grammars,—­the precision both of thought and expression by which it is characterized, which releases the student from the labor of constructing the meaning of a rule from the data of the appended examples.  Not that Mr. Goodwin is chary of examples; on the contrary, one of the most attractive and not least profitable features of the book is the copiousness and freshness of the illustrative quotations from Greek authors.  These are as welcome as the brightness of newly minted coin to the eye which, in consulting grammar after grammar, has been condemned to meet under corresponding rules always the same examples, till they begin to produce that effect upon the nerves which all have experienced at the mention of the deadly upas-tree, or the imminence of the dissolution of the Union.

We must not omit to speak of the typographical merit of the work,—­and especially of what constitutes the first and the last merit of books of this class, the excellent table of contents, and the indexes, Greek and English, which leave nothing to be desired in the way of facility of reference, except, perhaps, an index to the quotations.

The Law of the Territories.  Philadelphia:  C. Sherman & Son.

The author of the two able essays contained in this volume will be remembered by many of our readers under his assumed name of “Cecil.”  The second, as he himself tells us, on “Popular Sovereignty in the Territories,” was published, as one of a series of essays on Southern politics, in the Philadelphia North American and United States Gazette.  The first, we believe, has never been published before.

Our author, whom we may designate, without violating any confidence, as Mr. George Sidney Fisher, devotes an elaborate preface, which is itself a third essay, to discussing the invasion of Virginia by John Brown and the Southern threats of secession, drawing from the foray of Harper’s Ferry a conclusion very different from that of the disunionists.  In his own words,—­

“Disunion is a word of fear.  Is it not strange that it should have been as yet pronounced only by the South?  The danger of insurrection and servile war belongs to the nature of slavery.  It is, perhaps, not too much to assert that the safety and tranquillity of Southern society depend on the fact that the Northern people are close at hand to aid in case of need,—­that the power of the General Government is ever ready for the same purpose.  Four millions of barbarians, growing with tropical vigor, and soon to be eight millions, with tropical passions boiling in their blood, endowed with native courage, with sinews strong by toil, and stimulated by the hope of liberty and unbounded license, are not to be trifled with.  Take away from them the idea of an irresistible power in the North, ready at any moment to be invoked by their masters, or let them expect in the North, not enemies, but friends and supporters, which even now they are told every day by these masters