Part 2 — REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.

Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie. By Henry Wordsworth Longfellow. Boston: Wm. D. Ticknor & Co. 1 vol. 12mo.

We are glad that Professor Longfellow has, in this volume, produced a poem which, while it indicates his capacity as a writer, is practically a triumphant answer to various depreciating criticisms on his writings. It has been said that his strength lay in small lyrics and didactics; that he had not sufficient force of feeling and imagination to create a poem. Here is a long and elaborate effort, extending to some hundred and sixty pages, where the strictest unity of effect is combined with great variety of character, incident, scenery, sentiment, and description. It has been said that his love of thought, if not his imagery and ideas, were borrowed from foreign sources, and that he rather polished than created. Here is a poem almost entirely American, blooming with flowers, and fragrant with odors peculiar to his own continent, and reflecting in its beautiful verse the streams, valleys, and mountains of his native land. It has been said that a certain foppery and effeminate elegance characterized his fancy; and that he dared not trust himself in the delineation of actual homely objects, where the poetic effect could not be produced by cunning combinations of words, but must result from the exercise of a pure and bright imagination. Here is a poem, in which whole pages are devoted to the delineation of humble, hearty farmers and mechanics, evincing an almost Chaucerian trust in things as opposed to words, giving clear pictures of objects and characters, replete with a sweet, humane humor, and producing poetry of effect by intensity and clearness of imaginative conception. Basil, the blacksmith, and Benedict, are as vivid and true as the delineations of Crabbe. Any farmer or smith would instantly recognize them as genuine. Yet the poet, by his subtil power of discerning the spirit beneath the rough external appearance, has given them an intrinsic beauty and dignity which would entitle them to rank with kings. He has, with a severe simplicity, fixed his gaze steadily on the human heart and soul, and we recognize in his delineations, humanity as well as the externals of rural life.

If Mr. Longfellow has in this poem thus practically illustrated his possession of rare powers, for which a few critics have not given him credit, he has also done something which, from the time of Sidney, has been pronounced impossible by English criticism—he has written a long narrative poem in hexameter verse, and managed it so admirably, that it seems the best he could have chosen for his purpose. We cannot conceive of the poem as being recast in heroics, octosyllabics, blank verse, or the Spenserian stanza, without essential injury to its effect, and a limitation of its range of character and description. In this Mr. Longfellow has clearly performed “the impossible;” and it should be a source of gratification to every American, that one of his own countrymen has achieved what no English poet has been able to perform, and what few have dared to attempt. The composition of a poem in hexameter verse, which can be read with as much ease and delight as “Gertrude of Wyoming,” we conceive to be the most original peculiarity of this original work.

The character of Evangeline is, perhaps, Mr. Longfellow’s most beautiful creation. It is both conceived and sustained with wonderful force and truth. The sweetness, purity, energy, holiness, and naturalness of the character, as displayed in her life-long wanderings, the unforced religious elevation which envelopes her, and through her the whole poem;

—“The hope, and the fear, and the sorrow,

All the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied longing,

All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of patience,”

which she endures from her early youth to that period when, old and worn with constant endeavor, she presses the lifeless head of her long-sought betrothed to her bosom, and “meekly bows her own, and murmurs, ‘Father, I thank thee,’ ” all combine to consecrate her to the heart and imagination as one of those pure conceptions of humanity, which none who once cherishes will willingly let die. The author has well addressed the class of readers who will appreciate the deep seriousness of his purpose, in a few of the opening lines:

“Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient;

Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman’s devotion;

List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest;

List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy.”

We cannot refrain from making a few extracts from this poem, although we must warn our readers that they can obtain no clear idea of its merits, and the artistical relation, of the characters to each other, and the scenery to the characters, without reading the whole. We will guarantee that it possesses sufficient interest to be read at one sitting.

We will first give a few lines partially indicating some of the characters. Benedict, Evangeline’s father, is thus described:

“Stalworth and stately in form was the man of seventy winters;

Hearty and hale was he, an oak that is covered with snow-flakes;

White as the snow were his locks, and his cheeks as brown as the oak-leaves.”

• • • • • • • •

“In-door, warm by the wide-mouth fire-place, idly the farmer

Sat in his elbow-chair, and watched how the flames and the smoke-wreaths

Struggled together like foes in a burning city.

Faces clumsily carved in oak on the back of his arm-chair

Laughed in the flickering light, and the pewter plates on the dresser

Caught and reflected the flame, as shields of armies the sunshine.

Fragments of song the old man sang, and carols of Christmas,

Such as at home, in the olden time, his fathers before him

Sang in their Norman orchards and bright Burgundian vineyards.”

The following is a picture of the good notary:

“Bent like a laboring oar, that toils in the surf of the ocean,

Bent, but not broken, by age, was the form of the notary public;

Shocks of yellow hair, like the silken floss of the maize, hung

Over his shoulders; his forehead was high; and glasses with horn bows

Sat astride on his nose, with a look of wisdom supernal.

Father of twenty children was he, and more than a hundred

Children’s children rode on his knee, and heard his great watch tick.”

The blacksmith, the very impersonation of strength, is well delineated; but we have only space for a few lines:

“Silenced but not convinced, when the story was ended, the blacksmith

Stood like a man who fain would speak, but findeth no language;

And all his thoughts congealed into lines on his face, as the vapors

Freeze in fantastic shapes on the window-panes in the winter.”

The following view of the little maiden on a Sunday morn, is very beautiful:

“But a celestial brightness—a more ethereal beauty—

Shone on her face and encircled her form, when after confession,

Homeward serenely she walked with God’s benediction upon her.

When she had passed it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music.”

The descriptions of rural life in Acadie, of the scenery of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, of the wilds of Oregon, are replete with force, beauty, and finely chosen details. They are all too long for short extracts to give an adequate impression of their excellence; and besides, the author has connected the scenery which surrounds the heroine with her feelings on the occasion of viewing it. The description of the burning village is grand, but we have space only for a few lines:

“Columns of shining smoke uprose, and flashes of flame were

Thrust through their folds and withdrawn, like the quivering hands of a martyr.

Then as the winds seized the gleeds and the burning thatch, and, uplifting,

Whirled them aloft through the air, at once from a hundred house-tops

Started the sheeted smoke with flashes of flame intermingled.”

The following exquisite passage, on the mocking-bird in the far west, is, perhaps, the finest and most life-like description in the poem:

“Then from a neighboring thicket, the mocking-bird, wildest of singers,

Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o’er the water,

Shook from his little throat such floods of delicious music,

That the whole air, and the woods, and the waves, seemed silent to listen.

Plaintive at first were the tones and sad, then soaring to madness

Seemed they to follow or guide the revel of frenzied Bacchantes.

Then single notes were heard, in sorrowful low lamentation,

Till, having gathered them all, he flung them abroad in derision,

As when, after a storm, a gust of wind through the tree-tops

Shakes down the rattling rain in a crystal shower on the branches.”

Here we have a view of our own city, for which we are reasonably grateful to the poet:

“In that delightful land which is washed by the Delaware’s waters,

Guarding in sylvan shades the name of Penn the apostle,

Stands on the banks of its beautiful stream the city he founded.

There all the air is balm, and the peach is the emblem of beauty,

And the streets still re-echo the names of the trees of the forest,

As if they fain would appease the Dryads whose haunts they molested.”

Mr. Longfellow shows in this poem, together with much that is new, his usual felicity and breadth of imagery and comparison. We cannot take leave of his book more pleasantly than in quoting a few of his separate excellencies of thought or language:

“And as she gazed from the window she saw serenely the moon pass

Forth from the folds of a cloud, and one star follow her footsteps,

As out of Abraham’s tent young Ishmael wandered with Hagar.”

• • • • • • • •

“Life had been long astir in the village, and clamorous labor

Knocked with its hundred hands at the golden gates of the morning.”

• • • • • • • •

“Sadly echoed her step on the stair and the chamber.

In the dead of the night she heard the whispering rain fall

Loud on the withered leaves of the sycamore tree by the window.

Keenly the lightning flashed, and the voice of the neighboring thunder

Told her that God was in heaven, and governed the world he created.”

• • • • • • • •

“Sometimes a rumor, a hearsay, an inarticulate whisper,

Came with its airy hand to point and beckon her forward.”

• • • • • • • •

“Whither my heart has gone, there follows my hand, and not elsewhere;

For when the heart goes before, like a lamp, and illumines the pathway,

Many things are made clear, that else lie hidden in darkness.”

• • • • • • • •

“Nearer and round about her, the manifold flowers of the garden

Poured out their souls in odors, that were their prayers and confessions

Unto the night, as it went its way, like a silent Carthusian.”

• • • • • • • •

“Bright rose the sun the next day; and all the flowers of the garden

Bathed his shining feet with their tears, and anointed his tresses

With the delicious balm that they bore in their vases of crystal.”

The pathos of Evangeline it is impossible to develop in our limited space. The chief beauty of the poem is its unity of interest and feeling. The reader soon comes to admire the unaccustomed movement of the verse, and he is carried onward with its majestic sweep to the conclusion, without any faltering of attention. We end our notice with a portion of the concluding lines, which fitly close the sweet and mournful story of the lovers:

“Still stands the forest primeval; but far away from its shadow,

Side by side in their nameless graves the lovers are sleeping.

Under the humble walls of the little Catholic church-yard,

In the heart of the city, they lie, unknown and unnoticed,

Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside them,

Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at rest and for ever;

Thousands of aching brains, where theirs no longer are busy;

Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased from their labors;

Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have completed their journey.”

Tam’s Fortnight Ramble, and other Poems. By Thomas Mackellar. Phila.: Carey & Hart. 1 vol. 12mo.

The modest preface of this elegantly printed volume is enough to smooth the wrinkled front of criticism. The writer is, we believe, an intelligent printer, who has made verse the solace, not the occupation of his life. It would be hard to try his volume by any severe requisitions of criticism. It is hearty, earnest and genuine, and fairly expresses what is in the man. The little poem entitled, “The Editor sat in his Sanctum,” has been very popular. The principal fault of the author is his habit of disturbing the train of serious feeling which he often awakens, by some expressions which trail along with them ludicrous suggestions.

Appleton’s Railroad and Steamboat Companion, being a Traveler’s Guide through New England and the Middle States. By W. Williams. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 12mo.

We allude to this book, not so much because it is the best and most complete traveler’s guide ever published in the United States, as for the information it contains respecting the cost and fares of railroads, and the sketches of every town and village they pass through. It is not until we see them all set down together in one book, that we appreciate the money expended, and the obstacles overcome in building them, and the vast impetus they have given to the productive energies of the country, and to civilization.

Washington and the Generals of the American Revolution. With Sixteen Portraits on Steel, from Original Pictures. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart. 2 vols. 12mo.

These volumes contain upward of ninety biographies, varying in extent, according to the importance of the subjects and the means of obtaining accurate information regarding them. As a whole they are interesting, well written, and reliable. A book on so important a subject cannot fail of success.

The best biography in the volume is that of Washington. From the small space in which the events are crowded, the writer had not an opportunity to do justice to his artistical powers, but the view taken of Washington’s mind is the truest and most original we have ever seen. Every American who has been accustomed to consider the Father of his Country, and one of the leaders of his race, as being a man of great virtues but of moderate talents—a view which seems to obtain among the warmest eulogists of Washington—should read the searching and profound remarks with which the writer precedes his narrative. There is one slip of the pen, however, which it may be as well to note. After showing that Washington possessed the most eminent qualities of mind and feeling, he says, toward the end, that Hamilton’s “talents took the form of genius, which Washington’s did not.” The writer should have recollected that he had been describing a high though not obvious genius throughout his eloquent and profound statement; and that he was using the term genius, not in its primal, but in one of its secondary applications.

Scenes in the Lives of the Patriarchs and Prophets.

Two years ago Messrs. Lindsay & Blackiston issued a beautiful volume, under the title of “Scenes in the Life of the Saviour,” and last year succeeded it with “Scenes in the Lives of the Apostles.” The last of these works, was prepared under the supervision of the Rev. H. Hastings Weld, a gentleman whose name is familiar to our readers, and who possesses all the qualifications to fit him for the editorship of works of this character. The volumes referred to met with great favor in the literary world; and they are now followed by a third, prepared under the same auspices, entitled, “Scenes in the Lives of the Patriarchs and Prophets.” We do but simple justice when we declare that it has seldom fallen to our lot to notice a book which possesses so many and such varied attractions. Mr. Weld has gathered from the best writers the most beautiful of their works, in illustration of his theme, and prepared for the reader a rich literary repast. We are assured that the volume before us will, like those which preceded it, come acceptably before the public, and be a favorite offering during the approaching holyday season.

Oregon Missions and Travels over the Rocky Mountains in 1845-6.

Mr. W. J. Cunningham has laid upon our table a handsome volume, bearing this title, published by Mr. Dunigan, of New York. It is from the pen of Father P. J. De Smet, of the Society of Jesus, and embodies an interesting view of the manners and customs, traditions, superstitions, &c., of the Indian tribes of the Rocky Mountains, as gathered by the Reverend Father during an extended missionary tour amongst them. The book will be read with interest, and numerous lithographic illustrations of the text add to the attractiveness of its pages.

The Mirror of Life is the title of a magnificent volume which Messrs. Lindsay & Blackiston have published, the matter of which is entirely original. It is ornamented with a number of plates, beautifully and expressly prepared by American artists, and the letter-press is really superb. Mrs. L. C. Tuthill, who edits the work, has acquitted herself admirably, and has gathered together many choice literary gems.

The Crater, or Vulcan’s Peak, by J. Fenimore Cooper, Author of “Miles Wallingford,” “The Pathfinder” &c.

Mr. Cooper is so great a favorite with the American public that any thing coming from his pen will be sought for with avidity. We do not regard “The Crater” as one of the best of his works, but coming from almost any other living writer it would be regarded as extraordinary. The invention of Mr. Cooper seems to be inexhaustible; age cannot stale nor custom wither his infinite variety; and we have in “The Crater,” and especially in the scenes descriptive of the working of the “Old Rancocus” among the breakers, evidence that the genius which has won the admiration of all civilized communities, still holds its wand with an unrelaxed grasp, and possesses spells powerful as at the first. His sea-stories surpass those of Smollet even in power and verisimilitude, while they bear no taint of his grossness. The best of these, the ocean tale, “Rose Budd,” now in the course of publication in this Magazine, has been pronounced, by all who have read it, one of the most fascinating and valuable contributions to American literature.

The Arabian Nights.

A beautiful and cheap edition of this universal favorite among the young, has been issued, and a copy has been laid upon our desk by Messrs. Zieber & Co. To speak of the work would be supererogatory, but we may remark that all which typographical skill and enterprise could do to add attraction to it, has been done by the publishers.

The Christiad.

A volume of poems on various subjects, of which the principal one is entitled The Christiad, has been published by the author, William Alexander, Esq., A. M. The work is brought out in handsome style, and a cursory examination induces us to believe that it contains many passages of merit.