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In Scotland, 3,985 educated to 911 uneducated. It has also been ascertained that the average cost of maintaining a prisoner in jail, throughout England, is about eighty dollars a year, and that at this rate the prison expenses of that country amount to over one million pounds sterling per annum. Under this state of facts the British Government has issued an order in council authorizing a return to the system of transportation. The last number of Blackwood's Magazine contains an interesting article on this subject from which the foregoing statements are complied.

The Bonham Advertiser, published in Texas, gives an account of a party numbering in all about eighty persons, who had been out on an exploring expedition to the Wachita mountains in search of precious metals. They found, on a high prairie ridge, silver ore of extraordinary richness, in quantities "apparently inhaustible." There was also found in the streams of the Wachita country, considerable quantities of gold, mingled with the sands. In consequence of the unfriendly disposition of the Wachita Indians, they were able only to succeed in ascertaining the general fact of the existence of gold and silver, and to obtain as much as would serve as specimens.

According to a late census of South Carolina, the whole of the white inhabitants now number 280,385, showing a gain in ten years of 23,269.

COMMERCE OF NEW YORK.-The number of vessels which arrived at New York from foreign countries during the last year, was 3,227; of which 1,973 were American, and 811 British. The number which arrived the preceding year was 3,060. The number of passengers last year was 221,799; in the preceding

year 191,901.

Nine hundred dramatic authors are named of pieces produced on the stage, and afterwards published; 60 only of comedies and dramas not acted. Among the published works are 200 on Occult Sciences, Cabalism, Chiromancy, Necromancy, &c., and 75 volumes on Heraldry and Genealogy. Social Science, Fourierism, Communism, and Socialism of all sects, count 20,000 works of all sizes; 6,000 Romances and Novels; and more than 800 works of Travel. According to a calculation, for which the authority of M. Didot's (the publisher) name is given, the paper employed than twice cover the surface of the 86 Departin the printing of all these works would more ments of France.

The debts of the various countries of Eu

rope may be classed in round millions; Great Britain, £860; France, 320; Holland, 160; Russia and Poland, 110; Spain, 83; Austria, 84; Prussia, 30; Portugal, 28; Naples, 26; Belgium, 25; Denmark, 11; Sicily, 14 Papal dominions, 13; Greece, 8; Bavaria, 3; Frankfort, 1; Bremen, £600,000; Hamburgh, £1,400,000. Total, £1,785,000 000. Debts which are not enumerated £215, 000,000. Grand total, £2,000,000,000.

IMPORT OF PROVISIONS FROM AMERICA.-Mr.

Gardner, the provision broker, gives the following as the import into Liverpool alone, from the United States, for the last twelve months-26,000 tierces Beef, 37,000 barrels Pork, 224,000 cwts. Bacon, 15,000 Hams, 50,000 barrels Lard, 100,000 boxes Cheese, 8,600 firkins Butter. The value of the above is £1,000,000 sterling.

Liverpool to New York by the British mailThe number of passengers brought from steamships during the past year, according to a New York paper, was 1,775; and the number arrived at Boston by the same conveyance, 1,433. The average passage from New York to Liverpool was made in thirteen days and sixteen hours, and the average passage to Boston from Liverpool in twelve days and twenty-two hours.

STATISTICS OF FRENCH LITERATURE.-It is calculated that, from January 1st, 1840, to August 1st, 1849, there were issued from the press in France, 87,000 new works, volumes and pamphlets; 3,700 reprints of ancient literature, and French classic authors; and Thomas H. Fisher & Co. have erected, in 4,000 translations from modern languages-Lansingburg, New York, a manufactory for one-third of the latter from the English, the the purpose of manufacturing linen thread. It German and Spanish coming next in numbers, is the only one in the country. The machinery and the Portuguese and Swedish languages was imported from Leeds, England, and exhaving furnished the smallest contributions.perienced workmen have been employed.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

The Shakspeare Calendar; or Wit and Wisdom for every day in the year. Edited by WILLIAM C. RICHARDS. New York: George P. Putnam. 1850.

This graceful little offering to the well-filled shrine of the Great Bard, differs from other "Calendars" only in this, that its notices of events are illustrated solely and invariably by passages from Shakspeare. Some of the passages thus forced into compulsory juxtaposition with events appare ntly incongruous, display wit as well as research on the part of the editor. For instance, the fact of thirteen whales being driven ashore on the coast of England on the same day is illustrated by the passage from Henry V –

"Send precepts to the Leviathan

To come ashore."

On other occasions, the Editor seizes an opportunity of indicating his opinion of noted public characters. He commemorates the death of Robert Walpole (March 18, 1745), by quoting King Lear:

"Get thee glass eyes;

And like a scurvy politician, seem To see the things thou dost not see." Sometimes, too, he even contrives to crowd a volume of sound Political Economy into a single quotation, as, where after mentioning under its proper date (March 1st, 1845) the annexation of Texas, he cites the passage from Cymbeline:

"You lay out too much pains
For purchasing but trouble."

Exercises on Greek Composition. Adapted to the First Book of Xenophon's Anabasis. By JAMES R. BOISE, Professor of Greek in Brown University. New York: Appleton & Company, 200 Broadway. Philadelphia: George S. Appleton, 164, Chestnut Street. 1850. Professor Boise has prepared this elegant elementary work upon the plan of allowing the rules of Greek Composition, gradually to suggest themselves to the student's mind, instead of crowding his memory, as is too often the case with abstruse enunciations of principles which he must master before he can possibly understand them. This comparitively easy method he has elucidated in a plain yet skillful manner, selecting Xenophon, that most flowing of Attic writers for his text. The execution of the work is equal to the design, and altogether will do credit to the high Institution which numbers the author of this work among its professors.

The Caravan; a collection of popular tales, translated from the German of Wilhelm Hauff. By G. P. Quackenbos, A.M. Illustrated by J. W. ORR. New York: D. Appleton & Company. 1850.

Mr.

writer to introduce among us a better taste for We hail this laudable effort of a popular the better part of German Literature. Quackenbos has executed his task in a manner worthy of himself, and the illustrations are creditable to the artist by whom they are signed. The translator could not have made tales he has comprised in this collection and a more judicious selection both as regards the the author from whom he draws them.

Wilhelm Hauff is the most popular of German tale writers. He is a native of Stuttgard, where, in his earlier years, he studied Theology. Strange, that at the source of ever-living truth, he should have contracted so insatiable an appetite for fiction. His first appearance as an author was in 1826, when he published his Fairy Almanac for that year. The tales included in that series are for the most part borrowed from other sources, but the fantastic yet natural manner in which they are told by him atones for their want of originality. Emboldened by his success, he published in the following year, two different works of considerable consequence, "The man in the moon," a playful satire or rather caricature, directed against the sentimental style of novel-writing of the day, and Extracts from the memoirs of Satan which may have furnished something besides a title to the work of Frederick Soulie, called "les Memoires du Diable." Since that

time he has continued an indefatigable author, and may be considered as one of the most prolific as well as popular of the modern writers.

We would express a hope that Mr. Quackenbos will soon favor the English and American public with other gems from the same mine.

Success in Life; a series of Books, six in number, each complete in itself. By Mrs. L. C. TUTHILL. New York: George P. Putnam. 1850.

The series of Books of which the first number lies upon our table, will doubtless add to its author's already enviable reputation. She purposes to address her pleasing didactics in turns to the Merchant, the Lawyer, the Mechanic, the Artist, the Physician and the Farmer. She doubtless had her own reasons,

better known to herself, for beginning with the Merchant. The book now before us is the first in order in the series and purports to teach the means of success in a commercial career. The authors characteristic knowledge of American history, and her acquaintance with the leading events in the lives of the successful merchants of America, furnish her with manifold opportunities of enlivening her text with anecdote and incident.

So far the series of Mrs. Tuthill's Lectures on Success bodes well. When we become a merchant we will turn to these agreeable pages for our first lessons in the art of thrift. Yet we are somewhat curious to know how she will manage that part of her subject which refers to lawyers. Success in that profession is scarcely attainable by any of the means which Mrs. Tuthill is likely to advocate. And, even the straight-forward path which we presume she will point out, is beset with thorns and precipices of which the fair authoress can entertain but an inadequate idea. Supposing, however, that her talent will surmount those obstacles, and that her accurate knowledge of the public men of America will furnish us with sketches of such men as Hamilton, Jay and Ogden in the same pleasing manner as she has in the book before us painted Astor, Girard and Morris,-supposing all this, our anxiety on her behalf, is but removed one step. How will she contrive to point out success in the physician's career without mentioning that the surest avenues to the desirable end are of a character which neither her sex, her reputation, nor her good sense will permit her to advocate?

At all events we shall await the future numbers of her series with as much impatience as we have taken pleasure in perusing the first.

The other Side; or Notes for the History of the War between Mexico and the United States, written in Mexico. Translated from the Spanish, and edited with notes, by ALBERT C. RAMSAY, Colonel of the 11th United States Infantry during the War with Mexico. New York: Jno. Wiley.

To those who know the intense bitterness of party spirit that prevails in Mexico, it must appear almost impossible that an account having any pretensions to impartiality should be given of any contemporary fact by a citizen of that country. The difficulty is obviously increased when the fact to be related involves not only the usual dissensions of faction but also the humiliation of the author's native land during a long contest, where scarcely one in

stance of prowess or patriotism occurs to redeem the national character from the disgrace of constant defeat. We believe that few Mexicans would have possessed the hardihood, single-handed to produce a work so singularly free in pointing out the true causes of their country's misfortune as the one we are now noticing. For is it not the result of individual enterprise. It seems that it grew out of the debates of a literary society composed of men of different parties who had assembled at Queretaro for the purpose of discussing topics of general interest. Fifteen editors have appended their names to this work. As far as we are able (for causes presently to be mentioned) to judge of the style of the original it does credit to the authors as men of taste and refined acquirements. The several parts are arranged in a lucid manner, the action is rapid, the descriptions are vivid and animated, and the numerous plans, maps, and portraits, if these belong to the Mexican work and not merely to its American version, attest the care and liberal enterprize which presided over the publication. Not to speak of its value in another point of view, it will prove useful as well as curious to the general reader in this, that it will point out with sad clearness the true causes of the ignominious fall of the Mexican Republic in her contest with us. We see leaders promoted through favoritism and wholly incompetent for their position. We see several generals commanding one corps and unable to agree. We behold Arista seated in his tent and insisting that the battle of Resaca de Guerrero was a mere skirmish, until he saw his disbanded soldiers seeking safety in the waves of the Rio Grande. We hear of Paredes negotiating a loan of $1,000,000 from the church to meet the pressing exigencies of the state, assembling a last army in haste, and then we find the officers of that very army, immediately after receiving an instalment of their pay out of that same fund, rush to the citadel and improvise a revolution. In the ranks, in the cities, in the legislative assemblies, we meet with nothing but want of mutual confidence, and hot individual ambition, that pauses at nothing for its own gratification. In regard to Colonel Ramsay's share of the work, we are compelled to say, that he ought to have prepared himself for his task by the study of the difficult art of Translation. especially is lamentably deficient in point of The first part of the work diction. Castilian idioms are given literally, and either present no sense to one who is not a Spanish scholar, or else give the narrative know how to account for this anomaly, for a ludicrous air of incongruity. We scarcely in the notes which the American Editor signs in propria persona, the style is remarkably pure and flowing.

The Battle Summer: being personal observations
in Paris, during the year 1848. By IK. MARVEL,
Author of "Fresh Gleanings." New York:
Baker and Scribner. 1850.

Goethe the Writer. These he seems to take as
representatives of varieties of the human mind,
displaying itself in its greatest activities. There is
no writer that is more profound in analyses, or
clear in critical deductions, or philosophic in gen-
eralization, than Mr. Emerson, out of his
peculiar mood, and this book is full of passages
of great power and beauty in these respects.
There is in this book too, a remarkable simpli-

An almost quaint and curious book, this: yet
we must say, notwithstanding, that it is a most
vivid portrayal of the events and characters of the
last French Revolution. Nor is it alone a re-
markable exhibition of skill in the painting of pic-city, directness, and force of language.
tures and portraits; but it shows also a hand,
presided over by a philosophical and candid intel-
lect. Motives and characters of individuals and
classes are presented with a certain clearness and
force, deserving of great admiration. So well are
these two qualities combined that, after reading
the book, we seem to have been a witness of the
astonishing drama, with a companion, whose com-
mentary on the performers and performances, was
worth listening to, piquant, and, at the same time,
thoughtful. In the next place, the book is entirely
free from tedious disquisition, or elaborate descrip-
tion; everything is condensed, and to the point.
In one short chapter we have the best account of
that remarkable phenomenon,-the Paris Press,-
that we have anywhere seen. For the rest, the
style is somewhat Carlylean, and this must be
somewhat a disappointment to those acquainted
with the author's previous works, which have been
so remarkable for their beauty, in this respect. It
is, however, more, perhaps, in the manner than
the style of Carlyle; for there is none of his
involution of sentences, or uncouthness of philo-
sophy.

The author's object, in employing this manner, was, doubtless, to give boldness of graphic effect, and condensation of views; as well as to re-present a subject somewhat hackneyed, and we do not know that he could have accomplished these purposes in any better way. It is a book, in short, of decided raciness and pith; and we like it. A word in conclusion, we must say, for the beautiful style in which it is printed.

Representative Men: seven Lectures. By RALPH WALDO EMERSON. Boston; Philips, Sampson, & Company.

In the space of a short notice it is impossible to present any sufficient view of a new book, by Mr. Emerson. All his writings involve questions the profoundest. We must record great genius and originality, with power of expression, and beauty of illustration, enchanting as the voice of the syren; but we would have to discuss with him first principles. From his cloud-land, we would have to appeal to our mother earth. The book before us is somewhat vague in its purpose; the usual fault of the author. We have not space to define what we mean by vagueness in this case; but, we think, the generality of readers will be with us in the assertion. After, in the first lecture, discussing, vaguely enough, the uses of great men, the others are devoted to Plato the Philosopher, Swedenborg the Mystic, Montaigne the Skeptic, Shakespeare the Poet, Napoleon the Man of the World, and

"Socrates and Plato are the double stars that the most powerful instruments will not entirely separate. Socrates, a man of humble stem, but honest enough; of the commonest history; of a personal homeliness, so remarkable as to be a cause of wit-the rather, as his broad good nature, and exquisite taste for a joke, invited the sally, which was sure to be paid. The players personated him on the stage; the potters carved his ugly face on their stone jugs. He was a cool fellow, adding to his humor a perfect temper, and a knowledge of his man, be he who he might, whom he talked with, which laid the companion open to certain defeat, in any debate; and in debate he immoderately delighted. The young men are prodigiously fond of him, and invite him to their feasts, whither he goes for conversation. He can drink too; has the strongest head in Athens; and, after leaving the whole party under the table, goes away, as if nothing had happened, to begin new dialogues with somebody that is sober. In short, he was, what our country people call an old one." This, by way of specimen. The whole description of Socrates is a most perfect synopsis of the character, as given by Plato.

The Miscellaneous works of the Rev. J. T.
Headley, with a biographical sketch and por-
trait of the Author. New-York: JAMES
TAYLOR.

There are few men who, having made Literature a pursuit for several years, have not their portfolios full of essays, sketches, notes of travels, and magazine articles. These will naturally accumulate upon an author's hands, and it is but fair that he should be allowed to take advantage of the celebrity he has earned by other and more serious labors, to publish those desultory papers in a connected form. This appears to be the case with the work, whose title heads this notice. The pieces contained in the collection are on various subjects, and embrace the staple topics of works of this kind-impressions derived from voyages, essays upon the productions of other writers, an occasional historical sketch, and a metaphysical disquisition, or two. Their merit is occasional and fitful. They present Mr. Headley's habitual characteristics, a plentiful flow of words, a fondness for rhetoric, and a straining for effect, which sometimes attains eloquence, and, not unfrequently, falls as far from the mark, as Bathos differs from Pathos. But, surely, there is nothing so exalted in the merit of this medley of articles, as to warrant its being introduced by a flourish of trumpets.

And, indeed, we feel disposed upon our own responsibility to exonerate Mr. Headley from the charge of having even sanctioned so entire a breach of good taste. We feel certain that he will feel inclined to bestow but small thanks upon the person whose injudicious, though friendly criticism, compels us to notice somewhat at large a work of this character.

Until a late period, Mr. Headley was generally reputed as a writer who had drawn his inspirations from the German school, either directly or through its British imitators, and whose name had obtained a sort of chiaro obscuro celebrity, by some few ephemeral, but creditable papers. One day, however, whether under the inspiration of Minerva or Plutus does not appear, he conceived a marketable idea, the idea of a literary speculation,-sans parallel in the annals of American authorship, since the famous account of Herschell's discoveries in the Moon. The idea consisted in drawing, from readily accessible materials, a series of portraits of the great warriors who flourished at the beginning of the present century. The subject was well chosen; the interest which attaches to their career, the brilliant events through which they passed, the rapidity of their progress, and the epic scale of their exploits, furnished a fitting theme for the exercise of the most fervid eloquence. And if the author, more anxious for his reputation than for the sale of his book, had taken counsel from a sober love of Fame, and had adhered to the strict truth of history, he might have added one to the many really great American works, which are fast growing, to constitute a literature for the country. But this was no part of Mr. Headley's project. The sale, not the worth of the book, was his aim. Wherefore, he dressed his heroes in theatrical tinsel and adopted, for his style, the standard of that which draws down mighty applause from the wellfilled benches of the Bowery. The result was, "a hit." Napoleon and his Marshals sold well. We do not know that Mr. Headley is to blame in all this; a man has as good a right to prefer money to unsubstantial Fame, as the reverse. But we again insist that there is nothing in the fact of his having acquired a little notoriety by such means, to superinduce the necessity of a pompous eulogy being prefixed to a collection of his waste paper.

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We are told, by his biographer, that Headley is one of the most promising of the youthful (35 years old, last December) writers of this country." Of one of his earlier works we are informed that "it possesses the unfatiguing charms of perfect simplicity and truth, it exhibits a thousand lively traits, of an ingenuous nature, which, formed in a sincere and unsophisticated society, and then brought into the midst of the old world, retains all its freshness and distinctness." Also, that "the style is natural, familiar, and idiomatic." We freely confess that we have never read the Letters from Italy; but, from what we have read of Mr. Headley, we had deemed it impossible that he should ever have written anything either simply, or naturally, or familiarly. We had always considered bombast (probably the same quality which the "biographer" points out as " the

excess of youthful genius") to be a particular characteristic of his style. We cannot state whether or not "the society" where he formed his nature" was "sincere and unsophisticated;" but, sure we are, that his printed works show a breadth of bigotry, and obstinacy of prejudice, as blameable as anything he blames so harshly in Italy or France. His Anglo-Saxon predilections even carry him so far as to make him abuse the French language, in a style without parallel out of the columns of Punch. Hear him, he is speaking of Guizot: "With a Saxon soul, he is forced to bend it to the wordy language of his native country. I have always thought it would appear strange to hear such men as Ney, Soult, McDonald, and Bonaparte talk French."

Why is it strange that the military leaders should talk the language of mathematics and treaties, the language of Pascal, Lavoisier and Descartes? Surely, if there be anything more blind than ignorance, it is prejudice. French may be too precise a language to admit of the imaginative flights of empty rhetoric, which Mr. Headley affects. But, sure we are, that French taste would never permit the use of sentences like the following, copied from " Persecutions of the Waldenses," one of the articles of the work under notice.

"With one wild and thrilling shout that little band precipitated itself forward. Through the devouring fire, over the rattling, groaning bridge, up to the entrenchments, and up to the points of the bayonets, they went in one resistless wave. Their deafening shouts drowned the roar of musketry, and, borne up by that lofty enthusiasm, which has made the hero in every age, they forgot the danger before them. On the solid ranks they fell, with such terror and suddenness, that they had not time to flee. The enraged Waldenses seized them by the hair, and trampled them under their feet; and, with their heavy sabres, cleaved them to the earth. The terrified French undertook to defend themselves, with their muskets; and, as they interposed them between their bodies and the foe, the Waldensian sabres struck fire on the barrels, till the sparks flew in every direction."

Oh! most promising of the youthful writers of this country! E. L.

Dark Scenes of History. By G. P. R. James, Esq. New-York: Harper & Brothers.

Since the times of the " Great Unknown" his imitators have inundated our shelves with their productions. The Historical Novel offers such temptations, it is so easy to ransack an old chronicle, for obscure proper names, and borrow a little local color from contemporary writers, that almost every tyro in literature has chosen this style for his debut. Little, however, did they trouble themselves to imitate their great model, by deeply studying their task beforehand, by learning thoroughly the manners, modes of speech, and various peculiarities of the far-distant time to which

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