General Books

ANCIENT AMERICAN LANGUAGES. (Continued from Vol. vi., pp. 60, 61.) Since communicating to you a short list of a few books I had noted as having reference to this obscure subject, I have stumbled over a few others which bear special reference to the Quichua: and of which I beg to send you a short account, which may be worthy a place in your valuable pages. The first work upon the Quichua language, of... more...

Nelson's Monument, at Liverpool. (To the Editor of the Mirror.) In No. 270 of the MIRROR, you favoured us with a correct engraving of the Town Hall, Liverpool, and informed us of a trophied monument erected to the memory of Nelson in the Liverpool Exchange Buildings. Of the latter I am happy to be able to present you with the above view. The monument, executed in bronze by Richard Westmacott, Esq.... more...

LORD HALIFAX AND MRS. CATHERINE BARTON. Those who have written on the life of Newton have touched with the utmost reserve upon the connexion which existed between his half-niece Catherine Barton, and his friend Charles Montague, who died Earl of Halifax. They seem as if they were afraid that, by going fairly into the matter, they should find something they would rather not tell. The consequence is,... more...

DRYDEN ON SHAKSPERE. "Dryden may be properly considered as the father of English criticism, as the writer who first taught us to determine upon principles the merit of composition."—Samuel Johnson. No one of the early prose testimonies to the genius of Shakspere has been more admired than that which bears the signature of John Dryden. I must transcribe it, accessible as it is elsewhere, for... more...

CHARLES READE. Some one lately took occasion, in passing, to class Charles Reade with the clever writers of the day, sandwiching him between Anthony Trollope and Wilkie Collins,—for no other reason, apparently, than that he never, with Chinese accuracy, gives us gossiping drivel that reduces life to the dregs of the commonplace, or snarls us in any inextricable tangle of plots. Charles Reade is not a... more...

THE NEW CHURCH OF ST. DUNSTAN IN THE WEST. In our fourteenth volume we took a farewell glance of the old church of St. Dunstan, and adverted to the proposed new structure. Little did we then expect that within three years the removal of the old church would be effected, and a fabric of greatly surpassing beauty raised in its place. All this has been accomplished by the unanimity of the parishioners of... more...

Jacob Jones was clerk in a commission store at a salary of five hundred dollars a year. He was just twenty-two, and had been receiving this salary for two years. Jacob had no one to care for but himself; but, somehow or other, it happened that he did not lay up any money, but, instead, usually had from fifty to one hundred dollars standing against him on the books of his tailors. "How much money... more...

THE HARMONISTS. My brother Josiah I call a successful man,—very successful, though only an attorney in a manufacturing town. But he fixed his goal, and reached it. He belongs to the ruling class,—men with slow, measuring eyes and bull-dog jaws,—men who know their own capacity to an atom's weight, and who go through life with moderate, inflexible, unrepenting steps. He looks askance at me... more...

THE NATURALIST.See the Engravings.A delightful volume, of title almost synonymous with this division of the MIRROR, has just been published. It is entitled The Journal of a Naturalist, with the very appropriate motto of ——Plants, trees, and stones, we note, Birds, insects, beasts, and many rural things. The author in his preface, says, "Many years have now passed away since we were presented... more...

Thou, sitting on the hill-top bare,Dost see the far hills disappearIn Autumn smoke, and all the airFilled with bright leaves. Below thee spreadAre yellow harvests, rich in breadFor winter use; while over-headThe jays to one another call,And through the stilly woods there fall,Ripe nuts at intervals, where'erThe squirrel, perched in upper air,From tree-top barks at thee his fear;His cunning eyes,... more...