ed in these matters, who are sometimes hard to please, and do not hold lay judgments in much regard, we venture to consider Mr. Emerson's book as a most successful attempt at presenting real scientific knowledge in a popular form. The book was written, as our author tells us, for the common, unlearned citizens, who live on farms, in the country," happy people," and have few books, and little leisure" for counting stamens and pistils, or learning a precise and crabbed terminology. It is accordingly adapted to the end proposed, not only by avoiding technical language, when from the nature of the case that is practicable, but still more by the popular form in which the whole is cast. This has been done, too, without any sacrifice of rigid accuracy, and the simplicity is not attained by the omission of matters which are really essential, although perchance somewhat recondite. But the unpractised eye is skilfully directed to the points upon which the botanist chiefly relies, and which a little attention and training render perfectly obvious and familiar; so that the farmer who uses Mr. Emerson's book soon becomes a botanist without knowing it, a much better one, probably, than his accomplished daughter at the boarding-school, who has learned all the andrias and gynias by heart, though perchance she may know less of the structure, and properties, and uses of the plants themselves, than the cows which her sisters are milking at home. The simple arrangement adopted in this book is one which, it would seem, any person of common intelligence may comprehend and apply to use, and we were very much pleased with it on that account. On closer view, it proves to be essentially the classification introduced by De Candolle, and very generally adopted by the botanists of the present day. It is, in fact, the natural system in undress, -more winning, we confess, in this unpretending garb, than when arrayed in the full paraphernalia which the botanist deems not only dignified and becoming, but essential, though it cover many a native charm from all but adept eyes. Even our author, perhaps, employs more technical language than is absolutely needful, particularly as he gives no glossary; and although we meet with few terms which are not contained in Mr. Worcester's truly Universal Dictionary of the English Language, yet we still fancy, somewhat arrogantly it may be, that we could pare away about one quarter of them without serious detriment. But critics'

books may safely be ranked in the same genus with those imaginary entities, bachelors' wives and old-maids' children, which are proverbially too perfect for this every-day world. Meanwhile, we cheerfully and fully subscribe to our author's remark, that, when any organ or modification of form has no English name, it must either be called by the proper technical term, "or described by a tedious circumlocution, repeated as often as the thing is spoken of, and after all scarcely more intelligible even to the unlearned reader than the scientific word, which expresses precisely the thing meant, and nothing else."

Although this volume is not addressed to men of science, but is conscientiously adapted to popular use, yet it is, in fact, filled with original observations, and contains numerous particulars respecting trees now for the first time recorded. The descriptions are not copied from Michaux and Loudon, with some changes in the language to save inverted commas and small remnants of conscience, as is the case with some books we could speak of, but are drawn fresh and direct from nature. This gives them all an independent, original value, even when they pertain to the most familiar objects. For no person no one with powers like our author, at least can carefully study the commonest tree or shrub without bringing to light many interesting points which have escaped all previous notice, points which may not be needful for the identification of the species, indeed, but which come to have a direct bearing upon important generalizations and the various new questions which modern science is continually asking. On the other hand, he who conveys to his own pages the statements of others stereotypes their errors, and, at best, misleads by the semblance, without the reality, of independent concurring testimony.

Mr. Emerson's faithful and thorough observations upon our trees and shrubs through all stages and seasons, and under various aspects, recorded in original descriptions, render this work a real contribution to science, and as such it is regarded and highly esteemed. It brings to a worthy conclusion that series of official Reports on the Geology and Natural History of Massachusetts, which, as judiciously planned as they have been ably executed, have done our Commonwealth so much credit. At a trifling cost, small indeed as compared with similar undertakings in neighbouring States,

-in a narrow compass, and in an unambitious. form, our citizens have presented to them a large amount of important information, the well-digested results of prolonged investigation, presented, too, in a shape and manner equally satisfactory to the learned and to the unlearned. For while there is scarcely a page that does not bear more or less directly upon the practical pursuits of the farmer, the miner, the fisherman, and the artisan of whatever kind, and which is not made reasonably intelligible to those whose interests they are especially designed to subserve, it is gratifying also to know that most of these volumes are appealed to as authority by distinguished savans, both at home and abroad, and are ranked as important contributions to natural science.

ART. VII. Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie. By HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. Boston: W. D. Ticknor & Co. 1847. 16mo. pp. 163.

THE early history of the American colonies is crowded with startling adventures. The work of redeeming a savage country from the forest and the wild beast was but a part of the task the settlers had to perform. In North America, the most violently opposing elements were in conflict for a long series of years. The two nations, whom a succession of desperate wars and an impious tradition had brought to believe themselves each other's natural enemies, here met and drenched the virgin soil of America with blood. Not merely political hostility, but, more rancorous still, religious hatred,

We are not surprised to learn that one of the most important volumes of the series, perhaps we may say the most directly important in a practical point of view, one which is eagerly sought after and most highly prized by foreign naturalists, has long been out of print. We refer to Dr. Harris's Report on the Insects of Massachusetts Injurious to Vegetation; and we do so for the purpose of expressing the hope, that the legislature, at its approaching session, will authorize the publication of a new edition,- to comprise not only the results of the accomplished American entomologist's further experience, but also figures of the insects themselves, from his own skilful pencil. Figures of this kind are necessary for the ready identification of the insects in their various stages, and may be secured at a very moderate expense, although somewhat beyond the reach of individual enterprise.

poured into the strife the venom of the fiercest passion that rages in the breast of man. The Puritanism of New England and the Catholicism of the French on our northern borders wrought upon each other a succession of indescribable enormities.

As we look back upon those times, we can hardly believe that the scenes which present themselves to us were really enacted, within the memory of our fathers ; - that our own ancestors, and of no distant generation, were sufferers and actors in them. We feel that the details of blood and conflagration, of midnight assault and desperate resistance, of a struggle to the death among Christian men, are more like the inventions of the fabulist than the sober narrations of history. The combatants, armed to the teeth, and burning with every ferocious passion that Christianity condemns, dared to appeal to the God of battles, and invoke the succour of his red right arm. The party victorious by superiority of brute force, or of machines ingeniously efficient in killing, or by greater skill in the studied evolutions and arrangements of murder, dared to return reeking from the field of death to profane by their thanksgivings the temples consecrated to the service of a religion of love, and to insult the Almighty by attributing to his sanction of their cause the triumph they had gained over their enemies by a more consummate mastery of the art of slaughter.

The poem whose title we have placed at the head of this article has reawakened an interest in some of these terrible passages of our colonial history. The particular event on which the poem is founded attracts but little the notice of historians. The transaction was but one in a mighty series of events which were convulsing Europe and America. It took place in a remote corner of the earth, and affected the fates and fortunes of an humble people, who were but slightly connected with the great destinies of the world. And yet it combines more of cruelty and suffering, more of perfidy and foul wrong, more of deliberate, premeditated atrocity, than any single act which we can call to mind. Treachery, kidnapping, pillage, arson, and murder, the sending of innocent men, tender women, and helpless children, to suffer, starve, and die among strangers who hated them as enemies and abhorred them as idolaters, these are the crimes which blend in this transaction, and form together the darkest page of guilt in our American history.

The name of Acadie is derived from the Indian appellation of a river in what is now called Nova Scotia. The country itself is designated in some of the early grants as Lacadie and La Cadie, but the name as written above finally became the established appellation for an indefinite extent of territory, reaching from the peninsula westward and southwestward, and sometimes asserted to extend as far as the Penobscot river. In the numerous disputes between the French and the English previous to 1763, this territory changed masters ten or a dozen times, and the boundaries were widened or narrowed according to the respective views of the opposing parties.

The English founded a claim to the country in question upon the discoveries of John Cabot, who was supposed to have seen a part of Nova Scotia, in June, 1497, shortly before he arrived on the coast of the mainland. The French also claimed to be the first discoverers of the peninsula, and if the voyage of Cabot is set aside, their assertions, seem to be well supported by facts. It is stated that an old French navigator, Scavalet, had made many voyages to the harbour of Canseau, an excellent fishing-station on the east side of Nova Scotia, previous to 1609.* In 1598, the Marquis de la Roche sailed from France with a number of convicts from the prisons, and attempted to make a settlement on the Isle of Sable. Some of the party remained there, in a condition of great misery, more than seven years, when the only twelve survivors of the forty persons who constituted the original settlement were carried back to France by the command of the king. In 1603, De Monts was commissioned by Henry IV. as governor of the country from the 40th to the 46th degree of north latitude, with a grant of the monopoly of the fur-trade through this whole region, which was called New France. He arrived in Acadie in March, 1604, and explored the coast to a considerable extent, and in the autumn returned to France, leaving his lieutenant, Pontgrave, to explore the interior. In 1606, De Monts, accompanied by Poitrincourt, sailed from Honfleur, and, after a long and tempestuous voyage, arrived at Canseau; but in the August following, he and Pontgrave returned to France, while Poitrincourt explored the coast as far south as Cape Malabar.

VOL. LXVI.

* Haliburton's History, Vol. I. p. 9.

No. 138.

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