and the bran bread system. It is this: that the appetite of a healthy man, in nine times in ten, is his best guide as to what is good for him-if his taste and smell approve of the viands before him, there is little danger of being injured by moderate indulgence. By the way, of bran bread; the author gives an affecting account of the wretched effects of an apparently infatuated adherence to this article, upon the late lamented Professor Averill. "Died of Graham," it seems, might be written over his grave.

We also learn, that one free from disease need not swallow pills to avoid disease-the stomach is never idle; if not doing good it is doing harm, and if loaded with disagreeable and unnatural potions, it may create that, which, by their use, it was intended to avoid.

Chapter fifteenth, we have no remarks to make upon- we leave that for the medical faculty to settle among themselves; but as a "looker on in Venice," we should say it ought to do good.

The last chapter, "of the influence of the clergy in causing and perpetuating empiricism"-we recommend it to the perusal of those for whom it is intended-the author treats them with great respect. May he who, reading it, condemns himself, amend.

We must now close this hasty notice, with a fervent wish, that "Ticknor on the Philosophy of Medicine" may be generally readit cannot fail to do good. A word or two to the author in closing: some portions of his work seem to have been written in haste, and more attention is evidently paid to matter, than manner. A careful revision will show him the necessity, if it should come to a second edition, of some corrections in the text.

One thing more. The author should add another chapter to his book. It should be: on the agency of the newspaper press in promoting the influence of Quackery. We believe it to be im nɔral. Our newspapers - even those whose conductors would shrink from giving the slightest direct countenance to any thing so injurious and immoral are full, every day, of advertisements and puffs of quack medicines and quack practitioners, many of them of the most indecent kind. We have not room to take up this subject now: it deserves a full exposition. There are many things, no doubt, that can be said and urged on the other side; concerning which all that we can do now is to lay down, fearless of being overthrown, the broad assertion, that nothing can be said which will morally justify the agency of the press in this matter.

2.-The River and the Desart; or Recollections of the Rhone and the Chartreuse. By MISS PARDOE. Philadelphia: E. L. Carey and A. Hart. 1838. 2 vols. 12mo.

THE utter worthlessness of these volumes is their only claim to notice-a public journal is bound to caution the community not to waste money on such blotted paper. It is the third attempt of this lady to palm off her nonsense and inanity by an imposing title; and in every instance, the silly affectation of it should have excited a suspicion that it was used only as a lure for the simple ones. Traits and Traditions of Portugal-The City of the Sultan-The River and the Desart-there is no difficulty in divining for what shelves and for what hands, books with such titles are intended. In her former works there was some little merit-here and there a page of pleasant reading; in the one now noticed, there is absolutely nothing; and yet no where out of Italy is there a more delightful region to ramble in, or one yielding more to fill the traveller's eye and mind, than that which it professes to describe. The Rhone has its story and song, its contrasts of grandeur and beauty, its sunny-side hills and smiling valleys, its rich vineyards and its crumbling ruins, scarcely inferior to the Rhine-the wild scenery of Dauphiny-the lofty heights of the maritime Alps, with the blue waters of the Mediterranean rolling at their base-Avignon with its pontifical recollections-Vaucluse, that still echoes, as Dupaty says, with the names of Petrarch and Laura-the minstrelsy of Provence-Nismes, and Arles, and Aix, with their monuments of former glory:-all these, we should think, might have furnished the author with sufficient of interesting matter for her volumes, and spared us the dull and wearisome details about Marseilles, which now occupy so large a part of them-and Marseilles, every one knows, has little to gratify the curiosity of the scholar or the lover of nature.

We cannot discover any thing to commend in Miss Pardoe's books; she has no talent for description, no originality of thought, and no beauty of language; if they do not deserve to be classed among the miserable trash which the press is now pouring out to enfeeble and corrupt the mind, they are but one degree removed. from it. Her taste is surely not the most delicate; there is internal evidence enough that she is not over scrupulous with respect either to language or topics; and a fair inference may be made, from a passage in the letter giving an account of her arrival in Paris, that she has not been particularly choice in her own reading, and that her writings are not likely to be the most profitable to young readers of her own sex. The passage referred to is as follows:

"I left England with the hope that I should effect an acquaintance with M. Hugo. You know how anxious I was to see and converse with him, how ardently I admire the originality and power of his genius, and how much I worship talent." However much she may worship talent, there is no danger of her becoming an object of idolatry on the same account.

3.Historical Causes and Effects, from the Fall of the Roman Empire to the Reformation. By WILLIAM SULLIVAN. Boston: 1838. 12mo. pp. 606.

THE public are indebted to the author of this volume for several excellent works upon subjects of the highest interest, particularly adapted to early instruction. The publication of his Political and Moral and Historical Class Books, forms an important era in the history of education in our country-they are of themselves far more sufficient to instruct our youth in several of the most important classes of their duties, than all the means before within their reach. In fact, Mr. Sullivan is fairly entitled to the credit of having first introduced the study of the nature and principles of our government into the schools; his political class book was exactly the thing needed for the purpose, and we rejoice that he has the satisfaction of knowing the great instrumentality he has had in calling attention to this very important subject. No commendation too high can be bestowed upon a gentleman of his elevated rank and professional eminence, for laboring so earnestly and perseveringly to increase the means of imparting valuable knowledge to the young, and we know not to what higher purpose leisure, experience, learning, and talent can be applied-it seems to be coming back again to the days of Socrates and Plato, of Cicero and Quintilian, when we find such men as Mr. Sullivan, Justice Story, President Duer, and some others in our own country, Lord Brougham, Guizot, and Cousin, in Europe, employing their time in whole or in part on books of instruction for young men. such ends, education must triumph, and its triumph is the certain improvement of mankind.

With

Mr. Sullivan possesses many qualities in addition to those of a finished and elegant writer, and of a man of learning, which eminently qualify him for the task he has undertaken; he has been a careful and discreet looker on during the greater part of our existence as a nation; he has held many important political trusts; he has been intimate with the wisest and best men the country has produced; his views of our government are the result of practical observation, and he does not believe that a nation can be wise and virtuous, unless there is knowledge and integrity in the individuals which compose it. With such an expounder of our constitution and government it is safe to trust the principles of our young men. His last work deserves a fuller notice than we have now room for. It is the best digest of history, from the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West to the Reformation, extant in our language. It is written in the same simple and beautiful style which has marked all his works; its arrangement is clear and convenient; it exhibits throughout accurate research and faithful report of facts,

an impartial and philosophical mind; and as a narrative of events it is as minute as is possible for a compendium so condensed. know no book so well suited for elementary instruction in modern history, and we hope to see it introduced into all our seminaries in which that study is pursued.

-Atlantic Steam Ships-some Ideas and Statements, the result of considerable reflection on the subject of navigating the Atlantic Ocean with Steam Ships of large tonnage: (made known in 1830, and published in one of the city journals in 1832.) By ITHIEL Town. Also, the arrival, description, and departure of the two first British Steam Ships, Sirius, and Great Western: thus fulfilling, in a great measure, the above ideas and suggestions. To which is added, a variety of statistical and other information. New York: Wiley and Putnam. 1838. 12mo. pp. 76.

THIS work came to our hands after the article on steam navigation, in the present number, was in type. We have now to mention it as perhaps the most complete specimen of book-making with the scissors, which has issued from the press of the United States. The publishers are under very great obligations to Mr. Town, for the use of his name, and we hope, have paid him well for it. We fear, however, from appearances, that they have not thought it necessary to apply to that gentleman for permission to use, what he had, by publication in a journal, made common property. In this case, he may congratulate himself in being able to disavow being conscious of aiding in this catch-penny concern.

We have to mention that the portion of the pamphlet in question which is written by Mr. Town, is able and well drawn up. It is not, however, of such a powerful character, as to be likely to create a strong sensation, and we do not wonder that it passed at the time of its first publication, without producing any effect. It is now rather too late to bring it forward again; for the experiment he proposes has already been accomplished by parties other than those to whom it is addressed. The rest of the pages are filled up with extracts from the newspapers, giving an account of matters and things pertaining to the arrival of the two steam ships, the toasts which were drank, and the cheers which were uttered on that joyous occasion; and the paper of Mr. Town serves in relation to them, the office which poems were once said to be written for, namely, to furnish an excuse for printing a deal of irrelevant prose.

The articles which are thus appended to the paper of Mr. Town, and for which his name is made the voucher, are ephemeral in their

nature, and would have escaped criticism, had they not been thus embodied in a publication of some pretension. Even in this shape we might let them pass, and shall do so with the exception of an error which is too ludicrous to escape, even in the prose of a dreadful-accident maker. We perceive, in the article which refers to "The British and American Steam Navigation Company of London," that one of the efficient members of that association is commemorated as "associated with the noble Lander, of African exploration memory, having been connected with him in the grand exploit of discovering the source of the Nile." Now we are sadly mistaken if Lander ever saw the Nile, and his African exploration memory, to use the very classical phraseology of the newspaper article, is due to his having discovered the mouth of the Niger, instead of the source of the Nile. This will be sufficient to show the discrimination with which the matter which makes up this little volume has been selected.

What Davenport's electrical discoveries have to do with steam navigation we are at a loss to imagine; the pages which might otherwise have remained blank in the form, are eked out with a history of these researches, à propos des bottes.

5.-Travels in Europe; namely, in England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands. By WILBUR FISK, D. D., President of the Wesleyan University at Middletown, Connecticut. Fourth Edition. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1838. pp. 688.

THE "getting up"-as it is called-of this work, has evidently been a labor of love with the Harpers; they have bestowed so much more expense in making a handsome volume than they commonly bestow upon publications of this class. The reason is obvious, and it is certainly a very amiable one. We have some question in our minds, however, touching the words "Fourth Edition,' borne upon the title page of our copy;-the number of days that have elapsed since the first publication of the work seeming to us incredibly small for the sale of three bona fide editions.

But this is not our affair. What we have to remark is, that this volume purports to be the record of observations and reflections of the author, made "during a tour of about sixteen thousand miles, performed in the course of fifteen months, through some fifteen or twenty different sovereignties, whose inhabitants speak a great variety of different languages and dialects, and of whose laws and customs" he was "in many instances ignorant."