  Behold the rocky wall Yon stream, whose sources run The slender rill had strayed, So from the heights of Will From the same cradle's side, * * * * * REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.Sixty Years' Gleanings from Life's Harvest. A Genuine Autobiography. By JOHN BROWN, Proprietor of the University Billiard-Rooms, Cambridge. New York: Appleton & Company. 1859. We are all familiar with that John Brown whom the minstrel has immortalized as being the possessor of a diminutive youth of the aboriginal American race, who, in the course of the ditty, is multiplied from "one little Injun" into "ten little Injuns," and who, in a succeeding stanza, by an ingenious amphisbaenic process, is again reduced to the singular number. As far as we are aware, the author of this "genuine autobiography" claims no relationship with the famous owner of tender redskins. The multiplicity of adventures of which he has been the hero demands for him, however, the same notice that a multiplicity of "Injuns" has insured to his illustrious namesake. We have always had a pet theory, that a plain and minute narrative of any ordinary man's life, stated with simplicity and without any reference to dramatic effect or the elegances of composition, would possess an immediate interest for the public. We cannot know too much about men. No man's life is so uneventful as to be incapable of amusing and instructing. The same event is never the same to more than one person; no two see it from the same point of view. And as we want to know more of men than of incidents, every one's record of trifles is useful. A book written by a Cornish miner, whose life passes in subterranean monotony, sparing none of the petty and ever-recurring details that make up his routined existence, would, if set down in the baldest language, be a valuable contribution to literature. But we rarely, if ever, find a man sufficiently free from vanity and the demon of composition to tell us plainly what has happened to him. The moment the working-man gets a pen into his hand, he is, as it were, possessed. He is no longer himself. He has not the courage to come out naked and show himself in all his grime and strength. The instant that he conceives the idea of putting himself on paper he borrows somebody else's clothes, and, instead of a free, manly figure, we have a wretched scarecrow in a coat too small or too large for him,—generally the latter. For it is a curious fact, that the more uneducated a man is,—in which condition his ordinary language must of necessity be proportionately idiomatic,—the greater pains he takes, when he has formed the resolution of composing, to be splendid and expansive in his style. He racks his brains until he rummages out imperfect memories of the turgid paragraphs of cheap newspapers and novels which he has some time or other read, and forthwith struts off with all the finest feathers in the dictionary rustling about him. Mr. John Brown, the hero of the Autobiography before us, is no exception to this unhappy rule. The son of a butcher, he became in boyhood a sheep-driver, was then apprenticed to a shoemaker, got into trouble and a prison, enlisted as a soldier, deserted, turned strolling player, shipped on board a man-of-war, tried again to desert, was flogged at the gratings, beheld Napoleon on board the Bellerophon, was discharged from the navy, consorted with thieves and prize-fighters, appeared on the London stage with success, married and starved, became the pet of the Cambridge students, whom he assisted in amateur theatricals, started a stage-coach line to London and failed, set up a billiard-room, got into innumerable street-fights and always came off conqueror, was elected town-councillor of Cambridge and made a fortune, which it is to be hoped he is now enjoying. Here was material for a book. From the glimpses of his personnel which we occasionally catch through all Mr. Brown's splendid writing, we should say that he was a man of a strong, hearty nature, full of indomitable energy, and possessed with a truly Saxon predilection for the use of his fists. The number of physical contests in which he was chief actor renders his volume almost epical in character. Invulnerable as Achilles and quarrelsome as Hector, he strides over the bodies of innumerable foes. If some of his friends, the Seniors, at Cambridge, would only put his adventures into Greek verse, he might descend to posterity in sounding hexameters with the sons of Telamon and Thetis. The plain narrative portions of Mr. Brown's volume possess much real interest. His adventures with the strolling players, the insight he gives us into the life of a journeyman shoemaker, and his reminiscences of his friends, the Jew old-clothes-men, the pick-pockets, and the prize-fighters, are so many steaks cut warm from the living world, and are good, substantial food for thought. But he seldom forgets himself long, and is natural only by fits and starts. After he has been striding along for a short time with a free, manly gait, he suddenly bethinks himself that he is writing a book. The malign influences of Cambridge University begin to work upon him. The loose stride is contracted; the swing of the vigorous shoulders is restrained, and, instead of an honest fellow tramping sturdily after his own fashion through the paths of literature, we are treated to an imitation of Dr. Johnson, done by an illiterate butcher's son. We are afraid that the Cantabs have been at the bottom of John Brown's fine writing. How valuable, for instance, are the following philosophical reflections upon Napoleon, which John Brown makes when he beholds the dethroned Emperor standing sadly upon the poop of the Bellerophon! "Here, then," remarks John, "had ended his dream of universal conquest; here he lay prostrate at the foot of the altar," (we are informed a few lines before this that he had taken his stand on the poop,) "on which he sacrificed, not hecatombs, but pyramids, of human victims." (Beautiful antithesis!) "As his ambition was boundless, posterity will not weep at his fall. But that he insinuated himself into the hearts of a generous people is too true; they worshipped him as a demi-god, until," etc. Farther on, we learn the startling intelligence, that "for a time his adopted country was enriched by the spoils and plunder of other lands." (Did Alison know this?) "He formed the bulk of the population into an organized banditti, and led them forth in martial pomp to do the unholy work of bloodshed and robbery…. All the independent states of Europe leagued together to put down this infamous system of national plunder." (Russia among the rest of the independent states, we suppose.)… "Had he been desirous of establishing just principles on earth, and crushing despotism, the sympathies of the entire human race would have been enlisted on his side." Certainly, John. Two and two make four, and things that are equal to the same are equal to each other. After having in a street-fight pommelled an unhappy Cambridge student into jelly, and reduced him to a state which he picturesquely describes as resembling that of "a dog in a coal-box," he picks him up and philosophically informs him that "all the different styles of fence were invented and established for man's protection, not for his destruction. Besides," he adds, with much profundity, "the laws thereto appertaining are based on certain strict principles of honor, which you have unquestionably violated in this case. Now, take my advice, never again engage in fight without having some just cause of quarrel. Thus, at least, you will always come off with credit, if not with victory." And having delivered himself of this stupendous moral lesson, Dr. Samuel Johnson Mendoza John Brown puts on his hat (he surely ought to have had a full-bottomed wig under it) and walks off, leaving his opponent doubtless more like a dog in a coal-box than ever. He sees Dr. Abernethy, and rises into this inspired strain: "To me, who have ever held genius and talent in veneration, as being "'Olympus-high above all earthly things,' the sight of this plain, unostentatious man afforded more pleasurable feelings than could all the gilded pomp beneath the sun." One can fancy, if John had communicated this reflection to the Doctor, what would have been the reply of that suave practitioner. He goes to low dance-houses, and the interesting result of his reflections on what he beheld there is, "that vice, however gilded over, is still a hideous monster; in which conviction, I resigned myself to that power that 'must delight in virtue.'" When he speaks of his billiard-pupils, he loftily denominates them "hundreds of the best gentlemen-players scattered over the earth's surface," from which we draw the pleasing inference that none of John Brown's scholars are addicted to subterranean billiards. In spite of these rags of old college-gowns, in which John so funnily arrays himself on occasions, his book is worth reading. If it has not the muscular, unaffected morality of his namesake's unsurpassable "School-Days at Rugby," it is at least the production of an honest, hearty Englishman, and teaches an excellent lesson on the value of pluck and perseverance. Colton's Illustrated Cabinet Atlas and Descriptive Geography. Maps by G.W. COLTON. Text by R.S. FISHER. New YORK: J.H. Colton & Co. 4to. pp. 400. This work meets an acknowledged want; it combines in one convenient volume most of the desirable features of the larger atlases, being full enough in detail for all ordinary purposes, without being cumbersome and costly. It is prefaced by a clear and well-digested statement of the laws of Physical Geography, "based," as the publishers say, "upon the excellent treatise on the same subject found in the Atlas of Milner and Petermann, recently published in London." The maps are one hundred and sixteen in number, admirably engraved, and, what especially enhances their value, they are draughted on easily-convertible scales,—one inch always representing ten, twenty-five, fifty, one hundred, or other number of miles readily comparable. They include the results of the latest explorations of travellers, and the newest settlements made by the English and Americans. The descriptions are full and accurate, and the statistics of population, trade, public and private institutions, etc., are convenient for reference. This department is illustrated by over six hundred wood-cuts. This Atlas may, therefore, fairly claim rank as a Cyclopaedia of Geography, and for the household and school it is one of the most useful publications of our time. The attention now everywhere excited by proposed or impending changes in the boundary-lines of European States, by the inroads of Western civilization in the East, by the settlement of the Pacific Islands, and by the growth of empire on the western coast of our own country, renders the publication of a compendious work like this very timely. Poems. By OWEN MEREDITH. The Wanderer and Clytemnestra. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 18mo. The author of these poems is Robert Bulwer Lytton, the son of the eminent novelist. Though still very young, he has reached the honor of being arrayed in Ticknor and Fields's "blue and gold," the paradisiacal condition of contemporary poets; and his works occupy, in words, though not in matter, as much space as Tennyson's. The volume includes all the poems which Lytton has published up to the present time. The general characteristics of his Muse are fluency, fancy, melody, and sensibility. The diligent reader will detect, throughout the volume, the traces of the author's sympathy with other poets, especially Tennyson, and, amid all the opulence of expression and intensity of feeling, will be sensible of the lack of decided original genius and character. There is evidence of intellect and imagination, but they are at present tossed somewhat wildly about in a tumult of sensations and passions, and have not yet mastered their instruments. But the poems, as they are the product of a young man, so they possess all the attractions which allure young readers. It would not be surprising, if they obtained a popularity equal to those of Alexander Smith; for they give even more musical utterance to the loves, hopes, exultations, regrets, and despairs of youth, and indicate the same hot blood. They are also characterized by similar vagueness of thought and vividness of fancy, in those passages where sensibility turns theorist and philosophizes on its gratified or battled sensations,—while they generally evince wider culture, larger superficial experience of life, a more controlling sense of the beautiful, and an equal facility of self-abandonment to the passion of the moment. Leaving out those poems which are repetitions or imitations, a thin volume might be made containing some striking examples of original perception and original experience. Among these the charming little piece entitled "Madame La Marquise" would hold a prominent place. After making, however, all deductions from the pretensions of the volume, it may be said, that the father, at the same age, did not indicate so much talent as the son. Symbols of the Capital; or Civilization in New York. By A.D. MAYO. 12mo. This is a clear and forcibly written exposition of the tendencies of American society, as surveyed from the point of view of an earnest, practical, and dispassionate reformer. The essays on Town and Country Life, those on Education, Art, and Religion, the Forces of Free Labor, and the Gold Dollar, exhibit equal independence of thought and extent of information. In the essay on the Position of Woman in America, a difficult theme is discussed with candor and sagacity. We have rarely seen a volume to which the conscientious adversaries of the reforms of the day could go for a more lucid statement of the opinions they oppose; and it is admirably calculated to effect the purpose the author had in view, namely, "to aid the young men and women of our land in their attempt to realize a character that shall justify our professions of republicanism, and to establish a civilization which, in becoming national, shall illustrate every principle of a pure Christianity." The Avenger, a Narrative; and other Papers. By THOMAS DE QUINCEY, Author of "Confessions of an Opium-Eater," etc. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. This is the twenty-first volume of De Quincey's miscellaneous writings, collected by the indefatigable American editor, Mr. James T. Fields. It contains "The Avenger," a powerful story of wrong and revenge; "Additions to the Confessions of an Opium-Eater"; "Supplementary Note on the Essenes," in which the theory of the original paper is supported against objections by some new arguments; a long paper on "China," published in 1857, and full of information in regard to that empire; and "Traditions of the Rabbins," one of the most exquisite papers in the list of the author's writings. _The Life of George Herbert. _By GEORGE L. DUYCKINCK. New York: 1858. pp. 197. We have too long neglected to do our share in bringing this delightful little book to the notice of the lovers of holy George Herbert, among whom we may safely reckon a large number of the readers of the "Atlantic." It is based on the life by Izaak Walton, but contains much new matter, either out of Walton's reach or beyond the range of his sympathy. Notices are given of Nicholas Ferrar and other friends of Herbert. There is a very agreeable sketch of Bemerton and its neighborhood, as it now is, and the neat illustrations are of the kind that really illustrate. The Brothers Duyckinck are well known for their unpretentious and valuable labors in the cause of good letters and American literary history, and this is precisely such a book as we should expect from the taste, scholarship, and purity of mind which distinguish both of them. It is much the best account of Herbert with which we are acquainted. Lectures on Metaphysics. By SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON, BART., Professor of Few persons, with any pretensions to a knowledge of the metaphysicians of the century, are unacquainted with Sir William Hamilton. His articles in the "Edinburgh Review" on Cousin and Dr. Brown, and his Dissertations on Reid, are the most important contributions to philosophy made in Great Britain for many years. The present volume contains his Course of Lectures, forty-six in number, which he delivered as Professor of Metaphysics; and being intended for young students, they are, as compared with his other works, more comprehensible without being less comprehensive. The most conclusive proof of the excellence of these Lectures is to be found in their influence on the successive classes of students before whom they were pronounced. The universal testimony of the young men who were fortunate enough to listen to Hamilton has been, that his teaching not only inspired them with an enthusiasm for the science, and gave them clear ideas and accurate information, but directly aided them in the discipline of their minds. Some of his students became, later in life, champions of his system; others became its opponents; but opponents as well as champions warmly professed their obligations to their instructor, and dated their interest in philosophy from the period when they were brought by these Lectures within the contagious sphere of his powerful intellect. So numerous were these testimonials, that they gradually roused public curiosity to see and read what was so effective as spoken. That curiosity has now an opportunity of being gratified, and we do not doubt that these Lectures will have a greater popularity than usually attends philosophical publications. The American publishers deserve thanks for the cheap, compact, and elegant form of their reprint. We have no space to present here an exposition of Hamilton's system, or to discuss any of its leading principles. We can merely allude to some characteristics of his mode of thinking and writing which make his Lectures of especial value to those who propose to begin the study of metaphysics, or whose knowledge of the science is superficial. Hamilton has the immense advantage of being a scholar in that large sense which implies the exercise, not merely of attention and memory, but of every faculty of the mind, in the acquisition and arrangement of knowledge. His erudition is great, but it is also critical and interpretative. He knows intimately every philosophical writer from the dawn of speculation to the last German thinker, including the somewhat neglected Schoolmen of the Middle Ages; and in this volume, every important question that arises is historically as well as analytically treated, and the names are given of the thinkers on both sides. In the course of one or two sentences, he often places the reader in a position to view a principle, not only in itself, but in relation to the controversies which have raged round it for two thousand years. Hamilton's erudition is also displayed in the quotations with which his pages are sprinkled,—fragrant sentences, which came originally from the imagination or character of the writers he quotes, and which relieve his own abstract propositions and reasonings with concrete beauty or truth. Most of these quotations will be novel even to advanced students. Hamilton is also admirable in statement. Confusion, vacillation, obscurity, uncertainty, are as foreign to his style as to his mind. He is almost rigid in his precision. Every word has its meaning, and every idea its stern, sure, decisive statement. His masterly powers of analysis, of reasoning, of generalization, are always adequately exhibited by a corresponding mastery of expression. The study of such a volume as the present is itself an education in statement and logic; and that it will be studied by thousands, in the colleges and out of the colleges of the country, we cannot but hope. Allibone's Dictionary of Authors. Philadelphia: Childs & Peterson, 1858. Vol. I. pp. 1005. Leigh Hunt, in one of his Essays, speaks of the wishful thrill with which, in looking over an index, he wondered if ever his name would appear under the letter H in the reversed order (Hunt, Leigh) peculiar to that useful and too much neglected field of literary achievement. In Mr. Allibone's Dictionary he would see his wish more than satisfied; for if he turn up "Hunt, Leigh," he will find a reference to "Hunt, James Henry Leigh," and under that head a list of his works, more complete, perhaps, than he himself could easily have drawn up. In glancing along the leaves of a collection like this, one's heart is touched with something of the same vague pathos that dims the eye in a graveyard. What a necrology of notability! How many a controversialist who made a great stir in his day, how many a once rising genius, how many a withering satirist, lies here shrunk all away to the tombstone immortality of a name and date! Think of the aspirations, the dreams, the hopes, the toil, the confidence (of himself and wife) in an impartial and generous posterity;—and then read "Smith J.(ohn?) 1713-1784(?). The Vision of Immortality, an Epic Poem in Twelve Books, 1740, 4to. See Lowndes." The time of his own death less certain than that of his poem, which we may fix pretty safely in 1740,—and the only posterity that took any interest in him the indefatigable Lowndes! Well, even a bibliographic indemnity for contemporary neglect, to have so much as your title-page read after it is a century old, and to enjoy a posthumous public of one, is better than nothing. A volume like Mr. Allibone's—so largely a hospital for incurable forgottenhoods—is better than any course of philosophy to the young author. Let him reckon how many of the ten thousand or so names here recorded he has ever heard of before, let him make this myriad the denominator of a fraction to which the dozen perennial fames shall be the numerator, and he will find that his dividend of a chance at escaping speedy extinction is not worth making himself unhappy about. Should some statistician make such a book the basis for constructing the tables of a fame-insurance company, the rates at which alone policies could be safely issued would put them beyond the reach of all except those who did not need them. After all, perhaps, the next best thing to being famous or infamous is to be utterly forgotten; for that, at least, is to accomplish a decisive result by living. To hang on the perilous edge of immortality by the nails, liable at any moment to drop into the waters of Oblivion, is at best a questionable beatitude. But if a dictionary of this kind give rise to some melancholy reflections, it is not without suggestions of a more soothing character. We are reminded by it of the tender-heartedness of Chaucer, who, in the "House of Fame," after speaking of Orpheus and Arion, (Mr. Tyrwhitt calls him Orion,) and Cheiron and Glasgerion, has a kind word for the lesser minstrels that play on pipes made of straw,— "Such as have the little herd-groomes This is the true Valhalla of Mediocrity, the libra d'oro of the onymi-anonymi, of the never-named authors who exist only in name,—Parson Adams would be here, had he found a printer for his sermons, Mr. Primrose for his tracts on Monogamy,—and not merely such nominum umbroe of the past, but that still stranger class of ancient-moderns, preterite-presents, dead (and something more) as authors, but still to be met with in the flesh as solid men and brethren,—privileged, alas, to outstay cockcrow when they drop in of an evening to give you their views on the aims and tendencies of periodical literature. Will it be nothing, if we should be untimely snatched away from our present sphere of usefulness, to those shadowy [Greek: pleiones] who lived too soon to enjoy their monthly dip in the ATLANTIC,—will it be nothing, we say, that our orphaned Papyrorcetes, junior, will be able to read the name of his lamented parent on the nine-hundredth page of Allibone,—occupying, at least, an entire line, and therefore (as we gather from a hasty calculation) sure forever of 1/360,000th of the attention of whoever reads the book through? This is a handy and inexpensive substitute for the imagines of the Roman nobles; for those were inconvenient to pack on a change of lodgings, liable to melt in warm weather,—even the elder Brutus himself might soften in August,—and not readily salable, unless to a novus homo who wished to buy a set of ancestors ready-made, as some of our enthusiastic genealogists are said to order a family-tree from the heraldic nursery-man skilled to graft a slip of Scroggins on a stock of De Vere or Montmorenci. Contemporary glory is comparatively dear; it is sold by the column,—for columns have got over their Horatian antipathies; but the bibliographer will thank you for the name of any man that has ever printed a book, nay, his gratitude will glow in exact proportion to the obscurity of the author, and one may thus confer perpetuity at least (which is a kind of Tithonus-immortality) upon some respected progenitor, or assure it to himself, with little trouble and at the cost of a postage-stamp. The benignity of Providence is nowhere more strongly marked than in its compensations; and what can be more beautiful than the arrangement by which the same harmless disinterestedness of matter and style that once made an author the favorite of trunk-makers and grocers should, by thus leading to the quiet absorption of his works, make them sure of commemoration by Brunet or Lowndes and of commanding famine-prices under the hammer? Fame, like electricity, is thus positive and negative; and if a writer must be Somebody to make himself of permanent interest to the world at large, he must not less be Nobody—like Junius—to have his namelessness embalmed by Mons. GuÉrard. Take comfort, therefore, all ye who either make paper invaluable or worthless by the addition of your autograph! for your dice (as the AbbÉ Galiani said of Nature's) are always loaded, and you may make your book the heir of Memory in two ways,—by contriving to get the fire of genius into it, or to get it into the fire by the hands of the hangman. Milton's "Areopagitica" is an example of one method, and the "Philostratus" of Blount (who pillaged the "Areopagitica") of the other. And yet, again, how perverse is human nature! how more perverse is literary taste! There is a large class of men madly desirous to read cuneiform and runic inscriptions simply because of their unreadableness, adding to our compulsory stock of knowledge about the royal Smiths and Joneses of to-day much conjectural and conflicting information concerning their royal prototypes of an antiquity unknown, and, as we fondly hoped, unknowable. Were there only a compensatory arrangement for this also in another class who should be driven by a like irresistible instinct to unreadable books, the heart of the political economist would be gladdened at seeing the substantial rewards of authorship so much more equally distributed by means of a demand adapted to the always abundant supply. We should like Mr. Allibone's book better, if it were more exclusively a dictionary of names, facts, editions, and dates, and allowed less space (or none at all) to opinions. The contemporaneous judgments of individual critics upon writers of original power are commonly of little value, and are absolutely worthless when an author's fame has struck its roots down into the kindly soil of national or European appreciation, when his work has won that "perfect witness of all-judging Jove" which cannot be begged or bought. When the criticism is anonymous, (as are many of those cited by Mr. Allibone,) it has not even the reflected interest, as a measure of the critic himself, which we find sometimes in the incapacity of a strong nature to appreciate a great one, as in Johnson's opinion of Milton, for instance,—or of a delicate mind to comprehend an imaginative one, as in Addison's of Bunyan. In the article "Carlyle," for example, (by the way, John A. Carlyle is omitted,) we should have been better content, if Mr. Allibone (instead of letting us know what "Blackwood's Magazine" thinks of a writer who, whatever his faults of style, has probably influenced the thought of his generation more than any other man) had given us the date of the first publication of "Cromwell's Letters and Speeches," and had mentioned that the original collection of the "Miscellanies" was made in America. (This last we have since found alluded to under "De Quincey.") Sometimes the editor himself intrudes remarks which are quite out of keeping with the character of such a work. We will give an instance which caught our eye in turning over the leaves. After giving the title of "The Rare Trauailes" of Job Hortop, Mr. Allibone adds, "We trust that in the home-relation of his 'Rare Trauails among wilde and sauage people' the raconteur did not yield to the temptation of 'pulling the long bow,' for the purpose of increasing the amazement of his wondering auditors." Now if Mr. Allibone knew nothing about Hortop, he should have said nothing. If the edition of 1591 was inaccessible to him, he could have found out what kind of a story-teller our ancient mariner was in the third volume of Hakluyt. We resent this slur upon Job the more because he happens to be a favorite of ours, and saw no more wonders than travellers of that day had the happy gift of seeing. We remember he got sight of a very fine merman in the neighborhood of the Bermudas; but then stout Sir John Hawkins was as lucky. The two criticisms we have made touch, one of them the plan of the work, and the other its manner. We have one more to make, which, perhaps, should properly have come under the former of these two heads;—it is that Mr. Allibone allows a disproportionate space to the smaller celebrities of the day in comparison with those of the past. In such an undertaking, the amount of interest which the general public may be supposed to take in comparatively local notabilities should, it seems to us, be measured on a scale whose degrees are generations. Mr. Allibone's good-nature has misled him in some cases to the allowance of manifest disproportions. Twice as much room, for instance, is allowed to Mr. Dallas as to Emerson. Mr. Dallas has been Vice-President of the United States; Emerson is one of the few masters of the English tongue, and both by teaching and practical example has done more to make the life of the scholar beautiful, and the career of the man of letters a reproof to all low aims and an inspiration to all high ones, than any other man in America. What we have said has been predicated upon the general impression left on our minds after dipping into the book here and there almost at random. But on opening it again, we find so much that is interesting, even in those articles which are most expansive and gossiping, that we are almost inclined to draw our pen through what we have written in the way of objection, and merely express our gratitude to Mr. Allibone for what he has done. We have been led to speak of what we consider the defects, or rather the redundancies, of the "Dictionary," because we believe, that, if less bulky, it would be more certain of the wide distribution it so highly deserves. It is a shrewd saying of Vauvenargues, that it is "un grand signe de mÉdiocritÉ de louer toujours modÉrÉment," and we have no desire to expose the "Atlantic" to a charge so fatal by showing ourselves cold to the uncommon merits of Mr. Allibone's achievement. The book is rather entitled to be called an Encyclopaedia than a Dictionary. As the work of a single man, it is one of the wonders of literary industry. The amount of labor implied in it is enormous, and its general accuracy, considering the immense number and variety of particulars, remarkable. A kindly and impartial spirit makes itself felt everywhere,—by no means an easy or inconsiderable merit. We have already had occasion several times to test its practical value by use, and can recommend it from actual experiment. Every man who ever owned an English book, or ever means to own one, will find something here to his purpose. That a volume so comprehensive in its scope and so multitudinous in its details should be wholly without errors and omissions is impossible; and we trust that any of our readers who detect such will discharge a part of the obligation they are under to Mr. Allibone by communicating them to him for the benefit of a second edition. 1. TrÜbner's Bibliographical Guide to American Literature. London: TRÜBNER & CO. 1859. pp. cxlix., 554. 8vo. 2. Index to the Catalogue of a Portion of the Public Library of the City of Boston. 1858. pp. 204. Next to knowledge itself, perhaps the best thing is to know where to find it. To make an index that shall combine completeness, succinctness, and clearness,—how much intelligence this demands is proved by the number of failures. Mr. TrÜbner's volume contains, 1st, some valuable bibliographical prolegomena by the editor himself; 2d, an historical sketch of American literature, which is not very well done by Mr. Moran, and would have been admirably done by Mr. Duyckinck; 3d, a full and very interesting account of American libraries by Mr. Edwards; and 4th, a classed list of books written and published in the United States during the last forty years, arranged in thirty-one appropriate departments, with a supplementary thirty-second of Addenda. In some instances,—as in giving tables of the proceedings of learned societies,—the period embraced is nearly a century. A general alphabetical index completes the volume. The several heads are, Bibliography, Collections, Theology, Jurisprudence, Medicine and Surgery, Natural History (in five subdivisions), Chemistry and Pharmacy, Natural Philosophy, Mathematics and Astronomy, Philosophy, Education (in three subdivisions), Modern Languages, Philology, American Antiquities, Indians and Languages, History (in three subdivisions), Geography, Useful Arts, Military Science, Naval Science, Rural and Domestic Economy, Politics, Commerce, Belles Lettres, Fine Arts, Music, Freemasonry, Mormonism, Spiritualism, Guide Books, Maps and Atlases, Periodicals. This list is enough to show the great value of the "Guide" to students and collectors. The volume will serve to give both Americans and Europeans a juster notion of the range and tendency, as well as amount, of literary activity in the United States. As the work of a cultivated and intelligent foreigner, it has all the more claim to our acknowledgment, and also to our indulgence where we discover omissions or inaccuracies. The second volume whose title stands at the head of our article would demand no special notice from us, were it not for the admirable manner in which it is executed and the judgment evinced in the selection of the books which it catalogues. The Boston Library may well be congratulated on having at its head a gentleman so experienced and competent as Professor Jewett. He has hitherto distinguished himself in a department of literature in which little notoriety is to be won, his labors in which, however, are appreciated by the few whose quiet suffrage outvalues the noisy applause of the moment. His little work on the "Construction of Library Catalogues" is a truly valuable contribution to letters, rendering, as it does, the work of classification more easy, and increasing the chances of our getting good general directories to the books already in our libraries, without which the number of volumes we gather is only an increase of incumbrance. It is a great detriment to sound and exhaustive scholarship, that the books for students to read should be left to chance; and we owe a great deal more than we are apt to acknowledge to men who, like Mr. Jewett, enable us to find out the books that will really help us. Dr. Johnson, to be sure, commends the habit of "browsing" in libraries; and this will do very well for those whose memory clinches, like the tentacula of zoÖphytes, around every particle of nourishment that comes within its reach. But the habit tends rather to make ready talkers than thorough scholars; and he who is left to his chances in a collection of books grasps like a child in the "grab-bag" at a fair, and gets, in nine cases out of ten, precisely what he does not want. We think that a great mistake is made in the multiplying of libraries in the same neighborhood, unless for some specialty, such as Natural History or the like. It is sad to think of the money thus wasted in duplicates and triplicates. Rivalry in such cases is detrimental rather than advantageous to the interests of scholarship. Instead of one good library, we get three poor ones; and so, instead of twenty men of real learning, we are vexed with a score of sciolists, who are so through no fault of their own. We hope that the movement now on foot, to give something like adequacy to the University Library at Cambridge, will receive the aid it deserves, not only from graduates of the College, but from all persons interested in the literary advancement of the country. So there be one really good library in the United States, it matters little where it is, for students will find it,—and they should at least be spared the necessity of going abroad in order to master any branch of learning. A great library is of incalculable benefit to any community. It saves infinite waste of time to the thinker by enabling him to know what has already been thought. It is of greater advantage (and that advantage is of a higher kind) than any seminary of learning, for it supplies the climate and atmosphere, without which good seed is sown in vain. It is not merely that books are the "precious life-blood of master-spirits," and to be prized for what they contain, but they are still more useful for what they prevent. The more a man knows, the less will he be apt to think he knows, the less rash will he be in conclusion, and the less hasty in utterance. It is of great consequence to the minds of most men how they begin to think, and many an intellect has been lamed irretrievably for steady and lofty flight by toppling out into the helpless void of opinion with wings yet callow. The gross and carnal hallucinations of what is called "Spiritualism"—the weakest-kneed of all whimsies that have come upon the parish from the days of the augurs down to our own—would be disenchanted at once in a neighborhood familiar with Del Rio, Wierus, Bodin, Scot, Glanvil, Webster, Casaubon, and the Mathers. Good books are the enemies of delusion, the most effectual extinguishers of self-conceit. Impersonal, dispassionate, self-possessed, they reason without temper, and remain forever of the same mind without obstinacy. The man who has the freedom of a great library lengthens his own life without the weariness of living; he may include all past generations in his experience without risk of senility; not yet fifty, he may have made himself the contemporary of "the world's gray fathers"; and with no advantages of birth or person, he may have been admitted to the selectest society of all times and lands. We live in the hope of seeing, if not a great library somewhere on this continent, at least the foundations of such a one, laid broad enough and deep enough to change hope into a not too remote certainty. Hitherto America has erected but one statue in commemoration of a scholar, and we cannot help wishing that the money that has been wasted in setting up in effigy one or two departed celebrities we could mention had been appropriated to a means of culture which, perhaps more than any other, would be likely to give us men worthy of bronze or marble, but above the necessity of them for memory. * * * * * RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS.The Poetical Works of William Motherwell; with a Memoir of his Life. Fourth Edition, greatly Enlarged. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 32mo. pp. 308. 75 cts. The Avenger, a Narrative; and other Papers. By Thomas De Quincey. Life of William Pitt. By Lord Macaulay. Preceded by the Life of the Earl of Chatham. New York. Delisser & Proctor. 32mo. pp. 227. 50 cts. Shakspeare's Legal Acquirements Considered. By John Lord Campbell, The Pillar of Fire; or, Israel in Bondage. By Rev. J.H. Ingraham, Author of "The Prince of the House of David." New York. Pudney & Russell. 12mo. pp. 600. $1.25. The Life of North American Insects. By B. Jaeger, Assisted by H.E. Preston, M.D. With Numerous Illustrations from Specimens in the Cabinet of the Author. New York. Harper & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 319. $1.25. Life of Frederick the Great. By Macaulay. New York. Delisser & Proctor. 32mo. pp. 277. 50 cts. Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic. By Sir William Hamilton, Bart. Edited by the Rev. Henry Longueville Mansel, B.D., Oxford, and John Veitch, M.A., Edinburgh. 2 vols. Vol. I. Metaphysics. Boston. Gould & Lincoln. 8vo. pp. 718. $3.00. India and the Indian Mutiny. Comprising the Complete History of Frank Elliott; or, Walks in the Desert. By James Challen. Philadelphia. Border War. A Tale of Disunion. By J.B. Jones, Author of "Wild Western Mothers and Infants, Nurses and Nursing. A Translation from the French of a Treatise on Nursing, Weaning, and the General Treatment of Young Children. By Dr. A.L. DonnÉ. Boston. Phillips, Sampson, & Co. 12mo. pp. 303. $1.00. Poems and Ballads of Goethe. Translated by W. Edmonstoune Aytoun, D.C.L., and Theodore Martin. New York. Delisser & Proctor. 12mo. pp. 240. 75 cts. On the Probable Fall of the Value of Gold; the Commercial and Social A Treatise on Theism and on the Modern Skeptical Theories. By Francis The Precious Stones of the Heavenly Foundation; with Illustrations The Convalescent. By N. Parker Willis. New York. Charles Scribner. 12mo. pp. 456. $1.25. Plan of the Creation; or, Other Worlds, and who Inhabit them. By Rev. Five Essays. By John Kearsley Mitchell, M.D. Edited by S. Weir Mitchell, Hope Marshall; or, Government and its Offices. By William N.O. Lasselle. Sermons Preached and Revised by the Rev. C.H. Spurgeon. Fifth Series. Hours with my Pupils; or, Educational Addresses, etc. The Young Lady's "Love me Little, Love me Long." By Charles Reade. New York. Harper & The Christian Law of Amusement. By James Leonard Corning, Pastor of the Westminster Presbyterian Church. Buffalo, N.Y. Phinney & Co. 16mo. pp. 162. 50 cts. Scenes and Adventures in the Army; or, Romance of Military Life. By P. Infant Salvation In its Relation to Infant Depravity, Infant Popular Geology. A Series of Lectures read before the Philosophical Poems of Owen Meredith. The Wanderer and Clytemnestra. Boston. Ticknor & Memoir of Theophilus Parsons, Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts; with Notices of Some of his Contemporaries. By his Son, Theophilus Parsons. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 12mo. pp. 476. $1.50. The Life of James Watt; with Selections from his Correspondence. By The Spy. A Tale of the Neutral Ground. By J. Fenimore Cooper. Internal Relations of the Cities, Towns, Villages, Counties, and States Farm Drainage. The Principles, Processes, and Effects of Draining Land, etc., etc. Including Tables of Rain-Fall, etc., and more than One Hundred Illustrations. By Henry F. French. New York. A.O. Moore & Co. 12mo. pp. 381. $1.00. The Jealous Husband. A Story of the Heart. By Annette Marie Maillard. A Practical Treatise on the Hive and Honey-Bee. By L.L. Langstroth. With an Introduction by Rev. Robert Baird, D.D. Third Edition. Revised, with Illustrations. New York. A.O. Moore & Co. 12mo. pp. 405. $1.25. From Wall Street to Cashmere. A Journal of Five Years in Asia, Africa, ******* This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: /1/1/7/5/11751 Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed. - You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of receipt of the work. 1.F.3. 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