Three eminent scholars and authors, Dr. Lushington, Mr. Falconer, and Dr. Twiss, are appointed by the British government, arbitrators to determine the boundary between the provinces of Canada and Nova Scotia, which has for some years been in dispute.
The Fourth Volume of Mr. Hildreth's History of the United States, being the first volume of the post-revolutionary history, will be published immediately, we believe, by the Harpers. We look for an exceedingly interesting book. Of the earlier volumes of the History, the London Spectator observes:—
"The distinguishing literary characteristic of this history is a careful succinctness. The convenience of a summary notice of the gradual discovery of America, and the necessity of singly narrating the foundation of each separate colony, render any substantial novelty of plan in a history of the United States impossible, except upon some scheme where fitness should be sacrificed to fanciful strangeness. Mr. Hildreth has judiciously refrained from attempting any thing of the kind: but perhaps he has pushed the mere chronological arrangement to an excess, and given undue prominence to the discoveries and settlement of North America by foreigners, in proportion to the scale of his work. In the execution, Mr. Hildreth has carefully read and as carefully digested his various authorities, and presented the results of his studies succinctly, closely, and comprehensively. In many cases the compendious style is apt to fall into a vague generality, or the pith of the matter is liable to be missed; but such is not the case with Mr. Hildreth's. He states all that he sees, though he would see more if he possessed a loftier and imaginative mind. We know not his profession, but there is something lawyerlike in his work. One subject seems the same to him as another: it is not so much that he wants variety of power; as that he does not seem to feel the variety in nature. His book is as much a digest as a history. The parts in which Mr. Hildreth succeeds best are those that relate to the social and religious opinions and practices of the colonists. In fact, it is as a social history that it possesses character and value. The author's quiet unimpassioned style presents the strange peculiarities that obtained among the New England colonists till within little more than a generation of the Revolutionary war, and some traces of which still remain."
"The Memorial, written by friends of the late Mrs. Osgood," to which we have heretofore referred in these pages, is the most beautiful book published in America during the season, and as an original literary miscellany it surpasses any volume that ever appeared in the English language. The Albion says of it:
"Seldom has a more graceful compliment been paid to the memory of departed worth, than is exhibited in this handsome volume, which is edited by Mrs. Mary E. Hewitt. It originated at a chance meeting of a literary coterie, soon after the death of the gifted and amiable woman in whose honor it has been put together. When the conversation turned upon the many claims which she possessed on the affections and the esteem of those present, it was resolved that a souvenir volume should be made up from their voluntary contributions, and that the profits arising from the sale should be devoted to erecting a monument over her grave, in the Cemetery of Mount Auburn, near Boston. Many writers of distinguished merit have engraved their names upon this preparatory tablet, not all being numbered amongst her friends and acquaintances, but all appreciating the many virtues of the deceased lady, and the kindly motives of her sorrowing friends. The table of contents shows indeed such a list of names as should insure the speedy attainment of the object in view. We can but mention half-a-dozen—Hawthorne, Willis, G. P. R. James, the Bishop of Jamaica, John Neal, Stoddard, Boker, G. P. Morris and Bayard Taylor, amongst the men, and Miss Lynch, Mrs. Whitman, Mrs. Oaksmith, Mrs. Sigourney, and the Editress to represent the sisterhood of authorship. An admirable likeness of Mrs. Osgood, from a portrait by her husband, serves as a frontispiece, and, with some charming vignettes on steel and other illustrations, enhances the value of this choice and creditable book." (Putnam, publisher.)
Fortune-telling is as much in vogue as ever in Paris. A book, which is said to have caused much observation, appeared there lately, which is thus described in the correspondence of the London Literary Gazette:—