from the living tombs of tyranny, sharing with generous alacrity all their tidings.  How musically endearing Italian diminutives fall upon the ear employed in this office!  Here we have Pellico’s own letters to his parents to calm their natural grief, filled with pious concealment of his own mental and bodily torment, with encouragements to hope an early pardon, and to turn their eyes to Religion, which never yet refused consolation to the afflicted.  We have never read a more distressing letter than he wrote to his family, when, at last pardoned, he was once more free.  Seven years had passed away since he heard from them; he knew not if one still lived to welcome him home,—­if his kindred had forgotten, or execrated him as one who had dragged their common parents sorrowing and gray-haired down to the grave.  Has the world among all its manifold sorrows any sorrow like unto this?

The late M. de Lamennais was wont to speak with contempt of Silvio Pellico, as being a weak, spiritless craven, who accepted with resignation when he should have plotted to end the thraldom of his country.  Yet what can a man do, when the classes above him and those below him, when noble and priest and peasant, live contented in the silence of despotism, (calling it peace,) without one thought of other days, without one sentiment of pride in the deeds of their illustrious forefathers?  What is a Christian’s duty, when his country is bled and plundered and ground down to the dust under the iron heel of military despotism, when the political fabric of his native land is crumbling, and his countrymen are listless, selfish, sensual, unpatriotic, not unhappy so long as their bellies are filled and their backs covered?  Shall he lift his streaming eyes to heaven with the resigned ejaculation, “Father, not my will, but thine, be done”? —­or shall he, in holy despair, throw his life away on Austrian bayonets?  Terrible problem!

The Household Book of Poetry.  Collected and edited by CHARLES A. DANA.  New York:  D. Appleton & Co. 1858. pp. 798.

This book contains extracts from upwards of three hundred authors of all periods and countries.  It is made more complete by the addition of some of the most famous Latin hymns and canticles of the Church.  The different pieces are classified upon a judicious system.  It is handsomely printed, and not cumbrous in form.  What can we say more in its praise?  Only this,—­that, after giving it a pretty thorough examination, we are satisfied that it is the best collection in the language.  Individual tastes and idiosyncrasies will, of course, find some wants to lament, and some superfluities to condemn.  A book containing so much from living writers will excite jealousies; and the writers themselves will, in some cases, be dissatisfied with the selections made from their works.  But what the general reader asks is only, whether the compiler has shown skill in suiting the general taste, as well as judgment in directing it.  We think this collection the most catholic and impartial we have ever seen.  That is the highest praise we can bestow, and it implies that the editor has attained the success most difficult as well as essential in such an undertaking.