Often when the starling comes in spring to our northern land have I seen him sit in the top of the trees, saluting with his song the rising of the sun over the morning-illumed country. And at this moment, when I sit like the bird upon the bough ready for flight, ready to seek my nest, I feel like the starling glancing abroad over the country upon which a new day is ascending. For the sight of England at this moment is the sight of a new birth, of an awakening life, calculated to awaken every soul in which are the principles of vitality. Whilst Germany is mute in the sense of an internal chaos, and all her poets dumb, (since her last comet-like genius, wearied of elliptic circuits in search of the eternal, conceals himself in a cloister;) whilst beautiful Italy lies bound, like the Greek slave, yet noble in her deferred revenge—whilst heroically bold France, always foremost in the struggle for the advance of thought—foremost, though too impetuous, wearied by her own eccentric endeavors, allows a daring adventurer to put a rope round her neck, and a gag in her mouth—how vigorously and calmly England proceeds onward in her work for the future; how powerfully she advances under her banners, “the Law and the Gospel;” and in the spirit of these, works out her great destiny by means of her free institutions, her free public discussion; her constellation of statesmen, poets, authors; her scientific and industrial institutions, and lastly, by her movement for a general, unexclusive system of education throughout the nation; retaining through all this a clear consciousness of the foundation of all true freedom and happiness for the people of the earth. May she advance triumphantly in her career for the new future of Europe, and with her the nations which stand in near alliance with her life! No country in the world can at this time exhibit such an affluence of good authors as England. And their influence is founded upon the great principles of humanity, which they serve not merely by power of genius, but of practical reason. Authors of the most varied political and religious opinions are united in this—the advocacy of some human right; some human advantage, the crown of which is in heaven, while its root is on earth; or they are rejected by the public mind; every thing must become subservient to the supreme claims of humanity. Merely to mention here some of the cultivators of polite literature: there is the aristocratic Bulwer, spite of his inclination for the merely strong; the democratic, warm-hearted Dickens; Thackeray, the flagellator of much that is great and small, but by no means of the good; Charles Kingsley, whose warm sympathies for suffering humanity might make him unjust toward the self-indulgent if that life which inspires did not also restrain him; and lastly, him who, standing aloof from all parties, yet influences all.