affected the widow's appetite, since she how once again they sallied forth on the would manage to eat six birds for supper, each as large as a young pullet. Starvation from cold and hunger was not the only enemy to be feared in this desolate region. The Esquimaux, like all savages, were treacherous; and had it not been for fear of the strangers' guns, they would doubtless have destroyed the whole party. One or two hair-breadth escapes are recorded; but these risks were viewed very calmly by men whose chance of life was lessening every day. How they made a desperate effort to escape from their icy tomb; how they were driven back again in despair; sledges of the Esquimaux-having left the owners asleep under the effects of opium; how they were overtaken by the savages; and how, with the courage that desperation alone can give, they compelled them to drive onward to the brig; is all described by Mr. Hayes with great vividness and power. A narrative so interesting as this "Arctic BoatJourney" does not often fall into the hands of a reviewer. Mr. Hayes is about to start on another expedition. He will assuredly carry with him the good wishes of all his friends and readers. THE CONVEYANCER'S PUPIL'S LAMENT. From many a sharp attorney's den; One gleam breaks through the clouds of ill, And breathing once fresh air again. The time draws on to'ards half-past four; The briefless here, a sturdy band, And miss the court's applause. To aid their country's cause. One law inspires, one badge each cap bedecks, 'Tis salus populi suprema lex. But ah! no bugle's sound that frays -Punch. WE close our list of American books with "The Cottages of the Alps, or Life and Manners in Switzerland," "by a Lady," of whom we shall only say that, if we had the option, we should most respectfully decline to travel through Switzerland or any other part of the world in her company. "THE Sand-Hills of Jutland," by Hans Christian Andersen, is a small volume comprising eighteen tales, most of which owe their existence to that faculty which their author is known to possess, of interpreting the language spoken by birds, beasts, trees, winds, waters, and even of things commonly supposed to be inanimate, such as an inkstand or the neck of a bottle. THE third volume of M. Guizot's "Memoirs to Illustrate the History of My Time" comprehends the interval between the opening of the session of 1832, M. Guizot being Minister of Public Instruction, and the dissolution of the cabinet on the 22d of February, 1836, when it was succeeded by that of which M. Thiers was president. "THE Glaciers of the Alps," a work comprising the results of three years' personal observation, by Professor Tyndale, is announced as forthcoming by Mr. Murray. AN "Account of the chief fibre-yielding products of India," by Dr. Forbes Watson, is about to be published by Messrs. Bell and Daldy. Portions of this work were read by the author before the Society of Arts during the past month. THE well-known German author and traveller, J. Gerstaecker, has brought out two fresh volumes, descriptive of his voyages in the Pacific and Polynesia, and entitled, "Die Inselwelt" (The Island World). POETRY.-The Roses of the Philippine Islands, 194. Spectator, Corn-Flowers, 194. Musa, 194. My Fiftieth Birthday, 234. Trans Mare, 235. The Returned Letters, 235. SHORT ARTICLES.-M. Guizot of Himself, 222. Atlantic Cable, 222. Circulating Libraries, 222. Cars in the Desert, 231. Last Hours of La Fayette, 239. Making Gas from Prairie Stones, 243. William the Silent, 243. A New Hippopotamus, 256. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL, SON, & CO., BOSTON. For Six Dollars a year, in advance, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded free of postage. Complete sets of the First Series, in thirty-six volumes, and of the Second Series, in twenty volumes, handsomely bound, packed in neat boxes, and delivered in all the principal cities, free of expense of freight, are for sale at two dollars a volume. ANY VOLUME may be had separately, at two dollars, bound, or a dollar and a half in numbers. ANT NUMBER may be had for 13 cents; and it is well worth while for subscribers or purchasers to complete any broken volumes they may have, and thus greatly enhance their value. THE ROSES OF THE PHILIPPINE IS- "The roses of the Philippine Islands are white at sunrise, pink at noon, and crimson at twilight." ROSES, your changeful life appears to be A type of ours: ye greet the morning light From every stain of carthly contact free, Clad in a spotless garb of virgin whiteJust so the mind, at Childhood's early age, Presents to view a fair, unwritten page. 'Tis noon: behold a blushing tint o'erspreads Your snowy leaves; and thus, in Youth's sweet years, Hope o'er the heart a soft illusion sheds, By whose deceptive art cach spot appears To smile with light, each object to assume A magic tint of loveliness and bloom. At twilight comes a change-rich crimson dyes Pervade your leaves; and thus, when Youth is o'er, Joys from a deeper, purer source arise; The mind pours forth the treasures of its store, May cheer the sober twilight of our age! CORN-FLOWERS. As on an eve long passed, I seem to stand By a low stile, o'erarched with woodbine sweet, On either side the bread-fruit of my land, And the blue corn-flowers smiling at my feet. I hear from distant woods the ring-dove's note, The half-hushed robin twitters in the brake: Above my head the sunset's warm clouds float, Reflected foliage stains the brimming lake. Lost 'mong a wilderness of spears, I bind A wreath of golden car and azure bloom; Unwitting how the homeward path to find, A little one astray amid the gloom. But hark! what sounds have hushed my simple song? Tearful and trembling to a reed I cling; Vague, childish terrors on my fancy throngImpatient hands aside the corn-blades fling. Ah! I am safe! I know the gentle eyes Which beam on me with gaze so fond and true; These, tender gray, like shadowy twilight skies, Those, as the smiling corn-flowers, bright and blue. Soft lips kiss off the teardrops from my cheek: With corn-flowers round my brow, and in my hand, Home I am borne, a weary nursling weak, While night comes down upon the silent land. tongs, And mamma knows who'll give him a splendid new shilling As soon as he's perfect to-here, see,-" By Songs." So don't interrupt him, my darling, with chatter, He stops in his lesson to look up and laugh: His fragile conception of datives you scatter, And cut his poor ablative plural in half. What, blue eyes wide open at hearing such tidings, At being accused in such very long words, And looking as wistful as if they were chidings? No, darling, run off to the flowers and the birds. Eh? you want a lesson? Well, count all those roses, For each you leave out you must pay me a kiss: And Al shall be free, too, the moment he knows his Musa, musarum, mu-what Al ?—musis. So off with you, baby, and oh, be contented That you've got no lesson to cloud that white brow, Some day you'll wish Latin had not been in vented: Perhaps, in her heart, mamma wishes so now. From The Westminster Review for January. SICILY AS IT WAS AND IS. 1. Palmieri.-Storia Costituzionale di Sici lia. 2. La Farina.-Storia Documentata della Rivoluzione Siciliana. 3. Ranalli.-Le Istorie Italie dal 1846 al 1853. 4. La Masa.-Documenti sulla Rivoluzione Siciliana. 5. Cordova.-Ruggiero Settimo. enlightened kingdom of the age. Various races then occupied different parts of Sicily; the descendants of the original Sicilians, Greeks, Jews, and Saracens. To all of these, with a toleration and political sagacity that had no parallel at the period, he left the free exercise of their respective laws and religions, at the same time that he united their common interests by a form of popular representation which rapidly fused these con 6. Pantaleoni.-Droits Politiques de la Sic-flicting elements into a homogeneous whole. ile. The reign of his son, Roger II., opens 7. De Granatelli (Prince).—Sicily and Eng- with a ceremonial which demonstrates the land. A pamphlet. 8. Parliamentary Blue-book. Containing Correspondence of the Affairs of Naples and Sicily, 1848, 1849. THE history of the early independence and present servitude of the Sicilian people, their ancient bonds of fellowship with England, the important influence the British government has at various times exercised over their condition, the rights obtained through its favor, and the misfortunes resulting from its indifference, forms the substance of the works before us. importance to which Count Roger's institutions had already attained. We read that he was crowned King of Sicily, Duke of Apulia, and Prince of Capua, at Palermo, in 1130, "with the consent of the assembled bishops, barons, and jurists of the realm." This monarch, who was celebrated throughout Europe for his victories over the Greek emperors and the Saracens in Africa, at home pursued and amplified his father's policy. For nearly two centuries the prosperity of Sicily continued unabated. Though on failure of male heirs the crown had passed through a princess to the House of Suabia, its privileges and independence had never been infringed. No prince of that dynasty, mitted to retain sovereignty over the island, being bound to cede his authority and the regal title to one of his sons; nor could the transfer be pronounced valid without the sanction of the Sicilian Parliament, before whom the new king was required to present himself, and swear adherence to the constitution bequeathed by his Norman ancestors. Voluminous as is the list, however, it comprises but a few of the publications through which Sicilians of all ranks, of all political shades, have perseveringly endeav-on assuming the imperial sceptre, was perored to draw attention to their claims upon England, and to the court of Naples' flagrant violation of engagements they believed this country pledged to see maintained. Failing in their primary object, dismissed as impor.tunate suitors for assistance where they fancied they had made good a title for redress, these statements have gone forth to the rest of Europe as additional evidence of the proverbial faithlessness of British diplomacy, as well as of the surpassing selfishness of a people who, prizing their own free hereditary institutions above all things, have nevertheless raised no voice against the abolition in Sicily of privileges as time-honored and inalienable as their own. The Norman constitution, the pride and boast of the island, the constitution which, in a memorable debate in the House of Commons never to be forgotten, hardly forgiven, by the Sicilians, was sneeringly alluded to by a cabinet minister as "apocryphal," owed its origin to the celebrated Count Roger, who, towards the end of the eleventh cen tury, here laid the groundwork of the most The ambition and recklessness of the Ro man pontiffs brought the calamities of a French invasion upon Southern Italy. Manfred, king of Sicily, was slain at the battle of Benevento, in 1266, and Charles of Anjou received from Pope Clement IV. the formal investiture of his dominions. Transporting the seat of government to Naples for sixteen years, Charles compelled the Sicilians to bow beneath a tyranny which the bloody Vespers terribly revenged. Eight *Under the two last designations was comprised the chief part of the present kingdom of Naples. By old writers the continental possessions of the beyond the Straits. Hence the title assumed by crown of Sicily are frequently spoken of as Sicily Charles of Bourbon in 1735-King of the Two Sicilies. thousand French were massacred in the isl-transatlantic possessions, Naples, the Duchy and, and every trace of their abhorred rule of Milan, and the Low Countries. was swept away. Naples, meantime, either The people of Palermo still point with less oppressed or less capable of freeing it- pardonable pride to the bronze statue of the self from the oppressor, remained in subjec- Emperor Charles V., erected to commemorate tion to the Angevin prince, and for upwards his swearing, in their venerable cathedral, of a century and a half to his descendants, to observe "the statutes, constitutions, privwhose vices alone rescue them from oblivion. ileges, immunities, and liberties of the kingThe first care of the Sicilian Parliament, dom: " while their writers gratefully record on resuming the exercise of its functions, that both he and his son, Philip II., though was to offer the crown to Peter of Arragon, in general little careful of popular rights, married to Constance, the only daughter of faithfully maintained their pledge. Even King Manfred. This invitation was at once amidst the general corruption and degeneraccepted. Peter hastened to Palermo, where acy that marked the reigns of Philip's suche swore to observe the statutes and privi- cessors, Sicily had less to complain of than leges of the nation; then, having obtained any of the other states dependent upon the recognition of his second son, James, as Spain. Though the parliament had lost his successor in the island, left him among much of its former vigor, and was only conhis future subjects under the guardianship vened every three years, it retained sufficient of his mother, and returned to Spain. authority to mitigate many of the evils inseparable from a delegated government. It still had the right of voting taxes for that time, and of seeing that they were applied to the purposes for which they were voted; and during the long interval between each session, a deputation of twelve members, chosen from among themselves by the three Bracci, represented the national requirements, regulated the finances, and the supplies to be granted to the crown. It was during the sway of the Arragonese line that the Sicilian constitution reached its highest development. In 1296, the parliament, composed of three chambers, or Bracci, ecclesiastics, nobles, and commons, the latter including not only the mayors of the cities and boroughs, but a "certain number of burgesses selected for their learning, wealth, and influence," shared with the king the power of legislation. The right of imposing taxes, as well as that of making peace The war of the Spanish succession, at the or of declaring war, was also its peculiar at- beginning of the eighteenth century, transtribute. It was convoked and dissolved ferred Sicily to Victor Amedeus, Duke of every year, and could only be convoked or Savoy, who recognized at the Treaty of dissolved by itself. The king was forbidden Utrecht as one of the heirs of the late king to quit the kingdom without the consent of of Spain, was crowned at Palermo with the · the parliament; and municipal indepen-usual oaths and ceremonies, having predence, civil liberty, and the right of private viously pledged himself, in one of the articles property were guaranteed. of that treaty, to preserve the liberties of SicThe extinction of the Sicilio-Arragonese ily. England, in this transaction, for the dynasty at the commencement of the fifteenth first time appeared upon the scene, as exercentury, transferred the crown to the elder cising a direct influence over the political branch of the reigning kings of Arragon, condition of the island. She promoted its who ere long, by the union of the Ferdinand separation from Spain, upon whose throne with Isabella of Castille, became monarchs now sat a grandson of Louis XIV., formerly of all Spain. Tenacious of their ancient recognized the new king, and concluded a rights, and exacting from each of the Span-treaty of commerce with the state. ish kings, either in person or through their The rupture of the Treaty of Utrecht, after representatives, the usual oath of fidelity to a few years, caused another general war, and the constitution, the Sicilians were able to displaced Victor Amedeus. Sicily was tempreserve a greater share of independence porarily occupied by the Imperialists, and than fell to the lot of the other portions of fluctuated for some time between the rival that vast empire which, by conquest or in- pretensions of Spain and Austria; until heritance, aggregated to itself, besides its finally, in 1735, Charles, son of Philip V., |