The festival, in a pecuniary sense, has also been successful. The profits are said to have equalled ten thousand pounds, and as the expenditure must have been very great, it is pleasing to find out for those who have provided the gorgeous edifice and grounds at Sydenham, that one means of aiding in remunerating them has been found, unconnected with anything false in taste, or meretricious in principle.

only at the Sydenham Palace. The area of the | could resemble profanation to those in whose central compartment of that building allows space minds the strains were "familiar as household enough with its galleries for the display of twenty words." thousand persons without crowding or inconvenience. From its galleries the vast area resembled a chequered board, with the black spots rather in a minority; but the deep silence of this multitude as the notes of a solo singer seemed to occupy the entire space, and wandered clear and distinct into every corner of this palatial framework, was an element of solemnity not equalled by the storms of sweet sounds that threatened the abstraction of the gossamer-looking tenement, and the conveyance of all whom it contained on the wings of song away from this often unmusical world.

The festival has led to discussions respecting the propriety of oratorios, or the use of certain portions of Scripture, in a secondary manner, the music being the primary element. At one time, we believe, that proposals were made to produce these oratorios on the stage, and we think that they were even carried into practice, and very properly suppressed; but the chaunting or singing of these words need not be regarded as many wish it to be regarded, as their profanation, unless in the same sense that they may be profaned iu every attempt to cultivate sacred music; in cathedral services; or, indeed, in any services. Those who sing them may not be impressed with their meaning; that has been true of thousands who have read them. Certainly, on the 17th of June, when the Queen and Court attended the Palace, we could not think that the closing hymn, sung with that great audience standing, was likely to produce the slightest evil to the mind of any person unacquainted with the hundredth psalm, or

The exterior of the Palace might, by the way, be improved during our bright and sunny summer, by a little deeper shading of tints. At present it is too glaring and white, and even painful. Nature has shown painters the colours proper for any large surface; and as there must always be a considerably dazzling result produced by a glass house on weak eyes, every opportunity of relieving it by blue or green shading, should be improved. Even the terrace, and all connected therewith, is painfully white; and it would have been more artistic and natural, and therefore wiser, to have surrounded the "walls" of glass with a belt of green, deep and verdant, and removed the terraced walk, if one was necessary, to a farther distance from the palace.

The charm of the Sydenham palace will consist always, during the summer, in its undulating and varied grounds; but the original soil evidently consists of a stiff clay, and the surface was cracked and dry even in the middle of June. The means of irrigation at the disposal of the managers should prevent these refts in the grass, and clothe their grounds with a richer green than always prevails there.

LITERARY

Wayside Fancies. By FRANCES FREELONG BRODE-
RIP. London: Edward Moxon, Pp. 271.
THIS is a mixed volume of prose and verse, and
the very book for those who are on their way to
the sea-side and will not know what to do with
themselves in three days hence. The authoress,
Mrs. Broderip, is a daughter of the late Thomas
Hood, and she preserves the genius of the father.
A marked resemblance exists between her style
and that in which he wrote some of his more cele-
brated productions. The tone of thought influ
ences style, and Mrs. Broderip may thus insensibly
follow that vein of thinking and way of writing to
which she is naturally attached, from obvious
reasons. It is a very good attachment to form,
for the style is beautiful and often the purpose for
which it was employed was useful to society. The
"Wayside Fancies" are light essays interspersed
with

very pretty verses. Poetry and prose are em

REGISTER.

ployed generally in dealing with some matter that needs improvement, and the energy of the father is traceable in the lighter hand, if not less earnest heart, of the daughter. There is the same sympathy with distress that might be removed, and after all that can be said against them, ignorance and vice are distresses.

The following verse contains a pretty idea :

Bear with me, Edward, for these relics tell
My real life's story-all beyond are but
The chronicle of glittering dust and clay.
Life is made up of love; with it, a dream
Of fairy beauty; and without it, dark,
And lone, and dreary, as a winter's night.
What are life's honours-pomp, ambition, wealth?
Either the means to minister to love,

Or the despair that cloaks its wants and loss:
The single passion that survives the grave,
The tie between the unseen world and this,
That, purified from earth, shall reign in heaven.

What is a Bird. By MRS. WRIGHT. London: | proficient scholars of his time. Sunken tomes, which only

Jarrold and Sands, 1 Vol., Pp. 321. SOME authors ask strange questions. What is a bird? Of course everybody has seen a bird who has seen a bush or a tree, and knows everything concerning birds, too. Many persons may think so, and when they have read Mrs. Wright's little book, discover that they were quite mistaken. It contains a large amount of information very prettily told, in language comprehensible by the nonscientific, and that is a very great advantage. It is also a good guide for the young into natural religion, in a style of which the following is a fair illustration:

:

Observe too, how well a love of company and of loneliness are blended in the nature of the heron; no creature more dependent upon the society of its friends daring the nesting season, than this bird; twenty, thirty, and even eighty nests have heen counted on one tree. Yet no one more given up to business than the heron in its solitary pond, when duty calls its there. How remarkable! that such a sociable bird should be willing to spend its long days by itself! but this was a necessity for it, as an angler.

In the form of the heron, we see clearly the why and the

wherefore of its sole construction. Had an order been passed in the great workshop of nature, for a fly-slayer to be prepared on the best pri: ciples, could anything have been imagined better than the swallow ? And when a quiet feeder on fish was required, what improvement could have been made on the heron ?

We clearly see by instances such as these, that the mighty artificer of nature did not construct a great variety of birds, and then turn them loose to eat anything that came in their way; but having made the earth to teem with a wonderful variety of food, He gave to the feathered tribes remarkable instincts, He has given in unerring skill, bodies fitted for the work assigned them. Facts like these, teach us there is a lawgiver, who rules the world.

The book has a number of engravings very well calculated to aid the public in ascertaing "What is a bird ?"

Our College. Leaves from an Undergraduate's Note Book. London: G. Earle. 1 vol. p. 430. THIS book consisists of sketches from Cambridge society-and if the undergraduate speaks truly it is in a very mottled state,-the bad on the whole prevailing. The sketches are pleasantly written and may help some Cambridge men through the vacation. The writer possesses the light style very common in and necessery for sketching. Upon one occasion he went to see a notable execution in the south of London, and he spent the first part of the night, before the morning, in a coffee room. His pencillings of the company are equal to anything that we could quote.

Notwithstanding the melancholy associations which group themselves around that evening, I connot help smiling as I recal to mind, the odd kind of conversation which we held together, in that low, sanded coffee-room. Alchemy, astronomy, mysticism, second sight, prophecy-these, and

the subjects into which Hayley, as usual, contrived to plunge

us, and I was perfectly bewildered at the amount of his reading and information, in such obsolete fields of inquiry. It appeared to me that one half of the pains which he had devoted to these dead branches of the tree of learning, would, if properly directed, have made him one of the most

rise to the surface in the pages of some writer of the middle
ages,
were to him as familiar, as is to the periodical critic
the literature of the present day. Dust-enshrouded trea-
haps even forget to register, were stamped upon his recollec
tises, which the catalogues of the British Museum may per
tion in indelible characters. His mind, like the Frankenstein
of the novellist, seemed to be built up of fragments drawn
from a charnel-house. I remember his reciting to me,
amongst other curious passages, two extracts from his
favourite writers, which particularly struck me. One was
from an edition of Nostradamus published at Treves, and is
remarkable if authentic, since it contains a clear prophecy
of all the leading events which have befallen a neighbouring
country, since the appearance of the first Napoleon. The
other was from an old book entitled "De fluctibus mystica
navis," and giving a similar, though less detailed account of
the revolutions of the present century. As my friend slowly
recited these passages, with his dark hair hanging dishevelled
over his forehead, and his eye staring into vacancy-like
a pythoness imbued with the oracular response. I could
not help smiling at the uncongenial nature of the scene, by
which we were surrounded. It seemed impossible that any
one could have seriously sought for the philosopher's stone,
now that these blazing gas-lights shine so brightly upon the
railway time-tables, which decorated the walls of the room,
and all the ghosts, wraiths, fiends, and spiritual apparitions
of my friend's collection, seemed, as it were, smothered for
ever beneath the vast leaves of the majestic Times, which
lay outstretched on the mahogany table before us. At
length, the hands of the clock pointing to the figure one,
recalled us to the events of real life.

witness the last moments at a convenient window,
The friends had paid for accommodation to
and as they had given their money liberally after
the fashion of undergraduates who never earned
any, the landlord invited them to supper with his
other friends who sat free. The character of the
company is literally photographed :-

conversation. An elderly lady, the relict of some small river The position of the guests soon oozed out in the course of functionary, from Wapping, a tradesman and his wife from Bermondsey, and two young men connected in some way with the docks; such were some of the ingredients of the party. That they were not stopping in the house was imstepped over in their Sunday best, for the express purpose of mediately obvious, the fact evidently being, that they had witnessing the execution. If I have alluded to this little episode, it is because it made a deep impression on me at the time. I do not indeed, know whether such a gathering did not jar upon the feelings more than any sight which I had witnessed outside the doors. The pale artizan-the drunken sailor—the gin-besotted virago with her troop of squallid children-or even the dissolute man of fashion preparing to contemplate the death agony through an operaglass-these were characters which seemed, as it were, to be apposite to the scene, and to fit in with it. But the calm premeditation of this little family party-the sitting down to enjoy everything in a cool unflurried fashion-the tea and the toast-the false fronts and silk dresses of the women-the glistening stocks of the men-there was something in all these accessories, at once grotesque and revolting, and which made me long, at the moment, for the pen of a Fielding or a Dickens, in order that I might do justice

to it.

The truth probably is, that the under-graduates such spectacles are provided. had got among the company for whose advantage

Jane Hardy. By T. S. ARTHUR. London: self wretched, when I should have thought of your comfort, Knight and Sons. and striven, in fulfilment of my marriage vows, to make you happy."

THIS is an American tale, of common materials, we suppose, in this hard, common-place world; although the results may be a little out of the ordinary run. It is the story of a married life, between a man of business, who thought himself very clever, and had a strong opinion of himself and his house-an American Dombey, and a clever and rather fiery woman. A contest, of course,

arose for precedence in small matters, which a husband, who wants to live quietly, should always avoid. But John Hardy tolerated no rival near his throne, and Jane Hardy became insane. She was cured by the attention of their daughter. A tale of this nature does not allow extracts; but, when after some years of a better life, Jane Hardy was near to death, she propounds a curious theory, which may be quoted:

"We shall speedily meet again," said the husband, as he sat alone with her, holding her small shadowy hand in his, just as the twilight began to draw its dusky curtains around them. His voice trembled; for he had spoken in answer to her remark that, in a very little while, she must pass away.

"I know not how that may be," she said, very quietly, and fixing her large, glittering eyes upon his face. "In the world to which I am going, the laws of association are not as the laws of this world, John."

"Oh, Jane! what am I to understand by this ?" There was grief in the tones of his voice.

"Only," she replied, "that, in the life to come, spiritual qualities conjoin. They will be near each other who are alike, and those distant from each other who are unlike, in their life and their affections. The attraction or repulsion will be mutual. But God alone knows our internal states, by which the future is determined. If it is well with us as to these we need have no concern."

Mr. Hardy felt the words of his wife like sharp thrusts of glittering steel. How calmly she spoke! What a placid -almost angelic-expression was in her countenance as she talked of the laws of conjunction and dissociation in the future life-laws which, if they really prevailed, would hold them apart for ever! "I know not how that may be. In the world to which I am going, the laws of association are not as the laws of this world." Such was her calm, eventoned answer to his almost tearfully uttered assurance of a meeting after death. It was thus she removed from under his feet the frail support on which they rested as the waters of sorrow began to roar around him. He covered his face with his hands, and sat silent for many minutes.

"Can you not forgive me the past? Oh, Jane! If, through blind error, I wronged you once, have I not sought in all possible ways to make atonement p" Mr. Hardy looked up and spoke with a sudden energy.

A shadow dimmed the face of his wife, and tears sprung to her eyes.

"We have both need of forgiveness John," she replied; “I, perhaps, most of all. We cannot conceal from ourselves, if we would, that the current of our lives did not run smoothly at the beginning, nor for a long time afterwards. The cords that bound us together were not silken and light as gossamer to bear, but heavy and galling as links of iron. I blame myself in many things. I was not a true, selfforgetting, loving wife to you, John. I did not make your home a happy one. I struggled, and fretted, and made my.

"Dear Jane! say no more.

arrows!" Mr. Hardy laid a finger upon her lips. "Oh, if Your words pierce me like the scales had sooner fallen from mine eyes!"

"If I had helped you to remove them," said Mrs. Hardy, almost mournfully," both would have suffered less. But I was young and weak from years of indulgence by the tenwishes, and you did not understand me. derest of fathers. I did not comprehend your wants and 1 never meant to act in opposition, and never did, wilfully and perversely. I never intended to give you pain. But I could not hide all signs of anguish, when your words were accusations. Nor could I always look smiling and cheerful when my heart was aching. I say this now only that you may do me justice in your thoughts; for I would not have you think of me, after I am gone, as one who designedly, and for the purpose of gratifying an evil purpose, made the home cheerless which she had promised to fill with sunlight. God gave me power afterwards to rise above the weakness of my nature; and I was able to be to you, my husband, all that I desired to be from the beginning. * * * * But the past is past, and I would turn to it only for justice, not in order to wound. Forgive me for what I have now said, if it has given you any pain. I cannot, in parting with you, perhaps for ever, leave on your mind the impression that I ever meant to be anything but a true wife."

"For ever, Jane! For ever! Oh, do not say that word! Let me hear your lips recall it !" And Mr. Hardy bent over her with a countenance full of anguish.

"In this world, where hearts are hidden things, and woman must believe where she cannot see-must take loving words and acts in full confidence that they are true words and acts-it too often happens, that her lot is one of wretchedness. The fair exterior of manhood, so attractive in her eyes, often proves to be a false exterior. She finds nothing in his affection or his principles with which she can truly harmonise; and, though she may live with him dutifully, and even in some appearance of love, yet is there no true union of the heart-no marriage in the higher sense."

"With such death is an eternal disjunction. How could it be otherwise in a world where similitude conjoins, and dissimilitude separates? And this law of attraction and

repulsion, my husband," continued Mrs. Hardy, speaking very earnestly, "is a merciful law. If there is an error here, it will not be perpetuated when we pass up higher. Of one thing we may be certain; the quality of our spiritual life in this world, will determine our associations in the life beyond; and in heaven we shall desire none other."

Mr. Hardy had bowed his head while she was speaking. It was some moments before he looked up. When he did so, his face was paler, his eyes were heavy, and his countenance wore a drooping aspect. What sharp arrows of conviction were in the words which had been spoken by his wife! Steadily he gazed into her face, wonderingly and sorrowfully, while every moment the conviction grew stronger that their separation was likely to be an eternal one;-that her pure spirit would ascend higher than he ever could, and claim companionship with spirits of more godlike

nature.

know that the bad will be separated from others This idea may be more poetical than real. We of a different character, and that is all we do know. It gives us no reason to expect a division of the latter into parties formed of similitudes, but as it is a favourite idea with American writers we have copied the passage.

OBITUARY NOTICES.

AUGUST, 1857.

LUNACY, AND PAUPERISM IN SCOTLAND.