which the buffalo and moose had roamed unscared since the cradling of Time.

All this is true, and more. But what is it all? It cannot be denied that we have done much for the conveniences of civilized man; that we have extended the arm of dominion over the elements; made them draw on the turnpike, and spin in the manufactory. We have truly given man a title to the queller and controller of physical nature. Yet, what does all this in its best phase imply?

Does it not all look one day, down one vista, to one end-the accumulation of property? Have not all our efforts been directed to the development of the physical energies of the country; to the improvement of the national sinews, and not the national mind, to say nothing of the national heart? And has not the result, boast of it as we may, declaim in heroics about it-as all may do-been but commensurate with the cause? Loving my country with all the fervour of a heart by no means cold; loving her more for what she might and ought to be, than for what she is; I must yet confess, with a lowering of pride, that I see in her vaunted stupendousness more of physical than of moral, or intellectual greatness.

If from our country at large, we direct our minds, under the same train of thought, to the section in which we live, how sad the contemplation! With all her acknowledged superiority in climate, soil and natural productions, in her mighty fretwork of navigable rivers, in the intrinsic character of her population, do we not find that she is engrossed in the paltry passion for pounds and pence, and that her greatest proficiency is, to speak symbolically, in the limited philosophy of the ploughshare, and the jack-plane, or the degraded cunning of the yard stick and the packing

screw.

This inordinate passion is like the lean kine of the dreaming monarch, swallowing up every better purpose. It gives its hue and impress to every phase and feature of life. The parent in the education of his child, must have him taught only those things which will be of practical value! Education itself is curbed, and fashioned by the influence. After delving in a miserable way, for a few years, over the primary branches of instruction, the hopeful youth, now that he is bearded, and built up like his father, assumes the full stature of an educated man, with just knowledge enough to addle his brain, and engender a spirit of ignorant vanity-self-chuckling and deaf --which besets and debases his whole moral nature. * * He at once

launches out into all the petty plans, and speculations of the " good old way in which his fathers went."

He loses all remembrance of the Pierian fountain, if ever he had knelt at its moss-covered curb-stone, and remembers the beautiful days of his youth, only as so much time squandered in idle pursuits, and under tyrannical task masters.

This is the character of the greater portion of our youth; and verily it may be said, few of them are likely to die of that disease which Festus thought had affected Paul.

The nobler race of the olden scholars has never existed in our land. We know nothing of that generous order of intellectual Palestra, who from youth to manhood, from manhood to age, with an enthusiasm as deep as woman's love drank of the golden waters of philosophy in the groves of Academe, or, in a later age, bent with a fever at the heart, and a flush upon the pallid cheek over dingy scrolls in the midnight quiet of some German University!"

Mr. Meek's "Songs and Poems" are not, in our estimation, equal to his prose productions. Although they contain abundant evidences of talent, and are, many of them, musical and vigorous, yet, viewing the volume as a whole, it seems to us to exhibit a general lack of artistic last-finish," which must seriously injure its claim to permanent regard.

No doubt there are individual poems in this collection, which will long continue their hold upon the popular fancy and affection. No doubt the author is a true Poet, but, (that fatal but!) he has in a great measure neglected to polish, and refine, and thereby to invigorate for a "long continuance in men's memories," the forms which embody the manifold beauties of his thought and sentiment. What we mean by polish and refinement, is not the emasculate dilettantism of versifiers, like Rodgers, and Mr. Hayley, but the removal of all those roughnesses of metre, language and rhythm, which so seriously injure the harmony and totality of effect in any work of Art. Unfortunately, there are too many defects of this kind in Mr. Meek's poems.

They seem to have been thrown off in moments of inspiration, or enthusiasm, without the slightest regard to after revision. Some of them read like improvisations, with all the necessary faults which belong to verses hastily conceived, and still more hastily expressed. Still, they could only have emanated from a mind richly fanciful, and prolific of noble ideas, and a genial, comprehensive philosophy.

pen has been omitted.

ton.

This is another of those pleasantly written tales, in which the author endeavors to refute the more formidable of those Hydra-headed charges against the profession in which she herself was once so famous. There is a great deal of unconscious special pleading, mingled, doubtless,with a great deal of truth in the style and details of the character: ization which embody, her argument; but Mrs. Ritchie is too eager to extort, large concessions. Thus, we are per fectly willing to admit that, Some virtuous, and even noble-minded persons of both sexes, have been adors, but that by no means commits us to the further concession that the "deep-rooted, pop lar prejudice," against the theatrical profession, is not, in the main, well-founded, and that the opinion which has led many honest, sensible and experienced individuals to look upon the stage, (so far at least as its influence upon its more direct votaries, is ncerned,) as the very reverse of moral or ennobling, is not substantially justnd true!

As a tale, howeverfand apart from its leading purpose, "Tin Roses" is a clever, and in parts, a brilliant story.

The Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott, with a Memoir of the author, in nine volumes. Little, Brown & Co., Boston.

The poems contained in these nine handsome volumes of Little & Brown's comprehensive series of the British Poets, have been re-printed from the standard edition of Cadell, which was published in Edinburgh in 1851.

In one respect, however, the present edition excels that of Cadell. Not only does it embrace all of Scott's minor pieces, with the "Imitations of the Ancient Ballads" from the Border Minstrelsy.arranged continuously, but, in order to give to the edition a character of absolute completeness, the Editor has inserted, (and very properly, we think,) various trifles printed in Lockhart's Biography, and not generally received into other collections, together with the poetry, chiefly in dramatic blank-verse, which introduces the various chapters of the Waverly Novels.

Thus, Messrs. Little & Brown have given to the world the first perfect edition of Scott's poems ever published.

are they destitute of high intrinsic merit, modelled as they are, with singular sucthe old Elizabethan dramatists, at whose cess and spirit, upon the best works of Scott Kad been accustomed, from early deep fountains inspiration and nature boyhood, to ink.

His dramatic pieces are-a Translation of et Von Berlichingen, which appeared in 1799; the House of Aspen, which was written about the same period, though it was first printed in the Keepsake for 1830; Halidon Hill, writ ten and published in 1822; MacDuff's Cross, 1823; and the Doom of Devorgoil, and the Ayrshire Tragedy, which appeared togeth in 1830.

We prope to revert, at some length, to these Dramas hereafter; to show in what the peculiar power consists, illustrag our notice by numerous extrac, which cannot but prove interesting to every thinker and scholar.

Manwhile, we have only space to say that the edition, typographically, is in every respect equal to the other issyes of Little & Brown's elegant and invaluable series of the British Classical Poets.

The Carolina Tribute to Calhoun-Edited by J. P. Thomas. Richard L. Bryan, publisher: Columbia, S. C.

1857.

Prof. Thomas has done an essential service to the State, and incidentally to history itself, in the compilation of this valuable work.

We have here, in a neat and enduring form, the records of "all the impor tant incidents, ceremonies, and testimonials, connected with the death of Calhoun; together with the several discourses, addresses and orations elicited from the full hearts of gifted Carolinians," &c.

The book embraces also the solemnities, elaborately and clearly reported, which took place in the Congress of the United States, "with the remarks of distinguished Senators and Representatives," the sermon of the Chaplain, the Report of the Committee of Twenty-five, the Narrative of the Funeral honours in Charleston, the Message of Gov. Seabrook, and, in a word, every ceremony, address and eulogy which illustrates the pageantry or the literature of the subject.

The material of the work is arranged

with great care and tact; and the publisher having well performed his part also, we may honestly commend this volume to general public at ntion.

The Charleston Medical Journal and Review, which, under the conduct of different gentlemen, has for so many years maintained a high national, as well as local and sectional repute, passed recently from the proprietorship of its late accomplished Editor, Dr. C. Happoldt, into the hands of J. Dickson Bruns, M. D., who is henceforth both proprietor and editor.

Dr. Bruns is known to the profession, and the public at large, as the author of a very remarkable treatise on "Life and its Relations-Animal and Mental," to the merits of which we briefly alluded on a former occasion. minute re-perusal of this essay has more than confirmed our first favourable impression. It displays a breadth of view, a clear, trenchant, vigorous logic, a pointedness and propriety of illustration, and an enlarged vigour of imaginative grasp, which stamps the treatise, (independently of the age of its author, or the occasion that called it forth,) as the original work of an original thinker. High as this praise is, it is simple justice.

It is evident, therefore, that under the control of Dr. Bruns, the interests and the reputation of the Charleston Medical Journal and Review are not likely to

suffer detriment.

Uniting, as the new editor and proprietor evidently does, intellectual resources, both various and solid, to earnestness of spirit and capacity for labour, we predict for the excellent periodical over which he presides, continued and increasing prosperity.

The January number of the Historical Magazine, a monthly, devoted to Notes and Queries concerning the Antiquities, History and Biography of America, and issued by C. Benjamin Richardson, at 348 Broadway, New York, has been sent us by the publisher. The purpose of this work, as it is strictly defined, seems to be quite as

strictly adhered to. Judging from the number before us "The Historical Magazi" promises to be a curious and instructive publication. It is full of rare information, industriously gathered from various quarters, and still retaining the hoary dust and thick cob-webs of antiquity. Having flourished for a year already, and showing no diminution of vigour and heartiness at the commencement of another, we may conclude that the work is popular among antiquarians and students of history, whom, of course, it chiefly addresses, and must, therefore, (since these sort of patrons are tenacious in their partiality,) succeed in the end. We hope so, for the work de serves to be liberally sustained! The present editor is a distinguished member of the New York Historical Society, and noted for his devotion to the objects of that association.

The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, (W. H. Bidwell, editor and proprietor,) and the well known Boston publication of a similar scope and purpose "Littell's Living Age," are among the most valued and interesting of our exchanges. Both these Eclectics are managed with great taste, tact and judg ment. They contain the "cream" of the best English and American thought, as embodied in the various Magazine articles of the day, are neatly printed, promptly issued, and furnished at the lowest possible prices.

Mr. Bidwell's work, published at No. 5 Beekman street, New York, is adorned every month with a fine steel engraving, generally a likeness of some contemporary celebrity in Literature, Art or Science.

We commend these periodicals to the patronage of our readers.

An ingenious French writer has observed, that ancient society perished on account of its beliefs, while modern society can be destroyed only by apostacy. The remark is significant and instructive. It implies, that we have received reliable information concerning the noblest themes of thought, and the most momentous of all concernsthat religion is conservative of individual happiness and political well-being; and that, notwithstand ing the inestimable value of this charge, it may be lost. And so the observation would prepare us, if the lesson were needed, to appreciate the importance of that institution, which has been set for the maintenance, the extension, and the defence of the truth.

In whatever the peculiar spirit of an epoch may consist, the pulpit must renounce its function, before it can cease to be one of the powers of the world. For what is its true

function? What is its design, if not directly to address the immortal spirit in the name of God? The pulpit is the sacred spot, where a divine embassy declares the purport of its mission. It is the sublime arena, where a champion comes forth, armed with a sword of unearthly temper, to do battle with errors and passions manifold: inspired by motives arising at once from piety, from philanthropy, from the sense of a seen and unseen crowd of witnesses, and from the honor of an immortal crown. It is the height whence, as from Sinai, the law of heaven is proclaimed— not indeed with an outward attendance of wonders, but with the demonstration of the Spirit and of power. The thoughtful eye beholds its mortal herald pass, like the actor in some brief pageant; but the splendid glory of his theme still hangs about the stage-the revelation of truth, mellowed by the