HIGH PRIEST.

The day declines. The slow-descending sun
Casts lengthening shadows o'er the darkened vales.
Light up the temple! Through the pillared walks
Hang out the lamps, and from the crowded courts
Keep off the gathering night. Then, while the blaze
Is flashing from the altars, gates, and roofs,
Till evening shines with more than noonday fires,
Let one loud choral anthem close the day.

This little work is marked by the neatness of execution which generally distinguishes publications from the Boston press. New-York: SAMUEL COLMAN.

AMERICAN HISTORY. - We welcome heartily, as most timely and appropriate, the clear, succinct, and well-digested 'Remarks on American History,' from the pen of JARED SPARKS, which have been neatly re-printed, in pamphlet form, from the 'Boston Book,' for 1837. To one who would obtain, in a brief compass, the great leading outlines of the colonial and revolutionary periods of our national existence, we would recommend this pamphlet, as supplying an important desideratum. In alluding to the Indians, and their wars, Mr. SPARKS holds the following language, confirmatory of a truth which we have frequently advanced-namely, that the Indian oratory of our novelists is often any thing but native, while the character of the red man, in their hands, has suffered not less in another and more important respect:

"Indian eloquence, if it did not flow with the richness of Nestor's wisdom, or burn with Achilles' fire, spoke in the deep strong tones of nature, and resounded from the chords of truth. The answer of the Iroquois chief to the French, who wished to purchase his lands, and push him farther into the wilderness, Voltaire has pronounced superior to any sayings of the great men commemorated by Plutarch. 'We were born on this spot; our fathers are buried here. Shall we say to the bones of our fathers, arise, and go with us into a strange land?'

"But more has been said of their figurative language, than seems to be justified by modern experience. Writers of fiction have distorted the Indian character, and given us any thing but originals. Their fancy has produced sentimental Indians, a kind of beings that never existed in reality; and Indians clothing their ideas in the gorgeous imagery of external nature, which they had neither the refinement to conceive, nor words to express. In truth, when we have lighted the pipe of concord, kindled or extinguished a council fire, buried the bloody hatchet, sat down under the tree of peace with its spreading branches, and brightened the chain of friendship, we have nearly exhausted their flowers of rhetoric. But the imagery prompted by internal emotion, and not by the visible world, the eloquence of condensed thought and pointed expression, the eloquence of a diction extremely limited in its forms, but nervous and direct, the eloquence of truth unadorned and of justice undisguised, these are often found in Indian speeches, and constitute their chief characteristic.

"It should, moreover, be said for the Indians, that, like the Carthaginians, their history has been written by their enemies. The tales of their wrongs and their achievements may have been told by the warrior-chiefs to stimulate the courage, and perpetuate the revenge of their children, but they were traces in the sand; they perished in a day, and their inemory is gone.'

Would that the truths contained in the following closing paragraphs might be written as with a living coal upon every American heart!

"The instructive lesson of history, teaching by example, can no where be studied with more profit, or with a better promise, than in this revolutionary period of America; and especially by us, who sit under the tree our fathers have planted, enjoy its shade, and are nourished by its fruits. But little is our merit, or gain, that we applaud their deeds, unless we emulate their virtues. Love of country was in them an absorbing principle, an undivided feeling; not of a fragment, a section, but of the whole country. Union was the arch on which they raised the strong tower of a nation's independence. Let the arm be palsied, that would loosen one stone in the basis of this fair structure, or mar its beauty; the tongue mute, that would dishonor their names, by calculating the value of that, which they deemed without price!

"They have left us an example already inscribed in the world's memory; an example, portentous to the aims of tyranny in every land; an example that will console in all

ages the drooping aspirations of oppressed humanity. They have left us a written charter as a legacy, and as a guide to our course. But every day convinces us, that a written charter may become powerless. Ignorance may misinterpret it; ambition may assail and faction destroy its vital parts; and aspiring knavery may at last sing its requiem on the tomb of departed liberty. It is the spirit which lives; in this are our safety and our hope; the spirit of our fathers; and while this dwells deeply in our remembrance, and its flame is cherished, ever burning, ever pure, on the altar of our hearts; while it incites us to think as they have thought, and do as they have done, the honor and the praise will be ours, to have preserved unimpaired the rich inheritance, which they so nobly achieved."

PROFESSOR HENRY'S ADDRESS. - The importance of exalting the intellectual spirit of the nation, and the need of a learned class, are well enforced and set forth in a Discourse pronounced before the Phi Sigma Nu Society of the University of Vermont, in August last, by Rev. C. S. HENRY, of this city. An extended notice, (with extracts,) of this discourse has been driven from our over-crowded pages, by the reply of a correspondent to the North American Review; we have, therefore, but space cordially to commend the pamphlet to our readers, and briefly to mention a few of its prominent positions, which are sustained by convincing arguments, and forcible illustration. It shows a learned order in a nation to be necessary, to check the predominance of the more gross and material elements of society; exhibits the natural debasement of the mass, by the undue love of money, and the false standard which the possession of mere wealth is permitted to erect; exposes the evils of an unchecked party spirit, and the dangerous tendency of the popular feeling toward the licentious anarchy of mob domination. In conclusion, it presents weighty and unanswerable reasons, why the state should cherish high science and letters by such liberal endowments as shall leave a learned order of men free to devote their powers exclusively to lofty study and production, thus creating a feeling of respect for the importance of such labors, by the honor with which such patronage would invest them. We are glad to perceive that this discourse has passed to a second edition. New-York: GEORGE W. HOLLEY.

MEMOIRS OF A PEERESS. Messrs. CAREY AND HART have issued, in two volumes, 'The Posthumous Memoirs of a Peeress,' by Lady CHARLOTTE BURY. There are portions of these volumes which we could conscientiously praise; but there are frequent opinions, from which most readers, we are sure, in common with us, will at once dissent; and from none, we apprehend, more entirely, than from the following estimate of the character of the Empress Josephine:

"Some saints are elevated to martyrdom by their virtues, and some by their opportunities. Josephine is one of those to whom public infatuation has opened a niche in the Kalender for more than her own deserts. I saw her near and familiarly; my whole life has been spent among the vain and artificial; and among the vainest and most artificial, was the Ex-empress. Neither artificial nor artful, however, convey the exact sense of the word artificieuse, which I wish to express. Her bonté, so much lauded, was a grimace - her elegance, of the most frivolous and superficial nature; her charities consisted in a profuse distribution of the pocket-pickings of the nation; and so far from being just, either before or after she was generous, honesty was a virtue so foreign to her system, as frequently to expose her to the rebukes of her more equitable husband. Josephine was, in short, the very personification of the old Faubourg St. Germain ignorant, dissolute, fickle, vain, unprincipled; but a proficient in that art of pleasing, which consists in overmastering two of the most pitiful instincts in human nature vanity and self-interest. She gave largely, she flattered profusely; and the world, instead of admiring the forbearance of Napoleon in supporting her so long as his partner, reviled him as an ingrate, when at length he put her away.'

If this be true, then all we have ever read of Josephine - all that we could ever learn, by tale or history, of this unfortunate woman must be false. The balance of credit is against the 'Peeress.' New-York: WILEY AND PUTNAM.

MARTIN FABER AND OTHER TALES. - The Messrs. HARPER have published, in two handsome volumes, 'Martin Faber, the Story of a Criminal, and Other Tales,' by W. G. SIMMS, ESQ., author of 'Guy Rivers,' etc. The tale which gives the main title to the volume, has been noticed at length in these pages, and another of the longest, 'Major Rocket,' appeared originally in the KNICKERBOCKER. Several of the others, written at an early period of the authors' life, have been published heretofore, in a southern literary work, of limited circulation. We consider these volumes as containing some of the very best of Mr. SIMMS' minor efforts. The reader will sometimes find himself, it may be, borne beyond the circle of probability; but he is a willing fellow-traveller with the author, as he journeys in dreamy mood; and if he occasionally discern some things which he could wish were otherwise, he will find them but the rich superfluities of early genius. The volumes - beside a beautiful 'prefatory sonnet' of the author's, published some time since in these pages - bear the following dedication, than which nothing could be more simple and touching: 'To my Daughter to one who, as yet, can understand little save his love - these volumes are fondly dedicated, with all the affections of a Father.'

LITERARY RECORD.

BOSTON WORKS. - Mr. SAMUEL COLMAN, 114 Fulton-street, has the agency for all works of interest or utility which issue from the Boston press. Beside two excellent books already noticed in these pages - Twice-Told Tales,' and 'The Young Ladies' Friend' - we have before us, from the above house, a neat volume of some three hundred and fifty pages, upon 'Practical Phrenology, by SILAS JONES, which has been highly praised by phrenologists; a pleasing, instructive, and comprehensive Geography of the Bible,' by the world-renowned PETER PARLEY, illustrated by numerous cuts; and a simple but well-written and useful little pamphlet-book, called 'Emily and Charles, or a Little Girl's Correspondence with her Brother - designed to aid Children in the Art of Letter-Writing.' We take pleasure in calling public attention to Mr. COLMAN'S establishment.

DISCOURSES, LECTURES, ETC. Upon each of the three following pamphlets, we had prepared, for our last number, some favorable comments, accompanied with brief extracts. They are again, by uncompromising necessity, crowded out; and we have but space to thank the authors, severally, for their favors, and to commend their labors to such of our readers as can command them:

'REASONS FOR THANKFULNESS. A Discourse delivered in the First Presbyterian Church in Rochester, (N. Y.,) on the day of Annual Thanksgiving, December 15, 1836. By TRYON EDWARDS, Pastor of said Church.'

'LECTURE ON THE CHARACTER AND SERVICES OF JAMES MADISON, delivered before the 'Young Men's Association for Mutual Improvement,' in the city of Albany, February 28, 1837. By DANIEL D. BARNARD. Albany: HOFFMAN AND WHITE.

'THE WESTERN ACADEMICIAN, and Journal of Education and Science. Edited by JOHN W. PICKET, and aided by the College of Teachers.' Cincinnati: JAMES R. ALBACH.

NEW-YORK GAZETTE. - This old and established diurnal has passed under the entire control of Messrs. ROBERT U. LANG and C. F. DANIELS. The former has hitherto conducted the Gazette with industry and talent; and with the ready pen, and appropriate tact, spirit, and humor, of his co-laborer, its good reputation will not be likely to diminish. Mr. DANIELS is well and extensively known as the late associate-editor of the Courier and Enquirer, in which journal his place is now filled by EDWARD WILLIAM JOHNSON, Esq., of South Carolina, a profound scholar and a vigorous writer.

THE 'PALMYRA LETTERS.' - We have great pleasure in stating, that these admirable letters will hereafter be issued in two handsome volumes, by a well-known and popular publisher. Perhaps no series of papers ever appeared in the KNICKERBOCKER, which have attracted more universal attention and admiration, than these 'Letters.' The beauty of their style, the perfect unity and keeping of the scenes and events described and narrated, and the pure moral and religious spirit which pervades them, have been themes of laudatory comment, with readers of eminent literary standing, as well in England and Scotland, as in America. To the records of this popular estimate, we may hereafter refer; although no reader of this Magazine will require additional proof of the interest and value which are inseparable from the writings of the 'most noble Piso.'

THE BROTHERS HARPER have nearly ready for publication the following works: 'Live and Let Live; or Domestic Service Illustrated,' by Miss SEDGWICK; FIELDING'S 'Amelia;' Rise and Fall of Athens, by BULWER; The Monk of Cimies, by Mrs. SHERWOOD; The Works of CHARLES LAMB; 'Crichton,' by AINSWORTH; 'Attila,' by JAMES; 'Henry Milner,' by Mrs. SHERWOOD; Recollections of a Southern Matron, by Mrs. C. GILMAN; Travels in Europe, by Rev. WILBUR FISK, D. D., Conn.; Narrative of ARTHUR GORDON PYM, of Nantucket; 'An Historical Account of the Circumnavigation of the Globe, and of the Progress of Discovery in the Pacific Oecan;' and the Complete Works of BURKE.

USEFUL KNOWLEDGE. - The Prospectus of the American Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, has been laid on our table; and we take pleasure in calling public attention to so laudable an institution. It is the design of the society - the materials for carrying out which are abundant - 'to unite the efforts of literary, scientific, wealthy, and benevolent men, in diffusing useful knowledge, and in employing the arts of printing and engraving in a way most likely to be interesting, salutary, and elevating to the popular mind.' The officers and directors of the institution are among the most eminent citizens of the several states, and their names afford a sufficient guarantee of its prospective usefulness.

LETTERS FROM THE VIRGINIA SPRINGS. - Mr. H. S. TANNER, Philadelphia, has published, in a handsome volume, a second edition of 'Letters descriptive of the Virginia Springs; the Roads leading thereto, and the Doings thereat. Collected, corrected, annotated, and edited, by PEREGRINE PROLIX.' Eight additional letters appear in the present edition, bearing the same marks of descriptive talent, quiet humor, scholarship, and good taste, which we have before cited as characteristic of the first series. A new map of Virginia, with its canals, roads, and distances from place to place, along the stage and steam-boat routes, prefaces the volume. New-York: G. AND C. CARVILL AND COMPANY.

THE GAME OF LIFE. - 'The Game of Life, or the Chess-Player, a Drawing by MORITZ RETSCH, explained, according to hints from himself, by C. BORR. VON MILTITZ. With Additional Remarks on the Allegory.' This is a very striking moral engraving, with well-written illustrations, representing Satan, the Spirit of Darkness, playing with Man for his Soul. To one with whom the game of chess is familiar, it will possess great attractions; while for the mere ordinary observer, it has a German-like interest, undefinable, yet pleasant and instructive. Even to such, the print is suggestive of good. Boston: WEEKS, JORDAN AND COMPANY.

LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT. - We are enabled to announce, merely, the publication, by Messrs. CAREY, LEA AND BLANCHARD, Philadelphia, of the first part of the Memoirs of the late SIR WALTER SCOTт, Bart., by J. G. LOCKHART, his son-in-law. The volume opens with a newly-discovered memoir of the early life of Scott, written by himself, giving a clear outline of his history, down to the period of his being called to the bar, The succeeding portions of Lockhart's work will be issued by the Philadelphia publishers, immediately on the reception of the sheets from Edinburgh.

A GLANCE AT NEW-YORK. - The 'Glance at New-York,' after the manner of 'The Great Metropolis,' recently issued by A. GREENE, Beekman-street, is a clever work, in our poor opinion, and deserving of less cavalier treatment than it has received at the hands of certain of its critics. It discusses, currente calamo, and very agreeably, the city government, theatres, hotels, churches, mobs, monopolies, learned professions, newspapers, rogues, dandies, fires and firemen, water and other liquids, etc. There are a few errors, and one in relation to this Magazine; but the volume is both useful and amusing, nevertheless, especially to strangers in, or distant from, the city.

IRVING'S WORKS. - The seventh and eighth volumes of the uniform edition of WASHINGTON IRVING's works have just been issued by Messrs. CAREY, LEA AND BLANCHARD. They contain the 'Tales of a Traveller,' many of which have added so much to the completeness of their author's reputation. We are glad to see, by the demand for the series of which these volumes form a part, that their sterling worth is not likely to be supplanted in the affections of the American people, by the numerous 'new-born gauds' of the present day.

'MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY,' is the title of a clearly-printed volume, of three hundred pages, from the press of Messrs. PACKARD AND BROWN, Hartford, Conn. It is intended for academies and schools, but is as well adapted for the use of all general readers. It proceeds from the pen of Dr. J. L. COMSTOCK, with whose productions for the young we have a favorable acquaintance; and a cursory examination of the volume enables us to predict for it a success as ample as that which has rewarded the merits of of its predecessors.

'THREE EXPERIMENTS IN DRINKING. - There is a good moral to this little pamphletbook; but like all the 'experiments' which have succeeded the 'Three Experiments of Living,' it lacks the force, spirit, and vraisemblance, of its excellent archetype. We fear all imitations will soon become disrelishing, should the ample reward of merit in the first instance induce many more writers, in these pressing times, to attempt the 'experiment' of sucking sustenance through their goose quills.

BOSTON MERCANTILE ASSOCIATION. - A pamphlet has been sent us, containing an • Address by ISAAC C. PRAY, Jun., a Poem by LOVET STIMSON, Jun., together with the Remarks of Hon. STEPHEN FAIRBANKS, and his Excellency, EDWARD EVERETT, at the seventeenth anniversary of the above named institution. The entire exercises are in the right spirit, and demand a more extended notice than the only one we can here afford them - a mere record of their publication.

TALES AND SKETCHES, BY 'BOZ' AND OTHERS. - Messrs. CAREY, LEA AND BLANCHARD have issued, in two volumes, a number of popular tales, sketches, and verse, from late English magazines, the best of which are 'Oliver Twist' - a fragment only of a story, however-and 'Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble,' by 'Boz,' 'Handy Andy,' and 'Who Milked my Cow? or the Marine Ghost.' The volumes possess a good variety of light entertainment, and would be found capital steam-boat reading.

CLASSICAL FAMILY LIBRARY. - The two latest volumes of HARPER'S Classical Family Library, contain Juvenal, translated by Dr. BADHAM, Persius, by the Rt. Hon. Sir W. DRUMMOND, Pindar, by the Rev. С. А. WHEELWRIGHT, and Anacreon, by THOMAS BOURNE. The volumes are embellished with busts of Pindar and Juvenal, and are well executed.

THE FINE ARTS, ETC. - Notices of the National Academy of Design, just opened, and the late highly interesting semi-centennial anniversary of Columbia College, are crowded from the present number. Correspondents are not forgotten; and when the 'moving accidents' of the May-day season have ceased to vex, and the toils of the month are for a brief space ended, peradventure their favors shall be considered and acknowledged.