Once more the time returns to me, once more
The happy airs that by us went and came,
As by the winding autumn road we pass;
The scent of apple-orchards by the sea,
And gleams of clusters ripening ruddily;
And here and there amid the rain-bright grass,
The poppy's fluctuant spot of crimson flame.
Then through the tranquil blue air, from its noon,
Sinks the gold sun, slanting long shadows o'er
The yellow harvest-fields along the shore,

From grassy steep and full-leaved tree, where

sings,

The thrush in the still clearness, until soon, Through the faint mist of the green hollows

rings.

The sprinkled tinkle of the gathering

REGRET.

Now the days are all gone over Of our singing, love by lover, Days of summer-colored seas, Days of many melodies.

Now the nights are all past over
Of our dreaming, where dreams hover
In a mist of fair false things,
Nights with quiet folded wings.

Now the kiss of child and mother,
Now the speech of sister and brother,
Are but with us as strange words,
Or old songs of last year's birds.

Now all good that comes or goes is
As the smell of last year's roses,
As the shining in our eyes
Of dead summer in past skies.
-Fortnightly Review.

A. C. SWINBURNE.

NOTES ON BOOKS.

Ancient Cities and Empires. Their Prophetic Doom, read in the Light of History and Modern Research. By E. H. GILLETT, author of "Life and Times of John Huss," etc. Philadelphia: Presbyterian Publication Committee. The facile and able pen of Dr. Gillett has done a needful and useful service to the cause of Christian truth in the preparation of this volume, the object of which is to present those prophecies of the Bible upon the fulfilment of which new light has been thrown by modern research. Newton and Keith were both admirable in their day, but the last quarter of a century has made large contributions to the elucidation of many of the subjects which they discussed. The work is in the form of essays, fifteen in all, each of which embodies a more or less extended historical sketch of the city, country, or empire of which it treats. The treatise is popular in form, and being written in the glowing and vigorous style characteristic of the author, and illustrated by more than twenty colored engravings, it is a work of decided interest and value.

The Beggars of Holland and Grandees of Spain. A History of the Reformation in the Netherlands from A.D. 1200 to A.D. 1578. By Rev. JOHN W. MEARS, D.D. No period of the history of the Reformation is more crowded with elements of genuine interest than this of the Netherlands and their brave struggle. William of Orange divides the interest of the period with Calvin and Luther. The author traces the free, bold, Protestant spirit of the Hollanders from the earliest times. With the aid of Brandt, the Dutch historian, he narrates their early struggles against priestly tyranny, and

shows how the very conformation of their country, combined with the spirit of the people, made it almost unavoidable that they should take the position they did in the Reformation of the sixteenth century. But that they should wage such a mighty, prolonged, and successful war against the greatest monarch of the day, and should have become famous in the world's history as among the foremost champions of civil and religious liberty, that only history, surpassing the boldest flights of fancy, could tell us. The narrative ends with the deliverance of Leyden, one of the most thrilling events in the annals of time. The book is handsomely printed, illustrated, and bound. The map is drawn from early sources, and will be found an unusually valuable aid. We commend the volume as possessing more than ordinary interest.

Choice;

Weakness and Strength; or, Out of the Deep. By Mrs. HERBERT. The Shoe Binders of New York; or, the Fields White for the Harvest. Py Mrs. J. MCNAIR WRIGHT. Flora Morris' or, Be not Conformed to this World. By Mrs. MARY HILDEBRUN. All three of these books are published by the Presbyterian Publication Committee, and are valuable accessions to their catalogue of good books. The first happily illustrates, in narrative form, the essential weakness of human strength in the conflict with evil, and the indispensable necessity of Divine strength in order to victory. The second may be called an earnest, Christian plea against the spirit of worldliness so prevalent in the education of young ladies at the present day, and is therefore timely, and, we judge, adapted to do good. The other volume is a vivid picture of life among the wretched of New York, while it portrays the noble example of a Christian woman, who, in imitation of the Divine Saviour of mankind, sought to seek and save that which was lost. The same Committee have brought out a new edition of Dr. E. H. Gillett's Life Lessons in the School of Christian Duty, which we regard as one of the best practical works of the day, inspiring, quickening, and rightly developing and diverting Christian

energy.

A Tale of Two Cities, and Great Expectations. By CHARLES DICKENS, with original illustrations by S. Eytinge, jr. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. This belongs to the popular "Diamond" edition of Dickens' Works, and the coming among us of the distinguished author will, no doubt, increase the already great demand for this and other editions of his complete works.

Confucius and the Chinese Classics; or, Readings in Chinese Literature. Edited and compiled by Rev. A. W. LOOMIS. San Francisco: Aoman & Co. New York: 17 Mercer street. Recently there has been an unusual call for books on China. The increasing commerce between this country and that ancient kingdom, while the close proximity of our Western coast to China, and especially the establishment of a line of mail steamers by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, have awakened a desire among a large portion of our people to gain a more thorough acquaintance with our neighbors. A large portion of this volume consists of extracts from the famous Four Books of Confucius and his disciples, translated by Rev. Dr. Legge, a missionary of the London Missionary Society, and

who here presents us some of the ripe fruit of a thirty years' study of the Chinese language and literature. The book contains also selections from several of the departments of Chinese literature, and is not only interesting as a curiosity, but contains a large amount of information respecting this singular people, their political, domestic, and social habits, their religious beliefs, and the sources from which they have derived them. The mechanical execution of the book is quite equal to that of the best English works.

Recollections of Henry Watkins Alien, BrigadierGeneral, Confederate States Army, and Ex-Governor of Louisiana. By SARAH A. Dorsey. New York: M. Doolady. New Orleans: Jas. A. Gresham. The tone of this work is what might naturally be looked for in a Southern woman of the intensest school, who regards the war as the sole fault of the North, and roundly asserts that the South fought only for the Constitution and Republican liberty, and who sees nothing to regret but the simple failure of their cause, and who is willing to accept the "logic of events" only as a matter of physical compulsion. So far as the work details the personal history of the subject of it, it may be all fair and well-we have no means of judging; but, so far as it touches on the general subject, it is as unfair, prejudiced, and bitter as one can well conceive. We are at a loss to see how such works as this and Pollard's "Lost Cause can benefit the South, either in the judge ment of the living world, or in the eye of impar tial history.

VARIETIES.

Mr. Henry Blackburn, author of several books of travel upon the continent, has been drawing Doré into service as an illustrator of his last work, "The Pyrenees: a Description of Summer Life at French Watering-Places." The volume, which is a handsome octavo, contains upward of one hundred illustrations by the great French artist. Whether the designs may have done service in France before or not, they are new to Americans, and exhibit Doré's peculiar powers in a very pleasant and attractive manner. The work is included in Messrs. Scribner, Welford & Co.'s latest consignment of English publications, together with Sophia Jex Blake's account of her "Visit to Some American Schools and Colleges; " a "Walking Tour around Ireland in 1865;" a volume of the marvellously cheap and exceedingly handsome editions of "Waverley," now issuing by Hotten; Colonel Churchill's "Biography of Abd-el-Kader, the Arab Chief; " the Domestic and Religious Life of the Penns and Peningtons of the Seventeenth Century," etc.

How to Know Pure Glycerine.-A writer in an American Pharmaceutical periodical makes the following remarks relative to the best mode of testing the purity of a sample of glycerine: I should regard a glycerine as unobjectionable for medicinal purposes, if it forms a colorless mixture with twice its volume of strong alcohol and of sulphurie acid; and if, after previous dilution with distilled water, it yields no turbidity, either cold or heating to the boiling point with sulphuretted hydrogen, ferrocyanide of potassium, nitrate of baryta, oxalate of ammonia, or nitrate of sier.

This last test I regard as an important one, since I believe that all those compounds, which impart to common glycerine a peculiar rancid odor, will reduce the silver salt and impart a color to the liquid ou boiling, even though that odor may be scarcely apparent, while pure glycerine is not affected by boiling with nitrate of silver, although, like nearly all organic and many inorganic compounds, it gradually assumes a darker color on exposure to light.

The Virgin's Tree.-An incident arising out of the Egyptian Viceroy's visit to Europe is thus recorded in the papers of the day: Ismail Pasha, according to the Egypte, as soon as he arrived in Paris, made a gift to the Empress of the tree and the ground surrounding it under which, as tradition says, the Virgin rested during the flight into Egypt. Every one in that country knows the Virgin's tree. His Highness had enclosed in a small coffer a portion of the earth in which it is planted, a piece of the bark, and the hodget, or title to the property, which were presented to her Majesty." The tree thus alluded to is of some historical interest, and will be found at Matarea, or Matariyeh, a few miles to the north-east of Cairo, and with good reason regarded as the site of Heliopolis or On, where the patriarch Joseph lived. This Heliopolis was also called Ain Shems, or Fountain of the Sun, from the existence of a remarkable spring or well, which was celebrated from remote antiquity. After the decline of paganism the Christians adapted the old legends to new purposes, and hence we find quite a cluster of them clinging to Ain Shems or Matarea. The writer of the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy, more than a thousand years ago, when narrating the flight into Egypt, says: "Hence they proceedoth to the sycamore-tree, which is now called Matarea, and the Lord Jesus produced a fountain in Matarea, wherein Lady Mary washed her garment. Now from the sweat of the Lord Jesus which he there let drop, the balsam came forth in that region." (Cowper's Translation, chap. 24.) Some of the old authors who mention the fountain and the balsam do not refer to the tree. Sir John Maundeville, about 1322, mentions the balsam or balm, and says there were seven wells which Jesus made with his feet when he went to play with the children. Thevenot relates the legend much as appears in the learned Wansleb's curious book, "Nouvelle Relation en forme de Journal d'un Voyage fait en Egypte." Wansleb says: "There was formerly to be seen in the same garden the sycamore which, after the tradition of the Copts, was miraculously rent asunder to shelter our Lord and his holy Mother when Herod's soldiers pursued them. They tell how that, being secreted in the hollow tree, they escaped from the hands of the enemy because a spider's web was spread over the entrance, and looked very old, although made in an instant by Divine power. Therefore the soldiers could not fancy anybody was inside, and least of all those they sought for. The Franciscans of the Holy Land, who reside at Cairo, dispute with the gardeners the possession of this tree, saying that it fell of old age in 1656, and that they collected its last remains, and preserve them in their vestry, where I saw them, as a very precious relic. On the contrary, the gardeners show in this garden a stump (souche), which I also saw, and which they affirm is what remains of the ancient sycamore.

Wansleb does not pretend to decide the dispute, which he considers a mere trifle. But it is plain enough that the old stump which he saw is no longer a trifle, but has succeeded to use the honors of the original tree. Of course we do not imagine for a moment that the old tree given to her Majesty the French Empress has really existed 1860 years, and we know that no existing tradition can be traced back above half that time, with the hitch mentioned by Wansleb; but for all that the legend is a curious one. To our minds the Chris

tian and Mohammedan versions are of some value, but only as continuing the succession which enables us to identify the locality with a spot mentioned by writers so ancient and so sacred as Isaiah and Moses. We have the legend under a variety of forms; but the scene to which it attaches is always easily identified. B. H. C.

Mr. James Croll continues his remarkable series of researches on the astronomical conditions which have influenced the temperature of the globe during geological epochs. His last paper, on "The Change in the Obliquity of the Ecliptic, its Influence on the Climate of the Polar Regions and Level of the Sea," has been reprinted for private circulation from the Transactions of the Geological Society of Glasgow, and deserves the serious attention of geological philosophers. When Adhémar a few years since published his somewhat startling work, his views were pooh-poohed as visionary. Somewhat modified and better supported, these views in the hands of Mr. Croll, have grown into an hypothesis, or rather a theory, which is likely to considerably alter certain geological speculations.

M. Grandidier has presented to the Academy an egg of the remarkable extinct bird, the Epiornis, of Madagascar. Having lately returned from the island, he states that the eggs of Epiornis are found on a plain at one side of the island, and at a height of several mètres above the sea-level. Strange that though numerous eggs have been discovered, the bones of this creature are rarely found. From what M. Grandidier has learnt from the natives there seems little doubt that the Epiornis is extinct. We mention this because some naturalists fancy that the bird may still exist in remote parts of Madagascar.

Assyrian Art.-Was the art of the Assyrians really of home growth, or imported from the Egyptians, either directly or by way of Phenicia? The latter view has been sometimes taken; but the most cursory study of the Assyrian remains, in chronological order, is sufficient to disprove the theory, since it will at once show that the earliest specimens of Assyrian art are the most un-Egyptian in character. No doubt there are certain analogies even here, as the preference for the profile, the stiffness and formality, the ignorance or disregard of perspective and the like; but the analogies are such as would be tolerably sure to occur in the early efforts of any two races not very dissimilar to one another, while the little resemblances, which alone prove connection, are entirely wanting. These do not appear until we come to monuments which belong to the time of Sargon, when direct connection between Egypt and Assyria seems to have begun, and Egyptian captives are known to have been transported into Mesopotamia in large numbers.-Rawlinson's Anient Monarchies.