Yet, empty is thy place amid the choirs Oh, hear it, sinner! hear that warning voice Over the sinner's warm repentant tear! Lest, when thy struggling soul would quit the frame "How often-but thou wouldst not-and art lost!" The Winter's Wreath' is a well-turned chaplet for the 'frosty pow' of old December. There are some very pleasing Christmas tales,-a village story by Miss Mitford; a very pathetic and well-told tale by Wm. Howitt; a legend of the Fairy Stone of Halton Hall'; an Authentic Ghost Story'; a Dalecarlian tale about Gustavus Vasa, by Miss Jewsbury; a 'Christmas Visit to the Country', extremely natural; and from the pen of the Author of Selwyn',-one of the most pleasing tales that we have met with, entitled The Three Christmas Eves of Count Carl Von Nordheim.' From this we must select an extract. My father felt that he had nothing for it but to bring home the daughter of his old comrade. So, wrapping in his own fur pelisse the weeping and bewildered orphan, and chucking into the carriage the small bundle containing her scanty wardrobe, he lifted her gently in after it, and, by dint of rapid travelling, reached home about dusk on Christmas Eve. We were sitting round the vast hall chimney, whose cheerfulness my father would never hear of relinquishing, though a stove supplied in another part of the room its inadequacy of heat-the huge pine logs threw a red blaze to the very ceiling-and my mother was just contrasting with our domestic comforts within, the exposure to the pitiless storm of my poor father, when the baying of the dogs and harsh sound of the court-yard gates announced his welcome arrival. In a moment, he was in the midst of us-cold and blue as German winter could make him, and encircled with an atmosphere of frost, under whose influence the logs crackled more fiercely. My mother had scarcely time to say, reproachfully, "Carl! no pelisse!" when the missing garment was laid gently on her lap, and within it something which still owed to it life. The cloak was gently unrolled, and beneath its dark shaggy fur reposed a cheek, crimsoned with the rich rose of youth and flush of unquiet rest. Fair silken curls looked dazzlingly out from amidst the glossy sables, and my mother (whose only daughter had been early taken away from her) exclaimed "Was für ein susses Kind!-it is my lost Amalia's angel!" The exclamation and her gesture awoke the little sleeper. Eyes of that deep blue which, darkly fringed as these were, almost emulate the violet's dye, slowly opened, rested upon strangers, and soon swam in tears. My mother pressed the lovely weeper to her bosom, whispered soft words of heart-felt tenderness; and when the bewildered child again looked up, the smiles of all around her were reflected on her innocent countenance. "These are all friends, Minna", said my mother, cheerfully, "father and brothers, and aunts and cousins to the orphan girl; but you are too sleepy and too sorrowful to know or love them now; to-morrow we will all vie in kindness and good will to Miunchen." So saying, she rose, and gently lifting up her charge to be kissed by my father-who bestowed a second and a still heartier kiss on his kind-hearted partner-bade them carry the poor child to her welcome rest. She was put to bed, in happy unconsciousness, in a closet within my mother's room; and in due time, all the re-united family circle, young and old, assembled to supper. There was much sympathy excited, even at this festal period, by my father's picture of the little orphan's destitute condition; it then took the more congenial turn of satisfaction in her heightened prospects, and many were the playful allusions to the Christmas gift my father had brought his wife. This view of the subject threw the excited fancy of the younger party into the usual channel of hopes and prognostics; and it was easy for an elder and more disinterested observer to gather from the pleasant smile of a parent, where paternal instinct had happily anticipated the darling wish of a child. The evening seemed interminable; bed-time at length arrived, and to bed we all went, for form's sake-as not till the dubious dawn of the following morn, was it etiquette for us to storm the enchanted chamber. I was, as I have said, about fifteen-just young enough to feel a boyish eagerness about my own share in the distribution, yet old enough to affect manly indifference and mere participation in the pleasures of the younger groupe. The door of the fairy apartment was at length thrown open. It was a spacious, old-fashioned, state bedroom, seldom used, and now appropriated almost exclusively to its present and joyous purpose. The walls were surrounded with sconces, the wax tapers in which had been privately lighted by my mother (with whose bed-room it communicated) before our admittance, so that a blaze of light illumined the huge antique bed, whose ample surface glittered with toys, while its massive posts were encircled, like pillars of old, with trophies-by the manlier and more cumbrous presents appropriate to youth. While the children, clapping their hands, and shrieking with delight, pounced on the glittering baubles inscribed with their respective names; while dolls as large as life made the happiness of one set, and coaches and horses of Lilliputian dimensions that of another; while cakes and sugar-plums, suddenly unfolded, rolled sweet confusion over the shining floor; while tops, balls, and whips, whirled and cracked in all directions from the rude hands of school boys, and softly whis pered mottos from souvenirs, and gages d'amitié gladdened the hearts of innocent girls in their teens; my gaze was rivetted on an English fowling-piece, which had long been the object of my ambition, and which my kind father had availed himself of an English correspondent at Hamburg to procure. Every one else was still crowding round the bed, and I had gone close to one of the wall shades, to examine more minutely the delicate lock of my piece, and my mother's friendly inscription, "Für meinen beliebten Yäger ",* when a slight rustling engaged my attention, and I saw standing in the door-way communicating with my mother's apartment, a figure whose singularity made me absolutely start. It would have seemed, if met in the forest, that of one of its savage inmates, from its perfect resemblance to a bear on its hind legs; but bears have not blue eyes and fair hair, and a moment enabled me to distinguish both, amidst the shaggy covering in which they were once more enveloped. It was little Minna!-who, having during former waking intervals of this to her eventful night, been more than once cheered by the voices of my father and mother in the adjoining chamber, had, on missing these friendly sounds, become seized with a feeling of insupportable loneliness; urged by which, she had got up, wrapped herself by the glimmering dawn in the well-known pelisse, which still lay beside her, and followed instinctively the cheerful lights and voices, without any idea of the brilliant scene in which the escape from solitude was to land her. She stood, therefore, on the threshold of the illuminated chamber, the very picture of surprise! Her humble education had never afforded her an opportunity for witnessing such a display of parental munificence. The Christmas gifts her father and grandmother bestowed, had been few and simple; and of a fairy scene like the present she had never even dreamed: so it was no wonder she stood rooted and spellbound with admiration and astonishment, not however unmingled with shame and mortification. The latter soon predominated-the poor little shivering intruder looked up in my face, and saying, "Nobody wants Minna!" burst into an agony of tears. I threw down my gun to caress and comfort her; and in a moment, her situation became as oppressive from kindness, as it had before been from oblivion. The most precious contents of each separate budget were heaped into the lap of the poor little fatherless child. The bed was at once deserted-the crowd gathered round a more powerful magnet-tickets were hastily torn off, envelopes quickly re-adjusted, and with the reckless generosity of childhood, the most valued gifts unhesitatingly transferred. I alone had nothing to add to the lavish offering! My gun, though for her sake I had dropped it unexamined, could not be made over to a weeping child; yet Minna, remembering whose eyes had first compassionately answered her gaze of bewildered amazement, clung around me as to a protector, and hiding her face again in the huge pelisse, sobbed, "Minna wants nobody now." " We shall not tell the story. The second Christmas eve, the same chamber is lighted up with funeral torches. The third * For my beloved huntsman. restores Count Carl to an old acquaintance. The following poem will not be passed over. 6 TO THE DEPARTED. Thou comest only in the night, from the airy hall of dreams, That withers in its prison-house, where all is dark and chill. Dark, though the light of sunny day upon my path be glowing, Chill, though the breath of a summer morn upon my cheek is blowing, Because I wander forth alone, and find no kindred eye Το In vain I seek thee on the hills, or beside the laughing streams, Then I would wish my all of life, one slumber for thy sake; There is a charming poem by Mrs. Hemans, entitled the 'Voice of the Waves,' the only fault of which is, that it reminds us too strongly of a still finer production of her own, one of the most exquisite poems in the language. The Envoy at the end of the volume is extremely elegant; and altogether, the Winter's Wreath may compete with any of its rivals in the pleasing character of its contents. We come now to speak of a new annual that has never blown before,―an Iris; whether named after the earthly flower or the heavenly messenger, we are not told. As a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, so, it matters little what name of flower or gem be given to these tokens and offerings. The specific design of the Iris is, to render recreative reading subservient to the great object of moral and religious improvement;' and the general character of its contents is therefore of a graver and more instructive cast than in most of its competitors. The most prominent feature of the present volume is a series of poems, illustrative of events in the Life of Christ, and corresponding to the embellishmsnts, from the pen of the VOL. II.-N.S. 3 B Editor, the translator of Sophocles. From one of these poems we must choose our poetical specimen. THE RAISING OF LAZARUS. "Tis still thine hour, O Death! Thine, Lord of Hades, is the kingdom still. And once again the tomb A mightier arm shall pierce the pathless gloom, Nor comes thy Conqueror arm'd with spear or sword ;- Since Lazarus, the pious and the just, The grave worm revels now Upon his mouldering clay. And He before whose car the mountains bow, In conscious awe, He only can revive Corruptions withering prey, and call the dead to live! Yet still, the sisters keep But now one straining eye The advancing form hath traced; And soon in wild resistless agony Have Martha's arms embraced The Saviour's feet.-" O Lord! hadst thou been nigh- They led him to the cave, The rocky bed where now in darkness slept O love sublime and deep! O Hand and Heart divine! He comes to rescue, though he deigns to weep. O Death! thy bands are burst asunder now, There stands beside the grave a mightier far than thou. "Come forth," he cries, "thou dead!" O God! what means that strange and sudden sound, |