insure them? Instead of waiting with bounding hope for the opening of the months, we should expect it like criminals looking forward to their doom; and our appearing in print would be much like a signal for our disappearing by powder. There would be nothing often, but either to conceal the truth or take the consequences. We have therefore, it is scarcely necessary to say, no sympathy with the mournful lamentation with which we commenced these remarks, but esteem it a most fortunate and interesting fact-would that some philosophical historian took it up, and did it justice-that the age of chivalry passed away before the age of reviews began; that the sex ceased to be an idol, before it became an author.

These remarks have been made in no unkind spirit. We rejoice that in our day the female mind is vindicating its own rights, and, in innumerable instances, with noble power. It would be strange, if in so great a multitude of efforts, all were alike successful; and painful though it is, we must place the first which we have named at the head of this paper among those which are least so. Where there is obvious purity of intention, and especially where the intention is to honour and commend the themes and truths of Holy Scripture, it is with difficulty and regret we bring ourselves to write anything disparaging. At the same time, respect for the subjects sought to be adorned, and the claims designed to be enforced, excites and justifies our jealousy of the manner of the essay. We wish "The Sepulchre of Lazarus," &c., had not appeared in print. With some imagination, and much apparent piety of feeling, the fair writer has not, in our opinion, exercised a sound discretion in presenting them before the public. It seems as if some friendly dissuasives from the step she has taken had been employed, but in vain. "Of the sufficient quantity of good poetry already in print of the failure of all present attempts-the author heard much; the arguments proved so far effectual, that instead of sending the whole to press, one part has been preferred. If this succeed, the remainder will be improved by revision; if not, the whole, doubtless, would have shared its fate." We do hope that in the event of another publication, the "revision" will be close and severe. Not that we should discourage altogether any more attempts at authorship, but unless the very best elements of the present one can be developed and combined in a manner free from the great and many defects and imperfections that mark it, we think her present path will never lead to fame. We give a specimen at random :-

"From the fount she passeth on,
To a closed door hath gone;

Within, a step, how gently still!
Moves o'er the room as 't were the will

Not to awake from slumbering on,

A wearied, worn, unrested one.

Martha her kindly watching keeps ;
'Dear sister, yet our brother sleeps ;
Say, that the soft repose is well;
Still, still that flushing cheek doth tell
Of fever'd slumber-and his breath
Moves tremulous the couch beneath.
Pain cross'd the sleeper's worn form now,
His dark hair shades too much his brow;
Yet, precious one, thus let it rest-
Repose for thee is surely best.

And Martha, wouldst thou speak again,
Of our blest mother's dying pain,
Too young my years the woe to retain ?—
Say, did she wander in her thought,
Had her bright eye strange lustre caught?
And would she speak as they who dream,
When the long absent, present seem?'
The sleeper wakes-as still in pain-
'Lazarus, lean thee yet again,

Upon thy sister's faithful breast

Tell, hath thine been a peaceful rest ?'"

And so on, in the same strain. It is grateful to turn to poetry of a much superior order in the second work which we have mentioned for remark. Mrs. Hawkshaw has a considerable talent for sweet musical versification, which she employs in the expression of thoughts always healthy, often tender, and sometimes adorned with great beauty of illustration. There are some blemishes which may be easily corrected, and there is a want of mental grasp and comprehensiveness which unfits her for excelling in pieces of any great length; but there are indications of taste and imagination which, if this be, as we suppose, first production, give no mean promise of future achievements. The following passage, which forms the beginning of the principal poem in the book, "Dionysius," will sustain this sentence :

"What more will be thy prey?

Oh thon insatiate Time!

Which of the earth's bright cities next,

The temples of what clime,

Will thy foot trample into clay,

Or touch convert to ruins grey?

Thou hast crushed the gorgeous palaces

Of Shinar's ancient plain;

One shapeless mound alone is left
And thou and silence reign :-
Silence, though broken by the stream
O'er which there floated many a tone
Of revelry in ages gone.

"All, all, at length are thine,

City, and pyramid, and shrine!

her

One more

Like the red simoom's burning blast,
Thy wing o'er Mizraim's land hath passed,
And Memnon's harp is silent now:-
Strange land of wonders where the dead
Have silent cities of their own,
And men of generations fled

Dwell in their caverned tombs of stone.

"Still, frail as human works may be,

They have an immortality

That nations know not: ages yet

Shall the dark pyramids arise,
Keeping the secret of their birth,

'Neath Egypt's burning skies;
And many an empire pass away,
And nations crumble to decay,

Ere their last fragments mix with clay.

"The shrine outlives its creed. Who filled
Yon lonely carn upon the wild?

What hands that moss-grown altar placed
In the stone circle on the waste?
History now darkly tells the tale
Of bloody rites that there were done,
By white robed Druids to the sun.

And in the forests of the West,

That cast their shadows o'er the breast

Of deep Ontario's lake, or wave

By many an Indian hunter's grave,

Rise the green mounds of earlier time;

The work of nations, who are dead,
Past like the leaves the winds have shed.

"And still on Grecian hills and plains
Are roofless temples, priestless fanes,
All beautiful; as though decay
But touched them with a pencilled ray :
So autumn skies give colours bright
To forests which they come to blight.
The shrines are there, but Dorian flute

And Theban lyre alike are mute.

The shrines are there, but on that shore

The choral hymn is heard no more.
The fountain in the Delphian shade

May spring but she, the enchanted maid
Who drank its vapourous magic, now
Sleeps with the nameless dead below."

quotation will present a specimen of the shorter poems.

It was written, we presume, in Manchester.

"THE EXILE'S SONG.

"I live upon the memory of the past;

Of the clear fountains and the woodland streams:

Oh! that their pleasant harmonies would last

That murmer still like music through my dreams;
For 'mid the crowded city, and its throng
Of busy men, what hath the child of song?

There is a voice, a deep and meaning tone,

When through the pine wood sweeps the winter's blast ;
And there are visions in the clouds that throne

Themselves on rocks, when storms are gathering fast,
And the white avalanche prepares to leap

Down to the valley from its Alpine steep.

Give me for home, the mountain and the wild,
There's health and freedom in its roughest gale;

This is no home for inspiration's child,

Amid the crowd with toil and commerce pale,
And these dark heavy piles which their coarse dreams
Embody forth-give me my own bright streams;

Give me the works of God: or if of men,

Let it be those who inspiration drew

From the deep solemn gloom of wood and glen,
And copied nature to their model true,

And loved to turn from their own works to trace
The purer forms from whence they caught their grace.

And give me nature's sounds;-can music's tones,
Fashioned by art, such thrilling feelings bring,
As when, through the cavern's fretted stones,
The low, deep waters, and the breezes sing:
Or when, across the wild and sullen sky
And leafless wastes, the autumnal gale sweeps by.

Mysterious ocean, in thy ceaseless roar

There's a strange music of unearthly power,
As one long billow chases to the shore

Its dying fellow, in the midnight hour;—
Thine is a deeper voice than Gothic pile

From solemn organ sends down its long pillared aisle.

Keep, keep my heart, the treasures which thou hast
Of sounds and scenes that now have passed away,

Things far too beautiful on earth to last,

Earth that but holds her treasures for decay!

And let soft voices of the woods and streams

Come floating round me, though but in my dreams."

CURSORY NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Now "the winter is past, and the rain is over and gone," those who possess woodland property, and those who love to study the works of God, will stroll forth amidst the sylvan scenes with which our beloved country is richly adorned. To such persons "A History of British Forest Trees, indigenous and introduced," must be acceptable. Mr. P. J. Selby, F.L.S., has just published a beautiful octavo volume of five hundred and forty pages, in which he gives a concise "account of the various

forest trees, at present cultivated in Britain," highly "interesting to the general reader," and at the same time useful "as a sort of manual to the planter, and those interested in horticulture." The work is therefore at once popular and scientific, and is very extensively illustrated with nearly two hundred wood engravings of great truth and beauty. (Van Voorst.)

Mr. John Kitto, who is advantageously known to the public as the laborious and learned editor of "The Pictorial Bible," has commenced the publication of an important work, entitled "A Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature." This work is to embrace Biblical Criticism and Interpretation, History, Geography, Archæology, and Physical Science, with the results of those learned researches which have of late years been prosecuted with so much zeal in this country, Germany, and the United States. In the execution of this plan, Mr. Kitto is assisted by various able scholars and divines, whose initials will be affixed to their respective contributions. The first part is now before us, which is printed in octavo, in double columns, and illustrated with wood engravings, like Dr. W. Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. In this part we recognize contributions from writers, whose theological opinions and competent learning are guarantees against "lax doctrine and doubtful speculation." We anticipate that, when completed, this work will take a very high place, if not the first, amongst Biblical Encyclopædias. (A. & C. Black.)

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The series of "Illustrated Classics," issued by Messrs. Tilt & Bogue, has just received an important addition by the appearance of The Poetical Works of John Milton. With a memoir, and critical remarks on his genius and writings, by James Montgomery," 2 vols. 8vo. No living poet is better able than Mr. Montgomery to appreciate the opinions and poetical powers of our great Puritanic bard; and in his remarks he has very successfully vindicated him from the ungenerous attacks of Dr. Samuel Johnson. The typography of this edition is beautiful, and the wood engravings, of which there are one hundred and twenty, supply happy illustrations of the subjects, though in some the artist, Mr. Harvey, has felt, but not mastered the difficulty of reducing to form the splendid conceptions of Milton respecting the appearances of celestial and infernal beings. The volumes are bound with much taste, and form a pair of books that will be ornamental to any drawing-room or library table. (Tilt & Bogue.)

When members of the Church of England dare to publish declarations like this"I hate the Reformation and the Reformers more and more," it is high time that all genuine Protestants should expound the principles and illustrate the benefits of "The Protestant Reformation." This the Rev. Robert Ferguson has attempted in a Tract for the People, bearing that title, in which the characteristics and advantages of the Reformation are stated in a plain and impressive manner. This, like the other pieces of the same writer, is scriptural and acute, and deserves extensive circulation. (John Snow.)

The name of Henry Ainsworth is an honour and a defence to the Congregational churches. Possessed of learning, acuteness, and piety, that commanded the respect and tested the polemic skill of Bishop Hall, his critical labours won the applause of the first scholars of his age. "Ainsworth on the Pentateuch, Psalms, and Solomon's Songs, is a good book," said Dr. Doddridge, “full of very valuable Jewish learning; and his translation is, in many places, to be preferred to our own; especially in the Psalms." Two folio editions of these Annotations were published, one in 1627 and the other in 1639, both of which had become scarce. We rejoice, therefore, that an enterprising house at Glasgow has favoured the public by a new and improved edition in two volumes, comprising nearly fourteen hundred octavo pages. It is an improved edition, as the notes are at the foot of the pages to which they belong, and not at the end of each chapter, as in the folio edition. The style is neat, the form portable, and the work cheaper than the original copies. (Blackie & Son.)