* * * * * Among the rest, old Markham's "Summer Contentments" has furnished us with rare meals, and inveigled us into trying with inapt hands the _metier_ of the rod and angle. We flatter ourselves that we have won upon the _character_ of the angler, however little we may win upon his fish. "He must," says pleasant old Markham, "neither be amazed with storms, nor frighted with thunder; and if he is not temperate, but has a gnawing stomach, that will not endure much fasting, and must observe hours, it troubleth the mind and body, and loseth that delight which only maketh pastime pleasing. "He must be of a well-settled and constant belief, to enjoy the benefit of his expectation; for than to despair, it were better never to be put in practice: and he must ever think, when the waters are pleasant, and any thing likely, that there the Creator of all good things, hath stored up much of plenty; and though your satisfaction be not as ready as your wishes, yet you must hope still, that with perseverance you shall reap the fullness of your harvest with contentment. Then he must be full of love both to his pleasure, and his neighbor--to his pleasure, which will otherwise be irksome and tedious--and to his neighbor, that he never give offense in any particular, nor be guilty of any general destruction; then he must be exceeding patient, and neither vex nor excruciate himself with any losses or mischances, as in losing the prey when it is almost in hand, or by breaking his tools by ignorance or negligence; but with pleased sufferance amend errors, and think mischances instructions to better carefulness." We commend all this to the trout fishers among the musquitos, and black flies of Hamilton County--for even into that dim, and barbarian region, our monthly budget finds its way. * * * * * Among other things of the hour, we must spare a note for those pleasant statistics of author-and-bookdom, which the international discussion of Copyright has called into print. Heretofore, the man of books has been reckoned as a liver, for the most part, upon such manna as rained down from time to time, from a very imaginative heaven; he has lived, by a certain charitable courtesy of the world, (which is coy of ferreting out its injustices) beyond the tongue of talk, and his pride and poverty have suffered an amiable reprieve. The time, it seems, is now gone by; and we find Prescott and Irving submitted to the same fiscal measurement, as are the brokers upon 'Change. We wish the whole author fraternity might come as bravely out of it as the two we have named: and should it ever come to pass, that the fraternity were altogether rich, we hope they will not neglect the foundation of some quiet hospital for the poor fellows (like ourselves) who record their progress, and chronicle their honors.