farewell of our revered preceptor,-it has seemed meet that we should break the noontide bread together, and invite him also to meet us at the social board, there to pass the last hour that we shall ever all pass together on earth, in the interchange of kind feeling with each other and with him. There, Sir, whether we pledge his health in the rosy or the limpid cup, the dews of Castalia I am sure will sweeten its brim, and the balm of good-fellowship give a flavor to the draught. The occasion will there also be taken of offering to our respected teacher a slight but permanent token of respect, of a domestic character, which will preserve at the fireside of his family, in aftertimes, the recollection of this day's transactions.

"Here, Sir, I might with prudence pause; but emotions crowd upon my mind, which I find it equally difficult to suppress and to utter. I have read of an individual who was released from the Bastile after a confinement of more than thirty years. He sought for his family and the friends of his youth, and they were gone. The house in which he had lived had passed into the possession of strangers, and he desired to go back to the prison in which he had so long been immured. I can catch a glimpse of his feelings, as I wander about these scenes, familiar to me in boyhood, and which I have but once or twice re-visited, and that long ago, in the interval of more than thirty years since I was a pupil at the Academy. It was my good fortune to pass here but a portion of the year before I entered college; but I can truly say that even in that short time I contracted a debt of gratitude, which I have felt throughout my life. I return to these endeared scenes with mingled emotion. I find them changed; dwelling-places are no more on the same spots; old edifices have disappeared; new ones, both public and private, have been erected. Some of the respected heads of society whom I knew, though as a child, are gone. The seats in the Academy-room are otherwise arranged than formerly, and even there the places that once knew me know me no more. Where the objects themselves are unaltered, the changed eye and the changed mind see them differently. The streets seem narrower and shorter, the distances less considerable; this play-ground before us, which I remember as most spacious, seems sadly contracted. But all, Sir, is not changed, either in appearance or reality. The countenance of our revered preceptor has undergone no change to my eye. It still expresses that suaviter in modo mentioned by the gentleman last up, (Rev. Professor Ware, Jun.,) with nothing of the sternness of the other principle. It is thus I remember it; it was always sunshine to me. Nature, in the larger features of the landscape, is unchanged; the river still flows; the woods yield their shade as pleasantly as they did thirty years ago, doubly grateful for the contrast they afford to the dusty walks of active life; for the solace they yield in an escape, however brief, from its burdens and cares. As I stood in the hall of the Academy, last evening, and saw from its windows the river winding through the valley, and the gentle slope rising from its opposite bank, and caught the cool breeze that was scattering freshness after the sultry summer's day, I could feel the poetry of Gray, on revisiting, in a like manner, the scenes of his school-boy days—

'Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!

Ah, fields beloved in vain!

Where once my careless childhood strayed,

A stranger yet to pain!

I feel the gales that from ye blow

A momentary bliss below,

As, waving fresh their gladsome wing,

My weary soul they seem to soothe,

And, redolent of joy and youth,

To breathe a sacred spring.'

The remaining extract is from the address before the Massachusetts Bible society already referred to. Not only the address

itself, but the example which was set in delivering it, is well worthy of being contemplated by men in high places. The efforts of clergymen on such occasions lose no small part of the influence to which they are entitled, by being regarded as official; but when a distinguished layman steps forward, as Mr. Everett has here done, in defence of the Bible, all suspicion of self interest, in any form, ceases; and many a mind which would, at best, have opened reluctantly to the teachings of the pulpit or the voice of a clergyman, now finds itself in an unsuspecting, docile and attentive attitude. We do not wish to see laymen doing the appropriate and peculiar work of clergymen; but there is some ground on which intelligent laymen may render most important service to the cause of truth and righteousnes, and still keep within their own sphere. Of this we think Mr. Everett has, in this address, shown himself a fine example.

"There is another consideration of a practical nature, which I should be glad to offer to the meeting, if I have not exceeded my allowance of time. We all have pretty strong, and as I think, just impressions of the superiority of Christendom over the Mahometan, Hindoo and Pagan countries. Our civilization, I know, is still very imperfect, impaired by many a vice which disgrace our Christian nurture,-by many a woe which

Appears a spot upon a vestal's robe,

The worse for what it soils.'

But when we compare the condition of things in Christendom with that which prevails in the countries just named, we find that all the evils which exist among us prevail there in a greater degree, while they are subject to innumerable others, so dreadful as to make us almost ready to think it were better for the mass of population, humanly speaking, if they had never been born. Well, now, Mr. Chairman, what maketh us to differ? I know of no final and sufficient cause but the different character of Christianity, and the religions which prevail in Turkey, Persia, India, China and the other semi-civilized or barbarous countries; and this difference, as far as I know, is accurately reflected in their sacred books respectively. I mean, Sir, that the Bible stands to the Koran and the Vedas in the same relation as that in which Christianity stands to Mahometanism, or Brahmanism, or Buddhism; or Christendom to Turkey, Hindoostan, or China.

"We should all, I believe, more fully appreciate the value of the Scriptures, if we compared them with other books assuming the character of sacred. Í have not done it so much as I wish I had; but one reason-a main one-has been, the extreme repulsiveness of those books which I have tried to read. I have several times in my life attempted to read the Koran. I have done so lately. I have approached it with a highly excited literary curiosity. I have felt a strong desire to penetrate this great mystery of the Arabian desert. As I have, in some quiet Turkish town, (for in the provincial Turkish towns there is little of the bustle of our western life,) listened at the close of day to the clear, calm voice of the muezzin, from the top of the graceful minaret, calling the faithful to evening prayer, as I have mused on the vicissitudes of all human things beneath the venerable dome of St. Sophia's,-I have, I may say, longed to find some rational ground of sympathy between Christianity and Islam; but any thing more repulsive and uninviting than the Koran I have seldom attempted to peruse, even when taken up with these kindly feelings. And yet, Sir, you are well aware that it is not conceived in a spirit of hostility to the Old and New Testament, but recognizes them both as a divine revela

tion. With such portions of the sacred books of the Hindoos as have fallen in my way, the case is far worse. They contain, it is true, some elevated moral sentiments of an ascetic cast, and some strains inspired by a sense of the beauties of nature. But the mythological system contained in them is a tissue of monstrosities and absurdities, by turns so revolting and nauseous as to defy perusal, except from some strong motive of duty or of literary curiosity, which would prompt the investigation. I really believe that few things would do more to raise the Scriptures in our estimation, than to compare the Bible with the Koran and the Vedas. It is not a course of reading to be generally recommended. A portion of the books are scarce, and, as I have said, their contents eminently repulsive; but I will venture to say to those whose professional duty it is to maintain the sacred character of the Christian Scriptures, that I know of scarce any line of reading which might be taken up with greater advantage, for the purpose of fair comparison, than that of the sacred books, as they are called, of the Mahometans and Hindoos. "One word more, Sir, and I have done. It is sometimes objected to an indiscriminate distribution of the Bible, that it may be perverted, misunderstood, neglected and abused. And what means of improvement, what instrument of Christian benevolence, is not subject to the same drawback? The fault is in the mind of man, subject to error, to the blinding effect of passion, to the debasement of vice, in all that he does, and in all that is done for him. There are things in the Bible hard to be understood. And what is there, if we strive to go beyond the mere outside, which does not contain things hard to be understood? Even our exact sciences, constructed upon ideas which are the creation of our own minds, are full of difficulties. When we turn from revealed truth to the teachings of human speculatists on duty and morals, do we not encounter on the threshold those terrible problems of

'Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate-
Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,'

problems that have tasked the unaided understanding of man ever since he began to think and to reason? For myself, Sir, I am more and more inclined to believe that the truth is presented to us in the Bible in the form best adapted to the infinite variety of the character and talent, intellectual and moral, to which it is addressed. It is not such a Bible as the wit of man would have conceived; but it is such a one as the nature and wants of man called for. The acceptance it has found, alike in ancient and modern times, with the learned and the ignorant, the old and the young, the high and the low, the prosperous and the wretched, shows that it is really adapted in itself, not to one country, age, or class, but to man; that it speaks to the unchanging wants, and sorrows, and frailties, and aspirations of the human heart."

We cannot omit to say in concluding this article that these volumes exhibit Mr. Everett as a model, we had almost said a prodigy, of industry. If these various speeches and orations had come from some individual whose life had been a scene of literary leisure, we should have considered them less remarkable; though even then, we should have said that the author had done enough to secure to himself imperishable honour. But when we remember that they are the productions of one, who has, during the whole time, occupied most important civil stations, having been charged with his country's highest interests both at home and abroad, we are constrained to think that they indicate a degree of industry and facility at labour, of which there is scarcely an example in a generation. We meet Mr. Everett here as the

accomplished scholar and the eloquent orator; but we meet him. also in all his various public relations. It is Professor Everett, and Governor Everett, and President Everett, Mr. Everett the member of Congress and Mr. Everett the ambassador to the court of St. James, with whose literary productions we are so much delighted and edified; and we remember almost with amazement that, in connection with these splendid efforts, he has fulfilled with most scrupulous fidelity the duties connected with the several posts of honour and influence which have been assigned to him. Herein he is an illustrious model for all young men who desire to work out for themselves an honourable destiny; for though they may not possess his vigour or versatility of talent, and may not aspire to his measure of usefulness or of fame, yet they may imitate him in the economical use of his time and the diligent culture of his powers, and thereby become the benefactors, if not the greater lights, of their generation.

M. H. Eggleston.

ART. VI. DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE.

The Architecture of Country Houses; including Designs for Cottages, Farm Houses, and Villas, with remarks on Interiors, Furniture, and the best modes of Warming and Ventilating. With three hundred and twenty Illustrations. By A. J. DOWNING, author of "Designs for Cottage Residences,' "Hints to persons about building," &c. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1850. New Haven: T. H. Pease. 8vo. pp. 484.

It is only within comparatively a short period of time that the term Architecture has obtained a foothold in our general American vocabulary. Formerly we used to hear of house building and church building; now we hear of domestic and ecclesiastical architecture. What our fathers knew no other name for than 'meeting-houses' we speak of in these days as 'church edifices:" and the old homestead' is fast becoming supplanted by the 'villa' and the 'country seat.' The word buildings now refers to nothing but barns and shops and like structures. All else is Architecture.

This change of phraseology is not, however, the result of accident or caprice. It betokens a change of ideas and the uprising of new convictions in the community at large. It indicates an advance in thought and feeling from a lower to a higher stage of development. It signifies that as a people we are rising above the physical condition of infancy and crudeness, that we are growing older and acquiring with increasing age increasing cul

ture and worth. And especially is it a thing of welcome significance, when we find the term in question applied so generally as it now is to the domestic in distinction from the more public structures of a people. It shows that the many are inclined to think, as never before, that the body is more than meat, and that a human being needs something in a residence besides the facilities for eating and sleep, and a shelter from the heat and cold. It indicates that the notion is becoming more widely and practically accepted that man is not a mere animal endowed with five senses, but that he has also intellectual and spiritual faculties, in the due education and culture of which, life really consists as much as in the satisfaction of physical wants. It gives assurance that the domestic affections, the tastes, the pleasures of society, are getting a higher place in the estimation of men; in short that the home feeling, that anchor to all that is good and virtuous, has a deeper hold upon the hearts of the multitude. And it is because the home feeling is worth so much, because it is a tie so strong and lasting, to bind us to what is loveliest and best, that we deem it a good omen when a changing nomenclature indicates such a change in ideas and feelings as we have jus alluded to.

We rejoice, therefore, at the multiplying evidence afforded that our people in this country are thinking more and thinking better of their dwellings, the structures within which so much of their life is passed and upon which the character and worth of that life so much depend. We are not disposed to magnify the importance of material things, much less to set them above or before things spiritual. Man is a spiritual being, and his spiritual wants and enjoyments are of the first and highest consequence, and if these are not recognized and provided for, it matters very little what are the wants or delights dependent upon his physical structure or the material world in which he has his being. Nevertheless, inasmuch as his spiritual nature is linked to a material structure, he is dependent upon it and upon the material universe with which it brings him into connection for the culture and development of his higher and spiritual part. The world of ideas, thoughts and feelings, is most intimately connected with the world of matter, and the former world will take its tone and shape very much from the latter. And as this is different in the case of every individual, so each one may be said to form to himself his ideal or spiritual world from the particular physical world in which he lives. While, therefore, the outward and material, influences from the beginning of existence the inward and immaterial, man has it also in his power to determine, in a measure certainly, what this influence shall be. The time comes when the spiritual reacts upon the material and asserts its inherent superiority. The time arrives when the mind instead of lying in a state of mere mechanical reception assumes an active