d the
widest information he can procure from every competent quarter, not
narrow nor one-sided, but commensurate with the breadth, the world-wide
diffusion of the subject.

We cannot hope for very speedy progress in this matter, so large a share
of its advancement depending upon general, real and proper musical
cultivation; but if each one interested will think the matter over
seriously and intelligently, and do the little that may lie in his
power, a beginning will have been made, which may in the end lead to
grand, beautiful, and most precious results.

APHORISM.--NO. IX.

Our Saviour says of life: 'I have power to lay it down, and power to
take it again.' We have not such power in our own hands; but our Lord
holds it for us, so that our position is independent of the world, and
of the power of evil, just as His was; and as in His case He did resume
more than He laid down, so will be given to us by the same Almighty hand
more than any creature has to surrender for the highest objects of
existence.

Such doctrine, I may add, is not, in its essence, merely Christian: it
has been the common sentiment of our race, that one of the highest
privileges of our being is to sacrifice ourselves, in various modes and
degrees, for the good of our fellow men; and those who cheerfully do
this, even if it be in the actual surrender of life, are esteemed
blessed, as they are also placed above others in the ranks of honorable
fame, and held to be secure of the final rewards of a heavenly state.

LITERARY NOTICES.

LIFE OF WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. By GEORGE
TICKNOR. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1864.

There are no discordant voices on either side of the Atlantic with
regard to the literary merits of William H. Prescott. Truth, dignity,
research, candor, erudition, chaste and simple elegance, mark all he has
ever written. His noble powers were in perfect consonance with his noble
soul. His strict sense of justice shines in all its brilliancy, in his
evident desire to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth, of every
character appearing in his conscientious pages. No current of popular
prejudice, however strong, swerves him from his righteous path; no
opportunity for glitter or oratorical display ever misleads him; no
special pleading bewilders his readers; no 'might is right' corrupts
them. His genius is pure, dramatic, and wide; his comprehension of
character acute and clear; his characterization of it