Much has been said of Dr. Webster's innovations, but for the most part, by persons altogether ignorant of the philosophy of languages in general, as well as of the character and condition of the English language. Dr. Webster attempted, and with eminent success, to reduce the English language to order, and to subject it to the operation of principles. The changes which he made, though in a few instances, necessary for consistency, striking, are much less numerous than is commonly supposed, and even to scholars, with whom the study of languages is not a _specialité_, they would not be very apparent but for the frequent attempts which are made to prejudice the public against the work. An amusing illustration of this fact occurred a few years ago, when, a concerted assault upon the Dictionary having been made, and sustained for some time, a distinguished author who had a new book in the press of the Harpers, was alarmed by intelligence that they intended to adopt for it Webster's orthography. He wrote to these publishers his apprehensions that the success of his performance and his own good reputation could not fail of exceeding injury, if their design should be executed, and begged them to adopt some other work as a medium for the display of the Websterian innovations. The Harpers replied that he might select his own standard; they believed he had, perhaps unconsciously, followed Webster in his _manuscript_, and that the several productions of his which they had published in previous years had all been printed according to Webster's Dictionary, which was the guide used in their printing offices. The incidents of Dr. Webster's life after the publication of the second edition of his Dictionary, in 1840, were few and unimportant. Indeed, with that effort he regarded his public life as brought to a close. He passed through a serene old age, which was terminated by a peaceful death, on the twenty-eighth of May, 1843, when he was in the eighty-fifth year of his age. DR. MERLE D'AUBIGNE AND THE ENGLISH CHURCH. The celebrated German historian, Dr. MERLE D'AUBIGNE, is now in England, and in consequence of certain proceedings growing out of his occupation of an Episcopal pulpit recently, he has published a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury concerning the general subject of the exclusion of continental Protestant ministers from the pulpits of English churches. He is aware that, in consequence of the Act of Uniformity, there are churches which cannot be opened to those ministers, but he hopes that this law of exclusion will be repealed. "It is no longer in harmony with the spirit and the wants of the church in the age in which we live." The Calvinistic historian expresses his conviction that the reëstablishment of the Annual Convocation would not reform the Church. The Convocation has been for more than a century deprived of its powers, and it is to Parliament that the question now belongs. He says: