The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-02-23

propriety over thedeliberations Of the ancient
Athenian Ecclesia as over those of the Great
and General Court in the State House of this
Commonwealth. For the Athenians we're as
great fishermen as our Cape Ann folks, and
were immoderately fond of a fish diet, which
accounts perhaps for their startling intellec-
tual brilliancy and apprehensiveress, on the
theory of Professor Agassiz. Food and fish,
says Mitchell, were synonymous terms among
the Athenians. Salt fish constituted the
principal food of the Attic soldiers and sailors.
Prodigious quantities we're imported from the
Euxine. When the bell of the fish market rang
everybody rushed thither leaving the sophists
and orators in the middle of their harangues
without an audiences; and the Athenian Bill
ingsgate, like that of modern London, was
noted for the scurrilous tongues of its dealers.
A story is told of an Attic orator who was un-
fortunately in the middle of his "few feeble
remarks" when the fish-market bell rang.
There was an instant stampede of his entire
audience, with one solitary exception, who,
to the surprise of the speaker, "stuck." In
pure gratitude he thanked his solitary listener,
at the same time explaining the cause of the
stampede. 1t turned out that the fellow was
deaf, and as soon as he ascertained that the
fishmongers bell had rung he too fed, leaving
the eloquent speaker soliloquizing to vacancy.
This interesting bit of literary history we
take from Mr.. j. T.. Fields gossip about
Hawthorne in his paper entitled "Our Whis-
pering Gallery
Hawthorne dined one day with Longfellow,
and brought with him friend from Salem.
After dinner the friend said;-'I have been
trying to persuade Hawthorne to write story,
based upon legend of Acadie, and still cur
rent there; the legend of a girl who, in the
dispersion of the Acadians, was separated
from her lover, and passed her life in
waiting and seeking for him, and only
found him dying in hospital, when
both we're old" Longfelow wondered
that this legend did not strike the fancy of
Hawthorne, and said to him:-''If you have
really made up your mind not to use it for
story, will you give it to me for poem ?" To
this Hawthorne assented, and moreover pro-
missed not to treat the subject in prose till
Longfellow had seen what he could do with it
in verse. And SO we have 'Evangeline" in
beautiful hexameters-a poem that will hold
its place in literature while true affection
lasts. Hawthorne rejoiced in this great sue
cess of Longfellow, and loved to count up the
editions, both foreign and American, of this
now world-renowned poem.
w. S. Turner sends us Our Young
Folks for March, which is handsomely illus
trated and is filled with entertaining reading
matter adapted to juvenile tastes; GOdey's
Ladys Book for March, which contains seve-
raj engravipgs on steel and wood, fashion
plates, patterns for needlework, etc., and a
variety of entertaining literary contributions.
Tile Lady'S Friend for March has nume-
rous illustrations and an attractive series of
stories and sketches.
The March number of The Nursery pre-
sents variety of attractions in the shape of
short stories, verses, and clever illustrations
adapted to the tastes of the nursery public.