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I know, beloved, thy cherished voice is lending
Its glorious music to the choir above,
Thy soul of light, with kindred spirits blending,
Bathes in the beauty of a heavenly love.

But ah, my world is desolate without thee,
And storm-clouds hide the stars I fain would see;
Oh, for His holy presence round about me,
To light my spirit on, to heaven and thee!

NEW BOOKS.

From the N. Y. Evening Post.

substantial farmers from the neighborhoods of Brechfa and Llanybydder, Carmarthenshire; and, although they were well to do, they disposed of their possessions to get to California, their New Jerusalem, as they deem it, where their fanaticism teaches them to believe that they will escape from the general destruction and conflagration that is shortly to envelope the earth. It is their intention, we are informed, not to visit the gold regions, but the agricultural districts, where they intend, they say, by helping one another, to reside in peace and harmony, and to exemplify the truth of "brotherly love," not in name, but in practice. Amongst the number who came here were several aged men, Poems by James T. Fields, have been published varying from seventy to ninety years of age, and in a thin volume, by Wm. D. Ticknor & Company, whose "hoary locks" not only proclaim their length-Boston. We have looked them over with much ened years, but render it very improbable they will pleasure. The longest poem in the collection, "The live to see America; yet so deluded are the poor Post of Honor," is by no means the best. We are and simple "Saints, "that they believe that every attracted rather by the pleasant ballads, the airy one amongst them, however old and infirm they songs and other graceful trifles which form the rest may be, will as surely land in California safely as of the collection. Take this example : they started from Wales. Their faith is most extraordinary. On Wednesday morning, after being addressed by their leader, all repaired on board in admirable order and with extraordinary resignation. Their departure was witnessed by hundreds of spectators, and whilst the steamer gayly passed down the river the saints commenced singing a favorite hymn. On entering the piers, however, they abruptly stopped singing, and lustily responded to the cheering with which they were greeted by the inhabitants.-Cambrian.

From the Home Journal.

THE LAMENT OF A STRICKEN HEART.

BY HELEN IRVING.

I CANNOT Smile, though joyous summer flingeth
Her golden radiance over wood and wave,
'Mid all her beauty, I but feel she bringeth

Young flowers, beloved, to bloom above thy grave.

Above thy grave-the couch where thou art sleeping,

Who wert more fair than any flower could be, They and the angels watch alternate keeping,

Breathing their low, sweet requiem over thee.

On the still night wind through the lattice stealing,
Floats in the quivering melody to me,
But of my sorrowing soul no sad revealing,
Angel or night wind may bear back to thee.

Thou art at rest-and all the anguish rending
The heart erst one with thine, thou canst not
know;

Thine ear hears not the agonized upsending

Of prayer on prayer from out this crushing woe. Lone is the home whence thy young life hath parted, Hushed is the air that knew thy love's low tone, Gone is the light thy starry soul imparted,

Grief's dark'ning veil o'er heart and hearth is
thrown.

Waking or sleeping, comes the thought that never
Thy hand again in love's warm clasp may thrill,
Thine eye's soft fire shall glow no more forever,

Thy heart's quick pulses evermore are still.
I know, the form that 'neath the sod reposes,
Thou for an angel-glory hast laid down,

And but put off love's coronal of roses,

To wear a radiant and immortal crown.

COMMON SENSE.

She came among the gathering crowd,
A maiden fair, without pretence,
And when they asked her humble name,
She whispered mildly, "Common Sense."
Her modest garb drew every eye,

Her ample cloak, her shoes of leather-
And when they sneered, she simply said,
"I dress according to the weather."
They argued long, and reasoned loud,

In dubious Hindoo phrase mysterious,
While she, poor child, could not divine
Why girls so young should be so serious.
They knew the length of Plato's beard,
And how the scholars wrote in Saturn;
She studied authors not so deep,

And took the Bible for her pattern.
And so she said, "Excuse me, friends,
I find all have their proper places,
And Common Sense should stay at home
With cheerful hearts and smiling faces."

From the Boston Post.

We are indebted to the author for this beautifully printed book, containing two occasional addresses and many short and miscellaneous pieces. Mr. Fields has long been known in this neighborhood as a poet of great sweetness. He usually writes with taste, and his productions will better stand the test of verbal criticism than those of almost any other of our younger writers. Again, he despises mere oddity and novelty of expression, and is no follower of any of the fashionable poets of the day. These positive and negative excellences have contributed to give to Mr. Fields an honorable literary rank. The best, because the most original and significant pieces in the volume, are the semi-humorous and pathetic. Mr. Fields has, perhaps, more of the man and the wit than of the poet in his composition. In this view, we refer to the "Ballad of the Tempest," "Common Sense," "The Alarmed Skipper," and "Life at Niagara," as the most meritorious in the collection. "The Post of Honor" is a scholarlike and gentlemanly address, uttering noble and honorable sentiments in a manly style. Many

of the other compositions, also, are well written verse on poetical subjects.

From the Boston Journal.

A BRIDAL MELODY.

She stood, like an angel just wandered from heaven,
A pilgrim benighted away from the skies,
And little we deemed that to mortals were given
Such visions of beauty as came from her eyes.

This is the modest title of a volume just published by Ticknor & Co., of this city, ushering into the world, in a tangible and responsible shape, some truly beautiful and original poems, which manifest not only a correct mode of thinking, and a degree But

of taste and refinement that does honor to the author, but literary talent and wit of a high grade, and which augur most favorably of the future efforts of the poet. The longest poem in the book is the "Post of Honor," which was delivered before the Boston

She looked up and smiled on the many glad faces, The friends of her childhood who stood by her side;

she shone o'er them all, like a queen of the

Graces,

When blushing she whispered the vow of a bride. We sang an old song, as with garlands we crowned her,

And each left a kiss on her delicate brow;

Mercantile Library Association, Nov. 15, 1848, and And we prayed that a blessing might ever surround justly admired by a large and discriminating audiWe give below two poems from this little

ence. volume.

THE ALARMED SKIPPER.
"It was an ancient Mariner."

Many a long, long year ago,
Nantucket skippers had a plan

Of finding out, though "lying low,"

How near New York their schooners ran.

They greased the lead before it fell,

And then, by sounding through the night-
Knowing the soil that stuck, so well,

They always guessed their reckoning right.
A skipper gray, whose eyes were dim,
Could tell, by tasting, just the spot,
And so below he 'd" dowse the glim"-
After, of course, his "something hot."
Snug in his berth, at eight o'clock,

This ancient skipper might be found;
No matter how his craft would rock,

He slept for skippers' naps are sound! The watch on deck would now and then Run down and wake him, with the lead; He'd up, and taste, and tell the men

How many miles they went ahead. One night, 't was Jotham Marden's watch, A curious wag-the pedler's son— And so he mused, (the wanton wretch,) "To-night I'll have a grain of fun. "We're all a set of stupid fools

To think the skipper knows by tasting What ground he 's on-Nantucket schools Don't teach such stuff, with all their basting!"

And so he took the well-greased lead,

And rubbed it o'er a box of earth
That stood on deck-(a parsnip bed)-
And then he sought the skipper's berth.
"Where are we now, sir? Please to taste."
The skipper yawned, put out his tongue,
Then oped his eyes in wondrous haste,
And then upon the floor he sprung!
The skipper stormed, and tore his hair,
Thrust on his boots, and roared to Marden-
"Nantucket's sunk, and here we are

Right over old Marm Hackett's garden!"

her,

And the future of life be unclouded as now.

From the Book.

ON A PAIR OF ANTLERS, BROUGHT FROM GERMANY.
Gift from the land of song and wine,
Can I forget the enchanted day,
When first along the glorious Rhine

I heard the huntsman's bugle play,
And marked the early star that dwells
Among the cliffs of Drachenfels?

Again the isles of beauty rise ;—

Again the crumbling tower appears,
That stands, defying stormy skies,

With memories of a thousand years;
And dark old forests wave again,
And shadows crowd the dusky plain.

They brought the gift that I might hear
The music of the roaring pine,—
To fill again my charmed ear

With echoes of the Rodenstein,
With echoes of the silver horn,
Across the wailing waters borne.
Trophies of spoil! henceforth your place
Is in this quiet home of mine ;-
Farewell the busy, bloody chase,

Mute emblems now of "auld lang syne,"
When Youth and Hope went hand in hand
To roam the dear old German land.

The Boy of Mount Rhigi, is the title of a little book by Miss Sedgwick, just published by Crosby & Nichols, of Boston. It was written, says the author, in her preface, to awaken in those of our young people who have been carefully nurtured, a sense of their duty to those who are less favored. This design is most admirably executed, and none of those for whom the work was intended could read it without being moved by the persuasives to benevolence and sympathy which the author has so skilfully set before them in the form of a narrative. The struggles between conscience and the temptations of poverty, in which the temptations are so often victorious, are exceedingly well described, and some parts of the story are deeply pathetic. The work deserves all the success which we hear it obtains, and we hope soon to see the announcement of a second edition.-N. Y. Evening Post.

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POETRY. A Recent Death Bed, 85.-The Shunamite; The First Kiss, 86.-Lament of a Stricken Heart; Common Sense, 94.-Alarmed Skipper; Bridal Melody; On a Pair of Antlers, 95.

SHORT ARTICLES.-Professor Page's Electro-Magnetism, 86.-Electric Light; Straits of Magellan, 87.-An Irish Miser; Gas from Water, 88.-Bombardment of Moultan; Latter Day Saints, 93.-Boy of Mount Rhigi, 95.

of the condition and changes of foreign countries. And this not only because of their nearer connection with ourselves, but because the nations seem to be hastening, through a rapid process of change, to some new state of things, which the merely political prophet cannot compute or foresee.

PROSPECTUS. This work is conducted in the spirit of | now becomes every intelligent American to be informed Littell's Museum of Foreign Literature, (which was favorably received by the public for twenty years,) but as it is twice as large, and appears so often, we not only give spirit and freshness to it by many things which were excluded by a month's delay, but while thus extending our scope and gathering a greater and more attractive variety, are able so to increase the solid and substantial part of our literary, historical, and political harvest, as fully to satisfy the wants of the American reader.

The elaborate and stately Essays of the Edinburgh, Quarterly, and other Reviews; and Blackwood's noble criticisms on Poetry, his keen political Commentaries, highly wrought Tales, and vivid descriptions of rural and mountain Scenery; and the contributions to Literature, History, and Common Life, by the sagacious Spectator, the sparkling Examiner, the judicious Athenæum, the busy and industrious Literary Gazette, the sensible and comprehensive Britannia, the sober and respectable Christian Observer; these are intermixed with the Military and Naval reminiscences of the United Service, and with the best articles of the Dublin University, New Monthly, Fraser's, Tail's, Ainsworth's, Hood's, and Sporting Mag azines, and of Chambers' admirable Journal. We do not consider it beneath our dignity to borrow wit and wisdom from Punch; and, when we think it good enough, make use of the thunder of The Times. We shall increase our variety by importations from the continent of Europe, and from the new growth of the British colonies.

The steamship has brought Europe, Asia and Africa, into our neighborhood; and will greatly multiply our connections, as Merchants, Travellers, and Politicians, with all parts of the world; so that much more than ever it

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Geographical Discoveries, the progress of Colonization, (which is extending over the whole world,) and Voyages and Travels, will be favorite matter for our selections; and, in general, we shall systematically and very fully acquaint our readers with the great department of Foreign affairs, without entirely neglecting our own.

While we aspire to make the Living Age desirable to all who wish to keep themselves informed of the rapid progress of the movement-to Statesmen, Divines, Lawyers, and Physicians-to men of business and men of leisure-it is still a stronger object to make it attractive and useful to their Wives and Children. We believe that we can thus do some good in our day and generation; and hope to make the work indispensable in every well-informed family. We say indispensable, because in this day of cheap literature it is not possible to guard against the influx of what is bad in taste and vicious in morals, in any other way than by furnishing a sufficient supply of a healthy character. The mental and moral appetite must be gratified.

We hope that, by "winnowing the wheat from the chaff," by providing abundantly for the imagination, and by a large collection of Biography, Voyages and Travels, History, and more solid matter, we may produce a work which shall be popular, while at the same time it will aspire to raise the standard of public taste.

Agencies. We are desirous of making arrangements, in all parts of North America, for increasing the circulation of this work-and for doing this a liberal commission will be allowed to gentlemen who will interest themselves in the business. And we will gladly correspond on this subject with any agent who will send us undoubted refer

ences.

Postage. When sent with the cover on, the Living Age consists of three sheets, and is rated as a pamphlet, at 44 cents. But when sent without the cover, it comes within the definition of a newspaper given in the law, and cannot legally be charged with more than newspaper postage, (13 cts.) We add the definition alluded to:

A newspaper is "any printed publication, issued in numbers, consisting of not more than two sheets, and published at short, stated intervals of not more than one month, conveying intelligence of passing events."

Monthly parts.-For such as prefer it in that form, the Living Age is put up in monthly parts, containing four or five weekly numbers. In this shape it shows to great advantage in comparison with other works, containing in each part double the matter of any of the quarterlies. But we recommend the weekly numbers, as fresher and fuller of life. Postage on the monthly parts is about 14 cents. The volumes are published quarterly, each volume containing as much matter as a quarterly review gives in eighteen months.

WASHINGTON, 27 DEC., 1845.

Or all the Periodical Journals devoted to literature and science which abound in Europe and in this country, this has appeared to me to be the most useful. It contains indeed the exposition only of the current literature of the English language, but this by its immense extent and comprehension includes a portraiture of the human mind in the utmost expansion of the present age. J. Q. ADAMS.

LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 257.-21 APRIL, 1849.

From the Examiner.

The Poetry of Science; or, Studies of the Physical
Phenomena of Nature. By ROBERT HUNT.
Reeve, Benham, and Reeve.

plants which, hundreds of fathoms underground, and in black darkness, have still a sense of the sun's presence in the sky, and derive some portion

of the subtle essence of their life from his influJUDGING from certain indications scattered here ence; the histories of mighty forests and great and there in this book, we presume that its author tracts of land carried down into the sea, by the would not consider himself complimented by the same process which is active in the Mississippi and remark that we are perhaps indebted for the pub- such great rivers at this hour, are made familiar to lication of such a work to the author of the Ves- us. Sirens, mermaids, shining cities glittering at tiges of the Natural History of Creation, who, by the bottom of the quiet seas, and in deep lakes, rendering the general subject popular, and awaken-exist no longer; but, in their place, science, their ing an interest and a spirit of inquiry in many destroyer, shows us whole coasts of coral-reef conminds, where these had previously lain dormant, structed by the labors of minute creatures; points has created a reading public—not exclusively sci- to our own chalk cliffs and limestone rocks, as entific or philosophical—to whom such offerings made of the dust of myriads of generations of incan be hopefully addressed. This, however, we finitesimal beings that have passed away; reduces believe to be the case; and in this, as we conceive, the very element of water into its constituent airs, the writer of that remarkable and well-abused book and re-creates it at her pleasure. Caverns in has not rendered his least important service to his rocks, choked with rich treasures shut up from all own time. but the enchanted hand, science has blown to The design of Mr. Hunt's volume is striking atoms, as she can rend and rive the rocks themand good. To show that the facts of science are selves; but in those rocks she has found, and read at least as full of poetry, as the most poetical fan- aloud, the great stone book which is the history cies ever founded on an imperfect observation and of the earth, even when darkness sat upon the face a distant suspicion of them, (as, for example, of the deep. Along their craggy sides she has among the ancient Greeks ;) to show that if the traced the foot-prints of birds and beasts, whose Dryades no longer haunt the woods, there is, in shapes were never seen by man. From within every forest, in every tree, in every leaf, and in them she has brought the bones, and pieced toevery ring on every sturdy trunk, a beautiful and gether the skeletons, of monsters that would have wonderful creation, always changing, always go- crushed the noted dragons of the fables at a blow. ing on, always bearing testimony to the stupendous The stars that stud the firmament by night are workings of Almighty wisdom, and always leading watched no more from lonely towers by enthusiasts the student's mind from wonder on to wonder, until or impostors, believing, or feigning to believe, those he is wrapt and lost in the vast worlds of wonder great worlds to be charged with the small destinies by which he is surrounded from his cradle to his of individual men down here; but two astronomers, grave, is a purpose worthy of the natural philoso- far apart, each looking from his solitary study up pher, and salutary to the spirit of the age. To into the sky, observe, in a known star, a trembling show that science, truly expounding nature, can, which forewarns them of the coming of some unlike nature herself, restore in some new form what-known body through the realms of space, whose ever she destroys; that, instead of binding us, as some would have it, in stern utilitarian chains, when she has freed us from a harmless superstition, she offers to our contemplation something better and more beautiful, something which, rightly considered, is more elevating to the soul, nobler and more stimulating to the soaring fancy; is a sound, wise, wholesome object. If more of the learned men who have written on these themes had had it in their minds, they would have done more good, and gathered upon their track many followers on whom its feeblest and most distant trace has only now begun to shine.

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attraction at a certain period of its mighty journey causes that disturbance. In due time it comes, and passes out of the disturbing path; the old star shines at peace again; and the new one, evermore to be associated with the honored names of Le Verrier and Adams, is called Neptune! The astrologer has faded out of the castle turret-room, (which overlooks a railroad now,) and forebodes no longer that because the light of yonder planet is diminishing, my lord will shortly die; but the professor of an exact science has arisen in his stead, to prove that a ray of light must occupy a period of six years in travelling to the earth from the nearest of the fixed stars; and that if one of the remote fixed stars were "blotted out of heaven" to-day, several generations of the mortal inhabitants of this earth must perish out of time, before the fact of its obliteration could be known to man!

neer to calculate the weight of the iron tunnel of the Conway, or any other mechanical structure. Thus force is unerringly sustained. If one of the most throughout the universe the balance of gravitating remote of those gems of light, which flicker at midnight in the dark distance of the starry vault, was, by any power, removed from its place, the disturb ance of these delicately balanced mysteries would be felt through all the created systems of worlds.

This ample compensation, in respect of poetry | easy to poise the remote star, as it is for the engi alone, that science has given us in return for what she has taken away, it is the main object of Mr. Hunt's book to elucidate. The subject is very ably dealt with, and the object very well attained. We might object to an occasional discursiveness, and sometimes we could have desired to be addressed in a plainer form of words. Nor do we quite perceive the force of Mr. Hunt's objection (at p. 307) to certain geological speculations; which we must be permitted to believe many intelligent men to be capable of making, and reasonably sustaining, on a knowledge of certain geological facts; albeit they are neither practical chemists, nor palæontologists. But the book displays a fund of knowledge, and is the work of an eloquent and earnest man; and, as such, we are too content and happy to receive it, to enlarge on these points.

We subjoin a few short extracts.

THE ELECTRICITY OF A TEAR.

We tremble when the thunder-cloud bursts in fury above our heads;-the poet seizes on the terrors of the storm to add to the interest of his verse. Fancy paints a storm-king, and the genius of romance, clothes his demons in lightnings, and they are heralded by thunders. These wild imaginings have been the delight of mankind :-there is subject for wonder in them:-but is there anything less wonderful in the well-authenticated fact, that the dew-drop which glistens on the flower, that the tear which trembles on the eyelid, holds locked in its transparent cells an amount of electric fire, equal to that which is discharged during a storm from a

thunder-cloud?*

GRAVITATION.

Science has developed the grand truth, that it is by the exercise of this all-pervading influence that the earth is retained in its orbit-that the crystal globe of dew which glistens on the leaf is bound together-that the débris which floats upon the lake accumulates into one mass-that the sea exhibits the phenomena of the tides-and the aerial ocean its barometric changes. In all things this force is active, and throughout nature it is ever present. Our knowledge of the laws which it obeys, enables us to conclude that the sun and distant planets are consolidated masses like this earth. We find that they have gravitating power, and by comparing this influence with that exerted by the earth, we are enabled to weigh the mass of one planet against another. In the balance of the astronomer it is as

Faraday's Experimental Researches on Electricity. This philosopher has shown, by the most conclusive experiments, that the electricity which decomposes, and that which is evolved by the decomposition of, a certain quantity of matter, are alike. What an enormous quantity of electricity, therefore, is required for the decomposition of a single grain of water! We have already seen that it must be in quantity sufficient to sustain a platinum wire T4 of an inch in thickness, red hot in contact with the air, for three minutes and three quarters. It would appear that 800,000 charges of a Leyden battery, charged by thirty turns of a very large and powerful plate machine, in full action-a quantity sufficient, if passed at once through the head of a rat or cat to have killed it, as by a flash of lightning-are necessary to supply electricity sufficient to decompose a single grain of water; or, if I am right, to equal the quantity of electricity which is naturally associated with the elements of that grain of water, endowing them with their mutual chemical affinity."

LIGHT.

Light is necessary to life; the world was a dead chaos before its creation, and mute disorder would again be the consequence of its annihilation. Every charm which spreads itself over this rolling globe is directly dependent upon luminous power. Colors, and often, probably, forms, are the result of light, know much of the mysterious influences of this certainly the consequence of solar radiations. We great agent, but we know nothing of the principle itself. The solar beam has been tortured through prismatic glasses and natural crystals. Every chemical agent has been tried upon it, every electrical force in the most excited state brought to bear upon its operations, with a view to the discovery of the most refined of earthly agencies; but it has passed through every trial without revealing its secrets, and even the effects which it produces in its path are unexplained problems still to tax the intellect of man.

FIRST KNOWLEDGE OF ELECTRICITY.

If a piece of amber, electrum, is briskly rubbed, it acquires the property of attracting light bodies. of Miletus; and from the investigations of this This curious power excited the attention of Thales Grecian philosopher we must date our knowledge of one of the most important of the natural forces -Electricity.

If an inquiring mind had not been led to ask why does this curious vegetable product attract a feather, the present age, in all probability, would not have been in possession of the means by which it is enabled to transmit intelligence with a rapidity which is only excelled by that of the "swift-winged messengers of thought." To this age of application, a Modern striking lesson does this amber teach. utility would regard Thales as a madman. Holding a piece of yellow resin in his hand, rubbing it, and then picking up bits of down, or catching floating feathers, the old Greek would have have appeared a very imbecile, and the cui bono generation would have laughed at his silly labors. But when he announced to his school that this amber held a soul or essence, which was awakened by friction, and went forth from the body in which it previously lay dormant, and brought back the small particles floating around it, he gave to the world the first hint of a great truth which has advanced our knowledge of a physical phenomena in a marvellous manner, and ministered to the refinements and to the necessities of civilization.

A BROWN STONE.

A brown stone, in no respect presenting anything by which it shall be distinguished from other rude stones around it, is found, upon close examination, to possess the power of drawing light particles of iron towards it; if this stone is placed upon a table, and iron filings are thrown lightly around it, we discover that these filings arrange themselves in symmetric curves, proceeding from some one point of the mass to some other; and upon examining into

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