have alone enabled him to effect it. Having conceived the idea, only a few weeks before the meeting of the Legislature before which the work was to be laid in printed form, of accompanying it with a general review of the advance of civilisation and refinement within the State, Gov. Seward devoted himself to the voluntary task with that energetic industry which finds in difficulties only new subjects for triumph. Addressing himself for materials and aid to a number of gentlemen in various parts of the State, he has succeeded in amassing a large accumulation of facts, for the most part of a most interesting and valuable character, relating to education, the press, the theological, medical, and legal professions, political history and jurisprudence, agriculture, horticulture, antiquities, Indian history, literature, science, arts, internal improvements, &c. An account of the rise and condition of the celebrated Penitentiary system, which the example of this State is diffusing over the civilized nations of the globe, is added as a Note to the Introduction-having apparently been received too late for insertion in another place. Of the contributions thus furnished from various quarters, some are adopted by Governor Seward substantially in the form in which received from their authors, little labor, as he states, having been bestowed upon them beyond that of compilation. There is necessarily of course a certain degree of want of symmetry and proportion in the arrangement of so heterogeneous a mass of materials thus hastily thrown together, which under the circumstances alluded to ought scarcely to be regarded as justly amenable to criticism. On the whole its execution is so able, as its design was bold and its results are valuable, that we wish we could accord equal praise to all the other public acts of Governor Seward, as to that to which he has so handsomely entitled himself in this.

The Condition and Fate of England. By the author of "The Glory and Shame of England." In 2 vols. 12mo. New York: J. & H. G. Langley, 57 Chatham street. 1843.

This is a most thrilling and harrowing book, and cannot but make a deep impression on the public mind. It is a better one than Mr. Lester's former work, which, however, itself contained such features of merit, as more than countervailed the defects apparent on its surface. It developes, with a hand of strong vigor, prompted by a heart swelling with earnest feeling, a fearful account of all the sufferings and oppressions which have been inflicted upon England, and upon Ireland,

by the political system with which those countries have been and yet are cursed. If other readers, in perusing the still darkening pages of the sad record it presents, can always restrain the convulsive burst of feeling, of sympathy and indignation, to which it must give rise, such an exercise of self-command is more than we have been able to perform.

One feature in this work claims particular notice; we refer to the accumulation of evidence, which Mr. Lester is in general anxious to quote from English authorities themselves, in support of all his strong statements-statements otherwise, probably, scarcely likely to be believed as possible. Altogether, it is a very remarkable book, and we shall take an early occasion to bestow upon its contents a more elaborate notice than here is in our power. It is very neatly printed, and is illustrated by two beautiful engraved title-pages by Dick, from designs by Chapman-the one in the first volume representing a gallant ship, in the full glory of its pride and power, careering over the deep under the flag of England; the second, exhibiting the same ship a shattered wreck, in the act of going down beneath the waves over which it rode so magnificently. The meaning of the two it is unnecessary for us to point out.

This is another of Cooper's sea stories, and a capital one. The scene being thrown upon seas and shores unvisited before by any of his imaginary sails, an air of variety and novelty is given to it, as though it were not the seventh progeny of the same prolific source. The Feu-Follet (French for the Jack o' Lantern) is a priFrench Republic, about the year 1798 or vateer lugger in the commission of the 9, possessing wondrous powers of nautical performance, and commanded by one of Cooper's thorough-bred impersonations of the naval hero. The scene is about the Island of Elba and the Bay of Naples, and the main thread of the story relates to the various efforts made by an English frigate, officered by a fine set of fellows, to capture the tantalizing little wasp of a corsair and her splendid young commander. Raoul Yvard's chief business on the coast, about which he hovers with the perseverance of the moth around the candle, is to urge his love-suit to a beautiful young Italian, between whom and her infidel lover religion alone draws an impassable

line. Ghita is a very lovely creature, though, like all our author's female characters, drawn in rather dim outline and watery coloring. A specimen of Yankeeism in one of its least amiable forms figures largely in the story, in the person of Ithuel Bolt, who, having served formerly as an impressed seaman on board the Proserpine, affords a pretty good illustration of the spirit which stimulated our late war with England. Two ludicrous characters are afforded in the persons of the civic dignitaries of a little Italian town; while a dash of the higher dignity of history is thrown in, in that of Nelson. A powerful picture is incidentally presented of the celebrated execution of Caraccioli. These materials afford an abundant wherewithal to our great naval novelist to construct one of the most successful and interesting of all his fictions, which he intersperses by the way occasionally with a few sly hits that look to other objects than the immediate ones of his plot, such as the following at our present amiable and distinguished Minister at the court of Madrid:

"It is very seldom that a man of mere letters is qualified for public life; and yet there is an affectation, in all governments, most especially in those which care so little for literature in general as to render some professions of respect for it necessary to their own characters, of protecting it; and thus it is, that among ourselves, where the laws are so indifferent as to the rights and interests of men of

small regret of its readers. "Puffer Hopkins" is the creation of a pen capable of much better things than itself. It has not a few passages and points of high merit, though a large part of the work is in a vein in which we do not think that Mr. Mathews's forte resides,-we refer to that style of serio-comic caricature, and of witty burlesque, sarcastic while kindly, and humorous while pathetic, of which Dickens has set the example, unconsciously in the eye of the author of "Puffer Hopkins." But there are some capital scenes, and the poor tailor, Fob, would redeem more faults than this book has to answer for. There is also a certain manliness of spirit about it, and a just and kindly tone of sentiment, which go far to attach the sympathies of the reader to the author; and, combined with the power of his pen as displayed in a somewhat disjointed and fragmentary manner in his pages, to make us hope for a further and better acquaintance with him.

The Complete Poetical Works of William Cowper, Esq., &c., &c., with a Memoir of the Author. By the REV. H. STEBBING, A. M. In 2 vols. 12mo. pp. 416, 405. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Philadelphia: George S. Appleton. 1813.

in the prosecution of their ordinary labors, that no other Christian nation dreams of exacting, we hear high-sounding pretensions to this species of libe rality; although the system of rewards and punish. ments that prevails, usually requires that its bene. ficiary should first rat, in order to prove his adapta tion to the duty."

This is the first time that one of Cooper's novels has been published in the present mode, at only fifty cents for the two volumes, and is a very good consequence of the new system of cheap publications recently come into vogue. This price permits it to be printed with a satisfactory degree of neatness for a work of this description, and we doubt not that a larger return of profit, to both publisher and author, is to be reaped from that mode of publication, than from the old fashion of thrice or four times the present price.

Explanatory and Glossarial Notes, and a Life of the Author. By JAMES CURRIE, M. D., abridged. The first complete American Edition. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1842. 1 vol. 12mo. pp. 575.

There are other editions of Burns in the American market, though none, like this, complete. Of Cowper there are none to our knowledge; and the publishers have rendered a welcome service to true taste in poetry, and true sentiment in morals and religion, in supplying the deficiency with the present neat and compact volumes. Of course there can be no occasion for us to do more than direct attention to the fact of their publication. Burns never grows old-any more than does ever nature or love; and though there have been so many before, a cheap and pretty edition of his complete poetical works, like the present one, is always secure of liberal sale. And though the melancholy moralist may be less of a favorite than the immortal peasant poet, yet he too, thus agreeably presented, cannot fail to find an audience which, though fit, will not be few.