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in their character. These, however, do not form an exception, we fear, to the remark first made. We have seldom read a relig ious annual and not laid it down with the feeling that it wanted heartiness, a genuine, earnest purpose, that it was "got up" more for its mechanical than for its intellectual beauty, to please the eye and gratify the taste, rather than instruct the mind or touch the conscience and the heart. The writers seem to feel that it is not their thought that is to give the principal interest and value to the volume; and this imparts something of a constrained, cold, formal air to their articles. To this cause is it owing, probably, that the selected pieces, written for some other purpose, are commonly better, more full of life and vigor, than the original communications. Then, again, the articles, in order to have a sufficient variety, must necessarily be short, affording little room for learning to unfold its treasures, or imagination to display its power, or genius to soar into the highest realms of thought and feeling. There are, therefore, intrinsic difficulties in the way of making a really good religious annual, a book that shall be as valuable for its literary merit as for its exhibition of the skill of the engraver and the printer. In the volumes before us these difficulties have not all been overcome, though they are an improvement upon most works of the kind that have been published in this country.

"The Rosary of Illustrations" has six mezzotinto engravings, which do not seem to be of the highest order of merit, if we except two,-"Hagar sent out," and "The Women at the Tomb.” The letter-press of this volume is principally composed of selections, which are made with the taste and judgment that it might be supposed Mr. Hale would bring to the task. These selections are arranged so that the passage from author to author may not always seem sudden and vexatious"; and both in making the selections and in their arrangement, it seems to have been the further object of the editor to meet, provide for, and illustrate "the three different stages that mark every man's true religious experience." This gives something of plan and purpose to the volume, although the connection and relation of the parts to the whole are not often very distinct and perceptible. Much of the poetry in the "Rosary "is very beautiful, and one or two of the sonnets of Mr. Jones Very are gems of their kind.

The "Beauties of Sacred Literature" has eight mezzotinto engravings, all of which represent some scene or event in Scripture, except one, entitled "The Friend in Adversity." This engraving has some merit, but, as a matter of taste, and to preserve the harmony of the plates with the title and purpose of the volume, we think that it should have been excluded, and the same truththe power of religion to console the afflicted, and bring peace to the penitent-have been represented by some Scripture scene.

The articles in the volume seem to be principally original contributions, written expressly for it by persons in different parts of the country, and of different religious denominations, and some of them are deeply interesting and instructive.

"The Women of the Bible" has eighteen line engravings, most of which are beautiful. Some of the "Sketches are prepared with care and thoroughness, some seem to us meagre and deficient, and to others we should seriously object on the score of the criticism and theology directly or indirectly inculcated in them. There are some instances of bad taste, of low, vulgar comparison; for example, the opening sentence in the sketch of Deborah: "Doubtless, if Deborah had lived in our day and been an American, the people would have elected her for President of the United States. There is such a madness in the world for military glory, that nothing but her piety and poetry, with her hatred of slavery, would have prevented her political success.' We are surprised to find this sentence, as well as some others, sanctioned by Dr. Wainwright. Some of the women, also, brought forward in this volume, might better, we think, have been passed over, as unworthy of a place in it. The "conception and plan of the work are good, and its mechanical execution surpasses any book of the kind that has been published in this country. Yet we are compelled to confess to some feeling of disappointment in examining it. It did not fulfil our expectations. A much better book on "the Women of the Bible " might be prepared.

L-P.

Messrs. Little & Brown, of this city, have published the twentieth volume of the American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge, for the year 1849. The care which has been bestowed on this work in former years has given it an authority, both at home and abroad, which will be sustained by the amount of various and accurate information embodied in the present volume. The astronomical, meteorological, statistical, historical, and biographical departments all show diligence and ability on the part of the editors. We may notice a single error that has fallen under our eye. In the table of "Religious Denominations" are assigned to the "Unitarian Congregationalists" 300 churches, 250 ministers, and 30,000 communicants. If by "communicants" be meant worshippers, the number is much too small; if, according to the usual import of the word, it mean attendants on the Lord's Supper, it is, we grieve to say, too large.

The Unitarian Congregational Register, for the year 1849, issued by Crosby & Nichols, (12mo. pp. 72,) we have examined

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with pleasure. The statistical portions appear to have been prepared with care, and the extracts which compose the "Miscel laneous Department" indicate good judgment and taste in the compiler.

Among the recent publications in medical literature, indicating the rapid and extensive introduction of agencies for the alleviation of human suffering, we notice A Treatise on Etherization in Childbirth, illustrated by five hundred and eighty-one Cases, by WALTER CHANNING, M. D., (8vo. pp. 400,) issued by W. D. Ticknor & Co., Boston, a work mostly professional, but containing facts and reasonings of great interest to the cause of science and humanity.

A Fable for Critics; or a Glance at a Few of our Literary Progenies, is a part of the title of a thin 12mo. volume, from the press of G. P. Putnam of New York, but, as it seems to be well understood, from the pen of a gentleman whose poetic effusions have usually been dated from Cambridge; -in which, somewhat after the slip-shod style of Byron's "Don Juan," the author describes several of the living writers of our own country, generally in terms of commendation and good-humor, and with a liveliness and frequent felicity of expression that will doubtless secure for it a wide perusal. Of another work understood to come from the same hand, The Biglow Papers, published by George Nichols of Cambridge, (16mo. pp. 163,) though it contains no small amount of humor, and many happy "hits" at men and things, we are compelled to say that it fails through a twofold excess. The exhibition of Yankee phraseology becomes a caricature, and the affectation of vulgar shrewdness, which might amuse in an occasional jeu d'esprit, grows wearisome and offensive when pursued through a whole volume.

We have been pleased with a small volume, issued by W. H. Wardwell of Andover, bearing the title of A Manual of Morals for Common Schools, also adapted to the Use of Sabbath Schools and Families, (12mo. pp. 175,)- a timely and useful publication, marked by great purity and freshness, and a more easy and attractive style than books of the kind have usually exhibited, as well as by the introduction of a greater variety of topics, showing the author's appreciation of a refined and liberal culture.

An octavo volume of four hundred and eighty-five pages, entitled, Important Doctrines of the True Christian Religion, etc., as understood by the disciples of Swedenborg, has just been published by Messrs. J. Allen of New York, and O. Clapp of Boston, being a Series of Lectures, by Rev. S. NOBLE, with an Introduction by Professor BUSH. The position which Mr. Noble has long held in England, as "a distinguished advocate and expounder " of the doctrines of the "New Church," will doubtless give this

work currency among the members of that Church in this country, and secure for it the attention of those who may wish to be. come acquainted with their peculiar tenets.

We are indebted to Messrs. Appleton & Co, of New York, for a thick 8vo. volume (of 552 pages), the typographical execution of which is highly creditable to their press, -The Sacred Poets of England and America, for Three Centuries; edited by RUFUS W. GRISWOLD; illustrated with Steel Engravings. The editor acknowledges that he has done little more than "rearrange and combine materials" furnished in recent English volumes of a similar kind; but he has incorporated several valuable additions, and has given a choice collection of the sacred poetry of our language from Gascoigne and Spenser to our own day, made, as far as we can perceive, without any undue influence of religious opinion or peculiar literary taste. The brief biographical sketches prefixed to the selections from the different authors, though they contain little more than a notice of the outward life, will be found useful.

C. S. Francis & Co., of New York, have issued a neat volume, in 16mo., of Poems by William Wordsworth; with an Introductory Essay on his Life and Writings, by H. T. TUCKERMAN; by whom also "the selection of the contents of the volume," containing "about one-fifth of all Wordsworth's poems," appears to have been made. Its editor has studied "variety in his choice of pieces," and to those who are contented with a part instead of the whole this will be an acceptable book. The same publishers have also issued a volume of similar size and appearance, containing The Poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge; with an Introductory Essay, by H. T. TUCKERMAN. We shall be glad, if it bring Coleridge's poetry within the knowledge of some who regard him only as an unintelligible metaphysician.

The Rose of Sharon: a Religious Souvenir for 1849, edited by MRS. S. C. EDGARTON MAYO, and published by A. Tompkins of Boston, is worthy of high commendation, when compared with other similar publications. It contains thirty-one articles, some of them of remarkable excellence, most of them meritorious, and all of them, in a moral and religious point of view, unexceptionable. We deeply regret the loss which the public, as well as a wide circle of friends, has suffered in the death of Mrs. Mayo, who has edited the Rose from its commencement. She possessed uncommon talents, united with uncommon virtues.

Professors M'Clintock and Crooks, of Dickinson College, have issued, through the press of Harper & Brothers, New York, an admirable First Book in Greek (12mo. pp. 315) for those who approve of the general system of Ollendorff. They have, however, while careful of Greek accent, forgotten to say any thing of the accent to be used by an English reader.

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Our juvenile readers will be pleased with the issue of a fresh edition of Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales from Shakspere, (12mo. pp. 347,) by Messrs. Francis & Co. of New York, - a delightfully executed work, intended to serve as an introduction to the original, which can be read with profit only in riper years. The Childhood of Mary Leeson, by MARY HOWITT, republished in Boston by Crosby & Nichols, abounds in hints to parents and teachers that are both valuable and timely, though the narrative in which they are scattered seems to us somewhat tedious, in consequence of the excessive minuteness with which all sorts of trifling scenes and events are described.

The Sixth Report of the Middlesex Sunday School Society, made at the seventh annual meeting, held at Weston, October 11, 1848, and prepared by Rev. T. H. Dorr, Secretary of the Society, consists mainly of extracts from replies to a circular sent to the different schools. The extracts are valuable for the remarks they contain upon points connected with Sunday school instruction, and discover a laudable interest on the part of the teachers in Middlesex county.

Among the books which we have received too late to notice in the present number of the Examiner are the " Mirror of Nature, a Book of Instruction and Entertainment, translated from the German of E. H. Schubert, by William H. Furness," and "Se lections from the Writings of James Kennard, jr." (of Portsmouth, N. H.), with a "Memoir by A. P. Peabody." A volume of Sermons of the late Dr. Brazer is now in the press.

A Discourse delivered before the First Congregational Society, Sunday, October 8, 1848. By JAMES H. PERKINS. Cincin

nati. 1848. 8vo. pp. 16. The Christian Church and Social Reform. A Discourse deliv ered before the Religious Union of Associationists. WILLIAM HENRY CHANNING. Boston: Crosby & Nichols. 1848. 8vo. pp. 32.

By

Christianity in History. A Discourse addressed to the Alumni of Yale College, in their Annual Meeting, August 16, 1848. By LEONARD BACON, of the Class of 1820. New Haven. 1848. 8vo. pp. 31.

An Address delivered before the Art- Union of Philadelphia, in the Academy of the Fine Arts, on Thursday Evening, October 12th, 1848. By WILLIAM H. FURNESS. Philadelphia. 1848. 8vo. pp. 32.

THE purpose of Mr. Perkins's Discourse is to persuade the congregation which he addressed to "abandon the ground upon which VOL. XLVI.-4TH S. VOL. XI. NO. I.

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