AND PUBLISHER'S CIRCULAR. A Semi-Monthly Book Reporter, especially intended for the Published on the 1st and 15th of every month at the Irving Book-store, TERMS, TWO DOLLARS PER ANNUM, IN ADVANCE. Prospectus of Volume Fourth, for 1854. THE arrangements for the coming volume differ from those which related to its predecessor mainly in one feature-that they will be much more extended, aud that greater promptness will be secured by issuing the journal more frequently. The principal features will be the following: I. LISTS OF NEW PUBLICATIONS, American, English, French and German. In these lists it is intended to give regularly the complete titles, and to mention the size, price, and publisher's name of every new work. New Editions, Reprints and Translations, are all distinctly marked, and Serials and Pamphlets are mentioned in separate lists. II. NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. brief, candid and analytic, designed to convey to those who do not see the works alluded to, a correct idea of their contents and position. Occasional Reviews may also be expected. III. ANNOUNCEMENTS OF WORKS IN PRESS, both in England and America. IV. EDITORIAL ARTICLES, on matters connected with the Trade, with Libraries, and with the general interests of Literary men. V. LIBRARY AND EDUCATIONAL STATISTICS, including Historical Sketches of various Literary and Educational Institutions in this country and abroad. * Especial facilities are now enjoyed by us for giving this information with promptness and accuracy. VI. EXTENDED ADVERTISEMENTS, of old and new books, forming valuable means of communication between Publishers and Dealers on the one hand, and Buyers and Readers on LITERARY INFORMATION, including Reports of Society Transactions, accounts of Auction Sales, items of English and American news, a record of changes in the trade, &c. Publishers are requested to keep us fully informed of the titles and prices of their new publications, with announcements of the works they have in preparation, and of any changes that occur in the title of their firms. Printers and Authors of printed Addresses, Sermons, &c, are invited to send in such Pamphlets by mail or otherwise. Librarians, Teachers, and College Faculties, by sending in their Catalogues, Circulars, and Statistics of the Institutions which they severally represent, are assured that proper publicity will be given to them. Secretaries of Literary, Historical, and Scientific Societies will do us much service by forwarding, in a condensed form, lists of their officers, and reports of their different meetings. CONTENTS III. THE ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES. 1. Recommendations of the Oxford College Tutors' Association, on the Relation of the Professorial and Tutorial 2. Report upon the Recommendations of Her Majesty's Commissioners for Inquiring into the State of the Univer- sity of Oxford, presented to the Board of Heads of Houses IX. UPON THE ORIGIN OF ECCLESIASTICAL TRIBUNALS. Treatise in Answer to Discourses Published by Doctor Lefevrière, in his History of French Rights, and by the Advocate Bellime, in his Dissertation upon the Ancient Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, inserted in the Revue Etrangère et Française de Législation, de Jurisprudence et d'Economie X. CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE OF THE LAST THREE MONTHS. 1. History of the French Protestant Refugees. By M. CHAS. WEISS. Translated from the French by HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT. 2 vols. Stringer & Townsend, 2. Auto-biography of an Actress; or, Eight Years on the Stage. By ANNA CORA MOWATT. Ticknor, Reed & 3. Sketches of the Irish Bar. By the Rt. Hon. RICH- ARD LALOR SHEIL, M. P. With Memoir and Notes by R. SHELTON MACKENZIE. 2 vols. Redfield, Bequest of Convers Francis, D.D. THE NEW-YORK QUARTERLY. APRIL, 1854. OUR NATIONAL POST-OFFICE. THE Post-Office is one of the permanent institutions of the country. In its daily operations it affects, more or less, every individual in the nation. To appreciate its importance, let us imagine its functions completely suspended for one short month. How disastrous would be the result, in a mercantile community! How much, often times, is depending on a single letter! What heart-burnings, what losses and calamities, sometimes occur in consequence of a delay of a single day! Of what importance, then, is every wheel and axle in this vast machine! What a type of perpetual motion! With what confidence is committed to its care, the letters, papers, valuables, loves, hopes, and fears of twenty-six millions of people! And what is the modern post-office? It is a universal errand-boy. It is a TEACHER in the widest sense of the term. It is a bank of discount, exchange, and deposit, not only of dollars and cents, but often of commodities of greater value. The printing-press is the bird of knowledge, and the postoffice gives it wings. The postal chain is a link that joins those who are separated by distance, but united by ties of affection or interest. It is a constant "bearer of dispatches" between sovereign hearts and kindred minds. It is the ship of Jason that carries the golden fleece to Thessaly. It is a Briareus with ten thousand hands. Under liberal governments, it is a bond of peace and good-will among a united people. In the hands of a Cardinal Beaton, or a Sir James Graham, it is the instrument of a despot, used to betray and murder the innocent.* * It is related of Cardinal Beaton, Archbishop of St. Andrew's, and the Pope's legatus à latere in Scotland, in the time of Henry VIII., that he sent Norman Leslie, son of the Earl of Rothes, and some others, to Edinburgh, with scaled letters directed to one of his associates, a high officer in the ecclesiastical and civil govern The safety of the post, the sacred character of its contents, the confidence that is placed in its secresy, regularity, and dispatch, the cheapness of transport, all tend to make it a universal messenger for our most private communications and most valuable documents. And yet we are prepared to prove that this post-office establishment has not one half the efficiency, safety, and security that it might have; that it costs our people far more, in proportion to the business done, and brings them far less than it should; that were those improvements introduced which are every way practicable, there would be four letters written where now there is one; and that the time. and money saved, would more than equal all that we now pay in postages. Our post-office is probably managed with as much sagacity, diligence, and honesty, as any branch of the public service, particularly when we take into consideration the number of persons that have to be employed, the amount of property committed to its care, the consequent temptations to dishonesty, and the never-ending daily and hourly demands of the public in regard to it. But when we have said this, we have said all. The post-office is of more importance to the people, and its daily operations are felt to a wider extent, and affect a far larger share of the population, than the land-office, pension bureau, war, navy, treasury and interior departments, all put together. This branch of the government is certainly greatly inferior to the post-office establishments of several other ment of the country. Suspecting foul play, he "fingered their packet," and found "A royal knavery-an exact command, He should the bearers put to sudden death, There was a "total failure" of the mail for that trip. Leslie and his companions returned, and at an early morning hour, as the draw-bridge of the castle was lowered, they rushed in and put the Cardinal to death, thus turning the tables upon him. It is well known that Sir James Graham, post-master-general of Great Britain, in 1818, claimed and exercised the privilege of opening and reading any letters that he chose, that passed through the post-office. Whether he was "retained" as a spy, by the tyrannical rulers of continental Europe, to find out and catch republicans, does not appear. At any rate, he seized and opened, among others, some letters from Italy, gave their contents to the envoy of Ferdinand, the king of the Two Sicilies, who informed his royal master. His Majesty immediately caused the writers-two young Italians of liberal principles-to be arrested, and put to death; and all on the information given by Sir James Graham, the post-mastergeneral of "free and happy England." It is but just to state that the press and people of Great Britain, with almost entire unanimity, condemned this unwarrantable assumption of power. Rulers such as these might express themselves in the language of the rogue in the play: "Leave, gentle wax, and manners, blame us not; |