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, chiselled and chaste; his ready comprehension of magnanimous deeds evinces his own magnanimity; his correct understanding of various creeds and motives of action proves his own wide Christianity; chivalry was known to him, because he was himself chivalrous; and we have reason to rejoice that the field in and through which his noble faculties were developed, was the vast and varied one of history. We doubt if any one ever read his works without forming a high conception of the character of their author, a conception which will be found fully realized in the excellent Life given us by George Ticknor. If no one is qualified to write the Life of a man, save one who has familiarly lived with him, who but Mr.