murmurs through the wood, with more of psalmody than song; and the very moss-grown stones have an air of puritan sanctity.

My companion was one with whom I was too familiar to strive to be agreeable; and they who cannot be eloquent when effort is unnecessary, may forever despair of the power. Conversation is always delightful when the thoughts spring spontaneously from the tongue, attended with all the contagious exhilaration of wit and talent; but it is even yet more delightful, when, catching its tone from surrounding objects, it flows gently on, deriving new charms from the scenes around, and new interest from the circumstances under which we enjoy it. Such conversation I was at that moment listening to from my companion, and every instant with increasing pleasure. It was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of one of the most frightful and loathsome objects my eyes ever beheld. The lofty and projecting forehead, and the bold, rigid contour of the head, all indicated the possession of prodigious power, and the 'spark of hell' burning in his eye, proved that power had been exerted for the prince of darkness. He was clothed in the squalid and tattered drapery of exceeding poverty, and deeply had age engraven upon his iron visage the lines of guilt and passion." pp. 208-210.

This wretch had committed a most foul murder many years before, and the remainder of the piece is occupied with the tragical story of his guilt and of the happiness he had destroyed. One thing, however, strikes us as somewhat remarkable, namely, that the perpetrator of such an act should still be alive and at large in the midst of society. The circumstances of the deed are related with great minuteness; the wretch is known and marked as a murderer, yet he continues to linger in the neighbourhood of the spot where his crime was committed. We have a custom, in these States, of hanging people for offences of this kind, and it was the duty of the author to account for his being suffered to remain unpunished, either by the circumstances of entire secrecy attending the act and the fidelity of the criminal to his own counsel, or by the failure of the means employed to bring him to justice.

"The Trials of the Troth" disappointed us. We were pleased with a page or two of the commencement, but no farther. The incidents are not contrived with skill, nor told with grace; the dialogue is tedious, and the diction often slovenly and incorrect. It is evident that the writer possesses more talent than he has chosen to exert in the composition of this piece.

The "Biographical Sketch of Wilson, the American Ornithologist," furnishes a convenient niche for two or three beautiful pas

sages from his great work, and for his fine ballad of the Blue-bird. Wilson, although a foreigner, and although prevented by other pursuits from cultivating his poetical talents, was yet one of the earliest poets who set the example of faithfully copying nature as it exists in our country.

The poetical contributions to this volume are generally of a high degree of merit. Some, however, such as those entitled "The Oak of my Fathers," "To Sophie," "Imagination," &c. are of a very moderate quality. The lines by Percival, entitled, "To the Eagle," are wonderfully fine and spirited. Those on the Passaic Falls, by Washington Irving, are such as a gentleman and a man of taste might be expected to write, but have much less poetry in them than is to be found in a great deal of his prose. The following stanzas, with the exception of two or three phrases, admitted to fill up the gaps in the measure, are pretty, although the thought is not new.

“I think of thee when the young morn is breaking

In radiance bright;

Thou art the earliest thought of my awaking,

My last at night.

I think of thee when day-light is declining,
Low in the west:

I think of thee when its last rays are shining
On nature's rest.

And when on summer evening's brow is gleaming
Our favorite star,

I think of one who watched with me its beaming,
Now distant far.

When darkness reigns, and all are sleeping round me
So peacefully,

How often has the silent midnight found me

Thinking on thee.

And still, in all that memory loves to treasure,
Thy form I see;

In every little grief, or hoped for pleasure,

I think of thee.

pp. 152.

The engravings of this little volume are executed with great skill and delicacy. Among them are views of Trenton and Passaic Falls, taken by Doughty and engraved by Ellis. The Lady and the Merlin, from one of Newton's pictures, by Longacre, is

full of character and expression, and the engraving of Canova's Infant Napoleon, by the same artist, is exceedingly well done. The Legend of the Grisons is ornamented with a design of Leslie engraved by Humphreys.

Reports of Cases argued and determined in the Supreme Judicial Court of the State of Maine. By SIMON GREENLEAF, Counsellor at Law. Vol. III. Portland. 1826. 8vo. pp. 504.

THE notice of the second volume of Mr. Greenleaf's Reports, contained in the United States Literary Gazette, vol. ii. p. 463, exhibits our present view of the able and happy manner in which he accomplishes his part of the difficult task of preparing a book of judicial decisions for the use of the profession and the public. It is hardly necessary to repeat what we then said of Mr. Greenleaf's method of reporting, and we content ourselves by saying, that he has, in the volume before us, sustained, in all respects, the reputation which he had before acquired.

This volume contains all the decisions of the highest court of Maine, during the years 1824 and 1825, except the cases in one county in 1824, which had been previously published. Our impression is, that there are not so many important questions raised and determined in this, as in the two preceding volumes. This, however, is nothing to the reporter. He, of all men, is obliged to take things as they come; and is answerable for the workmanship, but not for the materials. In Wyman v. Dorr, p. 183, we notice that the court have applied to the action of replevin the principle, before familiar in trespass and trover, that the plaintiff must not only have a property in the goods which are the subjects of the suit, but also a right of immediate possession. A bailor was therefore held not entitled to maintain replevin against an officer who seized the goods as the property of the bailee, during the stipulated term of bailment. We recollect that Mr. Justice Wilde expressed the same opinion, in a trial in Massachusetts, in 1822. In Williams v. Williams, p. 135, it was held, that in a libel for divorce a mensâ et thoro, the marriage of the parties must be proved, though the respondent does not appear. Hill v. Hill, 2 Mass. Rep. 150, was supposed to be an authority for dispensing with this proof. We well remember, however, that, in 1810, Chief Justice Parsons, in a similar case, informed the bar, that there was an appearance in the case of Hill v. Hill,

although it does not so appear from the report; and that in a case where there was a default, he and his brethren required the proctor of the libellant to furnish evidence of the marriage. In Lewis & al. v. Webb, p. 326, the court decided, that the legislature have no authority, by the constitution, to grant a new trial or an appeal, in any case between private citizens. The opinion, as pronounced by Mr. Chief Justice Mellen, is able and sound, and will reward a careful examination. The courts of Massachusetts and New Hampshire had previously made similar decisions, which we believe to be as unanswerable as they are important. In the Appendix to this volume, we find several valuable opinions of the justices of the Supreme Court of Maine, given in reply to questions propounded by the Governor, or the Senate, or the House of Representatives, respecting the construction of the constitution of

that State.

Probably we were the more pleased at the decision of the case of Bussey v. Gilmore, p. 191, on account of certain old-fashioned, strict notions of ours, concerning the limited power of towns,-which notions we have, more than once, had the mortification to find very unceremoniously rejected by an assembled town, notwithstanding our own sturdy defence of them. It was held, in the case just mentioned, that it was not within the legal authority of a town to impose a tax on its inhabitants and the property within it, for the purpose of discharging a contract made by the town with the corporation of a toll bridge, for the free passage of the bridge by the citizens of the town. The "necessary charges," for which towns are empowered to raise money, were held to extend only to expenses incident to the discharge of corporate duties.

It ill becomes us, perhaps, to question the correctness of the decisions of the court of Maine, or of any other court; but we cannot resist the conviction, that Davis v. M'Arthur, p. 27, was erroneously decided. The defendant, who was attorney of a plaintiff in another suit, indorsed a writ, "George Wentworth, by A. M'Arthur, his attorney;" and the court held him liable for costs. We can see neither the reason nor the justice of it. Had the court decided that an attorney has not, of course, authority to indorse his client's name on a writ, we might have yielded a reluctant assent, repugnant as such a decision would have been to previous faith and practice. As this was not the ground of the determination, we would ask, where is the difference between this case and any other in which an act is done by virtue of letter of attorney, or other method of procuration? Was it ever before heard, that an authorized agent, by executing an instrument, or

performing any other act, according to his authority, and expressing that authority on the instrument executed, or in the other act performed, renders himself liable? If, in the wide range of precedent and authority, there be such an instance, we should be grateful for a sight of it. The doctrine of this case, if we comprehend the judge who gave the opinion, is this; that an attorney is liable for costs, if he puts his name on a writ, in any manner, as attorney, because "he is presumed to know the law and the obligation he assumes by indorsing the original writ, in the character of attorney." This may be reasoning, good reasoning, but we cannot feel it. Though it is asserted, that the case of Middlesex Turnpike Corporation v. Tufts, 8 Mass. Rep. 266, "cannot be distinguished in principle" from the case in question, we would humbly venture to suggest, that, as the statute of Massachusetts requires that original writs shall "be indorsed on the back thereof by the plaintiff, with his christian and surname, or by his agent or attorney," it might possibly have been supposed, even by Mr. Chief Justice Parsons and his associates, that a corporation aggregate was not within the first provision of the statute, and therefore that the indorsement, in that case, ut res magis valeat, must bind the agent who had indorsed his own name, as such. Nor do we perceive any thing very weak or unusual in such a notion. If we mistake not, there are other instances on record, in which an agent or attorney, failing to bind his principal, has found himself bound. Had the indorser, in this last mentioned case, written the christian and surname of the Middlesex Turnpike Corporation on the writ, and added, "by R. M. their agent,' we admit the case could not be distinguished in principle from Davis v. M'Arthur.

Most of the cases in the volume now on our table, appear to have been carefully considered by the court, and well argued by the bar. We have always regarded Mr. Greenleaf's Reports as creditable to the State of Maine as well as to himself. If we were inclined to hint at a circumstance, which we have habitually considered as a blemish in too many of the opinions of the court, as published in these volumes, we should refer to the reliance which seems to be placed on the accumulation of obiter dicta, in settling a new point, rather than on their own powers of analogical reasoning.