LITERARY MISCELLANIES. MEMORIAL VOLUME OF THE FIRST FIFTY YEARS of the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions. Fourth edition. Boston: Published by the Board, Missionary House, No. 33 Pemberton Square. 1862. THE history of the world presents but one American Board for Foreign Missions. And perhaps no other Board of Missions of any age or country has achieved a work of such vast dimensions, so far reaching, to so many countries of the globe, to so many nations, and people, and languages, scattering the words of eternal life, planting the seeds of salvation in many lands, which have sprung up and are bearing fruit with increasing richness and abundance, to bless the great family of man to the end of time. This great Missionary Board is an honor to any age or country, and, viewing the human race in its relations to God and to the Saviour of the world, the amount of self-denying and voluntary labors which this Board and its missionaries have accomplished since its inauguration, presents a history of moral grandeur such as human annals have seldom re corded. This memorial volume is a book full of interest to the Christian philosopher, the patriot, the statesman, and to all who can appreciate in its true light, the great work of redemption which is moving on to the ultimate consummation of human welfare. The chief labor of preparing this memorial volume was assigned to very competent hands. The Rev. Rufus Anderson, D.D., now Senior Secretary, and who has filled the office of Secretary for thirty nine years, completed the work more than a year since. Four editions have been called for. Since the issue of the fourth edition, a finely engraved plate has been made on steel, presenting portraits of the five deceased secretaries of the Board, namely, Rev. Dr. Worcester, Jeremiah Everts, Esq., Rev. Dr. Cornelius, Rev. Dr. Wisner, and Rev. Dr. Armstrong. This fine work of art, engraved by Mr. George E. Perine, artist for the ECLECTIC, will add much to the interest of the volume. We are informed that copies of this fine portrait-plate will be furnished to all who have purchased the volume, and that it will be bound into all the future issues of the work. We wish every friend of the Board had a copy for himself, his family, and for his center-table. THE NEW GYMNASTICS for Men, Women, and With three hundred illustrations. nor & Fields. 1862. Pp. 274. sical education, from which persons of either sex, after a full training, are graduated with the honors of a legal diploma. We take especial pleasure in noticing this book, and commending its careful perusal to all, and particularly to parents and guardians, and those to whom are intrusted the nurture and education of children and youth. The subject of physical training is one of primary importance. While schools and seminaries of learning for mental training of the present generation have been multiplied many fold within the last forty years, physical training has been in a great measure neglected. Hence it is that many persons of high mental culture, ministers of the Gospel, professional men, and others, whose acquirements have involved the necessity of hard study and severe mental labor to fit them for the more active and public duties of life, have broken down, failed in health, and failed in the great object and business of life, for want of proper physical education. Many such are in their graves long ago, who might now have been alive and useful members of society, had they trained their bodies as they did their minds, and kept both in a healthful condition. We could count up scores of old college fellowstudents, who, ambitious of literary distinction and high college honors, neglected the needful physical exercise, and paid the heavy penalty in loss of health and life, and a premature grave. The body is the workshop of the mind, and if the workshop is not well built of substantial materials, it will crumble down before half the great work of life is finished; vacant pulpits, vacant churches-pastors dismissed on account of impaired health, have gone to Europe, or somewhere else, as a means to repair the strength of the clay-walled cottage of the human frame. How many graves in Greenwood are tenanted by New-York merchants and business men whose overworked minds and brains broke down their bodies and laid them in the silent chambers for want of sufficient physical exercise! A great physical law of our common humanity was violated, and the sure penalty had to be paid. But greater injury, severer suffering, and more prolonged and abiding injury to the race is inflicted on the beautiful of the human family-the mothers of humanity, by the neglect of proper physical culture in early life and more mature age. It is a Chil-matter-of fact business to live in this world. There is romance and poetry in the early gushing affections of the human heart; but the grave prose and blank-verse of life usually follow soon after. The maternal duties of a growing family relationship task the physical powers, under which health often fails, and even life itself. It is believed that as a general truth American ladies of refined culture possess a less amount of physical strength and endurance than the women of most other countries. It will be a boon to our humanity if this book shall help to in augurate a better system of physical training for the youth of our coutry, students in college, and young ladies in female seminaries. It would be valuable as a text-book in every family. Tuis book, says the author in his preface, describes and illustrates a new system of physical training. Like air and food, its exercises are adapted to both sexes, and to persons of all ages. Efforts are being made to disseminate a practical knowledge of the new system. A college has been incorporated-the Boston Normal Institute-for phy 142 LES MISERABLES: COSETTE. A novel by VICTOR HU-| may be addressed to D. A. Knowlton, No. 13 John street, New-York. GO. New-York: Carleton, Publisher. 1862. Pp. 164. THE word-painting of scenes and characters in this book is very graphic and striking. The battle and battle ground, and scenes of Waterloo, are marvelous and life-like. We could almost see the original objects again after an interval of long years, from the glowing language of imagery employed in the story. EXCAVATIONS AT POMPEII-A Berlin paper pub. lishes the following extract from letters received by Professor Zahn from Naples and Pompeii: "The organization of the Naples Museum is being very much improved. The gallery of antique frescoes is newly arranged, in mythological order, beginning with Jupiter. One half is already completed, and the other is about to be begun upon. In Pompeii the excavations are zealously carried on under a new LES MISERABLES. A novel by VICTOR HUGO. Ma Piedmontese contractor. The old accumulation of rius. Carleton, Publisher. THE work has been well translated from the original French, by Charles R. Wilbour. Much of the language of this story is rich and gorgeous. It is used by the hand of a master who knows how to touch the chords of thought. THE FLYING DUTCHMAN; OR, THE WRATH OF HERR VONSTOPPELNOSE. By JOHN G. SAXE. With sixteen comic illustrations. New-York: Carleton, Publisher. 1862. THE poem is written in Saxe's best style of humor, as genial and racy as if Hood had had a finger in it. The book is beautifully printed. THE MORGESONS. BY ELIZABETH STODDARD. A NewEngland story. New-York: Carleton, Publisher. 1862. Pp. 259. Price, 50 cents. THIS sparkling story abounds in wit and humor, and in style and language might be compared to the rapid changes and developments of a kaleidoscope. THE WORKS OF FRANCIS BACON, Baron of Verulam, etc., etc, collected and edited by JAMES SPODDING, M.A., of Trinity College, Cambridge, etc., etc. Boston: Brown & Taggard, Publishers. 1862. Pp. 483. We have noticed the successive issues of this standard work in the series of volumes which have appeared from the press of Brown & Taggard. The work is one highly valued by scholars, and many will be glad to enrich their libraries with all the volumes of the work. THE GOLDEN HOUR. BY MONCURE D. CONWAY, author of the "Rejected Stone." Boston Ticknor & Fields. 1862. Pp. 160. THIS is a book for the times, and very timely. It touches with a strong hand on many of the great questions which now agitate our country. The author has evidently thought for himself, and for a good many other persons, on these absorbing questions, which now enter into the vitalities of our land in its struggle for its laws and Constitution. EMPIRE SPRING-WATER.-This fine mineral springwater and healthful beverage is fast increasing in We do a good public estimation and extensive use. service in calling attention to its valuable properties, and the perfection with which it is bottled and kept, without losing its good taste or medicinal effect. In all respects it is a superior article for use at home, and for sea-voyages and distant climes. The water of the Empire Spring is bottled with the utmost care, and packed in strong boxes. Orders volcanic ashes, which had been thrown round the town in the direction of the sea, is now being removed, and sent by the little railway to the field outside the town beyond the Amphitheater. In the latest excavations in a house in the immediate vicinity of the Casino of Signor dell'Aquila, a beautiful triclinium, with three richly decorated walls and three fine pictures, was discovered. The first of these pictures represents the building of Troy by Neptune and Apollo, the second a drunken Hercules with numerous Cupids, who have disarmed him, and surrounded by several Fauns and Bacchantes, and in the third picture Vulcan shows Thetis the arms of Apollo, among them a shield, on which are represented the Zodiac, Apollo, and the nine Muses. The second picture, with the drunken Hercules, is said to be, as regards both drawing and coloring, one of the finest ancient frescoes yet known. Next to this triclinium in another chamber, the ground of the walls of which is black, with embellishments in the Egyptian style, and a number of small pictures. On the floor at the entrance of this house is the inscription, Salve Lucro.' The next building is a tavern, with an inscription, and a painted elephant on the outer wall as a sign-the Elephant Inn. Opposite to this is a large place of amusement, with many paintings of a voluptuous character, and interesting inscriptions, and where there also have been found numerous objects in gold, silver, bronze, and glass." A LONG-CLOSED THEATER REÖPENED.-At the moment of the destruction of Pompeii by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius, A.D. 79, a theatrical representation was being given in the Amphitheater. A speculator, named Langini, taking advantage of that historical reminiscence, has just constructed a theater on the ruins of Pompeii; and the opening of which new theater he announces in the following terms: "After a lapse of eighteen hundred years, the theater of the city will be reöpened with La Figlia del Reggimento.' I solicit from the nobility and gentry a continuance of the favor constantly bestowed on my predecessor, Marcus Quintus Martius; and beg to assure them that I shall make every effort to equal the rare qualities he displayed during his management." A MAGNETIC and meteorological observatory has been established by the Russian Government at Pekin. ABSENCE OF MIND.-A well-known gentleman of Magdalen College, Cambridge, had taken his watch from his pocket to mark the time he intended to boil an egg for his breakfast, when a friend entering his room, found him absorbed in some abstruse calculation, with the egg in his hand, upon which he was looking intently, and the watch supplying its place in the saucepan of boiling water. BEAUTY OF WORDS WITH ONE SYLLABLE. THINK not that strength lies in the big round word, Or that the brief and plain must needs be weak, To whom can this be true who once has heard The cry for help, the tongue that all men speak, When want or woe or fear is in the throat, So that each word gasped out is like a shriek Pressed from the sore heart, or a strange wild note, Sung by some fay or fiend! There is a strength Which dies if stretched too far or spun too fine, Which has more hight than breadth, more depth than length, Let but this force of thought and speech be mine, And he that will may make the sleek, fat phrase, Which glows and burns not, though it gleam and shine Light, but no heat-a flash, but not a blaze! Nor is it mere strength that the short word boasts; The roar of guns, the groans of men that die On blood stained fields. It has a voice as well For them that far off on their sick beds lie; For them that weep, for them that mourn the dead; For them that laugh and dance and clap the hand; To joy's quick-step, as well as grief's slow tread, The sweet, plain words we learned at first keep time, And though the theme be sad, or gay, or grand, With each, with all, these may be made to chime, In thought or speech or song, or prose or rhyme. THE SIPHON FOR DRAINAGE.-Mr. Appold, the ingenious inventor of the centrifugal pump bearing his name, has recommended a plan for draining the water from the area lately inundated in Norfolk, which is about to be carried out. Enormous siphons provided with valves, to preclude any return tide-water into the drains, will be erected at various localities. They will be kept in constant operation by means of small steam-engines exhausting the air in the chambers. Should they be found to answer Mr. Appold's expectations, an entire revolution will be effected in drainage. THE HOLY SEPULCHER AT JERUSALEM.-It is said that, in consequence of the demand made by France and Russia to the Porte, for authorization to repair the cupola of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, those countries have each sent an architect to Jeru. salem to examine the general state of the building. It appears, from the report of the two scientific men charged with that mission, that not only the cupola requires immediate repairs, but that the walls on which it is built are in an insecure state, and must be reconstructed; also, that repairs are indispensa. ble in other parts of the building. ONE day, as Pope was engaged in translating the Iliad, he came to a passage which neither he nor his assistant could interpret. A stranger, who stood by, modestly suggested that "there was an error in the print!" adding, “read as if there was no mark of interrogation at the end of the line, and you have the meaning at once." Pope's assistant then rendered the passage without difficulty. Pope AN interesting discovery has been made in the forest of Villiers-Catterets in France. Some workmen, occupied in digging millstones, found an old cauldron, containing about thirteen hundred Roman coins, bearing the effigies of Antonius, Pius, Commodus, etc. The vessel was so oxydized that it fell to pieces on being handled, but the coins are in good preservation, and on most of them the legend may be deciphered. NAVAL FORCES OF FRANCE.-In the papers which the Government has presented to Parliament there are several reports from Captain Hore, naval Attaché in Paris, on the strength of the French Navy. At the beginning of this year he reports that France had 319 steam-vessels afloat and 119 sailing-vessels, and that there were 44 vessels building. Of the ships then afloat 43 were ships of the line and 71 frigates. There were afloat 6 iron-plated frigates and 12 iron-plated floating batteries; 10 more of such frigates were building, and two more of the batteries; and in May Captain Hore reported that 7 iron-plated floating batteries had just been commenced at Bordeaux and Nantes. In the same month he states the number of men at 46,881. The normal budget for the navy was £7,748,249, and the extraordinary £680,000, but that was independent of the expense for colonial stations. The French have five aviso steamers that can be taken to pieces for easy transport. They have also a small vessel about sixty feet long and twelve wide, drawing only two feet six inches; the object is to obtain great power by the use of two screws and a light draught of water. From the middle of the ship aft she is divided into two portions, and there are three keels; from the middle of the vessel the center keel rises gradually nearly to the taffrail; the other two are continued. Thus the afterpart of the vessel becomes divided, and has the appearance of two vessels joined at a short distance above the water-line. A model of a frigate on the same plan has been made. THE SHARPSHOOTER'S LOVE. The finest friend I ever knew, and one with whom I dare not trifle, who in all danger sees me through, whose aim is ever good and true, is my sweet Minnie Rifle! She gently rests upon my arm, is always ready, always willing. And though in general somewhat calm, wakes up upon the first alarm to show she can be killing. And she is very fair to see, the most fastidious fancy suiting; her locks are bright as they can be, and that her sight is good, to me is just as sure as shooting. The heaviest load seems not to weigh upon her more than 'twere a trifle, she's highly polished; and I'd pray, were I bereft of friends this day, "Oh! leave me Minie Rifle!" KINDS OF LOVE.-A young lady-a sensible girl gives the following catalogue of different kinds of love: "The sweetest, a mother's love; the longest, a brother's love; the strongest, a woman's love; the dearest, a man's love; and the sweetest, longest, strongest, dearest love-a 'love of a bonnet.'"` 144 DON'T YOU BELIEVE IT, MY DEAR! YOU'VE left me and chosen another, Nor sunshine nor fortune can cheer me; As leaves drop when winter is near; I said you alone in the wide world, To me could seem charming and fair; But don't you believe it, my dear. Your voice is the sweetest of music, More sweet than a wind-harp at play; MUSIC AT HOME.-What shall the amusements of the home be? When there is the ability and taste, I regard music, combining in happiest proportions instruction and pleasure, as standing at the head of the home evening enjoyments. What a never-failing resource have those homes which God has blessed with this gift! How many pleasant family circles gather nightly about the piano! How many a home is vocal with the voice of song! The piano is a great and universal boon and comforter. One pauses and blesses it, as he hears it through the open farm-house window, or detects its sweetness stealing out amid the noise of the town-an angel's benison upon a wilderness of discord, soothing the weary brain, lifting the troubled spirit, pouring fresh strength into the tired body, waking to worship, lulling to rest. Touched by the hand we love, a mother, sister, wife-say, is it not a ministrant of love to child, to man--a household deity, now meeting our moods, answering to our needs, sinking to depths we can not fathom, rising to hights we can not reach, leading, guiding, great and grand and good, and now stooping to our lower wants, our souls reverberating from its keys? The home that has a piano, what capacity for evening pleasure and profit has it! Alas! that so many wives and mothers should speak of their ability to play as a mere accomplishment of the past, and that children should grow up looking on the piano as a thing unwisely kept for company and show!-Rev. J. F. W. Ware. ATHENIAN ANTIQUITIES.-A communication from Athens, in speaking of the works of the archeologists who are charged by the King of Prussia to make researches and excavations on the Acropolis, says: "The threshhold which has been laid bare at the entrance of the Parthenon of Athens, was on the 11th ult. crossed for the first time after fifteen hundred years, and in presence of all the learned world of the Greek capital. There has been also discovered in the Erechtheon, not the opening through which the noise of the sea was formerly heard, but a skiff in white marble in good preservation, and a statue which is of the best epoch of ancient art." THREE inventions have appeared lately, that will, perhaps, ultimately revolutionize those branches of industry they are designed to affect. One is an engraving-machine, which produces on steel designs from surfaces, either flat or in relief, with marvelous fidelity. The second is a spiral trowel, which, when attached to a plowshare, cuts a round hole, so that, in a few hours, a permanent drain is formed the processes of ploughing and draining going on simultaneously. The third is a trifle, but a useful trifle. It is a match which can not be ignited by any species of friction, nor by fire itself, but only by being rubbed against the side of the box prepared for its reception, which is coated with the flame-giving property. TOBACCO-POISON.-The slow and insidious effects of tobacco-poison on the susceptible vitalities of the human frame, gradually impairing the functions of life, and bringing on premature old age, are little suspected by many who use the weed in various forms. It can scarcely be doubted that parents who make a free use of tobacco not unfrequently send their children to an untimely grave, or poison their constitutions so as to endure suffering to the end of life. Healthy parents impart healthy vitalities to The nature and eftheir offspring, and vice versa. fects of tobacco-poison may be seen by the following item from the London Popular Science Review: "A curious calculation, of especial interest, has been made by a continental chemist. It is considered, by the most reliable authorities, that the tobacco crop of the whole world amounts to two hundred and fifty millions of kilogrammes per annum ; taking the plant to contain an average of five per cent nicotine, that would give twelve and a half millions of kilogrammes of this poison produced annually. The specific gravity of nicotine being a trifle greater than that of water, this quantity would fill one hundred thousand barrels, and would give two hundred and ninety-three grains to every man, woman, and child on the globe. As a few drops will produce death, it is probably much within the mark to say, that the nicotine from one year's crop of tobacco would destroy every living creature on the face of the globe, if its proportion were administered in one dose." |
