ADV

such narrow confines,rI1ightYet,Sh3k€ the 11101111-
tain piled upon him to its base.

Our route now=,after leading still farther along
the heigl-it,cornn1anding at every step some new
view oftlie town, and the adjacent country, with
the three rivers seaming its bosom, struck at
last into a fine wood, and then descending sud-
denly into a romantic d’ell,’we followed a small
stream which soon led us back to the .Ohio.-——-
Herc again might be traced a display of,French
taste wlii.ch when the fabric was entire must
have been exceedingly beautiful. It was the
remains of a mill dam constructed by the officers
of Fort 'Du Quesne, according to the most ap-
proved rul.es of the time, like a perfect fortifica-
tion; a part of the curtain, with traces of some
of the bastions,yet reward the eye of the curious.
At the mouth of the glen we paused to look at
a salt factory, and then crossing a bridge over
the brook, we passed by a steel factory, and
several coke kilns, along the base of the clifi
from the summit of which I had so much ad-
mired the seene below an hour ago.

The embouchureof the Monongahela was at
hand, and stepping aboard of a small horse boat
at the point where it loses itself in the Ohio, I

soon terminated on the opposite sideone of the V

most delightful rides I can recollect ever to have
taken. ’ -
'].1HE SPIRIT or LIFE; a Poem, pronounced
before the Franklin Society of Brown Univer-
sity: by WILLLIS GAYLORD CLARK.
phia: Kiev 8L BIDDLE».---N11‘. Clark has written
some pretty poetry; and among the fugitive

"pieces bound up with the main poem in this

handsome little volume, ltheig gare, somg*-,, and
particularly the Prayer of Mary Queen of
Scots, superior in merit and inspiration to that
which gives its name to the book. The “spi-
rit of life,” universal as the writer insists it is,
and vivifying as is its influence, is not very
perceptible in the poem which aims to describe
its operations and powers. There is mani-
festly too much haste, and too little of the
’Ui‘vid(t cis in this attempt.

Lncruruas ON GENERAL LITERATURE, POETRY,
&c. By JAMES MONTGOhIERY. Author of ‘ The
VVorld Before the Flood:’ constituting ‘Vol.
LXIV of Hxnrizns’ FAMILY LIBRARY: New
York.—It is not more than a week or two ago
since we made. a beautiful extract from these
Lectures, in which the eloquent and enthusias-
tic poet asserted the superiority of his art over
the sister art of Sculpture; and proved it by
comparing the statue of “the Dying Gladia-
tor” with Byron’s admirable description of it
in. Childe'Harold. The favorable impression
made by that extract will, we think, he realized
by the whole book, which is full of burning
thoughts and fine and generous views of the
eunobling influence of poetry. These Lectures
were originally delivered at the Royal Institu-
tiction in London, and are now published en-
larged and carefully revised. To these are
added, “A Retrospect of Literature,” and a
“ View of Modern English Literature.” From
the Retrospect, we make an extract that strikes
us as quite original: A
_ The Pcrinanencé of Words.—-An cloquent,but ex.
travagant, writer has hazarded the assertion, that
“ words are the only things that last for ever.”*-—
Nor is this merely a -splendid saying. or a startling
paradox, that may be qualified by explanation into
commonplace; but with respect to man, and his
works on earth, it is literally true. Temples and
palaces, umphithcatres and catacombs-~monuments
of power, and magnificence, and skill, to perpetuate
the memory, an preserve even the ashes, of those
who lived in past ages-—must, in the revolutions of
mundane events, not only perish themselves by vio-

QGATE.  IN:TER

Philadel- A

......y

ed be so scattered as to leave no trace oftheir mate-
rial existence behind. There is no security beyond
the passing moment for the most permanent, or the

as ever, after having escaped the changes and chances
of thousands of years. An earthquake may suddenly
ingulf the pyramids of Egypt, and leave the sand of
the desert as blank as the tide would h.ve lef. it on
the seashore. A hammer in the hand of an idiot may
break to pieces the Apollo Belvidere, or the Venus
de'Medici, which are scarcely less worshipped as
miracles of art in our day than they were by idolsters
of oldas representatives of deities.

r Looking abroad over the whole world, after the
lapse of nearly six thousand years, what have’ we of
the past but the words in which its history is record.
ed? VVhat besides a few mouldzring and brittle
ruins, which time is imperceptibly touching down
into dust,—-what, besides these, remains of the glory,
the grandeur, the intelligence, the supremacy of the
Grecian republics, or the empire of Rome? No.
Ihingbut the words of poets, historians, philosophers,

and orators, who being dead yet speak, and in their
immortal works still maintain their dorninionover in-
ferior minds through all posterity. And these intel.

lectual sovereigns not only govern our spirits from the
tomb by the power of their thoughts, but their very
‘voices are heard by our livingearsiin the accents of
their mother tongues. The beauty, the eloquence,

and art of these collocations of sounds and syllables,

the learned alone can appreciate, and that only (in
‘some cases) after long, intense, and laborious inves.
"Ligation; but as thought can be made to transmigr-ate

from one body of words into another, even through

all the languages of the earth, without losing what
may be called its personal identity,-—the great minds
of antiquity continue to hold their ascendency over
the opinions, manners, characters, institutions, and
events of all ages and nations through which their
posthumous compositions have found way, and been
‘made the earliest subjects of study, the highest
standards of morals, and the most perfect examples
of taste, to the masteitminds in every state of civil-
ized society. In this respect,” the “ words” of in.
spiredprophets and apostles among the Jews, and

may truly be said to “last for ever.”

Words are the vehicles by which thought is made
visible to the eye, audible to the ear, and intelligible
to the mind of another; they are the palpable forms
of ideas, without which these would be intangible as
the spirit that conceives or the breath that would ut-
terthcm. And of such influenceis speech or writing,
as the conductor of thought, that, though all words
do not " last for ever,” and it is wellfor the peace of
the world, and the happiness of individuals, that they
do not,——-yet even her; every -word has its date and
its effect; so that with the tongue or the pen we are
continually doing good or evil to ourselves or our
neighbors. On a single phrase expressed in anger

N 1MPovisiMEN'rs.

lence, or decay, but the very dust in which they perish.‘

most precious of these; they are as much in jeopardy ,

those of gifted writers among the ancient gentiles, A

__.....__..._

 

 

__...._. _-

his countrymen-and contemporaries, he taught to all
ge“e“m°¥.1.5 *0 come.- His ft§b.le.li'cs already, by more
tl_iana_ th_ousan_d;years,' surviyed the empire. which it
’eS°‘“°‘.l fi°m.Pt°mem.re ‘destruction->: - " .
The other instance of an small form offliiords, in
Wl.ll€_.'ll‘ dwells not‘ an immortal only, but a divine
Bp1r1_t,i_s that ’pr‘a‘yer"wli'iel'1 our‘ Savi'c,u"r‘taught his
disciples. ‘ How many rn‘i‘lli'ons ‘and ini_llion”s'oftim«:s
has that prayer been preferred, by Christians of all
denominationsl So wide,_ indeed, is‘ the sound
thereof gone forth, ‘ that daily, -and almost’ without
1m'«‘1'm15-91011.‘ l:ro_ni the ends of-the earth, and afar of
UFO“ the sea, it is ascending to -Haavsrrlike incense
and it pure offering»; nor needs it ‘the’ giftofpropheey
AC9 forfltfill-‘that though “ heaven, and earth shall pass
away," these wordsof oiir—b_lessc‘;d ‘Lord "shall not
psss__z1way,” till every uetitionvin, it has been an.
s'wered——till the kingdom of God shall come, and
his willbe donein earth as',ifi;sin]iAeav,gu,‘.V V
EXPERIMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS on THE'GAS-
rare J UICE, AND THE PHrs1oLoev or DIGESTION'
By Wit. BI-3.'A.‘IJ'1VyIQJ‘.I'1‘, M. ‘D. Surgeonof the Uni-
ted States Army. New York: G. 8:. C. St H-
CARVILL.-—Tllls is a very remarkable publica-
tion; being, nothing more nor less than the
record of the observations made during a series
of years, by a skilful medical man, upon the
visible action of the stomach of a living’ man.
The case was that of -a Canadian coyageur,
who, at the age of eighteen, received acciden-
tally the charge of a musket loaded with duck-
shot, in his side, he being within ayardvof the
muzzle. The wound perforated the’ stomach.
Dr. B. was called to, the wounded rr‘_ian'—-suc-
Qeedecl 1ii_St1V1ng hvisilife, restoring hishealtli;
and yet the_orifice,in;the stomach remained for
years unclosed. Here, then, an opportunity
was pre'sented‘of watching, Nature in her most
fS€<3T€_t ‘Operations, of surprising her in her
gown labor'atory,eand of ascertaining, in the
living man, the processes by which life is
maintained; for, when We cease to digest, we
093313 1‘-0 1iVe-L The result is highly curious
and instructive, and cannot -fail, We should
think, of producing important changes and
improvements in the art of medicine. Spal-
lanzam', and others, had made , experiments
upon the powers of the gastric juice, by ‘admi-
nistering to animals food of different kinds, in
perforated metal balls; but all of these fail of

or affection, in levity or seriousness, the whole pro-
grass of ii. human spirit through life-—perhaps even to
eternity—may be changed from ihe direction which
it was pursuing, whether right or wrong. For in no.
thing is the power and indestructibility of words
more signally exemplified than in small compositions,
such as stories, essays, parables, soiigs, proverbs,
and all the minor and more exquisite forms of com-
position. It is a fact, not obvious perhaps, but capa-
ble~ of perfect proof, that knowledge, in all eras
which have been distinguished as enlightened, has
been propagated more by tracts than by volumes.-
We need but appeal, in evidence of this, to the state
of learning in our own land at the present day, when
all classes of people are more or less instructed.—-
On this point I shall have a future opportunity of ex.
patiating, and will therefore, at present, offer only
two examples of the permanence of words, involving
sacred or important truth, of equal value and applica.
tion, in allperiods and countries, and among all peo.
pie to whom they may be delivered. _
In the youth of the Roman commonwealth, during
ll quarrel between the patriciuns and plebeians,
when the latter had separated thcm,Se1V6S ft m the
former, on the plea that they would no longer labour
to maintain the unproductive class in indolent luxury,
Menenius Agrippa, by the wall.known fable of a
schism in the human body, in which the limbs mu.
tinied against the stomach, brought the secedarsto
a sense of their duty and interest, and reconciled
a feud which, had it been further inflamed, might
have destroyed the state, and turned the history 01
the world itself thenceforwnid into an entirely new
channel, by interrupting ‘the tide of events wliicli
were carrying Rome to the sum: of dominion.

The lesson which that sagacionsjpatriot taught to

certainty and interest, in comparison with those
instituted and so faithfully followed up by Dr.
Beaumont, and ultimately by the Surgeon Ge-
neral of the Army, Dr. Lovell.

THE LAW GLossAiti": by Tnorus TAYLOR.
Albany: VV. A. GOULD. New York-: GOULD,
Burns 86 Co.—-This cannot be otherwise than
a useful work in our country, where the dead
languages are not as familiar as, for the im-
provement and purification of both taste and

yers do much abound. It is a selection and
translation of the various and numerous sen-
tences, phrases, and maxirris, spread through
the old law books, and many of which are still
preserved and in use at this day, in.Greek, La-
tin, French, Saxon, Stc. The i1l1t_ll’Ol‘1l21S, in our
judgment, well fulfilled his -task. His, trans-
lations are easy and accurate,- so fair-asiwe,
have looked through_hi,s, pages ;.and the histo-
rical notes in~thefA1pp'endix are some of them
alike curious and*int'erestino*. The volume is
dedicated, by permission, to Chief Justice Sa-
vage; and must, we think, be well received by
the profession, and still more by those not of it,
but who yet in the conflicting claims of a busy

world, are often brought into contact with it.

language, we wish they were, but where law— -