implies moral turpitude. Let him then be sacrificed rather than punished.

We have thus completed the plan which we sketched at the commencement of this article; and now beg leave to offer in a summary form our opinion on the whole subject.

1. It is inexpedient to punish capitally aggressions upon property unattended by murder. These should be punished by imprisonment, in duration and severity in each instance apportioned to the heinousness of the offence.

2. It is inexpedient to punish murder capitally. But this should be punished by imprisonment for life to hard labor without the possibility of pardon. And it would be well, we think, to punish the murderer still farther by making him civilly dead, that is, by dissolving the matrimonial contract, and letting his goods pass through the hands of an administrator to his heirs, as if he were actually dead.

3. Capital punishment should be inflicted only upon soldiers guilty of heinous offences against military discipline, and upon popular and influential ring-leaders in civil commotions and rebellions, and in these cases not as an ignominious punishment, but as an act of social self-defence.

In preparing the foregoing remarks, we have of course made free use of the labors of others. We would particularly express our obligations to the Committee of the House of Representatives for the able Report placed at the head of this article, and to the gentleman whose name stands the second on this Committee for a series of papers in "The Salem Gazette," in which he contends, with characteristic simplicity and force, for the entire abolition of capital punishment. If this cause, of the excellence of which we are fully convinced, shall be in any measure advanced by our present labors, we shall feel that they are amply rewarded.

ART. IV. - Poems, by Miss H. F. GOULD. Second Edition, with Additions. Boston. Hilliard, Gray, & Co. 1833. 18mo. pp. 224.

It is impossible to find fault with Miss Gould's poetry. It is so sweet and unpretending, so pure in purpose and so

gentle in expression, that criticism is disarmed of all severity, and engaged to say nothing of it but good. It is poetry for a sober, quiet, kindly-affectioned, Christian heart. It is poetry for a united family circle, in their hours of peace and leisure. For such companionship it was made, and into such it will find, and has found, its way.

The pieces contained in this volume, as is common in collections of the kind, are of various degrees of merit. They were brought together by near friends of the author, who could not part lightly with any production of her pen, nor select with the coolness of indifferent persons, from the whole number before them. We cannot blame them for this, but rather yield them our sympathy, because we feel that under similar circumstances we should do the same.

A great proportion of these pieces are remarkable for presenting a single impressive thought or incident in a suc-, cession of natural lights, and leaving an undivided moral effect on the mind of the reader. What a touching picture of a solitary midnight occupation, is presented in the following lines.

"THE ROBE.

"T was not the robe of state,

Which the high and the haughty wear,
That my busy hand, as the lamp burnt late,
Was hastening to prepare.

"It had no clasp of gold,

No diamond's dazzling blaze

For the festive board; nor the graceful fold
To float in the dance's maze.

"'T was not to wrap the breast,
With gladness light and warm,

For the bride's attire for the joyous guest;
Nor to clothe the sufferer's form.

""T was not the garb of woe

To conceal an aching heart,

When our eyes with bitter tears o'erflow,

And our dearest ones depart.

""T was what we all must bear
To the cold, the lonely bed!

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41

"T was the spotless uniform they wear
In the chambers of the dead!

"I saw a fair, young maid

In the snowy vesture drest;
So pure, she looked as one arrayed
For the mansions of the blest.

"A smile had left its trace

On her lip, at the parting breath,

And the beauty in that lovely face

Was fixed with the seal of death!"

The same character belongs to the piece entitled "The Empty Bird's-Nest."

"And thou, my sad, little, lonely nest,
Hast oft been sought as the peaceful rest
Of a weary wing and a guiltless breast!
But where is thy builder now?

And what has become of the helpless brood,
For which the mother, with daily food,
Came flitting so light, through the spicy wood,
To her home on the waving bough?

"The fowler, perhaps, has hurled the dart,
Which the parent bird has received in her heart;
And her tender orphans are scattered apart,

So wide, they never again

In thy warm, soft cell of love can meet,

And thou hast been filled with the snow and the sleet,
By the hail and the winds have thy sides been beat,
And drenched by the pitiless rain.

"Though great was the toil which thy building cost,
With thy fibres so neatly coiled and crossed,
And thy lining of down, thou art lorn and lost,
A ruin beyond repair;

So I'll take thee down, as I would not see

Such a sorrowful sight on the gay green tree;

And when I have torn thee, thy parts shall be
Like thy tenants, dispersed in air.

"Thou hast made me to think of each heart-woven tie;
Of the child's first home, and of her, whose eye
Watched fondly o'er those, who were reared to die
Where the grave of a distant shore

Received to its bosom the strangers' clay;

For when, as thy birds, they had passed away,

'T was not to return, and the mother and they
In time were to meet no more!"

The next specimen which we shall offer, is, though shorter, still better. It is the versification of an incident which has occurred in many a family, and will occur again and again. Miss Gould has judged well in uttering it in simple words; for any thing different from simplicity would have spoiled it. It will cause not a few parents to sigh deeply — perhaps, to weep.

"THE PLAYTHINGS.

"Oh! mother, here's the very top,

That brother used to spin;

The vase with seeds I 've seen him drop

To call our robin in;

The line that held his pretty kite,

His bow, his cup and ball,

The slate on which he learned to write,
His feather, cap, and all!'

"My dear, I'd put the things away
Just where they were before:
Go, Anna, take him out to play,
And shut the closet door.

Sweet innocent! he little thinks

The slightest thought expressed,
Of him that 's lost, too deeply sinks
Within a mother's breast!""

There are some pieces in the volume, of a gayer character than those we have extracted, and they are happily executed. But in so short a notice as this, we do not feel disposed to fly "from grave to gay," and shall therefore leave our readers under the impression of the feelings which the general tone of this book is calculated to inspire.

ART. V." The District School as it was, by ONE, WHO Boston. Carter, Hendee, & Co. 1833.

WENT TO IT.

12mo. pp. 156.

We hope and trust this little book will be extensively read. If not, it will be for some reason besides its want of merit. One merit, and this is among the very rarest, it certainly has; that of effecting precisely what it undertakes. It undertakes to picture the District School. And the District School, both without and within, both in its unity and in its variety, both in its principal and in its accessory ideas, stands right before us. We see, we have seen a thousand times, that old, weather-stained, crazy building, with its slamming blinds, and its curiously diversified windows, apparently contrived, by wooden, cracked, and puttied panes, to prevent too large and direct an influx of light, the "District School as it was" not rejoicing in excess of light. We hear the continuous, bee-like hum of its swarming inmates. Our childhood is back upon us. Its giddiness is in our brain; its recklessness is in our heart; its vitality is leaping along every nerve, and whirling through every vein. We are again "reading," at the top of our voice, in utter defiance of emphasis, intonation, cadence, and such like antiquated prejudices. We are spelling "abomination," a tin medal being about our neck. We are battling sturdily, but with blows as aimless as old blind Polypheme's, with the "Parts of Speech." Our arm aches with long holding at full length the heavy Bible; -a not very wisely selected instrument of punishment, though often and variously used in old times. Our hand is blushing with the ferula's kiss. We are rolling and tumbling in the snow. We are on fire with the excitement of a snow-ball fight. In a word, the work of years is undone in a moment; ―our hard-earned experience has slipped from our grasp;-and we are again that drollest of all droll things, that museum of all oddities, that incarnation of all angles, and twists, and crooks, that most care-free, uproarious, and happy creature, a country school-boy.

Our author is no copyist. His descriptions are not dim, spiritless imitations of some lifeless foreign original. His language is forcible, picturesque, and his own. It lets the thought shine through it, without rounding off one corner, or