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Landscape Gardening and Rural Architecture; adapted to North America. By A. J. DOWNING. Second edition. New York and London: Wiley & Putnam. 8vo. pp. 479. The publication of a second edition of this elegant treatise is a fact affording peculiar gratification, inasmuch as it testifies that the work has found a sale, and, what is of more consequence, readers. The circulation of such books cannot fail to have a refining and elevating influence on the public taste and morals, while the patronage actually bestowed upon them is a sign that the process of amelioration has already begun and is in progress. The author is an enthusiast only in a good sense, and adorns his pages with the fruits of an accomplished literary character. Every lover of rural beauty is probably acquainted with their contents. They who have not yet been so fortunate as to read them may be induced to do so by seeing the titles of the chapters, which are as follows: Historical Sketches; Beauties of Landscape Gardening; Wood and Plantations; Deciduous Ornamental Trees; Evergreen Ornamental Trees; Vines and Climbing Plants; Treatment of Ground and Formation of Walks; Treatment of Water; Landscape or Rural Architecture; Embellishments, Architectural, Rustic and Floral. Interspersed with these are numerous finished engravings. It is surprising to see to what perfection gardening and the transplanting of trees may be carried as a distinct art. The whole subject has so close and obvious relations with the love of home, patriotism, attachment to the soil, and the contentment and civilization of the people, that it may, without violence, be included within the range of moral studies.

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European Agriculture and Rural Economy. From personal observation. By HENRY COLMAN. Vol. I. Parts 1 and 2. Boston: A. D. Phelps. 1844. pp. 80 and 185.

Mr. Colman has been absent on his European tour, we believe, nearly two years, and the larger part of this period has been passed in Great Britain. Bringing, as he did, the mature experience of years devoted to the practical study of agriculture into his present investigations, the result cannot but be of great service to the interests of good husbandry. Evidences of Mr. Colman's careful regard for particulars appear in the two numbers of his Report already published. In addition to those extended accounts of horticultural and farming operations that of course occupy the body of the work, there are several very interesting sections devoted to collateral topics; such as English Capital, Systems of Labor, Condition of the various Classes of English population, Rents and Taxes, Game and the Game Laws, Botanical Gardens, Climate of England, etc. The accounts

given of the sufferings and ignorance of great masses of English laborers, with the discussions of the author that accompany them, present some very serious considerations to all thinking and feeling men, as well as to statesmen and political economists. The humane and philanthropic spirit that animates his remarks, imparts to them a peculiar value. The style is adapted to the subject, and to those who are likely to be the most numerous class of readers, being simple, direct, vigorous and manly. We have noticed a sedulous purpose to avoid giving the least offence to British ears by any misrepresentation, or unqualified animadver

sion.

It is certainly a refreshing thing to look over the list of subscribers to this work, and observe how many of our leading citizens and of the political counsellors of the country have a taste pure enough to appreciate these rational, calm, and elevated studies. The treatise, when completed, must form a valuable contribution to Agricultural science. From the tone and ability with which the writer treats of the position, wrongs and prospects of the working classes, we are led to welcome his intimation that he may hereafter devote a separate work to that subject.

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Notes on Cuba, containing an Account of its Discovery; a Description of the Face of the Country, its Population, Resources and Wealth; its Institutions, and the Manners and Customs of its Inhabitants. With Directions to Travellers visiting the Island. By a PHYSICIAN. Boston: J. Munroe & Co. 1844. pp. 359.

12mo.

This volume, fulfilling the promise given in the title, contains much statistical and historical information, along with a description of climate, manners, and vegetable productions, and all, as we have reason to believe, in an authentic form. The narrative is lively and agreeable, and the whole may be read with pleasure and profit.

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Historical Address and Poem, delivered at the Bi-centennial Celebration of the Incorporation of the Old Town of Reading, May 29, A. D. 1844, with an Appendix. Boston: S. N. Dickinson. 1844. 12mo. pp. 131.

of our

We have met with no notice of this celebration in any public prints, and it is only recently, and then by loan, that we have been able to procure the reading of a copy of the neat little volume to which it has given birth. The difficulty of obtaining copies is explained by the fact, that two hundred were lost by fire at the bindery. The volume contains "Historical Notices of Reading and South Reading," in an Address by Rev. Dr. Flint of Salem, a native of Reading, and a Poem delivered on

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the occasion by Lilley Eaton, Esq., of South Reading, with the usual accompaniment of Notes, and an account of the celebration. Discourses of this kind, the materials of which are furnished by "old registers" and floating traditions, we always welcome. They possess something more than a local and temporary interest. They are the fountains of history, and furnish pictures full of interest of the manners and opinions of the times to which they relate. The original settlers of Reading, it seems, went from Lynn, "prolific mother" of "ten towns," containing in 1829 more than twenty thousand inhabitants." Dr. Flint begins with the beginning and traces the history of Reading down to the present time, in a manner which does credit to his diligence and fidelity. He finds few stirring incidents to relate, but we come now and then upon touches of domestic life and curious anecdotes which relieve the necessary dryness of mere historical detail. The Poem is wholly domestic. The author places before his imagination a sort of map of the place as it was, and out of it selects figures which he presents, mostly in a humorous. way, and with no little sprightliness and point. An interesting extract is given in the Appendix from a letter of John Prentiss, Esq., of Keene, N. H., son of a former minister of Reading, containing reminiscences, and some amusing passages taken from memoranda of his father preserved in the interleaved "family almanac." We were about to make two or three short extracts, but our space forbids. The following of only two lines, however, we cannot forbear quoting. It is under date of April 15, 1778. "This evening I agreed with Betty (the 'help') to tarry with us another year. I am to give her £13 6s. 8d. and the Small Pox."

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Nature and Art: A Poem delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa
Society of Harvard University, August 29, 1844. By WIL-
LIAM W. STORY. Boston: Little & Brown. 1844. 8vo.
pp. 48.
Infatuation: a Poem spoken before the Mercantile Library
Association of Boston, October 9, 1844. By PARK BENJAMIN.
Boston Ticknor & Co. 1844. 8vo.
pp. 31.

We could, had we space, quote from Mr. Story's Poem some beautiful passages, and we should be glad to give an extract from the Note in which the characteristics of Goethe and Schiller are stated according to the author's conception of them. Those who had the privilege of hearing the poem will recollect the lines in which the two poets are introduced. The author, who differs from Mr. Putnam in his estimate of Goethe, has added to them two lines the better to express his meaning, in consequence, as he says, of some misapprehension of it "on the part of the

audience." The lines now stand thus, the second and fourth having been added:

"Goethe in whom the present imaged lay,
The wise, clear artist working in the real;
Schiller, the prophet of a purer day,

The true and earnest priest of the ideal.”

The poet sings in a trusting, hopeful strain, and though his performance is of unequal merit, and might be thought somewhat long for the occasion, it gives evidence of high intellectual culture. Its moral tone is pure and elevated, and parts of it certainly have no small artistic excellence.

The poem by Mr. Benjamin is in a different strain,gay, humorous, with no slight sprinkling of satire. Few of the follies, infatuations, extravagances, and " pet ideas" of the day escape his notice. Yet good temper and good feeling so pervade the whole, that where a palpable hit was made, no one, we should suppose, could have felt his breast stirred to anger. The author sometimes rises into a more serious mood, as in the lines on the poet Campbell. The performance is marked by smoothness and ease of versification, and the rhymes are sufficiently exact to satisfy even fastidious criticism.

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The Duties of the Citizen Soldier. A Discourse delivered in the First Independent Church of Baltimore, on Sunday, July 21, 1844, before the Maryland Cadets, and their Guests, the Boston City Corps. By GEORGE W. BURNAP. Baltimore: 1844. Svo. pp. 20.

An Address delivered in the Court-House in Concord, Massachusetts, on 1st August, 1844, on the Anniversary of the Emancipation of the Negroes in the British West Indies. By R. W. EMERSON. Boston J. Munroe & Co. 1844. Svo. pp. 34.

An Address before the Literary Societies of Hamilton College, July 23, 1844. By HORACE GREELEY. Clinton, N. Y. 1844. 8vo. pp. 40.

An Address delivered at the Laying of the Corner-Stone of a
House of Worship, for the First Congregational Society in
Somerville, Sept. 23, 1844. By R. M. HODGES. Cambridge:
Metcalf & Co. 1844. 8vo.
pp. 19.

A Lecture on the late Improvements in Steam Navigation and the
Arts of Naval Warfare, with a brief Notice of Ericsson's
Caloric Engine; delivered before the Boston Lyceum. By
JOHN O. SARGENT. New York: Wiley & Putnam.
8vo. pp. 64.

1844.

The Wealth, Industry, and Resources of Portsmouth. A Lec-4TH S. VOL. III. NO. I.

VOL. XXXVIII.

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ture delivered before the Portsmouth Lyceum, Nov. 12, 1844. By Rev. A. P. PEABODY. 1844. 4to. pp. 10. Remarks upon an Oration delivered at Cambridge by George Putnam, before the Phi Beta Kappa Society in Harvard University, August 29, 1844. By a MEMBER OF THE SUFFOLK BAR. Boston Ticknor & Co. 1844. 8vo. pp. 35. We find ourselves unable to continue a separate notice of all the pamphlets which accumulate on our hands during the two months which precede our day of publication. We shall in future give the titles, however, accompanied with such remarks as our space admits. - Mr. Burnap considers a "citizen soldiery as, in the last resort, the executive arm of free governments, and argues for the right and duty of using force, if necessary, for the maintenance of order and support of the authority of the laws. Mr. Emerson's Address is a plain, truth-speaking discourse, for the most part historical, but containing some passages, addressed mostly to New England men, which are marked by great intensity of moral feeling. Mr. Greeley's main topic is the "Discipline and Duties of the Scholar; "he is no enemy to a "thoroughly educated class," but he thinks the physical and intellectual man should be harmoniously and systematically developed, and that learning should not be divorced from manual labor. Those who may not go along with him in all his views, will sympathize with the humane spirit and elevated tone of moral feeling which pervade the performance, and will pause over some eloquent passages. Mr. Hodges's Address at the laying of the cornerstone of the Somerville church derives additional interest from the allusions he has interwoven to the different objects the eye takes in from the elevated site on which it stands, including the McLean Asylum, the Halls of old Harvard, and, "resting darkly" on the horizon, "the consecrated place of graves' Mount Auburn. -Those who wish to take a rapid survey of the late improvements in steam navigation and the arts of naval warfare will do well to consult Mr. Sargent's Lecture, in which they will find an account of Ericsson's inventions, with some biographical notice of him. Mr. Peabody's Lecture presents a somewhat sombre picture, but is full of information. A more strictly practical lecture, we venture to say, was never delivered. It points out the sources of the prosperity and wealth of our towns and villages, and the causes of their decline, and its remedies. — The anonymous author of the "Remarks" on Mr. Putnam's Oration certainly writes in a transparent and graceful style, and though he dissents from the main principle stated and defended by Mr. Putnam, as well as from some of his illustrations and criticisms, he appears to be not a whit behind others in his admiration of the fresh and glowing eloquence of the Phi Beta Kappa Orator.

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