LITERARY NOTICES.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIVING; or the way to enjoy Life and its Comforts. In one volume, 12mo. pp. 334. By CALEB TICKNOR, AĂ. M., M. D. New-York: HARPER AND BROTHERS.

THIS is a sensible and truly valuable book, on a vitally interesting subject. Notwithstanding the numerous works on Hygiene, or the art of preserving health, we believe that at no period of the world, and in no nation, savage or civilized, has there prevailed a more general neglect of those rules and precepts, on the observance of which health mainly depends, than exists at the present time in our own enlightened land. This remark will particularly apply to the female sex; especially in our cities, and even in country villages, where an admission to 'good society' chiefly depends on aping the ridiculous and mischievous fashions of city life. Accordingly, as it seems to us, a work of this kind was never more needed, though we scarcely dare hope that any effort, or even the combined efforts of the faculty, can successfully resist the tide of luxury, dissipation and fashion, which is so fearfully deluging our country.

The work whose title stands at the head of this notice, treats of diet and drinks; dress; amusement; exercise; tobacco; the management of young children; education; the influence of the mind and body upon each other; climate and season, air and locality; temperament; age; sex, and last though not least in importance, marriage. These subjects are all discussed in a calm and philosophical manner; sometimes in a humorous, at others in a fine ironical vein; but always in a manner to impress indelibly on the mind of the reader the rational views of the author. Dr. Ticknor has a mortal antipathy to every species of ultraism, against which he aims a welldirected and not a feeble blow:

"It is seen (he observes,) in most of the charitable and benevolent operations of the day; in religious zeal, political warfare, morality and immorality; in most of the domestic concerns of life, and in fact, in all the particulars and minutiae of living, moving and being. There seems a remarkable propensity in us Americans to run into unwarantable extravagances; whatever scheme is adopted, or whatever plan devised, whether for good or evil, is carried to an extreme. To one who contemplates the present condition of our country, with calmness and deliberation, every thing would seem to be upside down, or in a state of the most perfect confusion. He would see men running into opposites on all subjects, and man warring to the death with his brother or neighbor, on some trivial question, while they are no better agreed on matters of the greatest moment. To judge of men by their actions, one would suppose that a great proportion were mad, and that the world was one immense mad-house. Retrenchment and self-mortification seem to be the order of the day, in relation to food and drink; there being no virtue, on the principles of radicalism, which does not consist in going counter to the appetites and instincts of nature.'

The truth of this picture no one, it is presumed, will deny or gainsay; and yet, strange to say, there is little done to resist the progress of radicalism, either by the pulpit, the press, or any of those engines which sway public opinion. Indeed there seems to be no fear of extravagance in sentiment, or action; but it is, on the contrary, courted as a badge of distinction and prëeminence. In what this living hyperbole, if we may so call it—this grand commotion in the moral, practical, and economical

elements - will end, we know not: but as we are not, as our readers know, of those who despair of the republic, we trust that good will eventually result from causes which would now appear to threaten serious mischief to the social, civil, and religious interests of our country.

The advice which our author gives, in relation to diet, is sound and rational, and what is still better, it is practical. Notwithstanding the sacred precept, 'Take no thought what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink,' we doubt whether there is a divine command more generally transgressed, or any subject which more occupies the thoughts of the human family. Our author believes with Solomon, who was reputed a wise man in his day, that it is good for a man to eat and drink, and enjoy the good of his labor;' an expression which he truly observes, the laboring man only can duly appreciate. With respect to the much-agitated and as yet unsettled question, as to the propriety of a diet exclusively animal or vegetable, Dr. Ticknor justly remarks:

"There is a lack of philosophy and reason in attempting to prove by a few rare examples that either vegetable or animal food is to be used to the entire exclusion of the other; and to prove that all men need but little food from a few cases of extreme abstinence. Cornaro is the standard now-a-days- the mirror by which every man's nature is to be reflected the great exemplar which every man is to imitate. Lewis Cornaro was a Venetian nobleman, who by dissipation and debauchery, at an early age ruined his health and broke down his constitution; but by the advice of his physicians he reduced his diet to twelve ounces of solid food and about a pint of wine per day. This change had a most happy effect upon the debauchee, as it has at the present day, and will ever have on all who undermine their health and the strength of their system by the same course of dissipation. Cornaro lived to be almost a hundred years old, and the conclusion is, by those who use the scales and weights, that every body should live as Cornaro lived after he reformed, and so indeed they should, if they had previously lived as he did, with the same unhappy effect upon his health. This mode of reasoning is but taking the exception for the rule itself; and by it we may prove any thing, and make of a single isolated fact, a general principle universal in its application. Red Jacket, the famous chief of the Seneca Indians, lived chiefly, as the other nations of the forest do, on game, and exposed to all the vicissitudes and inclemencies of our variable climate. He attained almost as great an age as Cornaro did, and yet during the last fifty years of his life he was almost daily intoxicated. Does this prove that we should imitate Red Jacket, in order to live to a good old age?"

We have never believed in laying down specific rules on this subject for all to follow. If men were all made alike, with the same constitution; the same habits, the same intellect, and the same employment; and were there, moreover, an equal expenditure of physical energy, then there might be some reason for stretching mankind upon this Procrustean bed; but in the present diversified condition of society, to attempt such regulations, is the very height of folly and absurdity. Indeed, we doubt whether it be practicable to lay down rules which could invariably be followed with benefit by any single individual, as the quantity and quality of food necessary to the maintenance of health depend on various circumstances, which are constantly liable to change; such as climate, clothing, state of the mind, degree of exertion, etc., all which require a corresponding change, either in the kind or amount of food.

With regard to dress, we subscribe, ex animo, to every word which the Doctor utters. We have so often witnessed fatal consequences resulting from deficient clothing, and especially from the barbarous custom of tight lacing, that we begin to believe that life and health will always be held of less importance, and considered subordinate to the laws and dictates of fashion. On this subject our author pertinently observes:

'No error in dress is more frequent or more fatal in its consequences than that of tight lacing; in no one particular is nature more sinned against than in this. It seems by the common consent of refined people, that a small waist is indispensable to beauty. This is the sine qua non, and to accomplish this object is the grand desideratum in corporeal training; and the more slender the waist the more beautiful the form. We look with astonishment at the foot of a Chinese belle, and wonder at the per

verted taste and misguided reason which lead her to make so great a sacrifice to attain so great a degree of deformity. She might with equal propriety wonder at the singular and unnatural taste of American ladies, in deforming their persons many fold more to the injury of their health by the operation of tight lacing. The Chinese lady confines her feet in an iron shoe till her system arrives at maturity, when the shoe gives place to simple bandages; our own lovely country-women are at an early age encased in an apparatus of whale bone, wood, or steel, and inelastic and unyielding substances which are retained, not only till adult life, but as long as life itself endures."

From these extracts, the reader will be able to form some opinion of the drift of the work under notice, which we venture to prophesy, is destined to become one of the most popular, on the subjects of which it treats. There is no empty parade of learning, no affectation nor dogmatism to be found in its pages; and at the present day, when there is such a fulsome display of philosophical cant, and 'science falsely so called,' this is no small merit. We trust that the capable author will continue his useful labors, and extend his researches to other kindred subjects of scarcely less importance to the public weal.

PAUL PRY'S JOURNAL OF A RESIDENCE AT LITTLE PEDLINGTON. In one volume, pp. 191. Philadelphia: E. L. CAREY AND A. HART. New-York: WILEY AND LONG.

Now and then an individual have we seen, who, after reading the 'Journal of a Residence at Little Pedlington,' could declare his inability to perceive the keen satire, unadulterated wit, and broad burlesque with which it is, as it were, saturated. In our opinion, however, there has been no volume of its size published these ten years, which contains more genuine humor than this. The pictures of the author bear intrinsic evidence of being transcripts highly colored sometimes, perhaps, but still faithful transcripts-of real life. Mr. Poole may occasionally exaggerate, but he never distorts nature. Neither does he strain after effect, and so overshoot his purpose. His biting satire is most unaffectedly displayed; and comparing his portraitures with the abortions of those writers who are only laboriously flippant where they deem themselves witty, the reader feels forcibly the truth of Coleridge's remark, that 'Mediocrity can talk, but it is for Genius to observe.' The ambitious apings, the petty pride, jealousies, and topics of a small village, were never better depicted than in these unpretending sketches. The likenesses of Hoppy, M. C., Daubson, the artist, Yawkins, the banker, and Hobbleday, have surely their originals, and who can doubt that they are drawn to the life? Nor should Simcox Rummins, Jr., editor of the 'Little Pedlington Weekly Observer,' be forgotten in this enumeration. That he is a great man, and a felicitous writer, may be gathered from the subjoined extract from his journal, wherein may be seen how extensive was the influence of that sheet, and how potent the counsels of its guiding spirit:

"Once more we call the attention of His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Russia, to what we have so often said, and what we have repeated above: shall we add, for the last time? But, no; for though patience like the eagle, which wings its airy flight through the boundless realms of ether, must descend at length to rest its weary wing, yet shall ours still soar upwards whilst, with the piercing eye of hope, we behold a ray of expectation that our advice will not, like the sands of the desert, be eventually lost upon him. He may continue to not notice us in any of his decrees or manifestos, and thus affect to be indifferent concerning what we may say to him; but we have it on the best authority that he is frequently seen thoughtful and musing-not, indeed, in his moments of noisy revelry, when immersed in the vortex of pleasure, and surrounded by flatterers, who, like locusts, would bar our honest counsel from his ear, but in the nocturnal solitude of his chamber. There it is that our warning voice, wafted on the wings of the viewless wind, pierces the perfumed precincts of the palace of Petersburgh, and carries conviction, like the roaring of the rushing cataract, into his mind. And if the 'Little Pedlington Observer' does sometimes address the Autocrat in terms of more than usual severity, let

him remember that we do so 'more in friendship than in anger;' that we regret the necessity we are under of giving him pain, but that, like skilful surgeons, who probe, etc.'"

Having afforded the reader a glimpse of Rummins, Jr., editor, etc., it is meet that we should not wholly pass by the Rummins, par excellence, the Little Pedlington antiquary, proprietor of the 'Rumminsian Museum,' whose 'Life and Times' were to establish the reputation of the tuneful Jubb,' the village poet. Our author beards the lion in his den, where he finds him surrounded with 'schemes,' 'projects,' and 'prospectuses,' all conceived with a view to the 'benefit of the empire at large, but Little Pedlington more particularly, and most particularly to the advantage of Simcox Rummins, Esq., F. S. A. himself.' The three following are given as specimens:

Prospectus of a NATIONAL EDITION of Rummins's Antiquities of Little Pedlington.' "When we reflect on the march of intellect: when we reflect on the spread of intelligence when we reflect on the improvements in the arts of printing and engraving: when we reflect on steamboats and rail-roads: when we reflect on the facility with which all nations of the civilized world are brought into intercourse with each other by these means: when we reflect on their mutual anxiety, in consequence of such facility, to become acquainted with each other's Topography and Antiquities: above all when we reflect on the growing importance of Little Pedlington, it cannot but be a matter of wonder and of regret that, although Troy has been illustrated by its Gell, and Athens by its Stuart, our town should not as yet have put forth a work worthy of its station on the map of Europe, and capable of satisfying the growing desires of society in its present more enlightened state. It is true that Mr. Rummins's 'Antiquities' in a small duodecimo volume (to be had of the author, price one-and-six-pence) may be 'an admirable vade-mecum and pocket companion for the traveler, and which no traveler should be without' (See 'Little Pedlington Weekly Observer,' 25th April) yet, as that intelligent journal adds, 'a splendid edition worthy of our town, fit for the shelves of the library, is still a desideratum; and it is disgraceful to our country that no such monument exists,' &c. &c.

"Mr. Rummins, feeling deeply for the honor of his natal town and of the kingdom at large, is resolved that this reproach shall no longer have cause for existence; and, regardless of time, labor, and expense, has determined to publish an enlarged and improved edition of his work.

"Terms. This NATIONAL EDITION in one volume, post octavo, embellished with four elegant lithographic engravings, to be published BY SUBSCRIPTION, price four shillings; one half to be paid at the time of subscribing, and the other half to be paid on delivery of the copies. Only five hundred copies will be printed; and, to prevent delay, the work will go to press as soon as four hundred and fifty copies are subscribed for. To prevent trouble, subscriptions will be received by the author only.' Patriotic Rummins!

666 Plan for aiding the Funds of the Little-Pedlington Alms-house. "Mr. Rummins, having learnt with the deepest and most heart-felt regret, that the eloquent sermon delivered on Sunday last by our highly-gifted curate, the Rev. Jonathan Jubb, in favor of the above-named charity (although it melted the hearts, and drew tears from the eyes of a numerous congregation) did not (from a variety of adverse causes) produce (in a pecuniary point of view) the effect anticipated (only fourteen shillings and two-pence having been collected at the church-door,) submits to the Nobility, Gentry, Visitors, and towns-people of Little-Pedlington, who are ever foremost in the heart-soothing work of Charity, the following plan for supplying the deficiency.

66 6

"Mr. R. proposes to publish, in aid of the funds of the said institution, an elegant engraving of his lately-acquired treasure, the Helmet of the time of King John! The drawing will be made on stone by Mr. R. himself: and, after five hundred copies are sold, at one shilling each, to defray the necessary expenses, Mr. R. will PRESENT all that may afterwards remain, together with the copyright in the stone itself, to the trustees for the management of that praiseworthy institution; the whole of the profits thereof to be applied in aid of its funds.

Philanthropic Rummins!

tr
"Beautifying our ancient and venerable Church.

"The churchwardens and overseers of the parish of Little-Pedlington having, in the most prompt and liberal manner, complied with the wish of several of the parishioners, 'that the roof of our ancient and venerable church be whitewashed' Mr. Rummins suggests that a general meeting of the inhabitants of the place be held at the Green 68

VOL. VII.

Dragon, on Wednesday next, at one o'clock, for the purpose of passing a vote of thanks to those gentlemen. Mr. R., regardless of all personal inconvenience to himself, will take the chair; and hopes and trusts that the meeting will be as numerous as the occasion requires. Mr. R. having had the said vote of thanks (which he has gratutiously drawn up) printed on an elegantly embossed card, each person, on entering the room will have an opportunity of becoming possessed of this memorial of the occasion, price only sixpence. Disinterested Rummins! Find me such an F. S. A. elsewhere than in Little-Ped

lington!"

In corroboration of our encomiums, we had marked several other admirable passages for insertion, but are compelled to omit them. We trust, however, that our readers will believe us when we say, with the illustrious Rummins himself, that the publication of so amusing a book as the present is an 'event which, as it does not often happen, so it does not frequently occur.' Indeed, we do not exaggerate when we add, in the language of Mr. Fudgefield, the Little-Pedlington auctioneer, that the book under notice 'is one, to describe which, puts to the utmost stretch of extension the most inexhaustible powers of description for to describe, and which, to convey an idea of sufficiently adequately, would be required to be described by the unequalled and not-to-be-parralleled descriptive powers of a—'

But we pause: which is more than he will do, until he reaches the last page, who enters understandingly upon the perusal of this master-piece of the author of 'Paul Pry. A word as to the typographical execution of the volume. It is bad, decidedly bad. There are gross blunders upon almost every leaf.

LIFE ON THE LAKES: Being Tales and Sketches collected on a trip to the Pictured Rocks of Lake Superior. By the author of 'Legends of a Log Cabin.' In two vol. New York: GEORGE DEARBORN.

umes.

We were naturally led, by the excellent 'Legends of a Log Cabin,' to expect an entertaining work in the volumes before us, and in good truth, they prove that we were not wrong in our anticipations. Life on the Lakes' is written in an easy, off-hand style, and portrays with much spirit the striking scenes which fell under the observation of the writer, on his tour from New York to Lake Superior, together with the manners and peculiarities of the natives of that picturesque region surrounding the great inland seas of our continent. Many characters are depicted with great individuality, and the prominent features of the Canadian and Indian admirably set forth. The interest of the work is not a little increased by the insertion of several aboriginal legends, which are introduced without at all interfering with the course of the narrative, and evince a lively imagination and a cultivated mind.

We are forced, much against our inclination, to limit our extracts to a few vivid paragraphs, descriptive of the Pictured Rocks :'

say,

"Leaving Grand Island at the dawn of day, we were soon opposite the beginnings of the Pictured Rocks; but before we had reached the interesting, or rather, I should the most interesting part of the range, the sun was up, and his beams fell with unclouded splendor on the many-colored face of the precipice. The lake was now perfectly calm, and we could approach without difficulty close to the base of the rock; indeed, had it not been for the swell from yesterday's gale we might have entered some of the

caverns.

"Passing so close, and gliding by so smoothly and so leisurely, we had an excellent opportunity to examine them. When any thing particularly struck either of us, we could lay off or approach quite close, so as to be sure to catch the best point of view. "Nothing I had ever heard had at all prepared my mind for the sublimity and beauties of this scene;- the rock, so lofty and precipitous; the wide openings that yawned below, leading we knew not where; but, above all, the brilliant colors that diversify every foot of this vast range of rocks, now that we saw it lighted up by the sun's direct