was no gauge of respectability and no honest occupation, however menial in its character, affected a man’s standing.  Lawyers, physicians, and ex-professors, dug cellars, drove ox-teams, sawed wood, and carried baggage, while men who had been army privates, sailors, cooks, or day laborers, were at the head of profitable establishments, and not unfrequently assisted in some of the minor details of government.  A man who would consider his fellow beneath him, on account of his appearance or occupation, would have had some difficulty in living peaceably in California.  The security of the country is owing in no small degree to this plain, practical development of what the French reverence as an abstraction, under the name of Fraternite.  To sum up all in three words, Labor is respectable.  May it never be otherwise while a grain of gold is left to glitter in Californian soil!”

Our author returned by way of Mazatlan and the city of Mexico, meeting with a pleasant variety of adventures, robbery included, on his route.  In taking leave of his volumes, we cannot forbear venturing a suggestion to the author, that he may find a field of travel, less known, and quite as interesting at the present time, in the vast Territory of New Mexico—­the valley of the Del Norte, with its old Castilian and Aztec monuments and associations; the Great Salt Lake, and the unexplored regions of the great valley of the Colorado, between the mountain ranges of the Sierra Madre and the Sierra Nevada.  We know of no one better fitted for such an enterprise, or for whom, judging from the spirit of his California narrative, it would present more attractions.

[Footnote 2:  Eldorado:  Adventures in the Path of Empire.  By Bayard Taylor.  New York.  Putnam. 1850.  Two volumes.]

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MEYERBEER AND WEBER.—­The Berlin papers are reviving the rumor that Meyerbeer is to complete an opera which Weber left unfinished.  This time his share is defined to be, a new third act, three numbers in the second, one number in the first, and an overture.

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FROM UNPUBLISHED BOOKS

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FROM MISS FENIMORE COOPER’S “RURAL HOURS,” IN PRESS BY PUTNAM

A CHASE

Within twenty years from the foundation of the village, the deer had already become rare, and in a brief period later they had fled from the country.  One of the last of these beautiful creatures seen in the waters of our lake occasioned a chase of much interest, though under very different circumstances from those of a regular hunt.  A pretty little fawn had been brought in very young from the woods, and nursed and petted by a lady in the village until it had become as tame as possible.  It was graceful, as these little creatures always are, and so gentle and playful