guessed at, and by the perfection of their style, are equally full and incapable of misconstruction. Having acquitted himself in the first forty-five pages of the topic "quantity," he leads us at once into "metre". and under this head we find, first, a very lucid exposi tion of "Feet," particularly of those which are " isochronous or interchangeable in metre❞—and then a set of rules for the scansion of every species of verse in use among the Grecian poets; than which rules we can conceive nothing more perfect-they embody all the lore of all the wisest commentators, and are yet more remarkable for that peculiarly lucid order which belongs, as we have before observed, to all the school books of this very able scholar. These rules are followed by the choral scanning of the Prometheus, every line of every choral system, whether uttered by the chorus or the dramatis personæ, being divided into its appropriate feet, and marked with the syllabic quantities, with an accompanying key giving the name of every verse. The text adopted is, so far as we have examined, that of the admirable edition of Eschylus, by Scholefield, the reigus professor of divinity in the University of Cambridge. Then follow the choral scannings, after the same method, of the Ajax Flagellifer and the Edipus Tyrannus of Sophocles; and with these the work-as it concerns Greek Prosody alone-may be deemed terminated; although we have a long and most learned disquisition (and not less interesting than it is long and learned) on language in general-with the roots, analogies, and affiliations of tongues and dialects. We have but a word to add, in conclusion, and that is, what we conceive the highest praise attributable to a work of this nature-Anthon's Greek Prosody contains all that has been said, and we believe all that can be said, rightly, on a most important branch of literary science- all that it says, is better said than it has ever been before-and, last, but not least, the book requires no oral explanation of the teacherlet a pupil but read it diligently and attentively, and the mystery is such no longer.

7. An Inquiry into the Moral and Religious Character of the American Government. New York: Wiley & Putnam. 8vo. pp. 208.

"A COMMONWEALTH ought to be but as one huge christian personage, one mighty growth and stature of an honest man, as big and compact in virtue as in body." Such was Milton's notion of what a state should be. It is our author's motto and doctrine. The aim of the work is to enforce it. Under a sound interpretation we concur with him.

The "common weal" is but a term of

comprehension; it is made up by the union of all individual weals ; so that, if they be sound it is sound, and nothing can be good or bad for the state which is not good or bad for individuals. This is a self-evident proposition. Political economy has settled at least this truth-there is no such thing as a national interest apart from the interests of the majority of that nation- their weal, their wotheir profit, their loss-determines that of the nation. Now, if this be so, the question before us would seem to be settled. All that would be needful to the proof that the state should be christian, being to show, that individuals should be christian; and thus, we arrive at the same conclusion with the poet, and our author-"a commonwealth should be but as one huge christian personage". but this requires, as already said, a wise interpretation. In the mouth of a fifth-monarchy man, this proposition meant the personal reign of the saints; to them belonged all power, and all right, and consequently, all property; just as in the individual man all government belongs, of right, to reason and conscience. The troubles consequent on the rule so interpreted, were soon evident; inasmuch as, there being no other criterion for ascertaining who these governing saints were, besides each man's claim to it, it naturally followed, that the grace of humility would form no part of the ruling saints' character; with them, therefore, when they got power, the state was found to be in such bad hands, as to have cast suspicion ever since on all such claims. But there is a wiser interpretation of our motto, and to this our nameless author devotes himself, with what becomes such a cause-a willing mind and an eloquent pen:

"The writer of the following essay has aimed to do what he thought the times imperiously called for.

"It has seemed to him that for some years past there has been a dangerous and growing misapprehension in the public mind, as to the true constitutional relation of our political interests to those of a religious nature. He has seen with anxiety that even wise and good men, some of them his personal friends, have gradually given way to the opinion, which men of another stamp have made it their business to inculcate, that these two classes of interests ought to be kept so wide apart from each other in the conduct of our public affairs, as to have no reciprocal influence between them. He had thought that christianity was admirable everywhere and in all circumstances. How is it possible that political life should form an exception." Adv. p. iii.

The paternity in our country of this irreligious dogma, and which we would fain hope is not so rife as our author's argument implies, is fixed by him, and justly, on Mr. Jefferson :

"President Jefferson was the first American teacher of this sort of doctrine. When applied to, in 1807, to recommend to his fellow citizens a day of national humiliation and prayer, he excused himself, by alleging, that he had not the power to do it; and he affected to maintain his dogma, then a most novel and surprising one, by argument. 'I consider the government of the United States,' said he,' as interdicted by the constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises.' This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting an establishment of religion, but from that also, which reserves to the states the powers not delegated to the United States. Cer

tainly,' he continued, 'no power to prescribe any religious exercise, or to assume authority in religious discipline, has been delegated to the general government.' Whence, he concludes, ' it must then rest with the states.'

p. 10.

This argument of Mr. Jefferson would seem to deny a religious character to the federal government alone; that charter, under which he acted, was a delegated and limited power, expressly withholding what was not expressly given. This threw, apparently, the duty on the states, as part of their reserved rights. The argument appeared, therefore, to be an honest one, and to have been, with him, a question merely of constitutional interpretation. But such it unquestionably was not. The states on whom this responsibility was thrown, were themselves limited by their constitutions. Theirs, too, was a delegated power, and the power to "appoint" or "recommend" a fast, not being expressly given, was necessarily reserved; or, in other words, existed nowhere, and belonged, of course, to the people. That such was Mr. Jefferson's opinion, we know well, from his writings; that it was of the essence of his argument, is also clear, from such being the conclusious that by degrees have been deduced from it. The recent discussions in the state legislatures of New York and some others, on the subject of a chaplain, and the use of the Bible as a school book, have brought out this argument in all its length and breadth. It is this-our government is atheist; it knows no God, acknowledges no revelation, and, as it can do nothing, so, too, it cares nothing about religion. This is the unholy argument against which this work is directed. We will not flatter the author with the judgment that it could not have been better done. We think it might—but still we think it well done. He has, we think, left some material points untouched; but he has shown that the government of the United States is, historically and practically, christian; as to the manner of his work, his zeal is honest, but oftentimes more honest than wise; his tone is too much that of the advocate, and we miss the persuasiveness of the unprejudiced reasoner; his style, eloquent as it is, savors more of the declamatory speaker than of what he professes to be, the didactic writer. In language, he should remember, as in objects of sight, perpetual glitter soon wearies-we long for repose. The eye rests contentedly only on the soft and unambitious colors of nature. To these drawbacks we must add one other-it is a dash of the old leaven of puritanism, seeing nothing, to use his own words, but "bribes" in a national church establishment "hypocrisy and falsehood" its "first fruits," and "persecution" its "last villany." Of a church establishment we are not called upon to be the apologists, but then we think it might have occurred to our author, that his very argument savored of their defence.

We would fain believe that in some respects our author indulges in too gloomy a view. Whatever may be the native infidelity

among us- -and that we believe to be a diminishing proportionthe malignity against religion comes from a foreign soil; it is not bred among us, and what is more important, we believe it loses its nourishment among us. It comes to us a concentrated venom, a pent up explosive gas; it evaporates in its explosion, and the bitter infidel, the hater of all that looks like religion, because he has seen it associated in his native land with oppression, or what he deems to be such, after a while loses his heat, cools down to the temperature of the mass around him, and eventually, we will hope in most instances, as we know in many, learns a better wisdom from a better Book. That our government and country are not to be made answerable for the occasional miscreant it may receive into its bosom, is an obvious dictate of justice, and in their name we protest against our author's easy admission of the charge against us. Not only have his fears, we think, magnified the evil, but his political attachments (as we presume from his most inconsistent eulogium upon Jefferson) have made him squeamish about drawing distinctions between "native" and "naturalized." But this we fear not to do, and beginning with Jefferson-French in his morals, his philosophy, and his religion-down to the last importation of radicalism and infidelity from England, in the followers of Owen and Fanny Wright, we fear not to lay to the account of foreign teaching the doctrine now cast in our teeth as the growth of American republicanism. Doubtless it has taken root in our soil, and is bringing forth its fruits, for it meets here as elsewhere with its native food; and doubtless too, unless met and checked, it may presumptuously seek to violate that christian temple of republican freedom which our christian fathers erected, and which so freely opens its doors to receive the exile and the stranger.

To maintain religion in honor-and by religion we mean christianity-is, beyond doubt, among the primary obligations of those who are called upon to administer a government that is founded upon it. How to do this without offence, it may be, is not easy; but many things are not easy in government which yet are necessary, and this is one. The state has cast off the church, but it cannot cast off religion; that is its vitality, and without it, it would soon sink into ruin. Whatever be the occasional forgetfulness of our legislatures or executives of this truth, our courts of justice, we are proud to say, have seldom or never lost sight of it. Nor could they; such dereliction would leave them no ground to stand upon, since, to cut out christianity from the common law of the land, or to administer it on principles which do not recognize it, would be an attempt as vain and fatal, as to extract the heart from a living animal, with the expectation of leaving it still perfect in all its other organs. We close this brief notice with the earnest appeal with which our author closes his eloquent volume:

Why do we still venerate the patriarchs of the revolution? Why is Washington a name we still are proud to repeat? Do we adhere to the views of our political founders? Do we hold the government in devout subjection to an overruling providence as they did? Do we even profess to esteem it now a christian government? Are there not efforts making to dislodge the very forms of piety from all connexion with it?

"And when these are gone, where will the substance be? Forms usually linger behind the principles they spring from. Pagan forms were to be seen among the institutions of the eastern empire long after christianity had ascended the throne of the Cæsars. Are we about to reverse the illustration? Has the substance of our religion taken flight already? and are we now engaged in obliterating the traces of angel feet that are never more to return among us?

God preserve us, we must go back; we must reform our political administrations in the all-important point of their moral principles. Our christian population must do this: it is a work for them, and every other work of theirs will be hindered till this is done. We must retrace our steps; retrieve our errors; regain the position we have lost. Reform is wanted in another sense than what party-schemers think of. Let us have a reformation of the elements of public life; let us dig up the buried standard of the fathers, and fashion ourselves anew by it; let us return to the primary spirit of the government, ere the doom of the nations that forget God become our own." pp. 207, 208.

8. A Trip to Boston. In a series of Letters to the Editor of the United States Gazette. By the Author of Two Years and a Half in the Navy. Boston: C. C. Little and James Brown. 1838. 12mo. pp. 224.

FEW pleasanter trips can be made in this, or indeed in any country, than a trip to Boston. There are few places, where friendly introductions secure a more cordial reception on first visits, and few in which the return of an old acquaintance is greeted with a more welcoming smile, or more generous hospitality. In spite of its "labyrinthine streets," its antiquated buildings, its ungenial climate, and all its odd notions, strangers love to linger there. Who ever heard of a person's visiting it, without either remaining beyond his prescribed limits, or resolving to return as soon as possible, or rather without coming under both categories, as did the author of the very entertaining volume before us, who extends his ten days to thirty, and leaves it at last with a lingering look cast behind him, bearing away the most delightful of souvenirs, the hope of another visit. If this gentleman had now gone abroad for the first time, and before known nothing of the world but from books, it might be necessary to make some allowance for the warmth of his admiration; but he proves to us, that much in all the four quarters of the globe had already been seen by him, and therefore justifies a fuller confidence in the correctness of his opinions. His visit not being made in the season of social intercourse in