The lute, fashionable for two hundred years, is now obsolete, and even its shape, musical sounds and capacity, are hardly known.

'We of the present generation may draw comparisons very much in our favor, between Queen Elizabeth's band and our own Dodworth's and Seventh Regiment bands, and between pianos made in the eighteenth century, and our Steinways and Chickerings; but the query arises, What criticisms will future generations make on what we consider so perfect? Certain it is, no music of our time can awaken sentiments more lofty or pure than did the timbrel of Miriam, and the harp of the 'sweet singer of Israel;' and doubtless the sad music of the 'harps hung on the willows,' now finds an echo in the hearts of many in our own dear land.

Wallenstein's Magnificence.

WALLENSTEIN's immense riches, his profound reserve and theatrical manners, were the principal means he employed to exalt the imagination of the masses. He always appeared in public surrounded by extraordinary pomp, and allowed all those attached to his house to share in his luxury. His officers lived sumptuously at his table, where never less than one hundred dishes were served. As he rewarded with excessive liberality, not only the multitude but the great est personages were dazzled by this Asiatic splendor. Six gates gave entrance to his palace at Prague, to make room for which he had pulled down one hundred houses. Similar chateaux were erected by his orders on all his numerous estates. Twenty-four chamberlains, sprung from the most noble families, disputed the honor of serving him, and some sent back the golden key, emblems of their grade, to the Emperor, in order that they might wait on Wallenstein. He educated sixty pages, dressed in blue velvet and gold, to whom he gave the first masters; fifty trabants guarded his ante-chamber night and day; six barons, and the same number of chevaliers, were constantly within call to bear his orders. His maitre d'hotel was a person of distinction. A thousand persons usually formed his household, and above one thousand horses filled his stables, where they fed from marble mangers.

When he set out on his travels, one hundred carriages, drawn by four or six horses, conveyed his servants and baggage; sixty carriages and fifty led

ten

horses carried the people of his suite; trumpeters, with silver bugles, preceded the procession. The richness of his liveries, the pomp of his equipages, and the decoration of his apartments were in harmony with all the rest. In a hall of his palace, at Prague, he had himself painted in a triumphal car, with a wreath of laurels round his head, and a star above him. Wallenstein's appearance was enough in itself to inspire fear and respect. His tall thin figure, his haughty attitude, the stern expression of his pale face, his wide forehead, that seemed formed to command, his black hair, close shorn and harsh, his little dark eyes, in which the flame of authority shone, his haughty and suspicious look, his thick moustaches and tufted beard, produced, at the first glance, a startling sensation. His usual dress consisted of a justaucorps of elk-skin, covered by a white doublet and cloak; round his neck he wore a Spanish ruff; in his hat fluttered a large red plume, while scarlet pantaloons and boots of Cordovan leather, carefully padded on account of the gout, completed his ordinary attire. While his army devoted itself to pleasure, the deepest silence reigned around the general. He could not endure the rumbling of carts, loud conversations, or even simple sounds. One of his chamberlains was hanged for waking him without orders, and an officer secretly put to death because his spurs had clanked when he came to the general. His servants glided about the room like phantoms, and a dozen patrols incessantly moved round his tent or palace to maintain perpetual tranquillity. Chains were also stretched across the streets, in order to guard him against any sound. Wallenstein was ever absorbed in himself, ever engaged with his plans and designs. He was never seen to smile, and his pride rendered him inaccessible to sensual pleasures. His only fanaticism was ambition. This strange chief meditated and acted incessantly, only taking counsel of himself, and disdaining strange advice and inspiration. When he gave any orders or explanations, he could not bear to be looked at curiously; when he crossed the camp the soldiers were obliged to pretend that they did not see him. Yet they suffered from an involuntary shudder, when they saw him pass like a supernatural being. There was something about him mysterious, solemn, and awe-inspiring. He walked along, surrounded by this magic

influence, like a saddening halo. His troops firmly believed that he was in communion with the spirit of darkness, that the stars had no secrets from him, that the crowing of cocks or the barking of dogs never reached his ear, that bullets, sabres, and lances could not wound him, for he possessed a talisman that rendered him Master of Fortune. They followed him as a personification of Fate. Though champion of Rome against the innovators, the gloomy captain only put faith in the dreams of the occult sciences. While a youth, he was accompanied on his travels by the mathematician and astronomer, Verdungas, who taught him to read the stars. He also resided for some time at Padua, in order to learn from another professor. The rooms of his palace at Prague were covered with emblems of divination and allegorical figures. His ambition led him to the desire of penetrating the secrets of the future; the Italian astrologer, Seni, lived beneath his roof, and

the visionary couple frequently passed the night in chimerical studies. Never did Wallenstein set out on a new enterprise till he had consulted the luminous Pythonesses of the firmament, for these dumb counsellors were to him Bible and Gospel. A peasant would not have behaved in a different way.

Gems from Oriental Poetry.

UNDISHEARTENED ASPIRATIONS.

FROM torch reversed the flame still streameth, rising straight: So struggleth up the brave man stricken down by fate.

TO DIE IS GAIN.

WE then shall see no more, before the veil all dimly blurred, But for imagined shall have grasped, embraced for only heard.

RETIREMENT FROM GOSSIP.

ABSORBING thought to worldly company is rude,

And every mighty passion courteth solitude.

MERIT AND PLACE.

A JEWEL is a jewel still, though lying in the dust,

And sand is sand, though up to heaven by the tempest thrust.

PATIENCE WINS.

HASTE not; the flying courser, over-heated,

dies, While step by step the patient camel goalward plies.

INVITATION TO THE COUNTRY.

COME, daughter mine, from the gloomy city, Before those lays from the elms have ceased;

Mr. Chase, however, has perhaps not much to fear from these Leagues; for they may soon get hints of his disapprobation in some noiseless way, and just back out at his beck, leaving the golden revenue at the Custom-House unimpaired. It may be like some of the battles of the war, wild, enthusiastic rushing ahead, and then terrible rushing back.

In one aspect of the case, these league ladies are like their grand-dames of 1770, they both propose to hurt the home government-only our good mothers were a good deal wiser than their daughters; the latter depriving their own government of its chief dependence for revenue in gold, the customs on foreign goods, whilst the elder ladies, by the same process, deprived the mother country, then our enemy, of much of its revenues, and aided their own.

Whether Mr. Chase will prefer to lose the revenues, or to lose the ladies, by rapping them on the knuckles, is perhaps doubtful, because there are other ways of getting money, but no other of getting the ladies but by pleasing them.

From the Thirty Poems.'

ACCEPT a few extracts from our best and greatest poet, always read with pleasure here, and honored everywhere:

THE POET.

THOU, Who wouldst wear the name

Of poet 'mid thy brethren of mankind, And clothe in words of flame

Thoughts that shall live within the general mind!

Deem not the framing of a deathless lay
The pastime of a drowsy summer day.

But gather all thy powers,

And wreak them on the verse that thou dost weave,

And in thy lonely hours,

At silent morning or at wakeful eve, While the warm current tingles through thy veins,

Let forth the burning words in fluent strains.

As in the air of her native East.

UNDER this solitary sod

There lies a man
Whose ways were very odd;
Whatever his faults were,

Let them alone.
Let thy utmost care be
To mend thine own:
Let him without a sin
First cast a stone.

-LINCOLNSHIRE, England, 1855.

IN a country churchyard we find this epitaph, Here lies the body of James Robinson and Ruth, his wife;' and underneath the text: Their warfare is accomplished.'

HERE lies the body of Nancy Gwin,
Who was so very pure within,
She burst her outward shell of sin,
And hatched herself a cherubim.
SOME have children, some have none,
Here lies the mother of twenty-one.