sons who are in the habit of misusing many of the most common words of the English language, distorting its grammatical forms, destroying its beauty, and corrupting its purity. A great majority of the corrections are admirable, and in all respects judicious, while others (very few, to be sure,) strike us as entirely adscititious. For example:

'405: For 'He attacted me without the slightest provocation,' say attacked.' '406: For 'I called on him every day in the week successfully,' say successively.'

Well, yes it would be best to follow both of these directions: we never knew or heard a man who did n't, without any such advice to guide him. We beg to propose two kindred 'corrections: '

501 For Cats eats mice,' say 'Cats eat mice.' Mice is a noun of multitude, signifying several, and governed by cats.'

502: For Shads is come,' (upon the advent of that species of fish in the Hudson, in the spring-time,) say, 'Shad are arrove.' The inelegance of the one form of expression, and the propriety of the other, are visible at a glance.'

Seriously, however: our copy, we are informed, is of the first edition. In subsequent editions many errors have been corrected. The work will well reward its purchaser. Its sale, we learn, is very great. We wish it abundant

success.

LIFE OF CAPTAIN NATHAN HALE, THE MARTYR-SPY OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. By I. W. STUART. In one volume: pp. 230. Hartford, Conn.: F. A. BROWN, Publisher. THIS volume supplies, and well supplies, a very important desideratum in American revolutionary history. 'It is hard,' says Mr. STUART, 'that a spirit so exalted as was that of Captain NATHAN HALE; that a life and conduct like his, so pure, so heroic, so disinterested, and so renowned by an act of martyrdom, one of the most galling and valiant on record, should not have been fitly commemorated hitherto, either by the pen of history or biography.' Even as to his remains, no one can certainly tell their place of repose, although his ashes rest somewhere in our great metropolis. Authors of books upon the Revolution have hardly made mention of the fact of HALE's arrest as a spy, for which office he had volunteered, and his execution, which was attended by circumstances of unwonted cruelty: MARSHALL, RAMSAY, GORDOn, Butler, BOTTA, have not one word to say concerning him. BANCROFT has not yet reached him. HANNAH ADAMS just mentions him: and popular school-histories merely allude to his fate.' But this strange neglect, we are glad to say, is here remedied. From a great variety of authentic sources, there is now gathered together in the volume before us a well-digested history of the 'Martyr-Spy of the Revolution.' In addition to whatever had attained to print, Mr. STUART has been so fortunate as to obtain HALE's own diary, with several letters written by, and many addressed to him. Beside this, there are reminiscences from HALE's own attendant in camp; from the soldier who was his companion for a portion of the time, on his last and fatal expedition; from the lady to whom he was betrothed; and from one of his pupils, who had a lively recollection of him. Many other of HALE'S cotemporaries have supplied information respecting him, including some who actually saw him executed. The re

sult is a volume of great historical importance and great interest, written with a conscientious desire to do justice to the memory of one who laid down his life in the service of his country; a man who certainly deserves as much sympathy, among ourselves, as ANDRE has found in England. Of this man, worthy of all honor, we here have the life and death clearly narrated, from first to last, and a sad record it is, albeit most honorable to HALE's memory. The Appendix contains the genealogy of the HALE family; a sketch of Mrs. LawRENCE, the lady to whom HALE was betrothed; the Diary we have mentioned; and that portion of Hon. H. J. RAYMOND's speech at Tarrytown, October, 1853, (at the dedication of the monument erected to commemorate the capture of Major ANDRE,) as referred to the conduct and character of Captain NATHAN HALE. The volume contains nine well-executed engravings, illustrative of HALE's life.'

6

There may exist, in the minds of historians, a reluctance to exalt the character of a military spy. But what a noble heroism was that which induced HALE to offer himself up an almost certain victim to his love of country, and his disregard of personal safety! Moreover, who employed him? General WASHINGTON, the Father' of that Country' for which he offered up his life. A spy is one of the 'strategies' of war: if the cause be good, should its instrument be dishonored? Who knows but that HALE had been incited by the advice contained in the characteristic autograph-letter of WASHINGTON to Major TALLMADGE, which we had the pleasure to forward, by request, to Prince DOLGOROuki, of Russia? A careful man was to be employed to 'go within the British lines on Long-Island: to see whether they were keeping the bullocks that were driven into camp, or whether they were slaughtered, for packing: and whether they were making up woollen or summer-clothing for the troops.' Now how could this intelligence—so important to WASHINGTON, and the disposition and destination of his forces, (as indicating whether they were to move, and if to move, whether their course was to be to the South or to the North,) have been obtained, except through the services of a spy? But enough on this point.

It was a coïncidence, although perhaps not a 'singular' one, that the ink of the following was scarcely dry, when the book under notice reached us in our daily town-parcel, and was laid on our table: There is one remarkable, at least a very distinctive object, which points out the place, on the unbroken crest of the gently-sloping hill a little west of Old Tappäan,' where ANDRE was executed, and where his remains so long reposed, previous to being removed to Westminster Abbey, in London. Very near the spot where the rude stone that marks his first place of sepulture now rests, rises a tall, straight cedar-tree, which can be seen from all the lower adjacent region. There it

By-the-by, àpropos of ANDRE: he never intended to be a spy. Against his stipulation, his intention, and without his knowledge beforehand, he was conducted within one of the American posts. Here he was obliged to don a disguise, in order to concert his escape. He evinced his great anxiety, in all that

he subsequently said and did, not to be considered 'in the vile relation of a spy within an enemy's posts.' 'But HALE, respected as an efficient officer, and beloved as a man, despising the shame, if there were any, and courting the ignominy, if such was to be his lot, went forth, against protestations of friends and remonstrances of fellow-soldiers; and was detected, arrested, executed: lamenting, with his last breath, that he had but one life to offer up for his country. But before we close this already too extended notice, let us present what has always been our own impression in relation to one circumstance connected with the execution of Major ANDRE. He was a close prisoner, with no possible chance of escape, and from first to last evinced no disposition to do so. Before the day appointed for his execution, he wrote the following letter to WASHINGTON, which our old friend and correspondent, R. S. C.,' of the State Department at Washington, has kindly copied for us from the original, preserved in the Government archives:

'SIR:

'Tapaan the 1st October, 1780.

Buoy'd above the Terror of Death by the Consciousness of a Life devoted to honorable pursuits and stained with no action that can give me Remorse, I trust the request I make to Your Excellency at this serious period and which is to soften my last moments will not be rejected.

'Sympathy towards a soldier will surely induce Your Excellency and a Military Tribunal to adapt the mode of my death to the feelings of a man of honour.

'Let me hope, Sir, that if aught in my character impresses you with esteem towards me, if aught in my misfortunes marks me as the victim of policy and not of resentment, I shall experience the operation of these Feelings in your Breast by being informed that I am not to die on a Gibbet.

To His Excellency,

General WASHINGTON.'

'I have the honour to be
Your Excellency's
most obedient and
most humble servant,
JOHN ANDRE, Adj. Gen.
to the Brit: Army.'

'Why could not this last request' have been granted?' is a question which has been often asked by Americans whose love and reverence for WASHINGTON are not exceeded by the most illustrious and devoted of his countrymen. We are unable, as all are unwilling, to believe, that resentment of treatment awarded to American officers and soldiers by the British leaders, should have led WASHINGTON to retaliate in kind. The time, the crisis, the great interests at stake; the necessity of firmness and inflexible resolve; must have constituted the quo animo of WASHINGTON's indifference to, and neglect of ANDRE's honorable (and we shall always think reasonable) request, to die the death of a soldier. But at that time, WASHINGTON's temples were throbbing with the cares and dangers of an infant empire: he had been deceived' in the house of his friends.' ARNOLD had turned against him, and against the country who looked up to him as a Defender, a Deliverer. Looking to Posterity, WASHINGTON would have added another chaplet to his laden brow had he granted ANDRE's touching request. From his' stand-point' he reasoned with characteristic caution. But he was wrong for the quality of mercy is not strained: it droppeth like the gentle dew from heaven :' and that dew of mercy would have brightened, more and more, every revolving year, the emerald green that crowns the slope where ANDRE slept, while it would have added freshness to the wreath which will ever surround the brows of THE GREAT AND THE GOOD WASHINGTON.'

--

'THIRTY DEGREES BELOW ZEROfrom our 'Up-River' correspondent. JOB: and warmth, too, our readers will add, when they have perused the weather-record which ensues:

A FACT!' comes headed the following, 'Out of the North cometh cold,' saith

'Inter Boreales: Jan 27.

'THIRTY DEGREES BELOW ZERO: This is ten degrees lower than the god MERCURY had snuggled down in his crystal cell at my last. Amabile frigus! as HORATIUS has it. Delightful coolness! Have you ever tasted it? Clap your tongue on a bar of cold iron, or a smooth sleigh-runner, and it will polish it up, and remove the fur. Lunar caustic is a fool to it. Boys have sometimes tried it when 'coasting,' or running down hill with their small sleds.

'Doctor KANE, the gallant explorer, who has done every thing except fastening the American flag on the top of the North Pole, has sketched a lively portrait of JACOBUS FROST, with biting and remorseless tooth, and almost chills you to the bone; although, at the same time, he fires the imagination in depicting the gloomy, grand, majestic Arctic scenery. He makes you acquainted with a multitude of icy pranks; and, with a literary genius not always allied with a bold and dashing spirit, he adopts and he adapts the hard, impracticable, and technical terms of peculiar science, so that their very sound suggests the poetry which is found not more beneath Italian skies than in the midst of bitter-cold, crystalline realms. See him at first collecting water from 'the beautiful fresh pools of the ice-bergs and floes,' then 'quarrying out the blocks in flinty, glassy lumps' (to melt for daily drink) in WELLINGTON Channel, then sailing through the 'sludge,' soon changed to 'pan-cakes and to snow-balls,' until, at last, he says: 'We were glued up.' Then the crew walked over 'decks dry, and studded with botryoidal lumps of dirty, foot-trodden ice,' while the rigging over-head had 'nightly accumulations of rime.' Then the hatchway became a mass of icicles. The opening of a door was the signal for a gush of smoke-like vapor, every stove-pipe sent out clouds of purple steam, and a man's breath looked like the firing of a pistol on a small scale.' He goes on to describe the singular effects of cold on different substances. Dried apples became 'one solid breccial mass of impacted angularities, a conglomerate of sliced chalcedony.' 'Butter and lard required a heavy cold-chisel and mallet. Their fracture is conchoidal, with hæmatic (iron-ore pimpled) surface. Pork and beef are rare specimens of Florentine mosaic, emulating the lost art of petrified visceral monstrosities

seen at the medical schools of Bologna and Milan.' Such were the queer doings of Nature among the Arctics, while the graceful ship, that thing of life, lay paralyzed in the frozen ocean, a moveless picture, with her spars and feathery outlines just visible in the solemn light. Dim glowed the taper within the stout bulwarks, no cheerful fire blazed on the hearth, no flame roared up the pipe; fire was represented by a little spark, a faint ignition; but the hearts of the men were warm and brave. It looked like the 'pursuit of knowledge under difficulties'—the study of practical geography with the advantage of the original maps, to be sure, but in a very cold school-room. Nevertheless, in what snug farm-house, in what wealthy home, in what well-endowed institution, could be found a better-ordered family? Their passions were rectified in the icy air, they were apart from the petty meannesses which distract society, science flourished, luxury was unknown, except the keenest kind which comes from the pursuit of noble enterprise. Better for man is that purifying atmosphere, the keen and cutting ether which circulates about the pole, than balmy winds which buoy over tropic seas the spice and frankincense of islands which are placed like gems beneath the equatorial belt. It is better to be fixed in the midst of those compacted masses, to roll among the ice-bergs, and to cool your tongue with cracked-up, flinty lumps, than take the bath in genial surfs, or suffer lassitude among the roses. True energy and vigor are northern-born, and cradled beneath the polar star. At stated intervals they send their forces to subdue the citadels of luxury, to be shorn themselves of all their Vandal roughness, to be melted down in turn by soft effeminacy, and to be again revived and conquered by fresher hordes. Thus is the process going on: the current flows from north to south, but at each return it takes a westerly direction. The course of empire is to the north and west.

'Cold, like heat, (nutritive of sloth,) induces sleep. But, in the first instance, it indulged in, the result is death. So that in coldest climes activity is the very condition of life. Bestir yourself, harness your dogs, be off among the Esquimaux, chase the foxes, grapple with the white bear, spur your rein-deer over the mainland and glassy coasts; beat your sides, stamp your feet, ye sentries, or you are dead men. In the ordinary meaning of the words, the lazy will not make an exertion to 'get a living,' but they will stir their stumps if otherwise they must die. Brain-work is vigorously and beautifully accomplished within the Arctic circle. That circle is a zone of strength to girdle up the loins of such a man as KANE.

'ILLI robur, et æs triplex
Circa pectus erat.

He went forth and returned again to his nest in the rocks like an eagle with a strong wing. He stood still and gazed from his high eyrie through the translucent air. What strange phases and varieties of adventure had he not known! Sword in hand he had fought his way through fierce brigands in the tropics, and to the very gates of Mexico; penetrated to the baracoons of Dahomey and to the slavemarts of Whydah; ascended the Nile to the confines of Nubia, and stood within the shade of Egypt's solemn monuments; clambered up the Himalayah; battled with the ladrones of the Indian Archipelago; suspended by a bamboo rope, went down two hundred feet from a projecting cliff into the crater of the Tael of Luzon; clambered seven hundred more through the scoriæ to make a topographical sketch of the interior of that great volcano, and, last of all, paced the deck of his beleaguered ship, or stood beneath the bright stalactites which clustered about his door-way, while he gazed upon the icy barriers heaped up by ages.

'Great is man! He yoketh the ox, he putteth a bit in the mouth of the horse,