ample, though still brief, exercise under the same head, at the 275th page, could not be improved, were it expanded to a volume.

The first very decided improvement in arrangement which we find, is the giving the declensions of nouns and adjectives at full length, through all the three numbers; and especially in the separating of the nominative, accusative, and vocative dual, instead of the senseless mode of merely declining the singulars, and affixing, in separate columns, the last syllables of the dual and plural cases, without the smallest explanation, to the invariably bewildered learner, whether this new syllable is to be added to the termination, or substituted for any portion, of the singular cases. This to the writer is a small matter, but not so to the reader! We do not hesitate to say, that this apparently trivial change will save both pupil and tutor weeks, nay months, of labor and vexation in the difficult process of tuition. The remarks on the formation of the cases are admirably clear and logical. On coming to the adjectives, we are even more struck, than in the nouns, by the excellency of the more ample method of declension; while the remarks on their terminations, as connected with their meanings, strike us as being entirely new to a school grammar, and no less useful than original. In the rules for the formation of the degrees of comparison, an important step is gained, by giving a series of plain and easy directions for the mutations necessary to different contingencies in the positive form, instead of laying down one general rule for all, which is false of all, and immediately contradicted by a catalogue of exceptions, equal (if not greater) in number to the forms first stated.

In the verbs, an excellence of the same character is observable throughout; although, par parenthese, we doubt the propriety of altering the second person singular of the present passive from Tóry into the attic form 767, even while we do not deny that it may be more critically correct. In the first place, the change makes it necessary for the learner to unlearn something, a process more difficult, always, than acquisition; and secondly, TóлTε is not so obviously deducible from the old second singular 7077”, by contraction and syncopation, as the Torical of the common dialect. The rules for the two arguments are beautifully clear- ages in advance of other grammars; and the remarks on the same, scarcely less casy of comprehension, while yet so ample as to leave nothing more to be desired. The same observation applies, in a still higher degree, to the rules for, and remarks on, the formation of tenses, the mastering of which is the fixing the key-stone in the arch of acquiring the language. Those syllables for the alterations of quantity in the penultimate syllables of the first and second aörists, are especially clear; and the fact is the more remarkable, that in former works they have been very much encumbered and obscure. The observations on the force of the tenses, voices, and moods, are no less admirable than the foregoing. Almost the only thing we see to regret, in the whole volume, is that the admirable method of declining and conjugating at length, is not brought to bear where we think it perhaps most needful—on the contrast verbs. It is true, that it would have added a few pages to the bulk of the work, but we think the expenditure of space and labor would have been amply compensated by the superior light it would have thrown upon the learner's mind. Of the remainder of the Grammar, we have only time to say, that it fully equals the beginning, and that the short but lucid syntax deserves all the praise awarded to other portions, for perspicuity, and for a force of conviction, amounting nearly to mathematical demonstration. In short, we know no mode by which we can more clearly illustrate the peculiar superiority of Anthon's Greek Grammar, to all others, than by likening it to the effect of giving a problem of Euclid to a learner with the analytical demonstration - every step gained represented below the last, with brief algebraic signs, thereby flashing the result,

as it were instantaneously, upon his understanding, instead of forcing him to labor through the verbose full length rigmarole of the older method.

The great problem in the art of teaching is, that the teacher should forget that he knows himself what he is teaching to others; should remember, that what is clear as day to him, is all Cimmerian darkness to his pupil. This problem, long since proved, Professor Anthon has, in our opinion, been the first to put in practice; and in consequence his is, we may well believe, THE BEST GREEK GRAMMAR EXTANT. Of course, it will be at once adopted by every institution in this country, that entertains a wholesome dread of being charged with mean and narrow-minded jealousy; and we should be little astonished to learn that, like the classical Lexicon of the same author, it had become a class-book in the colleges of Europe.

THE POETRY OF TRAVELLING IN THE UNITED STATES. BY CAROLINE GILMAN. With Additional Sketches, by a few Friends; and a Week among Autographs, by Rev. S. GILMAN. In one volume. pp. 430. New-York: SAMUEL COLMAN.

WITH but little pretension, this book has very many agreeable qualities. It is light, lively, and entertaining; the lady-author having gone like a bee from flower to flower, and generally found a flower in almost every thing. We should except, however, the colloquy relative to stage 'sea sickness,' which is unredeemed, and in bad taste. The thrice described scenes of the lady's 'northern excursion' are invested with a new interest in her hands. The poetical portions, howbeit, for the most part, impress us less favorably than the prose, a specimen or two of which we subjoin. The annexed is a happy satire upon the 'all-is-barren' species of English travellers in our borders:

"When entering the steamer Victoria at Buffalo, I was startled by the question, 'Are you going to Great Britain?' It was the first time I had realized that I was about to be under a different government, and I felt a mighty working of that organ which makes captious travellers. We soon left the blue waters of Lake Erie, and entered on the Niagara river. Grand Island is twelve miles long, and is interesting from the fact of its having been selected as the spot where Major Noah, of New-York, projected the city of Ararat, as a rallying-point for the Jews. That plan failed, and it is now owned by a company of Bostonians for saw mills, etc., and is likely to be an extensive and lucrative concern. A village is already rising there, with its church and school.

"I observed a man smoking and spitting on the quarter-deck of the steam-boat, and as I had not seen such a spectacle throughout my whole journey from the South, I asked who he was, and was told that he was an Englishman, the agent for the British Hotel. I was lost in astonishment, having taken all my views of such matters from Hall, Trollope, and Company. Of course I entered on my notes, in conspicuous characters, that Englishmen smoke and spit, (a favorite word with English journalists.) As we entered Chippewa Creek, the first object that met my eyes was an English lady, knee deep in the water, her sleeves rolled up above her elbows, scrubbing a naked boy. My surprise was indescribable, and I entered on my notes (I never kept notes but for this occasion,) the singular manner in which English women perform their ablutions in open creeks. As we passed through another village, I observed on one sign Storeage,' on another, Travillers.' Is it possible, thought I, that these are countrymen of Johnson, and Sheridan? I immediately entered on my tablets, according to the sweeping custom of foreign journalists, that the Canadian shop-keepers are ignorant of the most simple forms of orthography. Dinner was ready on our arrival, and, as the keeper of the Pavilion had boasted that there was nothing to eat or to see on the American side, I expected a great entertainment; more particularly did I feel that I was in a nation renowned for civilization and silver forks. What was my renewed astonishment at finding at my plate a dirty steel fork! I was almost induced to take out my tablets on the spot, and insert, that in the large hotels in British America silver forks are not used, and direct teachers to draw the shade, meaning uncivilized, over that part of the world on school maps. I afterward discovered that about a third of the plates were provided with discolored washed metal, three-pronged forks; and I ininuted them at the first

British hotel I ever visited, a third of the visiters can obtain imitation silver forks if they happen to sit at the right end of the table.

" It will be perceived that in detailıng these things, I am departing from my usual habit of seeing the good and agreeable wherever it can be found. I have rather done it as a lesson to myself, to show how easy it is to describe isolated things as general; how easy it is, in travelling, to revel on a few defects, and slight the useful and fair ; but I have not quite wasted my time in the paltry cavilling."

An old lady at Watertown, (Mass.,) lamented to our authoress the indifference to church-going that had been growing upon the community, and contrasted it with the spirit of the olden time:

6

“Her grandmother had told her, that no distance or inclemency of weather had prevented her from going to meeting when a girl; that mothers took their infants when but four weeks old, and wrapping them in their arms, travelled through snow and sunshine to the ordinances of religion. There were seats provided in the broad aisle for those who had babies, and they generally brought apparatus for feeding them. Myinformant was obliged to confess, however, one accident that occurred in this church nursery, which more fastidious modern tastes has avoided. A dog prowling about the porringers of pap and fennel-seed in the broad aisle, came to a pitcher of milk, and thrust his head in. As if to punish this sacrilegious theft his head stuck there, and unable to relieve himself he ran from pew to pew with the pitcher attached to him, drawing away the attention of the congregation from the 7thly and 8thly, with which they ought to have been edified.”

At the asylum for the insane, at Worcester, the writer was introduced to several very interesting individuals, one of whom appears to have been the incarnation of David Crockett:

"After a very courteous reception from one, who was told that we came from South Carolina, he said, abruptly, 'Have you felt any of my earthquakes there lately?

"On one of the party replying in the negative, he frowned, and said:

"'I knew it. I have an enemy. Ice --ice! Why, I ordered one of my best earthquakes for your part of the country! It was to have ripped up the earth, and sent the Mississippi rushing into the Gulf of Mexico. Look here,' he continued, pointing to a slight crack in the plastering, his arm stretched out with an air of importance, that is one of my earthquakes. What do you think of that?! ”

A deserved reproof is forcibly conveyed, in the reflections upon the ruins of Mount Benedict, the former residence of the Ursuline community, near Boston :

“Physical infirmity produces sadness, but moral obliquity, horror. I have seen instances where the love of the picturesque has induced persons to erect seeming ruins in our young country, but there is no need of this artificial effort here. These blackened walls tell a story of deep and awful pathos. I walked on the broken terrace, where the sisters and their young pupils used io sit of a summer's afternoon, while the traveller on the road below paused a moment at the sight of their graceful forms as their dresses futtered in the wind; I passed the wall over which the frightened creatures leaped at midnight by the light of their burning home; and I saw the rifled tomb, which the mob left empty, as it is now! On the few walls that are still standing, one may see mottoes and words indicative of the feelings of the portion of the community who destroyed them. It will hardly be believed that a couplet like the following is one of the least vulgar and blasphemous there :

*The priests go to hell,

While the Yankees ring the bell.' “There are epithets connected with the names of some of the former inmates, whose grossness is enough to madden a sensitive mind. I scarcely know whether to wish the whole ruin levelled and obliterated, to avoid the accusation it seems to speak to the mind of a stranger, or to let it stand as a solemn warning to the descendants of those Pilgrims who sought, on this very soil,

'Freedom to worship God.'” The 'Notes of a Southern Excursion, in Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, etc.,' are more novel and not less interesting than those of the North; but we have neither VOL. XII.

10

time nor room to notice them in detail. Extracts from a Private Journal kept on a Tour from Charleston to New-York, by four Friends,' (not Quakers,) and 'A week among Autographs,' by the Rev. Mr. GILMAN, close a volume which may be especially commended, at this season of travel, as a most take-up-able book in a steamboat or rail-road car.

MORAL VIEWS OF COMMERCE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS. In twelve Discourses. By Rev. ORVILLE DEWEY. In one volume. pp. 300. New-York: DAVID FELT AND COMPANY, Stationers' Hall.

If this volume had reached our table at an earlier period of the month, we should have been sorely tempted to transfer at least an entire half of its contents to these pages, that our readers might enjoy with us the excellent moral lessons that are here laid down, and enforced with lucid argument and admirable eloquence. The moral laws of trade and contracts; the uses of labor, and the passion for a fortune; the moral limits of accumulation; the natural and artificial relations of society, and the moral evils to which American society is exposed; associations, social ambition, war, political morality, the blessing of freedom, and the place which education and religion must have in the improvement of society; these themes - unusual, perhaps, but for no good reason, to the pulpit-are the topics treated of, in the discourses before Such space as we can, we devote to extracts, in place of any comments of our How nobly is the spirit of fashion, of selfish exclusion, rebuked in the annexed passage from our author's remarks upon society:

us.

own.

"There is a certain distinction, then; there is a charmed circle, within which the social exclusionist entrenches himself, and that circle is surrounded as with an electric chain, which sends quick and thrilling sensibility through every part. But touch an individual in that circle- but mention his name, and the man or the woman we are speaking of, feels it instantly; attention is on the alert; the ear is opened to every word; there is the utmost desire to know, or to seem to know, the individual in question; there is an eagerness to talk about him, a lively interest in all that concerns him. Is he sick, or is he well? is he in this place, or in that place? - the most ordinary circumstances rise to great importance, the moment they are connected with him. But, now, do you speak of a person out of that circle—be it of fashion, or birth, or wealth, or talent, or be it a circle composed of some or all of these; and suddenly the social exclusionist has passed through a total metamorphosis. He says not a word, perhaps: he settles the matter more briefly, and at less expense. His manner speaks. There is an absolute, an unspeakable indifference. He knows nothing about persons of that class, who, alas! have nothing in this world to make them interesting, but their mind and heart. And if you speak of such one, he opens his eyes upon you, as if he scarcely comprehended what part of the creation you are talking about. And when he is made, at length, to recognise a thing so unimportant, as the concerns of a fellow being, held to be inferior, you find that he is included with a multitude of others, under the summary phrase of those people,' or, 'that sort of people;' and with such, you would find that he scarcely more acknowledged the tie of a common nature, than with the actually inferior beings

of the animal ereation.

"This feeling of selfish and proud exclusion is confined to no one class. I wish we could say, that it is limited to any one grade of character. I wish we could say, that it did not infect the minds of many persons, otherwise, of great merit and worth. I wish we could say, that any one is exempt from it. Living, growing up, as we all have been, in a selfish world, educated, more or less, by worldly maxims, we have none of us, perhaps, felt as we ought, the sacred claim of human nature -- felt our minds thrill to its touch, as to an electric chain-felt ourselves bound with the bands of holy human sympathy-felt that all human thought, desire, want, weakness hope, joy and grief, were our own-- ours to commune with and to partake of. Few have felt this; for it is always the attribute of the holiest philanthropy, or of the loftiest genius. Of the loftiest genius, I repeat; for I venture to say, that all such genius has ever been distinguished by its earnest sympathy and sacred interest in all human feeling. And why should we not feel it? The very dog, that goes and lies down and dies upon the grave of his master, will almost draw a tear from us, so near does he approach to human affection. And when the war-horse, that has carried his rider through many battles, bows his neck,

and thrills through his whole frame, at the approach and touch of that master's hand, we feel something more than respect, towards the noble animal. Oh! sacred humanity! how art thou dishonored by thy children, when the merest appendage of thy condition, the mere brute companion of thy fortunes, is more regarded than thou!

"What a picture does human society present to us! If I were to represent the world in vision, I should say that I see it, not as that interchange of hill and dale which now spreads around me, but as one vast mountain; and all the multitudes that cover it, are struggling to rise; and those who, in my vision, seem to be above, instead of holding friendly intercourse with those who are below, are endeavoring, all the while, to look over them, or building barriers and fences to keep them down; and every lower grade is using the same treatment towards those who are beneath them, that they bitterly and scornfully complain of, in those who are above; all but the topmost circle, imitators as well as competitors, injuring as well as injured; and the topmost circle-with no more to gain, revelling or sleeping upon its perilous heights, or dizzy with its elevation-soon falls from its pinnacle of pride, giving place to others, who share in constant succession the same fate. Such is the miserable struggle of social ambition all the world over.

Of equal beauty and force, are the concluding paragraphs of the discourse upon social ambition, illustrating the ingratitude and folly of cherishing jealousies and heart-burnings, because of the worldly superiority of those around us:

"Your neighbor is above you in the world's esteem, perhaps above you, it may be, in fact; but what are you? You are a man; you are a rational and religious being; you are an immortal creature. Yes, a glad and glorious existence is yours; your eye is opened to the lovely and majestic vision of nature; the paths of knowledge are around you, and they stretch onward to eternity; and most of all, the glory of the infinite God, the all-perfect, all-wise, and all-beautiful, is unfolded to you. What now, compared with this, is a little worldly eclat? The treasures of infinity and of eternity are heaped upon thy laboring thought; can that thought be deeply occupied with questions of mortal prudence? It is as if a man were enriched by some generous benefactor, almost be yond measure, and should find nothing else to do, but to vex himself and complain, because another man was made a few thousands richer.

"Where, unreasonable complainer! dost thou stand, and what is around thee? The world spreads before thee its sublime mysteries, where the thoughts of sages lose themselves in wonder; the ocean lifts up its eternal anthems to thine ear; the golden sun lights thy path; the wide heavens stretch themselves above thee, and worlds rise upon worlds, and systems beyond systems, to infinity: and dost thou stand in the centre of all this, to complain of thy lot and place? Pupil of that infinite teaching! minister at Nature's great altar! child of heaven's favor! ennobled being! redeemed creature! must thou pine in sullen and envious melancholy, amidst the plenitude of the whole creation?

"But thy neighbor is above thee,' thou sayest. What then? What is that to thee? What, though the shout of millions rose around him? What is that, to the millionvoiced nature that God has given thee? That shout dies away into the vacant air; it is not his but thy nature- thy favored, sacred and glorious nature is thine. It is the realityto which praise is but a fleeting breath. Thou canst meditate the things, which applause but celebrates. In that thou art a man, thou art infinitely exalted above what any man can be, in that he is praised. I had rather be the humblest man in the world, than barely be thought greater than the greatest. The beggar is greater, as a man, than is the man, merely as a king. Not one of the crowds that listened to the eloquence of Demosthenes and Cicero - not one who has bent with admiration over the pages of Homer or Shakspeare- not one who followed in the train of Cæsar or of Napoleon, would part with the humblest power of thought, for all the fame that is echoing over the world and through the ages."

We cannot close our extracts, without presenting one passage from 'Moral Expesures of American Society,' advocating a manly freedom in the expression of just opinions, howsoever unpopular they may chance to be:

'What barrier is there against the universal despotism of public opinion in this country, but individual freedom? Who is to stand up against it here, but the possessor of that lofty independence? There is no king, no sultan, no noble, no privileged class; nobody else to stand against it. If you yield this point, if you are for ever making compromises, if all men do this, if the entire policy of private life here, is to escape opposition and reproach, every thing will be swept beneath the popular wave. There will be no individuality, no hardihood, no high and stern resolve, no self-subsistence, no fearless dignity, no glorious manhood of mind, left among us. The holy heritage of our fathers' virtues will be trodden under foot, by their unworthy children. They feared not to stand up against kings and nobles, and parliament and people. Better did they account