To wide and accurate historical knowledge, to purity of taste, to the greatest elevation of sentiment, Manzoni unites uncommon lyric power, and a beautiful style in the most beautiful language of the modern world. The conception of both his plays is striking, the detached beauties of thought and imagery are many; but where are the life, the glow, the exciting march of action, the thorough display of character which charm us in Van Artevelde? We _live_ at Ghent and Senlis; we _think_ of Italy. Van Artevelde dies,--and our hearts die with him. When Elena says, "The body,--O!" we could echo that "long, funereal note," and weep as if the sun of heroic nobleness were quenched from our own horizon. "Carmagnola, Adelchis die,"--we calmly shut the book, and think how much we have enjoyed it. Manzoni can deeply feel goodness and greatness, but he cannot localize them in the contours of life before our eyes. His are capital sketches, poems of a deep meaning,--but this, yes! this _is_ a drama. We cannot conclude more fitly, nor inculcate a precept on the reader more forcibly, than in Mr. Taylor's own words, with a slight alteration: "To say that I admire him is to admit that I owe him much; for admiration is never thrown away upon the mind of him who feels it, except when it is misdirected or blindly indulged. There is perhaps nothing which more enlarges or enriches the mind than the disposition to lay it genially open to impressions of pleasure, from the exercise of every species of talent; nothing by which it is more impoverished than the habit of undue depreciation. What is puerile, pusillanimous, or wicked, it can do us no good to admire; but let us admire all that can be admired without debasing the dispositions or stultifying the understanding." UNITED STATES EXPLORING EXPEDITION. Slight as the intercourse held by the Voyager with the South Sea Islands is, his narrative is always more prized by us than those of the missionary and traders, who, though they have better opportunity for full and candid observation, rarely use it so well, because their minds are biased towards their special objects. It is deeply interesting to us to know how much and how little God has accomplished for the various nations of the larger portion of the earth, before they are brought into contact with the civilization of Europe and the Christian religion. To suppose it so little as most people do, is to impugn the justice of Providence. We see not how any one can contentedly think that such vast multitudes of living souls have been left for thousands of years without manifold and great means of instruction and happiness. To appreciate justly how much these have availed them, to know how far they are competent to receive new benefits, is essential to the philanthropist as a means of aiding them, no less than it is important to one philosopher who wishes to see the universe as God made it, not as some men think he OUGHT TO have made it.