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after wound opens , and still life lingers and must linger , —for it takes a long time to . die of a broken heart —then we learn at last to thank God for the rhalm that allays its torture , for the slow years that scar over its rankling sore . Little sweetnesses spring no in our path ; strong , necessary , wholesome duties , come like servants to uphold bur staggering feet , and we sird ' our draperies in such manner that they may fall over and hide the grievous wound ; marching on so cheerily and well that some closest friends would hardl y believe it was there at all , until we lie before them in our death-clothes . And it is no matter then ! ¦¦ ¦ .. ¦; . Or this : — " Women , and especially young women , either believe falsely or judge harshly of men , in one thing . You young loving creature , who dream your lover by night and by day—you fancy of that he does the same of v 6 u ? He does not—he cannot ; nor is it rieht he should . One hour , perhaps , your presence has captivated him , subdued him even to weakness ; the next he will be in the world , working his way as a man among men , forgetting for the time being your very existence . Possibly if you saw him , his outer self , hard and stern , —so different to the self you know—would strike you with pain . Or else , his inner and diviner self , higher than you can dream of , would turn coldly from ybiir insignificant love . Yet all this must be : you have no-tight to murmur . You cannot rule a man ' s soul—no woman ever did—except bf holding unworthy sway over unworthy passons . Be content if you lie in his heart , as that heart lies xn his bosom—deep and calm , its beatings Unseen , 'uncounted , oftentimes unfelt ; but still giving life to his whole being . " Sometimes an image arrests us , as when she says of the mad Rachel , " Her eye grew dull , her face blank and immovable , like a landscape from which the sun has faded away ) , leaving- it all grey and dark" The characters are drawn with unusual power , when they are not total mistakes ; like TJlverston , Ansted , and Lydnnell . Ninian is admirably presented and" kept up . Rachel is a passionate nature drawn with a grand pencil . Hope is loveable ; Tinie , exquisite . But the three men named just now are creatures of the Circulating XiDrary , not of Life . Some abatement of our praise must
also be made with respect to those scenes of town life into which the authoress has very unnecessarily introduced us—they have not the slightest mark of reality , and onl y . . provoke incredulity . A graver objection might be addressed to her for the tone in which she speaks of literary men ; there is a foppery in it unworthy of her- moreover , she conveys a very false idea of men of letters : an idea current enough in flashy novels , it is true ; but which she ought not to have adopted . But a truce to objection ! The book is touched with beauty , with pathos , and belongs to the class of novels which beat down criticism by irresistible
merits . It will be a welcome guest at many a fireside this winter , none the less welcome because the reader ' s voice will ever and anon become tremulous and have to pause while the tears are gulped down , and the reader suddenly discovers—that the fire wants poking 1 or that he has left something upstairs !
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AGASSIZ ON PHYSIOLOGY . Outlines of Comparative Phsyiology touching the Structure and Development of the Races of Animals Living and Extinct , for the use of Schools and Colleges . By Louia Agassiz and A . A . Gould . Edited from the revised edition by Tnomaa Wright , M . D . . H . G . Bonn . Before attempting to characterize the work of Agassiz and Gould , let us specify the considerable advantages which it has gained from passing under the editorship of Dr . Wright . The American edition we have not seen ; but if it be like the Comparative Embryology published by M . Agassiz , the
English public has cause to congratulate itself upon Mr . Bonn ' s having placed it among the volumes of his Scientific Library : for now in lieu of an illprinted pamphl et , with disgraceful woodcuts , the work appears as a well printed , well illustrated volume , fit for the Library and adapted for college use . Moreover , the illustrations are in this edition increased from i 7 p to 390 , and the new cuts are by far the best . Additions still more important have been made to the matter , Dr . Wright having skilfully inserted whole sections from Wagner and Muller , and furnished several from his own stores .
A good index—which is at the same" time something of a dictionary of technical terms—is among the many merits of this edition ; and altogether it is a volume worth four times the price , according to the ordinary tariff of such works . As a popular survey df the wonders of Organic Life , this work may rank with the Zoologie of Milne Edwards . It conveys , in clear , brief language , a
sufficientactsount of the structures animals , and masses its facts with considerable fekill . It treats of the General Principles of Organized Bodies—the Organs and Functions of Animal Life —Intelligence and Instinct—Motion—Nutrition- ^—Circulation ^ Bespiratioh- ^ Secretion—Embryology — -PeculiarModes of Reorbduction—Metamorphoses of Animals—Geographical distribution of Animals —and Geological Succession of Animals . No work that is not an inaccurate catchpenny affair can embrace such a field of inquiry as that we have just indicated , and not be well worthy the attention of all lovers of Nature : the present is an excellent work / and may heartily be commended . But the Critic is
. «« Guide , philosopher , and friend , " he guides you in the purchase of your books , philosophizes with you on what you have bought , and interchanges with you friendly ideas , telling you often what you could as well or better have told him , telling you sometimes what you are glad to know . We have already said enough for guidance in the matter of purchase ^ and now beg to hold some philosophic conversation on the work itself .
Philosophy , after all , has little to discuss here . The authors have thought more of massing their facts , than of drawing conclusions ; and sometimes when they do quit the safe region of recorded observation for the perilous but delightful one of speculation , they are ill at ease , and flounder about as if in a foreign element . The very arrangement of the work—though the ordinary one- ^ -we regard
as unphilosophic , and one which will prevent the student from drawing certain conclusions which lie to hand in a well arranged series of facts . We have more than once insisted on the importance of the processional Method—rising gradually from the simpler to the more complex forms of Life-r-so that the student should follow as it were the course of Nature herself . The canon is : Always descend from the General to the Particular , from the
Homogeneous to the Heterogeneous . But Physiologists —and our Authors following them—disregard this canon , and begin sometimes wijth the osseous system , sometimes with the nervous ^ system ; whereas it seems obvious to us that Animal Life , being the flower , so to speak , of which Vegetative Life is the root—our right course is to ascend from the root to the flower . It may be answered , indeed , that , inasmuch as Embryology reveals to us the fact of the organs being always developed in the order of their organic importance , the nervous system taking precedence of the organs of Vegetative Life , which are later in appearing , we ought to follow this order , and in studying the animal begin with the nervous centres . If animals stood isolated in
Nature , that would be the true Method ; but they stytnd in immediate and intimate connection with Plants—animal life is a superposition on vegetable life , a new step in the ascent of being , a new development of organic force . Therefore , we must not in philosophy sever the animal from the vegetable kingdom , and therefore we must begin our survey with the organs of vegetative life . Besides , although it is facile to begin the study of the higher animals with the nervous centres , what are we to do with the large class of acrita , or animals in whom no nervous threads ( much less centres )
are discoverable ? The two fundamental functions of all organized beings are Nutrition and Reproduction . With them our study should commence . Gathering round them we shall find the subordinate functions of Circulation , Respiration , and Secretion . When the circle of Organic Life has thus been drawn , we may commence with the higher circle of Ani mal Life : beginning with Motion as the simple result of muscular contractility ; and tracing the gradual development of that contractility into irritability—the ascent from which to sensation , and thence to thought , will compass the whole phenomena of Animal Life .
We said but now that Animal Life was only a new step in the ascent of being , rising from Vegetative Life , not ^ generically isolated . A philosophic arrangement of physiological treatises should make this apparent . M . Agassiz is of another , opinion , if we are to trust to a passage in this work . He makes ; and truly so , motion to be one great characteristic of an animal . But he adds ; . — " Tho movements of animals are effected by means of muscles , which are organs designed expressly for this purpose . The motions of anjmala and plants depend therefore (?) upon causes essentially different . The expansion and closing of the leaves and blossoms of plants , which are their most obvious motions , are due to the influence of light , heat , moisture , and other external agents ; but all motions peculiar to
present ! They nevertheless exhibit motion , and are the starting points of all higher animals ; nay , even in their class the higher types of echinodermata have nerves and ganglia ! The subject is one to be investigated . Is there not light thrown on it by the microscopic revelations of the structure of muscles ? viz ., that the muscles of Organic Life are composed of simple unstreaked fibres , forming bundles of parallel cylinders , while the muscles of Animal Life are cross-strdaked fibres . Do we not , moreover , gain a clue in observing the almost insensible gradations of muscular tissue passing into other forms of contractile fibrous tissue ? But—as we said—tfie subject needs thorough investigation . " '
animals are produced by ah agency residing within themselves , namely , the contractility of muscular fibres . " The contractility of muscular fibres appears to us only an intenser form of the same thing which we notice in the contractility of plants—especially in the Sensitive Plant and the Fly Trap . The error of supposing that the contractility of muscularj ^ re is essentially distinct from that of plants , and the proof that it is only an intenser form of the same force is seen , we think , in the fact that in many of the earlier types of Animal Life— - ( the Plant-Animal , or Zoophyte)—muscular fibre is not
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' BOOKS ON OUR TABLE . Events to be remembered in the History of England . Compiled from the best Ancient and Modern Authorities . By Charles Selby . - Darton and Co . ftlr . Selby , the comedian , here makes his appearance in a new character : let us hasten to add " a successful appearance . " His book is entertainingly instructive . The idea of telling the story of English History , in its more memorable phases , by extracts from Chroniclers , Poets , and Historians , has already been realized by Charles Knight in his Half Hours of English History . But Mr . Selby pursues an independent plan , and has brought together a variety of interesting passages , adding to them notes which display reading in out of the way quarters . But why in speaking of Cromwell is Carlyle ' s edition of the Speeches never alluded to , never used ? In the con « eluding chapter on contemporary Literature there is a strange jumble of names , the juxtaposition of which will raise a smile in those who are at all acquainted with the relative significance of these names .
New Poland ; or , the Infant Hero . W . H . Dalton . This little tale ( which is but a sketch , but which its authoress might easily have more fully developed ) is founded , as its title indicates , on the melancholy and too long-deplored events of the wrongs of Poland and the tyranny of Russia . It is imbued with that love of freedom and hatred of oppression which are so instinctive in woman ' s sympathies . But though the authoress is eloquent in denouncing the cruel despotism Vof the mighty autocrat of the North , we are glad to see she does not overlook the fact , too often forgotten by those who deplore the fate of Poland , that Poland herself is not altogether guiltless in her suffering and degradation ; dissen
for it was her own internal misgovernment , - sions , and oppressions , which rendered her an easy prey to foreign conquest and enslavement . Serfdom was the plague spot , the festering sore of his own native land . Had the nobles , the priests , and the Crown regulated their royal and seignorial privileges , so as to have secured to their vassals the fruits of their toil—had they offered to the exiled of Jerusalem a home and a country , instead of hunting th « m from city to city like beasts of prey , and tearing from them their hard-earned wealth under pretexts the most diabolical and absurd—the barbarous cohorts of Russia would have been poured into Poland in vain : — lt And the fierce Autocrat had ne ' er unfurled O ' er Warsaw ' s walls the flag of victory . "
The language is expressive and elegant , and the descriptions characteristic ; but the incidents are too few . We consider the only fault of the work to be its brevity . It is very appropriately and gracefully dedicated to Lord Dudley Stuart .
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Solwan ; or , the Waters of Comfort , By Ibn Zafor . Translated by Mioliele Amari . In two volumes . Uontloy . Recollections of a Literary LiJ ' o . By Mary Ruaeell Mitford . In three volumou . Buntloy . LiJ ' o and Trials of Dr . Cheevcr . Iloutlry .
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Jan . & 1852 ] ¦ » / ' 0 $ p ) & * * P ^ . ; ' , \ 17
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English ! QuAnnuLs . —We might safely conclude that a nation would not be likely tamely to submit to tyranny and wrong , which had made " quarrol "
out , of " querela . " Tho Latin word means properly " complaint / . ' and wo hay © in " querulous" this its proper meaning coming distinctly out . Not so , however , in " quarrel } " for the English having been wont , not merely to complain , but to sot vigorously about righting and redrosoing themselves , their griela being also grievances , out of this word which might have given them only " querulous " and " querulousness , they have gotten " quarrel" as well . —Trenoh on the Study of Words .
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Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 3, 1852, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1916/page/17/
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