every plate was in connexion with its preceding. In this publication, every artist seems to have been left to his own choice of subject, and to his free fancy. Cope first comes under our notice. He commences the work with "Love," and a quotation from Spenser. As an etching, it is powerful, but we doubt if quite true: there should be something to account, in such a twilight scene, for the strong light upon the "Ladye-love!" Nor are we quite satisfied with the love of the lover, or the reception it meets with. The man or his guitar, one of the two, if not both, must be out of tune. His "Veteran's Return" tells its tale, and a somewhat mournful one; it is in illustration of some very good and pathetic lines by a member of the club, H.J. Townsend; and as, we believe, they are not to be met with out of "Etched Thoughts," we extract them for the gratification of the reader:-- THE VETERAN'S RETURN. The old yew, deck'd in even's parting beams, From his red trunk reflects a ruddier ray; While, flickering through the lengthen'd shadow, gleams Of gold athwart the dusky branches play. The jackdaws, erst so bustling on the tower, Have ceased their cawing clamour from on high; And the brown bat, as nears the twilight hour, Circles--the lonely tenant of the sky. The soldier there, ere pass'd to distant climes, On Sabbath morn his early mates would meet; There list the chant of the familiar chimes, And the fond glance of young affection greet. There, too, at eve--before the twilight grey Led the dark hours, when sprites are wont to walk-- With his sweet Nancy how he joy'd to stray, And tell his rustic love in homely talk. Now, home return'd, far other thoughts he owns, Though still the same the scene that meets his view! The same sun glistens o'er the lichen'd stones-- Scarce one year more seems to have gnarl'd the yew. There, too, the hamlet where his boyhood pass'd Sends, as of old, its curls of smoke to ken-- So near, his stalwart arm a stone might cast Among the cots that deck the coppiced glen! But ere the joys of that domestic glade Can wipe the tear from off his rugged brow, A stone beneath the yew-tree's ebon shade Deep o'er his heart a heavier shade doth throw. (Oh! sad indeed, when thus such tidings come That stun, even when by slow degrees they steal,) That tablet tells how cold within the tomb Are hands whose fond warm grasp he long'd to feel.