How truthful an air of deep lamentation hangs here upon every gentle syllable! It pervades all. It comes over the sweet melody of the words, over the gentleness and grace which we fancy in the little maiden herself, even over the half-playful, half-petulant air with which she lingers on the beauties and good qualities of her favorite like the cool shadow of a summer cloud over a bed of lilies and violets, and "all sweet flowers." con The whole thing is redolent with poetry of the very loftiest order. It is positively crowded with nature and with pathos. Every line is an idea veying either the beauty and playfulness of the fawn, or the artlessness of the maiden, or the love of the maiden, or her admiration, or her grief, or the fragrance and sweet warmth, and perfect appropriateness of the little nest-like bed of lilies and roses, which the fawn devoured as it lay upon them, and could scarcely be distinguished from them by the once happy little damsel who went to seek her pet with an arch and rosy smile upon her face. Consider the great variety of truth and delicate thought in the few lines we have quoted the wonder of the maiden at the fleetness of her favorite the "little silver feet' challenging his mistress to the race, skipping grace," running on before, and then, with head turned back, awaiting her approach only to fly from it again can we not distinctly perceive all these The exceeding vigor, too, and beauty of the things? line the fawn with a pretty And trod as if on the four winds, which are vividly apparent when we regard the artless nature of the speaker, and the four feet of the favorite one for each wind. Then the garden of "" my own," so overgrown — entangled — with lilies and roses as to be a little wilderness the fawn loving to be there and there 66 only' the maiden seeking it where it should lie,' ," and not being able to distinguish it from the flowers until itself would rise the lying among the lilies like a bank of lilies the loving to " fill" itself with roses, And its pure virgin limbs to fold In whitest sheets of lilies cold, and these things being its " chief" delights and then the pre-eminent beauty and naturalness of the concluding lines - whose very outrageous hyperbole and absurdity only render them the more true to nature and to propriety, when we consider the innocence, the artlessness, the enthusiasm, the passionate grief, and more passionate admiration of the bereaved child. Had it lived long it would have been A NEW DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE : BY CHARLES RICHARDSON. LONDON: WILLIAM PICKERING NEW YORK: WILLIAM JACKSON. [Southern Literary Messenger, August, 1836.] THE periodical nature of this publication absolves us from what would otherwise be a just charge of neglect in not speaking of it sooner. Five numbers have been issued, and twenty-five more are to be added, at inter vals of a fortnight. These numbers are of quarto form, and contain eighty pages in triple columns. The paper is excellent, and the matter beautifully stereotyped. The whole will form, when the publication is completed, two very large quarto volumes, of which the entire cost will have been fifteen dollars. We say when the publication is completed - the work itself is already so a consideration of great importance, and sure to be appreciated by the thousands of subscribers to the many costly periodicals which have failed in completing their issue, and thus thrown a number of odd volumes upon the hands of the public. In what farther we have to say of this Dictionary we shall do little more than paraphrase the very satisfactory prospectus of Mr. Richardson himself. When Dr. Johnson, in 1747, announced his intention of writing a Dictionary of the English language, he communicated the plan of his undertaking in a letter to Lord Chesterfield. The plan was as follows. He would give, first-the natural and primitive meaning of words; secondly, the consequential—and thirdly the metaphorical, arranging the quotations chronologically. The book, however, was published in 1755, without the plan, and strange to say, in utter disregard of the principles avowed in the letter to the Earl of Chesterfield. That these principles were well conceived, and that if followed out, they would have rendered important service to English lexicography, was not doubted at the time, and cannot be doubted now. Moreover, the necessity for something of the kind which was felt then, is more strongly felt now, for no person has as yet attempted to construct a work upon the plan proposed, and the difficulties which were to have been remedied, are greatly aggravated by time. Eighty years have passed, and not only has no new work been written upon the plan of Dr. Johnson but no systematic work of reform upon the old basis. The present Dictionary of Mr. Richardson is, distinctly, a new work, upon a system never attempted before upon the principles of Horne Tooke, the greatest of philosophical grammarians, and whose developments of an entirely novel theory of language have excited the most profound interest and respect in the minds of all who think. In the Diversions of Purley, it is positively demonstrated that a word has one meaning and one only, and that from this one meaning all the usages of the word must spring. "To discover this meaning," says Mr. Richardson, etymological research was indispensable, and I have stated the results of such research with conciseness, it is true, yet with a fulness that will enable the more learned reader to form a judgment for himself, and the path of deeper investigation is disclosed to the pursuit of the curious inquirer." In tracing the usages of words, Mr. R. has availed himself of the materials collected by Johnson and his editors, “the various supplements and provincial vocabularies, the notes of editors and commentators upon our older poets, and of abundant treasures amassed for his own peculiar use." The quotations are arranged chronologically, and embrace extracts from the earliest to the latest writers of English. The etymology is placed distinctly by itself for the convenience of hasty reference. As an example of the arrangement of the work, we will give the word Calefy. In his prospectus, Mr. Richardson has had occasion to speak in no measured terms of the Dictionary of Dr. Webster. We here repeat his observations because we think them entirely just. We believe the North American Review has remarked of the work before us, that its definitions are in some measure too scanty, and not sufficiently compact. This defect, which cannot altogether be denied, and which is, to say the truth, of more importance to the mass of readers than to the philologist, will be found, upon examination, a defect inseparable from the plan originally proposed, and which insists upon an arrangement of derivatives under primitives. We are not tempted, however, to wish any modification of the principal design, for the sake of a partial, and not very important amendment. We conclude in heartily recommending the work of Mr. Richardson to the attention of the readers. It embraces we think, every desideration in an English Dictionary, and has moreover a thousand negative virtues. Messrs. Mayo and Davis are the agents in Richmond. : LAFITTE THE PIRATE OF THE GULF. BY THE AUTHOR OF THE SOUTH-WEST. NEW YORK: HARPER AND BROTHERS. [Southern Literary Messenger, August, 1836.] 66 THE "author of the South-West is Professor Ingraham. We had occasion to speak favorably of that work in our Messenger for January last. Lafitte,' the book now before us, may be called an historical novel. It is based, in a great degree, upon a sketch |