rays, it far surpassed in brilliancy and beauty any thing we had imagined yesterday. Not only were the colors shaded and blended in a manner the most surprising, but in some places perfect pictures were sketched upon the rock, (Nature's own paintings,) with a correctness and accuracy of outline, a combination and a brilliancy of color, which the eye was never weary of beholding, and to which the mind could never so accustom itself as to look upon them without something of awe and wonder mingling with our admiration.

"On one immense square block a landscape was depicted with so much distinctness, that no one could glance for a moment upon it without recognizing the various objects; a large wide-branching tree in front, a wall, as of a park or garden, behind it; beyond this, seen over the wall, was a water view, dim, and, as it were faded, but still in perfect perspective. Now I think I hear you say, 'Ah! Doctor, your fancy is running wild! or else you are trespassing too far upon the traveler's licensed privileges. A tree! a wall! a water view! and all sketched on the face of a rock by the hand of Nature? this will scarce do.' So much the worse for you, my dear friend, if your incredulity leads you to disbelieve in the existence of one of the greatest wonders in the world; I can only assure you that so it is, and advise all doubters to go and satisfy themselves; in the mean while, by way of circumstantial evidence, let me tell you, that as our canoe approached this same wonderful landscape rock, I exclaimed, 'Oh Major, look at that tree.' I did not point, nor in any way direct his attention to the object I meant; and please to remember, that the top of the rock was all along fringed by tall trees; yet did the Major instantly point out, with an expression of admiration, the tree, painted as I have described it on the face of the rock. Does not that shake your incredulity? Was the Major too carried away by enthusiasm ? Did fancy mislead him? Not at all; the thing has a substantive existence as clearly as Niagara Falls; if you doubt, go and see for yourself, then will you confess that the half, nay, that the tithe part, has not been told you."

In closing this imperfect notice, we seize occasion to congratulate the public upon a rare intellectual treat, which we learn incidentally from these volumes is in course of preparation for the press - we mean the 'Moral Tales of the Chippewas,' by HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT, a writer, to whose pleasing style and correct sentiment our readers are not strangers; who has been, as our author justly observes, for many years a diligent collector of facts, not a spinner out of theories, and from whose vast and daily increasing stores much may reasonably be expected.

CORINNE, OR ITALY: BY MADAME DE STAEL - HOLSTEIN. In two volumes. 12mo Philadelphia: E. L. CAREY AND A. HART.

'CORINNE' is a work which has obtained extensive celebrity on the continent, though its reputation is now rather on the wane. The book was never an especial favorite with us, owing to its inflated style, and the improbability of its incidents, defects which of course are not remedied by an English translation. Indeed we think that the attempt to render into English a production like 'Corinne' must of necessity prove more or less a failure, since the peculiar manners and indescribable beauties of language, which are mostly idiomatic, and which form the great attraction of the work, are utterly lost in the process, and we have nothing left but a dry and fleshless skeleton - a veritable anatomy. This a reprint from the Library of Standard Novels, and, as the American editor informs us in his preface, is 'much improved with numerous corrections.' What these may be, we know not; but it may be worth while to state, that upon even a cursory glance through the volumes, we detected upward of forty errors, nearly all of them in the spelling of proper names. We mention this, because, from the statement in the preface, we were led to expect that the edition was immaculate, and as a hint to the publishers withal, to insist upon a more careful reading of the proofs of American re-prints, since a work of standard worth may be so disfigured by mere typographical errors, as to be unfit for binding and placing in a libra

ry, however neat the impression, or fine the paper. It was through gross negligence in this respect, that an otherwise unexceptionable edition of D'Israeli's' Curiosities of Literature' was rendered almost totally worthless.

'THE PARENT'S ASSISTANT.' 'ROSAMOND, WITH OTHER STORIES:' 'EDGEWORTH ON PRACTICAL EDUCATION.' New-York: HARPER AND BROTHERS.

We have placed these three volumes together, not for the purpose of writing a long dissertation upon their respective merits-for these are well established - but simply to call public attention to the fact of their publication in a form at once excellent and cheap. The opening story in the first named work is but a fair sample of the moral good to be derived from the lighter productions of the voluminous and gifted writer; and when we say that 'Lazy Lawrence' is the tale to which we allude, there are few of our readers but will be able to appreciate the high laud which this remark conveys. Of her work on education, we need do no more than to show the range of topic embraced, by quoting the contents, viz: toys; tasks; on attention; servants; acquaintance; on temper; on obedience; on truth; on rewards and punishments; on sympathy and sensibility; on vanity, pride, and ambition; books; on grammar and classical literature; on geography and chronology; on arithmetic; geometry; on mechanics; chemistry; on public and private education; on female accomplishments, etc.; memory and invention; taste and imagination; wit and judgment; prudence and economy; summary; and notes containing conversations and anecdotes of children.

MEMOIRS OF COUNT GRAMMONT. BY ANTHONY HAMILTON: pp. 390. Philadelphia: E. L. CAREY AND A. HART.

WE have heretofore had occasion, in noticing a certain licentious 'Life of Talleyrand,' to animadvert upon the publication, by booksellers of honorable repute, of such works as the one whose title stands at the head of this notice. The Memoirs of Count Grammont' contain little else save a continuous detail of reckless love-passages in high places. A seductive diction is made to dignify unprincipled intrigues, and to embellish the amorous plots, counter-plots, and contests of the unlicensed great. What pleasure can be derived, or what good result to the American reader, from the perusal of such a book, passes our discernment to determine. No gentletlemen would think of reading it to a family circle-to a sister, or a lover. He would need that others should blush for him, whose cheek should not flush while reading aloud many of the scenes here recorded. Beautiful typography and paper seem to us to be worse than thrown away in the production of such a work.

THE NAPOLEAD. In twelve Books.

By THOMAS H. GENIN, ESQ. In one volume pp. 342. St. Clairsville, Ohio: HORTON J. HOWARD.

SEVENTEEN years have elapsed since the above poem was written; and we marvel at the temerity of the writer in venturing before the public at this late day, with an effort so fearfully voluminous, and one which in its best estate could only have deri

ved temporary importance from the prominence of its great theme. The epic story of the poem begins with Napoleon's Russian campaign, and terminates with his departure for Elba. Many battles are described, and Buonaparte is the centre and object of all operations. The measure is what is termed blank verse in this instance a most appropriate designation — for in truth we can say little for the poetry. He who essays to read continuously even one of the twelve books, will soon find, to use the author's language, that he has 'penetrated the sphere where Somnus reigns.' It is no additional recommendation of the work to say, that it is miserably printed with worn-out types, and upon paper dingily-white, and unequivocally coarse. It should be added in justice, however, that there is only about half a page of errata for the entire volume!

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF CAPTAIN MARRYAT. In two volumes, and two volumes in one. pp. 1040. Philadelphia: E. L. CAREY AND A. HART.

THE publishers of this edition of Captain MARRYAT's writings deserve general favor for the excellent manner in which they have presented them to public acceptance. The volumes (or volume, as may best suit the taste of the purchaser,) are neatly printed upon fine white paper, and a clear type, and contain Peter Simple, Jacob Faithful, The Naval Officer, Japhet in Search of his Father, The King's Own, Newton Forster, The Pacha of Many Tales, and Naval and Military Tales and Sketches. What a fund of intellectual enjoyment is indicated in this catalogue! and how are we privileged, in a land of cheap books, in having the whole within the means of almost every man, however humble his condition! A few works like the present, and similarly executed, will go far to atone for sundry volumes, indifferent, not to say execrable in externals, which the publishers have unwisely permitted to go forth, to sully their fair fame, and almost the hands of fair readers.

THE PROFESSIONAL YEARS OF JOHN HENRY HOBART, D. D. Being a Sequel to the 'Early Years. By JOHN MCVICKAR, D. D. In one volume, pp. 500. New-York: Protestant Episcopal Press.

THIS, as may naturally be inferred, is an interesting volume, giving a sketch of the professional career of Bishop HOBART, from the date of his first ordination as pastor of two country churches at Oxford, and Perkiomen, near Philadelphia, till the period of his departure for England, to recruit a constitution broken down by the manifold and harassing labors of his episcopate. No one was better qualified than his biographer for writing the life of one with whom he had been in constant habits of intimacy, and the task has been, as we have before remarked, well performed. When the Closing Years' of this eminent and good man shall be given to the public, it may be hoped that the author will embody the present work with that and the 'Early Years,' and give us in one condensed volume the life of him who was one of the firmest supports and brilliant ornaments of the Episcopal Church.

EDITORS' TABLE.

SCENERY OF THE HUDSON. Such of our readers as have ever made the voyage of the North River, will recognize in the engraving which embellishes our present number a faithful representation of the Landing at Fort Lee, and the picturesque scene which it embraces. Here commence the Palisades, that precipitous and frowning wall against whose base the waves of the noble Hudson dash, in 'a day of wind and storm,' but whose lengthened shadow sleeps upon the waters in surpassing beauty, in the calm eventide of summer. We shall not weary the reader, however, by a description of that which has been so often and so well presented before-but ask leave to introduce instead the annexed appropriate stanzas from the pen of a favorite contributor. Of the picture itself, as a work of art, it is we think unnecessary here to speak; the more, because the unrivalled skill of SMILLIE in this department was dwelt upon but recently at some length, in a notice in these pages of the excellent publication of MR. DISTURthe 'Picturesque Beauties of the Hudson River and its Vicinity :'

NELL

THE HUDSON.

I.

PROUD Stream! the birchen barks that wont of old,
From cove to cove, to shoot athwart thy tide,

The quivered nations, eloquent and bold,

Whose simple fare thy shores and depths supplied,

Are passed away; and men of other mould

Now o'er thy bosom their wing'd fabrics guide,
All white with sails thy keel-thronged waters flee,
Through one rich lapse of plenty, to the sea.

II.

Beauty and Majesty on either hand

Have shored thy waters with their common realm;
Here, pasture, grove, and harvest-field expand,

There, the rough boatman veers his yielding helm
From the sheer cliff, whose shadow broad and grand
Darkens his sail, and seems his path to whelm
With doubt and gloom; 'till, through some wild ravine,
A gush of sunlight leaps upon the scene!

III.

I love thy tempests, when the broad-winged blast
Rouses thy billows with its battle-call,

When gath'ring clouds in phalanx black and vast,
Like armed shadows gird thy rocky wall,

And from their leaguring legions thick and fast

The galling bail-shot in fierce volleys fall,

While quick, from cloud to cloud darts o'er the levin
The flash that fires the batteries of heaven!

IV.

How beauteous art thou, when at rosy dawn,
Up from thy glittering breast its robe of mist
Into the azure depths is gently drawn,

Or softly settles o'er thy bluffs, just kissed
By the first slanting beams of golden morn;
Gorgeous when ruby, gold, and amethyst
Upon thy tesselated surface lie-

The wave-glassed splendors of the sunset sky!

V.

And when the moon through wreaths of curdled snow,
Upon thee pours a flood of silver sheen,
While the tall headlands vaster seem to grow
As on thy breast their giant shadows lean;
There is a mournful music in thy flow,

And I have listened mid the hallowed scene,
Until loved voices seemed, in murmurs bland,
Hailing me softly from the spirit-land.

VI.

The deep Missouri hath a fiercer song,

The Misissippi pours a bolder wave,

And with a deaf'ning crash the torrent strong,
From the linked lakes, leaps to Niagara's grave;
Yet when the Storm-king smites his thunder-gong,
Thy hills reply from many a bellowing cave;
And when with smiles the sun o'erlooks their brow,
He sees no stream more beautiful than thou!

J. B.

EDITORS' DRAWER. - We conclude an examination of the contents of our drawer, which we were compelled to relinquish so abruptly a month or two since, and which, until the present moment, we have found ourselves unable to resume.

THE Anonymous but distinguished writer of the annexed article — whose manuscript has betrayed him - has greatly overrated, we think, the indifference of the public mind in relation to most of the works he has named, in opening the discussion of his theme. Who would consider his library of reading volumes complete, without a large number of the fine old works mentioned below? - or prefer the forced sentiment and small, pseudo philosophy that characterize half the modern things in books' clothing, to their profound argument, sterling wit, keen satire, and plain good sense? No — these 'silent but eloquent companions' of the past, are neither forgotten, nor held in slight remembrance, by those who read to think, or to assist the study of human nature.

FATE OF AUTHORS.

Ir any thing, in the progress of human society, can serve to abate literary ambition, it is a review of the fate of authors. How long is it since Swift was one of the most admired writers in the English language? One hundred years, and a little more. But who now reads 'Gulliver's Travels,' or the ' Examiner,' or 'Arguments against abolishing Christianity?

Who reads the works of Sir William Temple, or of Lord Bolingbroke?

Who reads 'Pamela,' and 'Clarissa,' and 'Sir Charles Grandison?'

Who reads Tristram Shandy,' or 'Don Quixote?'

Who reads 'Tom Jones,' or the 'Adventures of a Guinea?'

Who reads 'Lavater's Physiognomy?'

Who reads 'Addison's Spectator' - papers which, for a long time, amused and instructed the whole reading community of Great Britain?

Who reads the Guardian,' the Adventurer,' the 'Tattler,' and the 'Idler ?' And let me ask who reads the 'Rambler,' and the 'Rasselas' of the great Johnson? Fortunately these latter writings are not quite obsolete.

Thomas Sheridan, a little more than fifty years ago, attempted to give the British nation a standard of pronounciation, on the usage of the polite part of the nation in the Augustan age, the reign of Queen Anne and of George the First. He published his Dictionary, and it hardly arrived to its teens.

Walker then undertook a similar task, and with great labor made his book, differing from Sheridan and others, who had preceded him. He examined every doubtful point, and gave reasons upon reasons for his decisions. Unluckily he had an ear that could not accurately distinguish sounds; for he owns that he thought the vowel sounds in flee and meet, to be different from those in flea and meat, until Garrick told him he could perceive no difference between them. In marking the sounds of short i, he makes a worse mistake: for in ability, he makes the first i short, and makes the second as long e, a blunder that extends to more than ten thousand syllables or vowel sounds. If he had once attended to the manner in which people lengthen i in tiny and little, pronoun