Chapter XIII: Part 13

“How?” said his guest, holding up the purse which Seidelman had slipped into his hand at the springs; “see your twenty dollars here—the purse shall always remain in the family, and our posterity shall read what is embroidered upon it—‘Charity brings interest.’ But what makes the little ones so restless?”

“Ah!” said their father, “they want to go to bed;” and he and his wife quietly left the room.

“No, no!” cried the children, “now the holy child is coming, wait until we hear his little bell, and then we shall go, and you, brother Robert, and all.”

And soon the longed-for bell sounded, the children rushed into the study, and bore along the older ones with them.

There was the Christmas heaven before them, with its shining lights and stars. Theodora sprang forward to take from the table her new white dress, and forgot her castle. Hermine danced round her new work-box, Ernst round his tool-chest, and Paul was immediately absorbed with his terrific cannon, and new troops of soldiers.

The mother, coming behind the pastor, slipped on him his new dressing-gown, and he uncovered the corner of the table, where were her pretty slippers and muff.

“O, ye happy ones,” said Sir William, with tears of real feeling, “how easy would it be for me to cover this table with gold, and say, ‘Take it—it is all yours,’ but could it give you one moment of the happiness that these simple gifts of love afford you. O let me be a child with you!”

“Yes, yes, we will all be children,” cried they, and embraced each other, while the pastor raised his eyes to heaven, and blessed them, saying, “Of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

* * * * *

SONNET.—LIGHT.

How beauteous art thou, sacred light! How sweet
To view thee gushing from the golden sun,
As he his morning race begins to run!
Than time or thought alone, thou art less fleet—
Where shall we seek thy primal dwelling-place?
About His throne, who ever girt with thee,
Lay on the bosom of eternity;
Who lit the stars, which radiate through space—
Lo! from the east in billowy tide thou flowest,
Gilding the hill-tops and the heavenly spires—
Empurpling ocean with a myriad fires—
Great light, thou sun! o’er heaven thou proudly goest;
Nor ever standest still, as once, of old,
Till setting thou hast bathed all with thy molten gold.

A.

* * * * *

UNSPOKEN.

BY A. J. REQUIER.

As, sometimes, the tumultuary deep
Sinks to serene repose,
When sunset visions o’er its bosom creep
As o’er a couch of rose;

So, sometimes, the bright Caspian of the soul
Is sudden hushed and stilled,
As with the glow of some wild hope as goal
Its trancéd depths are filled.

“Maid of the twilight eyes! that musest late
What star breaks on thy brow
With the resplendence of a Heavenly Gate,
Greeting its angel now?”

The humid azure of her virgin dream,
Spanned from the realms above
By an all-dazzling Iris! thought—trust—theme—
Life-consecration—Love!

Come with me to the rustic paths and see
A mute scene eloquent;
That rude cot, reared where the daisied lea
Is with the mountain blent.

A form of lovely womanhood which bends
O’er a much daintier thing—
Eyes fixed with something that so far transcends
The strength of shattered suffering.

Armed Cæsar, with his legions, dared not break
Their concentration wild;
Life ventured—periled on a single stake!
And won:—her first born child!

Come with me where the artist-hand hath wrought
The crown of all its toil—
The spiritual idol madly sought
In the hot brain’s turmoil;

Come where the monumental dead have laid
Their thrice-anointed dust—
Where priest and martyr, bard and sage, have paid
The debt all mortals must;

Come where the spells of wizard Nature wrest
Sublimity from sod—
Where Lohmon gleams in paradisal rest,
Niagara preaches God;

Come thou and learn, the inmost glow of soul
Hath no terrestial token;
And that, while Polar Oceans freeze and roll,
It never can be spoken!

* * * * *

TO A DANDELION.

BY ERASTUS W. ELLSWORTH.

Thy face, my friend, is beauty-pale,
And doth a slender sweet exhale,
And here is but a homely vale,
And fancy draws
No dearness out of song or tale,
In thine applause;

And some there are who only prize
The blossoms wooed from foreign skies,
In odors drenched and dewy dyes,
But thou shalt be
Companion to my fonder eyes,
And kin to me.

When I shall praise a flower the more
Because its gilded portals pour
The sweetness of a foreign shore,
I’ll jog with those
Who drop the rhyme’s laborious oar,
And flow in prose.

All themes that Love and Honor use,
All tender, soul-inspiring views,
And all the raptures of the muse,
Howe’er we roam,
Like the sweet Grace that shuns abuse
Begin at home.

And where my steps are frequent led—
In beaten haunts—where’er I tread,
Are seeds of wit and wisdom spread,
That not abound,
Only because my heart and head
Are stony ground.

Thou claimant of a mutual birth
Poor kinsman of a fickle hearth,
Flower of the bleak New England earth,
I cannot deem
Your modest crown so little worth
In my esteem.

When spring returning, odor-sweet,
Touches the turf with tinsel feet,
Thy fresh rosette once more we meet,
By sun or shade,
Like Joy to smiles, with generous greet,
Or just displayed.

But soon thy little youth is gone,
Thy ample-headed age comes on,
And thou a standing wig dost don,
Of seedy hair,
Frayed by the winds, till bald as stone,
Thy skull is bare.

Ye sacred, sweet, sonorous Nine—
Dear Floras of the bowers divine—
Should Age discrown my sable twine
Of hairy weed,
Give me to say—This pate of mine
Has gone to seed.

* * * * *

WHY DO I WEEP FOR THEE?

WORDS BY
GEORGE LINLEY.
COMPOSED BY
W. V. WALLACE.
SUNG BY
MISS CATHARINE HAYES.

Published by permission of Lee & Walker, 162 Chestnut Street,
_Publishers and Importers of Music and Musical Instruments_.

Why do I weep for thee?
Why weep in my sad dreams?
Parted for aye are we,
Yes! parted like mountain streams.

Yet with me lingers still
That word, that one last word,
Thy voice, thy voice yet seems to thrill
The heart’s fond chord.
Why do I weep for thee?
Why do I weep for thee?

II.

Once, ah! what joy to share
With thee the noontide hour;
Then, not a grief nor care
Had canker’d the heart’s young flow’r
The sun seems not to shed
A radiance o’er me now,
Save mem’ry all seems dead,
Since lost, since lost art thou.
Why do I weep for thee?
Why do I weep for thee?

* * * * *

REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.

_Aylmere, or the Bondman of Kent; and Other Poems. By Robert T.
Conrad. 1 Vol. Philadelphia; E. H. Butler & Co._

The author of this volume is one of those rare organizations, intellectually, which have the power of transmuting whatever they touch into gold. As an orator, he sways his audience at will; as a writer, he storms the reader’s judgment by logic and declamation welded into one; and as a poet, he now charms the fancy with the grace and delicacy of his imagery, and now makes the heart throb with his fiery and impassioned words.

“Aylmere” is a dramatic poem, originally written for Mr. Forrest, and still played, under the name of “Jack Cade,” by that eminent tragedian. Though parts of it may derive additional power, on the stage, from the magnificent bursts of the great actor for whom it was composed, the true beauty of the drama, we think, can only be enjoyed by those who peruse it, at leisure, in the closet. Many passages, indeed, are suppressed on the boards, in order to bring the play within accustomed limits; and the benefit of these the spectator loses entirely.

The drama of “Aylmere” is founded on the famous insurrection of 1450, in which the English peasantry were headed by a physician, known indifferently as Jack Cade, Aylmere, Mendall and Mortimer. The theme is one peculiarly fitted for a republican poet. Goaded by intolerable wrongs, social as well as political—insults to their women, contumely to themselves, public taxes that reaped them to the last stubble, and private exactions on the part of the nobility, that gleaned what little regal rapacity had left—the people, in which we comprise the yeomen and burghers, as well as the villeins, rose in a body, marched on London, exacted the death of the infamous lord-chamberlain, and procured a charter from the king, guarantying to the commonalty the rights and privileges demanded by their leader. But scarcely had these concessions been granted, when a collision, provoked probably by the royal party, occurred between the citizens of London and the followers of Cade: the insurgents met with a repulse; and the late terrified aristocracy rallying, a total defeat and dispersion of the peasantry ensued. Aylmere himself was hunted down, like a wild beast, and mercilessly put to death. The concessions granted were revoked. And, for centuries after, English historians in the interest of the upper classes, blackened the name and misrepresented the motives of the ill-fated Kentish reformer.

What nobler task could a republican poet set before himself, than to rescue the reputation of this martyred hero from obloquy and shame? Well, too, has Judge Conrad fulfilled his pious labor. The principal character of the play is Aylmere, of course; indeed he may be said, in one sense, to be the entire play. His lofty courage, his abhorrence of wrong, his high aspirations after liberty, and the fiery enthusiasm which he breathes into his followers, form, as it were, the deep undertone, whose thunders roll incessantly through this grand anthem of freedom. Other characters, however, contribute materially to the action of the piece, and furnish the author with opportunities to display his dramatic powers. The portrait of Marianne, the wife of Aylmere, is drawn with great tenderness of feeling, and delicacy of touch: she is, like her own native Italy, a vision of immortal beauty hallowed and sanctified by wo. The cruel, vindictive and insolent Say; the gay, careless, yet not wholly wicked Clifford; the friend of the people, Friar Lacy; and the yeomen, Wat Worthy and Will Mowbray, all stand prominently out from the canvas.

The drama is full of noble poetry. It would give us pleasure to quote more largely from it, in proof of this; but the quantity of books upon our table, requiring notice, forbids a monopoly of our limited space by one. We cannot, however, resist making a few extracts. Here is one, in which Aylmere, after his return from Italy, eloquently describes the bondage which he shared in common with his fellow-Englishmen.

Ten years of freedom have not made me free.
I’ve throttled fortune till she yielded up
Her brightest favors; I have wooed Ambition,
Wooed with a fiery soul and dripping sword,
And _would not_ be denied; I turned from her,
And raked amid the ashes of the past,
For the high thoughts that burn but cannot die,
Until my spirit walked with those who now
Are hailed, as brethren, by archangels:—_Yet,_
_Have I come home a slave—a thing for chains_
_And scourges—ay, a dog,_
_Crouching, and spurned, and spit upon._

In fine contrast to this picture, is the following one of Italy, _as Italy was four centuries ago_.

’Tis free; and want, fear, shame, are aliens there.
In that blest land the tiller is a prince.
No ruffian lord breaks spring’s fair promises;
And summer’s toils—for freedom watches o’er them—
Are safe and happy; summer lapses by,
In its own music;
And pregnant Autumn, with a matron blush,
Comes stately in, and with her, hand in hand,
Labor, and busy Plenty. Then old Winter,
With his stout glee, his junkets, and a laugh
That shakes from his hoar beard the icicles,
Makes the year gay again. There are no poor
Where freedom is.

The whole of the following is in the same fine strain.

_Worthy._ Behold! He comes! he comes!

_Enter_ Aylmere.

_Lacy._ Thank Heaven! thou’rt free!

_Aylmere_, (_laughs._) Ay, once more free! within my grasp a
sword,
And round me freemen! Free! as is the storm
About your hills; the surge upon your shore!
Free as the sunbeams on the chainless air;
Or as the stream that leaps the precipice,
And in eternal thunder, shouts to Heaven,
That it is free, and will be free forever!

_Straw._ Now for revenge! Full long we’ve fed on wrong:
Give us revenge!

_Aylmere._ For you and for myself!
England from all her hills, cries out for vengeance!
The serf, who tills her soil, but tastes not of
Her fruit, the slave that in her dungeon groans,
The yeoman plundered, and the maiden wronged,
Echo the call in shrieks! The angry waves
Report the sound in thunder; and the heavens,
From their blue vaults, roll back a people’s cry
For liberty and vengeance!

_Lacy._ Wrong on wrong!
Are there no bolts in heaven?

_Aylmere._ _No swords on earth?_
_He’ll ever be a slave, who does not right_
_Himself. The heavens fight not for cravens. Let us strike,_
_Strike for ourselves, and Heaven will strike for us._

The ensuing are nervous and striking.

All would o’ertop their fellows;
And every rank—the lowest—hath its height
To which hearts flutter, with as large a hope
As princes feel for empire! But in each,
Ambition struggles with a sea of hate.
He who sweats up the ridgy grades of life.
Finds, in each station, icy scorn above,
Below him hooting envy.

My lord, if you seek power in this, remember,
The greatness which is born of anarchy,
And thrown aloft in tumult, cannot last.
It mounts, like rocks hurled skyward by volcanoes,
Flushes a guilty moment, and falls back
In the red earthquake’s bosom.

The tragedy violates, in some of its details, the facts of history. Thus Aylmere, instead of being defeated and betrayed, as in the real story, perishes, in the drama, at the very hour that the charter is granted. The change enables the author to give a fine artistic scene as his closing one. Marianne, the wife, having been separated from her husband at the outset of the insurrection, falls into the power of Lord Say. While thus a prisoner she is accosted with dishonorable proposals by Lord Clifford, whom she stabs to escape indignity. For this heroic act she is thrown into the castle dungeon, scourged, and visited with other brutalities, till she loses her reason. Escaping eventually, she rejoins her husband. In Aylmere’s last interview with Lord Say, when the latter, dying, poniards the former, she rushes in, her intellect restored, as is often the case before death, and perishes with her lord. This furnishes the material for the closing scene, which is most dramatically conceived. Clasping the fair corpse in his arms, the hero is himself sinking into death, when suddenly loud huzzas in the street, call him back to life. He starts up with a wild cry of exultation, and asks eagerly what it means. The attendants reply, “the charter!” and, as they speak, the parchment, duly sealed, is brought triumphantly in. Aylmere rushes to it, kisses it, clasps it to his bosom, and exclaiming that the bondmen are avenged and England free, totters toward Marianne, falls, and dies.

But the drama is not the only poem in the volume, for some fifty fugitive pieces ensue, the chance contributions of a life devoted generally to pursuits more stern. Several of the last of these originally appeared in the pages of this magazine: we may mention “The Sons of the Wilderness,” and the “Sonnets on the Lord’s Prayer.” Generally they are distinguished by great felicity of expression, a vigorous imagination, touches of exquisite pathos, and a lofty scorn of whatever is base, cruel, or wrong. As examples of the gentler mood of the author’s muse, we would point out two poems, which evidently relate to a mother and her daughter: the first, “Lines on the death of a Young Married Lady,” and the second, “To Maggie.” The sonnet, “To My Wife,” is also very beautiful. As specimens of Judge Conrad’s more indignant mood, we refer to the sonnets, “On the Invasion of the Roman Republic,” and to “Fear.”

The poem, “To My Brother,” is one that would have made the author’s reputation, even if he had written nothing else; and “Freedom” contains stanzas that but few other living poets could have penned. To say that it exhibits the power of the fourth canto of “Childe Harold,” would imply imitation, of which certainly no one can accuse Judge Conrad. But we may remark that it has the same nervous style, the same exalted imagination, with an original conception that is all its own. In perusing this and other poems in this volume we instinctively regret that Judge Conrad has not devoted himself entirely to poetry. Such powers as his, concentrated on a pursuit so congenial to him, could not but have produced results that would have adorned American literature, not only temporarily, but throughout all time.

We cannot take leave of our author without going back to the dedication, which is addressed to the poet’s father, and which, though often quoted in print since the appearance of the book, we venture to quote again.

TO JOHN CONRAD, ESQ.

How much that Young Time gave hath Old Time ta’en;
Snatching his blessings back with churlish haste,
And leaving life a wreck-encumbered waste!
And yet I murmur not—for you remain!
You and my mother, and the hoarded wealth
Of home, and love, and high and hearted thought,
Which Youth in Memory’s wizard woof enwrought.
These are “laid up” where Time’s ungentle stealth
Can reach them not. And ’tis a joy to bring
This humble garland, woven in the wild.
Back to the hearth and roof-tree of the child:
The wearied heart bears home its offering.
If it relume the approving smile of yore—
Guerdon and glory then—father, I crave no more.

* * * * *

_Poems. By Richard Henry Stoddard. Boston: Ticknor, Reed &
Fields. 1 vol. 16mo._

It is impossible to open this volume at any page without feeling that the author is a poet, and a poet whose promise is very much greater even than his performance. Every poem is bright and warm with imagery and feeling—poetical expressions are showered with a liberal hand—the verse has that soft and fluent movement which indicates that the thoughts they convey come from a teeming mind in a gush of melodious sentiment—and the impression left on the reader’s imagination is of a singularly rich, sensuous, fertile and poetical nature. Every poem, almost every line, is a protest against the prose of thought and the prose of life, and all the objects of sense are studiously idealized and heightened into “something rich” if not into “something strange.” The author seems to dwell in a dream of life, peopled with beauties if not with Beauty, and sweetly abandoning himself to the soft and subtle sensations they imaginatively excite. Pleasure, but a pleasure more than mortal, seems to be his aim and aspiration, and infinitely provoked is he when the hard facts of life protrude their misshapen but solid substance into his meditations, and mock his luxurious illusion.

Now the mood out of which this profuse idealization of thoughts and sensations proceeds is undoubtedly poetical, but it should be exhibited in connection with higher and sterner qualities, and at best indicates the youth of the poetic vision and faculty. But, it must be admitted, that Mr. Stoddard has represented it in all its deliciousness, and no person can read his volume without being filled and stimulated with its sweetness and melody, and luxuriant fancy and opulence of sensuous forms and images. It indicates, to some extent, a sensitive and imaginative nature overmastered by the pleasant scenes and airy beings in which and with whom it revels—possessed instead of possessing—and therefore lacking that individual power which wields dominion over its own resources, selects, discriminates, rejects, governs, and, in the highest sense, combines and creates. Accordingly he does not inform objects, but is rather informed by them—does not pass into them by an internal force but is rather drawn into them by their external attraction—and thus leaves an impression rather of fertility than power. There is a great difference between the poet who merges himself in objects, and the poet who allows objects to immerge him. In the one case he is a victor, in the other a captive.

As a result of this exceeding sensitiveness to impressions, Mr. Stoddard is open to the influence of other poets; for when a poet once ceases to exercise a jealous guardianship over the individuality of his genius, he is liable to be overcome by the superior power of the natures with whom he sympathises. Now, Mr. Stoddard is no copyist or imitator, much less a plagiarist, but he evidently has an intense love for the genius of Shelley, Keats and Tennyson, and sympathises so deeply with them that he catches the tone and tune of their spirits—sometimes sets his own songs to their music—and thus gives us original thoughts and images that _sound_ like theirs because conceived in their spirit. Thus in the “Castle in the Air” there is an original line which still has the mark of Shelley’s individuality upon it:

“Like some divinest dream upon the couch of sleep.”

It would be easy to select many more illustrations of this unconscious imitation, proving, not that Mr. Stoddard is a borrower, but that he is not on his guard against the magnetic power of other minds, exercised as it is through the most subtile avenues of mental influence. It should be his ambition not to differ in degree from the poets he loves, but to differ in _kind_. It is better to be Stoddard than to be a Tennysonian, especially, as in the present case, when Stoddard contains within himself the elements of a new individuality in letters, with a force and flavor and fragrance of his own.

We have been thus prolix and minute in characterizing some of the peculiarities of this volume, because we are convinced that the author is a man of genius, and has a right to be tried by laws of criticism severer than those which apply to the common run of versifiers. But we are not insensible to the excellencies of the poems; willingly plead guilty to the charge of having read the volume with delight, and trust that we shall entice many of our readers into the same pleasant employment. They evince thought, sentiment, fancy, imagination, delicacy and depth of nature; every thing but directing will and a broad perception of the true poetical relations of the ideal and the actual; and these will come with the growth of his mind, and a larger and more genial experience of life. We had marked many passages to illustrate our idea both of his merits and his defects, but we have no space at present to quote them. The gorgeous “Castle in the Air,” the leading poem in the volume, would furnish many a splendid example of the fluency and fertility of his genius. “The Witch’s Whelp” is an original conception of a different kind. The Songs and Sonnets, toward the close of the volume, are perhaps, the most individual and essentially original poems of the collection, and some of them display uncommon subtilty and sharpness of mental vision.

* * * * *

_A Book of Romances, Lyrics and Songs. By Bayard Taylor. Boston:
Ticknor, Read & Fields, 1 vol. 16mo._

Bayard Taylor’s peculiarities as a poet are the same which have won him so much popularity as a man, and refer to his character as well as his mind. Fine, however as is the impression conveyed by his numerous prose works, we think that no reader can carefully peruse the present volume without feeling that the best embodiment of the man is in these poems. They are thoroughly genuine, recording the thoughts and aspirations nearest and dearest to the author’s heart and brain, and o’erinformed with the life of a thoughtful, imaginative and genial nature. Some of them are darkened by a recent affliction, and to those friends who know how deep and acute that affliction was, they can hardly be read without tears. But the majority of the poems express the essential happiness of the author’s spirit, and communicate happiness to the reader. That descriptive power, which has made him one of the most fascinating of modern writers of travels, is of course active in the present volume in its most exquisite form. Indeed, as a poet, he does not so much describe as represent scenery, picturing it forth to the imagination in words and images which seem the mental counterparts of the objects before his eye. As a descriptive poet alone, he would rank high among contemporary authors, but he is also a close and subtle observer of the operations of thought and passion, as modified by individual character, and numerous pieces in this volume indicate intensity and concentration of thought, exercised on some of the most elusive and etherial laws and facts of the spiritual nature. In addition to all this, his style of expression is pure, energetic and picturesque, and varies readily with his themes. The best poem in the volume, and one which we think has good pretensions to be ranked with American classics, is “Man-da-Min, or the Romance of the Maize,” an Indian legend of great beauty, and, in Taylor’s version, exquisite in idea and masterly in execution. “Hylas,” “Taurus,” “The Summer Camp,” “The Odalisque,” “The Pine Forest of Monterey,” and “The Waves,” are likewise of great merit, and exhibit the variety as well as power of the author’s mind. Cordially do we wish success to this volume, and trust that Taylor will live to write, and we to welcome many like it.

* * * * *

_The Home Book of the Picturesque, or American Scenery, Art and
Literature; with Thirteen Engravings on Steel, from Pictures by
Eminent Artists, Engraved expressly for this Work. New York:
George P. Putnam. 1 vol. folio._

The American public have become so accustomed to Mr. Putnam’s enterprise, that they may not be surprised even by this splendid example of it—a volume essentially American, yet in engravings, letter-press, and general execution equal to the best English annuals, and in the merits of its literary matter far superior to them. The cost and trouble of getting up the book may be conceived, when we mention that the pictures from which the exquisite illustrations of the volume are engraved, are scattered among many collectors, and that the execution of the plates exhibits the utmost skill and finish which the art of engraving has reached in America. The essays which accompany the engravings are by what old Jacob Tonson called “eminent hands.” Irving contributes a paper on the “Catskill Mountains,” which seems like an essay accidently left out of the “Sketch Book,” and is certainly worthy of a place among the most charming productions of his genius. Cooper’s article on “American and European Scenery,” is a carefully meditated and attractive disquisition on a subject which has occasioned endless discussion, but which was never treated so thoroughly and temperately before. Tuckerman’s “Over the Mountains” is an admirable essay. “Scenery and Mind,” by Magoun, is the most eloquent, thoughtful, scholarly and tasteful of his productions. Willis contributes a brilliant and sensible paper on “The Highland Terrace,” in his most fascinating style. The artists whose landscapes make the beauty of the volume, are Durand, Huntington, Beekwith, Talbot, Kensett, Cropsey, Richards, Church, Weir, Cole and Gignoux.

Altogether, the volume is the best exhibition of American art in connection with American literature we have ever seen, and must take the lead among the gift-books of the season.

* * * * *

_The Human Body and its Connection with Man, Illustrated by the
Principal Organs. By John James Garth Wilkinson. Member of the
Royal College of Surgeons of England. Philadelphia: Lippincott,
Grambo & Co. 1 vol. 12mo._

The author of this curious and attractive volume is well-known as the English editor of Swedenborg’s works, and the writer of Swedenborg’s life, and, in the opinion of Emerson, is “a philosophic critic, with a co-equal vigor of understanding and imagination comparable only to Lord Bacon’s.” Without attempting to discuss the accuracy of this opinion, which is at least the result of a study of Mr. Wilkinson’s whole works, it is sufficient to say here that the author of this volume is one of the most vivid, pointed and striking writers of the century; and that, however solid or doubtful may be his pretensions to great scientific merits, there can be no doubt of the brilliancy of his rhetoric and the fertility of his intellect in original thoughts. A review of the present work we do not intend to give, but simply recommend it to all readers as a powerful, independent, suggestive and stimulating book, lifting the study of anatomy and physiology into a fine art, and abounding with new views both of the body and the mind. The chief peculiarity of Mr. Wilkinson seems to us to be a singular vigor and audacity of will, in some cases running into offensive dogmatism, but generally exercised in freeing his intellect from the trammels both of accredited skepticisms and authorities, and in stamping his own opinions with such force upon the mind of the reader, as to create himself into a kind of authority. There is muscular health and strength in every sentence of his remarkable book, and a seeming gladness in the exercise of his faculties which is wonderfully inspiring to the reader.

* * * * *

_The Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys. By Nathaniel Hawthorne.
With Engravings by Baker from Designs by Billings. Boston:
Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 1 vol. 16mo._

Hawthorne may have written more powerful stories than those contained in this volume, but none so truly delightful. The spirit of the book is so essentially sunny and happy, that it creates a jubilee in the brain as we read. It is intended for children, but let not the intention cheat men and women out of the pleasure they will find in its sparkling and genial pages. The stories are told by a certain Eustice Bright to a mob of children, whose real names the author suppresses, but whom he re-baptizes with the fairy appellation of Primrose, Periwinkle, Sweet Fern, Dandelion, Blue-Eye, Clover, Huckleberry, Cowslip, Squash-blossom, Milk-weed, Plantain and Butter-cup. The individuality of these little creatures is happily preserved, especially in the criticisms and applications they make after each story is told; and the reader parts with them unwillingly, and with the hope (which the author should not disappoint) of resuming their acquaintance in another volume. The stories, six in number, are classical myths, re-cast to suit the author’s purpose, and told with exquisite grace, simplicity and playfulness. The book will become the children’s classic, and, to our taste, is fairly the best of its kind in English literature. It is a child’s story-book informed with the finest genius.

* * * * *

_The Captains of the Old World, as Compared with the Great
Modern Strategists, their Campaigns, Characters and Conduct,
from the Persian to the Punic Wars. By Henry William Herbert.
New York: Charles Scribner. 1 vol. 12mo._

This volume is all alive and glowing with the fiery characteristics of Mr. Herbert’s genius, while it has at the same time the best results of his earnest, independent thinking, and profound and accurate scholarship. The title sufficiently declares its purpose, and its execution is worthy of the theme. It gives a most animated account of the Greek and Roman tactics and military organization, and of the lives of the great ancient commanders, commencing with Miltiades and ending, for the present, with Hannibal. Themistocles, Pausanius, Xenophon, Epaminondas and Alexander, are learnedly and eloquently sketched, and parallels are drawn between them and the celebrated captains of modern times, in which the author shows a knowledge of military science as well as his usual power of vivid painting. The work is dedicated to Professor Felton, of Harvard University. It cannot fail to have that wide circulation which it so eminently merits, for it happily combines elements of interest which will recommend it equally to scholars and the mass of readers.

* * * * *

_The Life of John Sterling. By Thomas Carlyle. Boston: Phillips,
Sampson & Co. 1 vol. 12mo._

This is one of the most powerful of Carlyle’s many productions, and, as a biography, is to be ranked among the best in English literature. It bristles as usual with the author’s harsh scorn of every thing he is pleased to call cant, falsehood, and moonshine; but there are glimpses in it of deep and genuine tenderness, and, of all his works, it best indicates the humanity of the man. The mental characteristics of Sterling himself, are drawn with a loving and friendly yet discriminating pencil, and the few events of his life are narrated with singular skill. The sketches of Sterling’s friends and contemporaries, especially the portrait of Coleridge, add much to the interest of the volume. There are specimens also of a sort of savage humor equal to Carlyle’s best efforts in that kind. The style, though full of vigor and flashing with imagery, is as craggy and uneven as ever; exhibiting, in the constant recurrence of a few slang words, how formal after all is this inveigher against formulas, and how his hatred of affectation becomes itself a sort of cant. But the soul of the book is sound and manly; and no one can read it without feeling that he has been in communion with a deep and great, if somewhat embittered nature.

* * * * *

_Putnam’s Home Cyclopedia Hand-book of the Useful Arts. By T.
Antisell, M. D. New York: George P. Putnam. 1 vol. 12 mo._

_Hand-Book of Universal Biography. By Parke Godwin. New York:
George P. Putnam. 1 vol. 12mo._

These volumes belong to a series of six, each complete in itself, under the general title of “Putnam’s Home Cyclopedia.” They will be found very useful and valuable to all classes of readers, containing a vast amount of classified information in the most compact form. The Hand-Book of the Useful Arts should be in the possession of every mechanic in the country. The Universal Biography, by Parke Godwin, is based on Maunder’s book on the same subject, but re-written, extended, corrected, and in every way improved. The whole series will make an invaluable library of reference. Each volume contains some eight or nine hundred closely printed pages.

* * * * *

_The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World, from Marathon to
Waterloo. By E. S. Creasy, M. A. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1
vol. 12mo._

The idea of this valuable volume is taken from a remark of Hallam on Charles Martel’s victory over the invading Saracens, which he calls one of “those few battles, of which a contrary event would have essentially varied the drama of the world in all its subsequent scenes.” Mr. Creasy is Professor of History in University College, London, and is well fitted to do justice to his great theme. The battles described are Marathon, Syracuse, Arbela, and Metaurus; the victory of Arminius over the Roman legions under Varus; the battles of Chalons, Tours, and Hastings; Joan of Arc’s victory at Orleans, the defeat of the Spanish Armada, and the battles of Blenheim, Pultowa, Saratoga, Valmy, and Waterloo. The execution of the work is excellent. The liberality of the author’s mind is indicated by his lofty conception of the power and the mission of the United States, given in the introductory remarks to his description of the battle of Saratoga.

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_Legends of the Flowers. By Susan Pindar. New York: D. Appleton
& Co. 1 vol. 16mo._

_Memoirs of a London Doll. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 1
vol. 16mo._

_Tales from Catland, for Little Kittens. By an Old Tabby.
Boston: Ticknor & Co. 1 vol. 16mo._

These beautiful little volumes are designed for children, and are admirably adapted for their purpose of delighting the young. The stories display ingenuity of invention, and a talent for reaching the minds of children of no ordinary character. The engravings are uncommonly well executed. Those in Ticknor & Co.’s books are from designs by Billings.

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_A Class Book of Chemistry. By Edward L. Youmans. New York: D.
Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 12mo._

A capital volume, designed chiefly for academies and schools, but containing matter more important to readers in general than even to school-boys. It is a work in which the leading principles of chemistry are familiarly explained, and applied to the arts, agriculture, physiology, dietetics, ventilation, and the phenomena of nature. The writer is well qualified for his task, for he seems perfectly to comprehend the ignorance of the majority of readers on the subjects he explains, and accordingly directs his explanations primarily to exactly those principles which require illustration, before the mind is fitted to take in their applications.

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_Lives of the Queens of Scotland and English Princesses
Connected with the Royal Succession of Great Britain. By Agnes
Strickland, Author of the Lives of the Queens of England. Vol.
2. New York: Harper & Brothers. 12mo._

This volume contains the lives of Mary of Lorraine, the second queen of James V., and Lady Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lenox. These biographies are quite able and interesting, giving vivid pictures of Scottish feuds, life, and manners in the sixteenth century, and exhibiting considerable research into the interior history of the time. The next volume will, we presume, be devoted to Mary, Queen of Scots.

* * * * *

_Sir Roger de Coverley. By the Spectator. Boston: Ticknor, Reed
& Fields. 1 vol. 16mo._

Addison’s Sir Roger is as universally known and appreciated as any creation of the comic genius of England; but the papers in the Spectator which refer to him have never before been collected in a volume by themselves. This is done in the present delightful work, and we commend it to our readers as a gem both of typography and genius.

* * * * *

_Sketches in Ireland. By W. M. Thackeray. Philadelphia: T. B.
Peterson._

This work abounds with the finest touches of the author’s satirical pencil, and for close observation of life, is worthy of the fame of the author of “Vanity Fair.” The accompanying illustrations are from drawings made upon the spot by the author, and are, some of them, ludicrous enough.

* * * * *

_Crosby and Nichols, of Boston_, have sent us some eight or ten delightful little story-books for children, to which we call the attention of parents in these holyday times.

* * * * *

Dentistry.—Our attention has recently been called to the very superior mechanical execution of full sets of teeth, manufactured by a young townsman of ours—J. Sothoron Gilliams, Esq.—which in all respects surpass any thing of the kind we have elsewhere observed. Doctor Gilliams, however, brings to the practice of his profession, not only the nice observation of years of the superior skill of his father, but also a thorough medical education and assiduous attention to the mechanical arrangement and finish of his labors. It is a mistaken notion—but one that is common—to suppose, that a poor shoemaker or an indifferent tailor may make a very tolerable dentist, and we are sure that a few more examples of thorough education for the practice of the profession, such as Dr. Gilliams has secured, will do much to send adrift the vast army of pretenders and quacks who now torture and fleece humanity as surgeon dentists. It is strange, that while no man would thoughtlessly put a horse into the hands of one of these fellows, yet people are to be found who will allow them to afflict and disfigure the mouths of their daughters with perfect indifference. We trust, however, that among the many thousands who read “Graham” none will hereafter suffer themselves to be duped by ignorant pretenders, with high-sounding titles, while gentlemen of education and superior skill—but who modestly keep silent—are in the midst of us.

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The Volume for 1852.—Our readers will see from the style in which the January number is put forth, that we are in earnest for 1852 in our efforts to render “Graham” superior as a work of literature and art. The plan marked out and indicated in our prospectus of greatly increasing the literary matter of each number, we shall resolutely adhere to, and as we claim the merit of first suggesting and adopting the change, we trust that those who partially follow us in January, will not grow weary in well-doing as soon as the subscriptions have been made up for the year.

How far our readers may have opportunities of observing the practice of some publishers, who fill sheets with promises which are never thought of after the January number is issued, we cannot say—but we now ask some little attention to the matter for 1852.

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Transcriber’s Notes:

Table of Contents has been added for reader convenience. Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Obvious typesetting and punctuation errors have been corrected without note. Other errors have been corrected as noted below. For illustrations, some caption text may be missing or incomplete due to condition of the originals available for preparation of the eBook.

page 18, the Boynton’s; and he ==> the Boyntons; and he page 89, in the which state one of ==> in which state one of page 104, knew work-box, ==> new work-box,

[End of Graham’s Magazine, Vol. XL, No. 1, January 1852]