gestible of moluscous substances-thou stanchest friend and steadiest supporter of Afric's trampled sons, for whom thou daily effectest more than Wilberforce can ever hope to compass-much do I regret that the insatiable appetites of the citizens are robbing their bay of its greatest boast; like the boy who killed the goose for the golden eggs, they are not content with the yearly produce of thy fruitful beds, but they leave them oysterless, seize on both interest and principal, and expect a miracle to provide for the future. It is easy to foresee the ruinous consequences of such atrocious conduct-but it is not in common prose that thy merits and sufferings should be commemorated. I will take my harp and sweep its softest strings.

LINES ON A NEWLY-OPENED YORK-BANKER.

With feelings strange and undefined I gaze upon thy face,
Thou choice and juicy specimen of an ill-fated race;
How calmly, yea, how meekly thou reclinest in thy shell,
Yet what thy woes and sufferings are man may conjecture well!

For thou hast life as well as he who recklessly seeks thine,
And, couldst thou speak, might draw forth tears as briny as thy brine;
For thou was torn from friends and home and all thy heart could wish,
Thou hapless, helpless, innocent, mute, persecuted fish.

Perhaps thou wast but newly joined to some soft plump young bride,
Who op'd her mouth for food with thee when flowed the flowing tide ;*

* Oysters taken from the river and kept in fresh water, open their mouths at the time of the flowing in of the tide, in expectation of their accustomed food.- Kitchiner.

Perhaps thou hast a family, from whom thou hast been torn,
Who sadly wail for him, alas, who never will return!

Thou wast happy on thy native bed, where blithesome billows play,
Till the cruel fisher wrench'd thee from thy 'home, sweet home, 'away;
He stow'd thee in his coble and he rowed thee to the strand-
Thou wast bought and sold and opened, and placed in this right hand!

I know that while I moralize thy flavor fades away,

I know thou shouldst be ate alive,* before thy sweets decay!

I know that it is foolishness, this weak delay of mine,

And epicures may laugh at it as sentimental whine.

Well, let them laugh, I still will drop a tear o'er thy sad fate,
Thou wretched and ill-fated one! thou sad and desolate !
O'er thee and o'er thy kindred hangs one all-consuming doom,
To die a slow and lingering death, or, living, find a tomb!

Like the Indian from the forest-like the roebuck from the glen,
Thy race is dwindling silently before the arts of men;

Ye are passing from the river, from the sea-bank, and the shore,
And the haunts that long have known ye, shall know ye soon no more!

The Blue-point and the Shrewsbury† are vanishing away,
And clamless soon will be our streams, and oysterless our bay;
Rapacious man, before your prime, ordains that ye shall die,
And drags ye from your cool retreats to boil and stew and fry!

Why were ye made so racy, rich, and luscious to the taste? "Tis that has stripped your thickest banks, and made your beds a waste; "Your virtues have proved sanctified and holy traitors to ye," And that which was your proudest boast has served but to undo ye!

E'en I, the friend of all thy kind, when I think of what thou art,
When I ponder o'er the melting joys thy swallowing will impart,
Can delay thy fate no longer; one look, it is my last!
A gulp-one more-a silent pause-a sigh-and all is past!

* Those who wish to enjoy this delicious restorative in the utmost perfection must eat it the moment it is opened, with its own gravy in the under shell; if not eaten while absolutely alive, its flavor and spirit are lost.-Kitchiner.

Two famous species, found adjacent to New-York, now nearly extinct.

PASSAGES

IN THE LIFE OF AN UNFORTUNATE.

"Ah me! for aught that ever I could read,

Could ever hear by tale or history,

The course of true love never did run smooth."

THOMAS AUGUSTUS PHELPS was a junior clerk in a small retail store, in an unfrequented part of Maiden-lane. His salary was insignificant, and his expenses were considerable; and, there being no visible channel through which extraneous funds could come into his possession, how he contrived, as the saying is, "to make both ends meet," was a problem which his most intimate friends were utterly unable to solve, and which was, moreover, a subject upon which, for some reason or other, he always declined to throw any light. He was generally characterized as a genteel and rather wellinformed young man- -that is, his dress was unexceptionable; his address easy, forward, and flippant ; and he discoursed with uncommon fluency on a number of subjects which he knew nothing about.

After he had gone through the business of the day, he improved his mind, of an evening, by playing billiards, and his morals by lounging about the saloons and lobbies of the theatre, from which places he criticized the performances in a very decided manner. This he was the better enabled to do, from being hand and glove with many of the minor actors, by whom he was let into the secret that the principal favorites of the town were persons destitute of ability, but that the capabilities of the minors were uncommon, though lost to the public by a monstrous system of managerial mismanagement, which bore heavily upon the whole mass, and with intense severity upon the peculiar talents of the several informants. But his greatest qualification was his inexhaustible fund of what is termed "small talk!" This he poured forth on all occasions, in "one weak, washy, everlasting flood," in a way that gained him the ardent admiration of numerous young ladies, and at last made an indelible impression upon the susceptible heart of Miss Julia Carmine, only surviving child of an artificial-flower manufacturer in Division-street. was a beauteous being, in the spring of life. Her features were strictly and chastely classical, excepting her nose, mouth, chin, and forehead; her eyes were exceedingly blue, her color rich and roseate,

Julia

and her auburn tresses flowed in luxuriant ringlets down her lovely neck, which was somewhat short. Nature had done every thing for her, setting aside that she wore artificial curls, and had purchased the majority of her teeth; and though her complexion of a morning was rather sallow, yet when dressed out, and seen by candle or gas-light, she was in reality a very pretty looking young woman. She had faults, to be sure-who has not? But the greatest of them were, that she talked occasionally a sort of mongrel French, played on the guitar, and kept an album.

What a sacred thing is first love! and its accompanying train of inexplicable and indescribable feelings! and how hallowed in the imagination becomes every spot connected with this purest of passions; particularly the spot where a mutual reciprocation of sentiment first took place! It is that of which I am about to speak. Julia and Thomas Augustus sat alone one evening in a small arbor, or rather wooden box, in a retired corner of the "Bowery tea-garden;"

"The moon hid her light

From the heavens that night,"

and a variegated lamp, attached to the front of the box, was all that shed a melancholy radiance over