no helmets glistened; no music murmured; solemn, slow, and silent, the procession moved on, through thick and thronging, but orderly and respectful ranks, crowding the streets, and lining the casements of every dwelling on either side. And thus were the remains of the good man carried, and deposited in their resting-place; and thus were they attended. None ever had a more simple funeral; none were ever followed by a larger train of sincere and sorrowing mourners."- pp. 91, 92.

The author of this pamphlet is well known to most of our readers, as a distinguished member of Congress, during the administration of Mr. Adams, and of the Assembly of New York, as a member from Albany. His speeches, on numerous important topics of finance, education, and general policy, mark him out as one of the most enlightened of our statesmen. Uniting the cultivation of letters with that of politics, he has favored the public with several addresses, delivered on literary occasions, and before the societies for intellectual improvement, which abound at the present day. They are all of a very high order. Sound principles, forcible reasoning, happy illustration, and a chaste style, characterize Mr. Barnard's writings. The present Discourse is, we think, one of the most valuable of his productions. It presents us a very satisfactory historical sketch of the life and services of a most distinguished individual. It will furnish materials to the historian. The Appendix contains an outline of the history of the Colony and Manor of Rensselaerwyck, the hereditary estate of the family. This little colony, but large patrimony, — must, we think, be sui generis in its origin and fortunes; and it serves with other efforts at colonial establishment, singularly various as they were, to illustrate the vague and searching activity of the spirit of adventure, in its direction toward the settlement of America at the commencement of the seventeenth century.

ART. IX.-CRITICAL NOTICES.

1. The Mathematical Miscellany. Conducted by C. GILL, Professor of Mathematics in the Institute at Flushing, Long Island. Vol. I. pp. 414. 8vo.

THIS volume is formed of six numbers, which have been published as a periodical, two numbers yearly, during the last three years. Without intending to give any thing like an analysis of the work, we have thought it our duty to promulgate, to the extent of our circulation, a knowledge of its publication; claiming for the learned and ingenious contributors to its pages the honor which their labors, in the most abstract department of science, so richly merit. We feel this duty the more strongly impressed upon us, when we reflect, that, apart from the satisfaction found in the successful investigation and solution of the problems of the Miscellany, its authors can look for no possible reward but that of reputation, which, if limited to those who read and appreciate their work, must be altogether too narrow for their deserts. We perceive, moreover, in the modest and unpresuming science of this work, some compensation for the high tone of pretension, amongst us, to discovery, in departments of philosophy, in which, if truth must be told, we are lamentably deficient.

Publications, similar to that here noticed, have been long known in Europe. The most celebrated of these, the "Ladies' Diary," was commenced in 1704, and is yet continued. On the list of its contributors are the names of Simpson, Emerson, Landen, Hutton, and Vince. In addition to the "Ladies' Diary," the English have, likewise, supported the "Gentlemen's Diary," the "Mathematical Companion," Hutton's "Miscellanea Curiosa," and Leybourn's "Mathematical Repository"; the pages of which bear the names of some of the most eminent of the English mathematicians. Nor is a mathematical periodical entirely new in this country; as the present work was preceded by "The Mathematical Correspondence," "The Analyst," and, more immediately, by the "Mathematical Diary "; the publication of which was commenced, in the year 1825, under the direction of Dr. Adrain, then mathematical professor in Columbia College, and was continued by him and Mr. Ryan to the year 1830; forming two volumes of 316 and 194 pages.

The "Diary" contains problems of the highest order, the solution of which required the most consummate skill in the application of mathematical analysis. Amongst the principal contributors to this work, besides its editors, were, Dr. Bowditch, (who took a constant and deep interest in its success, and, as the most effectual exhibition of his desire to encourage it, always furnished solutions to all the problems,) and the eminent mathematicians, Professors Strong, Anderson, and Nulty.

The character of the "Miscellany " differs, in no essential respect, from its predecessor, except in the addition of what is called a Junior Department, comprising problems suited to the strength of those who have not yet penetrated the depths of mathematical learning. The body of the work, like the "Diary," contains problems requiring the whole power of the calculus, as is shown by the solutions of its principal contributors, of whom we cannot refrain from mentioning the names of the eminent Professors, Avery, Catlin, Gill, the editor, Peirce, Root, and Strong. Nor can we forbear adding to this record the fact, that the name of Professor Strong runs through every number of the "Diary and "Miscellany," as having furnished solutions to every question in both works. Since we regard the publication of the "Miscellany as highly honorable to its authors, and

one of the most efficient means which can be devised for promoting the cultivation and advancement of the science to which it is devoted, we cannot but hope, that it will be continued in an uninterrupted series.

2. The Writings of JOHN MARSHALL, late Chief Justice of the United States, upon the Constitution. Boston: James Munroe & Co. 1839. 8vo.

Pp. 728.

THIS volume contains the opinions delivered by the late Chief Justice, upon the various questions of constitutional law which came before him while in office. It includes, not only those of the whole bench, drawn up by himself, but one or two other opinions, in which he dissented from the majority of the Court, as well as some of his own decisions upon the circuit. The object of the editor, in the present compilation, is stated to have been, first, to place these masterly discourses within the reach of the general public, by collecting them together, out of the numerous volumes of Reports in which they lie scattered; and secondly, to furnish the student of the Constitution No. 105.

VOL. XLIX.

62

with the means of ready reference to the leading cases, to which his text-books so frequently direct him. In this latter view, the present work forms an indispensable companion to Judge Story's Commentaries on the Constitution, as well as to those of Chancellor Kent. To render the volume perfect in this respect, the editor has, with good judgment, added the decisions of the Supreme Court, delivered by other judges prior to the death of its late, lamented chief.

It is superfluous, at this day, and after what we have heretofore said, to add a remark upon the opinions of Chief Justice Marshall, whom his illustrious compeer has, with such appropriate emphasis, styled "The Expounder of the Constitution." They will go down to posterity as contemporaneous expositions, shedding a flood of light upon that great instrument; not to be obscured but by a ruthless violation of the spirit of the text itself. We have only to express our judgment, that the editor of this volume has rendered an essential service to the country at large, as well as to the student of constitutional law, by its publication; and that, without it, no apparatus for this important study can be deemed complete.

FOUQUE's beautiful little Romance is too well known to need any detailed criticism at our hands. We mention it now, merely to say, that the new translation, understood to be from the pen of a retired scholar of Massachusetts, is distinguished by close fidelity to the original, and by elegance and freedom at the same time. It is evidently a work of love. The translator's mind is pervaded by the spirit of the book, and he has therefore been able to reproduce it, with all the life and delicate beauty which the original exhibits on every page. A work of such pure imagination as Undine, so exquisitely conceived, and so admirably sustained in all its parts, quires in the translator a taste, a fancy, and a command over the resources of language, not ordinarily possessed. All these conditions are fulfilled in the work before us; and we hope the translator will feel himself bound to try his hand again in the same way. It will be doing good service to the literature of the country.

re

4.

The Most Important Parts of Blackstone's Commentaries reduced to Questions and Answers. By ASA KINNE. New York: W. E. Deane. 1838. 8vo. pp. 190.

THE compiler of this book has transcribed, nearly or quite verbatim, Mr. Field's "Analysis of Blackstone's Commentaries, in a Series of Questions," published in 1811; to which he has annexed brief answers, from the text itself. The merit of Mr. Field's plan consisted in this, that, in order to answer the questions, the pupil must study, and even master, the entire Commentaries; while his attention was at the same time drawn to the principal subjects. But Mr. Kinne, having set down an answer to each question, either takes away a chief motive to study and reflection, or leads the student to a view of the subject so very rapid and superficial, as to leave but few and faint traces in the mind. The former method calls into action and improves the whole intellect; the latter exercises the memory alone. The one would qualify the student to compose a legal catechism; the other will only enable him to say he has learned one. The difference between them is like that between two students of mathematics, the one of whom has solved each problem for himself, while the other has only transcribed and committed to memory the results of his fellow. He does but wade; his fellow can swim.

Of the present compiler's honesty in offering this book to the public as his own original conception; in withholding all allusion to Mr. Field, into whose labors he has so unceremoniously entered; and in using parts of that gentleman's preface without acknowledgment, we at present say nothing. Our main purpose in noticing this production is to record our solemn and earnest protest against the facility with which gentlemen, in the higher ranks of science, are accustomed to give their signatures in commendation of works they have but slightly turned over, or never read at all, and of whose authors they know nothing. Mr. Field's " Analysis" was printed in this country in 1822, and has since been appended to the several American editions of Chitty's Blackstone, now on almost every lawyer's shelves; and yet here is a piratical transcript of that work, rendered of very questionable value by the compiler's additions, ushered forth to the public, like the latest patent medicine, with a string of certificates from some half a dozen eminent judges and lawyers, no one of whom, it is but charity to suppose, ever examined it with any care, yet all of whom commend it as an original work, of great merit, and highly deserving the patronage of the profession. Would