man of a cold intellectual temperament, and devotes his life thereafter to search for his wife's guilty partner and a fiendish revenge. The young clergyman of the town, a man of a devout sensibility and warmth of heart, is the victim, as this Mephistophilean old physician fixes himself by his side to watch over him and protect his health, an object of great solicitude to his parishioners, and, in reality, to detect his suspected secret and gloat over his tortures. This slow, cool, devilish purpose, is perfected gradually and inevitably. The wayward, elfish child, a concentration of guilt and passion, binds the interests of the parties together, but throws little sunshine over the scene. These are all the characters, with some casual introductions of the grim personages and manners of the period, unless we add the scarlet letter, which, in HawTHORNE's hands, skilled to these allegorical, typical semblances, becomes vitalized as the rest. It is the hero of the volume. The dénouement is the death of the clergyman on a day of public festivity, after a public confession in the arms of the pilloried, - branded woman.' We have to add to this syllabus the remark, that 'The Scarlet Letter' is written with a sustained power to the close; that it is replete with deep thought and searching analysis of the human heart; full of graphic pictures of character and of the manners of the time; that it is a work, in short, which reflects high honor upon its author, and which will take a high rank among modern American works of fiction.

HOUSEHOLD WORDS: a Weekly Journal. By CHARLES DICKENS. London and New-York: GEORGE P. PUTNAM.

We are glad to find an enterprising American publisher establishing at once a reprint of this journal, which, judging from the merits of the two numbers before us, will attain to great popularity. From a passage in the editor's 'Preliminary Words,' in the first number, our readers will derive a clear impression of the object and intent of the work: 'No mere utilitarian spirit, no iron binding of the mind to grim realities, will give a harsh tone to our Household Words. In the bosoms of the young and old, of the well-to-do and of the poor, we would tenderly cherish that light of Fancy which in inherent in the human breast; which, according to its nurture, burns with an inspiring flame, or sinks into a sullen glare, but which (or wo betide that day!) can never be extingushed. To show to all, that in all familiar things, even in those which are repellant on the surface, there is Romance enough, if we will find it out; to teach the hardest workers at this whirling wheel of toil, that their lot is not necessarily a moody, brutal fact, excluded from the sympathies and graces of imagination; to bring the greater and the lesser in degree, together, upon that wide field, and mutually dispose them to a better acquaintance and a kinder understanding; is one main object of our Household Words. They will not be echoes of the present time alone, but of the past too. Neither will they treat of the hopes, the enterprises, triumphs, joys, and sorrows, of this country only, but, in some degree, of those of every nation upon earth. For nothing can be a source of real interest in one of them, without concerning all the rest.' We have alluded elsewhere to other papers in the two issues before us. The journal is well printed upon strong fine linen paper; and is in such a convenient book-form that it may be preserved and bound in volumes, and thus form a valuable and interesting addition to one's private library.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

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MADAMOISELLE JENNY LIND. -To trace the influence which JENNY LIND has exercised over the mind of musical Europe, since her first appearance until the present time, would almost seem an impossibility. All Germany and England have directly felt it, and through them it has been tangibly felt throughout the rest of Europe. She is the veritable Muse of Song in these latter days; and it may interest our readers to hear an appreciative and capable correspondent trace out the elements which have combined to produce so singular a success as that which has marked her career for the last six or seven years: As a child, she possessed one of the richest and most delicate organs which had ever been heard, and filled in Stockholm that exceptional position which is always held by those wonderful children, who are gifted either with the precocity of genius, or those strange and marvellous gifts which are unapproachable by the larger-grown and more heavily gifted 'stars' in every art and calling. She was the veritable Toм THUMB of opera; for when she first appeared upon the stage, she was little more than nine years old. At thirteen her voice vanished. It broke completely. The dreams of her ambition-for she, modest and unassuming as she was, had ambition-seemed crushed for ever. After a lapse of two years, however, it began to return to her; and she contrived, by the help of her friends, to repair to Paris, for the sake of obtaining lessons from GARCIA. In the year 1843 or 1844, she appeared at Berlin, and from that period her fame has been steadily and rapidly upon the increase. In the year 1847 she appeared on the stage of HER MAJESTY'S Theatre in London, and in the year 1850 we shall reckon upon having her here in America.

"The voice of JENNY LIND is one of the purest and most delicate sopranos of which it is possible to conceive. A perfect or well-nigh perfect equality exists throughout its register. She is consequently not necessitated to abandon or slur over any part of her execution. In its delicacy of intonation, and its surpassing and wonderful flexibility, it even surpasses the voice of PERSIANA, while it is not subject to those changes which have proved so injurious to the reputation of that songstress, whom we have very frequently heard for four or five successive evening's half-a-note at variance with the pitch of the orchestra. Such also is the exquisiteness of her enunciation, and the refinement of her voice, that the higher notes are thrown from her chest with all the sharpness and clearness which might attend a less extraordinary exertion of its singular powers. It deeper notes are possibly less resonant than those of GIULIA GRISI, but they possess a more distinct and energetic character, and are brought out without any of the difficulty which too often marks the exertions of that singer. Her cadenze and fioretor are exclusively composed by herself, and are exquisitely beautiful; so much so, indeed, that they were frequently copied by her master, GARCIA, at the

time in which she was under his tuition. It is however in her own sweet and plaintive Swedish ballads that we have felt most powerfully the charms of this musical enchantress; as indeed have all who have had the opportunity of hearing them. One fact which we have heard respecting the 'Echo Song' may prove a good sample of the wild and wonderful dreams which have been produced by her talent. A famous professor of ventriloquism in England, whose name we will not mention, had the opportunity of hearing her at Birmingham. He was fond of music, and enjoyed the occasion as much as it was possible to do, until she sang this melody. No sooner had he heard the repetition of the words given, than he smiled to himself with the approving air of a man who perfectly appreciated the manner in which it was done. At the conclusion of the air, the friend who had accompanied him to the concert, turned to him: 'Is it not beautiful?' he asked. 'Charming!' was the answer. 'What an admirable ventriloquist she would make!' His friend doubted whether it was possible that, he heard him correctly, and asked him what he meant : Simply,' replied the professor, 'that the echo she produces in that song is the result of ventriloquism!" Nor was he to be persuaded that this was not the case. Probably he retains the conviction to this day, that JENNY LIND is a ventriloquist! Such is one instance alone, taken from the scores with which we are acquainted, of the extraordinary powers of this lady; but we might multiply anecdote upon anecdote, if we had the inclination to collect but one tithe part of those which are floating about in every part of the continent of Europe. Such however is not our wish. We took up our pen with the intention alone of giving some idea of her powers as a vocalist, and found ourselves betrayed into the anecdote before we were well aware of it. Let us content ourselves with the anticipation that she will ere long be among us; that we shall once more have the opportunity of hearing her exquisite voice thrilling through the 'Deh Vioni,' or some other of those songs with which she has so often before delighted us; that we shall once more have the opportunity of seeing one of the most charming and unassuming of those creatures to whom HEAVEN has given the genius to delight and astonish those to whom it has been less bountiful in the distribution of its choicer and more enthralling gifts.'

THE PAAS FESTIVAL, celebrated the other evening at NIBLO's new saloon by the Saint Nicholas Society, and its invited guests, was one of the most delightful occasions of the sort which it has ever been our good fortune to attend. We should like to have had a delegation of sour, puritanical, discontented people, of what nation or tongue soever, drop in at that assembly about the middle of the evening. There was not a face that was not wreathed in smiles.' The highest dignitaries were cracking paäs-eggs, and bearing away their 'conquerors;' all ‘fair,' too, not a marble egg in the entire collection. The capable stewards had taken care to have every good thing in the way of potables and edibles, and well did NIBLO, that prince of caterers, second their exertions. There were no toasts and no 'speeches' proper - -nor improper. The President of the St. NICHOLAS Society, J. DE PEYSTER OGDEN, Esq., made a few felicitous remarks, touching 'the day we celebrated;' and President KING, of Columbia College, and Dr. WainwrIGHT, also spoke with the terseness and eloquence characteristic of each. Several excellent songs and stories diversified the enjoyment of the evening; and amidst a cloud of odorous smoke, the happy company finally separated. It was a season to be remembered.

GOSSIP WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. Ir our readers would like to see a little 'Gossip and Garrulity,' in the first person singular, from a pen with which they have long been familiar, and which for sixteen years has not before been employed out of these pages, they may,' an' if they list,' glance over a little piece in the May number of our friend GODEY's 'Lady's Book' of Philadelphia, entitled 'Gossip about Children, in a Familiar Epistle to the Editor. We are moved to a short extract, because it opens up' the subject of 'Kites,' whereof we promised to say something for the behoof of the boys of Gotham and other cities devoted to the manufacture and propulsion of these 'fabrics :'

THE sorrows and tears of youth,' says WASHINGTON IRVING, ‘are as bitter as those of age:' and he is right. They are sooner washed away, it is true; but oh! how keen is the present sensibility how acute the passing mental agony!

My twin-brother WILLIS - may his ashes repose in peace in his early, his untimely grave! — and myself, when we were very little boys in the country, saw, one bright June day, far up in the blue sky, a paper-kite, swaying to and fro, rising and sinking, diving and curvetting, and flashing back the sunlight in a manner that was wonderful to behold. We left our little tin vessels in the meadow where we were picking strawberries, and ran into a neighboring field to get beneath it; and keeping our eyes continually upon it, gazing stedfastly into heaven,' we presently found ourselves by the side of the architect of that magnificent creation, and saw the line which held it reaching into the skies, and little white paper-messengers gliding along up it, as if to hold communion with the graceful artificial bird of the air at the upper end.

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I am describing this to you as a bey, and I wish you to think of it as a boy.

"Well, many days afterward, and after various unsuccessful attempts, which not a little discomfitted us-for we thought we had obtained the principle' of the kite-we succeeded in making one which we thought would fly. The air was too still, however, for several days: and never did a becalmed navigator wait more impatiently for a breeze to speed his vessel on her voyage, than did we for a wind that should send our paper messenger, bedizened with stars of red and yellow paper, dancing up the sky.

6 At last it pleased the 'gentle and voluble spirit of the air' to favor us. A mild south wind sprang up, and so deftly did we manage our machine, that it was presently reduced to a mere miniature kite in the blue ether above us. Such an event! FULTON, when he essayed his first experiment, felt no more exultant than did we, when that great triumph was achieved. We kept it up until 'twixt the gloaming and the mirk,' when we drew it down, and deposited it in the barn; hesitating long where to place it, out of several localities that seemed safe and eligible, but finally deciding to stand it end wise in a barrel, in an unfrequented corner of the barn.

'I am coming now to a specimen of the sorrows and tears of youth,' of which GEOFFREY CRAYON speaks. We dreamed of that kite in the night, and far up in the heaven of our sleeping vision we saw it flashing in the sun and gleaming opaquely in the twilight air. In the morning we repaired betimes to the barn, approached the barrel with eagerness, as if it were possible for the kite to have taken the wings of the evening and flown away, and on looking down into the receptacle saw our cherished, our beloved kite broken into twenty pieces!

It was our man THOMAS who did it, climbing upon the hay-mow.

We never wholly forgave the cruel neighbor who laughed at us for our deep six-months' sorrow at that great loss; a loss in comparison with which the loss of a fortune, at the period of manhood, would sink into insignificance. Other kites indeed we constructed; but that was the kite you read of at this present.'

Think, therefore, O ye parents! always think, of the acuteness of a child's sense of childish grief. I once saw an elder brother, the son of a metropolitan neighbor, a romping, roystering blade, in the merest⚫ devilment,' cut off the foot of a little doll that his infantine sister was amusing herself with. A mutilation of living flesh and blood, of bone and sinew, in a beloved playmate, could scarcely have affected the poor child more p infully. It was to her the vital current of a beautiful babe which oozed from the bran leg of that stuffed effigy of an infant; and the mental sufferings of the child were based upon the innocent faith which it held, that all things were really what they seemed.'

But speaking of kites: it really 'doth appeareth unto us' that our metropolitan

juveniles do n't know how to construct 'em. Thin, tissue-paper things, with no shape to them beyond that of a confused sexagon, no place for a head, and less for a tail, these are the machines you see fluttering and bobbing, ducking and sidling, in the sky of Gotham. How unlike the walnut-bow and cedar-shaft kite of the ked'ntry; with its red-worsted wings 'a-flappink in the hair,' as YELLOWPLUSH says, its firmament of bright paper-stars gleaming in the sun; its long flaunting tail, moving gracefully with the mass above it, its tasselled end waving like the tail-fin of a fish, that gracefullest of moving things. Ah! those were the kites; and it was from such specimens of '1 f'high art' that we derived our love of them, which to this day has never left us; as many a lad can testify, who has been flying kites in our 'beat,' as we daily wend to and from the sanctum. We confidently ask our juvenile friends, did we ever see a kite, howsoever small or ignoble, lodged in a tree, or on a telegraph wire, or twisted round a telegraph-pole, or a chimney, without rendering immediate and valuable assistance?' Never! — and if the dyspeptic Wall-street broker, who called the attention of his sneering chum the other morning to Old KNICK.' descending a tree, a disabled kite in his hand, and a 'solution of continuity' in his trowserloons, will call up in our street, we will give him a little illustration of the ‘luxury of doing good.' The bright, goldenhaired boy who owned that kite, Mr. BROKER, knows how to be grateful; and if we should hereafter ever flourish in Wall-street, in your line, he would send us the best of shaving-paper' to be had in the street;' and we can tell you too, Mr. POLITICIAN, that if, in the progress of events, we should chance to be 'up' for some office in the gift of this our good old KNICKERBOCKER city, that lad would be 'good for' fifty votes. We can only say, that once in a municipal office, of the proper description, our best exertions shall not be wanting to put down' the telegraph-poles and wires. Electricity is a good institution,' no doubt, and enables us to enjoy our murders' in the morning papers to a greater extent than formerly; but telegraphs were never intended to interfere with the 'vested rights' of boys engaged in kite-flying- never! The destruction in this branch of business is greatly increasing. Look at the ragged skeletons, the almost fossil remains, that flap and writhe upon the wires and posts, where they have been gibbetted 'lean, rent and beggared by the strumpet wind.' What 'underlies' all this evil? The telegraph system. Boys, 'To the poles! down with the poles." should be the rallying cry. They are aristocratie; they are unconstitutional; they are worse than the WILMOT proviso! Such and so many have been the wrecks of kites, 'sailing on the high seas of air,' that juvenile enterprise has been diverted to other channels; and a virulent eruption of whip-tops, ' groaning under the lash,' has broken out, and is spreading all over the metropolis; driving the aged from the walks, invading the delicate feet and ankles of our lovely female pedestrians, and playing the very deuce with the interior of their beautiful white under-dresses. Let the nuisance be abated. A vermilion edict! . . . WHO can 'gild refined gold?' Take up your 'Book of Common Prayer,' reader - -we hope it is not far from each one of you' and turn to this passage in the Litany:

By the mystery of thy holy incarnation; by thy holy nativity and circumcision; by thy baptism, fasting and temptation; by thine agony and bloody sweat; by thy cross and passion; by thy precious death and burial; by thy glorious resurrection and ascension; and by the coming of the HoLY GHOST; good LORD, deliver us! In all time of our tribulation; in all time of our prosperity; in the hour of death, and in the day of judgment, good LORD deliver us!"

We never hear this portion of the Litany, howsoever indifferently repeated, in the service of the sanctuary, without a profound feeling of reverence, and almost of awe. It has seemed to us that the collocation of the words could not be equalled; that the

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