e author of.

* * * * *

The most noticeable event connected with literature in this country is
an arrangement entered into between a New-York publisher and THOMAS H.
BENTON, for the publication of the _Historical Memoirs of the Life and
Times_ of that eminent person. Mr. Benton is now about sixty-eight years
of age, and for half a century he has been an active participant in
affairs. He was thirty years a senator from Missouri, to which state he
removed some time before its admission to the Union. His name has been
connected with many great measures, and very few have exercised a more
powerful influence upon our institutions or policy. The increase of his
strength, as well as the increase of his fame, has been gradual but
regular. He has been from his youth a student. To every question which
has arrested his attention he has brought all the forces of his
understanding, and what he has acquired by incessant and painful labor
he has to an astonishing degree retained after the occasions which made
it necessary have passed. At a period much beyond the noon of other men,
he was still rising. He was of the age at which Cicero achieved his
highest triumphs, before he displayed the fullness and the perfection of
his powers, in several of the remarkable debates which have had relation
to our empire on the Pacific. With his extraordinary experience, his
faithful and particular memory, and wisdom which is master of his
temper, he is perhaps before every man of his time in the requisites for
such an undertaking as that which has occupied his leisure for many
years, and the chief portion of his time since he ceased to be a
senator. His work will probably make some five large octavo volumes, and
it may be believed that in fame, authority, and length of life, it will
equal the immortal production of Clarendon.

* * * * *

A new _Life of Mr. Jefferson_ is soon to be published by Mr. RANDALL,
who has been honorably distinguished in his connection with the
government of this state. The work will embrace a very interesting
sketch of the private life of Mr. Jefferson, by Mr. Thomas Jefferson
Randolph, the statesman's grandson and executor. Whatever we may think
of the abilities or the special services of Mr. Jefferson, we are of
that large number who regard his principles as altogether erroneous and
injurious, and his character with little respect. The time is coming in
whi