Various Napoleon! he hath come again—borne home Upon the popular ebbing heart—a sea Which gathers its own wrecks perpetually, Majestically moaning. Give him room! Room for the dead in Paris! welcome solemn! And grave deep, ’neath the cannon moulded column! ——Napoleon! the recovered name Shakes the old casements of the world! and we Look out upon the passing pageantry, Attesting that the Dead makes good his claim To a Gaul grave—another kingdom won— The last—of few spans—by Napoleon! I think this nation’s tears poured thus together, Nobler than shouts! This funeral grander than crownings— This grave stronger than thrones. Elizabeth Barrett. There’s a lady—a prince’s daughter; she is proud and she is noble; And she treads the crimsoned carpet, and she breathes the perfumed air; And a kingly blood sends glances up her princely eye to trouble, And the shadow of a monarch’s crown is sweeping in her hair. Elizabeth Barrett. Carriages rolled through the crowded streets of Paris, and a gay crowd thronged to the residence of the republican prince—the new French president. A stately levee was to be held, and Josephine’s grandson inherited Napoleon’s popularity! Time had avenged her wrongs, and Fortune, which had played such curious, elfish pranks with this great family, had set them once more aloft, but at their head she placed with strange justice the representative of the dethroned, divorced empress. It was a brilliant sight. Ladies were there in gorgeous costume, glittering with diamonds, and gentlemen in full court-dress decked with orders. Near the President stood a group of beautiful women—the women of his family—his cousins, once, twice, and thrice removed. Among them was a lady who attracted the admiring gaze of more than one passer-by. She had a majestic presence, though still quite young—in the first flush of early womanhood. Her face was as beautiful as her form, which was faultless in its proportions. She had a clear, rich skin—eyes by turns flashing and serene, under “level fronting eye-lids”—a beautiful mouth, with the full lips gently and sweetly parted, and a Napoleonesque chin, that told her Buonaparte descent, with a lovely dimple denting its centre. Her thick, glossy hair was dressed with classical severity, for they told her, her head was like the Princess Pauline’s, and made her bind it with a broad coronet, woven of her own rich hair. She was beautiful enough to have inspired another Canova to sculpture her also as a Venus. A buzz was heard, while the Russian Ambassador presented a gentleman and lady with much consideration to the president. The young cousin of the president started, and a brilliant flush crimsoned her cheek—whose only fault, if fault it could be, was its delicate pallor—as she looked at the lady newly presented, and heard her title—the Countess O——. The countess was a fair young creature with a delicate sylph-like figure, and her hair fell in soft, brown ringlets, as if wishing to burst from the confinement of the jeweled comb and costly bandeau, in order to shade her timid beauty. Many remarked the purity and simplicity of her style, and low murmurs told the inquiring stranger, that though bearing a foreign name and title, she was said to be an American. The crowd increased, and the circle around the president gradually separated, making room for the throng of nobodys who wished to be presented. The hum of conversation grew louder, and though the new president exacted much ceremony, it was plain to be seen that etiquette did not forbid the merry laugh, nor the sparkling repartÉe. A little group of ladies and gentlemen stood near a window, laughing and chatting with all that sprightliness with which the French people of society know so well how to enliven conversation. Some of the company passed by, promenading. A lady of the group at the window, lifted her arm—it must have been unconsciously, certainly it was done gracefully, and in so doing, entangled her magnificent diamond bracelet in the costly lace berthÉ of a lady passing by. The owner of the offending bracelet was the cousin of the President, the lady of the berthÉ the fair Russian countess. The first bent over as if to disentangle the sparkling clasp from the delicate meshes of the lace, and her manner, repulsed all offers of assistance from those standing by. It seemed a difficult task, however, and she had quite time enough to say more than the mere apologies required, and surely she did say more than those standing near them heard, for the mere “Pardonnez moi Madame je vous prie,” could not have caused the slight start which the pretty little countess gave, nor the delicate flush that tinged her fair temples, when the French lady’s glowing cheek rested near hers, in bending down to disentangle her ornament. “Lina,” said the president’s cousin, in a low, laughing tone, that gurgled up like the melody of foam-bells in a stream, “who would have thought when Helen Morris used to laugh at us in America, that our childish imaginings would come true? Why, darling, you are not only a countess, but you are wedded to the first and oldest blood of Europe; and I, dear one—yes, I—if not an acknowledged princess, will yet be a queen.” The bracelet was disengaged—the berthÉ released. The French lady made a low courtesy to the countess, with her eyes bent upon the ground—and they parted. Fortune is a capricious goddess, and surely the wildest, most improbable romances ever imagined, could not surpass, scarcely equal, the strange reverses the blind goddess of the wheel has brought to the family of the great “World-Actor of the Nineteenth Century,” Napoleon. QUAIL AND QUAIL SHOOTING. ——— BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, AUTHOR OF FRANK FORESTER’S “FIELD SPORTS,” “FISH AND FISHING,” ETC. ——— THE AMERICAN QUAIL, OR VIRGINIA PARTRIDGE. (Ortyx Virginianus. Perdix Virginianus.) November is upon us—hearty, brown, healthful November, harbinger of his best joys to the ardent sportsman, and best beloved to him of all the months of the great annual cycle; November, with its clear, bracing, western breezes; its sun, less burning, but how far more beautiful than that of fierce July, as tempered now and softened by the rich, golden haze of Indian summer, quenching his torrent rays in its mellow, liquid lustre, and robing the distant hills with wreaths of purple light, half mist, half shrouded sunshine; November, with its wheat and buckwheat stubbles, golden or bloody red; with its sere maize leaves rustling in the breeze, whence the quail pipes incessant; with its gay woodlands flaunting in their many-colored garb of glory; with its waters more clearly calm, more brilliantly transparent than those of any other season; November, when the farmer’s toils have rendered their reward, and his reaped harvests glut his teeming garners, so that he too, like the pent denizen of swarming cities, may take his leisure with his gun “in the wide vale, or by the deep wood-side,” and enjoy the rapture of those sylvan sports which he may not participate in sweltering July, in which they are, alas! permitted by ill-considered legislation, in every other state, save thine, honest and honorable Massachusetts.[2] In truth there is no period of the whole year so well adapted, both by the seasonable climate, and the state of the country, shorn of its crops, and not now to be injured by the sportsman’s steady stride, or the gallop of his high-bred setters, both by the abundance of game in the cleared stubbles and the sere woodlands, and by the aptitude of the brisk, bracing weather for the endurance of fatigue, and the enjoyment of manful exercise, as this our favorite November. In this month, the beautiful Ruffed Grouse, that mountain-loving, and man-shunning hermit, steals down from his wild haunts among the giant rhododendrons, and evergreen rock-calmias, to nearer woodskirts, and cedar-brakes margining the red buckwheat stubbles, to be found there by the staunch dogs, and brought to bag by the quick death-shot, “at morn and dewy eve,” without the toil and torture, often most vain and vapid, of scaling miles on miles of mountain-ledges, struggling through thickets of impenetrable verdure among the close-set stems of hemlock, pine, or juniper, only to hear the startled rush of an unseen pinion, and to pause, breathless, panting, and outdone, to curse, while you gather breath for a renewed effort, the bird which haunts such covert, and the covert which gives shelter to such birds. In this month, if no untimely frost, or envious snow flurry come, premature, to chase him to the sunny swamps of Carolina and the rice-fields of Georgia, the plump, white-fronted, pink-legged autumn Woodcock, flaps up from the alder-brake with his shrill whistle, and soars away, away, on a swift and powerful wing above the russet tree-tops, to be arrested only by the instinctive eye and rapid finger of the genuine sportsman; and no longer as in faint July to be bullied and bungled to death by every German city pot-hunter, or every pottering rustic school-boy, equipped and primed for murder, on his Saturday’s half holyday. In this month, the brown-jacketed American hare, which our folk will persist in calling Rabbit—though it neither lives in warrens, nor burrows habitually under ground, and though it breeds not every month in the year, which are the true distinctive characteristics of the Rabbit—is in his prime of conditions, the leverets of the season, plump and well grown; and the old bucks and does, recruited after the breeding season, in high health and strength, and now legitimate food for gunpowder, legitimate quarry for the chase of the merry beagles. In this month especially, the Quail, the best-loved and choicest object of the true sportsman’s ambition; the bird which alone affords more brilliant and exciting sport than all the rest beside; the bravest on the wing, and the best on the board; the swiftest and strongest flyer of any feathered game; the most baffling to find, the most troublesome to follow up, and when followed up and found, the most difficult to kill in style; the beautiful American Quail is in his highest force and feather; and in this month, according to the laws of all the States, even the most rigorous and stringent in preservation, killable legitimately under statute. In New York, generally, the close-time for the Quail ends with October, and he may not be slain until the first day of November; in New Jersey, ortygicide commences on the 25th of October, in Massachusetts and Connecticut on some day between the 15th of the past and the first of the present month; in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland, where they are something more forward, as breeding earlier in the season than in the Eastern States, on the first of October; and in Canada West, where they are exceedingly abundant, on the first of September; which is, for many reasons, entirely too early, as hereafter I shall endeavor to demonstrate. In my own opinion, the first of November, and even the middle of October, are too late for the termination of the Quail’s close-time, inasmuch as five-sevenths of the broods in ordinarily forward seasons are full-grown and strong on the wing, as well as all the crops off the ground, by the first of October; and although the late, second, or third broods may be undersized, they are still well able to take care of themselves in case the parent birds are killed; whereas, on account of their immature size, they are safe from the legitimate shot; and, on account of their unsaleability in market to the restaurant, from the poaching pot-shot also. I should, therefore, myself, be strongly inclined to advocate the adoption of one common day, and that day the first of October, for the close-time of all our upland game; the English Snipe alone excepted. Touching the reasons for postponing the day of Woodcock-shooting, a notice will be found in our July number, and an extended discussion in my Field Sports, vol. I. pp. 169 to 200. Of the Quail, in regard to this point, I have said enough here, unless this; that, in my opinion, there is far more need to protect them from the trap during the wintry snows, than from the gun in the early autumn; the latter cannot possibly at any time exterminate the race; the former not only easily may, but actually does all but annihilate the breed, whenever the snow falls and lies deep during any weeks of December, during the whole of which month the pursuit and sale of this charming little bird is legal. Could I have my way, the close-time for Quail should end on the last day of September; and the shooting season end on the twenty-fourth day of December; before which date snow now rarely lies continuously in New Jersey, Southern New York, or Pennsylvania. Why I would anticipate the termination of the close-time, in reference to the Ruffed Grouse, I shall state at length, when I come to treat of that noble bird, in our December issue; to which month I have attributed it, because it is then that it is, though in my opinion, it ought not to be, most frequently seen on our tables. While on the topic of preservation, I will mention a fact, which certainly is not widely, much less generally known, among farmers; namely, that this merry and domestic little bird is one of his best friends and assistants in the cultivation of his lands. During nine or ten months of the year he subsists entirely on the seeds of many of the most troublesome and noxious weeds and grasses, which infest the fields, more especially those of the ragwort, the dock, and the briar. It is believed, I might almost say ascertained, that he never plucks any kind of grain, even his own loved buckwheat when ripe, from the stalk, but only gleans the fallen seeds from the stubbles after harvest, so that while he in nothing deteriorates the harvest to be ingathered, he tends in the highest degree to the preservation of clean and unweeded fields and farms; indeed, when it is taken into consideration that each individual Quail consumes daily nearly two gills of weed-seed, it will be at once evident that a few bevies of these little birds, carefully and assiduously preserved on a farm, will do more toward keeping it free of weeds, than the daily annual labor of a dozen farm-servants. This preservation will not be counteracted or injured by a moderate and judicious use of the gun in the autumnal months; for the bevies need thinning, especially of the cock-birds, which invariably outnumber the hens, and which, if unable to pair, from a want of mates, form into little squads or companies of males, which remain barren, and become the deadly enemies of the young cocks of the following year, beating them off and dispersing them; though, strange to say, they will themselves never mate again, nor do aught, after remaining unpaired during one season, to propagate their species. The use of the trap, on the contrary, destroying whole bevies at a swoop, where the gun, even in the most skillful hands, rarely much more than decimates them, may, in a single winter’s day, if many traps be set, destroy the whole stocking of a large farm for years, if not forever. I have myself invariably remarked, since my attention was first called to the fact, that those farms which are best stocked with Quail, are invariably the cleanest of weeds; and a right good sportsman, and good friend of mine, working on the same base per contra, says that, in driving his shooting-cart and dogs through a country, he has never found it worth his while to stop and beat a district full of weedy and dirty farms, as such never contain Quail. If this may lead our farmers to consider that every live Quail does far more good on the farm, than the shilling earned by his capture in the omnivorous trap; and therefore to prohibit their sons and farm-boys from exterminating them at their utmost need, when food is scarce, and shelter hard to find, my words will not have been altogether wasted, nor my object unattained. Were I a farmer, I would hang it over my kitchen fireplace, inscribed in goodly capitals—“Spare the Quail! If you would have clean fields and goodly crops, spare the Quail! So shall you spare your labor.” And now, in a few words, we will on to their nomenclature, their distinctive marks, their regions of inhabitation, seasons, haunts, and habits; and last, not least, how, when, and where lawfully, honorably, sportsmanly, and gnostically, you may and shall, kill them. I will not, however, here pause long to discuss the point, whether they ought to be termed Quail or Partridge. Scientifically and practically they are neither, but a connecting link between the two subgenera. True Partridge, nor true Quail, very perdix, nor very coturnix, exists at all anywhere in America. Our bird, an intermediate bird between the two, named by the naturalists Ortyx, which is the Greek term for true Quail, is peculiar to America, of which but one species, that before us, is found in the United States, except on the Pacific coast and in California, where there are many other beautiful varieties. Our bird is known everywhere East, and everywhere North-west of Pennsylvania, and in Canada, as the Quail—everywhere South as the Partridge. In size, plumage, flight, habits, and cry, it more closely resembles the European Quail; in some structural points, especially the shape and solidity of the bill, the European Partridge. On the whole, I deem it properly termed American Quail; but whether of the two it shall be called, matters little, as no other bird on this continent can clash with it, so long as we avoid the ridicule of calling one bird by two different terms, on the opposite sides of one river—the Delaware. The stupid blunder of calling the Ruffed Grouse, Pheasant, and Partridge, in the South and East, is a totally different kind of misnomer; as that bird bears no resemblance, however distant, to either of the two species, and has a very good English name of his own, videlicet, “Ruffed or Tippeted Grouse,” by which alone he is known to men of brains or of sportsmanship. With regard to our Quail, it is different, as he has no distinctive English name of his own; but is, even by naturalists, indiscriminately known as Quail and Partridge. The former is certainly the truer appellation, as he approximates more closely to that sub-genus. We wish much that this question could be settled; which we fear, now, that it never can be, from the want of any sporting authority, in the country, to pass judgment. The “Spirit of the Times,” though still as well supported and as racy as ever, has, I regret to say, ceased to be an authority, and has become a mere arena wherein for every scribbler to discuss and support his own undigested and crude notions without consideration or examination; and wherein those who know the least, invariably fancying themselves to know the most, vituperate with all the spite of partisan personality, every person who having learned more by reading, examination of authorities, and experience than they, ventures to express an opinion differing from their old-time prejudices, and the established misnomers of provincial or sectional vulgarism. But to resume, the American Quail, or “Partridge of the South,” is too well known throughout the whole of America, from the waters of the Kennebec on the East, and the Great Lakes on the North—beyond which latter, except on the South-western peninsula of Canada West, lying between Lakes Erie, St. Clair, and Huron, they are scarcely to be found—is too well known, almost to the extreme South, to need description. Their beauty, their familiar cry, their domestic habits during the winter, when they become half civilized, feeding in the barn-yards, and often roosting under the cattle-sheds with the poultry, render them familiar to all men, women, boys and fools throughout the regions, which they inhabit. It is stated by ornithologists, that they abound from Nova Scotia and the northern parts of Canada to Florida and the Great Osage villages; but this is incorrect, as they rarely are seen eastward of Massachusetts; never in Nova Scotia, or Canada East; and range so far as Texas, and the edges of the great American salt desert. The adult male bird differs from the hen in having its chaps and a remarkable gorget on the throat and lower neck, pure white, bordered with jetty black; which parts, in the young male and the adult female, are bright reddish-yellow; the upper parts of both are beautifully dashed and freckled with chestnut and mahogany-brown, black, yellow, gray, and pure white; the under parts pure white, longitudinally dashed with brownish red, and transversely streaked with black arrow-headed marks. The colors of the male are all brighter, and more definite, than in the female. Everywhere eastward of the Delaware the Quail is resident, never rambling far from the haunts in which he is bred. Everywhere to the westward he is in the later autumn migratory, moving constantly on foot, and never flying except when flushed or compelled to cross streams and water-courses, from the west eastward; the farther west, the more marked is this peculiarity. The Quail pairs early in March; begins to lay early in May, in a nest made on the surface of the ground, usually at the bottom of a tussock or tuft of grass, her eggs being pure white, and from ten to thirty-two in number, though about fourteen is probably the average of the bevies. The period of incubation is about four weeks, the young birds run the instant they clip the shell, and fly readily before they have been hatched a fortnight. So soon as the first brood is well on the wing, the cock takes charge of it, and the hen proceeds to lay and hatch a second, the male bird and first brood remaining in the close vicinity, and the parents, I doubt not, attending the labor of incubation and attending the young. This I have long suspected; but I saw so many proofs of it, in company of my friend and fellow sportsman, “Dinks,” while shooting together near Fort Malden, in Canada West—where we found, in many instances, two distinct bevies of different sizes with a single pair of old birds, when shooting early in September of last year—that we were equally convinced of the truth of the fact, and of the unfitness of the season. In October, with the exception of a very few late broods, they are fit for the gun; and then, while the stubbles are long, and the weeds and grasses rank, they lie the best and are the least wild on the wing. The early mornings and late afternoons are the fittest times for finding them, when they are on the run, and feeding in the edges of wheat and rye stubbles, or buckwheat patches bordering on woodlands. In the middle of the day they either lie up in little brakes and bog-meadows, or bask on sandy banks, and craggy hill-sides, when they are collected into little huddles, and are then difficult to find. As soon as flushed, they pitch into the thickest neighboring covert, whether bog-meadow, briar-patch, cedar-brake, ravine, or rough corn-stubble, they can find, their flight being wild, rapid, and impetuous, but rarely very long, or well sustained. As they unquestionably possess the mysterious power, whether voluntary or involuntary, of holding in their scent, for a short time after alighting, and are difficultly found again till they have run, I recommend it, as by far the better way, to mark them down well, and beat for another bevy, until you hear them calling to each other; then lose no time in flushing them again, when they are sure to disperse, and you to have sport with them. Myself, I prefer setters for their pursuit, as more dashing, more enduring, and abler to face briars—others prefer pointers, as steadier on less work, and better able to fag without water. Either, well broke, are good—ill broke, or unbroke, worthless. Still give me setters—Russian or Irish specially! Quail fly very fast, and strong, especially in covert, and require the whole charge to kill them dead and clean. At cross shots, shoot well ahead; at rising shots, well above; and at straight-away shots, a trifle below your birds; and an oz. ¼ of No. 8, early, and of No. 7, late, will fetch them in good style. And so good sport to you, kind reader; for this, if I err not, is doomed to be a crack Quail season. A law was passed, during the spring of the present year, in that respectable and truly conservative State, by which the murder of unfledged July Woodcock, by cockney gunners was prohibited; and the close time judiciously prolonged until September. The debate was remarkable for two things, the original genius with which the Hon. Member for Westboro’ persisted that Snipe are Woodcock, and Woodcock Snipe, all naturalists to the contrary notwithstanding; and the pertinent reply to the complaint of a city member, that to abolish July shooting would rob the city sportsman of his sport—viz., that in that case it would give it to the farmer. Marry, say we, amen, so be it!

A LAY OF THE OLDEN TIME.

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BY FANNY FIELDING.

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BY GRACE GREENWOOD.

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BY WM. ALEXANDER.

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It was known as long ago as 1814, that Wordsworth had written the present poem, and that it would not be published until after his death. It now appears that it was commenced as far back as 1799, and was finally completed in 1805. The purpose of the poem is to exhibit the gradual growth of the poet’s mind, from its first development of imagination and passion, to the period when he conceived he had grown up to that height of contemplation which would justify his attempt to realize the great object of his life—the production of a philosophic poem on Man, Nature, and Society. “The Prelude,” is addressed to Coleridge, the poet’s intimate friend; and the egotism of the narrative is much modified, by its being thus seemingly intended, not for the public, but for the poet-metaphysician into whose single heart and brain its revelations are poured. The character of the poem is essentially psychological, the object being to notice only those events and scenes which fed and directed the poet’s mind, and to regard them, not so much in their own nature, as in their influence on the nature of the poet. The topics, therefore, though trite in themselves, are all made original from the peculiarities of the person conceiving them. His childhood and school-time, his residence at the university, his summer vacation, his visit to the Alps, his tour through France, his residence in London and France, are the principal topics; but the enumeration of the topics can convey no impression of the thought, observation, and imagination, the eloquent philosophy, vivid imagery, and unmistakable Wordsworthianism, which characterize the volume.

It must be admitted, however, that “The Prelude,” with all its merits, does not add to the author’s great fame, however much it may add to our knowledge of his inner life. As a poem it cannot be placed by the side of The White Doe, or The Excursion, or the Ode on Childhood, or the Ode on the Power of Sound; and the reason is to be found in its strictly didactic and personal character, necessitating a more constant use of analysis and reflection, and a greater substitution of the metaphysical for the poetic process, than poetry is willing to admit. Though intended as an introduction to “The Excursion,” it has not its sustained richness of diction and imagery; and there is little of that easy yielding of the mind to the inspiration of objects, and that ecstatic utterance of the emotions they excite, which characterize passages selected at random from the latter poem—as in that grand rushing forth of poetic impulse, in the Fourth Book:

“The Prelude” has many fine descriptions of nature, but nothing which rises to the beauty and sublimity of the following passage from “The Excursion”:

Not only do we see the superiority of “The Excursion” in such passages as these, but the didactic thought is more assured, is more colored by imagination, and melts more readily into soft, sweet, melodious expression. Take the following, for instance:

If “The Prelude” has thus fewer “trances of thought and mountings of the mind” than “The Excursion,” it still bears the marks of the lofty and thoughtful genius of the author, and increases our respect for his personal character. The books devoted to his residence in Cambridge, his tour to the Alps, and to the influence of the French Revolution upon his genius and character, are additions to the philosophy of the human mind. We believe that few metaphysicians ever scanned their consciousness with more intensity of vision, than Wordsworth was wont to direct upon his; and in the present poem he has subtily noted, and firmly expressed, many new psychological laws and processes. The whole subject of the development of the mind’s creative faculties, and the vital laws of mental growth and production, has been but little touched by professed metaphysicians; and we believe “The Prelude” conveys more real available knowledge of the facts and laws of man’s internal constitution, than can be found in Hume or Kant.

We have not space for many extracts from the poem. Its philosophical value could not be indicated by quotations, and we shall content ourselves with citing a few random passages, illustrative of its general style and thought. The following lines exhibit the tendency of Wordsworth’s mind, when a youth at college:

In the following stern description, he records his condemnation of life as he found it at the great English university of Cambridge:

The most remarkable line in the poem, a line almost equal to Milton’s “Thoughts that wander through eternity,” is that which concludes the following passage on the statue of Newton at Cambridge:

With the lingering, mysterious music of this line sounding in our ears, it would be an impertinence to continue these loose remarks on “The Prelude” any further; and we close by commending the poem to the thoughtful attention of thinking readers.

The author of this beautiful volume is a born orator, whose written style instinctively takes the form of eloquence, and whose strong and deep emotions are at once the inspirers and guides of his pen. He has given us here a dozen discourses, full of living thoughts and winged words, and with not a page which is open to the charge of dullness or triteness. When his theme compels him to introduce common thoughts he avoids commonplaces, and we cannot recognize the old acquaintance of our brain in the fresh and sparkling expression in which it here appears. Mr. Giles, indeed, is so thoroughly a thinker, and his mind is so pervaded by his sentiments, that where he lacks novelty he never lacks originality, and always gives indications of having conceived every thought he expresses. Nobody can read the present volume without being kindled by the vivid vitality with which it presents old truths, and the superb boldness with which it announces new ones. Among the many eloquent and impassioned discourses in the volume, that entitled “The Guilt of Contempt” is perhaps the sharpest in mental analysis, and closest and most condensed in style. It will rank with the best sermons ever delivered from an American pulpit. Another excellent and striking discourse is on the subject of spiritual incongruities as illustrated in the life of David. The five discourses on the Worth, the Personality, the Continuity, the Struggle, the Discipline, of Life, are remarkable for their clear statement of Christian principles, and the knowledge they evince of the inward workings of thought and emotions. Prayer and Passion is a sermon which securely threads all the labyrinths of selfishness, and exposes its most cunning movements and disguises.

We will give a few sentences illustrative of Mr. Giles’ mode of treating religious subjects, and the peculiar union of thought and emotion in his common style of expression. Speaking of the Psalms of David, he says—“They alone contain a poetry that meets the spiritual nature in all its moods and in all its wants, which strengthens virtue with glorious exhortations, gives angelic eloquence to prayer, and almost rises to the seraph’s joy in praise... For assemblies or for solitude, for all that gladdens and all that grieves, for our heaviness and despair, for our remorse and our redemption, we find in these divine harmonies the loud or the low expression. Great has been their power in the world. They resounded amidst the courts of the tabernacle; they floated through the lofty and solemn spaces of the temple. They were sung with glory in the halls of Zion; they were sung with sorrow by the streams of Babel. And when Israel had passed away, the harp of David was still awakened in the church of Christ. In all the eras and ages of that church, from the hymn which first it whispered in an upper chamber, until its anthems filled the earth, the inspiration of the royal prophet has enraptured its devotions and ennobled its ritual. And thus it has been, not alone in the august cathedral or the rustic chapel. Chorused by the winds of heaven, they have swelled through God’s own temple of the sky and stars; they have rolled over the broad desert of Asia, in the matins and vespers of ten thousand hermits. They have rung through the deep valleys of the Alps, in the sobbing voices of the forlorn Waldenses; through the steeps and caves of Scottish highlands, in the rude chantings of the Scottish Covenanters; through the woods and wilds of primitive America, in the heroic hallelujahs of the early pilgrims.”

The author of these volumes has been long extensively known as one of the leading editors of the country; and his age and experience peculiarly qualify him to do justice to the subject he here undertakes to treat. His own recollections must extend back some sixty years; and during that period he has been constantly connected with newspapers, either as printer’s apprentice, journeyman, or editor. He knew intimately most of the editors and writers for the press, who took prominent parts in the political controversies at the formation of the government, and during the first twenty years of its administration, and he is thoroughly acquainted with all the New England newspapers which appeared before the Revolution and during its progress. The work, therefore, is a reflection of the spirit of old times, giving their very “form and pressure,” and exhibiting, sometimes in a ludicrous light, old political passions in all their original frenzy of thought and form of expression. The specimens given of newspaper literature, in verse and prose, are all interesting either for their folly or wisdom, and some of them are valuable as curiosities of rhetoric and logic. Not only is the work valuable to the antiquary, the historian, and the members of “the craft,” but it contains matter sufficiently piquant to stimulate and preserve the attention of the general reader.

The author of these volumes is a marked instance of that inherent strength of character which pursues knowledge under difficulties, and is victorious over all obstacles which obstruct the elevation of the friendless. Without having received even a school education, and passing the period that boys usually devote to Lindley Murray in a printing office, he is one of the most vigorous and polished writers in New England, and in thorough acquaintance with classical English literature has no superiors. Every thing he writes bears the signs, not merely of intellect and taste, but of forcible character; and we believe that a selection from his newspaper articles would make a volume, which for originality of thought, and raciness of expression, would be an addition to our literature.

Whittier’s popularity, great as it is, must be increased by these Songs of Labor. In them, the Ship-Builders, Shoemakers, Drovers, Fishermen, Huskers and Lumbermen, are gifted with vigorous and melodious utterance, in songs whose chime is the very echo of their occupations. The other poems of the collection are of a merit as various as their themes. The best is the poem entitled “Memories,” one of the most exquisitely tender, thoughtful and imaginative poems in our literature. “Pious IX.” and “Elliott,” are essentially battle-pieces, and the rhymes clash together like the crossing of swords. Fierce and hot as the invective of these poems is, we still think the business of wrath is much better done in “Ichabod,” in which rage and scorn take the form of a dirge, and smiting sarcasms are insinuated through the phrases of grief. Throughout the volume we are impressed with the great nature of the author, and the superiority of the man to any thing he has yet produced. He unites, in a singular degree, tenderness with strength, delicate fancy with blazing imagination, sensitive sentiment with sturdy character; and his most exhilarating and trumpet-voiced lyrics have the air of impromptus. In the following lines, for instance, from a poem in the present volume on “The Peace Convention at Brussels,” he extemporises as good heroic verse as Campbell’s:

To judge from the dedication, the authoress of this goodly duodecimo must be the daughter of Cooper, the novelist. She has much of her father’s remarkable descriptive power, but is happily deficient in that fretful discontent which disturbs the harmony of his later productions. The volume will be found a delightful companion both to the denizen of the city and country. The writer wins upon the reader’s sympathies with every page. Her intelligence is clear and quiet, enlarged by intimacy with nature and good books, and elevated by a beautiful and unobtrusive piety. We hope this will not be her last production.

This thin volume is devoted to a subject which, though its discussion involves a consideration of topics properly metaphysical, has more general interest than any other in the science of metaphysics, because its phenomena stimulate the curiosity of all who, like Richard the Third, are troubled with dreams. The author supports, with great power of illustration and argument, three propositions, viz., that during sleep the mental faculties are as active as during wakefulness; that memory is no criterion by which to judge the mind in sleep; and that the mind is dependent upon the integrity of the organs of external sensation for a remembrance of what transpires during this state. The discussion of these topics is enlivened by many curious examples.

This is a thick volume of some seven hundred pages, completely crammed with facts relating to the history, geography, and present condition of every state in Europe. The index, containing ten thousand names, will convey an idea of the amount of matter which the author has compressed into his volume. Though a work of vast labor, we presume that its value, as a work for constant reference, will amply repay the expense of compiling it. Every man who reads European news should possess the book, provided he desires to read news intelligently. It gives accurate ideas of the relative importance of the various States, by exhibiting their financial condition as well as their territory, population, and productions.

Every lover of the romantic and picturesque in history will heartily welcome this re-issue of Irving’s charming Chronicle. By assuming the position of a contemporary, he is enabled to exhibit the prejudices of the time with almost dramatic vividness, and to give events some of the coloring they derived from Spanish bigotry without obscuring their real nature and import. The beautiful mischievousness of the occasional irony which peeps through the narrative, is in the author’s happiest style. The book might easily be expanded into a dozen novels, so rich is it in materials of description and adventure. In its present form it is replete with accurate history, represented with pictorial vividness.

The theme which Mrs. Ellet has chosen is an important one, and absolutely necessary to be comprehended by all who wish to understand the American Revolution as a living fact. The great defect of most of our national histories and biographies is their abstract character, neither characters nor events being represented in the concrete, and brought directly home to the hearts and imaginations of readers. The result is, that most of us, when we attempt to be patriotic, slide so readily into bombast; for having no distinct conceptions of what was really done and suffered by our forefathers and foremothers, we can only glorify them by a resort to the dictionary. Mrs. Ellet’s book is devoted to those scenes and persons in our revolutionary history, in exhibiting which the novelist is commonly so far in advance of the historian; and she has performed her task with much discrimination in the selection of materials, and no little pictorial power in representing what she has selected.

This is Grace Aguilar’s last work, in the most melancholy sense of the word, she having died of consumption shortly after its completion. The story is one of much interest; the sentiments beautiful and pure; the style sweet and pleasing. We have read none of her novels with more satisfaction than this. At a period when romance writing has been so much perverted from its true purpose, it is delightful to find a novelist who, to a talent for narrative, united a regard for the highest and purest sentiments of human nature.

This novel, in title the same as one by Theodore S. Fay, is in matter and style very different. It is a historical novel of the period of the religious wars in Scotland, and though not peculiarly excellent in characters, is filled with stirring events and attractive scenes. The publishers, without much increasing the price, have printed it in a style of much neatness. Large type and white paper are a blessing not commonly vouchsafed to American novel readers.

“Margaret Percival,” by Miss Sewall, has had a large circulation in this country, and it is but right that the present novel, which not only represents Margaret as a more tolerant Christian, but describes the process by which she became so, should be read by all who have been influenced by the English Margaret.

This thick and handsome duodecimo contains many of the most charming and sprightly of Mr. Willis’s popular compositions, evincing that singular combination of sentiment and shrewdness, of poetic feeling and knowledge of the world, in which he has no American rival. The style, airy, graceful and fluent, is distinguished by a “polished want of polish,” a fertility of apt and fanciful expression, and a gliding ease of movement, which take the reader captive, and bear him on through “long reaches of delight.”

This novel has hardly the fresh, dashing, daring character of Dr. Mayo’s first romance, but it still has sufficient raciness and audacity to serve for a score of common novels. The author has great tact in so choosing his scenes and characters that the peculiar powers of his mind can have free play. In “The Berber” the incidents follow each other in such quick succession that we make no demands for originality or power of characterization. In respect to the latter, Dr. Mayo is so far deficient, though he gives evidence of being capable of drawing characters as well as telling a story.

The idea of this volume is capital. It consists of short and spicy selections from eminent authors, and anecdotes of distinguished men, of a character very different from those which form the staple of jest-books. The principal source whence the editor has derived his brilliancies, is that most gentlemanly of wits and humorists, Sydney Smith; and a fine portrait of him very properly adorns the title page. The book would have been even better than it is, if the author had drawn his matter from a wider circle of reading.

Reginald Hastings; a Tale of the Troubles of 164-. By Elliott Warburton, Author of “The Crescent and the Cross,” etc. New York: Harper & Brothers.

This novel has been absurdly puffed in England, but it is nevertheless an interesting and well written one, worthy the pen which wrote “The Crescent and the Cross.” The period in which its events and characters are laid, the Great Rebellion, so called, has not recently been treated, but it has great capabilities for romantic and humorous characterization, which Warburton has employed, not indeed with the sagacity and genius of Scott, but with much skill and with dramatic effect.

In some respects we prefer this memoir to that by Miss Strickland. The only fault we have to find with Miss Benger, indeed, is that she is too eulogistic. No one, in this age, doubts that Anne Boleyn was an innocent woman, who fell a victim partly to political intrigue, partly to her husband’s fickleness; but it is useless to deny that she had ambition, and ridiculous to claim for her the character of a saint. She was, in a word, a witty, graceful, well-read, fascinating female, vain of applause, a little free in her manners, a fast friend, and a bitter enemy. She never loved the king, as she might have loved Percy, had not Wolsey crossed her path, and converted her into a haughty, scheming, ambitious woman; but she never, on the other hand, violated her vows toward Henry, or failed in the discharge of any wifely duty. Her conduct during the two years that the divorce was in progress is the most censurable part of her life. We cannot forgive her for wringing the heart of the unoffending Catharine. Nor for her favor toward Henry at this time can we esteem her as we would have wished. But from the period that she became the lawful wife of the king her character visibly improves. She was affable to the low, courteous to the high, charitable to the needy, just to all. As her sorrows increase her character rises in loveliness; her frivolity is cast aside, the haughtiness departs, and the true nobleness of her heart shines forth. Nothing in history is more pathetic than the story of her arrest, trial, and execution. In a court where she had scarcely a friend, she bore herself with the fortitude of a martyr, asserting her innocence with an earnestness that carried conviction even to those who condemned her; and on the scaffold, though her over-wrought nerves occasionally found vent in hysterical gayety, her lofty and heroic soul triumphed over the terrible spectacle of the axe, the block, the gaping crowd. Her closing career, indeed, has all the grandeur of a tragedy. We read of it with eyes dim with tears, and with a heart execrating her murderers.

The volume is beautifully printed, and embellished with a portrait, copied from the celebrated picture of Holbein.

The original edition of this work was printed on such costly paper, and illustrated with so many engravings that hundreds of persons, who desired to purchase it, were withheld by the necessarily high price. To meet the wishes of this class, the present cheap edition has been issued. There has been no material change in the letter-press; the few alterations that have been made are for the better; but the engravings are omitted; the volume is printed on poorer paper, and the page is not quite so large. On the whole we think this edition more desirable than the first. So much valuable information is embraced in the narrative of Lieutenant Lynch, that persons curious respecting the Holy Land, and especially respecting the Dead Sea, will find themselves amply repaid by a perusal, and even a re-perusal of this work. Numerous popular fables respecting the Jordan, the Sea of Galilee, and the dread Lake of Gomorrah are exploded in this volume; and a mass of instructive evidence imparted respecting the geographical character of Palestine, its former fertility, and the general habits of its inhabitants. It is impossible to read this work without obtaining new light in the understanding of Scripture.

Andrew Combe was almost as universally celebrated for his works on physiology as his brother, George, is for his writings in connection with phrenology. The present biography is a tribute, by the elder brother, to the usefulness of the younger. As the story of a life, made beneficial to the human race through a compassionate and wise heart, and this amid constant ill-health, it is one of the most valuable offerings of the century to biographical literature. Apart from this, however, it has a merit in the narrative of Dr. Combe’s protracted illness, and the means used successfully by him to prolong life. An early victim to consumption, he arrested the progress of disease, and protracted his existence for more than twenty years, during which period all of his best works were written. The volume teaches two important lessons: the first, that in the study of physiology, alleviation may be found for much of human suffering; the second, that, even in sickness and sorrow, it is possible, instead of remaining entirely a burden to others, to be a benefactor of our race. We have read this work with deep interest, and believe it will afford equal satisfaction to others.

The author of this volume is known, in England, as a poet of some merit. In the present work he has attempted a new role, and has succeeded in it, we are free to confess, in the very best manner. Mr. De Vere is at once a scholar and a gentleman. The former qualification renders him a peculiarly fitting traveler on the classic soil of Greece; the latter enables him to depict what he has seen in a manner not offensive to good taste. We have had so many cockney books on Greece, we have seen flunkeyism so rampant even in Constantinople, that it is refreshing to find a work like the present, in which the knowledge of the man of the world, the stores of the student, and the enthusiasm of the poet are all combined. The volume first arrested our attention by its elegant appearance, and, having once begun it, we could not lay it aside till we had finished it. There is much in the book, it is true, which a well-read man will recognize as old; but then the style makes even this have an air of freshness. On the other hand the work really contains a good deal that is new.

A pleasant, perhaps instructive book, though this last is as people view it. For our part we hold that the way to make folk believe in ghosts is to cram them, especially in childhood, with stories of apparitions. Personally, we have little faith in phantoms. However “chacun À son gout;” and therefore, to those who like speculating about ghosts, we recommend this work.

We have here a number of lively and trustworthy sketches of public men, written in a style that reminds us of Grant’s sketches of The English Parliament. We had intended devoting some space to the work, as one peculiarly deserving consideration, but for want of room, are obliged to defer, and perhaps abandon our purpose.

This is a readable book, especially at this crisis, when Rochester knockings, Clairvoyance, and other wonders fill the public mind. The author has compiled a history of all the popular delusions, with which different generations have been misled; nor has he confined himself merely to mysteries like the knockings, but has discussed the South Sea Bubble, the Mississippi Scheme, and other vagaries of a similar character.

The publisher characterizes this work as a companion to the “Vestiges of Creation;” but he might, more justly, have described it as an antidote to that skeptical volume. We cordially recommend the book.

The author of this work is well known as an accomplished lecturer on history in the principal cities of the Northern and Middle States. The present work shows great power of compression as well as wealth of information. Though the work is designed for colleges and schools, it will be found of much value to the general reader as a guide to historical studies.

The author of this volume, though a political supporter of the late President, has written an interesting account of the important events which occurred in his administration. The partisan character of the work prevents it from coming properly under the name of “history,” but it contains a well arranged statement of a vast mass of facts, valuable both to the intelligent Whig and Democrat.

The second number of the third volume of this work is now before us. That which Judge Stryker undertook to perform he has faithfully complied with, and the public are now secure in the permanent existence of a periodical which will prove a treasury of information, and which was long since needed. The deficiency is now supplied, and ably supplied; and we can safely predict that it will command a liberal and generous support.

TO REV. RUFUS WILMOT GRISWOLD.

My dear Parson,—I knew you would be gratified with my friendly notice of you in the March number of “Graham”—and your pleasant start of surprise, to express your ignorance of the writer, was well conceived—you wicked wag. People who do not know your ways might almost think you were honest for once in your life,—but I, who have seen you in your happy moods, understand what an exquisite point to your wit a falsehood imparts, and what a choice bit of clerical drollery you consider it, to offer to swear to an untruth.

You have adjusted, now, your long score with poor Poe, to your own satisfaction, I hope; for ignorant people will say, that this settlement of accounts after the death of your friend may be honest—and—may not be. You see it lays you open to suspicion, and may soil the surplice you wear. Your clerical mantle, like Charity, may cover a multitude of sins, but you should not wear it too unguardedly. Charity for the errors of the dead, you know, is allowable in funeral sermons, even over the cold remains of those the world scorned and spurned as its veriest reprobates. Even you will not class your friend—who you say was reconciled to you before he died—with outcasts who forfeit even the last offices of humanity. You would give even him a Christian burial. “Dust to dust—ashes to ashes,” methinks, should bury all animosities. You would not pursue your victim beyond the grave, and in the same hour pray, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” This would be horrible.

Now it will not do, my dear parson, to attempt to carry off this departure from Christian practice, with an affectation of great equity, in the performance of duty. “Give the devil his due” may be a very orthodox maxim, but you seem, in adopting it, to have started with the hypothesis that you had a devil to deal with; yet in the exercise of justice thus liberally, it would seem but fair to meet even this Personage face to face, that he might dispute the account if he felt aggrieved at your estimate. This last point, I think, you have a fair chance of attaining. Nor will it do to affect courage and great devotion to truth. It is very well to say, that vice should be held up that its deformity may be seen, so as to startle and deter others. You should be sure that the vice of your brother is not his misfortune, and that the sin which taints your own fingers, may not turn crimson in contrast before the eyes of the gazers. Courage, my dear parson, is a relative term. You may think it great courage, and a duty you owe to truth, to assail your friend for wishing to evade a matrimonial engagement, yet it would be the veriest weakness and wickedness—if you had set the worse example of evading your marital duties after the solemnization. He who sacrifices at the altar should have clean hands.

The jewels which sometimes ornament the remains of beauty or worth have tempted, before now, gentlemen of hardy nerve, but I do not remember that these have ever taken rank in the annals of knight-errantry. And, my dear parson—I am talking somewhat freely with you, but you must pardon me—the feat that you have performed with so much unction, the despoiling of the fame of a man who intrusted it to you as a jewel of inestimable value to him, has not received the applause of a single man of honor. Your claqueurs themselves, feel that your performance is damned. I have no doubt that some faint glimpses of the truth have reached even your mind. I would have you pray over this subject, my dear sir, for your feet stand upon slippery places. In all sincerity, I would have you revise your creed and reform your practice; for you do not seem to get even the poor applause of the world, for wrong-doing.

Geo. R. Graham.

Philadelphia, Sept. 20, 1850.

Errata.—Our first form having been worked off previous to the reception of the final proof of the leading article, the following errors will be found:— On page 266, 1st column, 17th line from bottom, for “with” read wrote. Page 266, 2d col., 2d line from bottom, for “region” read reign. Page 267, 2d col., 30th line from top, for “physical” read psychical. Page 269, 1st col., 9th line from bottom for “profession” read possession.

Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained as well as some spellings peculiar to Graham’s. Punctuation has been corrected without note. Other errors have been corrected as noted below. For illustrations, some caption text may be missing or incomplete due to condition of the originals used for preparation of the ebook. Errata have also been incorporated into the below noted corrections.