General Books

History repeats itself, but on new planes. Often, a symbol appears in one age, and the spirit of which it is the expression is revealed in another. Each answers the need of its own time. From the creative standpoint, which is out of time, spirit and symbol are one; but to us, who see things successively, they seem as prior and posterior. If this be so, it should be possible for a thoughtful and... more...

THREE BOROUGHS Proposed to be wholly disfranchised by the REFORM BILL.1. DUNWICH. 2. OLD SARUM. 3. BRAMBER. THREE BOROUGHS: 1. DUNWICH, SUFFOLK. 2. OLD SARUM, WILTS. 3. BRAMBER, SUSSEX. Proposed to be wholly disfranchised by "the Reform Bill." We feel ourselves on ticklish—debateable ground; yet we only wish to illustrate the topographical history of the above places; their parliamentary... more...

OUR CHRISTMAS PLAY. Our Emily wrote a play for our Christmas entertainment. Emily, Ruth, Mary, and Uncle Peter, all took part in it. The curtain fell amid very great applause from grandma, grandpa, father, and Uncle Charles, Brothers Robert and John, Jane, the housemaid, Aunt Alice, and some six of our cousins. So you see we had a good audience. As it is the only play we have ever seen acted, we may be... more...

Tufts College is situated on the most beautiful and commanding eminence in the southeasterly part of Middlesex county, within the town of Medford and on the borders of Somerville. This eminence was formerly called Walnut Hill, on account, it is said, of the heavy growth of hickory timber with which it was covered at the time of the settlement of the colony, but is now called College Hill, on account of... more...

CHAPTER I. THE OLD TOWN. The setting sunbeams slant over the antique gateway of Sorrento, fusing into a golden bronze the brown freestone vestments of old Saint Antonio, who with his heavy stone mitre and upraised hands has for centuries kept watch thereupon. A quiet time he has of it up there in the golden Italian air, in petrified act of blessing, while orange lichens and green mosses from year to... more...

Manchester is distinguished among the large towns of the kingdom for its majority of enlightened individuals. "The whole population," it has been pertinently observed by a native, "seems to be imbued with a general thirst for knowledge and improvement." Even amidst the hum of its hundreds of thousand spindles, and its busy haunts of industry, the people have learned to cultivate the... more...

WHY ARE NOT THE ENGLISH A MUSICAL PEOPLE? We cannot help it.—Massinger's Roman Actor. Astronomy, music, and architecture, are the floating topics of the day; on the second of these heads we have thrown together a few hints, which may, probably prove entertaining to our readers. The English are not—you know, reflective public—a musical people; this has been said over and over again in the... more...

OUR FIRST GREAT PAINTER, AND HIS WORKS. On the 8th of July, 1843, Washington Allston died. Twenty-one years have since gone by; and already his name has a fine flavor of the past added to its own proper aroma. In twenty-one years Art has made large advances, but not in the direction of imagination. In that rare and precious quality the works of Allston remain preëminent as before. It is now so long... more...

ON PORTRAITS OF DISTINGUISHED ENGLISHMEN. In submitting to you the following brief observations, it is neither my wish nor intention to undervalue or disparage the labours of Horace Walpole, and Granger, and Pennant, and Lodge, and the numerous writers who have followed in their train, and to whom we are so much indebted for their notices of a great variety of original portraits of distinguished... more...

RAILWAY-ENGINEERING IN THE UNITED STATES.[1] Though our country can boast of no Watt, Brindley, Smeaton, Rennie, Telford, Brunel, Stephenson, or Fairbairn, and lacks such experimenters as Tredgold, Barlow, Hodgkinson, and Clark, yet we have our Evans and Fulton, our Whistler, Latrobe, Roebling, Haupt, Ellet, Adams, and Morris,—engineers who yield to none in professional skill, and whose work will... more...