and has at once attained great popularity. The necessity and expediency of all this military training may perhaps be questioned; but at present the Institute finds great favoralways commanding as many cadets as it has had room for, and having recently secured an appropriation from the State Legislature, with which they are erecting a pile of buildings unsurpassed in the country, and designed to accommodate three hundred pupils. The new buildings make really quite a castle, and the style of architecture, with its towers and battlements, is strikingly appropriate to this broken and picturesque country.

Add to these two institutions, the "Ann Smith Academy," so called after a gifted English lady, by whom it was founded, originally the pioneer of female education in Virginia, and your readers will not wonder at the character for intelligence which has always been attached to this beautiful village, giving to it the honored appellation of the "Athens of Western Virginia."

Amidst the numerous Presbyterian Churches planted by the early Scotch-Irish people of this Valley, this at Lexington has always been among the most prominent. For more than thirty years it enjoyed the ministry of Dr. Geo. A. Baxter, who was also during a large portion of the time President of the College. His latter years were spent in the Professorship of Theology at the Union Theological Seminary of Virginia, as successor of Dr. Jno. H. Rice, near whose dust and that of James Brainerd Taylor, his mortal remains now repose.

The Rev. Wm. S. White, D. D., author of that popular little work, the "African Preacher," is the present most acceptable, efficient and successful pastor of this much favored church. A new Grecian temple has succeeded to the old unshapely pile which used to echo to the sublime eloquence of Baxter, and a sweet Gothic parsonage-a pat

tern for all rural parsonages-furnishes a delightful home for the pastor.

A PAPER OF......TOBACCO.

We find a lively passage on tobacco in the pleasant new book by Alphonse Karr. It must be borne in mind that, in France, tobacco is a monopoly-and a very productive one in the hands of government :

"There is a family of poisonous plants, amongst which we may notice the henbane, the datura stramonium, and the tobacco plant. The tobacco plant is perhaps a little less poisonous than the datura, but it is more so than the henbane, which is a violent poison. Here is a tobacco plant-as fine a plant as you can wish to see. It grows to the height of six feet; and from the centre of a tuft of leaves, of a beautiful green, shoot out elegant and graceful clusters of pink flowers.

"For a long while the tobacco plant grew unknown and solitary in the wilds of America. The savage to whom we had given brandy gave us in exchange tobacco, with the smoke of which they used to intoxicate themselves on grand occasions. The intercourse between the two worlds began by this amiable interchange of poisons.

"Those who first thought of putting tobacco dust up their noses were first laughed at, and then persecuted more or less. James I., of England, wrote against snuff-takers a book entitled Misocapnos. Some years later, Pope Urban VIII. excommunicated all persons who took snuff in churches. The Empress Elizabeth thought it necessary to add something to the penalty of excommunication pronounced against those who used the black dust during divine service, and authorised the beadles to confiscate the snuff-boxes to their own use. Amurath IV. forbade the use of snuff under pain of having the nose cut off.

"No useful plant could have withstood such attacks. If before this invention a man had been found to say, Let us seek the means of filling the coffers of the state by a voluntary tax; let us set about selling something which every

body will like to do without. In America there is a plant essentially poisonous; if from its leaves you extract an empyreumatic oil, a single drop of it will cause an animal to die in horrible convulsions. Suppose we offer this plant for sale chopped up or reduced to a powder. We will sell it very dear, and tell people to stuff the powder up their

noses.

"That is to say, I suppose, you will force them to do so by law?'

"Not a bit of it. I spoke of a voluntary tax. As to the portion we chop up, we will tell them to inhale it, and swallow a little of the smoke from it besides.'

"But it will kill them.'

"No; they will become rather pale, perhaps feel giddy, spit blood, and suffer from colics, or have pains in the chest-that's all. Besides, you know, although it has been often said that habit is second nature, people are not yet aware how completely man resembles the knife, of which the blade first and then the handle had been changed two or three times. In man there is no nature left-nothing but habit remains. People will become like Mithridates, who had learnt to live on poisons.

“The first time that a man will smoke he will feel sickness, nausea, giddiness, and colics; but that will go off by degrees, and in time he will get so accustomed to it, that he will only feel such symptoms now and then-when he smokes tobacco that is bad, or too strong-or when he is not well, and in five or six other cases. Those who take it in powder will sneeze, have a disagreeable smell, lose the sense of smelling, and establish in their nose a sort of perpetual blister.'

"Then, I suppose it smells very nice.'

Quite the reverse. It has a very unpleasant smell; but, as I said, we'll sell it very dear, and reserve to ourselves the monopoly of it.'

My good friend,' one would have said to any one absurd enough to hold a similar language, 'nobody will envy you the privilege of selling a weed that no one will care to buy. You might as well open a shop and write on it: Kicks sold here; or, Such-a-one sells blows, wholesale and retail. You will find as many customers as for your poisonous weed.'

"Well! who would have believed that the first speaker was right, and that the tobacco speculation would answer perfectly! The kings of France have written no satires against snuff, have had no noses cut off, no snuff-boxes confiscated. Far from it. They have sold tobacco, laid an impost on noses, and given snuff-boxes to poets with their portraits on the lid, and diamonds all round. This little trade has brought them in I don't know how many millions a-year. The potato was far more difficult to popularize, and has still some adversaries."—Inter. Mag.

DE HASS'S HISTORY OF WESTERN VIRGINIA.

History of the Early Settlement and Indian Wars of Western Virginia; Embracing an Account of the Various Expeditions in the West, Previous to 1795: also Biographical Notices of Col. Ebenezer Zane, and other distinguished Actors in our Border Wars. By Wills De Hass, Corresponding Member of the Maryland and New York Historical Societies. Wheeling: H. Hoblitzell: 1 vol., 8vo. pp. 416. 1851.

This is a lively and agreeable book, and, it would seem, reasonably garnished with genuine historic lore. It might appear, indeed, at first sight, to be a mere rehashment of the previous works of Doddridge, Withers, Kercheval and some others, upon the same subject; but it is really a good deal more. We are assured at least by the author himself, that "in the preparation of this volume, he has laboured to present not a mere compilation of facts, but a history drawn from sources original and reliable. To accomplish this, the very best means,". he tells us, "have been adopted; public documents searched, private records examined, and the living witnesses who still linger among us,-sole depositories of many historical facts, without which our annals' would be incomplete, personally consulted. The labor," he adds, "has been difficult, annoying and expensive, as much

of it could not be performed without considerable personal inconvenience." This statement, we suppose, is substantially true; and indeed we see the traces of inqusitive research on the face of some of the narratives, that do equal credit to our author's industry and intelligence. After all, however, we apprehend, that there are many errors, old and new, in the work, which may require to be overhauled and corrected. Some of these, indeed, we see, are patent and glaring enough, and others we suppose are latent, or may be lurking in places which we have not explored. Wherefore, we would say caveat emptor-or rather lector,— for we really wish that the work may have a rapid sale, and wide popularity which it well deserves in spite of its defects. These, in fact, are much more than compensated by its various merits. Among these, we may mention that the stories of border warfare between the Indians and the first settlers of the West, are striking and interesting in a high degree, and some of the single combats between the chiefs on both sides are more picturesque and exciting than any which Homer has given us in the battles of his heroes in the Iliad. We cannot say, indeed, that such things are particularly pleasant to our private fancy; but they serve, as Bayle says, to enlarge our knowledge of human nature, and, in the present case, they make us better acquainted with the difficulties and dangers which beset the path of the brave men-and well-matched women-who first enlarged the bounds of our republic towards the setting sun.

We will only add, that though our author's style is not always exactly chaste or correct, there is yet a wild flavor about it that makes it somewhat piquant even to our classical taste.

PRACTICAL ABILITY

The main ingredients of practical ability, are requisite knowledge and cultivated faculties; but of the two the latter is by far ⚫the chief. A man of well-improved faculties, has the command of another's knowledge. A man without them, has not the command of his own.-Quart. Rev.