THE STORY OF MONT BLANC. By ALBERT SMITH. In one volume: pp. 208. NewYork: G. P. PUTNAM AND COMPANY, Park-Place.

ANY one who has visited the panorama of the 'Ascent of Mont Blanc,' by Mr. OWENS, in this city, would do well to secure this handsome, and very entertaining and instructive little volume. Aside from the main portion of the book, the minute detail of the author's recent ascent of the 'Monarch of the mountains,' it contains an account, in the form of a journal, of a previous visit with a companion, both travelling in the simplest and most economical manner, the very description of which is in itself a delight. And touching this, the writer observes: 'If there is any thing more delightful than travelling with plenty of money, it is certainly making a journey of pleasure with very little; provided, always, that health and spirits are good, and that one can find a companion similarly positioned. Circumstances and necessities throw you out of beaten tracks of proceeding, and make you acquainted with odd folks and adventures; not being bound by any conventional laws of travelling, you are more independent to wander wherever you please; and above all, there is little after-regret at the prospect of overbalancing the pleasure derived from the trip, by the anticipation of winterretrenchment, to make up for the expenses thereby incurred.' In reproducing his 'Diary,' Mr. SMITH has forcibly illustrated and fully verified, by his own case and that of his companion, the truth of his position. He did not, however, go over Italy with only a shirt and a pocket-comb,' like the traveller of whom he speaks; but, at a moderate rate of calculated expenditure which would have done credit to Dr. FRANKLIN himself, the two pedestrians journeyed on, seeing the best views at the best seasons, and taking, literally, the créme de la créme of the scenery, and the edibles and potables of the country. Some idea of their frugal style may be gathered from the following passage from the Diary:

OUR worthy old host gave us a letter to the landlord of the Hotel de la Tour, begging him to treat us as students in his charges. We bargained for some hard-boiled eggs at one of the cottages, waiting whilst they were cooked, and then marched on to the Tete Noire Pass, where we halted for breakfast at a little tavern, perched up high on the mountain like an eyrie, where they found us wine and a loaf. At the top of the Forclaz, the magnificent mountain barrier between Chamouni and the Vallais, we halted to bathe, in a natural basin, off the road, where a block of granite had stopped up the torrent, and here we determined to wash our things, which was a laughable affair enough. We spread them out on a flat stone, and knocked them with another, as we had seen the washerwomen do at the fountains, and then put them to dry in the hot sun. They were not particularly well 'got-up,' to be sure, but very clean. This was a good notion, for we must have waited two or three days to have had them done properly, and on the mountains shirt-fronts are not the chief objects of curiosity. During this halt, we finished our eggs, and drank kirschwasser and water, and got to Martigny at six o'clock, where our host's letter was of use, for we had a famous hot supper for two francs each.'

Mr. SMITH's own account of his ascent having been so recent, and so widely quoted from English journals, we refrain from extracts, albeit sorely tempted. The annexed description of the first discoverer of the 'pass' to Mont Blanc, will well reward perusal: 'The storm increased, and not daring to expose himself to the dangers of a solitary descent in the darkness, he resolved to spend the night alone, in the centre of this desert of ice, and at an elevation of fourteen thousand feet above the level of the sca:'

He had no food, and was but poorly clad; night was rapidly coming on, and the frozen flakes fell more heavily every minute. He therefore got under the lee of one of the rocks, and contrived to heap up against it sufficient snow to form a kind of niche, into which he crept, and blockaded himself, as well as he was able, from the storm. And there, an atom on the ghastly and immeasurable waste of eternal frost that extended on every side around him, in awful, unearthly silence, unbroken by any sound from the remote living world-half dead already from the piercing cold, and with limbs inflamed and stiffened by the labor he had already undergone, he passed the long uncertain hours of that terrible night.

'At last, morning broke. Far away in the east, BALMAT saw its earliest lights rising behind the giants of the Bernese Oberland who guarded the horizon, and one after another the Jungfrau, Eiger, and the Finsteraarhorn stood out bright and sharp in the clear cold air. The storm had cleared altogether; the morning was calm and mild; comparatively so, even at that elevation; and, as BALMAT painfully endeavored to move his almost paralyzed limbs into action, he found that his feet had lost all sensation - they were frost-bitten! He could, however, move them, and without pain. The night-frost had hardened the snow; presently the sun-light came down the top of Mont Blanc to the Dome du Gouté, and then, still keeping up his courage through every thing, this brave fellow determined to devote the day to surveying the mountain, and seeing if any practicable course to the summit presented itself on the vast and untrodden deserts of snow. His courage was rewarded: he found that if the crevices that border the Grand Plateau were once crossed, the path to the top of Mont Blanc was clear and unbroken before him; and he then traced out the route which has, with little variation, been followed ever since; and which appears to be, beyond doubt, the only practicable one.'

The volume, beside being very neatly executed, is embellished with three or four good engravings, illustrating the difficulties and perils of ascending mountains that 'pinnacle in clouds their snowy scalps.'

THE HUNDRED BOSTON ORATORS Appointed by the Municipal Authorities and other Public Bodies, from 1770 to 1852: Comprising Historical Gleanings, illustrating the Principles and Progress of our Republican Institutions. By JAMES SPEAR LORING. In one volume: pp. 720. Boston: JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY. Cleveland, Ohio: JEWETT, PROCTOR AND WORTHINGTON.

THIS is an excellent thought, and faithfully carried out; and is such an embodiment of historical information, and New-England patriotism, sentiment, and feeling, as can no where else be found. The editor brought to his task an evident love of his work, and indefatigable industry in securing, and good judgment in selecting his materials, of which he has embodied a formidable mass, in relation to our own political and national history, 'after poring over valuable manuscripts, newspapers, printed for more than a hundred years past, every variety of periodicals, pamphlets, and a multitude of other authorities, essential to the completion of his design.' The volume, in short, is the result of a most careful research, pursued with an untiring devotion for a period of nearly four years. Its pages are dedicated 'To the Glorious Memory of SAMUEL ADAMS, JOHN HANCOCK, and THOMAS CUSHING, a noble triumvirate, and the foremost of the great Promoters of the American Revolution.' It might perhaps be inferred, by one who had not seen the work, that a volume devoted to extracts from a hundred orators, and to a brief description of the antecedents of each, must be monotonous reading. But not so: the historical incidents and briefly-indicated facts, in the biographical sketches, are of unflagging interest.

VOL. XLII.

27

EDITOR'S

TABLE.

Up the River, August 8.

'I SAID Something about mosquitoes, which, after all, is too serious a matter to trifle with. The frequent rains have been productive of great swarms of these detestable and annoying visitors, who are ranked in the same category with fleas and a certain nameless domestic bug. It takes a strong wind or a sharp frost to annihilate these blood-suckers on wings. When they get into the upper rooms, there they stick, and the whole household must be resolved into a vigilant police to detect them in their secret hiding-places. Before retiring for the night, you take a candle and trim the wick so as to afford a clear light, shut down the windows, and commence the search. This is pleasant work, and is performed with all the alacrity which attends the satisfaction of a deep grudge. To stop their music for the night and evermore, is the object of your candle-light campaign. And first, you take a general survey of the walls to see the number and disposition of the troops, hearken with the acute ear of an Indian to detect the hum of preparation in the distance, and take notice of a few scouts who are moving about. Then you set down the candle, pull off your coat and shoes, turn up your wristbands, and take a soiled towel, to apply it again to practical use before it is tossed into the basket. Fold the towel neatly, so that it may lie flat on the palm of your hand, and go to work on the JOHNSONIAN theory, that 'killing is no murder.' Never mind the walls. Looks are a minor consideration to true comfort: a maxim which is little practised by some people now-a-days. Now, my little MARETZEKS, your opera will not succeed to-night. It costs too much; there are too many tenors in the band. With satisfaction you look upon the first victim. He is pendent on the ceiling, with his head to the antipodes, sticking or moving about with a secure foot-hold, on the principle of exhaustion of the air and pressure of the external atmosphere. How marvellous the apparatus! There is at present a great man-fly who can walk upon walls, but not so glibly. The mosquito is directly over your bed, a fine, plump fellow, with blithe legs. Slap! — he has departed this life, felix opportunitate mortis. Twirl him up in your fingers, and be astonished that from a speck of dust such an ingenious, vital piece of mechanism could have been formed: a proboscis as wonderful as the elephant's; an apparatus for exhaust

ing the air more perfect than man can make; a faculty for disturbing the temper and exciting to action some of the strongest passions of a philosophic man! There's another. Ah! he's gone; flown clear over to the most remote part of the room. The rascals dodge if they do but catch your eye, refusing to look you in the face; and from that time until the lights are out and all is still, they skulk. Do not fight the battle by halves; pursue the fugitives; tra k them to their ambuscades; shake the counterpanes and loose articles of dress; look high, look low on your hands and knees; inspect the carpet. Behold the little fellow on the very angle of the mantel-piece. Slap!- that's good! he's out of harm's way, and that makes two. You don't see any more, but you hear one, and by no means think it a small matter if there is only one. He will be sure to find you out; he is there for the express purpose of preying on flesh and blood. Fee-fo-fum! Dead or alive, he will have some. Hanging above your head in some uncertain part of the firmament, he will sing for the half hour, alight momentarily on your forehead; change his mind and descend on your hand; finding it not very plump, he will go to your ankles; convinced that he has made a mistake, will return to head-quarters and bite your temples, while you box your ears and slap your cheeks in vain. One mosquito is as good as a swarm; for in the morning you wake up, if you have been asleep at all, and find yourself vaccinated in a hundred places with virulent poison, covered with blotches, wishing that you had a hundred hands, and that they were all actively employed in scratching. BRIAREUS alone would be in a state of tolerable comfort. With regard to instinct, the mosquito is not a whit inferior to the more sizable nuisances of creation. He prefers the cheek of a young maiden, but if she is Turkishly veiled, he can sip from another source under the wing of a horse-fly. As to man, the uses of this affliction are uncertain; but perhaps these petty stings are intended to prepare the way for his sublimer

sorrows.

'AUGUST 9.There is a saying that the 'winter goes out like a lion.' The same expression might be applied to summer, if there is any fierceness in the sun. Some days at the latter part of the season those which announce the advent of the locusts, and precede the arrival of the katydids- become notorious for a raging heat, like that which comes from the Desert of Sahara. Their character is duly chronicled and remembered. The silvery tides steal up in the long and glassy reservoirs. The temperature of these days is productive of a languor and dead sickness. In vain the plums are plentiful, and the grapes become ripe, and the harvest-apples blush with a red tinge; no sight is agreeable but that of the rippling waves, and no sound but that of the tinkling ice. O ye breakers of Rockaway! you apostrophize; would that I might dash into your midst! O ye rivers which lave the shores, might I but dip my feet in your waves! O thou cataract of Niagara! that I could at this moment behold you plunge! O ices and snows of the Alpine mountains, how agreeable your sight! O avalanches!-ANNE! ANNE! ANNE! where are you? Bring a bucket of fresh water, and throw this lukewarm fluid away! How hot is this black collar! There, there! This button pinches the throat! I am going to pull my coat off, and my waist-coat!'

That feels better.

shall not see them. very warm.

If they do, I

Now I hope that no persons will come.
Preserve me from intrusion on a very cold day, or on a

At these times you read the bills of mortality and think of your fat friends, your sickly acquaintances, the city babies who are toted about the parks. You can't eat your dinner. With a desperate malignity, you attack the faults of every body whom you know. Then you take up the newspaper and complain that it is dull, nothing stirring. A great many people are sun-struck. Stupid hod-carriers! perhaps they were never struck with any thing else in their lives. Every body is out of humor, and this is plainly shown in the daily papers. One man complains that he cannot see at the Opera, at the Castle Garden, because there is a pillar in the way right in front of the stage; another, that the boiler of the steam-boat on which he travelled blew up; another, that the mails are irregularly carried, or that the telegraph is not worth a rush; a fourth, that as he journeyed in the omnibus, a bullet was shot into it by a negro as black as soot: all calling upon the Editor, by the virtue which is in him, to avenge these injuries, which have become intolerable and not to be endured. As to the pistol-shot, for my own part, I am perfectly convinced that you cannot pack fourteen or sixteen people, promiscuously brought together in an omnibus, (which is the ordinary load,) among whom there is not at least one deserving to be shot. Let us hear no more on that score, since no body was hurt, and the negro is at large. This last exploit was perfectly trivial compared with what is done in the city every day. I remember a fat virago who had beaten her husband, and entered a pathetic plea in his behalf before the Judge. He had invited a friend to smoke a pipe with him, and all which he had done was to deposit a little gun-powder in the bowl of the pipe, so that when it exploded, it carried away the end of his friend's nose. 'What of that?' she protested; 'was it worth while for a thing of that kind to bring a poor man into court for every body to stare at?' Certainly not. But perhaps all this smacks of peevishness and hot weather. As SAXE says, with much facility of numbers:

HEAVEN help us all in these terrific days!
The burning sun upon the earth is pelting
With his directest, fiercest, hottest rays,
And every thing is melting.

While prudent mortals curb with strictest care
All vagrant curs, it seems the queerest puzzle,
The Dog-star rages rabid through the air,
Without the slightest muzzle.

'But Jove is wise and equal in his sway,

Howe'er it seems to clash with human reason:
His fiery dogs will soon have had their day,
And men shall have a season.'

'AUGUST 10.-SMYTHE, who came here to spend the summer, expected today his little Mexican pony, which had been in the battle of Buena Vista. I rode down to the boat in SMYTHE's carriage with his man ALEXANDER. On approaching, the little black war-horse was descried in company of several others on the bow. He was a well-rounded animal, with a flowing mane, handsome tail, and mischievous eye. No sooner had ALEXANDER conducted him upon