Bishop Butler’s Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 12mo.
This is the best edition we have seen of Bishop Butler’s celebrated work, as regards its adaptation to the wants of students and the general reader. It is furnished with a complete analysis of the topics of the Analogy, prepared partly by Dr. Emory, President of Dickinson College, and completed by the present editor, G. R. Crooks. The latter has also supplied a life of Butler, together with notes to the Analogy, and an index. By the aids afforded by this edition, the work is brought within the comprehension of ordinary minds.
GRAHAM’S SMALL-TALK.
Held in his idle moments, with his Readers, Correspondents and Exchanges.
As we approach the close of the year 1852, we feel disposed to be plain in speech—and rude, perhaps, as Brutus was—but at any rate pointed and personal. We have given our readers 112 pages in every number. Has any imitator kept pace with us, or truth with the public, in regard to the amount of reading matter which was pledged for the year? We ask merely for information, and that windy prospecting for 1853 may be taken at its value—that is all. “Only this, and nothing more.”
Sartain’s Magazine.—After a vigorous struggle for three years, against adverse fate, Sartain’s Magazine has been suspended and the list is to be furnished out by others. The publishers spent money with a lavish hand to American authors, but the tide had set in against them—the flood of foreign literature overwhelmed the gallant bark and she has gone down to rise no more. We do not intend to say an unkind word, but we trust that the readers of “Graham” will see in this the safety of standing by old friendships, and not go running after every new doctrine. This Magazine, which was founded in 1826, has gone on steadily and with a secure foothold. No number has ever failed to appear or been delayed in its appearing. But steadily improving in all its years we trust that it thus meets the approval of our large body of readers.
We felt, a year ago, the demand for English magazine articles—the success of the reprint magazines confirmed what we felt, and we therefore nearly doubled the number of pages of Graham that we might give to our readers, in addition to our former supply of original American articles, such papers from foreign sources as struck us as of value or interest to our subscribers. How far we have succeeded in improving the tone and character of Graham it is for you—reader—to say. We shall only add, in answer to carpers generally, that Graham’s Magazine for the last ten years has paid over $80,000 to American writers alone, and that if we meet the public taste, by compulsion—in supplying foreign articles—that we have a right to say to all grumblers who control periodicals—Go and do likewise, or forever be dumb.