That Book so prized, you tell me, friend,
  Is full of false and deadly tales: 
  You say, “a palsied world bewails
  Its influence; but it soon shall end.”

  Thank God for that:  I live for truth,
  Glad to resign each rainbow sham;
  But, still remembering what I am,
  I praise my sweet and saintly youth

  It was so genial and sincere,
  My joy and wonder were so strong,
  So rare and delicate a song
  Young Life was singing in mine ear.

  I therefore still in fancy climb
  Up to that old and faded room,
  Where feelings like fresh roses bloom
  Over the grave of that fair time.

  M.

* * * * *

LORD BROUGHAM has recently been engaged in the investigation of a peculiar phenomenon which he calls the “diflection of light.”  The experiment itself consists in causing a ray of light to fall upon the sharp edge of a knife or on the point of a needle; the ray is thus “diflected” by the edge or point, and becomes prismatic.  Lord Brougham, in addition to other curious phenomena, has discovered that the ray, when once diflected, cannot be again diflected in the same direction, but may be diflected in an opposite direction.

* * * * *

[FROM THE SPECTATOR, OF JUNE 15.]

LIFE OF THE AUTHOR OF ’TREMAINE.’[3]

The literary success of the author of Tremaine was owing to the worldly experience and means of observation which his official position gave him; but the sole interest which he possesses in the eyes of the world arises from his success as an author.  As an office-holder, he was not a mere red-tapist, but one of those able, hard-working, experienced administrative men, who really carry on the business of government, and, except in the case of rare ability and courage in a “chief,” are masters of the Ministers, though want of interest, ambition, or “gift of the gab,” retains them in a subordinate post.  As an author, Mr. Ward’s temporary success was greater than his permanent prospects.  His subjects were generally large enough, he was a man of extensive reading, and his tastes took in a wide range; but he was essentially bounded by the present.  His earlier works, which procured him the patronage of Pitt, and with it a seat in Parliament and office, were on the Law of Nations:  and though their most attractive part related to a temporary subject, the rights of belligerents and neutrals, there was enough in that branch of the subject to secure duration; but who reads them now? how few, indeed, know of their existence?  He cannot be said to have originated the serio-didactic novel, for Hannah More and others had long cultivated that field; but he brought to it, what they could not bring, a well-bred scholarship, a wide knowledge of public and private life, seen in affairs as well as society, with less of a narrow sectarian spirit:  yet it