of the other compositions, also, are well written verse on poetical subjects. From the Boston Journal. A BRIDAL MELODY. She stood, like an angel just wandered from heaven, She looked up and smiled on the many glad faces, The friends of her childhood who stood by her side; This is the modest title of a volume just published by Ticknor & Co., of this city, ushering into the world, in a tangible and responsible shape, some truly beautiful and original poems, which manifest not only a correct mode of thinking, and a degree But of taste and refinement that does honor to the author, but literary talent and wit of a high grade, and which augur most favorably of the future efforts of the poet. The longest poem in the book is the "Post of Honor," which was delivered before the Boston Mercantile Library Association, Nov. 15, 1848, and justly admired by a large and discriminating audience. We give below two poems from this little volume. THE ALARMED SKIPPER. "It was an ancient Mariner." Many a long, long year ago, Of finding out, though "lying low," How near New York their schooners ran. They greased the lead before it fell, And then, by sounding through the night— They always guessed their reckoning right. This ancient skipper might be found; He slept for skippers' naps are sound! The watch on deck would now and then Run down and wake him, with the lead; He'd up, and taste, and tell the men How many miles they went ahead. One night, 't was Jotham Marden's watch, A curious wag-the pedler's sonAnd so he mused, (the wanton wretch,) "To-night I'll have a grain of fun. "We're all a set of stupid fools To think the skipper knows by tasting What ground he's on- -Nantucket schools Don't teach such stuff, with all their basting!" And so he took the well-greased lead, And rubbed it o'er a box of earth That stood on deck-(a parsnip bed)And then he sought the skipper's berth. "Where are we now, sir? Please to taste." The skipper yawned, put out his tongue, Then oped his eyes in wondrous haste, And then upon the floor he sprung! The skipper stormed, and tore his hair, Thrust on his boots, and roared to Marden66 'Nantucket's sunk, and here we are Right over old Marm Hackett's garden!" she shone o'er them all, like a queen of the Graces, When blushing she whispered the vow of a bride. We sang an old song, as with garlands we crowned her, And each left a kiss on her delicate brow; And we prayed that a blessing might ever surround her, And the future of life be unclouded as now. From the Book. ON A PAIR OF ANTLERS, BROUGHT FROM GERMANY. I heard the huntsman's bugle play, Again the isles of beauty rise ;— Again the crumbling tower appears, With memories of a thousand years; They brought the gift that I might hear With echoes of the Rodenstein, Mute emblems now of "auld lang syne, The Boy of Mount Rhigi, is the title of a little book by Miss Sedgwick, just published by Crosby & Nichols, of Boston. It was written, says the author, in her preface, to awaken in those of our young people who have been carefully nurtured, a sense of their duty to those who are less favored. This design is most admirably executed, and none of those for whom the work was intended could read it without being moved by the persuasives to benevolence and sympathy which the author has so skilfully set before them in the form of a narrative. The struggles between conscience and the temptations of poverty, in which the temptations are so often victorious, are exceedingly well described, and some parts of the story are deeply pathetic. The work deserves all the success which we hear it obtains, and we hope soon to see the announcement of a second edition.-N. Y. Evening Post. 3. Dr. Reid on Infantile Laryngismus, 4. Curiosities of Trade, 5. The Navigation Laws, 6. Italian Anarchy, 7. Poems by James T. Fields, 94 Chambers' Journal, Examiner, Do. N. Y. Even. Post, Boston Post, Journal, POETRY.-A Recent Death Bed, 85.-The Shunamite; The First Kiss, 86.-Lament of a Stricken Heart; Common Sense, 94.-Alarmed Skipper; Bridal Melody; On a Pair of Antlers, 95. SHORT ARTICLES.-Professor Page's Electro-Magnetism, 86.-Electric Light; Straits of Magellan, 87.-An Irish Miser; Gas from Water, 88.-Bombardment of Moultan; Latter Day Saints, 93.-Boy of Mount Rhigi, 95. PROSPECTUS. This work is conducted in the spirit of | Littell's Museum of Foreign Literature, (which was favorably received by the public for twenty years,) but as it is twice as large, and appears so often, we not only give spirit and freshness to it by many things which were excluded by a month's delay, but while thus extending our scope and gathering a greater and more attractive variety, are able so to increase the solid and substantial part of our literary, historical, and political harvest, as fully to satisfy the wants of the American reader. The elaborate and stately Essays of the Edinburgh, Quarterly, and other Reviews; and Blackwood's noble criticisms on Poetry, his keen political Commentaries, highly wrought Tales, and vivid descriptions of rural and mountain Scenery; and the contributions to Literature, History, and Common Life, by the sagacious Spectator, the sparkling Examiner, the judicious Athenæum, the busy and industrious Literary Gazette, the sensible and comprehensive Britannia, the sober and respectable Christian Observer; these are intermixed with the Military and Naval reminiscences of the United Service, and with the best articles of the Dublin University, New Monthly, Fraser's, Tait's, Ainsworth's, Hood's, and Sporting Magazines, and of Chambers' admirable Journal. We do not consider it beneath our dignity to borrow wit and wisdom from Punch; and, when we think it good enough, make use of the thunder of The Times. We shall increase our variety by importations from the continent of Europe, and from the new growth of the British colonies. The steamship has brought Europe, Asia and Africa, into our neighborhood; and will greatly multiply our connections, as Merchants, Travellers, and Politicians, with all parts of the world; so that much more than ever it TERMS. The LIVING AGE is published every Saturday, by E. LITTELL & Co., corner of Tremont and Bromfield sts., Boston; Price 123 cents a number, or six dollars a year in advance. Remittances for any period will be thankfully received and promptly attended to. To insure regularity in mailing the work, orders should be addressed to the office of publication, as above. Clubs, paying a year in advance, will be supplied as follows: Four copies for Nine 66 Twelve " $20 00. $40 00. $50 00. Complete sets, in twenty volumes, to the end of March, 1849, handsomely bound, and packed in neat boxes, are for sale at forty dollars. 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We say indispensable, because in this day of cheap literature it is not possible to guard against the influx of what is bad in taste and vicious in morals in any other way than by furnishing a sufficient supply of a healthy character. The mental and moral appetite must be gratified. We hope that, by "winnowing the wheat from the chaff" by providing abundantly for the imagination, and by a large collection of Biography, Voyages and Travels, History, and more solid matter, we may produce a work which shall be popular, while at the same time it will aspire to raise the standard of public taste. Agencies. We are desirous of making arrangements, in all parts of North America, for increasing the circulation of this work-and for doing this a liberal commission will be allowed to gentlemen who will interest themselves in the business. And we will gladly correspond on this subject with any agent who will send us undoubted refer ences. Postage. 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The volumes are published quarterly, each volume containing as much matter as a quarterly review gives in eighteen months. WASHINGTON, 27 DEC., 1845. Or all the Periodical Journals devoted to literature and science which abound in Europe and in this country, this has appeared to me to be the most useful. It contains indeed the exposition only of the current literature of the English language, but this by its immense extent and comprehension includes a portraiture of the human mind in the utmost expansion of the present age. J. Q. ADAMS. LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 257.-21 APRIL, 1849. From the Examiner. The Poetry of Science; or, Studies of the Physical plants which, hundreds of fathoms underground, and in black darkness, have still a sense of the sun's presence in the sky, and derive some portion of the subtle essence of their life from his influJUDGING from certain indications scattered here ence; the histories of mighty forests and great and there in this book, we presume that its author tracts of land carried down into the sea, by the would not consider himself complimented by the same process which is active in the Mississippi and remark that we are perhaps indebted for the pub- such great rivers at this hour, are made familiar to lication of such a work to the author of the Ves- us. Sirens, mermaids, shining cities glittering at liges of the Natural History of Creation, who, by the bottom of the quiet seas, and in deep lakes, rendering the general subject popular, and awaken-exist no longer; but, in their place, science, their ing an interest and a spirit of inquiry in many destroyer, shows us whole coasts of coral-reef conminds, where these had previously lain dormant, structed by the labors of minute creatures; points has created a reading public-not exclusively sci- to our own chalk cliffs and limestone rocks, as entific or philosophical-to whom such offerings made of the dust of myriads of generations of incan be hopefully addressed. This, however, we finitesimal beings that have passed away; reduces believe to be the case; and in this, as we conceive, the very element of water into its constituent airs, the writer of that remarkable and well-abused book and re-creates it at her pleasure. Caverns in has not rendered his least important service to his rocks, choked with rich treasures shut up from all own time. but the enchanted hand, science has blown to The design of Mr. Hunt's volume is striking atoms, as she can rend and rive the rocks themand good. To show that the facts of science are selves; but in those rocks she has found, and read at least as full of poetry, as the most poetical fan- aloud, the great stone book which is the history cies ever founded on an imperfect observation and of the earth, even when darkness sat upon the face a distant suspicion of them, (as, for example, of the deep. Along their craggy sides she has among the ancient Greeks ;) to show that if the traced the foot-prints of birds and beasts, whose Dryades no longer haunt the woods, there is, in shapes were never seen by man. From within every forest, in every tree, in every leaf, and in them she has brought the bones, and pieced toevery ring on every sturdy trunk, a beautiful and gether the skeletons, of monsters that would have wonderful creation, always changing, always go- crushed the noted dragons of the fables at a blow. ing on, always bearing testimony to the stupendous The stars that stud the firmament by night are workings of Almighty wisdom, and always leading watched no more from lonely towers by enthusiasts the student's mind from wonder on to wonder, until or impostors, believing, or feigning to believe, those he is wrapt and lost in the vast worlds of wonder great worlds to be charged with the small destinies by which he is surrounded from his cradle to his of individual men down here; but two astronomers, grave, is a purpose worthy of the natural philoso- far apart, each looking from his solitary study up pher, and salutary to the spirit of the age. To into the sky, observe, in a known star, a trembling show that science, truly expounding nature, can, which forewarns them of the coming of some unlike nature herself, restore in some new form what-known body through the realms of space, whose ever she destroys; that, instead of binding us, as some would have it, in stern utilitarian chains, when she has freed us from a harmless superstition, she offers to our contemplation something better and more beautiful, something which, rightly considered, is more elevating to the soul, nobler and more stimulating to the soaring fancy; is a sound, wise, wholesome object. If more of the learned men who have written on these themes had had it in their minds, they would have done more good, and gathered upon their track many followers on whom its feeblest and most distant trace has only now begun to shine. attraction at a certain period of its mighty journey causes that disturbance. In due time it comes,, and passes out of the disturbing path; the old star shines at peace again; and the new one, evermore to be associated with the honored names of Le Verrier and Adams, is called Neptune! The astrologer has faded out of the castle turret-room, (which overlooks a railroad now,) and forebodes no longer that because the light of yonder planet is diminishing, my lord will shortly die; but the professor of an exact science has arisen in his stead, to prove that a ray of light must occupy a period of six years in travelling to the earth from the nearest of the fixed stars; and that if one of the remote fixed stars were "blotted out of heaven" to-day, several generations of the mortal inhabitants of this earth must perish out of time, before the fact of its obliteration could be known to man! This ample compensation, in respect of poetry | easy to poise the remote star, as it is for the engialone, that science has given us in return for what neer to calculate the weight of the iron tunnel of the she has taken away, it is the main object of Mr. Conway, or any other mechanical structure. Thus Hunt's book to elucidate. The subject is very ably throughout the universe the balance of gravitating dealt with, and the object very well attained. We remote of those gems of light, which flicker at midforce is unerringly sustained. If one of the most might object to an occasional discursiveness, and night in the dark distance of the starry vault, was, sometimes we could have desired to be addressed by any power, removed from its place, the disturbin a plainer form of words. Nor do we quite per-ance of these delicately balanced mysteries would ceive the force of Mr. Hunt's objection (at p. 307) be felt through all the created systems of worlds. to certain geological speculations; which we must be permitted to believe many intelligent men to be capable of making, and reasonably sustaining, on a knowledge of certain geological facts; albeit they are neither practical chemists, nor palæontologists. But the book displays a fund of knowledge, and is the work of an eloquent and earnest man; and, as such, we are too content and happy to receive it, to enlarge on these points. We subjoin a few short extracts. THE ELECTRICITY OF A TEAR. We tremble when the thunder-cloud bursts in fury above our heads;-the poet seizes on the terrors of the storm to add to the interest of his verse. Fancy paints a storm-king, and the genius of romance, clothes his demons in lightnings, and they are heralded by thunders. These wild imaginings have been the delight of mankind :-there is subject for wonder in them:-but is there anything less wonderful in the well-authenticated fact, that the dew-drop which glistens on the flower, that the tear which trembles on the eyelid, holds locked in its transparent cells an amount of electric fire, equal to that which is discharged during a storm from thunder-cloud?* GRAVITATION. a Science has developed the grand truth, that it is by the exercise of this all-pervading influence that the earth is retained in its orbit-that the crystal globe of dew which glistens on the leaf is bound together that the débris which floats upon the lake accumulates into one mass-that the sea exhibits the phenomena of the tides-and the aerial ocean its barometric changes. In all things this force is active, and throughout nature it is ever present. Our knowledge of the laws which it obeys, enables us to conclude that the sun and distant planets are consolidated masses like this earth. We find that they have gravitating power, and by comparing this influence with that exerted by the earth, we are enabled to weigh the mass of one planet against another. In the balance of the astronomer it is as Faraday's Experimental Researches on Electricity. This philosopher has shown, by the most conclusive experiments, that the electricity which decomposes, and that which is evolved by the decomposition of, a certain quantity of matter, are alike. What an enormous quantity of electricity, therefore, is required for the decomposition of a single grain of water! We have already seen that it must be in quantity sufficient to sustain a platinum wire of an inch in thickness, red hot in contact with the air, for three minutes and three quarters. It would appear that 800,000 charges of a Leyden battery, charged by thirty turns of a very large and powerful plate machine, in full action-a quantity sufficient, if passed at once through the head of a rat or cat to have killed it, as by a flash of lightning-are necessary to supply electricity sufficient to decompose a single grain of water; or, if I am right, to equal the quantity of electricity which is naturally associated with the elements of that grain of water, endowing them with their mutual chemical affinity." LIGHT. Light is necessary to life; the world was a dead chaos before its creation, and mute disorder would again be the consequence of its annihilation. Every charm which spreads itself over this rolling globe is directly dependent upon luminous power. Colors, and often, probably, forms, are the result of light, know much of the mysterious influences of this certainly the consequence of solar radiations. We great agent, but we know nothing of the principle itself. The solar beam has been tortured through prismatic glasses and natural crystals. Every chemical agent has been tried upon it, every electrical force in the most excited state brought to bear upon its operations, with a view to the discovery of the most refined of earthly agencies; but it has passed through every trial without revealing its secrets, and even the effects which it produces in its path are unexplained problems still to tax the intellect of man. FIRST KNOWLEDGE OF ELECTRICITY. If a piece of amber, electrum, is briskly rubbed, it acquires the property of attracting light bodies. of Miletus; and from the investigations of this This curious power excited the attention of Thales Grecian philosopher we must date our knowledge of one of the most important of the natural forces -Electricity. If an inquiring mind had not been led to ask why does this curious vegetable product attract a feather, the present age, in all probability, would not have been in possession of the means by which it is enabled to transmit intelligence with a rapidity which is only excelled by that of the "swift-winged messengers of thought." To this age of application, a striking lesson does this amber teach. Modern utility would regard Thales as a madman. Holding a piece of yellow resin in his hand, rubbing it, and then picking up bits of down, or catching floating feathers, the old Greek would have have appeared a very imbecile, and the cui bono generation would have laughed at his silly labors. But when he announced to his school that this amber held a soul or essence, which was awakened by friction, and went forth from the body in which it previously lay dormant, and brought back the small particles floating around it, he gave to the world the first hint of a great truth which has advanced our knowledge of a physical phenomena in a marvellous manner, and ministered to the refinements and to the necessities of civilization. A BROWN STONE. A brown stone, in no respect presenting anything by which it shall be distinguished from other rude stones around it, is found, upon close examination, to possess the power of drawing light particles of iron towards it; if this stone is placed upon a table, and iron filings are thrown lightly around it, we discover that these filings arrange themselves in symmetric curves, proceeding from some one point of the mass to some other; and upon examining into process of change is scarcely to be observed. By art we concentrate chemical force, and expend it in producing a change which occupies but a few hours at most. this, we shall find that the iron which has once clung to the one point, will be rejected by the other. If this stone is freely suspended, we shall learn also that it always comes to rest in a certain position, this position being determined by these points, and some attractive force residing in the earth itself. These points we call its poles; and it is now es- The Closing Scene. Second Series. By the Rev. tablished that this rude stone is but a weak representative of our planet. Both are magnetic: both are so in virtue of the circulation of currents of electricity, or of lines of magnetic force, as seen in the curves formed by the iron dust, and the north pole of the one attracts the south pole of the other, and the contrary. · From the Britannia. ERSKINE NEALE, M. A. Longman. THERE is no severer test to which the lives and principles of men can be brought than the deathbed. In that solemn hour all motives for concealment are at an end. There are no objects of worldly desire before the eye to dazzle and mislead it. All the influences which have corrupted HOW WE COME LIKE SHADOWS, SO DEPART." A plant exposed to the action of natural or arti- the heart or blinded the understanding vanish with ficial decomposition passes into air, leaving but a the earthly vanities which gave them life and few grains of solid matter behind it. An animal, vigor. Even in the seared heart the impulses of in like manner, is gradually resolved into " "thin air." Muscle, and blood, and bones having under-conscience regain something of their original gone the change, are found to have escaped as activity. The pride which has kept truth at bay, gases, "leaving only a pinch of dust," which be- and the artifices which have sought to pervert it, longs to the more stable mineral world. Our de- melt away at the prospect of impending dissolupendency on the atmosphere is therefore evident. tion. In death-when it comes in the midst of We derive our substance from it-we are, after conscious faculties-there is a foretaste of judgdeath, resolved again into it. We are really but ment; and it not unfrequently happens-as if for fleeting shadows. Animal and vegetable forms are little more than consolidated masses of the atmosthe instruction of mankind—that the closing scene phere. The sublime creations of the most gifted of life is singularly in accordance, in its physical bard cannot rival the beauty of this, the highest and circumstances, with the character of the dying the truest poetry of science. Man has divined such man. The resignation and hope of the Christian changes by the unaided powers of reason, arguing impart to it an air of tranquil serenity, like that from the phenomena which science reveals in unattending the close of a summer evening. The ceasing action around him. The Grecian sage's doubt of the infidel and the remorse of the sinner doubts of his own identity, was only an extension of a great truth beyond the limits of our reason. aggravate the last mortal pangs of humanity, and Romance and superstition resolve the spiritual man cause life to end, in the apprehension of all beholdinto a visible form of extreme ethereality in the ers, amidst gloom and tempest. spectral creations, "clothed in their own horror," by which their reigns have been perpetuated. When Shakspeare made his charming Ariel sing Full fathom five thy father lies, Of his bones are coral made, Those are pearls that were his eyes, Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea change, Into something rich and strange; he little thought how correctly he painted the chemical changes, by which decomposing animal matter is replaced by a siliceous or calcareous formation. Why Mr. Hunt should be of opinion that Shakspeare "little thought" how wise he was, we do not altogether understand. Perhaps he founds the supposition on Shakspeare's not having been recognized as a practical chemist on paleontologist. The volumes of Mr. Neale establish the truth of this remark. He has contrasted the last hours of the infidel-whether practical or avowed-with the last hours of the Christian; and the force of the instruction is greatly strengthened by the eminent reputation of the personages who have been chosen for examples. In this second series of the work-and we are glad to see a second series follow the first so closely-we have in contrast the deathbeds of Mirabeau and of Jane Taylor; of Edward Colston, the merchant prince of Bristol, and Lawrence Earl Ferrers; of Daniel Corrie, Bishop of Madras, and Prince Talleyrand; of Thistlewood and John Foster of Bristol; and other examples no less striking and memorable. The plan adopted by Mr. Neale is to display so much of the life and character of the individual as We conclude with the following passage, which will lead the reader to contemplate the closing seems to us strikingly suggestive of the shortness scene with attention. That is in every case and hurry of our little life which is rounded with a described from the reports of persons who were sleep, and the calm majesty of nature. witnesses of the last hours of life, and who truly RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF TIME TO MAN AND NA- narrate the spirit in which death was met. In this TURE. manner Mr. Neale has made the closing scene of eminent personages furnish the moral of their lives. All things on the earth are the result of chemical combination. The operations by which the com- As the narratives are thus of a biographical mingling of molecules and the interchange of atoms character, and as the details of the "closing take place, we can imitate in our laboratories; but scene" are generally confined to mental emotions, in nature they proceed by slow degrees, and, in the volumes, though serious, are by no means disgeneral, in our hands they are distinguished by suddenness of action. In nature, chemical power mal. The original reflections of Mr. Neale are is distributed over a long period of time, and the all marked by as much true taste as Christian |