Adm. Rev. D. Januarius Giordano in hæc Regia Studiorum Universitate Professor revideat, et in scriptis referat. Datum Neapoli, die 1 Augusti, 1766. NIC. EPISC. PUT. CAP. MAJOR.

ILLUSTRISS. ET REVERENDISS. DOM.

Perlegi librum, cujus epigraphe est "De Christo Hellenista Exercitatio Auctore Dominico Diodati;" atque ex ejus lectione summam animo voluptatem cepi. Nihil in eo reperi, quod vel bonis moribus, vel Augusti Regis Nostri sacro-sancto juri noceat. Præterea acre ingenium, ingentem eruditionem, styli elegantiam, et Latinæ, Græcæ, Hebraicæque, &c. linguæ scientiam. ostendit hic Auctor supra ætatem suam, et supra opinionem omnium; novamque de Christo Hellenista sententiam exquisitis argumentis tuetur, atque confirmat. Equidem nova sententia multos excitare solet adversarios; sed hoc. commodum rei literariæ accidit, ut collatis cognitisque utriusque partis argumentis veritas facile eruatur atque affulgeat. Quare hunc librum, ex quo magna utilitas processura est, publicis typis edi posse puto, si idem tibi arriserit. Neapoli XI. Kal. Jan. an. 1767.

Obsequentissimus, tibique Addictissimus,

JANUARIUS GIORDANO, SAC. CAN. ANT. REG.

Die 18 mensis Februarii, 1767, Neap.

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Reg. fol. 127 t.

CARULLI.
ATHANASIUS.

ARTICLE VIII

REPLY TO MR. WILSON'S REVIEW OF COMMON SCHOOL HISTORIES.

In the July number of the Repository, there is a criticism on American Common School Histories, by a gentleman, who, being about to publish one himself, very naturally seeks to destroy public confidence in his rivals, and that the most strenuously where the most annoyance is apprehended.

Mrs. Willard's Histories of the American Republic, especially the abridged one, appears to have received this distinction. These works have been commended by those who have used them, for the diffusive glow of patriotic, moral, and religious feeling which pervades them. On this point, Mr. Wilson has said nothing. The only fact of any consequence, in which he accuses Mrs. Willard of error,' is where she asserts that the territory first discovered by the Cabots was Newfoundland. Here Mrs. Willard is right, and Mr. Bancroft, whom Mr. Wilson follows, in a different statement, is in error. That Mrs. Willard's assertion is correct, is shown from the name "Prima Vesta," given to the island at the time of its discovery, and never changed; and also, by the concurrent testimony of all historians since, until within the last twenty years; when the specious writer of a "Memoir of Sebastian Cabot," in making a furious attack on Hackluyt's history, undertook to unsettle this point. But this writer has been conclusively answered, (and probably since Mr. Bancroft penned the first part of his history,) by Mr. Tytler, the well known author of the "History of Scotland."

Mr. Wilson asserts that Mrs. Willard pursues in her history the synchronistic method of arrangement, which, as he says, is unsuited to the purposes of instruction. Mrs. Willard does not pursue this method, neither does she confine. herself to the ethnographical, but, after a clearly defined plan, she unites both, with a view to avoid the inconveniences and combine the excellences of each.

Mr. Wilson makes great account of the confusion of dates, which he says all English and American histories have fallen into, from the exchange of old style to new and he is at a loss to account for the indifference of later writers to the subject. We suppose the true reason of this to be, that the time when this confusion occurs, is now so distant, that they have

1 We make no account of Mr. W.'s grave comments on the accidental exchange of the word east for west, by which he infers an attempt to show that Delaware was settled in New Jersey.

regarded it as of too small importance, whether an event was ten or eleven days sooner or later, to give themselves much trouble about it. We do not undervalue chronology, for the grand connexion of events by cause and effect is linked to the order of time. Mrs. Willard, by devising a series of maps corresponding to the principal epochs of our country's early history, and by her late invention of the "American Chronographer," may justly claim to have done for American chronology what no other writer has done. But as the astronomer, in calculating the appearances of the heavens, finds that the visual angle of the distance between any two bodies, becoming less and less as they recede, is at length nothing, so in history, ten or eleven days, at a hundred years' distance, becomes, to the mental vision, an imperceptible difference in time. It matters as little whether the day kept in honor of the Pilgrims' landing, is or is not the actual anniversary, as it does whether Christmas, which is celebrated by so great a part of Christendom, is or is not the real anniversary of our Lord's nativity. If the events, with their consequences, be duly and gratefully apprehended, that is all which is essential.

In Mr. Wilson's attempts at the correction of Mrs. Willard's style, we shall not follow him through the minutiae of his hypercriticism; in which, however, he has made sundry incorrect assertions, and some unfair quotations. Of the words which he cites as incorrectly used, there is not one in which the definitions given by Mr. Webster in his large dictionary do not justify Mrs. Willard. We would not assert that there is not a word in Mrs. Willard's books used in an incorrect signification, but this we do assert, that Mr. Wilson has not found one. In winding up his article, he uses expressions by which he would have it believed, that he only stated, here and there as it happened, some small part of the errors which he had detected in Mrs. Willard's books. But in the paragraph preceding we find, from observing the pages to which he refers, that he had looked regularly through the questions in small type at the foot of the pages in the small history, where he gleaned a few colloquialisms, which, though proba

bly contained in the first edition, have been since corrected.' After dealing in this small way, we can hardly suppose, especially considering Mr. Wilson's zeal "for the cause of education," that he would keep from the public any thing which he supposed to be inaccurate.

We have now, out of respect to your readers, replied to Mr. Wilson's main charges against Mrs. Willard's history, keeping within the limits of the defensive, as we shall avoid controversy. X. Y. ·

ARTICLE IX.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

1.-The Book of Peace. A Collection of Essays on War and Peace. Boston: Geo. C. Beckwith. New-York: M. W. Dodd.

HERE is a series of fifty-two essays, or tracts, in nearly 500 closely printed pages, on a variety of important and interesting topics connected with the subject of peace-the history of the cause, its principles, and its measures, or modes of operation ;-sketches of war, its nature and effects;-testimonies of eminent men in different ages against war, both Pagans and Christians, warriors, statesmen, philosophers, men of letters, ministers of the Gospel;-the points of glaring contrariety between war and the Bible, the Old Testament as well as the New ;-the possibility of abolishing the custom ;-military discipline, or the treatment and punishment of warriors, both on land and sea;-various illustrations of war, especially in modern times, as in the Russian campaign, the Peninsular wars, sieges, battles, etc., etc.;-the suicidal folly of preparations for war;-waste of property by war, a very comprehensive view;-loss of life by war, a most startling array of facts;-war-debts of Europe, authentic, but almost incredible;-substitutes for war, four mentioned, but only arbitration and a congress of nations discussed at length, and these as fully as most readers will need or wish ;-inefficacy of war as a mode of protection or redress;-safety of pacific principles, illustrated

'Three of these have been corrected since the publication of Mr. Wilson's article, also, three or four slight errors in point of fact, and about as many in the arrangement of sentences.

with singnlar brevity, yet with much fullness of facts and examples; -military hospitals, or the treatment of wounded sick and disabled soldiers;-war-prayers, unchristian;-militia-drills, superfluous even on the war-principle, and attended with great expense, and bad moral influences; the United States Navy a useless waste of money and morals; answers to a great variety of objections to the cause of peace ;-war a destroyer of souls ;-influence of war on domestic happiness; the strictest principles of peace consistent with the legitimate operations of government in controlling and punishing its own subjects;-claims of peace on Christians, on women, etc.;—the chief evil of war seen in its moral nature and results;—criminality of war; -war unlawful under the Christian dispensation, etc., etc., etc.

This book certainly comprises a rich and brilliant constellation of genius, learning, and taste. Here we have the able and eloquent productions on this subject of Erasmus, the prince of modern scholars; of Neckar, the illustrious financier of France; of Robert Hall, perhaps the finest mind, certainly the most accomplished writer of the last age; of Chalmers, in some of the most vivid and powerful strains of his eloquence; of the gifted Channing, of Worcester, and Ladd, Noyes, and Clarkson, and others not unknown to fame. The work is a casket of the richest gems on peace; a judicious selection of the best articles or essays that have ever been written on the subject, with a considerable number, obviously prepared for the volume with much care, ability, and taste. It contains a vast amount of information in a small space, enough for most minds, on nearly all the points connected with the cause of peace. It is a rich thesaurus of facts, statistics, and anecdotes illustrating the nature and effects of war, and the ways or means by which an end may be put to this great scourge of the world. The variety of its topics and its style, can hardly fail to interest every class of minds; and the names of the different authors are a most ample guaranty for the great value and excellence of its contents. We wish it, what it richly deserves, a circulation through the land, and a careful perusal by all patriots, as well as by all the professed followers of the Prince of Peace. We hope hereafter for a fuller exhibition both of the book and the subject.

2.-Critical History and Defence of the Old Testament Canon. By M. STUART, Professor of Sacred Literature in the Theological Seminary, Andover, Mass. Andover: Allen, Morrill & Wardwell. New York: Mark H. Newman, 199 Broadway. 1845. pp. 452, 12mo.

The Christian world will, doubtless, feel grateful to Prof. Stuart for this contribution to the critical history of the Old Testament Canon. The Old Testament has been especially assailed of late; and even in a work entitled "Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels,"