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well in tracing their origin. Further investigations will discover more facts, undoubtedly; but I have rarely been able to track them in the ascending line, beyond Hartford, or the old towns of Connecticut. We may rest assured, however, that they had an antiquity, and a very hoary one too. I have not consulted books of heraldry, partly, if you please, because I expected to make no discoveries in that quarter. I do not suppose the ancestors of the Judds, the Hickoxes, the Bronsons and the Weltons ever bore arms;' and if the fact were otherwise, it would not make an unworthy descendant respectable. It would not save him from the pillory, or the halter. Those who are ambitious for coats of arms, may find them in New York, on sale, cheaper than broadcloth."-pp. 129, 130.

"In the course of the summer of 1678, a few houses were erected on the newly selected site for the village. They were constructed of logs, after the fashion of the new settlements of the present day, with the naked ground, or in some cases, if the soil was wet, or the occupants were persons of taste and substance, with split logs, for a floor. They were 'good and substantial dwellings,' doubtless, ('mantion houses,' they were sometimes called,) 'at least eighteen feet in length and sixteen feet wide, and nine foot between joynts with a good chimly' of stone and clay mortar, according to the requirements of the subscribed articles; but they were not what, at this day, would be called fashionable. They might have been picturesque, provided the spectator stood far enough off. We shall be obliged to guess how they were furnished; but I risk nothing in saying that they contained no tapestry, carpeting, or lace curtains. They in fact were designed for shelter, not ornament. According to tradition, there were, at a later period, forty of these rude log-houses, standing at one time, in the town center."-p. 17.

The details, all,

We do not intend to follow the course of the history. have their value. No one can thoroughly understand our history as a nation who has not first mastered the history of at least some one individual town.

Dr. Bronson deserves the thanks of the public for furnishing so full, and, so far as we can judge, so accurate a work.

The appendix is particularly valuable. It contains biographical, sketches of many of the celebrated men who have been born in the town. Among them are the names of such men as John Trumbull, the author of "McFingal ;" Junius Smith, so distinguished in the cause of Transatlantic Steam Navigation; Prof. Matthew Rice Dutton of Yale College; Ex-Governor Dutton of Connecticut; Rev. Samuel Hopkins, D. D.; Judge Bronson, and others scarcely less distinguished.

The book contains a large number of excellent engravings. Among them are twenty portraits of citizens of the town. We mention it because if these are a fair specimen of the average size of the men of Waterbury, we need fear "no physical degeneracy" in the Naugatuck valley, however great the danger may be in other parts of the United States. Broader shoulders, faces less angular, and heads more square, cannot be found even in Old England itself.

NEILL'S HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.*-The new states of the Northwest are determined to be not a whit behind the older states of the East in their display of interest in historical matters. They all start a Historical Society, almost, it would seem, before they have a history. But they are to be commended for this most earnestly, for they will be led to collect all the fragments as yet ungathered of their aboriginal history and first discoveries, and to record, while as yet their memory is fresh, the minutest incidents connected with the settlement of their country by the new emigration.

The "History of Minnesota, from the earliest French explorations to the present time," has been prepared by the Rev. Edward D. Neill, a most useful and enterprising pioneer clergyman, at St. Paul, who has seen that pride of the Northwest grow up as by enchantment before his eyes, and has, at the same time, witnessed the unexampled emigration which so suddenly filled Minnesota with its noble population. He has had no slight share in all that is good in the institutions of the now infant state, and we rejoice to see him acting as the secretary of its Historical Society. As a token that the choice was not unwise, he has produced this beautiful volume, so full of research and minute information concerning the discoverers and the settlement of the New Minnesota. His account of the habits and customs of the aborigines has this advantage, that it was taken from real life, and is no fabulous exaggeration-we are glad to see so distinct a recognition of the labors of Protestant missionaries among the Dahkotahs, particularly of those most worthy men, the Messrs. Pond, who, though plain New England men, showed a spirit literally apostolic in their first consecration to this discouraging work.

The book contains also valuable geographical and meteorological information respecting the Northwest Plateau. As Minnesota has been settled by so large an emigration from New England, we bespeak for this valuable and handsome volume a favorable reception among their friends at the East.

SCHOOL BOOKS.

THE NEW LIBER PRIMUS.-" Of making many books there is no end." We are glad of it, and base on this maxim very pleasant hopes of pro

*The History of Minnesota: from the earliest French explorations to the present time. By EDWARD DUFFIELD NEILL, Secretary of the Minnesota Historical Society. 8vo. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co.

The New Liber Primus: A Practical Companion for the Latin Grammar, and Introduction to the Reading and Writing of Latin; on the Plan of Crosby's Greek Lessons. Boston: John P. Jewett & Co. 1859.

gress. There is yet a work to be done in purifying our schools of much trash that the rage for book-making, and the money-making resultant therefrom, have inflicted upon the patient, plodding pupils.

Crosby's Greek Lessons has been for some time most favorably known as one of the very best (and in the opinion of not a few, the best) extant text-books for the elementary study of the Greek language. To those who know its worth from pleasant experience, the "New Liber Primus" will need no long introduction to explain itself. But it does not follow that a mere imitation of Crosby is the best book for a beginner in Latin.

Boys (and girls too) who begin Latin are by no means on a level with those beginning in Greek, either in maturity of mind or familiarity with the study of language. The former need, far more than the latter, to have the rough places made smooth, and they find such roughnesses more numerous. Take a young lad, or miss, who knows no more of language, or grammar, than is common at the age of twelve, and the first lesson of the "Liber Primus," which includes the indicative active of all the four conjugations of regular verbs, will be a mountain of difficulty at the very outset. And this, instead of being concentrated into a sharp, towering peak of six lines and a half of exercises, as it is, should have been diffused and spread over several pages. A month is not too long a time for scholars of that age to spend on exercises upon that amount of Latin. But where the scholar is obliged to toil a month upon a single page, he loses his interest. The "Liber Primus," then, does not seem to pave that easy road which young scholars need at their introduction to the classical languages.

By a fault of arrangement, as we consider, the analysis of propositions, which the scholar should learn and understand at the outset, is postponed to the after part of the work. In the same category are to be mentioned short, headless, tail-less contributions, like Ex pugna-Loco opportuno-which disfigure the page; a fault, by the way, copied from Crosby.

-nec desilies imitator in arctum.

Perfect familiarity with the Grammar to be used for reference is indispensable to one who would do for beginners in Latin what Crosby has done for beginners in Greek; and Prof. Crosby had an advantage over all imitators in being able to refer to his own grammar. The author of the "Liber Primus" shows here either a lack of familiarity, or else of acumen. Take two instances, both from Lesson II. Ad Galbam accurrunt is explained in the Notes by a reference to the rule

for the accusative after ad. But the scholar who has learned that to is a sign of the dative case will ask-why not Galbae? and will be perplexed by finding two expressions for what he considers the same idea. He should have been referred to the rule that "verbs signifying motion or tendency are followed by an accusative with ad or in." Again, in the sentence, "Nunc quoque in inopia permanent," the scholar is informed in the Notes that quoque modifies nunc. How much more satisfactory to have referred to the principle that "quidem and quoque, when belonging to single words, are always subjoined to the emphatic word in a clause."

The writer of the "Liber Primus" withholds his name; but lest we might be thought to have less charity for waifs or foundlings, in common with the "cold world," we will avow that we like the plan of the book, and think that, in the hands of a judicious teacher, many of its defects might be obviated, particularly with scholars of a less tender age than those we have had in mind. But we must say that the book appears so much like a mere imitation, (and any one who will compare it, section by section, with Crosby's Greek Lessons, as we have done for the first nine or ten, can see this for himself,) that we would prefer to hand it back to the writer, whoever he be, with the excellent advice of Horace, carmen reprehendite, quod non

Multa dies et multa litura coercuit

He has done tolerably, but, with his model before him, he ought to have done much better.

KINGSLEY'S MISCELLANIES.*-This book contains a collection of about a dozen of the contributions which the author—the Rev. Charles Kingsley, Rector of Eversley-has made at different times to the leading English periodicals. We are so pleased with the views expressed in some of them that we cannot refrain from giving in our pages some extended extracts.

"Alex

The first shall be from the introduction to an Article upon andria and her Schools," originally published in Cambridge. It is pleasant in these days, when so many among us are complaining that the training in our American colleges is not "practical" enough, to to find so eloquent and hearty a tribute to the practical value of the university course.

Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time. With other Papers. By CHARLES KINGSLEY, Author of "Hypathia," "Two Years Ago," etc. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1859. Price, $1.25. For sale by T. H. Pease. New Haven.

"In the hey-day of youthful greediness and ambition, when the mind, dazzled by the vastness and variety of the universe, must needs know everything, or rather know about everything, at once and on the spot, too many are apt, as I have been in past years, to complain of Cambridge studies as too dry and narrow: but as time teaches the student, year by year, what is really required for an understanding of the objects with which he meets, he begins to find that his University, in as far as he has really received her teaching into himself, has given him, in her criticism, her mathematics, above all, in Plato, something which all the popular knowledge, the lectures and institutions of the day, and even good books themselves, cannot give, a boon more precious than learning; namely, the art of learning. That instead of casting into his lazy lap treasures which he would not have known how to use, she has taught him to mine for them himself; and has by her wise refusal to gratify his intellectual greediness, excited his hunger, only that he may be the stronger to hunt and till for his own subsistence; and thus the deeper he drinks, in after years, at fountains wisely forbidden to him while he was a Cambridge student, and sees his old companions growing up into sound-headed and sound-hearted practical men, liberal and expansive, and yet with a firm standing ground for thought and action, he learns to complain less and less of Cambridge studies, and more of that conceit and haste of his own, which kept him from reaping the full advantage of her training."-pp. 317, 318.

Our second extract shall be from a contribution to Frazer's Magazine, under the title "My Winter-Garden.-By a Minute Philosopher." We have been interested by the beautiful spirit of content which pervades this Article. It is well known that Mr. Kingsley possesses all the tastes and accomplishments of an English scholar and gentleman. This is evident from his writings. But perhaps it is not so well known that he is satisfied to be the laborious rector of a very humble country parish in a district of England which is by no means particularly interesting. The Article from which we quote appears in the form of a letter to an old friend, who has expressed wonder that he can "support the monotony of a country life."

"So my friend: you ask me to tell you how I contrive to support this monotonous country life; how, fond as I am of excitement, adventure, society, scenery, art, literature, I go cheerfully through the daily routine of a commonplace country profession, never requiring a six weeks' holiday; not caring to see the continent, hardly even to spend a day in London; having never yet actually got to Paris. You wonder why I do not grow dull as those round me, whose talk is of bullocks-as indeed mine is often enough; why I am not by this time 'all over blue mould;' why I have not been tempted to bury myself in my study, and live a life of dreams among old books. I will tell you. I am a minute philosopher. Meanwhile, I can understand your surprise, though you cannot understand my content. You have played a greater game than mine; have lived a life, perhaps, more fit for an Englishman; certainly more in accordance with the taste of our common fathers, the Vikings, and their patron Odin

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