tion, sensibility, taste, high sense of duty, religious faith, cultivation, united with warm affections, practical good sense, knowledge of common things, a cheerful temperament, and the daily, unrepining discharge of lowly duties. There is always danger that a character like hers, in the hands of a writer of fiction, will degenerate into insipidity. But from that danger our author has most happily escaped, and she has made her as interesting as she is innocent and lovely; thanks to the touch of a pencil at once firm, delicate, and discriminating. She glides from house to house, and from scene to scene, like a sunbeam, making every one feel that they are nearer heaven, while she is with them. As we lay down the book, we feel as if she must be a person whom we had known and loved, who had given us a new sense of the capacities of humanity, and we involuntarily call down a benediction upon her head, and pray that her "life may be all poetry."

There are many other characters, drawn with more or less excellence, and all giving us that impression of reality, which is so sure a test of the creative hand of genius. There are also many lively and entertaining scenes, described with great spirit and truth, showing an uncommon power of observation, a strong, though well-regulated, perception of the ludicrous, and a marked talent for satirical painting. And on almost every page, we find a casual remark, a reflection, a little trait of human goodness or of human weakness, which fairly startles us by its truth, and by its reminding us of something in our own experience. What a touch of nature, for instance, there is in the self-distrust with which Madame Werner goes to visit the Dahls, (vol. f. p. 154,) feeling that she will be no more welcome than a dun, and then, when she is so warmly and cordially received, saying to herself, with all the alacrity of self-disparagement, that it is all on her husband's account! How perfectly natural, too, is the breaking up of the party at the Dahls', (vol. 11. p. 180;) where "Ma chère mère," after all the guests are shawled and cloaked for their departure, seizes her violin and plays a merry tune, and all the company begin dancing in their strange costume! Who has not marked the same reluctance to leave a pleasant party, when the spirits are all attuned to enjoyment, and a light form is seen to bound into the drawing-room to take a farewell whirl in her cloak and moccasins? These little touches, like Shakspeare's Cæsar asking Antony to pass round and to speak to him in the other ear, because he was deaf on one side, mark, more than any thing else, the master hand.

The impression which the book, as a whole, leaves upon us,

is one of great truth and fidelity to nature in all its essential elements. We have remarked, that it delineates a kind of life not unlike our own in New England, the resemblance being suggested by the long winters, the indoor occupations, the general cultivation, and the absence of any marked differences of rank and fortune. But in one respect, there is an emphatic distinction, and a similarity to the manners and social habits delineated in German works of fiction. There is a great deal more of the expression of feeling of all kinds. Emotions lie much nearer the surface than among us, where something of coldness and reserve characterizes the intercourse of friends and relatives. Tears, kisses, embraces, claspings of the hand, and enthusiastic speeches, are in much more common circulation than with us. There are many things described as taking place, which, judged by our standard, would seem extravagant and unnatural, not to say in bad taste or even ludicrous; and some of the communications which the new-married wife makes to her correspondent startle us as being very unreserved. But we must be careful not to judge of these things by our own standard, till we are assured that this is the true one, and that we do not err towards the other extreme of apathy, coldness, and reserve. We can have no question, that these things are perfectly natural to a Swede or a German, and that our habits would strike him as singular and repulsive.

But the highest charm of the book is its pure and healthy tone of moral feeling. The lessons which it teaches are weighty, and impressively conveyed. It shows us how much better a contented spirit is than houses and lands,- - what pure and unfailing sources of happiness are to be found in that culture of the moral, intellectual, and social nature, from which no human being is excluded. It gives cheerful and animating views of human life and the Providence that governs it, and teaches us that no life can be unhappy, which is dedicated to duty and quickened by the affections. It proclaims the value of those simple and natural pleasures which lie scattered at our feet, and which may be freely enjoyed without wealth, or conspicuous station, or high endowments. The author's mind is an eminently healthy one, and such is the tone of her book. It breathes over the mind with a bracing and invigorating influence, akin to that of the mountain wind upon the bodily frame. She has looked at the world through no false and distorting medium of pride or gloom. We hear no voice of whining discontent, or sullen misanthropy, or querulous distress. And, above all, we recognize with peculiar pleasure her emphatic testimony against the pestilent doctrine, that great powers necessarily produce

great misery, that susceptibility to beauty is only productive of keener pangs of disappointment, and that the more finely attuned souls must of necessity be jangled into harsher discord. High gifts, superior endowments, fine susceptibilities, are increased means of enjoyment; and it is only from the abuse and perversion of them, that misery and discontent arise. It is from the indulgence of the selfish passions, that most of the unhappiness of life springs. The first rule, to insure happiness, is, to forget one's self, and the second is, to remember others; and we honor and feel grateful to the author of "The Neighbours," for the power and beauty with which she has enforced these truths.

We hope to have the remaining works of Miss Bremer presented to us in an English dress. If they are as good as this one, they will prove permanent and valuable accessions to our literature, taking their place side by side with our best novels of domestic life. The task of the translator seems to have been performed in some haste, for we have noticed some careless, and a few clumsy, expressions, which might easily have been improved. Can it be true, that the book was translated directly from the Swedish? From some phrases, we should infer a German original.

Commentaries on the Law of Bills of Exchange, Foreign and Inland, as administered in England and America; with Occasional Illustrations from the Commercial Law of the Nations of Continental Europe. By JOSEPH STORY, L.L. D., one of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, and Dane Professor of Law in Harvard University. Boston: Little & Brown. 1843. 8vo. pp. 608.

ANOTHER Work from Mr. Justice Story comes before us. Volume presses after volume, filling us with amazement at the productiveness and learning of the author. On some future occasion we hope to consider at length the merits of these works, and to endeavour to form an estimate of the position of the writer. For the present, we confine ourselves to a brief notice of the book before us.

On the threshold, we are met by a peculiarity in the treatment of the subject, which is worthy of attention. The Law of Bills of Exchange is presented separate from that of Promissory Notes, and other negotiable securities of a kindred nature. This plan differs essentially from that adopted by all the English elemen

tary writers upon the same subject. In the standard works of Mr. Chitty and Mr. Baron Bayley, the doctrines respecting Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes are intermixed in the same treatise, and the incautious student is not unfrequently misled by fancied analogies between the two, which do not in reality exist. The method of our author is the result of a more careful scientific analysis of the subject. It appears, that his attention was attracted to the practical inconvenience of the former treatment of it in the course of his instruction of the law students in Harvard University.

If the health of the author should permit, he proposes, in another volume, to present a full review of the law relating to Promissory Notes, Checks, and other negotiable instruments. The two distinct treatises of Mr. Justice Story will cover the ground which has been occupied by a single treatise, according to the method of English authors.

The present work embodies much learning derived from foreign sources, usually unexplored by the writers and practisers of Westminster Hall. Among the most important of these are the volumes of Savary, Pothier, Pardessus, and Heineccius. From the latter most distinguished jurist, the author has borrowed a motto, which declares the existence, to a certain extent, of a common law on the subject of Bills of Exchange throughout the civilized world; "Quamvis vero tot Gentium, Civitatumque Leges Cambiales non per omnia conveniant, sunt tamen quædam omnibus communia." The circumstance, that the principles which govern Bills of Exchange are common to so many nations, gives a treatise on this subject a value beyond that which attaches to the treatment of merely municipal jurisprudence.

The present work, though not so large as that of Mr. Chitty, contains all the essential doctrines on the subject, carefully arranged, and established on their proper principles. Nothing is more grateful to the student of the law, than to be able to discern the reason on which rules are founded. Then he may truly hail the gladsome light of jurisprudence," which his great master, Lord Coke, was so fond of contemplating. In the treatise before us, as in all that have preceded it from the same source, the author has constantly aimed to present the principles of the law. But the work has the additional practical value derived from the collection and proper arrangement of the authorities bearing on the subject.

QUARTERLY LIST OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

AGRICULTURE.

The Farmer's Encyclopædia, and Dictionary of Rural Affairs. By Cuthbert W. Johnson, Esq. Adapted to the United States by a Practical Farmer. Philadelphia: Carey and Hart.

BIOGRAPHY.

Dawnings of Genius; or, the Early Lives of Some Eminent Persons of the Last Century. By Anne Pratt, Author of "Flowers and their Associations," &c. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 12mo.

Life and Writings of Ebenezer Porter Mason; Interspersed with Hints to Parents and Instructors on the Training and Education of a Child of Genius. By Denison Olmsted, Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy in Yale College. New York: Dayton and Newman. 12mo. pp. 252.

EDUCATION.

Education. Part I. History of Education, Ancient and Modern. Part II. A Plan of Culture and Instruction, Based on Christian Principles, and Designed to Aid in the Right Education of Youth, Physically, Intellectually, and Morally. By H. J. Smith, A. M. New York: Harper and Brothers. 12mo. pp. 340.

Edward's First Lessons in Grammar. By the Author of "Theory of Teaching." Boston: Thomas H. Webb & Co. 12mo. pp. 108.

The former work of this author showed so much reflection, taste, and even genius, that we took up this little volume, confident that we should find the obscurity of the subject illuminated by original remarks and illustrations, and made interesting by the skilful mode of treatment. We have not been disappointed. We have read the book through, though it was intended for the very youngest class of pupils, with a lively gratification, and even a higher sense of the author's intellectual powers, than we had from her former work. She makes the pupil learn for himself all that is requisite to a clear understanding of the nature of the different parts of speech, which so many little victims have hopelessly sighed over, and gives him, or makes him give, practical examples, closing each particular part with a passage of interest and merit, which, of itself, cannot but attract the curious and searching mind of the pupil. He is thus pleasantly carried forward, his interest heightening at every step, until, after a few lessons, which have entertained him without fatigue, he has gained more knowledge of the principles of English grammar, than was formerly acquired by years of drudgery over the unintelligible names once in use.

We have a little fault to find, like thorough-paced critics as we are. The author repeats, on page 95, the old and whimsical explanation of the conVOL. LVI. —No. 119.

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