OUR FASHION DEPARTMENT.

WE have selected for illustration this week one of the most beautiful morning robes that it has been our good fortune to see anywhere. It is taken from the original article, and designed in the dress-making and embroidery rooms of M'Cune, Haskell & Co., 629 Broadway, a house celebrated for a tasteful adaptation of fashions, which they import every steamer from France, and modify with the most perfect skill to our American habits and climate.

The morning robe we illustrate is composed of white cashmere, embroidered in a rose pattern of golden silk, and girded at the waist with a cord and tassel of the same color. The front breadths are shaped to the figure, and flow in a graceful sweep from the shoulders to the feet. It is confined over the bust with loops and buttons of gold colored silk, and flowing downward open from the waist, reveals a lining of delicate corn colored silk, and under that a skirt deeply edged with embroidery, and garnished up the front with successive rows of scalloped embroidery, braided with insertion. A wreath of embroidery encircles the flowing sle ves of the robe and the narrow collar, which fastens at the throat. Undersleeves, embroidered to match the skirt, and slippers of blue kid, frilled with narrow ribbon, and embroidered with gold, complete this most elegant morning toilet.

Slippers.

To complete the morning costume just described, we have selected a group of slippers from the establishment of E. A. Brooks, 575 Broadway, and 150 Fulton street.

The slipper on the left is of green kid, stamped in gold, lined with crimson silk, and edged with a delicate quilling of narrow green ribbon. This style of slipper is imported from Vienna, but we have seen the material manufactured in the greatest perfection in a small village of Russia, about half way between St. Petersburg and Moscow, and it is probable that the beautifully stamped kid from which these slippers are made came from that remote district.

The right hand slipper is of white satin, ornamented with a large, flat rosette, which spreads richly down almost to the delicately rounded point. The engraving gives a good idea of both the morning and evening slipper; but, in order to judge of their exquisite finish, our readers should examine the originals, at Mr. Brooks's splendid establishments in Fulton street and Broadway.

ALMOST every gentleman who does me the honor to hear me, will remember that the very greatest character which he has seen in the course of his life, and the person to whom he has looked up with the greatest wonder and reverence, was the head boy at his school. The schoolmaster himself hardly inspires such an awe. The head boy construes as well as the schoolmaster himself. When he begins to speak the hall is hushed, and every little boy listens. He writes off copies of Latin verses as melodiously as Virgil. He is goodnatured, and, his own master-piece achieved, pours out other copies of verses for other boys with astonishing ease and fluency; the idle ones only trembling lest they should be discovered in giving in their exercises, and whipped because their poems were too good. I have seen great men in my time, but never such a great one as that head boy of my childhood: we all thought he must be Prime Minister, and I was disappointed, on meeting him in after life, to find he was no more than six feet high.-Thackeray.

A good conscience and a good temper are intimately connected.

MORNING ROBE.

TEST OF FRIENDSHIP.-One of the surest evidences of friendship that an individual can display to another, is telling him gently of a fault. If any other can Those that throw away their virtue must not expect excel it, it is listening to such a disclosure with gratito save their reputation. tude, and amending the error.

SNEERERS. The most insignificant people are the most apt to sneer at others. They are safe from reprisals, and have no hope of rising in their own esteem but by lowering their neighbors. The severest critics are always those who have either never attempted, or who have failed in original composition.

If sin be harbored in the house, the curse awaits at the door.

He is little worth whose promises are nothing worth.

Contributed to the New York Journal.
MY FATHER.

FATHER, dear Father, my heart longs to pay
One debt of the truest affection to thee,
Whose life, from the hour of my birth 'till to day,
Hath proved one long lesson of love" unto me.
Protection in infancy's weak helpless days,

My childhood's loved playmate; still prompt to defend,
Reluctant to censure, yet lavish of praise,

My youth's dearest counsellor, guardian, friend!

No coldness or sternness from thee ever met

My eager impulses, warm, loving, and true;
No hot tears of anguish my eyelids e'er wet
For friendship withheld, which my heart fancied due.
And what though thine earlier manhood hath past?
Old Time hath imprinted some marks on thy brow;
Yet, steadfast and true to thy trust 'till the last;
As thou lovedst me then, so thou lovest me now.
Alas! dearest Father, I cannot repay

One tithe of the love thou hast lavished on me,
For years in their flight mark thee threescore to-day,
And a whole life were short for my duty to thee.

But yet, welling up from the depths of my heart,

Is one prayer too holy for hope to resign;

It is, that e'er God calleth me to depart,

As thine eyes watched my dawn, so may I thy decline.

Yet may long years of happiness here, intervene

E'er the loved ones at home" are by death torn apart.
God reward thee, my Father, for all thou hast been,
God bless thee for ever, for all that thou art,

INEZ.

BY T. BUCHANAN REID.

C.

DOWN behind the hidden village, fringed around with hazel brake,
(Like a holy hermit dreaming, half asleep and half awake,
One who loveth the sweet quiet for the happy quiet's sake,)
Dozing, murmuring in its visions, lay the heaven-enamoured lake.
And within a dell, where shadows through the brightest days abide,

Like the silvery swimming gossamer by breezes scattered wide,
Fell a shining skein of water that ran down the lakelet's side,
As within the brain by beauty lulled, a pleasant thought may glide.
When the sinking sun of August, growing large in the decline,
Shot his arrows long and golden through the maple and the pine;
And the russet-thrush fled singing from the alder to the vine,
While the cat-bird in the hazel gave its melancholy whine;
And the little squirrel chattered, peering round the hickory bole,
And, a-sudden like a meteor, gleamed along the oriole ;-
There I walked beside fair Inez, and her gentle beauty stole
Like the scene athwart my senses, like the sunshine through my soul.
And her fairy feet that pressed the leaves, a pleasant music made,
And they dimpled the sweet beds of moss with blossoms thick
inlaid :-

There I told her old romances, and with love's sweet woe we played,
Till fair Inez' eyes, like evening, held the dew beneath their shade.
There I wove for her love ballads, such as lover only weaves,

Till she sighed and grieved, as only mild and loving maiden grieves;
And to hide her tears she stooped to glean the violets from the leaves,

As of old sweet Ruth went gleaning mid the oriental sheaves.
Down we walked beside the lakelet:-gazing deep into her eye,
There I told her all my passion! With a sudden blush and sigh,
Turning half away with look askant, she only made reply,
"How deep within the water glows the happy evening sky."
Then I asked her if she loved me, and our hands met each in each,
And the dainty, sighing ripples seemed to listen up the reach;
While thus slowly with a hazel wand she wrote along the beach,
"Love, like the sky, lies deepest ere the heart is stirred to speech."

Thus I gained the love of Inez-thus I won her gentle hand;
And our paths now lie together, as our footprints on the strand;
We have vowed to love each other in the golden morning land,
When our names from earth have vanished, like the writing from
the sand!

THE DEATH OF CLEOPATRA.

they uncovered and found in it figs of unusual beauty, and how we ever got out of it is unaccountable; but
he pressed them to partake of them, and they allowed we did, after cutting our way from one end to the
him to carry them in. Soon after, the queen com- other of the Nassur camp. Somewhere about the
manded all her attendants to leave her, except her two middle of it a tall ruffian, who I was told afterwards
favorite women, Iras and Charmion, and at the same was Shahzad's brother, walked deliberately at me with
time she sent a sealed packet to be delivered to Octa- his juzail, and sticking it into my stomach, so that the
vius. It contained only a brief and passionate request muzzle almost pushed me out of my saddle, fired!
to be buried with her lover. His first impulse was to The priming flashed in the pan, and as he drew back
rush to the spot and prevent the catastrophe it the juzail I cut him full over the head; but I might as
portended: but in the next moment the suspicion of a well have hit a cannon-ball; the sword turned in my
trick to excite his sensibility flashed across him, and hand, and the Nassur, without even resetting his
he contented himself with sending persons to inquire. turban, commenced re-priming his juzail, an operation
The messengers made all haste, but they arrived too which I did not stay to see completed. Between 1845
late the tragedy had been acted out, and the curtain and 1849 there was no lack of peril on the Punjab
was falling. Bursting into the tomb, they beheld frontier, and I, like all the rest, had my share; but I
Cleopatra lying dead on a golden couch, in royal have always looked back to the moment when that
attire. Of her two women, Iris was dying at her feet, juzail missed fire as the one of all my life when I
and Charmion, with failing strength, was replacing looked death closest in the face.
the diadem on her mistress's brow. "Is this well,
Charmion ?" exclaimed abruptly one of the intruders.
"It is well," she replied, "and worthy of the
daughter of kings." And with these words she too
fell on her face and died.

The manner of Cleopatra's death was never certainly known. It seems that there were no marks of violence on her person, nor did any spots break out upon it, such as usually betray the action of poison. But the experiments she was reported to have made on the bites of venomous reptiles were remembered: these were coupled with the story of the basket of figs, in which such means of destruction might easily be concealed. It was rumored that Octavius employed the services of the Psylli, the poison-suckers of the desert, to restore his victim to life; and at last it came to be positively affirmed that her arms were found slightly punctured, as with the fangs of an asp. This at least was the account of the affair which Octavius himself allowed to be circulated. When the figure of Cleopatra was afterwards carried in his triumph, she was represented reclining on a couch with the asp clinging to either arm, and mortal sleep stealing slowly through every limb.-Merivale's History of the Romans.

A SKIRMISH IN INDIA.

THE grey dawn was just removing the friendly veil that had hitherto concealed us, the watch-fires of the mountaineers were dying out, and we could see the savage Cabul dogs of the merchants spring up from beside the ashes, before their accursed howl of alarm and warning reached our ears.

The Dooranees now galloped to the front, as if no power on earth should prevent them from being first in the fray; and though I succeeded in calling them in, and keeping them with the rest of the party, they still whirled their guns over their heads, and shouted valorously that they would eat up the Nassurs.

But the Nassurs seemed in no hurry to be eaten, and turned out, at the baying of the dogs and the shouts of the Dooranees, like a nest of hornets with juzails, swords, clubs, and even stones,

66

"On getting out to the fresh air again I looked round, and found myself with two men, one of whom was a highwayman I had pardoned a week or ten days before. The brave Dooranees and Sikhs might be seen circling and curvetting round the circumference of the camp, handsomely followed up by the enemy, and I was thinking what course to pursue when my eye fell on the Nassur herd of camels tied down in a ring. Now," said I to the highwayman, "the vietory is ours after all," and away we both dashed at the camels, whose long necks were already bobbing about with fright, like geese looking out of a market basket. Up they all jumped, and tore themselves free from their fastenings; and I put a lot of them before me, and drove them off as if I had all my life been a mosstrooper, my friend, the thief, entering heart and soul into the business, and giving them a professional poke with his spear, which set them stepping out gloriously. The Nassurs, who were in charge, yelled like demons, and one "took up a rock," as Homer would have said (a great stone as big as his own head,) and hurled it at me with such good aim that it hit me below the knee, and would have unhorsed me if that excellent villain the highwayman, had not put his hand under my shoulder, and tossed me back again into the saddle. The heroes outside now joined us, and very glad I was to see them, for the whole swarm of angry Nassurs were in hot pursuit of their camels. The Sikh runaways, at this point, did something to make amends; forming line in the rear behind us, and keeping off the Nassurs with their musketry till we had pricked the spoil quite out of reach, when they galloped up to us, and left the Nassurs puffing in the middle of the plain.-Major Edwardes.

How A MAN FEELS WITH HIS HEAD OFF.-It is considered on all sides that the body does not feel one instant after decapitation; for the brain being the seat of sensation to the whole frame, through the medium of the spinal marrow, every part of the body beneath the joint at which the latter may be divided, must be deprived of feeling. But it by no means follows that I thought the best chance I had was to make my the head is deprived of sensation immediately after fellows fight, whether they would or no, so led them decapitation, nor that it may not retain its consciousCLEOPATRA had tasked her powers of fascination to round to the rear of the Nassur camp, and got them ness, and, like the head of the Irish knight, who was the utmost, and she knew that they had failed. She between it and the hill, under a dropping fire of killed by Saladin in the Holy War, get up and declare penetrated the design of carrying her to Rome, through bullets, which did little or no harm; then beckoning that it was never cut off by so sweet a scimitar before the cold though courteous demeanor by which it was with my hand to the Nassurs, I told Kaloo Khan to -nor like that of the assassin Legare, swear roundly veiled, and she sternly resolved to frustrate it. From shout to them, in Pushtoo, to surrender, a barefaced at the executioner for not keeping a keener axe; but it a son of Dolabella, who had conceived a romantic proposition, to which the Nassurs replied only with a is quite possible that it may be troubled with very passion for her, she heard without surprise that even handsome volley of both bullets and abuses. "Come serious reflection upon the irrevocability of its fate, within three days she was to be conveyed away with on," they cried, "come on, you Feringhee dog, and and the awfulness of its deprivation. In support of her children, to adorn the conqueror's triumph. She don't stand talking about surrender!" In truth, it was this unpleasant theory, many facts are adduced, with formed her plan with secresy and decision. She no time, for the fire was getting thick; so seeing grave vouchers for their authenticity. Among others directed her attendants to make ready for the voyage, nothing else left, I drew my own sword, took a tight is the unfortunate Queen of Scots, whose lips conwhile she only desired permission to pour libations on hold of a chain bridle, given me prophetically by tinued to move in prayer for at least a quarter of an the tomb of Antonius. Octavius, now secure of his Reynell Taylor, struck spurs into Zál, and calling on hour after the executioner had performed his duties. victim, readily consented. The queen repaired with all behind to follow, plunged into the camp. Windt states that having put his mouth to the ear of her female companions to the mausoleum. She gave The attacking party always has such an advantage, a decapitated criminal's head, and called him by name, orders for a banquet to be served, and in the mean- that I am quite sure, if our men had followed up, few the eyes turned to the side from whence the voice while embraced the dead man's bier, and mingled her as they were, they might have either seized or killed came; and this fact is attested by Fontenello, Mogore, tears with the wine she poured upon it. She addressed Shahzad; but it shames me to relate, that out of Guillotine, Nauche, and Aldini. On the word murder her lord in terms of unabated affection, appealed to his seventy or eighty, not fifteen charged, and scarcely a being called, in the case of a criminal executed for that conviction of her faith and love, and besought him, as dozen reached the middle of the camp. crime at Coblentz, the half-closed eyes opened wide one having power with the gods of his country, for with an expression of reproach on those who stood her own gods, she said, had deserted her, not to suffer around. himself to be triumphed over in the person of a wife devoted to him, but to let her die upon his coffin and find her sepulchre in his tomb. Sentinels, meanwhile, kept guard outside; a man in peasant's clothes approached with a basket on his arm, which, when

The dozen was composed of Muhommud Alim Khan (I think I see him now with this blue and gold shawl turban all knocked about his ears!) Kaloo Khan, and Lumsden's Duffadar of Guides: each backed by a few faithful henchmen. The only officer non-inventus was the Sikh Russaldars. The mêlée, therefore, was much thicker in our neighborhood, than was at all pleasant,

It is better to lose a good coat than a good conscience.

The present state is the infancy of eternity.

Historical Account of these noted Characters. By Hon. W. W. Campbell. 1 vol., 12mo., 75 In point of magnificence, in effects, machinery THE TRANSLATORS REVIVED: A Bio- trappings, dresses, appointments and paraphernalia graphical Memoir of the Authors of the Eng-it is destined to create unparalleled wonder and exlish Version of the Holy Bible. By the Rev. display of beauty, grandeur and fascination, the peocitement. It is, without any exception, the finest

ONE YEAR: A Tale of Wedlock. Byple of America have ever witnessed. Among the distinguished features are the

PLEASURES OF THE ENCHANTED ISLAND, n iwhich the opening of the Magic Rock will de

THE OLD MAN'S BRIDE. By T. S. Arthur. velop the fairy movements of the

HOW MR. T. SQUARE PREPARED HIS PICTURE FOR THE ACADEMY. eleven daughters in six months. A neigh

Printed and Published for the Proprietors by P. D. Orvis, 75 Nassau Street, New York.

NO. 8.-VOL. I.]

An Illustrated Literary Periodical.

FOR THE WEEK ENDING SATURDAY, AUGUST 20, 1853.

[PRICE 3 CENTS.

or lighter hand with bridle, no man could possess than he; and his noble steed, which like himself was full of courage and ardor, responded to all his movements, and obeyed the slightest indication of his will. His arms were rapier and dagger; and his broad-leaved hat, ornamented with a black feather, covered the luxuriant brown locks that fell in long ringlets over his shoulders. So débonnair was the young horseman in deportment, so graceful in figure, and so comely in looks, that he had excited no little admiration as he rode forth at an early hour that morning from Bishopgate Street, and passing under the wide portal in the old city walls, speeded towards the then rural district of Shoreditch, leaving Old Bedlam and its saddening associations on the right, and Finsbury Fields, with its gardens, dog-houses, and windmills, on the left. At the end of Bishopgate-Street-Without a consider: able crowd was collected round a party of comely young milkmaids, who were executing a lively and characteristic dance to the accompaniment of a bagpipe and fiddle. Instead of carrying pails as was their wont, these milkmaids, who were all very neatly attired, bore on their heads a pile of silver plate, borrowed for the occasion, arranged like a pyramid, and adorned He was young, and of singularly prepossessing appear- with ribands and flowers. In this way they visited all ance, with a countenance full of fire and spirit, and their customers and danced before their doors. A blooming with health, and it was easy to see that his pretty usage then observed in the environs of the melife had been passed in the country, and in constant tropolis in the month of May. The merry milkmaids manly exercise; for though he managed his horse-set up a joyous shout as the youth rode by; and many a powerful bay charger-to perfection, there was nothing of the town gallant, or of the soldier, about him. His doublet and cloak were of a plain dark material, and had seen service; but they well became his fine symmetrical figure, as did the buff boots defending his well-made, vigorous limbs. Better seat in saddle,

[THE MAY QUEEN OFFERING THE

NOSEGAY

TO AVELINE.]

ENGRAVED FOR THE NEW YORK JOURNAL.

THE STAR CHAMBER;

AN HISTORICAL ROMANCE,

BY W. HARRISON AINSWORTH, Esq.,

CHAPTER XIII.

HOW JOCELYN MOUNCHENSEY ENCOUNTERED A MASKED
WO days after the events last recorded, a horse-
Tw
man, followed at a respectful distance by a
mounted attendant, took his way up Stamford Hill.

HORSEMAN ON STAMFORD HILL.

a bright eye followed his gallant figure till it disappeared. At the Conduit beyond Shoreditch, a pack of young girls, who were drawing water, suspended their task to look after him; and so did every buxom country lass he encountered, whether seated in tilted cart, or on a pillion behind her sturdy sire. To each