an alembic is a 'still-machine for distilling,' and used almost exclusively by those who never in their lives have performed the operation of fusing. You may put me off with the answer, that Mr. Willis has availed himself of a poetical license; but I think a chemist would tell you, that it approaches nearer to poetical nonsense.'