"In this situation, the devout Christian may be compared to a traveller journeying towards some fair city, in which he has beforehand established a good correspondence. He has climbed the hill that stands next to it; and, though the distance still forbids him to take a distinct survey of it, yet the prospect of its towers and buildings rising before him, of its spires and pinnacles glittering in the air, and of peace and pleasantness in its borders, revives his heart. The consideration of his past perils and fatigues now gives him pleasure. He is thankful to a gracious Providence, that has led him almost through them, and brought him to a point, whence he has a downward and direct way to a place of rest and abode; in which he will meet with a cordial reception, and be delighted with new scenes of beauty, magnificence, and wonder. With such satisfaction doth faith fill the heart of the religious pilgrim and stranger, when he has nearly travelled through the changes and chances of this mortal life, and feels himself approaching to the heavenly Jerusalem, the abiding city." The accomplished author, himself, like Milton, a traveller, here blends his own observation of foreign lands, with his recollections of our great poet:-- As when a scout Through dark and desert ways with peril gone All night, at last by break of cheerful dawn, Obtains the brow of some high-climbing hill, Which to his eye discovers unaware The goodly prospect of some foreign land First seen, or some renown'd metropolis, With glitt'ring spires and pinnacles adorn'd, Which now the rising sun gilds with his beams. _Paradise Lost_, iii. 543. The _Sunday Library_, it should be added, is printed in correspondent style with the _Cabinet Cyclopaedia_, and each volume has a finely engraved Frontispiece Portrait. * * * * * VENETIAN HISTORY. The _Family Library_ Editor has judiciously enough filled his 20th volume with "Sketches" from the History of Venice. Another volume is promised, the present extending from the settlement of the Veneti in Italy to the year 1406. The intention is stated to be, "to present in detail some of the most striking incidents of the History of this great Republic, connecting them with each other by a brief and rapid survey of minor events;" for which purpose the Editor has freely taxed Sismondi and the late Count Daru. The result is one of the most enchanting volumes of historiettes that has ever fallen into our hands; illustrating, to be sure, numberless dark points, or "damned spots" of human history; "much of atrocious guilt, of oppression, cruelty, fraud, treachery, baseness, and ingratitude;" yet the very heinousness of these characteristics carries on and keeps up the intense interest of the volume.