The ruined cloister's pale, unconscious That all is changed around. The taper's light The wild birds, Nature's chorister's, pour forth While frequent, heard across the stream, from out 'Tis thus Man's works, like man, grow old and die; Spirit of Love! that dost vouchsafe to dwell Within the desolated ruin! All Its pristine beauty renovate, and raise A LIVING TEMPLE to the King of Kings! ' The following stanzas bear the signature of F. R. C. "LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION." High Priest, who hast been tempted For prone are we to linger Upon the utmost verge thy law prescribes, The barrier which thy holy word inscribes Thou who thyself has proved The Tempter's force, even in darkest hour, To stand, untouched, temptation's fiercest power; 6 "The Amulet," is discontinued; but "Friendship's Offering' seems to maintain its ground in public favour, and preserves very much its average character. The embellishments are seldom of a very high order, and this year there are only one or two plates worth looking at, for either the subject or the execution. The poetry also is but so-so. But the staple of the volume is, as usual, the prose contributions. A German tale by G. P. R. James; a Sicilian tale, very much in the Caracci' style of Croly; a tale of Rajasthan by J. A. St. John; a tale of the French Chronicles, by Agnes Strickland; a romantic story by Sarah Stickney; an excellent Irish story by Crofton Croker; a legend of Italy; Bachelor Smith, by the Editor; a pleasing domestic tale by E. W. Cox; and an historical sketch of the Order of Assassins, by Dr. W. C. Taylor; are among the attractive contents. But we must pass them by to take as a specimen the concluding paragraphs of a posthumous paper, entitled,' Books and the Lovers of them,' by the accomplished Author of "Sketches of Corfu "*. Frances Maclellan, who, we regret to learn, has, after sustaining the severest of domestic bareavements, been cut off, at the age of seven-and-twenty, by a malady acutely painful in its nature, and lingering in its duration.' The manuscript was, by her desire, placed in the hands of the Editor, who expresses the hope, that, while it will be read with interest and profit by all, it will prove a source of consolation to her friends; indicating as "it does, the "sure and certain hope" that is anchored beyond 'the grave.' 6 • But if books are suitable to every changing season of the year, they are not less so to every changing season of life,- -even to youth and age, although youth has its own joys of hope and novelty, and age its own pleasure of quiet rest. Books are good for young and old, but to middle life they are actually necessary. Youth has its delights; but manhood, alas! the hand trembles, and the very heart -- * See Ecl. Rev., 3d Ser. Vol. XIII. p. 113. VOL. XVI.-N.S. 3 B sickens, as, turning over, leaf by leaf, the volume of human life, we behold, thicker and faster, on every page, the records of disappointed hopes,―lacerated feelings,-busy toil,—and pining regrets. We cannot bid the heart grow young again: as well might the earth remain unchanged by the storms that pass over it, desolating its surface, and rending its interior, as the human heart remain unchanged, unblighted, unwithered, by the storms of passion, of affections excited, cherished, betrayed, forgotten. We cannot love or trust again when once we have learned, and bitter is the knowledge,-that friends change, forget, die: we do not care to make new ones; trust has been betrayed, and affection slighted too often for that. The warmth of our own feelings has passed away,-we cannot recall it; as well might we hope to recall the rainbow to the clear bright sky when the storm-drops have all departed. What then shall avail to cheer the heavy footed time? Those silent folk again! Ay, they will not deceive; they will call up vivid pictures of what has been; we may traverse with them not only all space, but all time; we may dwell awhile with the nomadic tribes under an Arab tent, or chase the red deer with merry Robin Hood, or break a lance in the chivalrous court of the gallant Francis. Nay, our own mighty magician will even shew as a new order of things, and teach us how to skim the blue air with Ariel, or tread the intricacies of a haunted forest glade with that little essence of fun and frolic, Puck, and his boon companions Moth and Mustardseed. But by and bye, some secondary cause stops the quick circulation of the blood, the limbs lose their activity, disease lays her strong hand upon the lover of nature; he may rove over heathery hill, and through the daisy besprinkled valley no more. Morn, noon, cvening, bring to him no change of scene, no change of position; day after day and week after week pass on, and behold him chained to his weary, weary couch. Perchance, too, he is a stranger in a far off land;-vainly he turns his tearful eyes to the opening door; the mother, who would have pillowed his aching head in her own fond bosom, is not there. Vainly he yearns after the soft tones of his young sister's voice,—that fond, that innocent sister!-When he hears the distant echoing of a light merry laugh, he half rises from his resting place, and listens eagerly, but she is not there. What then? Shall he waste the long hours in fruitless repining-shall he increase the fever of his body by the fevered regrets of the spirit? Shall he look out when the setting sun gilds the purple hills, with feelings of despair, because he may not view them from the rose-tinted lake, or from a neighbouring mountaintop? Shall he throw angrily away the dark blue violets, and laughing daisies, and fair white hyacinths which strew his couch, and transform it almost into a bower of fragrance, because he did not himself explore the low dingle and hidden brook-side and fern-clad slope, whence the pretty wanderers came, and himself pluck them while the morning dew yet glittered on their soft petals? Not so; our invalid loves books; he shall collect around him, now in the dark hours, friends who will not reproach him for his past neglect. First he will poetize: he will read the fanciful imagery of one, who, like himself, loved the bye and sheltered nooks; and he will re call his own experience of May mornings and twilight rambles, and pause awhile in his reading, to see whether star and flower and winged insect suggested to himself the same thoughts, and awoke in him the same feelings as they did did in him over whose page he bends. 'He will open some volume of grave, stern reasoning, which shall bring all his own mathematical powers into play. Some error shall be amended, or some doubt cleared up, which has long impeded the progress of his search after truth. Then he will read a tale of some young enthusiastic spirit, which vowed itself to the high, but futile task of snatching a laurel leaf from the dark stream of oblivion whereon to inscribe, in fading characters, a perishing name. Or haply he will take up a story of some gentle heart that went on its pilgrimage, asking but for one boon; looking on earth for that flower that blooms only in Paradise,-pure and unselfish love;-an idle tale, a yet idler record; but not without interest for him who reads, for he too has had his dream,-his hope; and though stern experience soon aroused him from the one, and time, sterner still, has shown him the fallacy of the other, he ponders over the page with something of the same sweet, yet melancholy feeling, which animates the old man, weary with travel, and sick at heart, who revisits, after long, long years, the haunt of his childhood. What if these reminiscences call forth tears and sighs? Nay, then our invalid must converse with another friend. He cannot taste the full freshness of the rich sunny air that streams through the narrow casement; pine wood, and lake, and forest are forbidden haunts to him. Well then, he will send his spirit on a yet farther travelling. He will ramble with Irving ever the wide enamelled prairie; he will cross the Atlantic with Hall, or traverse the sandy desert with Lander; he will enjoy their excitement, share their discoveries, while he is spared their fatigues, and thus, with one and another merry comrade, the long days glide insensibly away; until the thin, transparent hand can no longer perform its office of turning the pleasant leaves; until aching head, and faintly labouring pulse, and falling uncertain breath proclaim that even this light labour must be laid aside. What comfort remains for the poor sufferer ? Weeks may yet elapse before the lamp of life be quite extinguished. Though eloquence has lost its charm, and the spell of poetry is broken; though tales of travel, and tales of life shew now only one melancholy prospect, --that of fellow pilgrims hastening alike to the same inevitable bourne,-shall he then consume the hours in solitary grief? There is a Book whose characters have been traced by the finger of Omniscience, whose records contain an undying history of Divine love, and Divine mercy,-whose pages are illuminated by a portraiture of the paths we must traverse, and the perils we must shun in our journey towards the mansions of eternal bliss. This blessed volume breathes forth words of consolation to him whose weary ears can drink in no other music,-words of hope to him for whom even the dearest interests of life are fast becoming a faint, and dim, and fading vision of the past. Though every limb may ache, though his eyes can no longer endure Death the sun's rays, and his very heart be sick with suffering, he loves to hear of the flowing golden rivers, and fair blooming islets, and quiet green pastures of that peaceful home to which he is but hastening. Though he be alone in a far land, sad and desolate, yet will he rejoice; for soon, right soon, he will wander beside the rivers of Paradise, with those dearly loved ones who, banished so early from his side on earth, and whose death first made him feel, and rejoice in the feeling, that he too was mortal. Yes, he will rejoin them in that region where parting, and sighs, and tears are unknown. He doubts not of the bliss that awaits him, for the voice that reads beside his lowly pallet the words of the blessed Book, pronounces with firm and unfaltering accents-"Look unto me all ye ends of the earth, and be ye saved;" and the sufferer even knows, and triumphs in the knowledge, that not on his own sufferings, not on his own merits will he rely for pardon and peace; but on the sufferings and merits of One whose fairest and most endearing appellation to the sons of sin is-THE redeemer, comes, but how arrayed? He is the herald of good_tidings;—the guide over the dark river that separates Time from Eternity;—the angel on whose wings the freed spirit is borne aloft. Ah! since the days have long since passed away, which beheld the Almighty Creator holding friendly communication with his creatures, by dreams, by Urim, by the prophets,-since no longer the Unseen Presence is made manifest in the still small voice after the calm, was the voice of a trumpet among the thunders and lightning and thick clouds from the Mount, since no longer the voice of the Lord God is heard walking in the garden in the cool of the day, or calming the fierce waves with "Peace, be still," how can we be sufficiently thankful that a way has been devised by which the tidings of these great things have been preserved from generation to generation, by which countless ages yet unborn may guide themselves to the home whence their first parents' sin exiled them. Friendship's Offering, 1837, pp. 210-16. The best poetry in the volume is by Thomas Miller, the Author of "A Day in the Woods;" whom Mr. Harrison, the Editor, has the merit and happiness of having removed from obscurity. The unhappy Scargill, Author of the pretended autobiography of a Dissenting Minister, is referred to in the Preface as a former contributor, gone down to the grave with the but too common wages of the literary labourer,-poverty and neglect.' His is, indeed, a melancholy story. 6 The Oriental Annual for 1837 is the first of a new series, to consist of Lives of the Moghul Emperors, by the Rev. H. Caunter. The present volume is devoted to Tamerlane and Buber, two of the most extraordinary men that the annals of the East present. The illustrations are chiefly from the inexhaustible drawings of William Daniell, whose Indian landscapes are so admirably characteristic and true to nature as to convey a better idea of the scenery and the zoology of the country than can be obtained from any verbal description. There are some views in Bockan, from |