living is considered. As they were without wives and children, it was a custom with them to live together, in couples, that the various duties of a family establishment might be performed with more completeness and order. While one was engaged in hunting, the other commonly remained at home, engaged in curing the beef of yesterday's hunt, or in cooking their meals against the return of his fellow lodger. All property was held in common between the two, and it descended, in case of death, to the surviving partner. Theft was unknown, though locks were never used for security. What one did not find at home he proceeded immediately and without ceremony to take from the cabin of his nearest neighbour, without other word than to apprize the owner of it if he was at home, or, in case he was absent, to inform him on his return. Disputes were unfrequent, and when they did occur were easily accommodated. If the cause was grave, or the parties not to be reconciled, instead of a lawyer and jury, they employed the musket to bring about a decision of the question. The ground was chosen, and the whole fraternity were made spectators of the mortal arbitrament. The word was given to fire, and if the ball took either party in the back or side, it was adjudged to be unfair dealing, and the head of the murderer was cleft in two on the spot. The laws of their native country went for nothing among the brotherhood. They pretended that they had been emancipated from all allegiance to them by the baptisin of the sea, which they had each undergone in passing the tropics. Even their family name they abandoned, and noms de guerre, chosen to suit each one's whim or fancy, were the appellations by which they were known, and which in after times descended to their posterity.

"Their usual dress was a hunting shirt dipped in the blood of the animals they had slain in the chase; coarse drawers, yet more foul; for a girdle, a strip of raw hide, in which were stuck a small sword and several knives; a cap with a small portion of brim in front for convenience in removing it; and shoes without stockings.

"Thus dressed and equipped, this hybrid race, the product of civilization and the wilderness, limited all their ambition to having a gun that would carry an ounce ball, and a pack of twenty-five or thirty hounds. They had no other occupation than hunting in the woods of St. Domingo, which since its abandonment by the Spaniards had become filled with immense herds of wild cattle. They proceeded immediately to skin their game when they had killed it, and then hurried forwards to bring down others, till they were possessed of the requisite number for the day. When fatigued and hungry, they proceeded to cook a portion of the meat they had stripped from the wild carcase, and, with the pepper and orange juice they found plentifully around them, made a meal to satisfy all the wants of their appetite. They had no bread, and drank nothing but water. The description of one day's mode of living is that of every day, till they were in possession of the number of hides they had contracted to deliver to the vessels of different nations which visited their settlement. They then proceeded with the trophies of their success to the harbour or inlet where the ship was waiting her homeward cargo, and received in exchange such commodities as their wants and situa

tion required. The employment soon became comparatively profitable, and above all had infinite charms to those wild spirits who alone at that time ventured into the seas of the West Indies."-- Vol. I. pp. 48-50.

2.1. The Law of Patents for Inventions; including the Remedies and Legal Proceedings in Relation to Patent Rights. By WILLARD PHILLIPS. Boston. American Stationers' Company. 1837. 8vo. pp. 528.

2. The Inventor's Guide; comprising the Rules, Forms, and Proceedings for securing Patent Rights. By WILLARD PHILLIPS. Boston. S. Colman. 1837. 12mo. pp. 368.

MR. PHILLIPS has given us two works on the same subject; one for the professional, and the other for the non-professional reader. The first and larger work presents a full and systematic view of all the principles which regulate the law of Patents, illustrated by the various cases on this subject which have been adjudicated in the English and American courts. It is at once a philosophical and lawyer-like production. Reasons are presented, as well as precedents. The subject is handled with vigor, freedom, and learning. The French jurisprudence, which on this subject bears a strong resemblance to that of England and the United States, qualem decet esse sororum, is freely resorted to. A work like the present, where learning and philosophy, which so seldom meet in law-books, are joined, has been much needed by the profession for some time. Mr. Fessenden's "Essay on the Law of Patents," which is the only other American treatise on this subject, was a useful publication in its day, being well calculated to facilitate the labors of the practiser at the bar; but the lapse of time since its appearance has rendered another work highly necessary, which shall include the important alterations in the law, the many decisions of the courts, and the expansion of the principles bearing on patent rights, which have taken place. Besides, Fessenden's Essay was little more than a compilation, stuffed with the ipsissima verba of the courts, and containing very scanty discussions or statements of principles, other than as these occurred in the opinions of the court, from which are made such extended extracts.

The English treatises on the law of Patents are numerous, amounting to some half dozen, or more. Several of these have considerable merit; but all are deficient in a philosophical and logical way of showing the subject. In them the legal decisions are almost uniformly collected with fidelity, and arranged

with some degree of method; but the golden cord of connexion, which is wrought from the author's brain, and by which all the parts are bound to each other as by a natural attraction, seems to be wanting. With the best of these Mr. Phillips's work will bear a comparison. Indeed, if we did not feel disposed to moderate the expression of our opinion, lest we fall under the suspicion of being swayed by a national partiality, we should place his work before them all, both in practical utility and in appropriate treatment of the subject.

In the smaller work, which is called "The Inventor's Guide," the author has prepared an abstract or abridgment of the other, calculated chiefly for artists, inventors, mechanics, and, in short, for all who are not enrolled under the standard of black-letter. Those portions of the larger treatise, which are technical, or which relate to remedies and legal proceedings on the infringement of patents, are properly omitted. This little book contains a neat and succinct view of the whole subject, so far as it is interesting to other than professional readers. We venture to anticipate from its circulation not a little practical good. The rights of inventors will be more generally understood; and will, therefore, be more promptly secured and more universally respected. This, indeed, is one of the many facilities, peculiar to our age, for bringing home to the common mind a knowledge of some of those principles of law, in which all have such a deep stake, and which, by a presumption of law sufficiently paradoxical, all are supposed to know. In the short interval since its publication we have already met more than one practical mechanic, who has most carefully thumbed "The Inventor's Guide"; and we do not doubt that it will be extensively used throughout the country.

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3. A Plea for the Education of the People of Kentucky. An Address, delivered before the Mayor and Common Council of Lexington, on the 29th of July, 1837; the Anniversary of the Public School of that City. By ROBERT WICKLIFFE, Jr. Lexington, (Ky.); Hinnell & Zimmerman. 1837. 8vo. pp. 17.

THIS production bears the marks of a young, but able writer. It is full of an undisciplined vigor, which is often at once the sign of youth and of a hopeful manhood. It has a copiousness of language and illustration, which clearly shows that the author draws from a full fountain; and that his care, in future, must

VOL. XLVI.

No. 98.

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be rather how much, than whence, to draw. He must learn that most difficult of all lessons for writers, to prune and cut away words, phrases, perhaps whole passages, which his first judg ment approves. The topics are well chosen for the occasion; and the cause of education is advocated with a zeal which, with less knowledge than is here displayed, would of itself be produc

tive of great good. "Kentucky," Mr. Wickliffe says, "proud as is her fame for chivalry and for arms, can never pluck the laurel of unmingled honor and renown, so long as there is one single freeman on her soil that cannot read the constitution of his country, and write his protest against oppression and misrule."

4.

A New Translation of the Hebrew Prophets, arranged in Chronological Order. By GEORGE R. NOYES. In Three Volumes. Boston. Vol. I. Charles Bowen. 1833. Vols. II. and III. James Munroe & Company. 1837. 12mo. pp. xii., 288; vi. 293; 295.

WE avail ourselves of the earliest opportunity, to congratulate our readers on the completion of this work, constituting, together with the version of Job and of the Psalms by the same author, the most perfect and valuable series of biblical translations extant in our language. Mr. Noyes has brought to his task a vigorous, candid, and independent mind, enriched by the fruits of long and patient scholarship. His work is not merely a correction of King James's translation, but a new and distinct version. He disclaims the time-hallowed phraseology of the former, except where it best expresses the idea of the original. He says, that he has never retained it, because he found it there; and, if so, the frequency with which he has seen fit to retain it, bears the most flattering testimony to its general pertinency and beauty. Indeed, the warmest admirers of the present version may be half inclined to pardon Mr. Noyes for the hard things which he says of it in his Preface, on account of the following

confession in its favor.

"Those portions of the common version, which remain unaltered in mine, have, in proportion to their difficulty, been the subject of as extensive and laborious investigation, as those which have been altered. This fact deserves the attention of those, who object to new translations. The increased confidence, which they may place in those parts of the common version, which pass through the furnace of modern investigation unchanged, should compensate them for any supposed evils connected with the alteration of other parts of it."

In the volumes before us, the Prophets are arranged in chronological order. The distinction between poetry and prose is preserved throughout, the poetical portions being broken into verses corresponding to those in the original. Each book is divided into sections and paragraphs according to the sense, our arbitrary division of chapters and verses being denoted in the margin. Each section is headed by a brief and comprehensive program or argument. A few pages of notes are also appended to every volume. In these we have a short account of the author, date, design, and scope of each book, and an elucidation of the more doubtful and difficult passages. The style of the translation is throughout pure, chaste, majestic, and rhythmical. We detect no words or phrases of new or doubtful origin, none of those cockneyisms or of that affected quaintness, by which some, on this same career, have sought to supplant the "English undefiled" of King James's version. The dignity of prophecy and the harmony of poetry are everywhere sustained, while the distinctive peculiarities of the several writers are faithfully exhibited

ter.

Mr. Noyes has omitted all commentary of a doctrinal characHe labors to uphold no favorite theory of inspiration or of prophecy. He has dealt with the prophets, as he would have done with any other ancient authors. His only aim has been to introduce the prophets to his readers, and to leave them to speak for themselves on all points of controversy. We know of no reason, why his labors may not be equally welcome to the inquiring and truth-loving of all denominations. Indeed, he imparts to the sacred text a coherency and continuity of sense, the lack of which, in our common version, has stood sadly in the way of every class of religious theorists, while it has afforded ample ground for the gainsaying and cavilling of the skeptical. Whoever reveres the record of God's earlier revelations, whoever would see its pages no longer an open field for the blunders of ignorance, the baseless inferences of theological quackery, and the ridicule of the profane, must feel deeply indebted to him, who has so successfully disinterred the clements of a dead language, interpreted the monuments of long-past tribes and times, and made these writers hardly less intelligible than they were to their contemporaries.

The amount of critical labor bestowed on these very unostentatious volumes, those, to whom they will be of the most comfort and use, can hardly appreciate. The display of learning is carefully shunned; its front, bristling with unknown and tortuous characters, is sedulously concealed. The most ephemeral pamphlet could not have made its appearance in more modest