from,' as all bred and born Britons do; the fourth dine on grilled herrings, from the Clyde, or some other Scottish stream, get fou' on their mountain-dew,' and then kick up their heels, and shout, 'Hoot awa, bonnie Scotland!' and down they go, muttering an unintelligible something about their wild Highland localities, and die away to sleep with a Hey! for Loch Lomond! - hey! for Ben Doon! Hoot awa!-haggis, and fillibeg, and bagpipe, and skenedhu, and border beef-stealing, and border-robbing, and all those miscellaneous, amiable accomplishments, for which the nobility of the land o' cakes were so celebrated. So, you perceive that the KNICKERBOCKEr, or any other 'bocker, would, and must necessarily, lack contributors in the Filipinas.'

Like very many well-read and tasteful American gentlemen, of the mercantile profession, than whom there exists no where a more intelligent class of men, the writer does not neglect his mental coffers, while filling those which are less important, and enduring:

'I am now fairly ashore, for want of something to read; and if you do not send me something soon, must increase my collection, (I cannot call it a library,) with Spanish tomes. I have lately gone through five volumes of Don Quixotte, nine of Gil Blas, two of El Moro Exposito;' Works of Martinez de la Rosa, including a splendid poem on Zaragosa; Hernan Perez del Pulzar, he of the exploits; Historia de Espann; Historia de Filipinas; dipped deeply into a beautiful Spanish Bible; dislocated my under jaw with a Tazalo dictionary and grammar; read Comedias de Calderon; got a very slight sprinkling of Chinese; knocked myself down flat with a mighty Bible, printed in the Malayan tongue; and all for want of books, proper, to break myself upon. Then, having nothing else to do, made my bow to my desk, and started off on a wild mountain scamper through the provinces of the Lazunn and Tayabas, and got a peep at the mighty Pacific, from the other side of the Island, and returned the very Humboldt of expeditionists!'

In touching upon American politics, our correspondent writes like an outside barbarian.' We can assure him, that he would be accounted a stranger among his kindred, with his present party views. He will be ostracised, when he comes among them, with his political coat wrong side out. These are the orders. Decidedly, no indulgence will be shown. A vermillion edict. Tremble fearfully hereBut to the extract:

at!'

.

'How go politics? and how flourishes your party? I believe you must look upon me as one of the adverse faction,' because I am one of those philanthropic worthies, who ever love to espouse the weakest side; and then you know, as the majority must always be in the right, the weaker, or minority, must consequently be in the wrong, or, we will say the wronged; i. e., as Mr. Weller the elder would say, 'the wictims o' gammon;' consequently again, they must be subjects of sympathy to the world at large, outside; and consequently, for the third time, again, a very select, choice, aristocratic little set of oppressed gentlemen at home; dear, delightful subjects of commiseration, and wonderfully interesting; and being all humbugs and rascals together, the one as well as the other, the lesser animal must be the cleaner beast; and so I'll none of your pelucas.' There's logic for you!'

The subjoined minute bulletin, respecting the health and movements of the writer's family, feathered, canine, etc., is a model of 'animal economy' and epistolary summary:

'Knowing that you are interested in the state of my family, I proceed to lay before you the novelties and casualties which have occurred therein, since my last epistle. The Nankin lark broke his bill against the wire of his cage, the other day, and died thereof, poor fellow! He is a household loss, having been the pet of all the ladies, on account of his beautiful notes. Know you not that he sang sweetly, and imitated sundry animals to perfection, and was such a funny fellow! One of the Canaries (ah! the faithless jade! was it for this I sent you from mine own plate a boiled egg every morning for breakfast?) ran, or rather flew away, three days ago, the victim of seduction by a scape-grace, who hangs in the window of Dona Concepcion de Torres de Varela, on the other side of the river, opposite to our house. And so, in the bitterness of my heart, I accused the said Dona Concepcion of keeping irregular and unprincipled birds about her; at which she turned upon me, with her clear black eye, and laughed, and said I was a 'gracioso.'

I have just received three pretty cages from China, and must go down to the Alcayceria to-morrow, and buy another lark, and another faithless Canary bird. The Alcayceria is the head-quarters of all the sons of Han, who flock to this market from Nankin and ChinChin, in the junks which visit us annually from those places. Old 'Smuggler' is dead. Poor old Smug! We found him stark and stiff, one morning, under a cart, in the yard at San Miguel. And as to his funeral, is it not written in the seventeenth book of Confucius,

how

'We sewed him up in a canvass sack,

A canvass sack for a funeral pall;
And in a deep grave, beneath a palm tree,
We buried him, sack, and body, and all ??

'Old Picara' is sick; not in bed, but in the porter's lodge, and we fear will die, as she is deeply advanced in years, and quite gray; Chiquibo' has listened to the artful whining of a neighbor's cur-ess, and absconded; 'Paddy' is courting a young lady out on the Calsada, and goes out regularly every night, a-roving by the light of the moon,' and never returns until daylight! Bad habits, and must be corrected! Tayphoon' and 'Leona' still live on, the happiest of mates, and little Mona' has lost her sweet-heart, and is quite disconsolate.'

In a few touches of the pen, in the following passages, will be found sketched some prominent features in the history and aspect of the far-distant city whence our correspondent holds familiar converse with the readers of the KNICKERBOCKER. We join with the writer in pressing home to our fair readers the queries contained in the last para graph but one of the quotation:

Say to Mrs. O, that, for her kind love and remembrance, contained in your letter, I beg to return my most grateful thanks, and that I am all hers, except the heart, which is not with me at present, but inside the city of Manilla; and as the day is wet and slippery, it would be a difficult matter to scale the walls, and pass the grim sen

tinel, who is ever on the alert, and might pick me off on the point of his bayonet, and throw me back into the ditch, which would be woful, as it is full of rank, green slime, and frogs, and snakes, and a thousand other little interesting animals. But I will consider that she has a claim to be adjusted before I dispose of it. Scaling a wall is not a matter of such great import, provided you can only get at it. To approach the ramparts, and cross the first ditch, is all pastime and moonshine; but the passage of that rascally inner moat is the tug of war, and the very diablo's work itself, provided, especially, that the besieged are fractious, stubborn, and exert themselves to prevent you. When, in the year of our Lord 1762, it was attempted by SIR WILLIAM DRAPER, it cost him many lives, and eight days' inconvenience, malgré the three thousand Sepoys, to say nothing of other soldiers of the East India Company, marines and sailors, which he had at his back. How much more difficult, then, would it be for me, who have no Sepoys, (who have been known, stubborn rascals! to sit down and die before a Mahrattas fort, because the said Mahrattas would not let them take it,) no other soldiers, no marines, no sailors, with their long pikes, to incommode one; nothing under the blessed sun to assist me, but the thirteen shabby rascals who compose my happy household, of whose valor, (my own, of course, being unquestionable,) I have some little doubt, as I have seen the whole rabble rout of them put to the right-about by an enraged washerwoman; and more than this, when my dogs' Elfin' and 'Smuggler' howl at midnight, every one my valiant retainers trembles, from turret to foundation stone.' So you see, backed by such a regiment, were I to attempt a little wallscaling recreation, I should doubtless be left in the same plight as the gentry at the Siege of Corinth, when Alp made his midnight perigrination, and

of

'Saw the lean dogs beneath the wall,
Hold over the dead their carnival.

I will therefore the better part of valor being discretion defer the matter until to-morrow morning at day-break, when I can walk quietly in through the Puerta Parian, without molestation.

'I never could bear the silent, grim, defying frown of a bastion, with its long brass thirty-two pounders, especially by moonlight; nor the silent, measured step of the sentinel, who never sleeps; nor the eternal winking of a loop-hole; nor the ominous clang of the chains of a draw-bridge, which fills one with awful forbodings, as you pass over; nor the two mysterious brass lions, which cap the pillars of the gate, nor a watch-tower, nor a horn-work, nor a scarp, (always so slippery,) nor a lunette, and a redoubt! The very idea of storming a redoubt, fills one with such forlorn hope' ideas, that I always pass them by as silently as possible. Give me but the covered way,' and you are welcome to the poetry of all the rest. And yet I often wish that I had been reared a soldier; and I never read an account of a battle, without wishing that I had been one of the 'immortal few' who 'covered themselves with glory;' which, by the way, I should fancy rather a slender covering, of a winter night, bivouacked in a morass, with six inches of ice and water!

Tell me, my dear

why it is that women are so partial to soldiers? I have known a thing in a red coat, and crimson sash, and

moustaches, to play the very deuce with the hearts of some half a dozen young ladies. Yet he was a fool, and a coward, and would suffer you to pull his nose with impunity. I know that with women, the man who has the reputation of a 'gallant soldier,' or ' brave officer,' is quite irresistible; and a military coat in a ball-room sets their unsophisticated hearts fluttering, like a dog-vane in a high wind. It is very laudable in a woman to love a brave man, yet she ought to recollect, that regimentals are often worn by braggadocios, whose sterling value is hardly one straw.

'How awfully it thunders! Flash — crash — roll-thump! And down comes the rain, like a second deluge! Your 'violent rains,' as they are called at home, are mere April showers, compared with our rains here, during the south-west monsoon; and if you would like to behold a genuine, real revel of the Furies, just travel into these foreign parts,' and we will get up a typhoon, for your especial gratification."

The annexed little incident will remind the reader of a similar faux pas, recorded long since by 'OLLAPOD,' (from whom more anon,') of a young villager at a country-ball. The dance, it will be remembered, was beginning. He had triumphantly taken his place, at the head of the male line,' to lead off in a contra-dance, with a favorite dancer, the belle of the room. He'seized his partner,' as commanded by the sable Apollo, who stamped them off, 'up outside and down the middle;' and when at last they had reached the bottom, our rustic Adonis paused, and drawing from the deep Charybdis of his coat, what seemed to his dim eyes a pocket-handkerchief,' essayed to mop his perspiring temples. As he did so, he was partially aware of a general snicker, through the room. What could it be for? He looked around; every one looked at him. He looked down-then at his hands. The sight was quite enough. For a handkerchief, he had flourished a common dickey, the strings whereof fell to his feet, long as the moral law! For gloves, he had selected from his trunk a pair of short silk pump-hose, well saved,' by numerous emendations that had been required by sundry previous scrapes; all these he had displayed, on and in his hands, before the multitude! His mortification was at its height, when an envious haw-buck dancer asked if his gloves were 'fresh from 'York,' and pronounced them 'darned good, at any rate;' and another inquired, if that was the latest shape for han'ker'chers, and whether the strings were to prevent their being stolen?' But we are keeping the reader from the passage alluded to.

Yesterday was 'Santa Cristina,' the Saint's day of the Queen Regent; and we had great doings in going to court, and salutes from the forts and battlements of the city, and processions; and in the evening, all the military bands were in the square, and played until ten o'clock. As usual, seats were prepared for the ladies in the Plaza, and all the beauty and fashion of the place,' as newspaper editors say, were there.' It is the fashion here, to carry in one's pocket a very gay, wrought handkerchief, which our female friends sometimes mark very prettily for us. Last night, I made a visit at a house in the 'Callé del Palacio,' to 'hobble' Spanish with some young ladies, and pass a pleasant evening. After being there a short time, I pulled out my handkerchief, (as people sometimes will,) and as I

did so, one who sat opposite to me, made some remark which caused me to turn and laugh at the person on my left, when the 'senorita' on my right caught out of my hand, what I, in the hurry of dressing, had put into my pocket for a handkerchief, and held up to the muchamused company, a grass-cloth pillow-case! Spanish women severe jesters, when in the humor; and this little incident brought down a deluge of jokes and laughter upon poor me, who returned thrust for thrust, and enjoyed the fun as well as any of them.'

are

We once heard or saw and if the latter, we shall be greatly obliged to any reader who will inform us where - a story somewhat akin to this, of a distinguished literary gentleman in London, the victim of an over-prudent wife, who was a continual source of kind annoyance to him. One drizzly, dubious evening, he was about betaking himself to a soirée, in a distant quarter of the metropolis, when his cautious companion, fearing the threatening weather might detain him with his host all night, besought him to take with him a night-cap, from which he could be sure no danger would ensue, by reason of dampness, that might result from one borrowed for the occasion. He declined; the wife implored, but the man resisted. Finally, the 'better half' apparently yielded the point, and after throwing her arms tenderly around her husband, he was permitted to depart. Now he was to meet, at the conversazione, whither he was wending, a literary old maid, darkly, deeply, beautifully blue,' and vain as a peacock, whose мs. poem lay perdue in his coat-pocket. He had taken it to read, and was to return it, with his opinion of its merits, when next he met the benign cerulean who had 'made it out of her head.' In the course of the evening, he encountered her, the centre of a bevy of admiring and kindred spirits. The circle widened at his approach, and when he was seated, a triumphant appeal was made to his literary judgment. Great was the joy of the authoress, when the umpire declared, as he placed the мs. in her hands, that he was highly delighted with the whole poem,' although he had not read a line of it. What scene enchanted you the most?' inquired the poetess; 'the one which records the story of Adelgitha Fitzclarence? or that where Godfrey-Augustus de Mandeville restores the Lady Georgiana to her lover? Tell us what effect that scene had upon you.'

Here was a poser! What was the critic to answer? He only knew that the poem was written upon fancy-colored paper, and prettily stitched together with a pink ribbon. What was he to do? Suddenly a felicitous idea strikes him. He remembers that he has often been enabled to collect his thoughts, in an urgent emergency, by taking his 'kerchief slowly from his pocket, unfolding it gradually, and applying it gracefully, and as if necessarily, to his forehead; and he forthwith proceeds to adopt the dernier resort; when lo! suspended by white tape-strings, and yawning with a plaited border, there unfolds in his uplifted right hand, a — NIGHT CAP, which his too cautious wife had conveyed stealthily into his pocket, when she embraced him at parting! And there it hung, glaring like a sheeted ghost upon his astonished vision ! There was no misunderstanding the significant though silent reply. fallen asleep,' so reasoned the wounded vanity of the authoress,

He had