income with his own hands he distributed in all the thousand walks of suffering, and among the almost innumerable calls of science and religion. A room in his house was devoted to the preparation of garments for the poor; and his last earthly work was the supervision of the new supplies just ready for distribution. Quietly, with no public annunciation of his movements, his well-loaded coach, from which the most genial smiles and bows of recognition constantly greeted the passers-by, threaded the streets and avenues of the city, where shrinking poverty trembled in its thin habiliments, and pale sickness sighed for help. The widow and the orphan, the poor and the sick, have met with no ordinary loss in the death of this kindhearted and pious merchant. He has reared to himself more imposing, but not more sublime, monuments, in his noble gifts to Bowdoin and Williams' College, and to other literary institutions in various parts of the country. A favorite work with him was the distribution among the young and the old, in his daily rides, of valuable religious books. Thousands of volumes were scattered over the country by his unsparing hand. One of the last books presented by him to young persons was the excellent work issued by your publishers, entitled "The Successful Merchant ;" an early copy of which was forwarded to him from England, by Lady Buxton, as adapted peculiarly to interest a successful and religious American merchant.

Old Brattle-square church was crowded to Its utmost capacity at his funeral. The principal merchants closed their stores, to allow the attendance of their clerks. The whole vast congregation melted into tears when the children, boys and girls, from one of our public schools, composing a society, called the "Lawrence Association," upon which he had conferred many tokens of his interest and affection, gathered around his coffin in the church aisle, and sang a most touching and appropriate hymn to his memory. He has ceased from his labors, and his works do follow him.

A very pleasant compliment has been paid to an old way-worn and war-worn veteran of the cross. Dr. Beecher, among all his other "gettings," has not been eminently successful in amassing money for himself. His hand has been as open to distribute as his treasury has given him the opportunity, and now his only bank of deposit and discount is the providence of God. He is preaching vigorously around in the churches where his services are needed, and shedding a hallowed influence by his mature piety and unquenched zeal in the work of his Master. A company of wealthy Christian merchants, who look upon themselves as God's almoners, on the first day of the present year sent him a certificate of an annuity for life of five hundred dollars. It was more blessed to give than to receive in this case; nay, both were blessed, and the whole community also, by so wholesome an example.

Few cities owe more to the generous beneficence of their citizens than Boston. There has long been a prevalent feeling in the community that, with all our public institutions, there was one still lacking-a public library, worthy of a wealthy and intelligent municipality. Several

distinguished citizens have, of late years, made large donations of books to the city, and urged the establishment of a proper depository for such gifts. In the last autumn the mayor of the city received a letter from Joshua Bates, Esq., of London, who commenced his mercantile career in Boston, announcing the gift of the munificent sum of fifty thousand dollars for the purchase of books, providing the city would erect a suitable building for their accommodation. Immediate steps were taken to give effect to so generous a proposition, and at an early period we shall have a public edifice and library every way worthy of the city and its generous citizens.

The public garden, as it was called, I suppose ironically, being rented by private individuals, has reverted again into the possession of the city.

Active measures are to be taken, early in the spring, to render this garden an ornament, and a source of health and pleasure to the inhabitants of the city. With this beautiful addition to the open grounds of the Common, Boston will enjoy a park unsurpassed in natural beauty by any city in the world.

Lectures still continue to draw their crowds to our halls. Thackeray has gathered around him, during his six discourses, such a collection of grave and reverend seigniors, and of the talent, wealth and beauty of Boston and surrounding towns, as rarely graces the audiences of the public orator. His lectures have all been both greatly admired and greatly criticised. He has an opinion of his own, and it sometimes disturbs the traditional judgment of society. Mr. Fields, of the book firm Ticknor, Reed & Fields, who has just returned from a year's tour in Europe, gave an admirable lecture upon "The Preparations for a Foreign Tour." It was full of instruction, and enlivened by sparkling wit and a brilliant style. Your own Mercantile Library would do a good service to the young men preparing for the "grand tour," and to all others, to engage his services during the lecture season. Epes Sargeant, Esq., of the Evening Transcript, delivered a fine discourse, with illustrations, upon "Verse, and Verse-making."

Book-making for the season is about over. Phillips, Sampson, & Co. have just issued two finely illustrated, royal octavos-one, Burns's Complete Works, with a Life, by Allan Cunningham; the other, the Poetic Works of Walter Scott. Two noble volumes for the library. Jewett & Co. have issued Mrs. Stowe's "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," and a curious "key" it is, unlocking both the thoughts and the muscles of the face. Little & Brown have issued the fifth volume of Bancroft's United States, showing "how England estranged the colonies," an interesting topic, illustrated by fullness of material and richness of rhetoric. They have also issued a very valuable hand-book, entitled "The American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge, for the year 1853," a work full of valuable statistics to every professional and business man. Webster's Works, the copyright of which is owned by the family, have a very large sale; the publishers hardly being able to keep up with the demand.

In the article on George Sand, the French word clochette is rendered “clock;" it should be bell.

Wurst's Deutsche Sprachdenklehre; zum Selbstunterricht in der Muttersprache eingerichtet und mit einer Erklärung der Gebrauchs-Methode ver sehen von Wilhelm Nast. Cincinnati, 1853.—This is Wurst's admirable little German Grammar, brought out by Dr. Nast,of Cincinnati, for the use of Germans who desire to perfect themselves in the principles of their own language. A better book for the purpose can hardly be found; certainly not of the same brief limits. The principles of that noble language are lucidly and systematically stated, and its rules illustrated by numerous and pertinent examples.

Deutsche Choralbuch; zur Erlernung der Vokalmusick; von S. Wakefield. Cincinnati, Swormstedt and Poe.-This volume will be found a very useful book. It contains tastefully adapted music for almost every psalm and hymn in use in our German congregations. It is "got up" also in very pretty style.

Bohn, of London, has added to his "Scientific Library" a good translation of Schamo's "Earth, Plants, and Men," and Von Kobell's "Mineral Kingdom," exceedingly interesting sketches and pictures of nature, adapted to popular reading. We shall transfer some of these delightful articles to our pages. They combine very happily learning and entertainment. Bangs, Brother & Co., New-York, are Bohn's agents for this country.

Carlton & Phillips, New-York, have issued a pocket "Book of Manners-a Guide to Social Intercourse." There is very little original suggestion to be offered on the subject; but this writer has made his pages interesting as well as instructive. He starts with the true theory of politeness-that virtue, not the semblance of virtue, is its essence. While the volume deals somewhat in general didactics, it presents practical details enough where they are requisite. It is an excellent book for the young.

We return our thanks to our estimable friend, Dr. Blake, for his new volume, "The Farm and the Fireside, or the Romance of Agriculture, being Half-Hour Sketches of Life in the Country," a charming title certainly, and one that smacks of the man as well as of the country. Eschewing the dryness of scientific forms and erudite details, the author presents detached, but most entertaining, and often very suggestive articles on a great variety of topics, from the Wild Goose" to "Conscience in the Cow"-the "Value of Lawyers in a Community" to the "Objections to very early Marriages." The book is, in fine, quite unique, and just such a one as the farmer would like to pore over at his fireside on long winter nights. (Alden, Beardsley & Co., Auburn.)

Messrs. Harpers have published, in very neat style, "Rodolphus," as one of Jacob Abbott's Franconia stories. These stories are formed on the true philosophy of juvenile moral instruction, viz. induction into right moral conduct and ideas, by their exemplification, not ethical

preachments. They are in Mr. Abbott's best style, and the illustrations enhance much their attractions.

Guizot's "Corneille and his Times" has been published by Messrs. Harpers. It was first issued in France in 1813, one of Guizot's youthful productions; but it has now the amendments which the ripened faculties of its author have enabled him to give it. Besides a thorough critique on the genius of Corneille, it discusses the state of poetry in France before his day, and sketches some of his noted cotemporaries, Chapelain, Rotran, Scarron, &c.

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PAMPHLETS.-Discourses on Education, delivered to the graduating class of Whitewater College, 1852, by Cyrus Nutt, A. M.; a lucid definition of education, and its personal and public benefits.-The Balm of Gilead, a clear and powerful discussion of the moral wants of the world, the evangelical provision for them, and the reasons why it is not more universally available-a Missionary sermon by Rev. S. A. Eddy, published by order of the Oneida Conference, before which it was delivered.capital "Address before the Norfolk District Medical Society of Massachusetts," by Dr. B. E Cotting, of Roxbury, has been sent us. It treats of "Nature in Disease," showing the relative extent to which nature and drugs affect the progress and results of disease. The subject is treated with no professional commonplaces, but with original and real ability.-The Model Christian Young Man is a well-deserved and ably-prepared eulogy on Rev. J. D. Collins, late Missionary to China, delivered by Rev. C. T. Hinman, D. D., before the Missionary Society of Inquiry of Michigan University. Dr. Hinman does credit to his own pen as well as the character of his friend in this discourse. Rev. Robert Allyn, of Providence Conference Academy, has published a discourse of impressive interest and equal ability on the development of activity and intelligence through education, and the Duty of Christians to promote it universally. It is one of the ablest brochures we have met on the subject.-Forrester's Boys and Girls Magazine holds on its course successfully in respect to merit at least; the present volume begins in excellent style. Degen, Boston, publishes it at only $1 per annum. - - The first Minutes of the Southern Illinois Conference report fourteen thousand nine hundred and forty-eight members and more than $1,400 Missionary collections. The other reports show that the conference has started on its new cais well known as one of the best monthlies on reer with much energy.-The Guide to Holiness experimental and practical religion in the nation; it has begun the year with much promise, and in very neat style. Degen, Boston; only $1 per annum.-The New-York Free Academy's Catalogue for 1852 exhibits that noble institution in a gratifying state of prosperity: the total of students has been five hundred lacking three; the faculty is powerful in numbers and ability.

WILLIAM EMPSON, son-in-law of Jeffrey, and editor of the Edinburgh Review, died recently at the East India College, Haileyburg. He filled the chair of Professor of Civil Law at Haileyburg, formerly occupied by Malthus and Mackintosh. He is said to have written some

sixty articles for the Edinburgh Review. The gentleman who is to replace Mr. Empson in the editorship of the Review is Mr. George Cornewall Lewis, a member of the late Parliament. Among the curiosities of the Berlin Library is the Bible of Charles L., which he bore with him to the scaffold. It is a small volume, bound in black leather, and bears evident signs of having been much used. By the side of this interesting relic lies Luther's original manuscript translation of the Holy Scriptures. Some of the chapters present a tangled mass of additions, erasures, and amendments. Another interesting MS. is Goethe's Faust, which is very clear and legible.

A manuscript catalogue of music, in the library of the British Museum, has been completed, and fills fifty-seven folio volumes.

The speeches in Parliament of the late Duke of Wellington are about to be collected and published, with the far-famed Wellington dispatches.

The Journal du Havre says that Uncle Tom's Cabin, after having filled the feuilletons, is to be given in most of the theaters in Paris. There are to be three melo-dramas, two vaudevilles, and an opera drawn from this fertile mine. The music for the libretto of "La Cabine de l'oncle Tom," is to be by Adolphe Adam; and next year, no doubt, the walls of the Exposition will be covered by paintings, the subjects furnished by Mrs. Stowe.

talist, at the recommendation of the Berlin Royal Academy, as the custom is in this literary and scientific order of knighthood.

It is stated that the Atharva Veda, one of the sacred books of the Hindoos, exists only in manuscript, and that the edition in preparation by Professor Roth, of the University of Tubingen, and Mr. Whitney, of Northampton, Mass., will be its first appearance in print. The large collections of Indian manuscripts in the great libraries of Berlin and the British Museum are to be examined, and the various copies of the Atharva to be collected before the work goes to press.

The Burman Dictionary, the last great task of Dr. Judson, is now in the hands of the Rev. E. A. Stevens, who hopes to complete it shortly. Three hundred quarto pages are already printed, and the work is steadily progressing.

John Hamilton Reynolds, the brother-in-law of Hood, and a contributor to the London Maga

zine, Edinburgh Review, and the Westminster, died recently on the Isle of Wight.

One of the latest seizures under the Prussian press law is a translation of Thomas Puine's Rights of Man," found on the premises of a Berlin bookseller.

The son of Niebuhr, the historian, has published in Berlin a constitution for the Nether

lands, drawn up by his father in 1844, at the request of King William I.

We learn from the Tribune that there are at present twelve Americans pursuing their studies at the University of Göttingen," eight of whom are engaged in chemistry. "One-third of the students in the laboratory are Americans."

Ranke, the historian of the Popes, is prepar

An Encyclopædia of Protestant Theology and Church History," announced five years since, is now being issued in Germany. Dr. Herzog, Professor of Theology at Halle, is the editor, assisted by a numerous and able corps of coadjutors, among whom Gieseler, Hagenbach, Lucke, Nitzsch, Tholuck, Twesten, Ullman, Umbrest, &c., are named. It is to contain, in articles alphabetically arranged, the results of scientific investigation in all parts of theology, and will be issued in numbers, ten of which will make a volume. Five or six years will probably be occupied in completing the work.

M. Michaud is engaged in publishing a new edition of his uncle's celebrated Biographie Universelle, which will contain the first series and supplement of that valuable work, with additions and corrections. It will be published in fifty-two volumes, octavo; the tenth volume (Diab-Dhya) is published.

A vacancy having occurred in the Prussian "Order of Merit" by the death of the poet Moore, the cross has been given by Frederick William to Colonel Rawlinson, the eminent orien

France.

Mr. Bogue, of London, has published a reprint of Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language, as revised and enlarged by Chauncey A. Goodrich, Professor in Yale College,-including the "Introductory Dissertation on the Origin, History, and Connection of the Languages of Western Asia and Europe," and the "Preliminary Explanation of the Principles on which Languages are formed."

The series of letters written by Burns to George Thomson were recently purchased at the sale of Mr. C. B. Tait's library, in Edinburgh, for two hundred and sixty guineas.

A proposition was recently made in London to raise a monument to Caxton-the first of English printers, and one of the greatest illustrations of Westminster-in the form of a free library for all classes in that ancient city.

It is stated in the Athenaeum that a Russian literary man, of much taste and accomplishment, has completed a translation into Russian of "The House of the Seven Gables," and pub lished the same in a Muscovite journal.

The American Baptist Publication Society has prepared an edition of "The Works of John Bunyan, Practical and Allegorical," in eleven volumes.

The Bostonians have chosen to place themselves somewhat in contrast with New-York in their treatment of Thackeray. The Boston

Courier thus notices his last lecture in that city:

"Mr. Thackeray delivered the last of his series of lectures at the Melodeon last evening, to a very full company, who sat through the entertainment with exemplary martyrdom. If we should say that in our humble opinion the lecturer was a humbug-a mere retailer of old anecdotes and of fragments relating to the history of the life and times of the men upon whom he has advertised to speak-without original ity, and without any kind of sense of judgment or impartiality-we might provoke the anger of the admirers of Vanity Fair and Pendennis. Nevertheless it is so. People who have had the opportunity of hearing Hilliard, Giles, and others like them-ripe scholars, overflowing with pathos and passion--when speaking of such subjects as have been presented by the English lecturer, could not help being astonished at the meagerness and poverty of language which he displayed, in comparison with their brilliant and atriking illustrations. Anybody, with a file of old newspapers or magazines at his hand, must be a poor speaker indeed if he could not have enlightened his audience as fully and as profitably as Mr. Thackeray delighted the audience which sat before him last night."

We learn that Benjamin Pierce, LL. D., Professor of Astronomy and Mathematics in Harvard College, has been chosen a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. It is stated that Dr. Franklin and Dr. Bowditch are the only citizens of the United States who have before received the distinction of membership of this ancient society.

George R. Gliddon, the archeologist, in conjunction with Professor Nott, is engaged in New-Orleans in an ethnographical work of profound interest, to be entitled Types of Munkind, or ethnological researches, based upon ancient monuments, paintings, sculptures, and crania of races, and upon their natural, geographical, philological, and biblical history.

Miss Pennell, a niece of the Hon. Horace Mann, of Massachusetts, has been elected to the professorship of the Latin Language and Literature in Antioch College, Ohio.

Rev. F. W. Shelton, author of Salander and the Dragon, has in press a new work, called "The Rector of Saint Bardolph."

The writings of A. J. Downing, the former editor of the Horticulturist, are to be collected and published, under the editorial supervision of G. W. Curtis. Mr. Downing lost his life on the occasion of the burning of the Henry Clay on the Hudson river.

The largest library in the United States is that of Harvard University, numbering in all about ninety-two thousand volumes. Next to it ranks the Philadelphia Library, founded by Benjamin Franklin, and numbering sixty thousand volumes.

The Boston Post regards Longfellow's "Warden of the Cinque Ports" by far the best poem on the death of Wellington that has yet been written.

An association of Chickasaw Indians publish a weekly newspaper at Post Oak Grove, Chickasaw Nation. It is devoted to science, literature, agriculture, education, and the advance

ment of the arts and manufactures among the Chickasaws and other civilized tribes of the red race, as well as the news of the day.

At the annual meeting of the Mercantile Library Association, held at Clinton Hall in this city, the Treasurer's Report showed the amount of receipts for the past year to be $10,127 25, of which $1,592 67 remains in the treasury. The increase of receipts over the previous year was $1,545 46. Mr. George Peckham, President of the Association, stated the expenditure for books at $664 73 over last year. There have been added to the library during the past year four thousand three hundred and forty-six volumes, of which number four thousand one hundred and thirty-six were purchased, and one hundred and ninety were donated, which addition is unprecedented by any previous year. It exceeds the previous year by one thousand three hundred and eighty-nine volumes. The number of volumes in the library January 1st, 1853, was thirty-seven thousand four hundred and eighty-six, including works of theological, scientific, political, historical, geographical, mathematical, and technological character, beside some works on fiction. The library ranks as the fifth in this country, being exceeded only by those at Harvard College, Boston Athenæum, Philadelphia Library Company, and the Astor Library. Among the libraries of this city, this library is exceeded only by the Astor Library. Mr. J. Terry Bates announced that the Astor-Place Opera House had been purchased for the Mercantile Library Association.

At a recent meeting of the National Historical Society of this city, the special committee, to whom was referred the subject of a proposition at a former meeting for a general historical and analytical index of American newspapers, reported that the importance of the proposed Index is admitted by thinking men of all classes; and merchants, bankers, lawyers, physicians, clergymen, scholars, and those engaged in the busy pursuits of industry and commerce, to whom the subject has been mentioned, have promised their countenance and support to the undertaking. It was recommended by this committee that an Index Association be formed of those persons who will subscribe $50 each, amounting in all to two hundred shares, and the books issued, in a similar shape to "Holmes' American Annals," to the number of one thousand copies, in two volumes, octavo, to belong to the subscribers; leaving the Society free from pecuniary responsibility.

It is proposed to establish a female college at Huntsville, to be under the care of the Texas Conference of the Methodist Church, South. $4,000 have already been subscribed to erect the building.

The New-York Recorder states "that a benevolent gentleman of Newark, N. J., has determined to make a liberal donation to the University of Rochester, for the purpose of founding a department of " American History." The donor has begun the work by purchasing and sending on to Rochester fifty-five volumes of collections of the various State Historical Societies.