as perilous scenes which belong to the early French history of Michigan, are such as place it high among the stirring narratives of generous ardor and self-devotion. To this, too, is to be added, what comes nearer to our own times, its warlike and patriot history; and lastly, its new growth under the banner of state independence. Each of these has its own peculiar interest, and is brought out by our author with much force and picturesque effect. "The history of Michigan," says Mr. L., "exhibits three distinct and strongly marked epochs. The first may be properly denominated the romantic, which extends to the year 1760, when its dominion was transferred from France to Great Britain. was the period when the first beams of civilization had scarcely penetrated its forests, and the paddles of the French Fur Trade swept the lakes, and the boat songs of the traders awakened tribes as wild as the wolves which howl around their wigwams.

This

"The second epoch is the Military. Commencing with the Pontiac war, and running down through the successive struggles of the British, the Indians, and the Americans, to obtain the dominion of the country, it ends with the victory of Commodore Perry, the defeat of Proctor, and the death of Tecumseh, the leader of the Anglo Savage Confederacy, on the banks of the Thames.

"The third epoch is the enterprising, the hardy, the practical, the mechanical, the working age of Michigan, and it commences with the introduction of the public lands into the market. (1818.) It is the age of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures; of harbors, cities, canals, and rail roads; when the landscapes of the forest are meted out by the chain and the compass of the surveyor; when its lakes and streams are sounded and adjudged by their capacity to turn the wheel of a mill, or to float a ship, and when these facts are set down in the value of dollars and cents to the price current of exchange. It is the age when a sturdy energy, acting under the impulse of our free government, is bounding forward with unprecedented vigor; founding States, developing resources, overcoming the obstacles of nature by artificial means, and doing in years what was formerly the work of ages. This energy, acting upon our Western States, cannot be viewed without amazement; its consequences no human foresight can fathom."

We have given this long quotation, not merely as a specimen of our author's style and manner, which yet, if we mistake not, will be looked upon abroad, where rudeness is supposed to be the necessary concomitant of the wilderness, as among the conclusive evidences in favor of the new State, which sends forth to the world such sons, but also opening to the reader the whole subject matter of the work. An Appendix follows, consisting of interesting documents relating to each successive period. Among those bearing upon its present condition are the highly interesting Reports of the Geological and other Surveys, for 1838, which are done with an

ability, both in science and arrangement, not always found under circumstances where we have a greater right to look for them. Having before us, through the kindness of a friend, the corresponding statistical and scientific reports of the present year, we are enabled to note the rapidity of advance to which we have before alluded. To some of these we would venture to turn the reader's attention, as strikingly illustrative of a spirit, we will not say peculiarly American, but we will venture to say peculiar to America. What our author speaks of doing we find already done; what was then conjecture is now fact, as for instance: A portion of the central rail road, from Detroit, westward to St. Joseph's, then just entered upon, is now completed and in operation, and the amount of tolls represented as already received, $64,182 66. The great southern rail road, from Monroe to New Buf falo, which will form, when completed, the great road of travelled communication with Chicago and the Mississippi Valley, with him was prophecy. On it the iron is now being laid, and the road will be, in part, opened in the course of the present season. In the meantime, the City (not Village, as our author then termed it) of Monroe is preparing her double harbor for greater convenience. La Plaisance Bay, already connected with it by a short rail road of three miles, and the new harbor, uniting the river with the lake by a ship canal, then began by the General Government, and now completing, or perhaps completed, (for we are fearful of being behind the fact,) by the resources of the City itself. The report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction is still more honorable. Besides the parent institution, five branches, as already stated, are organized and in operation, standing in the order of number of Students, as follows:-Monroe, Detroit, Pontiac, Kallamazoo, Niles. The estimate of expenditure for the coming year is, for salaries, $10,000, for buildings, $35,000.

Since the date of the work, university collections have been made in mineralogy, geology, zoology, and botany, and are now in condition for use, and from fifty-five, the number of district schools then reported, (1836,) they have multiplied in a more than geometrical ratio, being now reported as 1,509 district schools, with rising 34,000 scholars, between the ages of five and seventeen.

The recent geological surveys, too, have opened to the State new sources of mineral wealth, more especially in coal, iron, and salt, and exhibits a country that wants only a little of the capital of the old world to coin all its natural advantages into gold. But a still greater change is exhibited since Mr. Lanman wiped his pen, in the amount of its agricultural products. Up to that time, Michigan had been an importing State only, consuming all that she raised, and dependant on Eastern capital for all her foreign wants. This was, and ever is, the natural and necessary condition of an infant State; and for the moment it may be in a condition of feebleness, more especially if that aid be withdrawn, as it has been in the case of Michigan, before the moment came when productive industry was ready to commence; but it is a position of feebleness that passes and is forgotten the moment the tide of ex

change turns in its favor. The present year it is estimated that Michigan will export, of wheat alone, to the value of two millions of dollars; an amount of treasure that, together with the daily import of money into it in the hands of the settlers, will soon make all things easy in the financial operations. Thus far Michigan has been like the mechanic while putting up his shop, or the farmer in spring time, dependant on other labors than his own for what he wants; but now that harvest time has come, he has enough and to spare. On this independent course Michigan has now entered, and as to the youngest sister of our growing confederacy, the Empire State would, through us, as one of its many organs, bid it God speed, in the fuller confidence, too, that all our good wishes will be fulfilled from her own earnestness in laying deep the foundations of her future greatness, on its only sure foundations, Education, Morals, and Religion. Of the Church, too, of our choice, and its rising influence on the community in this new State, we might have much to say, we have not spoken; still, however, we know that it is there felt to be one of the surest pledges of its social prosperity. Nor can it be otherwise; and in our country, at least, it is a lesson brought out so often and so clearly, both affirmatively and negatively, by facts, exhibiting what the Church has, and other denominations want, in the bearings of religion upon public order and national character, that it is coming to be regarded almost as an axiom, or if not now, soon will be that the Church is among the surest safeguards of the State. But we must have done. In the foregoing notice, we have hardly, we are aware, done justice to our author's critical demands upon us, and had marked for extract some two or three of the heart-stirring scenes connected with the earlier history of Michigan, but in this rail-road world we have unfortunately been carried past them, we hardly know how, and it is now too late to retrace our steps. In conclusion, therefore, we wish Mr. Lanman all prosperity, and were we in the Michigan legislature, would unite, cordially, not only in a vote of thanks for his interesting story, but in some more tangible expression, also, of the debts due to the historian of the State of Michigan, for the faithful picture he has given of its natural wealth and boundless resources.

14. The Grammar of the English Language. By OLIVER B. New-York: 1839. Robinson and Franklin. 12mo.

PEIRCE.

pp. 384.

THE title page of this book, unfolds its whole story; it is not a grammar, but the grammar of the English language- in fact, "the first and the only grammar" with which the world has ever been favored. There is no mincing the matter; the author comes out in bold defiance of all criticism, and annihilates the host of old grammarians by a single

glance. If confidence can ensure success, his is certain; and in anticipation of a wide conquest, he has secured his copy right in both hemispheres, having entered his book at the proper offices in New-York and London. For the present we shall confine ourselves to a brief exposé of his bold innovations, and return to a closer examination of them, when we have more leisure, should they be found deserving of farther notice.

The author makes his bow to the public, in the following modest inscription:

"To you, fellow citizens of the United States, of every rank and condition in life, who spurn not the idea of improvement; who do not discard truths, merely because newly discovered, for ancient errors, because 'sanctioned by long established usage,' whose ears are not closed to the maxims and dictates of reason and expediency; who condemn not without a hearing; who are neither incorrigibly wise, nor hopelessly ignorant, this treatise is respectfully inscribed."

Next comes an elaborate Preface, to explain the grandeur of his newly constructed edifice, which he calls "the edifice of scientific truth," "the temple of grammatical consistency, resting upon common sense, an imperishable foundation—a work of eternal endurance," to remain " a beacon to guide his countrymen in the pursuit of that first of sciences, the 'science of language,' a monument of his humble cndeavors to subserve the interest of his country and mankind." From this we pass to the Introduction, wherein the two GRAND PRINCIPLES on which the work is based are laid down; and these are:

"First, that every sentence should be spoken or written, as it should be parsedsecond, that every term of distinction used in a theory of this kind, should be a philosophical representation of the principle for whose distinction it is used."

But we are not yet within the "temple of grammatical science;" there are two other vestibules to pass before we can enter it; after waiting for a while to read an "ADDRESS TO TEACHERS," in the one, and some REMARKS TO THE LEARNER" in the other, we stand at lastbeneath the mighty dome. Now we would not imply that all this ceremony is to be gone through for nothing; several good ideas might be gathered up as we pass on, were they not obscured by the great swelling words of vanity on which they are dependant; and for the same reason most readers will soon shut up the book on whatever page they may open it.

The author's system divides the words of the English language into ten classes, or parts of speech, all of which are distinguished by the following nomenclature, of his own invention—names, (nouns,) substitutes, (pronouns) asserters, (verbs,) adnames, (adjectives,) modifiers, (adverbs.) relatives, (prepositions,) connectives, (conjunctions.) interrogatives, repliers, and exclamations, (interjections,) in part corresponding to the terms heretofore used, and in part designating entirely new distinctions. It will at once be seen that he is attempting to establish a principle, which, if applicable at all, is applicable to universal grammar, and not alone to the grammar of the English language, inasmuch as the distinctions upon which he founds his nomenclature belong to words as the sensible signs of thought not to the accidental structure of a particular

language; and the same error runs through the book. He rejects articles from his English grammar, not because a and the in English are not as much articles as le and la in French, il, lo, and la, in Italian, or der, die, and das, in German; but because in all these cases, the office of the words called articles, is that of adjectives or adnames, as he calls them. The same is true of a large majority of his innovations; if they are right when applied to the English language, they must be extended to all languages, and Mr. Peirce has not merely convicted Lowth, Johnson, Murray, Kirkham, Brown, Smith, and all other English grammarians, of stupidity and ignorance, and justified his sneers at them, he has also overturned the whole philosophy of universal grammar hitherto received. But for all we see in his book, that still remains to be proved. We cannot follow him through all his innovations; they extend to every part of language, beginning with the names of the parts of speech, as we have seen, and embracing, in one "fell swoop, "the whole accidence and syntax of grammar. It is every where manifest that his knowledge of language is too limited to allow him to understand the general philosophy of speech, and that he often mistakes the force and import of particular expressions, from his inability to trace them to their origin-on no other ground can we explain his ranking the word worth, in the sentence," my knife is worth a dollar," with at, in, to, on, and other prepositions or relatives, as he has seen fit to call them, and this is but one of a vast multitude of like absurdities.

There are so many good notions in his book, that we would gladly have treated him more respectfully, but for his arrogance and vanity; and how far it is possible to be respectful to an author, who could close a work on English Grammar with the following bombast, we leave our readers to decide:

"I have joined the crusade against the dominions of error, prejudice, and bigotry; and commenced the attack IN the 'science of language; hoping to win that as the citadel or central post, the fort or vantage-ground, from which to direct ulterior operations. To the advancement of the contest, I dedicate, with my limited capacity, the time which Providence shall allot me here; and though I may not live to witness the conclusion of the strife; to see the fogs of sophistry, the clouds of intellectual and moral darkness, dispersed, by the irradiating beams of truth and reason; yet, the assurance of its ultimately successful termination, will invigorate my mind, and stimulate me to activity. It is this, that, while I approach the meridian of my days, shall nerve my feeble arm, shall render ten-fold more effective my humble efforts for the public good; and heighten the noon-tide fervor of my devotion to the interests of mankind: it is this that shall prove the unfading star of hope, to light the evening of my life's decline; to dispel the loneliness of decay; and cheer my downward pathway to the tomb; that shall plant, with opening flowers of richest fragrance, my couch of death; and shed a mild hallowed radiance over the mouldering pillow of my last repose.

"Reader: whoever and whatever you may be; you have seen the whole. I have led you through the fortresses of the enemy. I have shown you what they are, and what are the resources on both sides for opening the campaign. Are you convinced of the necessity of reform! Do you believe that FACT and PHILOSOPHY, wielded by SCIENCE, as the thunderbolts of Heaven, for the demolition of error, are omnipotent, and can not be withstood? Will you then mingle in the thickening strife, and stake your influence here? Or will you, in full conviction of the ne