THE TREASURY OF KNOWLEDGE AND LIBRARY OF REFERENCE. Parts I. II. and III. New-York: Conner and Cooke.

This valuable repertory of important information, has been crowded out of our columns month after month, by books of more pretension, but infinitely less utility. We are free to confess that we have never seen a work where there are so many items of useful knowledge concentrated. In typographical execution it is a complete gem, and the illustrative woodcuts are such triumphs of the art, that it requires some discrimination to detect the difference between them and copperplates. It is, in every sense of the word, what it professes to be" A Treasury of Knowledge,”—and reflects high credit on the spirit of the enterprising publishers.

C. IULII CAESARIS COMMENTARII de Bello Gallico et Civili. E recensione Francisci Oudendorpii. Post Cellarium et Morum denuo curavit Ier. Iac. Oberlinus Argentoratensis Instituto Litter. Francico Adscriptus. Nunc demum notis Anglice illustrati et Indice nominum propriorum instructi. Studio Dav. Patterson A. M.

THE ELEMENTS OF GREEK GRAMMAR, by R. Valpy, D.D. F.A.S. THE LATIN READER, by Frederic Jacobs and Frederic William Döring; with Notes and Illustrations, partly translated for the German, and partly drawn from other sources, by John D. Ogilby, principal of the Grammar School of Columbia College, New-York.

HOMERI ILIAS, ex recensione C. G. Heynii fere impressa; cum Notis Anglicis, in usum Scholarum ; curante J. D. Ogilby.

New-York, W. E. Dean, 70 Frankfort street.

Mr. Dean's editions of these standard school books are not less distinguished for clear and accurate typography than for the valuable aids they afford the learner. Mr. Patterson has ably improved upon the eminent scholars who preceded him as Editors of Caesar, and the Historical and Geographical Index, appended to the volume, contains an admirable digest of information which must prove of the most decided utility to the reader.

Valpy's excellent Greek Grammar is likewise much indebted to the great erudition of Professor Anthon. Those who are acquainted with the original work will at once acknowledge this, his theory of the prepositions, p. 221, is both new and just, and the admirable Dissertation of Thiersch on the Digamma is an addition eminently useful to the scholar. We think, even recollecting the very excellent work of Moore and Neilson, the present edition of Valpy's Grammar, is by far the best calculated for the Greek learner, either when commencing his studies or when advanced to the full knowledge of the "high and holy immortalities" of that wondrous tongue. Its having reached an 8th edition in its present form is a good proof of this.

The Latin Reader too is a work which we warmly recommend, the merit of the original in Germany was long acknowledged, and the present is much

superior to the editions already published in this country in giving the learner the assistance of the notes which added so much to the utility and value of the original.

The type employed on the present edition of Homer is of singular beauty, and its execution highly creditable to the New-York press. We think, however, it would have been a decided improvement if Notes had been given to all the books. The prevalent partiality to the first six is altogether unwarrantable, and should by all means be discountenanced by the scholar.-We intend to have an article about the "blind old bard of Scio's rocky isle" some of these days.

Many articles prepared for this department, and already in type, have been crowded out of our pages this month. We have received an exceedingly neat reprint by Messrs. Carey and Lea, of Mrs. Stickney's beautiful "Pictures of Private Life," which we have already noticed in our Magazine for May. "The Wife of Mantua," "Tales from American History," "The Buccaneer," and many works on our table, are held over to our next number.

FINE ARTS.

THE GROUP FROM TAM O'SHANTER.

There has been so much written about these wonderful Statues that every phrase of critical eulogy has been exhausted, and yet no connoisseur seems to have viewed them in a light in which they deserve peculiar commendation. They are less illustrations of Burns than pure creations of the Sculptor's superior imagination. The poet is entitled to no higher merit than giving the names to the group-the form, the individuality, the character of each and all is the sculptor's own. Illustrators of any author, poets especially, however much they may differ in detail, still form their ground-work so closely upon the conceptions or descriptions of that author, that the fidelity can be recognised in a moment by its resemblance to those main features of the original which leave their impress upon every mind; but here the poet left no germ for the sculptor to mature, he left no directions to guide his hand, no trait, no feature, no peculiarity for his chisel to delineate. So little did Burns think of them, that, while in other parts of his poem he enlarges his descriptions even to weakness, in the four hasty lines in which he introduces these matchless characters one is an expletive made for the rhyme with " gracious." Yet in the lines in which Burns despatched the scene, he touched, without knowing it, a mine of richness, out of which the greater genius of the artist has formed figures breathing with life, and endowed them

with traits of peculiar character which will become classic for ever; Burns mentioned the names of the Landlady, Tam O'Shanter, the Souter and Landlord, Thom has given them life, and form, and immortality.

We will not stop here to discuss the point which we have seen asserted that this group of statuary is the first attempt which has been made to embody the Comic in stone. In every ancient gallery there are Fauns and Satyrs with countenances of the broadest humour, and there are numberless grotesque specimens of the rude sculpture of the middle ages existing in which jollity and mirth are strongly expressed. But we will say that it requires a generic and altogether distinct, if not a higher order of mind to work out conceptions like the present, than to fashion all the Jupiters, and Minervas, and Centaurs in existence.

To give marble the form of the features in repose, and to chisel out the resemblance of the figure and the face, does not require the same power of intellect as to catch the expression ere it flies, and to stamp upon the almost animated stone, the very impulse of the moment;-the state, the feeling of the mind within. In these celebrated figures all this has been done, and done with such inimitable effect, that we might almost fancy some Merlin wand had petrified the very personages themselves in the exact instant when their uncontrolled enjoyment was at its happiest height.

The sketch of each figure is one of admirable effect, but the finest point in the execution, is the extreme felicity with which the artist has embodied the individual and separate traits, which enable us to read in every countenance, the presiding as well as constitutional feelings of the character.

We regret our space this month will not permit us to specify the individual excellencies of each statue in the group, which are so numerous and so striking that we could readily enlarge this sketch into an article.

And these have been the work of an untaught artist, all this has been accomplished not in the storied marble of academies, but in the coarse grey stone of the native mountains of the sculptor. We not only rejoice for the sake of Art it has been so, but we affirm it could not have been otherwise. The regulated taste of the schools never could have diverged from the classic coldness of its principles into such a glorious portraiture of nature. And what could be more appropriate than the very coarseness of the material to immortalize the conceptions of a country where the genius, and the stone, and the characters, are alike native and indigenous.

We suggest to the proprietor, that, as an exhibition, it would produce an effect incomparably greater, were there an arrangement made by scenes or masonry to represent the kitchen of the country inn, in which the figures are supposed to be seated.

Other Notices of the Fine Arts are unavoidably postponed.

HISTORICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS REGISTER.

PREPARED BY EDWIN WILLIAMS.

AUTHOR OF THE "N. Y. ANNUAL REGISTER," "GAZETTEER," &c.

We propose, under this head, to give in each number of the Knickerbocker, a selection of such subjects of interest as may be most useful and entertaining for the pages of a magazine, comprising not entirely details of passing events, but desultory sketches relative to the Political, Literary, and Geographical concerns of the United States, with occasional notices of Internal Improvements, Biographies of distinguished men, and extracts from European Periodicals.

LAFAYETTE PLACE.

WITH AN ELEGANT ENGRAVING.

There is no city in the Modern World, judging from the rapidity with which splendid structures are continually erected, has made greater progress towards the appropiate magnificence of a great metropolis, than New-York.

When we recollect that the very site now occupied by the stately ranges of Le Roy Place, Bond Street, and Le Grange Terrace, were but a few years past the seat of the forest and morass, we may well wonder at the advancement we have made, and almost ask in amazement if this be indeed the city where not a century since, the gable-fronted mansions of the Knickerbockers were considered the highest achmè of architectural splendour.

Of all the modern improvements which characterize our city, the sumptuous row of houses in Lafayette Place, called after the scat of the venerable Patriot, La Grange Terrace, and of which our publishers present an accurate engraving, is the most imposing and magnificent.

These costly houses are universally allowed to be unequalled for grandour and effect. They are built of white marble, the front supported by a rich collonade of fluted Corinthian columns, resting on the basement story, which is of the Egyptian order of architecture. They were designed and built entirely by Mr. Geer, and all the stone work was executed by the State prisoners at Sing-sing. One of the houses was sold not long since, for 26,500 dollars, a sum greatly below its value.

The President of the United States, Gen. Cass, Secretary of War, Mr. Taney, Attorney General, Major Barry, Post Master General, and Major Donelson, the President's Private Secretary, arrived in town on Monday evening. They were accompanied by a number of citizens from the district, Capt. Moore's company of National Cadets from Washington, Capt. Kinsey's company of Riflemen, and Capt. Brockett's Light Infantry of Alexandria, the Marine Band from the Navy Yard, as well as