of an unparalleled popularity, was the prevailing and absorbing sentiment of his soul-his responsibility to his God.

Of course the life of such a man cannot be otherwise than deeply interesting.

son had something to write about-ample materials; and it is to his credit that he has not followed the track of most of the biographers of the present age who aim, apparently, to make as big a book as possible, and palm upon their unhappy readers page after page of matters irrelevant and unimportant. In this respect our author deserves well of the public. He has condensed a narrative extending over a period of half a century into the moderate compass of little more than four hundred duodecimo pages, and our enterprising publishers, Messrs. Carlton & Phillips, have lost no time in giving us the volume in a style of befitting elegance.

Emma; or the three Misfortunes of a Belle.— Harper & Brothers.-Jacob Abbott, well known as a writer of story-books for children, has advanced to a higher, if not more useful walk of literature, and with considerable success. Emma is really a nice little novel. She has her three misfortunes; but in the end is married to a gentleman of considerable fortune, and a very agreeable man in his person and manners.' All the other prominent young ladies are also happily married in the course of the story, and good advice is given to misses who may be matrimonially inclined. Bashful young gentlemen, too, may learn how to go through the dread ordeal of what is called "popping the question," without fear of a rebuff. Mr. Vernon, a very shrewd Yankee lawyer, writes a letter to his inamorata, which very adroitly puts the responsibility upon her. Instead of offering himself directly, he says in effect

My dear, if you will have me I will make you an offer." Here is his letter. It is certainly a model in its way :

"MY DEAR MISS CAROLINE, -The inclosed note which I have written for you is of a highly confidential character. If you are engaged to be married, or if for any other reason you prefer not to receive a confidential communication from me, please return it to me unopened, either with or without a reply to this from yourself. Whether you receive the note, or decline to receive it, I shall be sure you act from some good and substantial reason, and my friendship for you will continue as strong as it has ever been. "Very truly yours, EDWARD VERNON."

A wag

This is an age of biographies. Memoirs of the dead and of the living swarm around us and keep up an incessant buzzing. suggests the propriety of editorial announcements as to who is not engaged on an autobiography; or whose memoirs are not in the course of preparation; and there is a precedent for this negative kind of information. We read under the telegraphic head of a daily paper"The Atlantic has not arrived," as we did from week to week some time ago; but the joke is somewhat stale now, "Sebastopol not yet taken." But to the subject of memoirs. We have had Barnum, done by himself, and Greeley magnified by a friend. We have now James Gordon Bennett and his Times, by a Journalist, from the press of Stringer & Townsend. Until enlightened by this closely-printed duodecimo, of nearly five hundred pages, we had not the most re

"Conscious of virtue, integrity, and the purest principles, I can easily smile at the assassins and defy their daggers. My life has been one invariable series of efforts, useful to the world and honorable to myselfefforts to create an honorable reputation during life, and to leave something after my death for which posterity may honor my memory."

All this, and a great deal more, the biographer proves, apparently to his own satisfaction. True, his hero has been charged with almost every conceivable vice-falsehood, slander, smuttiness, levying black-mail; has been fined by the courts, and horsewhipped in the streets; but he smiles as he wraps himself in his self-complacent mantle, and the writer of his memoir grins with him as he declares that "All men have rejoiced when he (Bennett) has taken sides with them. No man, society, sect, enterprise or institution exists, that is not made proud when met by his (Bennett's) favor, or that does not feel reproved and rebuked by his criticism." If not applicable to the efforts of the biographer, then, certainly, to the treatment his victim has thus far received from an ungrateful public, we suggest as a motto for the next edition, Falstaff's ejaculation—" How this world is given to lying!"

Higgins & Perkinpine, of Philadelphia, have sent us A Voice from the Pious Dead of the Medical Profession. It consists of brief, and, for the most part, well-written memoirs, of eight eminent physicians and surgeons, who exemplified the beauty of the Christian religion in their lives, and in their departing hours illustrated its sustaining power. The work is from the pen of a physician, Dr. Henry J. Brown, who favors us also with a preliminary dissertation on "The Cross as the Key to all Knowledge." We commend the volume to the general reader, while, in the language of the preface, "To medical men of every class these memoirs come with singular force, involving, as they do, the modes of thought, the associations, and the difficulties common to the medical profession. Their testimony is as the united voice of brethren of the same toils, proclaiming a heavenly rest to the weary pilgrim. It comes, too, unembarrassed with any considerations of interest, or mere purpose of sect or calling."

The Missing Bride; or, Miriam the Avenger, (Peterson, Philadelphia,) is a tale by Mrs. Southworth, said to be founded on fact. We have not read it, having been able to get no further than the description of the heroine, which, believing it to be a fair sample of the work,

we copy:

"Edith's nature and the style of her beauty was very refined. Her form was of medium size and perfect symmetry. Her beautiful head set upon her falling shoulders. Her complexion was of the purest semitransparent fairness, seen in the white sea-shell. Her forehead was shaded by fine, silky, black ringlets, so light as to be lifted by every breeze, and threw wavering soft shadows upon her pearly cheeks. Her eyes were long-shaped, dark, vailed, and droopingher countenance the most dreamy and spiritual you ever saw. Her beautiful bust was daintily carved and her graceful limbs delicately rounded and tapering."

THE REV. DR. WHEDON, of the New-York East Conference, one of our regular contributors, is engaged, as we are happy to learn, in the preparation of a Commentary on the New Testament, designed to be practical in its character, and adapted to family reading and the use of Bible classes. We anticipate a work of great merit.

The Rev. Andrew Manship, a Methodist minister of the Philadelphia Conference, has, in course of preparation for the press, a volume, entitled "Thirteen Years' Experience in the Itinerancy."

Moredun, a Tale of the Twelve Hundred and Ten," said to have been written by Sir Walter Scott, has been republished in this country. It is not even a successful imitation of Scott's style: at least so say the critics who have examined it; and one of them, a writer in the Athenæum, declares that it could not possibly have been written until some years after Scott died. Here is the proof. Chapter iv of vol. i begins: "In one of the narrow streets which wound up tortuously from the Sandhill to the Castle of Newcastle-upon-Tyne-some traces of which still resist the improving hands of time, money, and Granger—a man, &c." This passage offers us a date. The story must have been written after Mr. Granger had commenced rebuilding Newcastle, and probably was written after he had finished his task. Now, Scott died in 1832. Mr. Granger made the purchase which ultimately led to the vast alterations in Newcastle in August, 1884. It is therefore absolutely impossible that "Moredun" could have been written until some years after the death of Scott.

Junius, Letters of.-The following paragraph appeared in the Bengal Hurkaru, published in Calcutta on February 19th last :

"The Englishman [a military newspaper published in Calcutta] states that there is a gentleman in Calcutta, who possesses an original document, the publication of which would forever set at rest the vexata quæstio as to the authorship of the Letters of Junius.' The document, which we have seen, is what our cotemporary describes it to be, and bears three signa

tures that of Chatham' on the right-hand side of the paper; and on the left, those of Dr. Milmot, and J. Dunning, afterward Lord Ashburton. The paper, the ink, and the writing, all induce us to believe that the document is genuine; and we understand that the gentleman, in whose possession it is, has other documentary evidence corroborative of this, which still farther tends to clear up the riddle which so many have attempted to read with small success."

Autograph Letters.-At a recent public sale in London, a short original letter, written by John Wesley, brought £3 38.; a letter of Joseph Addison, £2 88.; a letter of Robert Burns, £4 158.; one in the hand-writing of John Calvin, £9 98.; and two of Oliver Goldsmith, £15 128. We know not how it may be in England, but the forgery of pretended autographs has been carried to an almost incredible extent in Germany; and letters from Weimar state that the literary committee engaged in investigating the forgery and sale of autographs attributed to Goethe

and Schiller have received from various parts of Germany twelve thousand manuscripts, the owners of which distrust their genuineness. A young man, one of the attendants of the Grand Ducal Library, and formerly a shoemaker, has been arrested, and confesses that for two years he has devoted himself most assiduously to meet the public demand for autographs of the Arrests of venders poets at a reasonable rate. are going on in the Grand Duchy of Weimar, in Hanover, and in Prussia.

M. Cortambert, First Secretary of the Société de Géographie, has published a map of the celebrities of France, showing the distribution of talent over the country by indicating the birthplaces of the great men. It appears, from this map, that the district of La Manche has produced the greatest number of poets, historians, philosophers, and artists;-that the part of the country near the North Sea is the cradle of most of the great warriors;-that orators, naturalists, physicians, and inventors, were mostly born in the regions of the Mediterranean;-and that the number of politicians and lawyers is fairly balanced between the Mediterranean and La Manche.

The Town Library of Trieste is said to possess seven hundred and seventy-two different editions of Petrarch's Poems, and one hundred and twenty-three of the works of Pope Pius the Second, (Eneas Sylvius Piccolomini, Bishop of Trieste.) The Library contains at present twenty-four thousand volumes, mostly works on commerce, navigation, geography, &c. Last year twenty-two very rare editions were added to the collection of the works of Petrarch and Eneas Sylvius.

A Biblical and Theological Dictionary, on an enlarged plan, is in course of compilation, by Professor Strong, of Flushing, Long Island, assisted by Dr. M'Clintock.

The Dramas of Shakspeare.-To the already almost innumerable editions of the great poet, another is in course of preparation by Mr. Halliwell, of London. It is to be published in folio, and to be more perfect, and accompanied by more notes and illustrations than any of its predecessors. The editor has issued a circular, soliciting the communication of early editions of the plays of the poet. He offers to pay for them liberally, and will give a hundred pounds sterling for a perfect copy of the first edition of Titus Andronicus, and a proportionate sum for other rarities.

The famous controversialist, Dr. David Strauss, of Ludwigsburg, (author of 'The Life of Jesus',) has retired, we are told, from theological polemics, and has devoted himself to literary pursuits of a more peaceable nature. He is making

minute and valuable researches as to the lives of the older poets and artists of his Suabian fatherland; and after having published some years since a very interesting biography of Schubart, the patriotic prisoner of the Hohen

Asperg, he is now preparing a work on the old Wurtemberg poet, Frischlin, who, after having been incarcerated for his various vehement writings in the Castle of Hohen-Urach, tried to escape, but in scaling one of the high walls broke his skull, and died in the attempt. Revolutionary characters, it appears, are still most attractive to the learned doctor, even after having retired himself from the scene of agitation. Monographies of this kind, however, cannot fail to be of the greatest use to the history of German literature in general.

Professor Agassiz announces the publication of a truly great and noble contribution to science. It is to be embraced in ten quarto volumes, of about three hundred pages each, and each illustrated by some twenty plates. It will contain the results of the studies of his life, and especially of his embryological investigations, embracing about sixty monographs from all classes of animals, especially those characteristic of this continent; also descriptions of a great number of new species and genera, accompanied with accurate figures and anatomical details. If the subscription shall

warrant the undertaking, a volume will be published yearly in the best style of typography and lithography, each volume being complete in itself. Five hundred subscriptions (at $12 each vol., payable on delivery) will be necessary to ensure the cost of the enterprise.

Rev. William Hunter.-This gentleman, formerly editor of the Pittsburgh Christian Advocate, has been elected to the Kramar Professorship of Hebrew and Biblical Literature in Allegheny College. Mr. Hunter is reputed to be a very thorough Hebrew scholar.

The first number of a New Quarterly, entitled The National Review, has made its appearance in London. Its publishers make large promises. The following are the contents of the initial number:-1. The Administrative Problem; 2. William Cowper; 3. The Planets; 4. Ewald's Life of Christ; 5. Novels and Poems by the Rev. C. Kingsley; 6. Romanism, Protestantism, and Anglicanism; 7. Goethe and Werther; 8. International Duties and the Present Crisis; 9. Summary of Theology and Philosophy; 10. Books of the quarter.

Sculpture in the United States. At the commencement of the American Revolution there stood in the Bowling Green, New-York, a statue of George the Third; and, during the retreat of the Americans before the advancing British army, the indignant populace decapitated the statue and demolished the pedestal with every mark of resentment. From that day to a period little short of half a century nothing in the nature of a statue was seen in the Union, if we except that of Washington (by Houdön) in the capital of Virginia. This glorious statue, so fully representing the majestic dignity of the original, may be as truly termed the father of American sculpture as the subject of it is the "Father of his Country." It struck the first blow at that prejudice in the American mind which blinded it to the usefulness and noble mission of an art which gives to virtue a pedestal, and to patriotism a permanent form and place before the eyes of the millions whom they have blessed with freedom and happiness. The spacious halls of the capitol at Washington were almost destitute of sculpture till within a very few years. In the Hall of Representatives were a colossal plaster figure of Liberty, and a fine marble one of History, adorning the clock; in the Rotunda, a series of panels, containing miserable basso-relievo scenes from American history; and in the tympanum, over the east front of the capitol, a very low relief allegoric group. All these were by Italian hands. In 1847 the Greek Slave was placed on exhibition in NewYork. A painter-friend of the sculptor went over from Italy and undertook the enterprise entirely at his own risk and expense; and notwithstanding the strong repugnance that existed in many minds to the public exhibition

of a naked statue, it was so judiciously conducted as in some measure to disarm serious opposition. Enthusiastic and reiterated appeals were made on behalf of the sculptor, cramped for the means of pursuing his studies in a foreign land, and his right to a generous reception of his first statue among his countrymen. The national pride and sympathy were thus aroused to such a pitch as to postpone to some future day the duty of impartial criticism upon the merits of the work itself. Under such favorable auspices the statue was taken through the States, everywhere received by the masses as a work of almost miraculous power, and giving to thousands for the first time the opportunity and pleasure of looking upon a statue in marble. The result to the artist was celebrity and money, and numerous valuable commissions from states and individuals. placing him at once in an easy, if not independent position. Since the year 1846, Mr. Powers has sent from his workshop no less than five Greek Slaves, three Fisher-Boys, one Eve, one Calhoun, one Washington, all fullsized statues; forty busts of Proserpine, several of Diana, Psyche, Washington, Fisher-Boy, and Slave, and a large number of portrait busts, still having on hand, in various stages of progress, a great many works of a similar kind. It may be truly divined that posterity will not have to go a-begging for a sight of his works. Many artists, for a much less recompense, would cheerfully embrace an exile to such a country as Italy; few, however, there will be who will find the two together. The increasing patronage of sculpture in the United States is not now limited to this one of its professors; others are beginning to receive that to which they

have shown themselves entitled. Crawford, at Rome, is executing for the state of Virginia a magnificent monument to Washington and other citizens of revolutionary renown. Washington is represented upon a spirited steedbeneath and surrounding the pedestal stand his civil and military associates in that day of trial. The figures are all to be of bronze. When completed, it will be one of the most striking monuments of modern times in general effect and artistic power. The sculptor has received during the past year a highly complimentary and lucrative commission from his government to fill one of the pediments of the enlargement of the capitol. It will give scope to his abilities in the highest departments of his art invention, composition, action, and expression, and the lucid rendering of his story. His long and severe studies in Rome, and his past productions are the surest guarantees of By this great work his name may be favorably known as long as the capitol stands. Copying Paper, or Manifold Writer.-Mix well together until it forms a uniform paste, lampblack and lard; rub this mixture over a good absorbent paper, until it is thoroughly impregnated; then wipe of the superfluity with a soft rag.

success.

When writing, place this copying paper under the sheet to be written upon, and over another sheet whereon the copy is desired; as the writing is performed, a faithful copy will be impressed upon the bottom paper.

The Monument to Pius IX, and the Immaculate Conception. The corner-stone of the monument which is to commemorate Pius IX. and his decision of the Immaculate Conception, "is now a fixed fact." Cardinal Fransoni, prefect of the

Sacred Congregation, conducted the ceremonies in presence of the professors and pupils of the several colleges, and the resident dignitaries of the Church; Archbishop Cullen of Dublin, the Archbishops of Australia, Armenia, Canada, &c., who proceeded processionally to the site in the Piazza di Spagna, chanting the hymn Ave Maria Stello. A parchment memoir of the dogmatic decision, and the coins of the Holy See, are among the memorials of the day confided to the leaden socket in marble. The pope did not participate, of course, in these solemnities, plausive of his pontificate. The colossal obelisk excavated by Pius VI. in 1777, from the ruins of a Benedictine institution, is to be appropriated on this occasion. It will be erected upon a broad octagon pedestal twenty-four feet in height, on which are to stand the marble statues of the prophets who have spoken in a special manner of the Virgin, that is to say, of Moses, Isaiah, David, and Ezekiel, and the several sides of which are to be ornamented with symbolic basso-relievos: the arms of Pius IX. and his memorable decree being conspicuously displayed in bronze. The column itself is four feet in diameter and twenty-six in height, without including the capital, a beautiful composition, designed for the occasion, comprising the initials of the Virgin interwoven with the lily as the sign of purity, and the olive as the symbol of peace. On this will rest a platform for four figures of the Evangelists supporting a globe, as the footstool of a bronze Virgin, thirteen feet in height, with a coronal of stars, in

the act of thanking Heaven for the new glory added to her name by the pontifical decree, and imploring peace on earth. The whole height of the monument will exceed seventy feet.

Statue of Beethoven.-This splendid work of art, which Mr. Charles C. Perkins, a devoted admirer of the great composer, has caused to be cast at the Royal Foundery of Munich from a sculptors, has recently arrived in Boston, and model furnished by one of our most eminent is now on exhibition in the sculpture gallery of the Athenæum, where it constantly attracts delighted crowds. Mr. Perkins, with elegant munificence, has destined this splendid work to occupy a niche in the Boston Music Hall, and Boston may now claim to possess the only statue of Beethoven in existence, except that erected in Bonn, and probably the best ideal representation of him ever attempted. The departure of the statue from Munich for Amer

ica was celebrated by a grand musical festival, at which the king and the royal family participated.

Colonel Rawlinson has arrived in London from Bagdad, having brought to a close the excavations in Assyria and Babylonia, which he has been superintending for the last three years on behalf of the Trustees of the British Museum. The results of these excavations have already in part reached the Museum, but the most valuable portion of them are still in transit.

Increasing the Size of Flowers. - A horticulturist of the suburbs of Versailles, in studying the physiology of the vegetable kingdom, conceived the idea that the smallness of certain

plants-the violet, for example-was owing to

an atmospheric pressure too great for their delimind, the florist conceived the notion of putting cate organs. Having fixed this idea in his his idea into practice. Providing himself with a small balloon, rendered sufficiently tight to prevent the escape of any gas, he lanched it into the air, having attached to it a silken cord twelve hundred meters long. Instead of a car, the balloon sustained a flower-pot of Parma violets. This experiment has been going on about two months with the most wonderful results, in the shape of violets as large as Bengal roses. It is expected that the above experiment may be turned to some account.

Mr. Donn Platt, the Secretary of the American Legation at Paris, has written a letter to his friends in Cincinnati, Ohio, urging them to raise $2,000 by subscription, for the purchase of an original portrait of General Washington, which is now offered for sale in Paris, and which he thinks would adorn the new State House in Ohio. He says:—

"It was painted by the celebrated Wert Muller, in 1795, at Philadelphia, who went to the United States for that express purpose; and has not only the merit of being a magnificent painting, but the only portrait of him taken at that period, at a time before age had left its marks-indeed, in the prime and vigor of his life. The picture was at one time taken to Washington, when the price was held at $10,000, while now it can be had for $2,000. I should think s subscription, fixed at $1,00 each subscriber, would be soon taken up, and this valuable painting secured to our state. The government of Russia has, through its minister at Brussels, made an offer; but I have got the owners to hold on until I can hear from the patriotism of my native state."