Now Mr. H----, the lawyer, was there, With a pretty good head, but not very much hair, So little, in fact, that a wig he must wear, Ri tu den u-den a!' The parody had the jogging, jolting air of the original, and was replete, we recollect, with whimsical associations. . . . WE shall venture to present here the comments of two most valued friends and contributors, upon the performances of two _other_ esteemed friends and favorite correspondents. Of '_The Venus of Ille_,' the one writes as follows: 'I fully sympathise with you in your admiration of this tale, as well as of 'The Innocence of a Galley-Slave.' I could not in the perusal of them both but feel the vast superiority of the Grecian over the Gothic style. For in spite of all the humor and wit and nature and pathos of the DICKENS and LEVER school, there is something more of the Gothic and grotesque in their paintings than in these pure and unforced limnings of the able Frenchman. Where the ground-work of the tale is of sufficiently bold conception, and the incidents offer hooks enough to hang interest upon, there can be no doubt that this cool style is by far the most effectual in the end. The more strained and heated style of some other modern authors will be very effectual for awhile, but the excitement of the reader will flag sooner. The reason is, that too much descriptive and passionate power is expended on minor portions of the tale; and the enthusiasm of the reader is partially exhausted before he comes to the grand catastrophe, where it should be most of all elicited. But writers like WALTER SCOTT, or this Frenchman, are self-possessed and meditative in a great portion of their writings; by skilful touches giving the reader every thing necessary for him to know in reference to characters and scenes; and on any great emergency their sudden heat carries the reader away captive.' The admiration expressed by our other accomplished friend for the chaste and graceful essays of a still more accomplished correspondent (there is nothing like disparagement in this comparison) is widely shared, as we have the best reason to know, by our readers on both sides of the Atlantic: 'JOHN WATERS! There is a drab-coated plainness about the name, which is at the same time _liquid_ and musical; not more liquid and musical, howbeit, than those charming commentaries of his on every variety of quaint topic; full of an amiable grace, tinged with the most delicate hue of a fine humor; a refined ore drawn from no ordinary mine without alloy; like the compositions of SAPPHO, to which an unerring critic has applied the expression, [Greek: chruseiotera chrusou]; the very best of gold. Doves never bore choicer _billet-doux_ beneath their wings. A beautiful sentiment always touches the heart, though couched in homely phrase; but when one knows how to cull from our mother-tongue the most expressive words, and has gained that enviable mastery, making them fall