Sayings of Sages; or, Selections from Distinguished Preachers, Poets, Philosophers, and other Authors, Ancient and Modern. Compiled by E. C. REVONS. With an Introduction by EDWARD THOMSON, D.D. 8vo., pp. 294. New York: Carlton & Porter. 1863.

This is an accumulation of choice extracts made by a literary gentleman in the process of a tolerably extensive course of reading. The selections are excellent in their kind. They are drawn mostly from standard authors, express sentiments of high, moral, religious, and intellectual value, and are general models of graceful and forcible expression. The thinker, writer, and preacher will here find frequent suggestions and starting-points of thought. A copious index supplies a ready reference to the topics. Altogether it is a very choice little casket of gems of wisdom.

The selection of authors of course indicates simply the route of the collector's reading. They are mostly writers or preachers of England. We note of American writers Webster, H. W. Beecher, and Emmons; no Methodist author but Wesley.

Belles-Lettres and Classical.

A Compendious History of English Literature, and of the English Language from the Norman Conquest. With numerous specimens. By GEO. L. CRAIK, LL.D., Professor of History and of English Literature in Queen's College, Belfast. In two volumes. 8vo., pp. 620, 581. New York: 1863.

This extensive work professes to combine the history of literature with the history of the language. Its analysis of the structure of the different forms of the language assumed in successive periods, or, we might almost say, the successive languages of successive ages, is not very elaborate. In this respect it is far less minute than the similar work of George P. Marsh. Dealing rather with the literatures than the internal structures, it is a more decidedly readable book. Its pages cost little labor or hard study for the reader. The work is thereby attractive throughout, It is a work for scholars, but not for scholars only; the general reader will find his home in its pages.

The old Saxon, though it be the trunk of our modern English, is a dead trunk. It is, so far as intelligibility is concerned, another language. Not only would our Saxon forefathers speak a foreign language to us their sons; but if we attempt to be scholars and read their remains, as much elaborate scholarship is required as would suffice to learn German. But German is still living and its spirit is alive, and into its spirit we can enter; but Saxon is dead and its literature is lifeless, and there is no transfusing our own life into it.

The Norman Conquest inaugurated a new period. A series of thinkers and writers, mostly in Latin, but later in that beautiful blending of Romanic and Celtic called the Romance language, gives a luster to this age. During this period the undercurrent of Saxon dialect furnishes but few recorded remains. These few are called semi-Saxon, and consist indeed of the old Saxon words, pure from any foreign admixture, but deprived of their inflections, and reduced, as philologists say, from a synthetic to an analytic structure. This purity of the dialect, while a foreign language was really overlying, arose from the fact that the Saxon population had little use for Norman terms to express their round of thought.

But a third period inaugurated our present composite English. As the distinct national spirit rose, and hatred for France became one of its prominent traits, even the court, the chivalry, and the aristocracy began to use the homeborn dialect. But being themselves French in origin and in their previous vernacular, their English was largely Frenchified. Then rose the beautiful structure of our living English, combining in its different phases, or rather grades, Latin dignity, French gracefulness, and Saxon solidity. Our language has indeed a rare power for genius to wield, and a rich history for learning to explore. Its wealth, its temper, its genius and its history are a noble study for the inquisitive mind.

Mr. Craik's history comes down to the Victorian age inclusive. He evidently is animated by no anti-American spirit. But he knows no American author. He silently concedes our literary American Independence. All English literature is indeed ours. What is England's is ours, and what is ours is our own. Of the genius of Edwards, of Franklin, of Hamilton, of Irving, of Bryant, of Bancroft, of Webster, of Clay, of Seward, of Motley, of Mrs. Stowe, of Holmes, and of Halleck, English literature knows nothing.

Jottings from Life; or, Passages from the Diary of an Itinerant's Wife. By HELEN R. CUTLER. 12mo., pp. 282. Cincinnati: Poe & Hitchcock. 1864.

Extracts from the Diary of a Country Pastor. By Mrs. H. C. GARDNER. 12mo., pp. 240. Cincinnati: Poe & Hitchcock. 1864.

The inside of itinerant life is here presented with much truth and vivacity by two graceful feminine pens. We decline to assign the palm of superiority to either, but recommend them both to general perusal.

Chronicles of the Schönberg-Cotta Family. By Two of Themselves. 12mo. pp. 552. New York: M. W. Dodd. 1864.

An effort by a master-hand to take the reader and place him amid the life of the period of the Reformation. It takes history for its outline; it can be done only by a perfect mastery of every trace of existing history and literature of the time; but when rightly done it is very likely to be in some respects truer to our mind than formal history itself. The reader or thinker who desires to live in the past at one of its most epochal moments will find nothing better than this volume.

Pamphlets.

Miscegenation: the Theory of the Blending of the Races applied to the American White Man and Negro. 12mo., pp. 72. New York: H. Dexter, Hamilton & Co. 1864.

This pamphlet is a piece of ingenious knavery quite worthy the followers of Fernando Wood and Sunset Cox. It produces physiological proofs of the ennobling results of commingling races; professes to advocate amalgamation; advises inserting the amalgamation plank in the Republican platform for the next Presidential election, and closes with an appendix of extracts from leading antislavery men advocating partially similar views.

ment.

In the earlier part of the antislavery controversy great attempts were made to clamor the freedomists down with the cry of amalgamation! It served but a brief purpose. The abolitionist had only to point at the sweltering mulattoism of the South and say, "There is the amalgamation process in full tide of successful experiSlavery is amalgamation, emancipation its preventive." Without a fresh importation of negroes the black spot of the South would soon diffuse into a wide-spread and finally universal tawney. "The best blood of the South flows in the veins of the slaves," some one has said. Not many centuries would pass before the complete absorption of the inferior race. But the destruction of slavery will retard the result. Each color will prefer itself. The increased self-respect of the colored woman will no longer feel concubinage an honor. The most perfect legal and pecuniary equality would doubtless result in the most spontaneous sexual separation. The abolitionist is therefore practically the strongest anti-amalga

mationist.

Another difference there is between the pro-slaveryist and the abolitionist. The amalgamation practically advocated by the former is promiscuous and illicit, not marital. He raises a mob

and tears down the house if the two colors marry, but is ready to take his share, perhaps, in a licentious intercourse. The latter insists that if there be connection it shall be not lawless but lawful. It is, then, a question not so much of amalgamation as of adultery. The former advocates licentiousness, the latter purity.

We think the entire talk about amalgamation is on the one side ad captandum, on the other side unnecessary. It is the duty of every true republican to maintain the enfranchisement, civil and political, of every man irrespective of color. There should be equality before the law and before the ballot-box. As to social life or marital relations, that matter can take care of itself. It needs no discussion. Lines of social distinction do, at the present day, cut remorselessly through all associations, Churches, political parties, professions, city blocks. Christians meet at the communion altar that never meet in society. Wealth, more than any thing else, creates social distinction. All this abundantly demonstrates that political and legal equality is perfectly consistent with social separation. But let the tawnier race become millionaire and we will by no means promise that aristocracy and fashion will not throw open their boudoirs, and even perhaps their matrimonial alliances, to the elegant mulatto. It is a matter that need not disturb our sensibilities. We shall never lose a night's sleep through fear that our great grandchild will marry a negro. We can find nearer and more practical troubles if we need them.

Lay Representation in the General Government of the Church proven to be
Unscriptural, Unreasonable, and Contrary to Sound Policy. By Rev.
WILLIAM BARNES, of the Philadelphia Annual Conference.
pp. 32. Philadelphia: C. Sherman & Co.

8vo..

This pamphlet takes the high conservative ground of Dr. Bond and Dr. Bangs, that laymen are scripturally excluded from the General Conference. The author has no capacity for reasoning, but his pages are pervaded with a rich vein of harmless dogmatism as a substitute.

Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Meeting of the National Association of Local Preachers of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, held in the Union M. E. Church, Philadelphia, Pa., Saturday, October 10–12, 1863. Together with an Appendix containing the Annual Sermon and the Constitution of the Association. 8vo., pp. 40. Pittsburgh: 1863. This Association, notwithstanding some unfortunate passages in its earlier history, will, we trust, under a wiser guidance, become a valuable organization both for the ministry it embodies and for the general Church. The history of our own city Methodism

would show many a record of the efficiency of the local ministry, and we have reason to believe that its mission here and elsewhere is far from being closed.

A Review of Bishop Simpson's Address before the Convention of Methodist Laymen assembled in St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church, New York. By Rev. JAMES CUNNINGHAM, M.D., of the Philadelphia Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 8vo., pp. 23. Philadelphia: C. Sherman & Co. 1864. For sale by Carlton & Porter. One of the most vigorous productions called out during the discussion.

Universities in America. An Inaugural Address, delivered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, October, 1863. By Rev. E. O. HAVEN, D.D., LL.D., President of the University of Michigan. 8vo., pp. 31. Ann Arbor: G. G. Clark. 1863.

Dr. Haven's able discourse inaugurates, we trust, a prosperous career for the magnificent institution over which he is called to preside.

The Bible Against Slavery. With Replies to Bishop Hopkins, President Lord, and others. By STEPHEN M. VAIL, D.D., Professor of Biblical Literature in the Biblical Institute, Concord, N. H. 8vo., pp. 64.

The Bible Against Slavery: a Vindication of the Sacred Scriptures from the Charge of Authorizing Slavery. By Rev. J. B. DOBBINS, Pastor of the M. E. Church, Camden, N. J. 8vo., pp. 24. Philadelphia: 1864.

Publishers' Announcements.

Carlton & Porter have in press a work on Homiletics, by Rev. Dr. Kidder, which will be a very important manual for the young preacher.

Poe & Hitchcock announce the following valuable books as in press: "Man All Immortal," by D. W. Clark, D.D.; "Dr. Nast's Commentary in English;" "The Two Sabbaths," by Rev. E. Q. Fuller; "Colenso's Fallacies," by Rev. C. H. Fowler;" "Lectures and Addresses," by Rev. Dr. Dempster; "A New Body of Divinity," by Dr. T. N. Ralston; "Contributions to the Early History of the North-West, including the Moravian Missions in Ohio," by the late S. P. Hildreth.

Notices of Shedd's "History of Doctrines," from Scribner, and Wendell Phillips's "Speeches," from Walker, Wise & Co., are postponed from want of room to the next number.