The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-03-04 00:00:00

PUSH ON!

AWAKE! and listen. Everywhere—
From upland, grove, and lawn,
Out breathes the universal prayer,
The orison of morn.

Arise ! and don thy working garb ;
All nature is astir :
Let honest motives be thy barb,
And usefulness thy spur.
Stop not to list the boisterous jeers,
(He would be what thou art :)
They should not e'en offend thine ears,
Still less disturb thy heart.

What though you have no shining hoard,
(Inheritance or stealth ;)
To purchase at the broker's board
The recompense of wealth—

Push on ! you're rusting while you stand ;
Inaction will not do;
Take life's small bundle in your band,
And trudge it briskly through.
Push on !

Don't blush because you have a patch
In honest labour won ;
There's many a small cot roof d with thatch
Far happier than a throne.
Push on ! the world is large enough
For you, and me, and all ;
You must expect a share of rough,
And, now and then, a fall.

But, up again ! act out your part—
Bear smilingly your load;
There's nothing like a cheery heart
To mend a stony road. _ _

Push on !

Jump over all the ifs and buts;
There's always some kind hand
To lift life's wagon from the ruts,
Or poke away the sand.

Remember, when your sky of blue
Is shadowed by a cloud,
The sun will shine as soon for you
As for the monarch proud.

It is but written on the moon,
That toil alone endures;
The king would dance a rigadoon
With that blithe soul of yours.

Push on ! you're rusting while you stand ;
Inaction will not do ;
Take life's small bundle in your hand,
And trudge it briskly through.

LITERATURE.

The Natural History of Dee-side and Braemar.
By the late William Macgillivray, M.D. Edited
by Edwin Lankester, M.D.

This book, which has been printed for private cir-
culation, has many claims upon general attention, and
presents itself to us with peculiar interest. As a
charming and diligently compiled transcript of the
natural history of a most interesting district of the
Scottish Highlands, the work is sure to command a
wide circle of admirers ; while its merits as the pro-
duction of a sagacious and unpretending though
zealous and enlightened naturalist will secure for it
the approbation of the scientific student. Apart from
these considerations, however, the general reader will
find much to interest and delight him in its pages,
while the facts connected with its production confer
on it an adventitious value. The district of country
the natural history of which is traced with such pains-
taking fidelity by the late Professor Macgillivray is
one presenting a variety of claims upon the attention
of all classes. The varied beauty, the grandeur—
indeed the sublimity of the scenery included within its
range, have long rendered it a favourite theatre of
study to the tourist in search of the picturesque. In
its secluded dells, among its bold mountain ridges,
and on its precipitous and craggy steeps, the botanist,
the zoologist, and the mineralogist have found exten-
sive and varied stores in which to prosecute their
favourite studies. Added to these sources of interest,
within these few• years past, Dee-side and Braemar
have acquired fresh and strengthening claims as the
favoured northern retreat, " the Highland home " of
our beloved sovereign, the arena in which are centred
the forest and hill sports of the Prince-Consort; and
among whose glades and mountains their children, as
well as themselves, inhale the invigorating mountain
breezes. To each one of all these claims to notice,
Professor Macgillivray was sensitively alive. The
district was familiar to him from frequent examina-
tion, and dear through many associations ; and in the
year 1850, he paid it his last exploring visit. On this
occasion he completed the' MS. which forms the body
of the work, but which, alas ! he was not destined to
see published. _ _

It embraces elaborate and tasteful descriptions of
the scenery, is rich and valuable in its geological
memoranda, and is full and interesting in its details of
the botany and zoology of the district; and it is more-
over so full of the modest spirit, so replete with the
patient industry, and so fully instinct with the pains-
taking earnestness of the author's character, as to be
at once instructive and delightful. Professor Mac-
gillivray was one of those remarkable men with whom
the history of our literature and science abounds.
Born in one of the humbler walks of life, and with few
opportunities of early culture, he nevertheless, through
difficulties of no ordinary kind, pushed his way by slow
degrees through the earliest stages of his elementary
education ; and, from childhood, devoted to the study
of natural history, he began, while yet in dawning
manhood, to occupy attention among the naturalists
of the Scottish metropolis. Shortly after the opening
of the magnificent museum of the Royal College of
Surgeons in Edinburgh, in the noble building which
it now occupies, Mr. Macgillivray was appointed its
conservator ; which responsible and honourable office
he held till, in 1841, he received from the Crown the
appointment of Professor of Civil and Natural History
in Mareschal College, Aberdeen. He was a volumi-
nous writer on various subjects connected with natural
history, and was the literary coadjutor of the cele-
brated Audubon, in bringing out his great ornitholo-
gical work.
The work now under consideration is the last from
the pen of its accomplished author, and, besides its
intrinsic merits as a literary and scientific production,
will be looked on with increased interest from the
peculiar circumstances under which it has been pub-
lished. The death of the author occurred almost
simultaneously with the completion of the text, and it
is not improbable that the publication of the book
would not have been proceeded with, but for the
interference of Her Majesty, who, being well acquainted
with the object and character of the work, commanded
that the MS. should be purchased and published.
This has been done, and the volume has been issued
in a style worthy of the subject and the circumstances.
It is very handsomely printed, and is most tastefully
got up. It is illustrated with fourteen engraved
views and two maps : among the former are three
scenes from the pencil of the Viscountess Canning,
the othersmbaceigh chiefly the artistic productions of
ProfessorMacgillivray and his accomplished daughter.
Copies of this beautiful work have, with regal munifi-
cence, been presented by Prince Albert to numerous
distinguished naturalists and most of the public
libraries in the kingdom, among which institutions
the Liverpool Free Library has received one. The
book, which is written iu a pleasing style, is at once
popular and instructive. The peculiar bearing and
bias of the author's mind, and also the advantages to
be derived from a patient inquiry into the arcana of
Nature, are well illustrated in the following remarks