Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

In Paris the first volume of the collection of _Greek and Latin Physicians_ has just appeared. To the profession this will be a work of the greatest interest and importance. The idea originated with Dr. DAREMBERG, a learned physician, enamored of his art, versed in the ancient languages--familiar with the study of MSS., and a visitor of all the principal libraries of Europe for the purposes of his work. The book will comprise the text of the authors, collated with manuscripts, and with the best editions, with a French translation and notes. To each division there will be a copious index. Daremberg has too well appreciated the scope and dignity of his work to suppose that it could be accomplished by any individual, and has therefore associated with himself several of the most distinguished savans in various departments of the undertaking, both in France and elsewhere. He comprehended no less the immense expense of the work, and applied in its inception under the monarchy, to the Government for aid. It was granted, and the Republic does not shrink from the fulfilment of that promise of its predecessor, in so truly a democratic work--for every thing which tends to the knowledge of the means of preserving health is essentially democratic. The French translation is admirably precise and clear; the notes are numerous but useful--chiefly upon natural history--the customs of the ancients--their hygiene, and upon all points which required elucidation. The work cannot be completed for several years, but Daremberg is young and ardent, and for his future labors he will have the solace of his first great and undoubted success.

* * * * *

The correspondence of MIRABEAU during the last three years of his life, and the complete history of his relations to the Court, is announced in Paris by Le Normant, in three octavo volumes. According to the _Journal des Debats_, the greatest part of these papers have never been printed. Mirabeau, a few days before his death, (2d April, 1794,) delivered them to his friend the Count de Mark, from whose hands, when he died at Brussels in 1833, they came into the possession of M. de Barcourt. This gentleman, formerly Ambassador to the United States, has enriched the volume with historical notes and commentaries.

* * * * *

LOUIS BLANC has published a political pamphlet called _Plus de Girondins_ (No more Girondins), in which the opposition of the extreme party to the moderate party is expressed with the greatest force. The freedom of the press, and the liberty of public meeting, he wishes entirely unlimited, and the clubs to be every where opened as popular schools of politics. Exile has but knit him more closely to the democratic ideas, for whose development he hoped so much in the Revolution of '48. His compeer, Ledru Rollin, achieved nothing by his last year's work upon the Decadence of England, but ridicule in England, and no great fame at home.

* * * * *

A curious anecdote is told of SCRIBE, the French vaudevilliste. He was one day at work in his cabinet, when a young man entered. It was Lacenaire. He seemed very modest, and stated delicately the occasion of his visit. He had been appointed to a situation in Belgium, but was entirely without means, and requested of Scribe thirty or forty francs to pay his way to Brussels. Scribe was attracted by the young man's tone and manner. "Thirty to forty francs," said he, "are too few. I must give you a hundred, and if you choose to repay them, you can do so to an old woman in Brussels, who was a servant of our family. Here is her address." So saying, Scribe went to his drawer and took out the gold for the young man, who expressed his gratitude with all the elegance of a cultivated and sensitive mind, and left a copy of verses with Scribe for a remembrance. Since then Lacenaire has confessed that he knew the arrangement of Scribe's chamber, and had chosen an hour when the servants were absent. "I put myself between Scribe and the bell-rope, and if he had refused me, I should have made short and noiseless work with my knife. Scribe owed his life to his generosity." In this little story is there not an averted tragedy as sad as Eugene Aram's?

* * * * *

A new work, of great importance to the oriental student, will soon reach England from Siam, where it has been already published. It is a new Siamese grammar, prepared by the Roman Catholic Vicar General, who has resided in Siam for twenty years. In the "Journal of the English Archipelago," Mr. Taylor Jones announces the work and its value, with some illustrative facts in the author's life. The bishop brings to the task not alone his own remarkable intelligence and devotion, but the results of the inquiries of his predecessors for two centuries. The work forms a quarto of two hundred and forty-six pages, and treats of a mass of matter necessary to the understanding of the language, but which is not elsewhere to be found. Among this the reckoning of time, of money, measures, and weights, as well as chronology, literature, and religion, are included. The eight or ten pages devoted to chronology afford a clear and just insight into the old history of Siam. The enumeration of Siamese books, although not complete, shows that Siamese literature is by no means poor. The miscellaneous list contains one hundred and fifty various books upon grammar, arithmetic, astronomy, astrology, and history, and many poetical works, especially romances. The various warlike romances of China are very faithfully translated and broadly diffused in Siam. Sometimes these ponderous productions climb to a series of ninety volumes. The historical reports of Siam make forty volumes, and there are no less than thirty-six holy Buddhist books. A sketch of Buddhism is given in the present work, and the good bishop is now about commencing a Siamese dictionary.

* * * * *

The literature of democracy has received another illustration in a social tragedy in five acts, by the citizen Xavier Sauriac, entitled The Death of Jesus. Its object of course is to embody dramatically the sentiment of the old Revolution that Jesus Christ was a _Sans Culottes_, akin to the feeling which causes ardent abolitionists to assert that he was a negro. This tragedy makes Jesus Christ a democratic philosopher, Herod an apostle, Magdalen a kind of Fleur de Marie. The hero rehearses a plan for the salvation of the world, which is simply crude communism. We quote an illustration:

"Quand l'etat, heritier de la famille eteinte,
Sera du sol entier possesseur sans contrainte,
Qu'il serve alors de pere a tous les citoyens
Et de la vie a tous depense les moyens."

And again:

"Dans les bizars brillante du luxe industriel,
Il devienue lui seul, marchand universel."

This work is probably a very sincere one, and deserves a prominent place among the curiosities of literature. Nevertheless, such familiar presentation of the Saviour is not only blasphemous but ridiculous.

* * * * *

MR. ALEXANDER DUFAI has published in Paris a satire on socialist women, under the title of _Lelila, ou la Femme Socialiste_, and the journals of the sect are very angry with him that he illustrates the tendencies of socialism by presenting as his heroine its female apostle, George Sand. That there may be no doubt of his intention, he tells us in the preface that he has made _Lelila_ narrate her childhood, education, and poetic dreams, her marriage with a _sous prefet_, who did not "understand" her, and her amours with a poet who _did_ understand her, for he carried her off; he has also made _Lelila_ marry by turns all the socialist systems in the persons of their chiefs; and finally, shows her in the revolution of 1848, presiding at _Le Club des Femmes_, and playing an active part in public life. "After this," observes the _Leader_, "he has the shameless audacity to say he attacks the 'species,' not the 'individual!'"

* * * * *

The two last volumes of the Remains of SAINT-MARTIN have just been issued from the National Press in Paris, under the title, _Fragments of a History of the Arsacides, posthumous work of M. Saint-Martin_. He was a well-known French _litterateur_, and director of the library of the Arsenal. Strange stories are told of his unwearied diligence and devotion to details. He was the original proposer of a plan for a systematic and scientific investigation of oriental antiquities, and another for a collection of oriental classics. This latter was his darling project, for the execution of which Louis XVIII. granted a commission; but the revolution of 1830 ruined his hopes. Yet a new commission was named, and on the day upon which it was to hold its first session, Saint-Martin was stricken by the cholera, and died without knowing that the hope of his life would be fulfilled.

* * * * *

The _Univers_ at Paris announces a newly-discovered document in relation to the trial of Louis XVI., proving that the report of the Debates in the _Moniteur_ were falsified. This document is reported to have been published on the third of January, 1794, but has escaped all the historians. It occurs in the report of the commission appointed by the Convention to examine the papers found in Robespierre's possession. A letter turns up, written by the editor of the Debates of the Convention in the _Moniteur_ to Robespierre, and of this import: "You know that we always report more fully the speeches of the Mountain than of the other side. In Convet's complaint against you, I printed only a short sketch of his first point, but the whole of your reply. And in the report of the King's trial I introduced on his side only enough to preserve an appearance of impartiality," &c., &c. Lamartine received these papers to examine when he announced his history of the Girondins, but returned them, saying that he could make no use of them.

* * * * *

An important work is announced by Joubert in Paris, _Les Murailles Revolutionaries_, being a complete collection of professions of faith, proclamations, placards, decrees, bulletins, facsimiles of signatures, inedited autographs, &c., from February, 1848, to the present day: three volumes quarto. It is to be published in twenty-four parts, one part every month, and will supply a very important want of the future historian of these last remarkable years.

* * * * *

M. UBICINI has just published in Paris a very interesting work on the Ottomans, _Lettres sur la Turquie_. These letters were first printed in successive numbers of the _Moniteur_, from March, 1850, to the present summer, and they treat with decided ability and with freshness the chief subjects connected with Mohammedan civilization, and with the present condition and prospects of the Turkish empire, as the government, administration, army, finances, agriculture, commerce, public instruction, organization of religion, &c.

* * * * *

The _Collection of Sacred Moralists_, which has been for some time in course of publication in Paris, under the editorial supervision of the famous editor of French classics, M. Lefevre, has been just completed by the publication of the two volumes, of which one contains the _Moral Thoughts_ of Confucius, and the other the work known as _The Sacred Book of China_.

* * * * *

M. REGNAULT'S new book, which he would have regarded as a completion of Louis Blanc's _Histoire de Dix Ans_, is described as a very violent and not very clever pamphlet.

* * * * *

LAMARTINE'S sentimental and lachrymose romance of _Raphael_, has passed into a third edition in Paris.

* * * * *

The French poet MERY has just published a romance entitled _Confessions de Marion Delorme_. We cannot imagine any additional interest from fictitious coloring to a life such as it is believed was really led by the heroine.

"Marion Delorme was born in 1612 or 1615, but where is not
exactly known, though probably in Champagne or Franche
Comte. Of marvellous beauty and exquisite wit, she became,
after certain amatory adventures, the mistress, and
subsequently by secret marriage the wife, of Cinq Mars, and,
as such, was persecuted by the terrible Cardinal Richelieu.
Even before he was sent to the scaffold, she had formed
other intrigues, and then had a long list of lovers, amongst
whom were de Grammont and Saint Evremont; then she became
the 'glass of fashion and the mould of form, the observed of
all observers,' and the admired of all gallants of the good
city of Paris; then she dabbled in politics, and eventually
became one of the chiefs of the malcontent party; then she
was in danger of arrest, like the Princes de Conti and de
Conde; then to escape a jail she spread a rumor that she was
dead, and actually got up a mock funeral of herself;
afterwards, she escaped to England, married a lord, and in a
short time became a widow with a legacy of L4000; then she
returned to France, and on her way to Paris was attacked by
brigands, robbed of her money, and made to marry the chief
of the band; four years later she was again a widow, and
then she wedded a M. Laborde; after living with him
seventeen years, he died, and she went to Paris with the
remains of her fortune; robbed by her domestics, she was
reduced to beggary, and continued to lead a wretched
existence to the extraordinary age of one hundred and
thirty-four!"

* * * * *

M. CUVILLIER-FLEURY has published _Portraits Politiques et Revolutionnaires_, containing Louis Philippe and the Duchess d'Orleans, Causes of the Revolution, Lamartine, Louis Blanc, Eugene Sue, Victor Hugo, Proudhon, &c., &c. M. Cuvillier-Fleury was one of the Secretaries of Louis Philippe.

* * * * *

MR. PARKE GODWIN'S beautiful romance of Vala (published by Putnam) has been translated into the Swedish language. One of the journals of Stockholm announces the translation in terms of just appreciation. "Our excellent Lind," it is observed, "is showered over with the California gold, but no tribute given her can equal in worth the exquisite gem which is here cast at her feet by this most imaginative author."

* * * * *

The author of "How to make Home Unhealthy" has published in London _A Defence of Ignorance_. It is addressed to the largest of the markets, but to one that buys few books.

* * * * *

A new novel by CHARLES DICKENS is to be commenced early in the autumn. Neither the title nor the subject has been announced.

* * * * *

A noble author, Viscount MAIDSTONE, has just published a poem in six cantos, under the title of Abd-el-Kader.

* * * * *

MR. THACKERAY, who promises to come and see us, and who, of course, will talk about us with the world afterwards, is delivering a course of six lectures in London upon the English humorists. The first was good, and as good as was expected, which is great praise--for few things are so difficult as for a famous man to satisfy public expectation. The London _Leader_ thus speaks of it:

"On Thursday the great satiric painter of social life--the
Fielding of our times--commenced at Willis's rooms the first
of those 'Lectures on the English Humorists of the
Eighteenth Century,' which many months ago we announced as
in preparation. We have never heard a lecture that delighted
us more. It was thoughtful and picturesque, with some
wonderful traces of pathos and far-reaching sentences.
Dwelling upon the moral aspects of Swift's position and
career, rather than attempting a criticism on his works,
Thackeray held his audience from first to last. He gave a
vivid picture of the early life and loneliness of the great
satirist amidst the exasperating servilities and insults
endured from Temple's household, as also of the turbulent
political bravo coming up to London to carve for himself a
pathway among lords whom he despised. In this part of the
lecture it was felt that, while satirizing that condition of
political corruption which made Swift a bravo, and used him
as such, the censor still touched upon living foibles; at
the allusion to the South Sea Bubble, with its railway
parallel, we observed some fair shoulders wince! Nor were
religious cant and formalism untouched in the admirable
picture of Swift's sacrifice of his life to an hypocrisy.
The audience was of the elite--Thomas Carlyle, Macaulay,
Milman, Milnes, Sir Robert Inglis, the Duke and Duchess of
Argyle, the Duchess of Sutherland, Lady Constance Leveson
Gower, Lady Lichfield, with many others, not a few lovely
women, and several men well known in literature and art."

Of his second lecture we quote the _Times_:

"The heroes of his second lecture were Congreve and Addison.
For Congreve, while he admitted the brilliancy of his wit,
he evinced no great respect. He characterized him as the
greatest literary "swell" that ever lived. With an air of
greatness, Congreve put on his best clothes, stalked among
wits who all thronged to admire him, however eminent they
might be, and approached fine ladies with a certainty of
conquest. The "I am the great Mr. Congreve!" was the
complacent ejaculation which seemed to break through all he
said and did. His character as a man of gallantry was
illustrated by citations from his poems, in which he
adulates or insults the ladies whom he immortalizes, and
every where appears as the irresistible seducer, sure to be
victorious in the end. And who could resist that very great
Mr. Congreve, with his very fine coat, squeezing a hand,
covered with diamonds, through the ringlets of a dishevelled
periwig? Of the moral principle of his comedies Mr.
Thackeray spoke with disgust, and traced the worship of
youth and recklessness, and the disrespect of old age, which
are such leading characteristics in those brilliant works,
through a whole series of dramatic categories from the
comedy to the puppet-show. The constant tendency, he
humorously described, is a recommendation to "Eat and drink,
and go to the deuce, when your time comes, if deuce there
be; and he confessed that he regarded these witty banquets
without love as he would contemplate the ruins of Sallust's
house at Pompeii, with all its ghastly relics of festivity.
The foppish depreciation of his own literary productions
with which Congreve met the compliments of Voltaire, Mr.
Thackeray rather commended than otherwise, but not for a
reason which would have pleased the great man. He really did
think his productions worthless, if weighed against one
kindly line of Steele or Addison.

"Addison is evidently Mr. Thackeray's favorite of the
'humorists' he has brought before the public. If Swift was
the most wretched of mankind, Addison appeared to him as the
most amiable. He admired the serene, calm character, who
could walk so majestically among his fellow-creatures, and
viewing with love all below him, could raise his eyes with
adoration to the blue sky above. He admitted that Addison
was not profound, and that his writings betray no appearance
of suffering--which probably he never knew prior to his
unlucky marriage--but at the same time he expatiated on the
kindliness of his wisdom and the genuine character of his
piety. The foible of drinking he did not attempt to conceal,
but observed that we should have liked Addison less had he
been without it, as we should have liked Sir Roger de
Coverley less without his vanities. Greatly he admired the
gentle spirit of Addison's sarcasm, as distinguished from
the merciless onslaught of Swift, remarking, that in his
mild court only minor cases were tried. Nor were words of
commendation the only means by which Mr. Thackeray indicated
his predilection for Addison. Of Swift he scarcely read a
line; Congreve he illustrated, not by extracts from the
comedies in which he lives for posterity, but by those minor
poems which, though admired by his cotemporaries, are now
little regarded; but he read several extracts from the
_Spectator_, and also Addison's well known hymn, as a
specimen of his deep feeling of devotion. Addison and
Congreve were both prosperous men in a wordly point of view,
and they were therefore introduced with a survey of that
golden age, when an epithalamium on some noble marriage, or
an ode to William III., was rewarded out of the public purse
to an extent that made the poet comfortable for life.
Congreve's first literary achievements earned for him,
through the patronage of Lord Halifax, places in the
commission for licensing hackney-coaches, in the
Custom-house, and in the Pipe-office. 'Alas!' said Mr.
Thackeray, 'there are no Pipe-offices now; the public have
smoked all the pipes!"

* * * * *

THEODORE S. FAY--of whom the literary world has heard nothing for a long time--has in the press of the Appletons, a poem, entitled _Ulric, or the Voices_. Mr. Fay wrote good verses twenty years ago, and we shall see whether he has lost his art.

* * * * *

MR. HART, of Philadelphia, has lately published, in a very handsome style, several handbooks in the mechanic arts, which are much commended. Among them are _The Manufacture of Steel_, by Frederick Overman; _The Practical Dyer's Guide_; the _American Cotton Spinner's Guide_, and the London _Year Book of Facts_.

* * * * *

We are soon to have a new book from THOMAS CARLYLE--a _Memoir of the late John Sterling_, the "Archaeus" of _Blackwood_, and the author of some of the finest compositions in recent English literature. Sterling, it is known to his friends, from a devout believer became a skeptic, and then a deist, pantheist, or perhaps an atheist, and finally, having done all that he saw to do, deliberately shut himself up to die--wrote to his friends what time he should leave the world, and on the very day, as if by a mere volition, went to his place. All this is concealed or passed over very lightly by Archdeacon Hare, his biographer, and Carlyle therefore determines that the world shall have his friend's true history. Among Sterling's most intimate correspondents was Ralph Waldo Emerson, and even Carlyle cannot write his life, we suspect, without having access to the extraordinary series of letters the poet sent to his American friend--letters, we have reason to believe, that will command a greater fame for him than all his published works have won, letters that almost any man might die to be the author of.

* * * * *

The most noticeable event connected with literature in this country is an arrangement entered into between a New-York publisher and THOMAS H. BENTON, for the publication of the _Historical Memoirs of the Life and Times_ of that eminent person. Mr. Benton is now about sixty-eight years of age, and for half a century he has been an active participant in affairs. He was thirty years a senator from Missouri, to which state he removed some time before its admission to the Union. His name has been connected with many great measures, and very few have exercised a more powerful influence upon our institutions or policy. The increase of his strength, as well as the increase of his fame, has been gradual but regular. He has been from his youth a student. To every question which has arrested his attention he has brought all the forces of his understanding, and what he has acquired by incessant and painful labor he has to an astonishing degree retained after the occasions which made it necessary have passed. At a period much beyond the noon of other men, he was still rising. He was of the age at which Cicero achieved his highest triumphs, before he displayed the fullness and the perfection of his powers, in several of the remarkable debates which have had relation to our empire on the Pacific. With his extraordinary experience, his faithful and particular memory, and wisdom which is master of his temper, he is perhaps before every man of his time in the requisites for such an undertaking as that which has occupied his leisure for many years, and the chief portion of his time since he ceased to be a senator. His work will probably make some five large octavo volumes, and it may be believed that in fame, authority, and length of life, it will equal the immortal production of Clarendon.

* * * * *

A new _Life of Mr. Jefferson_ is soon to be published by Mr. RANDALL, who has been honorably distinguished in his connection with the government of this state. The work will embrace a very interesting sketch of the private life of Mr. Jefferson, by Mr. Thomas Jefferson Randolph, the statesman's grandson and executor. Whatever we may think of the abilities or the special services of Mr. Jefferson, we are of that large number who regard his principles as altogether erroneous and injurious, and his character with little respect. The time is coming in which his history must be written, not by a maker of books, but by a philosophical statesman. Every year the materials are becoming more accessible. The writings of Adams and Hamilton, now in course of publication, are important contributions to them. The looked-for correspondence of Madison will serve largely for the same end; but Mr. Jefferson's life cannot be thoroughly understood until the collection of his papers in the possession of the government is carefully and intelligibly studied. The four volumes of his letters printed by Mr. Randolph, embrace but about eight hundred, but there were sold to the government by his executor the enormous number at _forty-two thousand letters_ and other documents, of which nearly sixteen thousand were written or signed by Mr. Jefferson himself. A large proportion of these papers are doubtless most important for the illustration of contemporary French and American biography, but the whole of them should be read by whoever attempts to write the history of the apostle of the radical democracy in the United States.

* * * * *

A Memoir _with a selection of the unpublished writings of the late Margaret Fuller, Countess d'Ossoli_, is announced as in preparation by her friends RALPH WALDO EMERSON and WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. The letters of Margaret Fuller to the _Tribune_, would fill a large volume, and we hope they will be reprinted with the collection of her private correspondence and inedited essays. And some of her later critical writings for the _Tribune_, in which the fame of more than one favorite of certain coteries was assailed--will her editors have courage to reproduce them? Pray you, gentlemen, consider that you propose bringing Margaret Fuller herself from the sea, to speak again to us in her own language; if the figure you present speak not as she spoke--all that she would speak, regardless of your regards--it will not be believed that you have commission for what you undertake.

* * * * *

The Rev. FREDERICK OGILBY, of Philadelphia, has in preparation a _Memoir with selections from the Writings of the late Rev. John D. Ogilby, D.D._, whose death at Paris was recently mentioned in these pages, and of whose life and character we have received an eloquent portraiture in the address delivered at his funeral by Bishop Doane.

* * * * *

An interesting article in the last _Southern Quarterly Review_ on the life and writings of Edward Everett embraces some learned and elegant philological discussions, in which Mr. Everett (of whom Dr. GILMAN, the writer, is a very warm admirer) is convicted of the use of several vulgarities, _e. g._ "in our midst," "in this connection," "reliable," &c. It is not often that such nice criticism is adventured in an American review. By the way, we are surprised that in none of the reviewals of Everett that have fallen under our notice has there been even the suggestion of a parallel between the classical orator of Harvard and Mr. Legare. A feeble eulogist in a Philadelphia magazine compares him with Webster, which is merely ridiculous, as the two men have nothing in common. It would have pleased us if Dr. Gilman had weighed the merits of the illustrious Carolinian against those of the New Englander most deserving of critical comparison with him.

* * * * *

MR. GILMORE SIMMS has in the press of a Charleston publisher a complete collection of his poems--or rather a collection embracing all his poetical compositions which so nearly meet the approval of his judgment that he is willing to preserve them under his name. Mr. Simms is a voluminous writer in verse as well as in prose, and we agree to an opinion in the _Southern Literary Messenger_, that as a poet he has by no means received justice from his contemporaries. Scarce any one in this country has produced more fair verses, and with the fair is much that is really beautiful. How much this proportion would be increased if he would but labor! and not turn off sonnets as editors do paragraphs.

* * * * *

MRS. OAKESSMITH has published in the _Tribune_, ten numbers of an eloquently earnest performance under the title of _Woman and her Needs_. She has none of the silly and maudlin extravagances of the "Women's Rights" party, so called, and her work may safely be placed before those of Mary Wolstoncraft and Margaret Fuller, for ability; but we regard all these productions as uncalled for and injurious to the best interests of the sex. A book of much more real value may be looked for in Catherine Beecher's _True Remedy for Woman's Wrongs_, in the press of Phillips & Sampson, of Boston. There is no woman of stronger intellect than Miss Beecher's now writing in this country.

* * * * *

We learn with much regret that the Rev. Dr. THOMAS H. SMYTH, of South Carolina, of whose many and various contributions to religious and historical literature we gave some account in an earlier number of _The International_, is dangerously ill in Italy, where his family have recently joined him. Dr. Smyth, our advices state, had twice been stricken with paralysis, and had been compelled entirely to forego all his literary occupations.

* * * * *

The new novels of the last month have been numerous. The Harpers have published _Caleb Field_, by the author of Mrs. Margaret Maitland; _Eastbury_, by Harriet Drury; _The Heir of Wast-Wayland_, by Harriet Drury; _Yeast, a Problem_, by the author of Alton Locke; and some half dozen others. From T. B. Peterson, of Philadelphia, we have _Ginevra, or the History of a Portrait_, which we understand is by a daughter of the late S. L. Fairfield: it is much praised in some of the journals. M. Hart has given us another clever novelette, by Caroline Lee Hentz, under the title of _Rena_. From Lippincott, Grambo & Co., we have _Lord and Lady Harcourt_, one of the pleasantest books of the season.

* * * * *

MISS BREMER has passed the winter and spring in the south and west, where she has been received with much hospitality, and detained with the affection she seems every where to inspire. Within a few weeks she has visited Florida, with a family of her friends from Charleston, and she has given very careful attention, under the most favorable circumstances, to the institutions of the southern states. She is now on her way through Tennessee and Virginia to New-York, and will soon return to Sweden, by way of London.

* * * * *

H. BALLIERE has just published _Vestiges of Civilization, or the AEtiology of History, Religious, AEsthetical, Political and Philosophical_. It appears to be written with much ability, but we are by no means inclined to believe in the truth of the author's views. He applies to civilization the processes which the author of the _Vestiges of Creation_ applied to Natural History; and without attaining to the fame of that work, the Vestiges of Civilization will probably share its condemnation.

* * * * *

All our readers who were accustomed to read the journals twenty years ago, will remember SHOCCO JONES, the immortal defender of the fame of North Carolina. We had thought the mortal part of him was sent to the bourne he was so fond of describing in fine rhetoric when he wrote duel-challenges until a few days ago, when a friend advised us that he had lately listened to him saying mass in a Roman Catholic chapel in Mississippi. Who would have thought it?

* * * * *

MR. CHARLES SCRIBNER, (successor of Baker & Scribner,) has in press a large number of interesting new works, among which are _Incidents in the Life of a Pastor_, by the Rev. Dr. Wisner of Ithica; _The Captains of the Old World_, by Henry William Herbert; _Naval Life: the Midshipman_, by Lieutenant Lynch, Commander of the late Dead Sea Expedition; _The Fall of Poland_, by L. C. Saxton; _The Evening Book_, by Mrs. Kirkland; _Rural Homes_, by G. Wheeler; _The Epoch of Creation_, in which the scripture doctrine is contrasted with the geological theory, by Eleazer Lord; &c.

* * * * *

We perceive by the religious journals that Mr. JOHN NEAL, who for twenty or thirty years has been the chief literary gladiator of the country, has recently given his attention to religion, and is now laboring with characteristic activity for its advancement in the city and vicinity of Portland. Of course this is very pleasing intelligence, but we cannot help a regret that the conversion of the author of "Randolph" had not taken place before he printed his reviewal of the _Life of Poe_.

* * * * *

MRS. FRANCES H. GREEN has in press a collection of her Poems, which will soon be published in a stout duodecimo, by Mr. Strong, in Nassau-street. The merits of Mrs. Green may be partially inferred from the notice of her in the article on our Female Poets which we translate from the last number of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, in another part of this magazine. She has remarkable powers of description, a rich fancy, and much poetical feeling.

* * * * *

MR. MITCHELL has published (Charles Scribner) a new edition of his _Fresh Gleanings_, one of the most delightful books of travel we ever read; a new edition, with a preface, in which he for the first time avows himself the author of _The Lorgnette_, (Stringer & Townsend); and he has a new work in the press of Mr. Scribner, besides a new and illustrated edition of _The Reveries of a Bachelor_.

* * * * *

MR. MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, F.R.S., has returned to England, and will soon give to the world his views of society and manners in America. He said indeed on one or two occasions that he should write no book about us, yet we have it from excellent authority that he has matured his plan for the purpose, and will lose no time in bringing out the results of his summer's observation.

* * * * *

DR. HOLBROOK, of Charleston, whose splendid work on reptiles entitles him to be ranked with the great naturalists of the time, has taken up his residence for the summer, we understand, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he will be occupied with his forthcoming book on American fishes, which in the beauty of its illustrations at least will equal his previous performance.

* * * * *

MR. JUDD has in the press of Phillips & Sampson, a new edition of his first and best novel, _Margaret, a Tale of the Real and the Ideal_. We hope it will be illustrated with the admirable sketches of Darley.

* * * * *

MR. SCHOOLCRAFT, we are pleased to learn, has in the press of Lippincott, Grambo & Co., his personal memoirs. They will constitute a work of much and varied interest.

* * * * *

MR. MELVILLE will soon be again before the public in a romance. The title of his new work is not announced, but we believe it is in press.

* * * * *

We have before us the first volume--printed at Charleston, with an elegance that would do credit to our best northern printers--of the _History of Alabama, and Incidentally of Georgia and Mississippi, from the Earliest period_, by ALBERT JAMES PICKETT. In _The International_ for May we gave some account of the design. The work is executed throughout with great care, and Colonel Pickett may be congratulated upon having done a very important service to his State, by his arduous and intelligently prosecuted labors, of which he gives an interesting account in the following extract from his preface:

"About four years since, feeling impressed with the fact
that it is the duty of every man to make himself, in some
way, useful to his race, I looked around in search of some
object, in the pursuit of which I could benefit my
fellow-citizens; for, although much interested in
agriculture, that did not occupy one-fourth of my time.
Having no taste for politics, and never having studied a
profession, I determined to write a History. I thought it
would serve to amuse my leisure hours; but it has been the
hardest work of my life. While exhausted by the labor of
reconciling the statements of old authors, toiling over old
French and Spanish manuscripts, travelling through Florida,
Alabama and Mississippi, for information, and corresponding
with persons in Europe and elsewhere, for facts, I have
sometimes almost resolved to abandon the attempt to prepare
a History of my State.

"In reference to that portion of the work which relates to
the Indians, I will state, that my father removed from Anson
county, North-Carolina, and carried me to the wilds of the
'Alabama Territory,' in 1818, when I was a boy but eight
years of age. He established a trading house, in connection
with his plantation, in the present county of Autauga.
During my youthful days, I was accustomed to be much with
the Creek Indians--hundreds of whom came almost daily to the
trading house. For twenty years I frequently visited the
Creek nation. Their green-corn dances, ball-plays, war
ceremonies, and manners and customs, are all fresh in my
recollection. In my intercourse with them, I was thrown into
the company of many old white men, called 'Indian
countrymen,' who had for years conducted a commerce with
them. Some of these men had come to the Creek nation before
the revolutionary war, and others, being tories, had fled to
it during the war, and after it, to escape from whig
persecution. They were unquestionably the shrewdest and most
interesting men with whom I ever conversed. Generally of
Scotch descent, many of them were men of some education. All
of them were married to Indian wives, and some of them had
intelligent and handsome children. From these Indian
countrymen I learned much concerning the manners and customs
of the Creeks, with whom they had been so long associated,
and more particularly with regard to the commerce which they
carried on with them. In addition to this, I often conversed
with the Chiefs while they were seated in the shades of the
spreading mulberry and walnut, upon the banks of the
beautiful Tallapoosa. As they leisurely smoked their pipes,
some of them related to me the traditions of their country.
I occasionally saw Choctaw and Cherokee traders, and learned
much from them. I had no particular object in view at that
time, except the gratification of a curiosity, which led me,
for my own satisfaction alone, to learn something of the
early history of Alabama.

"In relation to the invasion of Alabama by De Soto, which is
related in the first chapter of this work, I have derived
much information in regard to the route of that earliest
discoverer, from statements of General McGillivray, a Creek
of mixed blood, who ruled this country, with eminent
ability, from 1776 to 1793. I have perused the manuscript
history of the Creeks, by Stiggins, a half-breed, who also
received some particulars of the route of De Soto, during
his boyhood, from the lips of the oldest Indians. My library
contains many old Spanish and French maps, with the towns
through which De Soto passed, correctly laid down. The sites
of many of these are familiar to the present population.
Besides all these, I have procured from England and France
three journals of De Soto's expedition.

"One of these journals was written by a cavalier of the
expedition, who was a native of Elvas, in Portugal. He
finished his narrative on the 10th February, 1557, in the
city of Evora, and it was printed in the house of Andrew de
Burgos, printer and gentleman of the Lord Cardinal and the
Infanta. It was translated into English, by Richard Hakluyt,
in 1609, and is to be found in the supplementary volume of
his voyages and discoveries; London: 1812. It is also
published at length in the Historical Collections of Peter
Force, of Washington city.

"Another journal of the expedition was written by the Inca
Garcellasso de la Vega, a Peruvian by birth, and a native of
the city of Cusco. His father was a Spaniard of noble blood,
and his mother the sister of Capac, one of the Indian
sovereigns of Peru. Garcellasso was a distinguished writer
of that age. He had heard of the remarkable invasion of
Florida by De Soto, and he applied himself diligently to
obtain the facts. He found out an intelligent cavalier of
that expedition, with whom he had minute conversations of
all the particulars of it. In addition to this, journals
were placed in his hands, written in the camp of De
Soto--one by Alonzo de Carmona, a native of the town of
Priego, and the other, by Juan Coles, a native of Zafra.
Garcellasso published his work, at an early period, in
Spanish. It has been translated into French, but never into
English. The copy in our hands is entitled 'Histoire de la
Conquete de la Floride ou relation de ce qui s'est passe
dans la decouverte de ce pais, par Ferdinand De Soto,
Composee en Espagnol, par L'Inca Garcellasso de la Vega, et
traduite en Francois, par St. Pierre Richelet, en deux
tomes; a Leide: 1731.'

"I have still another journal, and the last one, of the
expedition of De Soto. It was written by Biedma, who
accompanied De Soto, as his commissary. The journal is
entitled 'Relation de ce qui arriva pendant le voyage du
Captaine Soto, et details sur la nature du pas qu'il
parcourut; par Luis Hernandez de Biedma,' contained in a
volume entitled 'Recuil de Pieces sur la Floride,' one of a
series of 'Voyages et memoires originaux pour servir a la
L'Histoire de la Recouverte de L'Amerique publies pour la
premier fois en Francois; par H. Ternaux-Compans. Paris:
1841.'

"In Biedma there is an interesting letter written by De
Soto, while he was at Tampa Bay, in Florida, which was
addressed to some town authorities in Cuba. The journal of
Biedma is much less in detail than those of the Portuguese
Gentleman and Garcellasso, but agrees with them in the
relation of the most important occurrences.

"Our own accomplished writer, and earliest pioneer in
Alabama history--Alexander B. Meck, of Mobile--has furnished
a condensed, but well written and graphic account of De
Soto's expedition, contained in a monthly magazine, entitled
'The Southern,' Tuscaloosa, 1839. He is correct as to the
direction assumed by the Spaniards, over our soil, as well
as to the character of that extraordinary conquest."

We shall recur to the work on receiving the second volume.

* * * * *

LORD CAMPBELL, (who is himself a somewhat voluminous author, in history and general literature,) has reversed the decision of Baron Rolfe, given last year, and has decided that foreigners _first publishing_ in England are entitled to copyright. He declared that the act of Anne for the encouragement of learning was furthered by allowing a copyright to aliens who first published in England, that Parliament had always favored the importation of foreign literature, and that the law would still protect the property of the foreign author, recognize his rights, and give him redress for all wrongs inflicted upon him in England.

This decision is one of very great importance, though not final, as the pirating booksellers have determined to carry the matter before the House of Lords, where Brougham, Lyndhurst, and several others of great authority, are known to be against them. Meantime, Bentley and the other purchasers of American copyrights, have issued advertisements warning the public against the purchase of unauthorized editions.

* * * * *

The Rev. DR. BAIRD has added to the number of his works _The Christian Retrospect and Register, a Summary of Scientific Moral and Religious Progress in the First Half of the XIXth Century_. (_12mo. M. W. Dodd._) It is an interesting compend of events, of which even a condensed history might fill a dozen volumes. In all respects it is superior to a work of the same design published by Dr. Davis, and formerly reviewed in this magazine.

* * * * *

The _Parthenon_, is the title of a new work, remarkable for the beauty of its typography and of its wood cuts, to be published by Loomis & Griswold. It will be in about a dozen parts, the price of each of which will be one dollar. The first number contains, with a new story by Mr. Cooper, the best poem ever published by Mr. Duganne, and two really excellent poems by William Ross Wallace.

* * * * *

LOUISA PAYSON HOPKINS has just published (Gould & Lincoln of Boston) an excellent little volume in practical religion, entitled _Life's Guiding Star_, and designed to illustrate the second and third questions of the Westminster Catechism.

* * * * *

The works of the late Rev. WALTER COLTON, U. S. N., will soon be completed in the edition of A. S. Barnes & Co. They have already published _Ashore and Afloat_, and _Three Years in California_, which appeared before the author's death, and since then, _Land and Lee_, embracing the volume published many years ago under the title of "Constantinople and Athens." The posthumous volumes are carefully and judiciously edited by the Rev. HENRY T. CHEEVER, whose own works of a somewhat similar character we have always to notice with praise.

* * * * *

The Appletons have in press _Io!_ a novel, by a member of the Canadian Parliament, which gives large promise in the proof sheets; _The Philosophy of Mechanics_, by Mr. Allen, of Providence; _Campaigns in Mexico and by the Rio Grande_, by Brevet Major ISAAC J. STEVENS, in which Major Ripley, author of the History of the Mexican War, published by Harpers, is likely to receive more hot shot than he encountered on the field; _Sunbeams and Shadows_, a novel, by Miss HULSE, of Baltimore, and several other new works.

* * * * *

The _History of the Protestants of France, from the Commencement of the Reformation to the Present Period_, by G. S. FELICE, Professor of Theology at Montauban, has been published in a handsome octavo, by Edward Walker, Fulton street. In the April number of _The International_, we described this work, from a copy of the French original that fell in our way, not knowing that it was in course of translation. We renew our commendations.

* * * * *

The _Traveller's and Tourist's Guide through the United States, Canada, &c._, by W. WILLIAMS, (published by Lippincott, Grambo & Co., of Philadelphia), is the most convenient and comprehensive hand-book of the kind we have seen. It appears in time for the tourists of the summer, who will find in it all the information they need, as to routes, distances, &c.

* * * * *

The author of "Standish the Puritan," who indulges a natural taste for letters, after having won fortune and eminence at the bar, is now finishing the last sheets of a new novel for the Harpers, on his estate in Georgia.

* * * * *

CZERNY'S _Method of the Piano Forte_, which we believe to be in all respects as good a book of instruction for that instrument, as was ever made, has been reprinted in a good edition by Oliver Ditson, of Boston.

* * * * *

A new edition of CARDINAL WISEMAN'S _Lectures on the Principal Doctrines of the Catholic Church_, has been published by John Murphy & Co., of Baltimore. This is a very able work, though less interesting to the mass of readers than its eminent author's work on the connexion between Science and Revealed Religion.

* * * * *

Among the new poems of the month are several fine ones by a new candidate for favor--a young woman of Connecticut--who writes in the _Tribune_. We quote two of them:

TRAILING ARBUTUS.

Darlings of the forest!
Blossoming alone
When Earth's grief is sorest
For her jewels gone--
Ere the last snow-drift melts, your tender buds have blown.

Tinged with color faintly,
Like the morning sky,
Or more pale and saintly,
Wrapped in leaves ye lie,
Even as children sleep in faith's simplicity.

There the wild wood-robin
Hymns your solitude,
And the rain comes sobbing,
Through the budding wood,
While the low south wind sighs, but dare not be more rude.

Were your pure lips fashioned
Out of air and dew:
Starlight unimpassioned,
Dawn's most tender hue--
And scented by the woods that gathered sweets for you?

Fairest and most lonely,
From the world apart,
Made for beauty only,
Veiled from nature's heart,
With such unconscious grace as makes the dream of Art!

Were not mortal sorrow
An immortal shade,
Then would I to-morrow
Such a flower be made,
And live in the dear woods where my lost childhood played.

A. W. H.

INDOLENCE.

Indolent! indolent! Yes, I am indolent,
So is the grass growing tenderly, slowly;
So is the violet fragrant and lowly,
Drinking in quietness, peace, and content;
So is the bird on the light branches swinging,
Idly his carol of gratitude singing,
Only on living and loving intent.

Indolent! indolent! Yes, I am indolent!
So is the cloud overhanging the mountain
So is the tremulous wave of a fountain,
Uttering softly its eloquent psalm;
Nerve and sensation in quiet reposing,
Silent as blossoms the night dew is closing,
But the full heart beating strongly and calm.

Indolent! indolent! Yes, I am indolent!
If it be idle to gather my pleasure
Out of creation's uncoveted treasure,
Midnight, and morning; by forest and sea;
Wild with the tempest's sublime exultation;
Lonely in Autumn's forlorn lamentation;
Hopeful and happy with Spring and the bee.

Indolent! indolent! are ye not indolent?
Thralls of the earth, and its usages weary;
Toiling like gnomes where the darkness is dreary,
Toiling and sinning, to heap up your gold.
Stifling the heavenward breath of devotion;
Crushing the freshness of every emotion;
Hearts like the dead, that are pulseless and cold!

Indolent! indolent! are ye not indolent?
Thou who art living unloving and lonely,
Wrapped in a pall that will cover thee only,
Shrouded in selfishness, piteous ghost!
Sad eyes behold thee, and angels are weeping
O'er thy forsaked and desolate sleeping;
Art thou not indolent!--Art thou not lost?

A. W. H.

ALICE CAREY continues to write pieces full of grace and feeling. Here is one from the _National Era_:

ANNIE CLAYVILLE.

In the bright'ning wake of April
Comes the lovely, lovely May,
But the step of Annie Clayville
Falleth fainter day by day.
In despite of sunshine, shadows
Lie upon her heart and brow:
Last year she was gay and happy--
Life is nothing to her now!

When she hears the wild bird singing,
Or the sweetly humming bee,
Only says she, faintly smiling,
What have you to do with me?
Yet, sing out for pleasant weather,
Wild birds in the woodland dells--
Fly out, little bees, and gather
Honey for your waxen wells.
Softly, silver rain of April,
Come down singing from the clouds,
Till daffodils and daisies
Shall be up in golden crowds;
Till the wild pinks hedge the meadows,
Blushing out of slender stems,
And the dandelions, starry,
Cover all the hills with gems.
From your cool beds in the rivers,
Blow, fresh winds, and gladness bring
To the locks that wait to hide you--
What have I to do with spring?

May is past--along the hollows
Chime the rills in sleepy tune,
While the harvest's yellow chaplet
Swings against the face of June.

Very pale lies Annie Clayville--
Still her forehead, shadow crowned,
And the watchers hear her saying,
As they softly tread around:
Go out, reapers, for the hill tops
Twinkle with the summer's heat--
Lay from out your swinging cradles
Golden furrows of ripe wheat!
While the little laughing children,
Lightly mixing work with play,
From between the long green winrows
Glean the sweetly-scented hay.
Let your sickles shine like sunbeams
In the silver-flowing rye,
Ears grow heavy in the cornfields--
That will claim you by and by.
Go out, reapers, with your sickles,
Gather home the harvest store!
Little gleaners, laughing gleaners,
I shall go with you no more.