portion of the transaction, was the part taken by France, in this matter. Having just expelled her own king, and established a republican form of government, she has, with most remarkable inconsistency, crushed the rising prospects of Roman Republicanism, and re-established the Pope on his seat in the Vatican, by means of violence, contrary to the wishes of his own subjects, and against their utmost endeavors to the contrary. The holder of the keys of St. Peter, who once exerted illimitable influence and authority over all the nations of Christendom-before whose feet, kings and princes once prostrated themselves in abject humiliation and submission, and whose slightest nod made crowned heads tremble,-is now upheld in his temporal sovereignty, among his own subjects, by the bayonets of a foreign nation. Those bayonets once removed, and the civil authority of the Papacy, that most remarkable and anomalous feature of the political history of modern Europe, cease to exist. ALFRED THE GREAT. The Independent has a sketch of a lecture delivered recently in England, on the character of this great man. The following statement attests his piety: "The cruelty of the Danes ultimately defeated itself; and in a decisive battle the Danish standard-termed the Raven-was taken, and the Danish army totally defeated. Their general--Gothran, was humanely treated by the victorious Alfied, who instructed him; and eventually Gothran was baptized by the name of Athelstan, Alfred standing as godfather to his former enemy. Alfred having found rest and peace, he induced Athelstan to assist him in remodling the political Constitution of England. The first law that Alfred passed, was for the better observance of the Sabbath day. He also passed an act for the better and more permanent maintenance of the clergy.— Another of his acts was for the purpose of I do not wish my remarks upon this sub-rendering even-handed justice to Saxon and Dane. He decreed that they were to be ject to be construed into an attack upon the Catholic religion, or a defense of the Protes-treated, in all respects, as members of one common nation. Assare, a historian, tells tant. Upon the principles of either, I have nothing to say. I have attempted to portray of Alfred, that he was occupied day and the rise and decline of a most important and night composing books: that he divided his singular political element, and trust that I time into three parts, of eight hours each; have succeeded in some small degree. It the first, to study and prayer; the second, to business; and the last, to refreshment and would be tedious and useless to enumerate all the authorities from whom I have drawn the facts which I have thus endeavored to set forth as succinctly as the necessary connection would admit; but I must acknowledge my indebtedness to D'Aubigne's "History of the Reformation," and Robertson's "History of Charles V.," for the account I have given of the Reformation in Germany AMONG the singular customs of the Island of Celebes, women are eligible to the highest offices, so that at present, four out of the six of the hereditary rajahs, are females. Among the Buges, some men dress like women, and some women like men, devoting themselves to the occupation of their adopted sex. sleep. He was the inventor of the horn lan- inconsistent with Christianity; and it was destruction had fallen wide-spread over the impossible, in fact, for a man to be an en-earth-when all save the faithful few who lightened Christian, and yet put his fellow man in bonds. The lecturer heartily wished that their brethren on the other side of the water would mark well this fine, this noble example of a truly Christian king, and would imitate him in so philanthropic and righteous a determination. A corrupt judge, under Alfred, invariably suffered death." LIGHT. BY MRS. B. G. BUSHNELL, Over the newly created earth, darkness hung like a sable pall. Obscurity veiled the sun, which rolled over each hemisphere its cloudless d:apery, and gave all things the appearance of one chaotic mass. But when that mandate, high and holy, proceeded from the Creator of the universe, "Let there be light!" darkness fled away, the obscurity of the sun disappeared, and now emitting its rays of dazzling brightness, paints with beauties unseen before, the azure firmament, and sheds unfading splendor upon those wandering orbs. The countless host of brilliant stars, at the same mandate, peered from their lofty habitation, spangling the blue vault, "like gems of golden beauty."With what brilliancy did the rays of light first fall upon the bowers of sinless Eden!It pencilled each flower with rich and variegated hues, and threw over its exuberant foliage a vesture of emerald green. Upon each fountain did the rays rest with a silvery brightness; and the broad blue sea mirrored back its thousand rays of dazzling splendor; all nature, as by one instinctive impulse, received new life and beauty. inhabited the floating Ark, had fallen victims, then light arose to guide the gentle dove to the "green olive tree, where she plucked the branch, that token of peace," which animated the father of the new world, until that beautiful bow of promise appeared in the heavens." Light shone as a guide to Moses and his chosen baud through the wilderness, and God gave them an additional light, which added a new lustre, by erecting a fiery pillar which went before them. When the shades of night surrounded the place where shepherds kept their solitary vigils, then dawned the bright star of Bethlehem, to guide them to the place where, cradled, the infant Redeemer lay. What joy swelled the notes of praise as they sung the song of redemption to fallen man, and chanted the glorious news of the birth of the Prince of Peace! When the starry gems of night fade away in the eastern horizon, and the glorious luminary of day commences; or when the moon pours her rays of silvery light upon valley and mountain beneath, and those starry gems flooding the azure firmament clouds o'erspread the sky, and the deep with paths of glorious light; when the angry thunder toue (the bass of nature's own music) rumble in the distance, and the vivid lightnings gleam fearfully upon the angry sky; when we gaze upon these scenes, so sublime, so magnificent, the existence of a Deity forces itself upon the senses, and even the sceptic must acknowledge that there is a great and overruling Power, whose glory and majesty are shown as well by the light of the gentle moonbeams as by the fearful glare of lightning. The sublimity But alas! when that blissful place was of these contemplations should never be lost shaded by sorrow, caused by the disobedi-sight of, but as the works of nature and ence of our first parents, then did the light Providence advances, so should we be moulded into the image of our Maker.-The sorrowfully fall upon each pearly dew-drop, Ark. embedded in its leafy bower;and seemed the tears of angels weeping over the apostacy of mortals. When the justice of God rested upon man for his rebellion, and death and NATURE has her best mode of doing every thing, and has somewhere told it. EARLY MUSICAL EDUCATION IN GERMANY. In visiting the school at Schwalbach, the first room we came to was that of the girls, A strange who were all learning astronomy. preparation thought I, for the after-life of a Nassau female. Who would think that the walking masses, half gr ss, half woman, one meets every day in the fields and lanes, would be able to tell whether the earth moved round the sun, or the sun round the earth, or if the moon were any bigger than their own reaping-hooks? We asked the master to alGreat was the low us to hear them sing. delight of the little madchens when this request was made known; there was an universal brightening of faces and shuffling of leaves; the pedagogue took down an old violin from a peg where it hung, and accompanied their sweet voices in a pretty, simple air, which they sung in parts and from the notes. The next room was full of little boys between six and eight years of age. They sang a hymn for us, the simple words of which were very touching. As I stood behind one dear little fellow, "hardly higher than the table," I understood how it was that the Germans were a nation of musicians, and that, in listening to the rude songs of the peasants at their work, the ear is nev er shocked by the drawling, untaught style of the same class of people in our countries. From the time they are able to lisp, they are made to sing by note. My little friend in the ragged blouse, and all the other children, had the music as well as the words they were singing, in their hands, written on sheets of paper; they followed the time as correctly as possible, marking with their little fingers on the page the crotchets, quavers, rests, &c. At Leipsic, the most un-English trait I gathered during my speculations at the window this evening, was a group of little boys playing in the grass-plot outside. They were all poor, and a few stockingless, and were engaged in some uproarous game, when, in the middle of it, the little urchins burst into the most harmonious melody, each taking his part, soprano, tenor, bass, &c., with exquisite correctness. I saw them jump up, and linking each other's arms in true schoolboy fashion, sally down the street, vociferating their song in such time and tune, that, but for my initiation into the mystery at the Schwalbach school, I should have stared at What a them as so many little wonders. delightful system is this music! as early and as indispensable a branch of education as the A B C.-Souvenirs of a Summer in Germany. For the Miscellany. DEATH OF MOSES. BY EMILLIA. The last of sorrow and distress, Had he not stood before the throne Once, sorely pressed, he had betrayed O call not thou his doom severe! O'er heaps of slaughtered foes to tread? Serenely sweet the morning light High waved the palm trees foliage fair, But who is he, who all alone Can this be he whose form ere while, He, whose unfolding youth could own To hold er nature's springs the power? Yes, this is he, look on him new, As up, far up, towards yon blue sky, On Fisgah's top at last he stands, And views afar fair Canaan's landa. Land of the olive and the vine, Far to the right there lay outspread 17 There did his eye prophetic trace When God, who high o'er all doth dwell Would deign to find himself a place In the fair Temple of his grace, And from those feeble tribes should raise A chosen people to his praise. And so he died-no mortai eyo It was a tranquil place of rest, His orub in Pisgah's peaceful breast, To rest, in such a holy spot, STOTHARD, THE PAINTER. sculpture. The contrast of subject and style are without end No one has so well enter his delineations of Robinson Crusoe; few men living or dead could have rivalled the consummate skill with which the tale of the Canterbury Pilgrims is told in Stothard's world famous portraiture of Chaucer's group; yet the hand that accomplished these las ting and incomparable works was quite at home, and eminently successful, in the paint ing of a common transparency, in the Green Park, for the Waterloo Jubilee. Stothard holds a place of his own amongst ed into the spirit of De Foe as Stothard in Royal Academicians and painters at large. His was a fine mind condescending to things of low estate. Flaxman honored his genius; yet it was a genius that busied itself often with the smallest labors, and deemed nothing too humble for the lofty purposes of art. There was no limit to the resources and achievements of his luxuriant and creative pencil. At his death ten thousand different designs remained to testify to the facility of his invention and to the extraordinary extent Like Michael Angelo and Hogarth, Stothof his range. It is difficult to say what sub-ard drew without models, but he was a rare ject he did not illustrate in the course of his walker out of doors, and an indefatigable labors. He went through a whole course observer of nature. He went nowhere with of English Literature, beginning with out a sketchbook, and nothing struck his eye Chaucer, and stopping only with the Minor his fancy that was not immediately trans erva Press of his own time; and, while he ferred to it. His biographer tells us that added something yet to our conceptions of "he recommended this practice to others Shakspeare and Milton, he could also digni- with the injunction never to alter anything fy and adorn the tale in which Rosa Matilda when absent from the object drawn." The figures as the most insipid of heroines. precept, strictly followed by himself, explains the accuracy and care of his own lovely and finished sketches, and the unmis takeable impress of truth stamped upon them all. Mr. Leslie informs us further that when Stothard was not engaged at his easel, he was always walking in the streets and suburbs of London. One entire summer he and two companions lived in a tent on the coast near Ramsgate, where they hired a boat and spent days in sailing,--a species of life and amusement which was not with Stothard was, in truth, the prince of book illustrators. In the well-adorned printroom of the British Museum the student may pass an apprenticeship in the profitable study of his designs. Amidst that countless variety, there is no drawing which is not stamped with originality and graced with the touch of elegance and refinement; and certainly a more amusing employment could not be found than a visit to the scenes to which this singular, but devoted artist, stooped to select his subjects. In Spital-out its useful results when the painter came fields he drew patterns for silk-weavers; up to illustrate the wanderings and adventures on tickets of admission to concerts he fur- of Robinson Crusoe, nished the lover of song with a new pleas ure won from a sister art; pocketbooks and almanacs were constant recipients of some of the most exquisite works of his pencil; port wine labels were ingeniously designed by the same master hand that gave form and beauty to the Wellington shield, and silversmiths commanded the ready fancy of a mind to which Chantry was only too grateful to have recourse in the composition of his most classical and renowned pieces of This brief line of notices of the works of a man who, to the most gentle of all spir its, and to the most childlike simplicity, added a vigor of understanding that has not seldom been surpassed, has been extorted from us at this busy period by the appear ance of a volume which is certainly among the most charming of recent publications.— The Life of Stothard, written by his daugh ter-in-law, Mrs. Bray, is an interesting record of an amiable man; but the illustrations |