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Poor Hero looked for no such thanks. Her hand,

But to be held in his, would have given sea and land."

tain Sword and Captain Pen," with its accompanying notes, detailing the actual horrors of battle-fields, is a downright and vigorous attempt to discourage war by a In fact, several of the occasional poems simple revelation of its cruel mysteries. are suggestive of that excruciating game" Is a murder in the streets worth attendcalled "conglomeration," in which rhymes have not only to be written on a given text, but two subtantives, chosen by a stranger to the subject, must be woven into the texture of the composition. In justice, however, to Mr. Hunt we will quote the sonnet on the Nile, which was avowedly struck off in this extemporary fashion, and is certainly a very good specimen of its class:

"It flows through old hush'd Egypt and its

sands,

Like some grave, mighty thought threading a dream,

And times and things, as in that vision,

seem

Keeping along it their eternal stands,-
Caves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd band
That roamed through the young world, the

glory extreme

Of high Sesostris, and that southern beam, The laughing queen that caught the world's great hands.

“Then comes a mightier silence, stern and

strong,

As of a world left empty of its throng,

And the void weighs on us; and then we
wake,

And hear the fruitful stream lapsing along
"Twixt villages, and think how we shall
take

ing to-a single wounded man worth carrying to the hospital-and are all the murders and massacres and fields of wounded, and the madness, the conflagrations, the famines, the miseries of families, and the rickety frames and melancholy bloods of posterity, only fit to have an embroidered handkerchief thrown over them? Must ladies and gentlemen' be called off, that they may not look that way,' the sight is so shocking?' Does it become us to let others endure what we cannot bear even to think of." We are far from ridiculing such language as this; for we believe that some good may be done by speaking the truth during lulls and lucid intervals; but it is of no use flying in the face of mankind when the fit is on them.

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Our opinion of human nature is such that we have more faith in the influence of commercial considerations than in direct appeals to humanity. People who might be moved by the calm discussion of "War" in Mr. Helps' essays, shake off the impressions produced by "Captain Sword and Captain Pen " as they would shake off the harrowing recollections of the sick-chamber or dissectingroom, and relegate the subject to the hopeless category of necessary evils.

In most of Mr. Hunt's poetry there is a delicacy of sentiment and a freedom from mannerism and straining after effect which redeems many faults. There is room in literature for the pleasing as well as for the acute and profound; and in these days it is a positive relief to read either prose or poetry in which point has not been studied to excess. The aggressive obtrusion of an author's cleverness is sometimes perfectly insulting, and mars that serene and genial temper of mind which the masters of litera

Our own calm journey on for human sake." One poem in this collection is remarkable, not so much for its artistic merit, as for the moral ends which it is designed to advance, and which are categorically announced in the prefatory remarks. The long and bloody wars arising out of the French Revolution had excited in sensitive minds a disgust for all warfare which can scarcely be conceived by the present generation. Traces of this are to be found in most of our poets during the latter half of George III.'s reign. "Cap-ture love to produce in their readers.

OUR readers may probably remember a charming little book, which appeared about two years ago, called "Letters of a Betrothed." These epistles purported to be the genuine compositions of a lady addressed to her future husband during a long engagement, and were professedly published to show that such a correspondence need not necessarily be of such a ridiculous nature as nisi prius revelations would lead us to believe. They also throw some light on the character of the lover-who, from various slight indications, would seem to have been a stiff,

harsh, priggish kind of man, and scarcely worthy of his very pleasant correspondent. Doubt, however, is now thrown on the genuineness of the work by the advertisement of a novel "by the same author," who turns out to be Miss Marguerite A. Power,-the niece, we conclude, of Lady Blessington. We say that this suggests a doubt, for we imagine that, though a lady might possibly publish her love-letters if it were quite certain that her name could not be known, yet that she would be scarcely likely to give her friends the power of identifying her as the author of them.-The Press.

From The Examiner.

and no idea of even the meaning of meditation?

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Statistics also prove that there are not so many cases of insanity among Catholics genbe, that the assurances which they continually erally as among Protestants. One reason may receive of pardon, and their credulity with re

salvation, preserve them from disturbing doubts and fears, and the amusements which they are allowed divert them from speculations which avail nothing even with strong and healthy intellects, and must surely destroy weak ones, if they do not utterly distract them.

We do not give this as an argument in favor of Catholicism, but only as a fact. There is no as Catholics. Those who are ignorant, or those reason why Protestants should not be as happy who need it for any reason, whether of one faith or another, should be furnished with healthful amusement; and those who are content with intellectual cultivation and resources should endeavor for an hour to conceive what they would do without them.”

The Cottages of the Alps: or, Life and Manners in Switzerland. By a Lady. In two volumes. Sampson Low, Son, & Co. THIS is a valuable sketch of the present state of Switzerland by an American lady, who has already written a good account ofgard to the efficacy of the means they use for Peasant Life in Germany, but cannot make the titles of her two works uniform, because in republican Switzerland there is no peasant class. The work is dedicated to the Princess Dora d'Istria, a liberal student of Swiss liberties, come from the East, who met with sympathy all the impressions of the lady from the West. The social state of Switzerland, in the present time, and the forms of the independence threatened by the late French annexations, as well as by the possible ideas for which France may hereafter make war, are very well set forth by the writer of the book. She has blended personal detail with matter of research, treats systematically of each canton in turn, and even adds, in an appendix, a brief outline of Swiss history. It is not every Swiss tourist who cares, as this lady appears to have cared, mainly about the life of the people, and but incidentally about the mountains. Yet she can describe passages of mountain travel well. Her account of a visit to the Rhone glacier is worthy of a traveller whose whole mind is devoted to the picturesque. Whether she writes of men or glaciers, the lady speaks with refinement. She is never flippant, never obtrusive of herself. In the religious feeling underlying many of her comments, there They have a curious custom of assembling is a broad, wise charity predominant. For at little inns called cabarets, after morning service in church at New Year's Eve, every unmarexample, while discussing with singular fair-ried youth conducting a maiden, whom he has ness the contrast observed by every traveller chosen for the occasion. They spend two or between the well-to-do Protestant and the less prosperous Catholic cantons, she remarks the drawback suffered by the Protestants in the removal of much gayety out of their lives by the severity of Calvinist opinion:

The writer is in Friburg and among Gessenay shepherds, when such thoughts are suggested to her. We quote a few Gessenay customs :

"The law again allowed the peasants of Gessenay first to dance on week days and at certain annual festivals, but now there is no restriction they may dance all the year. It was found they would resort to the woods and ravines at midnight, and the evil consequences became more, and had a more frightful fatality, than when they were permitted to assemble at proper times and in proper places. .

66

three days there together, and when they leave are betrothed. The marriages are performed at the Feast of Annunciation, when they go in pairs to church, powdered to correspond with their mountains, and the bridegroom carrying a long sword. If it is a widow who marries, they choose a king, and bear him on their shoulders around the village, with great noise and shouting, finishing with theatricals, representing various scenes in their history.

"The well-meant, but ill-directed, zeal of the Reformers led them to forbid the dance and song and festive mirth, not knowing that, unless they substituted something in their place, they "A traveller relates that one day, when climbonly produced an aching void, which drove the ing the mountains, he met a young girl who had revellers to darker deeds. The human mind sole charge of the flocks and herds, no other cannot live on vacancy, and it must be one of marvellous construction that can support itself person being within miles of her. He asked her on solitude. Statistics prove that excitement milk belongs to my mother.' 'But I am very to give him a cup of milk. She answered, The does not cause so much insanity as meditation, thirsty,' said the wanderer. She looked down a and not so many cases of madness occur in great moment in deep thought, and then ran quickly cities as in rural solitudes. The first case of away, and soon returned with a foaming tanksuicide among these simple Alpine people was ard. He offered her money, and she said with known when they were condemned to practise serious surprise, 'You told me you were thirsty, the forms of a new religion without understand- and I gave you milk; what would my mother ing any thing of its spirit. Neither their minds

nor hearts had received any cultivation that say if I sold her milk?'"

fitted them for a serious and earnest life. What Of books of travel written by ladies this were they to do, or think about, suddenly con- is, in short, one of the most liberal and senpemned to idleness, with no food for thought, sible.

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Saturday Review,

181

183

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Chambers's Journal,

187

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Press,
Examiner,

14. Travels and Adventures of the Rev. Joseph Wolff, Athenæum,

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POETRY.-The Best Gift, 130. The Rook, 130. Lines in a Season of Sickness, 130. Two Roads to a Red Riband, 168. Cheer for Garibaldi, 168. The Conveyancer's Pupil's Lament, 192.

SHORT ARTICLES.-Remains of Man in Caves, 142. Arctic Boat Journey, 150. Fall down a Well at Pompeii, 154. Discoveries in Van (Assyria), 165. Life of Hallam, 170. Egyptian Monuments, 180. Cheap Meat, 189.

NEW BOOKS.

THE UNION. Crocker and Brewster, Boston.

PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL, SON, & CO., BOSTON.

For Six Dollars a year, in advance, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually for warded free of postage.

Complete sets of the First Series, in thirty-six volumes, and of the Second Series, in twenty volumes, handsomely bound, packed in neat boxes, and delivered in all the principal cities, free of expense of freight, are for sale at two dollars a volume.

ANY VOLUME may be had separately, at two dollars, bound, or a dollar and a half in numbers.

ANY NUMBER may be had for 13 cents; and it is well worth while for subscribers or purchasers to complete any broken volumes they may have, and thus greatly enhance their value.

THE BEST GIFT.

HEART, thou wilt grieve no more,

Darkness is past;

Storm-cloud and gloom are o'er,
Peace come at last.
Fate smiles at length on

The web she hath wove,
Gives one to love me, Heart,
Some one to love!

Summer there is but one,
Day without night;
Winter's a name alone,
No frost nor blight—
Grief passes stingless by,
Cares pointless prove,

For some one loves me, Heart,
Some one I love.

Flowers have sweeter sprung,

Skies seemed more clear,
Birds have more blithely sung,
Heaven seemed so near-
Life gained a sudden worth,
All price above,

Since some one loves me, Heart,
Since I have loved.

Harshness, where bides it now?
Sorrow, where fled?
Weariness buried low,
Joy come instead.
Patience that hopeth all,
Trust to be proved,

By one that loves me, Heart,
One that I love.

Speak to me, silver stream,
Language thou'st found,
Soft clouds of sunset's dream
Floating around.
Voices in all of ye,

Field, brook, and grove,
Whisper, one loves me, Heart,
One that I love.

Sweet rose, thou hast a voice
In thy soft breath,
In thy world I rejoice-
Hark! what she saith-
"Last glimpse of Paradise,
Where I had birth,
To thee is granted,
O daughter of earth;
Prize it, and treasure it,

All else above".

Some one to love thee, Heart,

Some one to love!

-National Magazine.

THE ROOK.

LET the Skylark make her boast

Of the high and laurelled host

F. O.

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agree,

While their private lives-I guess,

Mr. R. 'twould quite distress

To name his wife with such a bird as she!
Oh, to see her pick up sticks

(Which to her are stone and bricks),

For the building of her mansion in the elm! Oh, to see her mother-beak

Far too full of worms to speak

'Tis a lesson for her sex throughout the realm! True it is, at morn and eve,

When they seek their nests or leave,

There seems often not a little to be said;
But, again, of this we're certain,

They've no lectures of the curtain,

And they shut their golden beaks when they're abed!

Oh, in sooth, I love that clangor

That, with solemn, dreamy languor,

Floateth o'er the leafless tree-tops in the

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A poor old buffer,

So much from gout and bile and indigestion?

Who have hailed her Heaven's Chorister so Some people gorge their brains with erudition,

long:

Let the Nightingale repeat

In her treble, low and sweet,

The lays that in her honor have been sung;

Learning and thinking;
Eating and drinking

So I've overworked my organs of nutrition.
-Punch.

From Fraser's Magazine.

CONCERNING GROWING old.

I was sitting, on a very warm and bright summer morning, upon a gravestone in the churchyard. It was a flat gravestone, elevated upon four little pillars, and covering the spot where sleeps the mortal part of a venerable clergyman who preceded me in my parish, and who held the charge of it for sixty years. I had gone down to the churchyard, as usual, for a while after breakfast, with a little companion, who in those days was generally with me wherever I went. And while she was walking about, attended by a solemn dog, I sat down in the sunshine on the stone, gray with lichen, and green with moss. I thought of the old gentleman who had slept below for fifty years. I wondered if he had sometimes come to the churchyard after breakfast before he began his task of sermon-writing. I reflected how his heart, mouldered into dust, was now so free from all the little heats and worries which will find their way into even the quietest life in this world. And sitting there, I put my right hand upon the mossy stone. The contrast of the hand upon the green surface caught the eye of my companion, who was not four years old. She came slowly up, and laid down her own hand beside mine on the mossy expanse. And after looking at it in various ways for several minutes, and contrasting her own little hand with the weary one which is now writing this page, she asked, thoughtfully and doubtfully, Was your hand ever a little hand like mine? Yes, I said, as I spread it out on the stone, and looked at it: it seems a very short time since that was a little hand like yours. It was a fat little hand: not the least like those thin fingers and many wrinkles now. When it grew rather bigger, the fingers had generally various deep cuts, got in making and rigging ships: those were the days when I intended to be a sailor. It gradually grew bigger, as all little hands will do, if spared in this world. And now, it has done a great many things. It has smoothed the heads of many children, and the noses of various horses. It has travelled, I thought to my self, along thousands of written pages. It has paid away money, and occasionally received it. In many things that hand has fallen short, I thought; yet several things which that hand found to do, it did with its

might. So here, I thought, were three hands, not far apart. There was the little hand of infancy; four daisies were lying near it on the gravestone where it was laid down to compare with mine. Then the rather skinny and not very small hand, which is doing now the work of life. And a couple of yards beneath, there was another hand, whose work was over. It was a hand which had written many sermons, preached in that plain church; which had turned over the leaves of the large pulpit-Bible (very old and shabby) which I turned over now; which had often opened the door of the house where now I live. And when I got up from the gravestone, and was walking quietly homeward, many thoughts came into my mind CONCERNING GLOWING OLD.

And, indeed, many of the most affecting thoughts which can ever enter the human mind are concerning the lapse of Time, and the traces which its lapse leaves upon human beings. There is something that touches us in the bare thought of Growing Old. I know a house on certain of whose walls there hang portraits of members of the family for many years back. It is not a grand house, where, to simple minds, the robes of brocade and the suits of armor fail to carry home the idea of real human beings. It is the house of a not wealthy gentleman. The portraits represent people whose minds did not run much upon deep speculations or upon practical politics; but who, no doubt, had many thoughts as to how they should succeed in getting the ends to meet. With such people does the writer feel at home: with such, probably, does the majority of his readers. I remember, there, the portrait of a frail old lady, plainly on the furthest confines of life. More than fourscore years had left their trace on the venerable head: you could fancy you saw the aged hands shaking. Opposite there hung the picture of a blooming girl, in the fresh May of beauty.

The blooming girl was the mother of the venerable dame of fourscore. Painting catches but a glimpse of time; but it keeps that glimpse. On the canvas the face never grows old. As Dekker has it, "False colors last after the true be fled.” I have often looked at the two pictures, in a confused sort of reverie. If you ask what it is that I thought of in looking at them, I truly cannot tell you. The fresh young

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