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We once more send our "Opal" to our kind readers. We trust that its soft and varied light will best be as grateful, as we are assured, it has been heretofore. For the numerous and complimentary notices which our humble efforts have called forth, we are too modest to render any other return than an expression of our simple, but deeply-felt thanks. It would not look well to quote them.

We must however make one exception. The Editor of the Utica Daily Gazette, had committed two grave offences: one was in an extremely well-written article on the "Black Swan's" singing, that "her voice was perfectly white." The other was, not taking any notice of the "Opal." In his paper of the 11th ult., he made the honorable amend so handsomely for the latter offence that we cheerfully forgive the former as he has a fine literary taste, we will venture to suggest to him the solution of a great question which has tormented the critics from Warton down to our time. What did Milton mean by the word in italics in the following passage?

"As the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid,
Tunes her nocturnal note."

Does not the "Black Swan" solve the difficulty? The Gazette, we know, will turn on us, and charge on us that very trifling, which we deemed so indecorous in him. Never mind; Miss Greenfield can bear it. Such wit as ours cannot obstruct the success of such musical capabilities as hers, which may ensure a reputation that shall eclipse even that of Jenny Lind herself.

Jenny Lind, Jenny Lind, alas! Jenny Lind no more! That sweet name, sweet enough to be the key-note of her own matchless music, is become -- Mrs. Goldschmidt. What an ignoble, dickering, Wall-Street, and 'Change-Alley mutation! But God be with thee, Jenny! And even thou shalt cease to pour the melody of thy eloquent voice, -- eloquent, because it is the instrument of thy full, deep soul, into the hearts of men, -- may thine own heart bound at the magnificent announcement, which thou hast so often uttered, as it was never uttered before by mortal, "I know that my Redeemer liveth."

We publish the following letter with the reply to it, as a proof that our race is actually progressing, that there is hope of man, and that even lawyers are willing to distrust the accuracy of landmarks and dogmas which are consecrated by ages, but alas, by ages only:

To the Editor of the "Opal."

Dear Sir, -- I am about to commence the trial of a man who is under indictment for a capital crime. I strongly suspect that the fellow has not known what he was about this ten years past. As a question may possibly arise, during the trial as to the proper definition of insanity, I take the liberty to ask your aid on the occasion. I understand that a number of insane persons are kept at the Lunatic Asylum; indeed, it is said, that you have a touch yourself. As, therefore, you are fully qualified to advise me, and as I should be sorry to order the poor fellow to be hung, if he is innocent, please to give me the requisite information, and oblige.--Yours, &c.

Justice of the Supreme Court.

There is much in this letter which gave us pleasure. In the first place, we like the amiable spirit which prompted the words we have italicized. In the second place, it shows a teachable spirit; he is anxious to learn. There is a little slyness in his allusion to our own mental condition, but does not his Honor know that idiots and lunatics were considered by the ancient wise men as worthy of special veneration, as being the vehicles through which the Gods conveyed the clearest manifestations of their will? Socrates said that a lunatic differed from another man only in this, he had no will of his own, but its place was most gloriously supplied by that of Jupiter himself.

With this remark we most cheerfully answer the Judge's question. In consulting us he is following the guidance of that common sense which, probably, secures to him success in the ordinary transactions of his life, in the purchase of his hat or his shoes, for example. He has come where the article is kept in great abundance and variety. Let us then, as well as may be, save our customer from the commission of a fearful crime, which, though it has no name in the statutes, must, from the deliberation which precedes it, be written in characters of blood on the books of righteous and everlasting judgment, -- we mean Judicial murder.

Lord Erskine had heard from childhood that "an insane man argues correctly from false premises." Proceeding on this assumption, (for assumption it is) he declared that if a man charged with crime acted on an impression founded in reality he was not insane, and was therefore to be pronounced guilty; if, on the other hand, the impression was wholly illusory, he was not responsible and therefore not guilty. In accordance with this "law of insanity," Lord Ferrers, who had received a slight, but real, injury from a friend, and killed him in consequence, was executed. Hatfield, who, imagining that George III interfered in some way with the second coming of Christ, fired at the king in the theatre, was, in accordance with the same law, acquitted. Now Hatfield was, doubtless, innocent, but so was, probably, Lord Ferrers. The doctrine that insanity consists in reasoning from a false impression is a fiction. The man who is worth half a million, and from the loss of ten thousand supposes himself ruined is as insane as the man, who, not having a stiver, supposes himself worth half million. The insanity in the former consists in exaggerating a reality, and Ferrers' mental disorder was, probably, this description. But in both cases the patient had last the power of regulating order of his thoughts by those actualities, a disregard of which, in fact, is insanity.