t than
any other agent of human power, and he who is able to resist it must be
a heartless Samson indeed.

Truly yours, JOHN E. WARREN.

* * * * *

BLACKWOOD ON DANCERS IN SMALLCLOTHES.

--For a man to be fond of shuffling and twirling himself out of the
dignity of step which nature gave him--picking his way through a
quadrille like a goose upon red hot bricks, or gyrating like a bad
teetotum in what English fashionables are pleased to term a "valse"--I
never see a man thus occupied without a fervent desire to kick him.

* * * * *

Sincerity is like traveling on a plain beaten road, which commonly
brings a man sooner to his journey's end than by-ways, in which men
often lose themselves.

"MARKS OF BARHAMVILLE."

We were summoned one evening some three or four months ago to the house
of an eminent New Yorker to hear read the manuscript verses of a
gentleman from South Carolina, who was quite sure that he had earned for
himself a name that should endure forever as a part of the national
glory. We had good wine and the choicest company, and these kept us from
sleep through numerous scenas and cantos, and if we formed any judgment
in the premises we believe we did not express one. In due time Messrs.
Appleton published the book, and as it has not been noticed much here,
we copy from the June _Fraser_ the following paragraphs about it,
premising that our author had no faith in American criticism, but was
quite willing to abide the decisions of English reviewers:

"The general fault of carelessness and clumsiness runs through the
volume of poems, apparently, of a Trans-atlantic author, 'Marks of
Barhamville.' The book is just three times as large as it should have
been--as is usually the case nowadays. When will poets learn that
'brevity is the soul of wit:' and more, that saying a thing in three
weak lines is no substitute whatsoever for the power of saying it in one
strong one? Of the first poem in the book, 'Elfreide of Guldal,' we are
unable to speak, having been unable to read it; but it evinces at least
more historic information than is common just now among our poets, who
seem to forget utterly that _ex nihilo nihil fit_, and that the brains
of man may be as surely pumped dry as any other vessel, if nothing be
put in to replace what is taken out. Mr. Marks cannot avoid, too, giving
us, like every o