Requires some genius, I would have you know,
Nailing it neatly with a second plumper,

-Which is the rule,

When challenged on the first one (if you go
To Mr. Fl-tch-r, he will tell you so.)
But just to speak the simple, stupid truth,
Why, that, forsooth,

Any mere Pottawottamie* or fool

Can do, without ever having been to school.
To exercise this 'talent,' then, with spirit
Is the Whig politician's greatest merit.

Kindred to this are several minor ones,-
Such as the 'talent' they display for puffing;
Making their shallowest speakers finer ones
Than all the greatest names of ancient story;
Forever vaunting

Each of their 'youthful prodigies,'
Who haply may display

Some fluent 'talent' in the H. R. for ranting,
With due proportion mixed with that of canting,
(Unconscious of the silly figure he

Is cutting) as the new Demosthenes

Of our blest land and day,

The glory and the pride of Whiggery.

The poor 'youth' stuffing

With such absurd conceit of his own glory,
That on the first occasion

He gets a little flurried at a dinner,

Or Champagne celebration,

The unlucky sinner

Before high heaven such tricks fantastic plays
With his unruly tongue,

And through his lion's skin so loudly brays,

As to become excessively ridiculous;

Makes his own friends ashamed a whole month after,

And furnishes material to tickle us

With Loco-Foco laughter

For twice as long.

Such, too, their well-known 'talent,' Sir, for bragging,
Which they display

In fifty ways-from Mr. Cl-,

On all occasions dragging

In, by the head and shoulders, some bold boast,
(Even at the courteous table,

Where one should be a gentleman, if able,
Coolly condoling with his host,

That he so soon must look

For other lodging-rooms at K-nd-rh-k,

*The latest Whig name for a 'huge-pawed' democratic farmer.

While he will rule the roast

In the White House by fair Potomac's side,)
From bold bluff Harry of Kentucky,

Whose gallant skill at " Brag "'s his highest pride, (In which I hope he is more lucky,

Besides not playing off the same odd tricks'

As in the gambling of his politics)

Down to the puniest whipster of the press,
In his report

Of every election "VICTORY!"

And matters of that sort,

This 'talent' also we must needs confess,

In a remarkable degree,

They certainly possess.

Nor ought I to omit their talent,'
Drawn from the same illustrious example,
For swearing-in a style so bluff and gallant,
When they would be particularly polite,
'Tis really charming quite!

I dare not give a sample,

For fear that it might shock the Muse's ear,

Who does not often hear

Such 'winged words' by Helicon's old mountain,
Nor fair Castalia's fountain,

Where she is wont to roam.

She might indeed be scared away,

And not return to me for many a day,

Were she to hear me say,

Over the woes of this benighted nation,
To whom it will be very edifying,

Of showing off his 'talent,' too, for crying.

So, therefore, worthy Mr. Slicer,
On next "First Monday,"

You'll not attempt to be,

A candidate for your old chaplaincy,

If you take my advice, Sir.

Among their other 'talents' is
Another yet in which the balance is,
Beyond dispute, all on their side,
-I mean in fisticuffing,

In which they justly take a gentlemanly pride.
Witness, oh B-ddl-, D-n-ng, B-ll, and C-mpb-ll,
And M-ry, who didst get thy quantum suff: in
Less than no time,-

Or, (if from Mr. Cl- it be no crime
An 'elegant extract' just for once to borrow)
In good plain English, didst get pummelled d—
I hope thou hast recovered from thy bruises,
And that no longer, man,

(The Muse yet weeps at the sad tale of sorrow!)
Thy countenance of twenty different hues is!
Being a stronger man,

(Strong, I should think, as half a dozen oxen)
And clearly, too, a better hand at boxing,
Thy brother Whig, in mauling thee so sadly,
Did use thee very badly,

-Especially as Sunday morning

Upon the "Honorable" House was dawning-
And though a Loco-Foco I would gladly

Have seen him put the stocks in.

Nor with the fist

Alone are they accomplished thus in dealing,-
They have an equal 'talent' with the Pist-

-Ol, when they can

Inflame their chivalry with the safe feeling

That 'tis an unarmed man

With whom they have to do,

-Especially if he's gray-headed too

well.

Oh, then these gallant Hotspurs of young Whiggery Can bring him up before them in Commit

-Tee- sitting as his judges-
Call him a rascal, knave, and rogue, Sir—
Ill treat him

In style which I must really call atrocity-
And if a hair's-breadth more than they'll permit,

-So quick are they upon the trigger-he

His elbow nudges,

They'll shoot him like a dog, Sir,

And such the ardor of their brave ferocity,

I shouldn't be surprised if then they'd eat him!

In fact, Sir, this is,

A favorite 'talent,' that of bullying,

Which they do sometimes truly in A very gallant style-when fortune sends One who will meekly bear it

In the true Christian spirit

Which when one cheek is smote the other lends.
But if the attempt, Sir, misses,

And he turns round with unexpected spunk, and
Treats them as Gh-ls-n did, or D-nc-n,

Oh, then the word "quick, march-right about face!" is,
-For circumstances vastly alter cases.

And now I'm thinking,

It cannot to the Whigs be quite agreeable
(And they are not a few

That take delight in the Democratic Review)
To listen thus to their own praises
Presented in so many different phases,

Which must, if any thing could be able,
Tinge with a blush of modesty their phizzes,—
I say, I'm thinking,

That after covering them with so much glory
As she has done already, this is

A fit place for the Muse to fold her wing.
And therefore she will close the category
Of talents' which she has essayed to sing,
(Unworthily I know, though con amore)

With one which-there's no blinking
The sad acknowledgment-they beat us hollow in,
-I mean in drinking.

Why, some of their late feats in swallowing

Were done on so magnificent a scale,

I know the Muse would wholly fail

Were she to dare the high attempt of following
Out the sublimity of the "great occasion,"
Whether in lyric song or prose narration,

And therefore she knocks under,
Quite overpowered with admiring wonder,
With this advice by way of peroration-
When you invite a set to dine

Of pious pilgrims who have such a nice sense
Of conscience for the temperance of the people,
As to forbid the issuing of a licence

On a small scale to tipple,—

Provide your wine

-If you would not be drunk, Sir, out of house and

Home-by the thousand!

THE INDIAN SUMMER.

To a resident in New England the very name of Indian Summer calls up so many essentially poetic images, that it is difficult to approach the subject without permitting the thoughts to run riot over the fairy scenes which that season presents; and we marvel not that it has suggested to the muse of America some of her most brilliant effusions for it would require no great effort of the imagination to perceive in its balmy and buoyant air a portion of that divinus afflatus of which the old poets spake.

But it is our object at present to describe the Indian Summer in sober prose, for the benefit of those readers, both in the Old World and the New, whose good fortune it has never been to become eyewitnesses of its beauties; and we must therefore strive, like the Cumæan Sybil,

-Magnum pectore excussisse deum

and confine ourselves as far as may be to plain matters of fact.

The temperature of the last two years, owing to the proximity of Halley's Comet, or to some other cause not yet explained, has differed so materially from the average of previous observations, that the meteorological tables published during that time, supply us with no accurate data for our present investigation. It will be sufficient therefore to state in general terms, that from the end of August to the end of September, the thermometer announces a gradual and constant diminution of heat; but that in the early part of October a strange interruption occurs to the progressive fall of the mercury, and when in the natural course of events we should be led to anticipate a still farther increase of cold, we are surprised to perceive, that for two or three weeks successively, with a few slight exceptions, an elevation of temperature is experienced, to a degree greater in many cases than the average of the first week of September,sometimes as great as the mean of the month of August.

This seeming anomaly of Nature is not peculiar to the American continent. A brief season of heat immediately preceding the rigors of winter is observed in all, or nearly all, the northern countries of Europe and Asia, variously designated as "the latter" or "second summer," the "after-heat," the "summer-close," and many other like terms in which the same idea is embodied, differing only with the idioms of the various languages in which they occur. In America, however, that season is marked with features so distinct from those which characterize it in other countries, as to entitle it to a separate consideration. In the Old World indeed it is accompanied