A publication worthy of the utmost praise is the Revue de l'Architecture et des Travaux Publiques, published at Paris, under the editorial care of M. Cesar Daly, one of the most learned and accomplished architects in Europe. This review, which is now in its ninth year, is issued monthly, with the utmost elegance both of typography and engravings. The number for October contains articles on the following subjects:—the preservation and restoration of the Cathedrals of France, the Church of St. Paul at Nismes, Stereochromy, the Museum at St. Petersburg, Chinese Monuments discovered in Ireland, the Public Garden and Swimming School at Bordeaux, &c., &c.; it has four large engravings. The work treats every branch, historic and practical, of architecture and engineering, and should be in the hands of every architect and engineer, and in the library of every man of taste whose leisure and meditations lead him to the study of the beautiful and useful arts. It may be procured in Paris at the low rate of 40 francs a-year.
A book well suited to the times is Dr. Figuier's Exposition et Histoire des principales Découvertes Modernes, which has just appeared at Paris in two small volumes. It treats of photography, the serial and magnetic telegraphs, etherization, galvanoplasty and chemical gilding, aërostatics, lighting by gas, Leverrier's planet, gunpowder, and gun-cotton. With respect to the glory of discovering photography, Dr. Figuier restores it to M. Niepce, of Chalon-sur-Saone, proving that he originated the conception, and that Daguerre did nothing more than perfect the process. Singularly enough, M. Figuier omits the steamboat and railroad from the discoveries whose history he so carefully and conscientiously records, but even with these omissions his work is valuable and interesting both to the savan and the ordinary reader.
The editors of the Revue des Deux Mondes, at Paris, have made up a very useful manual of the history of the year 1850, under the title of Annuaire des Deux Mondes, which is sold by Balliére, in Broadway. It contains an account of the political events, the international relations and diplomacy, the administration, commerce, and finances, and the periodical press and literature of every country which possesses those products of civilization. The constitutions and affairs of Italy, Denmark, Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, England, Norway, Sweden, Russia, Turkey, Greece, United States, Mexico, the South American Republics, and even of the African and Asiatic races, are discussed with moderation and an effort for impartiality, which is laudable, if not always successful. The most recent statistics are given with reference to every country; and, as a book of reference, it will be found very useful.
The Calvin Translation Society, which for the last ten years has been issuing, at irregular intervals, a complete and very handsome edition of Calvin's works, in English—to make about fifty octavo volumes—will have to add to them a new collection of his Letters. It appears that the government of Louis Philippe committed the preparation of the Unpublished Letters of the great Reformer to Professor Bonnett, who had been dismissed from the College of Nismes for speaking too highly of Luther. He travelled in France and Switzerland, at the expense of the Government, in order to collect the letters. After the revolution, the influence of the Catholic clergy was such that the new minister of Public Instruction found a thousand difficulties in the way of accepting the labor of M. Bonnett, and the subject was finally referred to a committee, who reported in favor of the publication; yet, to split the difference with the clergy, they, on pretence of a saving of expenses, ordered that some of the less important letters should be omitted, and that the Latin and French letters should be published together in the same volume. The number of Calvin's unpublished letters in the collection is 497; of these 190 are in French, and 307 in Latin.
The aged Lacretelle, who of late years has lived in retirement near Macon, reposing upon his fame as an historian, appeared recently at the Academy in that city, on the day when the prizes of the Agricultural Society were distributed, and delivered an oration, marked by the energy and force of youth, but not by its hopefulness. He is now eighty-five years old; and on this occasion, was particularly severe against the communists and socialists, who, he thought, were bent on destroying every thing good, and upsetting the world. This was uttered with a point and bitterness that did no discredit to the censor of the press under both the Empire and the Restoration.