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thing but in law, and in name, there is already a college at Amherst.' Giving a charter is a mere form; it will neither make nor destroy; it will add facilities, but they are facilities granted for purposes acknowledged to be good. Besides, where so many exertions have been made by individuals, and where so much has already been accomplished without legislative countenance, it is no more than a just reward of enterprise to render such nominal aids, as other institutions enjoy, which have not done more, if as much, at the same stage of their existence, to deserve them. Under such circumstances we apprehend no danger to the interests of learning from rivalry; if a body of spirited individuals will erect an institution, and strengthen it by respectable endowments, they ought to be encouraged. Let others do more, and they should have more encouragement; if they do less, they deserve less, and should receive less. No harm can result from a competition like this; it accords with the spirit of all our institutions, of our free government, of our national habits, and we should be sorry ever to see this spirit damped or perverted.

3. Notes on the Epistle to the Romans.*-These Notes are wholly of a critical nature, drawn up, as the author tells us, to assist him in his private lectures to his classes, and to afford some facilities to the students in their attempts to attain a critical knowledge of the Scriptures. They are preceded by an introductory essay, consisting of a translation of Koppe's Prolegomena to the Romans; and at the end is added another essay, addressed to theological students, and intended principally for those of the Protestant Episcopal Church. The Notes themselves are chiefly a compilation from various critical writers of eminence, selected and combined according to the judgment of the author. The names, to which we find most frequent reference, are Koppe, Schleusner, Rosenmuller, Kuinoel, Ammon, Storr, Ernesti, Dathe, Doederlein, Wetstein, Locke, Whitby, Macknight. From this list it will be seen, that the author has ascended to high sources; and we shall think it a favorable omen to the cause of biblical inquiry, if it shall prove, that the public taste is sufficiently prepared to relish works of so purely critical a cast, as this from the pen of Professor Turner.

4. Bigelow's Address before the Massachusetts Peace Society. -The author assumes two positions, which he attempts to establish. The first is, that a state of peace is the most fitted to be the natural and permanent condition of man.' This point he ar

*Notes on the Epistle to the Romans, intended for Students in Theology, and others, who read the Scriptures in the Originals. By Samuel H. Turner. 8vo. pp. 120. New York, 1824.

gues forcibly; he draws his reasons from the harmony of nature, from the influence of war to promote the growth of vice, kindle the worst passions, repress industry and enterprise, unsettle the foundations of social order, and barbarise mankind; whereas, peace softens and subdues, it cements the social compact, makes the flame of love burn brightly in the human heart, sets up the only solid pillars of civil government, gives encouragement for the intellect to expand, the affections to bloom and flourish, and so refines and strengthens the principles and powers of man, so controls his circumstances and relations, and so modifies the condition of his being, as to conduct him in the surest road to improvement and happiness. Thus it is that peace is suited to the permanent state of man. The notion, which fills the heads of so many persons, that war is necessary, the author calls a great and wretched delusion,' and ascribes its origin to the fantasies of that erratic and dreaming race of philosophers, who hold that man in a state of nature has an appetency to molest and destroy his kind.

The author's other position is, that there are indications that peace will in fact universally prevail, and become the condition of mankind at large.' In this we suspect he is more sanguine than sound. We have not the vision to see such indications, even with the optical aids, which the author has lent us. He talks well of the influence of good governments, the reclaiming power of free institutions, the strong arm of public opinion, the progress of mind, of light, truth, principle, the advancement in useful arts, the gaining strength of reason over passion, of knowledge over ignorance, and of a pure religion over superstition; but, after all, we do not perceive, that he advances a single step towards the point of showing, that the great ones of the earth are not just as ready at this moment to add fuel to the fires of war, when their interest or ambition prompts them, as they were a thousand years ago, or that their dependants are not as ready as they ever were to follow, and slay, and devour, at their command. Happy will the day be when the author's bright pictures of peace and brotherly love shall be permanently drawn on the broad canvass of human society, yet we have a strong apprehension, that, in regard to this subject, many a one in the coming ages of time will have occasion to say with the poet,

But, och! I backward cast my e'e

On prospects drear!

An' forward, tho' I canna see,

I guess an' fear.

We will only add, that Mr Bigelow's Address deserves much praise for its spirited style and manner, and for the benevolent zeal with which he pleads the great cause of peace and humanity.

5. Tillett's Key.*—The long title to this work has the air of boasting and pretence; it is always better to promise little and do much, than to put forth a flourish of great things, and run the hazard of a failure. We have not yet seen enough of the author's doings, however, to feel ourselves qualified to judge in what manner his task will in the end be executed. The first part only has been published. He says, 'should this meet with sufficient patronage, a second number, now in forwardness, will be published, giving the application of the rules here laid down, to the solution of every description of equations that has been proposed by the most popular authors, and a number of others that are thought to be original; also, an entirely new method of solving cubic equations of different dimensions; and a third number will give the application of algebra to geometry.' The present number is devoted to quadratic equations, embracing a much larger variety of cases, rules, and examples, than is usual in treatises of this sort, and arranged in what the author conceives a new method.

We fear he has in some slight degree committed the fault, which he imputes to his predecessors, when he observes, 'it would appear that nearly all the gentlemen, who have written on this science, have been more desirous to exhibit their own ingenuity and erudition to those, who were in some measure familiar with the science, than to instruct the mere tyro.' It may be so, but we have suspicions, that Mr Tillet has hardly been more successful, than those who have gone before him, in simplifying his subject, and that few tyros, by the aid of their own wits alone, will be much the wiser for the aphorisms and rules, which he makes the groundwork of his first number.

6. Address for the Benefit of the Greeks.-The Orator begins his Address with the downfall of Grecian liberty, when the great city of Constantine was besieged and taken by the Saracens. The following paragraph, with which he commences, will show that he enters boldly on his subject, and will present our readers with a fair specimen of his style, and the general tone of his performance.

* A New Key to the Exact Sciences; or a New and Practical Theory, by which Mathematical Problems or Algebraic Equations of almost every Description can be solved with Accuracy, and with greater Facility and Simplicity, than they can be by any Method that has yet been given by any other Author; in which are also introduced a Variety of Useful and Interesting Problems, that have never before been proposed, and which it is believed cannot be solved by any Methods except those here laid down. By Francis Tillett. Winchester, Va. 8vo. pp. 64.

↑ An Address for the Benefit of the Greeks, delivered in Newark, New Jersey, Jan. 13, 1824. By William W. Miller, Esq. 8vo. pp. 23. Newark. W. Tuttle & Co.

It was midnight on the shores of the Bosphorus, when the Moslem king, Mahomet the second, started from his couch; his sleep had been troubled; restless ambition was stirring in his soul. Before him was the ancient Byzantium, the last hold of Roman and Grecian Empire. Near him were encamped his turbaned legions, and over him was seen the crescent of the Prophet. Lala! Lala! he cried; and anon appeared before him his prime vizier, and with all the meanness of eastern adulation, he prostrated himself before the monarch. Constantinople must be mine, was the Moslem's brief address.'

The orator then goes on to tell how the Moslem took the city, in spite of the brave resistance of the Emperor Constantine Palaeogelus. This was an expiring effort of the valor of Greece, the last gleam of her ancient glory; it cast a ray of light across the night of her destruction; but, alas, it was a momentary gleam.' 'The crescent of the Prophet was displayed on the dome of St Sophia,' and here was an end of the liberty of Greece. From this point the speaker takes us back to Xerxes, and the Spartans at Thermopylae, to Greece under the Romans, to Rome herself, when 'that bold barbarian, Aleric the Goth, crossed her plains with all the rapidity and fiery wrath of a meteor, to give her a prelibation of that bitter cup, which she has since drained to the very dregs.' And then we come to the times, when the Dervis muttered his ejaculations in the Acropolis of Athens,' and when the Turk reclined in listless stupidity in the groves of Academus, and under the shades of Parnassus.' Thus are opened to us the varied fortunes of that ill fated country, till we arrive step by step at the horrors of Scio, where the tragic truth baffles the power of fancy, and she returns exhausted as often as she essays its representation.' After these historical sketches, accompanied with descriptions of the sufferings of Greece under a degrading and unprincipled tyranny, and with eulogies on her bold efforts to shake off her galling chains, and breathe the air of freedom, the author closes with moving appeals to the sympathy and generosity of the Amercan public, in aiding a cause so righteous in its nature, and so noble in its objects, as that of Grecian emancipation.

7. Undine.*-The elegant literature of one nation cannot easily become popular with another. Works of science, wherever they originally appear, have an equal interest for all minds engaged in the studies of which they respectively treat; but works of fiction are more peculiarly natives of the clime in which they are produced, and need to be protected and cherished by local, or national superstitions, tastes, and manners.

* Undine, a Tale from the German. 12mo. Philadelphia, 1824.

Yet the tale of Undine, which is considered by the Germans as an ornament of their light literature, may give pleasure to any, who are willing to be pleased by a consistent, though fanciful narration. In reading this little fiction, we have been content to receive gratification without attempting to analyze its causes. The translation is true to the original, and has obviously been made by one familiar with the German literature and language. Part of the object of the book may have been to puzzle reviewers; for there is neither name nor preface to indicate the author of the translation. This is certainly very modest, and would seem to justify an inference, that it had been made by some one, unambitious of literary distinction, and yet willing to employ moments of leisure in multiplying the sources of literary pleasure.

8. Letter on the Tariff.*-This is a powerful and eloquent declamation on the subject of the changes now proposed in the Revenue Laws of the country. Its main purpose is to show the effect these changes will have on the southern and western states; that, while the valley of the Mississippi, as an essentially agricultural territory, cannot be ultimately benefited by a system of bounties on manufactures, all south of Pennsylvania will be openly sacrificed to it, at once and forever. The following is a specimen of its spirit and manner.

'Throughout the whole Western Country, every man is a farmer, and every man is, to a certain extent, a merchant. They stand arrayed, then, in a double capacity against a system, which on its front is opposed to the agricultural and commercial interests; a system which proposes to feed an insatiable appetite upon those interests; which pounces upon the rich banquet that nature has spread before them, and will defile what it cannot devour:

fœdissima ventris

Proluvies, uncæ que manus, et pallida semper

Ora fame.

I cannot but regard the whole Western States as inseparably combined with the Southern, on the subject of the Tariff. The primary interest of each is agricultural, and each depends upon a free commerce for its wealth; our sources of prosperity are the same; our losses will be the same.'

"There is no question of the effect of the proposed Tariff on the cotton and tobacco growing states, and no attempt to disguise it. It is open, undisguised war upon Maryland, Virginia, North and

* A Letter to the Hon. James Brown, Senator in Congress from the State of Louisiana, on the Tariff. By an Inhabitant of the South. Washington, 1823. 8vo. pp. 26.

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