POETRY.-The Days when we wore Straps, 450. Our Defenders, 450. Mourner a-laMode, 486. No Hope or Help in hard Man, 486. The Varuna, 486. Valley of Mud, 491. Gravestone, 491. Melancholy, 491. The Drum, 496. Opening of the International Exhibition, 496. Ode to Melancholy, 496. Tunnel through Mont Cenis, SHORT ARTICLES.-The Royal Sign Manual, 482. 482. Mr. Dickens' Readings, 482. Tennyson's Poems, 491. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL, SON, & CO., BOSTON. For Six Dollars a year, in advance, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded free of postage. Complete sets of the First Series, in thirty-six volumes, and of the Second Series, in twenty volumes, handsomely bound, packed in neat boxes, and delivered in all the principal cities, free of expense of freight, are for sale at two dollars a volume. ANY VOLUME may be had separately, at two dollars, bound, or a dollar and a half in numbers. ANY NUMBER may be had for 13 cents; and it is well worth while for subscribers or purchasers to complete any broken volumes they may have, and thus greatly enhance their value. THE DAYS WHEN WE WORE STRAPS. In the days when we wore straps, Melbourne ruled the commonweal, Taking-we were then young chapsTurns with Wellington and Peel; Most of all our rising men Puling in their nurses' laps: Some were not in being then, In the days when we wore straps. In those days, beneath the sun; In the days when we wore straps. Indian-rubber then was dear, Gutta-percha not yet known; No rare thing was good strong beer, Brewed with malt and hops alone; Beer of which the likeness flows From but few existing taps; None did bitter ale compose In the days when we wore straps. Science had not yet to bear Published in those other days. Every Christian's chin was shorn. Saving only Muntz, perhaps, Beards by none but Jews were worn In the days when we wore straps. Sides of ladies, robe and skirt Moderate of dimensions, clad, Filled no doorway, swept no dirt; Petticoats had not gone mad. Hideous hoops revived we've seen, Hoops, to hinder their collapse ! Folly wore no Crinoline In the days when we wore straps. Then Retrenchment was the word; Of unflinching Joseph Hume. Fleets and troops we durst reduce, In our armor leaving gaps; Ironsides were not in use In the days when we wore straps. Peace, if Plenty did not reign, Britain's isles with safety blest; Ireland only, and insane Chartists, troubled England's rest. Tranquil were the United States; France to change her neighbors' maps Sought not at those distant dates, In the days when we wore straps. Then, as we were wont to boast, Was the schoolmaster abroad, Whipping every witch and ghost Into nothing with his rod. Spirits, under tables heard, Through a " Medium," giving raps, Though fine things of every kind Moderate means would better keep; They could save, against mishaps; With no Income-Tax to pay In the days when we wore straps. -Punch. OUR DEFENDERS. The following poem of Thomas Buchanan Read, was written for the Americans of Rome, and was first read to them in the ruins of Titus' Baths, as they were gathered to celebrate last Fourth of July. OUR flag on the land, and our flag on the ocean, Casting his sentinel glances afar Though bearing the olive branch, Grasping the bolts of the thunders of War! Rust dims the harvest sheen Of scythe and of sickle keen. The axe sleeps in peace by the tree it would mar, Veteran and youth are out, Swelling the battle shout, Grasping the bolts of the thunders of War! Our brave mountain eagles swoop from their eyrie, Our lithe panthers leap from forest and plain, Out of the West flash the flames of the prairie, Out of the East roll the waves of the main ! Down from their Northern shores, Loud as Niagara pours, They march and their tread wakes the earth with its jar, Under the Stripes and Stars, Each with the soul of Mars, Grasping the bolts of the thunders of War! Spite of the sword or assassin's stiletto, The oak of the North or the Southern palmetto And ocean replies unto ocean afar, From The Quarterly Review. 1. Hymns and Hymn-books: a Letter, etc. 1850-1856. 5. Hymni Latini, Medii Ævi. Franc. Jos. 7. Hymnale secundum usum insignis ac præ- 8. Sacred Latin Poetry. By Richard Chen- 1846. 10. Hymns of the Eastern Church. Trans- 1860. val has been a time of unusual progress; ments in the history of our Church, and has left scarcely one stone unturned by controversy in its doctrine, discipline, and ritual; while every irregularity has been called in question, and every order more or less enTheir really great importance has been lost forced, hymns have been left to run wild. sight of amidst a clash of contention over matters of more engrossing interest. But Hymnology itself has not stood still the while; as indeed appears by the long array of works at the head of this paper, and a number of others bearing upon the various branches of the subject there represented, as well as by the now familiar use of this very word "Hymnology," for which a writer of thirty years ago felt constrained to apologize. In fact, not only has the study of hymns become a recognized subject of literary research, but the hymns actually composed far exceed in number those of any equal period, except that which immediately followed the great Wesleyan movement just a century before. In the days of William of Orange and his immediate successors the religious energies of the people had been laid to sleep under the so-called orthodoxy of those in high places; and when they were awakened by the cry of the Independent Calvinists and early Methodists, they found no channel for their devotions but the Prayer-book, which many of their leaders abhorred as a "form," and Tate and Brady's New Version, which they felt to be inadequate to satisfy the crav ings of zealous religionists. The leaders could preach and could pray, but the people's demand was for something to sing; so many hymns, so many tunes, stirring, elevating, experimental. The supply was not slack: Isaac Watts, the schoolmaster's son at Southampton, taunted, it is said, by his father for his fastidious objections to the The example once set, and the "A GENERAL impression seems to prevail New Version (then really new), vindicated that the Psalmody of our Church requires himself by writing off with great rapidity amendment and regulation." With these his own metrical Psalms and original words opened an article on our present sub- Hymns. ject more than thirty years ago. The inter- demand increasing with the spread of the revival under the Wesleys, a deluge of hymns was poured out on the land. Charles Wesley alone contributed six hundred ; Doddridge, the two Battyes, Cennick, Hart, Steele, Toplady, and others, produced each a separate volume of their own; and a multitude of less prolific writers swell the cho yet the observation might be repeated today with as much truth as ever. For while the last quarter of a century has witnessed one of the most remarkable religious move * Quarterly Review, July, 1828. Dr. |