We know, that many consider the favorable notice of a new work, synonymous with the puffing of an article, which has just been thrown into the market, and which, of course, owes its value mostly to the fashion of the moment. But the Village Choir has other merits besides the one of being new. It is worth reading for its pure and appropriate style alone, and there is real humor, (not punning) sound reasoning, elevated morality, and warm patriotism, combined in its pages; with little to offend the most fastidious critic. We give one extract as a specimen of the manner; the reflections of the author, after narrating that one of the leaders of the choir, Charles Williams, a shoemaker, and the son of a shoemaker, in his ambition to be something greater than the village of Waterfield offered, had concluded to leave his important office in the choir, for the honors of a college.

"I use not the word ignoble, nor any other term of disparagement or contempt, as applicable to that vocation. I am too sturdy an American for that. Happily, in our country, we have scarcely a conception of what the epithet ignoble signifies, except in a purely moral point of view. The aristocratical pride of Europe accounts for this, by insisting, that we are all plebeians together, and of course that distinctions of rank among us are ridiculous. Our own pride, of which we have our full share, accounts for the circumstance on the opposite hypothesis, that we are a nation of highborn noblemen. But this is a poor dispute about names. The truth is, we are neither a nation of noblemen nor plebeians. How can such correlative terms be applied with any shadow of correctness, when the very political relations which they imply, do not exist? It is using a solecism to call Americans plebeians, because to that class belongs the conscious degradation of witnessing above them, in the same body politic, an order of men born to certain privileges of which they are destitute by birth themselves. And for a similar reason, it is equally a solecism to regard ourselves, even metaphorically, as noblemen.

Why then did Charles Williams and his friends desire him to emerge from the calling in which his youth had been passed? Oh, we Americans have our preferences. We think it an innocent and a convenient thing to draw arbitrary lines of distinction between different professions; otherwise, the circle of one man's acquaintance would often be oppressively large.

I do not wish to analyze too minutely, the aristocratical leaven among us. I do not exactly understand its principle of operation myself. Pedigree it certainly is not, though that perhaps is one of its elements. Wealth and education have something to do with it. Different vocations in life, have much more. Various degrees of softness and whiteness of the hands, are perhaps as good criterions as any thing. Certain sets of persons do somehow contrive to obtain an ascendancy in every town and village. But in the present state of society in our country, the whole subject is extremely unsettled. The mass is fermenting, and how this process will result eventually, time only can decide. Probably some future court calendar will rank among the first class of American citizens, all families descended in lines, more or less direct, from former presidents of the nation, heads of departments, governors of states, presidents of colleges, Supreme Court judges, commodores, and general officers. The second class may comprehend the posterity of members of congress, circuit and state judges, clergymen, presidents of banks, professors in colleges, captains of national vessels, leaders of choirs, and perhaps some others. I have no curiosity to speculate upon inferior classes, nor to determine any further the order in which far distant dinners shall be approached by eaters yet unborn, or future balls shall be arranged at Washington."

"THATCHER'S TREATISE ON BEES." Boston, Marsh & Capen. 'What can there be in a Treatise on Bees to interest me?' will probably be the exclamation of many a young lady, while looking at the contents of the Magazine. And in truth we feared, on first turning over the leaves of Dr. Thatcher's very neat looking volume, that it was not a book which we could make much of, for our publication. Yet we have always had a partiality for the honey-making tribe, ever since the time we could repeat-See how the little busy bee,' &c. till now, when the allusions, so often and so happily introduced by Mrs. Hemans, in her exquisite strains, incline us to think that bees have peculiar poetic claims to admiration. They are certainly very extraordinary creatures, combining in their queenly societies, the romantic and the rational, in a degree, which none other of the insect or animal tribes exhibit. Is it not rather a curious circumstance, that the most ingenious, useful and perfect system of the polity of instinct displayed among the multitude of living creatures which crowd our globe, should be under the entire control of the female? The Salic law it seems, is not the law of nature. Truly, bees should be patronized by the ladies; and we are gratified to learn such is the case. The passage in Dr. Thatcher's Treatise, containing this information, we transcribe for the benefit, as well as amusement of our readers.

"Whilst concluding this little volume, I was favored with a polite communication from that experienced apiarian, and horticulturist, Mrs. Mary Griffith, of New-Brunswick, New-Jersey. This lady has devoted many years to the amusement and advantages of an apiary, in which she has done much credit to herself, and conferred numerous benefits on the public. (A woman.) She is probably the first, if not the only one, in the United States, who has established an apiary upon just and methodical principles. She has invented an ingeniously constructed hive, which promises to supersede most others that have been in use. (A woman then has invented something besides a bonnet, but who would have thought of her employing her ingenuity on a bee-hive ?) In the North American Review, for October, 1828, will be found a production from her elegant pen, on the subject of bees."

These facts show that the endeavor to be rationally useful, has a powerful tendency to increase the developement of the female mind. Mrs. Griffith would never, probably, have written for the North American, had she not kept bees; and we hope our fair young friends, who are sighing to be distinguished, will copy her example of persevering industry in some useful employment, if they do not keep bees. But really the economy of bees must furnish, to those naturalists who are fond of the subject, a delightful study. The wonderful instinct and sagacity of the bee, approaches, in many instances, so near to what we call reason, that the difference is hardly to be described. Dr. Thatcher thinks it an established fact, that "bees have a sort of language among themselves, whereby they know each other's wants;" and an occurrence, of which we happen to know the truth, convinces us that they can communicate with each other; but whether theirs is the language of signs or song we know not. Perhaps the anecdote may not be unacceptable to such of our readers as have taken an interest in the above remarks. A country gentleman, some thirty years since, who had quite a flourishing apiary, took up, (as the phrase then was, when the bees were destroyed, by the process of placing the hive over a pit, filled with brimstone matches-how horrid !) two hives. It was on a Saturday evening, and the comb, being taken from the hives, was deposited in pans, which were placed, part of them in the cellar, and part in a cool closet, that the fume of the sulpher might have time to escape before Monday, when the selection of the finest comb was, as usual, to be made for the table, and the remainder

strained for other uses. On the Sabbath, the family, with the exception of two children, a boy of ten, and his sister of six, went to church. It was a beautiful August day, and the children, as might be expected when left to themselves, were more amused by the scene without the house, than edified by the good books within. While they were sauntering around the door, one bee, attracted by the honey on a piece of bread in the hand of the little girl, came to partake the feast. It was cordially welcomed, and after being satisfied, withdrew to its hive, but soon returned, accompanied by a companion. These were both allowed to feed on the honey; they departed, and returned with several others. The idea of taming the bees now occurred to the children, so putting some honey on a plate, they set it just within the house, and soon had the satisfaction of seeing a number feeding very happily. Hitherto the visitors had increased at a slow rate; two or three only being added on the return of each party; but the closet door being left open, some of the bees found their way to the pans of honey, and soon the rush from the apiary to the house was like a swarming. The children were somewhat perplexed by the numbers and hurry of their guests, but after consulting together, they concluded to set all the doors and windows wide open, thus allowing the bees free ingress and egress. The family, on their return from church, were astonished and alarmed to find their dwelling converted into a bee-hive-indeed, when it is considered that the apiary consisted of ten or twelve hives, that each hive is said to contain nearly twenty thousand bees, and that from appearances, most of these were in and around the house, (they were thronging every room) it must be confessed there appeared some reason to be alarmed. However, the intruders could not be ejected; so the family were compelled to mingle among them, which, though the children had received no injury, they at first did very warily. But they found there was no cause of fear. The bees that surrounded the cradle of Virgil, (were they not probably allured in a similar manner?) could not have been more harmless. Whether they were sensible the rich feast they enjoyed, was by the favor of human agents, or whether, which is the most likely, they were made too happy by their good fortune to permit the display of any vindictive feelings, it is a fact, that not a person in the house was stung or annoyed by the bees. On the contrary, they emitted a joyous humming, that seemed to breathe the spirit of delight. They quitted the house at nightfall, when measures were carefully taken to prevent their entrance on the next day. At an early hour the following morning, they surrounded the house, and some lingered through the day; but not gaining admittance they returned no more. Now, that the first bees which entered the closet, had some means of communicating to their fellows, not only that they had found food, but an abundance of it, seems evident; else why did they come in such numbers? The visit of the bees had afforded the children fine sport; but like other experimentalists, they found a drawback, on which they had not calculated. Their honey was nearly all carried away by the industrious bees.”

TO READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.

We had prepared notices of several periodicals, bnt are compelled to omit them till next month, for want of room. Our readers will, we trust, remark that this Magazine contains eight pages more than any former one. We hope to present them with an engraving next month.

Our correspondents deserve thanks-several poetic articles are received and will appear. We have taken the liberty to affix a signature to the article on the Intellectual Character of Women; and we suggest one correction to the reader-page 146, line 4 from the bottom, "resign the lyre of Urania," should be,"resign the lyre to Urania."