search and reflect—a task which the labors of Webster and his great predecessors in lexicography, have reduced to child’s play. Among the two or three thousand newspapers in the United States, are at least some hundreds edited by men who have not had the opportunities of a classical education. Minds only of extraordinary energy, or those rising to the standard of genius, can do perfect justice to the important duties of journalism without the advantages of this discipline. But they may in mature life, find its best substitute in the systematic study of a comprehensive Dictionary, in connection with the classics of the language. Were this method adopted, we would not so often have reason to blush for the feebleness and illiteracy exhibited not only in many newspaper columns, but in the pages of periodicals of far higher pretensions, as exemplars of rhetorical propriety. * * * * * _The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith. Including a Variety of Pieces now first collected. By James Prior. New York: George P. Putnam. 4 vols. 12mo._ Few English classics have been edited with the care and the thoroughness of this edition of Goldsmith. Prior, an antiquarian who never touches a subject which he does not exhaust, has paid especial attention to Goldsmith; has written a biography of him, which forms the basis both of Foster’s and Irving’s; and in the present edition, has printed many valuable essays and poems never before collected. The articles contributed by Goldsmith to the Monthly and Critical Reviews, when he was a hack-writer in the most dismal sense of that term, are here collected; and though not to be compared with his best works for humor or for style, they still evince the hand of genius in many a scrap of serene wisdom, and in many a sentence of penetrating sagacity. In the fourth volume, just published, we find an oratorio, “The Captivity,” and a ludicrous scene from a farce called “The Grumbler,” never before printed. Mr. Putnam has issued the edition in a style of great neatness, and has placed it at a very low price. We hope it will meet with a sale corresponding to its merits. It supersedes all the other editions of Goldsmith now in the market, being the best printed, and the best edited of all, and containing several hundred pages of matter to be found in no other collection. * * * * * _Moneypenny, or the Heart of the World. A Romance of the Present Day. By Cornelius Mathews. New York: Dewitt & Davenport. 1 vol. 8vo._