An interesting volume of travels has been published by William Holdredge, entitled A Winter in Madeira, and a Summer in Spain and Florence. The author is understood to be the Hon. JOHN A. DIX, although his name is not appended to the volume. His description of Madeira will be read with interest, as an authentic account of a state of society, concerning which we have little information from modern travelers. His remarks on Spain and Florence are of a less novel character, but are every where distinguished for good sense, clearness of expression, and correctness of taste.

A neat volume adapted to the holiday season, is Gems by the Way Side, by Mrs. L. G. Abel (published by Wm. Holdredge), consisting of choice selections from favorite authors, with several tasteful embellishments.

An excellent service has been done to the cause of good learning by GEORGE P. PUTNAM, in the publication of a handsome volume, entitled The World's Progress, A Dictionary of Dates, edited by himself. The preparation of a work of this character demands such rare patience of labor, such habits of accurate research, such soundness and delicacy of judgment, and such devotion to the interests of knowledge, without the hope of great fame or profit by the enterprise, that the pioneers of literature who undertake it, are entitled at least to the cordial gratitude of every student and lover of letters. In the present volume, Mr. Putnam has collected a large amount of information, from distant and various sources, and arranged it in a lucid order, adapted to aid the investigations of the student, and to promote the facility of general reference. It consists of a series of tabular views of ancient and modern history, compiled from a previous manual by the Editor, and the full and accurate tables of Talboys—an Alphabetical Dictionary of Dates, founded on the well-known work of Joseph Haydn—a Chronological List of Authors, from the Companion to the British Almanac, with additions—a Table of the Heathen Deities—and a general Biographical Index. The task of the Editor has been performed, with diligence and fidelity, although, as he intimates in the preface, it can not be presumed that such a volume can be free from imperfections. We might direct his attention to several obvious errors for correction in a future edition; but we presume they have already been discovered by his vigilant eye.

Montaigne: The Endless Study and Other Miscellanies, is a translation from the French of ALEXANDER VINET, with an Introduction and Notes, by ROBERT TURNBULL (published by M. W. Dodd). The principal part of these Essays are addressed to the numerous class of cultivated minds, that with a profound sense of the beauty and grandeur of the Christian religion, have failed to receive it as a divine revelation, or as the authoritative guide of character and life. With regard to the author, we are informed by Dr. Turnbull, that "he was distinguished as much for simplicity as dignity of character, for profound humility as for exalted worth. Apparently as unconscious of his greatness as a star is of its light, he shed upon all around him a benignant radiance. In a word, he walked with God. This controlled his character, this shaped his manners. Steeped in holy love, he could not be otherwise than serene and gentle. He published a volume of philosophical criticisms, in which he discusses with uncommon depth and subtlety, but in language of exquisite clearness and force, some of the highest problems in philosophy and morals, and dissects the maxims and theories of such men as Montaigne, Voltaire, Rochefoucauld, Jouffroy, Cousin, Quinet, and Lamartine. His fine genius for philosophical speculation, in connection with his strong, common sense, and his unwavering faith in the Gospel are here strikingly developed." Among the subjects treated of in this volume, are the Character of Montaigne, The Idea of the Infinite, the Moral System of Jouffroy, The Claims of Heaven and Earth adjusted, and others of a similar bearing. They are discussed in the light of philosophical principles, and with a certain breadth of view, not always found in theological essays. The translator has not confined himself with rigid fidelity to the phraseology of the author, although for the sake of the vivacity and interest which it imparts, he occasionally retains the French idiom—a dangerous precedent to be adopted by unskillful hands.

Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, Boston, have published a collection of Orations and Speeches, by CHARLES SUMNER, comprising his Anniversary Discourses on The True Grandeur of Nations; The Scholar, The Jurist, The Artist, The Philanthropist; Fame and Glory; The Law of Human Progress; The War System of the Commonwealth of Nations; a Lecture on White Slavery in the Barbary States; Three Tributes of Friendship to Joseph Story, John Pickering, and Henry Wheaton; and several political Speeches, delivered within the last few years, on various occasions, in Massachusetts. They are adapted to sustain the high reputation of the author for extensive classical learning, an uncommon power of graceful and fertile illustration, and a glowing, and often gorgeous eloquence.

The Broken Bud (published by R. Carter and Brothers), is the title of a small volume of prose and poetry, intended as a tribute to the memory of a beloved child, by a bereaved mother, and containing many passages of touching pathos and genuine beauty.

Bardouac, or, The Goatherd of Mount Taurus, is a charming Persian Tale, translated from the French, in a style of great neatness and vivacity published by Crosby and Nichols, Boston.

G. P. Putnam has published Fadette, a new story by GEORGE SAND, illustrative of domestic life in France, translated by MATILDA M. HAYS. It is a tale of quiet, exquisite beauty, free from the morbid sentiment which abounds in the fictitious works of the modern French school, and rendered into graceful, idiomatic English by the accomplished translator.

R. Carter and Brothers have brought out a new edition of The Memoir of Rev. Alexander Waugh, the celebrated Scottish pastor in London, an admirable piece of religious biography, describing the life of a vigorous and noble-minded man.

J. S. Redfield has issued a little volume, with an uncommonly attractive exterior, entitled Chanticleer, a Thanksgiving Story, consisting of quiet descriptions of American country life and manners, set forth in the framework of a superficial and not very skillfully managed narrative. It contains some passages of considerable beauty, but as a whole, it has hardly sufficient freshness and fervor to produce a wide sensation.



A Leaf from Punch.

PREPARATORY SCHOOLS FOR YOUNG LADIES.

The Female Mind has hitherto been considered as a sort of fancy bazaar, in which all kinds of light articles are to be stowed away without regard to order or utility. If we could unlock the stores of female knowledge, such, at least, as the modern boarding-school supplies—we should find an extraordinary conglomeration of miscellaneous goods, bads, and indifferents, which though somehow or other reduced under one head, and that not always a strong one, are brought into a state of "disorder" which is, by us, at least, any thing but "admired." If we might be permitted the privilege of examining phrenologically the interior of a young lady's head, we should find not only what—but how completely—modern education has done for it. We will take any average boarding-school Miss, and instead of turning her organs into finger-organs, by merely passing our hands over the exterior bumps, we take the liberty of breaking her head at once, and looking directly into it.

We find Constructiveness in a state of entanglement with the quantity of crotchet and other fancy work in which it is completely bound up, for want of some more useful matter for the employment of this valuable quality; and on looking to the organ of Imitation, we see it exercised on a parcel of the most ridiculous airs and affectations, to say nothing of more dangerous qualities, set before it for the purpose of calling into practice its powers of copying. As to Number, its whole capacity seems to be concentrated on number one: and Comparison is clogged up with entire wardrobes, as if the only use of comparison to the female mind was to be its application to the respective bonnets, dresses, and articles of millinery worn by friends, enemies, or acquaintances. Causality shows us an instance of something like an appropriate application of the organ; for it is intended to be one of inquiry, and it is exercised certainly in a questionable manner, for it is constantly directed, by the modern system of female education, to the asking, How it is an "establishment" is to be gained? or, Why it is that one person has succeeded in getting a husband before another? Eventuality is devoted to the cognizance of no more important events than Births, Deaths, and Marriages; while Form, Size, and Color are exercised respectively on the noses, mustaches, and eyes of the other sex, the organ of Weight being brought to bear on the estimating of bankers' balances. Order goes wholesale to the dressmaker's; Ideality knows nothing of any ideal but a beau; and Time and Tune are clogged with all sorts of airs, calling into operation Destructiveness, as far as the keys of an instrument are concerned, and Secretiveness as far as any meaning is conveyed by the means of so much labor.

Having brought ourselves to the sad conclusion that the examination of a fashionably-educated female head reveals nothing but faculties mis-employed, and valuable material wasted on what is not material at all, we can not but express a wish that Ladies' Preparatory Schools could be established, in which the pupils might be fitted for the useful, as well as the ornamental parts of life, and where the fact of there being a kitchen as well as a drawing-room to every house would not be altogether lost sight of. If the world could be got through in a Polka, to the accompaniment of a cornet-a-piston, the boarding-schools of the present day would be well enough; but as there is a sort of every-day walk to be gone through, we should greatly appreciate any system of female education that should fit women to get through the world with us, instead of merely getting through our money.



In the first place, we would put into execution the great design of our artist, who has shown us a Preparatory School in which cookery should be studied as an art, and in which the dressing of a dinner would be learned as a matter of course—or of one, two, or three courses of lectures. There should be a regular series of instruction, from the shelling of a pea by the smallest class, to the achievement of the most exquisite Mayonnaise by the more advanced scholars. The young ladies would be taught not only how to make their entree into a drawing-room, but how to prepare an entree worthy of the dinner-table. We would have cookery inculcated in its most elementary form, and although we should shrink from any thing like harshness, we should not hesitate to put the beginners through a vigorous course of basting for the first year or so.

The rules of arithmetic could easily be adapted to the culinary art, and such propositions as

3 Eggs make one Omelette. 2 Omelettes make one Breakfast. 3 Breakfasts a la fourchette make one Dinner,

and other calculations of a similar kind, would make the young female student familiar with her tables not only in their ordinary sense, but with what her tables ought to furnish samples of. We would suggest, also, periodical examinations in the higher branches of cookery, and translations of English food into French dishes. The rendering of a small slice of beef into a filet pique aux legumes printaniers, would form an exercise quite as difficult, and certainly as useful, as any other conversion of English into French; and the proper garniture of a leg of mutton would be as great a trial to the taste as if it were employed on merely millinery trimmings.

We should be glad to see the establishment of a culinary college for young ladies, and though we would not exactly recommend the cramming system to the fairer sex, we think that beef and mutton would furnish quite as valuable food for their minds, as a great deal of that that is now put into them.

LADIES' ARITHMETIC

BY A CONFIRMED BACHELOR.

Ladies have quite a different system of calculation to what men have. Look at the peculiar way in which they calculate ages. Why! they are quite an age behind the present generation—at least, the generation of men—for a man is, figuratively, said, as he grows older, to approach into his second childhood, but a woman does so literally, inasmuch as she becomes every year one year younger—a rejuvenating process, by which, if she lived long enough, she would ultimately reach the happy period when she was carried about in long clothes, and took a tenacious delight, peculiar to babies, in pulling gentlemen's whiskers. In fact, I wonder that, carrying out this retrograde movement, a married lady, as she advances in years, does not re-appear on the stage of life as the ball-room girl, and throw off the matronly title of MRS., to put on the more flowery salutation of MISS. It would be more consistent with the representation of figures—we mean, arithmetical figures—though it might be a little at variance with the appearance of personal ones.

My belief is that the female mind has no correct sense of numbers. It belabors and rolls out figures as cooks do paste, making them as thick or as thin as it pleases to fit the object required. I have noticed a largeness or liberality of measurement in most of their calculations, which redounds greatly, in this calculating age, to the generosity of the sex. It is quite opposite to the self-measurement which they apply to themselves. Whereas the latter is distinguished by a narrowness of result which almost makes us suspect that Subtraction has been largely at work; the former is crowned with a roundness of figure which leads us strongly to accuse the sum total of having been gained by the corrupt agency of Addition. In fact my suspicions are so violent on this head, that I always adopt the following plan when I am at a loss to know:

HOW TO CORRECTLY ASCERTAIN THE AGE OF A LADY. I first ask the Lady accused her own age. I then inquire of her "dearest friends." I next ascertain the difference between the two accounts (which frequently varies from five years to forty), and, dividing that difference by 2, I add that quotient to the lady's own representation, and the result is the lady's age, as near as a lady's age can be ascertained.

EXAMPLE: MRS. WELLINGTON SEYMOUR gives herself out to be 28. Her friends, MRS. M'CABE, MRS. ALFRED STEVENS, MADAME CORNICHON, and MISS JERKINS, indignantly declare that they will eat their respective heads off if she is a day younger than 46. Now the disputed account stands thus:

Years MRS. SEYMOUR'S age, as represented by her friends, 46 MRS. SEYMOUR'S age, as represented by herself 28 ——- Difference between the two Accounts 18

That difference has to be divided by 2, which, I believe, will give 9. If that is added to MRS. SEYMOUR'S own statement, the result obtained will be the answer required. Accordingly MRS. WELLINGTON SEYMOUR'S age is 37—a fact, which, upon consulting the family Bible, I find to be perfectly correct—and I only hope MRS. S. will, some day, forgive me for publishing it. There are many other eccentricities in female arithmetic, such as increasing twofold the amount of a gentleman's fortune, and diminishing fiftyfold the amount of a lady's—and a general proneness, besides, to magnify figures, leading them, at times, into strange errors of exaggeration, which would debar them from following the profession of a penny-a-liner, or writing works of numerical fidelity, like "M'Culloch's Commercial Dictionary." But as I do not love the female mind particularly for its eccentricities, but rather for its beauties, I shall close the door upon this ungallant subject; for, if a woman is good and beautiful, it matters but little how old she is.

NETTING FOR LADIES.

Netting is now followed with so much ardor, as a female accomplishment, that one would think there is a great deal of net profit to be derived from it. The ladies' periodicals are full of instructions in this new popular art; and we have seen a couple of closely-printed columns devoted to directions for netting a mitten.

We had some thoughts of endeavoring to furnish the necessary instructions for netting a gentleman's nightcap, but we found that we should not have room for more than half of it, and that the tassel, at all events, would have to stand over till our next, and perhaps be continued in a still remoter Pocket-Book.

Being desirous of furnishing some instruction in Netting, to our female readers, we have thought of something within our compass, and beg leave to lay before them, our

DIRECTIONS FOR NETTING A HUSBAND.

Take as many meshes as are within your reach, and get the softest material you can to work upon. Go on with your netting as fast as ever you can work the material about with your meshes until you find you can turn it round your finger and thumb with the utmost facility. Let your netting-needles be very sharp; thread them double to prevent them from breaking; and we may observe, that silken ringlets serve exceedingly well as thread, when the work in hand is the netting of a husband. Always employ the brightest colors you can, and the final operation will be the joining together, which should be neatly finished off with a marriage knot, and the husband will be completely netted.



Winter Fashions.



Heavy, rich textures of silk have taken the place of the lighter stuffs used at the beginning of December. Brocards, satin princesse, antique moires, Irish poplins, and heavy chine silks, such as were worn by the belles who saw Washington inaugurated, are now in vogue. The latter material is called by the French camayeux. It is made of all colors, such as light violet upon dark violet; or, what is more beautiful, large white roses, hardly visible, and partly concealed by light green leaves upon a ground of dark green, forming an ensemble at once coquettish, brilliant, and extremely elegant. Plain poplins are much worn; also royal Pekin or black damask, trimmed with two broad flounces of Cambray lace. Instead of a corsage, a petite corsage of the same material is worn, wide open in front, and closed at the waist with two double buttons, or a large bow of ribbon.

FIGURE 2 represents this style of corsage. The edge is trimmed with lace or fullings of ribbon, the sleeves three-quarters long and in pagoda form. The same figure represents a very pretty style of head-dress. The cap is composed of plain tulle of the lightest description; upon one side of the head, partially covering the ear, is a bunch of roses, or other flowers, pendant.



FIGURE 1 represents a promenade and a morning costume. The PROMENADE COSTUME is a high silk dress; the waist and point long; the sleeves three-quarter length and wide at the bottom; the skirt long and exceedingly full; five volants are set on full, each being trimmed at a little distance from the edge by a narrow guimpe. Manteau of light brown cashmere, trimmed with velvet of the same color; closed up in front by four large brandebourgs. Bonnet of a very open form, trimmed entirely with plaid ribbon.



The MORNING COSTUME is a jupe of blue silk, very long and full, trimmed down the front with rows of velvet and small silk tassels, the form of an acorn. A cain de feu, a sort of jacket, of blue satin, of a darker shade than the jupe, the small skirt of which is of the Hungarian form. It is trimmed round with velvet and has tassels up the front to correspond with the skirt; the sleeves come but little below the elbow, wide at the bottom, and cut like the skirt. These are likewise trimmed with velvet. Cap of black lace, trimmed with a broad white ribbon, edged with pink.

FIGURE 3 shows a new style of plain velvet bonnet, of rich green. It is made very deep; trimmed with velvet. Satins are made in the same form, of a dark color, the interior of the fronts lined with white, rose, or any other fresh color. These are ornamented with branches of flowers of velvet, or noeuds of plaid ribbon, half velvet and half satin, the colors harmonizing with the bonnet.

There are small bonnets of white or pink plush, having for their sole ornament a single bow of satin ribbon, or a ribbon velonte at the sides. This style is very elegant, and particularly adapted for very young ladies, especially when trimmed with a deep fall of rich lace. Those made of pink satin, and trimmed with blonde, forming a bunch upon the side of the exterior, the interior being filled entirely with rows of narrow blonde, are exceedingly graceful.

A new style of fringe for ball dresses has lately been introduced. It is extremely light, and composed of a mixture of white and gold, which forms a splendid trimming when placed upon a triple skirt of white tulle. It is also made of pink and silver, which has a beautiful effect upon a dress of pink crape; splendid bouquets of beautiful flowers being arranged so as to loop up the skirts on either side.

A new and greatly admired style for EVENING DRESSES, called d'Adrienne, has lately been brought out in Paris. It is made of the richest materials. The corsage is extremely low, and forms a very deep point, its ornaments being placed en coeur upon the centre of the front. The skirt is open, and is ornamented upon the two sides with streamers of ribbon and noeuds of pearls. The under-skirt of satin is enriched with an echelle of lace or a triple falbalas, the two extremities of which are disposed so as to join the noeuds upon the upper dress.

An elegant addition to a lady's toilet has been recently brought out, which recalls the mantillas worn by the Maltese ladies. It consists of a kind of pelisse, fulled into the narrow band around the throat, which is concealed by a small collar, having for ornament a volant or frill of Chantilly lace. The lower part of the pelisse, as well as the sleeves, is encircled with four rows of Chantilly lace, surmounted with rows of narrow velvet or watered ribbons, forming a pretty heading. This little garment is extremely elegant for places of amusement, made in pink, blue, or white satin, and trimmed with Brussels or English point lace.

Fringes and Cambray lace will be much used this season in the decoration of dresses. Feathers will be much worn, some in touffes, and others simply the long single feather, passing over the entire front of the bonnet.

* * * * *

Transcriber's note

The following changes have been made to the text:

p. 161: "Abiit aa plures" changed to "Abitt ad plures".

p. 163: "female visiters" changed to "female visitors".

p. 163: Sultan Amu rath, forcing" changed to "Sultan Amurath, forcing".

p. 168: "some conistency" changed to "some consistency".

p. 181: "triumphal entry I to" changed to "triumphal entry into".

p. 184-185: "un less" changed to "unless".

p. 188: "gabe's coat" changed to "Gabe's coat".

p. 188: "excleimed" changed to "exclaimed".

p. 192: "slided" changed to "slid".

p. 193: "converstaion" to "conversation".

p. 202: "Worsworth's sonnets" changed to "Wordsworth's sonnets".

p. 202: "Peneroso" changed to "Penseroso".

p. 209: "misserable" changed to "miserable".

p. 213: "desire waxed as her life waxed" changed to "desire waxed as her life waned".

p. 215: "to to the world" changed to "to the world".

p. 219: "conscience-striken" changed to "conscience-stricken".

p. 226: "lovelv July" changed to "lovely July".

p. 226-227: in dulge" changed to "indulge".

p. 234: "a better without" changed to "a better one without".

p. 255: "Rickey bockey" changed to "Rickeybockey".

p. 266: "held to be the privvilege" changed to "held to be the privilege".

p. 274: "plenipotentaries" changed to "plenipotentiaries".

p. 276: "Damuscus in their shirts" changed to "Damascus in their shirts".

p. 288: "cachmere" changed to "cashmere".

THE END