POETRY.-The Sentinel on Morris Island, 2. Men Wanted, 2. Thomas Starr King, 2. The article on Mr. Thackeray is now said not to be by Dr. Brown. With the next number we begin the Story, "Lindisfarn Chase," which will be eagerly wel- comed. It will probably be continued without intermission through this Volume. THE REBELLION RECORD: A Diary of American Events, 1860-64. Edited by Frank Moore, author of "Diary of the American Revolution." New York: G. P. Putnam. Part 41 contains portraits of General James E. Blunt, and Com. John Rodgers. BINDING.-Immediately after each Volume of The Living Age is completed, we bind a number of copies, to be exchanged at once for the Nos. if in good order; price of binding, sixty-five cents a volume. Where the Nos. are not in good order, we will have them bound as soon as we can. NEW-YEAR'S PRESENTS TO CLERGYMEN.-Our text will be found on the front of several of the late Nos.; but we now ask our readers to apply it to a single class of persons. While the price of been increased, little or nothing has been done to raise proportionally the salaries of clergymen They are obliged to lessen their comforts, in order to meet this pressure. Reader, if you wish to refresh the mind and the heart of the man who "ministers to you in holy things," present him with mental food once a week, and do not give him The Living Age if freight, are for sale at two dollars a volume. ANY VOLUNE may be had separately, at two dollars, bound, or a dollar and a half in numbers. ANY NUMBER may be had for 13 cents; and it is well worth while for subscribers or purchasers to com. plete any broken volumes they may have, and thus greatly enhance their value. An aged man, with locks all silver white; An aged dame, his helpmate she through life; And still a third, with mild eyes beaming bright, Perhaps the soldier's wife: And rosy children climb upon her knee With smiling face looks on the aged dameThey, laughing, clap their little hands in glee, And sweetly lisp his name. Now from the frowning batterics' bristling side roar, Waking the answering echoes, far and wide, So fades the picture; each loved form is filed- Then on his bed, while falls the chilly rain MEN WANTED! MEN for to-day's hard toil and battle! Knights were well in the feudal days ;- Priests, when a lie was a means of grace ;- O contemptible tailor's dummy, Dupe and noddle and snob and quack,- Fool of fashion and tool of barter, Living to cheat and be cheated again,- Men who are fearless of councils and bans,- Being men's servants and God's honest freemen, Men who build upon principles grand; What to enact, and how to command. Tradesmen and craftsmen and tillers of sod,— THOMAS STARR KING. THE great work laid upon his twoscore years Sweet thoughts of home go flitting through his No more forever!-has he lived in vain And fill his dreamful sleep. Who, priest of Freedom, made ye one, and told From The North British Review. THACKERAY. His first attempt was ambitious. He became connected, as editor, and also, we Bus THAT Mr. Thackeray was born in India in pect, in some measure, as proprietor, with a 1811; that he was educated at Charter House weekly literary journal, the fortunes of which and Cambridge; that he left the university were not prosperous. We believe the jourafter a few terms' residence without a degree; nal to have been one which bore the imposing that he devoted himself at first to art; that title of "The National Standard and Journal in pursuit thereof he lived much abroad for of Literature, Science, Music, Theatricals, study, for sport, for society;" that about and the Fine Arts." Thackeray's editorial the age of twenty-five, married, without for-reign began about the 19th number, after tunc, without a profession, he began the ca- which he seems to have done a good deal of reer which has made him an English classic; work, reviews, letters, criticisms, and verses. that he pursued that career steadily till his As the National Standard is now hardly to be death, all this has, within the last few met with out of the British Museum, we give weeks, been told again and again. a few specimens of these first efforts. There is a mock sonnet by W. Wordsworth, illustrative of a drawing of Braham in stage nautical costume, standing by a theatrical seashore; in the background an Israelite, with the clothes'-bag and triple hat of his ancient race; and in the sky, constellation-wise, appears a Jews-harp, with a chaplet of bays round it. The sonnet runs :— It is a common saying that the lives of men of letters are uneventful. In an obvious sense this is true. They are seldom called on to take part in events which move the world, in politics, in the conflicts of nations; while the exciting incidents of sensation novels are as rare in their lives as in the lives of other men. But men of letters are in no way exempt from the changes and chances of fortune; and the story of these, and of the effects which came from them, must possess an interest for all. Prosperity succeeded by cruel reverses; happiness, and the long prospect of it, suddenly clouded; a hard fight, with aims as yet uncertain, and powers unknown; success bravely won; the austerer victory of failure manfully horne, these things make a life truly eventful, and make the story of that life full of interest and instruction. They will all fall to be narrated when Mr. Thackeray's life shall be written; we have only now to do with them so far as they illustrate his literary career, of which we propose to lay before our readers an account as complete as is in our power, and as impartial as our warm admiration for the great writer we have lost will allow. 66 * Say not that Judah's harp hath lost its tone, Anne.† rene." We have here the germ of a style in which Thackeray became famous, though the humor of attributing this nonsense to Wordsworth, Many readers know Mr. Thackeray only as and of making Braham coeval with Queen' the Thackeray of " Vanity Fair," "Penden- Anne, is not now very plain. There is a nis," ""The Newcomes," and "The Virgin-yet more characteristic touch in a review of ians," the quadrilateral of his fame, as they Montgomery's "Woman the Angel of Life," were called by the writer of an able and kindly winding up with a quotation of some dozen notice in the Illustrated News. The four vol- lines, the order of which he says has been umes of "Miscellanies" published in 1857, though his reputation had been then established, are less known than they should be. But Mr. Thackeray wrote much which does not appear even in the "Miscellanies; " and some account of his early labors may not be unacceptable to our readers. "It is needless to speak of the eminent vocalist and improvisatore. He nightly delights a numerous while on this subject, I cannot refrain from mentionand respectable audience at the Cider Cellar; and ing the kindness of Mr. Evans, the worthy proprietor of that establishment, N.B.-A table d'hote every Friday.-W. Wordsworth." "Mr. Braham made his first appearance in England in the reign of Queen Anne.-W.W." |