The Musical Souvenir is embellished with two engravings and a presentation plate, and bound in crimson silk—­so that it has all the attractions of the annual Christmas presents, except prose.

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THE KEEPSAKE.

EDITED BY F.M.  REYNOLDS, ESQ.

This is a magnificent affair, and is one of the proud triumphs of the union of Painting, Engraving, and Literature—­to which we took occasion to allude in a recent number of the mirror.  Each department is unique, and the lists are like the Morning Post account of a drawing room, or Almack’s—­the princes of the arts, and the peers of the pen. Painters—­Lawrence, Howard, Corbould, Westall, Turner, Landseer, Stephanoff, Chalon, Stothard, &c. Engravers—­C.  Heath, Finden, Engleheart, Portbury, Wallis, Rolls, Goodyear, &c. Contributors—­Scott, Mackintosh, Moore, the Lords Normanby, Morpeth, Porchester, Holland, Gower, and Nugent; Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, Shelley, Hook, Lockhart, Croker, Mrs. Hemans, and Miss Landon; and the cost of the whole eleven thousand guineas! Of course, such a book has not been the work of a day, month, or, perhaps, a year; and its literature entitles it to a permanent place in the library, where we hope to see it stand auro perennius; were its fate to be otherwise, we should condemn the public—­for we hate ingratitude in every shape—­and write in the first page the epitaph—­For, O, for, O, the hobby-horse is forgot.  A guinea to twopence—­Hyperion to a Satyr—­how can we extend the fame of The Keepsake!

We cannot particularize the engravings; but they are all worthy companions of the frontispiece—­a lovely portrait of Mrs. Peel, engraved by Heath, from Sir Thomas Lawrence’s picture.  In the literary department—­a very court of fiction—­is, My Aunt Margaret’s Mirror, a tale of forty-four pages; and, The Tapestried Chamber, by Sir Walter Scott; both much too long for extract, which would indeed be almost unfair.  Next comes an exquisite gem—­

ON LOVE.

BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

What is Love?  Ask him who lives what is life; ask him who adores what is God.

I know not the internal constitution of other men, nor even of thine whom I now address.  I see that in some external attributes they resemble me, but when, misled by that appearance, I have thought to appeal to something in common, and unburden my inmost soul to them, I have found my language misunderstood, like one in a distant and savage land.  The more opportunities they have afforded me for experience, the wider has appeared the interval between us, and to a greater distance have the points of sympathy been withdrawn.  With a spirit ill-fitted to sustain such proof, trembling and feeble through its tenderness, I have every where sought, and have found only repulse and disappointment.