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New Books.

AMERICA: ITS REALITIES AND RESOURCES: Comprising important details connected with the present social, political, agricultural, commercial, and financial state of the country, its laws and customs, together with a review of the policy of the United States, that led to the war of 1812, and peace of 1814. The "Right of Search "The Texas and Oregon Questions, &c., &c. By FRANCIS WYSE, Esq. 3 vols. 8vo. London: T. C. Newby.

Ir any truth be allowed to physiognomy as regards man, surely the same should be allowed to books; and considering the title page of a book as its face, we may be allowed to predicate of its contents and style therefrom. We are not about to enter upon the defence of what has been said to be a common mode of criticising books, but merely on a little theorising of our own. A plethoric countenance bespeaks a plethoric habit of body, and a stuffed title-page indicates a tendency to redundancy in the book. And we think this is verified in Mr. Wyse's; there is a great deal of valuable matter in his book, but it may be questioned if it would not have been more serviceable if it had been more compressed: if it had been less abounding in dissertation and detail, and more pregnant with observation and judgment. We must however take it as it is, and we are very glad to do so. It contains an immense deal of information collected during a long residence, and must be received as one of the fairest, as it is one of the fullest, accounts of the actual state of the great western nation.

We regret to say that it is not on the whole very favourable to the Americans; and although there is nothing in it that will strengthen the aristocratic theory, yet there is much that will prove there may be a very close approach to pure democracy, without producing that perfection of character which has ever been the aim of democratic philosophy. According to Mr. Wyse's testimony, there is an amount of open and flagitious corruption in public functionaries, which we had hitherto been led to suppose could be the result only of the noxious influence of a decaying monarchy. And the charge thus made receives a kind of indirect confirmation, from the threats lately used in Congress as to the corruption of the President himself,-a charge which, if ever made here by any crack-brained opponent, would not find the slightest echo in the bitterest enemy of the minister. There appears also to be a tricking and chicanery, and looseness in the morality of all classes, painful to contemplate, and which should be narrowly weighed and attentively considered by those who maintain that public morality is the effect and not the origin of the law. Let us hope, however, that this is not more the case than in other commercial countries: and that if it is, that it results

rather from a struggling and ill-conditioned youth than from any tendency of free institutions to cause it. The extraordinary stimulus given. to enterprise and speculation by their particular territorial position has doubtless much to do with it. We have an example amongst ourselves, in the Jews, what a peculiar character will be produced by circumstances driving the energies into one channel. We place implicit confidence in the generous tendencies of mankind, and trust that the enlightenment of genius, developing a true religion, will breed in this great nation a sense of right and goodness, for their own sakes, that will ultimately make them foremost amongst the regenerated races of mankind. They have no hereditary prejudices to contend with, they are not encumbered with the dead weight of ancient notions, preventing their pursuing the right way, when they find it.

Mr. Wyse has written his book principally as a guide to the emigrant, and is exceedingly full in all information relating to the subject. His style is remarkably plain and distinct, and at the same time is not destitute of a certain charm, arising from earnestness of purpose, and good clear sense. He possesses also descriptive powers that will afford entertainment to the mere literary reader. Notwithstanding the vast number of works by residents and travellers in America, we do not know of one so comprehensive in its view, so abundant in its details, and on the whole so temperate and conclusive in its observations. It is a book that it will profit every emigrant and trader to America to be acquainted with: and must deeply interest every intelligent reader taking interest either in the great political questions connected with the Oregon or Texas territories, or in the condition of a race on whose development the solution of so many political problems depend,

LIVES OF THE KINGS OF ENGLAND, FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST, with Anecdotes of their Courts, now first published from official records and other authentic documents. By THOMAS ROSCOE, Esq. Vol. I. Post 8vo. London: H. Colburn.

Ir might very well be concluded, on the first sight of this volume, that we already knew enough of the subject, and that the labours of the illustrious historians we possess, from Carte to Thierry, must have exhausted it. Of the public life and political effects it is probable that we have already a sufficiency of narratives, but of the private it is equally true we possess none. Whoever has read attentively the great historians must be aware that they have left behind a vast mass of details unsuitable to their views, and which history, proper, could never introduce. Chartularies, chronicles, letters, and indirect evidences of all kinds, they must and have searched, but only for the details or purposes of political events. It is therefore very serviceable as well as interesting to have such works as the one, lately reviewed, by Mr. Wright, and the present as illustrations of character and manners that could never otherwise reach the general reader.

The public is more particularly indebted for the present series to the success of Miss Strickland's "Lives of the Queens of England," a work written with great taste and research. It cannot, however, be termed a servile following out of that lady's idea, because it is extremely desirable that there should be substantive and separate biographies of the kings, as an aid and addition to any History of England. All biography must be instructive if properly executed, and these will be particularly so, as not only developing character, but as opening new stores of information relative to ancient manners and customs; affording thus not only a biography of the kings, but indirectly, if it may be so termed, a biography of the nation.

Mr. Roscoe's long apprenticeship to literature, and his devotion to literature of a kindred nature, admirably fit him for the task. It would appear that although not a professed antiquary, he has possessed himself of documents either not accessible to, or neglected by previous writers; and it is certainly evident that of all the known sources he has amply availed himself. We could have wished that his style had been less ornate and fluent; that it had a deeper shade, even of rust, and that it had not glittered with so modern a burnish. A staider and stiffer style would better have become this dim and remote period. A too great familiarity of style produces a confusion of ideas; and although we have nothing quite so outrageous as we once met with in a translation of Plutarch's Lives, namely, that "Julius Cæsar leaving the forum, took a hackney-coach and proceeded to Pompey's house;" yet there is so completely a modern air thrown into the narrative, that we feel inclined to say " that Conqueror was a very pretty fellow." Undoubtedly matters and things were as fresh and new in the Conqueror's days as now, but still it was not in the same kind of fashion; and we cannot conceive him in Wellington boots and strapped trousers, with a fieldmarshal's hat and epaulettes. Whatever may be thought on this point, the work is never dull, and to those not very deeply versed in the subject is an indispensable adjunct to a History of England,

EMILIA WYNDHAM. By the Author of "Two Old Men's Tales," "Mount Sorel," &c. 3 vols. Post 8vo. London: H, Colburn.,

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THE authoress of this romance (for that it is a lady's writing we are quite convinced, despite the thin pretences interspersed through its pages to the contrary),-this authoress, we say, has gained a considerable герцtation by the publication of her first novel, "Two Old Men's Tales," a tale of adultery, detailed so as to pourtray all the melodramatic horrors possibly attendant on that crime. Having gained this reputation in the circulating library, and having also gained a confirmation of it from other dispensers of "immortality," we think ourselves bound to examine into the validity of these judgments. We cannot say we agree with them, although it is not to be denied that the authoress has

a kind of talent that raises her productions somewhat above the general run of novel writers. But that she is wise, passionate, or natural, we must deny. She has a common-place kind of good sense, is extremely sentimental, and occasionally very real. How far these qualifications are from true genius let any reader judge by reading one of her sentimental scenes, and then perusing any truly passionate one; for instance, let him open anywhere in Shakespeare, and he will immediately detect the false from the true: not only in form of language, imagination, or illustration-for of course in those particulars there could not be a fair comparison with any writer-but in the pure development of human emotion. Let him make the same comparison as regards the justness of her reasoning, or the strength of her observation, with Irving or Hood, or the unknown author of Tales of a Voyager," and he will immediately perceive how deficient in originality or acuteness the authoress of "Emilia Wyndham" is. Let the same process, as regards what is somewhat curiously termed her "natural" power, be tested by Fielding or Miss Austen, or even Mrs. Gore, and it will be immediately perceived that her power of describing the real is on a par with her wisdom and her passion.

"Emilia Wyndham" is a popular novel because it is an exciting novel: but it is by no means, therefore, a work of genius, or to be ranked with works of genius, any more than the "Castle Spectre" should be with "Hamlet," or the "Man of Feeling" with "Don Quixote." It is but a mere novel, and as such rather injurious than otherwise inasmuch as it falsely stimulates the emotions by combinations and situations which are improbable though perhaps not actually impossible, and which are introduced and heightened for the purpose of working on the feelings. All works that merely stimulate the appetite for sensation have an evil tendency, because they excite the feelings unnecessarily, and nature always avenges this proceeding by a reaction. It is well known that persons particularly sensitive to fictitious woes, are by no means so to real ones. The man who could eloquently descant upon and delight to picture in all its horror the distresses of Chatterton with the pen wet in his hand, refused the smallest assistance to a brother author similarly situated. And why so? Because the picture raised by the one object did not affect him as the other did, and because sentimentality has nothing to do with real feeling. It is a mere mirage arising from "the heatoppressed brain," and totally different from the spontaneous offspring of genuine philanthropy. To excite the emotions is a very commonplace art but to correct the feelings by the revealment of true wisdom is the office of genius. More tears have been shed at "Venice Preserved" and "Isabella" than perhaps at any of Shakspeare's or the great dramatists' plays; but the latter do more than fulfil the mission of Holcroft or Fitzball: they inform, enlarge, and elevate the soul. We learn to contemplate humanity with their eyes; and our vision is informed with an intensity of which we had no previous idea.

"Emilia Wyndham" has no such object, and the authoress has no idea

of any such aim. She does all that cleverness can. She is aware of her own tendency to the sentimental and the melodramatic, and continually restrains with a consciousness unpleasantly obvious, and with a prosaicness discordant to her temperament, the vehemence of her delineations. She appears like a formalist of the severest kind superinduced on a character of great impulsiveness: a Quakeress with a most volatile disposition. The consequence is, we have scenes of a vehement kind interlarded with gravest proprieties: the utmost deference to established and conventional proprieties, with a continued struggle to escape from them. This antagonism of the real and the ideal, this making characters to pattern, and this endeavour to inform them with a will and idiosyncracy of their own, produces certainly bookcreatures with names and actions, but not human beings, and must not be taken for delineation of human character. Common-place readers take a great deal on trust; they have only to have here and there a bit of reality, and they take all the rest for granted. They easily are led to imagine the possibility of the scene, and the writer has then nothing to do but to "pile the agony," and the emotion is raised: the tears fall, and the writer's power being felt in one particular, is pronounced a genius. Of the utility of such a process we have already expressed our opinion. It is the result of a trick, and, like all such results, in the long run hardens instead of softens, misleads instead of instructs. True tragic power lies much deeper than this, and never moves the emotions without expanding the understanding. Talent is abundant, genius is rare; to the latter we cannot devote too much attention, of the former we cannot be too careful. The one has civilised mankind; it may be doubtful if the other works not for as much evil as good. At all events, it is the duty of every one to take care that the authority of genius is not given falsely to products not entitled to it; and it is because this has been done, that we are more careful to record our opinion of "Emilia Wyndham.”

HISTORY OF CIVILISATION. BY WILLIAM ALEXANDER MACKINNON, F.R.S., M.P. In 2 volumes. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans. 1846.

THE idea was a happy one of selecting public opinion to serve as the thermometer of civilisation, and this alone would entitle Mr. Mackinnon's work to an attentive perusal. But it is not the original idea alone that is ingenious: its development exhibits much ability, and the truths it teaches are conveyed in a terse and elegant style. Not that we can adopt all Mr. Mackinnon's views; on several points he appears to us to decide upon insufficient data, and to reach his conclusions per saltum. He deals too harshly with all the inferior forms of civilisation, and exaggerates the benefit conferred on the world by the existing phasis of it. With him, however, we acknowledge that great progress has been made, and that although we have not as yet at