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"Crabbed age and youth
Cannot live together;"

and when there comes a young genius, who
lives more in a month than others in a year, the
proud world is seldom ready to acknowledge him
till the struggle of life is past. Then it honors
him for bravely dying.

The Lesson of Life, and other Poems. By
GEORGE H. BAKER. Philadelphia: George
S. Appleton, 148 Chesnut street. 1848.
A very modestly attired little volume, con-
taining several very gracefully written pieces,
betokening good sense, a kind heart, and a genial
fancy. The longest piece has many passages
of truly poetic description, and is nowhere
marred by the affectations of style, which are
the fashion of the day with many young gen-
tlemen who presume to come before the world
in the character of poets.

a long immortality for such sketches, they have lost none of their original excellence. If it be lawful to use two words utterly outworn, we may express in them a sufficiently comprehensive criticism for a brief notice, and call these volumes "graphic" and "racy." They are picturesque, brilliant, sparkling-everything that is animated. To read them is like seeing fireworks. And yet they fatigue and cloy us. The intense ebullience of the fancy, which is their most remarkable characteristic, affects us, we know not why, sadly and even painfully. We seem to be brought in contact with a burning soul, that is consuming its over sensitive and excitable tenement. The vis animi is wearing out the body. After reading a few pages one feels heated and feverish. In this respect these letters are in marked contrast with those of Dr. Gardner, just noticed: they are more brilliant, but not so cheerful. It may be, however, that in this respect our perceptions are too delicate. For those who can bear such writing there is drollery enough, as well as suggestiveness, in these two volumes, to stimulate The Pictorial History of England. Harper & them for a month. "Here, on the Boulevard Poissonniere, or near it, resides Mr. —, of New Jersey; he has been sent over (hapless errand!) to convert these French people to Christianity. He is a very clever man, and we will ask if he is yet alive: the journals of this morning say three or four missionaries have been eaten up by the Sumatras." This and a thousand other bon-bons are in the very spirit of a Parisian feuilletonist. One cannot avoid a momentary smile at the absurdity of the idea, though Mr. may have done a great deal of good in Paris, notwithstanding.

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It makes one almost sad to see how much better boys are cared for now than they used to be, especially during the annual holidays that are just past. This little volume is another evidence of the increased attention that is paid them. It is very neatly printed, and the wood cuts are well executed. Mr. Miller evidently loves children, and has also excellent taste in matters of literature, anecdote, &c. Our only fault with him is that he writes down too far, and is a little childish and goodyish at times, which boys do not like half so well as strong manly writing, that says what it has to say in plain words, and leaves their own active fancies to supply the coloring. Nothing offends their pride more than to be played baby with; they always feel that they are not appreciated, and that their teacher, who approaches them in that way, must be weak in perception. But so it is through life; the pride of the old stands opposed to that of the young:

Brothers.

The republication of this great work is draw ing to a conclusion, it having reached the thirty third number, the whole being to be completed in about forty. It is fairly printed in ample two-column pages, and the engravings very respectable.

The usefulness and interest of the work are too obvious to need a comment. It is a compilation from all sorts of histories, and presents a view not only of the progress of the government but also of the people, their religion, manners and customs, national industry, general condition, and gradual advancement in literature, science, and the fine arts. For those who read history only for their own to supply themselves with arms to be used in gratification and mental improvement, and not political or professional employments, such a work must supply a long-felt desideratum. For, in respect of the most picturesque parts of English history, we have hitherto relied more upon the old dramatists and the modern novelists than upon Hume and his successors: Shakspeare and Sir Walter Scott have in this sense been our best historians.

We have not had time to examine the tone and merit of the compilation, but it is fair to presume that it is of similar excellence with the many works tending to popularize learning and spread the love of knowledge which have issued from the same press in London; and if so, it is a work which cannot fail in this country of doing good service among the people. It is attractive and will be read, and many who are drawn into reading it will find how many of the noisiest social fancies of the present day which claim to be great discoveries are only new developments of the one Adam, and are in fact as old as the hills. It will lead to reflection, and that is a habit

which, in feverish and fighting times like these, | Posthumous Works, now in course of publi

all true men must be glad to see encouraged in every possible way.

Thomson's Seasons; and Goldsmith's Poems. Both Illustrated with Engravings by the Etching Club. Harper & Brothers. 1848.

To find these two familiar friends arrayed in dresses of such elegance, is like meeting an every-day acquaintance in a ballroom: they are so fine one scarcely recognizes them. Yesterday they lay in our chamber, soiled and rusty-one, sooth to tell, with his coat entirely torn off his back; to-day we behold them in blue and gold, and with their pages filled with elegant engravings. For our own part, we feel constrained and awkward in conversing with them in their new attire; but if there were any young lady friend, or relative, a cousin for example, upon whom we desired them to make a favorable impression, we could not present them to her in more attractive costume. They would surely be welcome guests in any parlor.

The Seasons, especially, is as charming a book as one could offer to a lady. It is such a beautiful work of art, so gentle and refining, so well fitted to cause those lovely in themselves to perceive the loveliness of the world around them, and thus to exist in a larger and more various sphere of enjoyment. One cannot but rejoice in the republication of so delightful a book in such a garb. Here in the rough outside of life, in the struggles of business and the coarse contacts of the gross and selfish, one almost fears sometimes that all the refinement of the world is vanishing out of it-that ladies are no longer sensitive to the music of the poets, and have determined to favor only the victors in those less severe and less exacting conflicts that occur in wars on fields of battle. The publication of these handsome editions is a proof that they have not forgotten how to estimate the greatness of those who conquer in ideal regions, as well as of those who dwell wholly in the actual.

Goldsmith would be less one's choice for such a purpose than Thomson, he having been obliged to see so much of the worser part of the world in his youth, that he never quite recovered of it; yet the Deserted Village is excellent reading. Every one knows that "nihil quod tetigit quod non ornavit:"-it is refreshing to see that he is at last beautified himself, more according to his deserts than he usually was in his lifetime.

Hora Biblica Quotidiana. Daily Scripture Readings. By the late THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D., L.L.D. In three volumes.-Vol. I. Harper & Brothers. 1848.

cation by the Harpers. The second work of the series is entitled "Hora Biblica Sabbatica; or Sabbath Meditations on the Holy Scriptures." The third is called "Theological Institutes," the fourth is the author's "Lectures on Butler's Analogy;" the fifth embraces "Discourses." We mention the names of the forthcoming volumes for the convenience of many of our readers, who may wish to make themselves acquainted with one of the most distinguished theological writers of his time. The publishers promise also a Life of Dr. Chalmers, by his son-in-law Dr. Hanna, Editor of the North British Review.

The Bethel Flag: a Series of Short Discourses to Seamen. By GARDINER SPRING, D.D., Pastor of the Brick Presbyterian Church of the City of New-York. New-York: Baker & Scribner. 1848.

It is unnecessary to examine the literary merits of a series of discourses addressed to seamen by a clergyman whose writings are so highly esteemed by his denomination as Dr. Spring. They are characterized by his usual plainness and sincerity of style, and hence must have, aside from their pious uses, a tendency to improve the minds of the many readers they will of course find, among the class for whom they are intended.

The American Musical Times. A Gazette Devoted to Music, Literature, The Fine Arts, and the Drama. Henry C. Watson. Editor. New-York: W. B. Taylor, 114 Nassau street.

This is the title of the seventh number of a new weekly paper devoted, as its name imports, chiefly to music. Mr. Watson is very well known in the city as an accomplished musician and an able writer on all topics connected with the art. The series thus far has been decidedly the most interesting literary and musica melange we have ever seen, and if it is continued with the same spirit the work must surely succeed. The editor promises a series of articles on Instrumentation, to be edited by Mr. George Loder: these will of course be both interesting and valuable to musical students.

The present number of the paper is in mourning on account of the death of Mendelssohn, who was the greatest of the cotemporary composers, and whose grandest work, the oratorio of Elijah, was successfully performed in our city, last month, by our best choral society, the American Musical Institute, under Mr. Loder's

This volume forms a number in Dr. Chalmers' direction.

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OUR object in this article will be to present to the American people-at least as widely as our humble labors may reach—

the

great Practical Issue, as it now stands, in regard to the further prosecution of the Mexican War. We laid the foundation for this, in our article in the last number of the Review, on "the President's Message, and the War," and to which we would invite our readers to recur. We think we cannot be mistaken in supposing that a crisis has come in our Mexican relations, which, of necessity, must force political men and political parties into an open and undisguised attitude on the one side or the other of the great issue which has now

arisen in those relations.

JUST CAUSE, AND WITHOUT AN EQUIVALENT,

(IF THERE COULD BE AN EQUIVALENT FOR A
FORCED DISMEMBERMENT,) CERTAIN LARGE

DISTRICTS OF COUNTRY BELONGING TO THAT
NATION, ALREADY CONQUERED BY Our arms,

AND HELD UNDER MILITARY OCCUPATION, AND
WHICH ARE ACCURATELY DEFINED AND DE-
SCRIBED FOR OUR BETTER UNDERSTANDING

OF THE ENTERPRISE TO WHICH WE ARE IN

VITED. It must be understood that the territory which he now proposes to take or secure, is more extensive than that which he demanded, as his ultimatum, in the conferences of Mr. Trist with the Mexican Commissioners in September last. In those conferences, the President informs us in his late Annual Message, "the boundary According to our conception of the clear of the Rio Grande, and the cession to the facts of the case, the President now offers United States of New Mexico and Upper to Congress and the country the project California, constituted an ultimatum which of a war to be prosecuted and maintained, our Commissioner was, under no circumfrom this time forward, for the following stances, to yield." The demand now emspecific object-namely: To braces both the Californias. MEXICO TO SUBMIT TO OUR APPROPRIATING Early after the commencement of the war," says the PERMANENTLY TO OURSELVES, WITHOUT ANY Message, "New Mexico and the Califor

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nias were taken possession of by our for-
ces."
"These provinces are now in our
undisputed possession, and have been for
many months."
"I am satisfied that they
should never be surrendered to Mexico." The
present ultimatum of the President, then,
embraces Lower as well as Upper Califor-
nia. And the whole territory, taken to-
gether, comprising parts of three Mexican
States, the province of New Mexico and
the two Californias, has an area of nearly
700,000 square miles. The whole area of
the Mexican empire, since she has lost
Texas, is, we believe, less than 1,500,000
square miles; so that the President propo-
ses to take for the United States a little
less than one half of the dominions remain-
ing to that empire.

We desire to be understood as taking the ground distinctly, that from the period of the conferences with the Mexican Commissioners, we have, in effect, so far as Congress, or the country, is called on to become a party to it, a NEW WAR. It wants the formalities of a new war to make it such in legal contemplation, and nothing else. To every moral intent, so far as Congress or the country is concerned, it is a new war-the monstrous birth of that to which it has succeeded. The war which was carried on up to the period referred to, though the real designs of its author were undoubtedly veiled from the public eye, had certain professed objects in view, upon which all appeals to the country for its sanction and support were constantly based. Mexico had injured our citizens, and had not made reparation, as she was bound to do. "In vindicating our national honor," says the President, we seek to obtain redress for the wrongs she has done us, and indemnity for our just demands against her." It was supposed, of course, that our national honor would be sufficiently vindicated, our wrongs redressed, and the whole end of the war obtained, when we had beaten her forces, with immense odds against us, in every field and fight through two campaigns, had brought her, by the extremity to which she was reduced, to give up her pretensions and complaints on account of the annexation of Texas to the United States, to propose a just and proper boundary between our State of Texas and her dominions, and to tender to our acceptance ample indemnity

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for our claims. All this she did in the conferences with Mr. Trist. We take the President at his word, in what he has so often said, with the most solemn asseverations, up to that period, that the war was not waged for conquest, but for the redress of injuries, and for indemnity for our claims. And when concessions were offered by Mexico which fully met those objects of the war, the war of course ceased to be prosecuted for those objects. The goal was reached, and the enterprise could not be pushed an inch further in that direction. It is true, the submission of Mexico was not accepted; not because of any defect or deficiency in the concessions and indemnity offered, nor, as we have shown in our former article on this subject, because of any inadmissible claims on her part by which they were accompanied; but because, and only because, her submission did not go far enough to satisfy the secret purpose of the President in the war. But as a nåtional war, the country had nothing to do with any secret purpose of the President in prosecuting it. So far as the nation was concerned, it was a war for such objects only as had been avowed, and were understood by the nation. The submission of Mexico fully met and covered these objects, or would have done so if it had been accepted. And when that submission was rejected because it stopped short of that extreme humiliation and sacrifice to which it had been the private purpose of the President to reduce that unhappy country, and when the war, after the conferences, was resumed, and prosecuted for the single purpose of bringing down Mexico to the point of that extreme humiliation and sacrifice, we say it was, in effect, a new war; a war to which neither Congress nor the country had as yet committed themselves, and a war to which it remains to be seen whether they will ever commit themselves.

We must recur to what took place at the conferences in September, referring the reader for further particulars and proofs, to our former article on this subject. Our army had fought its way up to the gates of the capital of Mexico. Here a parley was sounded; there was a pause in the war; and Commissioners of Peace came together to tender and receive terms of accommodation. The first thing to be

done was to hear the demands of the conquering party. The Project of a Treaty was presented. After consideration, a Counter-Project of a Treaty was offered on the part of Mexico. Then came the Ultimatum of the President; and upon this, the conferences were broken off-the Mexican Commissioners finding this ultimatum inadmissible. It is important that we understand perfectly the substance and effect of this transaction. The first demands of the conqueror, according to the habit of diplomacy-generally, we think, a very bad habit-embraced more than was to be insisted on. The Project presented by Mr. Trist, proposed a line of boundary between the two countries, giving to the United States, besides Texas proper, 1st, the country between the Nueces and the Rio Grande; 2d, the whole of New Mexico; 3d, the whole of the two Californias. It asked also for certain privileges of transportation and transit across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. And, in consideration of these demands, if conceded, it proposed three things on the part of the United States: 1st, to renounce all claims for the expenses of the war; 2d, to assume and pay the claims of our own citizens on Mexico; 3d, to pay to Mexico such additional pecuniary compensation for the new territory acquired, as it might be worth, over and above the amount of the claims. The sum offered by Mr. Trist is stated to have been "from fifteen to twenty millions of dollars"-the demands of the Commissioner having been first lowered to the ultimatum of the President. This ultimatum excluded from his demands Lower California, and the right of way across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. In these conferences, then, the final and ultimate demand of the President was that Mexico, besides giving up Texas proper, should cede to the United States, 1st, the country on the left bank of the lower Rio Grande; 2d, New Mexico; and 3d, Upper California. And for this he would make the stipulations and payments just mentioned.

Now, before this ultimatum was announced, the Mexican Commissioners had presented their Counter-Project of a Treaty; and it is important that we understand precisely how far Mexico was willing, and offered, to go, in making conces

sions to the demands of the President. Their plan of a Treaty proposed a boundary which yielded Texas proper to the United States; stipulated to maintain the desert country between the Nueces and the Rio Grande in its uninhabited state, as a national frontier, equally secure and beneficial to both countries; and ceded to the United States one-half of Upper California, including the port and bay of San Francisco. Upon this extension of our limits by the grant of Mexico-for the new territory acquired in California alone would have an area equal to that of four States like New York-it was required that the United States should assume and pay the claims of our citizens on Mexico, and should pay such further sum of money to Mexico, as the value of our acquisitions should render just. The country on the left bank of the lower Rio Grande and the territory of New Mexico, with the whole of Lower and a part of Upper California, the Commissioners refused to yield. The preservation of their country on the Rio Grande, and of New Mexico, with their loyal inhabitants, and the possessions and property belonging to them, to the Mexican nation, and under its jurisdiction, they declared to be a condition sine qua non of peace. "Mexico," it was declared, "would not sell her citizens as a herd of catle!" "Mexico would not put a price on the attachment of a citizen to the land that gave him birth!" Of course, the preservation of these countries to Mexico, was inconsistent with the ultimatum of the President. The conferences, therefore, were broken off, and the war was resumed.

It is essential, here, that we do not commit the error of supposing that the negotiations for peace failed on any other ground than that just stated. Nothing else had any influence or tendency towards this result. The President would not permit his Commissioner to make terms of peace with Mexico, because she would not yield so far at least to his demands, as to give Texas a boundary on the Rio Grande, and cede New Mexico to the United States, in addition to the cession of half of Upper California, which she offered to make. This was the sole cause why the conferences were broken off, and the war renewed. We have not forgotten, that two

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