TWILIGHT.-NEW ENGLAND.-BAPTISM IN THE COUNTRY. As gently thy breezes do blow, As ever fanned soft Italia's shore; And proudly thy rivers do flow, And numberless cataracts pour. 283 But lo! from the hill-top so high, Old Ocean, I miss thee, my friend, Thy billows and foaming white crest; I could wish me a life without end, Wouldst thou make but thy home in the west. Vain wish, and as wicked as vain, A friendship more dear to divide, The Sea in his love to distrain From New England, his beautiful bride. Live on-live on, happy pair, And ages of peace o'er you roll; Your sons shall your virtues declare, And spread them both ways to the pole. BAPTISM IN THE COUNTRY. NEW ENGLAND. BY MISS M. E. WENTWORTH. BY AN EDITOR. How fresh and green are thy hills; How pure and limpid thy rills, As they flash in the bright summer sheen. Thy forests, how cheerful and gay, All blooming with beautiful flowers, How sweet, at the dawn of the day, To ramble alone in their bowers. The cottage, reposing at eve, In the shade of the high-branching tree, To labor the blessed reprieve, Is an emblem, New England, of thee. Thy fields, by freemen well tilled, Though shallow and rocky the soil, The lake and the glen are thine own, Is the boon of each month of thy year. O, SWEETLY smiled the Sabbath sun Where through the foliage thick and green The gentle breezes come; And from the boughs of waving trees The birds a chorus sent, And lovingly the glorious skies Above our worship bent. The copious sweet-fern fringed the bank, And kissed the water clear, While wild-wood willows wept above, Its murmured song to hear; And like a sea in summer calm, No ripple on its breast, An hundred faces turned to heaven No echo broke the deep repose, Save some light chirping bird, Or chance an idle wind that passed, The rustling foliage stirred; And tremulous the hymn arose, But swelled to lofty song; For holy fire had touched the lips Of all that waiting throng. 284 Down to the brink with fervid love, THE LONE DOVE. Their joyful steps they takePastor and friend, who meekly bears The cross for Jesus' sake. "Now to the Father and the SonNow to the Holy GhostThe new Jerusalem we loveSeraph and heavenly host I give thee in this mystic rite, And on thy brow record, That thou of God art born again, And sacred to the Lord." Sweet dove, descend, as erst thou did, On Jordan's ancient tide; And keep the heart we give to thee, O, it were sin to break the spell Green trees, that bend above it now, Protecting o'er its gentle stream— Glad flowers, your incense bring; And in the boughs that wave above, Ye gentle songsters come, And holy keep this shrine to God, Within our woodland home. THE LONE DOVE. "Early in the morning of one of the loveliest days of the season, I strolled out into the grove adjoining B.'s house. Seating myself on a rail, I was soon lost in thought. From my reverie, I was, at length, aroused, by the cooing of a dove in a neighboring tree. There was something peculiarly plaintive in her note; and I could not divest myself of the thought that she, like myself, was lamenting the absence of the companion of her bosom. Instantly my sympathies were enkindled; and I felt an instinctive attachment to this most gentle and affectionate of the feathered tribe which I could not account for, but which caused me to sit a mute, but not inattentive listener for some time. As I retired, the thought arose in my mind, 'Like circumstances and situations often produce like feelings in the irrational as well as the rational creation."-EPISTOLARY CORRESPONDENCE. THE dove in yon shade, o'er her far distant mate, Sweet bird! thy sad note sounds melodious to me; All the morn thou hast sat in that green, shady bough, But no sound has repaid thy full watchful, fond care. Perhaps thy loved mate, in some loftier tree, Has been sighing his note full as sad as thy own; Which Echo sent back, in her playful-like glee, And whispered, "Poor sad one, thou, too, art alone." O, would that again ye might meet in this wood, While I viewed the mute joy that might beam from your eyes! Methinks, it would do my lone spirit more good, Than aught save the meeting with the lost one I prize. But no! you are separate-sad-and alone: Though the woods were now filled with the blithe birds of song, Their carols discordant would blend with your own, As, borne by the breezes, they murmured along. (Unsustained by that note so oft blended with thine, Or in converse responsive, by others was heard, Must thou solitary mourn till thy head shall recline On the side of thy nest, unsupported, sweet bird. And in dreams of the night shall thy spirit go forth, To seek, as by day, the fond mate thou hast loved, By the side of the spring-on the green-swarded earth, And thy night-search as fruitless as the day shall be proved. When thy cradle-like nest at lone midnight is rocked By the tempest, as it sweeps in its wild fury by, And thy slumbers are broken, thy heart will be shocked Thy protector-companion no longer is nigh! In morn's early hour thou wilt hearken in vain For the note that has roused thee, ere the day had gone forth, Though thou search by the brook-and the summit regain And stretch thy lone pinions toward the south or the north. Thy mild eye now presaging these ills, seems to swell With a tear, which my fancy has quickly discerned; And thy cooings more plaintively, tenderly tell That desolate loneliness which thou hast now learned.) Sigh on, then, sweet dove, though thou makest me sad, I know how thou feel'st in thy lone forest shade, NATURE. Lo, all around thee, Nature's scene, LADIES' REPOSITORY. LADIES' REPOSITORY. SEPTEMBER, 1846. UNDER this head, we shall hereafter keep a kind of Literary and Miscellaneous Record, of such a character as to give our readers a general idea of the intellectual activity and various movements of the age in which they are living. We do not intend to trench upon the department of ordinary newspaper intelligence. Our aim is to go a little higher-to present such facts as may be regarded as indices of present progress, and omens of what is coming. The world is now in full career, like a planet whirling about its sun and centre, rapidly advancing to its destiny. What that destiny is to be, all men are now busily divining. We shall not be bound to give our opinions of what is passing, but only to present a miscellany of interesting facts to our readers. Without following any particularly philosophical method, we shall intersperse, with liberal profusion, all sorts of matter, useful and entertaining to the general reader. As one of the signs of the times, showing the fearful condition of the English nobility, we record a statement recently made by the Duke of Wellington in the House of Lords of England. In a forcible and affecting style, the noble Duke referred to his great age, and to the probability that he was then giving his farewell advice to his country. After this solemn preliminary, he boldly gave utterance to the following ominous sentence: "Separately from the Crown and the House of Commons, you can do nothing; and if you break your connection with the Commons and the Crown, you will then put an end to the functions of the House of Lords." When we take into consideration the divisions and jealousies in the Church of England-which has ever been regarded as the first pillar of the English monarchythe growing importance and power of the English people, and the waning influence of the nobility, not only in England, but in every part of Europe, such a solemn declaration, from so high a source, gives assurances of an ultimate change in the political condition of that country. So far as we can now see, every thing is gradually tending to the establishment of republican principles in England. DR. WEIL, a German scholar of the old country, has made a collection of Biblical legends, chiefly taken from original Arabic records, illustrative of the superstition of the Mohammedans. His work is entitled, "The Bible, the Koran, and the Talmud," and is said to possess great literary interest. It so sparkles with gems of Arabic poetry, that no one can read it without improving his imagination. The book has been translated into English, and it forms Number XV of Harper's New Miscellany. THE spirit of persecution is still living in the middle of the nineteenth century. The poor Protestant missionaries in Switzerland are yet writhing under the scorpion lash of ecclesiastical bigotry. The Catholics are pursuing them with increased violence. Not long since, Rev. Mr. Cook, an English Wesleyan minister, was driven by a mob from the communion table, and a meeting of females was dispersed by such treatment as no chaste reader would wish us to record. 285 BISHOP SOUTHGATE, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, is charged, by the New York papers, with having connection with the severe persecutions endured by the Armenians at Constantinople. The proof is taken chiefly from the Bishop's own letters to his friends in this country. We sincerely hope that there may be some mistake in this matter. We have exclusiveness enough at home, without carrying it into our foreign missionary stations. THE Rongé reformers have a very snug little church in Cincinnati, and we intend to go in soon and get a glimpse of them. Success to any thing that will break down bigotry and superstition. The wedge is now fairly entered. We hope the Rongéists will drive it. Their prospects in Europe are getting brighter. THE title of the newly elected Roman pontiff is, Pope Pius the Ninth. He is fifty-four years of age, and therefore one of the youngest of all the successors of St. Peter. He is said to be an artful man, and an able manager. PRINCE ESTERHAZY, a Hungarian lord, ought to be satisfied with what he has of this world's goods. His estate is said to contain one hundred and thirty villages, forty towns, and thirty-four castles. He has four immense country seats, one of which contains three hundred and sixty rooms. The number of his flocks and herds can be estimated only from the fact that he has two thousand five hundred shepherds. He is a feudal lord, and holds the power of life and death over his vassals. Such is a specimen of the nobility of Eu rope. THE population of the United States is now estimated at 20,140,370. Emigration to this country was never more abundant than it now is, nor has the character of the emigrants ever been of a higher order. Let us hold out the right hand of kindness to all new-comers, and make them the friends of our republican institutions by showing ourselves friendly. What political privileges it would be safe to extend to them, is a question altogether beyond our province. It belongs exclusively to the statesman. SIR D. MACWORTH, who has been recently traveling on the continent of Europe, stated, not long since, to the London Protestant Society, that Protestantism is making rapid advancement in France. In Ireland, too, within a short period, more than forty Catholic priests, and above four thousand lay persons, had united with different Protestant Churches. This may be regarded as an offset to the Puseyism of Great Britain. THE key of the French Bastile, that tomb of liberty and religion, in old France, is now in this country. It was given to George Washington, and by him suspended in a strong, close box, with a glass front, for the convenience of spectators, at Mount Vernon. It is a fact, then, that the key which imprisoned the free spirits of the old world for their liberal principles, in the new is itself put in prison. Go on, bold friends of humanity in Europe! Send the keys of your dungeons to us. As memorials of your sufferings, and as warnings to all future tyrants, we will hang them all up in the old mansion of the Father of his country. NOTICES. RICHELIEU: a Tale of France. By G. P. R. James, Esq. Two Volumes in One. New York: Harper & Brothers. 82 Cliff-street. 1846.-We have not read this work. A friend informs us that it is well written, which we do not doubt. But it is a novel. That is enough for most persons of really pure taste. That taste must be vitiated which delights in novel reading. Grant, if it be so, that this work is good in its moral character. It is yet, we repeat, a novel. We by no means object to all kinds of fiction; that is, to fiction abstractly considered-giving us the privilege of defining in our own way the term. The Paradise Lost of John Milton is not to be excepted to by any man of taste. As applied to such productions, however, the word is used in a peculiar and good sense. Fiction, as the term is ordinarily understood, is to be universally discarded by every good man. But we would not weaken our opposition by carrying it too far. Judging from the few pages we have sketched over, here and there, through this book, we should regard it as belonging to a very bad class of novels, even allowing its moral tone to be fair. It is a historical romance; that is, it is a story of which the ground-work is truth; but the whole is so interwoven with matter invented, or, as Bacon says, "Spun out of the brain as the spider spins his thread," for the express purposes of deception, that no ordinary reader can tell what is fact from what is fiction. This is our great objection to all works of this class. They confuse our recollection of historical truth. And, if history is philosophy teaching by example, then novels are the destruction of both history and philosophy. We have long noticed, that a reader of romances is uniformly very inaccurate and uncertain in this sublime species of human knowledge. His mind becomes sentimental; his fancies are extravagant and eccentric; and his intellect soon tires of the more serious matters of the world. If he gets into the Church, he makes a very feeble profession. He is dissatisfied with all the sermons of good, sound theology, because there are no hair-breadth escapes, no wild adventures, no balloon flights of fancy in them. It is romance reading, more than every thing else put together, that has so universally corrupted the taste of the present age. If a man writes a book--a work of profound study and solid merit, no body will read it. The first edition falls lifeless from the press; and, if the author and his friends are not quite willing to lose so much learning and well-bestowed labor, the next edition comes out as an abridgment, from which all the sense is taken out, and all manner of light nonsense is crowded in. But the public are not deceived. They recognize the "stupid" old giant now diminished to a contemptible dwarf, tricked off with borrowed ruffles; and, all fear or favor being taken from the wretched little Lilliput, they just turn together, and spurn it to its grave. This is not a flattering picture of the present race of readers. The object of every good man is to correct what is wrong. This can never be accomplished, so long as men read any thing instead of truth. Truth is the great agent in the renovation of the world: "Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again!" and nothing else but truth. But it is not our purpose to review this book. We do not intend, even, to give our opinion of its distinc tive merit. Its author, Mr. James, undoubtedly commands a good, easy style. He has written other works than novels, which we have perused with profit and pleasure too; but we have not read one of his novels, and never shall. We have long since resolved never to read another work of this character, until we have thoroughly studied all the arts, and all the sciences, and all the philosophy, and all the history, and all the biography, and all the pure, miscellaneous literature in the world; and when we get through with all these, as the old Indian said about his tobacco, we shall want a little more of the same kind. The great Dr. Bentley said, that it would take him, he thought, about eighty years to read every thing worth reading then extant. If that were so, we, according to our rule, are in no danger of ever perusing a novel; for, if it would require of Dr. Bentley, with his talents, eighty years to read all the good books known to him, what could a man of ordinary energy in these days do with the mountains of them since produced! But we close. The author gets Shakspeare to recommend his work "I advise you that you read What his high hatred would effect, wants not But, fair ladies, in spite of Shakspeare, whom we reverence much, we "advise" you not to read the old Cardinal's malice. It was spent long ago; and it can now do you neither good nor harm; or, if you really have a curiosity to know by what arts a man from humble life could rise to become the arbiter of contending princes, and sway, by his single will, the destinies of the half of Europe in spite of kings, then read the reigns of Henry the Fourth, and Louis the Thirteenth of France, and the annals of the hapless Mary de Medicis, as laid down by Russell, the great historian of the modern world. But, by all means, let this book go, and thus we shall soon compel its talented author to write better things. LIFE IN THE PRAIRIE LAND. By Eliza W. Farnham. We have not read this book through, for the very good reason that we cannot keep our patience long enough to finish such a production. It has been often observed, that imitators are more likely to copy the defects, then the excellences of their prototype. It is said, for instance, that Alexander the Great having a crooked neck, all his courtiers used to walk with their heads canted over on one side. The author of Life in the Prairie Land seems to be a faithful imitator of Mrs. Trollope, and of Dickens in his American Notes, and has admirably succeeded in copying the worst parts of their style and manner. It is not denied that there are in the book some descriptions of western scenery true to nature. But every part of the book which we have read, relating in any way to the people of the west, their customs, conversations, style of living, and general character, is an outrageous caricature. She makes the western people talk in a language worse than the jargon of the Oregon Indians, and reports them as giving utterance to sentiments, and doing things which they never thought of. The west is a country not to be ridiculed, but to be proud of; and if writers wish to get our ears, let them write the truth. What, now, could have induced a lady to write such a book? She had every chance in the world to write a NOTICES. beautiful series of sketches-sketches of scenery, incidents, and historical and personal recollections. She might have described the population of the west as it is. She had, in the glorious regions of the prairie land, the material for a work more interesting than the beautiful Sketch Book of Irving. But she has made a book which no one of good taste can read without pain and disgust. Need Mrs. Farnham travel from New York to Illinois, in order to find disagreeable people? We have some boyhood recollections of the great empire state. If she would but look about her own neighborhood, she might find subjects for caricature. It is, however, the better part of prudence and valor to abuse, and misrepresent, and caricature a people, after you have placed either the Alleghany mountains, or the Atlantic ocean between them and the "wind of your nobility." We are sorry, extremely sorry, that a lady could find it in her heart to treat the people of the west with such supercilious contempt, and such unnatural caricature. How much better would it have been, had the writer of this volume, a lady of undoubted talents, pursued the manner of her very popular country woman, the interesting authoress of the New Home. But, desiring to be over spicy, she has failed. In spite of etiquet, and all the rules of gallantry, we must advise our readers to pass the book over to the same shelf with Mrs. Trollope's Domestic Manners of the Americans. VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY AND RESEARCH WITHIN THE ARCTIC REGIONS, from the Year 1818 to the Present Time. By Sir John Barrow, Bart., F. R. S. Anno Etatis 82. Harper & Brothers. 1846.-This world will soon cease to be one of adventure. The improvements of modern times are rapidly making it a very prosy sort of a place. The poetry of it has already nearly passed away. Only think of it a moment. A few centuries ago, a voyage from the eastern shores of Greece to the Black Sea was resounded, in a long and brilliant strain, by that Orphean lute, which, as Shakspeare tells us, "Was strung with poet's sinews," and, if we may trust the remainder of the classic fable, "Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones, Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands." The Periplus of Hanno, a short voyage of discovery on the western coast of Africa, was the wonder of the old world. The expeditions of a few Trojan exiles, from the shores of old Troy to Italy, furnished the two master poets of antiquity with stores of the marvelous almost inexhaustible. Since the day of these small things, the compass has been invented. The quadrant has since measured the altitude of the sun, moon, and stars, and the science of astronomy has been nearly perfected. Since then, Columbus, the stork of the fifteenth century, has pointed the way to another hemisphere, and bevies of the whitewinged birds of commerce and adventure have followed his bold track. Since then, Vasco de Gama has opened a road round the stormy cape of Africa to the aromatic islands of the far east. Since then, Cortes, and Pizarro, and Raleigh, and Cabot, and a thousand intrepid navigators have explored every bay and bayou of the great and glorious west. The entire globe on which we live, excepting a small patch of earth-if it be earth—if not, of ice, or water, or both, or all together, about each pole, has been mapped out for every school-boy to map 287 out again on his memory. There is no longer a place of entire novelty in the world. Go where you will, unless you really visit the two poles, and you will find that somebody has been there before. It may be that the poles themselves will not soon be visited; for, of the fourteen voyages recorded in the work before us, not one was entirely successful. But, whether successful or not in the great objects for which they were made, no one can read the history of these bold attempts upon the frozen north, without deep and abiding interest. The author was an old man when he wrote it; but there is an energy and a sprightliness in his style, which younger men sometimes fail to master. This would be an excellent book to put into the hands of young runaway boys, who, lured by the false goddess of adventure, forsake the quiet homes of their stern old fathers, and push into the world in search of some northwest passage to fame and fortune. In these pages they would find proofs enough that the sternest father is much milder than the rigors of a polar winter; that it is far better to work quite hard, eat corn bread, and sleep up stairs, or up the ladder, at home, than to be squeezed, as was the exploring ship Terror, between two icebergs for a twelvemonth; and that, after all their toil and trouble, and their lofty ambition guided by more than gray-haired wisdom, the wonderful northwest cut to glory might not be found, or even findable, at last. If any of our readers have such a boy, buy this book for him; and if it does not cure him of his wandering propensities, let him go and try his fortunes for himself. His experience will be a schoolmaster. Let him go up so far north that he may see a sight capable of giving him full satisfaction. Let him go where Coleridge's Ancient Mariner had been: "The ice was here, The ice was there, The ice was all around; Let him go, and see, and hear such things. Let him have a tilt at hunger, and try his chivalry on an empty stomach. Let him eat his shoes, and the leather from his suspenders, and lick every grease-spot from the deck of the frozen vessel, and be so hungry that he could swallow a live fish fin foremost. Then let him remember, that, all the while, in his father's house, there is bread enough, and to spare; and, when all these adventures are ended, the little prodigal will most willingly come back again, and you will have a son to support you in age, and carry down the line of your ancestry. THE WESTERN MEDICAL REFORMER: a Monthly Journal of Medical and Chirurgical Science. Cincinnati: B. L. Hill & Co., Editors and Publishers. May, 1846.-La Sage, a French philosopher and wit, has said that "Death has two wings. On one are painted war, plague, famine, fire, shipwreck, with all the other miseries, that present him, at every instant, with a new prey. On the other wing you behold a crowd of young physicians, about to take a degree before him. Death, with a demon smile, dubs them doctors, having first made them swear never, in any way, to alter the established practice of physic." Whether any thing can be done with such a race, we have not the sagacity to tell. Our medical friends, we know, will enjoy this quotation, and good-naturedly let it pass. We are not certain of the |