Editor's Easy Chair.

Even yet the talk of Louis Napoleon, and of that audacious action which in a day transmuted our thriving sister republic, with her regularly-elected President, and her regularly-made—though somewhat tattered—Constitution, into a kind of anomalous empire, with only an army, and a Bonaparte to hold it together—is loud, in every corner of the country. It has seemed not a little strange, that the man, at whom, three years ago, every one thought it worth his while to fling a sneer, should have gathered into his hands, with such deft management, the reins of power, and absolutely out-manoeuvred the bustling little Thiers, and the bold-acting Cavaignac.

Old travelers are recalling their recollection of the spruce looking gentleman, in white kids, and with unexceptionable beaver, who used to saunter with one or two mustached companions along Pall-Mall; and who, some three months after, in even more recherche costume, used to take his morning drive, with four-in-hand, upon the asphalte surface of the Paris avenues. There seemed really nothing under cover of his finesse in air and garb which could work out such long-reaching strategy as he has just now shown us.

Belabor him as we will, with our honest republican anathemas, there must yet have been no small degree of long-sightedness belonging to the man who could transform a government in a day; and who could have laid such finger to the pulse of a whole army of Frenchmen, as to know their heart-bound to a very fraction.

The truth is, the French, with the impulse of a quick-blooded race, admire audacity of any sort; and what will call a shout, will, in nine cases out of ten, call a welcome. It is not a little hard for a plain, matter-of-fact American to conceive of the readiness with which the French army, and all the myrmidons of that glowing republican power, shift their allegiance—as obedient as an opera chorus to the wink of the maestro.

We can ourselves recall the memory of a time when that Changarnier, who is now a lion in fetters, held such rule over Paris military and Paris constabulary, that a toss of his thumb would send half the representatives to prison; and now, there is not so much as a regiment who would venture a wail for his losses. This offers sad comment on the “thinking capacity” of bayonets!

What shall we suppose of these hundred thousand scene-shifters in the red pantaloons? Are they worked upon merely by the Napoleonic champagne to a change of views; or are they tired of a sham Republic, and willing to take instead a sham Empire; or have they grown political economists, with new appreciation of government stability, and a long-sighted eagerness to secure tranquillity? Or, is not the humbler truth too patent, that their opinions herd together by a kind of brute sympathy, and are acted upon by splendor—whether of crime or of munificence; and, moreover, is it not too clear that those five hundred thousand men who prop the new dynasty with bayonets, are without any sort of what we call moral education, and rush to every issue like herds of wild bison—guided solely by instinct?

And would not a little of that sort of education which sets up school-houses, and spreads newspapers, and books, and Harper's Magazines like dew over the length and the breadth of our land, do more toward the healing of that sick French nation, than the prettiest device of Constitution, or the hugest five-sous bath-house? Ah, well-a-day, we shall have little hope for la belle France, until her army shows intelligence, and her statesmen honesty.

We can hardly give this current topic the go-by, without bringing to our reader's eye a happy summing up of suppositions in the columns of Punch, and if our listener will only read Congressional for Parliamentary, and the Bentons and the Casses for the Grahames and the Gladstones, he may form a very accurate idea of a Napoleon-Mr.-Fillmore.

Suppose the head of the Executive, or the Minister for the time being, were to take it into his head one morning to abolish the Houses of Parliament.—Suppose some of the members elected by large constituencies were to think it a duty to go and take their seats, and were to be met at the doors by swords and bayonets, and were to be wounded and taken off to prison for the attempt.—Suppose the Minister, having been harassed by a few Parliamentary debates and discussions, were to send off to Newgate or the House of Correction a few of the most eminent members of the Opposition, such as the Disraelis, the Grahames, the Gladstones, the Barings, and a sprinkling of the Humes, the Wakleys, the Walmsleys, the Cobdens, and the Brights.—Suppose the press having been found not to agree with the policy of the Minister, he were to peremptorily stop the publication of the Times, Herald, Chronicle, Post, Advertiser, Daily News, Globe, &c., &c., and limit the organs of intelligence to the Government Gazette, or one or two other prints that would write or omit just what he, the Minister, might please.—Suppose, when it occurred to the public that these measures were not exactly in conformity with the law, the Minister were to go or send some soldiers down to Westminster Hall, shut up the Courts, send the Lord Chancellor about his business, and tell Lords Campbell, Cranworth, and all the rest of the high judicial authorities, to make the best of their way home.—Suppose a few Members of Parliament were to sign a protest against these proceedings; and suppose the documents were to be torn down by soldiers, and the persons signing them packed off to Coldbath Fields or Pentonville.—Suppose all these things were to happen with a Parliament elected by Universal Suffrage, and under a Republican form of Government[.]—And lastly—Suppose we were to be told that this sort of thing is liberty, and what we ought to endeavor to get for our own country;—Should we look upon the person telling us so, as a madman, or a knave, or both? and should we not be justified in putting him as speedily, and as unceremoniously as possible—outside our doors?

In our last easy chat with our readers, we sketched in an off-hand way the current of the Kossuth talk; and we hinted that our enthusiasm had its fevers and chills; so far as the talk goes, a chilliness has come over the town since the date of our writing—an unworthy and ungracious chill—but yet the natural result of a little over-idolatry. As for Congressional action, no apology can be found, either in moderation or good sense, for the doubtful and halting welcome which has been shown the great Hungarian.

The question of Government interference in his national quarrel was one thing; but the question of a welcome to a distinguished and suffering stranger was quite another. The two, however, have been unfortunately mingled; and a rude and vulgar effort has been made to prejudge his mission, by affronting him as a guest. We may be strong enough to brave Russia, and its hordes of Cossacks; but no country is strong enough to trample on the laws of hospitality [pg 419] We see the hint thrown out in some paper of the day, that the slackened sympathy for Kossuth, in Washington, is attributable mainly to the influence of the diplomatic circles of that city. We fear there may be a great deal of truth in this hint: our enthusiasm finds volume in every-day chit-chat, and dinner-table talk; it lives by such fat feeding as gossip supplies; and gossip finds its direction in the salons of the most popular of entertainers.

Washington has a peculiar and shifting social character—made up in its winter elements of every variety of manner and of opinion. This manner and these opinions, however, are very apt to revolve agreeably to what is fixed at the metropolis; and since the diplomatic circles of the capital are almost the only permanent social foci of habit and gossip, it is but natural there should be a convergence toward their action. The fact is by no means flattering; but we greatly fear that it is pointed with a great deal of truth.

Our readers will observe, however, that we account in this way only for the slackened tone of talk, and of salon enthusiasm; nor do we imagine that any parlor influences whatever of the capital can modify to any considerable degree, either legislative, or moral action.

Of Paris, now that she has fallen again into one, of her political paroxysms, there is little gayety to be noted. And yet it is most surprising how that swift-blooded people will play the fiddle on the barricades! Never—the papers tell us—were the receptions at the ElysÉe more numerously attended, and never were the dresses richer, or the jewels more ostentatiously displayed.

Some half dozen brilliant soirÉes were, it seems, on the tapis at the date of Louis Napoleon's manoeuvre; the invitations had been sent, and upon the evenings appointed—a week or more subsequent to the turn of the magic lantern—the guests presented themselves before closed doors. The occupants and intended hosts were, it seems, of that timid class living along the Faubourg St. HonorÉ and the Faubourg St. Germain, who imagined themselves, their titles, and their wealth, safer under the wing of King Leopold of Belgium, than under the shadow of the new-feathered eagle. A thriving romance or two, they say, belonged to the quiet movements of the Republic. Thus, the papers make us a pleasant story out of Cavaignac and his prospective bride, Mademoiselle Odier. And if we furbish up for the reading of our country clients, we venture to say that we shall keep as near the truth as one half of the letter-writers.

For two or three years, it seems that General Cavaignac has been a constant visitor at the house of the rich banker, M. Odier, He was regarded as a friend of the family, and wore the honors of a friend; that is to say, he had such opportunities of conversation, and for attention in respect to the daughter of the house, as is rarely accorded to Paris ladies in their teens. The General looks a man of fifty—he may be less; but he has a noble carriage, a fine face, and a manner full of dignity and gentleness. The pretty blonde (for Mlle. Odier is so described), was not slow to appreciate the captivating qualities of the General. Moreover, there belonged to her character a romantic tinge, which was lighted up by the story of the General's bravery, and of the dauntless way in which he bore himself through the murderous days of June. In short, she liked him better than she thought.

The General, on the other hand, somewhat fixed in his bachelor habitude, and counting himself only a fatherly friend, who could not hope, if he dared, to quicken any livelier interest—wore imperturbably the dignity and familiarity of his first manner.

One day—so the story runs—conversation turned upon a recent marriage, in which the bridegroom was some thirty years the lady's senior. The General in round, honest way, inveighed against the man as a deceiver of innocence, and avowed strongly his belief that such inequality of age was not only preposterous, but wicked.

Poor Mademoiselle Odier!—her fond heart feeding so long blindly on hope, lighted by romance and love, could not bear the sudden shock. She grew pale—paler still, and, to the surprise of the few friends who were present—fainted.

Even yet the General lived in ignorance; and would perhaps have died in ignorance, had not some kind friend made known to him the state of Mlle[.] Odier's feelings. The General was too gallant a man to be conquered in loving; and the issue was, in a week, an acknowledged troth of the banker's daughter with the General Cavaignac.

Upon the evening preceding the change of the Republic, they were together—father, daughter, and lover—at the first presentation of a new play. The marriage was fixed for the week to come. But in view of the unsettled state of affairs, the General advised a postponement. The next morning he was a prisoner, on his way to Ham.

He wrote—the gossips tell us—a touching letter to Mademoiselle Odier, giving up all claim upon her, as a prisoner, which he had so proudly boasted while free, and assuring her of his unabated devotion.

She wrote—the gossips tell us—that he was dearer to her now than ever.

So the matter stands; with the exception that Cavaignac has been freed, and that the day of marriage is again a matter of consultation.

May they have a long life, and a happy one—longer and happier than the life of the Republic!

The drawing of the “Lottery of Gold” was the event of Paris which preceded the coup-d'État. Some seven millions of tickets had been sold at a franc each; and the highest prize was, if we mistake not, a sum equal to a hundred thousand dollars. Interest was of course intense; and the National Circus, where the lots were drawn, was crowded to its utmost capacity. The papers give varying accounts as to the fortunate holder of the ticket drawing the first prize, one account represents her as a poor washerwoman, and another, as a street porter. A story is told of one poor fellow who, by a mistaken reading of one figure, imagined himself the fortunate possessor of the fortune. He invited his friends to a feast, and indulged in all sorts of joyous folly. The quick revulsion of feeling, when the truth appeared, was too much for the poor fellow's brain, and he is now in the mad-house.

Another equally unfortunate issue is reported of a poor seamstress, who had spent the earnings of years, amounting to six or seven hundred francs, upon the chance of a prize, and drew—nothing. She, too, has lost both money and mind. The affair, however, has had the fortunate result of taming down wild expectancies, and of destroying the taste for such labor hating schemes of profit. It were devoutly to be hoped, that a little of the distaste for moneyed lotteries, would breed a distaste in the French mind for political lotteries.

As for affairs at home, they budge on in much the old fashion. The town is not over-gay—partly through fatigues of last winter, which are not yet wholly forgotten—partly through a little Wall-street depletion, [pg 420] and partly through the ugly weather, which has sown catarrhs and coughs with a very liberal hand.

Poor Jenny Lind—true to her native tenderness of heart, has yielded up the closing scenes of what would have been a glorious triumph, to the grief at a mother's death. She goes away from us mourning, and she leaves behind her a nation of mourners!

The opera is to tinkle in our ears again—with the symphony of Steffanone, Benedetti, and the rest. The town takes music quietly this winter, and the old fashion of listening has almost grown into a habit of appreciation. The town is building up into a Paris-sided company of streets; and the seven stories of freestone and marble will soon darken down Broadway into a European duskiness of hue. The street lights glimmer on such nights as the almanac tells no story of the moon; and on other nights we draggle as we may, between clouds and rain—consoling ourselves with the rich city economy, and hopeful of some future and freer dispensation—of gas.

For want of some piquancy, which our eye does not catch in the French journals, we sum up our chit-chat with this pleasant whim-wham of English flavor:

My man Davis is a bit of a character. If he's not up to a thing or two, I should like to know who is. I am often puzzled to know how a man who has seen so much of life as he has should condescend to have “no objection to the country,” and to take service with a retired linen-draper, which I am. I keep a dog-cart, and, not being much of a whip, Davis generally drives. He has some capital stories; at least I think so; but perhaps it is his manner of telling them; or perhaps I'm very easily pleased. However, here's one of them.

how mr. coper sold a horse.

“Mr. Coper, as kept the Red Lion Yard, in —— street, was the best to sell a horse I ever know'd, sir; and I know'd some good 'uns, I have; but he was the best. He'd look at you as tho' butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, and his small wall-eyes seemed to have no more life in 'em than a dead whiting's. My master, Capt. ——, stood his hosses there, and, o' course, I saw a good deal of Mr. Coper. One day a gent came to look at the stable, and see if he could buy a hoss. Coper saw in a minute that he knew nothing about horseflesh, and so was uncommon civil. The first thing he showed him was a great gray coach-hoss, about seventeen hands and a inch, with a shoulder like a Erkilus.”

“I suppose you mean Hercules?”

“I suppose I do, sir. The gent was a little man so, o' course, the gray was taken in agen, and a Suffolk Punch cob, that 'ud a done for a bishop, was then run up the yard. But, lor! the little gent's legs 'ud never have been of any use to him; they'd a' stuck out on each side like a curricle-bar—so he wouldn't do. Coper showed him three or four others—good things in their way, but not at all suited to the gent. At last Coper says to him, with a sort of sigh, ‘Well, sir, I'm afear'd we shan't make a deal of it to-day, sir; you're very particular, as you've a right to be, and I'll look about, and if I can find one that I think 'll do, I'll call on you.’ By this time he had walked the gent down the stable to opposite a stall where was a brown hoss, fifteen hands or about, ‘Now there 'ud be the thing to suit you, sir,’ says he, ‘and I only wish I could find one like him.’ ‘Why can't I have him?’ says the gent. ‘Impossible,’ says Coper. ‘Why impossible?’ says the gent. ‘Because he's Mrs. Coper's hoss, and money wouldn't buy him of her; he's perfect, and she knows it.’ ‘Well,’ says the gent, getting his steam up, ‘I don't mind price’ ‘What's money to peace of mind?’ says Coper. ‘If I was to sell that hoss, my missis would worry my life out.’ Well, sir, the more Coper made a difficulty of selling the hoss, the more the gent wanted to buy, till at last Coper took him to a coach-hus, as tho' to be private, and said to him in a whisper, ‘Well, tell you what I'll do: I'll take ninety pounds for him; perhaps he's not worth that to every body, but I think he is to you, who wants a perfect thing, and ready-made for you.’ ‘You're very kind,’ said the gent, ‘and I'll give you a check at once.’ ‘But, mind,’ says Coper, ‘you must fetch him away at night; for if my missus saw him going out of the yard, I do believe she'd pull a life-guardsman off him. How I shall pacify her I don't know! Ninety pounds! why, ninety pounds won't pay me for the rows; leave alone the hoss!’

“The gent quite thought Coper was repenting of the bargain, and so walked away to the little countin'-house, and drew a check for the money. When he was gone, I burst out a-laughin'; because I know'd Mrs. Coper was as mild as a bran-mash, and 'ud never a' dared to blow up her husband; but Coper wouldn't have it—he looked as solemn as truth. Well, sir, the horse was fetched away that night.”

“But why at night, Davis?”

“Because they shouldn't see his good qualities all at once, I suppose, sir; for he'd got the Devonshire coat-of-arms on his off knee.”

“Devonshire coat-of-arms?”

“Yes, sir; you see Devonshire's a very hilly country, and most of the hosses down there has broken knees, so they calls a speck the Devonshire coat-of-arms. Well, sir, as Mrs. Coper's pet shied at every thing and nothing, and bolted when he warn't a-shieing, the gent came back in about a week to Coper.

“ ‘Mr. Coper,’ says he, ‘I can't get on with that hoss at all—perhaps I don't know how to manage him; he goes on so odd that I'am afraid to ride him; so I thought, as he was such a favorite with Mrs. Coper, you should have him back again.’

“ ‘Not if you'd give me ninety pounds to do it,’ says Coper, looking as tho' he was a-going to bite the gent.

“ ‘Why not?’ says the gent.

“ ‘I wouldn't go through what I have gone through,’ says Coper, hitting the stable-door with his fist enough to split it, ‘not for twice the money. Mrs. Coper never left off rowing for two days and nights, and how I should a' stopped her, I don't know, if luck hadn't stood my friend; but I happened to meet with a hoss the very moral of the one you've got, only perhaps just a leetle better, and Mrs. C. took to him wonderful. I wouldn't disturb our domestic harmony by having that hoss of yourn back again, not for half the Bank of England.’ Now the gent was a very tender-hearted man, and believed all that Coper told him, and kept the hoss; but what he did with him I can't think, for he was the wiciousest screw as ever put his nose in a manger.”

Literary Notices

Harper and Brothers have published an edition of Layard's Popular Account of Discoveries at Nineveh, being an abridgment of his large work on the same subject, by the author himself. In this edition, the principal Biblical and historical illustrations are introduced into the narrative. No changes on any material points of opinion or fact are made in the narrative, as more recent discoveries have confirmed the original statements of the author. The present form of the work will no doubt be highly acceptable to the public. With as much condensation as was admitted by the nature of the subject, and at a very moderate expense, the curious researches of Mr. Layard are here set forth, throwing an interesting light on numerous topics of Biblical antiquity, and Oriental customs in general.

Memoirs of the Great Metropolis, by F. Saunders (published by G. P. Putnam), is not only a convenient and instructive guide-book for the traveler in England, but contains numerous literary allusions and reminiscences, illustrating the haunts of celebrated authors. The writer is evidently familiar with his subject from personal observation; he is at home in the antique nooks and corners of the British capital; and, at the same time, making a judicious use of the best authorities, he has produced a volume filled with valuable information, and a variety of amusing matter. We advise our friends who are about packing up for a European tour to remember this pleasant book, and if it should not be able to alleviate the misery of sea-sickness, it will at least prepare them for an intelligent examination of the curiosities of London.

Dream Life: A Fable of the Seasons, by Ik. Marvel. (Published by Charles Scribner.) A new volume in the same vein of meditative pathos, and quaint, gentle humor as the delightful “Reveries of a Bachelor,”—perhaps, indeed, bearing too great an affinity with that unique volume to follow it in such rapid succession. The daintiest cates most readily produce a surfeit, and it is not strange that the pure HyblÆan sweetness of these delicious compositions should pall upon the sense by a too luxurious indulgence. With a writer of less variety of resource than Ik. Marvel, it would not be worth while to advance such a criticism; but we are perverse enough to demand of him not only pre-eminence in a favorite sphere, but a more liberal taste of other qualities, of which we have often had such pleasant inklings.

In this volume we have the “Dreams” of the Four Seasons, Boyhood, Youth, Manhood, and Age, in which the experience of those epochs is set forth in a soft, imaginative twilight, diversified with passages of felicitous description, and with genuine strains of tender, pathetic beauty, which could come only from the heart of genius. His home-life in the country is a perpetual source of inspiration to Ik. Marvel, in his highest and best creations. He describes rural scenes with a freshness and veracity, which is the exclusive privilege of early recollections. In this respect, “the child is father to the man.” His pages are fragrant with the clover-fields and new hay, in which he sported when a child. With feelings unworn by the world, he lives over again the “dreams of his youth,” which are so richly peopled with fair and sad visions, drawing an abundant supply of materials for his exquisite imagination to shape, and reproducing them in forms that are equally admirable for their tenderness and their truth. What a striking contrast does he present to those writers who trust merely to fancy without the experience of life—whose rural pictures remind you of nature as much as the green and red paint of an artificial flower reminds you of a rose.

In the Dedication of this volume to Washington Irving, the author gracefully alludes to the influence of that consummate master in enabling him to attain the “facility in the use of language, and the fitness of expression in which to dress his thoughts,” which any may suppose to be found in his writings. This is a beautiful testimony, alike honorable to the giver and the receiver. The frankness with which the acknowledgment is made, shows a true simplicity of purpose, altogether above the sphere of a weak personal vanity. And the contagious action of Mr. Irving's literary example on susceptible, generous minds can scarcely be overrated. The writers now on the stage are more indebted to that noble veteran than they are apt to remember, for the polished refinement of expression which he was the first to make the fashion in this country. They may indeed discover no more resemblance between Mr. Irving's style and their own, than there is between that of Mr. Irving and Ik. Marvel. In this case, we confess, we should not have suspected the relation alluded to by the latter. We trace other and stronger influences in the formation of his style than the example of Mr. Irving. But the beneficial effect of a great master of composition is not to be estimated by the resemblance which it produces to himself. The artist does not study the works of Raphael or Michael Angelo in order to imitate their characteristics. His purpose is rather to catch the spirit of beauty which pervades their productions, and to learn the secret of method by which it was embodied. In like manner, the young writer can not yield himself to the seductive charm of Mr. Irving's golden periods, and follow the liquid, melodious flow of his enchanting sentences, without a revelation of the beautiful mysteries of expression, and a new sense of the sweetness and harmony of the language which he is to make his instrument. He may be entirely free from conscious imitation, but he has received a virtue which can not fail to be manifested in his own endeavors. If he be a man of original genius, like Ik. Marvel, he may not indicate the source from which his mind has derived such vigorous impulses; but his obligation is no less real; though instead of reproducing the wholesome leaves on which his spirit has fed, he weaves them into the shining and comely robes that are at once the dress and the adornment of his own thoughts.

Florence Sackville (Harper and Brothers), is the title of a highly successful English novel, dedicated to the poet Rogers. In the form of an autobiography, the heroine relates the incidents of her life, which are marked by a great variety of experience, including many passages of terrible suffering and tragic pathos. The story is sustained with uncommon power; the characters in the plot are admirably individualized; showing a deep insight into human nature, and a rare talent for depicting the recondite workings of passion. A lofty and pure religious sentiment pervades the volume, and deepens the effect of the thrilling narrative.

Clovernook, by Alice Carey. (Published by Red [pg 425] field). The author of this series of rural sketches enjoys a well-earned reputation as a poet of uncommon imaginative power, with a choice and expressive diction. Her specimens of prose-writing in this beautiful volume will serve to enhance her literary fame. They consist of recollections of Western life, described with great accuracy of detail, and embellished with the natural coloring of a picturesque fancy. Few more characteristic or charming books have recently issued from the American press.

A new edition of that quaint, ingenious allegory, Salander and the Dragon, by Frederic William Shelton, has been published by John S. Taylor. We are glad to find that the originality and fine moral painting of this remarkable work have found such just appreciation.

The First Woman is the title of an instructive essay on the female character, by Rev. Gardiner Spring. It is written with clearness and strength, and contains several passages of chaste eloquence. The author would establish the position of woman on the old platform, without yielding to the modern outcry for the extension of her rights. (Published by M. W. Dodd).

A volume of Select Poetry for Children and Youth, with an Introduction, by Tryon Edwards, D.D., is published by M. W. Dodd. It is based upon an English selection of acknowledged merit, but with important additions and improvements by the American editor. Excellent taste is shown in its preparation, and it must prove a welcome resource for the mental entertainment of the family circle.

The Sovereigns of the Bible, by Eliza R. Steele (published by M. W. Dodd), describes, in simple narrative style, the influence of monarchy in the political history of the chosen nation. Closely following the Old Testament account, it is in a great measure free from the tawdry finery, gingerbread work, and German-silver splendor which shine with such dazzling radiance in many modern attempts to improve the style of the sacred records.

The Snow-Image and Other Twice-told Tales, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. (Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields). This collection of stories is introduced with a racy preface, giving a bit of the author's literary autobiography. The volume is not inferior in interest to its fascinating predecessors.

Summerfield; or, Life on a Farm, by Day Kellogg Lee. (Auburn: Derby and Miller). This volume belongs to an order of composition which requires a true eye for nature, a genial sympathy with active life, and a happy command of language for its successful execution. The present author exhibits no ordinary degree of these qualities. His book is filled with lively pictures of country life, presented with warmth and earnestness of feeling, and singularly free from affectation and pretense. It finely blends the instructive with the amusing, aiming at a high moral purpose, but without the formality of didactic writing. We give a cordial welcome to the author, and believe that he will become a favorite in this department of composition. The volume is issued in excellent style, and presents a very creditable specimen of careful typography.

The Podesta's Daughter and other Poems, by Geo. H. Boker. (Philadelphia: A. Hart). The principal poem in this volume is a dramatic sketch, founded on Italian life in the Middle Ages. It is written with terseness and vigor, displaying a chaste and powerful imagination, with an admirable command of the appropriate language of poetry. The volume contains several miscellaneous pieces, including snatches of songs and sonnets, which evince a genuine artistic culture, and give a brilliant promise on the part of the youthful poet.

What I Saw in New York, by Joel H. Ross, M.D. (Auburn: Derby and Miller). A series of popular sketches of several of the principal objects of interest in our “Great Metropolis.” The author has walked about the streets with his eyes wide open, noticing a multiplicity of things which are apt to escape the negligent observer, and has described them in a familiar conversational tone, which is not a little attractive. Strangers who are visiting New York for the first time will find an abundant store of convenient information in this well-filled volume—and all the better for the agreeable manner in which it is conveyed.

A useful volume for the emigrant and traveler, and for the student of geography as well, has been issued by J.H. Colton, entitled Western Portraiture, by Daniel S. Curtis. It contains a description of Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa, with remarks on Minnesota, and other Territories. In addition to the valuable practical information which it presents in a lucid manner, it gives several curious pictures of social life and natural scenery in the West. No one who wishes to obtain a clear idea of the resources of this country should fail to consult its very readable pages.

One of the most important London publications of the present season, Lectures on the History of France, by Sir James Stephen, is just issued by Harper and Brothers in one elegant octavo volume. They were delivered before the University of Cambridge, and comprise a series of brilliant, discursive commentaries on the salient points of French history, from the time of Charlemagne to that of Louis XIV. Of the twenty-four Lectures which compose the volume, three are devoted to the “Power of the Pen in France,” and discuss in a masterly style, the character and influence of Abeilard, Bernard, Montaigne, Descartes, Pascal, and other eminent French writers. Apart from its valuable political disquisitions, no recent work can compare with this volume as a contribution to the history of literature.

Among the works in preparation by Messrs. Black is a Memoir of the late Lord Jeffrey, by his friend Lord Cockburn. This biography will possess peculiar interest, from Lord Jeffrey's literary position as one of the originators, and for so many years editor of the Edinburgh Review. His connection with Byron, originating in fierce hostility, and terminating in warm friendship, as well as his connection with many other distinguished men, and the grace of his epistolary style, will also impart an interesting character to its contents.

Mr. Jerdan is proceeding rapidly with his Autobiography and Reminiscences, the commencement of which will relate to the youth of some of the highest dignitaries of the law now living, and the sequel will illustrate, from forty years of intimacy, the character and acts of George Canning, and nearly all the leading statesmen, politicians, literati, and artists, who have flourished within that period.

It is reported that Lord Brougham is beguiling his sick leisure at Cannes, with the composition of a work to be entitled, France and England before Europe in 1851, a social and political parallel of the two foremost nations of the world.

An English Memoir of the Last Emperor of China is announced from the pen of Dr. Gutzlaff, the lately-deceased and well-known missionary to that strange [pg 426] empire, from which intelligent tidings are always welcome.

A second edition is printing of Carlyle's Life of Sterling. His first book the fine Life of Schiller, took some five-and-twenty years to attain the second-editionship, which is bestowed upon his latest book after as many days.

A second edition is under way of the Rev. Charles Kingsley's glowing novel, Yeast, which is regarded by many as the best of all his books, dealing as it does with the rural scenes and manners which are familiar to him at first-hand.

The last announcement of a new work in the department of history or biography is that of a forthcoming Life of Admiral Blake, “based almost entirely on original documents,” by Mr. Hepworth Dixon, the biographer of John Howard and William Penn, and the delineator of London prisons. Mr. Dixon has a taste for the selection of “safe” subjects, and Robert Blake is surely one of the “safest” that could be chosen. The Nelson of the Commonwealth, without Nelson's faults and frailties.

An elegant translation of Charles Dickens's works, well got up, and well printed, is being published in Copenhagen. The first part commences with David Copperfield, from the pen of Herr Moltke.

The collected poems of D. M. Moir, the “Delta” of Blackwood, lately deceased, are announced by the Messrs. Blackwood, with a memoir by Thomas Aird. “Delta” was an amiable and benevolent surgeon, at Musselburgh, a little fishing village, a few miles east of Edinburgh, and had nothing about him of the conceit which a little literary fame generally begets in the member of a trifling provincial circle. Whether his musical and rather melancholy verses will be long remembered is doubtful; but a tolerably enduring reputation is probably secured to his Mansie Wauch, a genial portraiture of a Scottish village-original, in its way quite as racy, though not so caustic, as Galt's best works in the same line. Mr. Thomas Aird, his biographer, is the editor of a Dumfries newspaper, and himself a man of original genius. D. M. Moir, by the way, ought not to be confounded with his namesake and fellow contributor to Blackwood, George Moir, the Edinburgh advocate, a man of much greater accomplishment, the translator of Schiller's Wallenstein, and author of the Fragments from the History of John Bull, a satire on modern reform, in the manner of Dean Swift's Tale of a Tub.

The Council of King's College, London, have appointed Mr. James Stephen, son of Sergeant Stephen, author of the Commentaries, to the Professorship of English Law and Jurisprudence, vacant by the resignation of Mr. Bullock.

At Belfast, the Chair of Logic and Metaphysics has been, by the Lord Lieutenant, assigned to Dr. James M'Cosh, a minister of the Free Church of Scotland, author of one of the most profound works that have appeared of late years—The Method of the Divine Government, Physical and Moral.

Mr. Hayward, the translator of Faust, has written to The Morning Chronicle to insist on the improbability that there is any truth in a paragraph which has been going the round of the papers, and which described the late convert to Catholicism, the fair and vagrant Ida, Countess von Hahn-Hahn, as parading herself in the streets of Berlin in the guise of a haggard penitent, literally clad in sackcloth and ashes!

Lord Mahon, in the last volume of his History of England that has been published, has a good deal to say upon Junius, and his decision upon that vexed topic will be heard with interest: “But who was Junius?... I will not affect to speak with doubt when no doubt exists in my mind. From the proofs adduced by others, and on a clear conviction of my own, I affirm that the author of Junius was no other than Sir Philip Francis.” The Literary Gazette also says, “We are as much convinced that Sir Philip Francis was Junius as that George III. was king of Great Britain.”

In an elaborate article on the intellectual character of Kossuth, the London AthenÆum remarks, “Of the minor merits of this remarkable man, his command of the English language is perhaps that which creates the largest amount of wonder. With the exception of an occasional want of idiom, the use of a few words in an obsolete sense, and a habit of sometimes carrying (German fashion) the infinitive verb to the end of a sentence—there is little to distinguish M. Kossuth's English from that of our great masters of eloquence. Select, yet copious and picturesque, it is always. The combinations—we speak of his words as distinct from the thoughts that lie in them—are often very happy. We can even go so far as to say that he has enriched and utilized our language; the first by using unusual words with extreme felicity, the latter by proving to the world how well the pregnant and flexible tongue of Shakspeare adapts itself to the expression of a genius and a race so remote from the Saxon as the Magyar.”

The Chancellorship of the Dublin University, vacant by the death of the King of Hanover, has been conferred on Lord John George Beresford, the primate of Ireland.

The Scotch Journals announce the death of one whose name is familiar to many of the scholars of this country, Mr. George Dunbar, professor of Greek Literature in the University of Edinburgh.

The Rev. Dr. Sadleir, Fellow and Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, died suddenly on the 14th of December, He was a man of liberal views and charitable feelings, and although in a society not remarkable for catholicity of spirit, his advocacy of all measures of progress and freedom was uniform and zealous. He was appointed to the provostship by the Crown in 1837.

Among recent deaths of literary men, we note that of Basil Montague, best known as the editor of the works of Lord Bacon. He was an illegitimate son of the famous Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty, by the unfortunate Miss Reay, who was assassinated in 1779, by the Rev. Mr. Hackman, her betrothed lover. The tragic story is told in all the London guide-books, as well as in collections of celebrated trials. Mr. Basil Montague studied for the law, and rose to a high standing in the profession. He was called to the bar by the Honorable Society of Gray's Inn, in 1798. On the Law of Bankruptcy he published some valuable treatises, the reputation of which gained him a commissionership. With [pg 427] Romilly and Mackintosh he worked diligently for the mitigation of the severity of the penal code. On capital punishments he wrote several pamphlets, which attracted much public notice. Besides his edition of Bacon, with an original biography, he published Selections from Taylor, Hooker, Hall, and Bacon. He died at Boulogne, on the 27th of November, in the 82d year of his age.

From France we can expect no more literature for some time, and we must think ourselves fortunate that Guizot's two new works reached us before “society was saved,” as the man says who has earned the execration of the world. These two works are Etudes Morales and Etudes sur les Beaux Arts. The former contains essays on Immortality, on the state of Religion in modern society, on Faith, and a lengthy treatise on Education. The second is interesting, as showing us Guizot criticising Art.

A curious work, entitled, Les Murailles Revolutionnaires (Revolutionary Walls), has been published in Paris. It contains the proclamations, decrees, addresses, appeals, warnings, denunciations, remonstrances, counsels, professions of faith, plans of political reconstruction, and schemes of social regeneration, which were stuck on the walls of Paris in the first few months' agitated existence of the Revolution of 1848. At that time the dead walls of la grande ville presented an extraordinary spectacle. They were literally covered with placards of all sizes, all shapes, all colors, all sorts of type, and some were even in manuscript. Several times in the course of a day was the paper renewed; and so attractive was the reading it offered to every passer-by, that it not only put an end to the sale of books, but nearly ruined circulating libraries and salons de lecture, in which, for the moderate charge of from two to five sous, worthy citizens are accustomed to read the journals. Louis Napoleon has changed all that. Among other wondrous decrees that have issued from his barracks, is “Bill-Stickers Beware!” The usurper sees danger in the very poles and paste of an afficheur!

There is in Paris, under the sole direction of an ecclesiastic, the AbbÉ Migne, an establishment embracing a printing office, stereotype foundry, and all other departments of book manufacture, which has in course of publication a complete series of the chief works of Catholic literature, amounting to 2000 volumes, and the prices are such that the mass of the clergy of that faith may possess the whole.

Lamartine has given us the third and fourth volumes of his Histoire de la Restauration; Barante, the third volume of his Histoire de la Convention, bringing the narrative down to 1793. Thierry announces a new edition of his works; and Alexandre Dumas has commenced his MÉmoires in La Presse.

The most striking of French novels, or of any novels recently published, is the Revenants (“Ghosts”), of Alexandre Dumas the younger, which exceeds in cleverness, ingenuity, and absurdity all the novels put together of his prolific parent himself. The heroes and heroines of the Revenants are those of three of the most celebrated tales of last century, Goethe's Werther, Bernardin St. Pierre's Paul and Virginia, and the AbbÉ Prevost's Manon L'Escaut. The book opens with a description of a visit paid by Mustel, a German professor, to his old pupil Bernardin Saint-pierre, now living at Paris in the sunshine of the fame procured to him by the publication of Paul and Virginia.

It has been remarked that the name of Bonaparte is unlucky to literature, for they do not understand that, to flourish, literature requires freedom. No king or emperor, if he had all the gold of Peru, could nowadays do as much for literature as the public; and, to please the public, it must be completely free. “Now,” writes the Paris correspondent of the Literary Gazette, “if the illustrious Monsieur Bonaparte can make good his position in France, he must be a despot. On no other ground could he stand for a week—it is aut CÆsar aut nullus with him. And, unfortunately, unlike most despots, he has no taste whatever for literature—he never, it is said, read fifty lines of poetry in his life, and can not even now wade through half-a-dozen pages of prose without falling asleep.”

Silvio Pellico, so famous for his works, his imprisonments, and sufferings, is now in Paris.

Three novels are announced by a German authoress, Carolina von GÖhren—Ottomar, Victor, and Thora, and Glieder einer Kelte. The authoress (whose real name is Frau von ZÖllner) is a lady of noble family, who has married a man of “no family,” and has not died of the mÉsalliance. She is well known in the best circles of Dresden, and has lately taken to fill her leisure with writing novels, which she does with considerable skill. Her compatriot Hahn-Hahn, by her languid airs of haughty aristocracy, seems to have roused the scorn of Frau von ZÖllner, who attacks her with great spirit. The new writer commands the sympathy of English readers by her good, plain common sense, and the moral tendency of her books.

The scientific literature both of Germany and England is about to be enriched by a translation of Oersted's chief work, “The Soul in Nature.” Cotta, of Stuttgard and TÜbingen, is to publish the one, and Mr. Bohn the other.

A German translation is announced of the lately deceased Danish poet, Oehlenschlager's Autobiographical Reminiscences. Oehlenschlager has an old reputation in this country as the author of the fine-art drama, “Correggio,” and of a still finer theatrical version of the Arabian Nights' tale, “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp,” both of which were introduced to the public a quarter of a century ago in Blackwood's Magazine. During his lifetime, he published a portion of his autobiography, which was very interesting and unaffected; and we can predict a fair popularity to the now completed work.

Of German fictions, the one that has made the most noise lately is the long-announced novel by Wolfgang Menzel, the well-known historian, journalist, and critic, entitled Furore: Geschichte eines MÖnchs und einer Nonne aus dem dreissigjÄhrigen Kriege (“Story of a Monk and a Nun from the period of the Thirty Years' War”), which the German critics praise as a lively and variegated picture of that period of turmoil and confusion.

Heine's new work, Romanzero, has been prohibited at Berlin, and the copies in the booksellers, shops confiscated. The sale of eight thousand copies before it was prohibited is a practical assurance of its brilliant success. Gay, sarcastic, and poetic, it [pg 428] resembles all his previous works in spirit, though less finished in form. His Faust turns out to be a Ballet, with Mephistopheles metamorphosed into a Danseuse! In the letter which concludes the work there is much interesting matter on the Faust Saga, and its mode of treatment.

The people of Leipzig have just had their “Schiller-fest,” or Schiller's festival, in honor of the great national poet and tragedian. Schiller was, indeed, a native of WÜrtemberg, and he lived in Mannheim and Weimar. But Germany, which has no metropolis, enjoys a great many capitals: and as the ancients had a god of the sun, the moon, and the various constellations, so do the Germans have a capital of poetic art, another of music, another of painting, and so on. Leipzig is, or pretends to be, the great literary metropolis, and in this capacity the good city holds an annual festival in honor of Schiller. On the present occasion there was a public dinner, with pompous speeches by Messrs. Gutzkow, Bothe, and Apel, while in the Leipzig theatre Shakspeare's “Macbeth” was given in Schiller's adaptation to the German stage.

The Berlin journals announce the arrival in that city of Doctor Zahn, so well known for his researches in Pompeii and Herculaneum. His work thereon is one of the most important archÆological productions extant. He has passed not fewer than twenty-five years of his life among those ancient ruins.

The foreign obituary includes the name of Dr. Meinhold—a name which will live in connection with The Amber Witch and with the singular circumstances attending the reception of that powerful tale.

The English admirers of Humboldt's Kosmos will be glad to learn that an important addition has been made to the commentaries on that great work, by Herr Bronne's “Collection of Maps for the Kosmos.” The first series, containing six plates, has just been published by Krais and Hoffmann, at Stuttgardt. These six plates are to be followed by thirty-six others, and contain the planetary, solar, and lunar systems, the plain globes, and the body of the earth, and the elevations of its surface, with a variety of diagrams, and a set of explanatory notes.

An intelligent and appreciative German, Siegfried Kupper, has been attracted by the fine simplicities and interests of the popular poetry of Servia, and has woven together, out of the lays which commemorate the Achilles-Ulysses-Hercules-Leonidas of Servia, Lazar, der Serbenczar. Ein Helden-gedicht “Lazar, the Czar of the Serbs. A Heroic poem.” “Among the earliest announcers of the beauty of the Servian popular poetry,” says the London Literary Journal, “was Theresa Jakob, the daughter of the well-known German Professor, and now for many years married to the American Dr. Robinson, the author of Biblical Researches in Palestine. This lady (a translation of whose History of the Colonization of America we lately reviewed) published, five-and-twenty years ago, some translated specimens of Servian song, which quite took captive the heart of old Goethe, whose praises introduced them to the notice of educated Europe. Other Germans, and even some Frenchmen, followed in the same direction; and our own Bowring's Specimens of Servian Poetry, is probably familiar to many readers. With the growing importance of the Slavonian tribes, a new interest attaches to their copious literature; and to any enterprising young litterateur, in quest of an unexplored field of research, we would recommend the poetry, recent and ancient, of the Slavonic races.”

The Council of the Shakspeare Society have received a very welcome and unexpected present, in the shape of a translation of Shakspeare, in twelve volumes 8vo., into Swedish verse. This laborious work has been accomplished by Professor Hagberg, of the University of Lund, and it was transmitted through the Swedish Minister resident in London.

A Signor Antonio Caccia, an Italian exile, sends from the freer press of Leipzig, a book of practical and philosophic travel: Europa ed America. Scene della Vita dal 1848 al 1850 (“Europe and America, Scenes from Life in both hemispheres during the years 1848-50”), which contains, besides a notice of California, a good many useful hints to travelers.

The librarian of the Emperor of Russia has purchased, for the Imperial Library, a complete collection of all the pamphlets, placards, caricatures, songs, &c, published at Berlin during the revolutionary movement of 1848.

Dr. Smith, bishop of Victoria, Hong Kong, has sent to the library of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, a Chinese work On the Geography and History of Foreign Nations, by Seu-ke-yu, Governor of the province of Fokeen. Seu-ke-yu is a man of high official station, a distinguished scholar, and very liberal in his views. He commences the geographical part of his book with a statement of the spherical form of the earth, as opposed to the universal belief in China of its being a vast level area, of which the Celestial Empire occupies the central and most considerable part. Numerous maps illustrate the text, being tolerably correct copies from European atlases, the names given in Chinese characters. The work is in six volumes, very well printed, and instead of binding, each part is contained in a wooden case, ingeniously folding, and fastened with ivory pins.

When the department of the Ministry of Public Instruction was created some four or five years ago in Constantinople, it became apparent that there existed a great desideratum of Moslem civilization, necessary to be supplied as soon as possible—a Turkish Vocabulary and a Turkish Grammar compiled according to the high development of philology. The Grammar has now been published; being compiled by Fuad Effendi, mustesher of the Grand Vizier, a man known for his high attainments—assisted by Ahmed Djesvid Effendi, another member of the Council of Instruction. The work has been printed at Constantinople, and translations will be made into several languages: the French edition being now in preparation by two gentlemen belonging to the Foreign Office of the Sublime Porte, who have obtained a privilege of ten years for its sale.

Among the new works just out, we notice a Spanish translation of Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature, by Don Pascual de Gayangos y Don Enrique De Vedia (con adiciones y notas criticas), Mr Ticknor having communicated some notes and corrections to the two translators, who have added from their own stores.