WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. THIS eminent man, alike renowned as a journalist, poet and politician, was born November 3rd, 1794, at Cummington, Hampshire county, Massachusetts. His forefathers for three generations were medical men, but the spell of the Pharma copoeia was broken by the subject of our present biography, who ranged himself under the hanner of Themis instead of Esculapius. For ten years Mr. Bryant devoted himself to the dry study of Coke and Littleton, but his heart was not in the courts of Law, but in the woodlands of Nature, an evidence of which he had previously shown in 1808, when he published a volume of poems entitled "The Embargo and other Poems." Like all the early utterance of poets, great or small, there was rather an irritable desire to say somewhat about something in the manner of somebody, than the vision and the faculty divine which breathes form and life into a subject doomed to live for ever as one of the brain children of the world of fiction. The characters of Shakespeare are as real to us as are those of history. It would be as impossible to take Mercutio, Hamlet and Timon from the human mind, as it would be to take Julius Cæsar, William the Conqueror or Napoleon. Indeed, in many respects they are more enfibred into our humanity than the shadows which stalk through the pages of the historian-since the fiery exaggeration of the poet creates a soul under the ribs of death-while the exact historian makes only the man, as judged by his actions and not by his idiosyncrasy. In 1821 he published at Cambridge, Massachusetts, a volume called "The Ages and other Poems." This contained many excellent passages, and evidenced a great advance in his poetical nature. In this he proved that he was beginning to throw aside the trammels of precedent, and like his great favorite, Milton, steer right onward with a grand design, and under the inspiration of a noble and self-sustaining power. In 1825 he came to New York and became one of the editors of the New York Review, which, however, soon perished, owing to that inability of the public to comprehend a literature higher than that of mere gossip, or a newspaper which only appeals to human curiosity and love of sensation. While writing for the Review he published several pocms and tales, which became popular and accustomed the public to his name; a great advantage to a young writer, since it saves those intelligent masses from the trouble and reponsibility of a critical opinion. From this point of labor he worked his way up to the position of one of the editors of the Evening Post. In 1834 he paid his first visit to Europe, sending the results of his travels in the form of long and highly-interesting letters to the Evening Post. On his return to America he resumed his drudgery at the editorial desk, steadily rising in public estimation, and becoming a foremost warrior in the ranks of the Free Soil Party. In 1845 he again visited Europe, and stayed for some time in England, where his reputation as a poet was established; for with that strange penchant the world has to elevate the foreigner, the British critics considered the frigid stateliness of Bryant as simple grandeur, and his elaborate polish as graceful dignity. The American public falls into the same error; native intellect is ignored or damned with faint praise, as in the case of Cornelius Mathews, one of the most original of American authors, while such poetlings as Bennett and Massey have their feeble or rude crudities, as the case may be, published in blue and gold-the sunshine and azure of the boudoir of Parnassus. In 1849 he repeated his visits to the Old World, and on his return published his Letters of a Traveller, which was a resumé of all his previous journeys. The calm and subdued habit of Mr. Bryant's mind rendered him an admirable exponent of the impressions an earnest republican would receive in contemplating the peculiar aspects of the monarchical world, and few men have possessed a more exact method of stating his ideas and opinions than the honored Poet Editor of the Evening Post. As a politician, Mr. Bryant is earnest even to bitterness, frequently forgetting in the heat of battle the courtesies and amenities of literary warfare; but his integrity and ability are undoubted, and were our ruling men of such a class the future happiness of our great Republic would be assured. The great difficulty in this grand Democracy has hitherto been The result has been, that an unworthy class of men has stepped between who have made the most important of all pursuits a trade, in which honor and patriotism are made mere matters of barter. To this unholy gang may be addressed our Saviour's rebuke to the moneychangers in the Temple-for truly have they made it a den of thieves-instead of the solemn temple dedicated to the service of humanity. How far our present danger may operate upon the public mind it is impossible to say; that it has been brought upon us by unprincipled and wicked politicians is too palpable. It may be that our experience may only prove to be a lantern on the stern, serving only to illuminate the past, or it may light us to a better state of society in which men like Bryant, and his comthe Welles, the Cummings, and the shoulder-hitters of the i peers, may displace the Kerrigans, the Morgans, the Camerons, polls. We conclude with two of Mr. Bryant's characteristic poems: THE HUNTER'S SERENADE. The green savannah's side. I've wandered long and wandered far, In all this lovely western land, But I shal think it fairer When thou art come to bless, For thee the wild grape glistens With yellow fruit for thee. My rifle for thy feast shall bring The wild swan from the sky. The forest's leaping panther, Fierce, beautiful and fleet, Shall yield his spotted hide to be A carpet for thy feet. I know, for thou hast told me, The earth has no more gorgeous sight In meadows red with blossoms, Or, wouldst thou gaze at tokens Our old oaks stream with mosses, And trunks, o'erthrown for centuries, And in the great savannah Come, thou hast not forgotten Thy pledge and promise quite, With many blushes murmur'd, Beneath the evening light. Come, the young violets crowd my door, Thy earliest look to win, The jessamine peeps in. And the night sparrow trills her song THE CLOSE OF AUTUMN. The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere. The separation is thus completely effected and two new substances produced; the yellow one, which M. Frémy calls phylloxanthin, and the blue one, which has received the name of phyllocyanin. In the course of his experiments, M. Frémy found that both the yellow substance and the dark green residue formed fine yellow and green lakes with alumina; as for the blue substance it is not less stable than the yellow one. M. Frémy further shows, from experiments made on withered leaves, that the body obtained by discoloring phyllocyanin exists in the vegetable organization, precedes the green substance, is found in young shoots as well as in withered leaves, and immediately turns to blue when exposed to acid vapor. WHAT IS IN THE BEDROOM?-If two persons are to occupy a Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprung and bedroom during a night, let them step upon weighing scales as stood In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood? The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago, men, And the brightness of their smile was gone from upland glade and glen. And now when comes the calm, mild day-as still such days as will come To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home, And twinkle in the bazy light the waters of the rill, The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he THE COLORING MATTER OF LEAVES. A COMMUNICATION of high interest has just been made on this subject to the Academy of Sciences, by M. Frémy. The nature of the substance which gives a green hue to leaves has hitherto been the subject of much discussion. By some it has been considered as an immediate principle, and called chlorophyll; others look upon it as a compound of different principles. According to some authorities it contains nitrogen, like animal substances, while others only admit oxygen, hydrogen and carbon into its composition; and quite recently M. Verdeil announced that chlorophyll bears some relation to the coloring matter of blood, and, like the latter, contains some iron. they retire, and then again in the morning, and they will find their actual weight is at least a pound less in the morning. Frequently there will be a loss of two or more pounds, and the average loss throughout the year will be more than one pound. That is, during the night there is a loss of a pound of matter which has gone off from their bodies, partly from the lungs, and partly through the pores of the skin. The escaped material is carbonic acid, and decayed animal matter, or poisonous exhalations. This is diffused through the air in part, and in part absorbed by the bedclothes. If a single ounce of wood or cotton be burned in a room, it will so completely saturate the air with smoke that one can hardly breathe, though there can only be one ounce of foreign matter in the air. If an ounce of cotton be burned every half hour during the night, the air will be kept continually saturated with smoke, unless there be an open door or window for it to escape. Now, the sixteen ounces of smoke, thus formed, is far less poisonous than the sixteen ounces of exhalations from the lungs and bodies of the two persons who have lost a pound in weight during the eight hours of sleeping; for, while the dry smoke is mainly taken into the lungs, the damp odors from the body are absorbed both into the lungs and into the pores of the whole body. Need more be said to show the importance of having bedrooms well ventilated, and of thoroughly airing the sheets, coverlids and mattresses in the morning before packing them up in the form of a neatly made bed? LOOKING FOR COAL.-After a ride of two hours we arrived at our destination, about thirteen miles from Cairo. On descending the pit, I found it had been sunk in a very recent calcareous formation, intersected with beds of blue marl, to the depth of two hundred and sixty-six yards, which had been ascertained to be about a hundred feet below the bed of the Nile; and that there was just as much probability of finding coal on the top of the Pyramids as there. Hastening my return, I found the vicefortable-looking gray-bearded Turks, all of whom, with the roy at Shubra, in the evening, playing cards with three comWhen I entered the playing ceased, and the viceroy eagerly exception of his highness, wore large diamond decorations. inquired if I had been down the pit. Answering in the affir mative, and that I did not consider that there was the remotest chance of discovering coal in such a locality, he inquired the exact depth of the pit, and if in England coal existed at greater depths. On my replying that certainly coal had been found and worked deeper than the shaft at Tourra, he struck the table such a blow with his fist that the shock sent the cards Desirous of removing all doubts about the matter, M. Fremy prepared a sufficient quantity of the green oil which alcohol separates from leaves, and then treated it with hydrate of alumina, a substance whose affinity for coloring matter generally may be modified at plasure by the gradual admixture of water. By this means M. Frmy obtained a dark green lake and a yellow substance, which remained dissolved in the alcohol. The setting free of a yellow cold naturally pointed to the existence of a blue lake; but this he could not obtain by the flying up, exclaiming, while fire darted from his eyes, "Then method described. He, then, besios alcohol, tried ether, sul-I'll sink a thousand yards!" I made my salaam; and rising, phuret of carbon and essence of turpentine as dissolvents, and left the old Turks nearly in the same state as the trees in petsucceeded in separating a larger quanti of yellow substance, a residue being left which was of a mu darker green than rified forest.-Egypt, the Soudan and Central Africa. chlorophyll, thus confirming M. Frémy in the conviction that there must be a blue substance, which, combined with the yellow one, will reproduce the original green; but the difficulty consisted in preventing both substances from mixing at the moment of their formation. This wis at length accomplished, after many trials, by a mixture of two parts of ether and one of hydrocholoric acid, weakened with small quantity of water. This mixture being poured on the dark green residue, the ether takes possession of the yellow principle, while the hydrochloric acid dissolves the ether, which produes a magnificent blue. COST OF WAR.-The following is the amount spent in war during the sixty years of the present century: First ten years, from 1801 to 1810, £381,156,800; second ditto, 1811 to 1820, £400,640,786; third ditto, 1821 to 1830, £151,854,685; fourth ditto, 1831 to 1840, £142,368,790; fifth ditto, 1841 to 1850, £179,503,725; sixth ditto, 1851 to 1860, £251,835,818-£1,507, 360,604 interest of the war (called national) debt for the same sixty years, £1,686,547,194; total, £3,193,907,798. It is better to meet danger than to wait for it. A ship on a lee shore stands out to sea in a storm to escape shipwreck. COPENHAGEN. COPENHAGEN, the capital town, or, as it is spelt in Danish, Kjobenhavn, is said to have been founded by Bishop Azel in 1168, when it was only a mere hamlet of fishermen, but, as a town, it dates only from the thirteenth century, and, as a city, since 1443. Being well adapted for commerce, it rapidly increased, and soon became the seat of government, its population in 1852 being 133,140, mostly Protestants. It is built on a piece of very flat ground, slightly raised above the surface of the sea, and is intersected in several directions with canals, along which are numerous quays and wharfs. The form of the city is that of an irregular circle, with a diameter of about two miles, circumference rather more than six miles. Copenhagen, which has sustained a prominent place, in the military annals of Europe, is strongly fortified, being surrounded on the land side with a lofty wall flanked with bastions, and by a broad, deep ditch, filled with water from the Baltic, and defended toward the sea by most formidable batteries. It contains many handsome edifices of modern construction, usually of brick, but occasionally of Norwegian granite; as a general thing, the pavement of the streets is very indifferent, and the city suffers muci by the worst of evils which a large community can be subjected a deficiency of good fresh water. The aty possesses numerous hospitals and asylums, in which no kind of disease, poverty or wretchedness appears to be forgotten, an university founded by Christian I. in 1478, a museum of northern antiquities, celebrated thro' Europe for its valuable collection of Scandinavian remains, and is well provided with educational institutions. Copenhagen, from the prominence it has had in the belligerent annals of modern Europe, has stood some stout sieges, especially that in 1801, when, after one of the most desperate actions on record, Nelson, who was second in command to Sir Hyde Parker, sank or burnt all the Danish ships, and compelled Denmark to abandon the alliance she had entered into against England. Again, in 1807, Copenhagen was bombarded by Lord Cathcart, and forced to capitulate. For this siege, and the destruction of the fleet, the Danes still dislike the English, and these things may have had some effect upon the nation's refusal to join the Western Alliance against its most dangerous enemy-Alexander II. The King of Denmark, Frederick VII., is childless, the presumptive heir to the throne being Frederick Ferdinand, the king's uncle, now over seventy years of age. The scenery of Denmark is picturesque, and the costumes of the peasantry attract particular attention. Among the places noted for great natural beauty is the ferry crossing at Middleland in the island of Funen, affording some of the most noted scenery throughout the kingdom. Steamers constantly ply between Nyeborg, the western extremity of the island of Funen, and Korsör, in Zealand-the water flowing between constituting the "Great Belt." About the middle of the passage is the little island of Scropgoe, on which is a telegraph for the transmission of news when the Great Belt is frozen over, and an inn for the accommodation of ice-bound travellers, the place and the predicament being so uncommonly uncomfortable as to give when the rising sun seemed to rest a moment-a world of light --on that emerald hill-top. The valley extended about three miles. The hills on either side were broken, and varied in form and color; some rose with sharp outline against the clear sky, and when the day was young showed a gorgeous covering of gorse and heather; others were clothed with dark green coppice-wood, while trees of ash, elm and oak waved their graceful boughs on the less densely covered hills. Here and there the hand of the husbandman had displaced the original growth, and fields of golden corn and gay clover loaded the air with perfume. All through that valley, one behind another the hills, that seemed to elbow each other for room, shut it in from the rest of the world so completely that the sky-roof above and the merry mill-stream babbling through it made up a perfect picture. To see that valley in May, when the apple trees round the homely thatched cottages were in bloom, carried one back to the Arcadian dreams of the poets. Then the birds sang a'l day long. Rarely were the echoes woke by other voices than theirs, and a glorious concert they gave us. Fern and wild flowers grew everywhere in such profusion, that botany was distanced in anything less than a folio attempt to name them even. To lie in the shade of one of those giant trees on the mossy grass, and watch the blue smoke rise from the low chimney of the cottage in graceful column, or with closed eyes to listen to the melodies of nature unmixed with the discords of the work-a-day world, was no unprofitable employment. Body and soul regained their vigor, the chafing of life's harness was forgotten and healed, and we soon found ourselves pleased and almost believing listeners to wondrous tales of pixies, ghosts and shipwrecks, whose records found fitting utterance in the quaint language of the old miller. The mill-house was in front of our windows, and many an hour we sat in its ivy-clad porch. The brook, after doing duty in the buckets of the mill-wheel, ran frolicking onward to the sea, and was lost below the terrace-like pebble ridge of the beach. Here the sea washed the base of stupendous cliffs, in which the red of the sandstone contrasted finely with the deep blue of the killas, and the metallic hues which water dripping over exposed strata always produces in the land of "fish, tin and copper." One end of the deep bay was closed from all approach by a pile of huge masses of rock, such as might supply an artist with a fit idea of an overthrown world. Many a tale they told of wreck and death on the splintered rocks of Foxholt. Nor was it without more supernatural visitors. Indeed, scarcely a bold headland or sheltered inland bower but owned its legend, well remembered even in these matter-of-fact days. The southernmost end of the bay closed in a steep slope of living green, caused by a landslip, in which the turf had slid down, like a veil, to hide the ruin it had left behind, of which nothing was seen from the beach but a background of towering rocks. Like some old Norman castle, we fancied them still resisting step by step the advances of decay. It was near this southern point that the traces of former lawless doings were still to be seen. A small hole, apparently only a fox-den, led into a cave, where a thousand kegs of French brandy had often been stored in a single night. We were anxious to learn whether the tales we had heard of A MEDAL FROM THE ROYAL HUMANE SOCIETY, AND Cornish wreckers were true, and it was some questioning on HOW IT WAS WON. this subject which drew from the old miller the following story: "I can't say I never heerd of such things, but I never seed no SOME dozen years ago, before the railways now throbbing like such doings myself. I have lived here, man and boy, these arteries through the land were in existence, went with two seventy years," he said; many and many's the night we've friends to lodge in Cornwall. The place was the most retired I been watching on these bleak cliffs for a chance to help they ever saw. Far removed from the cross-country road, and only poor creatures as had only a frail plank between them and reached by venturing over a track-for it could not even be death. Scores of lives I've seed saved, but never one took; no, called a path-winding along the edges of cliffs often two or not even a brute beast that came to shore from all the multitude three hundred feet above the beach, it was a place to delight all of wrecks I've seen. I'm not going to say that when the ships, whose good fortune had carried them within sight of it. poor thing, are all broken up and the timbers come ashoreI'm not clear to say, there is not some small matter as never gets reported to the king's men. Little I blame them that take it, for, as the Lord's above us, I believe it is more the fault of those that keep back the honest dues for the salvage. The house we occupied had only its situation to recommend it. Fixed down at the seaward end of the valley, it looked like a child's toy among those magnificent hills. We could look from our beds of a morning to the ridge of hill high above and nothing more splendid ever greeted human eye than us, "I remember, in the time that barwood" (and he pointed to |