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fastens his little silver railroad to glitter in the sun; or he detaches it altogether, and, taking advantage of some passing breeze, -trusts his brown frame to his delicate parachute, and is wafted through the air, like the Chapel of Loretto to the desired spot, and there he "locates" his downy cabin as does the American settler far from the place of his former labors.

October succeeds; and now occurs a galashow-the very carnival of the seasons. A stern, black frost comes some chilly night, and the morning sun looks upon a splendid pageant. The whole forest is in one blaze of glory. A thousand rainbows-a thousand sunsets seem to have melted upon them, until the splendid scene appears the very garden of Aladdin, where the topaz, the sapphire, the amethyst, and the ruby vied with each other in their glittering colors. The maple is in a flush of scarlet, the oak is swathed in the imperial purple of the Caesars, the birch flaunts out with its golden banner, the beech has the orange tint of the sky just over the spot where the sun sinks, the pine still lifts its changeless plume of green, meet emblem of fidelity in a faithless world, whilst a multitude of tints are upon the plants and bushes, as if the leafy gems on the branches above had flashed their superb hues beneath them. But now the fierce Autumn wind is let loose, and the air is darkened with the flying leaves, whirling here and scattering there, until the paths of the forest are covered with their sear and withered heaps, and with a leaden eye and tearful cheek, November steals along as if mourning over this decay of na

ture.

But amidst her gloom, like a sweet tone of love mid the harsh accents of wrath-like one hope that remains when all others have fled-or like the fortitude of woman when life has been withered into a desert, and the boasted courage of man has departed-the beautiful Indian summer glides upon the

scene.

A purple haze is mingled with the azure of the sky-purple smoke glimmers over the earth-the sun is like the great moon in the heavens, and his light falls upon the earth in red and timid hue. The bark of the squirrel is heard as the ripe nuts of the forest click upon the dead leaves in dropping, the most distant sounds are borne to the ear, and the whole landscape is one soft and lovely picture, in which all the rich coloring and deep shadows and bright lights are shaded and toned down by that matchless artist, Nature, into a harmony of tempered and subdued beauty.

In the September of life we feel the change that steals gradually over our habits and feeling. The first gray shadow of advancing time creeps upon our path-the excitement and consequent reaction of our vigorous manhood are past, together it may be with the wild gusts of passion and sorrow, and a clearer beauty falls upon our being. Still do our years press on, and we come to the October of our days, when the fruits of our early labors are gathered. Perchance then, when the energies of our existence are decaying, and we are approaching the grave, the goal of our ambition may be reached; suddenly our life may blaze out into the pomp and glory of wealth, fame, or power, but alas! there is a warning voice even then for ever whispering in our ear "beware!"

"All that's bright must fade !"

The most beautiful portion of a truly good man's life however is, when the leaves of his ambition and wordly hopes and aspirations have fallen, and a calm, mild, peaceful serenity spreads its Indian summer hush over his existence. His sun glows with a tempered radiance-a holy quiet broods around him— the soft light of good deeds sleeps upon his daily walk-and although the haze of old age mingles with his horizon and glimmers on his path, he is cheered with the consciousness of integrity and virtue, and he awaits the period when his life will glide like a calm river into the ocean of eternity.

There is an interest and charm surrounding Autumn which no other season possesses. It is the season of memory-tender, chastened, softened memory--when the mind is directed backward upon the past, and the heart communes deeply with itself. Spring, that season of hope, the very reverse of Autumn, when Nature awakening from her winter torpor with the song of the blue-bird upon her tongue, and her hand full of breathing violets-sweet, joyous Spring has departed. Summer with her roses has given us her brief presence, and likewise gone in the eternal system of change, "which is the order of the universe."

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snowbirds are twittering around our dwellings, as if forewarning us of a change.

Presently the sullen covering is drawn over the sky like a gray blanket, and a few flakes flutter along the harsh cutting air. The flakes soon thicken until they stream down in dense columns upon the earth, which momentarily whitens. Then the black night strides over the scene, and the morning dawns with a fierce wind. How the bitter blast rushes from the north-west! how it howls and shrieks in its fury! how it whirls up the snow into clouds, or drives it along like the spray of a tossing ocean! how the forests groan and rock and sway, as if in agony, and how the summits of the distant hills seem to reel and stagger as the snow flies over them! But the tempest wails and sobs itself into repose, and the wild struggling landscape at last is still. The earth is wrapped in its soft mantle of ermine, here ruffled up in great wreaths, and there streaming out like the surges of some pearly sea. Here are edges brushed to a delicate fineness--here basins scooped beautifully out, and there are domes smoothly rounded as if by the hand of an architect. All is pure, bright, and quiet beauty.

January follows; and a clear cold day shines upon the earth. The sky is blue as steel, and sparkles with cold, and the dark smooth ice spreads like a polished mirror amidst a landscape of ivory. Then how the merry skater launches away upon his gleam ing path, the trees appearing to skim past him in a contrary direction! how the pulse leaps and the blood glows, and how every sinew is strung to high and vigorous life! whilst the gladdening sleigh-bells ring a joy

ous chorus o'er the beaten snow upon the shores.

Then comes February, and with it a mild air and fine rain, that freezes however as it falls. As the morning sun rises, a magical scene is presented. The leafless trees stretch out their branches even to the minutest twigs, as if they had been carved from silver; the hemlock is covered with a rich gleaming glaze, every roof flashes back the sun from its polished coat, whilst the wide landscape around is blazing in smooth armor to the cloudless but heartless light. All over, too, are a million of dancing atoms in rainbow coloring, like the hues that glitter and chase each other along the threads of the gossa

mer.

And the winter night, how full of quiet peace and household content it is! The wide blaze goes crackling and sparkling up the spacious chimney, casting its red light upon chairs and tables, soft carpet and drawn curtain, and making fantastic shadows stream and waver upon the walls. In the warmest nook of the fireplace sits the venerable grandsire, the flame bathing his snowy head, and, clustering around him, are vigorous manhood, lovely matronage, smiling youth, and innocent childhood.

As our linked round of the seasons is brought to a close, let us, with reference to them, in the language of Thompson, Nature's secretary, exclaim

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immediate steps to forward the emigration of
orphan girls, inmates of the several work-
houses, and capable of entering service, to
Australia as apprentices."
Australia as apprentices." He stated that

EMIGRATION OF PAUPER CHILDREN.-A comprehensive scheme for the relief of the rate-payers, the benefit of the colonies, and the positive good of a large and increasing class of pauper children, has been propound-the ed by Mr. W. Miles, who, in his place in the House of Commons, has lately presented several petitions in favor of a plan of emigration which shall be in accordance with the views and wants of all parties. His motion was in these words: "That it is expedient that the government, with the consent and assistance of the boards of guardians throughout England and Wales, should take

total number of children in the workhouses in England and Wales was 56,323, and that the number of these capable of entering into service were-boys, 4,579, and girls, 3,698; making a total of boys and girls in those workhouses capable of entering service of 8,277. The number of male orphans capable of entering service was 1,578, while the number of female orphans so qualified was 1,171; making a total of 3,740.

JOHN KNOX'S HOUSE IN EDINBURGH.

IN the Netherbow, the street receives a salary of two hundred pounds Scottish mocontraction from the advance of the houses ney, and paying his house-rent for him, at on the north side, thus closing a species of the rate of fifteen marks yearly. In October, parallelogram, of which the Luckenbooths 1561, they ordained the dean of guild, "with formed the upper extremity-the market- al diligence, to mak ane warm studye of place of our ancient city. The uppermost dailles to the minister, Johnne Knox, within of the prominent houses-having of course his hous, aboue the hall of the same, with two fronts meeting in a right angle, one lyht and wyndokis thereunto, and all uther fronting to the line of street, the other look- necessaris." This study is generally suping up the High Street-is pointed to by posed to have been a very small wooden protradition as the residence or manse of John jection, still seen on the front of the first Knox, during his incumbency as minister of floor. Close to it is a window in the angle Edinburgh, from 1560 till (with few inter-of the building, from which Knox is said by ruptions) his death in 1572. It is a pictur- tradition to have occasionally held forth to esque building, of three above-ground floors, multitudes below. constructed of substantial ashler masonry, but on a somewhat small scale, and terminating in curious gables and masses of chimneys. A narrow door, right in the angle, gives access to a small room, which has long been occupied as a barber's shop, and which is lighted by one long window presented to the westward. This was the hall of the mansion in former times. Over the window and door is this legend, in an unusually old kind of lettering :—

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The second floor, which is accessible by two narrow spiral stairs, one to the south, another to the west, contains a tolerably spacious room, with a ceiling ornamented by stucco mouldings, and a window presented to the westward. A partition has at one time divided this room from a narrow one towards the north, the ceiling of which is composed of the beams and flooring of the attic flat, all curiously painted with flower-work in an ancient taste. Two inferior rooms extend still farther to the northward. It is to be remarked that the wooden projection already spoken of extends up to this floor, so that there is here likewise a small room in front; it contains a fireplace, and a recess which might have been a cupboard or a library, besides two small windows. That this fireplace, this recess, and also the door by which the wooden chamber is entered from the decorated room, should all be formed in the front wall of the house, and with a necessary relation to the wooden projection, strikes one as difficult to reconcile with the idea of that projection being an afterthought; the appearances rather indicate the whole having been formed at once, as parts of one design. The attic floor exhibits strong oaken beams, but the flooring is in bad order.

In the lower part of the house there is a small room, said by tradition to have been used in times of difficulty for the purpose of baptising children; there is also a well to supply the house with water, besides a secret stair, represented as communicating subterraneously with a neighboring alley.

RECENT BRITISH PUBLICATIONS.

The East. Sketches of Travels in Egypt and the Holy Land. By the Rev. J. A. Spencer, M. A., originally published by PUTNAM, of New York, and republished by MURRAY, London, is thus favorably noticed by the Athenæum :

The modest unassuming title of this book affords no adequate suggestion of its intrinsic worth. It is written with so much earnest truthfulness, and evinces so intimate an acquaintance with the erudite labors of previous writers, that its place may be admitted beside works of higher pretensions and recognized merit. The author informs us, that when he left the United States, he had no intention to extend his travels beyond the European continent; and being, therefore, in many respects unprepared to undertake a work on the East, he does not pretend to original learned disquisitions or critical dissertations. He declares his sole aim to have been to deal plainly, candidly and earnestly with all that came under his observation. Notwithstanding this disclaimer, Mr. Spencer's intelligence and excellent scholarship overcome every disadvantage; and his mind being unbiassed, his opinions and sentiments on many points of interest possess an originality rarely to be found among travellers over those well trodden tracts.

Mr. Wallis's Glimpses of Spain, (an American work,) published by HARPER & BROTHERS, and republished by Low, London, is rather tartly reviewed by the Athenæum :

We see no sufficient reason for bringing Mr. Wallis hither for publication. He adds nothing to the matter of our knowledge of Spain; his manner is not so exquisite as to make precious the hasty gleanings of a very limited excursion:-and his fretful ebullitions, where there could be no fair motive for stirring up any bitter sources, cannot of themselves recommend his book to English readers. The productions of foreign genius or wisdom may always be sure of finding due welcome in this coun try; nor shall we the less readily appreciate them on account of any thing sharp or even severe against us that they may contain. But we cannot extend this allowance to works the mediocrity of which is not even made pungent by a seasoning of ill-will toward those who are asked to buy them. if we are to receive inferior books from the United States, we may fairly require that they shall at least present themselves, not with airs of cavil and offence, but with the graces of good humor and good manners, to which, shall we add, good spelling

Stella and Vanessa. From the French. By Lady Duff Gordon, is characterized as a "delicately touched piece of heart-history" by the Athenæum. The Daily News says of it:

Who can escape his fate? Here is a book which

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This is we are thankful for it-the last of the series of Latter-day Pamphlets. Now that they are finished, the aim and object of their writer in issuing them seem as much a mystery as ever. Stripped of their grotesque jargon, they offer no great novelty of doctrine,--no very fresh form of bigotry,--certainly, so far as we are able to comprehend them, no new and wondrous revelation such as those who wait for signs and wonders had expected. The favorite doctrine of "work or hang" was already familiar to the world in Mr. Carlyle's favorite story of Francia; the deification of brute power had found sufficient utterance in his well-known "squelch goes the rat !" In fact, the new heresies in matters of faith, work, and hero-worship-to say nothing of history, politics and prisons-were all as well known to the erratic youth of this present generation as nightmare, indigestion, and other of the ills that flesh is heir to. Dressed up in somewhat worse English, a little more extravagant in their terms, less strength in the nodosity, these pamphlets are with generally less beauty in the contortion and substantially "Sartor Resartos," "Chartism," and "Past and Present," over again. Mr. Carlyle has given the world a good scolding, pedagogue and pedant fashion,--that is all. We do not say the world does not eminently deserve a scolding,—but

there is no denying that this administration in Cambyses' vein has done it little good. It has laughed when it was to have trembled,-held its sides, when, according to the design, it should have bent its knee. We think Mr. Carlyle is badly informed if he imagines that these monthly explosions have alarmed the people of England, or in any way shaken the isle from its propriety. We suspect the Latter-day Saints-some of whose doings we chronicle in another column-will make a greater sensation than the Latter-day Pamphlets.

The Early Conflicts of Christianity. By the Rev. W.J. Kip. Originally published by APPLETON & Co., New York, is thus spoken of by the Literary

Gazette:

The book is easily written, in the ornate and flowing style now common to transatlantic oratory; but there is no point in the composition, little grace,--and although elaborate attempts are made to paint pictures, no success is achieved. There is nothing in these "Early Conflicts" which could induce us to advise Mr. Kip to carry the campaign into the middle ages and modern times, as he threatens to do on proper encouragement being afforded.

Rural Hours. By Miss Cooper. 2 vols. Originally published by PUTNAM, New York, and reprinted by MURRAY, London, is highly spoken of abroad. It is thus noticed by the Athenæum :

This pleasant book is said to be the maiden production of the well-known American novelist's daughter. We have hitherto been treated to no minute pictures of such life and nature from the other side of the At lantic as are here exhibited. Mr. Audubon gave us the wonders of the wilderness,-Mrs. Clavers sketched the oddities of life in a new settlement,-the sister of Mrs. Howitt in "Our Cousins on the Ohio," -and Mr. Headley in his "Adirondack,"--have severally and variously contributed stores to that treasury out of which imagination can conjure up visions of transatlantic places,-but Miss Cooper's year-book fills a niche which none of the pen-and-ink painters aforesaid have occupied. She chronicles village, wood, and meadow life,-tells how spring wanes into summer, and autumn is followed by winter, in districts where nature is not so wondrous nor man so" unhewn" as in the scenes selected by the writers enumerated. Her entries remind us in their poetical feeling and gentle perspicacity of Gilbert White's. Miss Cooper's allusions to books, too, though not very numerous, are of good quality and in good taste.

Picturesque Sketches of Greece and Turkey. By Aubrey de Vere. 2 vols. BENTLEY.-This work is commended by the New Monthly Magazine, in this style:

The contents of these volumes answer perfectly to the title. Whatever the author sees he picturesquely describes; and so far as words can do

so, he makes pictures of all the subjects he writes upon; and had he painted as he has written, or used his pencil equally well with his pen, two more delightful volumes, to any lover of Greece it would be difficult to name. With an evidently refined taste, and a perfect acquaintance with the ancient history of the country he travelled through, and the ever famous characters that made its history what it is, his descriptions combine most pleasingly together the past with the present. He peoples the scenery with the men whose deeds give to that scenery all its interest; and whether on the plain of Marathon or the site of Delphi or the Acropolis, he has a store of things to say of their past glories, and links together, with great artistic skill, that which is gone with that which remains. By the scholar and the man of taste the volumes will be read with no little delight, as they abound much more with reflections and sensible observations, than with the common-place incidents of travel.

Howitt's Year Book of the Country, published in London, by COLBURN, and about to be reprinted by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York, is noticed by the Athenæum, as follows:

The "Year Book of the Country" is at once welically, picturesquely various. We cannot doubt its come to read and goodly to see. It is richly, poethaving a welcome as wide as its range of contents, cordial as the love of man and of nature which every line of it breathes. The illustrations are excellent."

as

Germania; its Courts, Camps and People. By the Baroness Blaze de Bury. 2 vols. 8vo. Pub lished by COLBURN, London.

To give an idea of the scope and variety of the contents of this work, comprising so many curious disclosures concerning the various Sovereigns and Courts of Europe during the recent revolutions, it need only be mentioned that among the countries visited by the distinguished author will be found Prussia, Austria, Hungary, Bavaria, Saxony, Servia, Styria, the Tyrol, Hanover, Brunswick, Italy, &c. To enumerate all the distinguished personages with whom the writer had intercourse, and of whom anecdotes are related, would be impossible, but they include such names as the Emperors of Austria and Russia, the Kings of Prussia, Hanover, Bavaria, and Wurtemberg, the Count de Chambord (Henry IV.), the Queens of Bavaria and Prussia, the ex-Empress of Austria, the Grand Duke of Baden, the Archdukes John, Francis, and Stephen of Austria, Duke Wilhelm of Brunswick, Countess Batthyani, Madame Kossuth, &c. Among the Prince of Prussia, Prince John of Saxony, the the statesmen, generals, and leading actors in the revolutionary movements, we meet with Radowitz, Von Gagern, Schwarzenberg, Bekk, Esterhazy, the Ban Jellacic, Windischgraz, Radetzky, Welden, Haynau, Wrangel, Pillersdorf, Kossuth, Blum, Gorgey, Batthyani, Pulzky, Klapka, Bem, Dembinski, Hecker, Struve, &c.

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