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Muddy. You had better lay them aside for the present, or we shall have no peace.'

'Polly and her sister luckily saw their error; they took off the lockets, laid them aside, and harmony was restored: otherwise, I verily believe there would have been an end of our community. Indeed, notwithstanding the great sacrifice they made on this occasion, I do not think old Schultz's daughters were ever much liked afterward among the young women.

This was the first time that looking-glasses were ever seen in the Green River part of Kentucky.'

TO BE CONTINUED.

Liverpool, (Eng.)

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LET us go to the hall, where the red wine flows,
And roses and myrtles are gaily wreathed;
Where many a cheek with its deep joy glows,
And the sad, sweet music of lutes is breathed,
Ere morning comes, the scene will be fled,
Faded will be the dream of bliss;

The song will be hushed, and the roses dead-
Is there nought to be learned by this?

Let us go to the shore, where the sea-shells lie,

And the sand with weeds and wrecks is strown;

Where o'er the rocks the cold waves fly,

And make their hollow and sullen moan:

Those desolate things were cast away

From the false breast of the raging seas;
And there they are sadly left to decay
Is there not a lesson in these?

Let us go to the wood, where the hawthorn blows,
When its leaves in the soft spring-time are green;
When its mantle around it the woodbine throws,
And the pearly flowerets peep between;

Oh, we shall find a moral in them,

Thus with the leaves deceitfully twined;
Decking awhile the thorny stem,

Yet dropping off with the first rude wind!

Let us go to the fields, when the storm is o'er,
And the rain-drops sparkle like stars at eve;

When the thunder peal is heard no more,

And the ocean's bosom hath ceased to heave:

Then shall we see the rainbow bright,

From the gloomy clouds and the sunshine wrought,
Shedding on all things its colored light-

Something, surely, by this is taught!

Let us go to the graves, where our loved ones are,
And let us choose the midnight time,j

When the heavens are glorious with many a star,
And silence and grandeur raise thoughts sublime;
And as we look from the mouldering dust,

Up to the cope of the beauteous sky,
So shall our spirits ascend, in their trust,
To the HOLY SPIRIT that dwelleth on high.

SHAKSPEARE.

M. A. B.

LITERARY NOTICES.

THE GREEK READER: BY FREDERIC JACOBS. A new Edition, with English Notes, Critical and Explanatory, a Metrical Index to Homer and Anacreon, and a copious Lexicon. By CHARLES ANTHON, LL.D., Jay-Professor of the Greek and Latin Languages in Columbia College, New-York, and Rector of the Grammar School. NewYork, 1840: HARPER AND BROTHERS.

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. NUMBER CVIII. pp. 274. Boston: FERDINAND ANDREWS.

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Two rival 'series' of classical works are now in course of publication among us, one from the Boston press, of which the 'Greek Reader' forms a part, the other put forth by the HARPERS of this city, under the care of Professor ANTHON. The reception, with which these two collections have thus far met, has been by no means equally cordial. The series' of Professor ANTHON is used in almost every quarter of our country; has been recommended in the strongest terms by individuals eminently qualified to pass an opinion upon its merits; has become extremely popular in every place where it has been adopted; and what is more, has been reprinted abroad, without any effort for that purpose on the part of its editor or publishers at home; and is now actually used in soine of the leading seminaries of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Some of the volumes composing this series have even reached their fourth edition in those countries; almost all of them a second; while, in the case of the 'Horace,' one edition was published from the London press in January, 1835, and was succeeded by another in May, of the same year. On the other hand, the Boston collection is little known out of its own immediate neighborhood; is regarded by those who are competent to judge, and who are unbiassed by personal or sectional interests, as ill adapted to the purposes of instruction, and calculated rather to injure than benefit; while the chances of a passage across the Atlantic, even if its friends should exert themselves in its behalf, seem to be as far removed from it, as those of successful competition at home. The manner of editing, too, which has been pursued in these rival publications, is as dissimilar as would appear to be their respective destinies. The volumes of Professor ANTHON are accompanied by full and valuable commentaries, and are replete with every thing that can expedite the progress of the student; while, on the other hand, the books composing the Boston collection are, in point of commentary, so extremely meagre, and contain so little of what can either benefit or prove interesting, that the only wonder is, why they were ever published at all.

It was easy to perceive, from the first, that this state of things could not long continue without some demonstrations of hostility; nor did it require any very strong powers of divination to foresee the speedy appearance of a third series; a series of bitter and vindictive attacks; a series of gross and scurrilous invective, marked by all that rancorous malignity which springs from wounded self-love, or from disappointed hopes of pecuniary profit. This third series has now commenced, and we regret to say, under very unexpected and singular auspices. It is made to grace the pages, not of a periodical which, haying no character to lose, could not well appreciate the value of character in others,

but of no less dignified a literary journal than the North American Review, and bids fair to confer upon it a species of notoriety, which any other journal, that has a regard for its own standing, would not be very anxious to share with it. We do not remember, indeed, to have ever met, in the whole course of our literary experience, with an article more plainly marked by malignity of feeling, more evidently dictated by the ranklings of private animosity, and by a determination to injure, at all hazards, the character of another, than the pretended review of Mr. ANTHON'S 'Greek Reader,' in the last number of the North American. The ferocity of the attack; the grave nature of the charges that are preferred; the coarseness of invective, and the total departure from all the established rules of literary courtesy, by which the whole article is characterized; struck us, we confess, with so much surprise, that we determined to inquire into the affair, for our own satisfaction, being more than half persuaded, that so much vindictive feeling could not possibly spring from any reputable motive. The result of this investigation we now proceed to lay before our readers; and we have no doubt whatever of their coming, one and all, to the same conclusion with ourselves, namely, that Professor ANTHON has been singled out for attack, by a paltry clique of would-be literati, who deny his claims to scholarship, because he will not acknowledge these same modest gentlemen to be the leading scholars of America; who call him a plagiarist, in order to deter him if possible from exposing their own monstrous plagiarisms; who stigmatize his learning as pedantry, because they have neither intellect enough to appreciate, nor scholarship sufficient to imitate, his labors; and who get all their rancor, and all their abuse, and all their blunderings, endorsed by the North American Review, because their lines have fallen in the Athens of America! We entreat our readers not to be deterred by the length of the present article, from giving it a fair and careful perusal. Indeed, we claim this of them, as a mere act of justice; and we assure them, that all the statements we may have occasion to make, have been obtained from sources on which they, together with ourselves, can rely with the most implicit confidence.

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The first charge brought against Professor ANTHON by the Boston reviewer, is, that he has been guilty of plagiarism, in taking for his new edition of the 'Reader' the very same Greek selections that were already contained in the Boston work. The answer to this paltry charge will be found in the history of the 'Reader' itself. In 1823, Mr. EVERETT, then Eliot-Professor of Greek Literature in Harvard University, published a part of the 'Greek Reader' of Professor JACOBS, with English notes, and a Greek and English Lexicon. The part taken by Mr. Everett, for his American edition, consisted of the first volume of the German work, in regular order, omitting merely ten pages at the end, and of eighty-nine pages of the second volume, in consecutive order likewise, from the beginning. Our readers will perceive, that very little expenditure of intellect was required to make such a selection, if indeed it deserve to be called one. The true praise and the true ownership belonged to Professor Jacobs. It was he who had brought together and arranged the several extracts of which the 'Reader' was composed, and Mr. Everett did nothing more than merely copy his labors. The latter gentleman, therefore, seems to have done, in the case of the German edition, the very same thing which Mr. ANTHON is charged with doing in the case of the Boston work; with this slight difference, however, that the 'Reader' of Professor Jacobs was an original production, whereas the Boston work was a mere copy. It was soon found, however, that Mr. Everett's 'Greek Reader' was not as useful a work as it was expected to have been. The notes were too brief, and too few in number, and the Lexicon was too limited in extent, to be of much benefit to the young student, in the outset of his labors. In other words, Mr. Everett had not adapted either the notes or the Lexicon to the peculiar wants of the American scholar. No attempt, however, was made to remedy these acknowledged deficiencies, until the year 1832, when the fourth edition of the 'Reader' appeared, the titlepage of which declared that it contained 'new selections from the text of Jacobs,' while the preface asserted that the pupil was now presented with 'all the valuable notes' of the German editors. Both these declarations were disingenuous! The Greek excerpts, appended

to this edition, consisted of a few specimens of epistolary correspondence, and of large selections from Anacreon, Bion, and Moschus. The epistolary extracts were alone taken from Jacobs; all the rest was obtained from the Minora of Dalzell. The assertion that the editors had given all the notes of Jacobs, was equally erroneous. Along with the selections from Dalzell, they had taken the entire notes of the same editor; they had omitted numerous notes from Jacobs, because in all probability unable to translate or even understand them; and thus the notes of Dalzell, which it cost them no trouble whatever to obtain, appeared to the public to be the valuable annotations of the German editor! What is singular enough, and looks in fact like retributive justice, they tell the tale of their own disingenuousness from their own lips; for, after stating in the preface to the edition of 1832, that 'the pupil will now have all the valuable notes of Jacobs,' they state the very same thing over again, in the very same words, in the preface to the edition of 1837, thus contradicting their own remark, made in 1832; and, what is more, the original assertion still remains, in all its naked deformity, for the notes of Dalzell still hold their place in the edition of 1837, and appear, as before, to be the 'valuable notes of Jacobs! And do these men talk of plagiarism? Do these men charge another with the very act of which they have been guilty themselves? The only parallel to this matchless effrontery is to be found in the conduct of the reviewer himself, who knowingly undertakes to defend them.

But to return to the thread of our narrative. During the interval between Mr. Everett's first edition, and that of 1832, Mr. DEAN, of New-York, published an edition of the 'Greek Reader' of Jacobs, under the supervision of Mr. PATTERSON, containing precisely the same selections, arranged too in precisely the same order, as the work of Mr. Everett, excepting indeed the extracts from Anacreon, Bion, and Moschus, which Mr. D. in all probability, did not deem it worth his while to print, at that time, since they are contained, notes and all, in the New-York edition of the Græca Minora! Mr. Dean's first edition of the Greek Reader' of Jacobs appeared in 1827, and passed through eight other editions between that period and 1836; and yet, it will hardly be credited, not an outcry was raised in Boston during this long interval of nine whole years; not a single charge of plagiarism was made against Mr. Patterson; not a complaint was uttered by the watchful guardians of American criticism; the lion of the Boston review was as quiet, and meek, and gentle as a lamb; and the two rival editions, the New-York and the Boston one, jogged on together, upon the same route, with the most edifying and fraternal cordiality. In all probability the Boston work needed the aid of its New-York friend, to enable it to prosecute its destined journey, since it had been rendered somewhat lame by the loss of its Lexicon, which, though made by the Eliot-Professor of Greek Literature in Harvard University,' it had nevertheless actually stigmatized as an 'imperfect' one, and most ungratefully thrown aside!

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Matters continued in this state until 1836, when the ninth New-York edition of Jacobs's' Greek Reader' was sent forth from the press. This edition, be it remembered, contained the very same selections, and the very same arrangement, as before. The editor, Mr. CASSERLY, who had been educated in the halls of a foreign university, laid the rod over the shoulders of the Boston editors, in the preface to his work, and was, as the reviewer himself now openly confesses, cruelly ironical' in his remarks. Yet, strange to tell, the Boston editors were silent under this infliction. No cry of plagiarism was raised; no complaint of unfair dealing was uttered; there was no strain heard of indignant remonstrance; there was no outpouring of invective from the far-famed fountain-head of American criticism; Mr. Casserly's editions of the 'Reader' enjoyed the same good fortune as Mr. Patterson's had; there was the same degree of friendly communion as before, between the rival 'Readers' of New-York and Boston; although Mr. Casserly had been 'cruelly ironical' toward the editors of the latter, and although, as the reviewer now informs us, he had 'copied the most important part of their labors! Were these men so cowardly that they dared not retaliate? Or were they so deficient in scholarship as to be unable to defend themselves? In all probability both causes

operated. But there was a third and a more secret motive for their silence: the edition of Mr. Casserly, like that of Mr. Patterson, did not threaten to make any serious inroad upon their profits.

We now come to Professor ANTHON. This gentleman had been requested again and again to prepare an edition of the 'Reader.' He had uniformly declined; and had stated his resolution, time after time, not to put forth such a work, unless it were called for by a large majority of teachers. In the summer of 1839, his publishers informed him that they had received numerous applications for a new edition of the Reader, and he then at length consented to prepare one. In the preface to his work, there is no attempt at concealment on the part of Mr. ANTHON. He states openly the plan which he has seen fit to pursue, that of retaining unaltered whatever Greek selections had been accustomed to be read in our classical seminaries. In carrying this plan into execution, he takes the same extracts which had appeared, without any complaint on the part of the Boston editors, in the work of Mr. Patterson; the same extracts which Mr. Casserly had adopted without a murmur of disapprobation from any quarter; the same extracts, be it remembered, which had been allowed to appear in nine consecutive New-York editions, for the space of thirteen whole years, and which were free to be used by all, and not the sole property of the Boston editors; he adds to these extracts certain selections from the Minora, which had been read for more than twice thirteen years in almost every school throughout the land: he acted merely on what he had openly avowed in his preface, the intention of taking such selections as were read in the classical seminaries of the day; and in an instant he is assailed with the grave charge of plagiarism; he is made the subject of coarse and virulent invective; and his name is paraded in the pages of the North American Review, as that of a gross defaulter against the rights of literary property. Why this sudden burst of indignation? Why this peculiar sensitiveness, where none had before existed? Why this awakening from the long slumber of thirteen years? Was it because Mr. ANTHON's edition was rapidly out-selling the Boston one, and its progress must therefore be stopped? What an admirable collyrium have we here, for the feeble eyes of criticism!

This brings us to the reviewer's second charge. Well aware how open to attack the untruth respecting the 'new' selections from Jacobs had left the editors of the Boston work, the reviewer endeavors to uphold a sinking cause, by asserting, with the most consummate assurance, that Mr. ANTHON did not know that the selections from Dalzell were not contained in the Reader of Jacobs. Why, he had read them at school, in the Minora, thirty years before; he had possessed a copy of the German work of Jacobs for the space of fourteen years before! Not know that these extracts were not contained in Jacobs! What a miserable cause must that be, which requires for its defence such shameless and unheard-of effrontery!

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'But,' says the reviewer, the Boston editors, where they made new selections from Jacobs, curtailed the length of his extracts considerably,' and yet, in their quotations, they are followed by Dr. ANTHON without deviation.' The charge is totally untrue. What is worse, the reviewer knows it to be untrue. He knows that these Boston editors did not take their new poetical selections from the 'Reader' of Jacobs. He knows that they obtained these very selections, ready made to their hands, from the Minora of Dalzell. He knows that their extracts begin where those of Dalzell begin, and omit what those of Dalzell omit, and end where those of Dalzell end. And he knows too that the very notes on these extracts, all but three of which, he says (and he says falsely) have been in some way introduced into the edition of Mr. ANTHON, are merely transferred from Dalzell's Minora, by the Boston editors! This is not mere idle assertion on our part. Any one can institute the comparison for himself; and we hope that many will do so; nor will we anticipate, for one moment, the feelings of honest indignation with which every one will rise from such an exposure of vile and malignant calumny. We have said that Professor ANTHON merely took the selections that were in common We have not done him justice in this. He corrected the text by a reference not

use.

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