From Hirschan they pass by way of Lucerne, The Devil's Bridge, and the St. Gothard Pass, to Genoa, and by sea from Genoa to Salerno. Arrived here, they again meet with Lucifer, who after using his influence upon Prince Henry in the confessional, had followed his path in the guise of a Norman friar, and now assumes the form of friar Angelo, the head of the Salerno College. In that form, he leads Elsie, thrusting Prince Henry back, to the interior of the college, there intending to complete the tragedy. But here Prince Henry's better nature which throughout has been struggling hard with his dread of death, interferes. He sees his selfishness in its true light and exclaims, “O what a vile and abject thing am I,

That purchase length of days at such a cost!
Not by her death alone, but by the death
Of all that's good and true and noble in me!

All manhood, excellence, and self-respect,

All love, and faith, and hope, and heart, are dead!

All my divine nobility of nature

By this one act is forfeited for ever,

I am a prince in nothing but the name!"

He bursts in; saves Elsie from her self-sought fate, and bears her back to his castle,-where the poem closes upon Prince Henry (cured of his malady by the touch of St. Matthew's sacred bones) and his bride, the quondam-peasant Elsie-now the Princess Alicia. The epilogue is an amplification of an idea expressed by Elsie in the book itself, which we give on account of its remarkable beauty.

"There are two angels that attend unseen

Each one of us, and in great books record

Our good and evil deeds. He who writes down

The good ones, after every action closes

The volume, and ascends with it to God;

The other keeps his dreadful day-book open
Till sunset, that we may repent; which doing,
The record of the action fades away,

And leaves a line of white across the page."

More could we say of this curious and beautiful work; but we have already wandered on too far, and must conclude. We leave our readers to examine more minutely for themselves; and although there are several scenes, the omission of which would not, we think, have depreciated the value of the poem, we promise them many beauties, and those of no ordinary kind. We believe that no admirer of lofty and beautiful poetry will turn away disappointed from a perusal of "The Golden Legend."

MEMOIRS OF W. WORDSWORTH, D.C.L. By CHRISTOPHER WORDSWORTH, D.D., Canon of Westminster. London: Moxon.

To those who are admirers of the late Poet-Laureate, we have no doubt but that this book will prove an acceptable gift. The biographer notes down for them in a neat and succinct manner the progress of the poet from school to college, through France and Germany, to his settlement at Grassmere: first giving, however, an abstract from autobiographical memoranda which never arrived at the fulness of the press. Immediately following this, is a description of the Mount of Rydal, and its surrounding graces. It was there, in the house of the poet, as the Rev. Gentleman informs us, that these present memoirs were written. We have then an account of Wordsworth's marriage, and his subsequent tour through Scotland. After bringing him safely back to Grassmere, his private correspondence, while in that retirement, is laid before us,-illustrating admirably the simple and unobtrusive life and manners of the man; and from which also may be gathered the various thoughts and circumstances which led to the composition of his several pieces; moreover, we learn from them (what is by no means unimportant to the critic) the gradual formation of his peculiar opinions with regard to the olden and the modern schools of poetry, and the estimates set by him upon the verse of his distinguished contemporaries. Such an insight into the heart and thoughts of one who, with all his peculiarities, must be ranked among England's most illustrious sons, is valuable in every point of view. As regards his writings, the more they were known, the more they were admired; while as regards the man himself, the better he was known, the better he was loved. To make extracts from the book, would, we feel, be uninteresting to the reader, unless we were to give (which our space certainly forbids) the whole, or a large portion of the somewhat diffuse correspondence.

From the examination of those parts of these volumes, which are from the biographer's own pen, we give it as our opinion that he is gifted with considerable descriptive powers, and that his style of English, although rather studied in its simplicity, is not unpleasant or unpoetical. Lastly, (what is more calculated than a studied style, a careless ease, or a Johnsonian magnificence, to engage the hearts of his readers), the biographer has evidently his own heart in his labour.

THE BOOK OF ENGLISH SONGS, FROM THE SIXTEENTH TO NINETENTH CENTURY. London: Office of the National Illustrated Library, 198, Strand.

THIS Collection is by far the best that has ever appeared; the date of each Song, the name of the author, together with a few short instructive essays, add to the beauty of the volume; and render it invaluable. No lover of English Literature ought to be without it.

Literary Notice Extraordinary.

THE POLITICAL WORKS OF PRINCE LOUIS NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. London: 227, Strand.

SEEING an announcement of these works to be brought out by the enterprising Publishers of the Illustrated Library, early in February, 1852, we endeavoured with the aid of a modern "Science" to obtain by anticipation, a peep at their contents; but our Clairvoyante has evidently been gazing too far into futurity, and given a brief review of the POLITICAL WORKS of this great author, as they are to appear in 1856. As we have scarcely room for any thing more than an analysis raisonné of their contents, we shall content ourselves with a very brief notice of each paper. They consist of

1. "A Treatise on the difference between a Republic and an Empire." A very clever treatise, in which the author has shown to a demonstration, that, whatever popular prejudice may say, there is very little difference between the two.

2. "An Essay on the best means of settling one great nation by unsettling many others." Powerful and far-sighted, but rather too Napoleonish. Well conceived, but not carried out well in its details.

3. "A Discovery of the means of aggrandizing and enriching the Bonaparte Family." Rather too bold and high flown in its style.

4. "The History of Universal Suffering and vote by Bullet." Piquant and much to the point—(of the bayonet.)

5. "Subjugation by flattery, the best means of quieting a people; and a chained press, and a gagged parliament, the best means of keeping them quiet." This is really, (all things considered), Louis Napoleon's masterpiece. It displays a nervous power and vigour of imagination for which few if any, before its appearance, gave the author credit.

THE MIDLAND MAGAZINE,

AND

MONTHLY REVIEW.

MARCH, 1852.

Liberty and Anglo-Saxondom.

BY THOMAS RA G G.

PAPER THE FIRST.

THE question has often been asked, in purport, if not in exact words, why institutions which can thrive and flourish among one race of men, seem wholly unsuited to another? Why a republic among American Anglo-Saxons is found to be a healthy and thriving form of government, while among Franco-Gauls it produces anarchy or despotism? Why on one side of the British Channel liberty can flourish under a monarchy, while on the other side it cannot flourish at all? Why, in fine, the modern English race appear capable of self-government, while the modern French race appear as though they cannot be governed at all, except by the strong arm of arbitrary power?

It may be thought a strange assertion that, like the man's wooden leg, whose father and grandfather had each one before him, liberty runs in the blood. Yet there is, in truth, much more ground for the latter assertion than the former. Leaving out entirely for a time the ethnological view of the question, and merely looking at things as they are, in what may be called an historical aspect, the broad fact stares us in the face that, save in a few mountainous districts, as in Switzerland, the Waldenses of Piedmont, Circassia, &c., nearly all the genuine liberty which exists in the world is No. 3.

K

either among the English race, or under the English rule. And the subject under consideration is, what is the cause of this somewhat startling phenomenon?

There are those who look upon it as the fulfilment of the Noachian prediction, that "Japhet shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Ham shall be his servant." But though this may have something to do with the progress of the English race, and its widely-extending dominion in Asia and Africa, I see not what it has to do with its love or possession of liberty. Besides, there is reason to believe that the original Gauls or Celta, were as much Iapetans as the Cumrii or Gomerii, the earlier inhabitants of Albion: the one being descendants of Javan, the other of Gomer. And if the Franks, who afterwards took possession of Gaul, were, as tradition tells us, a colony of Hamonians from Asia Minor, so also, in all probability, were the Brutæ, who possessed themselves of Britain. Nor does the parallel end here; for as Britain was afterwards overun by AngloSaxons of the race of Japhet, so was Gaul by the Northmen, or Normans, descendants of the same Patriarch; therefore, as far as regards the Noachian prediction, the two races stood, as it were, in a somewhat equal position; and we must look for some other source of the difference.

It is an old saying, and no less true in great things than small ones, that " use is second nature." Man has an animal body, as well as psychological and spiritual or intellectual powers; nay, at least in his present state of existence, his animal conformation and organization is, in a great measure, the index and controuler of these powers. For though the mind be entirely distinct from the body, the brain is, as it were, the stained window through which its light shines forth and gives a colouring to all its manifestations. It is, then, a well known phisiological fact, that all races, both vegetable and animal, may be greatly improved by careful cultivation and training; and, left without that cultivation and training, degenerate again. And this I believe to be one reason why liberty flourishes among the English race. They have been trained both to it and to its foster-parent, self-dependence, not merely for centuries, but almost for decades of centuries. It flourished