PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

BOOKS.

Memoirs of _Lieutenant Joseph Bend Belief, Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, Member of the Geographical Societies of London and Paris, &o. With his Journal of a Voyage in the Polar Seas, in Search of Sir John Franklin. In two volumes.

Waikna ; or Adventures on the Mosquito Shore. By Samuel A. Bard. With sixty Illustrations.

Meteorological Essays. By Francois Arago, Member of the Institute. With an Introduction by Baron Alexander Von Humboldt. Trans- lated under the Superintendence of Colonel Sabine, RA. Treas. and V.P.R.S.

The PrinesPles of Psychology. By Herbert Spencer, Author of "Social Statics."

A General Survey of the History of the Canon of the New Testament during the first Four Centuries. By Brooke Foul Westcott, ALA., late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. [The object of Mr. Westcott's General Survey is not merely to establish the authenticity of the Canon, or received books of the New Testament, by

otations in the Fathers and other writers up to a period when no one will dispute that the New Testament was authoritatively received by Christians, but to show its influence anon the character and ideas of the Fathers themselves, as well as upon- the doctrine and opinions of Christians and Heretics, so far as materials exist for the exhibition. The establishment of the authenticity of the Canon by quotations from Christian writers has been done so clearly by Paley's condensation of Lardner in the Evidences that little remained to be accomplished on that question. To deduce the Christian and ecclesiastical character of each Father from his writings, and to show the influence that the New Testament exercised upon the Christianity of the age, is a newer field, and from the nature of the case more difficult of treatment. There is little doubt respecting a quotation from Scrip- ture, or the sense in which the writer uses it. These facts being established, there is no doubt that the book quoted by a Father was in existence when he wrote, and that in the writer's mind the book was of religious authority. The cumulative evidence derived from successive quotations by suc- cessive writers in successive ages has a striking, curious, logical kind of interest, and was prevented from becoming tedious by the extraordinary art and power of Paley. To deduce the character of a man or the opinions of the age from the general tenour of a book, does not admit of such positive conclusion, and is a more difficult task ; while the effect upon the reader is different, because he has mainly opinions instead of faets. This peculiarity is inevitable ; and if Mr. Westcott is somewhat fuller and more in- clined to discussion than might be desirable for literary effect, the secondary object of the writer must be considered, which is to trace the growth of the Catholic Church, and to establish its connexion with the au- thenticity of the canon of the New Testament. The execution, though want- ing in the force or brilliancy to which we have been of late accustomed in historical disquisition, exhibits a familiar acquaintance with the literature of the ri•ject, and a perception, of the circumstances by which the early Christians were surrounded and influenced.]

Lyra Germanic& : Hymns for the Sundays and chief Festivals of the Ohristian Year. Translated from the German by Catherine Wink- worth.

[This volume contains the translation of more than a hundred German hymns, selected from the Chevalier Bunsen's collection of 1833, which amounted to about nine hundred in number. Tho hymns translated are of various ages; some of them being versions or adaptations of Latin poems of the early Medireval Church. They are broadly divisible into three classes,— the first representing the time of Luther and the Reformation ; the second that of the Thirty-Years War, which, all evil as it was to Germany and the mass of Germans, strongly raised a religious feeling in the really pious; the third is what may be called the Moravian spirit, which reached its height towards the middle of the last century. The matter and sentiment are also threefold : in the first and best class, the ideas are derived from the Sacred Writingsthe second exhibitsan old-world simplicity, homely but deep and eirong ; the third verges too much upon the common run of poetry, somewhat redeemed by its subjects from poverty and absolute commonplace. Of the poetry in the original we cannot speak. The translation is very re- spectable in point of execution, but does not rise higher than the usual flight of religious verse. The volume, however, is curious and interesting.] The Constitutional Text-Book: a practical and familiar Exposition of

the Constitution of the United States. Designed chiefly for the use-of Schools, &c. By Furman Sheppard. [The Constitutional Text-Book is an American exposition of the actual con- stitution of the United States, as contained in the written text itself, and the various amendments or interpretations that have since been made to it by Congress and the Supreme Court. This exposition is clearly and moderately done, somewhat after the plan of our law-books explanatory of acts of Par- liaMent. The text is first presented, and then a commentary on each part, with some account of the working. The book contains a brief narrative of the measures preceding the settlement of the present constitution, and in an ap- pendix a variety of historical documents connected with the subject,—as the Declaration of Rights, 1774-'76 ; the Declaration of Independence, 1776.] Embassies and Foreign Courts : a History of Diplomacy. By "The Roving Englishman," Author of "Pictures from the Battle-Field," &c. [In this history of diplomatic intercourse, and exposition of diplomatic privi- leges, ceremonies, qualifications, and so forth, "The Roving Englishman" shows to more advantage than in his volumes, half-travel, half-fiction, on

Turkey and the war. The book might be better had it more rigicllyaff- hered to one of the writer's own rules on the language of despatch-writing, which "absolutely forbids-flippancy or ribaldry " ; but these peculiarities only appear occasionally. The greater portion of Embassies and Foreign Courts is solid and informing, exhibiting a good deal of reading with some judicious reflections. The most curious part is the historical sketch of diplomatic bibliography ; the most directly useful, the account of the grades, rights, duties, and qualifications of diplomatists ; the most amusing, the different stories and anecdotes scattered through the volume, though these sometimes pass into forced facetiousness.]

ne Prophets, or Mormonism Unveiled. With Illustrations.

[The religious impositions and licentious practices of the Mormon seat, with the vice and misery they naturally give rise to, seem to promise American fietionists a rich field for romance, and an equally rich mine for the reprinting publishers of English penny journals. Not long since, we saw a book pro- fessing to give an account of the miseries endured by a Mormon's wife, which is now appearing in a weekly paper. The Prophets is more general in its nature. It gives a summary sketch of Smith and his accomplices, and traces the growth of Mormonism, before the narrative plunges into a variety of adventures, of which fraud, seduction, and abduction, are the most striking, punished by Lynch kW in various forms, and the expulsion of the sect from Nauvoo, after the violent deaths of Smith and others at the prison. The subject of Mormonism, like any other type of human existence where en- thusiasm and passion reign predominant, would furnish materials for fiction to a true artist ; but there is so much that is gross and revolting in the prin- ciples and practices of the sect, that the treatment would require the greatest skill and delicacy. The skill and delicacy are as yet wanting in American writers who have handled the subject, as well as other qualities more neces- sary to the novelist..27te Prophets is as much a hittery of Mormonism, enforced and enlivened by the adventures of particular persons, as a fiction in the strict sense.]

The Student's Practical Grammar of the English Language ; together with a Commentary on. the First Book of Milton's Paradise Lost. By Thomas Goodwin, LB. T.C.D., Head Master of the Greenwich Pro- • prietary School. [This volume, in its general principles, is almost" as much an essay on gram- mar in general as English grammar in particular. In its details it is rather a treatise than a collection of rules—a book to be studied by a reader rather than learned by a pupil. There is nothing objectionable in all this, except that the form and arrangement of the book is that of a school grammar. The pupil is therefore somewhat encumbered by discussion, when he should be simply learning axioms dogmatically expressed ; while the book has not that largeness of range which a treatise proper should possess.] A Help to Latin Grammar ; or the Form and Use of Words in Latin. With Progressive Exercises. By Josiah Wright, ILA., Trinity Col- lege, Cambridge ; Head Master of Sutton Coldfield Grammar School ; Editor of" Hellenica," &c. [The object of this "Help" is to serve as a sort of tutor's-aid to boys begin- ning Latin grammar. With occasional exceptions, the publication is very able—save for the purpose it is designed, which cannot perhaps be accom- plished by a book. The Help is a species of commentary on the Latin acci- dence and syntax ; exhibiting freshness of mind and grammatical acuteness, but as difficult for children as the rules themselves, and longer.] Eat oral Theology : Lectures on Butler's "Analogy," Introdueory Lec- tures, &e. By Thomas Chalmers, D.D., LL.D. (Select Works of Thomas Chalmers D.D., LL.D. Edited by his Sou-in-law, the Re- verend William Hanna, LL.D. Volume V.)

Observations on the Fisheries of the West Coast of Ireland, having reference more particularly to the operations of the London and West of Ireland Fish- ing Company. By Thomas Edward Sy moods, Commander Royal Navy. Reply of a Belgian General Officer to the Charges made in England against the Character of the Belgian Troops in the Campaign of 1815. Translated for the Brussels Herald," by T. G. Jones, Esq.

Moral Theology of the Church of Rome. No. II. Certain points in S. Alfonso Be' Liguori's Moral Theology, con- sidered in nineteen Letters, by the Reverend H. E. Manning and the Re- verend F. Meyrick. • What is Criticism! and Whose Property are Letters written for the Press after they have reached their destination ? Being Report of Jury Trial, Reverend Nathan Davis v. -the Proprietors of a' The Witness." With Introductory Remarks by Hugh Miller.

Decimal Coinage : a Circular to Bankers and Merchants, showing that the " Pound and Mil" scheme is virtually impracticable and dangerous; that the Farthing is the true base. By Adam Davidson, Towa;Clerk, Nairn.