TIIE SINGERS.

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Tis of the wave and not the rock ;

A Place in thy Memory. By Mrs. L. H. De 'Tis but the flapping of the sail,

Kroyft. New York : sold by all Booksellers. And not a rent made by the gale! In spite of rock and tempest roar,

The preface to this volume explains the mournIn spite of false lights on the shore,

ful reasons for its publication. In one brief month Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea !

the author, an interesting young lady, was bride, Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, widow, and blind, and with this almost unparalleled Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, sorrow came the necessity of providing for her Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,

support by her own labor.

With Christian resigAre all with thee-are all with thee!

nation and firm resolve, Mrs. De Kroyft set herThe next gem we select is one that all the read- self to the task, and this volume, the preface to ers of Longfellow will read with a ready assent of which is an exceedingly graceful and touching “the spirit and the understanding :"

composition, is the result. The reading of the volume will bring tears to the eyes; yet will they

scarcely be tears of sorrow for the author, but of God sent his Singers upon earth

joy, chastened by sympathy; joy that one so young With songs of sadness and of mirth,

and so afflicted can yet be glad and cheerful on her That they might touch the hearts of men, And bring them back to heaven again.

pilgrimages, and joy also that a lady of pleasing

exterior, alone and blind, can travel by night or The first, a youth, with soul of fire,

day, not safely only, but meeting everywhere the Held in his hand a golden lyre;

kindest and most delicate attention. Her book is Through graves he wandered, and by streams, full of the reminiscences, always well expressed, Playing the music of our dreams.

of individual kindness, and occasionally her full The second, with a bearded face,

heart overflows in such general acknowledgments Stood singing in the market-place,

as the following :And stirred with accents deep and loud The hearts of all the listening crowd.

N. B. A lady never writes a letter without a A gray, old man, the third and last,

postscript. I forgot to tell you that my journey Sang in cathedrals dim and vast,

home cost me nothing. Captains, railroad conWhile the majestic organ rolled

ductors, all, instead of presenting their bills, inContrition from its mouths of gold.

quired how they could best serve me, where I

would stop, &c. Ought not even the blind to be And those who heard the Singers three joyous and happy in a land so kind, so free, as Disputed which the best might be ;

ours? For still their music seemed to start Discordant echoes in each heart.

We bespeak for this volume, upon which an

amiable lady, as we judge from her delightful But the great Master said, “ I see

book and a brief interview, depends for her supNo best in kind, but in degree; I gave a various gift to cach,

port, a universal circulation.- Com. Adv. To charm, to strengthen, and to teach.

Mrs. Kirkland's “New Home, Who’ll Follow," “ These are the three great chords of might, has made its appearance in a fourth edition, just And he whose ear is tuned aright,

issued by C. S. Francis, of this city, illustrated Will hear no discord in the three,

with some extremely good designs by Darley. But the most perfect harmony."

There is nothing better of its kind in modern literWe close the book with one more specimen of its ature than this description of western manners. contemplative and soul-awakening beauty :- Whatever is peculiar in those manners, whether

of a comic or serious nature, is drawn with the

freest, boldest, and most rapid strokes, without Take them, O Death! and bear away elaboration and without caricature. It is exactly Whatever thou canst call thine own!

as if one were admitted to the author's confidence, Thine image, stamped upon this clay,

and heard her, in unreserved conversation, relating Doth give thee that, but that alone!

anecdotes of the people by whom she was surTake them, O Grave! and let them lie rounded during her sojourn in one of the new setFolded upon thy narrow shelves,

tlements of the west. This great charm of the As garments by the soul laid by,

book, which prevents it from tiring the reader And precious only to ourselves !

after repeated perusals, and makes its wit and Take them, O great Eternity!

humor appear always fresh, may have been owing Our little life is but a gust,

in part to the sense of freedom given by writing That bends the branches of thy tree,

anonymously, and without the expectation of And trails its blossoms in the dust!

being, what its author at last found she could not To say that the work is from the house of Tick- help, famous in the world of letters. Whatever NOR, Reed and Fields, of Boston, is to praise it may be the cause, is one of the most delightful to the limit of such phrases as we are masters of books of this century, and we hope will live to go They are the Aldenses of the poets.

through many more editions.-N. Y. Eve. Post.

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SUSPIRIA.

POETRY.-The Magnetic Telegraph, 112.-Bereavement; The Mountain Pass, 133.-The Morning Visit, by Dr. Holmes, 141.

SHORT ARTICLES.-A World Lost, 112.-Dr. Thomas Dick, 128.-New Books, 141.

TERMS.-The LIVING AGE is published every Satur- Agencies. We are desirous of making arrangements day, by E. LITTELL & Co., corner of Tremont and Brom-in all parts of North America, for increasing the circulafield sts., Boston; Price 12 cents a number, or six dollars tion of this work--and for doing this a liberal commission a year in advance. Remittances for any period will be will be allowed to gentlemen who will interest themselves thankfully received and promptly attended to. To in the business. And we will gladly correspond on this insure regularity in mailing the work, orders should be subject with any agent who will send us undoubted referaddressed to the office of publication, as above. Clubs, paying a year in advance, will be supplied as follows:

Or 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 to the utmost expansion of the present age. J. Q. ADAMS.

LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.—No. 297.--26 JANUARY, 1850.

From the Examiner, of 1 Dec. the German people for representative government, GERMAN UNITY.

and that of satisfying in some way or other their

craving for unity.
Double, double toil and trouble ;
Fire, burn ; and cauldron, bubble.

But the recognition of this latter necessity has

begotten another—that of uniting under the supremTue incongruous materials stirred by the weird

асу of one power. And hence the curious struggle sisters of Macbeth had scarcely less apparent affin- now going on among the three contending dynasties. ity than the antagonistic elements which are to

We say three, for, independent of the two great compose the broth of German unity.

powers, Prussia and Austria, the advantages of Political necessities, popular aspirations, dynas- whose now undisguised rivalry were so well pointed tic rivalries, personal impracticabilities, national out in a recent able article in the Daily News, a jealousies, material interests, religious prejudices, more modest pretender is now slipping almost unall are seething in the vasty cauldron; and with observed into the field. the witches one is inclined in mockery to sing,

Bavaria—which, when Austria was temporarily Black spirits and white,

crippled by its Italian and Hungarian difficulties, Red spirits and gray;

put forward its fidelity to that power as an excuse Mingle, mingle, mingle, You that mingle may.

for not consenting to any combination exclusive of

it-now that Austria has not only reëntered the Thoroughly to unravel the tangled web of Ger- lists but quietly divided with Prussia the temporary man politics would be a difficult task for a German ; Suzerainté of Germany, is endeavoring to inveigle for an Englishman, it is a hopeless one. But by Saxony, Wurtemberg, and some of the larger small taking some of its principal threads singly, we may states into a league, with the avowed object of perhaps succeed, if not for our readers at least for counterbalancing the influence of both Austria and ourselves, in freeing it somewhat from the appar- Prussia, but with the more real one of keeping the ently inextricable confusion into which it has at imperial chair open for its own small future chances. present fallen.

This budding pretension, however, is but a negDepressed as the public mind in Germany, worn ative one, and worthy of notice rather for its powout with its late violent emotions, undoubtedly is-ers of hindrance than for its chances of success. indeed in somewhat unworthy, if not unnatural, Merely keeping it in view, then, we will confine despondency at not having at once realized all its our attention to the two greater and more positive vague aspirations; and complete as, on the other rivalries, as entwining with them most of the hand, appears the triumph of military reaction, the threads we are trying to unravel. And, in using necessity of maintaining at least the semblance of the terms Prussia or Austria in this case, we of free institutions is recognized by the most abso- course speak merely of their dynasties and the lutely inclined of its governments.

governments identified with them, not of their And, what is a far more remarkable evidence of populations, whose interests or whose prejudices the power of the popular will, although the endeav- may occasionally be flattered by either party, but ors of the Frankfurt Parliament after unity not who are in reality being played for rather than only failed, but its whole proceedings have been with! covered with not altogether unmerited ridicule, yet Prussia has in its favor—its being a more among the many counter-projects now bandied purely German state—the lead it has long taken about among the governments, not one supposes in social and political progress—the influence so the possibility of a return to the loose confedera- skilfully acquired by the establishment of the tion of 1815,—this, too, with the desire for unity Zollverein-the superiority of its administration, much less equally felt among the German popu- -the excellence of its army—the comparatively lations, if not much less generally so. For the good state of its finances, the strong desire of the Prussian, the Austrian, and possibly even the populations of the smaller states to be incorporated Bavarian, has a certain amount of pride of country with it—and the preference for its supremacy purely as such, and may, with many great advan- entertained by those of the larger. The Protestages, lose somewhat on the score of individual tantisin of the north is for, the Catholicism of the pational dignity in becoming merely a German ; south against it. The material interests of Gerwhereas the Hanoverian, the Swabian, and the many are pretty evenly balanced for and against man of Baden has not much to lose, the third part it. If it is to carry with it those of the north, it of a Hessian and the fifth part of a Saxon every- must decide for a liberal tariff, and then it disthing to win. Here, then, we see recognized, affects the (supposed) manufacturing interests of even by the German governments themselves, two the south ; not only of Southern Bavaria, but of great necessities that of yielding to the desire of Baden, Wurtemberg, and Northern Bavaria, the

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CCXCVII.

LIVING AGE.

VOL. XXIV.

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political sympathies of which are in its favor. I minister, Schmerling, the interests of even the But of these, again, Baden is already militarily southern portions of the Zollverein must remain to incorporated with it by the occupation of Prussian a great degree opposed to it. troops; and with its approaching possession of Between the two powers external influence is Hohenzollern it will have secured a position in pretty equally divided. If Russian and French the rear of its most decided opponent. Against policy, big with the dread of a strong united Gerit are ranged all the petty provinciał rather than many, sides with Austria, jealousy of Austrian national jealousies of the separate populations, obligations, if not political subjection to Russia, and the active intrigues of the lesser courts, which, tells with Germany in favor of Prussia. And if if recognizing perhaps the necessity for the su- our government maintains a dignified impartiality premacy of one or other power, see that that of in the question, the bustling sympathies of its Prussia would involve their virtual mediatization, small Pumpernichel diplomatic agents are warmly while that of Austria, hampered as it must be by enlisted against every scheme which may endanger its internal difficulties, would leave them a longer the existence of their twaddlesome nothingness. spell of comparative independence.

While on the surface the intrigues and counterBut more against Prussia than any other cir- intrigues, projects and counter-projects, biddings cumstance is the character of the extraordinary and counter-biddings, of the German governments jumble of human contradictions who personifies are thus crossing each other in every direction, its ambition. In the mind of Frederick William beneath that surface the GERMAN PEOPLE, having ambitious desires and conscientious scruples, per- pretty clearly indicated what they mean to have, sonal courage and mutability of purpose, asceti- are quietly deciding how they mean to have it. cism and joviality, bigotry and free thought, the The lower classes, always more easily to be divine right of kings and the political rights of excited for a moinent in favor of violent subver. men, alike find place.

sive theories, than to be enlisted in the persevering With intelligence to read the necessities of his prosecution of practical reforms, have fallen into time, but without the wisdom to bow to them ; a state of indifference, out of which they will probwith the desire for extended sway, but without ably only be roused by another revolution. The the will to pay its price ; of too much weight to middle and the thinking classes, however—those be passed over in any combination, yet too un- who make the opinion of a country—is somewhat stable not to insure its failure ; he is at once the calmed down from their late exaggerated notions, despair of Prussia and of Germany. He would are gradually banding themselves into three great be Emperor of Germany ; but to be that he must political parties. be content to be a bona fide constitutional monarch ; The Democratic party, the opinions of which and stronger than his dynastic ambition is his love may be considered to be represented by the writof direct personal government. Now this, with ings of Vogt, is directing all its endeavors to Russian and Austrian countenance, he believes the immediate propagation of republican opinions that he yet may exercise in Prussia for a while. in the separate states, with the view of uniting Constitutional government has been accorded there, them, when so republicanized, in one great central it is true ; but for the moment it rests only upon democratic republic, and meanwhile to the impedhis royal word. What is the value of that word ing of every scheme tending to the immediate unity in a mind so constituted let others say.

of Germany without these conditions. Austria has in its favor-a far more decided The Constitutional or Small-German party, will, if not in its head, in its councils—its great which has its tactics directed by a committee military power, though this is more apparent than elected at Gotha, and presided over by Gagern, bas real—the religious prejudices of the south-as two immediate definite aims—the maintenance we have seen, the active sympathies of the Ger- of constitutional monarchy in the separate German

courts—possibly old associations, certainly States; and the close confederation of those states, the moral vis inerliæ of Germany, and all ils with a central general representation of both their illiberal tendencies ;—but its main strength lies governments and populations, under the hereditary in the difficulties of Prussia.

supremacy of the Prussian crown. And this to Against it is the small proportion borne by its the exclusion of even the German provinces of German population to its other heterogeneous ele- Austria, which it would leave to reëstablish, if it ments ; its decided inferiority in general civiliza- be possible, their ascendency over the other Austion to the rest of Germany; the great uncertainty trian possessions, and if not, to be received later attending its own fate, for with its non-German into the more strictly German League. provinces it is an empire in itself, without them The Austro-German, sometimes called the Greatbut a minor German state ;—the requirements of German party, the third and last of these political liberal Germany, only to be satisfied by the estab- sections, is opposed to any federation of Germany lishment of a central general representation of the exclusive of Austria ; but has as yet brought forpeople, which Austria refuses-indeed, as now ward no feasible scheme for the maintenance of constituted, cannot consent to ; and, to a greater the connection, which it respectfully leaves to the or less degree, the material interests of the whole Austrian government to propose for its support. of Germany, for, in spite of the bait of graduatly But this last is rather a negative party, being to be assimilated import duties thrown out by its l'chiefly composed of the opponents, secret or de

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clared, of both unity and free institutions. Of the into hostile collision with Prussia in such circumother two, the Small-German, or Constitutional, is stances, it must go to pieces in the shock! by far the most numerous, and for the moment we As for positive hostilities, then, even with Prince believe gaining ground. It must be recollected, Schwartzenberg at the head of Austrian affairs, we however, that in the event of commotion the demo- believe them to be out of the question. cratic must always command to a greater degree the Should the Prussian cabinet, in defiance of Aus support of the masses; and in the mean while it tria, persist in the convocation of the Erfurt Assempossesses a powerful ally in the King of Prussia, bly, (as yet the day has merely been named for the whose reign is one continued protest against con- elections,) it will in all probability be hurried into stitutional monarchy.

the formation of a league of the Northern States ; Thus we have separated a few of the threads, and in this case we very much doubt whether Ausbut the web is tangled as before.

tria will not be obliged passively to submit. But With such conflicting elements at work, such between the day of the elections for the Erfurt numberless considerations to be taken into account, Assembly and its convocation is—the King of such chances to be allowed for, it would be bold Prussia. indeed to prognosticate the result. As for the governments, nothing practicable or permanent is

TURKEY. to be hoped from them; and the experience of the

Constantinople, Nov. 25. last eighteen months would not lead us to expect It is the general opinion here in well-informed anything much more so from the deliberations of circles that the difference existing between Turthe Germans themselves. Of the views, however, key and Russia is as far removed from a settleentertained by the three parties we have tried to ment' as ever. The present object of the Emperor define, those of the Small-German are perhaps the Nicholas seems to be solely to gain time, to keep most practical, and certainly the most deserving of matters in suspense till the return of spring, when English sympathy. By the consolidation of North- he will throw off the mask, and put his long mediern and Western Germany into a compact constitu- tated plans for the invasion of Turkey into executional bond, represented in the European system by tion. Many things lead one to this conclusion. Prussia, the balance of European power would | The instructions received from his government by scarcely be affected, the relative position of Prussia M. de Titoff for demanding the expulsion of the and Austria being rather defined than altered. Polish refugees were so vague and so open to difEngland, we are inclined to think, would find a ferent interpretations, that it was as difficult for natural and useful ally in Central Europe, against the Russian envoy to communicate them clearly to absolute aggression on the one hand, and revolution the Porte as it was for the Porte to give a precise ary violence on the other ; and better guarantees answer. This indistinctness was evidently intenwould thus exist for peace, than in the continuance tional on the part of the czar, and its object was of of a confusion provocative of both.

course understood by his representative at ConSince the above was in type very important stantinople. intelligence has arrived from Germany. If that The Porte could not understand, nor would M. intelligence is to be relied upon, the Austrian cab- de Titoff explain to them, whether the Emperor inet has forwarded to Berlin a diplomatic note, Nicholas demanded the expulsion of all Polish protesting against the pursuance of the Prussian refugees resident in Turkey since 1830, or whether scheme for the formation of a separate league of the he asked for the expulsion of those who sought an German States; and the cabinet of Berlin is de- asylum here after the late insurrection in Hungary. liberating upon the formal answer to be sent to that The Turkish government admit that the treaty of note, having already virtually responded, however, Kutchuk Kaimardji gives Russia a right to demand by fixing the day for the elections for the Erfurt the expulsion of the last named refugees, and to Assembly.

that demand they are therefore willing to consent; We cannot but look upon this move on the part but the Porte refuses to expel those Poles who took of the Austrian government rather as an attempt to up their residence in Turkey previous to the late intimidate Prussia, than as indicating a serious Hungarian insurrection. The Turkish ministers, intention to provoke a decisive struggle.

in their note to M. de Titoff, said that from the An appeal to arms on the part of the Austrian vagueness of the emperor's demand it was imposcabinet would rally the whole of the population of sible to understand the precise meaning, but that the rest of Germany to a man to the cause of they had given an answer according to what they Prussia, and in all probability seriously 'disaffect supposed might be its purport. M. de Titoff the population of its own German provinces. As affected to be equally perplexed with the Turkish for Hungary, by the as impolitic as barbarous atroc- government, and said he had no other alternative ities of Haynau, it has been disaffected for all than to transmit their reply to St. Petersburg and time; and even under the comparatively milder rule wait for further instructions. Diplomatic relations of Radetzki, it has been found advisable in Lombardy of course continue suspended between Turkey and to withdraw the civil administration from Milan to the allied imperial powers. No communication the protection of the fortress of Verona. An army can be received from Russia in answer to the note of 500,000 men, and martial law, barely suffice to of the Porte till the middle of the next month. hold the Austrian empire together now. Brought 'Nor will it then be difficult to find fresh obstacles