For full dress, gowns of cloth, velvet, and satin, are most in request at this season; though brocade sarsnet and muslin, and net over satin, blend with the elegant variety. The construction of these robes are various, some in velvet and fine imperial cloth, are bordered alternately with borders of chenille in embroidery; others are ornamented with gold or silver lace, with clasps and fringe to correspond; others are trimmed entirely with fine lace in antique.

Short Polanese robes of coloured gossamer net, over white satin under dresses, have a very light and elegant effect in the ball-room. The following dress struck us as exceedingly beautiful, and decorated females of considerable rank and much personal beauty. First, a round robe of fine white imperial cloth, trimmed round the bottom with a gold fringe; long sleeve of gold tissue, and deep antique cuff; gold embossed stomacher; diamond ornaments, with correspondent comb, and Spartan diadem. Secondly, a Convent robe of grass-green velvet, richly tamboured in borders of gold ; a Spanish hat of white satin, with rich gold loops, and Spanish plume of variegated green feathers; white satin shoes, with gold embroidered toes. Thirdly, a plain round robe of pink or blossom-coloured satin, with long sleeve; a broad scolloped lace, laid plain round the feet a little above the hem; the same round the bosom and cuffs; an apliqued stomacher of point lace edged with pearl or white bugles; pearl necklace, earrings, and bracelets; hair à la Greque, with pearl comb. Fourthly, a Roman tunic of light-blue velvet, made high in the neck behind, with a deep double plaited ruff of vandyke lace, brought to a point at the centre of the bosom, and clasped with rich embossed silver ornaments thence to the feet; short sleeve the same as the vest, finished with silver lace or binding like that which borders the dress; a long sleeve of fine cobweb net placed over, and confined at the wrist with a diamond clasp; neck and head ornaments to correspond, or a Spanish hat of frosted satin.

Scarlet robes are rather on the decline, or at best only belonging to the intermediate style of decoration, as does also the half kerchief for the hair. Jewellery is much worn in the hair by those ladies whose redundant tresses reject the cap; which latter article belongs (in full dress) exclusively to ladies advanced in years; these are generally formed of velvet, gold and silver tissue, or lace interspersed with satin or velvet. The necklace, or chain, is worn short, and the bracelet broad.

The most genteel colours are Saragossa brown, Spanish fly, purple and gold colour; although scarlet and morone are very general.

FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

THE FASHIONABLE WORLD.

FASHION, come; on me awhile
Deign, fantastic Nymph, to smile.

THE term, World, is in strict alliance with a vast variety of appropriate epithets. We are astonished at the wonders of the great world, and we smile at the fooleries and impertinence of the little. The busy world engrosses some of our attention, and toward the LITERARY WORLD, we gaze for hours together. Theologists talk much of an invisible world, and it is firmly and piously believed, that this sort of world is the best in the Universal System. Your pedant and your philosopher of the sixteenth century, affected in their solemn way, to speak, with great precision, of the Mundus Muliebris, or Female World. Modern Editors, Milliners, and Loungers, who are nothing like pedants or philosophers, descant at large in many a cream-coloured page on the dazzling beauties of the Fashionable World. Rustic, recluse, retired, and greyheaded, as OLIVER OLDSCHOOL Most certainly is, yet from a variety of charming associations of faded youth and obsolete gallantry, he cannot help regarding this same fashionable world, with a high degree of complacency. When poor DRYDEN was almost in his dotage, he composed the following charming couplet:

Old as I am, for Ladies' love unfit,

The Power of Beauty I remember yet.

Now this is admirable, and expresses with all the Poet's energy the interest which every man of sensibility, however blunted by years, and misfortune, naturally feels, in whatever relates to LOVELY AND

ACCOMPLISHED WOMAN.

As we understand from divers and authentic sources, that this our Magazine is sometimes peeped at by the brilliant belle, as well as by the solemn hermit, and the sage philosopher; therefore in gratitude for our good reception at toilets and in saloons, we should fail in our fealty to the Fair, if we did not devote some of our pages to the amusement and edification of the Ladies. In no city, town, or hamlet of this our most fortunate and favoured country, can brighter Beauty, or more enchanting Graces be found, than what we have the privilege of gazing at, from our study window. Philadelphia is the Circassia of the new

World; and boasts of bewitching Beings, youthful as HEBE, gay as IRIS, or majestic as Juno.

When drudging Application is in perpetual alliance with daring Genius, the duplicate Power overcomes every obstacle. So when the Perfection of Art comes up to the aid of blushing and beauteous Nature, the effect is irresistible, and the Triumph complete.

To effect this union is the object of the preceding article, which may be considered by our fair friends, as

“The glass of Fashion, and the mould of Form."

In the capital of Great Britain, are two publications of the most splendid character, and almost exclusively devoted to the Fashionable World. We allude to the Court Magazine by Bell, and the Repository by Akerman. These exhibit a regular history of the progress of Fashion, and their conductors watch most vigilantly "all the wild vicissitudes of Taste."

We have access to these splendid pamphlets, sooner perhaps, than any other readers in America. By a remarkably correct and systematic arrangement, it is in our power to diffuse a knowledge of the various modes of dress, nearly as soon, as they are adopted abroad. The modish costume of the month, or season, is generally illustrated by a superb engraving. This we shall occasionally emulate, as far as is practicable; and we will fairly appeal to our fair friends, if the annexed plate, descriptive of a Spanish dress, is not equal in effect to the finest flow of Grecian drapery.

N. B. Lest it should be unjustly thought, or injuriously asserted, that we are departing widely from our proper province, and that our recondite studies totally unqualify us to shine in this gay department, we assure our readers that we are so diffident of our skill in these intricate affairs, that we never act, without consulting the constituted authorities, and that many learned ladies, not to mention French and other Milliners, are frequently of our council.

ORIGINAL POETRY-FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

THE FORESTERS;

A POEM:

Descriptive of a Pedestrian Journey to the Falls of Niagara,
In the Autumn of 1803.

By the Author of American Ornithology.

SONS of the city! ye whom crowds and noise
Bereave of peace and Nature's rural joys,

And ye who love through woods and wilds to range,
Who see new charms in each successive change;
Come roam with me Columbia's forests through,

Where scenes sublime shall meet your wandering view;
Deep shades magnificent, immensely spread;

Lakes, sky-encircled, vast as ocean's bed;

Lone hermit streams that wind through savage woods;
Enormous cataracts swoln with thund'ring floods;
The settler's* farm with blazing fires o'erspread;

The hunter's cabin and the Indian's shed;
The log-built hamlet, deep in wilds embrac'd;
The awful silence of th' unpeopled waste:
These are the scenes the Muse shall now explore,
• Scenes new to song and paths untrod before.

To Europe's shores renowned in deathless song,
Must all the honours of the bard belong?
And rural Poetry's enchanting strain

Be only heard beyond th' Atlantic main?

What though profuse in many a patriot's praise,

We boast a BARLOW's soul-exalting lays;

An HUMPHREYS blessed with Homer's nervous glow;
And Freedom's friend and champion in FRENEAU;
Yet Nature's charms that bloom so lovely here,

Unhailed arrive, unheeded disappear;

While bare bleak heaths and brooks of half a mile
Can rouse the thousand bards of Britain's isle.

A term usually applied in America to those persons who first commence the operations of agriculture in a new country by cutting, clearing, and actual settlement. The varied appearance of the woods where these are rapidly going on, forms a busy, novel, and interesting picture.

There scarce a stream creeps down its narrow bed,
There scarce a hillock lifts its little head,

Or humble hamlet peeps their glades among
But lives and murmurs in immortal song.
Our western world, with all its matchless floods,
Our vast transparent lakes and boundless woods,
Stamped with the traits of majesty sublime,
Unhonoured weep the silent lapse of time,
Spread their wild grandeur to th' unconscious sky,
In sweetest seasons pass unheeded by ;

While scarce one Muse returns the songs they gave,
Or seeks to snatch their glories from the grave.

The sultry heats of summer's sun were o'er,
And ruddy orchards poured their ripened store;
Stripped of their leaves the cherry av'nues stood,
While sage October ting'd the yellow wood,
Bestrewed with leaves and nuts the woodland path,
And roused the Katydid* in chattering wrath;

The corn stood topped, there pumpkins strewed the ground,
And driving clouds of blackbirds wheeled around,

Far to the south our warblers had withdrawn ;
Slow sailed the thistle-down along the lawn;
High on the hedge-rows, pendant over head,
Th'embow'ring vines their purple clusters spread,
The buckwheat flails reechoed from the hill,
The creaking cider-press was busier still;
Red through the smoky air the wading sun
Sunk into fog ere half the day was done;
The air was mild, the roads embrown'd and dry,
Soft, meek-eyed Indian summerf ruled the sky.

Such was the season when equipt we stood
On the green banks of Schuylkill's winding flood,
Bound on a tour wide northern forests through,
And bade our parting friends a short adieu;
Three cheerful partners, Duncan was the guide,
Young, gay, and active, to the forest tried,

A species of Gryllus very numerous and very noisy in the woods at that season.

This expression is so well understood in the United States as hardly to require an explanation. Between the months of October and December there is usually a week or two of calm serene smoky weather, such as is here described, which is universally denominated the Indian sum:ner.