The new Latin Reader, containing a literal and free translation of vari ous Latin exercises, arranged so as to point out the difference be tween the Latin and English idioms. By S. C. WALKER. Philadelphia. pp. 194. Richardson & Lord, Boston.

These translations consist of familiar Latin phrases, part 1; Historiæ Sacræ, part 2; 19 Narrationes Selectæ, part 3.

We have recently so fully and unequivocally borne our testimony to the utility and importance and superior advantages of the Hamiltonian and Bolmarian method of teaching languages, that it would be trespassing upon the reader to enlarge farther upon the subject in this place. It is a fact out of question, that the circle of indispensable acquisitions for a student trained after the present modes is so much enlarged, that time is not left for the appropriation of those seven or eight years, which used to be required in classical schools for the acquisition of languages, particularly the Latin and Greek. It has become a matter of necessity, either to relinquish these studies altogether, or to devote such reduced portions of time to them, as would preclude acquiring them after the ancient mode. To remedy this inconvenience, and to teach the idiomatic difference of the Latin or Greek languages from the English, the most difficult part of the labor of learning a language, this is what these methods propose to accomplish, and what, in our judgment, they are assuredly able to accomplish. We have not a doubt, that a clever boy will learn more words, and more of the idiomatic difference between the English and the Latin, by this book, and by books on this principle in a week, than he will by the use of a grammar, dictionary and the common mode of ancient instruction in a month. This, in our judgment, is the fair ratio of comparison between the common and the Bolmarian method of learning a language. We are pleased to learn, that the same principle of teaching, which has been so successfully applied to the French, is here adapted to Latin, and that books in Italian, Spanish and German are preparing with the same kind of literal interlineary version.

The mode of teaching after the plan of this book is simply this. 1. It gives the literal meaning of each root in the original. 2. By means of the prepositions and auxiliaries, it gives the meaning of each root, as modified by inflexion. 3. It gives a translation of phrases, or idioms, by which the true import of the original and the difference of the idiom are learned with precision. 4. The Latin words are arranged after the English order in the key. 5. The pupil is required to translate from the pure Latin text, which is given at the latter part of the book.

The pupil begins to translate, and to study Latin grammar at the same time. He is directed to study for recitation a small lesson in grammar, and by the aid of the key to prepare for translation a suitable portion of the Latin text.' In this way he is beguiled without difficulty or pain into a knowledge of the first principles of the language, and in a little time, applied to other similar exercises, will be able to throw away these mechani. cal aids, and read a Latin author without them. In the progress of the pupil, we have no doubt, that an intelligent master will be able to test by his own experience the falsity of the position, on which adhesion to the ancient modes of learning languages is predicated, to wit, that what we

learn with difficulty, we retain long. As a general principle, the direct reverse is true. Whatever falls in with the mental appetite is easily, if we may so say, assimilated, and is long remembered. Many an unhappy boy has been whipped, by great expense of time, money and pain into a little Latin and Greek, which, the moment the unhappy prisoner breaks his fetters, is forgotten forever, as offensive food is rejected from the stomach. Every scholar of the old times, that has learned a language, has in some contraband way smuggled to his aid literal translations, either by the help of a more advanced scholar, or by the labors of some one who, with other views, has given a literal translation. We have not a doubt, that the general progress of reason and truth, and the gradual expulsion of monkish prejudices will shortly triumph, completely and forever, over the absurd practice of torturing an ingenious and active boy with a lexicon, a grammar and a difficult and inverted Latin or Greek author, with no other clue to the meaning, than the naked text.

Introduction to the National Reader, designed to hold the place in the Common Schools of the United States of Murray's Introduction. By JOHN PIERPONT. pp. 168. Richardson & Lord. Boston, 1829. This book completes a series of school books by the same compiler, and is made with the same severe taste and felicitous judgment, as the 'National Reader,' of which we took a former notice, which we are pleased to learn is not only making a wide progress in the schools of the West as well as the Atlantic country; but has recently been re-printed in England, and with flattering prospects of success adopted into English schools. The present book is more generally selected from American writers, than the former, and as well as that, may be offered, as presenting the best and most chaste specimens of American composition. This book is of course intended for a different progress of mental advancement, and the compositions are of an order corresponding to the intent. We repeat what we said on a former occasion, that no task is more difficult or perplexing, or requires severer judgment, more mature talent or finished discipline, than to make a good selection, with a given object, from the whole compass of a language. It is seldom, that a richer and more brilliant mind, guided by a taste severe almost to fastidiousness, is put to such a task, than that of the author of this selection. His attainments not only in this walk, but in original composition, are too well known to need any attestation of ours. The selections are without exception well adapted, chaste and beautiful; and the execution is in that durable and superior style of paper, printing and binding, by which the Boston school books are so favorably discriminated from those of most other cities. If they come to the purchaser, in consequence a little higher, there can be no doubt, that intrinsic worth and durability considered, they are, after all, the cheapest in the end. New-England seems determined to retain the proud pre-eminence of the reputation of the country for the best schools, and the most improved teaching, by putting in requisition her best minds to furnish school books, and good paper, correct printing and substantial binding, in which to publish them.

The Pyramidal Beehive, or the art of raising Bees without destroying them, of obtaining from each family, annually, a box full of wax and pure honey, of hatching the eggs by the heat of the sun, of converting honey into white sugar, and of making hydromel, &c. Abridged and translated from the French of Ducouedic, by Silas Dinsmoor; pp. 103. Carey, Lea & Carey, Philad.

This is a beautiful, convenient, cheap and compendious manual for those concerned in this branch of rural economy. The only objection is, that it is rather too compendious for those, who wish to study the detailed theory of the grand pastoral of Bee raising; and too elaborate and full for those, who have neither time nor inclination to pursue the speculations of theorists upon their generation, progress, modes of nourishment, government and political economy. A treatise, in some points more abridged, and in others more full, embracing only practical directions, touching the modes of preserving them, the forms of their hives, the arrangements best suited to an apiary, and generally practical information, without a single particle of speculation or theory, is yet a desideratum, for the preparing of which this treatise would serve as an excellent text book. But there are very few farmers, who raise bees, so incurious, as not to be able to find a high treat of pleasure in these amusing speculations upon the mystery of the generation and habits of Bees, from the simple music of Theocritus to the splendid fables of Virgil, and the pastoral songs of Thompson upon the subject. For us, the thousand mysterious speculations that have been raised upon the wonderful origin, and the yet unexplained history of the political economy of these astonishing little animals, and the admirable wisdom and energy of their absolute monarchical form of government, have been a subject of untiring interest from our earliest years.

Who, that has eyes, senses and a heart, can fail to take an interest in the history of Bees? With them are naturally associated the memory of the first, simplest, and purest pleasures of the spring time, at once of life and the year. Who remembers not the first tasting of the most delicious music, when reclined on the starting grass of the spring, under the half formed foliage, just trembling in the voluptuous air, which seems to come down from the haze, that tempers and reddens the brilliance of the sun, he has heard the bees, like so many continuous wires of an Eolian harp, as they sped away to the search of their cells of nectar in the petals of the earliest flowers of the season? How delicious and dreaminspiring was the hum, which diminished in the ear, as the dark point faded into air, as the eye traced the unerring track through space to the nearest explored home of fragrance and beauty in the flower cup! What odor is like that diffused about their nec arean domain? What images of paradise are connected with the willow blossoms, on which the music of the bees, searching their daily food, is blended in one confused and yet melodious murmur! To watch their laborious and well ordered kingdoms, to listen to their ceaseless and dreamy hum, to mark their incessant return and departure, to see them crowding into their city gates, their limbs loaded with a golden burden, to regale the senses with their balsamic aroma, to note the signs of their setting forth in swarms, to search for a new empire, to traverse the woods and the fields, and mark their weight

bending down the tiny flower petal, to note their mazy courses, as they explore the blossoming trees or the deposite of honey dew on the leaves of deep summer, these are the pleasures of the lovers of bees; pleasures pure and healthful; pleasures redolent of the spring of life and the year; pleasures associated with whatever is most charming in nature, or remembrance. These are the joys appropriate to the dwellers in the country, to the inhabitants of copses, to those who turn the spring turf, and brush away with their footsteps, the earliest dews of morning; pleasures, which God has reserved for his favorites, the husbandmen; pleasures not only cheap, but profitable, and more healthful, heart cheering and satisfying to the unsophisticated spirit, than all the inventions of Paris, or proud fetes of a luxurious nobility to banish ennui, or music of stringed instruments, or affectation, glitter, scandal and prattle of all the galas, levees and soirees, that pride and vanity ever attended. Strange it is, and passing strange, that this delightful branch of rural economy, yielding supplies not only of honey, but by an easy process of sugar, of a cheap and pleasant wine in hydromel, or metheglin, and the basis of comfits, sweet-meats, and many pleasant drinks, but also an important article of domestic consumption, and foreign commerce; a species of industry not only not laborious, but even a relaxation and amusement, and which is a necessary adjunct in good taste to the pleasantness of the rural abode of a farmer, should be almost wholly neglected in the United States:-we mean, the amount of honey made being compared with what might be made, and what ought to be made.

Considering the general appetite to accumulate money, and the toit and research, that men will encounter for new ways of attaining the secret of wealth, it is positively astonishing, that this most delightful and easy resource is so generally neglected. The book, from which our author translates, supposes that France is capable of producing bees and their products to the value of twenty-nine millions of dollars. The United States, with four times as much territory, and more than a third of the population, and much greater general facilities for raising bees than France, ought then annually to produce from this branch of industry fifteen millions of dollars. We have probably a million and a half of householders, who could raise bees; and certainly ten dollars gain to a family, from this branch of industry, would be a moderate allowance. It is out of question, that this amount might be quintupled. We do actually make, it is probable, from this source, one million of dollars a year. A thousand most weak and unworthy superstitions are very generally prevalent, in relation to bees, such as the possibility of overstocking a region with them, and that the stocks are apt to fail, when the head of the family deceases, and many other idle dreams, that relate to the management of bees, equally unfounded.

From this little manual before us, every requisite to the right and profitable managing this branch of rural economy is brought within the purview of the reader. If every competent householder in the United States would avail himself of what might be extracted from this treatise, we fully believe, that in a few years the United States would have twenty millions of dollars added to the value of our annual useful products. Need we remark, how much of moral attraction would be added to our country residences? How much innocent pleasure would be enjoyed in this acqui

sition? Such thoughts apart, let us take a more detailed survey of the book before us.

The common bee-apis in Latin,-is a four winged fly, of which in: different regions a number of varieties have been noted. The common. domestic bee in a wild state builds in a hollow tree or rock, suspending the waxen city at the top, and protracting it downwards. The habits of the insect are very little varied by the arrangements, of its domesticated condition, in which it is placed in a hive. The insects form a despotic monarchical republic, in which every thing relating to the commonwealth appears to be settled on principles far more exact, than those of any human society whatever. The community consists of three classes, neuters, queens and drones. The neuters alone make honey, and are armed with stings. Much as they appear alike to us, they distinguish each other, as accurately, as do men. Some communities are much more irascible than others. The queen is the mother of the whole hive, being endowed with a most astonishing fecundity, depositing many thousand eggs, each in a separate cell. A few of these will hatch queens, a larger number drones, and by far the largest proportion neuters. The queen never receives the access of the males or drones; but they impregnate her eggs, one by one, by an astonishing process. The drones are males, stingless, and make no honey. When they have performed their assigned functions, they are killed and cast out, as useless. But one queen has dominion in a hive at: a time; and after a swarm has emigrated, all the supernumerary queens are destroyed. The bees will not go into a state of society without one. If she is cast away in swarming, which as she is less expert in flying than the rest, often happens, the swarm returns disorganized and discouraged to the: parent hive, to wait for a new queen. The swarms can be managed, by seizing the queen, as she comes out, and depositing her where it is wished the swarm should settle. The eggs of swarms that have perished, may be hatched, and the swarm resuscitated by the heat of the sun, thus verifying the beautiful fable of Virgil in the Georgics.

The infinite advantage of modern over the ancient management of bees is, not only that swarms can thus be resuscitated, and be better preserved by better understanding their habits and necessities, but that, by the simple invention of the pyramidal hive, a box full of honey may annually be taken from each healthful swarm, without the abominable practice of mur, dering the bees, or even driving them from one hive to another. It is their nature to build downwards; to fill by some inexplicable instinct, a series of cells above with honey, then close them and leave the stores thus.. accumulated, as though they had not been. It is presumed, the wisdom of the instinct is the habit of the animal to act upon one almost miserly principle of cautious accumulation, against a day of need. If they are rightly managed, that day never comes; so that the taking off the upper story of the pyramidal hive, which is filled with honey, does them no harm, as they remain unconscious of the robbery. It is is useless to describe this pyramidal hive. It consists simply in putting hives one under the other, as is required by removing the box, that is filled. All the adaptation required is a hole in the under hive top, through which the bees may descend to fill it. It is customary besides, to have a little window in the centre of the front of the hive, secured by a sliding shutter, to enable the