portion of the damp, cloudy, and disagreeable ones we have here. Yet every day passed in Rome seems memorable. What an event should I not have thought it, at any former period of my life, to have passed a day in Rome! I think it such still. I do not see how life can ever be common life, on such a spot. In truth, it seems as if one had no right to enjoy the common comforts of life amidst such ruins the ruins of a world passed away-the mighty shadows of ancient glory spreading over every hill - the very soil we tread upon, no longer the pathways of the old Roman masters of the world, but the mouldering rubbish of their temples, their palaces, their fire-sides- the yet almost breathing dust of a life, signalized beyond all others in the world's great history. One feels that it would be an appropriate life here, to sit down like Marius on the ruins of Carthage- or to burrow in the Coliseum -or to pitch one's tent alone, in the waste and silent fields, amid the rank grass or the thick and towering reeds that have overgrown so large a portion of the ancient city."

The very existence of such monuments of the past as are described below, take from such passages as the above every thing that might seem to savor of extravagance or enthusiasm:

"As to these Egyptian obelisks, of polished granite, pointing up to the sky from almost every square and open space in Rome, and with that hand-writing of mysterious and yet unexplained characters upon their sides - what could be more striking? The antiquities of Rome are young, by their side. Some of them were built by Sesostris, by Rameses, between three and four thousand years ago. They saw ages of empire and glory before Rome had a being. They are also in the most perfect preservation. So beautifully polished, and entirely free from stain, untouched by the storms of thirty-five centuries, it seems as if they had not lost one of their particles, since they came from the quarries of Egypt. That very surface, we know, has been gazed upon by the eyes of a hundred successive generations. Speak, dread monitors! as ye point upward to Heaven - speak, dark hieroglyphic symbols! and tell us are ye not yet conscious, when conscious life has been flowing around you for three thousand years? Methinks it were enough to penetrate the bosom of granite with emotion, to have witnessed what ye have witnessed. Methinks that the stern and inexorable mystery, graven upon your mighty shafts, must break silence, to tell that which it hath known of weal and wo, of change, disaster, blood, and crime!"

A passage from the description of an ascent to Vesuvius, must close our quotations:

fires

"The guide took me to two places on the side of the mountain, where were openings, two feet in diameter, into the molten and fiery mass of lava. It was really fearful to look down into it. There it was, within two or three feet of you, a mass like molten iron, flowing down the side of the mountain; and yourself separated by a crust of lava, not more than a foot thick, perhaps, from the tremendous fires of Vesuvius!that you had read of with a sort of dread and horror, at the distance of four thousand miles from them; fires that were burning, for aught you knew, to the centre of earth. And here you stand directly over them, and feel their heat burning your very cheek! There was another opening were the hissing was so loud and sharp that I could hardly stand by it. Smoke ascended from various points around us; and the smell of the gas that escaped from these places was extremely pungent, and almost suffocating. It seemed as if it cut the very lungs, it was so sharp. For my part, I was glad to get down; and felt as if it were almost a tempting of Providence to be there, from motives of mere curiosity.

"I understand, this evening, that since I was there, the lava has overflowed a part of the very path on which I went up; and that the celebrated guide Salvatore has given notice, that it is not safe at this moment to attempt the mountain at all. If so, the moment of my going up was fortunate. I observe this evening, that the stream of lava is brighter and more distinct than I have seen it any evening before. It is, indeed, and without any exaggeration, a river of fire, flowing down, for the distance of a mile or two, from the top of the mountain."

In taking our leave of these volumes, we do not promise our readers that it shall be final. We have but touched a few of their prominent points, and feel that we have scarcely done them justice. The remarks in relation to religious establishments — the comparative health of England and America— the reflections regarding a proper observance of the Sabbath-the Catholic system, right of suffrage, and numerous other incidental topics, we have been obliged to pass entirely by. These portions of the work are marked by just and profound thinking, and by a spirit of Christian charity, as rare as it is edifying.

BIBLE PSALMS. HYMNS AND SPIRITUAL SONGS: adapted to Public, Social, and Family Worship. By Subscription.

THE author of this proposed work-for the pamphlet before us is but its arant courier- appears before the public in the modest capacity of corrector of abuses in sacred psalmody-in other words he has taken upon himself to improve upon Isaac Watts, whom he seems to consider a very indifferent poet, unfaithful to his text, etc. He entertains, however, quite another opinion of his own performances: his hymns are

Moreover, they are

Marked where the soft pathetic strain

Is breathed in sighs and groans,
And where the chorus wakes amain
In loud and cheerful tones :'

The author affirms that it

We

'To all who sing Messiah's King, Inscribed by Abner Jones!"

'Is plainly wrong

In books of song,

To have them made in prose ;'

We are not disposed to dispute this point with him; and we are therefore compelled to judge him with his own judgment. Many of his lines appear to have been made by two persons playing at crambo· a game wherein one furnishes a word, and another a fellow rhyme to it. In his preface, Mr. Jones has some sensible remarks concerning a faithful translation of the Psalms into verse; and we agree with him, when he says, with his accustomed felicity,

"That scores of stanzas might be named,

Which such confusion bring,

They can't as Psalms be justly claimed,
Though good enough to sing :'

At the same time, it seems to us that in his attempts at sacred verse he has not vastly improved upon those whom he so sturdily condemns. Indeed, some of his emendations are divertingly impudent. Take the following for example:

"O! may my heart in tune be found,

Like David's harp of solemn sound,'

might have been written as follows: the sentiment, as far as I can see, would still be the same:

"O! may my heart be tuned within,

Like David's solemn violin!''

Now and then Mr. Jones gives the thoughts of the psalmist in nervous stanzas; and there are occasional unexpected jerks of peculiar sublimity, that are quite edifying. Such is his simile, when reprehending alteration of the Psalms in paraphrasing:

For who to paint this earthly ball,

And draw it on a map,

Would set Niagara's water fall
On Alpine's hoary cap?

Or face the rivers half about,

Invert the Northern pole;

Or leave the burning mountains out,
Where liquid lavas roll?'

In general, however, he is prosaic and cacophanous; and if we might be thought worthy to advise, we should certainly suggest to Mr. Jones the propriety of abandoning his project of superseding Dr. Watts as a sacred melodist; for with some few

exceptions, we cannot better describe the choice specimens with which he has favored the public, than in his own words:

'Such vain displays of wit and skill
Are certainly most sad.'

VISIT TO CONSTANTINOPLE AND ATHENS. By Rev. WALTER COLTON, U. S. N., author of 'Ship and Shore.' In one vol. 12mo. pp. 348. New-York: LEAVITT, LORD AND COMPANY.

OUR opinion of the merits of Mr. COLTON, as a gifted and graceful writer, was recently expressed at some length in a notice in these pages of his 'Ship and Shore.' In the volume before us, we find abundant proofs of the correctness of our former impressions; indeed we consider the present in many respects superior to that delightful and popular work. It is written in much the same style; and though invariably smooth and flowing in diction, its excellence in this regard is very evidently not the result of repeated touches and perpetual pruning, but the exuberance of a full and poetical mind. The work was written, as the writer informs us, at sea, from hasty notes taken at the places of which it treats, without any aid from the observation of other travelers, or the assistance of a common guide-book, or any access to historical records' amid the careless noise and systematized confusion which prevail on board a man-of-war; the lively conversation of the ward-room officers in one ear, the prattle of the pantry boys in the other; the echoing tread of sailors overhead; on a table lashed down to prevent its being capsized, in a chair secured with lanyards against the force of the ship's lurch, and with the manuscript tacked to its place to escape the fate which befel the Sybilline leaves.'

Gushes of true poetry occur at not distant intervals throughout the volume; and by these we do not mean the occasional stanzas wherein the author is constrained to burst forth into song, but the deep and passionate feeling with which the prose is so often imbued. We shall not attempt a regular analysis of a book, which is but a series of random and desultory, though evidently faithful sketches, but proceed at once to justify our encomiums by liberal extracts—commencing with the annexed' picture in little' of Constantinople:

"The night soon came on, attended by a silence that one could hardly expect to realize in the tumultuous heart of a mixed and crowded city. Of the thronging multitudes scarcely a footstep lingered in the streets; a deep slumber seemed to hover at once upon each habitation; not a voice of wrangling or revelry was to be heard; and nothing remained to disturb the stillness of the place, except the startled howl of the watch-dog at the gloomy gate, and the wail of the mourner over some fresh couch of death. ascended to the terrace, which commanded a wide and diversified prospect, and there spent a solitary hour in gazing at a scene that cast on my feelings the most brilliant and mournful images. Beneath me flowed the Bosphorus, in a broad stream of liquid silver, and mingling its glittering line with the rich flow of the Golden Horn, as it swelled down with a bolder circle from the distant valley of Sweet Waters. Farther on rose the domes of the vast city, lifting themselves, in magnificence and beauty, into the soft light of the evening sky; while beyond slumbered the Marmora, enshrining in its pure bosom the subdued splendors of the mirrored heaven; while less remote, and in a different range, stood the long and dense grove of the Cypress, casting its solemn shadows over the turbaned tombs of thousands who had sunk to their latest rest. In that populous solitude not a bird broke into momentary song, and even the moonbeams seemed timidly still, as they stole through the darkening foliage, and faintly gleamed on the marbles of the dead. Around me lay, in unconscious sleep, multitudes for whom the insidious pestilence was preparing a hurried grave; and all, in their deep unbroken repose, were so like to that which they must finally become, that life scarcely appeared to survive in this map of death. It was as a peopled and voiceless barque, floating on

that sullen flood which moves from this narrow isthmus of time to that uncertain shore from which no wave, or sail, or mariner, has ever returned."

The following description of the sale of a young female, is a forcible illustration of the estimation in which woman is held in the land of the Ottoman :

"From the freshening enjoyments of the bath I started off, with the Armenian guide, for the Aurat Bazar; where, instead of robes and weapons, they deal in beauty and blood. The only being who there appeared to excite any great degree of interest among the purchasers was a young Georgian, surreptitiously taken, several years since, from her native province, and brought to this city, where she was purchased by a Jew; who, to enhance her value, placed her in a situation where she had acquired many pleasing personal accomplishments. The violent death of her attentive proprietor had, perhaps, hastened her disposal; at least, it was the cause of the sale's being more public than is usually the case where an individual, so sweetly recommended in her charms, is to be purchased. She appeared to be about fifteen years of age, yet, at that period, to have attained her full stature, and a maturity of form which after years may confirm but not improve. She had on an extremely thin and pliant robe, which every breath of the breeze that was stirring carried against her form, displaying its rich and graceful proportions. Her carriage was free, easy, and winning, and betrayed a retiring consciousness of her exposed condition. There was something in her air which seemed to evince a slight sense of humiliation and sorrow; yet, so far from injuring her attractions, it gave them a cast of extreme delicacy and sweetness. Had she been trained exclusively in reference to this occasion, and taken the deepest interest in the issue, it is impossible to conceive in what respect she could have heightened the impression which her youth, beauty, and artless demeanor created.

"Several of the Turks present appeared very intent on her purchase; they watched her slightest motion with that yearning fondness which one reveals when surveying a fascinating object that is only just beyond his possession. They presumed not to lay a hand even on the borders of her dress, or to lift the long thin veil that would have quite concealed her beautiful face, had she not permitted the ruffling air now and then to carry it partially aside. The female servants that attended her stood near by in respectful silence, and evident grief, at the thought of their separation from their young mistress. My eyes were so attracted to the rich flow of her chesnut hair, as it floated down her shoulders in long luxuriant festoons, and to the swimming softness of her large blue eye, which her stirred veil occasionally disclosed, that I did not, at first, notice the excitement which a commencement of the sale had created among the by-standers. A number of offers were made, rising above each other in quiet succession, till the last, reaching twenty-seven hundred dollars, created for some time a breathless pause, when one of the company, stepping to the salesman, said something in a tone altogether inaudible, and the auction of charms closed. It was instantly rumored that the individual who had made the last and successful offer, was an agent of the Reis Effendi, who intended to make a present of this beautiful Georgian to the Sultan. This appeared to reconcile, in some measure, the unsuccessful competitors to their disappointment; though they turned away from the spot with the look of one who has lucklessly lost an invaluable treasure.'

The subjoined paragraphs, with numerous others of a similar description which might be selected, represent the Turkish character in a more favorable light, in the minor essentials at least of a merciful disposition, than it is generally regarded:

"On our way we encountered several flocks of those small birds which fly incessantly back and forth between the Euxine and Propontis. They have never been known to alight, to pause, or deviate in their course: they reach the waves of one sea, wheel about, and return to the waves of the other, where they wheel again, and so pass up and down the current, like hapless ghosts on the shore of the Stygian stream. It has been supposed, by some of the more considerate natives, that they are the spirits of those who, in a fit of causeless jealousy, have cast their innocent wives into this strangling tide; and that they must, in expiation of their crime, drift about above these graves of guiltless beauty till the revisions and awards of the final day. I would that all prone to harbour distrust where no cause exists, and to punish offences which are merely imaginary, could see these wretched, unresisting birds: even the prospect of such a punishment would be enough to make them pause before they accuse, and linger long before the holiest ties of earth were rent asunder. I detest the jealous miscreant who prowls about himself in search of forbidden pleasures, and comes home only to turn his hearthstone into a tomb! - who spreads sorrow and shame through the dwellings of others; and then, as if to cancel his crime, immolates the happiness of a wife, whose only fault has been a too indulgent and tender regard for his honor. If it is possible for the devil to be disgusted with any of the odious beings driven into his realm, it must be with such a foul, leprous wretch as this. Such a monster ought to have a hell by himself!

"But to come back to things less repulsive; we passed on our return great numbers of the white gull, quietly cradled on the water, and so very tame as scarcely to move out of the way of our boat. This tameness results from a kind of sacredness which the Turk casts over the life and plumage of this bird. No one is allowed to injure it, or even to disturb it, except on some good and lawful occasion; and should you kill it, a more fearful penalty would follow than befel the ancient mariner, for the death of the albatross. The little prisoner of the cage is also an object of warm sympathy with the turbaned man; he will purchase its freedom at a high price, and as the captive flies away from his confinement, feel all the pure and hallowing satisfaction of the real Samaritan. How singular the channels in which his sympathy runs! He will liberate a canary with a heart almost breaking with compassion, and then lop off the head of a human being with as little compunction as you would clip the top of a cabbage stump. "Nor is this compassionate regard confined to the feathered species. Ever since Mahomet consented to part with the skirt of his coat sooner than disturb the cat that was slumbering upon it, this animal has received from his followers the tenderest treatment. Hundreds of them are fed at stated days in the spacious court of the mosque of Sultan Achmet, from the proceeds of a fund established for this special purpose. And the dog here has not only all the rights of citizenship, but many other privileges which Christians have never been able to obtain."

Aside from the beautiful touches of nature which are scattered with a lavish hand through the present volume, there are now and then fine fragments of satiric humor, and forceful satire, which prove the author to be what is termed a 'dangerous customer.' We annex two specimens. The first has a squinting toward the industrious antiquaries who have found on the plain of Troy the remains of so many things that never existed, and is the reflections of the writer upon 'the very monument which Adam set up over the dust of his beloved Eve!'- found by an Arab, beyond the ruins of Babylon:

"I am aware that the more distrustful reader will receive, with some hesitation, all my statements respecting the discovery and properties of this primitive monument. It may, perhaps, be incumbent on me, if I would secure his implicit confidence, to produce the original. This shall be done as soon as practicable; and in the mean time I assure him, there is not, in all I have said, a less scrupulous regard to truth and rational probability, than is usual in books of travel, and especially those that treat of antiquities. I am amazed, myself, at the discovery. It appears that we are, in these last days of the world, as far short of the aborigines of the earth in practical wisdom, as we are behind them in years. The utmost we can expect is, to recover what has been lost - to make the two ends of time harmoniously meet.

"When I think of my own agency in the discovery of this memorial, that but for me it would never have been known beyond the breast of the ignorant Arab; when I think, too, of the change it will bring upon the face of society, of the impulse it will give to those instantaneous convictions which flash beyond all the slow advances of knowledge the enthusiasm with which it will be spoken of in the circles of the learnedthe vitality it will send down among the bones of the antiquarian dead - when I think of these things, I seem to stand on some eminence, distinguished from my fellow-beings by a destiny all my own - I seem to hear my name every where repeated, every where dwelt upon with wonder and admiration: even the tongue of posterity is not silent, the voice of its homage comes up through the depths of time like a pæan from eternity. And well may this homage be rendered; for no discovery that man has yet made, can equal mine, save that of Hudibras

of one

The second, which is like unto it, is a picture of a 'fanatical ultraist' who, in 'charging' a late 'evangelist,' we heard make use of the following pleasing language: 'You must be prepared, brother, to look bad men out of countenance— ay, to look the devil himself out of countenance - yes, you must be prepared to look all hell out of countenance!' The reader will readily perceive, therefore, that the following castigation is not undeserved:

"Our crew were so elated with the prospect of reaching their winter-quarters, that the old violin, which had lain silent for a long time, was restrung, and made to discourse its music. Of the amusement that followed, with ten times the heart of the fashionable ball-room, without any of its graces, I will say nothing; for a previous description of a