BABY LILY.
She was a purer, fairer bud
Than summer's sun uncloses;
Spring brought her with the violets;
She left us with the roses.
A little pillow, where the print
Of her small head yet lingers;
A silver coral, tarnished o'er
With clasp of tiny fingers;
A mound, the rose bush at the head
Were all too long to measure;—
And this is all that Heaven has left
Of her, our little treasure.
O human pearl, so pale and pure!
0 little lily blossom!
The angels lent a little space
To grace a mortal bosom.
The azure heavens bend above,
Unpitying and cruel;
A casket all too cold and vast
To shrine our little jewel.
We cannot picture her to mind,
An angel, crowned and holy;
A fair and helpless human thing,
Our hearts still keep her solely.
Sleep, baby, calmly in thy nest
Amid the fading flowers,
The while we strive to learn the words:
'God's will be done—not ours!'
HISTORY OF THE ROMANS UNDER THE EMPIRE. By Charles Merivale, B. D., late Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. From the fourth London Edition. With a copious Analytical Index. Vol. IV. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 443 & 445 Broadway.
The character of this work is so high and so widely known that it is only necessary to remind or inform our readers of the appearance of the fourth volume to awaken their interest. Merivale succeeds in making his subject intensely interesting. Beginning with the anticipations of a constitutional monarchy, the indifference of the citizens on political questions, the legislative measures to encourage marriage, the efforts of Augustus to revive the national sentiment, this volume carries us quite through his important reign, with all its great events and domestic dramas. We have descriptions of the nature of life in Rome, places of recreation, exhibitions of wild beasts and gladiators, the schools of the rhetoricians, as well as studies of the authors, Livy, Virgil, Horace, Propertius, Tibullus, Ovid, each reflecting in his own way the sentiments of the Augustan age. It is a complex and important period of history, and nobly treated by our author. Brutus and Cassius evoke no false sympathy. The character of Augustus is closely analyzed, and the sketch of the Roman dominion, in its political, social, and intellectual outlines, is able and interesting.
RECEIVED.
Christian Examiner. No. CCXLIV. July, 1864. Contents: Character and Historical Position of Theodore Parker; The New King of Greece; Robert Browning; Marsh's 'Man and Nature;' Robert Lowell; Renan's Critical Essays; Edward Livingston; A Word on the War; Review of Current Literature.
North American Review. No. CCIV. July, 1864. Contents: A Physical Theory of the Universe; The Property and Rights of Married Women; The Philosophy of Space and Time; The Constitution, and it Defects; The Navy of the United States; Our Soldiers; A National Currency; The Rebellion: its Causes and Consequences; Critical Notices.
The Universalist Quarterly. July, 1864. Contents: When are the Dead Raised? The Contraband; Faith and Works; Charles the Bold; In Memoriam: a Tribute to T. Starr King; General Review; Recent Publications; Synopsis of the Quarterlies.
Boston Review. No. XXII. July, 1864. Contents: The Relations of Sin and Atonement to Infant Salvation; The Publication of Free Descriptions of Vice; The Rabbis, the Mischna, and the Talmuds, and their Aid in New Testament Studies; Huxley on Man's Place in Nature; Teachings of the Rebellion; Pascal; Short Sermons; Literary Notices; The Round Table.