Mr. Downing’s previous publication, on Landscape Gardening, has made or should have made his name familiar to all for whom rural life has charms. This new book, on a cognate subject, the application of moderate means to country residences, is, like that, eminently calculated to advance among us elegance, comfort, in a word, _civilization_; and we hope, therefore, that it will be universally studied. Mr. Downing’s object is to inspire the minds of his readers with a vivid perception of the beautiful in every thing that relates to our houses and grounds—to awaken a quicker sense of the grace or picturesqueness of fine forms that may be produced in these by rural architecture and ornamental gardening—a sense which will not only refine and elevate the mind, but pour into it new and infinite resources of delight. In his preface he remarks that he wishes to imbue all persons with a love of beautiful forms and a desire to assemble them around their daily walks of life; to appreciate how superior is the charm of that home where we discover the tasteful cottage or villa, and the well designed and neatly kept garden or grounds, full of beauty and harmony—not the less beautiful and harmonious because simple and limited—and to become aware that these superior forms, and the higher and more refined enjoyment derived from them, may be had at the same cost and the same labor as a clumsy dwelling, and its uncouth and ill-designed accessories. “More than all,” he continues, “I desire to see these sentiments cherished for their pure and moral tendency. ‘All beauty is an outward expression of inward good,’ and so closely are the Beautiful and True allied, that we shall find, if we become sincere lovers of the grace, the harmony, and the loveliness, with which rural homes and rural life are capable of being invested, that we are silently opening our hearts to an influence which is higher and deeper than the mere _symbol_; and that if we have worshiped in the true spirit, we shall have caught a nearer glimpse of the Great Master whose words, in all his material universe, are written in lines of Beauty.” The whole volume, throughout, bears witness of the cultivated intellect from which it sprung, and of the author’s fine taste and enthusiastic appreciation of the attractions of a country life. It is printed and embellished as such a work should be. We heartily commend it to the attention of country gentlemen. * * * * * _Johnsoniana; or a Supplement to Boswell; being Anecdotes and Sayings of Doctor Johnson, Collected from Mrs. Piozzi, George Steevens, W. Pepys, Doctor Beattie, John Northcote, John Hoole, Sir John Hawkins, Sir Josh. Reynolds, Cowper, Dugald Stewart, Edmund Malone, Sir James Mackintosh, Doctor Moor, Doctor Parr, Bishop Horne, etc. Edited by John Wilson Croker. One vol. 12mo., pp. 530. Philadelphia, Carey & Hart, 1842._