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rival of the train. As the office rushes past with the celerity of the wind, the bag suspended on it is left upon the post, and the bag suspended on the post is taken up and carried off by the office, by this simple, self-acting contrivance, with out even the slightest retardation of the speed of the train.

One of the arrangements in detail adopted in the English system, which, having been productive of great public convenience, seems well worthy of adoption, is the Money Order Office. This is the more worthy of attention, inasmuch as it adds nothing to the expense of the Post Office administration, while it affords at once a source of advantage to the public and perquisites to the postmasters. By means of this official arrangement every postmaster is placed in correspondence with others throughout the kingdom, so that he can draw at sight for cash to a limited amount. Small remittances are made without the transmission either of bill or specie, by the party who desires to remit, depositing at his local post office the sum to be remitted, together with a small commission. The order is given to him, payable at the post office of the place to which the remittance is made, and the whole expense is covered by the postage and commission together. In England, the commission charged for remitting five pounds, (equal to 25 dollars,) was fixed in 1840 at twelve cents, and for all sums under two pounds, or ten dollars, six cents. Thus the smallest class of remittances can be made with perfect security against loss for eight cents, and large sums may be sent for fourteen cents. It has been found that every reduction which has been made in the commission for money sent through the English Post Office, has hitherto caused an increased amount of profit to the Post Office.

We are convinced from close attention to the working of the old Post Office system, that no franking privilege can be devised which will not be the source of extensive and insufferable abuse. It was found so in England and has been found so here. But if high rates of postage be attempted to be maintained, the franking privilege cannot be abolished, while under very low rates it ceases to be a privilege for which any class will contend. In Engiand it was surrendered without a murmur; indeed, any claim to its retention under a penny rate would be eminently absurd. As, however, it might

be inexpedient to establish so low a rate in this country until population thickens and commerce becomes more extended, the more convenient and equitable course may be to allow all officials, who may be supposed to have correspondence on public business, to transmit through the Post Office a reasonable increase of their salary as a commutation for their privilege such increase to be diminished with every future reduction of postage.

It has been our desire, with a sincere view to the public good, to urge on those who possess the power, and on whom the duty of regulating the postage laws devolves, the advantages which appear to us to be derivable from an extensive reform in our Post Office, embracing the best features of the improved English system, and realizing the project of Mr. Hill, even more fully than has been attempted in England. That we have not inconsiderately urged the application of that system without giving due weight to the geographical and statistical differences, which exist between our extensive territory and the crowded country where the system has been successfully tried, will, we trust, be manifest. These circumstances cannot affect_the_broad principle of the system. No element of it can be modified by them except the amount of the uniform rate which it may be expedient to charge. Now it is true that our sparse population and limited amount of correspondence are good reasons in favor of a higher rate. But, on the other hand, no revenue to the state is sought for here, and no more is expected from the finances of the Post Office than the liquidation of its own expenseswhereas, in the United Kingdom, a revenue of many millions of dollars is looked for from it. This is pro tanto a reason in favor of a reduced rate here as compared with England. We have, however, from a desire to keep within a safe limit, and to conciliate the timid and distrustful, assumed a rate two and a half times greater than the English postage.

Whether this vast improvement is destined to confer lustre on the present legislature and administration, we will not venture to affirm, but we hesitate not to pronounce that no force of prejudice, or official or administrative opposition, can long deprive this great commercial country of the advantages of a system which are now shared by a population much more averse to change than that of the United States.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. New York: Wiley & Putnam, 141 Broadway. 1845.

It was well, perhaps, that the incognita of this book should be carefully guarded. It is "full of matter for quarrels as an egg is of meat;" but, with all its heterodoxy, it bears, from the first line to the last, such evidences of profound learning and subtlety as cannot fail to impress with respect those who are most startled by its boldness. It has that in it which will set the Philosophico-Theological world together by the ears, for there are thousands who will think the book as full of errors as any of modern times. This nominis umbra joins issue with grave and revered doctrines which lie at the very core of the existing Christian theory of things. He professes, though, with a fair seeming of impressive logic, to enter the field only as a new interpreter. Without aiming at the vitality of the Mosaic record, he merely waives its authority under the received version as inconsistent with the stubborn facts of Analytical Science; while, his interpretation being accepted, all incongruities are done away with by a recognition of "the doctrine of Creation by Law," in place of the supposed " antiquated and insufficient one of Creation by special exercise," or act. These are to be the great points at issue between the "New," or progressive Philosophy, as it styles itself, and the "Old." It will be a war of tomes and folios, for a vast deal hinges upon the result. But it must be acknowledged, that with whatever reserve he may be approached, if his great postulate "of Creation by Law" be once admitted, his deductions, pregnant and subversive as they are,

growth of laws, which in their steady march out from the eternity of chaos have compelled all elements into the forms they wear now, whether of suns and worlds, or stocks, stones and things that move. Heat and electricity are the great modifying agents, which, together with gravitation, hold within themselves, as a medium, that creative energy which has heretofore been considered an immediate and active attribute of God. Creation, then, subjective to these laws, must be through a prospective eternity progressive-its types forever pushing on and up towards the perfect.

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"The whole train of animated beings, from the simplest and oldest up to the highest and most recent, are, then, to be regarded as a series of advances of the principle of Development, which depend upon external physical circumstances, to which the resulting animals are appropriate." "Is our race, then, but the initial of the grand crowning type? Are there yet to be species superior to us in organization, purer in feeling, more powerful in, device and art, and who shall take a rule over us? There is in this, nothing improbable on other grounds. The present race, rude and impulsive as it is, is perhaps the best adapted to the present state of things in the world; but the external world goes through slow and gradual changes, which may leave it, in time, a much serener field of existence. There may, then, be occasion for a nobler type of humanity, which shall complete the Zoological circle on this planet, and realize some of the dreams of the purest spirits of the present race!"

An induction as novel as the process has been ingenious! But the book has too much matter of parlance in it to be thus cursorily dismissed. We shall endeavor to take it up again.

Room. By EZEKIEL BACON. N. York:
John Allen, 139 Nassau-street. 1843.

claim imperiously to follow. His assumed Egei Somnia, Recreations of a Sick facts are massive, and-if facts they shall be found-resistless wedges, which once insinuated rive the received System to the core. It will not do to shirk the question. If he is not met fairly, and refuted fully upon this point, his audacious and remarkable speculations will hardly fail to fasten themselves strongly upon the convictions of men. He makes creation a progressive act, the

THE poems contained in this little volume seem to be the productions of a man of sensibility and sense, but of less imagination. It would not appear, indeed, that he aimed at displaying the latter faculty, or to startle the world with studied flights

of the Muse. He has rather pleased declining days, and the solitude of chamber hours, with the expression in verse of thoughts that belong to one who has not suffered himself to be hardened by a long professional life. Most of the pieces are written in Cowper's favorite measure, taken from one of the old ballad forms, and are marked with something of the simplicity of that delightful poet. "Departing joys," "The Early Lilac," "The Dying Lilac," and "Man's, Common Lot, "are pleasant moral reflections, quiet and flowing. The blank verse is of less merit.

A Chaunt of Life, and other Poems, with Sketches and Essays. By the REV. RALPH HOYT. In Six Parts. Part I. New York: Piercy & Reed, Printers. 1844.

THE author of this little book has doubtless felt that he was a poet-as undoubtedly, we think, the severest critic would agree with him. But we suspect the author, like greater poets before him, does not altogether know wherein his best vein lies. The amount published at present consists-a small instalment, by way of experiment upon the public taste--of six pieces. The first is a short canto of the "Chaunt of Life"-to be continued in each number, and giving name to the one in hand. On this, we make no question, the author would rest his claims to a share of Apollo's countenance. Bu the real poet does not always know when the god smiles most propitiously-looking gloriously out, as it were, from many-colored clouds--but is even apt, at times, to take an ungracious scowl for a glimpse of favor. The "Chaunt of Life" has considerable merit, an unexceptionable melody and flow, and something of Young's profoundly solemn and melancholy strain; and when the whole poem appears, we shall be willing to make some extracts, to show that it has many excellences. But the two striking pieces of the present little collection, and far more certain evidences of the true poetic element, are, "Snow," and "The World for Sale." The former of these is a picture of a winter morning in the country, when a sudden and heavy fall of snow, in the night, has covered up everything familiar, and the

children, tumbling out of bed, clap their hands with delight to see the world so strangely and beautifully transformed.

If any Hyperborean, who has roved away (sad wanderers we are apt to be-" circumvagi patria carentes"), and has lived so long towards "the Line," among constant spring odors, as to have forgotten the smell of frost, wishes to recall how his father's farm looked-house, barn, sheds, hencoop and all, with fields and rail-fences on every side, up to the leafless great woods, magically covered at once with a dazzling sheet of utterly unspotted white, while the winds have sunk, and the low sun, risen, gleams level through the keen atmosphere over a new world-every crystal angle on every bush, stump, and house-ridge, and the long lines of distant forest-tops, "glinting" back a sunbeam of its own--he has here a part of the clear memory, felicitously given, and the rest he can fill out for himself. Those, indeed-dwellers of "Orinoco and the Isles"-who have looked always upon the primeval and dark verdure of the tropics, would hardly get from the sketch an idea of that subdued and sombre power that belongs to our wide Northern scenery at this season; but of the appearances of things around a New England farm-house, when Ursa Major (whom we take to be a white bear) has donned his winter covering, they can form to themselves a very exact picture. We need, in fact, some such remembrancer for ourselves this season. We had really forgotten the looks of a snow-storm. No Northern Soracte "stands white," unless it be hoar "Mohegan," and some wild ranges towards the forests of Fundy-and our heavy woods, battling often enough with wind and rain, have had no burden to "labor" under.

Here come in the triumphs of philosophy. Mons. Arago is said to have prophesied that Europe would undergo one of the severest winters she has ever known, while the Western Hemisphere would enjoy one proportionably mild. The event proves your philosopher "even with the Fates." While Winter seems to have forgotten our Continent from Cape Cod to Oregon, the vallies of Italy are filled with snowwolves, driven down from the mountains by

the keen cold, prowl around the cities of France, and sentinels are frozen to death in the streets of Madrid.

But we are wandering. The "Winter Morn" would have been much improved by some broader and more general outlines, presenting the external landscape. A country scene should always have a back-ground. As it is, however, for simplicity and distinct picturing it is almost worthy of Burns, though of quite a different style. We give but a part, leaving out that well remembered scene in the country-the Family Prayers and the quiet Breakfast that follows, both of which are described with much simple beauty.

SNOW.

The blessed morn is come again;
The early gray

Taps at the slumberer's window-pane,

And seems to say

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To delve his threshing John must hie; His sturdy shoe

Can all the subtle damp defy:

How wades he through:
While dainty milkmaids, slow and shy,
His track pursue.

Each to the hour's allotted care:
To shell the corn;

The broken harness to repair;

The sleigh t'adorn:

'Break, break from the enchanter's chain, So cheerful-tranquil-snowy—fair,

Away,-away!"

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The WINTER MORN.

"The Bible," is written in a short ambling measure, entirely unsuited to the solemnity and weight of the subject; and the idea presented by "The Leap in the Dark," is not felicitously set forth. But another small piece, entitled "The World for Sale," is altogether original and striking, though we can hardly quote enough to present it fairly. It was published, however, in the city papers.

WORLD FOR SALE.

THE WORLD FOR SALE!-Hang out the sign;

Call every traveller here to me;
Who'll buy this brave estate of mine,
And set me from earth's bondage free :-
"Tis going!-Yes, I mean to fling

The bauble from my soul away;
I'll sell it, whatsoe'er it bring;-
The World at Auction here to-day!

It is a glorious thing to see,

Ah, it has cheated me so sore! It is not what it seems to be:

For sale! It shall be mine no more.
Come, turn it o'er and view it well;-
I would not have you purchase dear;
'Tis going-going!-I must sell!

Who bids? Who'll buy this Splendid
Tear!

We believe a small volume filled with pieces, all of them equal to those extracted, would excite some attention.

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The writer of these pleasant pages possesses a poetic mind, and, what with this is altogether requisite for the landscape painter, a fine eye for the beauties of nature. But in regard to writing, he has not yet attained to a just discrimination of the true graces of language, or of knowing what thoughts always will strike his readers favorably. It is not every idea which may affect a man's own heart, or tickle his fancy, that is calculated equally to please his readers. It is just here that Mr. Lanman fails. He exhibits far more talent and native elegance of thought and feeling, than

cultivated discernment to choose from what he has written. To know what is not to be said is the most difficult attainment of taste, and the chief part of the elaboration of style consists in rejecting. Our landscape letter-writer and scientific trout-catcher, (for he appears to be a most dangerous companion for the silver-sided dwellers of the brooks), uses an abundance of "Ohs," "Ahs," and various exclamations. Now there is nothing that requires more nicety of perception, or skill in the use of language,

than to feel when an exclamation is necessary or felicitous, and to shape expressions so as most happily to introduce it; and we venture to say, that, of all the multitude used in English writing, not more than one out of twenty is admissible by the occasion, or gracefully employed. In the same manner Mr. Lanman makes use of many questions, expecting no body to answer them-which is, in fact, but another form of exclamation. It is, however, in these and still more in numerous distinct passages that he betrays his great want-that of perfect command over his subject-for, without this, a writer can certainly never have command over forms of expression. The great merit of the book lies in the constant evidence it gives of great sensibility, on the part of the writer, to all the graces and the grandeur of nature, and the delights of a rural life-its great defect, in his suffering depth of feeling to overcome force of thought. With all this, however, the style is, for the most part, simple,

and many passages might be selected, felicitous and free from fault.

"The brotherhood of trees clustered around me, laden with leaves just bursting into full maturity, and possessing that delicate and peculiar green, which lasts but a single day and never returns. A fitful breeze swept through them, so that ever and anon I fancied a gushing fountain to be near, or that a company of ladies fair were come to visit me, and that I heard the rustle of their silken kirtles." And of flowers, he says, They ought to have no names, any more than a cloud or a foam-bell on the river."

The following is his notice of one of the ripest and most gifted scholars in the Union, Mr. Marsh of Burlington, Vermont.

"His knowledge of the Fine Arts is probably more extensive than that of any other man in this country, and his critical taste is equal to his knowledge; but that department peculiarly his hobby, is Engraving. He has a perfect passion for line engravings; and it is unquestionably true, that his collection is the most valuable and extensive in the Union. He is as familiar with the lives and peculiar styles of the Painters and Engravers of antiquity, as with his household affairs; and when he talks to you on his favorite theme, it is not to display his learning, but to make you realize the exaulted attributes and mission of universal Art.

things of the kind) a pamphlet entitled, "He has published (among his numerous "The Goths in New-England," which is a fine specimen of chaste writing and beautiful thought; also, another on the " History of the Mechanic Arts," which contains a great deal of rare and important information. He has also written an Icelandic Grammar," of 150 pages, which created quite a sensation among the learned of Europe a few years ago. As to his scholarship,it can be said of him, that he is a master in some twelve of the principal modern and ancient languages.

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"His Library, is undoubtedly the most unique in this country. The building itself, which stands near his dwelling, is of brick, and arranged throughout with great taste. You enter it, and find yourself in a perfect wilderness of gorgeous books, and portfolios of engravings. Of books, Mr. Marsh owns some five thousand volumes. His collection of Scandinavian

Literature is supposed to be the most complete that can be found out of the Northern Kingdoms."

If Mr. Lanman would cultivate his style with care and discernment, we doubt not that he might become an exquisite and effective writer.

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