praising them, or from recommending them by quotation,--and
though, as has been said, the tone and taste of the life which
they describe must jar on the feelings of those who are
unwilling to see the decrepitude of elderly civilization coming
down upon a new country, ere its maturity has been reached--or
even ere its youth has been sufficiently and steadily trained."

* * * * *

MRS. SOUTHWORTH, the authoress of "Retribution," "The Deserted Wife,"
&c., has a new novel in the press of the Appletons, entitled
"Shannondale." Mrs. Southworth is the most popular of our female
novelists, notwithstanding the doubtful morality of her works.

* * * * *

CHARLES MACKAY, who, two or three years ago, passed some months in
New-York, and who is known for his very candid and intelligent book upon
the United States, entitled "The Western World," has gone to India, as
an agent of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, for the purpose of
inquiring into the state and prospects of Indian cotton cultivation. Mr.
Mackay has had experience in the collection of statistical information;
he has lived long enough abroad to know that essential differences
sometimes lurk beneath external resemblances in the social arrangements
of two countries, and to be on his guard against the erroneous
inferences to which ignorance of this fact leads. He is naturally acute,
energetic, and cautious. For the difficult task of investigating and
reporting upon the condition of an important branch of industry, and the
circumstances which are likely to promote or retard its progress among a
community so different from the English as that of India, he is probably
as well fitted as any man who could have been selected. The foundation
of the British Indian empire and the establishment of the United States
as an independent nation, were contemporary events. The loss of her
American colonies helped to concentrate the attention and exertions of
England upon her Indian dominions. The progress made by British India
since 1760, in civilization, material wealth, and intelligent
enterprise, is barely perceptible; while the United States have expanded
from a few obscure colonies into a nation second only to Great Britain
in the value and extent of their commercial relations, second to none in
intelligence and successful enterprise. The Anglo-Norman inhabitants of
the "Old Thirteen" provinces ha