before,

Unchidden carolled the gay birds, nor shrank | Then softly song by song awoke, till all was as before his eye, And the tiny flowers about his bed, unblamed But Dominick lay, still as the clay, and never

did bloom and die.

up into his face,

Yet while the meek flowers with mild glee looked

wakened more.

- fast, O! fast. the Fast o'er the wild flowers noble heart flows forth;

And the poor with deep, impassioned love kept It gushes out, and sinks, sinks down fast in the safe his lurking place, drinking earth,

Fearfully rang throughout the land the robber's | A noble heart? Yes, yes, though rough and evil fame, ruined in its mould, And gentle tongues, in quiet halls, with shud-It sinnéd not in ruthlessness, nor selfish thirst for

dering spoke his name.

He had seen the rich men travelling past in greatness and in pride,

He had seen the poor, wrestling with want, grow death-pale at his side;

In dark he walked, nor looked to God for patience and for cure,

But rushed forth mad on those who had, and robbed them for the poor.

gold.

And still in sweet Kilcara wood is Dominick's lonely cave,

Not to be gained by any but a footstep eagerbrave;

And when earth groweth full of flowers, God hangeth in the sight,

Before that dark cave's desolate door, a veil of roses white.

They have sought him long and wearily the Ker-They ry woods amid ;

In every cabin have they asked where Dominick lieth hid;

But they may seek him wearily and long both night and day,

Before they find, in hedge or hut, one tongue that will betray!

spring from clay, and every spray windeth in earthly bands,

Yet fair they are, as if let down from heaven by angel hands,

As pitying sad as thoughts that fill the Christian's radiant ark,

At sight of brother heart without lone heaving in

How carelessly sits Dominick beneath the even-But ing red,

Among the ferns and bloomy flowers — with a price upon his head!

A silvery birchen bough above him rocketh 'neath the sky,

And a robin rocketh 'mid its leaves, and singeth tenderly.

Alone he sits, but never a thought of care or fear

will have

He trusteth to the steep, rough wood and to his hidden cave;

He sits in sun and cleans from blood both sword

and dagger bright,

And smiles to himself with a proud, glad smile as they catch the western light.

There as he sits, a stealthy eye and foot the woodpaths find.

What matters it? They will pass as erst, and

leave him safe behind.

So had they passed, but a sudden gleam hath struck that passing eye,

And, searching deep the wood's soft sleep, it is

raised intent on high.

the dark.

hark! the cuckoo speaks again, and wakes me with clear tone,

A dove that tells of Eden-joy, and will not mourn it gone;

She

follows Spring's swift-flying wings, and visits our cold years,

To waken up our sleeping hope, and start us from

our tears!

Glad, homeless dove, that cannot find rest for thy joyful foot,

Which will not brook a withering world where life and joy are mute;

When thou dost speak of heavenly peace that is "not dead but sleeps,"

Shall souls redeemed thy ardors hear, nor answer from their deeps?

Rejoicing bird, thy prophet voice hath won my

I

heart within,

see the new heavens and new earth unshaded by our sin,

That is

And the

the dream that stills those hills—the smile upon that wave,

tender light of those roses white that

hide poor Dominick's cave!

THE FALSE ONE.

The summer stars were burning on the sea,
The moon was soft upon the purple lea,
When O, my love, I sat alone with thee.
My happiness had made my manhood weak
I felt thy sweet breath blowing on my cheek;
My heart was full of love-I could not speak.
Thy kisses fell like showers on my brow;
The hand I clasped was soft as mountain snow;
My heart, O, break, fond heart! is colder now.

1

the mission of Confucius and the Protestant | their advancement to the arts, this nation,
mission has witnessed the rise, civilization, the parent of those arts, has alone rejected
and extinction of the empires of Greece and
Rome.

their influence? The constitution of a Chi-
nese is as sound as the constitution of an
Nor is this retrogressive spirit the charac- European. His mental faculties are in every
teristic of her religion alone. We have no way equal to his physical. No porter on the
reason to believe that the Chinese were worse quays of Liverpool can lift a weight which a
off as regards the arts and sciences at the Coolie on the wharves of Canton would not
time when Marco Polo traversed the wilds of lift after him. The best master-potter in the
Cathay, or De Guma doubled Cape Comorin, manufactories of Worcester or of Birming
than she was when Macartney refused to ham does not follow the rules of his art with
prostrate himself at Zhehol, or Amherst was greater nicety, or mould a more correct nod-
expelled from Peking. And yet the intervalel, than the porcelain-maker of Peking. The
that has elapsed has witnessed the develop- truth is, Nature is not responsible for his sin-
ment of the magnet, the discoveries of Gal-gular deficiencies. It is in his social code, in
ileo, the ingenuity of a Caxton, and the pro- his popular institutions, above all in his reli-
found mechanical genius of a Watt. Nor is gion, that the causes of Chinese shortcomings
it easy to see the cause of all this deteriora- are to be found.
tion in the midst of improvement, of this
retrogression in the midst of progress. To
other nations the labor of development was
superadded to the labor of discovery. It was
not so with the Chinese. From time imme-
morial, the power of the loadstone and the
power of gunpowder was handed down to the
inhabitants of China as an hereditary posses-
sion. What were mysterious novelties to
Europeans were comparatively familiar ob-
jects to the descendants of Shem. And yet,
notwithstanding this priority of invention, it
would be absurd to compare the most illit-
erate captain of an European merchantman
with the most accomplished Chinese admiral,
or the most superficial Woolwich cadet with
the most accomplished Chinese engineer.
The history of Chinese invention is indeed
the most paradoxical that can be imagined.
How it came to pass, that, having discovered
so much, they should have discovered no
more-how, possessing a knowledge of the
properties of gunpowder, they should have
applied it to no other use than the composi-
tion of a few squibs or catherine wheels or
how, with an insight into the properties of the
magnet, they should yet have launched their
frail barks on the waters of the Pacific with
no better guide than a piece of seaweed, a
wild-bird, or a star-is to us a problem as
interesting as it is profound. Nor does a
contemplation of the circumstances of the
case raise our hopes with regard to the pros-
pect of any future reformation. A little
knowledge is a dangerous thing. A half-
witted man will cling to fallacies even more
firmly than a fool. The Chinaman who,
with a dim belief of some undefined Provi-
dence, is content to worship in the pagoda of
his forefathers, is not likely to look with sat-
isfaction even at the heresies of the Trimetric
Classic. And how is this phenomenon to be
accounted for? How is it that while all
other nations have advanced with the march
of civilization, this nation alone has stood
still, and while all other nations have owed

A glance across the Himalayah is enough to inspire us with a dread of paternal government forever. Nowhere is there to be seen a more emphatic instance of its complete and ignominious failure. Blest with a country the most magnificent in the world, everywhere human policy is discovered warring, and that too successfully, with the gifts of Nature. Abounding in rivers the most fruitful, the fisherman of China can find no better instrument for entrapping his prey than the beak of a well-trained pelican. In the midst of land that invites cultivation the most successful, the agriculturist can find no better substitute for a plough than a rake, and no better reaping-machine than a knife. Од the bosom of lakes equal in extent to the lakes of the New World, no more graceful form is seen than that of a boat which would put to shame for sluggishness and inconvenience the state barge of a Lord Mayor. The vaunted discoverers of the magnet can boast of no better vessels than a junk, and of no longer voyages than a few timid trips to the Eastern Archipelago. The inventors of gunpowder prefer a bow to a musket; and the mechanic who can imitate the machinery of a watch is yet content to pick up his scanty meal of rice with a chop-stick. strange anomaly that confesses that the people to whom Europe owes the glories of a Van Dyck and a Murillo can themselves exhibit specimens of art no better than the caricatures which adorn the obelisks of Grand Cairo. Endowed beyond all other nations with the genius of invention, it should seem that the Chinese beyond any other nation stand in need of the genius for application. They are in the condition of a people who have eyes and see not, and ears and cannot hear.

It is a

Of all their national characteristics, their immobility is the strongest. Long ere venturous travellers had tempted the Indian seas, dim and mysterious accounts of a people who lived under an imperial father, who possessed

a legislature the most paternal, and a moral the man who shall throw open the wharves code the most domestic in the world, reached of Nankin and the streams of the Yangtse the Eastern corner of Europe. The same Kiang and the Hoang Ho, who shall substiaccounts that awakened the curiosity of our tute spires for pagodas, and the doctrine of forefathers fill their posterity with wonder. Christ for the doctrine of Confucius or of Fo, The Chinese are the same to-day that they will deserve most at the hands of civilization. were centuries ago. Had the Seven Sleepers We do not say that Tae-ping will become a reposed in one of the palaces of Nankin, they subject just yet for the labors of the S. P. C. K. would have discovered no novelties to harass But we do say that he who ceases to go back their credulity when they awoke. has begun to go forward.

The first remove from retrogression is the first step to progress. It is not too much to hope that the man who has already exhibited all the iconoclastic enthusiasm of the Isaurian Leo, with all the patriotic indignation of a Larochejacquelin, may yet win for himself a niche among the Luthers and Melanothons of the world.

In this singular feature of longieval identity the inhabitants of China resemble nothing so much as one of the figures on their own porcelain jars. Time cannot change or efface it; but it is no more the representative of an ordinary mortal than a Chinese is like any other created being. The materials for making an exquisite portrait are there, it is true; but as it is, the proportions are a caricature, and their mental symmetry shares the defect of their physical. With a moral code not altogether unworthy of a Christian, THE MOUNTAINS IN THE MOON.It is an asis mingled a philosophy the most childish certained fact that there are three classes of and impure. At one time commanded to lunar mountains. The first consists of isolated, live like brothers, at another time they are separate, distinct mountains of a very curious enjoined not "to live under the same heaven character. The distinguishing characteristic of with the injurer or oppressor." At one mo- these mountains is this- they start up from a ment ordered to treat others as they would plain quite suddenly. On the earth it is welltreat themselves, at another they are enjoined known that mountains generally go in ranges of not "to legislate for barbarians." Confucius groups; but we find these isolated lunar mounhimself never displayed his own barbarity so been connected with any range. The one named tains standing up entirely apart, never having strikingly as when he gave his followers this Pico is 9,000 feet high. This mountain has the command. From the author of "The Inful- form of an immense sugar-loaf; and if our lible Medium" more moderation might have readers can imagine a fairly-proportioned sugarbeen expected. It is to China that we must loaf, 9,000 feet in height, and themselves situlook to see the effects of a system based notated above it, so as to be able to look down upon on the principle of a political independence its apex, they will have an approximate idea of and a limited equality, but on the principle the appearance of Pico. There are many other of a social dependence and a filial subordi- mountains of a similar description scattered over

nation.

It is such a state of things that is preeminently favorable to a revolution. The same law of paternal authority that supports Heinfung at Peking has guided Tae-ping to the walls of Nankin. And to this same law one or other of the imperial patriarchs must fall a victim. To most Europeans it is a matter of indifference which shall succeed. Few care whether the descendant of Ming or the doscendant of Koblai Khan shall issue orders from the palace of Canton or Peking to more than a hundred million of slaves. But the thoughtful mind will find room enough for a preference. What opportunities for reform, and what stimulants to a reformation, will not the successful aggressor possess! Old national associations, old sacred traditions, a long heritage of antique customs and of antique superstitions, will have to be abused on the one hand and disused on the other. Of all reformations in the world the reformation of China would be the most stupendous; and of all reformers

the moon's surface; and these mountains not only stand apart from each other, but, what is still more remarkable, the plains on which they stand are but slightly disturbed. How singular, then, the influence that shot the mountain up in the immediate neighborhood! The second 9,000 feet, and yet scarcely disturbed the plain class of lunar elevations consists of mountain ranges.. Now, this is the principal feature of the mountains on earth. This phenomenon is also found in the moon, but there it is the exception; only two principal ranges are found, and these appear to have been originally one range. One is called the Apennines. It is so well seen, that, just as the line of light is passing through the moon, you will think it is, generally speaking, a crack in its surface; but a telescope of ordinary power will at once manifest it to be a range of mountains. The lunar Apennines may be compared with the loftiest range of mountains upon earth. It is 18,000 feet high, and there is above its base. In this feature, then, the moon another range still higher, rising 25,000 feet corresponds with the earth, but with this difference what is the rule on the earth is the exception in the moon. Literary Journal.

LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 499.-10 DECEMBER, 1853.

12. Turkey, Russia, France and The Times,

POETRY: Phantoms-November, 641; Sorrows of Werther-Lines, 642.

SHORT ARTICLES: Semonville, 642; The Lottery, 661; Vestris Family, 666; Late Dinners, 686; The Written Fish, 695; How the Money Goes; Louis XVIII., 704.