residence," just as we say this is a Swiss cottage, or that the times, and the present excited state of our domestic a Spanish hacienda?

But apart altogether from the fault of servile imitation, an important objection presents itself to the universal adoption of European styles in this country in the fact that they are are not adapted to our climate. For a Southern gentleman to erect a castellated mansion on the banks of the Mississippi would not only be an incongruity, but would probably involve the roasting of his wife and children during nine months in the year. A Northern gentleman who should build an open, airy villa, such as are seen and admired in the south of Europe, on the banks of the Hudson, and live in it, would without doubt become the victim of ridicule and rheumatism; be frozen by the winds from Canada and laughed at for his pains. Nor would it all better the matter to transpose these styles, by giving the castle to the New Yorker and the villa to the Louisianian: for it must be recollected that our climate is not equable like that of Europe, but one of great vicissitudes, exposing the Southron at times to intense cold, and the Northern man to the heat of the tropics. So that very material modifications must be made in the styles most in vogue, before they can harmonize with the climate of America. The architect who shall adopt the good parts of all these styles, and combine them into one, distinctively American in decoration, will achieve a great public benefit.

relations. The Southern question is ably considered, and Mr. Trescot's views are expressed with entire good temper and in a style of singular simplicity and purity. The purport of Mr. Heriot's Address may be gathered from the title-page. It is a very masterly consideration of the importance of combining the advantages of physical and moral training in the education of youth, and by consequence of the establishment of Military Schools. We are only surprised that in referring to the happy operation of such schools in this country, Mr. Heriot has altogether overlooked the VIRGINIA MILITARY INSTITUTE, by far the most excellent and well-endowed State Military Academy in the country, and certainly the most successful. Under a liberal patronage from the Commonwealth, this Institute has become almost invaluable as a norinal school for the training of teachers, who, by virtue of the martial discipline there employed, become admirably qualified to conduct the instruction of the rising generation with method and system.

Mr. Heriot's admonitions to the Cadets of the Polytech nic School are given with sincere emphasis. We quote a single passage-his picture of a statesman.

"Need I point you to a model of a statesman? Picture, before your memories, a spectacle yet fresh and glowing, as if but yesterday, in the remembrance of us all. See that long line of mourners, following in imposing proces sion, with their waving emblems enshrouded in the dark

That there are abundant materials for architectural ornament in the natural growth of our soil, no one can deny. Mr. Downing himself gives us a good design for a capi-insignia of grief for one departed. Hear the solemn tolltal, composed of ears and leaves of Indian corn, which is just as pretty for the desired purpose as the acanthus. The leaf of the tobacco-plant and the bowls of the cotton of the South might most appropriately be employed in the designs for a plantation residence. We could wish Mr. Downing would devote more of his attention to this particular branch of his subject.

ing of those bells-the pealing of cannon-the impressive burial service-the eloquent tribute to the dead-the soft cadence of music-the cautious, solemn, measured tread of innumerable spectators, pressing forward, to cast a look upon the remains of one, whom, in life, all delighted to honor. Witness the simple, yet tasteful and expressive offerings of flowers and wreaths, laid upon the bier,—the We can not, however, dismiss the author without com- deathlike stillness that pervades that spacious hall, and mending his present work to public attention. It is plea- reigns over that vast assembly of citizens. These emsantly written, it is full of excellent hints as to furniture, phatic demonstrations are for one upon whose like we ne'er and household conveniences, and it is eminently sugges-shall look again'—one, whose gigantic intellect but lately tive of improvements in house-building. Withal it is a choice specimen of typography and an ornament to the centre-table.

swayed the councils of the nations-whose majestic eloquence struck terror to the hearts of traitors, and ex posed the treachery of disorganizers, within the very It has reached us through J. W. Randolph, 121 Main walls of the nation's capital-whose honest zeal, for

street.

his country's good, forced him, from the retirement he had sought, back into the troubled whirlpool of public duty; whose pure and incorruptible patriotism put to the blush the low chicanery of ambitious demagogues, and stood forth in withering rebuke to upstart presumption and mad reckless fanaticism; whose last dying energies were ex

1. THE POLYTECHNIC SCHOOL. The Best System of Practical Education. An Address delivered before the Cadet Polytechnic Society, State Military Academy, June 14th, 1850. By EDWIN HERIOT, An Honorary Mem-hausted in the defence of those institutions on the exisber. Charleston, S. C. Walker & James. 1850.

2. ORATION delivered before the Beaufort Volunteer Artillery, on July 4th, 1850. By WILLIAM HENRY TRESCOT. Charleston. Walker and James. 1850.

tence of which depended the preservation of his country from anarchy and disunion; the man, whose elevation to the highest station in the world would, but for the machinations of party, have been a nation's choice-whose noble example of devotion to its interests, has entitled him to a nation's gratitude-whose highest, most affecting eu3. AN ADDRESS on the Life and Character of John logy is a nation's tears! Behold here the model of a Caldwell Calhoun. Delivered before the citizens of statesman-the counsellor-the representative-the deMontgomery, Alabama, on the Fourth July, 1850. By tender of his country's rights-the patriot-the soldierWILLIAM L. YANCEY. Montgomery: Gazette Print. THE MARTYR!

1850.

"His country mourns for him. She loved to smile upon We are indebted to the authors respectively for copies her favorite son, in life, and now, she weeps over him in of these addresses which we group together, though en- death. The model of that life is his legacy to her chiltirely dissimilar as to the subjects on which they treat, be- dren. And when the name of many a renowed political cause our limits will not permit us to notice them sepa- aspirant for popularity, shall have perished from the rately. Beginning with the last named, Mr. Yancey's scroll of fame, with the ephemeral occasions which have Address is almost exclusively political, and reviews at drawn them forth, from more appropriate obscurity, into considerable length, and with clearness, the public life of brief notoriety, the name and career of JOHN C. CALMr. Calhoun. Mr. Trescot's is a well written Oration on 'HOUN will have become a brilliant moral theme, which

History will never cease to immortalize, and Oratory adorn
with her richest tributes, in glowing Eulogy:
"Take that model for your own!"

AN ORATION delivered at Charlestown on the SeventyFifth Anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill. June 17, 1950. By EDWARD EVERETT. Boston: Redding & Co. 1850.

There has been rather a diminution in the tide of cur rent literature since the advent of the warm season, yet the supply of new books has been formidable enough to oppress a professional reviewer. We can but note a few of the most important publications and reserve more elaborate notices for a future occasion. Ticknor, Reed & Fields, of Boston, have brought out in beautiful style the new poem by Tennyson-In Memoriam. It is a series of quatrain stanzas commemorative of an intimate and highly gifted friend of the poet, betrothed to his sister-a son of Hallam, the historian. The verses, disconnected "Words fitly spoken," says Solomon, "are like apples as they are except by a thread of grief and memory; and of gold in pictures of silver." The Oration of Mr. Eve-vibrating from the descriptive to the metaphysical, now rett now before us comes exactly within the definition of giving utterance to human sorrow, now to graphic remi the Proverb. It is one of the most finished rhetorical efniscence and again to spiritual faith-are among the best forts that ever came from his pen, and glows with the fer- elegiac poetry we have recently encountered. The poem vor of genuine eloquence and of true patriotism. The is too melancholy to be popular, in the ordinary sense of occasion was one to call out the highest powers of the that word, but its exquisitely tender sentiment and orator, standing as he did upon the same rostrum from thoughtful power will gradually win it a place not only which Webster had spoken those great orations that have in libraries but in hearts. Whipple's Oration before the already been enshrined among the English classics. Por- Boston City Authorities, on the Fourth of July last, is a tions of Mr. Everett's oration might very well be embodied masterly performance-containing an analysis profound in commnon-place books as models of English composition, and eloquent of the men who caused and the man who and we should like to give some of them to our readers, guined the American Revolution. We are highly gratihad we room to do so. Gied to witness the successful debut of a daughter of Couper the novelist, in the field her father's genius has so ably il

Annexed to the Oration itself, under the same cover, is an account of the Anniversary Dinner from which we ex-lustrated. Her Rural Letters published by Putnam are tract the following capital toast. Like the Bristol magistrate who said" ditto to Mr. Burke" we respond to it with all our heart

This is a very useful little book for elementary study. The subject of Medieval Geography is too much neglected in our country where no such thing ever existed. There is a fault, however, in the present work which is common to all publications of the sort and which should have been corrected by the American editor-the want of uniformity in the orthography of proper names. Thus we have the German City Mainz on one page, given in the French style, Mayence, on another, and yet again in the English, Mentz, on a third. Louis, King of France, becomes metamorphosed into Lewis. Now there should, at least, be an uniform method of spelling these names, or the student will never remember them. If they are all to be Anglicized, let this be understood, but let them be rendered uniformly one way or the other.

For sale by J. W. Randolph.

SHAKSPEARE'S DRAMATIC WORKS. Illustrated. Boston Edition. Published by Phillips, Sampson & Company. 1850.

This beautiful edition of the great Dramatist has reached its 20th No., which contains the second part of the play of King Henry the Fourth, with a sweet picture of Lady Northumberland. We have already spoken in terms of deserved praise of this publication and can only say that the present number is quite equal to its predecessors in typographical execution.

generally admired for their simplicity, information and grace. The same publisher has issued an ingenious and philosophical treatise on Sleep by Dr. Fosgate, so full of anecdote as to be anything but somniferous in its influ ence on the reader, and full of interesting facts and sugges tions. Those of our readers who are familiar with Heary Giles as a lecturer, will be pleased to read his beautiful volume of Discourses on Life just published by Ticknor & Co. of Boston. They are impressive and eloquent and evidently spring from a mind capable of appreciating the beautiful and sympathising with the melancholy as well as resting on the consoling elements of human existence. Burgess & Stringer, of New York, are successfully prosecuting an enterprise which promises to influence our current literature in various ways. They issue the chapters of the best serial English and pamphleted fictions, the choicest foreign magazine articles, selections from new works in press and interesting items of literary, scientific and personal intelligence-every week, under the title of the" International Miscellany." A plan, in many respects similar, is also followed by Harper & Brothers in their Monthly Magazine, a work the elegance and cheapness of which, to say nothing of the value and variety of its contents, is quite marvellous even in these days of literary enterprise. Its success is said to be unparalleled.

ANNOUNCEMENTS.

G. P. Putnam has in press another reprint of Miss Sedgewick's novels, Mental Hygiene, by Dr. Sweetser, original republished writings of Irving, &c.

Harper & Brothers will publish additional numbers of Southey's Life, Thackeray's Pendennis, the Field Book of the Revolution and other popular serial works.

The Philadelphia publishers announce a score of splen did new annuals.

J. C. Riker, 29 Fulton St. New York, will publish immediately, in a neat little volume, The Life of Silas Talbot-a Commodore in the Navy of the United States-by Henry T. Tuckerman.

D. Appleton & Co. have in press the long looked-for Life of John Randolph of Roanoke, by Hugh A Garland, formerly of Petersburg, Va.

NOTICES OF NEW WORKS-CONTINUED.

THE UNITED STATES INSURANCE ANNUITY AND TRUST, mode of borrowing money for which the national faith is COMPANY. Philadelphia. 1850. pledged.. The various changes and improvements have however settled down into these kinds of companies, which are thus described:

Mr. Haxall, the agent of this Company in Richmond has sent us its pamphlet, a perusal of which has so impressed upon our minds the wisdom and importance of this mode of securing a provision for one's family in the event of death that we cheerfully make room for an extract or two from its pages. This we do the more readily, because we feel assured that the subject has not attracted that attention and consideration south of the Potomac, which it deserves. The following extract from the address of the Company states the nature of Life Insurance, and enforces very earnestly its objects upon the consideration of the community

"Life Insurance is based on the laws of human mortality. These are well known, for whilst, on the one hand, individual existence is proverbially uncertain, yet on the other, the average duration of life has been ascertained with great precision. Indeed, so accurate are these calculations, so correct the operations founded thereon, that there has, as yet, been no instance of a company legally established, and prudently managed, failing to meet its engagements. Upon this certainty of average life, and this uncertainty of individual life, prudent men form contracts, whereby, in consideration of the payment of a small sum annually, they secure to their families, a provision which will suffice to rescue them from want and suffering, when that hour arrives in which the customary support on which they relied is withdrawn by the hand of death. Of the objects of life insurance but little need be said. The benefits of a system of provision so extended, yet so flexible, myst at once strike every thoughtful mind which pauses to reflect for one moment on the contingencies of life. They have been felt in many a widowed chamber, in many an orphan home. They have fostered a spirit of self-reliance; mitigated the cares and calamities of life, and alleviated the anxieties of many a departing spirit upon whose exertions depended the maintenance of those near and dear to the heart. Moreover, on the individual himself a beneficial and sanatory influence is exercised; for the consciousness that he has made provision for his family in case of accident, has doubtless sustained, as well as soothed, many a man in the crisis of business, or in hours of physical anguish."

Of course such a business, founded as we have already shown upon calculations touching human mortality has necessarily undergone many and great changes, more or less dependant upon the increased accuracy of those calculations. It was originally commenced by Tonti or Tontini, who started a system of Life Assurance since known as Tontine's-a system found to be so very profitable to the longest liver that the idea was promptly seized upon by the French government for the purpose of raising funds. Indeed it seems to us the wisest and most statesmanlike

"This much as to life insurance. The different systems upon which it is conducted, may be divided into the proprietary, the merely mutual, and the mixed companies. The first of these, or the proprietary, make the business of life insurance an ordinary trading matter, and sell an assurance as a merchant does goods, assuming the responsibility of all the losses, and receiving all the gains: In them the insured have no participation of profits. The second of these, or merely mutual, are companies in which there are no shareholders, and of course no subscribed capital. The only funds to meet losses are therefore the accumulated premiums paid in by the insured themselves. "It is manifest that each of these systems is open to a serious objection. In the first, there is no participation of profits to the insured. Now, as the profits are in fact the surplus earnings or premiums paid by the insured, it is but just that these surplus premiums should be returned in some suitable manner to the parties paying. In the second there is no capital until accumulated by payments of the insured: there is, therefore, no fund to pay losses before the accumulation of such a contribution fund, leaving the rest of the policy-holders without protection. To remedy these two evils, yet to combine the benefits of both, judicious persons, and amongst them the directors of the United States Insurance, Annuity, and Trust Company, have resorted to the third class, or mixed companies; in which, security to the insured is obtained by a sufficient capital, whilst an equitable distribution of profits is not prevented.

"This company then, has a well-secured subscribed capital of $250,000; large enough to secure beyond question all policy-holders, yet not so large as to absorb ány great part of the business."

There are other details incident to the business of Life Insurance of which it is not necessary here to speak for we presume our readers will inquire for themselves. They are touched upon in the following closing extracts from the address:

"Briefly, then, this Company presents itself to the public, claiming to give the insured security and stability, to combine the advantages of the mutual system, cash premiums, surrender of policies, single or deferred payments, and accumulation of profits or deposits, in addition to which, it possesses the liberal trust powers already spoken of. Thus, organized, it seeks to pursue its way with satfaction to its members, but not without benefit to the community."

Wm. Henry Haxall is the agent in this city.

BACK NUMBERS.

Back Numbers of the Messenger for the first seven volumes wanted. Application should be made at the Messenger Office.

THE EDITOR'S OFFICE OF THE MESSENGER, has been removed to No. 87, Main Street, over the Store of Judah Myers.

TO EVERY SOUTHERN MAN.

We ask every Southern man, whose eye shall rest upon this number of our Magazine, to read the following notices from two of the most prominent papers in the Southern States, and, if he be not already a subscriber, to send us his name and subscription. To our old friends we send a greeting and the earnest request that they will endeavor to extend our circulation.

From the Southern Press.

The Southern Literary Messenger.-This article of home manufacture should also command a liberal amount of home consumption; for, under the auspices of John R. Thompson, it has been made to equal Blackwood, in the variety and interest of its contents. It spreads a literary table-a feast of intellect-at which all may sit down, and all tastes be promply gratified. From gay to grave, from lively to severe this Messenger speeds, and the messages brought back are such as to gain the ear and rivet the attention of those who expect its monthly calls.

The North has enjoyed the monopoly of literary productions, or of publication at least, too long; for many of the brightest gems of song, and many of the strongest utterances in prose have been drawn from the South, that they might have their setting at the North.

Blessed as the South has been with genius and talent of the highest order, and pos sessing as she does among her sons many who could worthily illustrate her historic and literary annals, she yet has hitherto done little in those fields of labor; for while Quarterlies, Monthlies, and Lady's Books, swarm at the North, we have but one Quarterly and one Monthly at the South to meet the demands of a reading public as numerous, and equally if not more intelligent than that of the North.

Why this state of things should exist, or should continue, we are at a loss to divine -there is no good reason for it; and its impolicy is obvious. "Give me," said a sagacious statesman, "the making of the songs of a people, and I care not who makes their laws." And there was wisdom in the apparently frivolous remark; for the minds of a people are moulded by the literature which is their intellectual pabulum, and that of their children.

If the Southern people owe it to themselves to patronize their own periodicals, they are unfortunately so few that the duty will neither be a very difficult, nor a very expensive one.

From the Charleston Courier.

Southern Literary Messenger, for June.-We have repeatedly noticed this sterling periodical, but never in terms too strongly commendatory. No serial in the United States has more uniformly maintained itself, both with respect to the dignity of its criticisms, and the eloquence of its literature. In its management are always displayed the characteristics of a genuine gentlemanly Editor. No puerile love stories, no unjust, or merely sectional attacks; nothing which does not bear on its front the utmost fairness and most complete intellectual finish. "Thoughts on the death of JOHN C. CALHOUN," by a young man favored by his intimacy, and instructed by his wisdom, is an eloquent and discriminating tribute to the illustrious dead.

The South owes a large debt to this Magazine. We say the South, not with the view of drawing invidious distinctions between sections of our common country, but because the publication is an admirable vehicle of the literary sentiment of this por tion of the Union. It has labored under former Editors, and especially under the present conductor, efficiently, to promote aud develope Southern letters. It has manfully defended its powers, and kept itself free from every influence, which could excite unworthy jealousies, or advance improper controversies. We hope the patrons of elegant letters will permit the Messenger to take the place of many of the mischievous and weak issues, which usually crowd the Library.

9. The Gallows Man. Translation from the German of the Baron de la Motte Fouqué....

1. Judith Bensaddi. A Tale by Henry Ruffner, D. D. Chapter V. The Student's Account of his Visits to the House Mountain. Chapter VI. The new Friends in Charleston :-Song of Sally of the Valley.' Chapter VII. The Sea Voyage....585 10. The Haunts of the Student. By Margaret Jun

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