hands of all readers of taste and feeling; all who make any honest pretensions to sympathy with Southern genius. We allude now to the Songs and Poems of the South,' a very beautiful volume, beautifully printed, of lyrical gushes, flights of fancy, and bursts of manly enthusiasm, by Judge MEEK, of Alabama; and Alusco,'

an Indian narrative, exquisitely descriptive of Southern woods and forests, and their inhabitants, with a variety of other pieces, felicitously descriptive of Southern objects, by Dr. WM. H. SIMMONS, of this State.

It will be our pleasure hereafter to refer to these volumes more particularly. It is our pride that both of these gentlemen are natives of Carolina. We have pleasure also in apprising our readers of other volumes, either in preparation for, or in rapid progress through, the press. Mr. HOWARD H. CALDWELL, who made his debut some time ago in a very graceful volume, mostly lyrical, entitled 'Oliatta,' has nearly ready for publication a second volume of the same character; but, as is generally believed by his friends and admirers, of very superior order to the first, which we should welcome with all eagerness. He is a young poet of great fluency and fine fancies. Mr. PAUL HAYNE, we learn, has been for some time engaged on a classical subject-Sappho'-which is ready for the press. To those who duly recognize the purity of Mr. HAYNE's tastes, the simplicity of his plans, the musical clearness of his tones, his general symmetry, and strong but subdued' vein of thought and feeling, it will readily be conceived that he must be singularly at home in handling a classical subject. That of 'Sappho' especially, so tender, touching, wild, passionate, and melancholy, must, in his hands, be susceptible of the most exquisite uses, and we shall be anxious to realize, in perusal, the high promise which our knowledge of his own genius and of his subject must equally inspire. Mr. HENRY TIMROD, whose delicate and graceful lyrics have so warmly possessed the ears of all those who have loving sympathies, and to whom the language of the Poet of Love is still a living voice, he, too, it is understood, has a volume in preparation, which we may reasonably look to see from the press sometime during the present winter. At all events, we trust that all these minstrels will come forth, with the birds of our forests, in the opening of the coming spring. Here, then, almost at the same moment, we have no less than five Carolina Poets, prepared to prove to the world how prolific in song and art is our region, shall we doubt our resources in letters, and in the noblest sort of letters, with these evidences of endow

ment before us? If God has given the singing birds to our race, shall we not encourage them to sing-shall we not genially listen, and seek to understand, and to appreciate, and love, as well the peculiar idiom of each; for each has a voice particularly his own? Shall we not feed, nourish, and so entertain these sweet singers as that we shall have permanent songs of our own, with which we may rejoice our ears, and gladden, with sweet surprise, those of the stranger? Shall we suffer them, as we have done of old, to starve upon the boughs where they sing, until the stranger reproaches us with the lack of that very music which we might possess, and in the gift of which God has provided us most abundantly? Let us amend all this, dear readers, and in season, lest we lose utterly that fine faculty in art, which will surely not linger in the possession of any people who set no value upon it. The faculty perishes which we do not encour age; and, with the decay of every such faculty, we lose a portion of our own securities as a race. We forfeit a share of our permanent guarantees of long life and noble distinction. Let each of you, who can, make such volumes the proper gifts to your young ones at the holiday and other seasons. Let each person, having a Southern homestead, make it matter of pride that he can show upon his shelves, or his centre-table, every work of pure literature which has emanated from the mind of his own section, so that he may proudly say that God has endowed our race as bountifully as any other, and here are the proofs that we eagerly seek to develope, and to use properly his gifts. Only do this, each of you, and it will surprise you to see how soon you will create a native literature."

"The Southern Matron" desires us to say that not being able to prepare the Report of the Mount Vernon Association in time for its appearance in the present number of the Messenger, she will soon give it to the public in the columns of the Richmond Enquirer. We rejoice to know that the prospects of the Association are in the highest degree encouraging. The Masonic Fraternity of the Union have recently become Allies of the Ladies and a Bill is now before the Legislature of Virginia to authorize the purchase of Mount Vernon upon the terms heretofore made known by the proprietor.

THE NEW AMERICAN CYCLOPEDIA: A Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge. Edited by GEORGE RIPLEY and CHARLES A. DANA. Volume I. A-Araguay. New York: D. Appleton & Company, 346 and 348 Broadway. London: 36 Little Britain. 1858.

This goodly volume inaugurates at once the most considerable and commanding work that has ever been published in America. It has been undertaken, we are confident, with a conscientious desire to furnish the great body of American readers with a trustworthy source of information upon all subjects connected with the progress of civilization, and so far has been prosecuted with the most gratifying success. The Editors, Messrs. Ripley and Dana, are men of large and liberal scholarship, exceedingly well qualified for the laborious and difficult task of compiling and arranging such a work, and though it might appear to a Southern reader, from their long connection with the New York Tribune, that the history, biography, industrial resources and political philosophy of our half of the Union would be likely to receive little justice at their hands, we are satisfied that nothing narrow or sectional will be found in the pages of this "Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge." As an earnest of the impartiality with which the plan has been carried out up to this moment, we may mention that the life of Mr. Calhoun which will appear in the third volume has been prepared by Richard K. Crallé, Esq., and that Mr. Simms and other eminent Southern writers have been enlisted in the corps of contributors. In regarding the amount of labour involved in such a summary of human knowledge, the mind is well-nigh overwhelmed, and we can only marvel at the splendid results that may be attained by a systematic division of subjects among many litterateurs, and unwearied industry on the part of those who are to combine the multitudinous facts and opinions into a congruous and useful shape. In the volume now before us, there is much new and valuable material illustrative of American affairs which may be sought for in vain in any English Encyclopedia, while the subjects arising out of the history of the Old World have been treated with a freshness and spirit that cannot fail to be relished by all English readers. The papers on Alfieri, Addison, Alma, the Alps, Amsterdam, might be adduced in proof of

the extent, interest, and accuracy of the foreign department, while those on Alabama, Annapolis, Aiken, the Alexanders, Allston, &c., show the fairness and amplitude of the Southern biography, geography and criticism. We have but one fear in relation to this Cyclopedia, and this is, that if it is completed with the fulness which characterizes the first volume, the editors will not be able to fulfil the promise given in the Prospectus of bringing the work within the compass of fifteen volumes. The letter A is by no means exhausted, and it must be borne in mind that facts and events as yet in futuro, battles that are to be fought, census returns that are to be generalized, changes in government that are to take place, in the coming eighteen months, will have to be chronicled and arranged in the concluding volumes. But we think the public will not be disposed to quarrel with the Messrs. Appleton if the work should exceed the limits which have been set to it d'avance. The debt of gratitude they have imposed upon the country by an enterprise of such magnitude and importance will be recognized, we trust, in a vast army of subscribers.

BACON'S ESSAYS: With Annotations by RICHARD WHATELY, D. D., Archbishop of Dublin. From the Second London Edition, Revised. New York: C. S. Francis & Co., 554 Broadway. Boston: 53 Devonshire Street. 1857. [From A Morris,

97 Main Street.

The Essays of Lord Bacon are among the best emanations of the human intellect. They deserve the thoughtful study of all who would learn to regulate their lives to the order of a sound practical wisdom, and to their just comprehension thoughtful study is indispensable. A page of Lord Bacon is no light reading, but contains suggestions which must be pondered and which will set in motion trains of thought leading to the grandest truths. Archbishop Whately is an excellent expounder of the sage of Verulam, and his Annotations are of the greatest value and significance. The American publishers deserve well for having issued his volume in a style worthy of its inestimable contents.

The exquisite holiday edition of Bryant's Poems which the Appletons have

brought out for the New Year, is something for which every lover of the graceful in art and the beautiful in poetry should feel thankful. The illustrations are mostly delicious, showing the great advance which has been made of late years in wood-engraving and the sympathy which the eminent English artists who executed them have felt with the great American master of song. We need say nothing, of course, of the merits of Mr. Bryant in noticing an edition de luxe of his poetical writings. Collected in any form these writings have a permanent interest, but arrayed in such an attractive guise and embellished by such tasteful drawings as we now see them, they bless us like a glorious landscape or a golden sunset.

POEMS by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. From the last London Edition. Corrected by the Author. In three volumes. New York: C. S. Francis & Co., 554 Broadway. 1857. [From A. Morris, 97 Main Street.

A charming copy in blue and gold of the complete Poetical works of Mrs. Browning, including that striking novel in blank verse of "Aurora Leigh," which has excited so much remark in literary circles as the highest embodiment of her genius. We like Mrs. Browning and we like her not, "the reasons why" we might tell if limits were not prescribed to us here, but waiving any objections to her peculiar views of life and her affectations in composition, we rejoice to place so sweet a triplet of volumes upon the shelves of our library among the poets of the century.

To Messrs. Ticknor & Fields of Boston, we are indebted for several novelties sent us through Mr. James Woodhouse. Among these the "Twin Roses" of Mrs. Ritchie, would demand an elaborate notice, bad the volume not been reviewed by a competent and distinguished hand in the foregoing pages of this number of the Messenger. Mrs. Jameson's "Sketches of Art" is another one of those aureo-cerulcan duodecimos which these tasteful publishers were the first to issue, and which have become so popular. Mrs. Jameson is a genial and sympathetic writer and her art-criticisms

are worthy of being read by all who would form correct opinions upon the aesthetic. "The Abbot" in two volumes belongs to the fine Household Edition of the Waverley Novels already so frequently mentioned in this department of our magazine. The Poems of James Russell Lowell, (in two volumes uniform with the cabinet copies of Longfellow, Tennyson, Massey, Leigh Hunt, &c.) are of various merit, some of them informed by a delicate sense of beauty, and others characterized by excessive vulgarity and by an intense fanaticism. Mr. Lowell belongs to the worst clique of anti-slavery agitators, and his hatred of the South can excite only contempt and disgust embodied as it is in rhymes that betray the inspiration of the hags rather than the muses. A Sonnet to Giddings is certainly an unique performance-could not Mr. Lowell oblige us with one to Frederick Douglas? Two works for the juveniles, the one by Mayne Reid, the other by Grace Greenwood, and both excellent in their way, complete our batch of Messrs. Ticknor and Fields' publications for the month. We are glad that the operations of so enterprising a house have not been interrupted at all by the late financial troubles.

THE CHRISTIAN LAWYER; or The Claims of Christianity on the Legal Profession. A Discourse delivered at the Funeral of RICHARD W. FLOURNOY, ESQ., in the First Presbyterian Church, Richmond, Va., December 1st, 1857. By REV. T. V. MOORE, D.D. Richmond: Macfarlane & Fergusson. 1858.

A more touching and beautiful tribute to departed worth we have rarely seen than this discourse. Dr. Moore, had he chosen the law as a profession, might have won its highest honours, and in the views here presented of the Claims of the Christian Religion upon the legal fraternity, he has shown his high appreciation of the dig nity and usefulness of the bar, at the same time that he has afforded evidence of the attention with which he has studied the lives and characters of its most distinguished ornaments. The body of lawyers in our city have done well to publish it in the handsome pamphlet now before us.