It is proposed to extend the work by decades of preceding years, as well, annually, as to future publications. The plan includes: I. The Doings of American Naturalists; II. The Labours of Foreign Authors as to America; and III. Abstracts or Reviews of papers relating to Foreign Natural History, when published in American periodicals. The work is got up with much care, both as regards the subject matter, and in a bibliographical point of view. It enumerates 284 articles, for the greater part to be found in scientific periodicals. 4. LEGAL BIBLIOGRAPHY; or, a Thesaurus of American, English, Irish, and Scotch Law; together with some continental treatises; interspersed with critical observations upon their various editions and authority. To which is prefixed a copious list of abbreviations by T. G. MARVIN, Philadelphia, 1847. Svo, viii. and 800 pp.

"With regard to Law Books of the United States," says the compiler, "this volume will be found to contain a tolerably complete list. To this department of the work, in addition to the resources afforded by the ample history of the Dane Law-School, gentlemen in various States have kindly rendered me material assistance, to whom I am under very great obligation." The catalogue is arranged alphabetically, and the titles are for the most part well abridged, and admirably adapted to meet the requirements of the legal profession, for whose use the work has been mainly prepared.

5. A CATALOGUE OF BOOKS, treating of the IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. New York, WILLIAM GOWANS, 1853.

A CATALOGUE OF BOOKS ON FREEMASONRY, and kindred subjects. Compiled by William Gowans. New York, WILLIAM GOWANS, 1854.

A CATALOGUE OF BOOKS ON THE EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION, by the most eminent authors. New York, WILLIAM GOWANS, 1854.

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS ON PROVERBS, Maxims, &c.

These Catalogues are not confined to American publications; but also enumerate European works on the subjects to which they are devoted.

6. CATALOGUE Of the Library of the MILITARY ACADEMY, WEST POINT. N. Y., exhibiting its condition at the close of the year 1852. New York, 1853. 8vo, 403 pp.

At

This is a valuable catalogue for the use of Military Schools in America, compiled without any pretensions to minute bibliographical accuracy. least two-thirds of the books referred to are of European origin.

7. A GENERAL CATALOGUE OF LAW BOOKS: including all the Reports, both English and American, from the earliest period, by LITTLE, BROWN, and Co., Boston, 1856. 12mo, 149 pp.

This catalogue is got up with much care, and the notes are valuable. Its first object was to enable the legal profession to see what books of authority in the Courts had been published either in England or America. The titles are not always given at length, nor is this necessary, when they are so carefully abridged as in the present instance. It is needless to add that the number of pages is not indicated. The bulkiness of a law book is frequently anything but a test of its merit.

8. CATALOGUE OF A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL LIBRARY, offered for sale at the prices affixed. Collected by JOEL MUNSELL, Albany. Albany, 1856. 8vo, 1 leaf and 40 pp.

d

This is a catalogue of bibliographical books generally, American as well as European, making no profession of completeness, but simply describing at sufficient length the books submitted for sale in its pages.

9. BIBLIOGRAPHIE der FreimaurerEI, in America (Nachtrag zur Bibliographie von Dr. Kloss) zusammengestellt von B. Barthelmess, M.D. New York, 1856. 8vo, vi. and 48 pp.

Carefully prepared, in accordance with the generally accepted bibliographical rules, this little book is deserving of all praise.

10. BIBLIOTHECA PROBATA. Catalogue of Books selected, examined, and arranged under the heads of Bibles, Prayer-books, Commentaries, Devotional Library, Family Library, Parish Library, Parish School Library, Sunday School Library, Academic and School-District Library; with full descriptive titles, characterizations and prices. To which is appended a list for the library of a parish minister, drawn with much care and consultation of learned authorities. Second Edition, New York, DANIEL DANA, JUN., 381, Broadway, 1857. 12°. xxxi. pp. ; containing fly-title and advertisement, title-page, preface, dedication, and alphabetical index; then 234 pp., including a chapter on English Literature of 15 pp., followed by the various sub-divisions enumerated on the title-page, with Addenda, 3 pp.

This is in every sense a most carefully prepared catalogue for the purposes of sale. In most cases, where the books are not well known, the number of pages is given; but dates and places of publication are systematically omitted. The notes are partly original and partly selected. The chapter on English literature is a rapid sketch, commencing about the middle of the fourteenth century, and brought down to the death of Webster, whose writings are adduced as a happy illustration of the best characteristics" of American literature. The volume is elegantly printed, and should contain at the end a catalogue of Mr. Dana's publications, with "notices of the press." 23 leaves, 8 of which are paged 1—15.

BY WAY OF CONCLUSION it may not be out of place to notice that in NAUMANN'S SERAPAEUM, Dr. Hermann Ludewig* published three elaborate articles on American Literature, the first of which, containing a survey of the bibliographical sources which relate to books on America, appeared on the 31st of July, 1845; the second, Remarks on the Libraries of the United States, on the 30th of April following; and the third, on the Periodical Literature of America, with some remarks upon American and German bookselling in America, on the 30th of June, 1846.

In 1845, Mr. George Palmer Putnam published in London, in an octavo volume of 292 pp.-" AMERICAN FACTS; Notes and Statistics relative to the Government, Resources, Engagements, Manufactures, Commerce, Religious Education, Literature, Fine Arts, Manners and Customs, of the United States of America,”—in which there is some valuable information respecting the number and character of books published in America.

For a slight biographical sketch of Dr. Ludewig, the reader is referred to of his Literature of American Aboriginal Languages.

p. xiii.

The Indexes to the North American Review, to the Journal of Science and Arts, to the Bibliotheca Sacra, and Poole's Index to Periodical Literature, must not be passed over in silence.

1. GENERAL INDEX TO THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, from its commencement in 1815, to the end of the Twenty-fifth volume, published in October, 1927. Boston: published by Grey and Bowen; New York: by G. and C. and H. Carvill; London: by O. Rich, No. 12, Red Lion Square, Holborn, 1829. Royal Sco, 4 leaves, including fly-titles, title, and editor's Note, and 442 pp.

This index is constructed with much care, and the leading words are so arranged as to present the greatest facilities for reference and research. A separate index of Books Reviewed is added, in which each book is indicated by the principal word of its title, at least, so says the editor's note. In most cases this is so; but "Abstract, Account, Addition," and several "principal" words of a like character, are exceptions to the rule. It is surely much better to place all books under the author's names, where known, and in regard to anonymous works, to insert them according to M. Barbier's canon, under the first word of the title-page, articles and prepositions excepted. This index occupies pp. 403-442.-It may not be amiss to mention that an account of books relating to America will be found in the following places in the North American Review:-VOL. I. pp. 145, 297; VOL. II. pp. 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 145, 148, 150, 289, 291, 294; VOL. III. pp. 1, 4, 9, 145, 150, 151, 305308, 316; VOL. IV. pp. 1, 145, 289; Vol. V. pp. 1, 175; and VOL. VI. pp. 255. In VOL. XVIII. p. 162, mention is made of the number of books printed in the United States, and of the proportion of those imported to those printed; and in VOL. XXIII. p. 206, in deploring the deficiency of books in the United States, the writer gives the numbers contained in the principal cities.

2. THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE AND ARTS. Conducted by PROFESSOR SILLIMAN and BENJAMIN SILLIMAN, JUN. Volume L. General Index to the forty-nine volumes. New Haven: printed for the Editors, by B. L. Hamlen, printer to Yale College (April 19th, 1847). 8vo, xviii. pp. for title and preface, 1 leaf Explanations, and pp. 5–348. By way of frontispiece a portrait of Professor Silliman is given. There is a list of works reviewed at pp. 287294, and a list of periodical works at p. 295.

3. INDEX TO THE BIBLIOTHECA SACRA AND AMERICAN BIBLICAL REPOSITORY, Vols. I.-XIII. containing an index of subjects and authors, a topical index, and list of Scripture texts, by W. F. DRAPER. Andover: W. F. Draper; London: Trübner and Co., 60, Paternoster Row, 1857. 8vo, v. pp. including title and preface; pp. 7-223, containing lists mentioned above; and pp. 1-13, Index of Contributors to the Bibliotheca Sacra, followed by lists of Mr. Draper's publications.

BIBLIOTHECA SACRA.

First Series, 3 Numbers, 1843.
Second Series, 13 vols. 1844-1856.

An index to the First and Second Series of the Repository, extending from 1831 to 1844, was prepared and published by Dr. Agnew. The present index embraces the Second Series of the Bibliotheca Sacra, from 1844 to 1856, and the American Biblical Repository since the Union of the two in 1851. Books are generally designated by their short and popular titles, and not by the words of the title-page; and foreign titles are mostly translated. Both the index of subjects and authors, and the topical index, abound in bibliographical analysis and information.

4. AN INDEX TO PERIODICAL LITERATURE, by WM. FRED. POOLE, A.M., Librarian to the Boston Mercantile Library Association. "Qui scit ubi sit scientia, habenti est proximus." New York: Charles B. Norton, 71, Chambers Street, 1853. Royal 8vo. Fly-title, pp. i-x., containing title-page, preface, and two pages of abbreviations; pp. 1-521, and leaf of errata.

Mr. Poole makes use of the American reprints of the Edinburgh, Quarterly, and North British Reviews, which do not correspond with the paging of the originals. Otherwise the work is well suited for reference, and is most carefully compiled, and the heads, Authors, Books, and Literature, need only be referred to, to show how valuable this volume is to the student of literary history.

CONTRIBUTIONS

TOWARDS A

HISTORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE.

CHAPTER I.

FIRST COLONIAL PERIOD.

THE historian of a Nation's Literature owes it both to justice and to policy to describe the earliest literary productions of the country whose mental creations are his subject. They are landmarks, valuable as indicating subsequent improvement, and although often crude and inelegant, are by no means to be slighted or disregarded. The first attempts at literature in America were the offspring of English colonial times, the study of letters having received the attention of some of the leading men among the earlier British settlers on the American continent. This is the more remarkable, from the fact that they wrote in times of trial and danger, when, instead of quiet and peace, so desirable to the man of letters, the writer was disturbed by the warcry of the savage and the alarm of his neighbours.

Among the stern, unflinching spirits who, with Captain John Smith, braved the pestilential swamps and wily Indians of Virginia, there were those who were not only "diggers up of trees' roots," as the famous admiral forcibly expressed himself, but lovers of literature. The most prominent of these was George Sandys, who deserves honourable mention for having penned the first American literary production of any note. He translated Ovid's Metamorphoses on the banks of James' River anterior to the year 1626, and so creditable was this performance that it was published in folio, in London, in the year named, with a Dedication to Charles the First. The work gained for its author the respect of Dryden, who pronounced Sandys the best versifier of his age, and Pope spoke in commendation of his verses in the Notes to the Iliad.

From the character left us of the early English settlers in America, it is manifest a love of letters was not confined to any particular colony. The Puritans carried the taste with them, as did the Virginia pioneers, and their literary productions, like their colony, took a far more lasting root than did those of their