'st look beyond the river, where the white-robed angels stand;
Hear the faint, celestial music, wafted from the summer land;
But thou cans't not leave thy labor;--when thy thread is duly spun,
Thou shalt flee on flashing pinions, at the setting of the sun.

* * * * *

The times have been hard, reader, our friend, yet all merriment has not
entirely died out, and there is still the sweet voice of music to be
heard in the land. In New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and many minor
cities, the Benedictine ULLMANN hath been ubiquitously about, operating
most vigorously, while the philosophic and courteous GOSCHE hath not
been far distant. And they heralded HINKLEY, and BORCHARD, and KELLOGG,
and all the other sweet swans of song; they drew after them the gems of
the opera; there was selling of _Libretti_, (and in Boston,
'los-_an_-gers'); there was the donning of scarlet and blue striped
cloaks, gay _coiffures_ and butterflying fans; there was flirting, and
fun, and gentle gayety in the New York Academy, and with the Boston
Academies it was not otherwise, only that among the latter the Saxon
predominateth, and the dark-eyed, music-loving children of Israel, who
so abound in most opera audiences, are very rare.

What we intended to do, O reader, was to give the biography of
BENEDICT ULLMANN. Lo! here it cometh:--

Vita Sancti Benedicti.

ULLMANN is about three thousand years old.

The New York _Herald_ once called him Mephistopheles. He is not
Mephistopheles, however, but the same thing, which is
ULLMANN. He is a spirit bearing human form. Don't forget.

King SOLOMON sat beneath the golden pavilion one
afternoon, playing silver melodies on a gold harp. Up went the
notes--the spirits of the Sephiroth bore them--even up to a
premium, and the very angels stopped sewing on their white robes to
hear the ravishing melody.

By his side sat the Queen of Sheba, counting out her money.

Suddenly, there was a strange vibration, a marvelous tone. The
queen paused. The king smiled. The angels went on with their
sewing. (According to Rabbi ABARBANEL, they were knitting.
This created a schism between the schools of Cracow and Cordova,
which lasted four centuries.)

'Why smilest thou, Oh SOLOMON?'

'I smiled, my dear queen, because you and I became, just now,
unwittingly, the parents of a strange bein