the practical wisdom displayed in the administration of the laws, we may be permitted, cold blooded as critics usually are, to catch the enthusiasm of the Orator and Statesman of New England, and exclaim with him, OUR COUNTRY; OUR WHOLE COUNTRY; AND NOTHING BUT OUR COUNTRY!

3.—El Traductor Español; or a New and Practical System for Translating the Spanish Language. By MARIANO CUBI Y SOLER. Baltimore. F. Lucas, jr. 12mo. pp. 350.

THE author of this volume deserves high commendation, for the zeal with which he has labored, during the last four years, to make his native language known in this country. He has published several elementary treatises to facilitate to the American student the attainment of that language, and his personal services have been assiduously and successfully devoted, we believe, to the promotion of the same end. At the present time, and with the future political prospects of the western continent, few accomplishments are more desirable to the well educated youth of our country, than a knowledge of the Spanish language. It is already spoken by half the population of the western world, and its use and influence will rapidly increase. Our commercial intercourse and political relations with the southern republics, will necessarily bring us into close and perpetual contact with them on innumerable points; and an acquaintance with their common vehicle of thought will be a not more effectual means of advancing our own interests, than of strengthening the bonds of union between nations, whose aims and destiny are nearly the same. We shall have the additional advantage, moreover, and it is not a small one, of the example and spirit of the best Spanish writers operating on our literature. In this country little is known of the elegant letters of Spain; it is a field unexplored, but it is wide and fertile, rich in the fruits of genius and of cultivated intellect. The language of Cervantes and Calderon, of Lope de Vega and Feijoo, may safely challenge a comparison with any other in high models of poetry and eloquence, brilliancy of imagination, or vigor of thought.

It is the purpose of Mr Cubi, in the present volume, to promote the acquisition of the language, by putting into the student's hands a choice collection from some of the best Spanish authors. The examples are generally short, always judicious, and methodically arranged. The idiomatic phrases and expressions are explained in the margin. Among the writers from whom the selection is made, are Feijoo, Granada, Quevedo, Mariana, Argensola, Ca

dalso, Isla, Cervantes, Olavides, Saavedra, Gracian, Garcilaso, Melender. The book seems to us well suited to be taken up immediately after Mr Sales's Colmena Española. Mr Cubi has been at vast pains in forming a vocabulary, which comprises more than half the volume, in which every word used in the selections is introduced and explained, and the mode, tense, number, and person of each verb pointed out. This vocabulary is arranged in classes, according to the number of syllables in the words, that is, the first class contains words of one syllable, the second of two, and so on. The verbs form a list separate from the other parts of speech. This whole plan we consider defective, and have no doubt, that an arrangement of all the words in alphabetical sequence, according to the usual method, is preferable. The object of an alphabetical arrangement of any kind is to direct the student, with the least labor of research, to the desired word; and this can be done in no way so readily, as by having every word, beginning with the same letter, brought into one methodical and connected series.

4.-Report made to the Legislature of Massachusetts by the Com-missioners appointed by a Resolve of the twenty second of February, 1825. Boston. 1826. pp. 55.

THE Legislature of Massachusetts, on the twenty second of February, 1825, appointed Messrs Theodore Sedgwick, Leonard M. Parker, and James Savage, Commissioners to digest and prepare a system for the establishment of such an Institution, to be endowed by the State, as should be best calculated to afford instruction in the Practical Arts and Sciences' to those persons, who do not desire, or are unable to obtain, a collegiate education. These Commissioners, on the ninth of January last, made to the legislature an elaborate Report, containing a full and particular exposition of the plan of such an institution, and of the reasons which seemed to sanction its endowment by the state. This Report was accompanied with two bills, one for the incorporation of the proposed Massachusetts Seminary of Practical Arts and Sciences,' and another granting twenty thousand dollars each year for two years, and after that period five thousand dollars annually for ten years, for the endowment and support of the seminary. The passage of these bills was urged upon the House of Representatives with great zeal and ability; but after much consideration, the House ordered the subject to be recommitted to the same Commissioners to pursue the examination of it, and to report at a future session of the legislature.

It is not our purpose to discuss the Report at length. Although we dissent from the Commissioners in some respects, yet we feel a strong inclination to maintain their views upon the general object, namely, the providing of means for the liberal education of the middle class of society in the useful arts, and in the sciences immediately applicable to the active business of life. Our colleges do not look directly to the instruction of the artisan, the agriculturist, or the manufacturer. Their aim would rather seem to be the preparation of persons for the liberal professions, or the ornamental education of the children of the opulent. We apprehend the progress of improvement, and the exigencies of society, are beginning to demand facilities for imparting knowledge, on a liberal scale, to the productive and laboring classes of the community. This position is the leading doctrine of the Report; and however proper it may have been for the Legislature of Massachusetts to pass over the subject at present, and wait for further information before making the large grant, which the Commissioners deemed requisite, yet we trust a thing of so much importance to the interests of education will not be allowed to slumber.

5.-Leisure Hours at Sea; being a few Miscellaneous Poems. By a MIDSHIPMAN OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY. New York. George C. Morgan, and E. Bliss and E. White. 1825. 12mo. pp. 148.

THIS little book was written by an anonymous midshipman of the United States navy, who, we guess, from the idiomatic use of a certain auxiliary verb, (I soon will tread a distant shore,') was raised somewhere south of the Hudson. In his preface he deprecates the hostility of criticism, on the score of his nautical profession. But this should be no protection; for reviewers are bound by their commission to hunt down all such pirates and smugglers, as may infest the high seas of literature, without regard to the colors they sail under. Our poetic midshipman has no cause for concern, however; his little bark is too lightly laden, and has too little that is contraband in it, to be worthy of condemnation.

The

To part with the sorry metaphor, into which we have been led astray by thinking of our author's profession, we must declare we have never read a more innocent book in the world. poetry is chiefly sentimental; half of it amatory, and the other half elegiac. But the amatory has none of the licentious taint, which pollutes so much of our modern love verses; and the elegiac VOL. XXII.-No. 51.

58

has none of those overcharged gloomy pictures of the present, and still gloomier pictures of the future, which, since the days of that spirit of darkness, Lord Byron, have settled over this region of poetry. The whole is animated by sincere and commendable affections; and if there is no great expenditure of wit, or fancy, lavished upon them, they are at least not wanting in feeling, which is esteemed by many no less essential to good poetry.

We will select one piece as a specimen of the poet's execution. It is not much better than the average of the verses, which pretty generally attain the level of that aurea mediocritas, so often celebrated in prose and verse..

A SONG AT SEA.

Our sails are spread before the wind,
And onward, onward swift we fly;
We've left our country far behind,
No prospect now invites the eye,
Save the blue sea, and cloudless sky.
Oh! when I wav'd my last good bye,
To parents, friends, and Mary dear,
It was not fear that dimm'd mine eye,
This heart ne'er felt a thrill of fear-
It was affection caus'd the tear.
And while upon the heaving main
Our vessel dashes proudly on,
To meet those well lov'd friends again,
With wealth and honors bravely won,
That is the hope I live upon.

But should some cannon pointed true,
Destroy these soothing dreams of glory,
Affection's tears my grave will dew,

And Mary, when she hears my story,
Will shed love's holiest tribute o'er me.

If these little effusions are not enriched with much poetical imagery, there is at least none of that desperate straining after it, which is apt to make the hobbling gait of an author more apparent; none of that poor taste for tawdry ornament, which betrays at once the inclination and the inability to be fine. Touching the expediency of uttering another volume, respecting which our author seems to hesitate, we should advise him, if it be not impertinent, to be governed entirely by the returns of his publisher. Verse making is an innocent, and if not too expensive, doubtless an agreeable method of killing the dull hours of a sailor's life. But should he again favor us, we hope he will talk less of things on shore, and more of those around him. The sea, with its

thousand brilliant perils and accompaniments, is rich in materials for poetry, (at least Lord Byron thought it so, as may be seen in his letter to the Rev. W. L. Bowles); and it is so seldom that we find the Muse aboard a man of war, that we are anxious she should make the most of her situation.

We believe there are not more than three pieces in our naval author's collection, which have any relation to his profession, and one of those we have quoted.

6.-An Epitome of Chimical

osophy, being an extended Syl

bus of the Lectures on that Subject delivered at Dartmouth
College, and intended as a Text Book for Students. By
JAMES FREEMAN DANA. Concord. New Hampshire. Isaac
Hill. 1825. 8vo. pp. 231.

THE author of this Epitome was an early, and has been for many years, an assiduous cultivator and teacher of chemistry. The volume, which he has now published, contains in a condensed form the substance of the Lectures, which he has been accustomed to deliver as Professor in this department at Dartmouth College, and it does ample credit to the industry and acquirements of the author. It will be found a very intelligible and useful manual to those, who are attending courses of chemical lectures, and contains, within a narrow space, a large amount of matter clearly expressed, and generally well arranged.

The work consists of two parts. The first contains the general principles of the science, and the chemistry of inorganic substances; the second, the chemistry of organic substances, or a chemical examination of nature.

The first division of the first part relates to those general laws or powers of matter, upon which chemical phenomena are supposed to be dependent, namely, attraction, cohesion, affinity, electricity, electromagnetism, caloric, and light. Of these the account is brief, but considering the space allowed them, very comprehensive and' perspicuous. Then follows in order an examination of the different elementary substances, to the number of fiftytwo, and of their most interesting compounds. The metals are subdivided into four orders, the metals producing alkalies, the metals producing acids, the metals producing oxides, and the supposed metals producing earths. This is a good and satisfactory arrangement. The second part, relating to organized matter, is very short, but contains as much perhaps as is desirable in a work of this character.