REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.

Characteristics of Literature. Illustrated by the Genius of Distinguished Men. By Henry T. Tuckerman. Phila.: Lindsay & Blakiston. 1 vol. 12mo.

Mr. Tuckerman has written many interesting books, but we think the present volume is his most attractive if not his best production. It is characterized by his usual refinement of analysis, wealth of illustration, felicity of allusion, and mellow richness of style, while in the range it evinces over widely varied provinces of thought and character, it indicates more versatility than any of his other compositions. The volume includes a discussion and representation of eleven departments of literature, through a searching examination of as many authors, each of whom is taken as the exponent of a class. Thus Channing stands for the Moralist, Sir Thomas Browne for the Philosopher, Swift for the Wit, Shenstone for the Dillettante, Charles Lamb for the Humorist, and Macaulay for the Historian. The selection of men to illustrate the subjects is, of course, not free from cavil. We should say that Burke was not exactly the man to stand as an expression of the Rhetorician, for his rhetoric, though matchless of its kind, is secondary to his philosophy. He appears to us, even as analyzed by Mr. Tuckerman, in the character of a profound, vigorous and vital thinker, and is no more a rhetorician, in any exclusive sense of the term, than Bacon, Hooker, Taylor, or even Milton. Where style is the incarnation of thought, the visible image of the mind that employs it—and this is its nature in all the greatest authors—the word rhetoric is hardly applicable to it. Macaulay is more emphatically the rhetorician than Burke.

Select Comedies; Translated from the Italian of Goldoni, Giraud and Nota. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 12mo.

A volume like the present, giving the English reader a good idea of the spirit and form of Italian comedy, has long been wanted, and we have little doubt that it will be successful. To the lover of the English drama the plays may seem to lack solid character and unctuous humor; but they are still distinguished by a fertility in the invention of ludicrous incidents and positions, and a mischievous quick-footed spirit of intrigue, that no person with a sense of the comic can read them without exhilaration. The translations are, we believe, from an American pen, and appear to be well executed. Six complete comedies are given, and the translator has been fortunate in his selections both in respect to merit and variety. The two comedies of Goldoni are alone richly worth the price of the book.

Kaloolah, or Journeyings to the Djebel Kumri. An Autobiography of Jonathan Romer. Edited by W. S. Mayo, M. D. 1 vol. 12mo.

It is something strange for a writer to present himself for the first time as a candidate for public favor with a volume indicating so much power and originality of mind, and such practiced talents of composition as the present. The book is a regular tale of adventures, as interesting as exciting incidents racily told can make it, and inweaved with the story are many graphic descriptions of scenery and keen delineations of character. Considered in respect to the originality of its conception, the new vein of romance it opens, and the admirable method of the narration, we think the volume cannot fail to attract the attention which it will certainly reward.

The Earth and Man: Lectures on Comparative Physical Geography, in its Relation to the History of Mankind. By Arnold Guyot. Boston: Gould, Kendall & Lincoln. 1 vol. 12mo.

The author of this valuable Manual is Professor of Physical Geography and History in the same institution to which Agassiz is attached, and originally delivered the present lectures in French to an audience in Boston. They have been elegantly translated by Professor Felton, of Harvard University, and are very warmly recommended by the New England Savans for their union of profundity and simplicity. The subject is one of the most important in the whole range of science, and is one in which all can take an interest, and all obtain information, as popularized by Professor Guyot. Agassiz says of the book and its author: “Having been his friend from childhood, as a fellow student in college, and as colleague in the same university, I may be permitted to express my high sense of the value of his attainments. Mr. Guyot has not only been in the best school, that of Ritter and Humboldt, and become familiar with the present state of the science of our earth, but he has himself in many instances drawn new conclusions from the facts now ascertained, and presented most of them in a new point of view. Several of the most brilliant generalizations developed in his lectures, are his; and if more extensively circulated, will not only render the study of geography more attractive, but actually show it in its true light, namely, as the science of the relations which exist between nature and man, throughout history.”

The Life of Maximilien Robespierre. With Extracts from his Unpublished Correspondence. By G. H. Lewes. Phila.: Casey & Hart. 1 vol. 12mo.

The author of this biography is but little known in this country, and has hardly received his deserts from the critics on either side of the water. He is a clear, close, vigorous thinker, an accomplished scholar, and a nervous, condensed and brilliant, though slightly aphoristic writer. Though his ideas and style occasionally betray the influence of Carlyle, and though his English nature has been a little modified by an infusion of French metaphysics, he generally appears as an independent as well as a forcible thinker. In the present volume, though he appears largely indebted to the works of Lamartine, Michelet, and Louis Blanc, he has still produced a book original in the main, and has been especially happy in steering a middle course between those writers who have represented Robespierre as a monstrosity of malignity and cruelty, and those who have tried hard to make him appear a persecuted and virtuous patriot, whose most questionable acts sprung from exalted motives. The reader closes the book with the feeling that he has gained a better insight into the character of the immortally infamous revolutionary leader than he had before. The letters of Robespierre, which the author obtained in MS. from Louis Blanc, and the extracts from his speeches in the Convention, add much to the interest and value of the volume.

History of Maria Antoinette. By John S. C. Abbott. With Engravings. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 16mo.

This is another of Mr. Abbott’s beautiful series of pocket histories, having for its subject a story so exciting and so mournful that the novelist or dramatist could hardly treat its incidents with more pathetic effect than the chronicler who confines himself to the literal facts. The characteristic merit of Mr. Abbott’s books is the knowledge they display not merely of their subjects but of the exact nature of the ignorance of the general class of readers, and this merit is well illustrated in the present volume. The French Revolution is to most minds a confused mass of terrible events without any connecting principles; but few can read its history, as far as it is presented in Mr. Abbott’s simple and orderly narrative, without obtaining clearer ideas of the whole matter.

A History of American Baptist Missions in Asia, Africa, Europe and North America. By William Gammell, A. M., Professor in Brown University. Boston: Gould, Kendall & Lincoln. 1 vol. 12mo.

We like the present volume for the indication it gives of the rich materials for history and biography which lie almost unused in the various records of Christian missions. All the heroic qualities developed in man and woman by religious principles and religious passions, are visible in those records to the initiated eye, but they are commonly so submerged in the affected phraseology and sectarian jargon of mediocre compilers, that they are commonly set aside as vulgar and fanatical by the general reader. Professor Gammell has written a volume in which all the worn and wasted terms of the pedants of cant are discarded, and the subject, as far as the Baptist missions are concerned, is treated in a style intelligible to all who have any perception of beauty, holiness or heroism. The work, apart from its theological character, is one of great interest and excellence.

Sacred Rhetoric; or Composition and Delivery of Sermons. By Henry J. Ripley. Boston: Gould, Kendall & Lincoln. 1 vol. 12mo.

This treatise should be carefully pondered by all clergymen who have a contempt for the graces and proprieties of composition, arising from their apprehension of being interesting to their congregations. Professor Ripley has produced a searching treatise, in which, with a true critical remorselessness, he lays bare the defects of arrangement and composition most likely to beset the productions of his profession, and gives a clear statement of those principles which should guide the brain and pen of the preacher. The volume also includes Dr. Ware’s admirable “Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching.”

History of Wonderful Inventions. Illustrated with numerous Engravings on Wood. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 12mo.

The publishers of this elegantly printed volume have included it in a series called the Boy’s Own Library, but its interest and value are hardly confined to youth. It is a book containing carefully written accounts of the invention of the Mariner’s Compass, Gunpowder, Clocks, Printing, the Telescope and Microscope, the Steam-Engine, the Electric Telegraph, and many other wonderful events in the history of the intellect. We never read a volume of this sort without giving a new and vivid impression of the grandeur of human nature, considered as possessing the powers of creation and combination.

Manual of Ancient Geography and History. By Wilhelm Putz. Translated from the German. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 12mo.

Professor Green, of Brown University, is the American editor of this valuable manual, and his name is a guarantee that it has been revised and corrected with scrupulous care. To the general student of history the volume will be of great service, as it maps out the whole ground of historical study, gives the names of the authorities for the history of each nation, and in the smallest possible space consistent with dearness, presents a view of the history, geography, religion, literature and art of all the ancient nations, European and Asiatic. The work indicates an erudition as minute as it is vast.

The Spy, a Tale of the Neutral Ground. By the Author of The Pilot. New York: Geo. P. Putnam. 1 vol. 12mo.

Longevity is no characteristic of novels, and Old Parr is the last name which could be applied to a hero of fiction. The romances which flare in the parlors of one year are pretty sure to repose in the cemeteries of the next. To this empirical law, Cooper’s Spy is one of the honorable exceptions. It at once attained popularity, and it has kept it, surviving all those mutations of the public taste which, since its first appearance, have consigned so many brilliant fictions to oblivion. As an old friend in a new dress, we welcome this volume. Its value is enhanced by the revision of the author, and the addition of an introduction and notes.

A Visit to Monasteries in the Levant. By the Hon. Robert Curzon. New York: Geo. P. Putnam. 1 vol. 12mo.

The author of this volume is careful to write himself down an “honorable” on his title page, and the whole tone of the composition evidences that self-satisfaction which is so apt to accompany social position. Though the reader is inclined to be prejudiced against an amateur author who assumes so confident a tone, the feeling wears away as he reads the volume. It contains a great deal of information pleasantly told, has some capital sketches of curious character, and ranks among the sprightliest of recent books of travels. The American edition is illustrated by numerous wood-cuts.

The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U. S. A., in the Rocky Mountains and the Far West. Digested from his Journal and Illustrated from various other sources. By Washington Irving. New York: Geo. P. Putnam. 1 vol. 12mo.

This delightful work forms the tenth volume of the revised edition of Irving’s works, and has for its subject a theme especially interesting at the present time, when more than ever, “westward the course of empire takes its way.” We hardly know of a more felicitous partnership than that of Bonneville and Irving—one to perform the deeds of adventure which the other records.

Life in the Far West. By George Frederic Ruxton. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 12mo.

The author of this volume died at an early age, but not before he had partly fulfilled the destiny to which his talents and adventurous spirit pointed. “His adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains,” and the present work, indicate not merely the courage and enthusiasm of a traveler, but much felicity in transferring to other minds the objects and incidents which filled his own.

Pottleton Legacy.

This is the title of a novel, by Albert Smith, published in the cheap form of the present day, by Carey & Hart. It is a pleasant, readable, and interesting work, and will be found caustic as well as funny. The characters are well sustained and the plot well developed.