We confess that we regarded the first announcement {53} of this _rara avis_ with an evil and suspicious eye. The thing was improbable, we thought. Mr. Reynolds was quizzing us--the brothers Harper were hoaxed--and Messieurs Anthon and Co. were mistaken. At all events we had made up our minds to be especially severe upon Mr. Glass, and to put no faith in that species of classical Latin which should emanate from the back woods of Ohio. We now solemnly make a recantation of our preconceived opinions, and so proceed immediately to do penance for our unbelief. Mr. Reynolds is entitled to the thanks of his countrymen for his instrumentality in bringing this book before the public. It has already done wonders in the cause of the classics; and we are false prophets if it do not ultimately prove the means of stirring up to a new life and a regenerated energy that love of the learned tongues which is the surest protection of our own vernacular language from impurity, but which, we are grieved to see, is in a languishing and dying condition in the land. We have read Mr. R's preface with great attention; and meeting with it, as we have done, among a multiplicity of worldly concerns, and every-day matters and occurrences, it will long remain impressed upon our minds as an episode of the purest romance. We have no difficulty in entering fully with Mr. Reynolds into his kindly feelings towards Mr. Glass. We perceive at once that we could have loved and reverenced the man. His image is engraven upon our fancy. Indeed we behold him _now_--at this very moment--with all his oddities and appurtenances about him. We behold the low log-cabin of a school-house--the clap-board roof but indifferently tight--the holes, ycleped windows, covered with oiled paper to keep out the air--the benches of hewn timber stuck fast in the ground--the stove, the desk, the urchins, and the Professor. We can hear the worthy pedagogue's classical '_Salves_,' and our ears are still tingling with his hyperclassical exhortations. In truth he was a man after our own heart, and, were we not Alexander, we should have luxuriated in being Glass. A word or two respecting the Latinity of the book. We sincerely think that it has been underrated. While we agree with Mr. Reynolds, for whose opinions, generally, we have a high respect, that the work can boast of none of those elegancies of diction, no rich display of those beauties and graces which adorn the pages of some modern Latinists, we think he has forgotten, in his search after the mere flowers of Latinity, the peculiar nature of that labor in which Mr. Glass has been employed. Simplicity _here_ was the most reasonable, and indeed the only admissible elegance. And if this be taken into consideration, we really can call to mind, at this moment, no modern Latin composition whatever much superior to the _Washingtonii Vita_ of Mr. Glass.