ESSAYS BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL, or Studies of Character. By HENRY T. TUCKERMAN. 8vo, pp. 475. Boston: Phillips, Sampson & Co. Mason Brothers, New-York.

THIS book is a valuable contribution to American literature of permanent worth, and will add to the already well-earned reputation of the author, as a writer of taste, judgment, and comprehensive views. In this volume the author has assembled a constellation of personages high on the roll of fame: patriots, poets, heroes, sages, statesmen, and men of science and letters, thirty in number, beginning with Washington, and ending with Franklin, filling up the intermediate ranks with eminent characters, such as Southey, Fulton, Chateaubriand, Jeffrey, De Witt Clinton, Berkeley, Sydney Smith, Joseph Addison, and others whose mental and characteristic portraitures are drawn and depicted with life-like lineaments by the vigorous descriptive and discriminating pen of Mr. Tuckerman. There is nothing overdrawn; no affectation or extravagance of language; but his thoughts, style, and diction are clear and lucid, and seem to flow along like a silvery stream or smooth-surfaced river, between verdant banks, richly adorned with varied illustrations of historic and classic beauty, which both charm and instruct. The lovers of good and substantial literature will find many well-prepared viands in this volume to stimulate their mental appetite. We should like to serve up some savory specimens for our readers, but just now have not room upon our table.

NEIGHBOR JACKWOOD. BY PAUL CREYTON, Author of Father Brighthopes, Martin Merivale, etc., etc. "A certain woman went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves." Boston; Phillips, Sampson & Co. 1857. For sale by Mason Brothers, New-York.

"FATHER Brighthopes" was one of the most genial, spirited, and pleasant juvenile books we ever read. This "Neighbor Jackwood," though lacking something of the humor of the former work, has that clear, spirited style which always interests the reader, and impresses its moral strongly. Its moral tendency, like this author's other books, is perfectly unexceptionable, while its literary merit is worthy of a name that has already acquired an honorable distinction. THE GOLDEN LEGACY. BY A LADY. D. Appleton & Co., New-York. 1857. 1 vol., 382 pages. THE gifted authoress of this new candidate for popular favor, is, we believe, the daughter of a venerable minister some years since deceased, and the wife of a clergyman formerly the pastor of a New: England congregation. With such parentage, and under such auspices, she ought to write a good book, at least a safe book, free from the moral poison and injurious sentiment with which not a little of the light literature of the day is infested and cankered. The "Golden Legacy" is an admirable story in its plan, progress, and denouements, rich and graceful

| in diction and graphic imagery, pure sentiment, and
high moral and religious principle, carried out and
illustrated in the every-day action of benevolent
Christian life. The Golden Legacy. is the " golden
heart could wish in earth's riches.
rule" in principle, but yields in the story all that
It is a good
book, a safe book; all may read it with interest and
profit. It is a fine moral painting, with strong lights
in the usual style of the Appletons.
and shades, and instructive lessons, tastefully framed

RELIGIOUS TRUTH. Illustrated from Science, in Ad

dresses and Sermons on special occasions. By EDWARD HITCHCOCK, D.D., LL.D., late President of Amherst College, and now Professor of Theology and Geology. Boston: Phillips, Sampson & Co. 1857. For sale by Mason Brothers, New-York. THIS Collection of occasional discourses presents the learned and venerable naturalist in a new light. In many respects these are model discourses; the simplicity of style and feeling which they display, the union of scientific attainment and profound humility and a reverent spirit, the fine taste and judicious logic, are qualities of highest literary and moral worth. The trains of thought opened up are often novel and striking; the method of treating them ingenious, and the spirit by which they are animated, admirable. Whether perused for their literary and scientific instruction, or their moral and religious impression, they will be regarded as far surpassing the ordinary grade of published sermons, and as doing honor to both the piety and the learning of their venerable author.

POEMS. BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
Complete in 2 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.
1857. For sale by Stringer & Townsend, New-
York.

THIS is a sumptuous and most tasteful edition of the entire poetical works of our esteemed fellowcountryman-a fitting garb for his beautiful thoughts. We suppose no other edition is comparable with this in respect either of completeness or elegance; and it is but little to say that it is a work of which our country may well be proud. Longfellow's place among the poets, especially American poets, has long been definitely settled. It is too late to praise him, as his name is a household word, and his fame a part of our national heritage. We can only express the hope that this convenient and fitting garb may attract to his pure and exalting pages, many new readers, and thus enlarge the sphere through which his genius and taste may be diffused.

BOTHWELL. A Poem in six parts. By EDMOND-
STOUNE AYTOUN, D. C. L., author of "Lays of the
Scottish Cavaliers," etc. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.
For sale by Stringer & Townsend, New-York.
1857.

MR. AYTOUN, as our readers know, is the editor of Blackwood's Magazine, a scholar and critic not

less than a poet. Indeed, his poetry is quite subor-lightful autobiography, "My Schools and Schoolmasdinate to his political and critical connections. All ters," and his "Scenes and Seconds in the North of that he has published has been more the instrument Scotland," are apart altogether from his scientific for conveying decided political opinions than the ex- labors. pressions of poetic feeling. The present poem forms no exception to this; it is, besides, a very vivid and very spirited sketch of a rude and stirring era, wholesale eulogy of Mary, and of the high toryism associated with her name and defense. What the reader however, will admire, is the free, spirited ballad style, in which Mr. Aytoun has hardly a living equal. Many passages of great beauty, and many more of inexpressible spirit and animation, abound in the volume, and all shows the traces of refinement, taste, and genius.

SONGS OF SUMMER. BY RICHARD HENRY STODDARD.
Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1857. New-York:
Stringer & Townsend.

KEEP THE MOUTH SHUT DURING COLD WEATHER. a-Dr. Hall advises every person who goes out into the open air from a warm apartment, to keep the mouth shut while walking or riding. He says: "Before you leave the room, bundle up well-gloves, cloak, and comforter; shut your mouth before you open the street door, and keep it resolutely closed until you have walked briskly for some ten minutes; then, if you keep on walking or have reached your home, you may talk as much as you please. Not so doing, many a heart once happy and young now lies in the church-yard, that might have been young and happy still. But how? If you keep your mouth closed and walk rapidly, the air can only reach the lungs by a circuit of the nose and head, and becomes warmed before reaching the lungs, thus causing no derangement: but if you converse, large draughts of cold air dash directly in upon the lungs, chilling the whole frame almost instantly. The brisk walking throws the blood to the surface of the body, thus keeping up a vigorous circulation, making a cold impossible, if you don't get into a cold bed too quickly after you get home. Neglect of these precautions brings sickness and premature death to multitudes every year."

MR. STODDARD has won a fine reputation, which he is judicious enough not to hazard by a too frequent or incautious appearance. We admire the careful and dainty finish of his verse, and the faultless rhythm which they show scarcely less than its rich and beautiful imagery; without much thought, there is grace of form and fullness of feeling which will ever make him a favorite with those whose ear demands delicacy and finish, and whose affections are reached by the display of tenderness and feeling. The present collection is fragmentary, but contains some of the neatest of his periods and best of his poetry.

HUGH MILLER, THE GEOLOGIST.-Scotland has to mourn the sudden quenching of one of her shining lights. On the morning of the 24th ult., Mr. Miller was found lying dead on the floor of his bed-room, shot through the heart with a pistol-bullet. That he died by his own hand there seems to be no doubt, but the circumstances under which the melancholy event happened do not lead to the supposition that his death was an act of intentional suicide. For some time past Mr. Miller had been in a somewhat indifferent state of health, brought on, we believe, by over-study in the preparation of a new work on geology. He suffered considerably from nervous excitement, and, though at all times a man of eccentric manners, an unusual strangeness was remarked by his acquaintances. The evening before his death he was to have delivered a lecture on "The Mosaic Creation" to an audience at Portobello, a bathingplace in the neighborhood of Edinburgh, where he resided. He had prepared the lecture, but the state of his health prevented his delivering it, and it was read in his absence by a friend. He had for some time been in the habit of keeping a loaded revolver in his bed-room, having, it is said, a strong apprehension of danger from housebreakers, for which, in reality, there was some reason, as an attempt was made not very long ago to break into his valuable museum. No explosion was heard by the servants during the night.

The above particulars are current through the press generally; nor is it needful to state at any length who and what Hugh Miller was. At the time of his death he edited the Witness newspaper; but his progress from the humble occupation of a quarryman to be an expounder of science and philosophy stands best recorded in his several works. Mr. Miller's latest published writing was a masterly pamphlet in vindication of his countrymen against the aspersions of Mr. Macaulay. This and his de

NOVEL METEOROLOGICAL THEORY.-The late fearful inundations in France, have set the philosophers and savans of Paris to speculating upon the probable causes of a calamity which, with more or less violence, afflicts the country periodically. At a late sitting in the Academy of Science, an essay was read on the subject, in which the idea was advanced, that the overflow of the rivers are chiefly occasioned by the sirocco from Africa. It is conjectured that the hot blast, in its course over the sea, causes a rapid and copious evaporation, and that the vapors are carried by it, and finally condensed amid the cold atmosphere of the mountains in the centre, east and south of France, where they descend and flow into the plains and valleys in fierce torrents, whose volume is swollen by the waters of the melting snows. This is, at least, an ingenious and plausible theory, whatever may be its practical value.

FRANCE.-In 1821, the official valuation of the real property of France was 39,514,000,000 francs, or nearly $8,000,000,000. In 1850 the Legislative Assembly ordered a new valuation, which was made in 1851, and the results of which are now, as we believe, for the first time given to the world. These results are found in the wonderful fact that in the short period of 30 years the money value of real estate has more than doubled-its present amount being no less than 83,744,000,000 francs, or above $16,000,000,000. Power having grown in every country with the increase in the value of land, we are led to find in this extraordinary growth a key to the changes that are now taking place. But forty years since, the total annual value of the land of Great Britain and Ireland was £49,850,000. Thirty years later, England showed a slight increase, but so recently as 1851 the total change effected amounted to only £3,000,000. Ireland, in the mean time, had greatly fallen, and the total value was probably even less in 1851 than it had been in 1813.