TO THE READERS OF THE "LIVING AGE." THIS number of The Living Age concludes the second year of its war trials and perils. These have been severe, and have called for all possible economy; less than might have been anticipated. but they have been The loss of all subscribers in the rebel States has been followed by a great scarcity of stock for making paper, and this has obliged the newspaper press to increase its price. The Living Age has suffered under the tyranny of King Cotton, as have all other periodicals. It is a strong proof of the steady attachment of the readers of The Living Age,-and a proof for which we are very grateful,-that more than nine-tenths of our subscribers in the loyal States have stood by us through this "year of famine." We have not been without anxieties, so that every letter enclosing a remittance is received as a special encouragement and personal favor. May we venture so far as to ask every man who thinks well of the work (now approaching its thousandth number, and concluding its seventy-fifth volume) to take so much personal trouble as to induce one or more of his neighbors to order it, and thus to "fill up the old regiments." Number 969, which is printed on the cover this week, is the number of years to which Methuselah attained. We do not expect to live so long, though we cannot but think how valuable a series of the Antediluvian Age he might have published, at the rate of four volumes to a year. If we can complete twenty-five more volumes of our Living Age, so as to make up an invaluable set of one hundred volumes, we shall be abundantly satisfied, and shall feel that we have left to posterity, as Milton said, a work "which it will not willingly" leave unread. POETRY.-Sleep not Death, 2. The Last French Romance, 20. Come, 47. Earl Can- SHORT ARTICLES.-Lap of Luxury, 10. Sanscrit Inscriptions, 10. 10. Suppressed Russian Journals, 10. Discounting One's Marble, 14. 23. English Shipbuilding for the Rebels, 23. A Currency Carol, 41. TO CORRESPONDENTS. We are much obliged to "A Lady" in Philadelphia. Her Very many kind letters we are obliged to pass unnoticed, because the writers give us no none; Yet death it was not, or it did not seem, Methought, she slumbered in a heavy trance, With fitful starts, the passion of a dream, And mourners stood around, and wept for France. Then Freedom bowed her stately form and said: "O, Mother, mine no more, I seek a home. Who are my friends? the exile and the dead. Where are my banners? Do they float at Rome? One short bright morning of my life I stood, Armed at thy side, crying to Earth' be free!' Through crashing kingdoms, through a sea of blood, Unconquerable, I looked and clung to thee; I shone like Hesper over death's array, And death was beautiful. The steadfast sky Sees baser hopes and meaner men to-day, These dare not follow where I point and die; "They tremble if I speak. I must begone." Then Faith said, sadly, "He who came to pray, The soldier's clatter drowns the sacred song; I fly like Mary bearing Christ away." A murmur of unutterable woe, "Let us depart," was breathed upon the air, Cross shadows flickered ghost-like to and fro, The sculptured angels seemed to cease from prayer; But Honour, gray with years, knelt in the dust, I live a memory in the hearts of men." And Hope, with eyes fresh kindled from the sun, Said, "Lady, thou shalt rise and reign again, Thou art immortal, and thy foe is-One." -Spectator. SONG OF THE RIVER. BY CHARLES KINGSLEY. CLEAR and cool, clear and cool, By laughing shallow and dreaming pool; Cool and clear, cool and clear, By shining shingle, and foaming wear; Under the crag where the ouzel sings, And the ivied wall where the church-bell rings, Undefiled, for the undefiled; Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child. Dank and foul, dank and foul, By the smoke-grimed town in its murky cowl. Foul and dank, foul and dank, By wharf and sewer and slimy bank; Darker and darker the further I go, Baser and baser the richer I grow; Who dare sport with the sin-defiled? Shrink from me, turn from me, mother and child. Strong and free, strong and free, The floodgates are open, away to the sea. Free and strong, free and strong, Cleansing my streams as I hurry along, To the golden sands and the leaping bar, And the taintless tide that awaits me afar, As I lose myself in the infinite main, Like a soul that has sinned and is pardoned again. Undefiled, for the undefiled, Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child. From The Spectator. to whom the process was explained were delighted; nevertheless, they refused with THERE is—or was until recently-a tall, many thanks the chevalier's offer to work handsome man confined in a lunatic asylum his invention. It was found that flax-cotton at Camberwell. He used to sit mournfully could not be profitably spun without making for days and weeks in a corner of his lone various alterations in the existing machinery, room, little given to talk, and less to physi-and to this the Lancashire mill-owners obcal exercise. Now and then, however, he jected, saying, why should we trouble ourbroke out in a sudden blaze of excitement, selves about the new raw material as long repeating incoherent sentences, in which as we have got cotton in abundance? With only the word "flax-cotton" was distinctly something of a prophetic vein, M. Claussen audible. The unhappy man's name was remonstrated, arguing that the supply was Chevalier Claussen. By birth a Dane, and not all to be depended upon, and that, bea man of high scientific education, he gave sides, it would be better, and cheaper in the himself up early to the study of practical long run, to make European hands feed Euchemistry, particularly those branches con- ropean mills, by the aid of perfected steamnected with the manufacture of textile fab-agencies, than to leave the task to the rude rics. After years of labor, and many experi- manual labor of unwilling bondsmen. It ments, he came to the conclusion that the was the voice of the preacher in the desert: fibre of flax, if rightly manipulated, is supe- Lancashire listened not; and when the Hyde rior to cotton for all purposes in which the Park show was over, Chevalier Claussen latter is employed, and therefore ought to and his invention were no more thought of supersede it, as well on this account as being than the man who discovered the compass. an indigenous plant, for the supply of which Sorely troubled in mind, and with abject povEurope might remain independent of serf or erty staring him in the face, Claussen then slave. Claussen's experiments were well re-pursued his pilgrimage, crossing the Atlanceived in his own country, and his king gave tic to America. What happened to him in him the title of Chevalier; but, unfortu- the great Western Republic is not accurately nately, little other substantial encourage- known; but it is presumed that some 'cute ment. The inventor then went to France, natives laid hold of the young man from the married a young French lady, was presented old country, squeezing his brains and then at court, and received the order of the Le-throwing him overboard. It was rumored gion of Honor; but again got little else but that Chevalier Claussen had got a partpromises of future reward for the years of ner;" and not long after somebody, partner labor devoted to the one great object he had or otherwise, brought him back to this counin hand. Somewhat weary of his work, and try, shutting him up in a lunatic asylum at sorely pressed by poverty, Chevalier Claus- Camberwell. Here the history of flax-cotsen next came to this country, arriving just ton ends: the inventor in a madhouse; Lanin time for the International Exhibition of cashire without food for her mills and her 1851. He displayed in the Hyde Park Pal- people. ace some beautiful articles made of flax-cot- The case of flax versus cotton has not ton, and set all the world in raptures about since had a fair trial. It is strange, indeed, the new invention, the more so as he freely to perceive in this matter to what an extent explained the secret of the process for con- the industry of whole nations is liable to folverting flax-straw into a material equal in low in the wake of mechanical inventions. all and superior in some respects to the cot- It was not until the seventeenth century that ton fabric. The manipulation was simple cotton goods were made in England, while enough, according to Claussen's showing. flax was cultivated to a far greater extent, The flax, cut into small pieces by machinery, and woven into textile fabrics, though with was left for a short while to the combined very simple mechanical appliances. Then it action of alkaline solvents and of carbonated happened, about the year 1685, that a colony alkalies and acids, which converted the fibre of Huguenot families, flying in consequence into a material very similar to cotton, and of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, setfit even, to some extent, to be spun with cot- tled in the North of Ireland, and gave the ton machinery. The English manufacturers first impulse to the cultivation and manufac |