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unfavorable impression. The photograph frontispiece is in bad taste, and the preface, in which the author tells us of "years, long weary years spent in slavish toil [ignoble epithet for a scholar to use in regard to his studies] upon this book," "the number of books he has pored over to render him familiar with the subject," etc., has a disagreeable flavor, to which we do not like to give a name. The reader who is ignorant of the profound and intricate nature of philological problems may, however, find relief in the author's assurance that "he never suffered this work to go to press till he had mastered the subject and was able to take the responsibility."

We never opened a book more willing to be gratified; deeply interested in the subject, grateful that an American writer had entered this rich and inviting field, anxious that he should do honor to himself and to our literature; but while doing full honor to the author's evident enthusiasm and industry, as we glanced at this photograph and ran through this preface we could not help murmuring, in the language of the Arab's grace before meat, "May the end of this feast be better than the beginning," and we own that it was.

The work opens with a review of the Elements of Grammar, English and Latin, endeavoring to get the standpoint from which ideas are contemplated in the different languages, and often showing in this much subtlety and ingenuity. There are chapters there on the History of Nouns, Adjectives, Particles, Verbs, etc., plentifully illus trated from various languages, ancient and modern. From the chapter on Etymology we give a few paragraphs which set forth one of the author's views, fully developed afterward in manifold illus

trations:

In the science of separating words into parts, or rather of discovering new parts of words, etymology has lately made great advances. It is the course taken by all science; the more intimately we become acquainted with the object of our study, the more points and parts about it we successively discover. It was first learned that sentences were made of parts, or rather, it was assumed to consider certain parts of the sentence as distinct individuals, just as we are wont to look at the man as made up of head, hands, feet, while to the child or savage, perhaps, he appears as one whole, single and simple. But philology did not rest satisfied with dividing sentences into words; it has divided compound words into their elements, and those elements again into syllables. Not content with that, syllables have again been separated into letters; and there philology apparently halted, but halted only to renew the undertaking. Words have not only been divided into syllables, and syllables again into letters, but it was often observed that one letter is equal to or represents two or more letters; as eie in field, i=ei in German Theil or ai in Greek mais, j=dg in bridge, s=st in listen, etc. .. So that these single letters, which are representatives of the two combined, may be considered as equal to the two, and as practically containing the two within themselves, latent though it be; just so the bud contains the leaf and the flower, and as this bud develops itself into the leaf and the flower, or the branch, so may we say, in language, that one letter develops itself into two or more of its own cognates, as s into st, m into lm, n into gn, r into rr, etc. . . . One letter may thus represent several others; and we may either consider the combination of letters, [as tch for

one of the Russian letters,] the growth or development of the single letter, or that the single letter is really made up of the (invisible) parts represented in the developed combination, and as including in itself, as the whole includes its parts, those different elements in a latent unappreciable state. This is no new thing; it is the universal phenomenon of nature. All the different instruments of a band of players, sounding in perfect harmony, produce one single strain, in which the single instruments lose their individuality and become undistinguishable; besides, any one of them may represent the elements of the whole combined, as one letter represents a combination of letters. It is the leading law of nature that the part is as great as the whole, contains as much, and (under suitable circumstances) can do as much. Every whole is but an accumulation of equivalent parts, parts of which only apparently differ; every whole is but the repetition of one and the same part. Nowhere is the law better exemplified than in language.—Pp. 142, 143.

The author makes good use of this general philological principle; but when he generalizes this into a "leading law of nature," which he italicizes as above, as if of the highest importance, we confess not to know what he means unless it be to present, in a sort of expanded form, the Swedenborgian physiology.

There is much valuable matter in this chapter upon the correspondences, interchanges, and assimilation of letters, as shown by comparison of different languages, dialects, and linguistic families. Instructive and suggestive tables of correspondences are furnished. Some of the author's etymologies seem fanciful and arbitrary; but he should have the credit of great diligence, considerable acuteness, and that liveliness of imagination or fancy which, though it may sometimes lead astray, yet is indispensable in detecting these latent verbal relationships. Part II gives a "History of Languages," with specimens of the style, structure, and idioms of each.

N.

Songs for All Seasons. With Barry, Fenn, and Perkins. 1865.

Miscellaneous.

illustrations by Maclise, Cresswick, Eytinge, 24mo., pp. 84. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.

The Man Without a Country. 24mo., pp. 23. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1865.

A very unique story. A sort of Americanization of the Wandering Jew, whether truth or fiction.

What I Saw on the West Coast of South and North America and at the Hawaiian Islands. By H. WILLIS BAXLEY, M.D. 8vo., pp. 632. New York: Appleton & Co. 1865.

Mr. Baxley is an extreme specimen of the bigoted, garrulous, bombastic Southerner. His rhetoric is high-flown, and his prejudices are so strong, that with all judicious minds their very violence is its own

antidote. His statements of the missionary work in the Hawaiian Islands will not be accepted by any critic not predetermined to have such testimony true.

Exiles in Babylon; or, The Children of Light. By A. L. O. E. Seven Illustrations. New York: Carlton & Porter.

A beautiful edition of a most interesting work.

How to be Saved; or, The Sinner directed to the Saviour. By J. H. B. Fortieth Thousand. 24mo., pp. 126. St. Louis: J. W. McIntyre. 1865. The Oil Regions of Pennsylvania. By WILLIAM WRIGHT. 12mo., pp. 275. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1865.

A Smaller History of Rome. By WILLIAM SMITH. Illustrated with wood engravings. 12mo., pp. 365. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1865.

Carlton & Porter have in press a number of works:

Dr. Floy's Works, in two vols., 12mo.

Manual for Baptized Children.

Fairbairn on Prophecy.

This is a republication of a standard British Theological Classic on the subject of Prophecy. It has received the highest commendations of the English press.

Pusey on Daniel.

No book in the sacred canon is a more momentous battle-ground than the Book of Daniel. If it be a genuine prophecy, Christianity is demonstratively true and divine; if it be a forgery, Christianity is baseless. And the English reviews admit with one voice that Dr. Pusey's work is the most conclusive defense of the book ever published, and so a conclusive defense of Christianity.

Whedon's Commentary on Luke and John.

Earnest Christian's Library.

Variety Library, five vols. in box.

Notices of the following books are postponed for want of room: Hours Among the Gospels; or, Wayside Truths from the Life of our Lord. By H. C. BURT, D.D. 12mo., pp. 215. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co.

Christianity and Statesmanship, with Kindred Topics.
HAGUE, D.D. 12mo., pp. 414. Boston: Gould & Lincoln.
Sheldon & Company. Cincinnati: George S. Blanchard.

By WILLIAM
New York:

The Conversion of the Roman Empire. The Boyle Lectures for the year 1864. Delivered at the Chapel Royal, Whitehall, by CHARLES MERIVALE, B.D. 12mo., pp. 267. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Reminiscences of Sixty-four Years in the Ministry. By Rev. HENRY BOEHM, Bishop Asbury's traveling companion. Edited by JOSEPH B. WAKELEY. 12mo., pp. 493. New York: Carlton & Porter. 1865.

METHODIST CHURCHES, NORTH AND SOUTH.

THE Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, have proceeded to reorganize their ecclesiastical institutions and restore their regular action. Suggestions of union, whether with the Episcopal Church or the Methodist Episcopal Church, as serving alike to distract and disintegrate, are rejected, and the policy is to concentrate their energies and reinaugurate their operations. The pastor returns to his flock, the periodical recommences its issues, and the annual conferences are to assemble and elect their delegates to their great sanhedrim.

This, we think, is a wise and righteous policy. The people of the South have a right to the pastorate of their own choice. They claim, with apparent truth, that the entire tiers of their Atlantic and their Gulf States, with nearly a perfect unanimity, prefer their ancient ministry and organization. Disastrous it would be, religiously, morally, and Methodistically, if that body were disintegrated, scattered, lost, and sent, to a great degree, to the world and to the devil. The southern bishops and ministry would be unjustifiable if they allowed such a result in their hands. And so, we say, we commend their course, and wish them abundant success, spiritual, ecclesiastical, and temporal, in their great work, as Christian pastors, of repairing the ruin of their flocks.

We have been carefully studying such of our southern Church papers as have come into our hands, in order to rightly appreciate their spirit. We cannot characterize that spirit as "bitter." A tone of subdued sadness there is, well calculated, though not intended, to touch our sympathies. 1. The desolation and destitution leak out in every paragraph. The home has been destroyed by war. The prospect for the winter's subsistence is gloomy. Perhaps, as there is no money, President Johnson may be induced to postpone the exaction FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XVII.-40

of taxes. The periodical, if no money can be obtained, may be paid for in poultry or produce. In one night the entire southern currency shrunk to paper scraps, but the ministry must be supported, etc., etc. 2. The situation, humiliating as it is, is quietly accepted. The oath of allegiance has been taken, and they consider as a deep insult the intimation that it is taken with other than perfect good faith. Nothing is to them more fixed than that slavery is at an end, that the most terrible of evils is war, that the national union is perpetual. They sneer at a cowardly few who boast what they will do when the Yankee troops are withdrawn, averring that the civil authorities in their own section would reduce the braggarts to quiet. 3. The purpose entertained, as they think, by a part of the Northern Church, to invade and destroy the Church, South, they hold to be cruel and despotic. They reject and defy it. They will treat the northern ministry with courtesy generally. The missionary who intrudes into their borders will meet with the coldest possible reception. We understand them as holding any minister who comes to establish a pastorate, or bishop who presides over a conference, in the former slave states as an aggressor. 4. There seems to be generally a significant silence in regard to the negro. In the "Episcopal Methodist" of Richmond alone do we find a single article treating his case. That paper sneers at all the efforts of northern philanthropy in the negro's behalf; claiming that the South alone understands the negro, and to the South alone belongs the right of taking care of his welfare. But what the South is doing, or purposes to do for him, the writer omits to mention. It is here, if we mistake not, that the dark streak in the southron's character becomes visible. We wish he could see himself as

civilized Christendom sees him.

On the third of the above four topics we offer a remark. It is very useless for any set of ecclesiastics, or for any ecclesiastical body, in this country, to assume to draw boundary lines within which they are to have exclusive jurisdiction. They have no power, and no moral right, to impose any obligation or law upon any other body to regard that line. If the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, is able to send a missionary into New York to establish a Church of such as prefer his ministry, she has just the same right here, by law, by ethics, and by Christian courtesy, that our Methodist Episcopal Church has, and every New Yorker has a right to attend such ministry if he pleases. Upon such a missionary we would lay no ban, no taboo, no social or ecclesiastical exclusion. If the Church, South, will send us a hundred faithful missionaries, who will gain access to the dregs of our city population, black or white, and convert them to their own communion,

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