of Europe, without whose aid war cannot be carried on, are all interested in avoiding it, and the great powers of Europe, which exercise a controlling influence over its entire policy, wisely understand that a general war would threaten them with de struction. The condition of the people in England is forcing itself upon the notice of the press and the legislature. The London Times is gradually sinking back into its former tone of radicalism, and is urging measures upon the government, of the most sweeping character. It goes farther in this direction than any of the other great journals of London, but its spirit finds general sympathy, and indicates a prevalent disposition to shape the legislation of the country more than has hitherto been done, to meet the necessities of her oppressed and impoverished millions. Parliament will be forced to give the matter at least a portion of its attention. Of LITERARY novelties, we find little mention. No new books of any importance have been issued, nor are any promised. A new volume of SoUTHEY'S Doctor' has been published, and will probably be at once re-issued in this country. An interesting volume of Travels in the Interior of Brazil, by GARDNER, has also been published. A valuable history of Modern Italy, and especially of military and political events in that country, during, and since Napoleon's time, has been issued in the form of Memoirs of General PEPE, written by himself, in which are included many interesting and striking personal sketches of the men and incidents of the French Revolution. Two new volumes of BARRIERE'S Library of Memoirs relating to the history of France, during the eigh teenth century, have been printed in Paris. Attempts have been made, with a good degree of success, to establish free schools, and free reading-rooms, for the laboring classes in the city of London. The experiment, however, is yet too recent and incomplete for its results to be predicted with any considerable degree of confidence. The English papers display, what seems to us, a very petty and unreasonable jealousy of the French discovery of the new planet, as if they must, of necessity, carry national antipathies into the region of science. They are now commenting, with much more malice than good sense, upon a note to one of Leverrier's works, in which he insists upon the duty of naming the planet Herschell, after its discoverer; he is charged with having in this sought to establish an available precedent for his own case. The English are striving hard to give some other name than Leverrier to It is the planet which he discovered. stated that the National Board of Education in Ireland, has under its care upwards of four thousand schools, educating more than half a million of children. There are in Ireland seventy-four towns, no one of which has less than 2,500, and some of which has over 10,000, inhabitants, without a bookseller; and there are six counties which have neither a bookseller nor a library. There is certainly room for all the exertion which the Board of Education can put forth. A new and very valuable collection of minerals, from Africa, has been received at the office of the French Minister of War, comprising above 2,000 specimens, and representing the entire geological products of the country. A plan has been proposed at the Hague, for draining the Zuyder Zee. Its waters are to be separated from the North Sea by an immense dyke. The estimated cost of the work is about $25,000,000. Fears have been entertained for the safety of the Arctic Expedition, under Sir John Franklin, which is probably locked up in the ice of the frozen regions. Hon. T. Grenville, whose decease is announced, made a will, in which he said that, as a great part of his truly splendid library had been purchased from the profits of a sinecure office given to him by the public, he felt bound to give it to the British Museum, for the use of the public. It is to be regretted that all the sinecurists have not an equally just sense of their duty to the public. The Bishop of Ely lately purchased for a few shillings an old painting, which turns out to be a genuine likeness of Shakspeare. Eugene Sue has resumed his Memoirs of a Valet de Chambre, in the Constitutionnel. It was suspended by the proprietors of that paper, on the ground of its obscenity and immorality. The Literary Gazette pronounces it a miserable failure. Balzac has just completed, in the same paper, his new romance, entitled Les Parens Pauvres'said, by the same critical authority, to be one of his most remarkable productions. The French parliament allows between £15,000 and £20,000 per annum, to the Minister of Public Instruction, for the encouragement of literary men, and gives annually nearly £150,000 for the purchase of pictures and other works of art. There are now 1,302,620 engravings in the Royal Library. We would gladly extend our summary of the Foreign Miscellany of the month, but the late date of the arrival of the packet, and the necessity of sending the Review to press, renders it impossible to do so. We hope hereafter to do more justice to this department. CRITICAL NOTICES. POEMS: BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart, 1846. That admirable works should be elegantly printed and illustrated hardly needs to be remarked. As far as clear printing, choice paper, and elegant binding will add to the pleasure of a book, these poems, of the saddest and sweetest of our Lyrists, have received such addition. To open a fair page, and read a large, clear, jetty letter, is not only a luxury, but a real help to the reader, who may take in with ease, and feel a whole poem at a glance; which in a newspaper, or sixpenny volume, he would read brokenly and with loss. The illustrations of this volume are, unhappily, not in keeping with the binding and typography. The illustrations in the edition of Longfellow, issued by the same house, are very beautiful; but these are scarcely above mediocrity, and by no means the things to be expected from the painter of Cromwell's Iconoclasts. Notwithstanding this artist has produced an historical picture full of excellence, perhaps indeed the best of its kind ever paint ed in America, namely, the picture of "Cromwell's soldiers destroying the ornaments of a cathedral;" lately exhibited in New York ;) in these illustrations of Bryant's poems he discovers nothing of the fire and genius of that composition. The designs are full of grievous faults, not only of sentiment and idea, but even of drawing and foreshortening: a thing not to be looked for. It is needless to dwell upon inaccuracies which any eye may detect. An artist who values his reputation will show his hand as well in these as in works of greater note. No small etchings comparable with Albert Durers; no grotesques so elegant as Raphael's. A master's hand appears in the least things; a song of Shakspeare's; a drawing of Salvator's; a pen sketch of Da Vinci; everywhere, the observation of truth and nature the absence of imitation, the presence of a disciplined understanding, are evident. No one has much respect for what are called "fancy pieces," that is to say pieces which illustrate nothing;-nor for illustrations which do for poetry what poetry must do for itself:-An illustration of a poem should give only the quieter and more classical scenes, and if possible avoid expositions of violent passions and emotions; because of the inevitable failure to represent motion in picture. The appearance of the lay figure stiffness, the interrupted gesture, the theatrical stare, the heroic straddle; or of those factitious effects of dress, whiskers, large eyes, little mouths, &c. &c., so frequent in these illustrations, and evidently contracted from a study not of nature, but of modern German engravings, would perhaps have been avoided by the artist had he been engaged on a historical painting in which his reputation was at stake; but this volume of poems is certain to go down to posterity, by reason of the precious matter which it contains; and along with it go these very mediocre illustrations with the artist's name at the bottom. First Principals of Chemistry, for the use of Colleges and Schools. With more than two hundred illustrations, By BENJAMIN SILLIMAN jr. M. A. Professor in Gale College of Science as applied to the Arts. New Haven, Durrie & Peck, 1847. Boston, Crocker & Brewster. Philadelphia, Loumis & Peck. on That a book of science should be written and issued at New Haven is certainly nothing remarkable; the only wonder is that there are no more of them from that source. Where Yale College is, should perhaps be the seat and source of science for the country. Meanwhile here is a very compact and very accurate treatise of chemistry, composed in great part by the son of the author of the first considerable work that science published in America. The larger Chemistry of Professor Silliman diffused a knowledge of this liberal and inestimable science over the country; rescued it from pedantry and obscurity; made it popular and respectable; and as a natural consequence, no science is more studied, or better understood on this side the Atlantic. But the books of science esteemed most admirable in their day fall quickly out of their place unless they are perpetually revised, augmented, and expurgated with the advance of knowledge. The Chemistry of Lavoisier and the first editions of Berzelius have taken their place among historical matter upon the shelf, and the works of Faraday and Graham succeed them upon the table. To keep pace in some degree with the progress of theory and discovery this new manual has been prepared; not exactly an A B C book, but calculated for those who wish to know the great facts and the leading principles of the science, as a companion for the lecture room, and the study. The last third of the volume is a very concise and scien tific treatise of Organic Chemistry by Mr. Thomas Hunt, formerly assistant in the laboratory of Yale College, and but lately appointed Chemist to the Mineralogical survey of the Canadas. Neither parts of the volume enter much upon theory, or detain the reader with historical or hypothetical remarks. The authors are both practical chemists, familiar with the theory and detail of their science; a fact which will enable the reader to put full confidence in the work. The public have been sufficiently gulled and abused with sham treatises of chemistry and other sciences, compiled by book makers alike ignorant of science and honesty. It is shameful that a people so fond of truth as we are should, in the knowledge of that very quality, be perpetually deluded with a class of books useful only to book traders and the compilers who are employed by them. Fortunately we have had several treatises which may be relied on, and which approach the standard of modern theory; among the most trustworthy of these are those of Kane, (by Draper,) of Graham, and the less voluminous epitome which is the subject of this notice. The Roman Traitor; a Historical Romance. By HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, New York, Taylor & Co. We took up these volumes with expect ations, on the whole, of finding it a failure. Two or three fictitious works from the same author, had, indeed, possessed much interest, and considerable merit; but classical fiction is a dangerous field, and success in any other department of fiction would not auger success in this. The writer here must not only be a thorough scholar, but possess that fine power of the imagination, which can withdraw him, bodily, so far into the distance of the antique, as to make him lose all vision of the present with its utterly new forms and customs, and become, for the time, one of that ancient world, curiously observing, and, as it were, taking upon himself their habits, their manners, their thoughts, feelings, fancies, their daily public and domestic life. Mr. Bulwer, with his fine classic perception, and an imagination whose far horizons were dusky and mist-clouded, but all kindled and glowing-thus the better fitted to evoke in vaster and more suitable proportions, the distant forms of that antique life-was enabled to set the Later Roman age, the imperial, before us with singular magnificence and power. But to rival "The Last Days of Pompeii" which, with all its faults, was so entirely the greatest achievement of the kind thus far, was, of course, not expected; while to fall far short of it could seem little else than to fail. [Feb., Yet "The Roman Traitor," while it does fall greatly below Mr. Bulwer's production, as a work of imaginative intellect, is by no means a failure. It has little of that vastness, variety, and dusky splendor, aggerated, but singularly impressive dewhich we have said characterize the exscription of the last days, burial, and death ing historical character, an age nearly at of a Roman city; but by selecting a strikthe height of luxury and power, and a reader of a common school reading-book, crisis in the republic; familiar to every Mr. Herbert, by the aid of a very ample classic knowledge, and an imagination which sees its own pictures clearly, has very full of interest. The character of produced a book vigorous, instructive, and power and historic truthfulness; and his Catiline is produced with a good deal of abandoned, unhappy, high-souled daughter, Lucia, is a creation, original and affecting, though somewhat improbable. The young hero and heroine, (lovers: silicet, every novel must have a pair,) are of less interest, but very well drawn. The great consul, Cicero, is well presented; and many glimpses into the structure, scenes, and manners of that Rome of the Republic, are given with much effect. The greatness portrayed throughout; nor have we read, of the Roman patriotic spirit is strongly for some time, a more striking and affectwhere the patrician father binds his degrading scene, than that of Roman justice, ed son, and condemns his head to the block privately, in the presence of his ancestral gods-and his sister, with tears and her last kiss, severs his bands with her poniard, and gives to him the dagger, that he may not " perish like a slave, by a slavish blow," but stab himself to the heart, and die "like a Fulvius, my brother!" The faults of the book are quite sufficient. Many passages, especially among the sentimental parts, are feeble; sometimes, flattish; other passages are something to free in coloring, though a true picture of those licentious times could not well be given otherwise; and there is apparent throughout, a want of breadth and fertility of invention, and constructive power. But we are glad that so successful an attempt has been made to reproduce intelligently, and with historic truth, any portion of the classical ages. History of the Revolt of the Netherlands. Trial and execution of Counts Egmont and Horn: and the Seige of Antwerp. Translated from the German of Frederick Schiller, by the Rev. A. J. W. MORRISON, M. A. New York, Harper & Brothers, 1847. last century, for so many different pur- poses besides the simple and natural one of communicating knowledge, the reader is unwilling to commit himself to any, without some previous acquaintance with the author's character, and with his probable intentions. It happens, fortunately for the reader in this instance, that the character and virtues of the author are so well known and esteemed, and indeed the fame of the work so well established, as a history of the struggles of a brave people for their liberty, by an historian himself an enthusiastic lover of freedom, and of humanity, the comment or the eulogium of the critic is hardly needed to call attention to it. It is declared by good judges to be a well written, sincere, and genuine history, tainted by the spirit of no kind of ism, bias, or political theory; unless it be too great a respect for the faint-hearted leaders of the brave Netherlanders. Spaniards and their Country. By RICHARD FORD, author of the Handbook of Spain. Wiley & Putnam's Library of Choice Reading. No. LXXXIV. New York, 1847. In the present condition of criticism, when literary philanthropism eulogizes everything that has the least apparent speck of good in it, and if the contents of a book are too bad or silly to be spoken of, the ready made eulogy is projected over the typography and binding, it is of little benefit to an author to praise his book, without presenting by way of proof some considerable portion of its contents; but as in this instance our limits forbid quotations we must content ourselves with the usual common-places, and simply say that we have seldom read a more entertaining traveler's book than this. The style is English, and spirited; the remarks on manners full of observation, (though sometimes interlarded with a kind of jockey sarcasm, tasting of the stable and the kennel ;) and the matter of the book instructive; presenting a very lively picture of the Spaniards and their country. The author is an Englishman, and the book it self to all appearance a reprint. Memoirs and Essays, illustrative of Art, Literature, and Social Manners. By Mrs. JAMESON. No. LXIV. of Wiley & Putman's Library of Choice Reading. New York, 1847. This volume contains several agreeable essays, one, on the House of Titian, another a critical Memoir of Adelaid Kemble, an actress and singer of the cel ebrated Kemble family; an account of the Xanthian marbles in the British Museum; on the genius of Washington Allston; "Woman's mission," and Woman's Position; and a sixth on the relative posi tion of Mothers and Governesses in England. The author of these well-known Essays has the merit of sentiment without sentimentality; taste without fastidiousness; learning without pedantry. She is full of human sympathy without being a humanitarian, and can eulogize an artist or a man of letters, without making herself or her subject ridiculous. Arithmetic, in Two Parts. Part First, Advanced Lessons in Mental Arithmetic. Part Second, Rules and Examples for Practice in Written Arithmetic. For Common and High Schools. By FREDERIC A. ADAMS, Principal of Dummer Academy, Lowell. Published by Daniel Bixby, 1846. A good school-book is a very difficult thing to write; but when once it has been written, and has approved itself of genuine merit, its usefulness, whether we regard the extent or permanency of it, is very great. In a country where education is a matter of so much importance as it is with us, it is hardly possible to scrutinize the merits of school-books too closely, or to reward too highly the author of one which has been thoroughly thought out, and skillfully adapted in its details. Euclid' has maintained its position in the schools for ages; and we see no reason why Colburn's First Lessons in Arithmetic, may not be studied by American boys, one thousand years hence, on the banks of the Columbia-some may hope, in the "Halls of the Montezumas!" These thoughts have been suggested to us by an inspection of the book before us. We have examined it with care, and with much satisfaction; its methods are evidently founded on a vigorous and thorough analysis, and comprise some valuable improvements on those taught in the old arithmetics. The author has devoted half the work to mental arithmetic. Wisely enough-for facility in calculation is an unspeakable convenience; or rather it would be, if our schools used arithmetics which would give the proper development to the mathematical faculty. Then again, the principles involved in most of the important rules are explained in the first part. Another noticeable merit; for teachers universally find, we think, that boys comprehend these principles more readily in examples which they can manage mentally, than in those which require the slate and pencil. When these are once thoroughly mastered, they can, of course, be used in any way. It may be remarked, too, that the author has arranged his subjects in the order of their dependence; and he has succeeded (in some important particulars, better than most writers of some works) in fixing on the truly scientific, and, therefore, the simplest methods; and the several series of questions are so arranged, as to lead by natural steps from easy and simple, to difficult and complex processes. It is mostly in the part devoted to "Mental Arithmetic," that the peculiar excellencies appear. The author's design and plan will be apprehended, in a measure, from the following extracts. "It (the Arithmetic) should habituate the pupil to perform with ease and readiness, mental operations upon somewhat large numbers." "It should present these operations in their natural form, freed from the inverted and mechanical methods which belong, of necessity, to operations in written arithmetic." "It should train the student to such a power of apprehending the relations of numbers, as shall give him an insight into the grounds of the rules of arithmetic; and, consequently, shall relieve him from dependence on these rules." În a word, the work is an unusually skillful union of the mental calculation, first particularly and exclusively taught by Colburn, with the old system of rules, considerably improved. And when it is remarked, “Which is as true, as truth has been of late," that one half of the hopeful young gentlemen graduating from our colleges, have but a shabby acquaintance with arithmetical "deductions," it will not appear without reason, that we beg the generation that is to instruct the generation that is to be, somewhat more essentially in the principles of this, or some other scientific book as good. There can be no doubt, that this study is one of the best means of quickening the youthful mind of the nation." Alderbrook; a collection of Fanny For rester's Village Sketches, Poems, &c. By Miss EMILY CHUBBUCK, 2 vols. Boston, W. D. Ticknor & Co. We must confess we could never discover any of that great merit in this lady's writings, which certain papers have accorded to them. She is, however, generally simple and natural in her style, and these sketches will prove interesting to young people. They are a sort of farewell contribution to literature; judging from the likeness of the authoress, which is some what affectedly presented in the beginning, with a mantle classically thrown over her shoulders, and hand pressed upon her bosom, as if to give emphasis to the expression beneath; "Henceforth, to holier purposes, I pledge myself"-meaning that she has married a missionary. We don't object to the fact, (which is highly praiseworthy,) but to the expression in that place. What is it to the profane readers of "Fanny Forester's" stories? The Sisters of Charity, 2 vols. gilt. Julia Ormond, 1 vol. gilt. Dunnigan. New York. Well told stories, serving to illustrate the tenets and practice of the Roman Catholics. Beautiful presents they will make to the followers of that denomination; but we cannot say, that we think they are likely to win over many converts. As is usual in most of these books, much stress is laid upon the unity of the church, without adverting to the reason of that unity, to wit-implicit obedience to the will of one man, or set of men, which will insure unity everywhere. To those who are desirous of information on the doctrines of that communion, they convey much information in an agreeable form. PALMO'S ITALIAN OPERA.-The Italian Opera being a purely scenic and musiby those who have a taste for pantomime cal entertainment, can only be appreciated and a sense of musical expression. Those who have a taste for this mode of representing the harmonies of love and the discords of hate by the concords and disagreements of musical notes modulated on a theme, will find pleasure, if not extreme gratification in the Operatic Drama; to say nothing of scenery carried to the pitch of a perfect delusion, and of a graceful depicting of the passions by gesture and attitudes. Apart from any opinion of the Opera as it is managed in New York particularly, we cannot but think it an agreeable and by no means an immoral entertainment. It brings reputable persons together to enjoy a very elegant sort of trifling, not without its use, perhaps, and cultivates an ear for music, or creates one where it did not exist. Assemblages of this kind have the credit of promoting a humane and social spirit, if they do nothing better; the church is too sacred a place for the exchange of courtesies, or the display of graces, the lecture-room tasks the understanding, and the theatre rouses if it does not often allay and purify the sympathies; but for a harmless, sparkling, folly, commend us to the Opera. The late arrival of the steamer has prevented our furnishing the prices of metals. |