One very poor Bohemian, my boy (whose scathing sarcasm at the expense of those degraded creatures who prefer wealth to intellect, has often delighted and improved the public mind), was so rash as to intimate that the importunities of his laundress might drive him to the desperate resource of competing for the prize; but he was quickly made to blush for the unworthy thought, by the undisguised contempt for his "dem'd lowness" displayed by a decayed young gentleman in a dirty collar and very new neck-tie, who lives in a two-pair back in Wooster street (fish balls and a roll twice a day), and writes graphic sketches of fashionable life for the wholesale market. And yet, notwithstanding all this high-mindedness, my boy, there is an immense amount of some sort of genius insidiously pitted against the contemptible $500. Astounding and distracting to relate, the committee announces the reception of no less than eleven hundred and fifty "anthems"! The magnitude of eleven hundred and fifty "anthems" is almost more than one human mind can grasp. Allowing that each "anthem" is a quarter of a yard long, we have a grand total of two hundred and eighty-seven and a half yards of "anthem"; allowing that each "anthem" weighs half a pound (intellectually and materially), I find a gross weight of five hundred and seventy-five pounds of "anthem"! Let the reflective mind consider these figures for a moment, and it will be stricken with a sense of the singular resemblance between Genius and other marketable commodities. Eleven hundred and fifty anthems are enough to prove that Genius has its private mercenary weaknesses as well as Trade, my boy, and that brains can be bought by the yard as well as calico. Genius may carry with it a seeming contempt for the yellow dross of common humanity; but--it has to pay its occasional washerwoman. And all these "anthems" are rejected by the venerable committee! But must they _all_, therefore, be lost to the world? I hope not, my boy,--I hope not. Having some acquaintance with the discriminating rag-merchant to whom they were turned over as rejected, I have procured some of the best, from which to quote for your special edification. Imprimis, my boy, observe this NATIONAL ANTHEM. BY H. W. L----, OF CAMBRIDGE. Back in the years when Phlagstaff, the Dane, was monarch Over the sea-ribbed land of the fleet-footed Norsemen, Once there went forth young Ursa to gaze at the heavens-- Ursa, the noblest of all the Vikings and horsemen. Musing, he sat in his stirrups and viewed the horizon, Where the Aurora lapt stars in a North-polar manner, Wildly he started--for there in the heavens before him Fluttered and flew the original Star-Spangled Banner. The committee have two objections to this: in the first place, it is not an "anthem" at all; secondly, it is a gross plagiarism from an old Scandinavian war-song of the primeval ages. Next, I present a NATIONAL ANTHEM.