was as plain as I see you now, and no further as they are in the good-will of God and man? off." Come, neighbors to your dancing again! have lost too much time already. play your best—and you, Hund.” "Nonsense-it is a lie," said M. Kollsen. "Do not believe a word he says," advised the pastor, speaking to the listeners. "There is the folly of giving such an opportunity to a child of making himself important. If he had had his share of the cake, with the rest of us at table, he would have taken it quietly, and been thankful. As it is, it will be harder work than ever to drive out these wicked superstitions.-Go, get along!" he cried to Oddo; "I do not want to hear a word you have got to say." Oddo bowed, and proceeded to the great room, where he took up his clarionet, as if it was a matter of course that the dancing was to begin again immediately. He blew upon his fingers, however, observing that they were too stiff with cold to do their duty well. And when he turned towards the fire, every one made way for him, in a very different manner from what they would have dreamed of three hours before. Oddo had his curiosity gratified as to how they would regard one who was believed to have seen something supernatural. You Now, Oddo, "I hope," said Oddo, "that, if any mischief is to come, it will fall upon me. We'll see how I shall bear it." "Mischief enough will befall you, boy-never doubt it," said his master, as long as you trifle with people's feelings as you have done to-night. Go. Make up for it, all you can." The dancing was spiritless, and there was little more of it. The mirth of the meeting was destroyed. The party broke up at three, instead of five or six; and it might have been earlier still, but for the unwillingness of every family present to be the first to go upon the lake, or to try the road. At last, all understood one another's feelings by their own; and the whole coinpany departed at once in two bands, one by water and the other by land. Those who went in sleighs took care that a heavy stone was fastened by a rope to the back of each carriage, that its bobbing and dancing on the road might keep off the wolves. Glad would they have been of any contrivance by which they might as certainly distance Nipen. Rolf then took a parting kiss from Erica in the porch, pushed Oddo on before, and followed with Peder. Erica watched them quite to the door of their own house, and then came in, and busied herself in making a clearance of some of the confusion which the guests had left behind. "Oddo could not get a word from you, Erica," observed her mistress; "not even a look in answer to his good night.'" Erlingsen saw that something must be done on the spot, to clear up the affair. If his guests went home without having heard the mysteries of the night explained, the whole country would presently be filled with wild and superstitious stories. He requested Peder to examine the boy, as Oddo stood more in awe of his grandfather than of any one else; and also because Peder was known to be so firm a believer in Nipen, that his judgment would be more readily received than that of an unbeliever. When seriously questioned, Oddo had no wish to say anything but the truth; and he admitted the whole-that he had eaten the entire cake, drunk all the ale, seen a fox and an owl, and heard the echoes, in answer 'Nipen has been so favorable to us to-day, to himself. As he finished his story, Hund, who madame! not a breath of wind stirring all the was perhaps the most eager listener of all, leaped, morning, so that nobody was disappointed of comthrice upon the floor, snapping his fingers, as if ing! And then to serve it in this way! To in a passion of delight. He met Erlingsen's eye, rob it, and mock it, and brave it as we have done! full of severity, and was quiet; but his counte--So ungrateful!—so very wrong!" nance still glowed with exultation. The rest of the company were greatly shocked at these daring insults to Nipen; and none more so than Peder. The old man's features worked with emotion, as he said in a low voice that he should be very thankful if all the mischief that might follow upon this adventure might be borne by the kin of him who had provoked it. If it should fall upon those who were innocent, never surely had boy been so miserable as his poor lad would then be. Oddo's eyes filled with tears, as he heard this; and he looked up at his master and mistress, as if to ask whether they had no word of comfort to say. "I could not, madame," answered Erica, tears and sobs breaking forth. "When I think of it all, I am so shocked-so ashamed!" "How ashamed?" "We are very sorry for Oddo's trick-your master and I," said Madame Erlingsen; "but we are not in the least afraid of any further harm happening. You know we do not believe that God permits his children to be at the mercy of evil or capricious spirits. Indeed, Erica, we could not love God as we should wish to love him, if we could not trust in him as a just and kind protector. Go to rest now, Erica. You have done enough since you left your bed. Go to rest quite now. Rest your heart upon Him who has blessed you exceedingly this day. Whatever others do, do not you be ungrateful to Him. Good sleep to you, Erica! Sleep off your troubles, that Rolf may see nothing of them in the morning." Erica smiled; and when Orga and Frolich saw the effect of what their mother had said, they too went to rest without trembling at every one of the noises with which a house built of wood is always "Is there any one who does not feel," added Erlingsen, "that the innocent should be gay, safe resounding. lence on the part of the gallant sailor was necessary FREDERIC JEROME.-A passenger on board the Prince of Wales steamer has written as follows in theChester Courant." It is the only vivid or clear description we have seen of one of the noblest and most affecting incidents of heroism in modern times:-"We neared her (the Ocean Monarch) about two o'clock, and beheld a cluster of our fellow-creatures crowded on the only one part of the vessel which remained, so far, beyond the reach of the raging element, but under momentary expectation of its invasion, the heaving ocean beneath threatening destruction in another form. Their stretched-out arms and wailing cries for relief reached us from time to time through the lull of the wind and waves, completing a scene the most appalling and heart-rending that can be well conceived. At the time we approached her, nearly the whole who are known to have perished had already gone to their great account, some by fire, and others meeting a watery grave in their endeav-near the house of death.] ors to escape a death so horrible. We shared in the means of relieving these poor remaining sufferers for more than two hours, until at length only about sixteen or seventeen remained upon the wreck. These were an aged man and several women and children-their every faculty seemed to have been paralyzed with terror, and they could With joy I marked returning strength, while watching by by no means be persuaded to make any endeavor to lower themselves down and trust to being picked From Chambers' Journal. THE ROBIN REDBREASTS' CHORUS. [There is an old English belief, that when a sick person is about to depart, a chorus of Robin Redbreasts raise their plaintive songs THE summer sweets had passed away, with many a heartthrob sore, For warning voices said that she would ne'er see summer more ; But still I hoped-'gainst hope itself—and at the autumn tide, her side. gloom, With trembling hands the Christmas boughs I hung around the room; the wane: Those Christmas boughs at Candlemas I took not down again!* One day a Robin Redbreast came unto the casement near, She loved its soft and plaintive note, which few unmoved can hear; But on each sad successive day this redbreast ceased not Other Robins, till a chorus full and rich was singing. I ing on ; gazed with speechless agony on our beloved one; No tearful eye, no fluttering mien, such sorrow durst be up by the boats plying underneath. One or two But dreary winter and his blasts came with redoubled men made an attempt to reach them, but without success. At length one able and willing appeared; Frederic Jerome, an Englishman by birth but naturalized in the United States, divesting himself For gone the warmth of autumn days-her life was on completely of his clothes, plunged into the vortex caused by the surging of the ship and the formidable wreck of spars, ropes, chains, and torn sails hanging from her bows. In truth this continuous pitching and these attaching impediments gave rise to the difficulty and danger of relieving the sufferers throughout the whole disastrous period. With less of this there would have been comparatively little difficulty, and with a degree more of storm many more must have perished. To return to Jerome taking a rope in his hand, he attained the site of the forlorn occupiers of the small space still spared from the fire, and his progress to this point was a splendid display of muscular power, requiring a strength of arm which but few thorough-bred sailors possess. Now it was when the harrowing spectacle we had been witnessing so long assumed an aspect more pleasurable and more hopeful, and we crowded to the side of the steamer like the spectators of a drama. One after another he lowered the women and children by passing a rope round them, letting them gently down until within reach —that is, until a man could fasten a long boat-hook to their clothes, by which they were drawn to the boat. As one after another they were placed in safety, a round of clapping of hands was given. I had for two hours watched the very aged man lying with a child in his arms, and he was the last to be saved. The scene, which had become more and more exciting, now attained an interest the most thrilling. The child was secured in the boat, and Jerome proceeded to pass the rope round the old man. Senseless from long exposure in such cir*Evergreens hung about on Christmas eve, ought to be taken cumstances, he seemed to resist, and either could not down on the 2d Feb.-Candlemas day-according to old usage. or would not unclasp his rigid grasp. Some vio- | tray We tried to soothe each parting pang of nature's last de cay. The blessed Sabbath morning came, the last she ever saw; Amid a chorus rich and full of Robin Redbreasts singing! Where charnel vaults with massive walls their slumber- And ancient trees cast snadows broad, the sparkling still the redbreast sings around her long and dream- 1. History of Napoleon's Empire, Westminster Review, 2. The Tube Bridge, 3. Pepys's Diary, Vol. 3, 4. Joseph Lancaster, 5. TOPICS OF THE DAY, Chambers' Journal, 193 29 -212 216 Spectator, Examiner, and Times, 219 to 228 Whig and Tory; Want of Government Want of Peace; The New Faith; The 6. Feats on the Fiord, POETRY-The Robin Redbreast's Chorus, 239. PROSPECTUS. This work is conducted in the spirit cf | Attell's Museum of Foreign Literature, (which was favor ably 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 Gazelle, 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. 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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 circula tion 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. When sent with the cover on, the Living Age consists of three sheets, and is rated as a pamphlet, at 44 cents. But when sent without the cover, it comes within the definition of a newspaper given in the law, and cannot legally be charged with more than newspaper postage, (13 cts.) We add the definition alluded to: A newspaper is "any printed publication, issued in numbers, consisting of not more than two sheets, and published at short, stated intervals of not more than one month, conveying intelligence of passing events." Monthly parts.-For such as prefer it in that form, the Living Age is put up in monthly parts, containing four or five weekly numbers. In this shape it shows to great advantage in comparison with other works, containing in each part double the matter of any of the quarterlies. But we recommend the weekly numbers, as fresher and fuller of life. Postage on the monthly parts is about 14 cents. The volumes are published quarterly, each volume containing as much matter as a quarterly review gives in eighteen months. WASHINGTON, 27 DEC., 1845. Of 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. 234.-11 NOVEMBER, 1848. From the Quarterly Review. [This article, not very new, has been recollected by us with so much pleasure, that we embrace the first good opportunity of printing it.-Liv. AGE.] 1. Gardening for Ladies. By MRS. LOUDON. London. 1841. 2. The Ladies' Companion to the Flower Garden: 4. An Encyclopædia of Gardening: comprising the 11. Sertum Orchideum; or, a Wreath of the most 12. A History of British Ferns. By EDWARD NEWMAN, F. L. S. 8vo. 1840. 13. Poetry of Gardening, from "The Carthusian," a Miscellany in Prose and Verse. pp. 528. London. 1839. IF Dr. Johnson would not stop to inquire whether landscape-gardening demands any great powers of the mind, we may surely be excused from the like investigation on the humbler subject of gardening-proper. But whether or not these pursuits demand, certain it is that they have exercised, the talents of as numerous and brilliant an assemblage of great names as any one subject can boast of. Without travelling into distant times or countries, we find among our own philosophers, poets, and men of taste, who have deemed gardening worthy their regard, the names of Bacon, Evelyn, Temple, Pope, Addison, Sir W. Chambers, Lord Kames, Shenstone, Horace Walpole, Allison, Hope, and Walter Scott. Under VOL. XIX. 16 the first and last of these authorities, omitting all the rest, we would gladly take our stand in defence of any study to which they had given their sanction on paper and in practice. Even in its own exclusive domain, gardening has raised no mean school of literature in the works of Gilpin, Whateley, the Masons, Knight, Price and Rep ton. "What Time would fail us to tell of all those royal and noble personages whom old Gerarde enumerates in his " Herbal" as having either "loved to live in gardens," or written treatises on the subject. We know that Solomon "spoke of plants, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that groweth out of the wall:"-though here the material surpassed the workmanship, for in all his wisdom he discoursed not so eloquently, nor in all his glory was he so richly arrayed as one "lily of the field." The vegetable drug mithridate long handed down the name of the king of Pontus, its discoverer; "better knowne," says Gerarde, " by his soveraigne Mithridate, than by his sometime speaking two-and-twenty languages." should I say," continues the old herbalist, after having called in the authorities of Euax, king of the Arabians, and Artemisia, queen of Caria, "what should I say of those royal personages Juba, Attalus, Climenus, Achilles, Cyrus, Masynissa, Semyramis, Dioclesian-all skilled in the We might easily excellent art of simpling?" swell the list by the addition of royal patrons of Among our own horticulture in modern times. sovereigns, Elizabeth, James I., and Charles II., are mentioned as having given their personal superintendence to the royal gardens, while a change in the style of laying out grounds is very generally attributed to the accession of William and Marythough we doubt whether a horticultural genius would have met with any better or more fitting reception from the hero of the Boyne than did the great wit to whom he offered a cornetcy of dragoons. The gardens of Tzarsco-celo and of Peterhoff were severally the summer resorts of Catherine I. and Elizabeth of Russia, where the one amused herself with building a Chinese village, and the other by cooking her own dinner in the summerhouse of Monplaisir. There are more thrilling associations connected with the Jardin Anglais of the Trianon at Verrose-trees yet grow which sailles, where some were planted by Marie Antoinette; nor will an Englishman easily forget the grounds of Claremont, which yet cherish the memory and taste of that truly British princess who delighted to superintend even the arrangement of the flowers in the At the present moment great cottage-garden. things are promised at Windsor, both in the ornamental and useful department; and we trust that THE FLOWER-GARDEN. the alterations now in progress, avowedly under the eye of royalty, will produce gardens as worthy of the sovereign and the nation, as is the palace to which they are attached. steed; and the violet was as proud a device of the Ionic Athenians, as the rose of England, or the lily of France. The Romans are even censured by their lyric poet † for allowing their fruitLittle new is to be said upon the history of ful olive-groves to give place to beds of violets, gardening. Horace Walpole and Daines Bar- and myrtles, and all the “wilderness of sweets." rington have well nigh exhausted the subject, and The first rose of spring and the "last rose of all later writers go over the same ground. Be- summer' have been sung in Latin as well as ginning with the Eden* of our first parents, we English. Ovid's description of the Floralia will have the old stories of the orchard of the Hes-equal any account we can produce of our Mayperides, and the dragon, and the golden fruit, (now explained to be oranges,)—the gardens of Adonis-the Happy Isles-the hanging terraces of Babylon--till with a passing glance at those of Alcinous and Laertes, as described by Homer, we arrive at the Gardens of Epicurus and the Academe of Plato. Roman history brings up the rear with the villas of Cicero and Pliny, the fruits of Lucullus, the roses of Pæstum, and Cæsar's Private arbors and new-planted orchards On this side Tiber. day; nor has Milton himself more glowingly painted the flowery mead of Enna than has the author of the Fasti. Cicero distinctly enumerates the cultivation of flowers among the delights of the country; and Virgil assures us that, had he given us his Georgic on Horticulture, he would not have forgotten the narcissus or acanthus, the ivy, the myrtle, or the rose-gardens of Pæstum. The moral which Burns drew from his " mountain-daisy" had been marked before both by Virgil ** and Catullus ;†† and indeed a glance at the To how different a science, in each of these in- the same love of flowers in their authors which Eclogues, the Georgics, or the Fasti, will show stances, the term "garden" has been applied we evidently animated Aristophanes, where he dehave now no time to inquire; but we may per- scribed the gentleman of " haps be allowed, before entering upon the fresher" redolent of honey-suckles and holidays;"‡‡ and merry old Athens" as and more inviting scene of the English parterre, which is so conspicuous in our own Shakspeare to say one word in correction of an error common to all writers on the horticulture of the ancients. that he was born and bred a gardener.§§ as to have led to some late ingenious surmises They would have us consider all classical gardens as little more than kitchen-gardens or orchards-ferent styles of gardening with those of poetryto use the expression of Walpole, "a cabbage Your makers of parterres and flower-gardens and a gooseberry-bush." This is a great mistake. The love of flowers is as clearly traceable bowers and grottos, treillages and cascades, are are epigrammatists and sonneteers; contrivers of in the poets of antiquity as in those of our own romance-writers;" while the gravel-pits in Kentimes, and their allusions to them plainly show sington Gardens, then just laid out by London and that they were cultivated with the greatest care. Wise, were heroic verse. Fruit-trees no doubt were mingled with their If our modern critics were to draw a similar comparison, we suppose flowers, but in the formal, or indeed in any style, this might be made an additional beauty. our gardens would be divided into the Classical The and the Romantic. very ordert indeed of their olive-groves had a pro-works of the Italian, Dutch, and French, the secThe first would embrace the tecting deity at Athens, and with such exactness ond those of the Chinese and English schools. did they set out the elms which supported their vines, that Virgil compares them to the rank and file of a Roman legion. But the " fair-clustering" narcissus and the "gold-gleaming" crocus were reckoned among the glories of Attica as much as the nightingale, and the olive, and the Addison amused himself by comparing the dif * Aristoph. Equit. 1324. § Hor. Od. i. xxviii. 3. Acharn. 637. Virg. Georg. iv. 134. Nec vero segetibus solum, et pratis, et vineis, et pomariis; tum pecudum pastu, apium examinibus, floarbustis res rusticæ lætæ sunt, sed etiam in hortis et rum omnium varietate."-De Sen., c. 15. ¶ Georg. iv. 124. ++ Catull. xi. ** Æn. ix. 435. 1007. *We are sorry that Mr. Loudon in his Encyclopædia, to which every writer on Gardening must feel infinitely obliged, should think it worth while to repeat some silly sneers of Horace Walpole on this subject; as if (what) indeed he himself seems to scout) a garden necessarily gardens. Meanwhile we answer to Daines Barrington's $$ We may perhaps return to the subject of ancient implied clipped hedges and trellis-work, or as if the new remark, that "he knew of no Greek or Latin word for world, fresh from the hand of the Creator, could be any-nosegay," that the ancients wore their flowers on their thing else than a garden. We might fix on many other head, not in their bosom; and there is surely mention passages to find fault with him on the same score. sutor ultra crepidam. He had better stick to his spade. hardly wonder at such an oversight in an author who, noNe enough about "origaro," and " coronæ." But we need What have sceptical hints and revolutionary opinions to ticing the passages on flowers in our early poets, makes do with gardening? What indeed can be more opposite no allusion to Shakspeare. To H. Walpole, who says to its pure and quiet spirit? To say the least of it, it is their gardens are never mentioned as affording shade ingratitude both to God and man in one whose daily oc- and shelter from the rage of the dog-star," we can now cupation is amongst the fairest works of creation, and only quote whose income is derived from the purest pursuit of an enlightened aristocracy. We trust we may see no more of this. Mr. Loudon may take our word for it, that the circulation and usefulness of his otherwise valuable works and are sadly marred by these flourishes. + Soph. Ed. Col. 705. Soph. Ed. Col. 682. "Spissa ramis laurea fervidos -"platanum potantibus umbram ;" and Hor. ii. xi. 13. The platanus was the newly intro duced garden-wonder of the Augustan age. |