order to use such books, it is necessary that children should be as expert at reading, as experienced printers are in decyphering dark manuscripts. We are somewhat apprehensive that our author understands his subject better than he does the most philosophical method of teaching it; but of the plan of his work, and its adaptation to the purposes for which it was designed, we hope to speak a little more at length, when we have gained leisure to read it through more carefully.

EDUCATION.

Lights of Education, or Mr Hope and his Family, a Narrative for Young Persons. With a Vignette. Philadelphia. Ash & Mason.

LAW.

Harris and Johnson's Maryland Reports. Vol. V. 8vo.

MATHEMATICS.

Gummere's Surveying. A New and Improved Edition. Philadelphia. Kimber & Sharpless.

MEDICINE.

The American Medical Review, and Journal of Original and Selected Papers in Medicine and Surgery. Vol. II. No. I. Philadelphia. A. Sherman.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Remarks on “Gen. William Hull's Memoirs of the Campaign of the North Western Army, 1812." By Josiah Snelling, Colonel of the 5th U. S. Regiment of Infantry. 8vo. Detroit. 1825. Sheldon & Wells. The author of this pamphlet is, we believe, a native of this city, and a brave and meritorious officer. He considers his character to be unjustly implicated by Gen. Hull in his " Memoirs ;" and his object, in this publication, is to vindicate himself. He indulges in a great deal of recrimination and unnecessary personal abuse. The public and posterity want facts it they want any thing more upon this subject, and Col Snelling has stated but few facts previously unknown. His pamphlet is, on the whole, boisterous and vindictive. From the specimens we have seen lately, we do not think that all the officers of our army excel as authors, and we are persuaded their country will derive much more glory from the achievements of their swords than of their pens.

NOVELS AND TALES.

The Orphans; an American Tale; addressed chiefly to the Young. 12mo. pp. 123. New York. E. Bliss & E. White.

This work has no great merit as a tale, but it contains a few good reflections upon the character and utility of the asylums in this country for orphan children. The author is evidently a person of pious, though somewhat gloomy feelings; and these feelings thoroughly pervade the book from beginning to end. He may explain his own objects. "The design, here, is to state important truths, in simplicity; with such reflections as appear to offer, in immediate connexion. A more gay and pleasant subject may be sought by such as are fond of amusement and the attractions of wit Far different is the purpose of this humble work. It is profitable to go sometimes to the house of mourning, to turn our thoughts to the vicissitudes and sorrows of human life, not as the subject of gloomy foreboding; but as a wholesome admonition of our dependence, and the obligations under which we are placed as rational, moral, and social beings." There are many inaccuracies in the use of language, which plainly betray the author's inexperience in writing.

Harriet and her Scholars; a Sabbath School Story, by the author of "Jane and her Teacher." With an elegantly engraved Frontispiece. 18mo. pp. 90. Philadelphia.

POLITICS.

A Register of Debates in Congress, comprising the Leading Debates and Incidents of the Second Session of the Eighteenth Congress; together with an Appendix, containing the most important State Papers and Public Documents to which the Session has given birth. To which are added, the Laws enacted during the Session; with a copious Index to the whole. Extra royal 8vo. pp. 512. Washington, D. C. Gales & Seaton.

TOPOGRAPHY.

Pocket Guide, for the Tourist and Traveller, along the Line of the Canals, and the Interior Commerce of the State of New York. Second edition, with Additions and Corrections. By Horatio Gates Spafford, LL. D. New York.

THEOLOGY.

The Week; or, the Practical Duties of the Fourth Commandment. Exhibited in a Series of Tracts, entitled the Last Day of the Week, the First Day of the Week,-and the Week completed. 18mo. pp. 275. New York. W. B. Gilley.

The author of this volume makes no very great demands upon the previous knowledge of his readers; or in other words, he adapts his thoughts and language to minds of a humble order and of very limited acquirements. He gives much excellent instruction in the form of narratives, which are generally interesting; though the style will not prove peculiarly attractive to all classes of the community.

The Precepts of Jesus, the Guide to Peace and Happiness. By Ram mohun Roy, of Calcutta. New York. B. Bates.

Advices and Meditations of the late William Haslett, Esq. consisting of an Address to the Clergy and Christians of all Denominations, with some Discriminating Marks of Grace, &c.; with a Biographical Sketch of the Author. Charleston, S. C. Price 75 cents.

Observations on the Religious Peculiarities of the Society of Friends. By Joseph John Gurney. Philadelphia. B. & T. Kite.

AMERICAN EDITIONS OF FOREIGN WORKS.

Universal Geography. By M. Malte-Brun.

ton.

Wells & Lilly.

No. VII. 8vo. Bos

An Exposition of the Natural System of the Nerves of the Human Body. By Charles Bell, Professor of Anatomy and Surgery to the Royal College of Surgeons. 8vo. Philadelphia. Carey & Lea.

William Tell; a Play in five acts, as performed at the Park Theatre. Written by James Sheridan Knowles, author of Virginius, &c. &c. New York. E. M. Murden.

Published on the first and fifteenth day of every month, by CUMMINGS, HILLIARD, & Co., and HARRISON GRAY, at the office of the U. S. Literary Gazette, No. 74 Washington-Street, Boston, for the Proprietors. Terms, $5 per annum. Cambridge: Printed at the University Press, by Hilliard & Metcalf.

An Address delivered before the American Academy of Fine Arts. By WILLIAM BEACH LAWRENCE. New York. 1825. pp. 44.

[CONCLUDED.]

A taste for the fine arts was not entirely extinguished even at the darkest period of the middle age. They yet lingered, although in a corrupt state, at Constantinople, after they were driven out of Italy. And in Italy the invading Goths did less to obliterate the traces of ancient art than the Iconoclasts, the effects of whose blind rage tempt us to wish they had confined their bigotry, barbarism, and blows, to the heads of themselves and their opponents, instead of wreaking their fury upon the splendid monuments of Grecian sculpture and painting. Some of the noblest of the Roman edifices, however, such as the Pantheon, and the Flavian Coliseum, owe their preservation to their being dedicated as churches; and this, in part, atones for the mischief otherwise occasioned by misguided views of religion. But it is not a little remarkable, that, from the tenth to the thirteenth century, no part of Europe so munificently protected, or successfully cultivated, letters and arts as the Moorish kingdoms of Spain.

The remains of the grand mosque of Cordoba, and of the Alhambra and Generalife at Grenada, still attest the magnificence of the Spanish Arabs. And about the same period, the Gothic, or Norman style of architecture, with its pointed arches and clustered columns, flourished chiefly in the northern countries of Europe, and those picturesque buildings were

constructed, which, rude as they are, have strong claims on our approbation as models of ecclesiastical edifices. But the effectual restoration of the fine arts in Europe, was prepared, by a combination of causes, strikingly similar, and yet in one respect, strikingly unlike to those, which produced the original establishment of them in Greece.

It was not until the tenth century, that the municipalities of Italy began to emerge out of the night of barbarism, into activity and consequence. They were the old Roman State resolved, as it were, into its constituent elements. The principal maritime cities, becoming independent of each other and of any common head, animated by competition, inspired by freedom, entered first upon the career of commerce, to which their situation invited them; and amid numerous wars and civil commotions occasioned by their turbulent spirit, speedily accumulated wealth, and laid the foundations of their future glory. Here was, in political condition, a remarkable counterpart of the Greek republics. But the resemblance is carried further in the subservience of the fine arts in modern Italy as well as in Greece to the purposes of religion, and the influence of religion upon their re-establishment in Europe. The fathers of the Catholic church knew, equally well with the ancient priests, the advantage of religious forms capable of powerfully affecting the senses and the imagination. Hence the papal see and its subordinates early availed themselves of the art of painting and sculpture, but chiefly the former, in the decoration of their places of worship and in giving an imposing exterior to their ceremonies; supplying the want of pagan gods and their adventures, by a host of saints and fabulous legends of their lives. But as pious scruples interfered with the use of images in churches, painting was more encouraged than statuary, and thus gradually outstripped the noblest of the imitative arts. Therefore it was that modern taste acquired a turn the reverse of what it did in Greece; an event, which, for ourselves, we never can sufficiently deplore, considering, as we do, the chaste, durable, and majestic creations of sculpture more admirable far than the fugitive productions of the pencil, in which mediocrity is so easily attained, which are often gaudy combinations of meretricious colours, and which when most beautiful depend for all their beauty upon optical illusion,

When a taste for the polite arts began to revive in Italy, Greek artists were for some time employed to adorn the pri

vate and public buildings of wealthy cities, such as Pisa, Venice, and Florence. And as Petrarca and Boccaccio, the restorers of classical learning, studied under Greek instructers; so likewise did Cimabue, the oldest of modern painters, and Nicolo Pisano, the first distinguished modern sculptor. These fathers of the art flourished in the latter part of the thirteenth century; and with them commenced the brilliant series of the great Italian masters.

Cimabue's merit consisted in his breaking free from the stiff and spiritless manner of his immediate teachers, and by the study of nature and of ancient monuments obtaining a purer and truer style. His works were looked upon as prodigies of art by his Florentine countrymen. His picture of the Madonna was carried in solemn procession from his house to the church of S. Maria Novella, by sound of trumpet, accompanied with enthusiastic rejoicings; and the street through which the procession passed has to this day borne the name of borgo allegro. Yet painting was still in its infancy; for Cimabue sometimes inserted labels in the mouths of his figures, as we now see them in low caricatures. His pupil, Giotto, the friend of Dante, made more striking improvement than Cimabue, gave a proper direction to the taste of his successors, and, by the excellence of his own productions, raised up numberless illustrious patrons and professors of the art. He received employment and honours from every quarter; and thenceforth the use of painting to give splendour to religion becoming an established taste, the art continued to advance with wonderful celerity.

Florence, it thus appears, took the lead in cultivating this art; and the patronage of the Medici, together with the establishment of the academy of St Luke, in process of time, created the first and greatest school of painting, which places the chief excellence in simplicity of design and purity of expression, the grand style, as it is named; which, founded by Giotto, and gradually improved by Masaccio, Lionardo da Vinci, and others, reached its highest perfection in Michel Agnolo and Raffaello. In the mean time another school of painting arose in Venice, beginning with Giorgione, and boasting of Tiziano, Tintoretto, and Paolo Veronese; in which purity and brilliancy of colouring and execution were the principal aim. A third school, which sought by the harmonious disposition of light and shade to produce the utmost elegance and grace of effect, was established at Parma by Correggio.