bound, replies in very chaotic verse, but with excessive politeness: "Noblest Counsellor, Of a most wayward race, as Romans feel, And again,-in allusion to the Jews, Pilot says, "Born with them, how oft The thirst of blood, and, as with Scythian slaves, [Pilot nods at "smiles" to make italics.] Of morn, call up from our rank Pontines', foulest This last line is the very spirit of meekness. Joseph corrects himself before Pilot. Granitic strata were unknown in those days. Werner was not, as yet; nor Milton, whose "opprobrious hill" is quoted by Joseph: nay, we doubt whether any knowledge of a "sensorium," unless prophetically, had been granted either to Pilot or Joseph. But a truce to jesting; here is a grand and serious topic, held up by the unfortunate ambition of one whom nature evidently did not design for a poet, to be a mark for endless ridicule, and the inextinguishable laughter of the critics. Elfreide of Guldal, a Scandinavian Legend; and other Poems. By MARKS OF BARHAMVILLE. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1850. This work is copyrighted by the Messrs. Appleton in New York, and would seem therefore not to be a reprint. Of the locality or whereabout of Barhamville we have no knowledge, but we are led to conclude that, wherever it may be, there is but one Marks in it; and that, by this singularity and isolation, he acquires the right and title to the name of " Marks of Barhamville" to distinguish him from the other Marks, similarly isolated in other villages. "Lone chrysalis, 'twas pride beguiled." Now, under favor of poetic liberty, and using the caution of a critic, we do seriously protest against addressing a chrysalis at all, or under any circumstances; for, it cannot be said of a chrysalis, as it can of a Jew; hath it not eyes, hath it not ears, or hath it not a soul; it hath none of these. Prospectively, we admit the propriety of conversing particularly about a chrysalis, as about to become a butterfly,- -one may, indeed, perhaps address a butterfly, but chrysalises are supposed to be asleep, and highly unconscious of their own position or attitude in relation to the universe. The poem begins: I, too, like thee amidst the stour And the night bird, of ominous power, A truly remarkable birth for Marks of Barhamville, whose chrysalis was thus threatened by the unfriendly elements. Nota Bene. An infant is not a chrysalis; the comparison must be antedated to birth. "Shriek" the second is entitled, "The Maniac Mother," which, from the dreadful circumstances attending our author in his chrysalis condition, follows with marked propriety. We forbear a quotation. The subject is not fit for poetry. Passing over a succession of" shrieks," more or less musical in their tone, we touch only upon the last, which is an address, or ode to La Fayette, and begins: ""Twas Alleghan that first beheld thee Panoplied 'gainst freedom's foes, To the clime where erst she rose. There, 'twill be told in future story, Envoy of the rights of man." For a caution to ode writers we have quoted the above lines. The poet of Barhamville has assembled in them, and in the rest of this poem, most of the jingling common places of the English military ode the poorest species of the ode, we take it, and the one in which the fewest have succeeded in giving any pleasure to the reader. The muse of our poet is, indeed, a very jay for borrowing feathers; and to pluck all of them from her wing would leave a very callow tit. The Seventh Vial; Consisting of Brief Comments on Various Scriptures. By the author of Millenial Institutions. Springfield: George W. Wilson. 1849. Another of the thousand and one attempts to adjust the prophecies of the Hebrews to the course of modern history. We never open one of those publications without a feeling of regret. No one of them that we have ever yet seen, evinces an apprehension of the true difficulties of the enigmas which it attempts to solve. The authors of these works do not seem ever to have seized the analogy by which the entire history of a single nation is made prophetic of that of every other nation of the same rank and form of government. The historian who has followed the rise and course of a single nation, governed by its own institutions, from its origin to its decline, perceives in it the operation of a certain order, of a certain law, providential indeed, but still an order and a law, else not providential. And when he makes comparison of this with the history of some other nation he perceives the same order and the same law. Thus, aristocratic republics founded upon domestic slavery, and using certain means for the accumulation of wealth, have, under providence, a certain rise, progress, and decline. Nations founded upon caste, like those of Egypt and of India, have a different order and decline, with terminations peculiar to themselves. The tribes of the Desert have also their unvarying history; the Monarchies of Europe have theirs; with still stronger analogies. We say then, that these expounders of prophecy do not come to their task with the requisite preparation; they do not show the requisite learning or philosophical ability; their point of view is sectarian; often superstitious, and for the most part, they bring less material of knowledge than any other class of writers, and what knowledge they have they seldom know how to use: hence the fruitlessness, so far, of all their labors. We do not believe that, with all their toil, they have made any material additions to human knowledge. The Practical German Grammar: or, a Natural Method of learning to read, write, and speak the German Language. By Charles Eichhorn. D. Appleton & Co., New York. 1850. This is a medium sized volume small octavo, made up chiefly of exemplars in the German lan guage, by which the grammatical rules of that tongue are illustrated and exercised. It is exceedingly well printed, a rare merit in a work of this class. The method adopted by its compiler of carrying on the science and the practise of his language parallel with each other, we believe to be the true and only natural one. The latter part of the volume has selections from the best authors. Latter Day Pamphlets. Edited by Thomas Carlyle. No. 1. The Present Time: and No. 2. Model Prisons. Phillips, Sampson & Co., 110 Washington Street, Boston. 1850. Also another edition of the same. By Harper & Brothers. New York. 1850. These reprints of Mr. Carlyle's latest works, as creditable to the publishers, and superior to the we suppose them to be, are printed in a style very ordinary cheap re-prints both in paper and in type. The writing of this truly sublime and original but often coarse and grotesque author are now presented to the public in a very elegant, but sufficiently cheap form. Thomas Carlyle has been called by some fine spoken gentlemen of this day, a moral charletan, a literary mountebank; notwithstanding which opinion, we esteem him to be, on the whole, as he now writes, not only the most original and sublime, but the truest, the most simple minded, and the safest writer of the present age. He has no term of comparison; he stands alone; the single antagonist of the new born, and still young and powerful dishonesties of the present century. Against the swarm that sprang up from the dragons' teeth of atheism, sown by the writers of the last century, and which are beginning, but now, to fight among themselves for mutual destruction, he wields a sword of satire as heavy and as sharp as ever flashed in a mortal hand. Terms of rhetoric fail in expressing the vigor and the manly sincerity of this truly great author. He defies eulogy and scorns it he asks only attention and a serious hearing; and that, notwithstanding the yell of disapprobation which we hear rising against him in certain quarters, he is likely to obtain. It were a serious and vulgar error to suppose that this free and spirited writer, the truest representative of the modern mind, is an enemy of Liberty and the rights of man; at least, of that sole liberty, which is the offspring of obedience to the natural and divine law; or to those only rights' which are not wrongs. To say that this author is the patron of oppression, and the defender of tyranny betrays but a superficial and hasty study of him. It is anarchy, license, lawlessness, vice, fraud, dishonesty, weakness allied with wickedness and sustaining it; false philosophy which pursues the shadow and not the substance; purposeles and frothy benevolence, undistinguishing and feeble beneficence, which robs the deserving to sustain the vicious and the worthless.-It is against these that he directs his anger. Mr. Carlyle is not the enemy of freedom. Modern democracy has chosen to forget, that all human creatures are not fully able to govern and take care of themselves. The error is so monstrous and so radical, it is so multiform and all pervading, in literature, in religion, and generally in every department and walk of life, that to speak of it adequately would be to make an universal criticism of the age. We stand appalled at the magnitude of the error; the hand trembles, we cannot write of it; the mind is darkened when we think of it; the spirit groans under the weight of it; and, for the most part, men who distinctly and clearly recognise it, and prophetically see the awful consequences, the anarchy, calamity and social desolation which it is preparing for us in the remote future, shrink away from the consideration of it, and yield themselves silently and gloomily to its irresistible current. Among the thousands of weak voices, this one, deep, clear and powerful reaches us, full of warning, of guidance and of consolation. Grammar of Arithmetic: or, an Analysis of the Language of Figures and Science of Numbers. By Charles Davies, L.L. D., author of a great number of Mathematical works. New York: A. S. Barnes & Co. H. W. Derby & Co., Cincinnati. Professor Davies' series of Mathematical works published by A. S. Barnes & Co., are well known all over the Union, and need no recommendation at present. The little work before us is intended for teachers and advanced scholars exclusively, and is strictly scientific. Tea and the Tea Trade. By GIDEON NYE, Jun., of Canton, China. New York: Press of Hunt's Merchants' Magazine. 1850. A very curious pamphlet on the use and benefits of tea, the impediments to the increase of its consumption, directions for its preparations as a beverage, and suggestions of the moral and economical results to follow from its more extended use. A sketch of the history of the tea trade is added, a view of its statistical progress and present position in Great Britain and America, and suggestions showing the advantage of a greater uniformity in prices. The two articles which compose this pamphlet are from Hunt's Merchants' Magazine of January, 1850. The pamphlets were sent to us by the politeness of the author himself. We can only give it a brief notice, thongh we regard the subjects of which it treats to be of the first economical and diatetic importance. Whether regarded as a necessary of life, or as an article of commerce, the leaf of the tea plant takes the lead in the history of substances which have been the cause of commercial intercourse between nations. It is the incentive to industry of many millions in Eastern Asia, and conduces to the health and comfort of many more in Europe and America. The duty upon tea imported into Great Britain, has reached the sum of $25,000,000 per annum. This enormous duty upon one of the most necessary and beneficial articles of foreign commerce is levied under the mis-called free trade system of Sir Robert Peel. Our author goes into a calculation to show that a great injustice is inflicted upon China by the oppressive tax upon her teas, which, by keeping up the price of teas in Great Britain, turns the balance of trade against the Chinese, who are prevented, by that means, from exporting of their own produce so much as is necessary to pay for the opium and other articles with which they are supplied by British merchants. The duty upon tea in England is a fixed one of more than fifty cents a pound of our money, upon all classes of teas alike; so that those in England who use the inferior kinds pay a tax to government of from 2 to 400 per cent. The effect of this inequality is to prevent the extension of the use of of tea among the inferior classes in Great Britain. Our author argues very justly for a reduction of the duty. In the United States, on the other hand, since 1832, tea has been exempt from duty; an exemption which we deem an injustice to the people of the United States notwithstanding its great popularity. A very large revenue might be easily raised upon this article without any material reduction in the quantity imported. Notwithstanding its salutariness and almost infinite value as a substitute for spirituous liquors, tea is certainly to be regarded as an article of luxury, and we cannot but regard the absence of a duty upon it as an anomoly and an injustice in our economical system. Our author shows that a great part of the cost of tea consists of charges of transportation with the cost of package, and an export duty in China of about 3 cents the pound. A moderate duty upon the article in this country would, perhaps, very soon have the effect to materially reduce the export duty in China. The export duty in China, and the prices of package, transportation, dealer's profits, &c., make an addition of about 10 cents the pound on all kinds of tea without regard to its value. Thus it appears that if we buy tea at 20 cents the pound, we have only one half the value of our money in tea; while if we buy it at $1 the pound, we have nine-tenths of the value in tea; that is, the higher the price of the tea, the more intrinsic value we get for our money; an argument for neglecting the inferior qualities, and purchasing always the best we can afford; the best kinds, moreover, being most conducive to health and least liable to have been adulterated. Our author's very interesting pamphlet contains, also, important directions translated from Chinese authors, for making the infusion of tea, which we commend to the attention of all householders. The second part of the pamphlet is a history of the tea trade, with full tables of statistics which we have no doubt are reliable, as they are taken from the highest authorities. The entire pamphlet is well worthy the attention of statesmen and political economists. Our limits forbid further quotations. Hands not Hearts, a Novel, by JANET W. WILKINSON. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1850. This work seems to have been republished by the Harpers, because it is English. As the author is a lady, it must be treated with politeness. We propose, therefore, to say nothing about it. Atheism among the People. By ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE. Boston: Phillips, Sampson & Co. 1850. We are under obligations to the good taste and judgment of Messrs. Phillips Sampson & Co., and of Messrs. Hale and Le Baron, the translators of the work, for this very choice selection from the works of Alphonse De Lamartine. The object of the author is, to show that republicanism, to be a secure, should be a moral and religious form of government. Like all others, that we have read, of this excellent author, it is marred and discolored with his own personal vanity, as those of Thomas Carlyle are by vices peculiar to his intellectual temperament. Lamartine has what Carlyle has not, liberality of sentiment toward the people of other nations; vain and popular though he is, he is able to appreciate virtue and ability in every shape. In Carlyle there is a canker of discontent; there is a harshness, a coarseness, a violence, an egotism, a dogmatism, a conceit of his men, his views,-a contempt of moderate men, a scorn of all virtues save his own and his heroes, a forbidding-often disgusting-literary effrontery, and pride of understanding. All the faults incidental to literary John Bullism, steeped in the peculiar conceit of the Goethe school of writers, we find attending and disfiguring the genius of this admirable writer, and indicating in him some unspeakable moral imperfection; a sore upon the spirit, an ulcer in the mind, impairing the temper of the man, depriving him of all grace and courtesy, democratising his manners, and repelling from him the sympathy of the more delicate minded class of readers. M. De Lamartine receives no mercy at the hands of this universal scourger-this man of extremes. A proud man, of a strong and overbearing will, hates with a peculiar hatred every trace and symptom of vanity in another; and, therefore, Thomas Carlyle hates Alphonse De Lamartine. Alphonse De Lamartine is a vain man; but, at the same time, we hold him to be a great and a good man, one of the most useful men of this century. He saved France from civil war; he controlled, week after week, by the power of his eloquence, the mob of Paris, controllable by no other power. He saved France from the guillotine and the fury of red-republicanism; in a word, for we cannot now enter upon his history, M. De Lamartine, vain coxcomb though he be, governed his nation when no other power could govern it; named the provisional executive, organized the elections, organized an army of 500,000, originated and carried out the grandest system of foreign policy that any nation has ever adopted. For a certain number of weeks M. De Lamartine was, de facto, king of the French people, and held by force of native virtue, the destinies of that great people in his hands; he committed but few errors, fewer than, perhaps, were ever committed by one man in such a situation; and when the rising popularity of other men swept him from his post, and his account was surrendered up to the people, so vast was the balance of good to the credit of his ad ministration, envy sickened at its magnitude, and could only say, what all men knew," M. De Lamartine has a great deal of vanity." It is not probable that there will be found in history any account of so benign, so liberal, so excellent, and for the time, so powerful a ruler as he was during the time of his administration; but his empire was of necessity a transient one, as it rested on opinion and crisis. He came in by favor and by virtue, and not by force. He lacked one element of greatness he was unwilling to make himself feared. M. De Lamartine was a vain man. He wished to be loved, he could not bear to think that any man in all France should not love and admire him. He was too general; he did not make friends, he would not make enemies; and, therefore, his power passed out of his hands, and his reputation passed away like a sound swept on by the winds. In the order of Providence he has filled his place, and filled it well; let him have have his statue among the effigies of great rulers that have been. Through the past year M. De Lamartine has published a monthly journal called "The Counsellor of the People." Each number of this journal contains an essay by him, on some specific object of pressing interest to the French people, and generally political. We have now to look upon him as a popular author only; writing upon topics of general interest to other nations as well as to his own. Atheism among the people is the topic before us. It begins as follows: "I have often asked myself, why am I Republican? Why am I the partizan of equitable Democracy organized and established as a good and a strong Government? Why have I a real love of the People, a love always serious, and sometimes even tender? What has the People done for me? I was not born in the ranks of the People; I was born between the high aristocracy and what was then called the inferior classes, in the days when there were classes where are now equal citizens in various callings. I never starved in the People's famine; I never groaned, personally, in the People's miseries; I never sweat with its sweat; I never was benumbed with its cold. Why, then, I repeat it, do I hunger in its hunger, thirst with its thirst, warm under its sun, freeze under its cold, grieve under its sorrows? Why should I not care for it as little as for that which passes at the antipodes? turn away my eyes, close my ears, think of other things, and wrap myself up in that soft, thick garment of indifference and egotism, in which I can shelter myself, and indulge my separate personal tastes, without asking whether, below me, in street, garret or cottage, there is a rich People, or a beggar People, a religious People, or an atheist People, a People of idlers or of workers, a People of Helots or of citizens? "And whenever I have thus questioned myself, I have thus answered myself:- I love the People because I believe in God. For, if I did not believe in God, what would the People be to me? I should enjoy at ease that lucky throw of the dice which chance had turned up for me, the day of my birth; and with a secret, savage joy, I should say, 'So much the worse for the losers! the world is a lottery! woe to the conquered!'' I cannot, indeed, say this, without shame and cruelty,-for, I repeat it, I believe in God." The reader will now, perhaps, suppose that the remainder of the work is intended to establish a connection between a genuine love of the people and a belief in God: accordingly, in the second chapter we find sketched the first or instinctive faith, called the pantheistic; after this, the spiritual or Christian idea is sketched, and a belief expressed in those higher or moral laws of the universe, which show the existence of a deity greater than any merely creative power, or than that which inspires the universe with animal life and intelligent force alone. It is in this deity that the author expresses his belief, as the foundation of a genuine love of the people. He then touches upon duties; duty towards God, or religion; duties in a family; duty to the commonwealth, or rather to humanity at large, which is a collection of commonwealths, and of which the individual is, to use his own words, a "miserable and vanishing fraction," a leaf upon the great trunk of the human race. Then follows an analysis of modern society, a condemnation of caste and rank, and then, the idea of a nation, the idea of the people; first as they are the whole nation, and second, a part of that nation, or what are commonly understood to be the people--the indigent and suffering classes of Europe. In America we admit of no such distinction, we have but one people. The indigent and suffering classes in America are not the people, but only an insignificant part of the population. M. De Lamartine affirms, that the disposition of the individual to sacrifice himself for the good of the many, that is to say, of the people, as they are called in Europe, namely, the indigent and suffering classes, can spring from no other principle saving a belief in God; that atheism among the people individualizes them, makes them selfish and separates them from the community; that therefore atheism is inconsistent with the existence of a republic; in a word, he insists that ideas of government, of the common interest, of universal justice and humanity, ideas, in short, upon which the republic is necessarily founded, are divine ideas, derived directly from a belief, or rather from a faith, in the personal being of a God; with such attributes as those ascribed to Him by the ancient and modern Christianity. The remainder of the work is occupied with instances from history and biography illustrating this grand truth. For our own part, we cordially agree with M. De Lamartine in all that he affirms in this pamphlet, and believe, moreover, that, by his eloquent and sincere exposition of it, he is rendering an inestimable service to the French nation. In America these things are, for the most part, well understood. Heaven's Antidote to the Curse of Labor, or the Temporal Advantages of the Sabbath. By JOHN ALLAN QUINTON. With a Prefatory Notice by the Rev. S. H. Tyng, D. D. New York: Samuel Hueston. 1850. This work is a defence of the Sabbath, as an institution for health, and for the preservation of the morals of the community. The veriest infidel, with a grain of common sense, can hardly fail to be convinced by the arguments and illustrations of the author of this work, of the necessity of setting by a portion of time for the rest and refreshment of body and mind. It is a small, cheap volume, and is altogether superior in style and utility to the mass of poor writings ordinarily scattered about by tract distributors. If the nature of the work were generally known to the clergy throughout the country, we believe the publisher could hardly fail to realize from it a good income. An Easy Introduction to Spanish Conversation; Containing all that is necessary to make a rapid Progress in it; Particularly designed for persons who have little time to study. By M. VELAZQUEZ DE LA CADENA, Professor of the Spanish, Editor of Ollendorf's Spanish Grammar, etc., etc. New York: D. Appleton & Company. Philadelphia: George S. Appleton. First Book in French. A practical introduction to Reading, Writing, and Speaking the French Language. By NORMAN PINNEY, A. M. New York: Huntington & Savage. Hartford: H. E. Robbins & Co. Cincinnati: H. W. Derby & Co. 1849. Messrs. Huntington & Savage publish a series of works for instruction in French by Professor Pinney. Their plan is the new method of Manesca adopted by Ollendorf. The publishers have sent us a printed paper covered with important recommendations of this series, from a great number of professors and teachers of the French Language. The Geography of the Heavens and Class Book of Astronomy, accompanied by a Celestial Atlas. By ELIJAH H. BURRIT, A. M. Revised and Corrected by O. A. Mitchell, A. M., Director of the Cincinnati Observatory. New York: Huntington & Savage, 216 Pearl Street. This small volume has the imprimatur of Prof. Mitchell, to accompany his beautiful maps of the Heavens; it is, therefore, unnecessary to make auy remarks upon its merits. It is thoroughly popular. The Maiden and Married Life of Mary Powell, afterwards Mistress Milton. Boston: E. Littell & Co. New York: Stringer & Townsend. This charming little story has placed itself upon daring ground. Anything short of the racy and delicate spirit which pervades it would have ensured a failure. The life of Milton is too near us-too much a matter of fact in every one's knowledge, to bear much mingling of fiction. Henry Neale, the English critic and lecturer, wrote a beautiful little romance founded upon the adventure of the |