We mean nothing like criticism in so brief a paragraph as we can here afford, upon a work so voluminous and so important as the one before us. Our design is merely to call the attention of our friends to the publication—whose merits are obvious and great. Its defects are, of course, numerous. We mean rather to say, that in every work of this nature, it is in the power of almost every reader to suggest a thousand emendations. We might object to many of the details. We _must_ object to nearly all of the belles-lettres portion of the book. We cannot stand being told, for example, that “Barlow’s ‘Columbiad’ is a poem of considerable merit;” nor are we rendered more patient under the infliction of this and similar opinions, by the information that Vander Vondel and Vander Doos (the deuce!) wrote capital Dutch epics, while “the poems of Cats are said to be spirited and _pious_!” We know nothing about cats, nor cats about piety. The volume is sadly disfigured by typographical errors. On the title-page of the very first “province” is a blunder in Greek. * * * * * _The Student-Life of Germany: By William Howitt, Author of the “Rural Life of England,” “Book of the Seasons,” etc. From the unpublished MS. of Dr. Cornelius. Containing nearly Forty of the most Famous Student Songs. Carey & Hart: Philadelphia._ Mr. Howitt has here given us the only complete and faithful account of the Student-Life of Germany which has appeared in any quarter of the world. The institutions and customs which his book describes, form, to use his own language, “the most singular state of social existence to be found in the bosom of civilized Europe,” and are doubly curious and worthy of investigation—first, on account of the jealousy with which the students have hitherto withheld all information on the subject, and secondly, on account of the deep root which the customs themselves have taken in the heart of the German life. The Burschendom, of which we have all heard so much, yet so vaguely, is no modern or evanescent eccentricity; but a matter of firm and reverent faith coeval with the universities; and this faith is now depicted, _con amore_, and with knowledge, by a German who has himself felt and confessed it. To the philosopher, to the man of the world, and especially, to the man of imagination, this beautiful volume will prove a rare treat. Its _novelty_ will startle all. * * * * * _Lectures on Modern History, from the Irruption of the Northern Nations to the Close of the American Revolution. By William Smyth, Professor of Modern History in the University of Cambridge. Two volumes. From the Second London Edition, with a Preface, List of Books on American History, etc. By Jared Sparks, L. L. D., Professor of Ancient and Modern History in Harvard University. John Owen: Cambridge._