course of the story, without distinction of age or sex, as a sultan or a dey remedies his little domestic difficulties, is a most gratuitously and unartistically murderous practice. Why, when the threads of the imagined life lie in the writer's hand, should he wield the sanguinary shears, when he might weave them 1ather upon the pleasant distaff? When it is precisely as easyunless to a careless literary sloven-to have his story end in sunshine as to overcast it with a chilly sunset storm, should he choose the discomfort of the latter? There is enough of sorrow in real life, which we cannot expect to shun. Let us have pleasant scenes portrayed in pictures and in books. Sorrow at fictitious distress is fit, perhaps, to fill the empty heads of indolent women-it is certainly not fit for anything or anybody else. Books which end in sorrow are of the same class of untrue and morbid excitants with statues of dying gladiators, pictures of deaths by famine, of the sawing asunder of Isaiah, of the roasting of St. Lawrence. They are as proper as an anatomical demonstration, or the actual infliction of the rack, might be in a parlor, for the diversion of one's friends.

Mr. Mügge's murders-they deserve no other name-are a blemish to the book. Yet, we doubt not, that many who love to drop a sympathetic tear-in the parlor, on a lace handkerchief-will disagree with us. But in spite of that, for some of the good people in "Afraja," and none of the bad, come to good fortune, the volume is very readable, well-written, and well-translated.

-The Youth of Madame de Longueville. Translated from the French of Victor Cousin. By F. W. RICORD. Translation is a work which all think easy, but which very few can do. It is not sufficient to furnish literal equivalents, word by word, for the matter of the original. Nor is it even necessary, or always allowable, to retain the structure of the sentences, or of the paragraphs. The office of the translator is to render the foreign thought into the native thought: and. to that end, the garments of the languages must be altogether and entirely exchanged. This demands acquaintance not only with the mere relative lexicography of the two tongues, but with the genius and style of thought peculiar to each, and the equivalent thoughts in each.

In these respects Mr. Ricord is hardly prepared for the work of translation. A strong French odor-if the expression is

allowable-pervades the volume. This defect makes the perusal of the book unsatisfactory; inasmuch as English words, in French idioms, communicate to the great mass of English readers only indistinct ideas.

Aside from the merely literary merits or demerits of the book, it possesses a certain kind and degree of interest, as portraying the empty, bustling, frivolous, useless life of the upper classes in France, during the tangled disturbances of the long minority of Louis XIV., and the selfish and vicious administration of Richelieu and Mazarin. Although Madame de Longueville is selected as the central personage of the book, the disconnected sketches of her unprincipled and dissipated life are quite equaled in importance by the masses of detail about men and women now as insignificant and uninteresting as Madame de Montbazon, Mademoiselle de Vigean, and that Duke d'Enghien, who won early fame by gaining the bloody fight of Rocroy,-people heard of in Madame de Sevigne's letters, but about whom nobody now cares a pin. Nor are the heartless and wicked intrigues of these empty-headed people made any pleasanter by the truly French, indifferent, and matter-of-fact manner in which M. Cousin has narrated them. He takes it as a thing right in itself, and altogether of course, that young women should marry decrepit old men, if their parents choose; and that, afterwards, they should have as many lovers as they wish, to comfort themselves. Nor has he any comment to offer, or even a disapprobatory word upon the base murders, called duels, which destroyed-within a few years-nine hundred of the gallantest gentlemen of France; the robberies, falsehood, greediness and selfishness which were the entire foul atmosphere in which the ladies and gentlemen of the Court of Anne of Austria lived and moved. We cannot count it any great advantage to American literature that it is increased by the addition of such books.

REPRINTS.-History of the Crusades. By MAJOR PROCTOR. 1 vol., 12 mo. Hildreth has occupied-in narrating the events of seventy years in the life of one nation-four or five times as much space as Major Proctor has used in the history of all Christendom, and the greatest empires of Heathenism, for three hundred years.

So compressed a work can be little more than a summary: and Mr. Proctor's is a clear and comprehensive summary of the

history of the Crusades, derived, in considerable part, as he honestly acknowledges, from Mill, Gibbon, and other modern writers on the period. We will take the liberty here of suggesting a still shorter abstract of the history of the Crusades, in which each Crusade is localized by its main characteristic, in such a way that the numerous class whose memories cannot hold a bald figured date, may cling by a chain of associations Our list is as follows:

Abortive mobbish expeditions, about 1096, not counted as Crusades, under Walter the Penniless. Peter the Hermit, Gottschalk the German Monk, and the goat and goose; destruction of the whole crew.

First Crusade, 1096; taking of Jerusalem, and Latin Kingdom there.

Second, 1147; erection of principalities of Antioch and Edessa.

Third, 1189; nothing at all.

Fourth, 1202; Latin Empire at Constantinople.

Fifth, 1217; free access to Jerusalem. Sixth, 1238; Jerusalem in possession of Christians.

Seventh, 1245; defeat and captivity, in Egypt, of Louis IX. of France.

Eighth death of Louis, in Tunis; abortive expedition, into Palestine, of Edward II. of England.

The profuse insertion of wretched woodcuts is a great blemish to a really valuable and well-written book. And, aside from the miserable execution of these, they are calculated to operate as impositions upon the innocent. What propriety is there in pretending to furnish portraits, either of the face, dress, or outfit of Mohammed, Zingis Khan, Bondocdar, Alexius Comnenus, or Theodore Lascaris? These absurd Emaings continually remind us of the pictured forms of Ahasuerus, of Xerxes, of Adam and Eve, in the New England Primer, and are precisely as reliable. These pictures go to degrade the book to the level of those diluted concoctions which, under the name of Pictorial Histories and the like, within a few years deluged the country. In the name alike of truth and honesty, we enter a solemn protest against this most unpleasant practice, which sins both in omission and commission. It cannot give us a right idea of the appearance of the men and things in question; and, farther, it does, in fact, give us a wrong one.

--Synonyms of the New Testament, by RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, is a neat little volume of 250 pages, uniform with the au

thor's two other books, on Proverbs and on the Lessons of Words. It is a careful discussion of the distinctions among about a hundred and fifty Greek synonyms in the New Testament. Of its precise practical value to the student of the mixed and intricate dialect of the Testament, we cannot speak. But the book is one of a comparatively new, and positively valuable character. The cautious examination and comparison of such expressions as are here discussed, cannot fail to suggest valuable new truths upon the verbal study of the Scriptures.

-A more timely scientific work could not appear than that just issued by H Bailliere, of No. 290, Broadway,—we mean Latham's Races of the Russian Empire. It is a complete and accurate account of all the varieties of people dwelling under the protection of the Russian government, including all those who have been conquered by the dominant race, or absorbed into its body. It is founded upon the great ethnological and statistical map of Russia, which was published by the Imperial Geographical Society of St. Petersburg, in the year 1852. Few men are more competent to write on the subject than Dr. Latham, wellknown for his " English Language," his "Varieties of Men," and his " "Ethnological Notes to the Germania of Tacitus." A colored map of the whole of the Russian Empire, distinguishing the several tribes, adds greatly to the value of the work, which, also, constitutes a second volume of Norris's Ethnological Series.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

WEBSTER, AND HIS MASTER-PIECES; by Rev. B. F. Tefft. Auburn and Buffalo: Miller, Orton & Mulligan. 2 vols. 12mo., pp. 1034.

MAXIMS OF WASHINGTON; POLITICAL, SOCIAL, MORAL,
AND RELIGIOUS; by John Frederick Schroeder, D.D.
New York: D. Appleton & Co. 12mo., pp. 423.
THE YOUTH OF MADAME DE LONGUEVILLE; from the
French of Victor Cousin. By F. W. Ricord. New
York: D. Appleton & Co. 12mo., pp. 403.
PRESERVATION OF HEALTH, AND PREVENTION OF DIS-
BASE. By B. N. Comings, M. D. New York
D. Appleton & Co. 12mo., pp. 208.
SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. By R. C. Trench,
B. D. New York: Redfield. 12mo., pp. 250.
JAIL JOURNAL; or, FIVE YEARS IN BRITISH PRISONS;
By John Mitchel. New York: "Citizen" Office.
12mo., pp. 870.

SALT WATER BUBBLES. By Hawser Martingale.
Boston: W. J. Reynolds & Co. 12mo.
THE WIDE-AWAKE GIFT; a Know-Nothing Token for
1855. New York: J. C. Derby. 12mo., pp. 812.

POPULAR TALES BY MADAME GUIZOT. Translated from the French, by Mrs. L. Burke. Boston: Crosby, Nichols & Co. 12mo., pp. 404.

WHAT NOT. By Mrs. Mary A. Denison. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co. 12mo., pp. 884. ARITHMETICAL ANALYSIS; or Higher Mental ArithNew metic. By James B. Thompson, LL. D. York: Ivison & Phinney. 12mo., pp. 192. HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES. By Major Proctor. Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blakiston. Imp. Svo., pp. 480.

MILE-STONES IN OUR LIFE-JOURNEY. By Samuel Osgood. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 8vo., pp. 307.

AFRAJA; a Norwegian and Lapland Tale; translated from the German of Theodore Mügge; by E. J. Morris. Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blakiston. 12mo., pp. 571.

NATURE IN DISEASE. By Jacob Bigelow, M. D. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 12mo., pp. 391. CLOVERNOOK CHILDREN. By Alice Carey. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 18mo.

HIGH LIFE IN NEW YORK. By Jonathan Slick, Esq. New York: Bunce & Brother. 12mo.

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND QUARTERLY REVIEW, October, 1854. London: Sampson Low & Son. LEAVES FROM THE TREE IGDRASYL.

By Martha Russell. Boston: John P. Jewett & Co. 12mo., pp. 848. WISDOM, WIT, AND WHIMS OF DISTINGUISHED ANCIENT

PHILOSOPHERS. By Joseph Banvard, A. M. New York: Sheldon, Lamport & Blakeman. 12mo., pp. 408.

HISTORY OF LOUISIANA. The Spanish Domination. By Charles Gayarré. New York: Redfield. Svo. pp. 649.

IN DOORS AND OUT; or Views from the Chimney Cor-
ner. By Oliver Optic. Boston: Brown, Bazin &
Co. 12mo., pp. 830.
THE PRIDE OF LIFE.

Long & Brother.

By Lady Scott. New York: H. 12mo., pp. 884.

MARTIN MERRIVALE. By Paul Creyton.

Boston;

Phillips, Sampson & Co. With illustrations. 12mo. pp. 558.

Boston Crosby,

A Story

THE RAT-CATCHER; or, The Magic Fife. of the Olden Time. By Gustav Nieritz. Translated from the German, by Mrs. H. C. Conant. New York: Charles Scribner. 12mo., pp. 166. THE LADIES' WORK-BOOK. Containing instructions in knitting, netting, point-lace, embroidery, crochet, &c. Illustrated; 4to., pp. 98. New York: T. L. McElrath.

POEMS BY PAUL H. HAYNE Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1855. 12mo., pp.108.

WAY DOWN EAST; or Portraitures of Yankee Life. By Seba Smith. New York: J. C. Derby. 12mo., pp. 384.

ELLEN MONTGOMERY'S BOOK-SHELF. By the author of
Mr. Rutherford's
the Wide, Wide World, &c.
Children. Second Volume. New York: G. P
Putnam & Co. 16mo., pp. 212.

AMABEL: A FAMILY HISTORY. By Mary E. Worme ley. New edition. New York: Bunce & Brother. 12mo., pp. 466.

A GREEK READER. By J. O. Colton, M. A. Third Edition, by Henry M. Colton. New Haven: Durrie & Peck. 12mo., pp. 529.

ART, SCENERY, AND PHILOSOPHY IN EUROPE; from the portfolio of the late H. B. Wallace. Philadelphia: Herman Hooker. 12mo.

By

JOYS AND SORROWS OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL YEAR. Maria G. Milward. Philadelphia: Herman Hooker. 12mo., pp. 800.

THE NEWSBOY. New York: J. C. Derby. 12mo., pp. 527.

THE THEATRICAL JOURNEY-WORK, and Anecdotal Recollections of Sol. Smith. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson. 12mo., pp. 254.

IDA MAY: a story of things actual and possible. By Mary Langdon. Boston: Phillips, Sampson & Co. 12mo.

Boston:

THE MOTHERS OF THE BIBLE. By Mrs. S. G. Ashton
Boston: John P. Jewett & Co. 12mo., pp. 885.
THE LAMPLIGHTER. Illustrated edition.
John P. Jewett & Co. 12mo.
THE KNOW NOTHING. (?)

Co. 12mo., pp. 347.

Boston: John P. Jewett &

OLD KARL, THE COOPER; and his wonderful book. By Elbert Perce. New York: Charles Scribner. 12mo., pp. 227.

EXPOSITION OF THE GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURE OF THE use of ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Abridged for the schools. By John Mulligan, A. M. New York: Ivison & Phinney. 12mo., pp. 801. BROWN'S SELF-INTERPRETING FAMILY BIBLE, contain ing the Old and New Testaments, with copious notes and marginal references, together with an exact summary of the several books, and paraphrase on the most obscure and important passa. ges. By the late Rev. John Brown, minister of the Gospel at Haddington. With numerous additional notes by the Rev. Henry Cooke, D. D., LL. D. Пlustrated with numerous fine engravings. Foli Part I. to XV. R. Martin: London and New York. [This superb edition will be noticed when completed.]

FANNY GRAY; a History of her Life. Illustrated by six colored figures. Crosby, Nichols & Co.: Boston. [One of the prettiest and best executed little divertisements for children we have ever seen. Little misses of five to ten will be delighted with it.]

THE HE calendar has completed a full cycle, since the "game of kings" was azaia commenced in Europe. Slowly, bat steadily, the great players have brought out their forces, and calinly and deberately strengthened themselves for a long and desperate struggle. The world has looked with the deepest interest at the magnitude of preparation, the magnificent displays of power, and the wonderful development of resources by the Western Powers, contrasted with the sluggish movements and stubborn and dogged self-reliance of their great enerny. Young America and its kindred spirit everywhere, has scarcely been able to restrain its impatience at these cautious and deliberate movements, and, like the spectator of other and smaller games, has been constantly overloosing the board, hurrying the players, suggesting all manner of wise or foolish experiment, and restraining with the greatest difficulty the appetite for blood and carnage which its own fevered condition has created.

And still the game has moved grandly on. The giants have awakened slowly, hat refreshed by their long sleep, and Lave gathered together their old armor, and polished and sharpened their batfe-axes, and examined and strengthered every joint in their harness, with a deliberation that proved at ence that they appreciated fully the magnitude of the contest in which they were to engage, and the ability and courage of the enemy they were to oppose. The flippant scribblers for the VOL. V. -8

press have sneered, it is true, at the supposed inferiority of Russia, and kept up their courage and fanned the war spirit of her enemies by boastful predictions of victories won without a struggle, and triumphs so easily obtained as to be shorn of their value. But, with all their mistakes-and they have been neither few nor small-the allied nations have not made that great one, of undervaluing the enemy they were to en

counter.

The war having begun, it became necessary to avoid the appearance of indecision or hesitation, while time should be gained to make those vast preparations that were indispensable for its successful prosecution. For this purpose, far more than with any expectation of an amicable arrangement of the difficulties, negotiations have been carried on-congresses held-meetings between royal nobodies arranged, and all the machinery of continental diplomacy brought into the fullest action. The time has not yet come for the history of all this maneuvering to be written; but if either of the great actors in it shall preserve the record in detail, it will exhibit, when it shall be brought forth to astonish another age, a degree of duplicity, an extent of chicanery, an amount of cunning, and a succession of blunders, that has not been excelled, if equalled, on the earth, since the day when the Arch Enemy first commenced teaching diplomacy to man.

It has been the habit of Western Europe to arrogate to itself a superiority

over the Eastern nations, so great as to be unquestionable, in all the refinements of life. In letters general diffusion of intelligence-quickness of perception, and high mental esitare, they have claimed a pre-eminence so decided as to distance competition: and, wrapping themselves complacently in the mantle of their own self-conceit, have looked down with haughty condescension on the inferiority of their neighbors. It would not be difficult to show that in the negotiations preceding the declaration of war, the feathers of national vanity were sadly ruffled; and the philosophic historian may yet deduce from it anew the ld truth, that wars more frequently originate in the bad temper, passions, weakness, or caprice of those whose duty it was to avoid them, rather than from any real difficulty about their ostensible cause. Bot the errors that preceded and rendered the war inevitable, were but trifles, light as air," when contrasted with the greater blunders that have been committed during the last year.

From the beginning, it has been apparent alike to parties and lookers on, that the alliance of Austria and Prussia was of the utmost consequence to the belligerents. If they should join their power to that of Russia, French vanity and English self-conceit were alike compelled to adinit, that it would give the contest a character of equality more satisfactory to the lovers of a fair fight, than to their hopes of easy and speedy victory. By bringing the war to the banks of the Rhine, it would compel one of them, at least, to drink of the cup it had helped to drug, and by reviving the recollection of the time when eastern armies had quartered further to the westward of that famous river than it was pleasant to contemplate, would suggest to its imperial usurper, considerations in reference to a repetition of that mode of occupancy of his royal residences, vastly more possible than agreeable. History and experience had alike taught, that semibarbarians were troublesome visitors for luxury and refinement, and that the Cossacks of the Don, and the Hussars of the Danube, though but picturesque features in Eastern landscapes, assumed a somewhat different and vastly less satisfactory aspect, when their horsetails streamed in the streets of Paris.

But, if the alliance of Austria and Prussia could be secured to the Western Powers, it would transfer the seat of

war to the East, and expose the whole

western frontier of their enemy to their attacks. The worst horrors of the controversy they had provoked would be spared to their own subjects, and the Whirlwind that was to come from the wind they had sown, would be reared by others. Oh! it was a crafty device, but not original with them. It was, at least, as old as Esop, and the fable of the monkey and the cat bad long since demonstrated its practical advantages in all cases where it euld be carried out.

The wiles of diplomacy make good progress so long as they are not seen or counteracted. Bat, Russia was as keenly sensible as they were, of the importance of securing this aliance, and as active and more successful in its efforts to obtain it. But the alliance she desired was not that of active co-operation, but of masterly inactivity," and her object was not to array her neighbors against her enemies, but to use them rather to mislead and embarrass them. This will become perfectly apparent from a slight glance at her own position.

No other power is so self-existent and self-sustaining as Russia. Extending from the mild parallels of southern Europe to the frozen regions of the north. she embraces within herself the productions of almost every clime, and the material for a domestic commerce equal to all the wants of her people. With an overflowing population-agricultural resources boundless and well developed— defended on the north three-quarters of the year by the "frozen mail" of impenetrable winter-on the south by the dangerous navigation of the Black Seaits vast distance from her enemies, and the stupendous fortifications that crown its coast-unapproachable from the east

it is obvious that it is only from the west that she can be attacked with any possibility of doing her any serious injury. Her ports could be blockaded, it is true! But what then? By cutting off the exportation of her vast surplus of wheat-greater than that of all Europe beside her enemies, accustomed to depend upon it for bread for their own people, would be starving themselves, while by its accumulation at home, the price would be lowered--universal cheapness and plenty would thus more than compensate the masses for the other losses they might sustain, and the government itself would be enabled to feed its increased military force at so much