LITERARY NOTICES.

Dreamthorp; A Book of Essays written in the Country. By Alexander Smith, Author of 'A Life Drama,' 'City Poems,' etc. Boston: J.E. Tilton & Company. For sale by Walter Low, 823 Broadway. New York.

We have been very unexpectedly charmed with this volume. Inverted and fantastical as he may be in his poems, Mr. Smith's essays are fresh, natural, racy, and genial. They are models in their way, and we wish our contributors would study them as such. Each essay is complete in itself; every sentence full of interest; there is no straining for effect, no writing to astonish a blasé audience, no show of unwonted erudition; but the light of a poet's soul, the sunshine of a calm and loving heart, are streaming and brooding over all these gentle pages. Knowledge is indeed within them, but it has ripened into wisdom; culture has matured into wine with the summer in its glow—yet, notwithstanding its many excellences, the book is so quiet, true, and natural, we know not what favor it may find among us. We were pleased to see that in 'A Shelf in My Book-case' our own Hawthorne had a conspicuous place. 'Twice-Told Tales' is an especial favorite with Mr. Smith, as it indeed is with most imaginative people. His analysis of Hawthorne is very fine, and it is like meeting with an old friend in a foreign land to come across the name so dear to ourselves in these pages from across the sea. Equally pleasant to us is the Chapter on Vagabonds. 'A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind,' and, confessing ourselves to be one of this genus, we dwell with delight on our author's genial description of their naive pleasures and innocent eccentricities. Mr. Smith says: 'The true vagabond is to be met with among actors, poets, painters. These may grow in any way their nature dictates. They are not required to conform to any traditional pattern. A little more air and light should be let in upon life. I should think the world had stood long enough under the drill of Adjutant Fashion. It is hard work; the posture is wearisome, and Fashion is an awful martinet and has a quick eye, and comes down mercilessly on the unfortunate wight who cannot square his toes to the approved pattern, or who appears upon parade with a darn in his coat or with a shoulder belt insufficiently pipe-clayed. It is killing work. Suppose we try 'standing at ease' for a little?'

Scenes and Thoughts in Europe. By George H. Calvert, Author of 'The Gentleman.' Boston: Little, Brown & Company. A new edition of a work first published in 1846.

Mr. Calvert is a writer of considerable vigor, but we think these 'Scenes and Thoughts' seriously injured by the hatred of Catholicity which breathes everywhere through them. We miss in them the large, liberal, and loving spirit which characterized 'The Gentleman.' Charity is the soul of wisdom, and we can never rightly appreciate that which we hate. Mr. Calvert totally ignores all the good and humanizing effects of the Catholic Church, and sees only the faults and follies of those who minister at her altars. Not the least cheering example of the progress we are daily making, is the improvement in this respect in our late books of travels. We have ceased to denounce in learning to describe aright, and feel the pulsations of a kindred heart, though it beat under the scarlet robe of the cardinal, the dalmatic of the priest, or the coarse serge of the friar. 'My son, give me thy heart,' says our God. If we can deem from a life of self-abnegation a man has so done, we have ceased inquiring into the dogmas of his creed. It is the heart and not the intellect which is required, 'Little children, love one another,' is the true law of life, progress, and human happiness.

Soundings From the Atlantic, by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. For sale by D. Appleton & Co., New York.

As the title indicates, the essays contained in this volume are already known to the readers of The Atlantic.

Wherever Dr. Holmes sounds, he is sure to light upon pearls and golden sands, and scatter them about with a profusion so reckless that we feel convinced the supply is not to be exhausted. Scientist and poet, analyst and creator, full of keen satire, genial humor, and tender pathos, who may compete with him in varied gifts, or rival the charm of intellectual grace which he breathes at will into all he writes?

The contents of this volume are: 'Bread and the Newspaper,' 'My Hunt After the Captain,' 'The Stereoscope and the Stereograph,' 'Sun Painting and Sun Sculpture,' 'Doings of the Sunbeam,' 'The Human Wheel, its Spokes and Felloes,' 'A Visit to the Autocrat's Landlady,' 'A Visit to the Asylum for Aged and Decayed Punsters,' 'The Great Instrument,' 'The Inevitable Trial.'

Hints for the Nursery; or, The Young Mother's Guide. By Mrs. C. A. Hopkinson. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1863. For sale by Blakeman & Mason.

A valuable and instructive little book, eminently calculated to spare the rising generation many a pang in body and mind, and the youthful mother many a heartache.

Life and Letters of John Winthrop, Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company, at their Emigration to New England, 1630. By Robert C. Winthrop. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. For sale by D. Appleton & Co., New York.

This work is dedicated to the Massachusetts Historical Society, who have honored the author with their presidency for eight years past. It is rather an autobiography than a biography, and an autobiography of the most trustworthy kind, 'written accidentally and unconsciously, as it were, in familiar letters or private journals, or upon the records of official service.' Such a Life is the volume before us. The most skilful use has been made of his material by our author. John Winthrop the elder, through contemporaneous records, in the familiar language of private correspondence and diary, tells us the story of a considerable part of his career in his own words, Cotton Mather says of him: ... 'This third Adam Winthrop was the father of that renowned John Winthrop, who was the father of New England, and the founder of a colony, which, upon many accounts, like him that founded it, may challenge the first place among the English glories of America.'

The volume also offers us in great detail a picture not only of the outward life, but of the inmost thoughts, motives, and principles of the American Puritans. Valuable to the antiquarian, it will also interest, in its naive pictures of home life, the general reader.

The brave and brilliant Theodore Winthrop, who gave up his young life to his country in the battle of Big Bethel, has rendered this name dear to all loyal Americans.

Round the Block. An American Novel. With Illustrations. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 443 and 445 Broadway.

A Novel of American life, incident, and character. The style is easy, the tale interesting, the moral healthful. There is considerable humor in the delineation of character. The people drawn are such as we have all known, sketched without exaggeration, and actuated by constantly occurring motives. The book is anonymous, but we believe the author will yet be known to fame, Tiffles and Patching are true to life, and the exhibition of the 'Pannyrarmer' worthy of Dickens.

The Life of Jesus. By Ernest Renan, Membre de l'Institut. Translated from the original French by Charles Edwin Wilbour, translator of 'Les Misérables.' New York: Carlton, publisher, 413 Broadway.

A book which has attained a sudden and wide circulation, if not a lasting popularity, in France. We look upon it as a romance based upon the Sacred History of the Gospels. It is artistically constructed, and written with considerable genius. 'It is dramatic, beginning with a pastoral and ending with the direst of human tragedies.' M. Renan we suppose to be a Pantheist. He says: 'As to myself, I think that there is not in the universe an intelligence superior to that of man.' This view of course leads him to discard supernaturalism, and write of Christ as simply man. He believes as suits his system, and refuses testimony—without condescending to tell us why it is not equally as valid as that received. He says: 'The highest consciousness of God that ever existed in the bosom of humanity, was that of Jesus.' He is the 'universal ideal'—and yet we think he strives to make of this 'universal ideal' an impostor! Christ tells us of various facts with regard to himself: of his divine Sonhood and mission—if these things are not true, then was he either weakly self-deceived or a wilful deceiver. He sets up a claim to the working of miracles, and assumes the part of the Messiah of the prophets. This want of truth M. Renan smooths over by saying: 'Sincerity with oneself had not much meaning with Orientals; they are little habituated to the delicate distinctions of the critical spirit!' The resurrection of Lazarus, as he represents it, was a pious fraud managed by the apostles, agreed to by the Master, 'because he knew not how to conquer the greediness of the crowd and of his own disciples for the marvellous.' Does not the mere fact of such an acquiescence argue the impostor? Christ seeks death to deliver himself from his fearful embarrassments! Did he really rise from the dead? M. Renan tells us, with a sickly sentimentalism worthy of Michelet: 'The powerful imagination of Mary of Magdala played in that affair a capital part. Divine power of love! Sacred moments, when the passion of a visionary gives to the world a resuscitated God.' If this be indeed the Life of Jesus, well may we exclaim with the apostle: 'If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are, of all men, the most miserable.' And is this all that the most advanced naturalism can do? All that human genius and erudition can offer us? All that artistic grace and tenderness can win for us? Clouds and darkness rise before us as we read, the mother of our Lord loses her sanctity, Jesus becomes an impostor, the apostles deceivers, human testimony is forever dishonored. A pall shrouds the infinite blue of the sky, and our beloved dead seem festering in eternal corruption!

We must confess we prefer the bold and defiant scepticism of Voltaire, to the Judas kiss of M. Renan.