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"M. Miss, I will allow that you might is to be obtained. By the assistance of a understand your mamma as such, but I'm map, they familiarized themselves with the inclined to think that you are under a mistake. precipitous aspect of the Jungfrau, the Mönch, She might tell you to mind the parson, and the Eiger, and Finster-Aahorn; and some one not play with your hand and ring, for I am of told them that, under the shadow of the dark an opinion your mamma is of a more sedate Niesen, lies, though unseen, the old-fashioned turn, or ought to be, after being the mother town of Thun. Turning a little, they faced of ten children; so I hope you are under the monotonous range of the Jura, and the a mistake.'" mountains and hills immediately around Berne." [A. Williams & Co.]

embracing and making much of them, he took
occasion, not unnaturally, to ask whether the
women in their country were not used to
bear children; by that prince-like reprimand,
gravely reflecting upon persons who spend
and lavish upon brute beasts that affection
and kindness implanted in us to be bestowed
on those of our own kind. With like rea-
son may we blame those who misuse that
love of inquiry and observation which Nature The author appends a note to the clause
has implanted in our souls, by expending it" ten children," of the following effect: "In
on objects unworthy of the attention either classing the prolific among the sedatives, does
of their eyes or their ears, while they disre- Mr. Towle mean to imply that ten children
gard such as are excellent in themselves, and are a sort of maternal henbane?"
would do them good."

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-In "Shells from the Shore of Time," -a remarkable English book, by Lady Lytton,

we

MINOR BOOK NOTICES.

AUGUST PUBLICATIONS.

D. APPLETON & CO., NEW YORK.
Old Greek Life. J. P. Mahaffy, A.M. 18mo. 50c.
All the Way Round; or, What a Boy Saw on His
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Older Ones with Young Hearts. Illustrated. 12mo.
$1.50.

Schools and Masters of Painting. With an Appendix

on the Principal Galleries of Europe. By A. G. Radcliffe. Sm. 8vo. $3.00.

The Principles of Theoretical and Systematic ChemIntroduction to the Study of Chemical Philosophy. istry. By William A. Tilden. 12mo. $1.50.

"Phoebe, Jr.," by Mrs. Oliphant, is a very bright book, full of bright pictures of the London rich bourgeoisie, of pretty girls and dandy youths, and pompous fathers and cherished ministers, and ambitious mammas, and all the personages that go to make up that motley fabric called society. Perhaps it would give the book currency in some quarters to add A Series of First Lessons in Greek. Adapted to that the chief personage bears the name of Goodwin's Greek Grammar, and designed as an IntroCopperhead. [Harper & Brothers, and Lock-duction either to Goodwin's Greek Reader, or to his Selections from Xenophon and Herodotus, or to the wood, Brooks, & Co.] Anabasis of Xenophon. By John Williams White, A.M. 12mo. $1.25.

GINN BROTHERS, BOSTON.

D. LOTHROP & CO., BOSTON. Two Fortune-Seekers, and other Stories. By Rossiter Johnson, and other popular writers. 16mo. $1.50.

LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., BOSTON.

A Treatise on the Law of Personal Property. By James Schouler. Vol. II. Embracing Original Acqui

J. R. OSGOOD & CO., BOSTON. Representative Men. Seven Lectures. [Little Classic

HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. Young Folk's Centennial Rhymes. By William Carleton. Illustrated 12mo. $1.50.

were much entertained by a notice of Matthew Towle's "Young Gentleman and Lady's Private Tutor. In three Parts." The first Part contains a preliminary discourse on moral and social duties, &c.; viz.: Piety, -"The Brandons, or Workers in a NegWisdom, Prudence, Fortitude, Justice, Tem- lected Service," is the title of an English perance, Love, Friendship, Humanity. The juvenile that has come to us. It is the work second Part contains rules for behaving gen- of Eliza Hutchinson, and is a very pleasant teelly in all stages of life,- of Behavior to God, story. The chief fault in it is the multiParents, Company, Brothers, Sisters, Supe- tude of young girls, which occasions confusion riors, Equals, Inferiors, Teachers, Servants, in in the reader's inind. The Brandons are the Company, at Meals, at Cards, &c. Many other chief actors, and Mr. B. is a whole-souled, sition, Gift, Sale, &c. 8vo. Law sheep. $6.00. rules for all social emergencies are given, liberal man. His wife is not above prejudice, which we must omit. One may derive posi- and begrudges his niece, Lucy Dolby, the tive profit from Mr. Towle's conversations benefactions he bestows on her. The latter, with one of his pupils, a young lady of high a lovely, spiritual-minded, and intelligent edition]. Sq. 18mo. $1.50. birth :girl, - goes on the Continent as companion to Bella Allerton, who travels with her father and mother. Lucy secures a powerful influence over Bella, and the mother, made jealous by this, is unjust to her daughter's companion. Mr. Allerton is clearer-sighted, and appreciates the noble qualities of Lucy, and does his best to render her happy. The Brandons have a lovely little daughter, Nannette, who adores Lucy, and conceives a sudden passion for Adèle Senior, a niece of Mr. Richards. This child's father had been unfortunate in business, and, failing, subjects Mr. Richards. to a serious pecuniary loss. Not being able to forgive this wrong, Mrs. Richards ignores the child's mother, and treats the child herself M. Something extraordinary might hap- with scornful indifference. Her niece, Nina, By Mrs. Oliphant. Paper. 50 cts. pen. Very probably your mother could not however, loves the little girl, and this differsee for the sun; that might be the cause of it:ence of sentiment causes serious trouble. Mr. and Lady Mears is always laughing, she being Brandon befriends the child, who, with the sensible of the crime, though she has not prudence enough to avoid it; therefore she is ashamed to show her face.'

"My little ladies, I will here give you friendly advice. I hope you will not take it amiss, as I think it my duty so to do in every thing that lies in my power. When you are seated in your place at church, do not get up again till the service is begun; then rise, place your eyes upon your prayer-book, and there keep them till such time as that part of the service is over. If you, on the contrary, get up and look about you, you will be guilty of a breach of that modesty which is peculiar to your sex, or ought to be.

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“S. Yes, sir, I do not dispute your judgment; but I have seen my mamma and Lady Mears do so.'

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"S. Yes, sir, my mamma hath done it, that she might look at L-d-y G-s silk gown. She bath bid me do so too. She bought me and herself a fan each, with holes in the mounts on purpose. She can tell all or most of all the ladies' dresses that are in church. There is not a stranger but what she knows who they are with, and what they have on, and who such and such gentlemen looked at.' M. But, my little lady, you may be mistaken. This notice she may take when the service is over.'

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"S. No, sir, my mamma bid me observe, last Sunday, in the middle of the sermon, the parson's diamond ring and his white hand.'

love of her mother and brother, of Nannette
and Nina, finds herself comparatively happy,
even in adversity. The different methods of
giving charity are happily illustrated in the
story, and the beautiful characters of Mrs.
Overton, Mrs. Senior, Nannette, and Lucy
lend a tender charm to the narrative. Much
of the book is devoted to a description of
travel in Switzerland and Italy, which is quite
charming. Of the many delightful sketches
of Alpine Scenery, we quote this scene, which
the travellers viewed in an excursion from
Berne: -

"And once they ascended, by easy and
circuitous paths, through fir woods, the high-
est hill in the vicinity, which is called the Gur-
ten, from the extensive plateau on the summit
of which a clearer view of the Snow Mountains

75c.

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As Long as She Lived. By F. W. Robinson. Paper. Israel Mort Overman. By John Saunders. Paper. Book I. History of Japan Book II. Personal Experiences, Observations, and Studies in Japan, 1870-74. By William Elliot Griffis, A.M., late of the Imperial University of Tokio, Japan. 8vo. Illustrated. pp. 625.

from 660 B.C. to 1872 A.D.
The Mikado's Empire.

$4.00.

The First Century of the Republic: a Review of
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Historical Studies. By Eugene Lawrence. 8vo. pp.
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Phoebe, Junior. A Last Chronicle of Carlingford.

A. WILLIAMS & CO., BOSTON.
The Merchant's Wife; or, He Blundered. A Politi-

cal Romance of Our Own Day, and other Miscellanies.
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Current Literature.

DANIEL DERONDA.*

and the idiosyncrasies of Mr. and Mrs. Gas-
coigne and their daughter stand out in clear
relief in the complications that result from this
callow affectional entanglement. The other
members of Gwendolen's household appeal to

husband has an earlier living wife and children, and the strange weird memory of Deronda, to whom she is hardly more than a stranger. She takes into her husband's house the dread consciousness that she is robbing another

WE always begin a review of one of this us with no special force. She is queen among woman of her legal rights, and this dwells for

them, nay, a tyrant; and, loving her mother
with all the force of her strong nature, sets
up her proud self always, icy and immovable,
toward her.

ever with her. The pair represent two types of humanity very distinctly struck, that may be possible; but we do not meet them in real life in America. Grandcourt is, no doubt, a truly typical Englishman, but his wife is a stranger here.

author's books with painful misgivings. We distrust our ability to understand it; we doubt the efficiency of our discriminating power to distinguish between its good and bad qualities. We doubt, in fine, if we can render While the memory of the mysterious young true justice to the author. Our first impulse is man who redeemed her necklace still lingers to compare this new book with one of its pre- in her selfish heart, she takes a look at the The most absorbing question forced upon decessors, with " Adam Bede," for instance, future, dim with shifty mists and inevitable the attention of the reader in this book is the which has been generally esteemed her best. clouds. She sees but, one way of escape; identity of the hero, Daniel Deronda. His The most radical difference between the two is one only path, warm with sunshine, and grate- apparition is unaccountable, and, it seems to in the quality of the personages. In "De-ful with bending shade. It is a rich marriage. us, according to the rules of art, inexcusable. ronda," we are introduced to members of the Only that will save her, and into it she is urged As a representative of human virtue he is adaristocracy; to the houses of the rich, and by the most powerful considerations, personal mirable; but there seems to be a vagueness great, and fashionable. In the other, our paths and family. Her mother incites her; the about his purposes, and an uncertainty as to lie among shops and huts, and the lower grades sight of her helpless sisters persuades her; his true place in the story, which affect one unof rural society. Can the same eye see, with her worldly uncle paints to her the advantages comfortably. The only really tragical inciequal clearness, from both points of view? of high life, and dwells solemnly on the possi- dent in the book is Mirah's attempt at selfCan the same hand depict, with uniform ble mendicity of herself and her family. Selfish destruction, and it is very vividly handled. Its fidelity, the characteristics of the palace and though she is, she is soft to these pictures of consequences comprise some of the loveliest the hovel? A reading of the two books con- prospective sorrow. She cannot see her mother scenes in all these pages, glimpses of the vinces us that such a task is possible to a shabby; she cannot see her grieve. Long Meyrick family life. Mirah strikes us as somegenius such as is George Eliot. The same she deliberates, with thoughts of her myste- what unfinished; we cannot conceive a course broad and keen glances, the same steady, sin-rious benefactor flitting through her troubled of training such as she had at the hands of cere touches, the same discriminately shaded mind. If he were here, she thinks, he would her dissolute father, which could have shaped colors are perceptible in each, and in each her tell her, though she has no reason in the world so sweet and strong a nature as hers. Hans absolute command of the English language, in to trust his judgment. It is instinct. At is sometimes funny, but oftenest a bore; he is every form of composition, is equally conspic- last the path opens, through the translucent in effect an excrescence; his love for Mirah person of Sir Henley Grandcourt, heir to comes suddenly to naught. Daniel Deronda " is an æsthetically mel- divers manors and estates. He distinguishes ancholy story. One grows sober over it. It her at archery and other social gatherings, has few stained windows through which his notice being so emphatic as to rouse the strays the light of humor and geniality. It popular whisper that there is to be a match. has a gloomy interior, suggestive of solemnity Gwendolen hears it; of course her uncle and and gloom. It offers us no laughter, few cakes his wife would not fail to apprise her, and in and ale; and, in this deficiency, it fails as a her heart the wish is father to the thought. picture of high English life. In point of char- She does covet those broad acres, that palaacterization, it is far beyond comparison. tial house, those shiny-coated horses, that Deronda himself, if not quite true to nature, troop of servants, those reverent tenants. is absolutely unique. The influence of the And this wish covered up in her heart is suspicion that broods in his heart from boy-warmed by family sympathy, till it heats her hood, the suspicion that he nurses Hebrew like a mighty flame and rouses her to the realblood in his veins, casts its sombre shadow ization of her purpose. The fatal day arrives; over his whole life. We see it in the the vows are said, and she is the plighted bride habits of his daily walk, in his tastes and ten- of the majestic baronet. dencies; and it has its most conspicuous manifestations in the memorable interviews with his mother. The sweet tenderness of his nature attracts us, while his sombre mien and manner repel. At his introduction, one likes him. His treatment of the wilful Gwendolen, on their first meeting, is simply admirable, —-cool, gentlemanly, earnest, yet reserved.

uous.

64

We pass on to Gwendolen's home life; to its hypocrisy, to its pretensions, its strivings between fashionable exigencies and stern necessity. We get a glimpse of this rash young girl's nature in her flirtation with Reginald;

Of their married life the author vouchsafes
us few glimpses; but we easily see that there
is no love between them. He is proud of her
as the Hon. Mrs. Grandcourt; holds her
'Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his
horse."

He loves to think of her as a regally beauti-
ful woman who is wholly his, who comes
and goes at his will. There is no warmth in
his manner toward her; only a sense of rather
contemptuous proprietorship. The most posi-
tive quality in her consideration of him is fear:
she has never loved him; she does not dislike
him, but she fears him. Two influences fall

• Daniel Deronda. By George Eliot, author of "Middle-like a curtain between them, the knowledge
march," &c. 2 vols. 12mo. pp. 411, 427. $3.00. New York:
Harper & Bros. Boston: Lockwood, Brooks, & Co. accidentally acquired by Gwendolen that her

In the relations of Deronda and Mordecai, we have something quite unheard of in fiction. How strong must have been the instinctive sympathy that drew this refined and cultivated young man to the intimacy of a squalid Jew! The intellectual approximation of the two, it seems to us, is far too precipitate; their mutual attraction is unnatural and forced. The chief value of this enforced intercourse is in the author's acute dissertations on Jewish topics, to which she has evidently given prolonged and earnest thought.

to

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As a mere novel we must prefer this book Middlemarch; " but we find in it less evidence of general culture, and less matter of purely æsthetic interest. It is not intrinsically fascinating; the plot is not strong: its charm is in its odd views of human nature and society, its powerful characterization, and its pervading depth and purity of thought.

We have little room for quotation from these rich pages, and these scraps must suffice:

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"In general, one may be sure that whenever a marriage of any mark takes place, male acquaintances are likely to pity the bride;

female acquaintances the bridegroom."

a wish to speak to a fair woman, it is a bad
"If you have any reason for not indulging
plan to look long at her back; the wish to
side."
see what it screens becomes the stronger;
there may be a very sweet smile on the other

"Miss Julia Fenn, a young lady whose pro

file had been so unfavorably decided by cir- England's. He engaged the Emperor of Per-
cumstances over which she had no control."
sia to be his ally. The narrative of his cam-
There are two incongruities, or what seem paign against the Russo-Austrian armies, on
such to us, that may be worth mention. the frozen fields of Poland, is a tale of cruel
These are the fact that Mirah, so devoutly horrors, and we do not care to dwell on it.
religious, could deliberately set about self-de-Monotonous with slow military movements and
struction; and the presentation of Mordecai, counter-movements, it is illuminated and made
an aged man, as her brother.
dramatic by the grand carnage of Eylau. It
had, we may say, almost no result, save the
increase of the host of Napoleon's enemies.

HISTORY OF NAPOLEON.* THE `HE third volume of this well-planned history is perhaps even more entertaining than its predecessors. It treats of the intermediate and critical period of Napoleon's career, exhibiting him at the time when Fortune seems to have half veiled her face, and he can catch but a dim glimpse of her retreating figure. It falls on the time, when, balked in enterprises that had honest faces and real substance, he had turned to those of equivocal character, and success in which could only measurably reward him. It depicts him with waning intellectual strength, with faculties that the friction of severe vicissitudes has weakened, and with that meteoric judgment moving on half-blind and uncertain. He is a melancholy spectacle, · more pathetic by reason of his fading virility, whose deficiency his chance victories cannot effectually mantle, than we find him later on.

He comes on the stage in the attitude of claimant of a universal kingdom. He is the great I—not only the State, but the Kosmos. He commands the States of Europe to array themselves at once under his standard, or under that of England.

"Under which King, Bezonian!
Speak or die!"

He tried hard to placate the weak King of Prussia, but failed. With the autocrat of Russia, by dint of flatteries and gifts and insidious misrepresentations, he fared better; and for the price of two tolerable provinces got some worthy consideration. When he settled up his accounts, however, at the close of the sanguinary contest, there was little to carry to the credit side; and in France itself there was a great balance of blood against him, warm blood in the veins of young conscripts summoned to death before their time. But he heeded not such a trifle, not he; he only called for another levy. Significant, indeed, were the words of the noble Masséna, gazing on the sepulchral field of Eylau: "What a massacre! and without any issue." Like it was this campaign, "without any issue." Domestic politics mainly occupy the second chapter, which show us Napoleon in his character of statesman. The exhibit is not edifying; let us pass it by. The campaign of Friedland is red with battle scenes, but contains no special illuminations of Napoleon's character. His tête à tête at Tilsit with the Czar Alexander is one of the finest scenes in the work. To see this skilled angler playing with the ambitious and conceited trout, plying him with flies of varied attractiveness, and insidiously but sedulously aiming to hook the barb in his imbarbate gills, is to see the worst qualities of human nature in vehement opera

tion.

home to settle domestic affairs. With his usual
marvellous originality, in order to check the
growth (lucus à non) of the feudal system, he
created a new nobility out of his military riff-
raff, and enriched them all at the start, that
they might effloresce with a gorgeousness wor-
thy of his own magnificence. Next comes the
Plot of the Escurial, with such a caste of per-
sona!- the poor old king, conscious dupe of
his licentious wife; the Prince of Peace
(Heaven save the mark!), a fool, at once, and
a villain; the learned and self-styled Machia-
vellic diplomatist, Escoiquiz, and the preco-
cious son, whose plotting against his father is
well described: enter Napoleon with capa-
cious bag, and gobbles every one of them!
Finale at Burgos and Bayonne!

The closing scenes in this dreadful drama,— the streets of Spanish cities running full with the blood-ravage of every name, starvation, madness, pervading every province, — a burning patriotism clashing with slavish submission, freedom against Napoleonic feudalism. But the play was brief; for the players were weary. The further events in this drama are too well known, too far-illuminating, to need repetition here, they are hardly paralleled in the history of any nation, and whatever may be the faults and shames of the Spanish character, the lover of freedom will ever kneel to thank God for giving so stern and undying a love of liberty to these fierce barbarians of Iberia.

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We have already commended in strong
terms the two preceding volumes of this work,
and that commendation we earnestly renew
upon the present. Mr. Lanfrey's conception
of the great soldier is, we think, the only true
one ever evolved by the historian. He sees
through the opaque, carnal man, -sees the
keen intellect twinkling within, and the little
heart shrinking in a hiding-place. He admits
his marvellous military genius, which grew
enfeebled with age, and was nurtured from the
fickle breast of Fortune. But of the intellec-
the accomplished Corsican juggler. A more tual man the author's ken is not less keen; his
cunning, deftly-devised humbug was never insight seems unerring, and not a thought
conceived by the professors of magic for the seems to have crawled from the Napoleonic
public infatuation, than the plot to oust the brain, whose origin and destiny are not
Bourbons. The story of the measures to this familiar to his apprehensive mind. We esteem
end is told with marvellous skill, and is more the author's estimate of Napoleon Bonaparte
fascinating than the finest romance. Napoleon the soundest and surest and most faithful that
played his game like a chess-player, sitting at has ever been made.
Paris or Bayonne, while his helpless pieces.

At this time (1806), the spell of the French
Revolution had quite lost its strength, and this
strength was Napoleon's. Its glamour had
Passing on to the war against Spain, we get
faded; it was no longer the great light in the a clear view of the most marvellous tricks of
East, before which all nations must bow down
and worship. The Revolution was Napoleon,
and with its light went down his star. No
more was France the symbol of deliverance
and freedom; now she stood for the goddess
of conquest, of persecution, of oppression.
Napoleon's situation was apparently strong.
Who were his enemies? Prussia was crushed,
Austria annihilated, and Russia powerful only
at home. He purposed not to re-establish stumble over the plains and hills of Spain and
Poland, but to give her a stable government; Portugal. Of course he blundered, and blood
he could make her independent, but such a
flowed in torrents. A more gigantically

step did not co-ordinate with his general policy. The great powers being paralyzed, be proceeded to treat some small and foreign ones for his interest. He promised to maintain the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, warning its Sultan to choose between his friendship and

History of Napoleon the First. By P. Lanfrey. Vol.

III. 8vo. $3.50. New York: Macmillan & Co.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.*

memoir wrote in his Diary,

"I have already more volumes, and multitudes of fragments, trash inexpressible,which I pray to God may never be exposed,

scoundrelly enterprise than this attempted ON November 7, 1842, the subject of this
conquest of Spain never issued from the
human brain, and the blunders by which it was
essayed to carry it out make up a tale fit for
Milton to versify. The utter discomfiture of
the false and forging schemer exemplifies the
verdict of every intelligent reader, and we all
cry, Amen! At a convenient stage of this
Spanish tragedy, the untiring Napoleon goes

Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, comprising Portions

of his Diary. From 1795 to 1848. Edited by Charles Francis

Adams. Vol. XI. 8vo. $5.00. Philadelphia: J. B. Lip

pincott & Co.

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but which I leave to my son, to be used according to his good judgment, for a memoir of my life; and if, by the mercy of God, the manuscript should be preserved, to be left, with those of my father, to one of my grandsons, who may be worthy of possessing and passing them [it] down to future generations."

66

The caution conveyed in the above extract has not, it seems to us, been faithfully heeded. The work comprises an amount of valueless matter, equal, at least, to one-third of its bulk. Page after page tells the same story, in substance if not in language. It is that "the boorish Smith of Ohio transfixed the feeble Doozenberry of Florida; " the crafty Cushing made his customary assault on me," on ad nauseam, with change of name and scene. Many passages are in bad taste, as well as irrelevant; mere spots on the record of a generally pure man. Of what good can it be to parade the evidence that Mr. Adams was a fluent blackguard, and to cull coarse epithets from his repertory of abuse?

direct denunciation. He notes the receipt of shadow; and each has given a drop to his a letter from Fletcher Webster, "bloated ever-swelling canteen of knowledge. He is with self-sufficiency as an executive officer; "not a fine writer; in fact, he is a bad one: but and the receipt of a reply to his own letter, he has compiled a very readable book which "as impertinent, as ignorant, as insolent, as will fill up an unoccupied hour. The story of the former." Of one of our earliest poets his career gives one a clear idea of the life of Mr. Adams writes: " Mr. Tyler, in a tone of an average English aristocrat, to be born, fretful uneasiness had said, I cannot remove to be beaten into a knowledge of Latin verse, my friend Payne,' - meaning John Howard to be sold into the army, to fight with honor, Payne, the histrionic parasite, who was here to travel at government expense, and to live all the summer of 1841, currying favor by the fag end of his years in the ease of a verwriting niminy-piminy meretricious letters dant country mansion. But to few men, even of courtly adulation of John Tyler, to be English aristocrats, it befalls to be lapped in published in the New York Herald. This the beneficent waters of royal society; to be was the sycophant, and this the service for the playmate of princesses, the confidant of and so which my friend Payne' was appointed dukes. Such was George Thomas's fate, and Consul at Tunis, instead of a public servant well does he describe it. of forty years, with a large family, to linger about the world for a beggarly subsistence." Mr. Adams's estimate of Roger Williams is not flattering. “He came,” he says, "sharpened for controversy, a polemical porcupine from Oxford; an extreme Puritan, quilled with all the quarrelsome divinity of the age. Altogether he was a mere boute-feu, and they were amply justified in getting rid of him. I see that Bancroft tells his story with extreme, to puff him up, not only to a saint and hero, but to a transcendent genius, Newton, Kepler, or Copernicus." The only comment to be made on this last sentence is, that Mr. Adams "seems to tell his story" with deliberate virulence.

One finds little information of lasting worth in these pages, as to current legislation and politics; accounts of scandals and personal quarrels monopolize the space. The record begins just prior to the withdrawal of the members of Tyler's cabinet in 1841. The reasons for this action assigned by them seem rather puerile at this day. Ewing, of the Treasury, thought he had been disrespectfully treated by Mr. Tyler; and, further, that Mr. Tyler claimed some authority concerning the management of the Treasury, which Ewing thought contrary to law. Mr. Crittenden had special personal relations with Clay, which rendered his position in the Cabinet unendurable. Mr. Bell and Mr. Badger complained of the President's deportment toward them.

war.

a

Mr. Adams's assumption that he was the butt of his colleagues and the politicians generally was not wholly unfounded. Henry A. Wise, who has just ended his turbulent career, once stigmatized him as "the only man in the House whose judgment he was unwilling to abide by." This was said September 11, and this entry follows, under date of September 14: "I met Mr. Henry A. Wise, who spoke to me and offered me his hand."

Mr. Adams flatters himself with having rendered important service to Mr. Webster. His speech on the McLeod resolution " has given him the means of saving himself from There is little in the contents of this volume ruin, and his country from a most disastrous that goes to justify its publication. For the My reward from him will be professions sake of the dignity of the work, if not for of respect and esteem; speeches of approba- that of family pride, it seems to us that the tion and regard for me to my friends, knowing editor should have omitted the bulk of perthat they will be reported to me; secret and sonalities which disfigure these pages. deep-laid intrigues against me, and still more venomous against my son." Mr. Adams seems to have imagined himself the bugbear of every American statesman, and to have prided himself on the honor of Louis Philippe's

FIFTY YEARS OF MY LIFE.*
HE noble author must have been em-

In his first chapter he tells about the oligarchical trunks, in whose protecting shade he spent his early years; about the ancestral Kettels who have gone to Pot; the Duke of Grafton, the Vanes, the Foxes, and other birds of the air. The pictures of his early schooldays are entertaining. On his arrival, he apprises his curious school-mates that his father is the king's master of buck-hounds, and has the pleasure of being pointed at as the son His daily of a blackguard old huntsman. routine of labor is thus reported:

"I rose as the day broke, hurried on my clothes, brushed those of my master, cleaned several pairs of his shoes, went to pump in the Great Dean's yard for hard water for his teeth, and to the cistern at Mother Grant's for soft water for his hands and face; passed the rest of the time till eight in my own ablutions, or in conning over my morning school lessons."

The anecdotes of the Princess are amusing, but for the most part coarse, and do no credit to her custodians. She was a young lady of positive nature, utterly devoid of dignity, and great with self-assertion. She had her way, obstacles notwithstanding, and woe be to the culprit who thwarts her bent. The author confesses to frequent applications of her hunting-whip to his reluctant back.

Here is a lively anecdote of Thomas Garnier, Dean of Winchester: "He was a famous dancer in his youth. While engaged in the intricate labyrinths of Sir Roger de Coverly,' clad in a smart coat with filagree buttons, one of these buttons caught a ringlet of a daughter of Dr. Wharton, the famous Greek professor, and, the hair not being her own,

dislike. With John Tyler only was he willing barrassed by the superfluity of his my kinsman carried the whole head-gear away

to share the public obloquy. Under date of January, 1842, he records that it is the White House, not the President, who [that] is visited: "From the first establishment of the government of the United States to this day, there never has been a time when the personal sympathies of the people of all parties were so utterly indifferent as they are this day to John Tyler." The objects of his own hatred are in far greater number; few names of public men pass his pen unaccompanied by sneers or

material, which must have gathered on him
rounding the hollow globe, as moss gathers on
the rolling stone. He must have stripped it off
as one strips the bark from a birch tree. Few
men have had a wider range among the dwelling-
places of humanity: north and south, east and
west, all points have noted his retreating

Fifty Years of My Life. By George Thomas, Earl of
Albemarle. 8vo. pp. 420. New York: Henry Holt & Co.

with him through all the mazes of the dance, followed by the damsel in a state of fury at his Rape of the Lock.' He, in the mean time, was so absorbed in his favorite pastime as to have no conception of the mischief which his peccant button had caused." One Lambert was a dull scholar. "Where did he get that black eye?" asked Dr. Mure. “In fighting ascy.'" "Which licked?" "Lambert."

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fighter, we must not be hard upon him for his Latin and Greek."

The account of Mauritius is very interesting, as is that of Queen Caroline. With what

*Découvertes et Etablissments des Français
dans l'Amérique Septentrionale.

admirable felicity was "Othello" brought out THIS work, though printed at Paris, owes

at Drury Lane during the progress of the trial! and how pertinent to the subject, exciting the English people to a fever heat, were these fine lines:

"How comes this trick on him? [Desdemona.] Nay, heaven doth know! I will be hanged if some eternal villain, Some busy and insinuating rogue, Some cogging, cozening slave, to get an office, Hath not devised this slander."

IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.*

HIS is the most interesting of the author's

THIS

many works, and also the most original. its publication to an appropriation of The circumstances under which it was written Congress, which has done a signal service to give it a peculiar interest. No writer has the historical literature of the country, in ever so intelligently entered into the classic bringing to the light this unique and very spirit of the ancient writers, and none has important collection. Four more volumes reproduced their characteristic sentiment and are, we understand, to follow it, together style with greater fidelity to the original. with maps and other illustrations. The papers Reading his eloquent pages, one seems to have been collected during thirty years and walk in the lofty shadow of the Acropolis, and more, by the indefatigable labors of M. Mar- to see the towering masts that congregate in gry, archivist of the Department of the Ma- the Piræus. Plato takes you by the hand; rine and Colonies, at Paris, who has devoted Pericles saunters by attendant on the magOnce the author saw his first steamboat on most of his life to researches connected with nificent Aspasia; and the indefatigable Diogethe Thames, whereupon his coachman says: the naval and colonial achievements of his nes pursues his lonely search guided by the "There's the things that will ruin us coach-countrymen. The present collection relates light of his dilapidated lantern. The reverend men." He thinks there is no doubt that Cleo- wholly to French exploration in the West, philosophers, generals, and orators through patra's asp was a cobra. "One of my occu- and is composed of pieces various in charac- whom he speaks preserve their original charpations of a morning," he says, "while waiting acter and interest, but all of value as exhibit-acteristics, and speak as if reading from their for the Duke, was to watch from the window ing the progress of discovery and the origin of published works. The Dialogues give one a the movements of a bright, pretty girl, seven enterprises which have had a vital influence years of age. She was in the habit of wateron the growth of American civilization. ing the plants immediately under the window. It was amusing to see how impartially she divided the contents of the watering-pot be

tween the flowers and her own little feet. Her simple but becoming dress contrasted favorably with the gorgeous apparel now worn by the little damsels of the rising generation —a large straw hat and a suit of white cotton; a colored fichu was the only ornament she wore. The young lady I am describing was the Princess Victoria, our present sovereign, whom God preserve!

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Here are two funny legal anecdotes :

clear and faithful picture of life and society at Athens, polished and enriched by the treasures of his own mind, and shining with the beauties of his speech. We cannot undertake to give an analytical view of the dialogues, which would be a task too long for our columns; we can endeavor only to show, by extracts, the general tenor and quality of the dialogues. In the colloquy between Diogenes and Plato appears this forcible passage :—

The principal figure in this first volume is that of Robert de la Salle, whose portrait, apparently taken in early youth, forms the frontispiece. The features, though handsome and intellectual, are far from indicating the extraordinary energy and force which were his most conspicuous characteristics; but nobody can read the documents which exhibit the successive stages of his career without recog"Philosophers are absurd from many causes, nizing the remarkable qualities of the man. but principally from laying out unthriftily Several of these papers are of the highest their distinctions. They set up four virtues: interest; but, among them all, none appears Now a man may be a very bad one, and yet fortitude, prudence, temperance, and justice. to us comparable in this respect with the offipossess three out of the four. Every cutthroat "Chief Baron O'Grady was the presidcial narrative, occupying more than one hun-must, if he has been a cutthroat on many occaing judge. Bush, then a king's counsel dred pages, in which his earlier enterprisessions, have more fortitude and more prudence who held a brief for the defence, was plead- from 1679 to the end of 1681 are reported to ing the cause of his client with much elo- the Government. The romantic nature of the quence, when a donkey in the court set up a incidents and the freshness of the story, the loudi bray. 'One at a time, Brother Bush!' called his Lordship. Peals of laughter filled lifelike manner in which men and events are the court. The counsel bore the interruption presented, and the manifest spirit of truth to sum up with his usual ability of speech; which we trace the pen of La Salle himself, as he best could. The judge was proceeding which pervades at least all that part of it in the donkey again began to bray. your Lordship's pardon,' said Bush, putting make it unsurpassed in the original chronicles his hand to his ear; but there is such an of American adventure. This, with most of echo in the court that I can't hear a word you the remaining papers in the volume, has been say.' The authoress of The Wild Irish Girl' largely drawn upon in Parkman's “ Discovery (Lady Morgan), justly proud of her gifted of the Great West," but no other writer has sister Olivia, was in the habit of addressing made use of them. Their publication is a every new-comer with, I must make you boon to American historical students, and we to a man who dealt largely in that traffic, and acquainted with my Livy.' She once used this form of words to a gentleman who had just been worsted in an encounter of wits with the lady in question. Yes, ma'am,' was the reply; I happen to know your Livy, and I only wish your Livy was Tacitus.'

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I beg

trust that nothing will be allowed to interfere
with the speedy appearance of the remaining
volumes of the series. M. Margry has ap-
parently reserved his own comments, and his
indications of the sources whence the docu-
ments were drawn, to the last volume, the

than the greater part of those whom we conwretches, both executioners and judges, have sider as the best men. And what cruel been strictly just! how little have they cared what gentleness, what generosity, what genius, their sentence hath removed from the earth! expound them; do what thou wilt with them, Temperance and beneficence contain all other virtues. Take them home, Plato; split them, if thou but use them."

In a conversation between Pericles and
"Who is

Sophocles, the former inquires,
Chlaros ?" and is answered:

coast of Euboea, and sold as a slave in Persia
"He was born somewhere on the opposite
who also had made a fortune by displaying to
the public four remarkable proofs of ability.
of the strongest wine; secondly, by standing
First, by swallowing at a draught an amphora
up erect, and modulating his voice like a sober
man when he was drunk; thirdly, by acting
to perfection like a drunken man when he

We have said that Milord is not a good publication of which will therefore be looked was sober; and, fourthly, by a most surpris

writer; indeed, he is a bad one. He writes: "Besides this fishery of Karmaziack, he has twenty more others." Again: For Mr. Ward, the British Chargé d'Affaires, having forgotten to inform the authorities that we had the Times in our possession."

for with the more interest.

Découvertes et Etablissements des Français dans l'Amér-
ique Septentrionale; Mémoires et Documents originaux,

recueillis et publiés par Pierre Margry. Première Partie.
Paris. Imprimerie, D. Jouast. 1876.

ing trick indeed, which, it is reported, he learned in Babylonia: one would have sworn he had a blazing fire in his mouth; take it out, and it is nothing but a lump of ice. The

* Imaginary Conversations. By Walter Savage Landor. 12mo. Boston: Roberts Brothers.

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