It needs but to add, in respect of the volume which we have been considering, that it is worthy of the name and fame of COOPER, and worthy of the name and fame of his present publishers.
EDITORIAL HISTORICAL NARRATIVE OF THE KNICKERBOCKER MAGAZINE: NUMBER NINETEEN.--Our last number of this 'Narrative-History' was shorter by some eight pages than its predecessors: so that we had no space to finish our consideration of the 'Ollapodiana Papers,' which we now resume, in connection with other early writings for the KNICKERBOCKER. The few brief passages which we quoted, did not afford a fair example of the variety, the change of mood and manner which this short but admirable series displayed. A passage in the remarks of the author of the paper in the last _North-British Review_,' elsewhere noticed in these pages, admirably and truly represents the characteristics of WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK'S mind and pen, in these popular papers: 'The man who can laugh as well as weep is most a man. The greatest humorists have also been the most serious seers, and men of most earnest heart. And all those who have manifested the finest perfection of spiritual health have enjoyed the merry sun-shine of life, and wrought their work with a spirit of blithe bravery.' The very last chapter of 'Ollapodiana,' written when the writer was prostrated by the illness from which he never recovered, was as felicitous and mirth-moving as any of the numbers which preceded it: and yet the pathos which characterized his sadder musings, as he drew near and nearer to the grave, failed not to draw tears from many a sympathetic soul. We pass to a few more brief and characteristic passages.
As WILLIS approached the end of his earthly pilgrimage, his thoughts grew solemn, deep, mournful possibly, but yet not sad. Thus he says, in the last number but one of _Ollapodiana_:
'IT is no long time, respected reader, since we communed together. Yet, how many matters have happened since that period, which should give us pause, and solemn meditation! _We_ are still extant; the beams of our spirit still shine from _our_ eyes; yet there are many who, since last my sentences came to yours, have drooped their lids forever upon things of earth. Numberless ties have been severed; numberless hearts rest from their pantings, and sleep, 'no more to fold the robe o'er secret pain.' All the deceits, the masks of life, are ended with them. _Policy_ no more bids them to kindle the eye with deceitful lustre; no more prompts to _semblance_, which feeling condemns. They are gone!--'ashes to ashes, and dust to dust;' and when I think of the numbers who thus pass away, I am pained within me; for I know from them that our life is not only as a dream which passeth away, but that the garniture, or the carnival of it, is indeed a vapor, sun-gilt for a moment, then colored with the dun hues of death, or stretching its dim folds afar, until their remotest outlines catch the imperishable glory of eternity. Such is life; made up of successful or successless accidents; its movers and actors, from the cradle to three-score-and-ten, pushed about by Fate not their own; aspiring but impotent; impelled as by visions, and rapt in a dream--which who can dispel?'