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Our author observes [page 30] that "Barnabas and Paul had both been Jews before they were converted." The expression would seem to imply that their conversion had rendered them Gentiles.

The preaching in the Jewish synagogue is described, page 54, as resembling what is now called an exhortation, rather than the modern sermon. It was probably less like either, than like what is called in some parts of this country a lecture, or exposition. Its original intention was to explain the antiquated language of the scriptures, and it appears to have long retained somewhat of the same character.

On page 19, the author seems to be in doubt in respect to the meaning of the word "Paul," or the reason of the change from Saul to Paul. The first is the original Hebrew name, and the latter its Hellenistic form.

8.-The Complete Farmer and Rural Economist; containing a compendious epitome of the most important branches of agriculture and rural economy. By Thomas G. Fessenden, Esq. Editor of the New England Farmer.

Boston:

Lilly, Wait, & Co. and G. C. Barrett. 1834. pp. 374.

THE principal improvements in the modern science of agriculture are the following: a correct knowledge of the properties, and of the best modes of application, of manures mineral, animal, and vegetable-the knowledge and the means of chemically analyzing soils-introduction of root-husbandry, or the raising of potatoes, turnips, mangel-worzel, &c. by field husbandry, for feeding cattle-laying down lands to grass, either for pasture or mowing, with a greater variety of soils-the substitution of fallow crops in place of naked fallows-the art of raising the best animals. The principal impediments in the way of agricultural improvements, in this country, seem to be, the cultivation, or the attempt at cultivation, of too large a quantity of land-and a prejudice, which is extensively felt, against all improvements, as doubtful, as too scientific for common farmers, and as involving too much expense for the mass of landholders. We have sometimes heard the remark made that certain farmers were prosperous till they began to innovate. Such prejudices are, however, vanishing. The legislature of Massachusetts voted at their last session to appropriate considerable funds to various agricultural societies, in continuation of the grants which they have for many years made. Among other periodical publications, the NewEngland Farmer, published at Boston, has contributed largely to the diffusion of valuable scientific and practical knowledge. Mr. Fessenden, the editor, has been honorably distinguished in efforts of this character. The publication, whose title is given at the

head of this article, is a condensed and methodical analysis of the most important matter which has appeared in the successive volumes of the New England Farmer, with various additions. A large number of models and drawings of various utensils are inserted. A striking characteristic of the work is its freedom from mere hypothesis and ingenious speculation, and its obvious adaptedness to be useful. It is to be followed by a volume on horticulture. The typographical execution is quite commendable.

9.-Introduction to Sacred Philology and Interpretation, by

Dr. J. G. Planck; translated from the original German,
and enlarged with notes, by Samuel H. Turner, D. D.,
Prof. Bib. Lit. in Prot. Epis. Sem., New York.
York: Leavitt, Lord, & Co. 1834. pp. 306.

New

Ir is not more than twenty years since sacred philology was cultivated at all in this country. It is true that some of the fathers of New England read Hebrew and the cognate dialects with great ardor, but their knowledge was little more than a dry acquaintance with grammatical forms, or a bo astful display of a most heterogeneous erudition. They had no deep philosophical acquaintance with language. They used well the accessible helps, but the condition of sacred learning all over Christendom was exceedingly low. Luther, Melancthon, Erasmus, and a few others, had caught the keys of biblical knowledge; but they were sadly persecuted for their pains. Their labors were not appreciated, nor their doctrines widely diffused. The greatest defect in the writings of president Edwards is owing to his want of acquaintance with the true principles of biblical interpretation. Dr. Stiles, of New Haven, was said to have been acquainted with Hebrew, Samaritan, Chaldee, Arabic, &c., but his learning was extensive, rather than profound. It could not be otherwise when such lexicons as Parkhurst's were in vogue.

To Mr. Stuart is to be ascribed principally the cultivated state of sacred literature in this country. He has not only provided a number of important helps, but created an enthusiasm in the pursuit, which we trust will never die. The first edition of Mr. Stuart's Hebrew Grammar was published in Andover, in 1821. The fourth edition ten years afterwards. In 1821, he translated and published a valuable pamphlet, from Jahn, Gesenius, and Wyttenbach, on the best mode of studying the original languages of the Bible. In 1823, Jahn's Biblical Archæology, translated from the Latin by professor Upham, now of Bowdoin college, appeared. A second edition has lately been published. It contains a great amount of well arranged information on Hebrew antiquities. In 1824, Mr. J. W. Gibbs, now professor in the theological school in Yale college, published at Andover, a Hebrew and

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English Lexicon of the Old Testament, including the Biblical Chaldee, from the German works of Gesenius. In 1828, an abridgement, or manual, was issued from the same press, designed to assist students, until a second edition of the large work shall be published, which will undoubtedly be a great improvement on the first. Gesenius is now preparing a very extensive lexicon in Latin. In 1829, Mr. Stuart published a Hebrew Chrestomathy, or Easy Lessons, designed as the first volume of a course of Hebrew study. A second volume was issued in 1830. In 1822, a Lexicon of the New Testament made its appearance in Leipzig, by Wahl. This lexicon was translated into English, by Mr. Edward Robinson, then assistant instructor in Andover, with considerable improvements. A new edition is now in progress, revised and improved by the use of the lexicons of Bretschneider, Passow, and others. It is, we understand, to be entirely rewritten. Robinson's Lexicon has superseded all others in this country. A Grammar of the New Testament, translated from the works of G. B. Winer, by professors Stuart and Robinson, was published about the same time with the last mentioned work. Bishop Lowth's Lectures on Hebrew Poetry, was issued in Andover in 1829, with valuable notes, by C. E. Stowe, now professor of Bib. Lit. in the Lane Seminary, Ohio. Dr. Marsh, of the University of Vermont, has given us an excellent translation of the first part of Herder's Spirit of Hebrew Poetry. The remainder, we believe, is nearly ready for the press. In 1832, a Manual of the Chaldee Language, with a chrestomathy, vocabulary, notes, &c., was published in Boston, by E. Riggs, now a missionary in Athens, Greece. Ernesti's Principles of Interpretation has been translated by Mr. Stuart, and two editions of it published. Two volumes of Essays and Dissertations in Biblical Literature, translated by Messrs. Turner, Whittingham, and others, have been published in New York. One of them contains a translation of J. D. Michaelis's Treatise on the use of the Syriac language. A manual Hebrew Grammar, for the use of beginners, by J. Seixas, was published in Andover in 1833. Mr. Stowe has published, in one large octavo volume, Jahn's History of the Hebrew Commonwealth. The Biblical Repository, now in its fourth year, published at Andover, and conducted by professor Robinson, contains a great amount of most valuable philological information and discussion, in the form of original essays, expositions, translations, &c.

The book, of which the title is given at the head of this article, is a translation of a small portion of Dr. J. G. Planck's Introduction to Theological Literature. The translator has appended about one hundred pages of valuable notes, principally occupied in giving some account of the philological works which have been published since the time when Planck's essay appeared, forty years since. We think that more unity and value might

have been given to the volume, if the notes were embodied in the work itself; Planck being the basis, and the annotations inter

Woven.

10.-The Library of American Biography. Conducted by Jared Sparks. Vol. II. Boston: Hilliard, Gray, & Co. London: Richard James Kennett. 1834. pp. 407.

THIS volume contains the life of Alexander Wilson, the American ornithologist, by W. B. O. Peabody; and the life of Captain John Smith, by George S. Hillard. To an admirer of romantic enthusiasm and a lover of nature, we cannot imagine a richer treat than the life of Alexander Wilson. The lover of birds (and who does not love them?) cannot but love their enthusiastic friend, their eloquent advocate and biographer. Let such an one seat himself by a window, which looks out upon a well cultivated garden, or variegated parterre, with a wooded variety of hill and dale in the back ground, and there mid the mingling melodies of the songsters that haunt such a "sylvan scene," let him turn over the pages of this delightful biography. He will then be in a mood rightly to conceive and appreciate the character of Wilson. He was no ordinary man; and if genius alone can truly delineate genius, no common man may presume to write his history. To say then that Mr. Peabody has succeeded in his difficult attempt, is no mean praise. He has not indeed added much that is new to our knowledge of the history and character of Wilson. The biography of Mr. Ord, prefixed to the American Ornithology, made up as it is for the most part of copious reflections from the letters and journals of Wilson, gives us perhaps as complete and interesting a view of the man and the ornithologist, as it is possible to give. Mr. Peabody, like a faithful and industrious bee, has gathered the honey from this wild mass of flowers, and served it up for us in a new, clear and beautiful comb. It is indeed "sweet as the honey-comb," and we are grateful for his industrious toil. But the flowers themselves are beautiful and fragrant, and possess a thousand charms and odors, which no art can extract, no alchemy condense; and if we regret any thing in this charming sketch, it is the loss of Wilson's own beautifully descriptive letters. For the place, however, which it occupies in the American Biography, Mr. Peabody's life is perhaps better as it is, and will be an acceptable offering to the lovers of fine writing and taste.

We make room for the following particulars in the life of Wilson. He was born in Paisley, in Scotland, on the 6th of July, 1766. His parentage was humble, but honorable; his parents being Scotch peasants, and distinguished for the proverbial good sense, intelligence and piety of their class. His

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early advantages of education were meagre; but his tastes even from his childhood were highly intellectual and poetical. He was apprenticed to a weaver, and spent seven years of his life in this humble occupation. He then left the loom for the pack, and made the tour of Scotland in the character of a travellingmerchant or pedlar. But caring much more to behold the beauties of nature, than to display his wares, he met with little success in his new calling. The pedlar, whose feelings of rapture at the grand and beautiful in nature, burst forth in such expressions of delight as these, was illy qualified for the low pursuits of his sordid vocation. "These are pleasures," he says, "which the grovelling sons of interest, and the grubs of this world, know as little of, as the miserable spirits, doomed to everlasting darkness, know of the glorious regions and eternal delights of paradise." He made several attempts at poetical composition, and published a small volume of fugitive pieces, which never brought him either fame or money. He was not wanting in poetic feeling, but was trammelled by the laws of versification. His prose is poetical, and his poetry prosaic. In 1793 he resolved to emigrate to America, the land of freedom and plenty. With him, to resolve was to execute. For four months he devoted himself to the labors of the loom, in order to obtain the means of paying his passage, and lived in the mean time on a system so rigidly economical, that his whole expenditure did not exceed one shilling a week. With his characteristic energy and enthusiasm, rather than give up the opportunity of his passage, as the vessel in which he wished to embark had her full complement of passengers, he consented to sleep on the deck through the whole passage. On the 14th of July, 1794, he landed in America with but a few shillings in his pocket, and those borrowed from a fellow-passenger, without a letter of introduction or a single acquaintance. A stranger in a strange land, without even an object of pursuit, he set out on foot with his fowling-piece in his hand for the city of Newcastle, near which he had landed. Free, unembarrassed, cheerful, with eye, ear, and heart, to see, hear, and feel all that was beautiful and new, he gave himself up entirely to the guidance of chance. The first object that attracted his attention, and which probably gave direction and character to his subsequent life, was a red-headed woodpecker, which he shot. For the details of his subsequent history, we must refer our readers to the life itself. For several years he followed the laborious occupation of a school-master, devoting himself with assiduity and zeal to the self-denying duties of his office. His leisure hours were employed in the study of natural history, as appears from a letter written by him at this time, in which he describes the state of his own apartment, crowded with opossums, squirrels, snakes, lizards, and birds in such numbers, that they gave it the appearance of Noah's ark. Wilson

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