beaux yeux. Je n'aime pas les blonds ordinairement. Car je suis blonde moi-je suis Blanche et blonde,”—ani she looked at her face and made a moue in the glass; and never stopped for Laura's answer to the questions which she had put. It is a rare thing that Mr. Thackeray attempts pathos, | did arrange it. Are you éprise of him? He says you are, but when he does so, he is unsurpassed by any one but but I know better; it is the beau cousin. Yes-dl a de Dickens. To say that he "attempts" it, at any time, is perhaps an improper expression, because he seems really to be always striving to avoid it. His terror of maudlin sentiment is such, that he even endeavors to cover his pathetic passages with a playful irony. It is this very disposition, perhaps, that renders his pathos so exquisite. In spite of him, however, the spark will now and then flash out, touching "the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound." “The History of Pendennis," of which we have read not quite one half, is, thus far, as true to the life and as bitingly satirical as "Vanity Fair." It contains some more lenient readings of human motives than that famous book, and the ladies, who considered themselves greatly ill-used by the accomplished rascality of Becky Sharp and the sweet silliness of Amelia Sedley, will find in it full amends for Mr. Thackeray's offences against them. The female character is made the subject of high eulogium in the first number, and the heroine of the talc, though not represented as a paragon of excellence, has an amiability in her savoir vivre that is quite angelic. One of the "womankind" of the story is a delicious portraiture. We cannot help setting her before our readers, at the risk of a long extract. The sentimental Miss has never been so "done" before. It may be sufficient to enable them to understand the dialogue we are about to give, to say that Miss Amory, the step-daughter of Sir Francis Clavering, has recently come with her parents to reside at Clavering Park in the neighborhood of Fairoaks, where live Mrs. Pendennis, her son the hero, and Miss Laura Bell, an adopted daughter who passes, with the young gentleman, by the endearing title of cousin. "Sir Francis is a very judicious parent,' Miss Amory whispered. Don't you think so, Miss Bell? I shan't call you Miss Bell-I shall call you Laura. I admired you so at church. Your robe was not well made, nor your bonnet very fresh. But you have such beautiful grey eyes, and such a lovely tint.' "Thank you,' said Miss Bell, laughing. "Blanche was fair and like a sylph. She had fair hair, with green reflections in it. But she had dark eyebrows, She had long black eye-lashes, which vailed beautiful brown eyes. She had such a slim waist, that it was a wonder to behold; and such slim little feet, that you would have thought the grass would hardly bend under them. Her lips were of the color of faint rosebuds, and her voice warbled limpidly over a set of the sweete-t little pearly teeth ever seen. She showed them very often, for they were very pretty. She was very goodnatured, and a smile not only showed her teeth wonderfully, but likewise exhibited two lovely little pink dimples, that nestled in either cheek. "She showed Laura her drawings, which the other thought charming. She played her some of her waltzes, with a rapid and brilliant finger, and Laura was still more charmed. And she then read her some poems, in French and English, likewise of her own composition, and which she kept locked in her own book-how own dear little book; it was bound in blue velvet with a gilt lock, and on it was printed the title of ‘Mes Larmes.' "Mes Larmes!-isn't it a pretty name? the young lady continued, who was pleased with every thing that she did, and did every thing very well. Laura owned that it was. She had never seen any thing like it before; any thing so lovely, so accomplished, so fragile and pretty; warbling so prettily, and tripping about such a pretty room, with such a number of pretty books, pictures, flowers, round about her. The honest and generous country girl forgot even jealousy in her admiration. Indeed, Blanche,' she said, every thing in the room is pretty; and you are the prettiest of all.' The other smiled, looked in the glass, went up and took both of Laura's hands, and kissed them, and sat down to the piano, and shook out a little song, as if she had been a nightingale. "This was the first visit paid by Fairoaks to Clavering Park, in return for Clavering Park's visit to Fairoaks, in "Your cousin is handsome, and thinks so. He is uneasy de sa personne. He has not seen the world yet. Has he genius? Has he suffered? A lady, a little woman in a rumpled satin and velvet shoes-a Miss Pybus-reply to Fairoaks's card left a few days after the arrival came here and said he has suffered. I, too, have suffered-and you, Laura, has your heart ever been touched?' “Laura said "No!' but perhaps blushed a little at the idea of the question, so that the other said “Ah, Laura! I see it all. It is the beau cousin. Tell me every thing. I already love you as a sister.' "You are very kind,' said Miss Bell, smiling, and it must be owned that it is a very sudden attach ment.' of Sir Francis's family. The intimacy between the young ladies sprang up like Jack's Bean-stalk to the skies in a single night. The large footmen were perpetually walking with little rose-colored-pink notes to Fairoaks where there was a pretty housemaid in the kitchen, who might possibly tempt those gentlemen to so humble a place. 'and-Miss Amory sent music, or Miss Amory sent a new novel, or a picture from the Journal des Modes,' to Laura; or my lady's compliments arrived with flowers and fruit; or Miss Amory begged and prayed Miss Beil to come to dinner; and dear Mrs. Pendennis, if she was strong enough: and Mr. Arthur, if a hum-drum party were not too stupid for him; and would send a poay. carriage for Mrs. Pendennis; and would take no denial." "All attachments are so. It is electricity-spontaneity. It is instantaneous. I knew I should love you from the moment I saw you. Do you not feel it yourself?' "Not yet,' said Laura; 'but I dare say I shall if I try.' "Call me by my name then.' "But I don't know it,' Laura cried out. "My name is Blanche-isn't it a pretty name? Call ing Park together, yet sometimes Mr. Pen took walks me by it.' "Blanche-it is very pretty indeed.' there unattended by her, and about which he did not tell her. He took to fishing the Brawl, which runs through the park, and passes not very far from the garden-wall. And by the oddest coincidence, Miss Amory would walk out (having been to look at her flowers,) and would be quite surprised to see Mr. Pendennis fishing. “And while mamma talks with that kind looking ladywhat relation is she to you? She must have been pretty once, but is rather passée ; she is not well gantée, but she has a pretty hand—and while mamma talks to her, come with me to my own room-my own, own room. "I wonder what trout Pen caught while the young lady darling room, though that horrid creature, Captain Strong, was looking on? or whether Miss Blanche was the pretty It's a little fish which played round his fly, and which Mr. Pen up to the present time, very considerable; but her griefs was endeavoring to hook? It must be owned, he became lay, like those of most of us, in her own soul-that being very fond of that healthful and invigorating pursuit of an-sad and habitually dissatisfied, what wonder that she gling, and was whipping the Brawl continually with his should weep? So Mes Larmes dribbled out of her eyes fly. any day at command; she could furnish an unlimited creased by practice. For sentiment is like another complaint mentioned by Horace, as increasing by self-indulgence (I am sorry to say, ladies, that the complaint in question is called the dropsy) and the more you cry, the more you will be able and desirous to do so. "As for Miss Blanche, she had a kind heart; and hav-supply of tears, and her faculty of shedding them ining, as she owned herself suffered' a good deal in the course of her brief life and experience-why, she could compassionate other susceptible beings like Pen, who had suffered too. Her love for Laura and that dear Mrs. Pendennis redoubled: if they were not at the Park, she was not easy unless she herself was at Fairoaks. She played with Laura; she read French and German with Laura: and Mr. Pen read French and German along with them. He turned sentimental ballads of Schiller and Göthe into English verse for the ladies, and Blanche unlocked Mes Larmes' for him, and imparted to him some of the plaintive outpourings of her own tender muse. "Missy had begun to gush at a very early age. Lamartine was her favorite bard from the period that she first could feel; and she had improved her mind by a sedulous study of novels of the great modern authors of the French language. There was not a romance of Balzac and George Sand which the indefatigable little creature had not devoured by the time she was "It appeared from these poems that this young creature sixteen; and, however little she sympathized with her had indeed suffered prodigiously. She was familiar with relatives at home, she had friends, as she said, in the the idea of suicide. Death she repeatedly longed for. A spirit-world, meaning the tender Indiana, the passionate faded rose inspired her with such grief that you would and poetic Lelia, the amiable Trenmor, that high-souled have thought she must die in pain of it. It was a won- convict, that angel of the galleys-the fiery Stenio—and der how a young creature (who had had a snug home, or the other numberless heroes of the French romances. been at a comfortable boarding-school, and had no out- She had been in love with Prince Rodolph and Prince ward grief or hardship to complain of) should have suffer- Djalma while she was yet at school, and had settled the ed so much—should have found the means of getting at divorce question, and the rights of woman, with Indiana, such an ocean of despair and passion (as a run-away boy before she had left off pinafores. The impetuous little who will get to sea), and having embarked on it, should lady played at love with these imaginary worthies, as a survive it. What a talent she must have had for weeping little while before she had played at maternity with her to be able to pour out so many of Mes Larmes! "They were not particularly briny, Miss Blanche's tears, that is the truth; but Pen, who read her verses, thought them very well for a lady-and wrote some verses himself for her. He was very violent and passionate, very hot, sweet and strong; and he not only wrote verses; but-O, the villain! O, the deceiver! he altered and adapted former poems in his possession, and which had been composed for a certain Miss Emily Fotheringay, for the use and to the Christian name of Miss Blanche Amory." doll. Pretty little poetical spirits! it is curious to watch them with those playthings. To-day the blue-eyed one is the favorite, and the black-eyed one is pushed behind the drawers. To morrow blue-eyes may take its turn of neglect; and it may be an odious little wretch with a burned nose, or torn head of hair, and no eyes at all, that takes the first place in Miss's affection, and is dandled and caressed in her arms." of "Pendemis," which we are sure our readers will be We shall look with impatience for the forthcoming Nos. eager to read in full, after enjoying the foregoing extracts. “Our accomplished little friend had some peculiarities The work is excellently printed and embellished with or defects of character which rendered her not very popu-spirited wood-cuts from the designs of the author For sale by Morris & Brother. HISTORY OF THE French RevoluTION OF 1813 De Lamartine. Translated by Francis A Durivage and William S. Chase. First American Edition. Boston: Phillips, Sampson & Co., 110 Washington street. 1849. lar. She was a young lady of some genius, exquisite sympathics and considerable literary attainments, living, like many another genius, with relatives who could not comprehend her. Neither her mother nor her step-father were persons of a literary turn. Bell's life and the Racing Calendar were the extent of the baronet's reading, and Lady Clavering still wrote like a school girl of thirteen, and with an extraordinary disregard to grammar and spelling. And as Miss Amory felt very keenly that she was not appreciated, and that she lived with persons If the world is not at last made fully acquainted with who were not her equals in intellect or conversational the life and adventures of this dangerous man-this Gallic power, she lost no opportunity to acquaint her family cir- orator, minstrel, statesman, philosopher and hero-it will cle with their inferiority to herself, and not only was a certainly be no fault of M. Alphonse de Lamartine. In martyr, but took care to let every body know that she was Raphaël and Les Confidences he has recently told the so. If she suffered, as she said and thought she did, se- public how badly he conducted himself in his boyhood, verely, are we to wonder that a young creature of such what conquests of peerless damsels he achieved, still atdelicate sensibilities should shriek and cry out a good tested by touching souvenirs in the shape of tresses, and deal? Without sympathy life is nothing; and would it what requital he made for the tenderest affection ever lavnot have been a want of candor on her part to affect a ished by woman on our inconstant and ungrateful sex. cheerfulness which she did not feel, or pretend a respect Years before the publication of these books, he had been for those toward whom it was quite impossible she should gracious enough to narrate what glorious things Lady entertain any reverence! If a poetess may not bemoan Hester Stanhope had foretold of his future career, and her lot, of what earthly use is her lyre? Blanche struck now he comes forward to show how her predictions have hers only to the saddest of tunes; and sang elegies over her dead hopes, dirges over her early frost-nipt buds of affection, as became such a melancholy fate and muse. "Her actual distress, as we have said, had not been, been verified, in a work which we have no hesitation in saying is the most remarkable specimen of self-laudation that has ever come under our notice. Egotism indeed was but little understood until the After describing the irruption of the populace, into the court of the hotel, Lamartine (speaking of himself in the third person) says: French feuilleton commenced its interminable labours. There had, it is true, been some egotists prior to that time, on both sides of the Channel. Byron had laid bare his whole being to the eyes of mankind, and Jean Jacques, a hundred years before him, had exemplified the maxim of "Lagrange, with dishevelled hair, and two pistols at his Rochfaucauld, to the effect, that we had rather talk of our girdle, with excited gestures, subduing the crowd by his faults than not talk of ourselves at all. But both the lofty figure, and the tumult by his voice, that resembled Englishman and the Genevese did, at times, pass from the roaring of the masses, was striving in vain, in the midst self to other topics; a transition which the modern French-of his friends of the evening and those who had gone beman never makes. Whatever he writes, he is in his own yond him in the morning, at once to satisfy and restrain proper person the burthen of the strain. So infectious has the zeal of this crowd, intoxicated with victory, impa this practice become, that it pervades all classes of wri- tience, suspicion, tumult, and wine. The almost inarticu ters, and we have seen the great Chauteaubriand, in the late voice of Lagrange as much excited frenzy by its tone evening of his life, reading out to a little band of claquers as it desired to appease it by its meaning. Tossed about around his own fireside, those revelations of his inmost like the mast of a vessel, from group to group, he was being, which should never have spoken to us even from borne from the staircase to the passage, from the door to "Beyond the Tomb." We have the less patience with the windows. With extended arms and salutations of the this egotism too, when we consider that it meets with the head, he cried from above to the multitude in the courts, largest pecuniary rewards. While administering to his with supplicating speeches, which were carried away by vanity the French author is filling his purse, and his re- the winds, or drowned by the howling in the lower stories, ceipts seem to bear a direct proportion to his use of the and the noise of the firing. A weak door, which could first person singular. A book full of the author's confes- hardly allow two men to pass abreast, served as a dike sions-no matter whether they disclose things which all against the crowd, arrested by their own weight. Lamarhonorable men would keep closely locked up in their bo- tine, raised on the arms and shoulders of some good citisoms-will sell,-if written for La Presse or the Siècle, zens, rushed to it. He broke it open, preceded only by will pay handsomely-while a writer who discusses other his name, and found himself again alone, struggling with subjects finds few readers and small remuneration. Per- the most tumultuous and foaming waves of the sedition. haps the fault may after all be with the mass of readers "In vain the men nearest to him cried out his name to and the man who publishes. Sidney Smith once asked the multitude-in vain they raised him at times upon their "if all the decencies and delicacies of life were in one entwined arms, to show his form to the people, and to obscale and five francs in the other, what French bookseller tain silence, if it were only from curiosity. The fluctus would feel a single moment of doubt in making his election of this crowd, the cries, the shocks, the resounding of tion?" In this day, we fear that with the booksellers and the strokes of muskets against the walls, the voice of Labookmakers, a few sous would be quite sufficient to de-grange, interrupting with hoarse sentences the brief s termine the balance. Of all the writers of the modern French school we think M. de Lamartine is the most insufferably vain. He seems to have undertaken systematically, since the eventful month of February, 1848, to show to France and the rest of the world how exquisitely the good and great qualities of Socrates, Scipio, Paul, Charlemagne, Milton and Washington combine in the person of the representative of Macon. He appears in his own pages as a man too sublimated for the age in which destiny has cast his lot, an expounder of truths which mankind is not yet prepared to receive, an embodiment of wisdom of which the world is not worthy. The suffrages of the people for the first President of the Republic were withheld from him, in his judgment, because he was not appreciated. Let the people read his "History of the Revolution of 1848" and they will become sensible of their great mistake. They will then see how they suffered the most enlarged patriotism to go unrewarded, And like the base Judean threw a pearl away lence of the multitude, rendered all attitude and speech impossible. Engulphed, stifled, and crowded back against the door, which was closed behind him, it only remained for Lamartine to allow the deaf and blind irruption to pass over his body, with the red flag, which the insurgents raised above their heads, as a standard, victorions over the vanquished government. "At last some devoted men succeeded in bringing to him a broken straw-covered chair, upon which he mounted, a it were upon a tottering tribune, which was supported by the hands of his friends. From his appearance, from the calmness of his figure which he strove to render so much the more impassible as he had the more passions to restrain, from his patient gestures, from the cries of the good citizens imploring silence that he might be heard, the crowd, with whom a new spectacle always commnands attention, began to group themselves into an audience, and to quiet by degrees their noise. "Lamartine began many times to speak, but at each fortunate attempt to subdue this tumult by his look, he arm and his voice, the voice of Lagrange haranguing on his side another portion of the people from the windows, It is a melancholy thing to recognize this cardinal weak-raised again in the hall the guttural cries, fragments of ness in so remarkable a person as Lamartine. For assu- discourse, and roaring of the crowd, which drowned the redly he has many admirable and attractive traits, and there words and action of Lamartine, and caused the sedition to is something in him above the flippancy of the old philo- triumph by confusion. They finally calmed Lagrang", sophes. When the last Revolution broke out, there were and drew him from his tribune. He went to carry per many in republican America who watched his movements suasion other parts of the edifice; and Lamartine, whose with eager interest and applauded that noble effort at the resolution increased with the danger, could finally make Hotel de Ville which made him, for the space of half-an-himself heard by his friends and his enemies. hour, a truly great man. In taking up the History now "He first calmed the people by an eloquent hymn upon before us, we were naturally curious to know in what man- the victory so sudden, so complete, so unhoped for even ner Lamartine would speak of this event. Our readers by republicans the most desirous of liberty. He called shall see for themselves in the following extract, which, as God and men to witness the admirable moderation undre it is the only one our limits will allow us to make, must ligious humanity which the mass of this people had shown, serve to substantiate the charge of insufferable vanity we even in combat and in triumph. He roused again that. have brought against the author. sublime instinct which had, during the evening, throw this people, still armed, but already obedient and discip-| much too near the Revolution of 1848 to judge correctly lined, into the arms of a few men devoted to calumny, to of its events and personages. To see these in a proper weariness and death, for the safety of all. point of view, there should be a perspective of at least two "At these pictures the crowd began to admire them-generations, and the observer should be free from the preselves, and to shed tears over the virtues of the people. judices of the times. Enthusiasm soon raised them above their suspicions, their vengeance and their anarchy. As we have not seen the original version of M. de Lamartine's history, we cannot pass judgment on the merits of the translation. It is very smoothly done and we doubt not with reasonable fidelity. HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY, from its "Citizens, see what the sun of yesterday beheld!' continued Lamartine. And what will the sun of to-day witness? It will see another people so much the more furious as it has fewer enemies to combat, defying the very men whom yesterday they had raised above them; constraining them in their liberty, humbling them in their dignity, despising them in their authority, which is only your own; substituting a revolution of vengeance and punishment for one of unanimity and fraternity, and commanding their government to raise, in token of concord, the standard of deadly combat between citizens of a common country!-that red banner, which they have some- The friends of the Bible Society will find in this voltimes been able to raise when blood was flowing, as a ter- ume the supply of a want that has often been felt. The ror to their enemies, but which they ought to lower imme- American Bible Society is one of the noblest charities of diately after the combat, in sign of reconciliation and the age, and has attracted to it the sympathies of many peace! I should prefer the black flag, which sometimes of the best men of all parties and sects. But havin a besieged city, floats like a winding-sheet,to designate ing been in existence for more than thirty years, and its to the bomb the neutral edifices consecrated to humanity, field of labor spread over nearly the whole world, it was and which even the bullet and the shell of the enemy must necessary to consult a great variety of documents, not easpare. Do you wish, then, that the banner of your re-sily accessible to all, in order to obtain complete informapublic should be more menacing and sinister than that of a bombarded town?' "No, no!' cried some of the spectators; 'Lamartine is right; let us not preserve this flag of terror for the citizens!'-'Yes, yes!' cried others! 'it is ours, it is that of the people. It is that with which we have conquered. Why, then, should we not preserve, after the victory, the standard which we have stained with our blood?' "Citizens,' resumed Lamartine, after having opposed the change of the banner by all the reasons most striking to the imagination of the people, and, as it were, withdrawing upon his personal conscience for his last argument, thus intimidating the people, who loved him, by the menace of his retreat: 'Citizens, you can offer violence to the government; you can command it to change the flag of the nation, and the name of France, if you are so badly counselled, and so obstinate in your error, as to force upon it the republic of a party, and the standard of terror. The government, I know, is as decided as myself, to die rather than to dishonor itself by obeying you. As for me, never shall my hand sign this decree! I will refuse, even to the death, this flag of blood; and you should repudiate it still more than I! for the red flag which you offer us has only made the tour of the Champ de Mars, drawn through the blood of the people in '91 and in '93; while the tri-colored banner has made the circuit of the world, with the name, the glory, and the liberty of the country!" "At these last words, Lamartine, interrupted by almost unanimous cries of enthusiasm, fell from the chair which served him as a tribune into the arms stretched towards him from all sides! The cause of the new republic triumphed over the bloody reminiscences which would have been substituted for it. A general impulse, seconded by the gestures of Lamartine and the influence of good citizens, caused the rioters, who filled the hall, to fall back as far as the landing-place of the great staircase, with cries of Vive Lamartine! vive le drapeau tri-colore!'" "L'etat," we can hear our author saying triumphantly, "L'etat c'est moi." tion as to many points connected with its proceedings. It was the experience of this difficulty that led to the compilation of the volume before us. In the execution of the work, the author has spared no pains to ensure completeness, accuracy and clearness. As the operations of the Society have extended to almost every part of the world, we have a great deal of information here embodied that is valuable and interesting, independent of its relation to the circulation of the Bible. This Society having auxiliaries, at least in Virginia and South Carolina, if not in other Southern States, that are several years older than itself; and having numbered among its patrons and officers such names as Pinckney, Gaston, Wirt, Bushrod Washington, and others of like lustre, there are many of our readers, we doubt not, who will regard this volume with interest, not only on account of its intrinsic value, but on account of the cause whose progress it details. OUTLINES OF ASTRONOMY. By Sir John Herschel. Bart. The student of Astronomy will find this treatise the very best guide to his labours that he can secure. It is an enlargement of Sir John Herschel's work on Astronomy furnished to the Cabinet Cyclopædia in 1833, with the introduction of much new and valuable materiel. The reprint of Messrs. Lea & Blanchard is very carefully gotten up, and contains all the plates, wood cuts and indexes of the original London edition. For sale by Morris & Brother. THE MAN OF LETTERS: an Address, delivered before the Mr. Reynolds is a man of elegant scholarship and reguOf the work before us as a history, apart from the self-lar habits of thought, and the high expectations which glorification of the historian, we do not think very highly. were raised in us by his name on the title-page of the presIndeed it would be a miracle if it were reliable. We are ent Address, have not been disappointed in the reading. In his style there is a certain finish that denotes long in a severe pamphlet accompanying the volumes. We practice in composition, and we are not at a loss in set- have a single objection to the series-the adoption of the ting him down at once as a "Man of Letters" in the best Websterian spelling which, saving one or two alterations sense of the term. By this we do not mean a maker of made by it, we cordially abhor and abominate. books or pamphlets-for, besides occasional addresses J. W. Randolph has the Eclectic Series for sale. similar to the one now before us, delivered during his connection with a Georgia University, and now and then a fine article in the Southern Quarterly Review, he has produced little, but a man imbued with the love of classical learning, and drawing often from the best sources of human as well as divine knowledge. The chief fault of Mr. Reynolds as exhibited in this address, is what the French call l'embarras des richesses, a profusion not of ornament but of illustration, which a writer less opulent in literary treasures than he would not have been apt to commit. BULWER AND FORBES ON THE WATER TREATMENT. El- Bulwer's Letter from the Malvern Hills on the benefits he derived from the Water-Cure, has made the names of Priessnitz and Wilson known everywhere. This little volume is a reproduction of it, in connection with a scientific treatise on the subject by Dr. Forbes. The book coin SHAKSPEARE'S DRAMATIC WORKS. With Introductory prises 227 pages and is handsomely printed. Remarks, and Notes Original and Selected. Boston THE CASSIQUE OF ACCABEE. A Tale of Ashley River. Large type, fair paper and very handsome engraved A touching little story in the pleasing and musical verportraits of the heroines are the good points of this edi-sification of Mr. Simms. We are glad to see that he has tion of Shakspeare, which will doubtless meet with an not altogether relinquished his quondam dalliance with extensive sale. It is in royal-octavo form, and will be the muses, in becoming the editor of the Southern Quarpublished in semi-monthly numbers—each number con- terly Review. No man has done so much for the literataining a play, with a portrait-until completed. It may ture of the South as the author of Atalantis, and we see in be obtained at Mr. West's bookstore, under the Exchange his popularity a gratifying earnest that his efforts to spread Hotel, at the publication price-twenty-five cents a num- a taste for letters in our sunny region have not been in ber. vain. Some of the minor pieces in the present brochure are very beautiful. THE METROPOLIS. This is a weekly journal of literature and art, published in New York City, under the management of Park Benjamin, G. G. Foster and two other editorial confrères. It has been in existence a few months. We wrote a commendatory notice of the first number which by some accident did not appear; a fact which is not much to be regretted, since upon a more intimate acquaintance, we can now speak more confidently of the merits of the paper. It is a very excellent one. Mr. Benjamin is well-known throughout the country, and his name alone furnishes a sufficient guaranty for the agreeable and instructive character of the editorial columns, He writes well both in prose and verse, and there is a manly candor in his criticisms that we like especially. In the present condition of the American press as regards new works, when good and bad alike receive the common places of puffery, it is a good thing to have a reliable and well-informed person in the critic's chair, who speaks what he thinks, and who knows how to be caustic without being discourteous. THE HEMANS READER for Female Schools: containing RAY'S ALGEBRA, designed for Common Schools and Cincinnati. The style of the publication is not worthy of the getos it contains, and though it has the imprimatur of Mr. Putnam, we suspect it came not from his tasteful and elegant establishment. Messrs. Lea & Blanchard of Philadelphia have lately published, among other interesting works, the Life of W Wirt, by the Hon. John P. Kennedy, 2 vols., 8 vo. Thus charming biography possesses an interest that no effort in the same walk of letters has afforded, since Mr. Wirt himself wrote the Life of Patrick Henry. We shall avai ourselves of the earliest opportunity of examining it more in detail. The same publishers have also issued Miss Pardoe's "Court and Reign of Francis the First," a work of high character and a most worthy companion to her former historical treatise on "Louis XIV." These vulumes are for sale by Morris & Brother and J. W. Randolph. PRINCIPLES OF THE MECHANICS OF MACHINERY AND ENGINEERING. By Julius Weisback. First American Edition. Edited by Walter R. Johnson, A. M., Cir. and Min. Eng. Professor of Chemistry, &c. &c. Two Volumes. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard. 1845 and 1849. This is really a splendid work. As a scientific treatise it is all that the most inquiring student of mechanics could desire, and the exceeding clearness of the wood-cuts, ef which there are more than eight hundred, lends additions. These volumes belong to the excellent Eclectic Series value to the mathematical formulas which they are deof Dr. McGuffey which has obtained so wide and well de-signed to illustrate. The cost of its publication must have served a celebrity throughout the United States. An impudent attempt has been made by a rival publisher to avail himself of the popularity of this Series, by appropriating the name Eclectic, with the prefix of Southern, and thus facilitate the sale of inferior works of a similar design; an attempt which Dr. McGuffey's publishers lash ris & Brother. been very great, and the class of Engineers and Mact nists in the United States owe Lea & Blanchard warm thanks for the enterprise which brought out a standard work of such high character. These volumes may be found at the bookstore of Mor |