description of the habits of various fishes is minute and thorough. Its instructions to anglers, and its culinary directions for the benefit of epicures, seem to leave nothing unsaid. Literature, black-letter and modern, is ransacked for illustration, and the pages contain many rich and racy morceaux of prose and poetry from authors not easily accessible. The work, while a perfect vade mecum for the aquatic sportsman, is one of the most entertaining and suggestive of table-books, whether for the library or the drawing-room.

17.-1. A Manual for the Use of Notaries Public and Bankers; comprising a Summary of the Law of Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes, both in Europe and the United States, Checks on Bankers, and Sight Bills; with approved Forms of Protest, and Notice of Protest; and References to important Legal Decisions; especially adapted to the Use of Notaries Public and Bankers. By BERNard Roelker, A.M., of the New York Bar. Third Edition. With numerous Additions in reference to Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes; Protest; Transfer of Bills and Notes; Letters of Credit; Forged Bills; Fraudulent and Lost Bank Bills; Sight Bills, &c., and Reference to recent Decisions in the United States and English Courts; and a Synopsis of the Usury Laws of each State, and the Law of Damages on Protested Bills. By J. SMITH HOMANS, Editor of the "Bankers' Magazine." New York. 1857. pp. 244.

2. The Bankers' Commonplace Book; containing:-I. A Treatise on Banking. By A. B. JOHNSON, Esq., of Utica, New York. II. Ten Minutes' Advice on keeping a Banker. By J. W. GILBART, Esq. III. BYLES on the Foreign Law of Bills of Exchange. IV. Remarks on Bills of Exchange. By JOHN RAMSAY M'CULLOCH, Esq. V. Forms of Bills of Exchange, in Eight European Languages. VI. Forms of Notices of Protest, with Remarks. VII. Synopsis of the Bank Laws of Massachusetts. VIII. Decisions on Banking, by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. IX. Suggestions to Young Cashiers on the Duties of their Profession. X. On the Duties and Misdoings of Bank Directors. By A. B. JOHNXI. A Numismatic Dictionary; or, an Account of Coins of all Countries. New York. 1857. 12mo. pp. 192.

SON.

THESE books, issued from the office of the "Bankers' Magazine," are all that they claim to be, and our best recommendation of them, therefore, is the transcription of their titles in full. Such manuals in

the hands of merchants, as well as of notaries and bankers, would supersede a vast amount of litigation. The first of these books has its value greatly enhanced by a copious alphabetical index of subjects, and another of the judicial cases cited; and the second has ample and minute indexes, one of them alphabetical.

18. The Elements of Drawing; in Three Letters to Beginners. By JOHN RUSKIN, M.A. With Illustrations drawn by the Author. New York: Wiley and Halsted. 1857. 12mo.

pp. 234.

THE object of this work is to delineate a series of exercises, adapted to cultivate keenness and accuracy of sight and the sense of perspective. Mere manipulation is made secondary to the clear perception and conception of the object to be drawn. To the novice in art such a directory must be invaluable; while to the general reader it is interesting and instructive as a commentary on nature, revealing many features of landscape and its elements which are obvious only to the educated eye, yet which, once suggested, can never be lost from sight. It is pleasant to find that Ruskin at length admits one vulnerable point in Turner.

"Turner, though he was professor of perspective to the Royal Academy, did not know what he professed; and never, as far as I remember, drew a building in true perspective in his life; he drew them only with as much perspective as suited him."-p. xvi.

19.- A Manual of Ancient Geography. By DR. LEONHARD SCHMITZ, F. R. S. E. With a Map, showing the Retreat of the 10,000 Greeks under Xenophon. Philadelphia: Blanchard and Lea. 1857. 12mo. pp. 428.

THE study of ancient geography is proverbially dry, nor has Dr. Schmitz wholly removed that reproach. But he has lightened it, by inserting, wherever there is room, entertaining and instructive scraps of history. He gives us also a "History of Ancient Geography," from the mythical age down to 500 A. D., which forms one of the most attractive chapters of the history of opinions. The first book thus occupied, the remaining three treat of Europe, Asia, and Africa, respectively. The several portions of the ancient world are not, however, described with a dead level of dull minuteness; perspective is con

sulted; regions on which our curiosity has no hold are passed over very cursorily, while the author pauses to recall classical associations with the well-known geographical names, and enters, as regards them, into the details which their relative importance demands and makes appropriate.

In his Preface, Dr. Schmitz refers to Long's Atlas of Classical Geography, as "in every respect the best and most accurate that has yet been published in this country" (Great Britain). This Atlas was republished by Messrs. Blanchard and Lea in 1856; and, after having had it for several months on our table, we can bear testimony to its fulness, its adaptation to easy reference, and its high style of mechanical execution. We ought to have noticed it when it first appeared; we would now recommend it as an almost essential companion-book to Dr. Schmitz's "Manual," which we believe to be the best work of the kind accessible to American students.

20.- A Commentary, Critical, Expository, and Practical, on the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, for the Use of Ministers, Theological Students, Private Christians, Bible Classes, and Sabbath Schools. By JOHN J. Owen, D.D. With a Map, Synoptical Index, etc. pp. 501.

New York: Leavitt and Allen. 1857. 12mo.

INTO the mutual relations of the synoptical Gospels, and the questions raised by their correspondences and their discrepances, Dr. Owen does not enter, and the textual exposition of these books - the least difficult of interpretation in the canon of the New Testament- furnishes no adequate test of his ability as a critic. But the style of this work would prepare us to anticipate his distinguished success in the more arduous labors which await him in the Gospel of John and the Pauline Epistles. Completeness, precision, and conciseness characterize his commentary. On the few passages which can be supposed to refer to disputed dogmas, he accords, as we should expect, with the Trinitarian and Calvinistic interpretation; but, on these, he does not merge the critic in the controversialist, and still less does he obtrude his own peculiar opinions where the text does not demand their expression. His notes are learned, yet without the ostentation of learning, and devout, without the parade of personal feeling. They contain all that the common reader needs, and nearly all that the scholar can furnish, for the elucidation of the text. In thoroughness, in critical impartiality, and in their tokens of profound Biblical scholarship, we

deem them preferable to Barnes's Commentaries, which we nevertheless hold in high esteem, while they are parallel with that series in their adaptation to popular use.

21.

A History of Rome, from the Earliest Times to the Establishment of the Empire. With Chapters on the History of Literature and By HENRY G. LIDDELL, D.D., Dean of Christ Church, OxIllustrated by numerous Woodcuts. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1857. 12mo. pp. 768.

Art.

ford.

FOR the use of schools and colleges, and for a large class of readers, this work must assume the first place among the recent Histories of Rome. Its comparative brevity is secured by condensation rather than by omission. It embodies the last results of historical criticism, and exhibits, not merely the series of Rome's political and military fortunes, but the course and tokens of her progress alike in those manly, hardy traits which made her empress of the world, and in those more showy attributes of national greatness and individual magnificence, which in their culminating glory bore the presage of decline, decay, and dismemberment. Dr. Liddell's style is concise, clear, and strong. His numerous classical references and quotations, no less than the chapters expressly devoted to literature, connect the march of events with the development of the national mind, and thus render the work a history of the Romans no less than of Rome.

22. Essays in Biography and Criticism. By PETER BAYNE, M.A. First Series. Boston: Gould and Lincoln. 1857. 12mo. pp. 426.

THIS volume, and a second now in press, are the result of an arrangement honorable to both parties between the American publishers and Mr. Bayne, by which the author's rights are held sacred without the intervention of law, and the papers, which might have been pirated as they appeared in London or Edinburgh, are given to the Cisatlantic public under the auspices of him whose property they are. The present volume contains five articles from an Edinburgh Magazine, and three which had not been previously printed. They indicate the traits of mind and heart which render "The Christian Life" so intensely suggestive and vitalizing, and at the same time display a critical power seldom equalled in compreVOL. LXXXV. — NO. 177.

49

hensiveness, depth of insight, candid appreciation, and judicial integrity. The author enters at once into the heart of his subject; his standards of judgment are never lost from sight, or warped in their application to the case in hand; and his verdicts appear, not as the result of individual caprice, but as justified by the clear and full statement of the grounds on which they are pronounced. Two of the paperson Elizabeth Barrett Browning and on the Bronté Family — are on subjects discussed in our present number, and may be read with added interest in connection with the analysis of these writers by our own contributors. Were we to select either of a series of hardly varying merit for emphatic commendation, it would be that on De Quincey, who in his long career of authorship cannot have found a more admiring or a more discriminating reviewer. We quote the first few sentences of the paper on De Quincey, as no more than a fair specimen of the vigorous grasp with which the author fastens on his theme, and as exemplifying at once the vividness and energy of his style, and a certain floridness, the pruning of which would still further enhance his forcefulness and efficiency as a writer.

"On entering the study of De Quincey's writings, the first thing with which we are impressed is a certain air of perfect ease, and as it were of relaxation, which breathes around. The river glideth at his own sweet will'; now lingering to dally with the water-lilies, now wandering into green nooks to reflect the gray rock and silvery birch, now rolling in stately silence through the rich, smooth meadow, now leaping amid a thousand rainbows into the echoing chasm, while the spray rises upwards in a wavering and painted column. Mildness, or majesty, or wild Titanic strength may be displayed, but the river is ever at the same perfect ease, all unconscious of the spectator. 'My way of writing is rather to think aloud, and follow my own humors, than much to consider who is listening to me';-these words, used with express reference to the mode in which he composed the Confessions,' may be taken as characterizing, in a degree more or less eminent, De Quincey's universal manner. The goal, indeed, is always kept in view; however circuitous the wandering may be, there is always a return to the subject; the river's course is always seawards; but there are no fixed embankments, between which, in straight, purpose-like course, the stream is compelled to flow. You are led aside in the most wayward, unaccountable manner, and though you must allow that every individual bay and wooded creek is in itself beautiful, yet, being a Briton, accustomed to feed on facts, like the alligators whom the old naturalists asserted to live on stones, and thinking it right to walk to the purpose of a book with that firm step and by that nearest road which conduct you to your office, you are soon ready to exclaim that this is trifling, and that you wish the author could speak to the point. But there is some witchery which still detains you; the trifling seems to be flavored by some indefinable essence, which spreads an irresistible charm around; you recollect that nature has