As if the broken circlet joined again, I try, but would be blocked and drive me back Outlive the hour-and he has lived two weeksIt is through God who knows I am not by. Who is it makes the soft gold hair turn black, And sets the tongue, might lie so long at rest, Trying to talk? Let us leave God alone! Why should I doubt He will explain in time What I feel now, but fail to find the words?" Taken as a whole, the figure of Pompilia seems to us a master-piece of delicate power. Passionate tenderness with equally passionate purity, submissiveness to calamity with strenuousness against evil, the trustfulness of a child with the suffering of a martyr, childishness of intellect with the visonary insight of a saint, all tinged with the ineffably soft colouring of an Italian heaven, Towns, flowers and faces, all things helped so breathe in every touch and stroke of this heaven. I could believe himself by his strong will We went along in, every circumstance, well! For, through the journey, was it natural cir great picture. The old Pope affords, perhaps, a fresher kind of subject, but one much easier, we should suppose, for Mr. Browning to draw. It is a very fine figure. There is in it all the mark of venerable age, except any failure of intellectual power. The flashes of thin, bright, Boreal kind. The Pope, Innointellectual and spiritual light are of the cent XII., as Mr. Browning draws him, is at least, no believer in the dogma which it is supposed that the Council of 1869 is to promulgate, on Papal infallibility. This is whether he shall or shall not dare condemn the gallant old man's tone in deliberating the aristocratic murderer to his rightful How exquisitely natural that suggestion of hers, that she could almost believe that the young priest's "strong will" had created for her the whole world and its every cumstance in which she journeyed from Arezzo till overtaken by her husband at the last stage to Rome; that she was travelling not in the broad every-day world that thwarts, and terrifies, and wearies, but in a world governed by the subjective law of his tenderly adjusting mind. And then look" how finely the religious passion of the mother's heart is expressed: "I never realized God's birth beforeHow he grew likest God in being born. This time I felt like Mary, had my babe Lying a little on my breast like hers." And this, again, for the spiritual perfection of maternal love is scarcely equalled in all our language: "Even for my babe, my boy, there's safety thence From the sudden death of me, I mean: we poor Weak souls, how we endeavour to be strong! This portion, now, should do him such a good, The little life, the fact which means so much. fate: I, too, the post of me, like those I blame? I am near the end; but still not at the end; Still more striking and finer is the old -- the "weak things of this world" shall con- | The picture of the courageous old man's found the mighty." It is the apparent slight hesitation in the discharge of his terriweakness, he says, in a faith which appeals ble duty, of the deep questions as to the to the help and brings forth the love of truths whereon he and his office rest which man, till he finds at last that it was in its that hesitation stirs, of the plumbing of weakness that its strength consisted, in its the most difficult problems of philosophy imploring appeal to the heart that the mar- and faith as his mind travels round the vellous power lay which could not have lain intellectual horizon of his lonely eminence, hid in the fiat of almighty strength: of the gratitude with which he fixes his "What but the weakness in a faith supplies glance on Pompilia's spiritual loveliness as The incentive to humanity, no strength the one blossom "vouchsafed unworthy me, Absolute, irresistible, comports? ten years a gardener of the untoward ground," of the anxious and doubtful admiration with which he notes Caponsacchi's impulsive nobleness, and of the half-anxiety and half-trust with which he observes the signs of moral decomposition -( omens for those who are to come after him, all is drawn so as to leave an indelible impression on any moderately sensitive imagination. How can man love but what he yearns to help? And that which men think weakness within strength, But angels know for strength and stronger yet What were it else but the first things made new, But repetition of the miracle, The divine instance of self-sacrifice That never ends and aye begins for man?" Of a piece with this suggestion is the old Pope's fine presage that the power of Christ can only be restored through an approaching age of doubt, which shall shake the towers of the Church till they tremble, and dissipate the formal and conventional monotony of orthodoxy, "Till man stand out again, pale, resolute, lie?" As a work of art, we think Mr. Brownbefore, the truth of the picture is too ening's poem imperfect. As we have noticed tirely on one side to render the numerous pleadings on so many sides at all subservient to the result. Nearly half might, we think, have been omitted, not without the loss of marvellous work of its kind, but with great gain to the popularity of what remained. Still there is nothing in all his former works that will stay imprinted so indelibly on our minds as the four great and Innocent. figures of Guido, Pompilia, Caponsacchi, A System of Physical Education. By Arch- | get the chief development, and next to them the ibald Maclaren. (Clarendon Press Series.)-right arm; and that consequently in nearly Mr. Maclaren, who stands first among the pro- every case, even of healthy persons, the upper fessors of the Gymnastic Art, gives us in this volume his theory, with the arguments and proofs on which it rests, and a practical system of exercises, with the necessary rules and instructions. It is of the former only of these two divisions of his treatise that we can express any opinion, and we may say at once that we have read it with very great pleasure and profit. "It is health," he says, rather than strength, that is the great requirement of modern men at modern occupations. This is the right note to strike; gymnastics, as distinguished from athletics, are a part of education which we probably lose vastly by neglecting. Mr. Maclaren points out a fact which will probably be new to many readers, but which will at once commend itself as evidently true, that our common games and exercises fail to have a proper influence on the growth of the whole body, that the lower limbs part of the body fails to reach its due proportions. This seems to be true even of rowing and fives,' of which one would not naturally have supposed it. Again, Mr. Maclaren tells us, as a matter of course, that he can tell from the conformation of a man's chest whether he has been rowing stroke or bow side of his college boat. Some of his experiences of the action of gymnastics in correcting irregular growth and promoting development are very curious. One of them was that twelve non-commissioned officers, varying from nineteen to twenty-nine years of age, and of every variety of size, were so enlarged by the system of exercises through which he took them that before four months were finished several of them could not get into their uniforms. The former part of the book is so very sensible, that we can readily believe that the latter part will be very useful. Spectator. THE APPRENTICES' LIBRARY OF PHILADEL- | But I do not rest my case upon these high PHIA. The Apprentices' Library is lodged in metaphysical grounds. I rest it upon three an old historic building at the corner of Fifth and (now called) Arch streets, in the north wall of which is set a marble slab bearing this quaint legend: BY GENERAL SUBSCRIPTION FOR THE FREE QUAKERS. OF THE EMPIRE 8. The founders of the building were originally members of the Society of Friends, from which they became separated by taking part in the war of the Revolution. When the war was ended, they formed a religious society, and erected the present library building for a meeting-house. There they assembled after the manner of their sect, but Time, gently covering old wrongs and bitternesses, obliterated their misdeeds against the Spirit of Peace, and either they or their children were taken back at last into the old beloved fold, and then the building fell into disuse, and afterward into the possession of the library. But the galleries where the ministers and elders sat, and the massive benches for the rest of these grim, old fighting Quakers, are still preserved with very loving care. Lippincott's Magazine. other grounds. First, that, in investigating these so-called spiritual phenomena, we should ascertain more about the laws of evidence; secondly, that we should ascertain whether there are any powers, forces, or influences, of which we are at present not aware, that have their place in the creation; and, thirdly, whether disease brings into operation faculties of hearing, eyesight, or imagination, of which we have at present no adequate conception, medically, morally, metaphysically, or scientifi cally. These questions demand the most careful investigation from our best weighers of evidence, and from our most accomplished scientific men. Author of Friends in Council. Poems and Ballads. By Janet Hamilton. rise above the average of occasional verses, both (Maclehose, Glasgow.) - These poems certainly as to melody and as to expression. A peculiar interest is given to them by the circumstances of the author, a woman of the peasant class, who did not seriously begin to compose till she was considerably past her fiftieth year, and who had then to acquire the accomplishment of writing. She had, however, managed to acquire a considerable amount of culture by reading. Her English poems show the traces of this, and though not positively imitations, have not much that is characteristic about them. When she writes in Scotch she becomes much more vigorous and original. Dr. Wallace prefixes to the poems an interesting and unaffected account of a visit to the author; Dr. George Gilfillan, of Dundee, supplies the essays on her writings, which might very well have been spared. Why cannot we be allowed to read a book like this, without being told "that the dungeon or the hovel is a fitter atmosphere for the higher order of imagination than the library of the British Museum," and "that Courts rarely rear a great poet or thinker"? Surely there is something between courts and dungeons, and genius cries, like the wise man, "Give me neither poverty nor riches." Spectator. I WISH I could persuade men of science and men who have peculiar gifts of investigation and examination, that it would be most desirable for them, and a worthy employment of their gifts, to examine what, for want of a better term, we may call spiritual phenomena. Let them remember, that to dispel error may be nearly as important as to ascertain truth. Then, let them recollect, that almost all great discoveries have been accompanied by a great deal of quackery and imposture. Let them think how much these investigations might tend to promote medical science. Let them reflect how important a thing it is to investigate the value of testimony. Let them further reflect what a world of mystery we live in. Now look at the powers of memory. It is not too much to say, that if the records of memory, even of a peasant, were written out in full, the weight alone of the ink would probably be greater than the weight of the brain that remembers. After this, can they say that any I AM lost in astonishment when I contemplate process of the human mind is astonishing? the "questions," as they are called which are There are numbers of statements, apparently debated by the different religious parties, and well authenticated, in which it appears that the respecting which they become furious. Vestlast thoughts and wishes of a dying person have ments, intonings, processions, altar-cloths, roodhad great influence over relatives and friends, screens, and genuflections, are made to be matdivided from these dying persons by large dis-ters of the utmost importance; and all the while tances of land and sea. Let us carefully record and examine into all these statements. It would be an unutterable comfort to many minds to have it well ascertained that there was any influence after death of one mind upon another. the really great questions are in abeyance. It reminds me of children playing at marbles on the slopes of a volcano, which has already given sure signs of an approching eruption. Author of Friends in Council. No. 1298.-April 17, 1869. CONTENTS. 1. MR. HENRY TAYLOR'S PLAYS AND POEMS, 2. THE COUNTRY-HOUSE ON THE RHINE. Part XXII. By Berthold Auerbach. Translated from the German for The Living Age, 3. Die Presse, PHINEAS FINN. By Anthony Trollope. Concluded, Saint Paul's, 4. THE AUTHOR OF "THERE'S NAE LUCK ABOUT THE HOUSE,' 5. TRAVERS MADGE. A Biography, 6. THE CZECH QUESTION, 7. LITTLE IGNORANCES, Good Words, Good Words, 173 Spectator, 181 Spectator, JUST PUBLISHED AT THIS OFFICE : A HOUSE OF CARDS, by Mrs. Cashel Hoey. Price 75 cents. 130 PREPARING FOR PUBLICATION AT THIS OFFICE: HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE II. These very interesting and valuable sketches of Queen Caroline, Sir Robert Walpole, Lord Chesterfield, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, The Young Chevalier, Pope, John Wesley, Commodore Anson, Bishop Berkeley, and other celebrated characters of the time of George II., several of which have already appeared in the LIVING AGE, reprinted from Blackwood's Magazine, will be issued from this office, in book form, as soon as completed. LETTICE LISLE. THE BROWN LADY, a Tale by the Author of the House of Cards, will soon be published at this Office. HOW NOT TO BE SICK. By Albert J. Bellows, M. D., author of " Philosophy of Eating,' late Professor of Chemistry, Philosophy, Hygiene, &c. Second edition. New York, Hurd & Houghton. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON. FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually for. warded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year, nor where we have to pay commission for forwarding the money. Price of the First Series, in Cloth, 36 volumes, 90 dollars. Any Volume Bound, 3 dollars; Unbound, 2 dollars. The sets, or volumes, will be sent at the expense of the publishers. PREMIUMS FOR CLUBS. For 5 new subscribers ($40.), a sixth copy; or a set of HORNE'S INTRODUCTION TO THE BIBLE, unabridged, in 4 large volumes, cloth, price $10; or any 5 of the back volumes of the LIVING AGE, in numbers, price $10. MY LEGACY. BY H. H. THEY told me I was heir. I turned in haste, Of gold, or if the titles of fair lands And houses would be laid within my hands. I journeyed many roads; I knocked at gates; I met, and said: "A heritage awaits Me. Art not thou the bearer Of news? Some message sent to me whereby I learn which way my new possessions lie?" Some asked me in: nought lay beyond their door; Some smiled and could not tarry, But said that men were just behind who bore More gold than I could carry; And so the morn, the noon, the day were spent, At last one cried, whose face I could not see, Hath no man told thee that thou art joint heir With one named Christ, who waits the goods to share?" The one named Christ I sought for many days, I heard men name his name in many ways; But they who named him most gave me no sign And when at last I stood before his face, Save subtle air of joy which filled the place; My share! No deed of house or spreading lands, Heaped up with gold; my elder brother's hands Foxes have holes, and birds in nests are fed: My share! The right, like him, to know all pain In bitter tears; the right with him to keep My share! To-day men call it grief and death; I thank our Father with my every breath And through my tears I call to each: "Joint heir With Christ, make haste to ask him for thy share." |