large force, have attempted to engage the neigh-so good an example; and the emperor would not boring states in their undertaking, and have only have the Italians and Magyars against him in boldly left their mountain fastnesses, and en- the struggle, but a population of some 4,500,000 camped on the plains beyond the Turkish frontier. warlike tribes, who have so far always remained Their chief object is still, no doubt, plunder; but true to his cause. And it is for this reason, no their injudicious friends hold them up to the world doubt, we find the Austrian government itself ocas the liberators of the Christian population of cupying still so wavering and disadvantageous a Turkey, and would engage our sympathies in a position. While some of the official journals, we new crusade. perceive, are encouraging the revolt, others are doing all they can to lessen its importance and conceal its objects.

576
Although hundreds were said to be pardoned
during the presidential journeys-especially the
last through the South-yet the government organ
actually tells the world that "three thousand" are
now pardoned, and that "twelve hundred" still
remain in the dungeons or the colonies of France.
Eugénie de Montijo has not been Empress of the
French a week, and pitiless critics are already
guessing at her future fate, and her influence on
European politics. The fate of an Empress or a
Queen of the French-who can forecast it? Beau-
tiful Marie Antoinette, with her "chevelure
rousse" like that of Eugénie de Montijo, stepped
one day from a throne to a scaffold, whereon a Du
Barry and a Roland had also perished. "The
good and modest wife of General Bonaparte"
the popular Josephine-died broken-hearted and
divorced. Marie Louise, of Austria, from an em-
press became a castaway. Queen Amélie of
Orleans fled for shelter to a foreign soil; and
Helen of Wurtemberg, fondly destined to ascend a
throne, is with her son, an exile, forced to sell the
pictures collected by her husband, and an object
of insulting remark to him who has seized her
son's birthright. Who, then, can predict the
future fate of the Empress Eugénie? Her possible
influence on European politics is a shadow. Louis
Napoleon may become uxorious, and the clever
mistress of witching smiles may tame and human-
ize him. Or she may prove an intriguante, and
use her position unworthily. Or she may be
without influence on important affairs-a pretty
woman, but a political zero.

ITALY IN JANUARY, 1853.-POETICAL WORKS OF HENRY ALFOrd.

From the Examiner.

ITALY IN JANUARY, 1853.

O NATION of Alfieri! thou
Before the cope and cowl must bow,
And Gallic herds from Tiber drink
Until the stagnant water sink,
And nothing be there left but mud
Dark with long streaks of civic blood.
Mark, Galileo, with what glee,
From sorcery's fragile thraldom free,

The sun spins round thy worlds, and thee!
Above, to keep them in, is bent

A solid marble firmament,

Which saints and confessors hold down
Surmounted with a triple crown.
Torture had made thee (never mind!)
A little lame, a little blind;

God's own right hand restores thy sight,
And from his own, he gives thee light;
His arm supports thy mangled feet,
Now firm, and plants near His thy seat.
Savonarola! look below,

And see how fresh those embers glow
Which once were faggots round the stake
Of him who died for Jesu's sake,
Who walkt where his apostles led,
And from God's wrath, not mortal's, filed.
Come, Dante! virtuous, sage, and bold,
Come, look into that miry fold;
Foxes and wolves lie there asleep,
O'ergorged; and men but wake to weep;
Come, Saints and Virgins! whose one tomb
Is Rome's parental catacomb;
Above where once ye bled, there now
Foul breath blows blushes from the brow
Of maidens, whipt until they fall
To feed the plump confessional.
O earlier shades! no less revered!

In your Elysium ye have heard
No tale so sad, no tale so true,
None so incredible to you.

Gloomy as droops the present day,
And Hope is chilled and shrinks away,
Another age perhaps may see
Freedom raise up dead Italy.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

The Poetical Works of Henry Alford, Vicar of Wymeswold, Leicestershire. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 1853.

Mr. Alford's name was first made known to readers on this side of the water, we believe, by the writer of an article in the Christian Examiner, published about three years since. The extracts then given were marked by so much grace and tenderness that a strong desire was felt to know more of him. This desire has now been gratified by the publication of a very beautiful edition of his poems, collected by himself, and more complete than any published in England. He is a writer of a lively fancy, great sweetness of tone, and much metrical skill, who never aspires to the falls below the level of his theme. He speaks dihighest exercise of the poetic faculty, but who never rectly from his own heart to the heart of his reader; and the spirit of Christian trust and confidence everywhere breathing through his verse will give to his volume a permanent place in our religious poetry. Many of the pieces have a rhythmical flow, a grace of diction, and a tenderness of sentiment, which can hardly be too much admired. As a whole, the shorter pieces please us most-particularly some of the sonnets and the series of hymns for particular occasions. We should be glad to enrich our columns with nuselves to the following Christmas poem :—

merous choice extracts. But we must confine our

Are two, on whom toil and the quiet time
Have wrought sweet slumber; and by breathings soft
They testify their presence to my heart,
And waken kindly thoughts.

My earliest loved-
Thou who, in laughing childhood and ripe youth,
Wast ever mine-with whose advancing thought
I grew entwined—and who, in time, didst yield
Thy maiden coyness, and in mystic band
Didst link thyself to me-one heart, one life
Binds us together; in the inmost soul
Either is known to other; and we walk
The daily path of unrecorded life,
Blest with a double portion of God's love.

And thou, to thy warm nook beside our bed,
Peacefully wrapt iu slumber infantine,
Thou treasure newly found of springing joy-
Thou jewel in the coronet of love-
Thou little flower, a choice plant's earliest gem-
Thou brightest morning star, by Love divine
Set on the forehead of the hopeful east,-
Thou reckest not of time; our human names
Mould not thy varying moods; if marking aught,
Measuring thy days by still-expected hours
Of soft appliance to thy mother's breast;
And yet methinks so hallowed is the time
That even thy cushioned cheek hath trace of it
Clothed in a deeper and peculiar calm.

The blessings of a kindly Providence
Light on ye both; the way of life, not dark
With gathering storms as yet, invites us on;
We must advance, in threefold union strong,
And strong in Him who bound our lives in God.
Traveller.

LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 462.-26 MARCH, 1853.

From Sharpe's Magazine.

THE CHRISTMAS FIRES.

ON THE ENGLISH HEARTH.

Ir was the fullest winter-time, and snow lay very deep upon the Longmynd hills in Shropshire. It was, however, not a sad or dreary time, for the moon had risen in splendor to welcome in the Christmas eve, so that the loneliest places on the hoary mountain-tops seemed one with more frequented scenes in beauty, in cheerfulness, and in serenity!

fern, every lichen on the few hoary roots-nothing could exceed the tranquil, suggestive, peaceful beau ty of the little scene, so shut out from all the world, and yet so peopled by the multitudinous evidence of God. It was a place for peace, a place for hope, a place from which to descend into the world on this sweet Christmas eve, with heart new touched by the divine humanities taught to us so long ago!

Warmed and gladdened by feelings such as these, the poor country doctor had just crossed the ridge with quickened steps, when a cloud of snow After a long and weary ride of many miles, Mr. was all at once scattered in his face, and a large Mynor, a country surgeon, dismounted, and, lead- dog leaped up against him and the frightened ing his horse, began the ascent of one of those horse. Pushed down, but spoken to kindly, the lonely hills that lay betwixt him and the village poor brute no sooner heard the human voice than where he lived. He had promised his young wife it seemed wild with joy, and looking back, as to be home by nine o'clock that evening, and as though to lead the doctor on, retraced its own it was now much past seven, he wound the reins wild steps. Feeling sure that some one was in round his arm, and walked on at a quick pace. distress, for the dog he knew did not belong to His heart was, however, very sad, for he had set any of the hill people, Mr. Mynor hurried on, off that morning in the hope that a bill long owing and soon came up to where the dog, stretched out to him would be paid; but the country hunks, for- with extended fore-feet on the snow, was watchgetful of the doctor's kindness to him through a ing beside a little heap of broken hoar-stones, on long illness, and willing to reap the last penny of one of which a fine, athletic young man was interest on the sum, had again put the payment seated, apparently asleep. Knowing the certain off by paltry and disingenuous excuses. Too | danger of such a position, on such a night and in proud to beg where he had a right, Mr. Mynor had not urged the claim; though, as the miles lessened between him and his home, his mental suffering amounted to anguish, as he thought of his young wife's anxious face, and the comparatively breadless morrow for his little children.

so desolate a spot, the doctor spoke to him, and then attempted to arouse him, though without success. He still breathed; his face and hands were already rigid with the intense frost, and his stupor extreme. Mr. Mynor had fortunately a little brandy with him in a flask. He poured a Once or twice he was aroused from the ab- few drops of this down the stranger's throat, serbing subject of his meditations by the barking loosened his neck-handkerchief, and rubbed his of a dog, but, judging that it belonged to some hands for some minutes with snow. He then atshepherd out upon the hills, he forgot it again as tempted to lift hin on the horse, which, after some soon as its deep mouth was silenced. Thus, pur- difficulty, and by raising him by degrees on to suing his way, the sterile mountain top was one of the lichen-covered stones, he accomplished. gained just as it seemed his mental anguish had Then, securing a small black canvass bag and a reached its keenest point; but then, raising his stick to the saddle-bow, he urged his horse on, face to make sure of his path amidst the untrod- and walked beside it to support the stranger. The den snow, a change came over him, such as has snow in places was so deep, and the descent of come to many a heart, and will, thank God, to the the mountain had to be so carefully made, as to end of time. The exquisite beauty of the scene, occupy double the ordinary time, so that when the and the deep, unutterable peace that lay over it, doctor reached the little village street it was far gave him, as though it were, a sudden power to past nine, the lights had gone from out the small see into the great under-current of this human ivied church, where the rustic singers and the life of ours, and how transient and how small are parish clerk had been practising Christmas all its ills, those even of the largest, when its in- carols, and all the villagers were gathered round finite and its immortal purposes can be viewed in their glowing hearths, making merry and welcomall their sublimity and moral grandeur. A long ing in the grand old festival of the morrow. The and oftentimes a weary road it doubtless has to poor stranger was by this time so far roused as to be, but still an eternal progress up to light and sit up with little help, and to answer the doctor's good; a way that in the abstract is all of hope, a kindly words in monosyllables, whilst the dog, way whose travellers' steps are ever being helped keeping pace with the horse, or running on in and lifted by a divine and loving hand, a way little circuits before, seemed conscious that its whose mountains at the close are heaven itself-master was in friendly hands. the mountains of the "Shining Ones."

Just where the little street wound by a declivi

A little undulating hollow so occupied the sur-ty towards a mountain brook-in summer the face of the hill that, once within its encircling loveliest spot the eye might rest upon for many a ridge, nothing but the richly lighted heavens mile-Mr. Mynor pushed open a wide door, and could be seen; but there pouring down a flood of led the horse into a little court-yard, on which glory from moon and stars upon every flake of gleamed, through the lattice panes of a wide spotless snow, every outstanding blade of withered casement, the light of a ruddy fire. Though most VOL. XXXVI. 37

CCCCLXII. LIVING AGE.

sounds were deadened by the snow stretched every-1 for the children this afternoon, I found it as by a where, a quick ear detected his return, so that miracle. So, if you'll put on your hat, William, scarcely had the gate swung back than the house and fetch good Mary Rock, she can go and buy a door opened, and a pretty little, fair young crea- pound of beef and an ounce of tea, as though for ture of a woman, with two or three children herself, and after that help me with the stranger's crowded round her, came running, out into the bed; and if Joe, her husband, would not mind moonlight to welcome the doctor home. In her coming as well, he can litter down the horse whilst first eagerness she did not perceive the drooping Mary is absent. stranger; when she did, just as she reached her husband's side, she drew back in wonder and

terror.

"Nothing for fear, my Flo., but much for care and pity," said her husband, tenderly; "it is a poor stranger I met with on the hills, and who would have been dead by this time but for my timely passing by. Come, my love, help me to lead him in; we must be Samaritans, if for no other reason than that this is Christmas eve." His young wife had too fine a heart to doubt or question; when her husband had lifted the stranger from the horse, she at once supported him on the other side, and thus, together, she and her husband slowly helped him across the threshold of the house, and from thence into a fine old country kitchen, whose ruddy fire had gleamed out so cheerfully upon the court-yard snow. Two of the little children, full of awe and pity, ran on before, whilst the third, a brave little lad of some six years old, or so, staid behind to watch the dog that, absolutely wild with joy, ran up and down the snow, now behind a laurel bush, now off into the orchard, till at last, after leaping up on to the child, by way of a concluding flourish, it bolted into the house to seek its master. He was there already in a great arm-chair beside the fire, with the doctor and his little wife at hand. A lovely baby of a few months' old, lay in a cradle near, children's playthings were strewn around, a tiny feast of apples roasted on the hob, and, though this was the only sign of Christmas cheer, there was purity, and gentleness, and love presiding over all.

"He must have some stimulants, and this as soon as possible, my Flo.," said the doctor, as he laid the stranger's head back on the chair; " and though faint he must be got to bed. He shall then have a cup of strong tea with brandy in it; next some beef tea-good beef tea-he wants nourish

ment."

The cheerful goodness of his little wife took a load off the doctor's heart. So, first kissing her tenderly, he went, and soon came back with a middle-aged countrywoman, of pleasant aspect, who, occupying with her husband a cottage at the rear of the doctor's garden, came in at intervals through the day to do the household work; Mrs. Mynor having, for prudence' sake, dismissed her servant since the early summer.

66

She now bustled about in preparation of the stranger's room. As soon as Mary came back from Hayway, the butcher's, and the shop," the good woman and her husband helped Mr. Mynor to take the stranger up stairs, whilst the doctor's little wife put the beef tea to nicely simmer on the hob, and made the other steaming tea that was to be administered with brandy. When Joe canre down to say that the young man was in bed, she poured it nicely out, and with cream and sugar, and sippets of toasted bread, carried it up stairs. When some of it had been given to him, and the bottles of hot water and bags of bran, that had been got ready and applied, began to take effect, rapid signs of recovery soon showed themselves; but the doctor, judging that stillness and natural sleep were now needful, would not suffer him to be disturbed, but, leaving Mary to watch beside him, descended once more to the pleasant kitchen fire. Both the doctor and his wife had been greatly struck by the stranger's face as it rested on the pillow, and now, whilst they sat at their poor supper with their children, it was the subject of conversation; the little ones being very curious to know what papa thought of the poor man.'

66

Why, he has come a long way I should think, my dears," answered their papa, "from a far-off place like Cumberland or Northumberland, I dare say. And I think, too, that he has been used to an active, out-door life, such as country surveyor or bailiff. At least he must be a stranger to our hills."

The young wife looked up into the doctor's cheerful face with an expressive glance. At once "And I think he must be do'od to you, and love he understood it, for, absorbed in his ministrations, you all his life, papa," said the little lisping Edith, he had forgotten the whole matter of his penniless as she slid her tiny hand into that of her papa's, return; now the whole bitter thought came back for it was very do'od of you to bring him out of to his heart, heavier and heavier than before. the deep snow; and p'raps, papa, he'll think of Not liking to speak of this deep humiliation before it every Christmas eve he lives." his guest, even though a heavy stupor yet lay on him, he drew his little wife away into the tall shadow of the ticking clock, and said, "My darling Flo., you must forgive me; Hodge would not pay me, and I have come home as I went. But do not be down-hearted, I will ride to the Braithwaites early in the morning, and get a sovereign on account of the bill, and be back in time for it to buy a Christmas dinner."

The smile of the little, loving wife was a fortune in itself. "Oh, never mind, dearest," was her quick reply, and in a light-hearted voice, for his dear sake, "it is not worth a care, excepting for the children. And now only think," she twined her little hands round his arm as she spoke, "I'm rich with a shilling; you recollect that bright one you gave me seven years ago, in those dear courting days of ours. Well, in hunting for some playthings

"He may, my dear; his face looks like that of one who has a fine, noble heart. As for what I did for him, it was no more than duty; what others may do for me some day. Whilst, though we should be charitable at all moments of our lives, binding, and healing, and pouring balm into wounds, on this sweet eve we should be so especially, for His sake, whose humanity, and charity, and love were so divine."

"And please pa," asked the tiny questioner again, "do angels t'um to night, as mamma tells us they came so long ago?"

"I scarcely know, pretty one," answered her papa, tenderly, "but it is beautiful, and perhaps well, to think that angels always hover over us, especially when we are good and kind."

66

Then, dear papa," answered quickly the poetic little one, as fondling her curly head upon his

arm, she turned her child's face sweetly up to his, | storms of a northern country. This feeling becom"then a g'ate and shining angel was over you ing irresistible, he had sat down and sunk into the when you lifted up the poor man on the mountain- deep, nay almost death-sleep in which the doctor top.' found him.

Right, darling child-our virtues are in themselves angelic-and thy very breadless home this winter's night shelters an angel unawares!

When this dear papa had told the little ones about the faithful dog, how it had crept up stairs, and now lay curled beside its master's feet, and when they had all said how they loved it, and would play with it on the morrow, they repeated their little prayers beside his knee, and went to bed, the happiest of childish hearts, for they knew not of the need that lay upon their home.

"And it would have been death long before this hour," spoke the doctor, with a feeling that brought tears to his Flora's eyes. "But now you must talk no more, if you intend to leave us in the morning. You must sleep till eight or nine, then let us give you a good breakfast, and then I shall be able to say whether you can leave us. If so, Joe shall harness my spare horse to the gig, and drive you to your friend's or to the town.

He then made Flora feed his poor patient with the beef-tea, whilst he himself descended to the It was nearly twelve before the beef-tea was surgery for a little needful medicine. When he ready; Mrs. Mynor then poured it out, and, at- returned, the young man's head lay again upon tended by her husband, went up stairs. To their the pillow. Saying a kind good-night, and leavastonishment, they found the poor stranger awake, ing him to the best care of her husband, the docleaning with his elbow on the pillow, and talking tor's tender little wife hurried down stairs to the in a low voice to Mary. But he held his trembling kitchen, to consult with Mary Rock about the hands out at once to both of them, and looked at morrow's breakfast. Her heart was full of hospithem with a brave, manly look, though yet bespeak-tality and kindness, but it sank at the thought of ing stupor and bodily suffering. their desolate poverty.

"What am I to do for you both, you good angels and unknown friends!"

"Nothing more," replied the kind doctor, "than to make perfect my small aid, by getting quickly well. It is nothing, sir; you or any other good Christian would have helped me, I'm sure, had you found me on a snowy waste, like where I met you. Now sip this beef-tea, then lie down and get another sleep, and then, with a few days' rest, I'll promise to send you forth a renovated, and, I hope, a more careful traveller."

"God bless you, and thrice bless you," said the young man, as he folded both Flo. and the doctor's hands within his, and held them there fervently, with his head bent down. Both saw that he was deeply moved, and wisely remained silent.

I a am a stranger to this wild country," he said, presently, as you may well suppose. But my rest cannot be longer than the morning; I am only on a less distant journey than that I should have by this time taken, had you not found me on the waste, dear doctor. I am on my way to Australia; I must be in town on the morning after to-morrow, to transact vital business. From thence I hurry to Plymouth, as the ship I sail by is already there." Both the doctor and his little wife expressed surprise.

Indeed, before Mary had spoken twenty words, the dear soul burst into tears. "I should not have cared for ourselves or the children," she heartily sobbed, "but for this poor stranger's sake I grieve. Oh! it will be like turning him breadless from our doors."

"There, missis, there, missis, don't take on," said Mary in her tender, homely way; "ladies as have been brought up like you take on so at a little bit o' poverty o' this sort. We poor folks, missis, dunna, because we be so used to 't. Many and many a time have I been straightened for a bit o' bread; more nor once I've seen nothing but the union-house 'afore us, and my heart's gone down plump-like-that it has-but only for a minnit, as I may say, for I've said- if the missis' heart fails, the maister's sure to do'-so I've hoped, and worked, and put a cheerful face on things, and trusted in the Lord-and things o' come right again. So cheer up, dear missis; there's a skeleton in many a house that's worser than poverty, you may depend on 't; and the dear maister 's got brighter days 'afore him, that you may be sure. And now, this is jist what I waited to say; please go to bed, and make your mind easy; there's hafe a p'und o' coffee, my big lad Tom brought from Hereford the last time he wun So on by degrees, from his slow, faint words, there-and mighty nice it become fra' Lunnon, they found that he was a Scotchman, and that I b'leve, and you can have hafe on 't, an' a bit his name was Farquharson; that he had been liv- o' the soft sugar as come as well. There's some ing in the Lothians as land-steward to a great pro- butter, too, i' my pantry, as Martha Clark churned prietor, but receiving, awhile before, a letter from this afe'ternoon; and this, wi' a bit o' new bread, Australia, from a servant who had once lived un-I can set to rise wi' the barm 'afore I go to bed, der him, and in which was some strange information, he had determined to go thither himself. With this view he had resigned his situation, gone up to London a fortnight before this date, secured there his berth and outfit, and then come down into this country to bid some relatives of his mother, who had been a Shropshire woman, farewell. Leaving the quiet farm of these good people that very day, he had attempted to cross the desolate Longmynd Hills, in the hopes of finding a nearer way to the farm of another friend, who had promised to drive him to the next town, in order to meet the mail-train on Christmas night. Losing his way, and wandering about the desolate waste, he had been suddenly overcome by an intense drowsiness, though well used to the snows and

'll make a nicish breakfast-if thee 'll be letting one thing, missis?''

Mrs. Mynor looked up interrogatively, though tears dimmed her tender eyes.

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Well, now," even Mary hesitated, "if thee 'd let me crop the pair of fowls, and then wi' a bit o' the bacon up on the cratch, and a few o' the mushrooms that be under the glass, made wi' a bit o' butter into sauce, there 'll a breakfast as 'd serve the grandest folks!"

"Oh, Mary, Mary!" exclaimed Flo., scarcely letting the homely creature finish her sentence, "what would the dear little ones say, when they went to feed them with the breakfast crumbs, and missed Cocky and Henny? Oh! their hearts would be broken.”