morning, now growing dim with twilight; we hastened down the long, steep, bare pathway; we reached our horses at six o'clock, and tumultuously entering a farm house, demanded and quaffed huge libations of milk, from quart bowls such as Odin might have emptied, while the aged grandsire of the household began telling us his garrulous stories of the bear and wolf hunts of his younger days. Three cheers for Mr. Perkins, as he sat tranquilly at his cottage door, and watched our departure-a ride of fourteen miles in the cool night air; and so ended our day in the Carter Notch.

NOTE. We know no previous description of the Carter Notch, except in the following vague and not very accurate passage from the "Portland, White Mountains, and Montreal Railroad Guide," page 110. The occasion of the sketch is the Nineteen-mile Brook, which flows through the pass in the direction of the Glen.

"It is a most romantic stream, working its way

through rocky glens and forests, whose lonely seclusions have never been explored, except by the adventurous hunters-having its source in the gorge between Hight and Carter Mountains, some three or four miles up. . . . . Near the source of this stream, among wooded steeps and shattered crags, that burst up into the sky in the wildest forms, is a deep lakelet, whose waters approach in clearness the atmosphere itself-a perfect gem of the wilderness. Its western borders are overshadowed by a ragged precipice from 300 to 400 feet in perpendicular height, crowned with forests; and with this for a base line, its shore describes a semicircle, and is fringed with a sandy beach, which is seldom trod, except by the wild deer, who come here to drink. The precipice, on the discharge of a gun, it is said, gives back a strange echo, at times clear and oft repeated, again confused, as the uproar on a battle-field. Hunters represent that an enormous slide on the southeast slope of Mount Hight, has filled the ravine through which flows the head waters of the Ellis River with shattered trees and boulders of huge dimensions; and is continually tumbling down masses of rock, which, tearing their way through all obstructions, have produced scenes of terrible devastation. The section offers a fine field for the explorations of the adventurous tourist."

LITERATURE.

AMERICAN.-An acceptable volume to that class of politicians, who desire to give a reason for the faith that is in them, is the Writings of Robert Rantoul, Jr., just issued by JEWETT & Co. The author was one of the most promising politicians of the nation, independent, fearless, large minded, and benevolent; and had he lived to a maturer age, would have ranked among the first statesmen of New England. In the Memoir prefixed to the volume, by the Rev. Dr. Peabody of Portsmouth, we have an appreciating and judicious notice of his brief career, showing how largely the literary and sympathetic tendencies of his nature controlled his public life, and with what sincerity and depth of conviction he cherished the opinions he had formed. It is no small indication of the popularity of Mr. Rantoul among his friends, that the first edition of the book was subscribed for, some time before it had made its appearance.

The time has not yet come for writing the life of Daniel Webster, because we are still too near the times in which he lived and acted, to enable any writer to assume the impartial character of the historian. In the Rev. Mr. BANVARD's work, therefore, which is named the American Statesman, or Illustrations of the Life and Character of Daniel Webster, we discover only a premature and not very well executed attempt, that should have been left to abler hands and later days. A great man is never seen, in his true relations to his age, by his contemporaries, or by those who came immediately after him, and are still immersed in the atmosphere of party prejudices by which he was himself surrounded. They are in danger, either of estimating him too highly or too meanly, according to their own personal or party predilections, and consequently fail to hit the truth. What a vast interval, for instance, in regard to Webster, there lies between the eulogy of Choate, who can see no failings or failures in his illustrious friend, and the sermon of Theodore Parker, who finds almost as little good? Will posterity, in its slow but unerring judgment, confirm the estimate of either?

no superior as an orator, while his abilities as a statesman raised him to a high rank. Col. Benton, in his forthcoming reminiscences of Thirty Years in the Senate, has an interesting allusion to Pinkney, which we quote:-"He was considered in his day," says he, "the first of American orators, but will hardly keep that place with posterity, because he spoke more to the hearer than to the reader-to the present than to the absent-and avoided the careful publication of his own speeches. He labored them hard, but it was for the effect of their delivery, and the triumph of present victory. He loved the admiration of the crowded gallery-the trumpettongued fame which went forth from the forum-the victory which crowned the effort; but avoided the publication of what was received with so much applause, giving as a reason that the published speech would not sustain the renown of the delivered one. His forte as a speaker lay in his judgment, his logic, his power of argument; but, like many other men of acknowledged pre-eminence in some great gift of nature, and who are still ambitious of some inferior gift, he courted his imagination too much, and laid too much stress upon action and delivery-90, potent upon the small circle of actual hearers, but so lost upon the national audience which the press now gives to a great speaker. In other respects, Mr. Pinkney was truly a great orator. rich in his material, strong in his argumentclear, natural, and regular in the exposition of his subject, comprehensive in his views, and chaste in his diction. speeches, both senatorial and forensic, were fully studied and laboriously prepared-all the argumentative parts carefully digested under appropriate heads, and the showy passages often fully written out and committed to memory. He would not speak at all except upon preparation; and at his sexagenarian agethat at which I knew him-was a model of study and of labor to all young men."

His

We are pleased to see this attempt at a life of Pinkney, because our Southern friends have been comparatively regardless of the posthumous reputations of their more distinguished men.

- Mr. SAMUEL ELIOT has continued his well-known history of the progress of Liberty, by furnishing us with a work called The Early Christians, in which he carries forward his subject in the period which followed the advent of Christianity, closing his narrative in the sixth century. The ground has been previously passed over by Gibbon, but not reaped of

all its harvests. Mr. Eliot displays a great deal of patient research, and writes with fluency and earnestness, but he is scarcely equal to the requirements of his subject. His thoughts are often very vague, and he appears to have formed no adequate conception of the philosophy of history. At the same time he has contributed a large number of interesting and valuable details to our knowledge of the times about which he writes.

-We have received from the Secretary of State for New-York, two large volumes, containing Documentary History, arranged under the editorial supervision of CHRISTOPHER MORGAN, late Secretary of State; and Dr. E. B. Ó'CALLAGAN. The whole covers some two or three thousand pages, and embraces an almost incredible variety of reports, letters, documents, and charts, all going to illustrate the earlier condition of the people of New-York. Some of these relate to Champlain's expedition to the North and West, others to the first settlements of the Dutch, others to the Quakers and Moravians, others to the state of religion at different times, others to the prices of lands, and others to missionary tours among the Indians. Much of it, therefore, is exceedingly curious, particularly the details in regard to "first things," Fitch's first steamboat, the first newspaper, the first vessel on Lake Erie, the first mail to Buffalo, &c., &c. Copious wood-cut illustrations, of several subjects, are also given, with copies of early maps, medals, views of towns, and civil and army lists, with statistics of trade and exportation. In short, the work is an inestimable addition to our historical records.

-A new volume of Poems is promised us, by Mr. W. H. C. HOSMER, of the western part of this State, whose fugitive poetical pieces have already given him a high local reputation. They are expected to appear from the press of Redfield and Co., about the Christmas holidays.

-Holiday books, by the way, are not as plentiful this year, as they were the last, although there is never any serious lack of these ephemera. Public taste, it appears to us, has undergone a great revolution in respect to the character of Christmas literature. The gaudy annuals, with their wretched engravings, and silly letter-press, are not now considered as desirable as the richly bound standard or classical authors, or some new work of permanent utility. The interest of the annuals was confined mainly to their showy covers, and fine white paper,-not likely to be lasting,-while that of the latter class of books, arises from their contents, and is perennial.

The publication of a book on Spiritualism, by a person so distinguished as JUDGE EDMONDS, of our Supreme Court, is an event in literature demanding more than a passing notice. The subject and the author alike arrest the public attention. An attempt to prove the reality of an intercourse between departed spirits and men on this side of the grave, by an eminent judicial functionary, is a fact that has much significance. For some years now, a large number of the people in this country, of different ages and conditions, have made the most solemn and intelligible statements of the curious phenomena, such as rappings, table-turnings, bell-ringings, poundings, and writings, and their reports are confirmed by those of other persons in England, France, Austria, Central America, and India. There is, moreover, a remarkable similarity in these occurrences, whether they are classed under the head of successes or failures. Varied as they are in their character, and inconsistent as the interpretations of them may be, they have still in themselves a certain analogy which compels us to believe that they are produced by one and the same cause, either natural or spiritual. This fact alone should exempt them from that hasty and impertinent ridicule with which ignorance always meets the announcement of a novelty, and suggest a careful scientific study of its various characteristics.

The reputation of such an indorser as Judge Edmonds too-a lawyer of great sagacity, accustomed to weighing evidence, and a man of the most exemplary integrity, whose words on a matter of fact cannot be doubted, ought to commend the subject to an impartial investigation, or at least shield it from the flippant commentaries of the lower order of journalists. At the same time, his position as a judge and a man should be allowed to give no undue weight to his asseverations, no more, indeed, than their apparent sincerity and intrinsic consistence may entitle them to from the reader's own best judgment. We know that the most exalted men have fallen into the grossest errors, on these abstruse questions, and that we have other guide, in the formation of our opinion, than the reason with which we are endowed, enlightened by the researches of men of science and intellect. Sir Matthew Hale, one of the noblest and most intelligent judges of his day, condemned his fellow-beings to death on a charge of witchcraft, and Lords Bacon and Coke were members of the parliament which passed, almost without opposition, the laws enacted to the same end. No entire reliance, then, can be placed on any authorities, no matter how elevated.

The book of Judge Edmonds must be estimated on its face. The facts he narrates, we have no doubt, are just as they occurred. His singular experiences are faithfully recorded; and the only point for the world to discuss, is the meaning of those facts. Are they illusions, or are they abnormal natural phenomena, or were they really produced by the agency of spirits? For ourselves, however, we confess, that we are not prepared to answer these questions, not because we should have the least hesitation in avowing one theory or the other, provided we were convinced of it; but because we do not suppose the subject itself sufficiently developed and advanced to justify a final generalization. The observations in respect to it, which have been thus far made by reliable minds, are not numerous; the reports that we have from other sources are exceedingly contradictory; and there is no hypothesis, that we are aware, yet put forth, that will satisfactorily explain these phenomena, whether considered to be of natural or spiritual origin. Michael Faraday's account of the table-tippings, on the natural side, was positively ludicrous in its superficiality, while the spiritual elucidations, often given by the spirits themselves, are only more absurd. The most philosophical attempt to assign a natural cause to these strange occurrences is by a Mr. Rogers, of Boston, whose work, however, strikes us as not covering the whole ground. On the other side, the works of Swedenborg furnish the most intelligent and reasonable insight; but even those, profound as their philosophy is, do not throw any clear and steady light upon the matter. We shall be obliged, then, to await more positive studies before we shall undertake to utter our opinions.

The chief spirits who speak in Judge Edmonds' book are Bacon and Swedenborg, and the circle to which their communications are addressed, appears to have regarded them as of great importance. But they do not strike us as particularly weighty. They are neither very clear, very consistent, nor of any great discoverable utility. Any page of the writings of those men, while in this life, contains vastly more thought, more concisely and intelligibly expressed, than all the hundred pages of their revelations. Either, therefore, the mediums through which their thoughts were conveyed, were remarkably imperfect, as they sometimes intimate, or the spirits have made little or none of that intellectual progress, of which they boast so much, in the higher sphere to which they have been translated; and on both suppositions, their pre

sent revealments cannot be of much consequence to us, in this world. They must get more developed themselves, and improve their means of communication, to become of use. Our conclusion, then, a second time, is, that we must wait.

A Tract on Government, is the modest title of a small disquisition on the theory and functions of government, just issued by LITTLE, BROWN & Co. It is clearly and sensibly written, supporting the position that government represents the reason of society, and is designed to restrain the passions of individuals, where their own reason is insufficient. But in the application of this hypothesis to the federal government of the United States, he refines entirely too much, going the length even of declaring that the "general welfare" clause of the constitution warrants an unlimited exercise of power.

It is worthy of remark that the subject of government is just attracting a large degree of philosophic attention. Mr. Goodrich, Mr. Lieber, Mr. Hildreth, and the writer of this tract, are among the most recent speculators on the subject, and we know of several other books in preparation. Are we on the eve of some more definite and scientific statement of the origin and nature of government?

The Lost Prince. The anxiously expected revelations by the Rev. Mr. Hanson, on the Bourbon question, are about to be published by Putnam & Co., under the title of The Lost Prince. Independent of the question of the identity of the Rev. Eleazer Williams with Louis XVII., which this book very fully discusses, the work will be found one of great interest, which is never permitted to flag. The design of the author is to present to the reader all the elements necessary to the formation of opinion on the historical point which he so ably handles. We may consider the book more elaborately hereafter: at present we have only time and space to say, that the evidence adduced appears clearly to establish the fact that Louis XVII. did not die, as is usually supposed, in the Temple, in 1795. A mass of direct and circumstantial testimony is also collected, on the point of identity, which certainly forces the impartial and unprejudiced mind toward the conclusion that Mr. Williams is indeed the unfortunate dauphin.

But the book must be carefully read in order to form any just idea of the nature of the testimony, which is so involved and varied, and united together by so many delicate links, that it is quite impossible, in a brief space, to give any thing like a fair synopsis of it.

Apart altogether from the interest ex

cited by the main question of identity, the book will be found full of important historical information, gathered from numerous sources, combined with no little skill, and made attractive by the enthusiasm of the author. It furnishes likewise an outline of the biography of Mr. Williams, which, we think, cannot fail to interest the reader.

-The attention which is beginning to be paid in this country to the principles of art in the structure of houses, stores, and public buildings, makes the little work of Mr. MARRYATT FIELD, Published by Putnam & Co., on City Architecture, a timely and useful publication. It consists of a variety of classical designs, drawn from the street architecture of Rome, Florence, and Venice, and adapted with suitable explanations, to the wants of this country. Small, but correct outline elevations are given as the best means of displaying the forms and proportions of the façades of buildings, leaving the internal plans to be determined by the nature of the locality on which the building is situated. Mr. Field writes with great clearness and ease, and evinces generally much good taste; but we are sorry that in some of his designs he countenances the use of grooved stones in first stories -in what is called rusticated work, a costly deformity which ought, by this time, to be scouted by educated architects.

Mr. Field's introductory essay on architectural expression, contains some very sensible and well-expressed ideas on the subject, which show that he has a clear and definite perception of what should be the end and purpose of architectural externals. But, in some of his designs, we observe incongruities and barbarisms which we should hardly have expected on reading his introductory remarks. Such, for instance, as a pedimented window placed in an arched recess, which is contrary to every sound rule of art; and the vermiculated quoins, and rusticated basements, which have nothing to recommend them but the fact that European cities abound in similar monstrosities and absurdities. But, with the exception of these mistakes, Mr. Field's designs are very excellent and worthy of imitation, and we would recommend every builder to procure a copy of his little book. It contains some most valuable hints on the true principles of fenestral ornamentation, which is just that point upon which our architects and builders most need instruction. The book does not contain plans, nor specifications, but simply the faces of street buildings for cities. They are all of the Southern Italian school, with the exception of one design for a school-house in the mongrel

Gothic style, which is inconceivably ugly, and unworthy the place it occupies in this elegant little volume.

-One of the most instructive and agreeable books of the day is Dr. Hawks' translation of the Peruvian Antiquities of RIVERO and TSCHUDI, the former a native of Peru, and both men of profound research and accurate learning. It is the most complete exposition of the ancient state and history of Peru that we have read, containing all that is to be found in Prescott, and a great deal besides, especially in reference to the Quichuan language, the scientific culture under the dynasty of the Incas, the religious systems and ceremonies, the arts and ancient monuments, and the government and laws. A large number of plates are added to illustrate the text, which, being from the pen of Dr. Hawks, we need not say, is perspicuous, pure, and elegant.

-A most industrious collector of the curiosities of art is Mr. SPOONER (whose Christian name sounds like a joke), for it is only a few months since we noticed his immense Biographical and Critical Dictionary of Painters, &c., and now we have three volumes more of Anecdotes about Painters, Engravers, Sculptors, and Architects. It is not so much a compilation as an original collection, and contains a large variety of instructive and amusing incidents in regard to the lives and works of the more celebrated artists. One can scarcely open a volume at any page without becoming immediately absorbed.

-Let every body who contemplates a fortune-hunt in California read the Golden Dreams and Leaden Realities, which Mr. RALPH RAVEN, a gentleman of no little experience-though, as his name imports, a croaker-has given to the world. It has all the excitement of a romance, with a great deal more of truthfulness than most romances. There is a vein of humor in the narrative too, which, besides the interest of the story, makes the reading doubly agreeable. Published by

Putnam.

-Scientific students will find Mr. SCHELE DE VERE'S Outlines of Comparative Philology an admirable treatise. It states briefly, in a popular but suggestive manner, the leading doctrines of the science, and then gives a sketch of the languages of Europe, arranged upon philological principles, with a brief history of the art of writing. Few subjects are more fascinating than language, where the light which the history of its changes often throws on important historical questions, renders the study of it as useful as it is agreeable. Putnam & Co.

-The Bow in the Cloud, is the title