TO THE READER. THE additional pages with which this number begins, afford "great enlargement," as Friends say, to the Editor,-whose "passion" it is, as the French say, to give you everything he likes himself. Fail not to read "Speculators among the Stars." It is beautiful and noble. He who reads the first part, will need no advice to read the conclusion when it shall come. The original Work, by Professor Whewell, has had a considerable sale in this country, Messrs. Gould & Lincoln having issued several editions. To the last is appended the Dialogue," in which the author reviews his reviewers. "The Artificial Production of Fish" we have been watching an opportunity to print, for some months. Mr. Chambers, in his late visit to America, gathered up many subjects for his "Journal." "The American Glencoe " is familiar to our readers through Evangeline. The war now begun in Europe and Asia, comes home to us in many ways; so that the articles from the "Economist" have a pecuniary and practical interest. The British Government, originally forced into the war by public opinion at home, forgot the great Duke's axiom, "England cannot have a little war," and by its dilatory and half-way plans, made it doubtful, to the last, to Germany, and even to Russia, that she meant to fight at all. The Allies have gone on so slowly, that the Russians were ready for them; and the crushing defeat supposed to await the latter at Sebastopol, seems now quite as likely to fall upon the invaders. On the other hand, the alliance of Austria, for which the good will of the people of Germany, Hungary, and Poland, has been sacrificed, seems to be quite as doubtful as ever. If Russia should successfully resist at Sebastopol, is it not likely that she will continue to be supported by Austria and Prussia? The position of their armies is very favorable, not only for holding the principalities, but also for pressing upon Hungary and Poland. On account of the abhorrence which the British aristocracy are supposed to feel for popular freedom on the continent,-as well as from some most impolitic hints as to the future regulation of American affairs by the Allies, many of our countrymen desire to see Russia hold her ground against them strongly and long. There has risen up no successor to Sir Robert Peel,-no great man who can see that it is a vital question to Great Britain to take away from us all suspicion of hostile plans on her part. It was not the Revolutionary War which created this distrust and animosity toward her, by which our domestic politics have so much been governed; but the retention of the North West forts, which enabled her to tamper with our Indian tribes. The Marquis of Lansdowne, after the Canadian troubles of 1837 had been put down, said that England had now the opportunity (by giving up the Canadas) of repairing the great error she had committed by retaining them in 1783. And yet, untaught by experience,-not seeing that our growth is as useful to her as her own, she seems likely (with the co-operation of our own. Government) to make trouble in Central America. Notwithstanding, we are earnestly in favor of the Allies. The Sultan risked his crown in defence of the Hungarian Refugees who came to him, against both Austria and Russia; and we believe that it is only the Russian pressure upon the German people, by support of their Governments, which renders despotism possible there. That pressure removed, it seems hopeful, if not likely, that a United Germany may grow up, with a Constitutional Government, and stay the Northern plague. Then it would only require a time, short in the life of nations, to give good government to Italy, Hungary, and perhaps to Poland. But we confess to great doubt of the success of a war begun too late and too timidly, and have no hope of living to see the end of it. From "The Friend," a Philadelphia weekly paper, we copy some beautiful and tender verses, which exhort to patience and persevering constancy, with fervent sim DLIV. LIVING AGE. VOL. VILL 1 plicity and wisdom. Perhaps a part of our feeling on the subject may arise from friendships with members of that society-who are now, we trust, of the great family of heaven. The "Spectator" of Nov. 25th, speaking of the British Home Army, says: "The enemy should be unable to land on any part of our island without finding its native defenders prepared to resist him. Such is the case with the United States of America. Exposed and extended as that territory would be, there is not, and for some time will not exist, a general who would venture to repeat the memorable tour of Lord Cornwallis in the Carolinas; because in the United States, with an army not exceeding 10,000, there are 2,300,000 militia or volunteers. Now, in the United States most men prefer to enter volunteer corps for the twofold reason, that they can regulate its standard of costume and its hours of drill. Some like an expensive and showy dress; others prefer a plainer dress; but we believe few care to remain within what may to a certain extent be called the pauper part of the resident army,—the militia. The consequence is, that emulation is powerfully excited; and some of the volunteer corps, such as the 1st Division of New York, have called forth the admiration of military men for their state of drill and efficiency. They have preserved the domestic peace of the State city; and others of a similar class have gained the victories of the United States over enemies on the border, adding provinces to the Union." Speaking of a volume just issued in England, the "Spectator" says:"The present volume of De Quincey's Miscellanies' appears under circumstances which demand sympathy; the author is suffering under the distraction of a nervous misery,' which, though it does not prevent the attempt at revision, is obviously not well fitted to insure success. The papers have interest in themselves. That on Murder' revives the celebrated case of Williams, which two-and-forty years ago, in the very crisis of Napoleon's fate, horrified the whole nation,-nay, frighted the isle from its propriety. War' treats the subject from a large point of view; the author being opposed to the Peace Society,-though on other grounds than those generally put for ward. The flight of the Kalmucks from the Russian territories has a relation to passing events; the Templar's Dialogues (in opposition to Ricardo) conduce to variety; and the Mail-coach, with its three topics, recalls the past glory of motion,' as well as contains some things in the Opium-eater's peculiar way." In the last number of "Eliza Cook's Journal," which she had carried on for 291 weeks, we find the following touching notice: "It would be as ungrateful as unseemly, if I breathed no farewell word to those subscribers who have so generously patronized my earnest, though trivial, efforts in the cause of simple Poetry and popular Progression. I shall not say much, for the subject I am communicating is too painful to dwell upon. "Suffering of an unusually severe character attacked me soon after the commencement of my Journal;' but I endured and labored with, I trust, a brave heart and patient spirit. After sleepless nights, Morning has found me at my desk,―trembling in frame, but firm in purpose; and, without a shadow of pretence, let me say that I have worked less with the desire of gaining my daily bread, than with the wish to be of use to my fellow creatures. I am at length compelled to yield to circumstances, and must retire-at least for a time-from the field of literature. "Should the re-establishment of my health permit a renewal of my duties, I feel convinced that I shall again find friends ready to cheer me on; but in order to secure freedom from anxiety and responsibility, the Journal' for the present will be discontinued, and the publication of it cease from this number. "In the sincere hope that my retirement from literary pursuits will be only temporary, I most cordially, though painfully, bid my kind readers adieu!" We cannot so well, in other words, express our opinion of Mrs. Ashton's "Mothers of the Bible," just published by Messrs. Jewett & Co., as in the short and comprehensive phrase of the "Philadelphia Ledger:"- "The author seems to have accomplished her task with simple beauty and pathos, and careful fidelity to Sacred History." This notice itself is worthy of attention; the praise is discriminating, and could not be higher. From Blackwood's Magazine. him in His image; giving him the earth for a dwelling, and dominion over everything that SPECULATORS AMONG THE STARS. lives and breathes in it; and commanding him Of the Plurality of Worlds; an Essay. Also to be obedient to the will of his Maker. That a Dialogue on the same subject. Second the first man and woman placed on the earth Edition. Parker and Son, 1854. became, nevertheless, almost immediately disMore Worlds than One, the Creed of the Philos- obedient; whereby they incurred the anger opher, and the Hope of the Christian. By of God, and their position on earth became Sir David Brewster, K. H., D. C. L. Mur- woefully changed for the worse. That God, ray, 1854. The Planets, Are they Inhabited Worlds? PART I. nevertheless, loved man, formed in His own image, after His likeness, with such tenderness, that he devised means for his restoration, if he chose, to the favor which he had forfeited; and IIimself visited the earth, in the form of man; submitted to mockery, suffering, and death, on his behalf; rose again, and reLET us imagine one of our species, at an turned to heaven with the body which He early period of its history, destitute of any had assumed on earth. That though man's artificial aid to the sense of sight, contemplat- body must die and decay, equally with that ing the aspect of things around him. He per- of every animal, his shall rise again, and be ceives that, somehow or other, he lives upon a rejoined by its spirit, to stand before the judgsomething, apparently a flat surface, of in- ment-seat of God, to be judged in respect of definite extent in all directions from the spot the deeds done in the body, and be eternally where he stands,consisting of land and miserable or happy, according to the righteous water, alternately visited with light and dark- judgment then pronounced. Moreover, this ness, heat and cold; with a regular succession Book tells him, with reference to the locality of seasons, somehow or other connected with in which he exists, that all things shall not the growth of vegetables of various kinds, suit- always remain as they are, but that the earth, able and unsuitable for his purposes, with and all that is in it, shall be burned up; that beautiful flowers and magnificent forests: while it, and the heaven, shall pass away with a the air, water, and earth, teem with insects, great noise; that the elements shall melt with birds, fishes, and animals, which seem almost fervent heat; and for those on whom a favoraltogether at his command. There are also able doom shall have been pronounced in the winds, dews, showers, mists, frost, snow, hail, day of judgment, there shall be a new heaven, thunder-storms, volcanoes, and earthquakes. and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousHe himself, equally with the vegetables and ness. Believing all this, and his inner nature animals, passes through divers gradations, from telling him that the law of action laid down in birth to decay, from life to death; but during the Book is righteous, and conformable to that life, alike alternately sleeping and waking, nature, he endeavors to regulate his conduct subject to vicissitudes of pain and pleasure, of by it, and dies, as dies generation after genhealth and disease. eration, in calm and happy reliance on the truth of that Book. If he look beyond the locality on which all this takes place, he beholds a blazing body Ages pass away, and great discoveries alternately visible and invisible, at regular in-appear to be made, by the exercise of man's tervals, and to which he attributes both light own thought and ingenuity, and quite indeand heat; another luminous body, visible only pendently of any revelations contained in his at night, which it gently illuminates; and both Great Book. Whereas he had thought the these objects are occasionally subject to brief earth stationary, he finds it, the sun, and the but portentous obscurations. During the moon, to be round bodies, each turning round night there also appear a great number of on its own axis, the earth once in twenty-four glittering white specks in the blue distance, hours; that the earth also goes round the sun which he calls stars; all he knows of them once in every year, the moon accompanying being, that they are beautiful objects in the it, and at the same time turning round it once dark,-e -even contributing a little light, in the in every month; and that these are the means absence of the moon. Why all these things by which are caused light and darkness, night came to be as they are, he knows no more and day, heat and cold, and the various than the bird that is blithely singing on the changes of the seasons. The stars remain branch above him, but for a certain Book, twinkling, the mere bright specks they ever which tells him that God made him, and appeared. everything he sees about him,-the sun, the Let us now, however, suppose our thoughtmoon, the stars, the earth, with all the ar- ful observer's sight assisted by the aid of rangements securing night and day, light and glass, in two ways, so as to place him, on the darkness, seasons, days and years; forming one hand, nearer to distant objects, and on |