The Educational Institutions of the United States, their Character and Organization, translated from the Swedish of P. A. SILJESTROM, M. A., is the title of a work of considerable value lately announced from the London press. Professor Siljestrom was deputed by the Swedish Government to travel into the United States for the purpose of examining the American institutions of education. He remained some time in this city, where he won the esteem of all who made his acquaintance, by his modesty and intelligence. The information in the volume is mainly derived from public reports on the schools, or the laws under which they are established and regulated, with such correction as oral inquiry and examination could supply, as to the actual working. The tone of the volume has therefore at times something of a blue-book character. This official air is continually relieved by living observations, or by general reflections. The book contains a good digest of the schools and systems of education in the model States of New York and New England, with notices of some of the other States and of the higher Colleges: there are notices, too, of the character and qualifications of the teachers; and sketches of quasi historical questions, such as the disputes with the Romanists and the schools for colored people.

J. D. MORELL, the author of a History of Philosophy, and other works of a philosophical character, having obtained by his former publications a name among the cultivators of mental science, now appears as the author of a more formal and systematic treatise on psychology. Few men are so thoroughly acquainted with the works of continental as well as English metaphysicians, and so well qualified for noting and reporting the history and condition of metaphysical sciences as a branch of human knowledge. Those who are interested in such studies will find in Mr. Morell's book much satisfactory information and much curious speculation.

AYTOUN, author of "Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers, has delivered a course of lectures on poetry and dramatic literature in Edinburgh with great success, and has also repeated them in London. We hope he may follow the laudable fashion of the day and give us an opportunity of listening to his course on this side of the Atlantic. Thackeray, with his bag of $12,000 and his budget of universal good-will, presents a brilliant inducement to the eloquent Aarons in English letters to imitate his example.

The Academy of Sciences of Berlin has granted to Dr. FREUND, the eminent philologist and lexicographer, the expenses of a journey in Switzerland and the Tyrol, for the purpose of investigating the Romanic dialects spoken in the districts of ancient Rhætia.

In the series of translations entitled "Contemporary French Literature," a recent number presents Mazzini Judged by Himself and by his Countrymen, written by JULES DE BREVAL. The coarse and intemperate invectives against Mazzini may please his enemies, but a book in such a style will not promote the object for which it was written. Much personal abuse, and the imputation of unworthy motives, are the author's chief weapons, yet Protestant readers will receive a favorable impression rather than otherwise of Mazzini and his works, from the perusal of M. Bréval's volume.

A late decree of the Roman literary inquisitors involves an amusing instance of the rapidity with which-in these days of express trains and magnetic telegraphs-literary intelligence travels from London to Rome. These censors of books appear to have just become aware that an Englishman of the name of Macaulay has written two volumes called the History of England—and, having also made the discovery that the said "History of England," is heretical and subversive of sound faith and morals, the ancient gentlewomen who preside over the intellectual feasts of Italy have set it down in their list of political writings. It is the old war between the red stockings and the blue.-As a further illustration of the just asserted principle, we may add that the

Scripture Lessons published by the Irish Board of Education for the National Schools so long ago as 1835!

The London Athenæum hits off the eccentric work of our adopted countryman Dr. KRAITSIR, on Glossology, with its usual pungent criticism. At the same time it does not fail to recognize the merit of that truly original production. "Dr. Kraitsir's style of writing is far removed from that of the quiet, old-same list is now for the first time enriched with the fashioned school of philosophical authors. He has evidently read Carlyle, or some of his imitators. His treatise is disfigured by a wild extravagance of tone and expression, misplaced and unsuccessful attempts at wit, far-fetched and incongruous allusions, a want of simplicity and clear arrangement, and a random spirit of speculation which carries the worthy doctor beyond all reasonable bounds. At the same time, we freely admit that it contains materials which-though thrown together in an undigested form-are capable of being turned to good account. Dr. Kraitsir lashes himself into a perfect fury of indignation at the English mode of pronouncing Greek and Latin, but does not vouchsafe any directions for improving it. Another bête noire that disturbs his equanimity, is, the way in which English spelling is usually taught that is, by requiring the learner to name the letters of which words are composed, though their names differ widely from the sounds. He proposes that at first words should be spelt by dividing them into their elementary sounds, and afterward in the ordinary way. Having settled this grave matter to his satisfaction, our author proceeds to discuss the whole subject of sounds and letters in a long and curious chapter, displaying wide, if not deep, research."

A certain learned gentleman, Monsieur EMMANUEL by name, has recently obtained considerable notoriety in Paris, by attempting to make as sweeping and as radical a revolution in the science of astronomy as worthy Sganarelle in Molière's comedy did of his own authority in that of physiology. The earth, he says, turns from the east to the west, and not from the west to the east, as all astronomers have heretofore maintained; the rotation of the earth is accomplished in twenty-four hours precisely, instead of twenty-three hours, fifty-six minutes, and some seconds as astronomers have heretofore supposed, and all the theories as to the attraction of the sun or the planets are entirely erroneous. The astronomical Sganarelle had the infatuated presumption to press these and other eccentric notions on the Academy of Sciences, and to endeavor to get a commission nominated to report on them; but M. Arago, M. de Liouville, and the other astronomers and mathematicians of that learned body, declined one after another to examine and report on them, lest it should be supposed for a moment that they take such

strange crotchets seriously. This has greatly exas- | perated M. Emmanuel, and in his wrath he has belabored M. Arago without mercy, in sundry lengthy letters, which one of the daily newspapers has been foolish enough to insert. But what is more singular is, that he has opened a course of lectures, in which he gravely teaches his astronomical heresies, and these lectures attract crowded, and, it is said, believing and admiring auditories.

known as the translator of English, French, and German plays, and has left behind him a valuable collection of 4000 dramatic pieces.

"All Paris, learned and unlearned, gentle and simple," says the correspondent of the London Lit erary Gazette, "has been for the last fortnight, and still is, deeply occupied with the singular phenomenon of tables, hats, porcelain vases, and other things, but especially tables, being set in motion, or made to whirl round and round with some rapidity by the simple imposition of human hands, touching each other by the extremities of the thumbs and little fin

A most interesting discovery has just been made in the Royal Library of Brussels. In looking over Etienne's edition, 1568, of the Tragedies of Sophocles, the notes written on the margins have been re-gers. The 'Literary Gazette,' in its last two nuni cognized to be in the handwriting of Racine. This book once formed a portion of the collection of the late Mr. Van Hulthem, but no mention was made in the catalogue at the period of sale of the fact, and it was by mere accident it has now been discovered.

A valuable manuscript copy of the Bible, in Norman French, written on vellum, richly illuminated, and once the property of King John of France, is about to be offered for sale for the benefit of the creditors of Mr. Broughton, formerly of the Foreign Office. It is stated that £1500 was demanded for it on the occasion of an application to purchase it by the late Archbishop of Canterbury.

bers, had some account of the phenomenon; and the experiments that have been made in this city within the last few days by men of science, letters, or social rank-experiments in which any thing like fraud or juggling was impossible-leave no doubt whatever of its reality. The most extraordinary feature in it is, that the operators, when once they have set the table in motion, can direct it by their will-making it turn, untouched, from side to side, backward or forward, as readily as if it were a doll pulled by strings, or a learned dog performing its tricks. Among the persons who have publicly testified to the truth of experiments made by them are-Dr. Latour, editor of one of the medical journals; Jules Janin, of the Debats;' A. Lireux, theatrical critic of the Germany has lost another man of letters of Eu-Constitutionnel;' and several others of equal note." ropean reputation: LUDWIG TIECK, founder of the romantic school of German literature, died at Berlin The Athenæum says of the Shakspeare testimonia! on the 28th April, in the eightieth year of his age. to KOSSUTH: "Time and antecedent events necessa Tieck was a fellow laborer with Schlegel in trans-rily gave to the great meeting at the London Tavern lating Shakspeare.

The second volume of a very interesting book has just been published at Leipzig-viz., An Account of the different Languages of the German People, by VON FIRMENICH. It contains 491 German dialects. Von Firmenich has collected altogether 563; the remaining seventy-two will appear in the third and fourth volumes; in addition to which, he intends to give dialects from the Friesland Islands, besides words connected with, or directly derived from the German, in the Dutch, Flemish, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, and Scotch languages.

TOUISSANT LOUVERTURE, the negro hero, who distinguished himself by his resistance to the attempt of the French to impose their yoke on his country, Saint Domingo, and who was carried to France and confined in a dungeon till he died-this noted man must now be included in the list of modern authors. A work has just been published containing memoirs of his life, written by him when in the fortress of Joux, in France. They were principally destined to be placed before the First Consul Bonaparte. They contain a full account of the remarkable ents in which he figured, and a complete refutation of the charges which Bonaparte caused to be brought against him, as a pretext for keeping him in confinement. They are written with much simplicity and feeling, combined with a certain degree of dignity.

A Russian historian and novelist of considerable note, THEODORE ANDRIEOWITCH VON ŒTTINGER, has just died at St. Petersburg. He is likewise

something of a character beyond our criticism-but the essential fact was, the presentation by Mr. Jerrold of a literary offering in the name of upwards of nine thousand subscribers of all ranks and occupations, and its acceptance by the illustrious exile in a speech which as a piece of impassioned eloquence excelled every thing of the kind that we have heard. The speaker seemed at times in the sublimity of his expression almost to have caught the spirit of the poet, his communication with whom was the express occasion of this commemoration. This gave a character of singular appropriateness to the proceedings of the evening-and really confers on the occasion almost a right to have its place in the history of Shakspearian literature."

VISH

FIGURES 1 AND 2-VISITING AND HOME COSTUME.

ISITING DRESS.-Bonnet falling low behind, | bottom, and the whole is completed by a narrow open in front; it is composed of guipure ribbons flounce and a wide one. The dress is high-bodied, No. 12, in silk, with spots of light silk and taffeta and made of gray taffeta, fastening all the way down edges fringed in festoons. The frame-work is black with steel buttons. Collar and under-sleeves of tulle. The ornament consists of the ribbon above white lace. mentioned, edged with black lace, laid smooth on the middle of the crown, goffered at the sides. The curtain is taffeta, bouillonné, covered with a deep lace. A cord of straw is sewed on the ribbon at the place where the edge of the taffeta finishes against the middle of the guipure, which thus forms an insertion. The inside is trimmed with flowers forming bandeaux on the forehead. The pelisse is of taffeta, trimmed with No. 9 ribbon plaited, a row of narrow lace (1 inch), and a wide lace. It is low in the neck, heart-shaped in front, and round behind. The part of the taffeta between the two rows of rib. bons is arranged as a bertha, and replaces the hood, which is simulated by a large hollow plait. Below the bottom ribbon, there is a row of narrow lace sewed on almost even; then a deep lace of six or eight inches, slightly gathered, which forms a flounce all round. A sleeve of taffeta bordered with a piece plated à la vieille, and trimmed with a deep lace, comes out under the frill of the bertha. A plaited trimming edges the forepart; there are two rows at

HOME DRESS-A little Pompadour cap of white blonde, vandyked at the edge, having at the sides loops and ends of gauze ribbon mixed with blonde. The crown is rumpled and covered with small butterfly-bows. The trimming is a blonde frill Dress of taffeta, trimmed with ribbons, flounces, and small ornaments of stamped velvet. The body is high, open in front all the way down; plain behind, plaited in front in three broad plaits laid flat, from the shoulder seam. A large bow of black velvet, set on a cross band, ornaments the front, a second bow is placed in the same manner in the middle, and the velvet sash forms a third bow with ends The sleeves are wide, and composed of two large puffs falling over and a frill, under each puff in front there is a velvet bow. A velvet No 9 borders this frill, and a small ornament of velvet an inch wide is laid upon it. Three flounces trim the skirt. Above the first there is a row of stamped velvet. On the edge of the second there is a velvet two inches wide, and an inch above that a row of stamped velvet.