ever, worth mentioning: Gothic windows always leak, and the sloping roof makes the second story a little ovenish in temperature, and garrety in smell. Whichever of the two styles you adopt, you must not fail to refer your plans to some bustling little architect, who will be sure to write articles about himself in one of the weeklies, and will probably give a drawing of your house, and call you the intelligent, gentlemanly, and high-minded proprietor.' After you have removed the stones, manured the ground, and planted grass, you will have a lawn; and after you have dug deep holes and set out tall thin consumptive trees, you have a wood. Secure the whole with white fences; throw rustic bridges over the impassable streams; sprinkle red dahlias and tiger-lilies here and there; buy a bull-dog to set on any small child who may be reckless enough to trespass; and lo! you have a country-seat as well as a town-house, and can invite your city friends to fill your one spare room in regular rotation.

In the important matter of a name, you must decide for yourself; but surely with Walter Scott and Lord Byron and the innumerable What-d 'ye-call-'em dales, Thingumbob brooks, and So-and-so woods, to choose from, you can have no difficulty in fixing upon a suitable one.

But, says an amateur rustic, I have no fondness for floriculture, horticulture, or agriculture; what am I to do? Buy a horse, and take a gallop of some twenty miles or so, and if the horse does not shy you off, or bolt you off, or kick you off, and you do not fall off, or he does not fall under you, you will probably arrive at home safe; but as you walk from the stable to the house, you will quote from George Colman's parody of the Lady of the Lake:

'Hunter rest, for thou must own
Leather lost and empty belly,' etc.

Have you a fondness for fire-arms? Then procure a gun and dog, and sally forth before day-light. Walk five miles through swamp and thicket without starting a bird. Sky cloudless; heat intense. Suddenly dog's tail begins to beat half-seconds; ip whirrs a bird, who is out of sight in a moment; so is the dog, who indulges in an animated chase. You shout yourself hoarse; at length succeed in catching dog, and try to thresh him with decayed sticks. A little while after, dog comes to a point again. This time he stands beautifully. You walk slowly up, trembling with excitement, both barrels cocked. Why don't the bird get up? You glance inquiringly around, and at length discern a wood-turtle fast asleep near the stump of a tree. Then, if an irascible man, you curse. So passes the day. Now and then a bird springs; off fly both of your barrels, aimed at vacancy, and hurling showers of No. 8 into space; and you arrive at home late in the afternoon, sorefooted from much travel and stiffness of boots, and alas! without a feather except a small quail which your dog caught in his mouth.

No more shooting? Try fishing then. Sit all day on a rock watching your float, or cork, or dobber, as the Dutch boys call it, dance merrily over the waves, occasionally disappearing under the surface, when the hook catches a weed. Does not even this suit you? Then, dear friend, buy a boat of from four to six tons burthen, properly rigged and ballasted; also buy a red shirt, a small low-crowned straw hat, some

tar to smear over your hands, and learn the first stanza of 'The sea! the sea!' to make every thing seem more nautical and ship-shape. Hoist jib and mainsail, and venture out. After you have drifted a mile or two, it will fall a dead calm, and the boat (Gazelle? Wave? Gull?) will float two or three hours, the sun flashing back from the glassy surface of the water, burning your face to the color of bricks, and almost frying the eyes out of your head. Then is the time to sing The sea! the sea!' and to take some Monongahela to still the qualmishness you begin to experience. At length the wind rises, and your boat, after many yawings, dashes away before it. Suddenly, without any voluntary or visible agency on your part, the main-boom sweeps from one side to the other, carrying your hat overboard in its passage, and dipping the gunwale deep under water. Agitated by this significant gesture, you steer straight for the wharf. In attempting to round-to, the bowsprit comes in contact with the piles and renounces its allegiance to the bow. The boat drifts away from the landing, and finally deposits you high and dry on the beach.

What! Disgusted with this, too? a reasonable man, stay in town.

Then take our advice, and like

TO AN EVENING CLOUD.

BY A YOUNG LADY.

VOL. XXIII.

THOU beautiful cloud, a glorious hue is thine!
I cannot think, as thy bright dyes appear
To my enraptured gaze, that thou wert born
Of Evening's exhalations: more sublime,
Light-giver! is thy birth-place, than of earth.
Wert thou not formed to herald in the day,
And clothe a world in thy unborrowed light?
Or art thou but a harbinger of rains
To budding May? or in thy subtle screen
Nursest the lightnings that affright the world?
Or wert thou born of th' thin aërial mist

That shades the sea, or shrouds the mountain's brow?
Whate'er thou art, I gaze on thee with joy.

Spread thy wings o'er the empyrean, and away
Fleetly athwart the untravelled wilds of space,
To where the Sun-light sheds his earliest beams,
And blaze the stars, that vision vainly scans
In distant regions of the universe!
Tell me, Air-wanderer! in what burning zone
Thou wilt appear, when from the azure vault
Of our high heaven thy majesty shall fade;
Tell me, winged Vapor! where hath been thy home
Through the unchangeable serene of noon?
Whate'er thy garniture, where'er thy course,
Would I could follow thee in thy far flight,
When the south wind of eve is low and soft,
And my thought rises to the mighty source
Of all sublimity! O fleeting cloud,
Would I were with thee in the solemn night!
10

Б.

LITERARY NOTICES.

HISTORY OF THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO, with a Preliminary View of the Ancient Mexican Civilization, and the Life of the Conqueror, HERNANDO CORTES. BY WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT. In three volumes. New-York: HARPER AND BROTHERS.

We have awaited the appearance of these very elegant volumes with deep and anxious interest. The ability, industry and taste which the author displayed in his "History of Ferdinand and Isabella,' which won for him a noble reputation in the most cultivated states of Europe, still more endeared his name to his own countrymen, and led them to look, with the highest hope and the most pleasant anticipations, to the future efforts of his elegant and fascinating pen. We have for some time known that he was assiduously engaged in collecting materials, and preparing from them a history of the famous Conquest of Mexico; an event which, although of a very splendid and romantic character, was still but vaguely known, even in accomplished and well-informed literary circles. The facts relating to it were nowhere recorded in an authentic and connected form; for it has not been until within the last fifty years that the attention of historians and general scholars has been turned in this direction. The labors of Spanish antiquarians since that time, conducted as they have been with great skill and industry, and under the supervision and encouragement of the goverment itself, have been abundantly rewarded; and a vast number of original documents have been accumulated in the public and private libraries, which shed floods of light upon all historical events connected with the conquests of Spanish armies, or the discoveries of Spanish fleets, and have thus placed within the reach of writers at the present day materials for lack of which even the able histories of ROBERTSON and his contemporaries became meagre and unattractive. The historians of our era are making the best possible use of these copious and invaluable collections. The first result of their efforts was WASHINGTON IRVING'S magnificent Life of COLUMBUS,' one of the most polished and perfect works of its class in the English language, and which has done as much for American literature abroad as it has for its eminent author at home. Then followed PRESCOTT'S Ferdinand and Isabella,' pronounced by the best critics on both sides the Atlantic to be one of the most interesting and valuable histories ever published: and here we have, in his History of the Conquest of Mexico,' drawn from the same rich source, a work eminently worthy to succeed its brilliant and most 'illustrious predecessors.'

6

Within the limits which restrain us, we can of course do nothing more than intimate very vaguely the general character and scope of this great work; nor are we sure that even this is not quite a useless labor, as it must find its way at once into the library of every literary gentleman throughout the country, and be read with the greatest avidity by men of every class. One of the most valuable portions of the history is the extended view which Mr. PRESCOTT has presented, at the opening of the work, of the character and civilization of the ancient inhabitants of Mexico. The Spaniards conquered no tribe of untutored savages, roaming, in the wild lawlessness of the aborigines of our section of the western continent,

over the sunny plains and smiling fields of Anahuac: they found a people there who, centuries before the discovery of the western world by COLUMBUS, possessed the arts of civilization, and had reached a point of intellectual and moral culture in many respects surpassing that of the most renowned nations of the other world. We are surprised to find the high degree of refinement which they had reached. The sciences, especially of mathematics and astronomy, were understood to a degree of nicety scarcely attained by the Romans in their palmiest days. Their political organization was of a wonderfully perfect character; and their laws, and especially the organization of the judiciary, the department by which they were to be interpreted and administered, were stamped by a clear insight into the nature of moral obligation, and the mutual duties and rights of the members of society, which strike us with the utmost astonishment. Their mythology, with the single exception of the sanction it gives to human sacrifices, indicates a much nearer approach to a knowledge of the true GOD than the popular faith of the Greeks or Romans; and sentiments are recorded as having been uttered by a prince of the Tezcucan tribe, guided solely by the light of his own indwelling reason, which were worthy of Plato or of any sage that has ever lived, unenlightened by the hopes of revelation on which Christians build their faith. The history of such a people, dwelling centuries ago upon our own continent, shrouded as it has heretofore been in darkness and vague uncertainty, under the lucid and brilliant pen of Mr. PRESCOTT becomes more attractive than any offspring of the fancy or imaginative fiction could possibly be. This preliminary sketch occupies nearly half of the first volume; and we have never read any similar effort of the same extent with equal gratification.

We can of course give no outline of the main portion of the work, the history of the train of events by which the whole Mexican empire fell into the hands of the conquering Spaniard. It is one of the most romantic narratives which ever bore the seal of truth. Its prominent actors are men of eminent genius, who performed exploits worthy the greatest captains of Europe or Asia; and the history of their lives abounds with interest and instruction. Mr. PRESCOTT has a most happy historical style, glowing with all the warmth and shining with a far more substantial brilliancy than that of BANCROFT ; and blending the strict truth of accurate narrative with the free flow of a fine imagination, all under the control of an exquisite taste, with more success than that of any other American writer, IRVING perhaps alone excepted. The authorities upon which he relies for his facts are uniformly given in notes, and the fullest information is presented in the same form, on all points which concern the accuracy and completeness of the work. We read the following passage in our author's preface with profound regret: For one thing, I may reasonably ask the reader's indulgence. Owing to the state of my eyes, I have been obliged to use a writing-case made for the blind, which does not permit the writer to see his own manuscript; nor have I ever corrected, or even read, my own original draft.' Mr. PRESCOTT may well consider this as an ample excuse for any errors of typography; of which, by the way, we have not discovered even one. We were already aware, on the best authority, that WASHINGTON IRVING had prepared to take up the ground so ably occupied by our author; a fact to which Mr. PRESCOTT alludes in the following graceful terms:

'It was not till I had become master of my rich collection of materials, that I was acquainted with this circumstance; and had he persevered in his design, I should unhesitatingly have abandoned my own, if not from courtesy, at least from policy; for though armed with the weapons of Achilles, this could give me no hope of success in a competition with Achilles himself. But no sooner was that disguished writer informed of the preparations I had made, than with the gentlemanly spirit which will surprise no one who has the pleasure of his acquaintance, he instantly announced to me his intention of leaving the subject open to me. While I do but justice to Mr. IRVING by this statement, I feel the prejudice it does to myself in the unavailing regret I am exciting in the bosom of the reader.'

We cannot take leave of this splendid book without making mention of the truly elegant style in which it has been issued by its liberal publishers. It yields in no respect to the finest issue of the Boston, and we had almost added, of the London press. The three volumes are large octavo, of about five hundred pages each, containing elegant portraits and illustrative maps; and yet the whole is sold for six dollars!

THE ENEID OF VIRGIL, WITH ENGLISH NOTES, CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY; a Metrical Clavis and an Historical, Geographical and Mythological Index. By CHARLES ANTHON, LL. D. NewYork: HARPER AND BROTHERS.

THE cause of sound classical education in America is more deeply indebted to Professor ANTHON than to any other scholar in the country; and the debt of gratitude already incurred is almost daily increased by the unwearied efforts of this distinguished linguist. Beside the voluminous and unequalled Dictionaries which he has compiled and published, he has in course of preparation a series of the most popular Latin authors, in which his principal aim is to adapt them to the use of scholars in our academies and higher schools. Another volume of this series, containing the Æneid, has just been issued. It is usually among the earliest Latin works placed in the pupil's hands, and yet there are few which require a more intimate and extended acquaintance with Roman history, domestic habits, mythology, geography, and indeed with every thing relating to the Romans as a nation and society, in order to a perfect understanding of its character, and a genuine relish of its beauties, than this. We doubt the policy, or propriety indeed, of placing in the hands of those who are learning the elements of a foreign language, poems of an elaborate and elevated character for text-books. No one, for the purpose of learning English, would take up MILTON's Paradise Lost before the Vicar of Wakefield or BUNYAN'S Pilgrim's Progress; for aside from the fact that he would not thus be introduced to the simple dialect of ordinary life, its classical and doctrinal allusions, its technical terms, and the profound knowledge of men, of books, and of nature which it embraces, would render it almost a sealed volume to any but those who have already become cultivated and accomplished scholars. And although the case is materially different in learning the ancient languages, since the object is not to speak or write them, but to become familiar with the great works which are written in them, it would be unwise if not useless to teach a pupil to read VIRGIL without at the same time providing him with the means of thoroughly understanding and appreciating his poetry. For these he is usually dependent upon the verbal expositions of his teacher, who, even if he chance to be well qualified for the task, seldom has sufficient time for its proper discharge.

Many attempts have been made to supply this want, and some of them have been attended with very fair, though not full, success. COOPER'S edition has had the most copious notes, but they are not always accurate, and are often upon passages of comparatively little difficulty. GOULD's notes are better, but they are much more sparingly introduced, and do not indeed elucidate the really intricate points. The historical and mythological references in both these editions are quite scanty; and they must both in our judgment speedily give place to this of Dr. ANTHON. The critical and explanatory notes to this are all that could be desired. They occupy more than six hundred pages, or quite two-thirds of the book, and relate to every point of interest or of doubt in the whole Æneid. They are full, accurate, and perfectly satisfactory. The author tells us in the preface that they comprise the results of all the study and research of modern European scholars, and embrace every thing which has been brought to light up to the present time. They are very copiously and clearly illustrated by neat and perspicuous engravings, which frequently do more than pages of description to give a distinct impression to the scholar's mind. The construction of Roman ships, the mode of a naval battle, the style of conducting a siege, the form of chaplets, of temples, of household utensils, of coins, ornaments, and in fine, the exact structure and appearance of every thing pertaining to Roman history or Roman life, are thus rendered more familiar to the eye than they ever could be to the ear of the student. The metrical clavis scans all the difficult lines contained in the book, and the general index clearly and briefly elucidates all the references which the poem contains to men, incidents, and localities. With these recommendations, aided by the typographical clearness and beauty which the publishers have given to it, this edition of the Æneid must be heartily welcomed by scholars and students (all rivalry to the contrary) throughout the United States.