Among the cheapest and most attractive books for children which we have met with are the recently published _Munich Bilderbücher_, or picture-books, consisting of thin folios of all manner of neatly-designed fancies, many of them by eminent artists. They contain fairy tales, humorous sketches, historical illustrations, and a vast number of pictures in the well-known _Slovenly Peter_ style, but far more attractive. Many are colored, and the publisher has judiciously printed a number on thick, parchment-like paper, well adapted to withstand the wear and tear of the nursery.
Books are no longer written in Latin. For literature and learning that good old language has finally given way, in almost every country, during the present century. In the United States there have been produced some fifty volumes in Latin since the Revolution, nearly all of which are by foreigners. The Life of Washington, by Francis Glass, a western schoolmaster, is the most considerable contribution to Latin literature by a native American. In Europe only a few pedantic churchmen continue to write to dead nations, and it is perhaps well enough that they should do so, since scarce any of them have fit thoughts for the living age, or for tongues that have been used by free and thinking men. We find an exception to the prevailing law in _De Caroli Timothei Zumptii Vita et Studiis Narratio August. Wilh. Zumptii_. Every body is familiar with the name of Zumpt as that of one of the most learned Latinists of the last half century, and it is appropriate that his life should be written in a language to the study and illustration of which it was almost entirely devoted. The Lives of Hemsterhuys by Ruhnken, of Ruhnken by Wyttenbach, and of Wyttenbach by Mahne, have long been the delight of scholars, and have furnished some of the best specimens of modern Latinity. Zumpt will not take rank among philologers with these great lights of the eighteenth century, but he rendered services to learning which will deserve a memorial, and in moral qualities he was not inferior to any of them. He became in succession a teacher in other Gymnasia in Berlin, and ultimately Professor of History in the Military College, and of Latin Eloquence in the University. He published the first edition of his celebrated _Grammar_ in 1818, and it soon became known throughout the civilized world. Of his other publications the most considerate is his edition of the _Verrine Orations of Cicero_; his _Dissertations on the Population of the Ancient World, De Legibus Judiciisque Repetundarum_, and several others, show that he was well versed in antiquities, but grammar, criticism, and style were his proper field. Wolf pronounced himself and Zumpt the only men in Berlin who could write Latin. His incessant labors undermined his constitution, and brought on a premature decay; and for some time before his death he had become entirely blind. He died at Carlsbad in 1849.