At this time we present a humiliating spectacle to other nations: nearly half of our national temple in ruins,--the work of blind folly and mad ambition. The people of the North claimed no right to tear it down, or even to repair it. But since the people of the South have risen in rebellion, let us believe that there is now an opportunity, nay, an imperative _necessity_, to remove from its foundations the rock of Oppression, that was sure to crumble in the refining fires of a Christian civilization, and establish in its place the stone of LIBERTY,--unchanging and eternal as its Author. Let us rejoice in the hope, already brightening into fruition, that out of these ruins our temple shall rise again, in a fresher beauty, a firmer strength, a brighter glory,--and above it again shall float the old flag, every star restored, henceforth to all, of every color and every race, the flag of the free. * * * * * REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. _Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-39._ By FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE. New York: Harper & Brothers. Those who remember the "Journal of a Residence in America," of Frances Anne Kemble, or, as she was universally and kindly called, Fanny Kemble,--a book long since out of print, and entirely out of the knowledge of our younger readers,--will not cease to wonder, as they close these thoughtful, tranquil, and tragical pages. The earlier journal was the dashing, fragmentary diary of a brilliant girl, half impatient of her own success in an art for which she was peculiarly gifted, yet the details of which were sincerely repugnant to her. It crackled and sparkled with _naive_ arrogance. It criticized a new world and fresh forms of civilization with the amusing petulance of a spoiled daughter of John Bull. It was flimsy, flippant, laughable, rollicking, vivid. It described scenes and persons, often with airy grace, often with profound and pensive feeling. It was the slightest of diaries, written in public for the public; but it was universally read, as its author had been universally sought and admired in the sphere of her art; and no one who knew anything of her truly, but knew what an incisive eye, what a large heart, what a candid and vigorous mind, what real humanity, generosity, and sympathy, characterized Miss Kemble.