publications, exhibiting, in a comprehensive and discriminating sketch, the nature and value of his labors, as well as the actual condition of that sublime department of study, on which they were employed. The discourse of Judge White, -a composition of rare excellence in its kind, traces, step by step, the progress of this great mind, satisfactorily indicating the stern but effective discipline under which it was trained, the traits which characterized its eminence, the principles which controlled and gave success to its action, and the variety of beneficent influences exerted by it upon society; subjects which, in the eulogy of Mr. Young (the earliest and most copious of the three), are also felicitously treated, and illustrated by a large collection of interesting facts and anecdotes.

We have not proposed to ourselves to offer so much as a brief sketch of the life and character of this distinguished individual, thinking it to be rather the office of a work like ours, to dwell upon his services to science. But, while there are few who will read his writings, there are many who may profit by the record of his virtues, and of the principles and habits which contributed to his greatness; and, little inclined as we are to the formal inculcation of a moral, we yet find ourselves unwilling to dismiss the subject, without giving a few words to some of those facts and traits, which, so judiciously exhibited in the biographical notices we have specified, make them fruitful of the best instruction. It was from an humble condition in early life, that (in part, no doubt, by force of extraordinary natural endowments, but also by force of a principled energy, alert to take advantage of every opportunity of improvement, and refusing to be depressed by any discouraging circumstances,) Dr. Bowditch rose to be one of the most eminent persons of his country, and of the time. The son of a working cooper, enjoying no advantages of instruction in early childhood beyond those of attendance on a public school, and those only till he was ten years of age, he was, two or three years after, apprenticed to a shipchandler, and continued in this service through his minority; at the end of which time he went to sea, as an inferior officer in a merchant vessel. Meanwhile, by the diligent use of such fragments of time as he was able to redeem for study, from regular daily employment of so different a kind, he had, (besides laying up stores in general literature, which would have

done no discredit to a youth devoted to that pursuit) made such proficiency in his favorite science, as enabled him, three years after, to publish a work, the "Practical Navigator," scarcely surpassed in usefulness by any of the time, and immediately driving all others of the same class out of circulation. Being unable to purchase books, he borrowed and copied such as he most needed, possessing himself thus, before he was fourteen years old, of a long treatise on Algebra, another on Geometry, and a third on Conic Sections. At fifteen, making all the necessary calculations, he had arranged an Almanac, complete in all its parts. Obtaining, by a fortunate accident, a copy of Newton's "Principia," he learned Latin by himself, that he might read the work, and made a translation of the whole of it.

Entering upon an active life of business, Dr. Bowditch made four voyages to the East Indies, and one to Europe, diligently devoting his leisure at sea to his favorite inquiries, which, however, with a liberal sense of the value of other knowledge, he diversified by studies of a more generally attractive kind. Retiring from a seafaring life, at the age of thirty, he assumed an office, that of President of an Insurance Company in his native town, which, to most men, would have seemed to afford sufficient employment for their time; and from this, at the end of twenty years, he was transferred to the place of Actuary of the Massachusetts Life Insurance Company, which he held till the time of his death. It was by an economy of the leisure hours of a life thus engaged, that Dr. Bowditch won for himself one of the highest names in science, which the nineteenth century boasts.

Nor was it by any jealous and churlish economy of those hours. No man acknowledged more readily the claims of friendly intercourse; no man welcomed more cordially the interruptions which they bring. His study was his parlour, where no posture of a hard, unfinished problem ever caused the unexpected guest to feel, that his visit was untimely. No abstraction ever revealed the toiling or wearied mind. A gay buoyancy of spirits, and a prompt interest in whatever subject was presented, showed, whenever you found the man, that you found him before his work, and at his ease. Early hours, an utter abstinence from mere waste of time, and temperate habits which preserved the mind in perpetual vigor, permitted a life crowded with labor and its fruits to be, in

an equal degree, tranquil, free from care, and accessible to incidental engagements.

Along with great heartiness, Dr. Bowditch had its usual attendant, a warm impetuosity of character; and, though no "rude and boisterous captain of the sea," there may have been occasions when a happier combination would have been produced, had the same measure of the fortiter in re, been blended with more of the suaviter in modo. But his high and rigid integrity was beyond question. His punctilious justice in the conduct of complicated affairs was a model for imitation. If he had prejudices, he had candor to welcome and weigh the evidence which would dispel them; and anger he carried as the flint bears fire"; the spark was quick, but it was momentary.

Acquiring what in a frugal community may deserve to be called wealth, he had the high wisdom to know its worth; that is, to know its uses. He cared for it as making him independent, and enabling him to be useful. In his life, as well as at his death, he gave freely from it to worthy objects of benevolence, public and private; and he expended a large portion of it, without any hope of remuneration, on the publication of his great work; declining, from a nice sense of honor, the urgent proposals of a learned society (the American Academy), and of private friends, that he would permit it to be issued at their charge. Of his time, his counsels, and his influence, he was as liberal, for good objects, as of his money.

Proof against less mischievous delusions, the madness of the "undevout astronomer" had no place in his clear and sober mind. The Christian faith, the support of his principles through a long, active life, was a sufficient source of consolation to him during the well-understood approach of death. Of cant and pretension, no man ever had less. But he had as little respect for the affectation which suppresses and disguises cherished sentiments, as for that which obtrudes and parades them. He thought it due to the truths which sustained him, to allow it to be known, that it was on them that he leaned; and the chamber of his decline was a scene of the sublimest instruction for whoever would know, with what serene, magnanimous satisfaction, the spirit, which has well done the first part of its work, may pass on to its higher destinies.

Gali

ART. V. Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petræa, and the Holy Land. By GEORGE STEPHENS. gnani. Paris: August, 1838. 2 vols. 12mo.

MANY editions of this work in the United States, two at least in England, and one in France, attest the favor, with which it has been received by the reading public; a favor honestly earned and worthily bestowed. We can speak of a large portion of the route pursued by the author, from actual observation; and, after following his footsteps in his pilgrimage, we have accompanied him in his book, among the same scenes, renewing, from his vivid description, almost the freshness of first impressions. He has admirable qualities for a traveller, and for a writer of travels. He possesses just enthusiasm enough to desire to see every thing; and, while he surveys the scenes of ancient story, sacred and profane, with those kindling emotions, which Providence in its wisdom has given to us to feel, when we stand on a spot renowned for the great events of which it has been the theatre, he does not yield to that morbid sensibility, which forgets, that change is not the accidental lot of this state of being, but a part of the constitution of nature, "still educing good" from decrepitude, as from manhood, and preparing the bud of spring to replace the autumnal leaf, fallen, because made to fall.

This precious gift of association is one of the most enviable powers, with which Providence has endowed us; and an inhabitant of the new world can well appreciate its full intensity. If his lot has been cast upon a continent, whose early revolutions are for ever shrouded from human view, and where no ancient monument exists to mark the trials and triumphs and disasters of man, we find, amidst all this, but another proof of that system of compensation, which pervades the universe, in the strength of the impressions he experiences, in the Eastern world, from the first view of scenes hallowed by the recollection of the persons and the events, that have rendered them memorable. We cross the ocean, bearing in our memory the treasures of ancient history, and deeply fraught with the lessons it teaches; but as yet untouched by that magic fire of association, to be kindled only when we stand where those have stood, whose deeds will be immortal. In every part of Europe, there is some battle-field, with its appropriate

story, and with its succession of events, prosperous or adverse; some spot identified with the life or death of a soldier, a statesman, a patriot, or a writer, whose name is as "familiar in our mouths as household words." They, who are conversant with these scenes from their infancy, can never fully estimate the sensations of the transatlantic pilgrim, who comes for the first time to deposite his tribute of gratitude to the memory of those who have ennobled human nature, when he finds himself covered by the same sky, and surrounded by the same unchanging objects, hill, valley, plain, rock, and river.

Our author has also a spirit of perseverance, which seems to have surmounted many serious difficulties, even when he was depressed by sickness. He exhibits, too, a power of observation, without which a traveller will always find a country barren, from Dan to Beersheba. There is, perhaps, no mental faculty more unequally distributed than this. To have eyes, but to see not, is an infliction far more common than is usually supposed. If we glance rapidly over the various Tours, Journals, and Voyages, which the press is continually giving forth, we shall not fail to be struck with the difference they present in this characteristic. Some men seem to

seize, as if by a species of intuition, the true points of observation, moral and physical, offered by the regions they traverse, and to have the faculty of spreading them before their readers, almost visibly and tangibly. And this, too, whether they survey the works of nature or of man. While others are equally crude in their remarks, and unfortunate in the subjects of their selection. It is not the mere beauty of style, or the novelty of the route, or the "hairbreadth 'scapes," which leave the most permanent impression upon the reader; but it is the power to catch those features, which reveal the true character, animate and inanimate, of a country, and which gave such a charm to the travels of Moore and Clarke.

Luckily, Mr. Stephens lays no claim to the character of an architectural antiquarian, and speaks of his attainments in that respect with equal good sense and good humor. "I have avoided," he says, "description of ruins, when I could. The fact is, I know nothing of architecture, and never measured any thing in my life; before I came to Egypt, I could not tell the difference between a dromos and a propylon, and