ALABAMA AND THE NASHVILLE CONVENTION.-The Legislature of Alabama has appointed the following delegates to represent that State, in the Southern Convention, to be held at Nashville, Tenn., on the first of June next: For the First Congressional District.—William D. Dunn, of Mobile; T. B. Bethea, of Wilcox; Burwell Boykin, of Mobile; Robert V. Montague, of Marengo.

For the Second-Gen. Geo. W. Gunn, Jefferson Bufford, Reuben C. Shorter, and Hon. George Goldthwaite.

For the Third.-Howel Rose, of Cosca; John G. Winter, of Dallas; Andrew B. Moore, of Perry; William S. Phillips, of Dallas.

For the Fourth.-Newton L. Whitfield, of Tuscaloosa; Joshua L. Martin, of Tuscaloosa; John Erwin, of Greene; Joseph W. Taylor, of Greene.

For the Fifth.-Daniel Coleman, of Limestone; Jesse W. Garth, of Morgan William Cooper, of Franklin; James H. Weakly, of Lauderdale.

For the Sixth.-George P. Bierne, of Madison; James M. Gee, of Marshall; James M. Greene, of Jackson; W. O. Winston, of DeKalb.

For the Seventh.-Alexander White, of Talladega; Thomas A. Walker, of Benton; George S. Walden, of Cherokee; Charles McLemore, of Chambers. For the State at Large.-Hon. Benjamin Fitzpatrick, Hon. John A. Campbell, Hon. Wm. M. Murphy, Hon. Thomas J. Judge, Hon. John A. Winston, Hon. L. P. Walker, Hon. Nicholas Davis, Hon. James Abercrombie.

GEORGIA AND THE NASHVILLE CONVENTION.-The Legislature of Georgia has appointed the following persons to attend the Nashville Convention:-Mr. McAllister, Ex-Governor Mc Donald, Judge Law, and Charles Dougherty.

A portion of the members of the Georgia Legislature have issued a protest against the resolution of the Legislature to provide the necessary mode of redress, should New-Mexico be admitted into the Union as a State by Congress, as they consider Congress has the right to admit any territory as a State, if they have a republican form of government.

The Georgia House of Assembly have passed a bill reorganizing Congressional districts. The Whigs, at one time, during the debate on the subject, left the House in a body, but subsequently returned.

CONNECTICUT STATE CONVENTION.-The Democratic State Convention of Connecticut was held at Middletown, on the 13th instant. The following are the nominations:-For Governor, Thomas H. Seymour; for Lieut. Governor, Charles H. Pond; for Secretary, Hiram Weed; for Treasurer, Henry D. Smith; for Comptroller, Rufus G. Pinney.

A series of resolutions was passed strongly approving the sub-treasury system, and all the other measures advocated generally by that party, before the agitation of the slavery question. The convention refused to entertain resolu

tions touching slavery in the territories and the District of Columbia.

PENNSYLVANIA AND THE UNION.-A great Democratic Union Meeting was held in Philadelphia on the 22d ult, to oppose the fanatical efforts of the free-soil and abolition agitators, to sever the Union.

GEORGIA ELECTION.-Mr. Jackson, Democrat, is elected to Congress from Georgia.

NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

SCOTT'S WORKS. THE AMERICAN ILLUMINATED ABBOTSFORD edition of the WAVERLEY NOVELS; Embellished with tinted engravings, by H. W. Hewitt. Hewitt, Tillotson & Co., 59 Beekman-st., N. Y.

The second number of this beautiful edition is "The Bride of Lammermoor." This has been justly called one of the most finished of Scott's tales. The strong sense of the spirit of fatalism which pervades the story oppresses with inteuse interest the mind of the reader, and probably imparts to him something of the tone of the great author's mind, at the time of its composition. When he dictated its details he was laboring under such acute suffering, allayed only by violent remedies, that on his recovery he remembered nothing of the details. The inimitable character of old Caleb Balderstone, with his quaint humor, unswerving devotedness, and practical jokes, which stamp his character with the impress of truth, has been charged, as exaggerated by critics, utterly incompetent to scan the powers of the great master. The style of the edition does great credit to the publishers, and the illustrations, on tinted paper, by Mr. H. W. Hewitt, are of a high character. That gentleman has recently, in NewYork, delivered lectures upon the works of the "Wizard of the North," developing the most intimate acquaintance with the scenes he has studied as an artist.

CONSUMPTION; its Prevention and Cure by the Water Treatment. By Joel Shew. 12mo. pp. 286. New-York: Fowlers & Wells.

Doctors disagree so much now-a-days, that medical books are in greater request among the people than formerly. Men like to examine for themselves the systems which profess to give the remedy for all the ills which flesh is heir to," and hence every mode of practice has its manual and text-book, adapted to popular use. The study of medical books, however, is not usually thought to exert a good influence on the health. Much learning in this respect makes the student sick, and produces in him the symptoms of the very disease he most wishes to avoid. The books on the Water Cure. we have observed, are not usually liable to this objection, inasmuch as they treat more particularly of the prevention of disease by regimen and diet, than of its cure by potent and dangerous medicines. In this point of view, their perusal may tend to the preservation of health, as well as to furnish the reader with a store of valuable physiological knowledge. We have no fears of the too free use of water, either internally or externally, and would gladly see exchanged for it the "perilous stuff" which often covers the surface, or deranges the interior. But even the pure and simple element of water should not be applied to medical purposes without a competent guide.

The present work is an admirable compendium of the best directions for the appli cation of water, accompanied with important suggestions from the experience of the author. Its instructions with regard to the gradual approach of consumptive diseases, the management of their Protean symptoms, and the means of arresting their fearful progress, to say the least, are well worthy of the attention of the invalid. No person, who has reason to think that his constitution inherits the seeds of consumption, or that it has already cominenced its inroads upon his frame, should neglect to put himself in possession of the contents of this book. They are plain, lucid, practical, free from presumption and quackery, and will certainly greatly contribute to the comfort of the patient, if they do not effect his cure.

THE WORKS OF J. FENNIMORE COOPER.-THE RED ROVER; A Tale: By the author of "the Spy," "the Pilot," &c., &c., revised, corrected, and illustrated, with a new introduction, notes, &c., by the author. George P. Putnam, 155 Broadway. "The Red Rover" forms the third volume of the beautiful standard edition now in course of publication by Mr. Putnam. This was the most successful, as it remains the most popular of all Mr. Cooper's works. It was the work of a few months in Paris, where it was printed. The great power of Mr. Cooper upon the sea is here developed with the most brilliant success, and it will remain an enduring monument of his genius. The beautiful manner in which this standard edition is "got up," uniform with Irving's works, does great credit to the publisher.

SCHMITZ & ZRUMFT'S CLASSICAL SERIES.-CICERO. Lea & Blanchard.

This is a very neat edition of the great Roman orations, admirably adapted to the use of schools. The text is that of Orellis' edition. Most of the emendations are of R. Klotz. It contains also a life of Cicero.

THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND, from the Invasion of Julius Cæsar to the Abdication of James II., 1688. By David Hume, Esq. A new edition, with the author's last corrections and improvements; to which is prefixed a short account of his life, written by himself. Phillips, Sampson & Co., Boston.

The valuable edition of Hume's England, unabridged, which has been in course of publication by Messrs. Phillips. Sampson, & Co., is now completed.

The concluding volume embraces a very carefully prepared index to the whole work, which, for purposes of historical reference, was deemed indispensable.

The above, in conjunction with the "Boston Library Edition" of Macaulay's continuation of Hume, is now the only uniform edition of the two authors published in this country. They are sold together, or separately, at 62 cents per volume.

No one should neglect availing themselves of this opportunity of supplying their libraries with histories so necessary to have at hand, more especially where young people are going through a course of history. The volumes are of very convenient size and admirable type.

The same enterprising house have also in hand, "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." By Edward Gibbon, Esq. With notes, by Rev. H. H. Milman. The unabridged work will be comprised in six volumes, uniform with the "Boston Library Editions of Hume and Macaulay's History of England," and will be sold at the same price per volume. A volume at a time will be issued, at short intervals-volume I. being now nearly ready.

ELFREIDE OF GUILDALL; A Scandinavian Legend, and other Poems. By Marks, of Barhambille. D. Appleton & Co., 200 Broadway.

This is confessedly by no means a poetic age. The muses, like the last brilliant scene of a drama, passed behind a curtain when the pen of Byron dropped from his hand. How intensely soever the fire of genius may burn within the breast of a poet, he finds no responsive warmth in this busy, coldly calculating world; and he ceases to give utterance to strains that cannot be appreciated. Here and there a scintillation of genius shines forth, to be seen only like the meteors by the few heaven-worshipers, whilst others sacrifice to Somnus. Elfreide carries us back to the poetic age, when the Cambrian lyres, attuned to patriotism, became a nation's bulwark, and attained the honors of martyrdom. It is to that age which the poet refers the discovery of New-England by the Normans, and of their deeds he sings.

MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D., LL. D. By his
son-in-law, the Rev. William Hanna, LL. D. Three vcls. Harper Brothers.
The history of a great and vigorous mind, which has left its impress upon the age, is
always a matter of deep interest, and although Dr. Chalmers had what is usually termed
the advantages of a college education, his was a nature that would not the less have
manifested its characteristics, left entirely to its own resources. In the present volume
the workings of that powerful mind are clearly delineated in the just arrangement of
materials, furnished mostly by himself, and the reader cannot rise from the perusal of
the volume without the impression of deep reverence for him to whose memory the
"free church" will be a lasting and fitting monument.

DICTIONARY OF MECHANICS, ENGINE WORK AND ENGINEERING. Oliver Byrne, Editor.
D. Appleton & Co.

This great work progresses steadily, having reached its 4th number, which comprises steam boilers, bolting mill, bond, boring tools, and brickmaking. The comprehensiveness with which the subjects are treated, the admirable manner in which they are illustrated, conspire to make this one of the most desirable works.

THE MODERN HOUSEWIFE, or Ménagère; Comprising nearly 1,000 receipts for the economic and judicious preparation of every meal of the day, with those of the Nursery and Sick-room, and minute directions for Family management in all its branches. II. lustrated with engravings. By Alexis Soyer, author of the "Gastronomic Regenerator." Edited by an American Housekeeper. D. Appleton & Co., 200 Broadway.

Dr. Johnson, alluding to dinners, used to remark that, " that which a man does three hundred and sixty-five times in a year, is worth doing well," and those who think as well of the two remaning meals of the day, may consider that 1,095 meals to be prepared for the human stomach, in the course of a year, becomes a matter of very great importance, more especially to the head of a large family. To prepare these properly

is as requisite to health as to comfort and economy. Yet this important matter is precisely that of which the individuals of our community have very little information, and consequently, in relation to which, a vast deal of prejudice exists. Schiller and Shakspeare, Bacon and Byron, Dickens and Dante, Campbell and Cuvier, Montaigue and Moore, or Milton and Molier, may do very well for the preparation of an intellectual repast for a young lady, but for the practical utilty of life, the edition of Soyer now published by the Messrs. Appleton, is worth them all. A thorough acquaintance with the profound subject of which he treats, would be better appreciated by a larger circle of "admiring friends," than the best criticism upon Hamlet.

THE WATER CURE.-BULWER AND FORBES ON WATER TREATMENT. Edited, with additional matter, by Roland S. Houghton, A M., M.D. New-York: Geo. P. Putnam. EXPERIENCE IN WATER CURE; A familiar exposition of the Principles and Results of Water Treatment, in the cure of acute and chronic diseases, illustrated by numerous cases in the practice of the author; &c., &c. By Mary S. Gore Nichols, Water Cure Physician, author of Lectures to Ladies on Anatomy and Physiology, &c. NewYork: Fowlers & Wells.

64

Water Cure is a fact; a "regular" and an irregular" fact; a masculine and a feminine fact; a fact with the two diplomas of " A. M., M. D." attached to it; a fact with genius, science, an earnest, womanly philanthrophy, and the world's diploma of position and success, each exemplified in the two works,-two out of a numerous and increasing host-enlightening the world as to the great fact that nature best cures the diseases of civilization with her own medicines.

We controvert no theory in saying this; the teachers of no recognized system of medical science and practice will denounce us, at this day, for saying that all the poisons expressed from noisome weeds, or tortured from the mineral world in the chemist's alembic, can equal God's blessed sunlight—the earth's envelopment of vital air-the exercise that invigorates every muscle and gives tone to every nerve, or last and chief of all, the pure and beautiful water, the free and ever-changing element that blesses us in dew and rain, in rill and river, in lake and ocean.

Shall we compare with these, the nauseous drugs of the pharmacopeas? Will any Professor or Doctor of any school compare mercury to sunshine; or opium to that air which God breathed into man's nostrils, "the breath of life ;" or antimony to the great purifying element of nature? The first principle of allopathy is that all medicines are poisons. The foundation of homopathy is, that the agents to be used in curing a disease are such as would produce it-similia similibus curantur." The advocates of Water Cure offer us the 'agreeable assurance that disease is to be cured by the agencies of health, and not by poisons in large or small doses. If the system is weakened, corrupted and depraved, our doctors give us drugs whose natural effect is-they allegeto still further weaken, corrupt, and deprave: but if an all-bountiful nature has so implanted in us the springs of life, that with time and patience we may triumph over diseases and doctors, we may, and are, distrustfully looking through the Materia Medica, or knowingly inspect the contents of any corner drug shop, and reflecting that the human constitution can, and does in many cases, endure them and its own depravities— feelingly exclaim with the oft-quoted Psalmist, "We are fearfully and wonderfully

made!"

Let us not exaggerate. Among the most popular of the medicines in common use, we have the paralysers, aconite and hemlock, and the convulsives, strychnia and prussic acid, and the deterifacients, henbane, stramonium, and deadly night-shade-seven poisons, the most virulent and sudden in the whole kingdom of nature. Using these, we can only wonder that the virus of the rattle-snake, or the saliva of hydrophobia was not added to the list, and dealt out to suffering invalids on the authority of formal recipes. Next to these we have the less active, but still powerful poisons, opium, cinchona, digitalis, scammony, gamboge, hellebore, (correctly characterized by its first, and very mildly by its last syllable,) croton oil, colocynth, and a long list of vegetable poisons; as if the whole vegetable kingdom had been ransacked, and when any substance was found, fœtid to the smell, nauseous to the taste, and deadly in its action, it followed that men must take it for medicine-for health.

This common sense view of the matter of medicine is becoming so common a sense, that the wisest of our doctors of the old school are giving less and less medicine daily, while a new school is rapidly rising, whose practitioners give so very little of any poison, that the only wonder is, that they think it worth their while to give any. The thousand-millionth part of a grain of either charcoal or calomel, opium or oyster shell, would not be missed, one would think; and if the experiment were tried, it might be found that a careful regimen, pure diet, attention, sympathy, good nursing, and, as some

imagine, the magnetism of a strong minded and good intentioned physician, with the aid of the vis medicatrix naturæ, might do something in a curable case of disease, even if the billionth or quintillionth of a grain of even such a poison as cuprum or veratrum were accidentally omitted.

Far be it from us to do injustice to allopathy and homopathy, whose professors and practitioners monopolize, in the strict sense of that much injured word, so large a share of this world's wisdom in regard to health. We humbly trust that we have no prejudices; and to prove that we have none, we are willing to give the devil-or, lest this singular number be an injustice-all devils their due; and with this honest end in view, let us turn back to a consideration of the Water Cure and its two professore, whose works we are reviewing-the gentleman with his two collegiate diplomas, and the lady with none, unless the gratitude of her readers and patients may award her one. Miss Blackwell has proved that a woman may be made an M. D., by a regularly chartered college, though that is no special matter of gratulation, since many a donkey has been the recipient of the same honor; but Mrs. Gore Nichols has done something more, in showing how a brave, resolute, and enthusiastic woman could make her way against all the prejudices of the world, without one. Our use of the word enthusiastic may not properly convey our idea, in its application to Mrs. Nichols. That she has been brave and resolute, her life, in all its struggles and trials, bears witness; but by what we have called enthusiasm, for the want of a better term, we mean that lofty and religious feeling, with which her life and writings are alike imbued, and which has made her regard her professional work as a sacred duty, to which Providence called her, and in the prosecution of which, for the benefit of science, and the good of her sex, she has shown something of the devotion of a Joan of Arc, in a better cause than the fortunes of a dissolute monarch; and sure we are that whatever of good may be contained in the Water Cure system, will be fully developed by so able a practitioner as Mrs. Nichols, with or without a diploma.

To return, then, to Water Cure, and the volumes we are reviewing. The work, edited by Dr. Houghton, is made up mainly of the contributions of three writers, all known to feme-Bulwer, the novelist, Dr. Forbes, the medical author and reviewer, and Dr. Wilson, all high trans-atlantic authorities. The wide-spread fame of Bulwer has endowed anything that he may write with an allopathic potency, and it is well when such an influence is exercised in favor of the world's health and happiness. The early and extempore camp of Water Cure devotees rejoiced greatly when he came out in a London monthly, as a supporter of their cause. Bulwer never wrote a more earnest chapter than the one that recorded his melancholy and hopeless breaking down from literary labor and its fashionable concomitants, and his restoration by the Water Cure, at the springs of Malvern. The earnest truthfulness of his grateful commendations of the water treatment, made for it thousands of experimenters and disciples in all parts of the world. The thoroughly demonstrative and profoundly scientific review of Dr. Forbes. coming from one of the ablest professors of the old school, was also selected by Dr. Houghton, with excellent judgment; while Dr. Wilson's chapters on the skin, intimately connected as they are with the philosophy of the Water Cure, are evidently the work of too careful a physiologist, to be the blind devotee of a system.

The portion of the book contributed by Dr. Houghton, is not its least valuable part, in a practical point of view. His exposition of the causes of disease, and the agencies by which health may be preserved or restored, is clear and forcible, and one that would give him few patients among those who read and follow its teachings. If all doctors should write such essays, and all readers profit by them, the physicians would have to live on the sale of their books, for there would be little call for prescriptions. The "experience" of Mrs. Gore Nichols is a very different volume. It teaches the same lessons, but its great merit is in its straight-forward and evidently truthful account of the results of the water treatment, in the cure of a great variety of the most distressing and dangerous diseases, from scarletina and measles, to ship-fever and cholera. The facts of this book are of such a nature as to call for professional and public investigation. The royal societies of England and France have often appointed commissions to solemnly examine statements, claims, and alleged facts, of far less importance to mankind than those which are set forth in the modest volume of this singular and gifted woman. If the diseases of infancy can be robbed of all their terrors; if malignant typhus can be cut short in four or five days; if the small-pox can be cured without danger or mutilation; if the cholera becomes manageable; if the diseases of females in their hydra aspect, are not merely palliated, but absolutely cured; if chronic diseases, the opprobium of medicine, give place to the vigor of a healthy rejuvenation; if childbirth, that terror of civilization, is deprived of its pain and danger, by the processes of Water Cure, as administered and directed by a woman, surely the world has need to know it.