&c., but these are not unpoetical; while the same liveliness of fancy on the Old Bridge over the Pegnitz, in Nuremberg, stirs us, we confess, quite as much as one of Macaulay's lyrics. This mannerism, in the little thing before us, is manifest in The Bells of Lynn, heard at Nahant, and perhaps more strikingly still in the THE WIND OVER THE CHIMNEY. See, the fire is sinking low, While above them still I cower, While a moment more I linger, Though the clock, with lifted finger, Points beyond the midnight hour. Sings the blackened log a tune From a schoolboy at his play, When they both were young together, Heart of youth and summer weather Making all their holiday. And the night-wind rising, hark; How above there in the dark, In the midnight and the snow, Ever wilder, fiercer, grander, Like the trumpets of Iskander, All the noisy chimneys blow! Every quivering tongue of flame Into darkness sinks your fire!" Then the flicker of the blaze Written by masters of the art, Loud through whose majestic pages ROMs the melody of ages, Throb the harp-strings of the heart, And again the tongues of flame "These are prophets, bards, and seers; In the horoscope of nations, Like ascendant constellations, They control the coming years." But the night-wind cries: "Despair! Leave no long-enduring marks; These are but the flying sparks. "Dust are all the hands that wrought; Books are sepulchres of thought; The dead laurels of the dead Suddenly the flame sinks down; And alone the night-wind drear Clamours louder, wilder, vauger, "'Tis the brand of Meleager Dying on the hearth-stone here!" And I answer, "Though it be, Why should that discomfort me? No endeavour is in vain ; Its reward is in the doing, And the rapture of pursuing Is the prize the vanquished gain. Well, Mr. Longfellow has written far better things; but in any way, "common place does not seem to us to serve his attributes and position as a poet. But, certainly, there is no knowing what these, his critics, might do if they tried, and infinitely lofty powers. -eagles of song, for instance, cannot be expected to have much complacency for grasshopper songsters. We hoped there was truth in the long-spread report, that he was engaged in translating Dante; we fear that it may mean little more than that he has been engaged in some such little sketches and studies as those in this little volume studies of the Divinia Comedia - here are one or two : STUDIES IN ANCIENT CATHEDRALS. How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers! This crowd of statues, in whose folded sleeves Birds build their nests; while canopied with leaves Parvis and portal bloom like trellised bowers, And the vast minster seems a cross of flowers! But fiends and dragons on the gargoyled eaves Watch the dead Christ between the living thieves, And, underneath, the traitor Judas lowers! Ah! from what agonies of heart and brain, What exultations trampling on despair, What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong, What passionate outery of a soul in pain, I enter, and I see thee in the gloom Of the long aisles, O poet saturnine! And strive to make my steps keep pace with thine. The air is filled with some unknown perfume; The congregation of the dead make room For thee to pass; the votive tapers shine; Like rooks that haunt Ravenna's groves of pine The hovering echoes fly from tomb to tomb. From the confessionals I hear arise Rehearsals of forgotten tragedies, ANOTHER, and to us, a fresh volume of American verse, comes to us with a very timely title. Snow Bound; a Winter Idyll, with five Photographic Illustrations taken from American Scenery. By John Greenleaf Whittier. (Alfred Bennett). We always procure, with pleasant expectations, Mr. Whittier's true, tender, fresh and flowing verses. Here we have a portrait of the amiable and admirable author; but the photographs are not so clear and distinct as the verses; they tell the story, always an attractive one, of household life among the snows. "A Flemish picture of old days," a picture of old American farm-house life -limned by the tender pencil of a poet's memory, abounding in sweet pathetic touches; bright flashes of firelight and leaden-coloured cloud shades; life indoors and out; the snow becomes to the bright vision of the author "A weird palimpsest," and he sees the life beneath the monotonous and obscuring snow wreath : Who hath not learned, in hours of faith, The truth to flesh and sense unknown, That Life is ever lord of Death, And Love can never lose its own! There is rich felicity of description in these easy happy verses; they flow as freely as a river; and, like the waters of some The morning broke without a sun; All day the gusty north-wind bore To have an almost human tone. Such is the tale the poet tells in his "Life's late afternoon;" with a deep love of, and clear insight into, nature's ways and teachings, a Christian hope "full of immortality," lightening all his verses; a beautiful poem for any time, a song of faith and hope, especially appropriate for winter time. Clasp, Angel of the backward look Green hills of life that slope to death, With the white amaranths underneath. The restless sands' incessant fall, Yet, haply, in some lull of life, These Flemish pictures of old days; To warm them at the wood-fire's blaze! etors and editors of this paper, to a great deal of annoyance and much loss of time. We refer to the idea which is so strangely prevalent, that almost anybody who is capable of writing with tolerable correctness, has some education, and either has, or imagines that he has, a large stock of ideas and considerable store of information, is qualified to perform editorial duties, and may, without presumption, solicit employment on some daily newspaper, and have the right to feel surprised, and even hurt, if his offers are not accepted. To such an extent has this delusion obtained, that many persons are willing to abandon occupations and professions for which they have qualified themselves by practice and study, in order to embark in one of which they have no experience, and, for which they have had no training. This arises from the idea that editors and newspaper writers do not require practice and training-that regular course of study and apprenticeship which are demanded in other trades and callings - that an editor springs into existence somewhat in the manner of Minerva's birth -fully prepared by nature and education to do battle with the veteran and skilled masters of the profession, without the slightest previous discipline and drill, that in fact the old Latin maxim is a misprint, and instead of "poeta" should read "editor nascitur, orator fit." Unhappy infatuation! Unhappy for the victim; unhappier for the public, and unhappiest for the conductor of a daily newspaper, who has to devote a large portion of his valuable time to the unpleasant task of declining, and giving the gentlest reason he can imagine for declining, the offers of scores of misguided aspirants for editorial fame who daily and hourly favor him with visits. Were it not for the obviously innocent motives and good intentions of some of these parties, we might be provoked, our amour propre offended, by the apparent superciliousness or depreciatory estimate of the labors, the duties and demands of our profession indicated by this very erroneous and contemptuous view of its necessities qualifications. A greater folly and delusion never prevailed among intelligent peo From The New York Weekly Times. ple than this idea. The editorial conduct EDITORIAL ASPIRANTS. ONE of the most common delusions of the large number of unemployed, or inadequately employed persons in our city, is that which subjects us, meaning the propri of a daily paper, a successful and popular one, requires a longer experience and a rarer combination of qualities, intellectual and moral, more general knowledge, fact, and industry, than are demanded in any of the professions and callings in which our people are engaged. Such editors, too, are their vera causa lies, not in the mind, which works through the features of Mr. Schulz, but in the minds worked upon, which in the freedom of their own constructive power shape the materials offered to them to their own imaginings, and therefore "sit loose to the mechanism of expression." The case is an illustration of that production of "being out of seeming," ably discussed by the late Professor Grote in a remarkable paper published in Macmillan's Magazine for this month. more difficult to find-are, in fact, notwithstanding the demand, fewer than the number of competent persons in other employment. Good lawyers, skilful and learned physicians, eloquent and able divines, artisans of great skill, machinists of wonderful powers of invention, merchants profoundy versed in all the laws of trade and all the intricacies of finance, abound in large communities, but editors, capable, able, fully qualified to conduct an independent daily newspaper, have to be sought for with great diligence and perseverance, Mr. Schulz's own character I conceive to and are very rarely found in the largest, be truly indicated by the "sensible, obsermost enlightened, and highly educated com- vant, slightly humorous, otherwise not very munities. The editorial talent is the rarest remarkable face," which you describe. of all other talents among even this high- Endow such a mind with flexible facial musly gifted and versatile people of ours. cles, and it has all that it requires for putWriters, able, learned, elegant, and witty, ting on the marked lines commonly assoare as numerous as butterflies in summer, ciated with particular characters. These but when, with their qualifications, we seek lines Mr. Schulz makes conspicuous by intento find combined the judgment, tact, skill, sifying the light and shadows, and 'on this and readiness needed in the editor of a hint the imagination of the spectators imdaily journal, our quest is rarely indeed re-mediately acts, building all the lines of his warded with success, and the exacting face into the types supposed to belong to the nature of the standard of competency in particular characters indicated. Let a Lavthe profession is painfully brought home ater criticize the performance, and probato us bly he would tell us that nine-tenths of Mr. Schulz's face was out of keeping with the rest; that Mr. Schulz's own natural expression,, which you observe that you could "trace clearly enough beneath the new one, until the intense light of the lamps was cast upon it," was the only one which his face ever really indicates, because the only one consistent with itself. But ordinary spectators are not Lavaters, and give free reins to their imaginations in interpreting human expression, from the want of sufficient knowledge of its subtle varieties to hold them in check. We hope that this view of the subject will now be duly and properly considered, and reflected upon by the scores of young men who are seeking places in the editorial department of newspapers, and that they will perceive the folly and misapplication of their talents and energies when they embark in a profession in which they will be subjected to such severe tests, without the strongest assurances and conviction of their ability to meet all its demands in a creditable and efficient manner. From the Spectator. CHARACTER AND EXPRESSION. The secret of the whole effect is, I suspect, spoken in your own observations upon the apparant change of expression produced by slight changes of accessories in forms of countenance otherwise absolutely unaltered, namely, "how much our natural interpretation of the meaning of certain lines and attiTo the Editor of the Spectator. context in which we find them, which is tudes of the face depends. on the SIR,I have not seen the curious enter- made [i.e., taken occasion of by our imagintainment by Mr. Ernst Schulz which has ation] to suggest to us an interpretation of led to the interesting remarks on "The its own." Mr. Schulz is no doubt very Clothes of the Mind" in your current num- clever in conjuring with the signs of charber, but taking your account of the effects acter, but the true magician is in ourselves. produced to be faithful, it seems to me that. March 4, 1867. E. V. N. From the Eclectic. SIR JOHN HERSCHEL'S ESSAYS.* Ir is really very pleasing to find such a man as Sir John Herschel publishing such a volume as this; a little collection of most readable, and to ordinarily cultured minds, simple papers; opening up some of the great vistas and results, and further speculations of modern science, from the pen of one of the chief scientific sages of our day-himself occupied in those deeper and wider fields of mathematical and scientific thought, in which only savants and sages can accompany him. Sir John Herschel has long deserved and received this double meed of gratitude; he is not only known and revered as a distinguished veteran in the ranks of the higher observers and discoverers, but as the author of that priceless little book, which is still unique as a piece of healthful reading and discipline, for minds first exercising themselves in clear and right thinkingThe Discourse on Natural Philosophy,t and that other equally valuable and invaluable, as an introduction to the subject to which it refers, his discourse on Astronomy. The volume before us is of a much more miscellaneous character, but it is written in a like popular and entertaining manner, and is composed of lectures given to village audiences and Mechanics Institutions, or papers contributed to Good Words, or other such magazines. There is something, we say, very right and healthful in such a man teaching the more rudimentary principles of science to the people; for it is to be regretted that readers in general seldom feel interested in scientific in subjects, except in the matter of merely professional routine; the almost infinite conclusions upon which men of science are occupying themselves, the boundless fields which open on every hand, are, in general almost unknown; while even scientific men themselves, it is to be thought, permit themselves to follow one particular line of rail, and take partial views of the universe-failing, in the routine and persistency of their own particular department of enquiry, to perceive the great correlations of other departments lying outside of their own. The study of science usually awakens in ordinary minds little interest, until it definitely answers some cui bono questionuntil it is shown to be related to some immediate increase of worldly fortune; while, meantime, it is pushing its experiments and observations upon regions of thought and discovery, which perhaps few learn to regard as interesting; but which produce in the mind, hovering even momentarily in their neighbourhood, impressions of profoundest wonder and awe- - perhaps it is the case that most persons have some fear of science, and scientific results-religious, but partially educated people cherish a trembling and hesitating dread, under the impression that science will, in the end, despoil the soul of some of its most cherished conclusions, and essential hopes; and we believe the best cure for such fears is to accustom the mind to come often and reverently face to face with those results of number, calculation, enquiry, and observation which may certainly infinitely enlarge the horizon of human knowledge, but which, inasmuch as they only increase the fullness and intensity of human consciousness, and serve to enlarge the perception man has of the boundaries of his own powers and spiritual being, can never, by a really thoughtful mind, be regarded as his foes. All the papers in this volume seen to have such an influence on the mind; none of them can be read for the purposes of mere amusement; sensational excitement and scientific discovery can never be regarded as exactly twins, but there is a marvel felt in the mind, which even tingles along the nerves and through the blood, and produces upon the spirit even what may be called a sensation of rapture and wonder; and if less human than than some of the miserable plots and counterplots which go to make up man's conception of romance, yet wing the spirit with a sense of the wonderfulness of nature's ways, more wildly and marvelously romantic than anything which even Dante could dream, or Doré describe. "That only is little," says our author," which cannot rise to great conceptions." One of the highest marks of an extended civilisation is the creation of want and desires higher than material gratification, and the desire of " extending Familiar Lectures on Scientific Subjects. By sir knowledge for the sake of knowing; the craJohn F. W. Herschel, Bart., K.H., &c., &c. Alex-vings after a larger grasp, a clearer insight, ander Strahan. If we had the honour of speaking to Sir John a more complete conception in all its relaHerschel, we would take the liberty to beg him to tions, of the wondrous universe of which we publish in these, his later, ripe, and still we are glad larged, and revised edition of this beautiful and noble compendium, which, published about forty years since, has never been retouched. We are not aware if it be now in print. to know most healthful days, a new, somewhat en form a part." And Sir John, in the paper on Celestial Measurings and Weighings, furnishes us at once with one of the most singular and beautiful illustrations both of this |