ne that they
seem to melt into each other, but the result is still not a portrait
on canvas, but an engraving on steel. His poetic power is not
sufficiently great to fuse the elements of a character indissolubly
together.

_The Origin, Progress and Conclusion of the Florida
War. By John T. Sprague, Brevet Captain Eighth Regiment
U. S. Infantry. New York: D. Appleton & Co._ 1 _vol._
8_vo._

This large volume seems to have been a labor of love with its author.
It is full of interesting and valuable matter regarding a very
peculiar contest in which our government was engaged; and to the
future historian Captain Sprague has spared a great deal of trouble
and research. The work is well got up, is illustrated with numerous
engravings, and contains full accounts of the origin and progress of
the war, the Indian chiefs engaged in it, and a record of all the
officers and privates of the army, navy, and marine corps, who were
killed in battle or died of disease. Captain Sprague says, "the causes
of the difficulties in Florida must be apparent to the minds of
careful and intelligent readers; causes not springing up in a day, but
nourished for years, aggravated as opportunities offered to enrich
adventurers, who had the temerity to hazard the scalping-knife and
rifle, and were regardless of individual rights or of law. It must be
remembered that Florida, at the period referred to, was an Indian
border, the resort of a large number of persons, more properly
_temporary inhabitants_ of the territory than citizens, who sought the
outskirts of civilization to perpetrate deeds which would have been
promptly and severely punished if committed within the limits of a
well regulated community. . . . They provoked the Indians to
aggressions; and upon the breaking out of the war, ignominiously fled,
or sought employment in the service of the general government, and
clandestinely contributed to its continuance." In these few sentences
we have the philosophy of almost all our Indian border wars. The
criminals of a community are ever its most expensive curses.

_The Poetical Works of John Milton. A New Edition. With
Notes, and a Life of the Author. By John Mitford.
Lowell: D. Bixby & Co._ 2 _vols_. _8vo._

Lowell is a manufacturing city of Massachusetts, the Manchester of
America, and a place where we might expect every thing in the shape of
manufactures except classical books. Yet it rejoices in a publish