has been the mode of change; but the great principle of change, often unseen yet always at work, has been to do away the difference between descent and distribution, or, in other words, the extraordinary distinctions made by the common law between property in land and property in goods, so odious in itself, and so unfit for a commercial nation, where every thing should favour the unembarrassed exchange of values. The operation of the improved principle has been pushed to various degrees in the various states; but in all, with the most beneficial effects. We hope, ere long, to see it carried to the full extent which the public good requires. In distributing real estate like personal, according to the civil law, and in making lands in all cases liable for debts, we have begun the salutary reform; why should we not proceed one step further, and give a creditor the same right to obtain payment of his debt by the sale of the real, as by the sale of the personal, estate of his debtor? The provisions concerning the levy of executions existing in most of the states, which compel the creditor to accept the land itself set off at an arbitrary appraisement in satisfaction of his judgment, are, as we conceive, a relic of feudal injustice, exceedingly prejudicial to the progress of industry, and answering no useful purpose whatsoever. The subject is one that demands the attention of our legislators.

Zophiel. A Poem. By Mrs Brooks. Boston. 1825. 18mo. pp. 72. As to this book we have done what we suspect has been done by very few; we have actually read it through. We had previously seen several favourable notices of it, and we wished not to be thought hypercritical. We also perceived that the author was a lady, and after we had read a few lines, we hoped a young lady, and therefore were anxious to find something to praise if we could. We have found nothing, and it is with regret that we feel ourselves compelled to say, that with our own good will we can never open another of Mrs Brooks's poems. The poverty of language displayed in the very many awkward inversions, harsh elisions, and violations of grammar, we were willing to pass over, so long as we could persuade ourselves that the author was young; but when we found the muse described as a middle-aged gentlewoman, somewhat embonpoint; and noticed that this appeared to be a style of beauty very much to the author's taste, we could not but suspect a natural cause for this preference, and even concluded in our own minds that the author had sat for her own picture. If this be the case, there is no hope that Mrs Brooks will ever write poetry; her faults are such as we might indulge in a young writer who had time to mend ; but an author of forty, who can pardon such faults in herself, has no

excuse. We are the more confirmed in this opinion, because in the whole poem-in all the poems-we cannot find a single stanza, we doubt if there be a single line, which is not full of the same faults-intolerable harshness of metre, and obscurity produced by unauthorized inversions of language. It would seem as if the author had gone upon principle; determined to tire her readers' jaws in pronouncing her lines, and worry out their patience in guessing at the meaning of her stanzas, each of which is a riddle. We have solved many of them with much labour; but there are some which have ultimately baffled us. There are fifty-four pages in this book on which verses are printed. We purpose to give six extracts taken indifferently, at pretty nearly equal distances through the book; and that we may not be accused of unfair dealing we will take only the first stanzas on each page. The story, the longest piece, is intended as near as we can conjecture, to be a versification of that of Tobit in the Apocrypha; out of which we think a very pretty story might be made, but Mrs Brooks has not made one. Her descriptions, or rather her attempts at description, describe nothing; her personifications make us think of the line quoted by Coleridge from a college exercise, "Inoculation-heavenly maid! descend!!" and in brief, we have found neither poetry, nor common sense, nor rhythm in the book.

"Thou with the dark blue eye upturned to heaven,
And cheek now pale, now warm with radiant glow,
Daughter of God,-most dear,-

Come with thy quivering tear,

And tresses wild, and robes of loosened flow,-
To thy lone votaress let one look be given!
Come Poesy; nor like some just-formed maid,
With heart as yet unswoln by bliss or woe ;-
But of such age be seen

As Egypt's glowing queen,

When her brave Roman learned to love her so
That death and loss of fame, were, by a smile, repaid.

Know I have marked, that when the reason why
Thou still wouldst live in virgin state, thy sire
Has prest thee to impart, quick in thine eye
Semblance of hope has played-fain to transpire
Words seem'd to seek thy lip.

*

But oh! severest pain; I cannot be
In what I love, blest ev'n the little span-
(With all a spirit's keen capacity

For bliss) permitted the poor insect man.

*

Thus secret he, the pearly bracelet holding,
Lending his lip to accents sweetlier bland
The light that clipt him, half the maid enfolding
Half given-tho' dubious half-her lilly hand.

*

Thou who wert born of Psyche and of Love
And fondly nurst on Poesy's warm breast
Painting, oh, power adored!

My country's sons have poured

To thee their orisons; and thou hast blest

Their votive sighs, nor vainly have they strove.

We are sorry to speak thus harshly; but so many such publications as this have recently appeared, that our patience is really exhausted; especially when we see that there are those who ought to know better, and who, as we believe, do know better, ready to puff each of them as it appears, and thus aid in the corruption of the public taste.-One remark more and we have done. The first note on page 21, is expressed in language highly irreverent, and we think even if the author be an Atheist, she might, in common prudence, have spared us so disgusting an avowal of her sentiments.

INTELLIGENCE.

NEW WORK ON CHEMISTRY.

Dr Webster, lecturer on chemistry in Harvard University, is preparing for the press a new work on that science. It is intended, we learn, to be used as a text-book for lectures, and as an elementary work for recitations. The work is to be accompanied by very numerous plates, and by a volume of tables comprising all that are valuable and are now scattered through the different works on chemistry.

OPTICAL PHENOMENON.

A cloud was lately observed, near Dover in England, which seemed to rest partly on the sea, and extended along the horizon nearly as far as the eye could reach, beginning at the Dover point. Every vessel was not only reflected from it, but there appeared to be two distinct images of each vessel-one immediately above the real object, and inverted; the other in its proper position, on the top of the cloud, sailing in the air. The French cliffs had a most curious appearance, resembling a white castle, or extended fortification, suddenly raised upon the

sea, at a distance of less than a mile, and covering a space of ten miles. Between this and the spectator, clouds were so dispersed as to render the whole a magnificent object. The town of Sandwich also, with the beach &c., were seen in the air in an inverted position. This spectacle lasted an hour and a half, and on the approach of night, gradually faded away.

ENCKE'S COMET.

"The Encke Planet, improperly as we conceive, denominated a comet by many astronomers, had often, previous to the verifying of its return in an orbit, in May 1822, according to M. Encke's prediction, been observed by astronomers, and its place set down in their catalogues as a fixed star; the collating of these early observations with later and present ones, in order to perfect the theory of the movements of this small planet has appeared to M. C. Rumker of sufficient importance to induce him to search for and collect twenty-three of these observations of the Encke, whilst mistakenly considered as a star; reducing the right ascension and declination in each of these observations, to the beginning of January 1823 as a common epoch." Brande's Journal.

SEA FISH IN FRESH WATERS.

The breeding and fattening of sea-fish in fresh waters has been pursued with ardour and perfect success by a Mr Arnold in the island of Guernsey, who in a pond of about four acres, on the coast, has no less than 37 species of sea-fish, which Dr Mac Culloch enumerates; including turbot, cod, mackerel, plaice, flounder, sole, herring, sprat, prawn, shrimp, oyster, muscle, &c. No kind of sea-fish which has been introduced, has died, or suffered deterioration, in consequence of its change of element. This pond having been embanked from the sea, is, during all the winter months, so copiously supplied by a brook, as to be perfectly fresh. During some periods in the spring and autumn, owing to the decrease of the brook, and to leaks through the embankment at high water, the pond becomes brackish; and during a part of most summers, it is almost salt; and yet none of the great quantity and variety of fish therein, seem, Dr Mac Culloch says, to suffer inconvenience from these changes. These and numerous other facts ought to put an end to the idle and mischievous speculations carrying on by the anti-Smithian geologists, concerning temporary fresh water lakes in which they pretend that several of the strata of England were formed, merely because these strata entomb some fish of the same genera (an artificial and conventional classification) with fish of other species which are usually found in the sea; but which, as we see here, may not always have occupied salt water.

PECTIC OR COAGULATING ACID.

This new acid has been discovered by M H. Braconnot, and receives its name from neris, coagulum, in consequence of its resembling a jelly or gum. It is found in all vegetables. It is sensibly acid. It reddens turnsole paper. It is scarcely soluble in cold water, but more so in hot water. It is coagulated into a transparent and colourless jelly by alchol, by all the metallic solutions, by limewater, water of barytes, the

acids, muriate and sulphurate of soda, nitre, &c. It forms with potash a very soluble salt, consisting of 85 parts acid and 15 potash. This salt has the remarkable effect of communicating to large masses of sugar and water the property of gelatinizing, which renders it of great use to the confectioner. M. Braconnot in this way prepared aromatized jellies, perfectly transparent and colourless, and very agreeable to the taste, and the eye. He also made with rosewater, coloured with a little cochineal, rose-jelly of exquisite taste.

SINGULAR EASTERN CUSTOM.

In a paper on the natural history &c. of the Himalayah mountains, by Dr Govan, in Brewster's " Journal of Science," he states, that while at Nahan, which is from 3000 to 3200 feet above the level of the sea, he first "noticed the custom which has been frequently observed to prevail in these districts, of laying the children to sleep, apparently much to their satisfaction, at the commencing heats and until the rainy season begins, with their heads under little rills of the coldest water, directed upon them for some hours, during the hottest part of the day. Here it was practised in the case of a life no less precious than that of the young rajah of Sirmoor, a boy about 10 or 12 years of age, a sufficient evidence of the estimation in which the practice is held. It is most commonly, however, followed in the case of infants at the breast. The temperature of the water I have observed to be from 46° to 56° and 65°, and have only to add that it seemed to me most common in those districts which, having a good deal of cold weather, are nevertheless subject to very considerable summer heats. It was a great preservative, the people affirmed, against bilious fever and affections of the spleen during the subsequent rainy months."

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

AGRICULTURE.

Touches on Agriculture, including a Treatise on the Preservation of the Apple Tree. Together with Family Receipts, Experiments on Insects, &c. By Henry Putnam, Esq. Second edition enlarged. Svo, Salem. J. D. Cushing.

pp. 64.

This pamphlet is composed of a great variety of desultory remarks. Some of them are true and highly useful, but many have no object that we can discover, but to show the wit of the author. The treatise on the Preservation of the Apple Tree contains many excellent suggestions on the subject.

BIOGRAPHY.

Memoir of Simon Bolivar, Liberator of South America. New York. D. Fanshaw.

EDUCATION.

Observations on the Improvement of Seminaries of Learning in the United States; with Suggestions for its Accomplishment. By Walter R. Johnson, Principal of the Academy at Germantown, Pennsylvania. 8vo. pp. 28. Philadelphia. E. Little. 1825.

A very sensible pamphlet on a very important subject. We shall take occasion to notice it more at length hereafter.