CRITICAL NOTICES.

The Philosophy of Language Illustrated; an entirely New System of Grammar, wholly divested of Scholastic Rubbish, of Traditionary Falsehood and Absurdity, and reduced to the Principles of Fact and Common Sense, according to the Real Nature, Genius, and Idiom of the English Tongue. Designed for Colleges, Academies, and District Schools in the United States. By JOHN SHERMAN. Trenton Falls, Oneida County, New York. Danby & Maynard. 1826. 12mo. pp. 324. HERE, again, we have a "true English Grammar, from one of those zealous grammarians, who occasionally come before the public to set up a new system of their own, or to propose some change in the old, and who belabor, without mercy, all those who have been unfortunate enough to have written on the subject of grammar before them. The very title of the work has a fearfully belligerent aspect, and hurls defiance in the teeth of the enemy. The Dedication, also, gives manifest proof of the author's want of respect for ancient prejudices and traditionary absurdities. It is placed, not according to the old manner, at the beginning, but at the end of the work, and with the greatest propriety in the world, since nobody writes his dedication till he has finished his book. We dare say, that it was mere inadvertence in the author which prevented the Preface from being placed at the end of the work also.

It will be recollected, that our venerable philologist, Mr. Webster, skirmished a good deal among the grammarians in his younger days, and, like the rest of that discourteous brotherhood, was not always disposed to pay much deference to the opinions, or even to the understanding, of those with whom he differed. And now we have a younger and still more hardy knight of the quill bearding that respectable veteran in the very fortress which he formerly maintained with so much valor and heroic contempt of the enemy. The following passage is a sample of the manner in which our author is wont to speak both of the merits of his predecessors and his own.

"We see here, that these leading-strings (as I have most modestly termed them) are actually CABLES with an ANCHOR at the end, sufficiently ponderous to moor a first rate man-of-war. Hence, from Wallis to Webster, not a single ship of the grand squadron has either dragged her anchor or parted her cable. So fast moored has been the whole fleet in the mud of Latin and Greek, that no one has had the ability to weigh anchor and put out of port. Webster himself, who complains that his learned predecessors are in leading

* See page 201.

strings, remains as fast moored as any of them. His profound etymology, instead of proving a redeeming spirit, has added another cable and another anchor to his ship, so that he stands moored fore and aft. Least of all is there any hope of an etymologist. It is well that I am not a man of learning. Had this been my exaltation, I should have overlooked truth by an angle of at least forty-five degrees; should have been in the same predicament with my learned predecessors; and, as a writer of grammar, should have retailed, unblushingly, the same obviously absurd and palpable errors. the case is now, my country reaps the benefit of my being a plain, unlettered man; just as in the arts, it owes its inventions to plain practical mechanics, rather than to philosophical literati." pp. 140, 141.

As

Notwithstanding this confidence of the author in the success of his system, we cannot conscientiously flatter him with the prospect of its speedy or universal adoption, any more than we could hold out a similar expectation to those three hundred ingenious persons, who, within the year in which this book was published, took out patents at Washington for those "inventions in the arts," of which the author speaks, from the lithontriptor down to the tincture for curing corns. Yet the book is not without its value to those who delight in minute speculations on the analysis of sentences, and we recommend its perusal to those who are dissatisfied with the old methods. The author, it is true, often strikes at random, but at other times he aims his blows with considerable effect. He gives a new classification of the parts of speech, and new names to such of the old ones as are retained in his system, and if he has done nothing more, he has at least shown how easy it is to do this. The following specimen of his mode of reasoning on these subjects will amuse the reader. It should be mentioned, that the author puts all nouns in the possessive case by themselves, as a distinct part of speech, and calls them possessives. He is speaking of the example, "John's house," and argues from the definition that a noun is the name of a person or thing.

"Latin and Greek scholars! I am fully aware, from my own experience, of the Alpine prejudice you have here to surmount. But let me conjure you to abandon prejudices, and allow your good sense and intelligence to triumph. You do know for certainty, that the word John's, with the apostrophe, is not the name of any thing, and cannot possibly be the name of any thing in heaven or on earth. Bow, then, to the omnipotence of fact, and become the open professors of what you see to be indisputable truth." p. 35.

Vivian Grey. Part II. Philadelphia. Carey, Lea, & Carey. 1827. 2 vols. 12mo. THE Continuation of "Vivian Grey" is very much like the First Part. It exhibits the same extravagance and want of principle, the same careless, dashing style, the same crude conceptions, the same affectation, now of sentiment and now of profound reflection. It shows talent, indeed, and contains some striking ideas, but the whole mass is extremely ill concocted. This novel and "Almack's" attempt to interest the world in scenes and personages essentially worthless. Most novelists hitherto have taken for granted that there was a large fund of virtuous principle in human nature, and that a story constructed entirely out of vice, frivolity, and passion unchecked by principle, would afford a false view of society. The authors of these two novels, however, think otherwise, and have hardly hinted that the world consists of aught but knaves and fools.

The scene of this part of "Vivian Grey" is laid in Germany, whither the hero has been driven by the painful result of his premature ambition. It is divided into four books. In the first, he baffles a couple of sharpers, who had formed designs upon the pockets of himself and his friend. The scene of the exposure is considerably like one in "Granby," though by no means equal to it.

In the same book, also, he falls in love. The lady, being in a delicate state of health, is so overcome by the declaration of his passion, that she instantly expires. What becomes of Vivian thereupon, we are not immediately informed. In a subsequent part of the volume, indeed, there are some hints of a burning fever, &c.; but the chapter succeeding the lady's death, opens with our hero riding through a forest at midnight. In the course of his ride, he comes to a castle, where a scene of drunken conviviality is acted so outrageously extravagant, that the reader is almost inclined to suppose it a dream, or else that the writer is favoring us with a German tale of diablerie. In the next book, Vivian again falls in love, after a week's acquaintance, with an Austrian arch-duchess incog. The mutual passion of the parties being unfortunately discovered, he is obliged to quit the little duchy where he is residing, post-haste. In the fourth book, he is cheated by a knavish innkeeper; and we take our leave of him at the end of the second volume, thrown from his horse, and lying senseless, amid such a conflict of the elements, as the world does not witness once a century. The principal personages besides the hero are Essper George and Mr. Beckendorff. The former is a mountebank, who, out of gratitude to Vivian, becomes

his servant. He is a man of universal accomplishments, a sort of Vivian Grey in low life. The latter is the great, mysterious, and whimsical prime minister of the duchy of Reisenburg, whose mode of government consists in playing the fiddle and rearing bulfinches and Java sparrows in a secluded retreat, twenty or thirty miles from the capital of the duchy. Besides these, we have a sprinkling of continental sharpers and dissipated English idlers, with some slight sketches of the manners of the little courts of Germany. The novel can pretend to nothing more than the power of amusing for an hour or two. It has no moral aim, and the careless, reckless spirit in which it is written, affords little ground for believing in the fidelity of its representations.

Biblical Repertory; a Collection of Tracts in Biblical Literature. By CHARLES HODGE, Professor of Oriental and Biblical Literature in the Theological Seminary at Princeton, N. J. Vol. III. No. 2. April, 1827. New York. G. & C. Carvill. 8vo. pp. 147.

THE object of this work is to promote the study of Biblical literature in this country, by publishing criticisms on the text of the Scriptures; remarks on the ancient versions; and the critical editions of eminent scholars; articles on the manners, customs, institutions, and literature of the East; information respecting Biblical antiquities, and matters connected with the literary history of the sacred books; biographical notices of writers who have distinguished themselves as Biblical critics; and accounts of the most important Bibical works. With these, it is intimated, will occasionally be mingled discussions on doctrinal points, and disquisitions on ecclesiastical history.

The advertisement to the present number, makes some complaint of the little taste for Biblical criticism in this country, and the small encouragement which is held out to such an undertaking as this work. The editor suggests, that some of the time which is now employed in the study of systems of divinity, theological compends, and doctrinal essays, might be advantageously bestowed upon an investigation of the precise meaning of the text from which these works profess to be compiled. Most Protestant sects, we believe, are agreed on the utility of Biblical criticism, and the Catholics themselves have no small occasion for it in the contest with their adversaries. That the cultivation of this branch of theological learning among us is, on the whole, gaining ground, is sufficiently evident from the establishment of a journal like the present, an undertaking which a few years since would not have

been thought of. Investigations of this minute and laborious nature cannot be expected to grow speedily into fashion.

The present number contains three articles. The first of them is a continuation of a series of tracts, translated by Professor Patten, from the Latin of J. A. Ernesti, and includes two of those tracts, one on the difficulty attending the grammatical interpretation of the New Testament, and the other on Origen, the father of the grammatical interpretation of the Scriptures, in which it is endeavoured to ascertain the extent and value of the labors of this ancient in revising and explaining the sacred writings. The second article is a translation, by Dr. Alexander, of Turretin's famous refutation of the hypothesis of the Papists in relation to the interpretation of the Scriptures. The third article is of a miscellaneous nature, composed of short extracts from works of Biblical criticism, literary notices, &c.

An Inquiry into the Rule of Law which creates a Right to an Incorporeal Hereditament, by an Adverse Enjoyment of Twenty Years. With remarks, on the Application of the Rule to Light, and in certain cases to a Water Privilege. By JOSEPH K. ANGELL, Author of a Treatise on Water Courses, and a Treatise on Tide Waters. Boston. Hilliard, Gray, Little, and Wilkins 1827. 8vo. pp. 117. THIS is a very excellent digest of the adjudged cases on a point of law, which Mr. Dane rather querimoniously attacked in his Abridgment; and which seems not to have commended itself, so readily as we believe it ought to have done, to the acceptance of some other eminent jurists. We should suppose that Mr. Starkie's remarks, in his Treatise on Evidence, upon Prescription and Presumption, would be perfectly satisfactory to the most hesitating and cautious lawyer The whole philosophy and policy of the rule of adverse enjoyment is there admirably set forth.

When judges and writers tell us that twenty years' undisturbed enjoyment of an easement, or servitude (as the more appropriate term of the civil law is), raises a presumption of a grant, which the jury are bound to suppose was originally made to the party in possession-it is no wonder that the position startles a mind that is not accustomed to technical language, and even fails to approve itself to professional men. The real truth of the matter is, that the rule depends on no fictitious notions of this sort-but that it stands, as Lord Chancellor Erskine says, "upon a clear principle the nature and character of man, and the result of human experience. It resolves itself into this-that a man will naturally enjoy what belongs to him. It is resorted to, with the