pliant forms, their somewhat delicate | cow, if the hen-roost be too well guarded, limbs, and that peculiar complexion which the keepers too alert. As poachers, they is unlike that of the whole world beside. are unrivaled; their famous gipsy stew in The author of Lavengro has done much the great kettle over the fire is seldom to mystify inquirers. He has tried to lacking in game, and by drugs they can make us believe the gipsy an Armenian, a stupify the fish in a pond or stream, till Chaldean, and perhaps of a nationality yet they float helpless on the water, an easy more recondite; but the identity of the prize. Child-stealing and poisoning of race with several Indian tribes is as clear animals are charges more often made as day, and we may faithfully believe Old against them than substantiated. It is King Cole to have been a most jovial certain that they are light-fingered and monarch of the "Coles," or low-caste na- vindictive; but they are grateful for a tives of Dekkhan-perhaps their leader little kindness, are usually civil and oblig in the emigration. In all lands they beg, ing, and, unless molested, never rob withand pilfer, and tell fortunes, and promise in miles of their camp. In spite of utilirich and handsome husbands to credulous tarian reformers, I for one should be sormaids, and tinker, and mend china. They ry if the gipsies were "improved" off the have some traditional skill, too, in the art earth, and if no future traveler in Engof the goldsmith, in basket-weaving, and land could hope to catch a glimpse of the smithcraft; they are jockeys, fiddlers, and Murillo-like group gathering in autumn pugilists. Cheerfully will they eat braxy around the smoky fire in the woodland mutton, or partake of the dead horse or lane.

THE ARMIES OF EUROPE: Comprising Descriptions in Detail of the Military Systems of England, France, Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Sardinia. Adapting their Advantages to all Arms of the United States Service and Embodying the Report of Observations in Europe during the Crimean War, as Military Commissioner from the United States Government in 1855-56. By GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN, Major-General U. S. Army. Originally published under the direction of the War Department, by order of Congress. Illustrated with several hundred Engravings. Pages 500. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1861.

WE give the full title of this valuable book, to indicate its varied and comprehensive contents. Its real value to the public service in this crisis in our history, can not well be estimated. It strikes us as a marked coïncidence that such a man, so apparently well fitted for his mission, should have been designated by his Government to visit the war encampments of Europe at the time and under the circumstances he did, to acquire such valuable information in so many different countries, when their armies were formed in battle array, and on the field of action, so favorable to his object, as if in anticipation of his coming, to furnish him with the military knowledge just in time for its careful arrangement and publication for use in the present impending struggle. Had the Government anticipated the present rebellion, and the public necessities for such a book, and the retirement of General Scott, just now announced,

and the importance of having a competent successor well qualified to take his place as Commander-inChief, it could hardly have pursued a wiser course than it has, as shown in the result as embodied in the volume before us.

So far as we know, there is no other book in the English language so complete, and which embraces so much and such varied military knowledge in the departments of which it treats. The Government has done well in ordering the preparation of such a book. It will do better still, if the Secretary of War will promptly issue an order that a copy of it shall be placed in the hands of every commissioned officer in the army under its control, and that every such officer have it in his encampment, and make it his daily study, so far as his active duties will permit. Such a study will help the knowledge of some officers, who, if report be true, have yet to learn the alphabet or first principles of the stern science of active warfare. We can not avoid adding a word concerning this remarkable man, whom we are willing to believe Providence has raised up and designated to assume the dread responsibility of command of the armies of the Union on the resignation of General Scott. The Post says:

"George B. McClellan was born in Philadelphia on the third of December, 1826, his father being an eminent physician of that city. At the age of sixteen, or in 1842, he entered the West-Point Academy, and in 1846, at the age of twenty, was graduated second in his class. On the 1st of July of that year he was brevetted second lieutenant of Engineers.

By an act of Congress, passed during the May previ- | Government of the Union has just now invested with ous, a company of sappers, miners, and pontoniers, the high and solemn responsibility of military chiefwas added to the Engineer Corps, and in this com- tain in command of its armies. pany McClellan was commissioned.

"Brevet Brigadier-General Totten, Chief-Engineer of the army commanded by General Scott before Vera Cruz, speaks of McClellan's genius and energy in that company in the highest terms. His exertions in drilling the recruits who came into his company to be prepared for the arduous labors of the Mexican war, were indefatigable. With the aid of but two other officers, he succeeded so perfectly in drilling the seventy-one raw men who had come into his hands only two months before, that on the 24th of September they sailed from West-Point, reported by General Totten as in a state of admirable discipline.' 'During the war this company was reduced to forty-five effective men and two officers--one of whom was McClellan.

was wounded,

"At Contreras, McClellan was selected, with another engineer, to reconnoiter the strong breastworks of the enemy. They had their horses shot under them, and barely escaped capture by the Mexican pickets. When the action commenced McClellan was with Magruder's battery. While it was still doing splendid service, its commander, Callender, McClellan immediately took command of it, and managed it until it was entirely disabled, with such success as to sustain all its previous reputation. In the next battle, Molino del Rey, his behavior was so gallant that he was elevated to a captaincy. He declined to receive it, and continued lieutenant on the day of Chepultepec, when General Scott mentions him as 'winning the admiration of all about him.' He was the first to enter the Alameda with a company which he commanded, and during the day of the assault repulsed a body of Mexicans greatly outnumbering his own corps, with a loss of twenty to the enemy.

"He continued in active service from the commencement of his company's organization until General Scott occupied the city of Mexico. He returned from the war with the rank of captain and the command of the company, now greatly augmented, of sappers, miners, and pontoniers. Between 1848 and 1851 he translated from the French a manual of bayonet exercise, which has become the text-book of the army.

"In 1851 he superintended the construction of Fort Delaware. In 1852 he explored the Red River, under Captain Marcy, and surveyed the harbors and rivers of Texas, as senior engineer on the staff of General Persifer Smith.

Mr. Curtis, in his admirable sketch of the author, says: "Theodore Winthrop's life, like a fire long smoldering, suddenly blazed up in a clear, bright flame and vanished. He was born in New-Haven, Sept. 22d, 1828, and entered Yale College at the age of sixteen. On the maternal side Winthrop counted six Presidents of Colleges. He graduated when he was twenty years old, and then, on account of shattered health, he traveled extensively in Europe. His life and career in different parts of the world was exciting and eventful. The Atlantic Monthly for June, 1861, contained a graphic description from his pen of the march of the Seventh Regiment, of NewYork, to Washington. On the 19th of April, 1861, he left the armory door of the Seventh, with his hand upon a howitzer; on the 21st of June his body lay upon the same howitzer, at the same door, wrapped in the flag for which he gladly died, as the symbol

of human freedom." The volume before us is the

product of his gifted pen, redolent of the flashes of genius.

THE WORKS OF FRANCIS BACON, Baron of Verulam,

etc. etc.

Messrs. Brown & Taggard, of Boston, have sent us another volume in the valuable series of Lord Bacon's works, which have occupied so much attention of late in the foreign Quarterlies, and upon which Lord Macaulay expended so much power of his gifted pen.

A simple announcement of the new volume in the series is enough, as all scholars are fully aware of the value of the writings of this renowned man.

THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH; or, Maid, Wife, and Widow. A Matter-of-Fact Romance. By CHARLES READE, Author of "Never too Late to Mend," etc. etc. New-York: Rudd & Carleton, 130 Grand street.

THIS is a pleasant historical novel. There is a power, a clear, vivid life of description, and a real "In 1853, McClellan was employed on the survey pathos in the last scenes of the book, an insight into to ascertain the best route for a railroad between the the ways of a distant generation, an analysis and Mississippi and and the Pacific-also in the explora-portraiture of character, which make this story not tion of the forty-seventh and forty-ninth parallels of north latitude. His report gained the commendation of Jeff. Davis, then Secretary of War.

unworthy to take a place beside the historical romances of Scott. It is scarcely necessary to say that a work by Mr. Reade, which extends to four "For three years more McClellan was very vari- volumes, is full of those affectations and quaintnesses ously employed. After executing a secret service in which he delights. Yet the general impression it commission in the West-Indies, and receiving a com- leaves is that of a very unusual degree of originality, mission in the United States cavalry, he was appoint-pathos and force. It is full of learning, of pictorial ed one of a military commission of three officers truthfulness, of shrewd reflection, and of happy to proceed to the Crimea and Northern Russia, for touches. observation on the conflict then existing, and his report on The Organization of European Armies, and the Operations of the War,' is thought by army offi cers a most valuable work."

His recent history is too fresh in the public mind to need mention. Such is the man and such his antecedents, experience, and acquirements, which the

EUGENIE GRANDET; or, The Miser's Daughter. From the French of HONORE DE BALZAC. Translated by O. W. WIGHT and F. B. GOODRICH. Pages 309. New-York: Rudd & Carleton, 130 Grand street. Of this book the translators say: "The concep tion of the character of Eugenie Grandet is one of

the purest and tenderest things in the whole range | It shows that the net earnings for the year have exof fiction, and the execution of it is worthy of the ceeded by $44,377 the interest on the debt of the idea."

THE ERIE RAILROAD.-This colossal enterprise, which was so long in achievement, and for so many years occupied the public mind, and cost so much money, is still an object of vast interest to the commercial world. We can hardly fail to gratify those of our readers not otherwise informed, by saying that under the skillful management Nathaniel Marsh, Esq., and his associates, the complete resuscitation of the Erie Railroad Company is no longer a matter of uncertainty, but, on the contrary, is the most striking instance of financial skill in the railway history of this country. Its bonded securities, which ranged three years ago at 30 and 40 per cent discount, are gradually approaching par. The first mortgages command 104, the seconds 99 a 100, the thirds 85, and the fourth and fifth mortgages are about to become again a source of income to the holders, after a default of nearly three years. We hear estimates of the earnings of the road for October as high as $700,000 to $750,000, which would be an excess of more than $100,000 on the same month last year. The following summary is from a circular sent out to Europe by the Canada:

"This Company is making steady progress in placing its affairs upon firm ground. No arrears of interest remain upon the first, second, or third mortgage. The interest on the fourth is advertised to be paid on the first proximo. That on the fifth will undoubtedly be paid on the first of December, when it falls due. The affairs of the old Company are to be wound up during the year, and the new Company commence its actual existence with the beginning of the new one, without any liabilities but its funded debt, which will stand as follows:

1st mortgage, 2d mortgage,.

$3,000,000 | 4th mortgage,.
4,000,000 5th mortgage,..
6,000,000

..$4,900,000 1,792,500 3d mortgage, Total,... $19,692,500 "The accruing interest on this sum will be $1,378,485. The net earnings for 1860 exceeded this sum by $448,921-the gross earnings being $5,180,316-net $1,827,406. The ratio of net to gross earnings was 35.4 per cent. We have the gross earnings for the present year, but not the net-the accounts of the Company not being yet made up. The former, by months, have been as follows:

...

July....
August,
September,...

Total,....

.......

Company, and a sum equal to dividends at the rate of 7 per cent on the preferred stock. The Company will enter the new year with greatly increased facilities for business, and with the prospect of much larger earnings for 1862 than for 1861.

"One cause of the previous embarrassments of the Company was the construction of the Long Dock, the greater portion of which is owned by it. This is a very valuable property, as is shown by the fact that 104 is offered for the stock of this Company held by individuals; the par value being 100. This property has an extensive front on the North River, and a large area of land in Jersey City, opposite NewYork. The site occupied, then, is the best possible for the traffic of the Company, having great depth of water, and never obstructed by ice."

THE POWER OF A CHARMING MANNER.-We rise in our own opinion in such a presence; we feel ourselves appreciated, our powers are quickened, we are at ease, and show ourselves at our best. What is it that makes some women so charming some men so pleasant? What quality that diffuses an influence as of rose-leaves about them? that manifests itself in hands that receive us with graceful warmth, in eyes that beam with kindly pleasure, in smiles so genuine, so tender; in the general radiance of reception. Surely it is a natural sweetness, an inherent tenderness of sympathy-acting upon a desire to please. There are some persons on whom society acts almost chemically, compelling them to be charming. It is part of themselves to meet advances, to labor in their graceful way, to create a favorable impression, and to give pleasure.

I

WOMAN'S GRAVE.-I can pass by the tomb of a man with somewhat of calm indifference, but when I survey the grave of a female a sigh involuntarily escapes me. With the holy name of woman I associate every soft, tender, and delicate affection. think of her as the young and bashful virgin, with eyes sparkling, and cheeks crimsoned with each impassioned feeling of the heart; as the chaste and virtuous matron, tried with the follies of the world, and preparing for the grave to which she must soon descend. There is something in contemplating the character of a won an that raises the soul far above the level of society. She is formed to adorn and humanize mankind, to soothe his cares and strew his $478,774 path with flowers. In the hour of distress she is the 499,426 rock on which he leans for support, and when fate 409,131 calls him from existence her tears bedew his grave. 303,279 Can you look upon her tomb without emotion? 426,470 Man has always justice done to his memory; woman never. The pages of history lie open to one; but the 419,991 meek and unobtrusive excellences of the other sleep 401,560 871,526 with her unnoticed in the grave. In her may have 477.883 shone the genius of a poet with the virtues of a saint. 598,841 She, too, may have passed along the sterile path of existence, and felt for others as I now feel for her.

1859-60.

386 890

462,815

..$5,180,816

Total, .$5,612,606 Increase, 482,290 "Assuming a similar ratio for expenses for 1861 as for 1860, the net for the former year will be $1,986,862. Deducting from this sum the accruing interest, there would be left $608,377 for the preferred shares. These can not exceed $8,000,000, and call for $560,000 annually. This statement is correct in all but the estimates for expenses for 1861, which are assumed to have been at the same rate as for 1860. This estimate can not be far out of the way.

STIRRING THE FIRE.-A modern philosopher says: "To stir the fire perfectly, requires the touch of a sculptor, the eye of an architect, and the wrist of a dentist."

CHEERFULNESS.-One is much less sensible of cold on a bright day than on a cloudy one; thus the sunshine of cheerfulness and hope will lighten every trouble.