Oh! cease my heart, thy throbbing hide, Another soon will be his bride; And hope’s last faint, but cheering ray, Will then for ever pass away. They cannot see the silent tear, That falls unchecked when none are near; Nor do they mark the smother’d sigh That heaves my breast when they are by. I know my cheek is paler now, And smiles no longer deck my brow, ’Tis youth’s decay, ’twill soon begin To tell the thoughts that dwell within. Oh! let me rouse my sleeping pride, And from his gaze my feelings hide; He shall not smile to think that I With love for him could pine and die. * * * * * REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS. _Barnaby Rudge; By Charles Dickens, (Boz) Author of “The Old Curiosity-Shop,” “Pickwick,” “Oliver Twist,” etc. etc. With numerous Illustrations, by Cattermole, Browne & Sibson. Lea & Blanchard: Philadelphia._ We often hear it said, of this or of that proposition, that it may be good in theory, but will not answer in practice; and in such assertions we find the substance of all the sneers at Critical Art which so gracefully curl the upper lips of a tribe which is beneath it. We mean the small geniuses—the literary Titmice—animalculae which judge of merit solely by _result_, and boast of the solidity, tangibility and infallibility of the test which they employ. The worth of a work is most accurately estimated, they assure us, by the number of those who peruse it; and “does a book sell?” is a query embodying, in their opinion, all that need be said or sung on the topic of its fitness for sale. We should as soon think of maintaining, in the presence of these creatures, the _dictum_ of Anaxagoras, that snow is black, as of disputing, for example, the profundity of that genius which, in a run of five hundred nights, has rendered itself evident in “London Assurance.” “What,” cry they, “are critical precepts to us, or to anybody? Were we to observe all the critical rules in creation we should still be unable to write a good book”—a point, by the way, which we shall not now pause to deny. “Give us _results_,” they vociferate, “for we are plain men of common sense. We contend for fact instead of fancy—for practice in opposition to theory.”