GEMS FROM LATE READINGS. BY MRS. GORE. But few of those who examine the reminiscences of their own hearts, and the incidents of their own lives, will deny that scarcely a given moment of their youth admitted of swearing to a solitary object of attachment. Till the heart throbs with the master-passion which impels a man to seek a partner for life by an impulse as overmastering as that which prompts an heroic action, or generates a chef-de'œuvre, it is pretty sure to experience a succession of feverish spasms; the commencement of one of which is as hazily interblended with the conclusion of another, as with nocturnal darkness the glimmerings of a summer-day dawn, when "night is at odds with morning, which is which." BY J. WESTLAND MARSTON, ESQ. I was a bard-she listened to my lay Fancies that teem from the prolific ground And sometimes through her music of delight Of her deep joy and heaven-a cloud of dole Hence even in life's summer sunbeams throw I asked not if she loved me; for reply To every doubt, I read her glance and tone, They whispered love-I deemed that love my own: Nor that the chords of my devotion, strung Were prized for memories which they did awake- O God, the strings that quivered would not break!— He came! Can I forget that inward strife A frost was in that moment to benumb She was his own-both Love's. They roamed the wild, And blent all difference. From their spirits fell Became at once their being and its food:- As o'er a barren reef that sea-ward shelves Lay the wrecked hope which naught could re-create- She told me I had been her friend true-hearted- These came; and when the storm was spent there darted Over my sombre deep as from the spheres, In time, their light and beauty o'er me stealing, I dared not hope its life :-fierce tempests blew It grew and blossomed to a hope divine:- I might live for her though she was not mine! From her each better impulse should take birth- And, as by great attraction are combined By bounds material, each to other tend- For then, immortal and beyond decay, Oh, ye whose hearts in happy love repose, BY MISS MARIA J. MCINTOSH. With most of us it is only when we are nigh unto death that we learn what it is to live. We talk of acquainting ourselves with the lives of eminent persons, when we read a record of the events through which they have passed; we call our own lives desolate, because events of a painful nature have befallen us; but these are not our life. Life -the principle which makes us sentient, intelligent, active beings; the principle by which we hold converse with the living spirit of beauty and goodness, by which-if we pervert not its heavenly aims-assimilating with that spirit incarnated in the adorable Saviour, we rise from the finite to the infinite, and, resting on the bosom of love, find blessedness when that which made our happiness has vanished from our grasp; this life no events can make desolate. Sorrow may darken our sky, but the loving, trusting child of God rises above its gloomy cloud, and there shines his life supremely bright. Who shall penetrate into the spirit's mysterious intercourse with Him, who inhabiting eternity, yet dwelleth with the humble and contrite heart? Reverently and humbly to illustrate this precious truth, to show that in His presence earth's discords are harmonized, and peace and strength arise where all was disorder and weakness may be permitted-but there let us pause, lest we be as the fools who "rush in where angels dare not tread." BY G. A BERTIE. STANZAS. I am not what I was-the time's gone by When all was music to my raptured ear, I am not what I was-the sense of youth, Of earth, hath passed away; The heart that once throbbed high with health and life Beats faint and wearied with the ceaseless strife Which there has held its sway. BY G. P. R. JAMES. Long experience of any thing existing, has shown mankind all its benefits and all its evils; but beside this, there is an indirect advantage in retaining that which is, namely, that it has adjusted itself to the things by which it is surrounded; and there is an indirect disadvantage in change, namely, that one can never calculate what derangements of all relations may take place, by any great alteration of even one small part in the complicated machine of any state or society. It is difficult to find words to express the infinite; and although it may seem a pleonasmatic expression, I must say that all the varieties of human character have infinite varieties within themselves. However, the easily impressible character, that which suffers opinions, feelings, thoughts, purposes, actions to be continually altered by the changing circumstances around-the chameleon character, if I may so call it-is, perhaps, the most dangerous to itself, and to those it affects, of any that I know. It goes beyond the chameleon, indeed. The reptile only reflects the colors of objects near, retaining its own form and nature. The impressible character, on the contrary, is changed in every line, as well as in every hue, by that with which it comes in contact. Certain attributes it certainly does retain. The substance is the same, but the color and the form are always varying. In the substance lies the permanence and the identity. All else is moulded and painted by circumstance. The pure, ingenuous, open-hearted candor of early years, would be a better friend to man, if he did but cling to it with affection, through life, than all the worldly friends we gain in passing through existence-shrewdness, caution, prudence, selfishness, wit, or even wisdom. BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE." A high, pure earthly love is powerful above all other earthly principles for overcoming evils; but even in its highest purity, it has not sufficient power to lead to full perfection. It is from Heaven, but it is not Heaven itself; it is but as an angel messenger, and fails in its office if it does not lead on to love, perfect, unchangeable, divine. BY MRS. GREY. Is there a woman to be found who is not insensibly flattered, even against her better reason, by devoted incense to her charms?-Very few, we fear!-poor human nature is full of vanity. A woman will indignantly spurn such love-her sense of right will make her shrink with shuddering from such feelings; still there is too often a latent, lingering spark of gratified self-love hovering about the heart; although the spark is prevented from spreading into a flame, by the preponderating influence of strong principle and purity of mind. It is, as we before said, human nature-and this same nature is miserably full of weakness and vanity. REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS. Merry-Mount; A Romance of Massachusetts Colony. Boston: James Monroe & Co 2 vols. 12mo. This novel is the production of a New England writer of fine talents and large acquirements, but of talents and acquirements which have not been as bountifully expressed in literature as the Public, that exacting leech of intellects raised above the mass, had a right to demand. The work, with some obvious defects, evinces a range of characterization, and a general opulence of mind, which place it above many novels which can claim more felicity in the evolution of a story and more variety of incident. The scene is laid in the early history of Massachusetts, commencing about eight years after the landing of the Pil* grims at Plymouth, and its peculiarity consists in vividly reproducing to the imagination a period which even the driest annalists have hardly touched. The novel might with propriety be called, "The Cavaliers in Massachusetts," for its originality, as an American story, consists in bringing together Cavalier and Roundhead on New England ground. The hero, Morton, is a loose, licentious, scheming, good-natured, and good-for-nothing English "gentleman," engaged in a project to outwit the Puritans, and to obtain the ascendancy in Massachusetts of a different code of principles and a different kind of government from those which the Puritans aimed to establish. Connected with this reckless Cavalier is a deeper plotter, Sir Christopher Gardiner, a villain half after James's and half after Bulwer's heart, pursuing schemes of empire and schemes of seduction with equal ingenuity and equal ill success. These two, with the followers and liege men of Morton-a gang of ferocities, rascalities and un-moralities from the lowest London taverns-constitute the chief carnal ingredients of the novel. Opposed to these we have grand and life-like portraits of Miles Standish, Endicott, Winthrop, and other Puritan celebrities, with only an occasional view of the Indians. The business of the affections is principally transacted by two persons-a pure, elevated, large-hearted and high-spirited woman, and a noble-minded but somewhat irascible man; and this portion of the novel has the ecstasies and agonies which are appropriate to the subject. We think the novel a real addition to American literature, whether considered in respect to the amount of new information it conveys, or the splendor, vivacity and distinctness of its representations both of character and scenery. A dozen passages might be extracted, which, viewed simply as descriptions, are grand enough to establish a reputation. But the author's great merit consists in having as clear and distinct a notion of the Cavalier, in his daily life and conversation, as of the Puritan, and this merit, rare in an American, he could only have obtained from a profound study of the elder dramatists of England, and a vivid insight into the very heart of their characters. Out of Scott, we do not know where to look for finer representations of these two great classes of English society, as they must have appeared when brought into opposition to each other. No one familiar with Marston, Deckar, Beaumont and Fletcher, or any other dramatist in whose plays the bullies and minor reprobates of the Elizabethan age appear, will call even Bootefish, Cakebread and Company, improbable or unnatural The leading defect of the novel is the lack of a steady, orderly and artistical development of the plot. The nar rative wants rapidity of movement; the rich materials of the work are imperfectly fused together; and occasionally things good in themselves seem to be in each other's way. All those faults which beset the creations of the most fertile intellects, when they aim to give great variety of incident and character without having a grand, leading, ever-present conception of their work as a whole, are visible in this novel, and mar its harmony as a work of art. But these defects inhere in many romances which are read with delight by thousands, and though the splendid talents of the author of Merry-Mount may not always hide the heterogeneousness of his plan, they are amply sufficient to prevent it from interfering seriously with the interest of his novel, and sufficient also to delineate persons and scenes which leave on the reader's mind a strong impression of power and beauty. The Female Poets of America. By Rufus W. Griswold. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart. 1 vol. 8mo. In the space of four hundred closely printed pages, Mr. Griswold has here brought together some ninety of our female poets, and introduced them with critical and biographical notices. Of all Mr. Griswold's various works, the present evinces the greatest triumph over difficulties, and best demonstrates the minuteness and the extent of his knowledge of American literature. Very few of the women included in this collection have ever published editions of their writings, and a considerable portion of the verse was published anonymously. The labor, therefore, of collecting the materials both of the biographies and the illustrative extracts, must have been of that arduous and vexatious kind which only enthusiasm for the subject could have sustained. The volume is an important original contribution to the literary history of the country, and nobody, whose mind is not incurably vitiated by prejudice, can make dissimilarity of opinion with regard to some of the judgments expressed in the book, a ground for denying its general ability, honesty and value. Most of the maserials are strictly new, and this fact of itself is sufficient to stamp the work with that character which distinguishes Books of original research from mere compilations. Mr. Griswold has given us a fine preface, in which he ably vindicates and acutely limits the genius of women. The biographies and extracts which follow, commence with Mrs. Anne Bradstreet and close with Miss Phillips. Between these two he has included an amount of beautiful and touching poetry which will surprise even those who are inclined to take the most elevated view of the intellectual excellence of their countrywomen. We have here the lofty and energetic thought of Miss Townsend, the bright fancy and primitive feeling of Miss Gould, the impassioned imagination and deep discernment of Maria Brooks, the holy and meditative spirit of Mrs. Sigourney, the tender and graceful sentiment of Mrs. Embury; Mrs. Whitman, with her grasp of all literatures, her keen thought which pierces through nature's most mystical symbols, and her ethereal spirit casting on every object that light "which never was on sea or land;" Mrs. Oakes Smith, with her constant sense of the pure and the good, her daring and shaping imagination, before whose creations and revelations her soul shrinks awed and subdued, and her deep feeling of the spiritual significance of things -a woman worthy to be the companion of Plato; Fanny Osgood, the most brilliant and graceful of poetesses, with her quick decisive sensibility, and her teeming and exhaustless fancy, eloquent of love and romance, and highheartedness in every relation of life; Miss Lynch, simple, austere, bold, despising ornament as ornament, and keeping her raised eye fixed on the vanishing features of the elusive thought she aims to shape into almost sculptural form; Grace Greenwood, with her fine combination of the tender and the impassioned in feeling, and the subtile and grand in thought, "with a heart in her brain and a brain in her heart;"-all these, and many more whom we lack epithets to characterize rather than desire to celebrate, appear in Mr. Griswold's volume in all the royalty of womanhood. To proceed further in description would be merely to enumerate names, without being able to suggest things. In addition to the notables, whose names are known to all readers of the magazines, Mr. Griswold has included in his collection, many a timid violet and daisy of womanhood, too modest and sensitive not to feel the fear of notoriety, and has transplanted it to his book with a delicaey as commendable as the taste which dictated it. In conclusion, we have only to observe that a volume, so complimentary to the genus of our countrywomen, can hardly be read without a feeling of exultation and pride. We trust it will meet that wide circulation it so richly deserves. Acton or the Circle of Life. A Collection of Thoughts and This beautiful volume is the result of a life of observation and thought. The author has traveled in every part of the globe, and viewed mankind in a greater variety of aspects than most of those who meditate as well as observe. He has thrown his reflections into a somewhat quaint form, and has but a few words for even the greatest topics, but whatever he touches he either adorns or illuminates, and his book furnishes numberless texts for essays. Like most writers of maxims, he has a sardonic element in his mind, and occasionally disposes of an important matter, deserving serious discussion, with a gibe or a fleer, and sometimes descends even to flippancy and impertinence; but these are the almost inevitable vices of the form of composition he has chosen, and he has fewer of them than might be expected. A good part of the raciness of such books as Acton comes from the occasional substitution of the writer's impressions or prejudicss for general truths. The didactic tone of such compositions is in this way relieved, and a paradox or a piece of acute nonsense thrown in, here and there, reminds us that it is a person who is thinking, not a moral and reasoning machine. The author of the present work has been especially successful in giving an individuality to his general remarks, and preserving them from the abstract and "dome-good" character of impersonal morality. The volume is so laden with striking thonghts and observations, that it is difficult to fix upon any deserving especial quotation. As a specimen of the writer's manner, the following on Genius and Talent may serve: "Talent is strength and subtlety of mind, genius is mental inspiration and delicacy of feeling. Talent possesses vigor and acuteness of penetration, but is surpassed by the vivid intellectual conceptions of genius. The former is skillful and bold, the latter aspiring and gentle; but talent excels in practical sagacity, and hence those striking contrasts so often witnessed in the world, the triumph of talent through its adroit and active energies, and the adversities of genius in the midst of its boundless but unattainable aspirations. "Talent is the Lion and the Serpent; Genius is the Eagle and the Dove. "Or the first is like some conspicuous flower which flaunts its glory in the sunshine, while the last resembles the odoriferous spikenard's root, whose sweetness is concealed in the ground. "The flower displays itself openly, the root must be extracted from the earth." Here is a piece of verse, in a different vein, on a very common dispensation of Providence, the Mean Fellow. We fear that few are so fortunate as not to be able to apply it to some acquaintance or enemy: "Born but to be some snarl or plague, The Sacred Poets of England and America, for Three Centuries. Edited by Rufus W. Griswold. Illustrated by Steel Engravings. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 8vo. There is a strange impression current even among people who ought to know better, that religious poetry is a form of composition confined to poets of the third or fourth class, and chiefly valuable for Hymn Books. The existence of any verse, instinct with the finest essence of poetry, and glowing with the rapt and holy passions of the religious bard, is practically denied. Now nothing is more certain than that poetry, impassioned imagination, is essentially religious both in its nature and its expression. It springs from that raised mood of mind in which the object present to thought is worshiped. This is true even in poetry relating to the senses and to human passion, for if we scrutinize it sharply, we shall find that the object which fills the poet's mind, however low in itself, is still deified for the moment, and made the exclusive object of his adoration. In this way bards often make gods of persons and things very questionable in themselves, but this is owing rather to the direction than the nature of the poet's powers. If these powers instead of being devoted to the idealization of appetite or destructive passions, be directed upward to the true object of worship, the poetry will be really more beautiful and sublime than if it were merely confined to spiritualized sensations. No one can glance over Mr. Griswold's beautiful book without feeling how rich is English literature in song, celebrating the beauty of holiness and the infinite perfections of God. The compilation comprehends the early as well as the later English poets, and contains some exquisite but not generally known extracts from Spenser, Gascoigne, Drayton, Sir Henry Wottan, Davies, Carew, Ben Jonson, Drummond, Fletcher, Donne, Sir John Beaumont, Wither, Herrick, Quarles, Vaughan and Herbert. The holy poets of a later date, both of England and America, are likewise profusely quoted, and the whole collection is well deserving a place in every family library in the country. Benjamin Franklin: His Autobiography. With a Narrative of his Public Life and Services. By Rev. H. Hastings Weld. New York: Harper & Brothers. The Harpers are publishing this work in numbers, to be completed in eight. It is illustrated with numerous engravings after designs by Chapman, and is printed in large type on fine paper. The edition promises to be altogether the best which has been issued in the country, and will "GRAHAM" TO "JEREMY SHORT." MY DEAR JEREMY,-Your name would be euphonious in the stock-market, at times; but I believe stocks are muddied waters in which you seldom dabble. You are wise. But do you find yourself at all in the vein speculative, particularly now, when the streams of that new El Dorado, California, sparkle invitingly with yellow pebbles? and its many broad acres spread themselves out temptingly, with their bowels of undug gold, begging for pickaxe, shovel and basin? How many ears heretofore closed to the artifices of the speculator, are pricked up, or belie their masters, at the all-enchanting sound of the word GOLD!! With all the close calculation and keen spirit of inquiry which mark us as a nation, I fear me that Jonathan has his weakness, and that his soft side is metallic. There is something in the clinking of gold and silver that sets aside his ordinary caution and shrewdness, and leads him to do very silly things to get at it. It belongs to his nature to be impetuous, and continued success leads him into very rash ventures. A more interrupted fortune would, in this case, have allowed him breathing time to make a "calculation;" and when Jonathan does that coolly, he is seldom overreached. But he has flogged the Mexicans, taken the territory that he wanted as he knew he would-and he is ready now to believe that the golden pavements of the Inca's were no fable, and that the streams in California are walled in with gold, if you will. At least he will believe it until he sees for himself. He is a little taken by surprise with this glittering bait, and no trout dashes at a tempting fly with a more ravenous bite than he does at these shining "placers." What cares he for the thousands of miles that intervene; for the storms of winter that howl around the Horn, and threaten danger and death! At the first glimpse of the prospect, a thousand sails are set, and whitening the ocean, bear him to fortune. No ordinary comforts, no moderate success here, restrains his keen thirst of adventure. Were home a paradise, and California a desert, with its shores bristling with opposing bayonets, and parked with roaring artillery, he would go. Yes! he would, perhaps, rather go then than now. The glory of the achievement would enhance the value of the wealth. The founder of Nations-he must work out a prophecy. Already the cry of a great people goes up with a shout from the once desolate hills, and ardent, panting thousands, answer the cry with, "WE COME !" and the shout swells with a louder triumph, a more emphatic joy, for "a nation is born in a day!" The impetuous rush to that far-off land is not in itself striking or marvelous. Other and feebler nations have shown the same avidity for gold. The Spaniards have dared more, to quench the same insatiate thirst. But the Anglo-Saxon heel, upon that soil, seals its greatness and proclaims its destiny. From every wooded hill-side and babbling stream-from the snow-capped mountain to the fertile valley-yea! even over the great desert plains, where the footstep cracks the crisp soil, a voice has gone forth, which the Nations hear and obey, proclaimingBE YE FREE! Do you not think that the abandoning of all domestic and personal comfort, sundering of all social and friendly ties, and rushing into the doubtful companionship of California, for the mere sake of gold, is a pretty accurate data from which to estimate a man's heart, or brain, or both? Is it not something so absolutely sordid, that one cannot help losing a little of the respect heretofore entertained for a friend who is seized with this yellow fever? As if life had nothing to mitigate the evils of existence but wealth-indeed, as if we were born only to worship that as a god-upon whose shrine we are to sacrifice time, friends, health, and even life itself, to be the masters of so much tinsel as you can clutch at the altar. Bah! Is there not in home enjoyments and the society and friendship of men who know us well, and love us truly, more real wealth than all that will ever be attained by the slaves who sweep the dirt from the streams in California-live upon frogs and beetles, and fill the air with curses. Think of men, of even the most ordinary sense of decency, herding-for any sum-for months and years with the scum of every clime; with souls sickened and minds defiled with their abominations; to be of them, " or not to be" at all— is there any consideration that could tempt your avarice or mine? None that I can think of, unless to gratify some darling revenge, vigilant and sleepless for years, which men sometimes cherish for wrongs, and which nothing but gold could furnish the means of satisfyingeven in that case it would be the last resort. If any friend of yours is solicitous to enrich a patch of soil, two feet by six, I think I can recommend an Undertaker who will arrange the thing nicely for him here; it is not worth while for him to go to California with his benevolence. For you, he would be reasonable, as you are Short. But, my dear Jeremy, I had no intention of wandering from my purpose, of giving you a reminding hint of "Copper Mining." as a sort of sedative to the gold "placers." Some of Jonathan's younger sons were then severely bitten, and were so thoroughly innoculated with the virus, as to have rather a sharpened recollection of metals. The most of them, I should think, would be safe from this later disease, even in its most violent and contagious forms. Yet there is something very attractive, and most dangerously seductive, in delving for minerals, counting each shovelfull as so many guineas coined, and already in your pocket. There is no enthusiast more dangerous than your professional miner. The gentle mad |