man of him. As he had at first loved Susan from pity-a wretched reason for a life-loveso he might have loved her again from pity, since he ascribed her aberration rather to weakness than to deliberate treachery. Now he saw her as she was, a poor, vacillating, selfish creature, devoid of every desirable quality,unless we reckon as such a quiet and gentle manner, the result of temperament, not principle; not the woman to whom a man of tolerable sense could safely intrust his happiness and honour. The recollection of Charles was bitter indeed; but his career had borne its legitimate fruit, and there was mitigation in the thought that the disgrace of a public trial and imprisonment had been spared them all.

John's complete restoration was not rapidly accomplished, but like other recoveries from typhus, subject to relapses. But he never fell back entirely. Braced by misfortune, his nerves were strong for lesser ills, and his unhappy habit of self-depreciation-the most dangerous form of egotism, since it borrows the specious semblance of humility, though it is often nothing less than rank pride,was cured by the testimony of experience. The happiness of being everything to his

mother and her children was of itself healing to his wounded self-love, and in due time he married a woman very different from Susan Bartlett, since her attractions were her own, and not those of circumstance. John Todd finished by owning himself happy.

We have all this time said no word of our hero's religion, because we do not think a man's religion worth speaking of, so long as he is determined to be his own Providence, and refuses to intrust the main web of his life to the weaving of the Unerring Hand. In truth, with all his goodness, it was only the occurrences we have narrated that taught him the wholesome lesson of dependence and submission, and convinced him that if he made his happiness depend upon freedom from misfortune, he must go through life under a cloud. He perceived that he had taken too much upon himself; and his view of his own private responsibility for everything that could possibly befall himself and his friends, was much modified, without any diminution of sensibility or efficiency. And here let us leave our exemplar, praying the reader's patience and pardon if John Todd has seemed to them only an essay in disguise.

BOOK NOTICES.

THE HOME. By Fredrika Bremer. Putnam. Of the many works which this great Swedish novelist has published, the mere catalogue of which would make quite an article, there are three that stand out from the others with entire distinctness. These are "The Neighbours," published by Mr. Putnam a few months since, "The Home," just received, and "Brothers and Sisters," which we earnestly hope may soon follow, in the excellent style in which the publication has commenced. The three novels which have been named, are connected as to subject, and in the general theory of life which they teach; and moreover, they are generally admitted to be, and are regarded by the authoress, as the best of her novels. Those, therefore, who have not the time to read all her works, but who have the desire to become acquainted with

her mind in its noblest developments, are advised to look for it here. Of all her novels, "The Home" is that which created the greatest sensation at the time of its appearance-if we except, perhaps, her "Confession of Faith," a work published in 1840 to counteract the infidel tendencies of Strauss's "Life of Christ," which at that time was producing great mischief in Sweden. "The Home" first appeared in 1838. Such was the degree of favour with which it was received, not only among popular readers, but among the learned, that the Swedish Academy on this occasion sent the authoress its highest prize-the great golden medal-accompanied with a deputation of eminent dignitaries. All the weight of influence which her brilliant reputation gave her, she, two years afterwards, boldly threw into the scale against the book of Strauss, at a time when the appropriate champions of the faith among her countrymen stood wavering or aghast at the havoc. Her "Confession of Faith" was furiously attacked by the infidel party, but it nevertheless accomplished in a good degree its object. It served to fix the minds of the wavering just at the critical moment, when a bold stroke was needed on the right side-and was decisive.

THE POWER OF BEAUTY is the title of a small volume purporting to be from the pen of the Rev. J. T. Headly, and bearing the imprint of John S. Taylor. The "Pub. lisher's Preface" is to us incomprehensible. It is either a continued sneer, or a miserable pandering to the depraved taste of the lowest class of readers, and in either case is an impertinence deserving the most plain-spoken rebuke. The public are urged to buy the book on the ground that there is nothing in Moore, Byron, or even Dumas, containing such scenes of "melting voluptuousness," and on

the other hand, are assured that the articles are perfectly pure and chaste, because they are written by a clergyman, and first appeared in the New York Observer!

CHALMERS'S LIFE AND POSTHUMOUS WORKS. Harpers, 12 vols., small 8vo. Chalmers will be to future generations one of the Fathers, as distinctly as Augustine or Chrysostom is to us. He led such a life of stirring activity, particularly in the closing part of his career, that his greatness could not have been questioned, had he been known to the world only as a man of action. But while he lived, and in the midst of his busiest scenes, he continued to publish, and so voluminously, that his authorship alone, apart from his pulpit performances and his generalship of the Free Church, would have made him famous. Few were prepared, after his death, to find still a third and equal claim to greatness in a series of posthumous works. These posthumous works, including his life, have already extended to twelve volumes! The first three volumes consist of Daily Scripture Readings, and the next two of Sabbath Readings. These two series form one of the most useful, and in the time and manner of their preparation, they are the most remarkable guide books to devotion which our Protestant literature affords. Volumes seventh and eighth contain Institutes of Theology, and rolume ninth Lectures and Addresses. Volumes tenth, eleventh, and twelfth contain his Life, by his son-in-law, Dr. Hanna, and are made up in part of his letters and correspondence. Whether more of his correspondence will be given than that contained in the Life, or whether there are more posthumous volumes still forthcoming, we are not informed. But the series, as it is, is an addition to theological literature of extraordinary value.

THE PRINCETON REVIEW. The last number of this work is unusually rich in articles of superior merit. The first, on Algernon Sidney, we have not read. The "Return of Missionaries" discusses in a dispassionate and rational manner one of the most difficult practical questions connected with the foreign missionary enterprise. "Grinfield's Apology for the Septuagint," furnishes the occasion for a lucid exhibition of the present state of critical opinion in regard to the value and authority of this ancient version of the Scriptures. Prof. Agassiz has received what must prove a troublesome sortie upon his last position on the "Unity of the Human Race," in an article evidently from the pen of Dr. Smythe, of Charleston; and the new theory of Prof. Park, of Andover, on the "Theology of the Intellect," as distinguished from that of the feelings, has received a most searching examination at the hands of a master-the same, if we mistake not, that many years ago wrote the articles on "Imputation," &c., in the controversy with Dr. Taylor, of New Haven.

SERIALS AND PAMPHLETS. Lossing's Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution, No. VIII., price 25 cents. Harpers, for sale by Zieber. This work seems to improve with every number. The small wood-cut vignettes, scattered throughout the pages, are exquisite. The narrative and descriptive parts, also, are very interesting. Genevieve, by Lamartine. Harpers, price 12 cents, for sale by Zieber. The history of a servant-girl, dedicated to a dressmaker, by Alphonse de Lamartine, translated by A. R. Scoble. Additional Memoirs of my Youth, by Lamartine. Harpers, for sale by Zieber. Another instalment of the "Confi. dences." In the preface, the author vindicates himself in a masterly manner from the sneers and sarcasms that have been uttered against these autobiographical sketches. The Iron Mask, by Dumas. T. B. Peterson, complete in two volumes, fifty cents each. Philosophy of Modern Miracles, Stringer & Townsend, New York. An attempt to explain the connection of the spiritual with the material, with special reference to the late "mysterious knockings." Everybody's Almanac and Diary for 1851, a most useful and convenient manual in the shape of a pocketbook, with blanks for memoranda for every day in the year, prepared and for sale by the Appletons. Byrne's Dictionary of Mechanics and Engineering, by the same publishers, has proceeded as far as to No. XX., the word

heliotrope, which concludes the first volume. Mercersburg Review for November contains six articles, three of which are from the prolific pen of Professor Nevin. London Quarterly, reprinted by Leonard Scott & Co. A capital number. Blackwood for October has been received from Zieber, and is full of good things, as usual. Published by Leonard Scott & Co., New York. The Illustrated Domestic Bible. Number 7 of this excellent work has been received from the Philadelphia agents, Getz and Buck. Petticoat Government, by Mrs. Trollope, is the latest issue of the Harper's Library of Select Novels. For sale by Zieber. Price 25 cts. Shakespeare's Dramatic Works. Nos. 26 and 27 of Phillips & Sampson's edition of Shakespeare have been received from the Philadelphia agent, T. B. Peterson. Price 25 cents a number. The present numbers contain the plays of King Henry VIII., and Troilus and Cressida, each with a splendid steel engraving of the heroine.

THE METHOD OF THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT, PHYSICAL AND MORAL. By the Rev. James M'Cosh. New York: Carter & Brothers. 515 pp. 8vo. Mr. M'Cosh is a professed disciple of the venerated Chalmers, and in his preface acknowledges large indebtedness to his great master. No one, however, can read a chapter in the work without arriving at the conclusion, that Mr. M'Cosh's indebtedness to Chalmers is no more than that which every man of genius owes to the minds with which his own has come into contact. There is indeed something contagious in genius, but its contagion spreads only in minds of like high endowments. Mr. M'Cosh, in this treatise, has entered upon the boldest path of metaphysico-theological inquiry, and shown himself at home and self-balanced among Jonathan Edwards, Dugald Stewart, Thomas Browne, and a host of other theologians and philosophers of the first rank. His work, though a systematic and formal treatise, is not, as such works often and very properly are, a mere compilation and orderly congregation of materials from various sources, but is an original performance, the thread of the argument being spun out from a subject made his own by diligent and independent inquiry. His style is exact and logical, and yet often enlivened by the graces of rhetoric. Even in that profound depth-the causal connection of God with his works -while attempting to reconcile the two great doctrines of Liberty and Necessity,-"Free Will and Fate," he is sometimes rigid, but he never becomes dull. Illustrations, not only apt, but often beautiful, await the reader, even when travelling through these dreary regions. Witness the following, which is at the close of the most abstruse chapter in the book. "High truths, like high mountains, are apt to veil themselves in clouds. Nevertheless, it is from the summit of these high truths, if we could but reach it, that we see the nature and bearing of all connected truth, as from the top of some high mountain, the axis of its range, we discover the shape and size of all the adjacent hills. We may be deceived in thinking that in these speculations we have reached such a summit. We may have only got into a region of perpetual clouds. In either case, the mind should feel that it has reached a limit which it cannot safely pass; and instead of beating uselessly against the barrier, it should return to explore the vast and fruitful region within its reach."

THE POETICAL WORKS OF JOHN MILTON. George S. Appleton, Philadelphia. We are heartily glad to see so excellent an American edition of Milton's Poetical Works. It is by far the best that we recollect to have seen. The book is a large octavo of eight hundred and fifty pages, handsomely printed on fine paper, and containing, besides the "Paradise Lost" and "Paradise Regained," all the Minor Poems and the Latin Verses. It contains, likewise, the Life of Milton, by Sir Egerton Brydges, and all the notes and comments of that most celebrated of the Miltonian editors, as given in his famous edition in 1835. These notes contain not only the expositions of Sir Egerton Brydges himself, but all that is valuable, or that has stood the test of time, in the studies of previous commen

tators and critics, such as Addison, Newton, Todd, Bentley,* Knight, Dunster, &c, &c. It is indeed, for the student of Milton, a complete synopsis criticorum. All ancient and medieval learning has been ransacked for illustration of his meaning, and the rich results are given in these wellfilled pages. Besides this, in the edition of 1835, of which this is a reprint, the text, into which since the death of the author many corruptions had crept, underwent a thorough recension at the hand of that accomplished critic, Mr. James Boaden. The work is also embellished by a large number of Martin's splendid designs, illustrative of the Paradise Lost, newly engraved in mezzotinto, expressly for the present edition. For those who do not want the whole of Milton's works, the publishers have issued the first four hundred and fifteen pages in a separate volume, containing the Paradise Lost merely, with the notes, the life, and all the preliminary critical apparatus.

COMPLETE WORKS OF ROBERT BURNS. George S. Appleton, of Philadelphia, has issued a handsome reprint, in royal octavo, of what has become the standard edition of Burns's Works, that namely by Allan Cunningham, containing a life of the author, with copious notices, critical and biographical, and a glossary. The work as now issued is a large and elegant volume of about five hundred and fifty pages, and makes a suitable companion to the Scott and Milton published by the same house.

COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF WALTER SCOTT. George S. Appleton, Philadelphia. Much that has been said of the two previous publications, is predicable of this. With the exception of the engravings, the enterprising publisher has done the same for Scott as for Milton; that is, he has produced in handsome typography, and in a royal octavo of eight hundred and forty pages, the complete poetical works of Sir Walter Scott, with all the Notes and Introductions of the author, as given in the standard edition of his works prepared by himself before his death.

THE WORLD'S PROGRESS. G P. Putnam, Author and Publisher. 690 pp. small 8vo. A library is only a very big dictionary. So this work of Mr. Putnam is in itself a small library. As a work of reference, showing at a glance, in well-digested tables, the progress of the world in arts, arms, science, and literature, from the time of the Creation down to the arrival of the last steamer from Europe, we know nothing equal to the book under consideration, either for comprehensiveness or perspicuity. We know no one book of equal size, in which one can find so much valuable information with so little trouble. The volume contains first of all a good chronological chart, with the stream of time centuriated, and the centuries marked by equal spaces, from the Creation to the year 1800. There is nothing in the plan of this chart especially novel; but in the preparation of it, the author has avoided the common error of overcrowding it with matter. Only the great leading events are marked, giving thereby with the greater clearness the general outline of events. Next follows a series of chronological tables, filling one hundred and fifty pages, which may be considered as an expansion in another form, but on the same principle, of the general chronological chart. In these tables the great facts of history are inserted with a good degree of fulness, and are arranged by centuries to correspond with the chart, so that by a reference to the one we get the general view, by a reference to the other we are furnished with the special details. After this comes a "Dictionary of Dates," in four hundred and fifty pages, by means of which one can immediately ascertain the date of any particular event, invention, or person, and then, by referring to the corresponding part of the chronological chart and tables, can see at a glance the connexions of said event, invention, or person, with contemporaneous affairs. The Dictionary of Dates is followed by literary chronologies, Hebrew, Greek, British, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Scandinavian, Polish, Russian, Oriental, American. And lastly, there is a very compact but comprehensive biographical index, giving the dates of the birth and death of all the great names in history.

A PRONOUNCING GERMAN READER. By James C. Oehl schläger. D. Appleton & Co., New York. The study of the German, for the purposes equally of literature, art, science. and commerce, is making rapid advances in the United States. It would not be surprising if the German were eventually more studied in this country than the French, It is therefore important to note with some emphasis all improvements in the mode of teaching the language. Among these we have seen none-not excepting Ollendorf's-that offers more facilities for both teacher and learner, or that shows more practical wisdom, than Oehlschläger's German Reader, just quoted. The author has been for many years a successful teacher of the German, his native tongue, in Philadelphia, and he has given in this book the fruits of an intelligent experience. The time has come when the old, humdrum method of learning languages-living languages certainly - should be abandoned, once and for ever. A living language should be learned by foreigners, just as it is by children. Pronunciation comes by imitation, phrases and idioms by example and repetition. The logic of language is an afterthought, something to be applied after the language is learned, not as a means of learning it.

FOOTPRINTS OF THE CREATOR. By Hugh Miller. Gould, Kendall & Lincoln. Hugh Miller, originally only a common day-labourer in the quarries of Scotland, has become by the force of genius and the dint of labour successfully applied, one of the leading minds of the age. His first publication, that on the "Old Red Sandstone," placed him by a single bound in the front rank of geologists, among whom he is now an acknowledged authority. The present essay places him among the ablest vindicators of revealed religion that have appeared in modern times. It is plain that the battle of the Evidences is to be fought over again, not as in the last age, on the field of Metaphysics, but on the field of physical science. On this new arena, the combatants will have to use new weapons, which it will be the privilege of the challenger to choose. It is therefore of peculiarly auspicious omen, to see an independent and fearless inquirer, like Hugh Miller, go forth hammer in hand among the "old red sandstone" and other primeval formations of the earth, and demolish at a single blow, and with their own weapons, the whole "development theory" of the infidel class of geologists.

Also, THE MELODIST; a collection of Popular and Social Songs. CANTICA LAUDIS; the American Book of Church Music.

These two collections, one of church music, theother of music for social and festive occasions, have received the highest commendations from professors and teachers of the science in all parts of the country. The authors, Lowell Mason, and George James Webb, are widely known by their successful efforts to improve popular music--both sacred and social-and when it is stated that the works now named contain the latest and ripest fruits of their zealous industry, nothing more need be said to those familiar with the subject.

BOYD'S MILTON. Baker & Scribner. The Rev. James Boyd, author of sundry works on "Rhetoric," &c., has prepared an edition of the "Paradise Lost," with variorum notes, in one volume, crown octavo, 542 pages. The notes are taken from Addison, Newton, Todd, Hume, Sir Egerton Brydges, Richardson, Thyer, Stebbing, Pearce, and the most remarkable reviews, together with some original matter, the whole digested into a tolerably homogeneous and very acceptable commentary on a work, that of all English classics most needs a learned exegesis.

THE COUNTRY YEAR BOOK. By William Howitt. Harpers 422 pp. small 8vo. A more delightful and refreshing miscellany it has not been our good fortune to meet with this many a day. The book is divided into twelve sections, each section being devoted to a particular month, beginning with January and ending with December. In each month are described, in that charming way in which the Howitts know how to describe, the country scenes and pleasures appropriate to that month, mingled up throughout with beautiful poems and stories.

OUR MUSICAL DEPARTMENT.

Ir is a matter of real congratulation, both for ourselves and our readers, that we are enabled to announce an engagement with JOHN S. DWIGHT, Esq., of Boston, as MUSICAL EDITOR. To those who had the pleasure of hearing his course of musical lectures delivered in Philadelphia, last March, no further guarantee will be needed of the importance of this arrangement. The power of analyzing musical compositions, and giving to "songs without words" a world of meaning and interest, he has made peculiarly his own. We call attention to his "Introductory" below, sure that it is a prelude to much delightful entertainment and information to be forthcoming in the course of the year. In February we shall commence the monthly publication of Music selected and arranged by him expressly for our Magazine.

INTRODUCTORY.

BY JOHN 8. DWIGHT.

A Magazine like this is bound, in duty and interest, to report and further all the genial social elements. In these times, therefore, it can no more shut out MUSIC, than it can shut out the sun. Its proprietors and editors, in entering upon this new half century, feel that they can do no less than consecrate a regular department in its monthly pages to the thoughts suggested by this beau tiful and subtile agent, now so deeply domesticated in our American life. For Music is pre-eminently the social Fine Art. It is the only universal language,-at least the only one which men thus far have learned and made available. It is the language of the heart, which vibrates uniformly to like causes in all breasts; while words, philosophies, and creeds, the products of the mind, are unintelligible beyond certain spheres of nationality or party. Can we doubt that such an art is destined to remarkable developments in such a country as our own? that it must become more and more identified with the American character,a character which the genius of our institutions and the boundless invitation of our territory are rendering every day more cosmopolitan and universal? There is a grandeur in the very consciousness of membership in such a large and various commonwealth of character; there is an exaltation in the American feeling thus viewed, which borders on the unitary sentiment, and seeks a rhythmical expression.

⚫ each slow step of a natural transition. It imbues us with a moral principle which operates by habit, beautifully and surely, like the resolution of discords in Music. It lets us never spurn the past in stepping from it to the future. Moreover, the best of it is that art, like nature, insinuates its lessons without ever professing to teach.

And yet the greater the social destiny of this people, the harder is the realization of the problem, and the more manifold the dangers and shortcomings to which, for some time, we shall be exposed. We are excessively political, and enterprising to a fault in the pursuit of individual fortune. Business and party do their best to isolate and harden us. There is a wide new world before us, and a glorious ideal floats above us in the motto and the Constitution of our Union; schools, and churches, and material enterprise do much; but we inherit from the past some old wrongs which are now a bone of discord; these are sustained with a convulsive grasp by interest; while on the other hand reform is loud, and stern, and harsh, and anarchy is ever threatening. Political peace measures, compromises, and adjustments, are no guaranty of peace; we want the peaceful tone and spirit in our lives and characters. Mere balances of power, the blind resultants of incessant party strife, are not union; we need the tone and sentiment of unity, so that character shall keep us cordially united, where interests, and politics, and even creeds divide. To no providential agent can we look for this more confidently than to art. Art is a quiet, unpretending, potent reconciler. The spirit of art pervading a community insures at once a loyal and a generous disposition. It is as conservative as it is large, free, and progressive. It tempers these raw energies of ours to gentler methods of approaching ends, with a fond patience for

It does not assume to moralize us and convert us. It only seeks to please us, smiles to us with beauty, and we are made better in our inmost souls by actual experience of harmony and inward prophecy of more.

One cannot overstate the good that would result, could we make Art, in any deep sense, an element in our social life, and in our national character. We must appeal to some experience of the artistic sense, for illustration of our meaning. What constitutes the charm of a fine painting, some genuine master-piece of genius? Not the bare contents of the picture in detail; not the mere brilliancy or richness of the colouring; the boldness, nor the delicacy of the outline; nor the ingenuity of the composition. But it is a certain pervading tone and atmosphere of the whole, fusing all particulars into a vital unity, and softening all down harmoniously, so that nature seems to accept it as part of herself. So it is with a good piece of music, and with any product into which the creative life of Art has entered. So too, it is, or should be, in the lives and the society of persons who have not only cultivated the superficial sense of beauty, but are evermore baptized into the spirit of Art. The tone of an artist, or a true lover of art, is felt genially around him. Pervading a society, it would be just that sort of conservative cement, which denies no right and checks no wholesome growth.

We, as a people, need this element. Welcome the artists who will give us this! Thanks to the poet, the painter, the sculptor, the architect, the singer, the dramatist, the dancer, we care not in what form he comes,-if he has given us some true embodiment of spiritual Beauty in the forms of Art! To spend on these things hours withdrawn from selfish business, or from idler sensual recreation, or from that sterner and ungenial piety, which is too often but a blind reaction to the opposite extreme from all that worldliness, cannot but bring us, through the Beautiful, much nearer to the Good.

Most hopeful of the Arts, as social influences in our land, is the art of Music. The secret of this lies partly in the distinctive character of Music, as the most expansive, fluid, universal of the arts, and partly in the social aspirations, destiny, and feeling of this young giant people, entering a new world, full of wealth and wonders, to subdue and harmonize. We can but hint it. But as an evidence that we Americans have latent sympathy enough for art, in spite of our crudity and liability to be humbugged in our dealings therewith, we have but to mention the enthusiasm and the ready abandonment of our proverbial economy of time and money with which we greet a great singer, whom there is any good authority for supposing to be a really great artist. There is a plenty of spurious excitement mingled with all this, no doubt. Much of it is the mere love of excitement; much is fashion; and much is accidental or manufactured, like a marketable commodity. But there is, and must be, something deeper under all this, to justify it to itself and make it go. Men may follow an artist from fashion, without being able themselves to tell an artist from a bungler; but, take away the dim feeling everybody has that a real artist is something indeed divine and worthy to be followed, and what would prop the fashion up? Ignorant and undiscriminating as we are in art, and scarcely knowing when we have it, yet we pay prices for it which set our own utilitarian maxims at defiance, and which neither our love of amusement nor our slavery to fashion are sufficient to explain. It is the few who are fashionable, the few who go to extravagant lengths in buying pleasures; and they would sooner squander on a ball or feast than on a fine art. But the sober and the self-possessed, those who have more moral and mental resources than they have dollars, are known to count the cost, and with deliberate cheerfulness invest several days' earnings in the

delights of one fine opera or concert. What does this mean? Why, that we have a reverence for art which is almost prophetic, compared with our inexperience and crude taste in such matters. By some means or other, we have got it in us, that Art is a pearl without price; that it is a reality which most deeply concerns us all morally and socially; that it bears a direct mission to humanity; that wanting that, we want humanity. What justifies our more than pleasure in an orchestra of instruments, a symphony, a chorus? It is, that therein we perceive a type, a prophecy of human destiny, of the true ultimate fulfilment of the "E PLURIBUS UNUM," of the many made one in harmonious co-operation, of the "Beauty of Holiness," or wholeness, and the joy thereof, in that great social music which the ages are preparing.

Holy enthusiasm! Whether in religion, in patriotism, in philanthropy, love, friendship, or in art, so surely as it seizes on us, we are generous, we are lifted far above mean dollar-and-cent calculations, we drink of the life which alone is power or wealth,-wealth and power which we may share with every soul, and feel ourselves the richer and the stronger. Priceless is everything that can create enthusiasm, as distinct from fruitless, cheap excitement. Priceless shall art, shall music be to us Americans, who have enough excitement, but who need enthusiasm. The spirit of art, the power to enjoy and feel deep music, grows upon us. It is as much our destiny to be a musical, as it is to be a free, a generous, a humane, fraternal people.

In this spirit we hope to discourse of music regularly henceforth in the brief space allotted to us in these pages. By notices of significant musical events, by analyses and criticisms of musical compositions, and by various brief and popular discourse, we hope to interest our readers in the real worth and meaning of this divine art. Especially would we do a little towards directing the popular musical susceptibilities towards the enduring styles and models of taste. In the very brief selections of printed music, which we shall make for each ensuing number, we shall hope to present what shall be not only simple, but genuine, in the sense of art. There are countless little gems among the classic compositions of Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, and so forth, too little known, and intrinsically more captivating than the light English songs and waltzes which have till lately formed the staple of all music shops and magazines. Not able to produce much quantity, we shall insist on quality, and in a small way bring out "treasures new and old."

Can we close this article without one word of tribute where the whole American heart is rendering it? Fortunately for this, as for all larger enterprises for the indoctrination of our people into the spirit of music, we have JENNY LIND among us, who is now to us the popular impersonation of Music. We must give our thought of her another time. At present let us only thank her as a living spring of true enthusiasm for the beautiful and good, throughout the length and breadth of a great nation swallowed up in selfish interests and party strifes, yet easily redeemed to its great destiny of brotherhood, if it but court the inspiring influence of Art with half the eagerness that it has courted outward prosperity and power.

ART NOTICES.

REMBRANDT PAINTING HIS MOTHER'S PORTRAIT. Painted by Robert Fleury. The embellishment with the above title, given in another part of the Magazine, represents a scene in the domestic life of a great artist, from a picture by the celebrated French painter Fleury. Although France is not the country of his birth, he must still be regarded as belonging wholly to that school, having there acquired his entire artistic culture.

Joseph Nicolet Robert Fleury was born at Cologne, in 1797, in a house very near to that distinguished as the birth-place of Rubens. He early indicated a taste for art, and was sent to Paris for his studies. He was a

pupil successively of Vernet, Girodet, and Gros; but his favourite place of study was the atelier of Gericault, with whom he was intimately acquainted; an intimacy unhappily terminated by the death of Gericault, in 1824. Fleury is said to be a very good colourist. Gall, the phrenologist, when on a visit to Horace Vernet, pointed him out from a group of students as having the organ of colour particularly developed. The prediction was fully justified by Fleury's superiority in after years. The style of his compositions may be judged of by the specimen selected for the present number of the Magazine. The first picture of our artist that drew public attention was painted at Rome. A short time before Fleury arrived at the "Imperial City," a band of brigands had forcibly entered a monastery, and sacrilegiously pillaged the holy fathers. This incident caused much excitement at the time, and Fleury seized upon it as a subject for his pencil. He worked assiduously, and with a feeling that his reputation as an historical painter depended upon his success. His perseverance was indomitable. Three times in the course of four years he painted the same scene, and still dissatisfied, but not disheartened, with what he considered unsuccessful efforts, he a fourth time reproduced it, sufficiently improved to stand the test of his own criticism, possibly the most severe that was given to it. This picture was sold for twelve hundred francs, but Charles X. seeing it, offered to purchase it for five thou sand; this was refused by the possessor, and the result was a medal to Fleury, and an order from the king for a painting of "Tasso arriving at the Convent of St. Onofrio.

In 1829, Fleury having executed a very successful study of sheep imagined that till then he had mistook his true vocation, and determined to endeavour to make himself the Paul Potter of France. He went to Holland to prosecute his new studies, returned to retire to a farm some distance from Paris, and commenced on a twelve feet canvass a picture that should demonstrate unquestionably his newly discovered faculties. He was interrupted in the indulgence of his cattle mania by the news of the revolution of 1830. Leaving his cows "to chew the cud of sweet and bitter fancies," Fleury hastened to Paris to take part in the active scenes of the day. At the metropolis, he was solicited to paint the portraits of several distinguished individuals, besides receiving orders for historical pictures. He returned to his original studies, relinquished the hope of gaining the laurel crown for Potterism, and sending for his unfinished composition, cut out some parts to be preserved as mementos, and destroyed the remainder. From that time he continued to maintain a respectable position among the artists of the French school. Н. А. Н.

"PREPARING MOSES FOR THE FAIR."

This splendid engraving may safely challenge comparison with anything in the shape of embellishment that has appeared in the magazines for several years. It was executed in London expressly for this Magazine, and under the immediate superintendence of Mr. Samuel Sartain. The incident which forms the subject of the picture is taken from the "Vicar of Wakefield," and is familiar to most readers, not only from the book itself, but from the numerous attempts to illustrate it which have been given heretofore in annuals and other works. We have taken a subject with which the public is already familiar, to show by comparison the superiority of the execution of embellishments in this Magazine to those ordinarily seen. The artist seems to have caught the very spirit of the original. "Next morning," says the good vicar, "I perceived his sisters mighty busy in fitting out Moses for the fair; trimming his hair, brushing his buckles, and cocking his hat with pins. The business of the toilet being over, we had at last the satisfaction of seeing him mounted upon the colt, with a deal box before him to bring home groceries in."