THE BRITISH ESSAYISTS.--Messrs. Little & Brown have begun the publication of a series of the old British Essayists, similar in form to their neat and cheap edition of the British Poets. No literary man, we are sure, but will rejoice at the prospect, which this holds out, of his procuring these famous classics at a price, and in a shape, adapted alike to the requirements of his pocket and his taste. As pictures of the manners and habits of the times in which they were written, these papers possess a high historical value: as repositories of fine sentiment and good-natured criticism, they are scarcely less valuable; and as specimens of graceful English and refined humor, they will never pass out of memory. The time was when no young scholar's education was thought to be at all complete until he had read the Tatler, the Guardian, and the Spectator; and even now, though these have been superseded by the grander and more vigorous writings of the modern essayists, they may furnish many an hour of quiet, genial, and delightful entertainment. Indeed, it may be questioned whether the old essayists are not more indispensable now than ever, to a thorough English culture, not for the thought or feeling they contain, so much as for the chastity and simplicity of expression, the delicate pathos, and the quiet humor for which they are distinguished.

We have said that the modern essayists are grander and more vigorous: we might have added, that they are marked by other characteristics, such as depth of philosophical discernment, and variety and brilliancy of illustration, which give them an immeasurable superiority to their elder predecessors; but it cannot be denied, at the same time, that the influences of such writers as Macaulay, Carlyle, Coleridge, Wilson, Hazlitt, Talfourd, De Quincey, Sydney Smith, and others, especially upon style, are sometimes to be lamented. They have produced, upon younger and susceptible minds, a tendency to a merely florid and swelling diction, which has greatly damaged the purity of our literature. We have been led to write, a great many of us, for effect simply; the old ease and

AND

REPRINTS.

raciness is lost. We strain, and puff, and blow, at our sentences, like a porpoise making his way off the shallows; and the result is, too much intensity, paroxysm, and glitter. As a corrective, then, to the easily besetting sins of our existing literature, and, by no means, as supplying its place, we would heartily commend the study of the old essayists to young authors. They will there find much elegance; fine wit; naive and sagacious sketches of character; agreeable descriptions of manners; correct sentiments, and a pleasant translation of philosophy, as Steele says, "from closets, books, and libraries, to club-houses, tea-tables, and coffee-rooms"-enough to repay the most patient perusal-but they must not expect to find profound criticism, earnest communion with nature and the human soul, or very lofty ethics. Mr. Thackeray, we are aware, in his lecture upon Addison, described the religious side of his nature in a passage so beautiful that we would feign to believe in its truth, for the sake of the sweet picture which it paints. He says: "When Addison looks from the world, whose weaknesses he describes so benevolently, up to the Heaven, which shines over us all, I can hardly fancy a human intellect thrilling with a purer love and adoration than Joseph Addison's. It seems to me, his words of sacred poetry shine like stars. They shine out of a great, deep calm. When he turns to heaven a sabbath comes over that man's mind, and his face lights up from it with a glory of thanks and prayer: his sense of religion stirs his whole being. In the fields, in the town-looking at the birds in the trees, at the children in the streets; in the morning or in the moon-light, over his books in his own room, in a happy party at country merry-making, or a country assembly, good-will and peace to God's creatures, and love and awe of him who made them, fill his pure heart and shine from his kind face." Now we would not deny the sweet, genial, self-complacent, and happy nature of Addison, but think that the great satirist has exaggerated the goodness of Addison, as he did the malignity of Swift. We admit the great serenity

and cheerfulness of the Saturday papers in the Spectator; but we discover, also, some common-place, and not always the depth and earnestness of conviction which the truly religious mind manifests and requires. But we shall quarrel with no one who finds in an author more than we are able to do.

LIVES OF THE BRITISH HISTORIANS.— There is a room, in one of the palaces at Florence, devoted to portraits of the Painters, by some of their own number, of course, and we are reminded of it by this Lives of the Historians. They who made pictures, become themselves the subjects of pictures, and those who wrote histories, furnish the materials of new histories. It is an excellent thought which suggests this volume. We have had separate accounts of most of the great historians-of Raleigh, Clarendon, Burnet, Hume, Gibbon, Smollet, and others-but no work in which they were grouped together and their stories told in chronological order. Mr. LAWRENCE, the author, has acquitted himself of the task with great credit. Beginning with the early chroniclers, such as Bede, Ingulphus, Matthew Paris, etc., of whom little is known, he comes down to Charles James Fox, giving copious details of the more important personages, and characterizing them, both as men and authors, with discrimination and judgment. The sketches of Hume and Gibbon are particularly well done; and that of Goldsmith, though he was not strictly a historian, is lively and generous. We could wish that the plan of the writer had embraced the modern historians, such as Lingard, Hallam, Lord Mahon, and Macaulay, that the work might have been rendered more complete. But, perhaps, these are reserved for an additional volume.

-MR. WALTER M. GIBSON, who, for some time past, has been flying like a shuttlecock between the American and Dutch Governments, and who has given our Chargé at the Hague the only real business he has had these ten years, has put his adventures, which led to the difficulty, into a book. It is called the Prison of Weltevreden, and a Glance at the East Indian Archipelago, and we have passed several hours of pleasant reading over it. The author appears to have been inoculated early with a love for roaming, by a roaming uncle of his, and possessing

himself in some way of a smart, pretty, rakish-looking, little top-sail schooner, called the "Flirt," sailed, after a short cruise on the coast of Brazil, for the East Indies, which had long been the dream of his ambition. Arrived in Sumatra, he became the object of united attention, on the part of the mingled population of Minto and Pomerang. The Arabs and Malays are disposed to regard him as their deliverer from Dutch oppression, the Chinamen as a rich trader looking out for bargains, and the Dutch themselves, as a secret agent of the filibustering Yankee nation ready always to pounce upon the globe generally in some annexing foray. He sees, however, a great deal of these several peoples, and has given very animated descriptions of their characteristics and mode of life. But at last the Dutch suspicions become so strong that he is rudely arrested by the authorities, thrown into prison, and abominably outraged for a great length of time. If this part of Mr. Gibson's narrative be true-and we see no reason to doubt itour government ought, long since, to have settled his case with the Hollanders in the Jacksonian method. Captain Hollins and the "Cyane," sent to Amsterdam or Batavia, instead of Greytown, would have accomplished a good deal more for our diplomacy and character. That the rover sailing about among the islands of the East, with no cargo on board for purposes of trade, and no arms for defense, showing that he was neither merchant nor privateer, should have excited the distrust of the jealous monopolists of Java, is but natural; but there was nothing in his conduct to justify the ill treatment he received. Yet he does not dwell much on his personal grievances, so that his book is one almost inclusively of adventure-of adventure romantic enough, too, to arrest a novelreader, even in the midst of his second volume. With a quick eye and lively sensibilities, he seizes whatever there is strange or striking in the life of this unknown region, and describes it with a bold, free hand. No part of the globe, except the Poles and the interior of Africa, is less known to the civilized world than the islands of the eastern seas, and every truthful record concerning them is a contribution to knowledge.

Mr. Gibson, we are glad to see, takes the humane view of the degraded races of

the East, and for the Malays seems to cherish an affection. One of our poets speaks of

"The dark, false Malay, uttering gentle
words,"

and Mr. Gibson, while he does not deny their falsehood, superinduced by the harsh treatment they have received from superior races, extols their gentleness. He thinks that, under a wise and firm, but kind discipline, they might be raised to a high order of civilization. They love poetry and the dance, and have carried a few arts, as well as good living, to some degree of refinement. Their mythology resembles that of the Greeks, while they have native improvisatores, like the Italians. One of the latter extemporized a song for Mr. Gibson, during a visit he made to the house of a Malayan gentleman, in praise of a certain princess, which we copy.

"ZAYDEC KAMALA.
"Illustrious princess! flawless gem;
Beautiful night in the Ulu;
Bright ray of the morning light,
Shining on Gunung (1)-Dempoh.

"Face of the moon, fourteen days old,
Hue of gold, ten times refined,(2)
Hearts of men of Passumah
Fuller than coffers of company.

"The kancheel(3) gave its form,
The melati(4) stem its bend,
Melati blooms no fragrance
By the flower of Ulu.

"Flawless gem of Passumah,
Dazzling eyes of men,
Modest eyelash drooping
Like the waringin (5) shade.

"Tender voice of the laweet(6)
Moaning its absent mate,

Proud voice of white-maned waves
Lashing karang(7) nagosurie.

"Light of eyes, substance of heart,
Life of the fainting soul,
Allah blesses: men adore;
Flawless gem of Passumah."

The explanations of the references are: (1) the Mountain of Dempoh, lofty, rugged, and inaccessible, where the mystic nymphs reside: (2) the golden skin is the standard of female beauty among the Malayan women: (3) a little musk deer which lives among the crags of Dempoh: (4) a small, cream-white festival flower: (5) the drooping limbs of the banyan: (6) the seaswallow: (7) the coral-ledges. The fifth stanza presents a contrast which seems to us strongly poetic, where the soft voice of

the maiden is compared to that of the seaswallow, described as remarkably sweet and plaintive; as the "proud" voice, to the waves which lash the coral-ledges on which they build. Mr. Gibson saw the "flawless gem" afterwards-a woman of astonishing grace and beauty-worthy of the strains of the poet.

During this same visit he also saw one of the Orang Kubu, a hairy man, of Sumatra, of whose existence, we believe, the ethnologists doubt; but Mr. Gibson cannot, without disputing his own eyesight. They are covered with a soft, glossy hair, over the whole body, but in other respects are entirely human, with tall. strong forms, and rather pleasing expression of face. The story among the Malays is, that they inhabit the trees of the inte rior, have no religion or political society, live upon fish and fruits, and utter short, grunting sounds for words. They are described as even inferior to the Papuans or Hottentots, and as a kind of connecting link in natural history between the orangoutang and man. Mr. Gibson's attempt to penetrate into the interior, to find this strange race of beings, was one cause of his being arrested by the Dutch. His book, save what the boatswain said of the first chapters, which have "too much fancy tackle on board, and a long while in getting to sea among the pirates and Dutch," is exceedingly interesting; and quite forces one to believe, with the author, that "Sumatra, only thought of along with tigers, pirates, and pepper, is, perhaps, the last refuge of romance on earth." Strong-minded women, who la ment the oppressions of their lords, would find it an excellent place of exile, as the women are equal to the men, and, in some of the islands, bear exclusive sway.

The illustrative wood-cuts of the volume might have been a great deal better.

DR. DORAN'S BOOKS.-Mr. Redfield has republished the several volumes of Dr. Doran, which have achieved some popularity in England, and will be even more widely read in this country. They are of a garrulous miscellaneous nature, full of historical anecdote and curious learning, manifesting a rare memory for odd things, and written with considerable vivacity of style. His first work, on Habits and Men, is an entertaining creed of everything that relates to raiment and its wearer, from the

wig to the shoc-buckle, and from Adam, in his fig-leaf, to Count D'Orsay, in his newest gloves, not omitting the mysteries of female toilet, even the tiring-bowers of queens, nor the melancholy lives of illustrious tailors. His second, on Table-Traits, performs a similar chatty and historical service towards the food of man, and his method of taking it, from the birds'-nests of the Mantcheous to the banquets of the Lord Mayor, interspersed with a marvelous variety of small wit, persiflage, sentiment, and after-dinner philosophy. The author seems to have been at all "the feasts," and "stolen the scraps," out of which he furnishes many a good repast, not always dainty, but always piquant, and worked down with bumpers of sparkling talk. He is, it will be seen, a kind of modern Athenæus, and writes of eating and drinking, as well as of dressing, with all the enthusiasm, if not all the science, of a Brillat-Savarin. For continuous reading, his books are, of course, as tedious as a jest book; but, for occasional tastes and sips, for the long, dull hour on a rail-road, or the still longer day in the country, they are charming. The Doctor runs on with such a glib and voluble tongue, saying so much that is old in a new way, and so much that is odd with good sense, that one is cheated out of his perception of the triviality of it by its liveliness. He is a gossip, but a gossip who has read widely, and easily recalls all that he has read. His latest work, Lives of the Queens of England, of the Hanoverian branch, is historico-anccdotal like the other,' but with far more literary pretension. There is less of the anecdote, and more of the historical in them; and just at this time, when Thackeray has been entertaining the town with his view of the four Georges, it is quite appropriate to give us a view of the four Georges' wives. They were, none of them, the most exemplary persons in the world, and ought, perhaps, to be allowed to moulder in peace among their fellow-worms; but the public think differently, and will read and hear of these titled people. For our own part, we should think that the biographies of the gentlemen who frequent Johnny Walker's sparring saloon, and of the ladies who set the fashion in their circle, would be quite as edifying there is less splendour in the circumstances of these, and less contagion in their example, because of their obscuri

ty; but, in most other respects, they are quite as sweet and wholesome as their illustrious and courtly prototypes. Providence seems to have set the seal of its disapprobation upon all social arrangements, which exempt men and women from a direct relation and responsibility to their race, by involving them in the most atrocious vices, and the profoundest misery. More unmitigated brutes than these Georges, and more wretched women than their wives, it would be hard to find: indeed, if the stories that are told of their most unnatural dealings with each other were related in novels, or exhibited in plays, they would be universally condemned as improbable and untrue; and yet they were berhymed by the poets, worshiped by politicians, respected by their subjects, and canonized, almost, by the church! Fraud, fatuity, folly, cruelty, malice, uncleanness, licentiousness, and a self-indulgence quite incredible, are the words which describe their transaction; and what Madame de Maintenon said in her time appears to be true of all courtiers-that none are more to be pitied unless it might be those that envy them. Dr. Doran has had a rich field of materials at his command, in the various records of Harvey, Walpole, Malmsbury, Miss Burney, and others, and he has made diligent use of them, in giving a connected narrative of the mingled misery and pageantry of the unhappy victims of a false society. He does not avoid the scandalous parts of their affairs in his narrative, nor does he dwell upon them as a writer of more prurient fancy might be tempted to do. Without disguising the vices and weaknesses of his country's rulers, he, on the other hand, betrays no vulgar desire to exaggerate them, as if vice were peculiar to high life, and not the universal liability of human nature. His subject invites one to a good deal of moralizing, but he has judiciously left that, in most cases, to the reader.

LIPPINCOTT'S GAZETTEER.-If we were asked to point out the best gazetteer of the day, we could give but one answer-the recent one of Lippincott & Co., of Philadelphia. It has been prepared with greater assiduity and minuteness of care than any other that we know, and is more complete in its details than any other. We do not mean simply that it contains more names than any other, but that what is said about these

names evinces a greater desire to be correct and full. Special attention has been given to the spelling of names, and where several forms are adopted, in common usage, they are all given with reference to the other. The value of a work of this kind must depend, as it it remarked in the preface, on two things-first, the accuracy of its information, and second, the facility of its references-in both which respects this gazetteer is eminent. Founded upon Johnson's Geographical Dictionary, and the Imperial Gazetteer-the leading publications, in that way, of England--it yet contains three times as many titles as the former, and two and a half times as many as the latter, with all the latest additions to our knowledge of places, made by recent travel, etc. An important feature in it, also, is, that it gives the pronunciation of proper names, according to a uniform and judicious system, with the ancient or classical names of the places, the adjectival appellation of their inhabitants, often, too, the signification of the name in the original, and a valuable table of the Colleges and Professional Schools of the United States.

MORE NOVELS.-In classing together, in our last number, several recent novels, some of which we thought good, and others indifferent, we may have done injustice to the better sort, in not distinguishing them more specially from their fellows. We did not mean, for instance, to apply our hearty condemnation of the sentimental trash to Mr. Manner's Aspirations, which is a work of high religious aims, and of simple every-day life, and may be read with great profit, as well as entertainment. Nor did we mean to say that the Old Homestead, of MRS. STEPHENS, was utterly worthless; for it has, on the contrary, great merit, in some respects. Our object was simply to protest against the prevailing tendency towards a soft, puling, and nauseous sentimentalism, to which the genuine success of Dickens and Mrs. Stowe has given rise. A certain class of politicians complain of the want of backbone in the political community; and we desire to make the same complaint in regard to the romance-writing community. Their plots and their characters have no back-bone-no gristle, evennothing but soft and flabby flesh, or rather pulp, out of which the authors squeeze an unconscionable quantity of tear-water.

One feels like giving them the advice which Sam Weller gave to Job Trotter, when Mr. Pickwick checked him for damning that young gentleman's "watercart bisness," on the score that his feelings were very fine. "His feelings is all very well," replied Sam, "and it's a pity he should lose 'em. He'd better keep 'em in his own bussem, than let 'em ewaporate in hot water, 'specially as they do no good. The next time you go to a smoking party. young feller, fill your pipe with that 'ere reflection, and for the present just put that bit of pink gingham into your pocket."

For the present month, we have little to say of the novels, and small space to say it in. Fetridge & Co. have issued a new translation of GEORGE SAND's Teverinoone of her earliest, and, in some respects, one of her best books. Her writings, in spite of certain gaps in the moral philosophy, are always readable. A memoir of the author, evidently compiled from French sources, by the translator, is prefixed to the volume. The translation is easy and correct.-Juno Clifford is one of the sentimental class, displaying considerable power, but untrue in its local coloring. We do not usually, in this country, speak of the terms of court, as "assizes," nor do we burn Yule-logs at Christmas; nor is there any society in Boston, however splendid and fashionable, which would openly insult a young, pretty, and accomplished woman, because her father had once been a blacksmith. The work betrays the hand of a novice, capable of a far more artistic performance. We suspect the writer to be a woman, because female dress is so accurately described, and because-shall we say it-there are no less than four or five marriages in the course of the story, with one or two others ripening at the close. --Mortimer's College Life, by E. G. MAY, is a pleasing and well-told tale of the experiences of the young, managed with a good deal of tact, and of excellent tendency. Glenwood, or the Parish Boy, is a tale of New England life, with some truth of detail, in the serious parts, but not much in the attempts at humor. It is, however, interesting, and though verging on the sentimental, not so lachrymose as it might be.-The Scenes in the Practice of a New York Surgeon, by DR. DIXON, have a terrible power and reality in them, which would seem to show that they are what