THINGS WE TALK ABOUT. A PILE of papers and books lie before us into which we are to delve. It is an August morning, and the air comes pleasantly through our window, although it wafts the hum and murmur of the great city. Our readers, many of them, are scattered doubtless far abroad on lake-shore and seashore, by mountain side and forest side; but we, imprisoned here, with Duty for our gaoler, can only sit and muse upon the green shade, the music flow of waters, the sweet breath of woodland, while below us the hot pavement blisters in the sun, and the dust bows down the little greenery that shows through our window blinds. We rise up though from vain murmurs, wipe out from the fancy the rural pictures that come crowding there, and turn to this same pile of papers and books-this inky, blackened, disordered mass wherein the world's doings lie photographed. We take up the topmost sheet. -One word more. Put it back! It is dark with misfortune and terror. Tears have welled up from a full heart and stained the sheet. Oh, Calamity stalks abroad, gaunt and terrible, convulsing the earth. Look and see where his heavy hand has lain. Look around and look abroad. Those infant forms, mangled, crushed, burned, charred-human cinders-that lie there up-piled, once so full of rich young blood, so glowing with ardent fresh life-alas! what a picture for humanity to look upon! How the heart swells up full of pity! how we instinctively shroud our own little ones in our arms! how prayers for mercy, and prayers of thanksgiving for mercy so long vouchsafed, tremble on the lips, and come up in tears to the eyes! And look farther-out upon the Lake, where dying shrieks mingle with the roar of the flame-or farther still, far away to down-stricken Lyons, where another Deluge has risen up and engulphed its tens of thousands! The heart shrinks within itself at these scenes. It has not the power to sympathize all it should. It grows numb with such accumulated horrors. Let us turn from them. Yet We have before us the comments of a respectable contemporary upon the inundations in France, who speaks of the practice so common in many European towns of building along the flat meadows which border the streams, as a tempting of Providence. This is a phrase we frequently hear. We respectfully submit, what does it mean? Is Providence an Ogre? Is He a being delighting in cruelty, who lies in wait for opportunities to rush out and crush down the helpless and feeble, because they are helpless and feeble? Is calamity and suffering so much his pleasure, that the insecurity of his creatures proves a temptation for their destruction-just as mischievous boys are tempted to play tricks upon unwary companions? This would seem to be what the expression means. The fact is, it is only one of many current phrases which speak too familiarly of Providence, and to us sounds like blasphemy. Finite man is ever attempting to measure the motives of the Infinite, and presumptuously assuming to be His interpreter. Even in this connection we observe that a Roman Archbishop has told the people of Lyons that this calamity is a visitation in consequence of their habit of working on Sundays-which the sufferers must find difficult to reconcile with the perfect immunity from the affliction which theia neighbors of the opposite side of the Rhone have experienced, though no less guilty than themselves in the particular indicated. - HERE is an illustration of. the difference between fact and fancy-between truth and the newspapers. A morning paper announces that Lamartine's appeal to our countrymen has been responded to with great unanimity, and that the subscription books to his "Familiar Course of Literature” are rapidly filling up. Why, it was only yesterday that dropping into a book-store where literary people most do congregate, we opened a volume whose exterior set forth its mission as a subscription medium between the good public and M. Lamartine, and (to the confusion of the aforesaid newspaper) two names only were inscribed within it. Two entire and undivided subscriptions! Let us be frank, and say that we are more inclined to read the inventive fancy of the newspaper in question, a homily on truth, than to utter any peculiar condemnation upon our countrymen for their laxity in responding to Lamartine's singular appeal. We cannot quite sympathize with this appeal. There is not an American author through the breadth of our land, however eminent, whose income is not utterly insignificant compared to the princely revenue of Lamartine. This is not the first time that he has appeared in the capacity of a public beggar. His tastes, his habits, and his luxuries have been Oriental in their character, and his wants exceed the utmost power of wealth to supply. We cannot help but sorrow over a position so unworthy his greatness, for mendicity is always repugnant, let the names with which it is invested be ever so exalted. At the same time let us say, that "The Familiar Course of General Literature" will prove, undoubtedly, a work of remarkable interest, and considered upon its own grounds alone, entitled to a wide circulation and liberal support. -POLITICS! The newspapers are crowded with politics. Politics wherever you go. Politics at the corners of the streets, on the brick walls, in a thousand flaunting banners, in the theatres, at the breakfast-table, at dinner! Politics unceasingly. Think of it. For three months more--at an accumulative ratio, no doubt, at that. Accumulative ratio? Politics more talked about, fought about; more banners, more meetings, more confusion-more hubbub-more of all these things than we have now? The thing is not within the scope of human capacity. If there were not some enjoyment to be extracted from it, it would be already past endurance. It is amusing sometimes to see the triangular sharp-shooting which an encounter from the respective partisans will bring forth. The other day we were present at a good example of crossfiring. Fremont's Catholicity (supposed or otherwise) came up. A friend very gravely began to assure a decided Fillmore man that his apprehensions were indeed true, for he himself saw Fremont cross-the street. Another immediately declared that Fremont was undoubtedly a Catholic, as he upon one occasion saw him wear a cross-look. A third of the party proposed that the anti-Catholic feeling should procure the passage of a law forbidding cross-roads; a fourth knew of a Know-Nothing friend who had been expelled from the order because he was cross-eyed; still another was cold, and let it gradually warm, hotter and hotter, until the boiling point is reached, then whisk it off-your novel is aware of an anti-Catholic so violent in his prejudices as always to refuse to avail himself of the advantages of a cross-cut, and who would never upon any occasion sit cross-cooked. legged; and, in conclusion, it was agreed all around to cut all ill-natured acquaintances who came under the application of cross-patches. -POOR Poe (we wonder if this epithet clings to Poe merely because of the alliteration) has fallen into French hands. His works have recently been published in Paris, where they have created no little sensation. Criticisms and eulogies abound. Among them is the following extraordinary "notice" from the pen of M. D'Aurevilly: The "There is indeed something Medusean in Edgar Poegenius and destiny! His life and his talent frighten us. Everything is, in this great outlaw, sinister, black, terrible, of a profound and tragically voluntary disorder. Edgar Poe was an unfortunate of the most startling proportions. Aristocratic, like Lord Byron, he was born chained to the yoke of a democracy. America, which covers with dollars the meanest mountebank, was for him the tower of starvation, and made him swallow every evening the key which Gilbert swallowed but once-in the agonies of death. same eternal history, but with a still more beautiful variation in its inexhaustible cruelty! Poe lived all his life, which was happily short, in disdain, in misery, and ceaseless labor, for he worked like a slave; but the sweat in which we are to eat our bread flowed fruitless over his stoical forehead. Unhappy vagabond he! He became a drunkard by misery of the heart, like Sheridan-poor Brinsley-who drank for hours, silently, in tears! Formed from a harder marble, Edgar Poe drank his chalice of fire with a colder frenzy. But the alcohol did none the less asphyxiate his powerful youth. In full physical and mental beauty, he died of delirium tremens in the street-no, not in the street, but in the gutter-stretched out helpless, far from God and damned, he believed, for he believed that! The fixed idea of Poe, the idea which usurped his mind, which crushed him, but which in striking, found him impassible, was the idea of his damnation, without remission and without mercy. A thing as horrible as true, he accepted his position of reprobate and nursed it." - How, among other changes and shiftings in this kaleidoscopic world, is the art of novel writing changed? What a different railroad institution it now is, compared to the old fashioned stage-coach system-so stately, decorous, grandso methodical in its approaches, so polished in diction, so elaborate in style, so moving with calm, unruffled progress, as moved our grandmothers in hoops, furbelows and powder! Nobody thought in that blessed period of becoming interested in a novel before the second volume. It was an understood thing, that a certain quantity of dullness-a purgatory of preliminaries-was necessary before the reader could hope to experience the full interest of the story. No inducement in the world would tempt the novelist to hurry his pace. His characters had all to be introduced with a great flourish and pomp-just as we see melo-dramatic heroes ushered upon the stage in our cheap theatres by a blast of the trumnet. But all this is not the modern way. Now we bolt at the pith at once. The public are too impatien. for preliminaries. They must be startled at the beginning. Indeed, it is all now very like taking a cold bath. We turn over the title-page and jump in! But to confess the truth. we like the old-fashioned way better than the new. We do not like to bolt into a parlor and astound the compar. We prefer to familiarize ourself to the assembly by degrees, and let our spirits rise as our acquaintance deepens. A novel, it seems to us, should be very like Bridget's broth: You clap it on the fire Not that we are disposed to accept of the old way in every particular. Melinda over her embroidery discussing with such transcendent sweetness all the cardinal virtues, in a style of smooth redundance and wonderfully accurate syntax; or Lord Montaine making love to Clarissa in sentences forty words long, and receiving the lady's blushing Yes, with a prefatory homily on virtue of twenty minutes' duration-these, no doubt, delighted our fine old grandmothers, but are now scarcely acceptable to the most decided admirer of old time modes of doing things. What we uphold is simply the old style of accumulative gradation of interest-beginning at a given point, and progressing with continually accelerating force to the climax. But slow, prosy, stilted and pompous as were the novels of the time we speak of-with their characters always in grand toilette, with their unendurably perfect grammar, their overwhelming propriety, and their didactic tediousness, there are but few novelists of the present time who can so secure the ears and hearts of the public, as those prolific disciples of the Minerva press succeeded in doing. Novel reading will probably never again so infect all classes, so crowd out all other subjects of thought or discussion. Are we not told that in some cases a whole village would assemble on the green for successive afternoons to hear Richardson's novels read aloud? Imagine a new novel, say even one of Dickens's, or of Bulwer's, creating a furore like that. And yet how much more is exacted of the novelist of today? How much wider a range of philosophy and nature does he embrace? How much deeper does he delve into the mysteries of life, and with what greater subtlety does he dissect and analyze human motives and human passions? The novel of old was an essay on virtue-rich, stiff, and showy, like old brocade, a matter of powder, pumps and rose-water-the novel of the present is the Scalpel, laying open the Heart of the World. "A BOOK TO READ," was the positive assertion upon a placard which caught our eye the other day. The book was "Rachel and the New World." Our judgment immediately revoked this too positive declaration, and pronounced it "A Book to Burn," "The county of Berkshire, lying on the western border of Massachusetts, abounds in beautiful and storied scenery, celebrated by many distinguished pens. Our transit thither was made by the Harlem Railroad to Chatham, and thence twenty-seven miles by the Western. The hospitable home where we found a cordial welcome, is about a mile and a half from Pittsfield; a massive, antique-looking house, surrounded by lawns shaded with majestic trees, and bordered with luxuriant shrubbery, and commanding views on all sides of a glorious sweep of varied landscape, with distant mountain ranges. In the rear of the mansion, deep down in the hill shadows, is a tiny lakelet, called 'The Tear of Heaven,' covering some twenty acres, crystal clear, and bordered by a path over-arched with foliage; and in front are the peaks and terraces of South Mountain, Oceola and Richmond Hill, while Greylock, the loftiest mountain in the Old Bay State, several thousand feet above the sea level, towering proudly over all others. "There are many localities in this neighborhood worth a special journey to see. Washington Mountain, a part of the Hoosac Range, which forms a continuation of the Green Mountains for the entire length of the county, is within an hour's drive; and a deep, rocky gorge in its side, where a stream flings itself over a black ledge of boulders, has received the name of ' Undine's Gorge.' Pontoonic Lake is a crystal mirror framed between pine covered towering hills; its western swelling shore terminating in the Taghconic summits, the shadows of which appear in the clear sheet. A noble grove of pines shading a smooth sward on the banks of this sparkling lake, was the resort of a pic-nic tea-party the afternoon of our arrival. They had dined upon the mountain side, and here prepared their evening beverage of the sparkling water boiled over a hollow stump that served as a fireplace. "Lebanon Springs is but seven miles from Pittsfield, just across the State boundary line, which makes it the resort of runaway lovers who want Hymen's knot tied in a hurry. The Shaker settlement is at this place. One of the wildest scenes, four miles off, is a deep, dark gorge called The Gulf,' and once known as 'The Wizard's Glen.' A steep hill seems to have been rent asunder to its base, huge fragments of flint rock jutting from its riven sides, scattered all around, and piled in chaotic confusion. These splintered crags, hoar and desolate of vegetation, enclose cavernous recesses and wild hollows, through which the murmur of hidden streams is heard-a cool retreat from the heat of a summer's day. Lake Onota, famous for its white deer, lies in an elevated valley two miles west of the town, bordered by green and mossy woods, and presenting a picture that has oft enchanted the wandering artist. Wahconah's Fals, in one of the most lonely and neglected spots in the county, is some ten miles distant; a sheltered, romantic cascade, where a branch of the Housatonic makes a descent of about eighty feet between dark perpendicular cliffs. "In the centre of a magnificent panorama of hills stands the picturesque town of Pittsfield, numbering seven thousand inhabitants, and issuing three weekly papers. The grove of elms shading the green in its midst, surrounds the Old Elm-celebrated in its history-which has weathered the storms of centuries, and stands a grey and solemn monument of the past. "Several distinguished persons live here. The residence of Governor Briggs is just out of the village, and within its limits, that of Rev. Dr. Todd, the author of the 'Student's Manual.' Here, also, is the country seat that belonged to Hon. Nathan Appleton, in which still 'repeats its hours' the old clock on the stairs,' sung by the poet Longfellow; When the proprietor sold the house and departed, he could not find it in his heart to remove the ancient timepiece' which gave its lesson from its station in the hall.' "The old homestead of Oliver Wendell Holmes, on a hill overlooking the Housatonic, stands two miles southward. Adjoining this estate is Arrowhead,' the residence of Herman Melville, author of 'Typee' and 'The Piazza Tales' -a nook of beauty at the base of a wooded hill, with grounds picturesquely shaded and sloping into the valley. "Lenox, on an elevated site, is six miles from Pittsfield, surrounded by mountain ridges, and commanding views of varied beauty in its undulating hills, sunny slopes, and broad lovely valley Lakes and mountain-streams sparkle in the distance, and the richest cultivation blended with nature's wild luxuriance, greets the nearer view. There is a gem of a lake called the Stockbridge Bowl, and many other objects of interest will be pointed out. The place is a jungle for literary lions;' several distinguished authors reside there, and many come to pass the summer. A deep quiet broods all day over the village; but in the cool of evening hordes of ladies promenade the streets in tasteful costumes, alone or escorted by gentlemen, and every piazza has its tableau of lively visitors. "Miss Sedgwick--the well-known authoress-is spending this summer with her brother, Mr. Charles Sedgwick, who is an invalid. Hawthorne's home not very long since, was on the banks of the lake just mentioned; but he is gone to seclude himself elsewhere. "A little out of the village you may enter on grounds picturesquely bordered by a magnificent piece of woods, along This is which the road leads to a cottage fronted by a green lawn, and on one side commanding a beautiful nook between the mountains where lies cradled a gem of a lakelet, almost hidden by the foliage of trees in the flush of summer. the home of Mrs. Kemble. The cottage parlor is simply, but tastefully furnished; and the open piano showed that music as well as literature, helped to charm the hours. As we drove back through the grounds, the lady emerged from the wood, wearing the wide-brimmed straw hat that is so popular in this region for a shelter from the sun, and after salutations had been exchanged, walked on to open the gates for us. "The beautiful village of Stockbridge, the winding Housatonic, and Monument Mountain, 'Shaggy and wild, With mossy trees, and pinnacles of flint,' whose bare old cliffs, dark with the moss of centuries, have called forth the inspiration of Bryant; the "Ice Glen "-a narrow, gloomy gorge, half filled with fallen trees and mossy boulders-where, of a dark night, the ladies and gentlemen of the place form 'a torchlight procession in fancy costume to the sound of weird music-and many other scenes of interest, belong to this region. All are charmingly described, with the traditions appertaining, in a book called 'Taghconie,' which every tourist should possess. A visit to Greylock's cloud-touched summit would appropriately crown other excursions. A friend thus describes the view: Far in the distance we see the hills around our own home, here appearing as gentle undulations. Further off and more dimly seen, rises the range of the Kaatskills, with the noble Hudson at their base. Fill up the picture with a fertile country, dotted with villages and mountain lakes, and beautifully interspersed with woodland, and you have, if your imagination is sufficiently vivid, the scene that lay before us. -As we write, the thermometer marks, its inexorable ninety-eight. The atmosphere looks hazy and scorched, and hangs like a brassy pall about the horizon. The trees pantingly strain to lift their dust-bowed limbs, and fail. Everything oozes heat. The brick walls fling back the sunrays in gushes of hot air. Things animate and inanimate," steam, and scorch, and glitter with a fiery, revengeful glow. Vehicles that roll by stir up clouds of pulverized dust that fall about us like cinders. Flies hum in and out of the open window, and irritatingly alight upon our perspiring flesh. Unfortunately, we do not possess Uncle Toby's sublime philanthropy. The world is not big enough for them and usif big enough, why do they persist in tantalizing the end of our nose? It grows hotter. What, only ninety-eight? Nothing more than ninety-eight? It is difficult to believe it. If we were a thermometer, our condition would certainly indicate the boiling point. We are positively simmering, and big drops of sweat bubble up on our brow. And yet it is no wonder that the thermometer is only ninety-eight. It has nothing in the world to do but be quiet and keep cool. Had it editorials to write; was it in pursuit of elusive ideas that, follow up as we will, still escape; was it whipping up a jaded brain, and, torture-like, extracting thoughts from an already exhausted receiver-was it doing these things, would it merely indicate a paltry ninety-eight? Not a bit of it. The thermometer, then, is not for ne It may be a faithful reflector of its own feelings, but it fails miserably when it attempts those of ours. If it marked twice ninety-eight, it would approach nearer the red-hot condition of our blood. Oh, for the sea-shore, for the mountain top-for air somewhere, or somehow-for a dip in the salt brine, a dive beneath the surf, a plunge into the Atlantic! Is there a North Pole? or an Arctic region? Can such things be, | is the Cromwell or the Washington who will dare hurl himand we believe in them? We try to dream of them, to self upon this impregnable tyranny? Where, indeed? The fancy ourself on the "frosty Caucasus," but it will not avail. fact is, Touchstone is purely right. Court Fashion is your Our fancy only conjures up the vast snow piles in the only virtue. If you would be gracious in the sight of man, "melting mood," and dripping away in huge globules down, and huddle with the crowd at the mighty monarch's feet. of sweat. Now, assuredly, is the time to discover the Nor- But it seems that the American professor is not the only thern Passage. How! Do you tell us that on this fearful offender against court etiquette. Another, and this time a August day those Arctic waters are still held in icy chains? very conspicuous personage, has alarmed and horrified the Not "melt, thaw, and resolve into a dew," with a sun like world. The Empress Eugenie is the guilty one. She has this baking the earth's crust, and doing it malignantly endangered the stability of her husband's throne beyond brown? not to-day, when all the Imps are stirring up the repair. We may look now for another French Revolution huge furnace to our literal dissolution, and every fissure of any day. She had the gaucherie upon a court occasion to the earth appears to be a sort of Vesuvius? Preposterous! stoop and pick up a diamond which had fallen from her The North Pole is a myth-an impossibility-a mid-winter diadem. This offence followed one a few days earlier, when dream! she picked up a handkerchief she had dropped. After stooping to pick up Napoleon, she might have been excused these lighter offences, but two such slips of court breeding following close upon each other, is more than Frenchmen can submit to. Murmurings are already heard. A storm threatens. The Jacobins are looking up. The Orleanists begin to hope. The foundations of the present rule are shaken. Louis Napoleon must fortify himself, or else we shall have the scenes of the first Revolution re-enacted --and Eugenie possibly expiating her faults as Marie Antoinette expiated hers. Dickens, in his last installment of Little Dorrit, introduces to us a Noble Refrigerator. Good! Cannot some of the species be imported? What a blessing they would prove to tropical climates! The geographers, we believe, do not set down our climate as tropical, but what is their authority worth? If this be not tropical weather, what is it like? Hotter than this? Then must the human race be born for roasting (mundane roasting, we mean). But let us have the Noble Refrigerator. Ah, Dickens! of all thy creations we thank thee most for this. -THE female sovereigns of Europe are getting into a —A RECENT event at St. James's might almost have pro- state of public agitation. The Queen of Greece, altogether phetically glimmered upon the mind of Shakspeare: Touchstone.-Wast ever in court, shepherd? Corin.-No, truly. Touch.-Then thou art damned. Corin.-Nay, I hope Touch.-Truly, thou art damned, like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side. Corin.-Fer not being at court? Your reason? the handsomest lady upon any throne of Europe, except Eugenie, perhaps, is in a state of anxiety from a desire that Otho is said to feel for a resignation of his throne to the heir agreed upon between himself and the Bavarian princes. The title of Queen is something, but for that, all the dignity that Greece can give to the possessor is hardly worth keeping. Isabella of Spain is busy quelling insurrections wi her presence and her tears. By the way, how little is really known of this woman. She is one of the most impulsive, The English press is the new Touchstone, and the luckless brusque and natural persons in the world; not handsome, gentleman of the yellow waistcoat is the new Corin. The certainly, but with a neck and bust perfectly magnificent. reader knows all about it. He has had his laugh over it. A The young Empress of Austria has blessed her Imperial slight error, a misunderstanding about court rules, a little husband with a second daughter, and he in return is blessing contretemps which never should have got beyond the ante- Hungary with an amnesty, by which many of the exiled chamber where it occurred, came near precipitating the patriots will be given back to their homes. This is pleasant whole English nation upon our shores, and brought about news. We have already alluded to the commotion Eugenie our ears a broadside of invective fairly staggering and has excited in Paris, and of the ado in England because an overwhelming. Was there ever so amusing a farce enacted American presented himself at the Queen's levee without a by grave men' Was ever Oxenstiern's axiom (every-sword. Victoria proved herself in this affair like the sensible body knows it, better illustrated? Unfortunate and luckless Mahan! Truly, according to Touchstone, is he hopelessly and irrecoverably He was guilty of consummate wickedness in being ignorant of court manners. And in offending court manners, he struck a blow at the power of the greatest autocrat in the world, an absolute and inexorable monarch, to whom even kings bow down-Fashion! It would have been better for him to have single-handed defied the material power of all the nations of Europe to have been guilty of any crime involving merely considerations of right, or such trifles as justice and virtue-to have steeped his soul in any depth of iniquity, than thus boldly have defied that mysterious, infallible, inscrutable power which we call Fashion—emanating no man knows where, going forth no man knows how, but ruthlessly, inexorably, rigidly binding down the whole human race to its mandates and laws. Revolutions? Where lady she always is, and would have received the Professor pleasantly enough, but for her servants. A Princess of Prussia is to be married in due time, and, notwithstanding the tumult in her kingdom, Victoria thinks of going to the wedding. -SOME Americans at Paris, it seems, have been making themselves conspicuous for dissipation at the French capital, and are said to consider it as a rather good joke, that they have appeared intoxicated in the presence of the Emperor. It is a joke which disgraces every American, at home or abroad. -Ir is heralded as a remarkable instance of benevolence, that some lady who boarded at a hotel near the place of the railroad accident, near Philadelphia, quieted a crying infant taken from the wreck, with the nourishment which naturally belonged to her own child. Surely kindness is not so unknown to the sex, that a trivial act like this should be recorded in print. There probably is not one woman in | desperate plunge. For half an hour this man, borne up fifty who would not have done the same thing. I have, more by the heroism of his wife than by the means of myself, known a lady in the far West, take an infant of three support she had surrendered, struggled in the waves. weeks old from beside its mother's grave, and travel seven- When his courage failed, she, still clinging to his side, urged teen hundred miles, sharing the nourishment of her own him to fresh exertion, declaring constantly that when his child with the little orphan all the way, and when it was left strength failed she would drop away first and relieve him of safely with its grandparents, return again to her home, her weight. Borne up by this angel, how could the man without waiting for thanks, or appearing to think the act sink? He struggled on, minute after minute, and when one of extraordinary merit. just ready to despair, a steamer hove in sight and took them both on board. -But here is an instance of bravery and affection which makes the tears start as you read it. Upon the burning deck o the Northern Indiana, a wife and husband had but one life preserver between them. He would have put it on her, but this woman, weak and timid though she was, refused the safety he urged, and would not move till her own hands had fastened the preserver around his form. "She would cling to him," she said; "that was safety enough for her." He yielded, and together they made the Here was heroism. Here was a grand woman, worthy of the immortality she would be the last to expect. To die with one's husband is comparatively an easy thing, but to die first-to leave him behind and go bravely into eternity alone-this requires something more than common womanhood. It is sublime heroism, and should be recorded in letters of living fire. LITERARY. THE warm weather must be our excuse for the limited number of our literary notices this month. When the thermometer ranges over ninety, the best book is more apt to produce slumber than anything else. The best novel of the season is, undoubtedly, John Halifax, Gentleman, by the author of "The Head of the Family." The story is very simple-the mere history of a rising man, of one who lifted himself up by power of will, from the lowest rank to the proud level and title of "Gentleman." We find it difficult in the earlier chapters of the book to feel the truthfulness of the boy-portraiture. The colors are too high; and the only image the picture conjures up is a sort of miniature maturity, neither child-like nor boy-like. The motives of the characters are evidently measured from the author's philosophical stand-point, rather than from their own, and it is neither natural nor pleasant to see boyhood so worldly and wisely premature. Very few authors are successful in children-drawing. But, as the book advances, these faults disappear, and we have a succession of well managed, delicately touched, and wonderfully pleasing domestic scenes. The closing chapter can scarcely be excelled in fiction for simple, touching pathos. (Harper & Brothers.) The Wanderer; or, Life's Vicissitudes, by the author of "The Watchman," is a well written and exceedingly clever book, affording wide ranges of scene and character, with a plot skillfully conceived and managed, with a special view to novelty of situation and concentration of interest. We think it a better book than "The Watchman." The author is Mr. J. R. Maitland, of this city. (E. D. Long.) The Martins of Cro' Martin is the last book by Charles Lever. Does anybody know how many books Lever has written? Has anybody ever read them all? We have not read the Martins. We learn upon good authority that it is equal in spirit, vivacity, and interest to the best of his earlier books-and something better than his later ones. We hope it is. (Harpers.) The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth, is the story of a celebrated "Mountaineer, Scout, and Pioneer," at one time the adopted chief of the Crow Indians. The book is crowded with novel and thrilling adventures, graphically and spiritedly related, and contains numerous well-executed illustrations. (Harper & Brothers.) The Last of the Foresters; or, Humor on the Border, is a story of the Virginia Frontier, by John Esten Cooke. Mr. Cooke is the author of "The Virginia Comedians," one of the most truly original and thoroughly American books the country has yet produced-but very uneven in execution. The first volume was really fine-the second simply poor. After "The Virginia Comedians" came several other books, all falling short of the author's first book, very clearly evincing that he was writing too much and too fast. "The Last of the Foresters," however, is an improvement on "Ellie,' and some others. Mr. Cooke has nice discrimination of character, great feeling for the picturesque, and a talent peculiarly and decidedly dramatic. He has it in his power to take a lofty position in American literature; but, if he sacrifices all his high promises for the bauble of passing applause, if his vanity forces his crude, half-digested performances upon the world, and allows him to sit down contented with the one earnest effort of his youth, he will lose the crown he aspires to gain. Let him beware of frittering away his genius on things unworthy his really superior powers. (Derby & Jackson.) -Peterson, of Philadelphia, is publishing a neat 12mo. edition of the works of Charles Dickens-a style, we think, much more desirable than the more cumbersome 8vo. Putnam has also commenced the promised 12mo. edition of Irving's Life of Washington. Biographies of the Presidential candidates are numerous enough-some of them fearfully dull reading, notwithstanding their excess of patriotism, and other political virtues which flourish rankly at election periods. |