"I don't foul-mouth any book," returned the boatswain, "but them that the young gentlemen use to larn seamanship. I tell you, Ramrod, it can't be had in that way; if a man wants to be a sailor he must take hold of the marlin spike, and go hard at it.”

"Hexactly," returned Ramrod; "and by the same token, if he wants to be a good drill, he must 'andle the musket."

"THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND, by the Reverend I. J. Blunt, of St. John's College, England," forms the sixth volume of the Library of Christian Knowledge, and is just published by Marshall & Co., Philadelphia. The well-known talents of the Editor, the Reverend Herman Hooker, have materially contributed to the success of this series of works-and his own original production, Popular Infidelity, has met with the approbation of the thinking portion of the community. "Blunt's Reformation," is an historical detail of the rise, progress, and consummation of the great religious revolution in England, and is a valuable documental work, necessary to the library of the general reader. We quote an interesting account of the introduction of the various monkish tribes into England-observing, en passant, that the work is well printed, and bound in library condition :

In this century, (the thirteenth,) the mendicant orders recently brought into being—the maggots not so much of corrupted texts as of corrupted times-found their way into England. The Franciscans, or Friars Minors, the Dominicans, or Black Friars; the Carmelites, or White Friars; and the Augustins, or Grey Friars; were the four divisions. Of these the two former were the most considerable; the Franciscans were the chief of all. The first settlement of these last was at Canterbury, in 1234; that of the Dominicans, thirteen years earlier, at Oxford; at which place, as well as at Cambridge, all the four orders soon found themselves in possession of flourishing houses. There was much to captivate in their prospectus. All worldly views they renounced; they depended upon the alms of the people; and the people, admiring their disinterestedness, and reverencing their piety, (which was, or which seemed to be, much beyond that of the monks,) were cheerful givers. They cultivated learning with great success; filled the professors' chairs in the universities; searched out manuscripts, and multiplied the copies; collected libraries at any cost (for their popularity furnished them with the means); not a treatise on the arts, theology, or the civil law, appeared, but the friars bought it up.They improved the architecture of their country; for though their vow, like that of the Rhecabites, scarcely allowed them to sow seed or plant vineyards, or have any, it did not deny to them the building of houses; and, accordingly, on these were lavished the ample sums which the munificence of their benefactors poured into their treasury. It was the ambition of the great and noble that their bones should rest within these hallowed walls; and sumptuous shrines bespoke the mighty dead that slept in the chapel of St. Francis. All this might be well; but your friar was a sturdy beggar, and prosperity made him forget himself. He learned to drop the literary and religious character, and assume the politician. He engaged in diplomacy: mixed in the intrigues of courts; discussed treaties, formed alliances, and resolutely maintained the authority of the pope (whose creature he was) against all the princes and prelates of Christendom. He was furnished by his master with powers for effecting all this; and these he used to the confusion both of seculars and monks. He could preach where he would; if he could not lawfully take possession of the church of the minister, he could erect his ambulatory pulpit at any cross, in any parish, and rail (as he generally did) at the supineness and ignorance of the resident pastor. If he chanced to be received under the parsonage roof (as he seldom was,) he was felt to be a snake in the grass, ready to betray his host in return for his hospitality; and, if he saw a fowl or a flask on his table, to denounce him, in his next day's harangue, as a gluttonous man and a winebibber. He could confess whosoever might come to him. It was to no purpose that a parish priest refused absolution to any black sheep of his flock; away he went to a Franciscan, and absolution was given him at once; the more readily, indeed, as an opportunity was thus afforded the friar of expressing his contempt of every ecclesiastical body but his own. Nor did he enter into the labors of the parochial minister only; he had nobler game in another class of seculars-the cathedral clergy. These he reduced to poverty, and the venerable edifices to which they belonged to decay.

FIELDING, OR, SOCIETY. By the Author of Tremaine and De Vere. Three Volumes. Carey & Hart.

MR. WARD has produced an extraordinary work. Fielding is not a novel, and certainly cannot be termed a romance-it is a récolement of the practical philosophy of a cosmopolite-the experiences of an observationhunter an analysis of human nature, by a strong-minded man, detailed with much conversational spirit and logical effect. There are two divisions in the work, but Mr. Ward has not employed the agency of a plot to connect his illustrations of society and life, or the development of his category of supernatural influences. "Fielding" will be more generally perused than either of Mr. Ward's former productions; the Christian moralist and the philosopher will find matter equally valuable,-and the attention of the general reader will be attracted by the variety and spice of the anecdotal illustrations, which were not suffered to enlighten the didactics of Tremaine or De Vere. A few of these worldly elucidations we select for the amusement of our readers; but we shall not weaken the force of Mr. Ward's philosophy by presenting any portion of his comments which are perfect in their continuity, but would be unsatisfactory and bald in their seperation.

A reverend prebendary, in a cathedral town, once amused me much. He complained that the stalls in the chapel were cold; and being a great invalid, of a high family, he used all his interest on a vacancy, to become dean-merely for his health's sake. There was matting and a velvet cushion in the dean's stall; none in that of the prebendaries.

After dinner we of course fell upon politics, and the ministry were of course attacked and defended. One of the assailants was particularly violent against the personal character of the premier; he was a mere fool, if not something worse; unfit to be trusted, and suspected of betraying the people whom he had used as a stepping-stone. He was reproved as too personal in his reprehension. "What motive can I have," said he, "but anxiety for the public good?" Alas! poor human nature! I afterwards found that the minister's lady had turned her back on the patriot's wife at court. "But do not let that surprise you," said my informant, "for Marshal Ney met his death-that is, he deserted Lewis XVIII., and was shot for it-precisely from the same cause." He said himself he could not bear the coldness of the court towards his wife, whom he found in tears every night, on account of her reception there.

I thought all this very strange, but I found from Etheredge, when I mentioned it to him, that it was very common. "It is inconceivable," said he, how much may be done or undone by a bow or curtesy, given, or omitted. I have known a man of talent sulk for a twelvemonth with a lady of fashion, because she did not acknowledge his salute at the Opera, though the poor offender, being much engaged, really did not see him. Another gifted person, much connected with the press, would never join the world in attacking a celebrated countess, because she had appeared interested in his conversation at a dinner, and on withdrawing, had dropped him a most graceful curtesy. From that time forth, while not unjustly blamed by his contemporary writers for a great deal of hauteur, the paper he was connected with always spoke of her as a pattern of condescension."

It was the reported case of a man who, being sued for a debt, pleaded that he had formerly committed burglary in the house of his own father, for which he had been condemned to be hanged; but though only transported, the consequence in law was, that he could neither sue nor be sued, and therefore could not be forced to pay.

GLEANINGS IN EUROPE. ENGLAND, BY AN AMERICAN. Two Volumes. Carey, Lea and Blanchard.

Mr. Cooper has turned his European tour to a profitable account: and has shown his proficiency in the vice of book making, by manufacturing his trip into several volumes of questionable merit. The "author of the Spy" has become an errant grumbler; his recent works are a continuous tissue of fault finding-like the ass in the Eastern apologue, he wanders through the flower garden, and tramples down the finest buds, and defiles the beauties of the choicest flowers, in an eager search after his favorite thistle. But Mr. Cooper out. does the Oriental asinine, for when he has obtained his weedy prize, he grumbles in the height of his delight, and laments the bitterness of the thing he has taken such pains to discover.

If Mr. Cooper indulges in a laudatory notice of any French custom, it enables him to reprobate the man. ners of the English-if any thing in England is fortunate enough to meet his approval, he is sure to enlarge in a bitter strain upon the opposite deficiencies of the Americans-but the quantity of praise, when compared with the grumbling, is like Falstaff's half-penny worth of bread and gallons of sack-and his grumb lings are as washy as the fat knight's drink, without its spice or flavor.

Mr. Cooper, in his preface, remarks that it is quite probable his book contains many false notions-that a better feeling now exists in England towards America than when he was in Europe, and that a future work may repair some of the faults he has committed. Why publish your erroneous statements at all, Mr. Cooper! or is the opportunity of making another book of more importance than the dissemination of false impressions and acknowledged errors?

In the course of some remarks upon English literature, (wherein he declares that few of the celebrated writers of England understand the grammar of their own language,) Mr. Cooper quotes a saying that "no author was ever written down except by himself." He is now proving the truth of the observation, and the admirers of his inimitable novels lament the late perversion of his pen.

Place Mr. Cooper's volumes upon England in the hands of a youth, and desire him, after an attentive peru. sal, to give his opinion of the manuers of our mother-land. The boy would be unable to arrive at any fixed conclusion from the contradictory statements of his author, who out-Cobbett's the knight of the gridiron in his total want of consistency. In one instance, we have several opposite impressions of the disposition of the English toward the people and institutions of America. We are told, in the course of every half dozen pages, that the islanders despise their transatlantic brethren, and sneer at every thing American with a bitterness as disgaceful to them as it would be disrespectful to us. But the author has not, in any one instance, been able to prove his assertions by the evidence of a single fact-on the contrary, every incident tells of respect and attention to the Americans in England-a respect that is poorly repaid by querulous complainings and tetchy misprision. In one place, Mr. Cooper observes that "the English are drilled into a formality that throws a cloud over their social intercourse. As a people they are not fluent." In the preceding paragraph, he had noticed that "the people of England are more hearty, cordial, and free in their modes of intercourse than the Americans;" and yet, in another place, he remarks that the English are the most artificial people he had ever known!

He asserts that the English are not indifferent to comments on their national habits and characters. "I should say that the English are thin-skinned, and the Americans raw. Both resent fair, frank and manly com ments with the same bad taste, resorting to calumny, blackguardism, and abuse." Yet Mr. Cooper confesses that when he anticipated some unpopularity in England from having published a work there, noticing the 'peculiarities" of the English in a foreign spirit, and with no claims to English favor, he was entirely disap

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pointed. There is a manliness and a feeling of pride in the better character of the country that singularly elevates it above this bitterness. I much question, had the case been reversed, if either the French or the American public would have received a book with the same liberal spirit." Now, how are we to reconcile these positive contradictions? the original postulatum must be erroneous, or "the fair, frank, and marly comments" of Mr. Cooper failed to receive the customary blackguardism because they were beneath contempt. Yet Mr. Cooper is so pleased with the English reception of his book, that he means to make the English nation “respectable,” by taking “a subject” (for a tale or novel, we presume, but it is not stated)" from their teeming and glorious naval history." Really, this is very patronising and pretty in Mr. Cooper, and we hope that John Bull will not be so thick-headed as to neglect acknowledging the amazing force of the intended honor. There is occasionally a flippancy of expression in Mr. Cooper's remarks that is extremely offensive to good sense. The incomparable Joanna Baillie is styled "a respectable old woman." "The peers and great commoners of England are, generally, respectable men." He tells a dinner party that Commodore Rodgers is a respectable man—indeed "respectability" is Mr. Cooper's obiter dictum. The Lord Chancellor in his robes "looked like a miller with his head thrust through his wife's petticoat"-a novel and gentlemanly simile. The English horse-guards, generally supposed to be the finest troops in Europe, are described as “large men certainly, but they must be next to useless in a campaign." Did Mr. Cooper never hear of the effective charge of the Life-guards at Waterloo? it turned the tide of victory, and drove the flower of the French cavalry in confusion over the plain. This gallant “flight to victory," as it has been termed, was hailed with an enthusiastic burst of cheering from the whole of the allied armies; prodigies of valor were performed, not only by the leaders, but by the private soldiers. One of them, Shaw, was not slain till he had killed seven of the French cuirassiers with his own hands. Is it ignorance or antipathy that induces Mr. Cooper to sneer at this valiant band, whose merits were acknowledged by Napoleon-there is less disgrace in confessing the valor of an enemy's troops, than in asserting they are kept for state, and useless in a campaign.

Mr. Cooper complains that anecdotes have been circulated to his prejudice; he has noted down several of his acts while in London that tell more to his prejudice, than any anonymous slander or private tattle; the following instances will suffice to exhibit his total want of the bienséance which should belong to every traveller, particularly a literary lion, professedly on a tour of critical observation. He quarrelled with a gentleman because he was not assigned a post of honor at a dinner where the other guests were either dukes, lords, generals, M. P.'s, or men of mark. He silenced the table-talk of another dinner party by rudely contradicting a bullet-headed Englishman's observations on the want of polish in the Americans; thus affording an evidence of the truth of the offensive remark. What a glorious opportunity did Mr. Cooper lose of quietly proving the fallacy of the Englishman's statement, by a bland and courteous argument of the position! Mr. Cooper carried his hat into the midst of a fashionable assemblage, and hid it under a sofa in the drawing-room-when he wished to retire, he was compelled to disturb a venerable Bishop, and drive him from his seat upon the sofa, that the hat might be redeemed—and all this vulgarity was confessedly to prevent the footman from carrying his hat to its proper place in the hall—and thereby save the requisite fee of a shilling for the menial's attention in receiving and returning the skull-covering of the liberal traveller.

MELIORATION OF THE DRAMA.-We copy the following excellent remarks from a recent number of Blackwood:

"We altogether disregard the ridiculous outcry raised against theatres from their abuse; and, so long as we have Shakspeare, can rejoice that we had a theatre to summon that mighty genius into action, and still have a theatre to spread the splendors of his mind through the people and posterity. The first step, as we conceive, would be to form some public body for the express encouragement of the drama. We have a Royal Academy for painting; we have half a hundred associations for all kinds of public efforts, from the dreary drudgeries of geology, up to the noblest researches of science. Why not establish a society for the direct promotion of dramatic authorship-to give rewards for the ablest comedy and tragedy; to spread dramatic knowledge, to purify dramatic taste; to exercise the mild influence of opinion over the conduct of actors, authors, and managers, alike, and without harshness or officiousness, have all the effect of a powerful and salu tary jurisdiction? The object is certainly worth the trial. The literary ambition of Swift was to found an academy for the purification of the national language. The noblest trophy that Louis XIV. raised in the height of his power, and the only fragment of his fame which survived himself, was the French Academy, whose chief exploit was the Dictionary of the national language. Yet we suffer the most brilliant, most effectual, and most permanent, popular, and universal of all the efforts of genius to lie in utter neglect; struggling into an abortive existence under the difficulties of bankrupt theatres and bitter criticism, wholly unprotected by the natural patronage of the higher orders, almost wholly unknown to the people, and thus absolutely decaying out of the land. To undertake this duty and remove this stigma, should be the work of the opulent, the intelligent, and the patriotic of the nobility of England. Many would join them; and a society would be formed, which might become rapidly one of the ornaments of the country. Doubtless they would find a vast quantity of feeble writing poured in upon them in the first instance. This is the natural result of the long neglect of the drama, and also-and the remark is worth making-of the strong propensity of the people to dramatize. But a few months would exhaust the influx, and then the stream would begin to run pure. Writers who now shrink from the entrée of the pursuit, who know nothing of the means of access, or who have been disgusted with the difficulties of theatric negotiation, would be found, delighted to follow the impulse

of their minds, when the fruit of that impulse was to be placed in the hands of men of rank and estimation, actuated simply by the wish to raise the fallen dramatic fame of this singularly dramatic country. We cordially hope that the experiment will be made. We can answer for its success. Half a dozen years would not elapse without producing a total change in every matter connected with the national drama, stimulating the latent poetry of England into vividness and beauty, and re-peopling the deserted hills of national literature with shapes not unworthy to move even among the colossal heroes and demigods of Shakspeare.

But, to revert for a moment to the fact that our best actors have not had a fair field for their display, we affirm that the failure of authorship is the true cause of the comparative failure of stage ability. The most vivid actor is but little less than a puppet, without a vivid part. He may look the character, but it is the author who must give him the power to speak it. No pleasantry of the performer can fully struggle against native dulness in the play, and no originality in the performer can make an audience find perpetual novelty in perpetual repetition. In fact, all our comedies are worn out; and, except Shakspeare's, no tragedies are now ever capable of being performed. Repetition even in those cannot extinguish the beauties, but it has palled the delight; and the actor's fame perishes under the forced sameness of the exhibition. If we should once again see the revival of talent in the drama, we should forget cur complaints against the decay of talent in the actors. While the temple is in ruins, who can wonder at the listlessness of the priests? Like the old and fine superstition of the Greeks, the cutting down of the forest not merely stripped the land of its noblest ornament, but exiled the whole host of nymphs and sylvans-made the night no longer vocal with sounds of unearthly harmony, and extinguished the purple wavings of the thousand pinions that once bore the forms of beauty and inspiration among its dewy haunts and caverns of solemn shade."

These opinions are as applicable to the American stage as to the English; theatres are liberally encouraged in nearly every part of the Union, yet there is no national drama in America-and while the laws of copy. right remain in the present state, it is not probable that we shall achieve anything beyond a trial tragedy, a Yankee farce, or a nigger foolery. It is unreasonable to expect that persons of talent can meet with sufficient encouragement from theatrical managers in this country, when a few cents will furnish the theatre with a copy of the last new English play, which is generally a miserable hotch-potch of incidents stolen from French vaudevilles, and exemplified in the vilest language. The playwrights of the present English school are unable to render a tolerable version of the pieces they pretend to translate-the joyous and graceful wit of the Frenchman is above their capacities; vulgar slang and puerility assume its place; and the fine sentiment of the Gallic romanticist resolves itself into bombastic and unendurable twaddle. If the international copyright act is to pass into a law-and it will be an insult to the liberality and justice of the nation if it does not pass, and that quickly-let the English dramatists be included in a protecting clause; give them power to demand a trifling remuneration for the performance of their pieces here, as in France and England, and the national drama of America will spring from its many sources, and with a wholesome flood, fertilize the sterility of the land. If managers, stars, or the public, as the case may be, are compelled to remunerate authors for the use of their plays, they will assuredly prefer taking advantage of the local popularity of an author who can work to order and attend to any necessary alteration in his fabrication, which by any possibility cannot be inferior to the present state of the foreign ware. There is another advantage which must accrue from including the dramatists in the copyright law-the audience will not be insulted by being compelled to listen, or actors degraded in being forced to act, the cheap and nasty rubbish that is now nightly represented on the stage. A man who deals in stolen goods alone, must be content with his booty, and, however damaged, endeavor to dispose of it by puffing advertisements and lies-but if he orders his commodities of a fair dealer, and pays the regular market price, he can pick and choose till he succeeds in pleasing the tastes of all his customers'Let us look to this: let us take advantage of the scheme above-mentioned: let us set England an example in founding an association for the melioration of the stage, and the encouragement of a national drama; and as a primary and most important step, let us secure the passage of the law of international copyright.

Princeton College, NEW JERSEY.-The Annual Commencement took place on Wednesday, September the 27th, and was numerously and fashionably attended. The new church, a handsome, well arranged edi fice, was crowded with rows of lovely ladies, who seemed to take much interest in the proceedings of the day. We regret that we were not in time to hear the salutatory addresses in Latin, English and Greek-nor the recital of a poem called "The Enthusiast" which seemed to gather golden opinions from all kinds of men. The list of exercises in declamation and composition contained a variety of subjects which were generally well treated and appropriately delivered. Without wishing to be invidiously distinctive, we must remark that Alexander H. Bailey, of New Jersey, eloquently pronounced some forcible arguments respecting « The Admission of Foreigners to the Elective Franchise," and Joseph H. Dukes, of South Carolina, recited a poem of singular beauty, entitled "The Dead Sea." This gentleman also delivered the Valedictory, and acquitted himself with fluency and ease. The various degrees were afterwards conferred upon the successful gra duates. The ball in the evening was graced with a numerous assemblage of fashion and beauty. Frank Johnson's band was there, and the supper arrangements of the managers met with distinguished approval. The company did not separate till a very early hour. We tender our thanks to the alumni, not only for the politeness of the invitation, but for the kind attention and hospitality bestowed upon us during the period of

our stay.

In most cases a young man studies at three or four universities at least before he graduates. If, indeed, he is designed to fill any public post in his own country, he must pass two years at its university; but he is afterwards at liberty to go wherever he likes, and hear the most celebrated professors of other states. He requires no farther passport than his student's card, the occasional production whereof enables him to travel (which he generally does on foot) throughout the whole of Germany—Austria alone excepted. Neither does he want any great supply of cash; the tra

THOSE who have not been eye-witnesses of the fact, I disputes might then be settled by streams of ink incan scarcely imagine the extreme difference which stead of blood! exists between the constitution of the German universities and those of England and America, and the still greater diversity of manners between the students of these several establishments. The general intelligence and classical acquirements of the German youth are proverbial, as are likewise the generous freedom and independent spirit possessed and exhibited by them. To trace the singular habits and modes of life of this numerous and important body, whose peculiarities inAuence so materially the tone of thought and character throughout their vast country, cannot fail to be intetesting to the natives of a land which they love to re-velling studiosus is held exempt even from the graspgard with a feeling almost affectionate.

ing exactions of the innkeepers; and he has not unThe German universities are nearly all situated in frequently introductions, from stage to stage, to houses small towns, which, indeed, have scarce any existence of the parents of his comrades, or of old comrades separate from them. Here are neither theatres nor themselves now established in the world. If he should gaming-houses; and, except a few balls, or other parties arrive with exhausted pockets at any university, upon of pleasure, whereto any of the students may be in- proper representation he is furnished with money to vited by families to whom they have had letters of enable him to continue his route;-and thus the most introduction, no individual engagements interfere with intimate ties are frequently formed and perpetuated. that regulation by virtue of which they live together, In these travels the students find abundant opporeven during their hours of relaxation-an interval tunities of seeing and knowing mankind; and both. generally spent in promenades over the picturesque they and the different professors are constantly acquaintcountry usually surrounding a university town, or ined with what is going on in other universities besides social assemblies whereat the freest cordiality prevails. Although particular friendships are undoubtedly form ed, yet every one has some knowledge of the other; and the entire body may be, without much license, denominated a brotherhood. The use of the familiar pronoun thou effaces, amongst them, all distinctions of class or rank; and the sophisticated you is banished often at the first interview.

their own. Each professor, indeed, is judged and appreciated, not only within his peculiar circle of activity and influence, but by all the schools. The spirit, too, which reigns throughout these universities, and the general and intimate connexion of the students tend greatly to extinguish all feeling of animosity between the different states of the great Germanic Confederation-so closely united by geographical position and similarity of national character.

There is no garrison in the greater part of these towns; a few civil officers being sufficient to ensure In general, (there must, of course, be exceptions,) the the preservation of order. At Jena, the old barracks morals of the students are pure. The nature of their are converted into abodes for the students: at Giessen studies-their high feelings of courage and honor, and they are occupied by the library and various scientific of the interest of their native country-their ideas of collections. It were to be wished that these warlike religion (in all cases more or less subjected to the test edifices were universally destined to such uses;— - of reason)-friendship and love, that double flame

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