The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I, No. 7 | Page 3

upon the field of its activity. We were pleased to see that Mr. Davis, of Massachusetts, a few days ago presented in the Senate petitions from Edward Everett, Jared Sparks, and others, and from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, at Boston, to the effect that it would be of great public utility to attach to the boundary commission to run the line between the United States and Mexico, a small corps of persons well qualified to make researches in the various departments of science.
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William C. Richards, the very clever and accomplished editor of the Southern Literary Gazette was the author of "Two Country Sonnets," contributed to a recent number of _The International_, which we inadvertently credited to his brother, T. Addison Richards the well-known and much esteemed landscape painter.
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MAJOR POUSSIN, so well-known for his long residence in this country as an officer of engineers, and, more recently, as Minister of the French republic,--which, intelligent men have no need to be assured, he represented with uniform wisdom and manliness,--is now engaged at Paris upon a new edition of his important book, The Power and Prospects of the United States. We perceive that he has lately published in the Republican journal _Le Credit_, a translation of the American instructions to Mr. Mann, respecting Hungary. In his preface to this document, Major Poussin pays the warmest compliments to the feelings, measures and policy of our administration, with which he contrasts, at the same time, those of the French Government. He hopes a great deal for the Democratic cause in Europe from the moral influences of the United States.
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DR. JOHN W. FRANCIS, one of the most excellent men, as well as one of the best physicians of New York, has received from Trinity College, Hartford, the degree of Doctor of Laws. We praise the authorities of Trinity for this judicious bestowal of its honors. Francis's career of professional usefulness and variously successful intellectual activity, are deserving such academical recognition. His genial love of learning, large intelligence, ready appreciation of individual merit, and that genuine love of country which has led him to the carefullest and most comprehensive study of our general and particular annals, and to the frequentest displays of the sources of its enduring grandeur, constitute in him a character eminently entitled to our affectionate admiration.
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THE POEMS OF GRAY, in an edition of singular typographical and pictorial beauty, are to be issued as one of the autumn gift-books by Henry C. Baird, of Philadelphia. They are to be edited by the tasteful and judicious critic, Professor Henry Reed, of the University of Pennsylvania, to whom we were indebted for the best edition of Wordsworth that appeared during the life of that poet. We have looked over Professor Reed's life of Gray, and have seen proofs of the admirable engravings with which the work will be embellished. It will be dedicated to our American Moxon, JAMES T. FIELDS, as a souvenir. we presume, of a visit to the grave of the bard, which the two young booksellers made together during a recent tour in Europe. Mr. Baird and Mr. Fields are of the small company of publishers, who, if it please them, can write their own books. They have both given pleasant evidence of abilities in this way.
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BURNS.--It appears from the Scotch papers that the house in Burns-street, Dumfries, in which the bard of "Tam o'Shanter" and his wife "bonnie Jean," lived and died, is about to come into the market by way of public auction.
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"EUROPE, PAST AND PRESENT:" A comprehensive manual of European Geography and History, derived from official and authentic sources, and comprising not only an accurate geographical and statistical description, but also a faithful and interesting history of all European States; to which is appended a copious and carefully arranged index, by Francis H. Ungewitter, LL.D.,--is a volume of some six hundred pages, just published by Mr. Putnam. It has been prepared with much well-directed labor, and will be found a valuable and comprehensive manual of reference upon all questions relating to the history, geographical position, and general statistics of the several States of Europe.
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M. LIBRI, of whose conviction at Paris (_par contumace_, that is, in default of appearance), of stealing books from public libraries, we have given some account in _The International_, is warmly and it appears to us successfully defended in the Athen?um, in which it is alleged that there was not a particle of legal evidence against him. M. Libri is, and was at the time of the appearance of the accusation against him, a political exile in England.
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MAJOR RAWLINSON, F.R.S., has published a