WRITTEN EXPRESSLY FOR MRS. C. E. HORN.
BY GEORGE P. MORRIS.
On the banks of that sweet river
Where the water-lilies grow,
Breathed the fairest flower that ever
Bloomed and faded years ago.
How we met and loved and parted,
None on earth can ever know,
Nor how pure and gentle-hearted
Beamed the mourned one years ago.
Like the stream with lilies laden,
Will life's future current flow,
Till in heaven I meet the maiden
Fondly cherished years ago.
Hearts that truly love forget not—
They're the same in weal or wo—
And that star of memory set not
In the grave of years ago.
TO MY WIFE.
BY ROBT. T. CONRAD.
When that chaste blush suffused thy cheek and brow,
Whitened anon with a pale maiden fear,
Thou shrank'st in uttering what I burned to hear:
And yet I loved thee, love, not then as now.
Years and their snows have come and gone, and graves,
Of thine and mine, have opened; and the sod
Is thick above the wealth we gave to God:
Over my brightest hopes the nightshade waves;
And wrongs and wrestlings with a wretched world,
Gray hairs, and saddened hours, and thoughts of gloom,
Troop upon troop, dark-browed, have been my doom;
And to the earth each hope-reared turret hurled!
And yet that blush, suffusing cheek and brow,
'T was dear, how dear! then—but 't is dearer now.
ISOLA.
BY JOHN TOMLIN.
I dreamed that thou a lily wast,
Within a lowly valley blest;
A wingéd cherub flying past,
Plucked thee, and placed within his breast,
And there by guardian angel nurst,
Thou took'st a shape of human grace,
Until, a lowly flower at first,
Thou grew'st the first of mortal race.
Alas! if I who still was blessed
When thou wast but a lowly flower—
To pluck thy image from my breast,
Though thus thou will'st it, have no power;
Thou still to me, though lifted high
In hope and heart above the glen,
Where first thou won my idol eye,
Must spell my worship just as then.
CONTEMPLATION.
BY JANE R. DANA.
[ILLUSTRATING AN ENGRAVING.]
Strange! that a tear-drop should o'erfill the eye
Of loveliness that looks on all it loves!
Yet are there moods, when the soul's wells are high
With crystal waters which a strange fear moves,
To doubt if what it joys in, be a joy;
Fear not, thou fond and gentle one! though life
Be but a checkered scene, where wrong and right,
Struggle forever; there is not a strife
Can reach thy bower: the future, purely bright,
Is round about thee, like a summer sky.
And there are those, brave hearts and true, to guard
Thy walks forever; and to make each hour
Of coming time, by fond and faithful ward,
Happy as happiest known within thy bridal bower.
CONTEMPLATION
J. W. Wright J. Addison
Engraved expressly for Graham's Magazine
REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.
Practical Physiology: for the use of Schools and Families.
By Edward Jarvis. Philadelphia: Thomas, Cowperthwaite & Co.
The popular and practical study of physiology is too much neglected in this country, and we rejoice to see this effort to commend its important truths to public attention. Perhaps no people existing are in greater need of a heedful regard to the lessons of this work than the over-fed, over-worked, and over-anxious people of the United States. The pursuit of wealth, honor, and power, the absorbing and health-sacrificing devotion to advancement, impels our people from the moment they first enter the school-house until they are snatched from the scene of their over-wrought strugglings. At the school, the child is treated as a man. The fresh air, the blue sky, the bright and happy hilarity of boyhood are too often proscribed indulgences. And this is called, not murder, but education. Those who survive it, having been taught that an American youth should never be satisfied with the present, that excelsior should be the only motto, and that all pleasure should be denied, health sacrificed, and time unremittingly devoted to win the eminence struggled for, rush into the business of life before their time. They win wrinkles before they attain manhood, and graves before the wild ambition thus kindled and inflamed can receive its first chaplet. All our literature teaches this unquiet and discontented spirit as to the present, and this rash and impatient determination to achieve immediate success. Now, this is a peculiarity of our country, the land of all others which should cherish a disposition to be gratefully contented with the unequaled blessings with which it is endowed. There is no necessity for this forcing system to expand properly and in due time the real energies of our people. The truly great in every walk of science and literature have been generally patient students, and have lived, in tranquillity, to a good old age. The impatient ambition which scourges our people on to the farthest stretch of their energies in any adopted pursuit, is inconsistent with the permanent and healthful character of a race. It made Rome great; but it left her people, as a race, so physically exhausted that the weakest tribes of the North dictated to her the terms of her degradation. The physical character of a nation moulds its intellectual nature, and shapes its destinies. The study of health is therefore the great study, and it will be found in all things accordant with those loftier truths taught by the Great Physician. Strangers of intelligence often remark that, with unbounded means of happiness, affluence for every reasonable want, security against every danger, and the high prerogatives of conscious and elevated freedom, we are still the most unhappy of the sons of Adam. They assert that we grow old before our time; are restless, excitable, and ever worrying for an attainment, in reference to some ruling passion beyond our reach. Comfort, health, calmness, and content, are sacrificed to grasp at something more. Our cheeks grow pale, our brows wrinkled, our hearts clouded, from a settled, taught, established habit of discontent with any position that is not the highest. There is much of truth in all this, as every one who treads our crowded marts and finds each man, however prosperous, cankered with the thought that he is not prosperous enough, will admit. All this constitutes American energy; all this renders our country great in the world's eye; but does it constitute happiness? It may be gravely doubted. The study of health is essentially the study of happiness. Life is with our people, as a general rule, a thing of little value. Those who think, in a better spirit, and remember its duties and its ends, will come to a different conclusion, and regard the conservation of the even and steady physical energies of the body as superior in importance to any result to be gained by the forced and unnatural efforts from which more is attained than nature sanctions.
A work like the one before us is calculated to be of great service, and especially so if it be placed in the hands of children. It claims, and certainly deserves, no praise as an original work of science; but it has this merit—no ordinary one—that it communicates the most important truths of physiology in language which any intelligent child can understand; and does so in a manner that every moralist will commend.
The Fruits and Fruit Trees of America. By A. J. Downing.
Published by Wiley & Putnam, New York.
This work has been known to every scientific horticulturist and pomologist for many years. Its author has devoted a vigorous and enlightened intellect to this purest and noblest of pursuits; and has won a reputation of which this work will form the coronal wreath. The past editions of this work, and they have been many, have elicited the strongest praise here and abroad. The classic poets of every land have valued the praise which rewarded their dedication of the first triumphs of the muse to subjects connected with the cultivation of the soil, to the arts that rendered the breast of our common mother lovely, and wedded the labors which sustain life with the arts that render it happy. The work before us has an established reputation. It is written by one whose labors upon this subject are known as well abroad as here, and who has won the applause of all who regard pomology as worthy of an earnest support. He is the Prose Virgil of our country. This work contains eighty-four colored engravings of apples, pears, cherries, apricots, peaches, plums, raspberries, and strawberries. These plates have been, at great expense, executed at Paris, and are worthy of all commendation. Among those that seem to us worthy of especial commendation are, in the plums, the Columbia, the Coe's Golden Drop, and the Jefferson; among the pears, the Bartlett, the Bosc, the Flemish Beauty, the Frederick of Wurtemburg; among the apples, the Gravenstein, the Yellow Belle Fleur, the Dutch Mignonne, Ladies' Sweet, and Red Astrochan. All the plates are, however, good; and the work is, to all who love nature, invaluable.
The leading horticultural societies of this country have recently endeavored to counteract the confusion which has heretofore prevailed in pomological nomenclature, by adopting this work as the American standard; and we learn that it has been so recognized and adopted, in reference to this country, in London. Horticulture is greatly indebted for the advances it has made within the last few years to the author of this work. He is well known to all those who cherish the science of the soil, as the popular editor of the Horticulturist, and as one of the ablest, most scientific and enthusiastic horticulturists and pomologists in the country.
Tristram Shandy.—Original or not, Sterne gave to the literature of this language that which must last and should last. This edition, published by Grigg, Elliott & Co., is cheap, and should be cheap, for it is got up for universal distribution. It is well illustrated by Darley.
The Medical Companion, or Family Physician, Treating of
the Diseases of the United States, &c. By James Ewell.
This is a work long and well known to the nation; and the edition before us, being the tenth, is an enlargement and improvement on those which have heretofore appeared. Dr. Chapman has pronounced it to be indisputably the most useful popular treatise on medicine with which he is acquainted; and a large number of the most celebrated professors of the country, as Caldwell, Shippen, Barton, Woodhouse, and others, have very emphatically commended it to the confidence of the public. The edition before us is a great improvement upon those which have preceded it, having, in addition to corrections resulting from the advance of the science, a treatise on Hydropathy, Homœpathy, and the Chronothermal system. It is published by Thomas, Cowperthwaite & Co., Philadelphia, and does, in general appearance and character, great credit to those enterprizing publishers.
General Scott and his Staff. Comprising Memoirs of Generals Twiggs, Smith, Quitman, Shields, Pillow, Lane, Cadwallader, Patterson, and Pierce, and Colonels Childs, Riley, Harney and Butler, and Other Distinguished Officers Attached to General Scott's Army; Together with Notices of Gen. Kearney, Col. Doniphan, Fremont, and Others. Philadelphia: Grigg, Elliot & Co.
This work embodies the floating intelligence which has reached us in relation to the present Mexican war, and is illustrated by wood-cuts worthy of the text. We can say no more. This book is not inferior to others which the curiosity of the community has invited, and will doubtless sell, as they have sold, well.
General Taylor and his Staff. Comprising Memoirs of Generals Taylor, Worth, Wool, and Butler, Cols. May, Cross, Clay, Hardin, Yell, Hays, and Other Distinguished Officers Attached to Gen. Taylor's Army. Philadelphia: Grigg, Elliot & Co.
This volume seems to be as picturesque and as veritable as other works of a like character, and is as well written and as well printed as the best. Perhaps this is not saying much; but can we say more?
Lectures on the Physical Phenomena of Living Beings. By Carlo Matteuci, Professor in the University of Pisa. Translated by Jonathan Pereira, M. D., F. R. S. Phila.: Lea & Blanchard.
This work has passed through two editions in Italy, and one in France. A hasty examination of the volume has excited a degree of curiosity and admiration which a more careful perusal than we can now give it will enable us hereafter to do justice to.
Three Hours, or the Vigil of Love, and Other Poems. By Mrs. S. J. Hale. Carey & Hart, Philadelphia.
This beautiful volume is dedicated to the readers of the Lady's Book, (why not to its amiable proprietor?) of which she has long been an able and successful editor. We have not found time to examine the volume page by page—that is a happiness reserved to us, and we feel, in so much, the richer in our capital of future enjoyment; but we know that Mrs. Hale is one of the purest, most powerful, truthful, and tasteful of our writers; and we are certain that the volume before us is worthy of more than praise.
Evangeline.
—This beautiful poem has been beautifully complimented by an artist-poet whose contributions enrich
our pages, Thomas Buchanan Read, or, as he has been aptly characterized by a contemporary, "the Doric Read." The painting is worthy the subject, the artist, and the poet; and is one of the richest productions of American art.
A Campaign in Mexico, or a Glimpse at Life in Camp. By one who has seen the Elephant. Phila.: Grigg & Elliott.
This work, though, perhaps, beneath the dignity of a formal review, is still good reading, and we have gone through its pages with pleasure.
Principles of Physics and Meteorology. By J. Müller. First American edition, Revised and Illustrated with 538 engravings on wood, and two colored plates. Phila.: Lea & Blanchard.
This treatise on Physics, by Professor Müller, is the first of a series of works, on the different branches of science, now passing through the press of Bailliére, in London. The American editor has made many additions and improvements; and the work, as presented to the public, is worthy of all praise and all patronage.
The Primary School Reader—Parts First, Second, and Third. By Wm. D. Swan, Principal of the Mayhew Grammar School, Boston. Philadelphia: Thomas, Cowperthwaite & Co.
These volumes have been prepared to supply the want of a system for teaching reading in Primary Schools. The task has been well performed, and the series will be found of value both to the teacher and the taught.
Greene's Analysis. A Treatise on the Structure of the English Language, or the Analysis and Classification of Sentences and their Component Parts. With Illustrations and Exercises adapted to the use of schools. By Samuel J. Greene, A. M., Principal of the Phillip's Grammar School, Boston. Published by Thomas, Cowperthwaite & Co.
The title of this volume sufficiently indicates its purposes and character. It is a work calculated to contribute, in a considerable degree, to improve the methods of teaching the English language.
The Grammar School Reader, consisting of Selections in Prose and Poetry, with Exercises in Articulation. By William D. Swan. Thomas, Cowperthwaite & Co., Philadelphia.
This work is well designed to correct prevailing vices of articulation. There is much room for reform in this branch of education, even our best public speakers being guilty of provincial errors, and faulty enunciation. The rules are lucidly explained, and the selections made with taste.
Swan's District School Reader. Same Publishers.
This is a more advanced and more valuable branch of the same series of class books, and is designed for the highest classes of public and private schools.
The Home Journal.—This admirable periodical maintains and advances its enviable reputation. With Morris & Willis as its editors, it needs no endorsement from its contemporaries. It must be, with such genius, tact and experience, all that a weekly periodical can be. We invite attention to the advertisement upon the cover of this number of the Magazine. Those who know the Journal will complain that the advertisers have not told half its merits.