whom the people select for leaders. We have then an interesting article on "Communism," followed by one on "Irish Relief Measures," which expresses many of our own sentiments with force and skill. "The land of Ireland can, and must, be made to support the people of Ireland, by its present owners, if they are willing to undertake the task; if not, by others, whom the law will substitute in their place." We regret that we have not been able to give more space to many of the articles; but from what we have said, our readers will perceive that this number is extremely varied. The "New Quarterly," whilst it takes equal rank with the others in point of ability, far, very far surpasses them in interest and ability.

Hours of Thought; or, Poetic Musings. By J. S. Hardy. London, Harvey and Darton.

The Palace of Fantasy; or, The Bard's Imagery. With other Poems. By J. S. Hardy. London, Smith, Elder, & Co. We have been induced to notice these works, partly out of courtesy to their author, and partly from their merits; but it is departing from our plans to notice any but new works; we would, therefore, suggest that it would be better for authors and publishers to forward their works sooner, if they wish to insure careful notices. "The Palace of Fantasy" contains many beautiful passages, although it is in many parts quaint and too prosaic. It, however, displays considerable merit, and many portions rise above par. We were much interested in it. Mr. Hardy displays occasionally many elements of the poet, and throws his thoughts into rich and animated verse. We take one stanza, which is not, however, by any means the best, but our space prevents our making longer extracts,

"Oh, Poesy divine, enchanting maid,

What spell is thine, what ardour-kindling soul!

'What piercing sight, though dark as owlet's shade,

Can stay thy glance, thy pinions' flight
control?

The past and future o'er thy vista roll,
The mind's creative pageantry sublime,
That forms th' ideal shape and living whole,
Thy wizard wand can raise with charmed
rhyme,

O'ersweep the bounds of space, and outstrip panting time."

Though in this stanza there are perhaps some imperfect images, yet it contains much strength and beauty. In the "Hours of Thought," there is a beautiful piece on

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anarchy. Mrs. Sinnet describes their slow rise and progress, and discourses with power and eloquence upon the causes of all she relates. In this chapter, indeed, we admire greatly the exceeding masculine nature of her style, which possesses, in fact, few attributes of that generally belonging to woman, except a certain delicacy of expression appertaining almost always to their writings. She is nervous, and full of energy; and astonishes us absolutely by the vigour with which she fre quently wields her pen. The fourth chapter treats of the Hansee at Home and Abroad." The Hanse cities often emulated each other in the rich and stately style of building in their senate-houses, which were of imposing proportion, and shone in all the glory of gay colours, copper and gold; but the smaller houses of the town rarely corresponded with the glow and splendour of some of the more striking buildings, the private rooms of even some of these being small, dark, and gloomy. The work undoubtedly increases in interest as it progresses. In the early history of a state like Germany, there is necessarily much of detail and investigation which may not strike the general reader's fancy; but let him once penetrate as far as its superstitions, and he feels interested at once. Around the worship, superstitional or otherwise, of nations, a peculiar interest is cast; and when the writers thereon abstain from too minute and abstruse investigations, it is endowed with an inexpressible charm. We respect the monk and the hermit, or rather their motives, and feel anxious to learn some. thing of their peculiar mode of life, slightly different in all countries where monasticism has ever prevailed, and borrowing various characteristics from each land. The "Fathers of the Desert" is one of the most interesting of the chapters con tained in the "Byways of History." do not pretend, in this brief notice, to convey any correct ideas of the whole work, or the riches it contains, but hope next month, in a second notice, to enter further into detail; and while less hurriedly we enter into an investigation of its merits, be enabled to offer a just appreciation of them. It is a book, indeed, which deserves more than a slight and passing remark, since it must be regarded as one of no slight importance, and ought to be in the hands of every one who desires to obtain a correct idea of Germany at the period to which our author refers. In concluding our present remarks, we can, therefore, only pause cordially to recommend its most attentive perusal. Mrs. Sinnet has evidently exhausted much patient research

one of those interesting and important episodes in the history of Germany which have not been so thoroughly investigated as some others. In our authoress's introduction she makes some exceedingly shrewd and able remarks upon the impulse lately given to this class of inquiry, and upon the amount of interest awakened by the examination of the institution of those great volcanic forces by which vast regions were at once heaved up to a height apparently beyond the utmost powers of our machinery to attain. The former condition of the German people, when they resembled a nomadic race, living by pasturage and hunting, roving about with their flocks and herds, and wives and children, forcibly strikes our imagination, as contrasted with their present state, tastes, habits, and predilections. Yet they have advanced but slowly in the career of civilisation in comparison with some nations; by nature slothful, they tarry long behind their neighbours, and move only when goaded on by the lash of something akin to contempt, though we are loathe to use so harsh a word. In the first chapter of her able and interesting work, Mrs. Sinnet proceeds to give some account of the castles of Germany, and their inmates in the feudal times, of which numbers of their ruins still remain standing upon naked crags and inaccessible heights. As many as ten or twelve of these ruins, our authoress tells us, may still be counted within a circuit of as many miles, which speaks volumes for the state of a country on which such a military aspect was conferred, as it were. When we reflect upon the means by which they were erected, and remember the toils of the oppressed peasantry, whose hands aided in placing stone upon stone, they constitute so many mementos of the barbarism and tyranny of past ages, and can be associated with no pleasant or gratifying recollections. Some were built for defence, and others again sprang up in order to protect the people from the attacks made by the inhabitants of those already erected. Various purposes were served; these castles were the retreat alike of robber knights, and lordly rulers. A curious and interesting account of their mode of construction, of the walls, subterranean places, halls, kitchens, chapels, &c., is given in our authoress's pages, from which she proceeds to give a sketch of the domestic economy carried on within, Chapter II treats of fist law, which interests us somewhat less than the one which follows on the free cities of Germany, which the writer happily compares to islands moving amidst the wide-wasting ocean of violence and

We

in her undertaking, and deserves, were it only on this account, considerable encouragement. The following brief account of the siege of the castle of the Trauenberg is extremely interesting:

"Active preparations were now made for the assault upon the castle. Opposite to it, on the St. Nicholas hill, works had been erected, and the guns of the Wertheimers drawn up and protected by gabions; and rafts got ready under the stone bridge which crosses the Maine, as by this means the river could be passed without injury from the castle, which commanded the bridge itself. On Sunday, before break of day, the drums and fifes of the Franconians were heard, as they moved up the hill to occupy the works, and at four they opened a fire from their great guns. It was found, however, that the distance was somewhat too great, and the guns did little injury; whilst the fire was returned from the castle, not to the hill, but into the town. Another fire was opened from the Augustine convent, which did much more mischief; and on both sides this went on till a late hour in the night. On the Monday morning, it is said, a beautiful rainbow was seen round the sun, while the sky was perfectly clear; the same rainbow which, we may recollect, was seen at Frankenhausen; and the sign was variously interpreted by the besieged, some regarding it as a token of victory, others as a warning of death; for at the moment when it was first observed, a ball struck through a window, and killed one of the officers, who had just lain down to rest on a bed. The peasants, however, invariably rejoiced in it, as unequivocally favourable to them, since, in their various standards united, all its colours were found; and they now went on with renewed confidence. Between nine and ten at night, when it was quite dark, a strong party, mostly of Florian Geyer's men, though unfortunately Florian himself was absent, having been dispatched on a special mission to bring reinforcements from Rothenburgh, assembled in a garden on the east side of the hill on which the castle stood, with scaling ladders, and all implements necessary for a storm; and, when all was ready, they rushed up the hill with great shouts, and made an assault upon the outworks, which they carried, and let themselves and their tools down into the deep dry ditch, and attempted to plant their ladders; but so heavy a fire was poured down upon them from the castle that they were driven back; and when again they rushed on, they were met by torrents of flaming pitch and sulphur, red-hot balls, and stones, petards, and incessant discharges of artillery. From

all the walls and towers, from every win. dow and aperture, the castle seemed to vomit fire, and far around in the darkness of the night, it shone a beautiful but terrible spectacle, at which the citizens, thronging the streets of Wurzburg, stood gazing in terror, deafened by the thunders of the great guns and the shouts of those who were carrying on the work of death. But unfortunately the storm had been attempted prematurely, before a sufficient breach had been made; and though hundreds of the peasants lay slain and mangled round the walls, the castle still stood secure, and apparently impregnable. The whole night long the battle rages furiously, the clock strikes two hours after midnight, and, while those in the castle are expecting the third assault, there is a fearful pause. A captain of Lanyknechts leans for a moment from a window to see what the besiegers are doing, and is seen by the light behind him by a peasant lying half shattered and dying in a ditch. With the last strength of his arm he raised himself slowly, took a deliberate aim at the captain, and shot him dead. All night those in the castle have been casting bullets, and as yet, though they have many wounded, they have but three dead. Of the peasants, four hundred lie slain in the ditches and fortifi cations, though those who fell beyond have been carried off. In the afternoon of the following day the besiegers have made no further progress, they make a sign for a parley, while they carry away their wounded and dead. The garrison, not sorry for a respite, are willing enough to grant the truce, but stipulated that no one approach the ditches. This the peasants refused to agree to, and retired to consider what was to be done, while the wounded lay languishing in every variety of torment. 'Not one was helped,' says the narrative of Thomas Zweifel, 'not one was taken out of the ditches, but they crawled about groaning and sobbing till they died.' The loss of the peasants at the second storm had been terrible, the advantage gained trifling; and their hopes were now a little revived by the return of Florian Geyer, and some cannon and ammunition from Rothenberg; with them came also the news of many disasters, and of the march of Geroge Truchsess and the army of the allied princes through Wirtemberg."

traded with China and the Netherlands, and nowhere else than at Nangasaki. A Danish man-of-war also, "The Galathea," commanded by the Count Stein Bible Brahe, anchored outside the bay of Jeddo, on the 20th August, 1846, and asked leave to sail inside, but this was declined, in the name of the Japan government, by the Dutch interpreter posted at Oezaga. The Lioe-Kioe islands (which are under the command of the lord of Satsuma, and which consequently belong also to the Japan empire) appear to have been visited a short time ago by European vessels. A whaler, which had foundered near one of these islands, was got off by the assistance of the Japanese resident in the country of Satsuma; and after having been repaired, had gone to sea again. On the 30th of April, 1846, an English vessel, with a crew of twenty men, came to anchor there. A person, who said that he was a surgeon, went on shore at one of the islands, and asked leave to purchase a piece of ground, with the intention of settling there; and offering, at the same time, his services as a surgeon. Being refused, he went back to the ship; but a few days afterwards he went on shore in the night-time with his family, consisting of his wife, two children, and a Chinese interpreter, when the vessel went away. During his stay at the LioeKioe islands, the French rear-admiral had a conversation with the headman of the place.

GREAT FIRE AT MANILA, CAPITAL OF THE PHILIPPINES; AND AT JEDO, CAPITAL OF JAPAN.

On the evening of the 17th of January, a destructive fire took place in Manila, by which fifteen houses built of stone, one hundred and forty of wood with brick frames, and three hundred and eighty-two of nipa, or attap, were reduced to ashes. The origin of the fire is ascribed to the carelessness of the servants in the house in which it broke out. The value of the property destroyed was not ascertained, but it has been roughly estimated at half a million sterling. Every exertion was made to stop the fire, and to give assistance to the unfortunate persons rendered houseless, and in many cases penniless, by it. The public functionaries displayed the greatest zeal, from the governor-general down to the lowest subaltern; and very valuable aid was given by the officers and crew of the French frigate "Cleopatra." A subscription had been opened, by order of the governor-general, for the relief of the sufferers. Last year (10th of February, 1846) a destructive fire broke out at Jedo, which lasted from two o'clock in the afternoon till four o'clock in the afternoon

of the following day, and which destroyed all on a space of three Japan miles long and a mile and a half broad.

VENTRILOQUISM.

Our readers have no doubt felt, at different periods of their lives, a wish to acquire this wonderful power; and that desire will much increase, after witnessing Mr. Love's extraordinary performances. His engagement, we believe, at Crosby Hall, has ceased; but wherever he commences his entertainments again, he cannot fail to ensure crowded audiences. His command over his voice is most wonderful; he throws it from any portion of the room with the utmost rapidity, and he appears to sustain a conversation with several persons. The imitation of the cries of different animals is extraordinary; one, in particular-the dog. He commenced with his whining for admission, then growling, then snarling, then rushing off, and, in the distance, we appeared to hear his bark, till at last it died away; the illusion was perfect. The pursuit of the bee was perhaps superior, for the difficulty must have been great to imitate the different sounds until the insect was placed in a bottle. It would be, however, impossible to say which was best, where all was good. The most difficult part was perhaps the imitation of the voice of the man in the box, for it must have exhausted Mr. Love; indeed, we may safely say, that he kept it up too long, until it became at last rather wearisome, for he sustained a protracted conversation with a voice in a box, until he appeared completely tired: we should recommend a slight curtailment of this part, for it becomes painful to the audience when they perceive the exertions he is making. Those who have never witnessed Mr. Love's performances will be much gratified by attending one of his entertainments.

BRUNELLI'S MODEL OF ANCIENT JERUSALEM, PICCADILLY. This model, as it appears, was not originally intended for public exhibition, but was the work of a very talented private individual residing in Dublin, who was in the habit of exhibiting it to such travellers and friends as happened to come to that city. Considering that so much patient labour ought to be fully appreciated, some persons persuaded Mr. Brunelli to have the model brought to London, that it might be placed within the reach of all those who take an interest in such things. As a work of art it is truly admirable, reproducing as it does in miniature an apparently truthful representation of what that beautiful city once was, before its destruction fell upon it. The labour expended upon