merit in those articles which present resumes of the past year's events in politics, literature, science, and art. The one on the last named subject is less complete than could be wished, and is written in rather slovenly English; but the article on literature is very full and satisfactory. A great mass of biographical matter is presented under the title of "Obituaries," but more extended notices of more distinguished persons are given under the proper names. Among the latter are accounts of the lives and public services of Lincoln, Everett, Palmerston, Cobden, and Corwin; and of the lives and literary works of Miss Bremer, Mrs. Gaskell, Hildreth, Proudhon, etc. The article on Corwin is too slight for the subject, and the notice of Hildreth, who enjoyed a great repute both in this country and in Europe, is scant and inadequate. Under the title of "Army Operations," a fair synopsis of the history of the last months of the war is given; and, as a whole, the Cyclopædia is a valuable, if not altogether complete, review of the events of 1865.

History of the Atlantic Telegraph. By HENRY M. FIELD, D. D. New York: Charles Scribner & Co.

WHY Columbus should have been at the trouble to sail from the Old World in order to find a nearer path to it, as our author states in his opening chapter, he will probably explain in the future edition in which he will chastise the occasionally ambitious writing of this. His book is a most interesting narrative of all the events in the history of telegraphic communication between Europe and America, and has the double claim upon the reader of an important theme and an attractive treatment of it. Now that the great nervous cord running from one centre of the world's life to the other is quick with constant sensation, the

wonder of its existence may fade from our minds; and it is well for us to remember how many failures-involving all the vir tue of triumph-went before the final success. And it cannot but be forever gratifying to our national pride, that, although the idea of the Atlantic telegraph originated in Newfoundland, and was mainly realized through the patience of British enterprise, yet the first substantial encouragement which it received was from Americans, and that it was an American whose heroic perseverance so united his name with this idea that Cyrus W. Field and the Atlantic cable are not to be dissociated in men's minds in this or any time.

Our author has not only very interestingly reminded us of all this, but he has done it with a good judgment which we must applaud. His brother was the master-spirit of the whole enterprise; but, while he has contrived to do him perfect justice, he has accomplished the end with an unfailing sense of the worth of the constant support and encouragement given by others.

The story is one gratifying to our national love of adventurous material and scientific enterprise, as well as to our national pride. We hardly know, however, if it should be a matter of regret that neither on the one account nor on the other are we able to receive the facts of the cable's success and existence with the effusion with which we hailed them in 1858. Blighting De Sauty, suspense, and scepticism succeeded the rapture and pyrotechnics of those joyful days; and in the mean time we have grown so much that to be electrically united with England does not impart to us the fine thrill that the hope of it once did. Indeed, the jubilation over the cable's success seems at last to have been chiefly on the side of the Englishmen, who found our earlier enthusiasm rather absurd, but who have since learned to value us, and just now can scarcely make us compliments enough.

Thirty Years of Army Life on the Border. Comprising Descriptions of the Indian Nomads of the Plains; Explorations of New Territory; a Trip across the Rocky Mountains in the Winter; Descriptions of the Habits of different Animals found in the West, and the Methods of hunting them; with Incidents in the Life of different Frontier Men, etc., etc. By Colonel R. B. Marcy, U. S. A., Author of "The Prairie Traveller." With numerous Illustrations. New York. Harper & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 442. $3.00.

Life and Times of Andrew Johnson, Seventeenth President of the United States. Written from a National Stand-point. By a National Man. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. xii. 363. $2.00.

The American Printer: a Manual of Typography, containing complete Instructions for Beginners, as well as Practical Directions for managing all Departments of a Printing-Office. With several useful Tables, Schemes for Imposing Forms in every Variety, Hints to Authors and Publishers, etc., etc. By Thomas Mackellar. Philadelphia. L. Johnson & Co. 12mo. pp. 336. $2.00. Coal, Iron, and Oil; or, the Practical American Miner. A Plain and Popular Work on our Mines and Mineral Resources, and a Text-Book or Guide to their Economical Development. With Numerous Maps and Engravings, illustrating and explaining the Geology, Origin, and Formation of Coal, Iron, and Oil, their Peculiarities, Characters, and General Distribution, and the Economy of mining, manufacturing, and using them; with General Descriptions of the Coal-Fields and Coal-Mines of the World, and Special Descriptions of the Anthracite Fields and Mines of Pennsylvania, and the Bituminous Fields of the United States, the Iron-Districts and Iron-Trade of our Country, and the Geology and Distribution of Petroleum, the Statistics, Extent, Production, and Trade in Coal, Iron, and Oil, and such useful Information on Mining and Manufacturing Matters as Science and Practical Experience have developed to the present Time. By Samuel Harries Daddow, Practical Miner and Engineer of Mines, and Benjamin Bannan, Editor and Proprietor of the "Miner's Journal." Pottsville. B. Bannan. 8vo. pp. 808. $7.50.

Index to the New York Times for 1865. Including the Second Inauguration of President Lincoln, and his Assassination; the Accession to the Presidency of Andrew Johnson; the Close of the XXXVIII. and Opening of the XXXIX. Congress, and the Close of the War of Secession. New York. Henry J. Raymond & Co. 8vo. pp. iv., 182. $5.00.

Sherbrooke. By H. B. G., Author of "Madge." New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 463. $2.00.

Sermons preached on different Occasions during the last Twenty Years. By the Rev. Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D. D., Prebendary of St. Paul's, and one of her Majes ty's Chaplains in Ordinary. Reprinted from the Second London Edition. Two Volumes in one. New York. D. Apple

ton & Co. 12mo. pp. iv., 397. $2.00.

Miscellanea. Comprising Reviews, Leetures, and Essays, on Historical, Theological, and Miscellaneous Subjects. By Most Rev. M. J. Spalding, D. D., Archbishop of Baltimore. Baltimore. Murphy & Co. 8vo. pp. lxii., 807. $3.50.

Bos

Poems. By Christina G. Rosetti. ton. Roberts Brothers. 16mo. PP. I., 256. $1.75.

Christine a Troubadour's Song, and other Poems. By George H. Miles. New York. Lawrence Kehoe. 12mo. pp. 285. $2.00.

The Admiral's Daughter. By Mrs. Marsh. Philadelphia. T. B. Peterson & Bro. 8vo. paper. pp. 115. 50 cts.

The Orphans; and Caleb Field. By Mrs. Oliphant. Philadelphia. T. B. Peterson & Bro. 8vo. paper. Pp. 13350 cts.

Life of Benjamin Silliman, M. D., LL. D., late Professor of Chemistry, Mineralogy, and Geology in Yale College. Chiefly from his Manuscript Reminiscences, Diaries, and Correspondence. By George P. Fisher, Professor in Yale College. In Two Volumes. New York. C. Scribner & Co. 12mo. pp. xvi., 407; x., 408. $5.00.

The Mormon Prophet and his Harem; or, An Authentic History of Brigham Young, his numerous Wives and Children. By Mrs. C. V. Waite. Cambridge. Printed at the Riverside Press. 12mo. pp. Ing 280. $2.00.

L "

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wards," like Lear, and who, like Lear, have been "mightily abused" in their day, are found, upon diligent inquiry, to have long outlived themselves, like the Archbishop of Granada; but here is a man, or was but the other day, in his eighty-second year, with the temper and edge and "bright blue rippling glitter" of a Damascus blade up to the very last; or rather, considering how he was last employed, with the temper of that strange tool, found among the ruins of Thebes, with which they used to smooth and polish their huge monoliths of granite, until they murmured a song of joy, whenever the morning sunshine fell upon them.

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This remarkable man- remarkable under many aspects - died at Medford, Massachusetts, on Monday morning, August 27th; and it is now said of heartdisease, — that other name for a mysterious and sudden death, happen how it may, and when it may. He had been perfectly well the day before, attended church, and called on some of his neighbors; he retired to rest as usual, and nothing more was heard of him till Monday morning, when he was found

trust, to hear the greeting of "Well done, thou good and faithful servant!"

I

Says a friend, in a letter now lying before me, of August 27th: "On Saturday afternoon, day before yesterday, your friend and my friend, Rev. John Pierpont, called upon me, and we had a very interesting interview of about an hour. I never saw him look better or appear happier. Although eightyone years of age the 6th of last April, he seemed to have the elasticity of youth, and he was perfectly erect. gave him what he wanted very much,-a copy of his trial before an ecclesiastical council in this city, several years ago. He gave me his photograph, and, taking his gold pen, wrote underneath, in a beautiful hand, 'John Pierpont, aged 81.' He said he was doing some work at Washington, which he hoped to live long enough to complete. . . . . When I published my last book, I sent him a copy. He acknowledged the receipt of it in a letter of eight or ten pages, which is now a treasure to me. His name on the photograph was probably the last time he ever wrote it," — another treasure, which my friend would not

now be likely to part with for any consideration.

My acquaintance with Mr. Pierpont began in the fall or winter of 1814, just when the war had assumed such proportions, that men's hearts were failing them for fear, and prodigies and portents were of daily occurrence. New England too-finding herself defenceless and left to the mercy of our foe began to think, not of setting up for herself, not of withdrawing from the copartnership, without the consent of the whole sisterhood, but of coming together for conference and proposing to the general government, not to become neutral after the fashion of Kentucky, in our late misunderstanding, not of playing the part of umpire between the belligerents, like that heroic embodiment of Southern chivalry, nor of holding the balance of power, but, on being allowed her just proportion of the public revenues, to undertake for herself, and agree to give a good account of the enemy, if he should throw himself upon her bulwarks, whether along the seaboard, or upon her great northern frontier.

He had just escaped from Newburyport, after writing the "Portrait," a severe and truthful picture of the times, which went far to give him a national reputation for the day; and opened a law office at 103 Court Street, Boston, where he found nothing to do, and spent much of his time in cutting his name on little ivory seals, and engraving ciphers -“J. P.". so beautiful in their character, and so graceful, that one I have now before me, an impression taken by him in wax, with a vermilion bed, -for in all such matters he was very particular, were enough to establish any man's reputation as a seal engraver. It bears about the same relationship to what are called ciphers, that Benvenuto Cellini's flower-cups bore to the clumsy goblets of his day.

He was never a great reader, not being able to read more than fifty pages of law and miscellany in a day, though he managed, for once, while a tutor in Colonel Alston's family at Charleston,

South Carolina, beginning by daylight and continuing as long as he could see, in midsummer, to get through with one hundred pages of Blackstone; but the "grind" was too much for him, he never tried it again. He read Gibbon, and Chateaubriand's "Genius of Christianity," and St. Pierre, and Jeremy Bentham's "Theory of Rewards and Punishments," but never to my knowledge a novel, a romance, or a magazine article, except an occasional review; but Joanna Baillie,-that female Shakespeare of a later age, and Beattie, and Campbell, and the British poets, and dramatic writers, were always at hand, when he had nothing better to do, with no seals to cut, no ciphers, no razor-strops, no stoves, and no clients. Over that field of enchantment and illusion he wandered with lifted wings, month after month, and year after year.

At this time he was in his thirtieth year, and I in my twenty-second. No two persons were ever more unlike; and yet we grew to be intimate friends after a while; and at the time of his death our friendship had lasted more than fifty years, with a single interruption of a twelvemonth or so while I was abroad, which was put an end to by our letters of reconciliation crossing each other almost on the same day.

With a young family on his hands, precarious health and a feeble constitution, as we then believed, which drove him to Saratoga every two or three years, and no property, what had he to look forward to, unless he could manage to go through a course of starvation at half-price, or diet with the chameleons?— though great things were expected of him by those who knew him best, and the late Mr. Justice Story could not bear to think of his abandoning the profession, so long as there was a decent chance of living through such a course of preparation.

After all that he has done as a poet, as a preacher, as a reformer, and as a lecturer, I must say that I think he was made for a lawyer. Vigorous and acute, clear-sighted, self-possessed, and logical to a fault, if he had not married so early,

-a

He had, withal, a great fondness for mechanics, and one at least of his inventions, the "Pierpont or Doric Stove," was a bit of concrete philosophy, miniature temple glowing with perpetual fire, — a cast-iron syllogism of itself, so classically just in its proportions, and so eminently characteristic, as to be a type of the author. He had been led through a long course of experiment in the structure of grates and stoves, and in the consumption of fuel, with the hope of superseding Saratoga, for himself at least, by making our terrible winters and our east winds a little more endurable. No man ever suffered more from what people sometimes call, without meaning to be naughty, damp cold

weather.

In addition to the "Portrait," he had written a New-Year's Address or two, and a fine lyric, which was said or sung -I forget which at the celebration of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow; so that after he went off to Baltimore, and the "Airs of Palestine" appeared in 1816, those who knew him best, instead of being astonished like the rest of the world, regarded it as nothing more than the fulfilment of a promise, and went about saying, or looking as if they wanted to say, "Did n't we tell you so?"

And yet, with the exception of two or three outbreaks and flashes, there was really nothing in his earlier manifestations to prefigure the "unrolling glory" of the "Airs," or to justify the extravagant expectations people had entertained from the first, if you would believe them.

Robert Treat Paine having disappeared from the stage, there was nobody left but Lucius Manlius Sargent

With mirth and music swells,

Rings with the harps and songs of bards, And echoes to their shells.

"See how amid the cloud-wrapped ghosts Great Peter's awful form Seems to smile,

As the while,

Amid the howling storm,

He hears his children shout, Hurrah! Amid the howling storm," etc., etc. Few men ever elaborated as he did, - not even Rousseau, when he wrote over whole pages and chapters of his "Confessions," I forget how many times. Fine thoughts were never spontaneous with him, never unexpected, never unwaited for, never, certainly till long after he had got his growth. In fact, some of the happiest passages we have seem to be engraved, letter by letter, instead of being written at once, or launched away into the stillness, like a red-hot thunderbolt. Well do I remember a little incident which occurred in Baltimore, soon after the failure of Pierpont and Lord- and Neal, when we were all dying of sheer inaction, and almost ready to hang ourselves — in a metaphorical sense -as the shortest way of scoring off with the world.

We were at breakfast, it was rather late.

"Where on earth is your good husband?" said I to Mrs. Pierpont.

"In bed, making poetry," said she. "Indeed!"