cessity and feasibility of the enterprise, look coldly on, or stand aloof? believing that God, in vain, 'breathed into man the breath of life,' and that, without design, He said, 'LET THERE BE LIGHT!'"

15. The Young Lady's Home. By Mrs. LOUISA C. TUTHILL. New Haven: 1839. S. Babcock. 12mo. pp. 369.

How superior to all other women must the women of our country soon be, if they increase in graces, accomplishments, knowledge, and virtues, as rapidly as the books, which are written for their improvement increase in number. Surely more volumes upon this subject have been published here within the last ten years, than in the whole world besides, but whether for good or ill, it is not yet apparent. One thing, however, is certain, the sex are fast becoming dissatisfied with their former narrow sphere, and claiming a fuller participation in the rights, privileges, occupations, and duties of men. The Martineau school has gained over a multitude of converts; the quiet of domestic life has lost its charm in this stirring age; nothing will satisfy but action, notoriety, and distinction. This passion shows itself in various ways; sometimes producing much good, and sometimes much mischief. It greatly increases the number of our female authors and editors; it sends our women abroad, as teachers and missionaries, to remote and savage lands; it forms them into political and other associations at home; it leads them to pass resolutions relative to subjects which they do not understand; to importune our legislative assemblies with petitions; to dictate to them in memorials, and to assume many other prerogatives, which were never supposed to belong to them. But we mean not to state that it is the tendency of Mrs. Tuthill's book, to encourage this passion; on the contrary, she fully appreciates the value of a love of home, and of domestic duties, and makes many sound and sensible remarks upon its important influence upon the female character. In fact, we find little in any of the principles inculcated by her, from which we must dissent, but we greatly regret that a work designed to promote so important an object, and serve, in some measure, as a guide in female education, should bear so many marks of hasty execution, and want of care, and be deformed by faults in composition of the very worst kind. It would also have been well for this lady, before she ventured to recommend books to the young friends, for whom she writes, to have known something more of their contents, than we must presume she did from the following passage: "In cultivating a knowledge of this language, (the French,) however, beware of becoming too familiar with modern French literature. Better to be ignorant of it entirely, than to learn it from the debasing, corrupting pages of French fictitious writing. Among modern authors, Mesdames Guizot, De Saussure, and Necker, the poet Beranger, and some others, furnish unexceptional reading." The some others, probably, includes Paul de Kock, George Sand, and De Balzac. În the

whole chapter on modern languages, she is clearly beyond her depth; we recommend to her to omit it altogether in the future editions of her book, and also to erase a paragraph or two from the one which follows, on physical education, particularly that in which she introduces the Venus de Medici; few persons have had an opportunity of contrasting a modern belle, according to her supposition, with that work of art, precisely under the same circumstances. On the whole, there is much to commend in this little volume, and had it been written with as much good taste as good sense, and the Latin phrases, and the long stories, been left out, it would have wholly disarmed our criticism.

16. The Northmen in New England; or, America in the Tenth Century. By JOSHUA TOULMIN SMITH. Boston: 1839. Hilliard, Gray, and Co. 12mo. pp. 364.

THE object of this work is to make the public at large fully acquainted with the contents of the "Antiquitates Americana," and to illustrate, in a familiar manner for general apprehension, the proof of the authenticity of the documents published in that volume.

In accomplishing this object, the author has chosen to throw his work into the form of a "dramatic dialogue," of which the scene is laid at Newport, and in which a certain Mr. Norset undertakes to demonstrate, to the conviction of a certain obstinate and skeptical personage called Dr. Dubital,

"That America was known to Europeans, at least five centuries before the time of Colon's alleged discoveries; that the western hemisphere was discovered and settled by the Northmen in the ninth and tenth centuries, (Iceland in the ninth, Greenland in the tenth ;) that the coasts of the continent of North America, south of Greenland, were discovered by Biarni Heriulfson, in 985; that these parts of the continent were subsequently visited many times by the Northmen, for the express purpose of exploration; that we have positive authentic records of the residence of the Northmen on these parts of the continent, at different times, for periods of some years' duration, during which time, the birth of one individual is recorded to have taken place, - the ancestor of many well known and illustrious characters, some of whom are still living; that it is very probable a permanent colony was settled, not only in Iceland and Greenland, which is certain, but within the borders of New England; and, moreover, not only were Greenland and other northern portions of this continent, as far as New England, well known to, and explored by, these Northmen, but that they also made expeditions to, and were well acquainted with, the existence, situation, and extent, absolutely and relatively, of the more southern portions of the continent, as far as Florida."

We think the author has misjudged, in giving the dramatic form to his work at all events, it is not to our taste, and occasionally betrays him into puns and other flippancies, which are scarcely compatible with the grave interest of the subject. We feel bound, however, to say, that the general reader, who cannot resort to the original sources, will find in this work all the material information they could afford, and the facts and the arguments belonging to the subject, presented with greater clearness and liveliness than in any other work to which he could be referred.

17. History of Long Island. By BENJAMIN F. THOMPSON. York: 1839. E. French. 8vo. pp. 530.

New

FROM a cursory perusal of this work, and we have not had time, since we received it, for a thorough one, it appears to us to be an uncommonly well written and accurate historical, topographical, and statistical account of the island which it describes. It first gives a general geographical description of the whole island, of its soil and climate, and its geology, and then an account of the different tribes of Indians who dwelt upon it, and its history under the Dutch and English colonial governments. The three counties into which it is divided are next described, with the names of the principal county magistrates, and members of the council and provincial assembly, from the time of their organization to the revolution, and of the representatives to the State assembly, and other officers, from that time to the present. Then follows a particular history of each of the twenty-one towns upon the island, which completes the volume. It is full of curious details upon every point of local history, but they are so numerous, it would be idle to attempt an abstract of them; we can only congratulate the author upon the success of his labors, in rescuing from oblivion such a mass of interesting facts relative to this ancient and important part of the State.

18. Memoirs of Mrs. Rumpff, daughter of John Jacob Astor, Esq.; and of the Duchess de Broglie, daughter of Madame de Stäel. By ROBERT BAIRD. New York: 1839. John S. Taylor. 12mo. pp. 159.

We have not taken up this little volume with an intention of commenting upon it as a literary production; we have too much respect for the feelings and motives which led its author to pay this tribute of affectionate and pious gratitude to the two benevolent, and excellent, and distinguished ladies, of whose charities he had been an almoner, and whose characters he has here sketched, to try his work by the canons of criticism. We notice it chiefly, that we may record the testimony of our journal to the fidelity of these sketches, which seems to us transcripts from the life by the pen of truth, but as we may add, of our knowledge, too faintly rather than too strongly traced. To some it may appear inconsistent with the whole tenor of the lives and character of the subjects of these memoirs, so remarkably unostentatious and so entirely free, as they were, from every wish for notoriety, thus to herald their virtues and their deeds, and although there is some force in the suggestion, it must yield to the higher consideration of the salutary influence of such examples in favor of active christian benevolence, and a

religious life. The value of religion is rarely presented in a stronger light than when it is seen, as in the instances here given, to afford the only satisfaction to the aspirations of immortal minds, for which the world has no substitute in all that rank, high consideration, fortune, and fashion, can bestow. Such arguments, in support of it, belong to mankind, and none but the weightiest reasons can justify their being withheld from them.

19. Colman's Library of Romance. Edited by GRENVILLE MELPhantasmion, Prince of Palmland. New York: 1839. S. Colman. 2 vols. 12mo. pp. 197 and 199.

LEN.

THE project of publishing a series of works of fiction, to form a "Library of Romance," in which "the pure and the beautiful" shall be invariable characteristics of whatever appears in it, deserves to be commended and encouraged. Mr. Grenville Mellen, the editor of the collection, is well known in our country as a fine writer, both in prose and poetry, and his writings invariably reflect the purity of his mind and the soundness of his principles; in him, therefore, we have a pledge for the faithful execution of the plan, and we have an additional pledge in the excellent introduction which he has prefixed to Phantasmion, the first of the series, now just published, that leaves no doubt of the stamp with which the whole work is to be impressed.

It is as natural and as reasonable for the mind to be attracted by works of fiction, as for the eye to delight in flowers, but poison oftener lurks beneath the former than the latter, and if they are not culled by the hands of the skilful, the unwary will fall victims to them. Who can doubt that much of the degeneracy of the present age is to be attributed to the indiscriminate reading of books of this class; they have rolled in their corruptions upon us like a flood, until the moral sense has become blunted in regard to them, and they are now written, published, sold, circulated, and read, without remorse. The strongest fort is requisite to stay the moral desolation which they are producing, and in our view, such an effort can be begun in no better or more judicious way, than by such a winnowing and sifting as is here proposed. If adhered to, as we have every reason to believe it will be, much may Phantasmion is be hoped from it. A fine beginning has been made.

ef

fit for the purest eye, and it abounds in the finest pictures that imagination can trace, and presents such an endless variety of fairy scenes, that one would think it must have been written with a quill plucked from Titania's wing. It is to be followed by a new and beautiful translation of the Undine of Fouqué, which is equally unexceptionable in language and sentiment.

The becoming appearance of this book is another circumstance worthy of note; its snow white paper, its neat type, and its pleasing exIn this respect terior, are in fine keeping with its literary contents.

NO. IX. VOL. V.

32

the lovers of handsome books are greatly indebted to Mr. Colman; the style in which he has brought out all his publications for some time past, particularly his dramatic library, and his books for young persons, is altogether new, and far more beautiful than any other that we have

seen.

20. Mental and Practical Arithmetic, designed for the use of Academies and Schools. By CHARLES DAVIES. Hartford: 1839. A. S. Barnes. 12mo. pp. 334.

A PROGRESSIVE improvement is making in the general features of our school books; instead of consisting, as they formerly did, of unconnected facts and unexplained rules, having little other effect than that of loading the memory of the pupil, without exercising his powers of thinking, they are becoming proper instruments of education - means of mental discipline.

This is very apparent on comparing the work before us with the school arithmetics in use twenty years ago, or even with the one published in 1833, by the same author. The rules of operation are here generally deduced from first principles, and from each other, by an easy process of reasoning; the more simple properties of numbers are exhibited and arranged in their appropriate order, and the whole is illustrated and enforced by a very large and judicious collection of examples. It is a valuable contribution to our school literature.

But it must be borne in mind, that much yet remains to be done; and we are inclined to think, that the greatest difficulty in the way of farther improvement in text books, on this and kindred subjects, arises from the fact that there are two or three classes of students, who require different applications of the subject, and preparatory culture of different kinds. For instance, in arithmetic, the students of our common schools need but few of the principles of fractional arithmetic, and those of the most simple kind; while they require the application of these principles to all the common forms of business calculations. To such students, a large proportion of the operations on fractional numbers must be useless, and therefore might well be omitted. On the contrary, to the student preparing for a complete collegiate course, a rigid investigation of the properties of fractional numbers, and the various modes of operation upon them, is indispensable; while the problems of interest, fellowship, progressions, &c. should be presented to him as applications of more general principles in another part of his course.

The present selection is undoubtedly judicious; but in endeavoring to make it acceptable to all classes of readers, subjects of a very mixed nature have been introduced. A small treatise on mensuration, and a system of book-keeping, fitted for the country farmer or storekeeper, are placed in juxtaposition with a list of foreign coins, and the rates of exchange for the merchant; while the parts of the work that treat of the