as a demonstrator in anatomy; but we think it will be best for him to remain a while longer in England; the sham science of which his last book is a specimen is no longer, we believe, profitable in this country. The last Princeton Review says of The Races of Men:
"This book is fairly beneath argument or criticism. It is a curious medley of vanity, ignorance, malice, and fanaticism. At first it provoked our indignation, by the boldness and effrontery of its pretensions; but their very extravagance soon began to render them comical. It claims to originate views which are to overturn 'long received doctrines, national prejudices, stereotyped delusions,' &c., while any tolerable scholar in this department is perfectly familiar with them all in the works of Virey, Courtet, Bory de St. Vincent, Edwards, La Marck, Quetelet, &c. It has not the slightest claim to originality, except for the ridiculous ingenuity, with which it carries out the more cautious follies of these infidel philosophers, into the most glaring absurdities; and sets their ingenious physiological speculations, in broad contradiction to the most authentic and unquestioned truths of history. We certainly should not have noticed this thing at all, but for two reasons. In the first place, this subject is now rendered so interesting by the important bearings of modern ethnological researches, that some of our readers might be cheated by the mere title, and by newspaper puffs, out of the market price for the book; and in the second place, we wish to express our surprise and lift up our remonstrance against such issues from a quarter so respectable as that which has given this reprint to the American public. Whatever may be the social or scientific standing of any influential publishing house, we must say, that in our judgment they merit a deliberate rebuke from the true science of the country, for reprinting so crude and wretched a performance, to say nothing of the low malignity which it vents against the Christian sentiment and enterprise of an age like the present,—and even against men, who stand in the front ranks of science, because they happen to believe that the scriptures are entitled to some respect, as authentic records; or that other races of men are capable of being Christianized, beside the Teutonic. Cuvier was an ignorant and stubborn dogmatist, whose era is now past for ever. Buckland was an ingenious priest and Jesuit; and even Newton's brain was turned by chronology."
Mr. Boker's tragedy of Colaynos, has just been produced at the Walnut-st. Theatre in Philadelphia, and extremely well received. It had indeed a successful run. The Betrothal, which in our last we omitted to notice, is, we understand, to be brought out under the auspices of Charles Kean, in London. Mr. B. has yet another comedy quite finished, which will soon be performed in New-York.
A letter purporting to be by General Washington, and bearing date Cambridge, June 24, 1776, was read before the New-Jersey Historical Society a few weeks ago; the thanks of the Society were voted to Mr. Chetwood for it; and the Literary World characterizes it as "interesting," "admirable," &c. The Literary World does not, we believe, pretend to be an authority in such matters, but that a "historical society" should receive such a gross imposition is somewhat surprising. The letter is as much a forgery and imposture as the "exceedingly interesting letter from General Washington to his wife," published a few months ago in the Day Book. Without going into any further statement or argument on this subject, it may be sufficient to remark, that Washington was not within two hundred miles of Cambridge on the 24th of June, 1776.
The Rev. Henry W. Ducachet, D.D., the learned rector of St. Stephen's, in Philadelphia, has been several years engaged upon a Dictionary of the Church, which is now nearly ready for publication. Such a work is properly but a system and history of doctrine and ritual, in a form suited for the readiest consultation, and it demands, therefore, for its successful accomplishment, the highest and rarest faculties and acquisitions. Dr. Ducachet possesses in a very eminent degree, not only the requisite knowledge and judgment, but he has a certain temperament and felicity, with a love of and skill in dialectics, which promise even to the articles for a dictionary, from his hand, the utmost raciness and attractive interest. We understand this work will be very complete and voluminous.
The Poems of "Edith May," the finest artist among the literary women of this country, are to be published in a very beautiful edition next summer by E. H. Butler of Philadelphia.
The American Philosophical Society, which on account of some unfortunate investments of its capital, has for several years been compelled to suspend its publications, is now, we are gratified to be informed, again in a good financial condition, and new volumes of its important Transactions are in the press.
Professor Hows, during the last month, has given a very interesting series of readings from Shakspeare, in which he has displayed not only the finest capacity for histrionic effect, but a critical sagacity, and a thorough knowledge of the greatest of the poets, which justify his own reputation.
Mr. Redfield has in press "The Celestial Telegraph, or Secrets of the Life to Come, revealed through Magnetism, by M. Cahagnet," a book of the class of Mrs. Crowe's "Night Side of Nature;" and "The Volcano Diggings, a Tale of California Law, by a member of the Bar."
We believe it is about six years since the Rev. William W. Lord, then a resident graduate at Princeton College, published the volume of poems by which he was introduced to the literary world. That book had various and striking merits, and though it had many defects in an artistic point of view, upon the whole it illustrated a just apprehension of the poetic principle, and such capacities for execution as justified the sanguine hopes it occasioned among his friends of his future eminence in the highest and finest of the arts. From that time until the present, Mr. Lord has not appeared as an author; but the leisure that could be withdrawn from professional study has been devoted to the composition of "Christ in Hades," (Appleton & Co.) a poem displaying his best abilities in art, while it is a suitable offering to religion.
"It was my purpose," he says, "in undertaking this work, to give poetic form, design, and history to the descent of Christ into hell; a fact that has for so many ages attracted the curiosity of the human mind, as to furnish occasion for surprise that the attempt has not hitherto been made. As regards the end for which He descended, I have adhered to the Christian tradition that it was to free the souls of the ancient saints confined in the temporal paradise of the Under-world, embracing also in my design the less general opinion, that it was to demonstrate His universal supremacy by appearing among the damned.
"A source of additional human interest was suggested by the relation which men, as a distinct order of beings, might be supposed to sustain to demons in the place of their common doom, and under new conditions of existence; such, I conceived, as would make it possible in some degree to realize even the divine fictions of the Greek mythology, under the forms and with the attributes accorded them by ancient religions, and by the poetry of all time. This could not fail to suggest the further conception of introducing the divinities of our forefathers, and of other great families of mankind, thus bringing together in action and contrast the deified men, or various representatives of an heroic humanity, among different races: nor did it seem too great a stretch of imaginative probability to conceive that their general characteristics might be adopted and imitated by beings already invested by the human mind with an indefinite power, and inhabiting a world in which the wonderful becomes the probable.
"But it is, after all, the general purpose of exhibiting the triumph of moral power over all physical and inferior spiritual force, in the descent of Christ into hell, which gives my design the complex character of a mythic, heroic, and Christian poem, and, at the same time, constitutes the unity of its parts. The ancients, whose representative types I introduce, knew and appreciated but two kinds of power, brute or physical, and spiritual, including all occult and supernatural efficacy, and strength of intellect and will. Virtue, triumphant by the aid of adventitious force, or relying upon unconquerable pride and disdain to resist it, was the highest reach of their dynamic conceptions. Moral power is properly a Christian idea. It is not, therefore, without what I conceive to be a true as well as a poetic apprehension of the design of the Descent into Hell, that the heroes of profane, and the not fabulous Titans of sacred antiquity, by their rivalries and contentions, brought together in arms for a trial of their comparative strength, are suddenly confronted with a common and dissimilar antagonist,
