His most laborious sabbath appears to have been the ninth of June, which was spent by him in Baltimore. In the morning he went with an acquaintance to the Catholic Church for the express purpose of hearing the music; at least, this was the "chief object of his visit." The music proved tolerably good, although it would "hardly bear comparison with any European church music." His friend then accompanied him, at his own request, to an African church, where both slaves and free negroes congregated. M. Von Raumer saw, of course, a display of what he denominates fanaticism. The black preacher "spoke just as well (or ill) as the generality of white preachers." The voice of the speaker rose, and he "applied to his auditors descriptions of sin, death, the wrath of God, hell, the devil, and such like spiritual Spanish flies." Then an effect was produced upon the congregation which astonished our tourist beyond measure. The tumult rose to "shrieks and yells, as if every one of them was being murdered." One cried, "Holy, holy;" another shouted, "Bless me;" and one or two others indulged in certain extraordinary gymnastics, whereat the sage professor marveled greatly. The afternoon he spent at a German public house and bowling alley, a little way out of the city, where he and his companions talked politics, and adjusted the affairs of Europe and America. In the evening he again went to the negro church; but the performances, doubtless to his great chagrin, were not so tumultuous as they had been in the morning. The scene he saw "was such as he had never before witnessed in his life." But he opened his eyes, as well he might, when he was assured by the veracious "H." that this was a "slight beginning compared with the preachings and doings of the white Methodists!" Had this colored congregation been treated to a neat little moral essay, or a small section of German fog, and then had adjourned to the bowling alley with the professor, to spend the remainder of the day in revelry, it would have been, in his estimation, very liberal, very rational, very free from bigotry and fanaticism.

These letters, were it not for the infidelity everywhere expressed or implied, would be quite interesting and instructive. But this is the dead insect, the effluvium of which mingles in every breath. M. Von Raumer indeed talks of God; but his God is not the God of the Bible. He alludes to Christianity; but he means by that term a very different system from that which the apostles preached, and the martyrs of old believed. He does not object to religious services; but there must be no warning sinners with tears, as Paul warned them; no allusions to judgment to

come; and, above all things, no hints about the damnation of hell.

In fine, M. Von Raumer hopes everything from the American system of government, and from the freedom of inquiry and discussion enjoyed in this country. The nations are moving on in the grand march of progress; he looks upon America as the van of the mighty procession, and bids us not lose the post of honor. The following concluding remarks of the volume express the general impression made by his tour in this country :

"Although much still remains to be related, I must break off, and conclude this last American letter for want of time. I have here seen, heard, and learned more than in any equal portion of time in my life, so that I regard my journey as fully justified and abundantly rewarded. I shall always remember the United States, in spite of some little drawbacks, with feelings of interest, gratitude, and admiration." -P. 501.

A modification of this language will also express our conclusion with regard to the merits of the volume before us. It is in many respects an excellent one. With reference to political affairs, M. Von Raumer has enlightened and liberal views. He was desirous of seeing America as it is, and not as aristocratic minds would prove that it must be. He delights in all that is praiseworthy; and our civil defects minister no joy to him. He is mild in his animadversions on the evils which he is too candid to hide; and the book is temperate in its general tone. It imbodies a considerable amount of solid facts, and is well calculated for the purpose which the author had in view, the diffusion of information con cerning America among those who were almost wholly unacquainted with our history, institutions, and present condition.

But while we would give our author all due credit for these excellences, we cannot give his work our unqualified approbation. There is an occasional want of accuracy in his statements; but that we had expected: he is strongly disposed to adopt a party badge; but that is not unpardonable. But there is one fault which we cannot so readily pass over, and which, in a Christian community, ought to place the ban of condemnation upon the work. This is his infidelity. All his ideas centre in the present. He is a perfect bigot to his own notions of liberality; his selfcomplacent lamentations over our fanaticism and bigotry are beyond endurance; and his attacks upon the religion of the Bible are the more dangerous from the cool, quiet self-sufficiency with which he makes them. To those who would acquaint themselves with America, there are opened other sources, at least as rich in

information, and which are, at the same time, untainted with the deadly poison which mingles in every stream that issues from this.

As far as we are able to judge, the translator, Mr. William W. Turner, has done his part well. The language is well chosen; and the general style is characterized by clearness and purity. Occasionally, the words which form the logical connectives of sentences are such as a close thinker would hardly employ; but this may have originated in the difficulties attendant on a translation from another language.

Hope, N. J., 1846.

ART. IV.-1. A Greek-English Lexicon, based on the German Work of Francis Passow. By HENRY GEORGE LIDDELL, M. A., and ROBERT SCOTT, M. A. With Corrections and Additions, and the Insertion, in Alphabetical Order, of the Proper Names occurring in the Principal Greek Authors, by H. DRISLER, M. A., Adjunct Professor of the Greek and Latin Languages in Columbia College, New-York. Pp. 1705. New-York: Harper & Brothers. 1846.

2. A Comprehensive Lexicon of the Greek Language, adapted to the Use of Colleges and Schools in the United States. Third edition, greatly enlarged and improved, by JOHN PICKERING. Pp. 1456. Boston. 1846.

3. A New Greek Lexicon, principally on the Plan of the Greek and German Lexicon of Schneider. By JAMES DONNEGAN, M. D. Revised and enlarged by R. B. PATON. Pp. 1413. Boston and New-York.

It is now exactly forty years since the first publication in Germany of Schneider's "Griechisch-deutsches Wörterbuch," the earliest Lexicon which boldly ventured to throw aside the Latin as the medium of teaching Greek, and to adopt instead the student's mother tongue. It has proved a fruitful parent-its issue, "magna diversaque Proles." Since that time, vernacular Greek Lexicons have swarmed upon scholars. Years have done the work of ages. Before, generations-now, but months pass between successive editions; and, to bring the matter to a climax, in the month of August last, within two days of each other, came forth from the rival presses of New-York and Boston the two greatest works of this kind that American scholarship has as yet produced-Professor Drisler's bearing date the 18th, Mr. Pickering's the 20th of August, 1846,

Now this fact is one of deeper import than at first sight appears. It is not merely the enlarged current of a more studious agestudents the cause, and books the result. On the contrary, the books were the cause, and the students the consequence. What we mean to say is this, The substitution of the vernacular for the Latin is the secret of the change. It was like striking a new vein, or opening a fresh fountain. It was a change that at once popularized Greek studies, by enabling the student to look at them directly through the medium of his own tongue, instead of giving him a feeble and distorted reflection from what may well be called a dull mirror-the student's imperfect knowledge of the Latin. Latin spectacles once taken off, youthful eyes saw clearer, the mist was removed, and the young scholar soon learned both to understand and admire what before he only admired how any one could understand. Such we hold to be the giant step taken in the "Wörterbuch" of Schneider. Nor are we left to argue its advantages. Experience has demonstrated them. Latin has been driven from the field-the vernacular has gained an overwhelming victory-not, as usual in great changes, young reformers slowly winning their way against sturdy old conservations, as Hume tells us of Harvey's great discovery of the circulation of the blood, which no physician in Europe, over the age of fifty, ever acknowledged. Here, on the contrary, old experience first followedeven the octogenarian pedagogue was seen to drop his Hedericus, or Schrevelius, and take up his Schneider as if by natural instinct. Such is the alacrity with which man obeys where nature and good sense lead the way. Since that time, both instructors and learners, German and English at least, have luxuriated, we may say, in the comfort of Greek Lexicons in their own mother tongue. Nor (to return to the question again) was the boy's ignorance of Latin the only objection to its use. With all its stately beauties, Latin is still a "cast-iron tongue," inflexible and unaccommodating; pre-eminently unfit, therefore, to represent the infinite graces of the language of the muses. Grecian thoughts in Latin words have always seemed to us like precious gems taken in plasteryou have the form, but not the power. All which gave it grace, delicacy, and expression, are gone. Nor let the admirers of Cicero or Lucretius quarrel with us for this judgment. learned it from those very authors whom they admire. Lucretius himself bemoans "egestatem linguæ," the poverty of the language to which he was condemned, while Cicero's pages actually "bristle" with Greek words, simply because his own tongue furnished him with no equivalents. Even the very banner word

We

of his favorite philosophy (èπoxý) he was forced to borrow from its native fountain-being unable, as he himself acknowledges, to translate it. Such was the Latin as a medium of Greek thought, even in master hands, and in its palmiest days; what, then, must it now be in the hands of modern lexicographers? But still the benefit of this exchange is very far from equal to all modern tongues. Germany, unquestionably, has the best bargain, because its "vernacular" approaches the nearest to that of Greece in all its high and varied excellences. If not (as the Greeks boasted) avToyεvýs, "self-born"—it is at least oμoyevns, “self-compounded." Its radicals are within itself, and therefore capable, like the Greek, of unlimited composition. This vast advantage, which it enjoys far beyond any modern tongue, fits it peculiarly to take the stamp of Grecian thought and art, while, with its infinitely diversified metres of both quantity and accent, it is obviously the only modern language which can even pretend to enter into rivalry with poets, "quibus," as the Roman Martial enviously complains,

"Nil erat negatum

Et quos 'Apes Apes decet sonare."

But we of Saxon race have at least the comfort of thinking that next to the German in this list stands the English, a language, which-with its double tongue, (Britannia bilinguis ;) its Doric and its Attic dialects, affording synonyms of nicest distinction; its Saxon words of fresh vigor, and its Latin words of polished refinement-forms no contemptible rival even to its cousin German. Lowest in this scale comes the French tongue, which has been also latest to profit by the improvement, the antipodes of the Greek, both in freedom and harmony, in loftiness, as well as variety of expression: we have yet to learn what influence will be produced on its scholarship by the change. We cannot, we confess, augur well of a language which, in the hands of its master genius, brought forth a Henriade, as the nearest approach it could make to an Homeric Iliad.

But turning to our own western land, we too have taken hold of this new instrument; we too have laid our hand on the Grecian plough, and that not only with our characteristic zeal, but also with more than our characteristic success. The rapid advancement of not only American scholarship, but of high American contributions to Greek scholarship; and, above all, in the department of philology; is a fact as honorable to our scholars as it is unquestioned. In our wide, bustling, utilitarian land, it is a fact