the resignation of Judge Kelley in 1856, he was appointed by Governor Pollock, on the 30th of November of that year, to fill the vacancy in the Court of Common Pleas and Quarter Sessions. But he did not live long to discharge the duties of this responsible post, as he died on Sunday, June 27, 1858. In 1852, Judge Conrad published Aylmere, or the Bondman of Kent; and other Poems. The tragedy of Aylmere is his principal production, and its merits as an acting play are said to be great. The hero, who assumes the name of Aylmere, is Jack Cade, the celebrated leader of the English peasantry in the insurrection of 1450. The other principal poems of our author are,-The Sons of the Wilderness, a meditative poem on the aborigines of our land; and a series of Sonnets on the Lord's Prayer, marked by great vigor as well as beauty and pathos. THE PRIDE OF WORTH. There is a joy in worth, A high, mysterious, soul-pervading charm; It makes the proud and lofty soul its throne: No fear to shake, no memory to upbraid, The stoic was not wrong: There is no evil to the virtuous brave; Worshipp'd or scorn'd, alone or 'mid the throng, Power and wealth and fame Are but as weeds upon life's troubled tide: A brow unshrinking, and a soul of flame, The joy of conscious worth, its courage and its pride! SONNET.-THY KINGDOM COME! Thy kingdom come! Speed, angel wings, that time! For not a slave; the cells o'er which Despair OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, M.D., the poet-physician, is a son of the Rev. Abiel Holmes, D.D., of Cambridge, Massachusetts, author of the "Annals of America." He was born on the 29th of August, 1809, and was graduated at Harvard University in 1829. He then studied medicine, and in 1833 went to Europe. Returning home in 1835, he commenced the practice of medicine in Boston the following year. In 1838, he was elected Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in the Medical School of Dartmouth College. This professorship he resigned on his marriage in 1840, and, in 1847, he was elected to the chair of Anatomy in Harvard University, vacated by the resignation of Dr. John C. Warren, which he still fills. In 1849, he relinquished practice, and fixed his summer residence in Pittsfield, Berkshire County, Massachusetts. In the winter he resides in Boston. Dr. Holmes has written a number of prize medical essays, and has contributed occasionally to medical journals; but he was earlier and better known to the public by his poems, which, by their genuine, easy, and unaffected wit, are unrivalled in our literature. Within the last year, however, Dr. Holmes has displayed more fully his wonderful powers in the papers commenced in the "Atlantic Monthly," in November, 1857, entitled The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. This series of papers constitutes, in our estimation, one of the most racy, interesting, and brilliant series of magazine-articles ever published either in this country or in England. For wit, pathos, profound philosophical speculation, nice descriptive powers, keen insight into human nature, aptness and force of illustration, united to great wealth of literary, scientific, and artistic knowledge, and all in a style that is a model for the light essay, these papers have given the author a very high rank in American literature.2 A beautiful edition of his poems is published by Ticknor & Fields. 2 He has begun a series of similar papers in the same magazine for 1859, entitled The Professor at the Breakfast-Table. The first papers-The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table-have been published in one vol. by Phillips & Sampson. They braced my aunt against a board, To make her straight and tall; They laced her up, they starved her down, To make her light and small; They pinch'd her feet, they singed her hair, They screw'd it up with pins,— Oh, never mortal suffer'd more In penance for her sins. So, when my precious aunt was done, "Ah!"" said my grandsire, as he shook "What could this lovely creature do Alas! nor chariot, nor barouche, Tore from the trembling father's arms For her how happy had it been! THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS. I wrote some lines once on a time And thought, as usual, men would say They were exceeding good. They were so queer, so very queer, Albeit, in the general way, A sober man am I. I call'd my servant, and he came To mind a slender man like me, He of the mighty limb! "These to the printer," I exclaim'd, And, in my humorous way, There'll be the devil to pay." He took the paper, and I watch'd, He read the next; the grin grew broad, And shot from ear to ear; He read the third; a chuckling noise The fourth; he broke into a roar; Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye, And since, I never dare to write THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS. This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; Wreck'd is the ship of pearl! And every chamber'd cell, Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, Before thee lies reveal'd, Its iris'd ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unseal'd! Year after year beheld the silent toil That spread his lustrous coil; Still, as the spiral grew, He left the past year's dwelling for the new, Stole with soft step its shining archway through, Built up its idle door, Stretch'd in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea, Cast from her lap, forlorn! From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathèd horn! While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings: Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! THE TWO ARMIES. As life's unending column pours, One marches to the drum-beat's roll, One moves in silence by the stream, Along its front no sabres shine, For those no death-bed's lingering shade; With knitted brow and lifted blade, In Glory's arms they fall. For these no clashing falchions bright, The bloodless stabber calls by night,- For those the sculptor's laurell'd bust, For these the blossom-sprinkled turf Two paths lead upward from below, And angels wait above, Who count each burning life-drop's flow, Each falling tear of Love. |