would be a pious interference for his friends to prevent any future publication of his portrait.

An essay-and we use the term by courtesy-opens the volume, which the majority of readers of such a book will skip; and we do not know but they would gain as much by so doing as they would lose; yet it is a kindly written melange enough, covering almost everything that has ever been done with a pen in this country, whether in way of history, ethics, metaphysics, journalism, fiction, or the like, with a philosophical, critical, instructive, careless, rambling, good-natured analysis. If we have used words strangely in this description, it is only because we wanted to be true to the merits of the piece, and as explicit as its author.

Our own Review is honored with this notice: "The American Review, a Whig journal, was established by its proprietor in 1844;" and a more simple, true, and satisfactory statement does not occur throughout the whole of Mr. Griswold's book.

In conclusion, we wish the volume success. If in thankfulness for this notice, the publishers will send us a copy, we will put it on our shelves; otherwise, we will content ourselves with the specimens of such American authors as we have under their own signets, and wait patiently for the others, until we are rich enough to buy things we do not need.

The North British Review, No. 12, February, 1847. American edition, vol. 1. No. 2 New York, Leonard Scott & Co. It is not our custom to notice periodicals, but the new organ of a great party commands some attention. The North British Review was established three years ago by some prominent members of the Scotch Free Church, not, however, to be the exponent of their particular sectarian views, but rather that of all the "Evangelicals," a term which, in its widest range, includes all Trinitarian Protestants, except the High-Church Episcopalians, though practically, we suspect it comes to be a little more limited. The articles of the N. B. R. are generally clever, but hard; that dry, cold, logical, acute style of writing, which characterizes Scotch metaphysicians and Scotch theologians. In positive ability it yields to none of its contemporaries, except, perhaps, the Edinburgh, and we are surprised that it has only now for the first time been republished here.

The first paper in the present number is one on Morell's modern philosophy. The reviewer upholds Reid against Kant; the objective against the subjective; the phanomena against the numena. this in no illiberal spirit.

But he does

In this very able article we are sorry to find some inaccuracies of expression; e. g. "refutation against,” for “refutation of," and a very queer word, apperception, which Cousin seems to have coined from apercevoir, but what its difference from, or superiority over, the ordinary perception, may be, we confess ourselves unable to say.

The next paper in interest, though not in position, is called forth by a remarkable and daring book, "Modern Painters, by a Graduate of Oxford." The Oxonian's standard of excellence is Turner, and his reviewer seems to agree with him. And truly Turner's early works are gorgeous visions of glory, and he still paints such water as no other man ever did or can paint; but it is rather too much to say that his dreams, magnificent though they be, are more truthful and natural than those "clear-walled cities by the sea," that Claude delighted in. Stand by any of his later productions and try to make it out without looking at the title; you might as well try to find out what J. K. Polk is going to do next; all (save only that wonderful water) is an inextricable mass of vermillion and mustard, ink and white lead, dashed down upon the canvass. Go to the other side of the room and place yourself in the right position; then, indeed, something comes out upon you strangely; a ship among icebergs, or a locomotive ready to run over you. But these things are not legitimate pictures; they are only another kind of scene-painting. The last story of Turner is a good one; we won't swear to its literal truth; but se non vero, &c. The hangers at the Royal Academy, last year, were so puzzled with some such impracticable, "Ariel in the Sun," that they actually suspended it upside down. On the day before opening the exhibition, when the artists inspect the position of their works, Turner of course did not fail to notice the error. "Why, Mr. Smith, you've hung my picture the wrong way!" Mr. Smith apologized, and promised it should be set to rights in half an hour. "Half an hour!" exclaimed the painter, and forthwith seizing a palette, he commenced pelting down the colors, in his trowel-fashion, and without touching the frame, effectually reversed the picture in just half the time.

The other articles are, an elaborate notice of" Kitto's Lost Senses," a just summing up of Cowley's merits and demerits, a spirited sketch of the Anglo-Normans, an able exposition of Watt's claims to the discovery of the composition of water, (doubtless Sir David Brewster's, from its oblique hit at Dr. Whewell,) which also takes occasion to handle the Royal Society very unceremoniously, and animadvert strongly on the culpable negligence by

which Messrs. Challis and Airy lost for their country the honor of having discover ed the new planet; and, finally, a calm and sensible examination of the Irish distress and its remedies-almost the only bit of writing we have seen on the subject free from cant or exaggeration on one side or the other.

66

History of the Roman Republic. By J. MICHELET, Member of the institute of France, Author of "History of France," Life of Martin Luther," "The People," &c. &c. Translated by WILLIAM HAZLITT, Esq., of the Middle Temple, Barrister-at-Law. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1847.

"This book," says the translator, "is a history, and not a dissertation." It is a political history, composed in Michelet's peculiarly brilliant and popular style; written, like his other works, to exalt the popular element in government, and to show that Rome owed her ruin to its depression and extinction. The author founds himself upon Niebuhr and Vico, adopting the critical conclusions of the one, and the philosophy of the other. The following is his philosophical creed, from Vico's Scienza Nuova, which appeared in 1725: "Humanity is its own work. God acts upon it, but through it. Humanity is divine, but no man is divine. Those mythic heroes, the Hercules whose arms burst asunder mountains; those Lycurguses and Romuluses, swift legislators, who in the space of one man's life, accomplished the tardy work of ages, are the creations of the thought of nations. God alone is great. When man desired to have men-gods, he was fain to heap whole generations in one person; to combine in one hero the conceptions of a whole poetic cycle. It was thus they obtained historic idols-a Romulus, a Numa. The people remained prostrate before these gigantic phantoms. Philosophy raises them and says to them: That which you adore is yourselves, your own conceptions. Here upon these fantastic and inexplicable figures which floated in the air, objects of a puerile admiration, redescend within our reach; they quit poetry to enter into the realms of science. The miracles of individual genius are ranged under the common law; the equalizing hand of criticism passes over the human race."

"This historical radicalism does not go the length of suppressing the great men;" singular forbearance! "There doubtless remain some who rise above the crowd to the height of the head or the waist, but their foreheads are no longer lost in the clouds; they are no longer of another species; humanity may recognize itself in all its history, one and identical;" which, though a brilliant and entertaining reflection, does not yield much consolation. Bating an excess of very French enthu siasm, Michelet's works are among the most agreeable "historic readings" we know of. The translator did not do full justice to his version of Guizot's History of Civilization; we should think he has paid some closer attention to the present author.

This is the first portion of an extended work; which, with some faults of conduct, from certain perceivable prejudices and political biasses on the part of the titled author, has so much general merit and varied and abiding interest for all who live under English laws, and are accustomed to regard the great background of English History-of which legal annals and institutions and the lives of eminent legal men are a large part-that it must command among us a very wide attention. No book, indeed, of more general and continuous interest has issued from the English press for some years.

lished, and shall take an early opportunity We are glad that it is repubof reviewing in some proper shape and compass the part of the work now presented to us. This part covers some of the most important and curious portions of English history, the lives of all the Chancellors down to 168S. It is so picturesque and full of anecdote, that it must be read with delight by those careless of historical events, and only able to be amused by nar

rative and fiction.

THE XXIXth Congress is one that will not soon be forgotten-one, of which the acts and the omissions to act will, for the evil it has done or suffered, be memorable in the annals of the republic.

Commencing with a new Presidenthimself probably never having dreamed of attaining the high eminence, until, so unexpectedly to the people of the United States, of all parties, he was named as a sort of tertium quid by the collection of office-seeking politicians who controlled the Baltimore Convention-it exhibited, when, early in December, 1845, it was first organized, a large majority in both Houses of the same party as the new President.

The issues upon which the Presidential election had been decided-of the annexation of Texas at all hazards—of the repeal of the Tariff, and a return to comparative free trade, and to the barbarian policy of a hard-money currency-were those which the XXIXth Congress seemed, by the very circumstances under which it was constituted, pledged to carry out.

The message of the President at the commencement of the first session of Congress, left no doubt of his views as to Texas, and if obscure as to the Tariff, it was an obscurity that only portended mischief. Another element of trouble, more over, which had suddenly been swelled into proportions of immediate and pressing urgency and danger-that concerning the boundary of Oregon-was developed in this message, startling the thinking portion of the country, which now fully real

No. V.

ized the rashness of the language in President Polk's inaugural address concerning that territory.

The claim to 54--40, and "the whole or none" cry raised by administration partisans in Congress and the public journals, at the very moment and in the same breath that admitted a common occupancy heretofore within the limits claimed as unquestionable, and therefore, by necessary implication, some doubt as to the clear right--placed for awhile the peace of the country in a state of great peril, and all its commercial interests in one of prejudicial uncertainty.

In the Senate an old man like General Cass-to whom age has failed to bring wisdom or moderation, and who, dreaming only of how he should compass the Presidency, seemed to look upon country and duty as entirely subordinate to the gratification of that passion--a passion which seems for all whom it possesses "the insane root that takes the judgment prisoner"

at once mounted the war-horse, talked of a rupture with Great Britain as inevitable, and was anxious, with other not wiser nor more disinterested men, "to prepare the hearts of the people for war."

Mr. Hannegan, Mr. Allen, and others, took the same course; and in the House of Representatives, the brawlers-they merit no other name-who talked flippantly and contemptuously of the power of Great Britain, and absurdly and presumptuously of the power of the United States, were neither few nor backward; and for some weeks the question of war