the same; and his Seventh Plague of Egypt,' in the Forgetme-not. Prout's Rialto,' in the same work; and Linton's 'Grecian Armament,' in the Souvenir.

We had nearly forgotten two peculiarly interesting subjects in Friendship's Offering; the Villeggiatura,' a sort of Fête Champétre, by Bone, and Titian's last Picture,' by the same promising artist, who is absurdly characterised in the book as uniting the nature of Stothard with the elegance of Watteau. He does what is far better; he paints from his own mind, and in his own style.

The Amulet has a fine Vandyke, and the Souvenir has, for its frontispiece, a well-conceived subject from Leslie; The 'Duke and Dutchess reading Don Quixote'; though the lady is neither handsome nor stately.

We drew so largely on the contents of some of these works, in our former article, that we must be very sparing in quotation. The Bijou will be found fully equal to its competitors, as regards the names of contributors. Among these, are Dr. Southey, S. T. Coleridge, James Montgomery, Mrs. Hemans, L. E. L., James Hogg, Horace Smith, Charles Lamb, Allan Cunningham, T. Hood, &c. The prose contributions are decidedly the best. Jessy of Kibe's Farm', is a very touching tale. 6 Essex and the Maid of Honour', would have done no discredit to the Author of Waverley; and the Sketch from 'Life,' is admirably executed. Sans Souci,' by L. E. L., is spirited and elegant. The Hellweathers', by N. T. Carrington, is a beautiful and pathetic descriptive poem. Mr. Hood has struck some brilliant sparks out of the old armour he hammers on; but he cannot help, as usual, playing with edge-tools, and rattling the cross-bones in our ears. We find no poem that will suit us, but the following delightful stanzas.

THE CHILD AND FLOWERS.

Hast thou been in the woods with the honey-bee?
Hast thou been with the lamb in the pastures free?
With the hare through the copses and dingles wild?
With the butterfly over the heath, fair child?
Yes: the light fall of thy bounding feet
Hath not startled the wren from her mossy seat;
Yet hast thou ranged the green forest dells,
And brought back a treasure of buds and bells.

'Thou know'st not the sweetness, by antique song
Breathed o'er the names of that flowery throng;
The woodbine, the primrose, the violet din,
The lily that gleams by the fountain's brim:

These are old words, that have made each grove
A dreamy haunt for romance and love;
Each sunny bank, where faint odours lie,
A place for the gushings of poesy.

'Thou know'st not the light wherewith fairy lore
Sprinkles the turf and the daisies o'er.
Enough for thee are the dews that sleep
Like hidden gems in the flower-urns deep;
Enough the rich crimson spots that dwell
Midst the gold of the cowslip's perfumed cell;
And the scent by the blossoming sweet-briars shed,
And the beauty that bows the wood-hyacinth's head.

'Oh! happy child in thy fawn-like glee!

What is remembrance or thought to thee?
Fill thy bright locks with those gifts of spring;
O'er thy green pathway their colours fling;
Bind them in chaplet and wild festoon-
What if to droop and to perish soon?
Nature hath mines of such wealth-and thou
Never wilt prize its delights as now.

For a day is coming to quell the tone
That rings in thy laughter, thou joyous one!
And to dim thy brow with a touch of care,
Under the gloss of its clustering hair;
And to tame the flash of thy cloudless eyes
Into the stillness of autumn skies;

And to teach thee that grief hath her needful part
Midst the hidden things of each human heart!

'Yet shall we mourn, gentle child, for this?
Life hath enough of yet holier bliss!
Such be thy portion!-the bliss to look
With a reverent spirit, through Nature's book ;
By fount, by forest, by river's line,

To track the paths of a love divine;

To read its deep meanings-to see and hear
God in earth's garden-and not to fear!'

We like every thing in this but the limping, slip-shod measure, which we defy even Mrs. Hemans to make either musical or graceful. It puts us in mind of a bad performer continually breaking his time.

The Contributors to the Keepsake are anonymous. This course, we are told, has been adopted, partly from a regard to the wishes of individuals, which prevented the divulgement of ' names in some instances, and partly from an inclination to risk the articles on their own merits, unaided by the previous reputation of the writers.' There is something to be said pro

and con in this matter. With regard to the inclination of the anonymous Editor to conceal the names, we give him the credit of ingenuity for thus making a merit of the sort of necessity laid upon him by those contributors who were either too proud or too humble, too well known or too little known, to render such publicity an object or a gratification. We must admit that the best things in the rival publications, are not uniformly those to which the most popular names are appended. To secure an advertisable list of contributors, an Editor is under considerable temptation to put up with very indifferent articles. Some of the contributors are at once too good-natured to refuse their aid, and too indolent to exert themselves. Others may have no objection to open their portfolio, but they may dislike to see their names placarded, or may be fastidious as to the company in which they appear. The number of these annual publications, and the recurrence of the same names in each, must tend to generate some degree of this feeling. Still, one of the most pleasing and attractive features of these literary albums, has been, the brilliant constellation of names which they have ex hibited; and we are much mistaken if the public suffrage do not prove to be in favour of the plan from which the Editor of the Keepsake has ventured to deviate.

The volume before us aims at little above an elegant light'ness' appropriate to the object of the work, which is, to ' render the union of literary merit with all the beauty and 'elegance of art, as complete as possible.' Art certainlyh ere takes the lead, and Poetry is the handmaid of her younger sister. Turner's Florence' is illustrated by the following lines.

'Florence! from the mountain's brow,

I have won thy beauties now;
From the woody Apennine,

Florence! I have made thee mine.

All thy waving cypress-trees,

Domes and graceful palaces;

All thy river and thy rills,
City of a thousand hills!

'These are thine; but where are they,
Thy merchant kings of noblest sway?
They have fled, and left behind-
What? the freedom-seeking mind?
Hearts in which is shrined for thee,
The altar-flame of liberty?

All that marks the good and brave?
No! a half unfinished grave.

Vallombrosa's sacred shrine,
Shadowed by the giant pine;

The Cook and the Doctor, whether by the Author of Whims and Oddities, or by Horace in London, is extremely clever in its way-highly seasoned with puns and well garnished with rhymes à la Smith. The following translation of a beautiful Ode by Theodore Körner, the German Alcæus, is both interesting for its subject and author, and for its felicitous and musical versification.

• Silence now the close of day presages,
Redder sinks the sun's expiring glow;
Many a rising thought my heart engages

In the shade your wreathed branches throw.
Mighty witnesses of other ages!

Green ye flourished centuries ago:

In these limbs of giant mould appears
The deathless record of departed years.

Low is many a work of glory lying;

Death the fair has withered, dimmed the bright;
I can find, where yonder gleams are dying,
Man's sad emblem in the fading light.

You, on prouder strength than his relying,
Live in Ruin's and in Time's despite;

And the breeze through your old boughs which sighs,

Tells how greatness Death and Time defies.

And ye have defied them ;-proudly blooming,

There ye speak your challenge to them both:

Never way-worn man, his staff resuming,
But to leave your friendly shade was loath.

Winds to death your leafy honours dooming,
Do but foster your majestic growth.

Leaves more plenteous Spring shall raise from those
Swept by Autumn to their rich repose :-

Types of the strong faith of a constant nation,
Which flourished once beneath a happier fate;
When, with Death's glad and willing consecration,
Patriots founded first each infant state.

But why renew the strain of lamentation,

Which all must raise alike, all raise too late?
First, dearest land of all this earth can show,

Thy oaks still bloom :-my country! thou art low.'

We might almost venture to affix the initials T. C. to these spirited stanzas. They either are his, or ought to be.

With regard to the tales, romantic or humorous, and dramatic dialogues, we shall content ourselves with saying, that some of them are sufficiently clever and amusing. More than this, it is unnecessary to say. It were useless to condemn what we might not be able entirely to approve of; and as the cravings of the imagination must be supplied in this day of intellectual luxuries, we are glad that so little that is positively deleterious is mingled in their composition. We can make room for only one more extract; and it must be the stanzas

'TO A FIRST-BORN CHILD.

'My child!-how strange that name appears
To lips unused as mine!

How thrilling to my listening ears

Those infant cries of thine!

How many a thought mysterious burns

Within my heart and brain,

As still my frequent glance returns
To gaze on thee again!

And as I gaze on thee, the past,
Present, and future, twine

A tie that binds me still more fast,
At every look of thine.

The past, thy mother's fondness bade
Be hallowed time to me:

The present-can it be but glad
While blest with her and thee?