Will give his blessing, and will make our | Now, love, I mean to teach you to be glad, life A ceaseless song of joy; and I shall make So you will trust me, wife! Poor face, each line is sacred for love's sake, I would not wish these ten years' marks to hide! Weeping for me has made those eyes so sid; Thinking of me has traced that careworn brow! Now gay and restful, and light-hearted now. So we will spend our peaceful wedded life, And in that better life above, believe That we shall have our spring-time's green delight! Give me your hand, my wife; Look at the future through my eyes, and weave Your sad thoughts with my hopes and visions bright! AUSTRIAN ANXIETIES.- Vienna. Great as our anxiety is here about the events of the war, it would astonish a stranger to observe the far greater interest with which men discuss the probabilities that are to follow it. Now that it is almost a certainty France must be beaten, the whole curiosity is to speculate on what terms Prussia will exact in a peace, and what line she will take towards the other European States. Among military men but one opinion prevails, that the next campaign will be against Austria, and, in proportion as this opinion gains converts among civilians, the conviction is spreading that Austria should have armed at once on the outbreak of the war, and made, as she might have done, her own terms with Prussia for the integrity of the Austrian Empire. Every regret that the French Emperor has confessed to for his own quiescence in the war of 1866, every admission he has made of his folly in not having taken advantage of Prussia's being engaged in a great struggle to seize on the Rhine Provinces-all that generosity of which he reminded Count Bismarck, and which the wily Prussian accepted with a scornful and sneering complacency, seem exactly applicable as lessons to the Austrian politicians of the day. Just as Prussia left the Rhine frontier ungarrisoned in 1866 she has left the whole of Silesia without troops now. It is true that in the late struggle with Austria the event was so quickly decided that there was not time for France to determine on a course of action, if she was not willing to risk a very bold stroke. Here, however, Austria has watched day by day the progress of the struggle; and, though it is very far from being over, she may certainly speculate on the most probable termination of the war. It is indeed rumoured that Count Beust was for a long time undecided as to the course Austria should follow, and it is currently believed that English influence alone determined him to a neutrality. The story which has general accept ance among those who affect at least a certain knowledge of passing events is this. Russia made it understood at Vienna that she herself had stipulated with Prussia that no provocation should be given to Austria, nor any pretext held out by which the area of the war should be widened. So far, all was well; but she has lately gone farther, and declared that in recompense for this service on her part she has established a right to "guarantee Austrian neutrality, even to the extent of deciding what amount of force she should keep under arms, and by what limit her warlike preparations should be bounded." If Austria could have endured the insolence of this pretension while it remained a secret, it was no longer possible to submit to it when the matter got abroad and became subject of daily discussion; hence the great activity which within a week or so has been displayed at Olmutz, Linz, and Prague, and hence that note of preparation which has gone forth from Galicia to the South Tyrol, and which is even heard in the far provinces of the east of the empire. To believe, as the Italian press would like to impress on us, that these measures are taken in conjunction with Italy, and are secretly intended to serve the cause of France, would be a great error. Situated as Austria is with regard to Hungary, any measures beyond those purely defensive would be impossible; and the most rancorous anti-Prussian in the Empire and there are not a few would never think of counselling a policy of aggression. who There was, indeed, a very considerable party they were known as the " Major-Generals," being chiefly soldiers of a certain rank would have pushed Austria into a war with Prussia the day the troops of North Germany crossed the Rhine. The overwhelming successes of the Prussian arms have, however, done more to refute the arguments of these people than all the logic of mere words, and it is only justice to them to say that they were among the first to acknowledge the marvellous organization and splendid valour which have achieved success. Whatever, therefore, may seem vacillating and uncertain in the policy of the Cabinet may easily be understood by bearing in mind the narrow path it has to walk and the perils which lie on either hand; and, though Austrian secession from the Concordat has certainly drawn closer the ties which unite her to Italy, she is cautions not to involve herself in the complications of Italian politics, which would speedily be taken up by her own frontier population in the Adriatic. Pall Mall Gazette. NUMBERS OF THE LIVING AGE WANTED. The publishers are in want of Nos. 1179 and 1180 (dated respectively Jan. 5th and Jan. 12th, 1867) of THE LIVING AGE. To subscribers, or others, who will do us the favor to send us either or both of those numbers, we will return an equivalent, either in our publications or in cash, until our wants are supplied. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON. FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually for warded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year, nor where we have to pay commission for forwarding the money. Price of the First Series, in Cloth, 36 volumes, 90 dollars. Any Volume Bound, 3 dollars; Unbound, 2 dollars. The sets, or volumes, will be sent at the expense of the publishers. PREMIUMS FOR CLUBS. For 5 new subscribers ($40.), a sixth copy; or a set of HORNE'S INTRODUCTION TO THE Bible, unabridged, in 4 large volumes, cloth, price $10; or any 5 of the back volumes of the LIVING AGE, in numbers, price $10. From The Christmas Locket. EAR-RINGS. BY D. W. FROM either pearly ear, yestere'en, For thus the glow-worm sets her light And from her ears, more rosy fair SLEEP. SLEEP, the sole angel left of all below, O'er the lulled city sheds the ambrosial wreaths Wet with the dews of Eden; bliss and woe Are equals, and the humblest slave that breathes Under the shelter of these healing wings From The Westminster Review. the ancestors of those who scouted Grenville's Stamp Act, and who fought and bled at Lexington and Concord. ton. Yet they, or at least Virginia, were so far identified with literature when SpenMANY circumstances concur to make the ser, in the dedication to his great work, exodus of the Pilgrim Fathers the first named his sovereign as Queen of the proud fact of importance in the history of Amer- American colony. Their descendants, likeica in its literary as well as in its polit-wise, who were contemporary with Dryden, cal and ecclesiastical history. The Fathers Addison, and De Foe, had their sympathy were a branch of that great schism which strengthened when an occasional vessel counted Pym, Hampden, and Cromwell brought the poem or the essay from the among its chiefs, and the tendency of old country; but they were nevertheless which was to determine new limits to government and religion; and to place on what was considered a surer basis the liberties of a great empire. History testifies Thus the early Republicans were pecuto the manner in which these designs were liarly situated. They had created a deaccomplished. The zeal and soul-rooted mocracy; but their associations still clung opinion which drove Charles I. to the block to the old country, with its aristocratic were not widely different from the zeal government and remnants of feudalism. and enterprise which founded New Eng- They felt their common heritage in Shaksland. Enthusiasts like Sir Harry Vane peare and Milton. They recognized new might indulge dreams of an ideal republic; stars of song whenever any appeared in but the men who sailed in the Mayflower the firmament. They knew at the same experienced greater satisfaction and fore- time that all political connexion was seysaw grander results in working out their ered: but they were aware, too, that feasible plan of a new nation. They were America and England possessed a common nonconformists not only in religion, but language- a language destined in afterin politics; and if they and their descend-days to link them together inseparably in ants long remained loyal to the parent intellectual pursuits, yet to render more country, their very origin indicated that bitter any disputes and feuds between this feeling could not be permanent. Iso- them. Time had altered several relationlated from the land of their forefathers, ships, but not that of speech; and their thrown upon an uncultivated country, with minds and conversation were improved by the determination to build homes for them- the instructive intercourse. selves "free as the wind which bloweth where it listeth," alive to the essential requirements of frugality and discipline,unshackled by any prejudices save those which with their former haunts they strove to forget, they were certainly qualified to inaugurate a new order of things. Their proclivity was, of course, towards de When the Mayflower weighed anchor Bacon was yet alive, Shakspeare had been only four years dead, and Milton was in his twelfth year; ere the banner of Independence was unfurled in America, philosophy, the drama, poetry and prose had passed through many forms. The year in which Congress declared the colonies free saw the last of Hume and Adam Smith; and these names suggest to every mind vast progress in two directions-history had taken another shape, and political economy had come into being. What the colonists were occupied with meanwhile it is not difficult to guess. Viewing every event in the light of a great ordinance, and prayerfully ascribing glory to God for even the slightest manifestation of providential favour in their every-day labours,— esteeming themselves a chosen and peculiar band, destined to work out some grand What it was remains to be scheme of regenerate happiness and en- | hardihood. larged faith,- knowing in their puritanic seen. hearts no cankering fear of men and no ig- In the jostle and pressure of business, noble obeisance to mere worldly dignities, and in the race for political distinction, but rather facing with a terrible earnestness little time is left for the calm pursuits of and trust the presence and decrees of the literature. If Liverpool had her Roscoe, Almighty, they threw aside all humiliat- the fact is to be wondered at rather than ing notions of inequality, all thoughts of expected in repetition. As a rule trade is worldly splendour and pomp, and resolved, hurtful to thought, and to the expression guided by the rays of Divine truth, to cut of thought. Comparatively few books are out a path for themselves, and establish a produced where it bears absolute sway, nation whose chief articles of faith should and these are not desiderated. This fact be trustfulness in each other, and, at the may lead to the anticipation in America outset, all freedom and independence com- of many feeble literary works, composed patible alike with individual effort and the for the nonce, displaying the blemishes of safety and advancement of the community.haste and negligence, and devoid of polish This was their unspoken but stern resolve. and completeness. Works of this characFor many years they closely adhered to ter are the sign-manuals of democracy. it. Their natural sympathy for England They betray a lazy unconcern, and are was not, however, clouded or extinguished marred by a disguised indifference to prothereby, although they craved for unfet- priety. They are sincere even to temerity, tered and untraditional modes of thought and boastful in their insipidity. This is and action. But they were still in the true in the main of the literary wares or bondage of old world beliefs and tenden- products of young democracies, but least cies. The yoke was easy, yet it bore all of all of America. And why, is not far to the same on their fresh and brilliant aspir- see. The unconquerable clinging to the ations. When it was removed it may in- old home, and the influences already noted, deed be questioned whether good or gain sufficiently account for the exception. accrued. In the beginning the prospect America retains a love for Shakspeare was hopeful, in the end the retrospect is and Burns, and is still partially animated not altogether reassuring. The standard by the antiquity and nationality they inwas high and noble. Work was the be-all spire. and the end-all of their early existence. They had to build houses, discuss munici- What we have said so far is borne out pal laws, and frame clauses amending a by the turn literary affairs have taken constitution. Hence they had small leis- across the Atlantic. Everything there ure to cultivate literature. Indeed, the works in the same sort of practical groove. science of determining what to do first, or Literature is not exempt. From the first what was most immediately practicable, it has been so. The earliest things printed, and the art of living, absorbed their de- about two centuries and a quarter since, voted attention. Books were not at that were the Freeman's Oath, an Almanack, early stage in high favour. The pilgrims and the Psalms redone into metre. had, in sooth, come forth out of Egypt de- ing could more variously and significantly spising the bookmakers and the actors, afford a clue to the original purpose the with a feeling which made the Histriomas- colonists set before them, and the uniform tix their protest against the latter. They determination which inspired them to carhad a preconceived distrust of arts which ry it out. Following these points there is seemed seductive, vain, and unprofitable; little, if anything, for at least a century they felt that One Book was sufficient to meriting praise, and nothing on which we their purpose; they exorcised the devil purpose at present to dwell. and sought the grace of God, trusting in The instinctive dread of indolence honest work and simple faith. Notwith- joined to an indifference, amounting here standing, there was a characteristic lit- and there to repugnance, for general and erary outcome of all this spirit and polite literature, which they took no pains The American kings of thought were crowned in Britain. Noth |