impressed itself so forcibly upon our imagination. The faithful yet most dramatic portraiture of character; the deep interest excited by the incidents of the story, which proceed by a natural convergence to the _dénouement_; the felicitous management of the dialogue, and the grouping of the scenes and _dramatis personæ_, have never been equalled, to our conception, by any previous writer in the KNICKERBOCKER. Being what is termed 'an old stager,' in a literary sense, we are not wont to be deeply affected by narratives of this sort; but we are bound to state, that after reading 'The Galley-Slave' at night, we retired to rest, but not to sleep. Its scenes, its characters, were before us during the night-watches, and until the morning dawned; with such variations only as were produced by the vagaries of half-waking dreams. If there be a reader of the KNICKERBOCKER who shall disagree with us in opinion, after the perusal of the conclusion of the story in our October number, why we should like to see him--'some day when he is passing.' * * * THE following was found upon the body of a suicide, taken from the Thames in London. It was well pronounced 'an act of attainder against the whole community, in the infamy of which each man of means had his share. It is irresistible in its truth and pathos: 'THIS body, if ever this body should be found, was once a thing which moved about the earth, despised and unnoticed, and died indigent and unlamented. It could hear, see, feel, smell, and taste, with as much quickness, delicacy, and force as other bodies. It had desires and passions like other bodies, but was denied the use of them by such as had the power and the will to engross the good things of this world to themselves. The doors of the great were shut upon it; not because it was infected with disease or contaminated with infamy, but on account of the fashion of the garments with which it was clothed, and the name it derived from its forefathers; and because it had not the habit of bending its knee where its heart owed no respect, nor the power of moving its tongue to gloze the crimes or flatter the follies of men. It was excluded the fellowship of such as heap up gold and silver; not because it did, but for fear it might, ask a small portion of their beloved wealth. It shrunk with pain and pity from the haunts of ignorance which the knowledge it possessed could not enlighten, and guilt that its sensations were obliged to abhor. There was but one class of men with whom it was permitted to associate, and those were such as had feelings and misfortunes like its own; among whom it was its hard fate frequently to suffer imposition, from assumed worth and fictitious distress. Beings of supposed benevolence, capable of perceiving, loving, and promoting merit and virtue, have now and then seemed to flit and glide before it. But the visions