of Sciences at Berlin, Encke, the astronomer, produced eleven small manuscript works by the illustrious Leibnitz, all unpublished and upon mathematical subjects. A manuscript copy of a treatise by Blaise Pascal, hitherto supposed to have been lost, has also been recently found. It is entitled Generatio Conisectionum, and is characterized in a letter written by Leibnitz, who had examined it in 1676, as a work of great ability and scientific value.

The month has witnessed the deaths of quite a number of men of more or less literary celebrity. Among them is John Hookham Frere, a poet of some ability, an assistant of Canning in the "Anti-Jacobin," and Ambassador in Spain during a part of the Peninsular war. Byron, in speaking of his Beppo, says "I have written a poem of eighty-four octave stanzas, in or after the excellent manner of Mr. Whistlecraft, whom'I take to be Mr. Frere."

And he it was; but his book has probably never been heard of by a hundred persons this side of the Atlantic. He was 74 when he died, and in the receipt of a diplomatic premium of £1,516. Rev. Dr. d'Oyley, a frequent theological contributor to the Quarterly, when it was in Gifford's hands, and author of a Life of Archbishop Sancroft, also died during the month.

The Paris papers announce the death of M. de Sénancourt, author of "Obermann and other works. At Halle, the well-known archæologist Herr Dorow, author of several works upon that subject, some of which achieved a European reputation, died a few weeks since. The death of M. Jacque

min at Paris is also announced. He was the author of a number of vaudevilles, and of a Biography of celebrated men-but one of his best titles to remembrance is founded upon his courageous conduct as commissary of the police, during the prevalence of the cholera in Paris, when the old cry of "poisoners" was revived. On one occasion he rescued a poor wretch from the very hands of the mob, who were on the point of sacrificing him to the belief that some sweetmeats found upon him was poisoned. To convince them of their rashness Jacquemin ate the sweetmeats in their presence.

Of the progress of education in Greece an Athens paper furnishes very gratifying evidence. In 1838 only 25 students were in the University; during the last year there have been 195. At the close of the year there were in Greece 281 commercial schools, attended by 27,400 children; of these schools, 34 were for young girls, and had 3,360 scholars. There were, besides, 37 secondary schools and 4 gymnasia, frequented by about 5,000 pupils.

We cannot close our miscellany without referring to (and we regret that we can do no more) a very interesting description, in

The

a late number of the China Mail, of a dinner and party of ceremony between the High Imperial Commissioner Keying, and the English authorities at Hong-Kong. details of the ceremonies observed are very interesting; but we can make only two slight extracts, both concerning Keyingof which the first relates to his manner, and the second to his person :

"Nothing could exceed the affability and good-humor of Keying, accompanied by the highest tact and good breeding. He was jovial at dinner, but without excess; and after which he gave with great spirit, the company having volunteered a Mantchou Tartar song, adjourned to the drawing-room, where a party consisting of the ladies of the garrison, with most of the naval and military officers and civil residents, had assembled. Keying went the round of the room with the utmost blandness, offering his hand to each of the ladies, and distinguishing one or two of them by lithis person. There was one little girl in partle presents of purses or rosaries taken from ticular, about seven years of age, present, in whom Keying seemed much interested, and it was delightful to witness the good nature and benevolence of his manner when he took her upon his knee to caress her, and then placed an ornament about her neck. His fine Tartar head and person, grouped with the infant beauty of the little stranger, formed quite a picture. Keying retired shortly after eleven o'clock, but not till he had asked the General, with characteristic good nature, if he wished him to remain any longer, evidently desirous not to disappoint the guests, who crowded round him with a mingled feeling of respect aud curiosity. There thy of being recorded. A married lady who was another instance of high breeding worhis attention, and having desired one of his was sitting near him attracted a good deal of attendants to bring him a silk handkerchief he presented it to her, and begged he might retain her own in exchange for it. The lady was momentarily embarrassed, and Keying seeing this, said "he hoped he had done nothing contrary to our usages of propriety," ated and understood." an apology which was immediately appreci

The other passage is still more brief ;and with that we close for the month:

"A man so famous in the western world as Keying was, of course, the observed of all observers during his visit. He is, we should suppose, of some fifty years of age, his tall and majestic form being graced with manners at once dignified and courteous. His whole deportment, in short, was that of a perfectly well bred man of the world; and, but for his dress and language, he might have been taken for a fine specimen of the old English gentleman of the highest class. As bland countenance was beaming with goodwe saw him on such public occasions his humored benevolence; but it is of an intellectual cast, and lighted up with a twinkling eye, which, as occasion demands, would be equally expressive of penetrating shrewdness as of social glee.

Gentle, delicate, loving Blanchard! One is conscious of a fullness at the eyes on seeing his very name-associated as it is with so much that is charming in thought, beautiful in life, and mournful in death. What a saddening commentary upon the life of the man of letters in London, his career furnishes! His was the legitimate development and experience of a professional Literateur-of the true metropolitan growth. He was a genuine "cockney". but ah, how gloriously is the better meaning of that term illustrated when we remember that Blanchard, Hood, Hunt, Jerrold, Dickens, were all cockneys! These men have served a regular apprenticeship beneath the shadows of Grubstreet, and worked their way up through each dreary grade of delving labors, into the light-and, as well, into the recognized and happy privilege of reeling blindly into their unheeded graves after having worn out brains and life in the most amazing and pitifully remunerated drudgery. Two of them-Hood and Blanchard-have already consummated this most royal and magnificent "privilege "-they have rendered up their lives after the most approved and matter-of-fact methods. The life of one was crushed out of him by over-work, and this self-murder on "compulsion" was christened Hypochondriasis-and all was natural enough and well! The other in the awful blindness of insanity, brought on by the same cause, happened to anticipate a few hours, what was inevitable, with the help of a razor; and as this deed was classified under an unfashionable name, the world was absolutely surprised into seeing there was something terrible at the bottom of this case, and the whites of eyes and palms of hands were actually turned up in holy horror for an instant over its circumstances! How many stopped to remember that their own base and niggardly illiberality had helped to murder these two men, and was helping to murder a thousand others in the same legitimate, piece-meal style! Oh, that bright and earnest natures must thus wear out the fine and subtle tex

ture of their being in the lingering tortures of a hell-of-life,"-made so because besotted wealth will spare no crumbs from the table of its beastly excesseswhich thrown to such would make them rich indeed-would drive away this phan

tom of haggard want which is pursuing them even to the death! The deep unpardonable curse of such neglect must rest upon the misused wealth and mercenary spirit which continues passive when and while such things be! In his earlier life, filled with a young Poet's yearnings to bless his kind, Blanchard threw himself without reserve, with no intention of looking back, into the mighty and tumultuous struggle for "a hearing" of which the metropolis is the arena. After years of darkened, pained and exhausting hurry, he found he had reached the goal-he might be heard-might wreak upon expression the beautiful within himself, and the world would listen. But this precious right had been won too late-he was already outworn. If he sunk by the wayside to rest, the phantom whispered, "work! work! remember, thou hast purchased this privilege of charming, to enlighten thy fellow-men at the price of so many drops an hour of your life-blood! up! and on! the price must be paid." He did up and on until he staggered and grew wild with the changeless and inexorable agony; and even when he had won competency at last, and had placed himself above the reach of pecuniary difficulties, still the same pale ghost of Want continued to haunt his over-strung brain and drove him to madness! This is a fearful picturebut it is not the less true of himself, and is almost literally so of thousands of his profession in England and in this country.. His distinguished Biographer says, in reference to this condition of affairs:

"In his life are apparent many of the sores and evils peculiar to literary men in a country in which mind is regarded but as a common ware of merchandise; its products to be bought but by the taste and fashion of the public; with no resource in those provisions which elsewhere (and in Germany more especially) the State affords to such as quit the Agora for the Schools. The institution of professional chairs in Germany has not only saved many a scholar from famine, many a genius from despair, but, by offering subsistence and dignity to that valuable class of wriby reason of their very depth, for wide poputers whose learning and capacities unfit them, larity, it has given worthy and profitable inducements to grave study, and, more than all else, has maintained the German fame for patient erudition, and profound philosophy. And this has been effected without the evils

which free-traders in literature have supposed the concomitants of the system; it has not lessened the boldness and originality of such authors as a Public alone can reward and appreciate; nor has it crushed, by the patronage of a State, the spirit of free inquiry and enlarged discussion. In England, the

author who would live on his works can live only by the Public; in other words, the desultory readers of light literature; and hence the inevitable tendency of our literary youth is towards the composition of works without learning and forethought. Leisure is impossible to him who must meet the exigencies of the day; much information of a refining and original kind is not for the multitude. The more imaginative rush to novels, and the more reflective fritter away ther lives in articles for periodicals. Under such influences the author of these volumes lived and died."

Bulwer has never exhibited himself in a more amiable light, to our apprehensions, than in this delicately appreciative memoir of Laman Blanchard. He voluntarily assumed the task of its preparation, together with that of the editorship of his collected miscellanies, and has executed them in a loving and fraternal spirit in view of the pecuniary benefits which might result to his unprovided family. God speed the noble enterprise !-though the expression of such a hope sounds sufficiently like mockery coming from any quarter in this country-since our refusal to legislate upon the question of international copy-right law is the chief reason why such generous and benevolent enterprises are for the most part rendered nugatory. When will this darker blot than Repudiation even, be wiped from our fame? As a writer, Blanchard was never permitted to express himself fully in any sustained effort. The wear and tear of daily, weekly and monthly, drafts upon his mind was too great. In the language of his Biographer:

"There is a fatal facility in supplying the wants of the week by the rapid striking off a pleasant article, which interferes with the steady progress, even with the mature conception of an elaborate work."

There is, in his poetry, that degree of strangeness" which somebody says is necessary to the expressionof beauty in woman, and which we say is equally so to that of genius. Indeed, no other word so well conveys the absolute freshness of astonishment with which we regard the wonderfully exquisite passages which occur in his early volume, " Lyric Offer ings." For instance, in the sonnet on evening:

"Already hath the Day grown gray with age; And in the west, like to a conqueror crowned, Is faint with too much glory. On the ground He flings his dazzling arms; and, as a sage, Prepares him for a cloud-hung hermitage, Where Meditation meets him at the door."

There is a dreamy, remote, yet startling suggestiveness in this image which has seldom been surpassed in modern poetry, and there are very many such in that of Laman Blanchard. Unfortunately he wrote too little! His facile and graceful fancy expended itself at random in essays. Some

"Quotation is then a kind of fairy-land estate, of which every man who can muster some half a dozen volumes (besides a Shakhas the title-deeds in his possession. In it, speare, which comes as it were of course) as in an ark, are the chosen of many cantos congregated. Here shall we meet, in promiscuous communion, a type of all that can grace and diversify the physical and moral world. Here shall we find the cunning children of fiction nestling in the furrows the crest of Alexander; grasshoppers and of matter-of-fact: sylphids nodding from great men: the " green and golden basilisk" with the "white and winged dove." Here "dolphins gambol in the lion's den;" while the lion himself is stretched

"Beside the lamb as though he were his brother."

Genii and gallant knights pass to battle in an armor of rose-leaves, riveted with dew-drops; while the ladye for whose love they combat, and whom we carry about with us in some miniature quotation, can boast a foot that would fail to crush the thistledown, though trampling upon the domestic associations of readers, and upon creeds and commandments. It is a garden of the Hesperides, without a having no forbidden tree; the apples we pluck dragon to watch over it-an Eden of liberty, in quotation are propitious as that which Acontius threw into the bosom of Cydippe.

Shall we not rejoice then and revel in the glorious liberty of extract, and quote to the thousandth line? Shall we not have pages like the Pyramids? Who ever skipped a quotation, though it made against the interest of the story? Besides, how many books might be numbered that are valuable only in a solitary quotation!-as the oyster is esteemed for the pearl it may sometimes contain."

There is yet another pleasing illustration occurs to us of that union of a fantastic ideal

ity with the humorous, which constitutes much of the charm of his style. We cannot deprive our readers of it. It is show"that old birds are not to be caught ing with chaff:"

"The older the bird, the more he flatters sily caught, were it worth while; but you himself that he is worth catching. He is eahave caught nothing perhaps, when you have got him. Chaff is too valuable, too precious, to be expended wastefully; and because you are not silly enough to throw powder away, he conceives himself to be shot-proof. As nobody tries to catch him, he fondly persuades himself that his own exceeding cun"Take me ning secures him from capture. about the woods, as though a flock of golden if you can," chirps he; and goes dodging vultures were pursuing him. He is quite safe. He has not the felicity of being in peril. The young condor, pressed even by

vulgar appetite, will not do him the honor of dining upon him. His toughness and antiquity are sure safeguards. He is only not captured, because there is nothing captivating about him. But if, by any chance, he hath a tail-feather fit for plucking, or a bone worthy of being picked, then is your old bird in imminent danger, for you may catch him when you like with half a pinch of chaff. The tender foxling, not arrived at the maturity of slyness, who never tasted chicken of his own stealing, shall take him without a ruffle of his plumage-only by pronouncing its dingy

brown to be rich crimson."

This is a delightful volume for thought and language. The style is like, yet unlike, that of the reverend editor's review S

and political essays. It has the same general construction-long sentences, yet never involved, simple in parts, weighty as a whole, and of a diction singularly firm and pure; but it is-naturally, as became the sacred desk-more measured and

solemn. It has little of the chisseled classicality that so distinguishes the beautiful Sermons of his countryman, Blair; nor yet of that confused stringing of pearls and waving of rainbows, that shed such disheveled gorgeousness over the discourses of Chalmers. Sidney Smith, in his Sermons, reminds us rather of many of the old English Prelates-not quaint, indeed, like most of them-but of a rich simplicity, fruitfully earnest, bestowing the wealth of his mind not reveling in it, and ready to stop talking when he seems to have impressed his hearers. Whether the facetious Divine deeply felt all he uttered, we are not sufficiently acquainted with the character of his daily life to determine. But no one can go amiss in buying the book.

Wiley & Putnam's Library of Choice Reading.

Several of the recent publications of this series have been among the best and most notice-worthy of them all. We allude particularly to Leigh Hunt's new work, critical and illustrative of the great Italian poets, Dante, Ariosto, Tasso; to Bulwer's sketch of the life of Laman Blanchard, to the new edition of the poetical works of Keat's, &c. Hunt's work has been characterized as a royal road to the study of the Italian poets. With the exception of some disparaging remarks upon Dante, the book is a liberal exhibition of a poet's sympathies for the writings of poets. It is a perfect field of the cloth of gold-a royal road, truly. There are classic biographies of the illustrious authors, clearing up in choice prose the intricate and disputed points of personal history, genial comments on the

genius of the poets, and then a most loving and pains-taking exhibition of their works. The Italians' Pilgrim's Progress, is a version in prose of the Divine comedy, of the principal passages at least, bringing that hitherto unknown poem to the mass of American and English readers, perfectly within the range of their conceptions; as completely so as the immortal progress of pilgrim Bunyan himself. It is not a little odd that such strict fidelity on the part of Hunt to the poetical beauties of Dante, so careful a labor of style, so studious a zeal to give the best version of the Florentine should be

accompanied frequently by a commentary more worthy of the ignorant flippancy of a novice than the life-student of ItalianLeigh Hunt. But, in truth, Hunt has taken up Dante in a personal mood rather than from an historical point of view. He has judged him as he might if he was living his next door neighbor and finds him a gigantic impersonation of conceit; as if, forsooth, he had himself invented all that tremendous machinery of hell pains and purgatory-the remorseless system of pains and penalties of the Inferno. This is not a subject, however, to be discussed in a paragraph: it is worthy of a full and mature examination. The evidence of Hunt tells truth somewhere, and though it may be unjust to Dante, may be true to this generation. With Ariosto, Tasso and Boiardo, Hunt is on ground more congenial to him. This work, we predict, will long be a standard and be read like Johnson's Lives of the English Poets.

It is impossible here even to speak briefly of the successive volumes of the Library of Choice Reading, which has been confined more strictly to good literature than any collection of authors ever published. The best collections or "libraries" have always been of the classics, authors upon whom the world has pronounced judgment, the Swifts, Addisons, and those of whom it is safe to predict a good reception, "nature's great stereotypes!" This collection, however, has been drawn from the works of contemporaries, in a great measure, and has anticipated that judgment of time. Present popularity and a fair prospect of future fame have been, for the most part, happily united. At some future day we may arrange some of these works in groups to show more distinctly what has been done in this series. Books of Eastern travel will make a critical chapter by themselves, including the trilogy Eothen, Crescent and the Cross, Mr. Thackeray's characteristic Journey from Cornhill to Cairo. Then there are the writings of Haighte of Leigh Hunt-the novels of Tupper, Zschokke, Fouqué and others. On all and each of these there is opportunity for lengthened criticism, and we would gladly

be the means of making such works known to our readers. Says Haighte, quoting from Steele, the next best thing to being pleased is to know the reason why we are pleased.

The Wandering Jew-superbly illustrated by the most eminent artists of Paris. A new and elegant translation. Harper & Brothers': New York.

Of this work, itself, we have spoken at some length in the article on "Recent French Novelists." The present edition is undoubtedly the only decent one, typographically speaking, that has yet been issued in this country-the translation as good as any. The paper and print really superb. For the illustrations the publishers are not responsible-except for introducing them to this country. Some of them are good-some execrable-all excessively French. The ingenious and pleasantminded artist could not have found his models for such faces and figures anywhere on earth but in Paris. This inventiveness is even carried into the countenance and costume of the characters from other

countries. The Indian Prince, the Malay cut-throat, the Dutch commercial agent of Java-are all Paris. Some bruised remnant of the Reign of Terror sat for Farrhinghea; even the wandering Cosmopolite, himself, is as near French as they could well make him. As to truthfulness, keeping, some of the ideals we had formed in our own minds are utterly dispersed, ruined; others again, where the characters themselves were rather grotesque, or ill-favored, are quite natural, if they are not in nature. But the artist, or artistsfor there appear to have been several of them-seem altogether unable to portray grace and beauty. As it is, however, this edition is the only one if the reader wishes to peruse the work with satisfaction to his

eyes.

'Aids to English Copmosition. By RICHARD GREEN PARKER, A. M. A New Edition, with Additions and Improvements. Harper & Brothers.

We can think of few persons-in whatever social condition-to whom the art of forming and expressing their ideas with ease and propriety is not a valuable acquisition. To aid in such attainment and in the exercise of this art, in written language, is the design of Mr. Parker. He does not assume to give laws to genius, or to lay down rules to which English composition must be subjected. His object is to aid, and mainly to aid, the youthful writer. To obtain ideas, he has arranged a plan of exercises which lead the mind to observation and

reflection: for example, the pupil is required to enumerate the properties, appearances and uses of some of the most familiar objects, as a horse, a church, a carriage, a pen, and to dwell in the same manner on events and facts occurring within his experience or knowledge. He is then introduced to other exercises, which assist him in the selections of words and phrases, and in the formation of sentences; examples are given for the translation of figurative into plain language, plain to figurative, verse to prose, and prose to verse, with ample specimens of the various species of composition. As a work for beginners, on the art of composition, it is decidedly the most useful we are acquainted with, and we trust it will be the means of awakening in our schools a new interest for an attainment which is the crowning glory of the intellect.

Over the Ocean; or Glimpses of Travels in Many Lands. By a LADY OF NEW YORK. Paine & Burgess.

This is a pleasantly written volume, in the form of letters to friends at home, by a lady who knew how to use both her eyes and her pen. With a kind heart and a constant flow of spirits, she goes from scene to scene, jotting down her impressions, without effort or pretence, and telling us her haps and her mishaps, with ease and grace, and imperturbable goodhumor. There is no effort at fine writing, though the volume contains many fine passages. The authoress carried us through the Mediterranean, as far as Constantinople, and over most of the countries of Europe. She is traveling for pleasure, and finds it and communicates it.

We had thought of making several quotations, but have not room. The description of a visit to Mount Vesuvius is graphic, and furnishes a fair specimen of the authoress' power. We cannot refrain, however, from extracting the following morceau. Speaking of the Eastern custom, requiring ladies to conceal their faces from the eyes of the men, she relates, with delightful naiveté, the following laughable incident:

"A friend was sailing down the Nile with distance, a group of females in the river, some companions, when they espied, at some who were clad simply in their chemises, without veils or other ordinary coverings for the head and face. Pleased with the opportunity-one rarely offered-of seeing them unveiled, Mr. B. directed the boatmen to proceed as noiselessly as possible, that they succeeded admirably, and were almost in might approach them unperceived. They the bathers' midst, before being discovered. But no sooner were the intruders seen by the alarmed females, than anxious to hide them