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Ellis does not follow the profession of building | netic reading; the one languidly, contemptuously, with more substantial materials than words. Only with a secret (though unacknowledged) wish that

fancy what an awful visitation he would be to a quiet old gentleman, whose home was not exactly square:

he may fail; the other with eager interest, and a strong desire to succeed. We shall not consider that we have any proofs worth attending to on this subject until the experiment has been tried, in the first place, far more extensively than it has yet been tried; and, in the second place, by teachers who look upon phonetics as a humbug, as well as by teachers who look upon heterics as an anti

"Sir, your house is not square; it is an absurdity. Houses are intended to be square. Until your house is square, to roast a leg of mutton in it properly is physically impossible. I must pull it down immediately, and rebuild it in accordance with my own views of what is proper."quated absurdity. But whatever the result of "But the inconvenience ?"

"Nonsense, that is only your fancy! There will be no inconvenience; on the contrary, you will find the proceeding rapid and delightful." "But then the expense?"

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Expense! there will be no expense—at least, none that you will feel. While your house is down you will not want to give so many dinners, you know."

"But how am I to know that I shall be any better off when you have made all these alterations?"

"Sir, I have proved it, demonstrated it-on paper. See, here are my plans and estimates." "But I like my old home as it is." "Sir, you are a bigoted, stupid obstructive; and it is plain from what you say that you hate the poor, and have no true feeling for art.

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In the midst of his vast schemes for "revolutionizing English literature" and regenerating mankind, we every now and then find Mr. Ellis altogether shifting his ground, and talking of the spelling reform as merely a device for facilitating the teaching to read. This is quite a different question. Phonetics may be or may not be the readiest way of teaching English; but that is quite apart from the consideration of what English shall be.

such experiments, they will not affect the point which we have been considering, nor the conclusion which we think we may say we have |proved—namely, that the proposed phonetic reform is false in principle and impossible in practice.

Lastly, we beg to assure Mr. Ellis and his friends, who brand us and the like of us with the titles of obstructionists, advocates of heteric absurdities, &c., that the irregularities of English spelling afford us no particular pleasure, and are looked on by us with no particular affection. If we write " a spade" a spade, it is only because it is a spade; we should be glad if it were otherwise; but the fact is so, and we submit.

If we have not bandied any compliments with Mr. Ellis, it is because nobody who is in earnest does so with his adversary; and we are not in the habit of tilting at a man unless we sincerely believe that he deserves to be knocked over. We must, however, in justice to ourselves, say, that we shall have been greatly misunderstood if any of the preceding observations lead to the impression that we desire to set Mr. Ellis down either as an ignoramus or an impostor. A mischievous enthusiast we do hold him to be, but the praise of learning and labor no one can deny him; unluckily, they only serve to make him more misBoth Mr. Ellis and Dr. Latham affirm that chievous. We have already suggested what is it can be proved that children can be taught to the class out of which the phonetic converts are read and write English better by first teaching chiefly made, but we have no desire to speak of them phonetics and then heterics, than by begin- them disrespectfully; on the contrary, many of ning at once with the latter. If so, let them be them belong to a body which must have the symtaught so by all means; it is a practical educa-pathy and good wishes of all. Anybody who will tional question, to be solved by those who have practically to educate, and into which we do not intend to enter, except so far as to observe that we cannot attach much importance to the experimental proofs adduced, because it seems scarcely possible to try the experiment fairly. At any rate, we must decline to accept conclusions, unless drawn from a far wider field of observation than appears to have hitherto been examined. For, first, we believe that all who have been concerned in teaching agree that there is a remarkable difference in the readiness with which children acquire reading, even where in intelligence and in all other circumstances there is apparently the greatest equality; and, secondly, if there is anything which more than any other thing contributes to the rapid advance of a pupil, it is the amount of interest in that advance felt by the teacher; and we can well imagine the difference between the styles in which a phoneticist (however desirous to be fair) sets about his experimental teaching of heteric and pho

stand for half an hour at the door of Mr. Pitman's phonetic dépôt in Queen's Head Passage, and mark the character of the people who go in to make purchases, will see that they are for the most part those intelligent, but half-educated artisans and mechanics, in whom the thirst for knowledge burns, perhaps, more fiercely than in any other ranks, whether above or below them. It is lamentable to see these men, with but little time and little money to devote to intellectual and literary pursuits, wasting that little upon a delusion which will cheat them of a year or two's toil and then leave them in the lurch, without having done them any good, or given them anything of which they can make the slightest use. It is for this cause that we have undertaken to accelerate, so far as in us lies, the decease of phonetics, which otherwise would have been suffered to live their day, and depart in the course of nature, without any molestation from us.

From the New York Tribune.

The History of the United States of America. By
RICHARD HILDRETH. In three volumes. Vol.
III. New York: Harper and Brothers.

an hour's communion with a living and breathing man, with the warm atmosphere of humanity about him, although he could lay no claim to an icy, bloodless, ideal perfection. The preternatural calmness of Mr. Hildreth, which at first inspires an easy confidence in his qualifications as a guide, often assumes the appearance of a Mephistophelian indif

length into harshness and acerbity. We weary of the cold-blooded impartiality, which is never be trayed into emotion, even by the fate of a Warren, or the character of a Washington. We would We have now the completion of Mr. Hildreth's gladly exchange the presence of a skeleton, howelaborate History of the United States, from the ever accurately and scientifically strung together discovery of the American continent, to the organ-on wires, in whose eyes there is no speculation, for ization of the government under the federal constitution. The work is sustained with uniform ability and interest throughout the wide field of historical investigation which it undertakes to traverse. The three volumes before the public everywhere display the marks of profound original research, a critical comparison of authorities, a strenuous devotion to the subject of inquiry, a calm and temperate judg-ference, with no faith in human excellence and no ment in the balancing of evidence, and a sturdy sympathy with human passion. adherence to the common-sense view of the facts and events that pass under the notice of the writer, with a rigid abstinence from all excursions of the fancy, or indulgence in theory and conjecture. The work, as now completed, forms an accurate and well-delineated map of American history. It presents every essential feature of the landscape. It omits nothing important to the justness of the representation. The whole is arranged in orderly proportions, with a constant regard to the principles of historical perspective, and finished in a style of neatness, and often of elegance, which gratifies the sense of literary art, though it makes no preten-pany of trappers, or the fortunes of a trading exsions to the exquisite and dainty refinements of composition, which, in the hands of Washington Irving, Macaulay, and Bancroft, have been used with such delightful effect to relieve the monotony of historical narrative.

A work of this character is indispensable to the student of American history. It is an admirable introduction to the profound study of the origin and progress of our present institutions. It lays open the whole field of inquiry with singular precision and distinctness, points out the situation of all the prominent landmarks, lingers with considerable fulness of detail around the most important and attractive spots, and sets forth the relative position of the principal characters and incidents with a clearness of description that will enable the reader to inspect the ground more minutely for himself, with the confidence arising from welldigested preparatory knowledge.

We freely accord these merits to the present volumes, and would thus be understood to give them a high degree of commendation. It is a rare thing for an author to be so consistent with himself, throughout the construction of a laborious work, as Mr. Hildreth has been in the composition of this history. He is never seduced, for a moment, from the plan which he has adopted. He accomplishes whatever he undertakes. sues the idea which he has chosen for his guide with an austere tenacity of purpose, which, applied to the moral relations of life, would make one a very anchorite of virtue. But as an excess of goodness becomes repulsive in its severity, so the form of history adopted by Mr. Hildreth falls at

He pur

This characteristic is more conspicuous in the
volume before us, on account of the deep interest
inspired by everything relating to the history of
It takes us into
the period which it describes.
the very midst of the revolutionary struggle, places
us by the side of its cradle, and conducts us to its
glorious termination. It relates the story of the
Boston town meetings, of the continental congress,
of Lexington, of Bunker Hill, of Saratoga, of
Monmouth, of Arnold and Andre, of Lafayette and
Kosciusko, with as much apathy as if the whole
narrative was devoted to the adventures of a com-

pedition. The closing paragraph of the history
affords as good a specimen as any of the manner
we have commented on. The style is clear as the
most transparent crystal, and not without preten-
sion to a certain degree of grace. But what a
frigid, colorless, soulless winding up of the grand
drama, in which the conduct of our fathers has
commanded the admiration of the world!
this passage is enthusiastic, compared with many
others, in which a natural glow seems essential
to life.

Yet

The dying embers of the Continental Congress, barely kept alive for some months by the occasional attendance of one or two delegates, as the day approached for the new system to be organized, quietly went out without note or observation. History knows few bodies so remarkable. The Long Parliament of Charles I., the French National Assembly, are alone to be compared with it. Coming together, in the first instance, a mere collection of consulting delegates, the Continental Congress had boldly seized the reins of power, assumed the leadership of the insurgent states, issued bills of credit, raised armies, declared independence, negotiated foreign treaties, carried the nation through an eight years' war; finally, had extorted from the proud and powerful mother country an acknowledgment of the sovereign authority so daringly assumed and so indomitably maintained. But this brilliant career had been as short as it was glorious. The decline had Excommenced even in the midst of the war. hausted by such extraordinary efforts smitten with the curse of poverty, their paper money first depreciating and then repudiated, overwhelmed with debts which they could not pay, pensioners on the bounty of France, insulted by mutineers, scouted at by the public creditors, unable to fulfil the treaties

MOTHER AND CHILD.-The Cleveland True Dem ocrat, in speaking of Mr. Dodge's concert in that city, gives the following history of one of the songs of the evening:

they had made, bearded and encroached upon by the | Nature Pursued," who died in 1774, the date of state authorities, issuing fruitless requisitions which Dean Tucker's proposal alluded to by Mr. Hil they had no power to enforce, vainly begging for dreth. additional authority which the states refused to grant, thrown more and more into the shade by the very contrast of former power-the Continental Congress sunk fast into decrepitude and contempt. Feeble is the sentiment of political gratitude! Debts of that sort are commonly left for posterity to pay. While all eyes were turned-some with doubt and some with apprehension, but the greater part with hope and confidence toward the ample authority vested in the new government now about to be organized, not one respectful word seems to have been uttered, not a single reverential regret to have been dropped, over the fallen greatness of the exhausted and expiring Continental Congress.

The exceptions we have made are not intended to derogate from the singular value of Mr. Hildreth's history, as a lucid and accurate portraiture of the scenes which it depicts. They only confirm, what we before remarked, that he has accomplished what he proposed to himself, and in that point of view, he may be said to have attained distinguished success. The frigid tone of the composition, we are confident, proceeds from principle, and not from inability. It was essential to the realization of Mr. Hildreth's conception of a genuine historical work. It does not arise from any deficiency of imagination or constructive power on the part of the writer. In other works he has exhibited a glow and depth of feeling, a facility of vivid, picturesque description, and a power of poetical eloquence, that give him an eminent rank in the department of graphic and pathetic composition. If he had seen fit to exercise these talents in the creation of his history, it might have proved a more generally popular work than the present, though it would not easily have surpassed it as a source of authentic reference to the curious student.

The index which accompanies this volume is very full and satisfactory. It, in fact, presents, in its regular sequence, a great number of excellent chronological tables, which give a key not only to the work, but to the subject of which it treats. We cannot say as much of the list of authorities. This is a bare catalogue of books, arranged with some reference to the order of subjects, though in apparent confusion, and presenting no clue whatever to the special evidence for the statements and opinions in the body of the work. A history loses in real utility, and, to the genuine lover of historical research, in attractiveness, by presenting no facilities for its own verification. The reader loses as much by the want of a minute indication of the original sources, as would the student of law by the absence of reference to legal decisions.

We notice rather a whimsical slip of the pen in Chap. XXXI., by which Dean Tucker, the celebrated writer of pamphlets on politics and finance during the American revolution, is confounded with Abraham Tucker, the genial and humorous, though often grotesque, author of "The Light of

infant daughter were travelling over the Green In December, 1827, Mr. Blake with his wife and Mountains, in Vermont, in a sleigh. A snow storm came suddenly upon them; and so wild and thick did the snow fall, that soon the horse refused to stir. Mr. B., realizing his position, determined to seek aid at the first house, and, protecting his wife and child, started off. Soon the cold numbed him, and he fell, unable to move.

quit the sleigh, and determined to seek him. When His wife, as is supposed, alarmed at his absence, within thirty rods of him, she was overcome. Knowing her fate, she stripped herself of the thickest part of her clothing, and wrapped up her infant daughter, and in a cold snow-blanket, as her winding-sheet, died.

covered Mr. B., with his feet and hands badly In the morning, travellers passing that way, disfrozen. "Are others near?" was the first question. He was unable to reply, but pointed with his frozen hands in the direction of his wife and child. Part of the travellers pushed on. Soon they came to the body of his wife, all lifeless and cold; and lifting up the infant from its snowy bed, were rejoiced to see it smile.

Mrs. Seba Smith put these events into stirring song, and that song Mr. Dodge sang with great effect. But imagine the state of feeling in the room when it was announced that Mr. Blake and his daughter were present! Not a dry eye was seen in the room.

We subjoin Mrs. Smith's song:

The cold wind swept the mountain's height,
And pathless was the dreary wild,
While, mid the cheerless hours of night,

A mother wandered with her child.
As through the drifted snow they pressed,
A babe was sleeping on her breast.
And colder still the winds did blow,

And darker hours of night came on,
While deeper grew the drifts of snow,

Her limbs were chilled, her strength was gone.
"Oh God!" she cried, in accents wild,
"If I must perish, save my child."

She stripped her mantle from her breast,

And bared her bosom to the storm,
While round her child she wrapt the vest,

And smiled to think that it was warm.
With one cold kiss, one tear she shed,
And sank upon her snowy bed.
At dawn a traveller passed by,

And saw beneath the snowy veil,
The frost of death was in her eye;

Her cheeks were cold, and hard, and pale.
He moved the robe from off the child,
The babe looked up, and sweetly smiled.

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