How noble such care for our shivering heroes! Who would not gladly perish for his country When, for his sake, her great men stoop so low as The shoddy business! * * * * * The Germans have a fine _Spinn-lied_, or song of spinning; so, too, have the jolly Flemish dames. And a poetical correspondent of ours seems determined that few and far between as the old-fashioned spinners are in this country, the race shall not entirely disappear without taking a song with them, and a quaint, pleasant lesson. Dear reader, to the CONTINENTAL'S way of thinking, there is something very winning in the thought of that 'great holiday,' when, free from all task, we shall play merrily evermore 'out-of-doors,' in eternal light, over infinite realms of beauty. SPINNING. Dearest mother, let me go; I am tired of this spinning, yet the whizzing wheel goes round, Till my brain is dull and dizzy with its ceaseless, humming sound. I can hear a little blue-bird, chirping sweetly in yon tree; And he would not stay there, mother, if he were not calling me. Oh! in pity, let me go: I have spun the flaxen thread, until my aching fingers drop; And my weary feet will falter, though the whizzing wheel should stop. I can see the sunny meadow where the gayest flowers grow; And I long to weave a garland;--dearest mother, let me go. Nay, be patient, eager child; Summer smiles beyond the door-way, but stern poverty is here; We must give her faithful service, if her frown we would not fear. Spin on cheerly, little daughter, till your needful task is done, Then go forth with bird and blossom, at the setting of the sun. Wait _thou_, also, troubled soul; Thou may'st look beyond the river, where the white-robed angels stand; Hear the faint, celestial music, wafted from the summer land; But thou cans't not leave thy labor;--when thy thread is duly spun, Thou shalt flee on flashing pinions, at the setting of the sun. * * * * * The times have been hard, reader, our friend, yet all merriment has not entirely died out, and there is still the sweet voice of music to be heard in the land. In New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and many minor cities, the Benedictine ULLMANN hath been ubiquitously about, operating most vigorously, while the philosophic and courteous GOSCHE hath not been far distant. And they heralded HINKLEY, and BORCHARD, and KELLOGG, and all the other sweet swans of song; they drew after them the gems of the opera; there was selling of _Libretti_, (and in Boston, 'los-_an_-gers'); there was the donning of scarlet and blue striped cloaks, gay _coiffures_ and butterflying fans; there was flirting, and fun, and gentle gayety in the New York Academy, and with the Boston Academies it was not otherwise, only that among the latter the Saxon predominateth, and the dark-eyed, music-loving children of Israel, who so abound in most opera audiences, are very rare.