adopted, that the House proceed to the elec- | day, showed the following result: WINTHROP, tion of a Speaker and continue its efforts 27; POTTER, 22; WILMOT, 6; HILLIARD, 1; without debate from any member, until an STANLY, 49; BOYD, 82; STEVENS, 12; election be effected. STRONG, 2; OUTLAW, 2; MOREHEAD, 6; DUER, 3, and 9 scattering. The House then voted the forty-second time with the following result:-WINTHROP, 36; MCLANE, 8; WILMOT, 6; HILLIARD, 3; STANLY, 30; H. COBB, 18; DUER, 5; McGAUGHEY, 3; BOYD, 51; POTTER, 24; MORE HEAD, 9; OUTLAW, 2; McDowELL, 5; VINTON, 2; and 15 scattering. There was no choice. Mr. MCLEAN, of Ky., offered a resolution by which the election should be effected through a plurality of votes. It was laid on the table. The forty-fourth vote, being the last this Mr. HACKETT proposed by resolution_that no member should receive any per diem allowance until a speaker was elected; and Mr. JONES, of Tenn., gave notice that he would move to amend by adding, "and that no member shall receive any mileage, unless a speaker be elected to morrow." The resolution an swered its purpose-produced much laughter and was then laid on the table. The House adjourned. CRITICAL NOTICES. Mahomet and his Successors. By WASHINGTON IRVING. New York: George P. Putnam, 155 Broadway. 1850. 66 ceives that the lust for territory and of empire was the true and proper cause of the war, and that the south and the north must share equally in its responsibility. He defends the inde "Most of the particulars of this life of Ma-pendence of Texas before annexation. On the homet," says the author, were drawn from Spanish sources, and from Gagnier's translation of the Arabian history of Abulfeda, a copy of which the author found in the Jesuits library of St. Isidro, at Madrid." other hand, he considers that the movement of the army to the Rio Grande was a violation of the rights of Mexico, and that this advance, being an overt act of hostility, throws the blame of beginning the war upon the American people. The war was designed, he al to cast the odium of it on Mexico. The author is a friend of peace, and his endeavor is to set forth the rights and duties of nations among themselves. It was intended for the family library of Mr. John Murray, but was thrown aside un-leges, to be commenced in such a manner as finished. It is now presented to the public revised, and with valuable additions from various writers. The reader will be interested in comparing the different handling of this popular and romantic biography by writers so opposed in style and sentiment as are Carlyle, Gibbon, and Irving. The War with Mexico. By R. S. RIPLEY, Brevet Major, &c. in the U. S. Army. 2 vols. New York: Harper & Bros. 1849. A very full political and military history of the late war, with plans of battles. The author in his preface claims to have had a personal acquaintance with the country on both of the principal routes of operation, an intimate acquaintance with many American officers, and some intercourse with those of the Mexican army. Various official reports and publications have been consulted, and every care taken to give a permanent value to the history. Review of the Mexican War, embracing the causes of the war, the responsibility of its commencement, the purposes of the American government in its prosecution, its benefits, and its evils. By CHARLES T. PORTER. Auburn, N. Y: Alden & Parsons. 1849. This work professes to be written without any political purpose. It contains no allusions to political parties, says the author; it is no part of its object to inquire what share belongs to each, of the glory or the shame of this war. The subject of slavery is avoided. That the extension of slavery was the object of the war is denied by the author. He con The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith, including a variety of pieces now first collected. By JAMES PRIOR, author of the Life of Burke, Life of Goldsmith, &c. &c. In 4 vols. 8vo. New York: G. P. Putnam. 1850. An excellent and complete collection of the works of Goldsmith, beautifully printed-an edition very suitable for circulating libraries. Noel on Christian Baptism. New York: Har- Baptist N. Noel is at present reputed the most powerful and valuable writer in England of the evangelical school. The volume before us is a small 8vo, got up in cheap and popular style. It is simply a defence of baptism as the initiatory rite of Christian life, supported by suitable texts of Scripture. The Twelve Stars of our Republic; Our Nation's Gift Book to her Young Citizens. New York: E. Walker. 1850. This work is simply a collection of the biographies of the twelve Presidents of the United States, with excellent portraits, beautifully engraved on steel. It contains also several valuable historical papers, a synopsis of the constitution of each state, a summary of the census for 1840, and a chronology of American History, &c. &c. The illustrated title page, and the frontispiece add much to the elegance of the volume. The publisher has an extraordinary knack at making handsome books. The Four Gospels, Arranged as a Practical Family Commentary for Every Day in the Year. By the author of the "Peep of Day." Edited, with an introductory preface, by STEPHEN H. TYNG, D.D., Rector of St. George's Church, N. Y. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1850. The twelve steel-plate engravings which illustrate this work, are in general very excellently done, and the volume itself is a beautiful gift book for the season. Chalmer's Posthumous Works, Vol. VIII. Institues of Theology. New York: Harper & Bros. 1850. The Practical German Grammar, or a Natural method of learning to read, write, and speak the German language. By CHARLES EICHHORN. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1850. The works of J. Fenimore Cooper.-The Pilot. A tale of the sea. A new edition, revised by the author. New York: G. P. Putnam. 1850. Heaven's Antidote to the Curse of Labor: or the Temporal Advantages of the Sabbath considered in relation to the working classes. By ADAM QUINTON. With a prefatory notice, by the Rev. S. H. Tyng, D.D. In 1847, an English gentleman, lamenting the increasing desecration of the Sabbath, and its injurious effects upon the health and morals of the working classes, offered three prizes, of twenty-five, fifteen, and ten pounds, for the three best essays on the temporal advantages of the Sabbath to the laboring classes. In three months he received 1,045 essays. The committee of adjudication state that they were occupied in the examination of this mass of manuscript, from the close of March until the close of December, 1848. The prizes were awarded to three authors-John Quinton, (journeyman printer,) John Younger, (shoemaker,) and David Farquhar, (machinist.) The work before us by John Quinton, is evidently from the hand of an experienced writer, and a wise and judicious moralist. As far as we can judge from a cursory examination, it deserves the attention of all classes, and no Sunday school or circulating library will be complete without a copy of it. Visions and Voices. By JAMES STAUNTON BABCOCK. With a Biographical Sketch of the Author. Hartford: Edwin Hunt: New York: Baker & Scribner. 1849. The late James S. Babcock, whose remains are collected in this volume, graduated at Yale College in the class of Mr. Colton, former editor of this Review. Mr. Babcock was one of the most remarkable English scholars that have graduated at that College. "The quali ties of his poems are peculiar. They are built somewhat upon antique models, and seem also to have been affected in a measure by the author's German studies; but their eminent simplicity and truthfulness will command attention in an age whose poetry, like its social morality, is growing to be artificial, shallow, and false in sentiment.-G. C. C." a class book, and has a glossary of scientific | Yet something which I may not resist, impels Glimpses of Spain; or Notes of an unfinished Opening this volume at random, we light upon a description of a bull fight at Madrid, very entertaining. As it is not fair nor just to criticise a book of travels before reading it, we will only say, after a very slight examination amounting to the reading of a few paragraphs and the table of contents, that if we were this evening to start off on a journey, we should put the volume in a side pocket to read by the way. St. Leger; or the Threads of Life. New me to retrospection. I look back over my short pilgrimage, and feel a yearning which I cannot restrain, to put down a narrative of my brief existence, and to mark the several changes which have come over my spirit, in the hope that the young, with whom I chiefly sympathize, may profit by the recital. But what will this avail to youthful spirits, flushed with the glow of health, secure in their fancied strength, determined on enjoyment? To them the world is every thing. Alas, they know not that the world will reward them with infamy, if they trust alone to it! Yet it is to such I make my appeal. I would arrest them, before they cease have sympathy with every saving influence, because of their habitual opposition to it. to But I will not anticipate the moral of my life. Let this be gathered from the record of it."-PREFACE TO THE WORK. The title of this work is its own description. The engravings represent machinery, specimens of natural history, chemical apparatus, astronomical and optical apparatus, illustrations of geography, astronomy, &c., &c.They are beautifully executed on steel, in a style never before seen in this country. How it is possible for the publisher to offer this work at the low price of one dollar the number, is a mystery. It is the most perfect series extant of encyclopedic engraving. The letter press is in the 8vo. form, to be bound up separately. We have before us three numbers of the work, which is to be issued in twenty"At the age of twenty-three years I find five monthly parts, containing twenty plates and myself upon the threshold of two worlds. The eighty pages of letter press each. Complete PAST Summons the thousand incidents which indexes and tables of contents will be publishhave operated to determine me as a responsi-ed with the last numbers, adapting the work ble being, and presents them before me, with to practical use. Nothing can be said of this fearful vividness. The PRESENT seems like work more than that it fulfils the promise of nothing beneath my feet. And the FUTURE, its title page. no longer a shadowy dream, throws open its endless vista, and whispers that I must soon enter upon all its untried, unknown realities. Here I am permitted to pause a moment, ere I commence upon that new existence which ends only with the INFINITE. I have finished my life upon earth. The ties which connect me with the world have parted. I have to do now only with eternity. Poor Richard's Almanac. J. Doggett, Jr., 64 This is a reprint of the famous and popular "Poor Richard's Almanac" of Benjamin Franklin, for the years 1733-34-35. The as tronomical calculations are by Professor Benjamin Peirce, of Harvard University. Franklin's Life, by himself, is commenced in this first number, to be completed in the succeeding years. "The present is, doubtless, the only complete edition of the Poor Richard's AImanac of Dr. Franklin now in existence. The collection is the result of nearly four years research among the libraries of public institutions and private collections in the states of New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; and several of the numbers were only procureable at great cost, and even some were purchased with the proviso that they were to be returned, should the publisher to be successful in obtaining duplicates. A complete copy of the Almanac had been pronounced by our indefatigable historian, Jared Parks, as of doubtful existence; and the publisher is, therefore, most agreeably disappointed in being able to lay successively before the American public the entire numbers of this invaluable series, accompanied by an appropriate modern calendar."-PREFACE. |
