formed in appearance, was not divested of the consciousness of his identity, resolved to leave the haunts of men, for the purpose of seeking refuge in some unfrequented solitude, where he might repose in peace, enjoy his freedom and his flowers, and spread his gilded wings without the great drawback of perpetual apprehension. Accordingly, he once more mounted high into the air, and spreading his silken wings directed his course toward Mount Horeb, at the foot of which lies the city of Damascus, in whose deep recesses he sought to escape from the dangers that beset him in the neighborhood of man. Here he sported among the flowers that nodded over the precipices which border the little river Barady, as it plunges its way through the gorges of the mountain. "Here," thought he, "I shall surely be safe, since the foot of man can never reach these inaccessible cliffs." Scarcely, however, had the thought passed over his mind, when hearing a whistling noise in the air, he cast his eyes fearfully upward and perceived a bird darting toward him with such inconceivable swiftness, that he had scarcely time to shelter himself from its talons by crouching into a hole in the rock, where he remained throbbing with fear, not daring to look out to see whether his enemy was still on the watch. "There is no safety for me here," exclaimed Adakar, who at length gathered sufficient courage to look out from his retreat, and seeing the bird had disappeared, once more flitted away. He visited the recesses of the forest, the cultivated plains, and the solitudes of the desert, but wherever he went he found enemies watching to make him their prey, and his life was only one long series of that persecution which strength ever wages against unresisting weakness. "What," thought he," is the use of my wings, since they only enable me to encounter new dangers, and to what purpose do I sip the dews of the opening flowers, when death is every moment staring me in the face, and enemies beset me on every side? O, that I were a man again; I would willingly resign the unbounded freedom I enjoy, for that slavery which is accompanied by security." Thus he continued to become every day more discontented with his lot, until by degrees the autumn came, and the flowers withered and died. The frosts, too, began to shed their hoary lustre over the green fields that gradually changed their hue to that of melancholy brown, and Adakar became pinched with both hunger and cold. The brilliant colors of his body and wings faded, as if in sympathy with the waning beauties of nature; his strength and activity yielded to the approach of expiring weakness; he had provided neither food nor shelter against the coming winter; and once more death stared him in the face with an aspect more dreary and terrible than it had ever presented before. The bare earth afforded no shelter, and the withered fields no food. "O," thought he, as he felt himself dying, "O, that the fairy would once more change me into a man!" He had scarcely uttered these words when he found himself transformed according to his wish, and the fairy butterfly once more in his place. "Adakar," said she, in her whispering, silvery voice, "thou hast first played the butterfly as a man, and now as an insect. In both situations thou didst pursue the same course. As a man thou livedst only for the present moment, regardless of the consequences of reveling in perpetual sweets, without looking to the period when the frosts of age would chill thy imagination, and the ice of winter freeze up thy capacity for those enjoyments of sense which constituted thy sole happiness, if happiness it may be called. As a butterfly thou didst sport through the spring-time and summer without for a moment thinking of providing food and refuge against the wintry barrenness and wintry cold. Thou hast learned that the beings which live in air, sport among gardens, groves, and flowers, and traverse the climes of the earth at will, are not necessarily happier than man, since they live in perpetual fear. Be wiser in future. Be content with thy lot, assured that the only way to be happy in this and every other state of existence, is to use the blessings bestowed on us by a beneficent Providence with sober moderation, and share them among others with a chastened liberality. Thou hast been a benefactor to me, and I have repaid the obligation by enabling thee thus to learn wisdom from bitter experience. The lesson has been dearly bought, but is fully worth the price. Go, and be thankful that thou wast created a man instead of a butterfly." The fairy disappeared, and Adaker took his way toward Damascus, where his appearance caused great surprise, most especially to a hump-backed cousin, who had taken possession of his estate, after having convinced the bashaw of Damascus, by twelve purses of gold, that he was certainly dead. Adakar was obliged to appeal to the bashaw for the restoration of his property, but failed to establish his identity. He could only account for his absence by relating his transformation into a butterfly, of which the bashaw, being blinded to the truth by the glitter of gold, would not believe one word. He decreed the estate to the cousin, and consoled the other for his loss by inflicting the bastinado. Adakar passed several years as a water-carrier, until the benevolent fairy, finding that he had completed the circle of his experience by drinking at both extremes of the fountain, wrought a second transformation, by which Adakar became changed into the likeness of his cousin, and the latter into that of Adaker, who thus regained his estate at the expense of his beauty. He became a wise as well as a good man; and devoting himself to the study of philosophy, wrote a famous treatise, in which he clearly demonstrated that men were at least as well off in this world as butterflies. CINCINNATI.. BY FAYETTE ROBINSON, AUTHOR OF "THE ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES," ETC. WHEN Columbus discovered the new world, he was in search of a western route to Cathay and India, whence he expected to bring back, if not treasures of gold and gems, intelligence of the wonderful land Marco Polo had described. It was not until long after the discovery of the continents of North and South America, that it was ascertained that a new region, broad as the Atlantic, lay between the ocean and the Indian Sea, as the Pacific was then called. So deep-rooted was this belief that the French colonists in Canada, long after they had begun to be formidable to their English and Hollandish neighbors, in spite of many disappointments, followed the tracery of the Ohio and Mississippi in the full confidence that this mighty current could end only in the Western Sea. They could not realize that nature in America had always acted on a grander scale than they were used to, and would have laughed, if told that not far above the mouth of the Ohio was another great artery which, by its tributaries, watered one valley, the superfices of which was larger than all Europe. They, with their limited views, were the discoverers to Europe of the Ohio, which, in the language of the tribe that dwelt on the bank from which the white man first beheld it, signified Beautiful Water. This the French translated into their own language, and by the term of La Belle River it was long known in the histories of the Jesuit and Franciscan missions, which, until the land the Ohio watered became the property of the second North American race, were its only chronicles. Not until a later day did it become known to the English colonists, and then so slightly, that even in the reign of Charles II authority was given to the English governor of Virginia, Sir William Berkeley, to create an hereditary order of knighthood, with high privileges and brilliant insignia, eligibility to which depended on the aspirant having crossed the Alleghany Ridge, and added something to the stock of intelligence of the region beyond, the title to all of which had been conferred by royal patent on the colony at Jamestown. Possessed of Canada, with strongly defended positions at Fort Duquesne (Pittsburg) and Fort Chartres, near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi, with the even then important city of New Orleans, the wily statesmen of the reign of Louis XIV. conceived the plan of enclosing the English colonies in a network of fortifications, and ultimately of controlling the continent. So cherished was this policy that treaties made in Europe between the crowns of France and England never extended their influence to America, and for almost a century continued a series of contests, during which Montcalm, de Levi, Wolf and Braddock distinguished themselves and died. The result is well known, Canada became English, the northern point d'appui of the system was lost, and the Ohio was no longer under their control This prologue to the beautiful engraving of Cincinnati is given because, though Pittsburg and Louisville are important cities, Cincinnati is the undoubted queen of the river. It was not, however, until the war of the Revolu tion that serious attention was generally directed to the Ohio, for the brilliant expedition of Clarke against Kaskaskia (which is almost unknown, though in difficulty and daring it far exceeded Arnold's against Quebec,) was purely military. Immediately on the termination of the war, emigrants began to hurry to the Ohio, and by one of the hardiest of these, Cincinnati was commenced in 1789. By the gradual indux of population into the west Cincinnati throve, and soon became the chief city of the region. For a long while Cincinnati was merely the depot of the Indians and fur trade, the most valuable of the products of which required to be transported across the mountains and through forests to the sea-board. At that time Cincinnati presented a strange appear. ance; the houses were of logs, and here and there through the broad streets its founders so providentially prepared, were seen the hunter, in his leathern jerkin, the Indian warrior in full paint, and the busbandman returning home from his labors. Almost from the establishment of the northwest territory Cincinnati had been the home of the governor; and it was the residence of St. Clair, long the only delegate in congress of the whole north-west-a wilderness then, but now teeming with three million of men, and sending to Washington thirty-four representatives. Cincinnati was the point de depart of many of the expeditions against the Indians between the revo lution and the war of 1812. When that war broke out it acquired new importance. Military men replaced the hunter and Indian, and every arrival brought a reinforcement of troops. From it Taylor and Croghan marched with Gen. Harrison northward, and to it the victorious army returned from the Thames. When peace returned, a new activity was infused into Cincinnati; the vast disbursements made by the government had attracted thither many adventurers. Then commenced the era of bateau naviga tion, and the advent of a peculiar race of men, of whom now no trace remains. Rude boats were built and freighted with produce, which descended the river to New Orleans, where the cargo was dis posed of, and the boat itself broken up and sold. The crew, after a season of dissipation, returned homeward by land, through the country inhabited by the Chactas and Chickasas, and the yet wilder region infested by thieves and pirates. It was no uncom mon thing for the boatmen never to return. Exposure to danger made them reckless; and they were often seen floating down the bosom of the stream, with the violin sounding merrily, but with their rifles loaded, and resting against the gunwales, ready to be used whenever an emergency arose. All the west even now rings with traditions of the daring of this race; and the traveler on the waters of the west often has pointed out to him the scene of their bloody contests and quarrels. The era of steam began, and this state of things passed away. The mighty discovery of Fulton created yet more activity in the west; and a current of trade, second in importance to none on the coninent, except, perhaps, those of New York and Philadelphia, sprung from it. As the States of Kenucky and Ohio began to fill up, the farmers and lanters crowded to Cincinnati with their produce, and the character of the population changed. The lay of the voyageur was gone, and lines of steamoats crowded its wharf. The peculiar character of the country around it, teeming with the sustenance or animals and grazing, made it the centre of a ›eculiar business which, unpoetical as it may seem, loubled every year, until in 1847 it amounted to aore than the value of the cotton crop of the whole Atlantic frontier. Other branches of industry also grew up. Shipyards lined the banks of the river, and more than one stately vessel has first floated on the bosom of the Ohio, in front of Cincinnati, been freighted at its wharves, and sailed thence to the ocean, never again to return to the port of its construction. Long before the reign of merchant princes began, stately churches, colleges, and commodious dwellings had arisen, and replaced the hut of the early settlers, so that Cincinnati, with the exception of Philadelphia, is become the most regular and beautiful city of the Union. The scene of the accumulation of large fortunes, cultivation has followed in their train, so that it is difficult for one who first visits it from the east to realize that he is seven hundred miles from the seaboard. Fulton had by his discovery overcome the difficulties of communication, and opened a market for its immense products; but yet another discovery was to contribute to its prosperity. By means of the magnetic telegraph communication between the seaboard of the Atlantic and the lakes is more easy than between New York and Brooklyn, and with the whole west Cincinnati has acquired new importance. It can not but continue to advance and acquire yet more influence than now it has. CLEOPATRA. BY ELIZABETH J. EAMES. ENCHANTRESS queen! whose empire of the heart Won from the imperial Cæsar conquests splendid; O, bright Egyptian Queen! thy day is past His eye is cold-wo! for thy grief unspoken! But hark! a trumpet's thrilling call "to arms!"? With spear and princely crest they come to meet thee, Arrayed for triumph, and with laurels crowned, How will their stern and haughty leader treat thee? He comes to conquer-lo! on bended knee The spell-bound Roman pleads, and yields to thee! Once more the world is thine. Exultingly Thy beautiful and stately head is lifted; He lives but in thy smile-proud AntonyThe crowned of empire-he, the grandly gifted. The spoils of nations at thy feet are laidThe wealth of kingdoms for thy favor scattered: Oh! Syren of the Nile! thy love has made The royal Roman's ruin! crowns were shattered And kingdoms lost. Fame, honor, glory, power, Were playthings given to grace thy triumph-hour. Another change!-the last for thee, doomed queen, Its diadem of starry jewels beareth- No conqueror's chain that form imperial beareth. To grace Death's triumph was but left for thee, Daughter of Afric, by the asp set free! REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS. and China. What is wanted, therefore, is a concise abstract, which shall embody the labor of all former histories and the discoveries of modern research. An Universal History of the Most Remarkable Events of All | in interest and importance by the records of Egypt, Inda. Nations, from the Earliest Period to the Present Time, forming a Complete History of the World. Vol. 1. Ancient History. William H. Graham: New York. This is one of the most useful works now issuing from the American press. Its publication has been commenced in this country somewhat in advance of the London and Leipsic editions, which have been previously advertised; thus securing an immediate circulation in the three great reading nations of the world. The entire work will embrace about twenty numbers, appearing at intervals of a month. The first four of these, two numbers of which are before us, are devoted to Ancient History, extending to the Fall of the Roman Empire. No province of literature has been so modified by the vast increase of books as the writing of History. While the republican idea, which has struck such deep root into the world's politics, seems to tend toward an equalization of human intellect, it has, perhaps, made the deeps of thought shallower, and weakened the concentration and devotion of mind which marked the scholars of former centuries. The fields of knowledge, once but a small manor, have broadened into a kingdom; and, grasping at total possession, men prefer the shortest and easiest ways of obtaining it. Works of the imagination, and fictions, illustrative of life and society, which are now multiplied to an indefinite extent, unfit the common mind for those grave and serious studies which were once almost the only road to literary distinction. The consequence of this is, that books are written with a view to their being read; and where the subject is addressed to the understanding alone, polished and classic language, or more frequently an assumed peculiarity of style, is used to hold the ear captive, and through it the intellect. The modern writers of history especially, seize upon scenes and situations which involve strong dramatic effect, endeavoring, as it were, to reproduce the past, by painting its events with the most vivid colors of description. They do not give the polished, stately bas-reliefs of the old historians, but glowing pictures, perhaps less distinct in their outlines, but conveying a stronger impression of real life. The works of Prescott, (who has maintained, however, a happy medium between these styles,) Michelet, Lamartine, and Carlyle, furnish striking examples of this. The present work fills a blank which has long existed among historical works-that of a Universal History, which, embracing the prominent events of all ages, placed before the reader in a clear and comprehensive arrangement, shall yet be so simple and brief as to command the perusal of the great laboring classes, who would shrink from the study of Rollin or Rotteck, as a task too serious to be undertaken. The abridgment of Schlosser's "Weltgeschichte," which we believe has never been translated, contains these qualifications in an eminent degree; yet its high philosophical tone is rather adapted to the scholar than the general reader. Gibbon's great work, from its magnificence of language, long retained a place in popular favor, and will always be read by the diligent historical student, but of late years it has ceased to be in common use. Our knowledge of ancient history has been wonderfully extended by the study of the modern Asiatic languages, and the restoration of tongues, which had been forgotten for centuries, and the Roman Empire, which once included in its history that of the greater part of the ancient world, is almost equaled The author of this work, judging from that portion of e already published, is equal to this task. He comes to i prepared by twenty years of study, and a familiar acquaintance with all the necessary authorities, not only those ta whom we look for the solid record of fact, but those who have gone beneath the surface of events, and tracked de source of political convulsions by a thousand pulses back to the hidden heart of some great principle. This Phi sophy of History, which has become almost a distise branch of literature, gives vitality to the narrative, by leading us to causes which may still exist; thus connecting our interest in the Present with the fate of the Past. In this country, where every man is more or less a politics! philosopher, a history possessing merit of this character. is likely to become exceedingly popular. The utility of the present work to the general reader a greatly increased by the geographical and statistical ne counts of the countries, which are given in connectim with their history. In fact, some knowledge of their physical character, climate, and productions is necessery to a comprehensive idea of the people who sprung up and flourished still more valuable if they were accompanied with mapa; upon them. These descriptions would become possible, in the succeeding numbers. and we would suggest that this defect be remedied, if The author has chosen the epistolary form, as combining ease of style with a certain familiar license of language, and therefore better adapted for popular instruction. Com mencing at the traditionary period from which we date the origin of man, he describes the gradual formation of society, and marks out the first broad divisions of the race from which sprung the great empires of Egypt and the East. The geographical account of these countries is extended and complete, embracing also a graphic view of their modern condition. We notice that in common with several distinguished German historians, the author give to the Hindoos the distinction of being the earliest race of men. "Above all the historical records of other nations,” says he, "the Hindoos have brought forth the best evidence of the highest antiquity, and the earliest civilizatim Therefore the supposition of those may be correct, wis presume that man's first abode was somewhere in the neighborhood of the Himalaya mountains, which are the most stupendous on the globe." The two remaining numbers devoted to Ancient Hist will bring us down to A. D. 476. The author dedicam his work to M. A. Thiers, as the "orator, statesman, his torian, and friend of liberty." Lectures on Shakspeare. By H. N. Hudson. New YorkBaker & Scribner. 2 vols. 12mo. We suppose that few of our readers are unacquainted w Mr. Hudson, the lecturer on Shakspeare, and the writer various brilliant and powerful articles in the Americas Review. The lectures which compose the present volunte have been delivered, at various times, in the principal cities of the Union, and have everywhere been welcomed as productions of the highest merit in one of the most diffi departments of critical art. The author has delayed the publication until the present time, in order that they migh e subjected to repeated revision, and every opinion they ontain cautiously scanned. Many of the lectures have een re-written a dozen times; and probably few books of e size ever published in the country, have been the slow oduct of so much toil of analysis and research. Almost very sentence gives evidence of being shaped in the forge and working-house of thought." All questions hich rise naturally in the progress of the work are sturdily et and answered, however great may be their demand on e intellect or the time of the author. Every thing condered, subtilty, depth, force, brilliancy, comprehension, we know of no work of criticism ever produced in the nited States which equals the present, either in refineent and profundity of thought, or splendor and intensity expression. Indeed, none of our critics have devoted so uch time as Mr. Hudson to one subject, or been content confine themselves so rigidly to the central sun of our English literary system. We doubt, also, if there be any ork on Shakspeare, produced on the other side of the tlantic, which is so complete as the present in all which lates to Shakspeare's mind and characters. It not only ›mprehends the highest results of Shaksperian criticism, at it is a step forward. This may to some appear extravagant praise, but for its stice we confidentially appeal to the record. The plays hich have most severely tried the sagacity of Shakseare's critics, are Hamlet, Macbeth, Lear, and Othello. We do not hesitate to say that Mr. Hudson's analysis and presentation of these are the most thorough, accurate, ad comprehensive which exist at present either in English German. Compare him or these tragedies with Goethe, ith Schlegel, with Coleridge, with Hazlitt, with Ulrici, ad it will be found that he excels them all in completeness. is needless to add that he is able to excel them only by oming after them; and that it is by diligently digesting all e positive results of Shaksperian criticism that he has een enabled to advance the science. He has grasped the rinciples which Schlegel and Coleridge established, and pplied them to the discovery of new truths. By the most atient and toilsome analysis he has fully brought out many ungs which they simply hinted, and distinctly set forth onclusions which lay dormant in their premises. And in le analysis of individual character, meaning by that the solving each Shaksperian personage into its original lements, and indicating the degree of general truth it wers, our countryman has hardly a rival. Few even of hakspeare's diligent readers are aware of the vast stores I thought and knowledge implied in Shakspeare's characrs, because the fact is so commonly stated in general rms. Mr. Hudson proves that the characters are classes tensely individualized, by showing how large is the umber of persons each character represents, or of whom is the ideal. He thus indicates the extent of Shakspeare's inge over the whole field of humanity, and the degree of is success in classifying mankind. No one, therefore, in read Mr. Hudson's interpretative criticisms without ew wonder at the amazing reach and depth of Shakseare's genius. | blazes and burns with wit. South, Congreve, and Sheridan are hardly richer in the precious article. In Mr. Hudson, also, the quality has an individual character, and is the racier from its genuineness and from its root in his intellectual constitution. This wit is, perhaps, the leading characteristic of his style, though his diction varies sufficiently with the varying demands of his subjects, and often glides from the tingling concussion of antithesis into the softest music, or rises from sarcastic brevity and stinging emphasis into rich and sonorous amplification. The analysis of Iago, and the analysis of the Weird Sisters, indicate, perhaps, the extremes of his manner. Throughout the volumes, whether the subject be comic or tragic, humorous or sublime, there is never any lack of verbal felicities. These seem to grow spontaneously in the soil of his mind; and there is no American writer whose style is more wholly free from worn and wasted images, phrases, and forms of expression. He is neither mediocre in thought nor expression. We cannot resist the temptation to give a few of Mr. Hudson's sentences, illustrative of his manner of stinging the minds of his readers and enforcing their attention. Speaking of Sir Thomas Lucy, on whose manor Shakspeare is said to have poached, Hudson remarks: "This Warwickshire esquire, once so rich and mighty, is now known only as the block over which the Warwickshire peasant stumbled into immortality." Referring to those pureists who regard words more than things in their strictures on licentiousness, he calls them persons "whose morality seems to be all in their ears." Speaking of Hume, "an exquisite voluptuary among political and metaphysical abstractions," he puts him in a class of men who "study art as they study nature, only in the process of dissectiona process which, of course, scares away the very life which makes her nature; so that they get, after all, but a sort of post-mortem knowledge of her." Again, he observes"Pope, for example, was the prince of versifiers, and Hume the prince of logicians: with the one versification strangled itself in a tub of honey; with the other logic broke its neck in trying to fly in a vacuum. It is by no means strange, therefore, that the thousand-eyed philosophy of Shakspeare should have seemed a perfect monster to the one-eyed logic of Hume." Perhaps the finest answer to the charge that Shakspeare was an unregulated genius, full of great absurdities and great beauties, is contained in Hudson's ironical statement of it: "He has sometimes been represented as a sort of inspired and infallible idiot, who practiced a species of poetical magic without knowing what he did or why he did it; who achieved the greatest wonders of art, not by rational insight and design, but by a series of lucky accidents and lapsus naturæ; who, in short, went through life stumbling upon divinities, and blundering into miracles." By the publication of these lectures Mr. Hudson takes his place among the first thinkers and writers of the country. He has that in his writings which will make him popular, and that which will make him permanent. It is unnecessary to say that a book so strongly marked by individuality It would be impossible in the space to which we are as his is calculated to provoke criticism. It contains many ecessarily confined, to do justice to Mr. Hudson's powers things which will be severely assailed by those whose f analysis and representation, as exercised through the opinions on certain theories of government and society vide variety of the Shaksperian drama. The volumes are in exact opposition to those of the author. Some warm with strong and striking thoughts on so many sug-positions, critical and political, which he confidently ested topics, that it is difficult to fix upon any particular xcellence for especial praise. The first quality which vill strike the reader will be the author's opulence of exression and profusion of wit. Analogies with him are as heap as commonplaces are to other men. He has no esitation in announcing his analysis in a witticism, and ondensing a principle into an epigram. His page often merits. states as settled, are still open to discussion. But take the work as a whole, as an embodiment of mental power, and there are few men in the country on whom it would not confer honor. It needs but a very small prophetic faculty to predict for a work so fascinating and instructive a circulation commensurate with its |